Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava, the originator of the style of Russian bards, was the first to express his nation's disillusionment over the country's political system and government in a new and alternative way. / For this purpose, he used the direct impact of his poetry, a part of which he would sing for audiences, accompanied only by his guitar. This sort of communication between the writer and his interlocutors remained in sharp contrast with the means traditionally used by the official Soviet mass culture. The spreading of guitar poetry was impossible to control by authorities, since for popularization it used not only public gatherings, but also a new piece of technology at the time, tape recorders, a medium brilliantly used by Magnitizdat. / As opposed to Okudzhava's prose, the body of his poetry is largely understudied. One of the possible approaches to his poetic works may be that of classifying them according to their themes. / In the poetry of Bulat Okudzhava, several distinctive thematic categories can be distinguished. The themes that dominated the poet's creative years interpenetrate and overlap one another, as well as provide a reference for his secondary themes. / In the present thesis, the dominant themes will be analyzed from a biographical and historical angle. War will be the first major theme explored. This will be followed by a description of Okudzhava's works dealing with the cult of Stalin and the associated personal tragedy of the author, who witnessed the execution of his father and deportation of his mother. Subsequently, the themes of work, creator and creativity, poet and poetry, music and painting will be discussed. Other themes typical for Okudzhava are those of the city (especially Moscow), the street (especially the Arbat), nature, folklore, and Georgia. The body of the present thesis will conclude with the description of the basic thrusts of Okudzhava's ethics and philosophy, that are most clearly expressed in his "philosophical" verses (concerning belief, hope, love, destiny, women, friends, and man's inner world). / Since Okudzhava's poetry is heavily grounded in the historical context of the Stalin and post-Stalin era and is an alternative voice to what was imposed by official literature, it is natural and valuable to see it against the background of the Socialist Realist canon of Soviet state-controlled literary production.

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