Bulat Okudzhava
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Bulat Okudjava
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava (or Boulat Okudjava/Okoudjava/Okoudzhava; ru: Булат Шалвович Окуджава) (1924 - 1997) was one of the founders of the Russian genre called author's song (see Bard). He was born in Moscow and died in Paris. He was the creator of about 200 songs, set to his own poetry. His songs are a mixture of Russian poetic and folksong tradition and the French chansonnier style represented by such contemporaries of Okudzhava as Georges Brassens. Though his songs were never overtly political (in contrast to those of some of his fellow "bards"'), the freshness and independence of Okudzhava's artistic voice presented a subtle challenge to Soviet cultural authorities, who were thus hesitant for many years to give official sanction to Okudzhava as a singer-songwriter.
Life
Bulat Okudzhava was born in Moscow in 1924 into a family of communists who had come from Tbilisi, the capitol of Georgia, for study and work connected with the Communist Party. His father, a high Communist Party member from Georgia, was arrested during the Great Purge by Stalin and executed as a German spy on the basis of a false accusation. His mother spent 18 years in Gulag (1937-1955). Okudzhava returned to Tbilisi and lived there with relatives.
In 1941, at the age of 17, he volunteered for the Red Army as infantry. After the war, he enrolled in Tbilisi State University, graduating in 1950. After graduating. he worked as a teacher - first in a rural school in the village of Shamordino in Kaluga district, later in the city of Kaluga itself.
In 1956, after the death of Stalin, he returned to Moscow, where he worked first as an editor in the publishing house Molodaya Gvardiya ("Young Guard"), and later as the head of the poetry division at the most prominent national literary weekly in the former USSR, Literaturnaya Gazeta ("Literary Gazette"). It was then, in the middle of the 1950s, that he began to compose songs and to perform them, accompanying himself on the guitar. Soon he was giving concerts. Despite the fact that he only knew a few chords and was no composer, his songs were praised by his friends and amateur recordings were made. These unofficial recordings were widely copied and spread across the country, where other young people picked up guitars and started singing the songs for themselves. Though Okudzhava's songs were not published by any official media organization until the late 1970s, they quickly achieved enormous popularity (especially among the intelligentsia) - mainly in the USSR at first, but soon among Russian-speakers in other countries as well. By the 1980s, recordings of Okudzhava performing his songs finally began to be officially released in the Soviet Union, and many volumes of his poetry appeared separately. In 1991, he was awarded the honor of "Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR".
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Okudzhava died in Paris in 1997, and is buried in the Vagankov cemetery in Moscow. A monument marks the building at 43 Arbat Street where he lived.
Quotes
"The composers hated me. The singers detested me. The guitarists were terrified by me." -- Bulat Okudzhava
External links
- Audio files of his most famous songs (http://bard-cafe.komkon.org/Audio/Okudzhava/)
- Longer biography (http://www.russia-in-us.com/Music/Artists/Okoudjava/)
- The First Rendezvous, translations by Maya Jouravel. Page for Bulat Okudzhava (http://chernomore.net/Poetry/Bulat_Okudzhava.htm)
- Yevgeny Bonver's Translations of Poetry by Bulat Okudjava (http://www.poetryloverspage.com/yevgeny/okudjava/)cs:Bulat Šavlovič Okudžava
de:Bulat Okudshawa pl:Bułat Okudżawa ru:Окуджава, Булат Шалвович sk:Bulat Šalvovič Okudžava sv:Bulat Okudjava