The new book by Dmitry Bykov is dedicated to a figure as iconic as it is mysterious — Bulat Okudzhava. For several generations, he remains the standard of nobility and moral purity, and the lines from his songs serve as a kind of password — by them we unmistakably distinguish «us» from «them».
The new book by Dmitry Bykov is dedicated to a figure as iconic as it is mysterious — Bulat Okudzhava. For several generations, he remains the standard of nobility and moral purity, and the lines from his songs serve as a kind of password — by them we unmistakably distinguish «us» from «them». However, what was so bewitching in this thin man, who sang simple words to the guitar? Dmitry Bykov is trying to answer this question with his book. Thoroughly and in detail analyzing the fate of Okudzhava, he comes to paradoxical, but convincing conclusions. Bykov believes that the key to Okudzhava’s fame lies not in his poetic or musical gift, but in his unique ability to serve as a kind of «guide» — directly, without intermediaries, to translate the vibrations of the surrounding world into words. This property — the gift to address the listener-reader with special words that go straight to the heart — and made Okudzhava, according to Bykov, the voice and symbol of an entire era.