Okudzhava war years. Biography of Okudzhava. The beginning of literary activity

It was not easy for the peasants to live during the time described by A. S. Pushkin in the story "Dubrovsky" - the time of serfdom. Very often the landowners treated them cruelly and unfairly.

It was especially hard for serfs among such landowners as Troekurov. The wealth and noble family of Troekurov gave him great power over people and the ability to satisfy any desires. People for this spoiled and uneducated person were toys that did not have a soul or their own will (and not only serfs). He kept under lock and key the maids who were supposed to do needlework, forcibly married them off at his own discretion. At the same time, the landowner's dogs fared better than people. Kirila Petrovich dealt with the peasants and courtyards “strictly and capriciously”, they were afraid of the master, but hoped for his patronage in relations with their neighbors.

A completely different relationship developed with the serfs of Troekurov's neighbor, Andrey Gavrilovich Dubrovsky. The peasants loved and respected their master, they sincerely experienced his illness and waited with hope for the arrival of Andrei Gavrilovich's son, young Vladimir Dubrovsky.

It so happened that a quarrel between former friends - Dubrovsky and Troekurov - led to the transfer of the property of the first (together with the house and serfs) to Troekurov. Ultimately, Andrei Gavrilovich, who had a hard time surviving the insult of his neighbor and the unfair decision of the court, dies.

The peasants of Dubrovsky are very attached to their masters and are determined not to let themselves be handed over to the power of the cruel Troyekurov. The serfs are ready to defend their masters and, having learned about the court decision and the death of the old master, raise a rebellion. Dubrovsky interceded in time for the clerks who came to explain the state of affairs after the transfer of property. The peasants had already gathered to knit Shabashkin, police chief and deputy zemstvo court, shouting: “Guys! down with them! ”When the young master stopped them, explaining that the peasants could harm both themselves and him with their actions.

The clerks made a mistake by staying overnight in Dubrovsky's house, because the people, although they calmed down, did not forgive the injustice. When the young gentleman went around the house at night, he met Arkhip with an ax, who at first explained that he "came ... to see if everyone was at home," but after that he honestly admitted his deepest desire: "all at once, and the ends in water". Dubrovsky understands that things have gone too far, he himself is put in a hopeless situation, deprived of his estate and lost his father due to the tyranny of a neighbor, but he is also sure that "not the clerks are to blame."

Dubrovsky decided to burn down his house so that strangers would not get it, and orders to take his nanny and other people who remained in the house, except for the clerks, into the yard.

When the courtyards, on the orders of the master, set fire to the house. Vladimir was worried about the clerks: it seemed to him that he had locked the door to their room, and they would not be able to get out of the fire. He asks Arkhip to go check if the door is open, with an order to unlock it if it is closed. However, Arkhip has his own opinion on this matter. He blames the events on the people who brought the evil news, and firmly locks the door. The clerks are doomed to death. This act can characterize the blacksmith Arkhip as a cruel and ruthless person, but it is he who, after a while, climbs onto the roof, not being afraid of fire, in order to save the cat distraught with fear. It is he who reproaches the boys rejoicing in unexpected fun: "You are not afraid of God: God's creature is dying, and you are foolishly rejoicing."

Blacksmith Arkhip is a strong man, but he lacks education to understand the full depth and gravity of the current situation.

Not all serfs had the determination and courage to bring the work they started to the end. Only a few people disappeared from Kistenevka after the fire: the blacksmith Arkhip, the nanny Egorovna, the blacksmith Anton and the yard man Grigory. And, of course, Vladimir Dubrovsky, who wanted to restore justice and saw no other way out for himself.

In the vicinity, instilling fear in the landowners, robbers appeared who robbed the landowners' houses and burned them. Dubrovsky became the leader of the robbers, he "was famous for his intelligence, courage and some kind of generosity." Guilty peasants and serfs, tortured by the cruelty of their masters, fled into the forest and also joined the detachment of "people's avengers".

Thus, Troekurov’s quarrel with old Dubrovsky served only as a match that managed to ignite the flame of popular discontent with the injustice and tyranny of the landowners, forcing the peasants to enter into an uncompromising struggle with their oppressors.

In the story of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin "" the noble society is vividly depicted. It is represented by a number of characters. The first - Andrei Gavrilovich Dubrovsky and Kirila Petrovich Troekurov - are described in detail and comprehensively. The second - Prince Vereisky - is less complete. Still others - Anna Savishna and Troekurov's guests - are only mentioned on the pages of the novel.

All the features of the provincial nobility of that time are embodied in the image of the main character Kirila Petrovich Troekurov. It was in him that the writer portrayed the ruler of the world, an ardent supporter of the continuation of serfdom. Receiving huge incomes from the exploitation of the peasants who are in his sole power, Troekurov leads an idle and riotous lifestyle. The gentleman does not bother himself with deeds and worries. The neighbors please him in everything, they come to visit at the first call, more afraid than respecting the noble landowner. And he takes such signs of attention as something for granted. He does not represent any other attitude to his high person.

Kirila Petrovich was not engaged in science, he was an uneducated person, but every evening he devoted himself selflessly to food and drink. Often he was "drunk" and suffered from gluttony.

The rich master brightened up his idle stupid days with all sorts of fun, one of which was the idea with the bear. Troyekurov deliberately kept the beast on the estate in order to play a trick on the arriving guest at the opportunity. These entertainments did not always end harmlessly. The guests were horrified and sometimes injured. But no one dared to complain. The power of Kirila Petrovich in the district was unlimited.

On blind and slavish submission, he built relationships with his beloved daughter. Indulging all her whims, he suddenly became cruel and harsh. Passing off as an unloved husband, Prince Vereisky, he first of all thought about wealth and a profitable party, completely forgetting about the happiness of his only daughter.

So, a rich and self-willed landowner is an image that reveals the features of the way of life of that time, when one person enslaved another, and this did not cause bewilderment, but, on the contrary, was the norm. The local nobility led a wild life, with feasts and hunting, and was distinguished by greed and primitiveness.

But the image of the second landowner, just as fully revealed on the pages of the novel, appears completely different. Andrei Gavrilovich Dubrovsky interpreted life differently and assessed the role of the serfs. The Kistenevsky gentleman did not oppress the courtyard people, but they respected and loved their master. Dubrovsky had a negative attitude towards all the amusements and drinking bouts of his neighbor, and although he visited them, he was very reluctant. This nobleman has a strong sense of pride and self-esteem. He was not afraid of Troekurov, he could calmly express his opinion in front of him, often different from the thoughts of a noble gentleman. It was not part of Dubrovsky's rules and beliefs to curry favor with a wealthy and powerful neighbor.

A.S. Pushkin, in contrast to the narcissistic landowner Troekurov, shows the image of the noble nobleman Dubrovsky, who cares not about his own gain, but about the serfs entrusted to him.

Soviet and Russian poet and prose writer, composer Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was born on May 9, 1924 in Moscow into a family of party workers. His father, Shalva Okudzhava, was Georgian by nationality, and his mother, Ashkhen Nalbandyan, was Armenian.

In 1934, he moved with his parents to Nizhny Tagil, where his father was appointed first secretary of the city party committee, and his mother was appointed secretary of the district committee.

In 1937, Okudzhava's parents were arrested. On August 4, 1937, Shalva Okudzhava was shot on false charges, Ashkhen Nalbandyan was exiled to the Karaganda camp, from where she returned only in 1955.

After the arrest of his parents, Bulat lived with his grandmother in Moscow. In 1940 he moved to live with relatives in Tbilisi.

Since 1941, since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he worked as a turner at a defense plant.

In 1942, after finishing the ninth grade, he volunteered for the front. He served on the North Caucasian front as a mortar operator, then as a radio operator. He was wounded near Mozdok.

Being a regimental leader, in 1943 at the front he composed his first song "We couldn't sleep in cold cars ...", the text of which has not been preserved.

In 1945, Okudzhava was demobilized and returned to Tbilisi, where he passed the secondary school exams as an external student.

In 1950 he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Tbilisi State University, worked as a teacher - first in a rural school in the village of Shamordino, Kaluga Region and in the district center of Vysokinichi, then in Kaluga. He worked as a correspondent and literary employee of the Kaluga regional newspapers "Znamya" and "Young Leninist".

In 1946, Okudzhava wrote the first surviving song, Furious and Stubborn.

In 1956, after the release of the first collection of poems "Lyrika" in Kaluga, Bulat Okudzhava returned to Moscow, worked as deputy editor for the literature department in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, editor in the Young Guard publishing house, then head of the poetry department in the Literary Newspaper ". He took part in the work of the "Magistral" literary association.

In 1959, the second poetic collection of the poet "Islands" was published in Moscow.

In 1962, having become a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, Okudzhava left the service and devoted himself entirely to creative activity.

In 1996, Okudzhava's last poetry collection, Tea Party on the Arbat, was published.

Since the 1960s, Okudzhava has worked extensively in the prose genre. In 1961, his autobiographical story "Be Healthy, Schoolboy" was published in the anthology Tarusa Pages (published as a separate edition in 1987), dedicated to yesterday's schoolchildren who had to defend the country from fascism. The story received a negative assessment of official criticism, which accused Okudzhava of pacifism.

In 1965, Vladimir Motyl managed to film this story, giving the film the name - "Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha". In subsequent years, Okudzhava wrote autobiographical prose, which compiled the collections of stories "The Girl of My Dreams" and "Visiting Musician", as well as the novel "Abolished theater" (1993).

In the late 1960s, Okudzhava turned to historical prose. The stories "Poor Avrosimov" (1969) about the tragic pages in the history of the Decembrist movement, "The Adventures of Shipov, or Ancient Vaudeville" (1971) and the novels "Journey of Amateurs" written on the basis of historical material of the early 19th century (1976 - the first part; 1978) were published as separate editions. - the second part) and "Date with Bonaparte" (1983).

Poetic and prose works of Okudzhava have been translated into many languages ​​and published in many countries of the world.

From the second half of the 1950s, Bulat Okudzhava began to act as an author of poetry and music for songs and their performer, becoming one of the universally recognized founders of the author's song. He is the author of over 200 songs.

The earliest known songs of Okudzhava date back to 1957-1967 ("On Tverskoy Boulevard", "Song about Lyonka Korolyov", "Song about the blue ball", "Sentimental march", "Song about the midnight trolleybus", "Not tramps, not drunkards", "Moscow ant", "Song about the Komsomol goddess", etc.). Tape recordings of his speeches instantly spread throughout the country. Okudzhava's songs were heard on radio, television, in films and performances.

Okudzhava's concerts were held in Bulgaria, Austria, Great Britain, Hungary, Australia, Israel, Spain, Italy, Canada, France, Germany, Poland, USA, Finland, Sweden, Yugoslavia and Japan.

In 1968, the first disc with Okudzhava's songs was released in Paris. Since the mid-1970s, his CDs have also been released in the USSR. In addition to songs based on his own poems, Okudzhava wrote a number of songs based on poems by the Polish poetess Agnieszka Osiecka, which he himself translated into Russian.

Andrei Smirnov's film "Belarusian Station" (1970) brought national fame to the performer, in which a song was performed to the words of the poet "Birds do not sing here ...".

Okudzhava is also the author of other popular songs for such films as "Straw Hat" (1975), "Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha" (1967), "White Sun of the Desert" (1970), "Star of Captivating Happiness" (1975). in total, Okudzhava's songs and his poems are heard in more than 80 films.

In 1994, Okudzhava wrote his last song - "Departure".

In the second half of the 1960s, Bulat Okudzhava acted as a co-author of the script for the films Loyalty (1965) and Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha (1967).

In 1966 he wrote the play "A Sip of Freedom", which a year later was staged in several theaters at once.

In the last years of his life, Bulat Okudzhava was a member of the founding board of the Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper, Obshchaya Gazeta, a member of the editorial board of the Evening Club newspaper, a member of the Council of the Memorial Society, vice president of the Russian PEN Center, a member of the pardon commission under the President of the Russian Federation ( since 1992), a member of the Commission on State Prizes of the Russian Federation (since 1994).

On June 12, 1997, Bulat Okudzhava died in a clinic in Paris. According to the will, he was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow.

Okudzhava was married twice.

From his first marriage to Galina Smolyaninova, the poet had a son, Igor Okudzhava (1954-1997).

In 1961, he met his second wife, the niece of the famous physicist Lev Artsimovich, Olga Artsimovich. The son from his second marriage Anton Okudzhava (born in 1965) is a composer, father's accompanist at creative evenings of recent years.

In 1997, in memory of the poet, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation, the regulation on the Bulat Okudzhava Prize was approved, awarded for the creation of works in the genre of author's song and poetry that contribute to Russian culture.

In October 1999, the State Memorial Museum of Bulat Okudzhava was opened in Peredelkino.

In May 2002, the first and most famous monument to Bulat Okudzhava was opened in Moscow near house 43 on the Arbat.
The Bulat Okudzhava Foundation annually holds an evening "Visiting Musician" in the Concert Hall named after P.I. Tchaikovsky in Moscow. Festivals named after Bulat Okudzhava are held in Kolontaevo (Moscow region), on Lake Baikal, in Poland and in Israel.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

V.A. Zaitsev

The name of Bulat Okudzhava is widely known to readers and lovers of poetry. It is impossible to separate him not only from the peculiar socio-cultural phenomenon of the 1950-90s - the author's song, one of the founders of which he was, but also from the main ways of developing Russian lyric poetry and, more broadly, literature of the second half of the 20th century. Many reviews and critical articles have been published about his works and work - perhaps the "mournful summer of ninety-seven" was especially abundant in this regard. And yet, the phenomenon of Okudzhava, the secret of the impact of his poetic word, the specifics of the artistic world in many respects remain a mystery and mystery and still need to be carefully studied, attract and will continue to attract the close attention of researchers.

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava (1924-1997) was born in Moscow. His childhood passed on the Arbat, in those very courtyards and lanes, the memory of which became his poetic memory, carrying not only bright memories, but also the features of a difficult, tragic era. In 1937, he was arrested, accused of "Trotskyism" and soon his father was shot, his mother was sent to camps. The boy stayed with his grandmother.

When the Great Patriotic War began, he lived with relatives in Georgia. In 1942, he volunteered for the front, fought - first as a mortar, then as a heavy artillery radio operator, was wounded, and all this affected his future creative destiny. For the first time, his poems were published in the army newspapers of the Transcaucasian Military District in 1945. After the war, he graduated from Tbilisi University and worked for several years as a teacher of Russian language and literature in the Kaluga region and then in Kaluga itself. It was there that his first poetry collection Lyrica (1956) was published, about which he later recalled: “It was a very weak book, written by a man suffering from Kaluga provincial arrogance.” Soon he moved to Moscow, where in 1959 his book "Islands" was published, whose poems attract the attention of readers and testify to the birth of a great artist with his own unique poetic world.

Over the years of his creative activity, Okudzhava clearly showed himself as an original poet and prose writer, the author of a number of poetic books: "The Cheerful Drummer" (1964), "On the Road to Tinatin" (1964), "Magnanimous March" (1967), "Arbat, my Arbat "(1976), "Poems" (1984), "Dedicated to you" (1988), "Selected" (1989), "Songs of Bulat Okudzhava" (1989), "Drops of the Danish King" (1991), "Grace of Fate" ( 1993), "Waiting Room" (1996), "Tea Party on the Arbat" (1996).

His pen belongs to the historical novels "A Sip of Freedom" ("Poor Avrosimov"), "Journey of Amateurs", "Date with Bonaparte", the autobiographical story "Be Healthy, Schoolboy" (1961) and short stories (the book "The Girl of My Dreams", 1988) , screenplays "Fidelity", "Zhenya, Zhenechka and Katyusha", the novel - "family chronicle" - "Abolished Theater" (1995). Answering questions related to his appeal to prose, the poet said: “You see, I don’t make a fundamental difference between poetry and my prose: for me these are phenomena of the same order ... Because both there and there I perform the main task, who stands in front of me, talking about herself with the means at my disposal ... My lyrical hero is the same in both poetry and prose.

Okudzhava's creative activity is diverse. But the greatest fame to him at an early stage was brought, as he himself called them, by "modest city songs", which, in his own performance, to the accompaniment of a guitar, found their way to the hearts of numerous listeners, bringing to life a number of other equally original phenomena of the author's song ( N. Matveeva, A. Galich, V. Vysotsky, later V. Dolina and others).

Although Okudzhava announced himself for the first time at the end of the 50s, together with the poets of the "thaw" period - the "sixties" (E. Yevtushenko, A. Voznesensky, B. Akhmadulina, etc.), but in fact he is still one of the poets military or front-line generation - those whose talent was formed in severe trials, at the forefront, under artillery and machine-gun fire, in the trenches and dugouts of the Patriotic War.

Speaking to the audience back in 1961, the poet noted: “Most of my poems - both those that I read and those that I sing - are on a military theme. When I was 17 years old, I went to the front from the ninth grade. And then I did not write poetry, and then, obviously, these impressions of youth were so strong that they still follow me on my heels. So that you are not surprised by the predominance of the military theme with me. Therefore, it is natural that in his poems and songs such an important place is occupied by experience and impressions, images and motives caused by the war. The titles of the poems themselves speak of this: “The First Day on the Front Line”, “Song about Soldier’s Boots”, “Goodbye, Boys”, “Song about Infantry”, “Don’t Believe the War, Boy”, “From the Front Diary”, etc. They reveal the spiritual world of a person who has passed the test of fire and retained in his soul faith, hope and love for all life on earth.

The poet and his hero are characterized by an acute rejection, denial of war - precisely as death and destruction, and at the same time - the affirmation of life, faith in its triumph, in victory over death: “No, do not hide, be high, / do not regret no bullets, no grenades / and do not spare yourself, / and yet / try to go back.

But the thematic and figurative range of Okudzhava's songs is by no means exhausted by the war. His lyrics affirm the beauty and poetry of ordinary everyday life. It has a well-perceived earthly foundation, a vital soil on which a feeling-experience grows, and at the same time, a romantic inspiration in the perception and creative recreation of the most ordinary phenomena.

We are earthly. And to hell with the tales of the gods!
We just carry on wings what we carry on our hands.
You just need to really believe in these blue beacons,
and then an unexpected shore from the fog will come to you.

Throughout the entire creative path, the integral and dynamic artistic world of B. Okudzhava is revealed, consistently deepening and turning with different facets. This is a very real, earthly, but at the same time sublime, romantic world of the poet, tirelessly transforming reality with creative fantasy. According to the correct remark of L.A. Shilov, in his poems "the ordinary can instantly turn into a fairy tale", and this is one of the essential internal properties of his artistic manner.

In Okudzhava’s artistic system, the everyday and earthly is literally transformed before our eyes into the unusual and sublimely romantic, forming “his own poetic world, his own poetic continent”, the presence of which he so appreciated in the work of his younger brothers in the poetic workshop, the creators of the author’s song: V. Vysotsky, N. Matveeva, Yu. Kim and others.

The role of tropes in the creation of this poetic world by Okudzhava himself is undoubted. In his songs, we see “A Woman, Your Majesty”, whose eyes are “like the autumn sky”, “two cold blue stars”, they are like “blue lighthouses”, reminiscent of an “unexpected shore”, which becomes a “close shore”. Those. the unusual turns out to be nearby: “she lives on our street”, she has “chapped hands and old shoes”, “her coat ... is light on her” ...

In Okudzhava's metaphors merges, merges the ordinary, the earthly and the romantic, aspiring upwards and into the distance, heavenly and sea. In his poems, an ordinary Moscow street flows “like a river”, its asphalt is transparent, “like water in a river”. In them, “A midnight trolleybus floats around Moscow, / Moscow, like a river, fades ...” Everything that happens is perceived surrounded by the water element: “at the table of the seven seas”, and even “Time goes by, even if you joke - don’t joke, / like a sea the wave suddenly rushes over and hides ... "

In the poetic world of Okudzhava, the most important place is occupied by the theme and image of the motherland, home and road, the motive of movement and the hope associated with it, the moral and philosophical understanding of life, the very foundations of being, and - already as a form of embodiment of all this - the musical and pictorial beginning. All this together forms a living, integral, moving art system.

One of the key topics for Okudzhava, the theme of the motherland finds a multifaceted poetic embodiment in his work. In this regard, it is necessary, perhaps, to specifically say about what can be called the theme of the “small motherland”, the “country of childhood”, associated with Moscow and the Arbat, to which he devoted so many poems and songs of different years (“In the Arbat Yard ... ”, “Arbat tunes”, “Arbat romance”, “Arbat inspiration”, cycle “Music of the Arbat courtyard”, etc.).

“My historical homeland is the Arbat,” Okudzhava said in one of his late speeches. And in another case, he explained: “Arbat is not just a street for me, but a place that for me, as it were, personifies Moscow and my homeland.”

The “Song about the Arbat” written back in the 50s (“You flow like a river. Strange name! ..”) is widely known. In it, behind this old Moscow street, something immeasurably greater arises for the poet, artistic space and time are unusually moved apart:

Your pedestrians are not great people, they knock with their heels - they are in a hurry to do business.
Ah, Arbat, my Arbat, you are my religion, your pavements lie under me.
From your love you will not be cured at all, loving forty thousand other pavements.
Ah, Arbat, my Arbat, you are my fatherland, never completely pass you!

Commenting on his poems and, obviously, comprehending the origins of his own poetic creativity and the role of the “small motherland” in its formation, Okudzhava noted: “The history of Moscow, by its inexplicable whim, chose this area for the most complete self-expression. Arbat has no backyards, but there is an Arbat in general - a district, a country, a living, trembling history, our culture ... I even suspect that it has a soul, and for several centuries it has been exuding invisible waves that have a beneficial effect on our moral health " .

The Arbat, and with it many other names of old Moscow streets and squares (Smolenskaya, Petrovka, Volkhonka, Neglinnaya, Malaya Bronnaya, Tverskaya, Sivtsev Vrazhek, Ilyinka, Bozhedomka, Okhotny Ryad, Usachyovka, Ordynka) not only reproduce the territory that has evolved over the centuries, the geographical space of the ancient capital, but also convey its spiritual atmosphere, the inner world of its inhabitants, who felt themselves an integral part and a living, effective force of the centuries-old history of the country and people:

Not thirty years, but three hundred years I have been walking, imagine, along these ancient squares, along the blue ends. My city bears the highest rank and the title of Moscow, but it always comes out to meet all the guests on its own.

The quoted poem "The Moscow Ant" is among many that recreate the romantically colored image of the native city: "The Song of the Moscow Militia", "The Song of the Moscow Tram", "The Song of the Night Moscow"...

And it is no coincidence that in the last of these “songs” the very process of the birth of a verse that falls on the music is reproduced, and before our eyes a surprisingly capacious, “key” image for Okudzhava’s lyrics appears, passing like a refrain at the end of each stanza:

But not only Moscow and Arbat - old, pre-war and post-war, but not today - reconstructed - are so close and dear to the poet. “The Arbat is my home, but the whole world is my home…” - as if casually, but very meaningfully, he remarked in one of the poems of the 70s. And in this sense, the "small" and spiritual homeland of the poet is the epicenter of the artistic world, expanding indefinitely in space and time.

The names of the verses themselves are characteristic: along with “The Song about Moscow at Night” - “Leningrad Elegy”, “Autumn in Tsarskoye Selo”, “On the Smolensk Road”, “Conversation with the Kura River”, “Georgian Song”. Behind them rises the idea of ​​​​a large, native country for him. Love and fidelity is dedicated to her poem, which is called "Motherland". In poems about the Fatherland, for the poet, nature, art, history, "eternal" themes and the fundamental principles of being and creativity are inseparable.

The “Georgian Song” expressive folk-poetic symbolism: the life-giving and earthly firmament, air and water elements are concretized in visible, plastic-painting images:

I will bury the grape seed in the warm earth, and kiss the vine, and pick the ripe bunches, and call my friends, I will set my heart on love ... Otherwise, why do I live on this eternal land?

And when the sunset swirls, flying in the corners, let the blue buffalo, and the white eagle, and the golden trout swim in front of me again and again... Otherwise, why do I live on this eternal land?

The poet himself once remarked: “This, in general, is not really a Georgian song, but it is connected in symbolism with Georgian folklore, and I called it that ...”.

At the same time, the image of “this eternal land” passing through the refrain gives the poem a universal sound. It is with him, with this image of the “warm” and “eternal” earth that it correlates, grows out of it, goes into it and invariably revives the motive of the mortal and beautiful human life in its deepest manifestations of the most tender and intimate friendly and loving feelings and relationships (“. ..and I will call my friends, I will set my heart on love...”; “...and I will listen, and I will die of love and sorrow...”).

In the lyrics of Okudzhava, the depth of spirituality, moral purity, the assertion of truth and justice in human relations are captivating. His poems reveal the integrity and richness of the inner world of the individual, a generous range of living human feelings: love, friendship, camaraderie, tenderness, kindness. This is evidenced by many lines of poems and songs (“Sentinels of love are standing on Smolenskaya ...”; “Loneliness recedes, / love returns”; “How much, imagine, kindness ...”; “... these same tenderness and timidity, / these very bitterness and light .... ”; “Let's join hands, friends ...”).

The feeling of the poet is wide and multifaceted. This is love for a woman, mother, motherland, world, life, love suffered, full of mercy for people. And it is no coincidence that the poem "Musician" (1983) ends with the lines: "And the soul, that's for sure, if it is burned, / it is fairer, more merciful and righteous."

“I love this person (musician) very much,” Okudzhava said. - I love the words "music", "musician", "string". I consider music the most important of the arts, even higher than the art of the word. Indeed, music and its creator (performer) musician is one of the central motifs of his poetry.

Let us recall, for example, the poem “Wonderful Waltz”, which from the first to the last line is “stitched” with through leit images, carrying the theme of this, according to the poet, “the most important of the arts”: “A musician in the forest under a tree plays a waltz ... He has been playing for a whole century music ... The musician pressed his lips to the flute ... And the musician grows into the ground ... Music plays for a century ... And the musician plays.

In Okudzhava's poems, a variety of instruments are "involved", forming a polyphonic orchestra in which each performer leads his own part: "sonorous organ notes" and "copper pipes" sound, the voices of the violin and flute, clarinet and bassoon ... In his songs "cheerful drummer / picks up maple sticks”, “brings out a melody / some upcoming trumpeter”, “... the clarinetist is handsome as hell! / A flutist, like a young prince, is graceful... "And the music itself comes to life before our eyes, becoming an animated being: "And the music in front of me dances flexibly... / And the swift body of music / floats..." ("Music") .

The artistic world of Okudzhava is moving, lively, constantly changing, sounding and colorful, it generously and diversely presents images and motifs associated with painting, the artist's work. This is again evidenced by the very names of the poems (“Painters”, “How to learn to draw”, “Frescoes”, “Battle canvas”, “Why are you sad, artist ...”), - in the latter case, the word itself acquires an expansive meaning - it is "a painter, a poet, a musician", whose instruments and tools are "canvas and paints, a pen and a bow".

Obviously, Okudzhava could repeat after N. Zabolotsky: “Love painting, poets!” In his poems there are many examples of the mastery of painting with a word - from the program "Painters, dip your brushes / into the bustle of the Arbat courtyards and into the dawn ..." - and to the implementation of this program, in particular, in the already cited "Georgian Song", or, let's say , in the poem "Autumn in Kakheti", marked by amazing plasticity, picturesqueness, dynamics and spirituality in the depiction of nature:

Suddenly an autumn wind arose, and it fell to the ground. The red hawk in the red leaves, as if drowned in paint. The leaves were strangely cut, resembling faces - crazy cutters cut these leaves, mischievous, groovy seamstresses sewed them ...

The leaves fell on their pale fingers.

And at the very threshold, where the road ends, he had fun, and circled, and danced a slightly intoxicated autumn leaf, a crimson leaf, a leaf with an absurd carving ... At the hour when the sad hawk flies out to robbery.

One of the defining things in the world of Okudzhava is the motive of the road: it is parting with one's home, and moving along the endless roads of war in the poems "Goodbye, boys ...", "Song about soldiers' boots." But it is also a road as a symbol of the life path, in which today's everyday reality intertwines and merges with the eternal, existential, cosmic (“On the Smolensk Road”). The motive of the movement was already stated in the first verses-songs (“Midnight Trolleybus”, “Sentries of Love”, “Merry Drummer”),

“My life is a journey...” Okudzhava wrote, and this applies not only to movement in space. It is no coincidence that his “Main Song” in the poem of the same name “circles over the crossroads”, and therefore the very names of the poems are so significant: “Song about a long journey”, “Road song”, “Road fantasy” ...

The artistic world of the poet is always real and at the same time fantastic. In addition to the "Road Fantasy", in the work of Okudzhava, especially in the 80s, a whole series of fantasies arise, in particular, related to trips abroad, but not only: "Parisian Fantasy", as well as "Danube", " Kaluga", "Japanese", "Turkish", "American" ... At the same time, back in the 70s, Okudzhava wrote a capacious and meaningful poem, which can be regarded as an ironic reflection on social utopias that did not justify themselves:

About fantasies on the themes of the triumph of good over evil!
Within the solar system, you have been scrapped.
This dump triumphs and rumbles like a surf...
I don't feel sorry for those fantasies - I'm sad about you and me.

In the poems and songs of Okudzhava, the socio-historical and the eternal, universal are always closely intertwined. His craving for harmony, for highlighting the beautiful in life and man, associated with faith, hope and love, is inseparable from the feeling of drama and tragedy of being in the world.

In one of the relatively recent poems dedicated to Novella Matveeva, Okudzhava described the time of “thaw” hopes as follows, which gave rise, in particular, to such a phenomenon as an author's song: “We are romantics of the old school / from a past and terrible time. / We came into the world from under a stick, / to sing the city courtyards. The romantic worldview of youth, of course, has undergone significant changes, having absorbed the sadness and bitterness of the “Muse of Irony”, prompting to rethink the images of their own poems:

My temple squinted on the blood, however, just like other construction sites. Christmas tree - in the trash.

No hope, no destiny, no love...

Acute empathy is evoked by the suffering of the native land in Okudzhava's tragically colored elegiac-romantic lyrics of recent years. The poet, who returned from a trip abroad, found it most difficult to see "the motherland of the sick dear face." Thoughts about one's own life and fate recede before the pain about the fate of the country and the entire world that has suffered. Hence the mournful lines: "It's only a pity that the motherland has faded, / no matter what they sing about it." Hence the mournful thoughts about the present and future of the earth-planet:

While life has not yet gone out, sparkling, has not disappeared into the darkness ...
How beautiful everything would be on this green earth,
when not dirty paws, wrong administering judgment,
not abusive clicks, not volleys, not tears that flow like a river!

Sharply social motifs are intertwined in Okudzhava's late lyrics with philosophical reflections. The sad conclusion and result of the past years (“The story of our life is instantaneous, / such a short period ...”) does not lead to despondency, but once again encourages us to look for the “golden grain” of genuine poetry “between the eternal and between the fleeting”, “between the lived and between the future...

In the poetic collection-cycle "Lessons in firing" ("Banner", 1997, No. 1), new motives arise that have absorbed the experience of the experienced and endured in the heart. “Shooting lessons are useless...”, “... battlefields are not for me now” - this is now the humanistic and moral-aesthetic position of the poet. The highest value for him again and again is the “music of the verse”, “the words of a lonely influx”, “a dim silhouette of a strange phrase”, in which he sees “a special meaning and inspired light”. And he finds the very origins of genuine poetry in the original, eternal human feelings and experiences - simple and ordinary, devoid of any pomp and pathos:

Power! Motherland! The country! Fatherland and State! This is not what we cherish in our souls and take it with us to the coffin, but a gentle look, and a kiss - sweet deceit of love, Krivoarbatsky lane and quiet chatter about this and that.

Okudzhava's poems, included in the books Mercy of Fate (1993), Waiting Room (1996), and finally, in the final collection Tea on the Arbat (1996), are distinguished, as before, by earthly simplicity, sometimes by the everydayness of intonations, ordinary words and phrases, and - inner beauty, organicity of artistic, visual and expressive means, verbal, musical integrity and completeness of his artistic world.

As for the poetic “teachers”, the “named” traditions of Russian and Western European classics, Okudzhava answered questions about his favorite poets: “Of poets, I love Pushkin, Kipling, Francois Villon, Pasternak”, also mentioning the names of Blok, Akhmatova, Zabolotsky . Regarding contemporary poets, he said: “I love David Samoilov, Boris Slutsky, Oleg Chukhontsev, Bella Akhmadulina, Yunna Moritz, Alexander Kushner ...”, invariably speaking positively about the “sixties”: E. Yevtushenko, A. Voznesensky, R Rozhdestvensky, as about "bright talents", people "from my poetic cohort", he also considered very gifted, wonderful poets I. Brodsky, N. Rubtsov.

Bulat Okudzhava's lyrical work is based on his inseparability from folk life and destiny, the organically absorbed experience and traditions of Russian poetry and, of course, folklore sources (including urban romance). In the very combination of verse, melody, and at an early stage, his own performance to the accompaniment of a guitar of his poems and songs, the appeal to the most ancient, primordial traditions of poetic creativity, their bold and original continuation and renewal affected.

Keywords: Bulat Okudzhava, criticism of the works of Bulat Okudzhava, criticism of the works of Bulat Okudzhava, analysis of the works of Bulat Okudzhava, download criticism, free download, Russian literature of the 20th century