Bulat Okudjava

Bulat Shalvovich Okudjava, or Boulat Okoudjava (1924 - 1997, ru: Булат Шалвович Окуджава) was one of the founders of the Russian author's song genre (see Bard). He was born in Moscow and died in Paris.

Life

Okudjava graduated from the Tbilisi State University in 1950. His father, a high Communist Party member from Georgia, was arrested during the Great Purge by Stalin and executed as a German spy. His mother spent 18 years in a Gulag (1937-1955), years that Bulat spent at his grandmother's house. In 1941, at the age of 17, he volunteered for the Red Army as infantry. This background with war and the government persecution was a primary influence for his poetry and songs, especially at this early stage. Such poetry was illegal at the time, and Okudjava was at great risk of persecution. Okudjava started the bard movement when he decided to start singing his poems while playing the guitar. Despite the fact that he only knew a few chords and was no composer, his songs were praised by his friends and were soon recorded. They spread across the country where other young people picked up guitars and started singing them.

Quotes

"The composers hated me. The singers detested me. The guitarists were terrified by me." -- Bulat Okudjava

External links

  1. Longer biography
  2. Yevgeny Bonver's Translations of Poetry by Bulat Okudjava
Okudjava, Bulat Okudjava, Bulat Okudjava, Bulat Okudjava, Bulat Okudjava, Bulat

 

<< PreviousWord BrowserNext >>
marcellus
engaged buddhism
strip map and sample
banco de espaa
dynamic systems design method
structured systems analysis and design methodology
hms penelope
1904 toronto fire
watching brief
phenomenology of spirit
geist
elephant man
polluter pays
propionibacterium acnes
bmw m60
planning condition
rio grande valley
reman warbird scimitar
hms didon
hereditary peer
history of the peerage
woody woodward
truth function
darrel chaney
pzl p.11
raf coningsby
amelia of great britain
city market
bluejacking
coffee
hms phoenix
david duckham
great big sea
marin sorescu
morphosyntactic alignment
happy thoughts
omar bakri muhammad
locrine
clinton community college, iowa
thea gilmore
clinton community college
michipicoten river
maori television
ergative absolutive language