Bulat Okudzhava is a Soviet bard, composer, prose writer and poet, behind each song there is a bright story. His work embraces an entire era, combining Georgian generosity and kindness, Armenian colorful sophistication and Russian spirituality - all the best qualities of these great peoples.
Biography
The future bard was born in the spring of 1924, in the family of a stern Georgian Shalva Stepanovich and his wife, an intelligent Armenian woman Ashkhen. After a couple of more years, moving around the country began. First, Shalva Okudzhava ended up in the Georgian capital, where he made a rapid career in the party, and then he was sent to Nizhny Tagil.
In 1937, Shalva Okudzhava was accused of being denounced and shot. His wife ended up in the camp of traitors to the Motherland, and Bulat stayed with his relatives in Tbilisi. Okudzhava's education was ordinary: a school, a college, then a factory, where he worked as a turner. And all this time the guy was accompanied by a guitar.
War years and education
In 1942, Bulat, who loves his homeland, volunteered for the war, like many of his comrades. He served as a mortarman and was in extremely dangerous alterations. In 1943, Bulat was wounded and sent to the rear. He tried to write war songs, but soon gave up the guitar.
After the Victory on May 9, which fell on Bulat's birthday, he entered the Tbilisi Pedagogical University, graduating in 1950 and left for the village, where he was waiting for the work of a teacher. For Okudzhava it was a real "poetic" period, he wrote a lot.
From literature to songs
In 1954, Bulat was able to show his poems to two famous Soviet writers at that time - Panchenko and Koblikov. The poetry of the young teacher delighted the writers, and they proposed him to the Young Leninist edition. Okudzhava moved to Kaluga and in 1956 the first collection of his poems was published.
Soon after the "enemies of the homeland", including the bard's parents, were massively acquitted, Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava moved to Moscow and more and more often began performing at creative meetings of writers as a songwriter. Despite the lack of advertising, his concerts are almost always sold out. The first official performance took place only in 1961, in Kharkov. And in 1962, the bard's music was already featured in films.
Last years
After the collapse of the USSR, Okudzhava toured more and more abroad, where he was always greeted warmly and enthusiastically, until he settled in Paris, where he spent his last years with his family. He died in the French capital in 1997, but was buried in Russia, at the Vagankovsky cemetery.
Personal life of the poet
The great bard was officially married twice. The children from their first wife, Galina, had a very tough fate. The daughter died in the first weeks of life, and the son was imprisoned as a teenager for drug addiction. The second marriage with Olga Artsimovich was longer and happier. Anton was born, who received a musical education and became a composer. After Olga, Bulat had a vivid romance with the singer Gorlenko, but the musicians did not formally formalize their relationship.
