The Journey of Dilettantes. Selected Works

Bulata Shalvovich Okudzhava (1924–1997) gained wide recognition as a songwriter, bard, and poet. But he also wrote remarkable prose: "historical fantasies" from the 19th century and autobiographical works. His prose texts are also musical: numerous voices, each sounding in its... own way, intertwine into a unified artistic fabric, wonderfully transforming historical facts and lines from biographies into art. Perhaps the most important theme of all Okudzhava's work is human dignity. With bitterness, he noted: "We still do not know how to respect the human personality, we do not know how to see in it the highest value of life." This motif runs as a common thread through all his works. The book includes the most significant novels by Okudzhava, created from the material of the 19th century: "The Journey of Dilettantes" (1971–1977, published 1976–1978), "Meeting with Bonaparte" (1983, which he repeatedly called his best work), as well as the autobiographical novel "The Abolished Theater" (1989–1993; awarded the Booker Prize in 1994), supplemented with autobiographical stories. The early novella "Stay Healthy, Schoolboy" (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"…