Memory of Bulat Okudzhava (1997)

Friends say: Bella Akhmadulina, Joseph Brodsky, Alexander Ginzburg, Zinovy Gerdt, Leo Kopelev and others

Archival project "Radio Liberty this week 20 years ago." The most interesting and significant from the Archive of the Radio Freedom of twenty years ago. Incomplete story. Still living hopes. Could Russia go the other way?

The transfer of Ivan Tolstoy was aired on June 13, 1997, the day after the death of Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava.

Ivan Tolstoy : Our release today does not open with familiar callsigns. We have a sad reason for transmission. Bulat Okudzhava died. And music in today's program is his music.

(The song "while the Earth is still spinning" sounds)

On June 12, Bulat Okudzhava died in a Paris suburb of Klamara at 74 years of life. Bulat Shalvovich was already elderly. May 9, just on Victory Day, he celebrated his next birthday. This time - 73rd. He had not performed with songs for a long time, he could not, he said that he was suffocating. I agreed only to read my poems. So his last tour took place in full halls, but on the stage was a tired, underwent heavy operations poet, who read excerpts from his old and new books, answering questions, but no longer taking the guitar. At the end of May, Bulat Okudzhava performed at the University of Marburg, in Germany, and then went to France. He had particularly gentle feelings for Paris. Here in 1965 his first record with songs came out, there were many friends. On May 28, his evening was scheduled - a performance in the UNESCO Hall. Invitation tickets were printed. But on the eve of Bulat Shalvovich fell ill, installed viral flu and placed in the Wal de Grass military hospital, from where he was transferred to a branch of this hospital, located in the Parisian suburbs of Clamar. This branch is called the Persian clinic, here is the most modern equipment and magnificent care. Unfortunately, the body weakened by heart and pulmonary diseases of the previous years resisted the new ailments weakly, the patient lost consciousness and at 8 pm Paris time (at 10 Moscow) on June 12, he quietly died in a dream. Near the deceased were a widow and son. Now that our transfer is broadcast, much is still unclear regarding the circumstances of the funeral. What can we talk about with certainty is about a panachid in Paris, in the main Orthodox church of St. Alexander Nevsky to Ryu Daria, where Russian exiles have forgiven for eighty years with all the outstanding people of Russian emigration. There will be no coffin in the cathedral, however, the memorial service will be in absentia, Vladyka Sergius will conduct the church service. Then the coffin with the body of the deceased with a special flight will be delivered to Moscow.

(Sounds the song "Lower, please, blue curtains ...")

Three years ago, on the waves of Radio, Liberty was transmitted to the 70th anniversary of Bulat Okudzhava. The program was prepared in the Moscow Studio of Freedom Marina Timasheva and Ilya Dadashidze. In our program today, we used fragments of the recording of that anniversary program of three years ago.

Ilya Dadashidze : Although Bulat Okudzhava refused to say anything in his anniversary, he nevertheless read the poem dedicated to Joseph Brodsky.

Bulat Okudzhava :

To the strange music of the dusk of the city
As if the nature of the refuge is looking for:
then a naked tree will give a voice
then the soil will breathe, otherwise the evening will penetrate.
All the evil are these sounds than closer to winter
And the more frank bitterness and midnight.
There are distant someone suffer in darkness
Behind the door deaf, calling for help.
There someone's tears of blurred gaze,
which the branches will no longer hide ...
And I will open the door and throw myself into the yard:
And this is moaning and crying in my house.

Marina Timasheva : poet, Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky congratulates Bulat Okudzhava from New York.

Joseph Brodsky : It’s really a lot of seventy years in this century, this is really a achievement. I am embarrassed to say some flattering words-this is such an event, a 70th birthday, and at such a distance ...

All people of my age or at least most of my age grew on his songs. This has entered our organic matter, at least in my

I feel mixed feelings, but, first of all, a sense of gratitude to this person. In general, I am to a strong extent, as, I believe, all the people of my age, or at least most, grew up on his songs. This has entered our organic matter, at least mine. This is a remarkably lived seventy years or, at least, their conscious part. Few people at this age, born in our Fatherland, have reason to be proud of. He has. Or the knowledgeable people have it. He will not - he is a modest person.

(The song sounds "when I can’t overpower trouble")

Ivan Tolstoy : Then, on the waves of Radio, Liberty Bella Akhmadulina read poetry dedicated to Bulat Okudzhava. Record three years ago.

Bella Akhmadulina :

As long as the veil is blue
Madly is irrigated by a temple
Bulat, take me with you,
I love your light eye.
Coach! I, or something, - a regular
sled? Hurry! It's time to go home
In the past. Oh, Bulat, soldier,
Darling, unknown mine.
And the rest will cost
It will be applied as you said.
Here is the hall, and the waltz flows from the windows.
Here is the ball, but no one called us.
And we’ll come in. There, at the column ...
so dark and pale ... this love
Do not transfer! Then he. Is he?
Do not know, and don't look.
Why is given? Why are we entering
In the beauty of foreign, on foreign days?
Bulat, everywhere the same thing.
Bulat, sit down! Charchman, drive!
How snow flies! Like a lot of snow!
How you love me, my brother!
What a long road
From St. Petersburg to Leningrad.

(The song "All Ureasures for a long time ago" sounds))

Bulat Okudzhava, 1982. Photo of Vladimir Savostyanov /Photo Chronicle TASS /

Ivan Tolstoy : In the program of three years ago, Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was also congratulated by the theater artist Boris Messerer.

Boris Messerer : Dear Bulat, I now suddenly had a happy opportunity to congratulate you on a public birthday in this way. I want to say that you just heard Bella’s poetic appeal to you, who loves you, and a very large number of her poems are dedicated to you. I just want to take advantage of what people hear us and say what you mean to us. Dear Bulat, you must know that, you must know what a humanistic ideal, I would say so, you imagine for all of us. You serve a beautiful, but modestly, dignity, with a huge restraint of feelings, in a wonderful noble manner. Your songs always have a huge emotional saturation and, at the same time, they always have such a human wonderful intonation that cannot be faked or invented, you only need to find it as you do.

Bulat Okudzhava, 1987. Photos of Yuri Belinsky /Photo Chronicle TASS /

(The song "And the second love, it lies for the first")

Ivan Tolstoy : Another fragment from the transmission of 1994. Says the writer Chabua Amirejibi.

Chabua Amirejibi : Bulat Okudzhava is a deservedly loud name. His life began in Tbilisi and, I think that this Tbilisi originality, and uniqueness played a rather significant role in his life and in his poetry. His poems and songs, in my opinion, are still permeated by the Tbilisi spirit. Tbilisi is a city of contrasts, a city of good people, a city -old city of many cultures. Bulat Okudzhava, who lives in a godless lane is such a devout and handsome person! My God, Bulat, I give you the most sincere wishes, I convey my love to you and tell you that Tbilisi loves you in the old way, as I loved when your relatives were arrested and destroyed. Be healthy, my dear! I congratulate you on your anniversary and wish you many, many successes. Thank you, my friend, for everything: for your poetry, for your music and for your life in general.

Marina Timasheva : How many places are in the world where roses fly around and children cry?

(The song "The girl is crying - the ball flew away")

This song was first sounded in 1957. And how then were the songs and poems of Bulat Okudzhava perceived? It is difficult to even imagine what destroying headlines the newspaper and journal articles have been spent. "Catcher of cheap glory", "The price of noisy success", "Caution - vulgarity!" This gloomy story is in the verses of Yuri Ryashentsev.

When in all the ends of the power,
Rustling with magnetic tape,
Okudzhava songs arose,
The country fell in love with them, although
What a abuse, what nicknames
Those songs fell out in their time
And someone, it seems, Lisichkin,
Their menacingly vulgarity nare.
Ay, Lisichkin! Where are you now?
Apology of blue
In no case up to blue
Not coming. For the country
You seemed to have not lived, sad
As you believed to yourself,
That in writing to what is verbally -
Bosses and authority.
And, by the way, in vain I remembered this,
And you, of course, are not the same
And the voice of the singing poet
He sings in your walls, sings.

(Sounds the song "Prayer Francois Viyon")

(The song "Ah, Arbat, my Arbat" sounds)

Ivan Tolstoy : The microphone has Julius Kim, a 1994 entry.

Julius Kim :

But I'm still sorry (sorry, Bulat, for a quote),
That we will not meet at the intersections of Moscow.
Five minutes by taxi, two caps on the machine, -
But - alas ... I regret terribly. I don't know how you are.

We would sit, as if we had drank, - but how would they go!
But - it did not work out, it will not work, because by our watch
We are too late, we have to drive to the limit.
Therefore, it will not work. I'm sorry. I don't know how you are.

Therefore, I am in a hurry, and to that all words and melody,
That I am in a hurry to explain to you in tender love ....

Ilya Dadashidze : Julius Kim sang about Okudzhava in Moscow and Alexander Ginzburg yearned for Paris

Alexander Ginzburg : In the first number of Syntaxis, I arose a beloved poet, who opened a completely new genre - the genre of the author’s song, the poet Bulat Okudzhava, which I met in the literary association “The General”, appeared. I would not even remember this if Bulat himself had not remembered this with fantastic regularity.

... he has been saving in me, for more than thirty years, such a festive attitude to our youth affairs

They put me in prison for this magazine, no one remembers this from those who were there, and there were many of those who, indeed, the first people in Russian poetry today, and Okudzhava recalls this constantly, and recalls this as some kind of general, maybe even one of the first holidays. And he retains this in me, for more than thirty years, such a festive attitude to the affairs of our youth. Because of him, I feel 25-year-old all the time, and I see him 35-year-old, as then. And today it helps to live. Thanks to Bulat for such help!

Ivan Tolstoy : Alexander Ginzburg spoke from Paris, a 1994 entry. We called Paris and now. The phone is Alexander Ginzburg.

Alexander Ginzburg : It was a great joy for us that Bulat came to Paris. We knew that he was not in the best form, that he was very ill, but the first meeting, the day after his arrival, was, as it seems to me, absolutely normal and bright. We still did not know that he was literally on the eve of his departure: "The first flu would destroy you." And in this state, in the state of the next date with Paris, where the mass of the people who love him, he stayed for five or six days. And then there was a flash of this flu. I recently tried to count how much he stayed here, in this hospital, it seemed to me that very little, but it turned out that more than ten days. And this was all the time a deterioration in our general condition, not only him, we were terribly crushed by all this. He was in a wonderful hospital, where, by the way, the French presidents are treated, this is a military hospital in Clamar. Everything that was possible was done there, but, probably, each person is destined to live his time. And for me this is such a signal that this is not only for him, but, in principle, for the generation of the so -called sixties that this time ends.

Ivan Tolstoy : At the microphone - Igor Paransev. We bring to your attention a fragment of the transmission of 1993.

Igor Pomerantsev : Those who now recall the years of thaw with nostalgia, the end of the 50s-the beginning of the 60s, probably love Okudzhava's voice. And himself, if I may say so, the subject of nostalgia, experiences longing for the past? Here's what Bulat Okudzhava answered me by phone from Moscow.

Bulat Okudzhava : You know, like any normal person, it is natural that this feeling constantly worries me. It all depends on what I remember and how I remember. Of course, I can’t remember my childhood without nostalgia, from today, very sad, difficult and sad, and from the standpoint of that time - beautiful, complete inspiration and, most importantly, hopes. And if later the past ... Of course, I cannot remember the years of the thaw without a nostalgic feeling.

... I cannot remember the years of the thaw without a nostalgic feeling

Of course, it was a very shaky step, very insignificant, but compared to what was before, it was a grandiose coup. We then did not attach serious importance to this, we even chuckled, we even a little indignant ...

Igor Pomerantsev : Bulat Shalvovich, how do you explain the nostalgia for many people on the leaders, for example, in Stalin, and now according to Brezhnev?

Bulat Okudzhava : I think this is. Russia, indeed, is a special country in this sense. Russia never knew and did not have the institution of freedom. Vozdism, tsarism is very important components of Russian consciousness.

Igor Pomerantsev : It seems to me that your historical novels are still lyrical prose rather than epic. Do you have no nostalgia for eras in which you did not live?

Bulat Okudzhava : There is a certain, of course, I myself often reincarnate when I write prose, and feel in that time. And I am not at all inclined to idealize past eras. But there were some virtues that we lost. The concept of honor. Yes, not only in those days. Recently, we recalled Arbat pre -war - a full cloaca with a punks, with a jul, with anything. But still, how strange it is, I think now, because when we boys fought, we never had a lying. Where did all this come from? I think this is from pre -revolutionary times.

(The song "Arbat romance is the old sewing" sounds)

Ivan Tolstoy : Zinovy Gerdt. A fragment from the program to the 70th anniversary of Bulat Shalvovich.

Zinovy Gerdt : I think that twenty years old, how I, looking at people of my age, I do not think: did he fought or did not fight? And before that, I always somehow thought: here is a man of my years, was he there or not? When I met with Bulat, it was somehow especially gratifying to me in my soul, not to mention the fact that I met an extraordinary person, a huge phenomenon of Russian life, but simply added relatives because he was there. I read a lot of prose and poems about that war. The first one who completely convinced me from the extraordinary veracity, the complete lack of a drawing of some kind of or aggravation of everything that was in the war, there was just a pure truth, it was a bulat with his story "Be healthy, schoolboy." I recognized myself, every city boy who was then, of course, recognized himself, it was impossible not to recognize himself. The Bulat is still deprived of - both in the song and in prose - he is completely devoid of any drawing, he even belittles himself a little, which is much closer to me than if he had a little elevation. It was so perfectly in my life that we were quite a lot with the Bulat, but I must tell you that we knock each other on the back and kiss at some Moscow acting even a habit, but I never had a minute so that I did not experience the deepest pussy before this, not even to a person, namely a phenomenon of life. I always think that I live at the same time in which the Bulat lives. And it exalts me. I really want the Bulat to live for a long time. If I could tell him this now ... I will tell him, of course. Bulat, in general, seventy is not an age, we are still in advance, we will still read poetry, we still knock each other on the back!

From left to right: Nikolai Petrov, Veronika Dolina, Arkady Arkanov, Andrey Voznesensky, Grigory Gorin, Unonment Smoktunovsky, Valentin Gaft, Zinovy Gerdt, Alexey Batalov, Bulat Okudzhava, Alexander Ivanov. Photo from the archive of Veronica Valley

Ilya Dadashidze : Zinovy Efimovich Gerdt spoke about the war, about the soldier's past Bulat Okudzhava. Okudzhava's birthday coincided with Victory Day. With victory, Bulat!

(Sounds the song "The tenth of our landing battalion")

Ivan Tolstoy : Lev Kopelev, record 1994.

Lev Kopelev : Bulat, dear, I know you for more than a third of the century, I heard your songs even earlier. It is wonderful that there are your songs and there is your prose. And you are an era. The names of politicians will forget, the names of statesmen will forget, and Bulat Okudzhava is our youth, this is the youth of our very recent hopes and dreams. Excessive, pure poetry, artless, pure humanity.

Ivan Tolstoy : And, at the end of the program, the poem of Junna Moritz.

Yunna Moritz :

On this shore is foggy,
Where the memory smells of the ocean,
And there is no death, and the light in the window.
Everyone is in love and all winged
And everyone sings the poems of Bulat.
On this shore is foggy -
And there is no death, and the light in the window.
On this shore is foggy -
And there is no death, and the light in the window.
On this shore is green,
Where the demolished house flashed a maple,
And there is no death, and the light in the window.
All roots are drawn to freedom,
And everyone sings Volodya’s poems.
On this shore Green
And there is no death, and the light in the window.
On this shore is high,
Where the music beats under the current
And there is no death, and the light in the window,
Circular bail reigns,
And everyone is singing without tired
On this shore is high
And there is no death, and the light in the window.
On this shore is foggy ...
On this shore green ...
On this shore is high ..

(The song "Grape seed in the heat of the earth is heated" sounds)