Николай I forever. О неосуществлённых замыслах Булата Окуджавы в свете его осуществлённой прозы
Nicolas I forever: On Okudzhavaʼs Unrealized Projects in the Context of his Realized Prose

Summary/Abstract: Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava (1924–1997) is a poet-bard, one of the founders of the Russian genre called author’s song or an underground Guitar-Poetry movement. Spreadof the underground “tape recordered culture” in the Soviet Union had provided a promotion of Okudzhava’s author’s songs. But, from the beginning to the end, Okudzhava was also a historical novelist, and not every his historical project could be realized. He mentioned two of his unrealized projects during his conversation in the Prague Pen Club after the last public concert in his life (1995, October 29): the 1st was about Pugachov and the 2nd was about Nicolas I. To find in history the precedents from the past which really apply to the immediate moment is not so simple as many would like to believe. He who would search for the lessons of experience will never reach the end. So the sense of representation (and influence!) of the historical memory in the legal Soviet literature was not to create an eternal model of empire but to liberate and provide some archetypes of Russian national characters, who’s actuality Okudzhava felt even after the empire’s (temporary?) death.

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