A Taste of Liberty (Poor Avrosimov)

Of Georgian and Armenian parents, Okudzhava was born in Moscow, served at the front in World War II (his experiences are reflected in the short novel So Long, Schoolboy! [1961]), took a university degree in philology, and taught in a village school. His first book, Lyrics, appeared in 1956. Other poetic collections followed. Okudzhava won special renown for his own performances of his verse, in which he accompanied himself on the guitar. Recordings of such songs as "Midnight Trolley" and "The Song of the American Soldier" circulated widely, and he was regarded as a leading unofficial "bard," a spokesman for the post-Stalin generation of urban dwellers. Okudzhava's fiction includes a trio of historical novels with political overtones: A Taste of Liberty (1969), Merci, or the Adventures of Shipov (1971), and Nocturne (1979).