Bulat Okudzhava. A journey of amateurs. Selected works

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava (1924–1997) achieved widespread renown as a songwriter, bard, and poet. But he also wrote remarkable prose: 19th-century "historical fantasies" and autobiographical works. His prose texts are also musical: a multitude of voices, each with its own distinctive tone, weave into a single artistic fabric, wonderfully transforming historical facts and biographical lines into art. Perhaps the most important theme of Okudzhava's entire work is human dignity. He bitterly stated: "We still fail to respect the human personality, fail to see in it the highest value of life." This motif runs like a red thread through all his works. The book includes Okudzhava's most significant novels, based on 19th-century material: "Journey of Dilettantes" (1971–1977, published 1976–1978), "Rendezvous with Bonaparte" (1983, which the author repeatedly called his best work), as well as the autobiographical novel "The Abolished Theater" (1989–1993; awarded the Booker Prize in 1994), supplemented by autobiographical short stories. The early story "Bye Khloe, Scholjar" (1961), also included in the collection, "is not an adventure. It is about how I fought. How they wanted to kill me, but I was lucky."