Okudzhava, Bulat Shalvovich

Okudzhava [Akudzhávuh], Bulat Shalvovich (5–9–1924, M.). Georgian poet, prosaist, songwriter and performer. Okudzhava, the son of a Communist Party official, volunteered to serve at the front in 1942 and later graduated from Tbilisi Univ. (1950). He worked as a schoolteacher and, from 1953, began to publish his poetry, authoring several collections of poems before turning to prose. He was a member of the Communist Party from 1955–72, when he was expelled “for anti-Party behavior and refusal to…