Okudzhava Shalva Stepanovich: biography, family

The name of the famous Soviet and Russian poet and bard Bulat Okudzhava is familiar if not to all, then to the majority. However, not many know the tragic story of his parents' life. Meanwhile, Okudzhava Shalva Stepanovich once was one of the organizers of the Georgian Komsomol and played an important role in the development of the industrial power of the Urals.

Ancestors

Grandpa Shalva Okudzhava from the mother's side was Pavel Peremushev. He moved to Georgia in the middle of the 19th century. It is known that by that time Pereushev had already served for 25 years in recruits and, after completing his service, received a land plot in Kutaisi. There are different opinions about its origin. According to the most common, he was either Russian or Mordvin. Some researchers tend to consider him a Jew from the cantonists. In Kutaisi P. Peremushev began to work as a tailor and soon married Georgian Salome Mezmariashvili. He had three daughters, the eldest of them - Elizabeth - became the wife of the clerk Stepan Okudzhava. In this marriage eight children have appeared.

Childhood and youth

Okudzhava Shalva Stepanovich was born in August 1901. When the boy was 10 years old, he was accepted to study at the Kutaisi Noble Gymnasium. At the age of 16, Shalva joined the revolutionaries, following the example of the older brothers Nikolai and Mikhail, who were active participants in anti-government actions in the days of the February Revolution.

At the party work

In 1918, Shalva Okudzhava joined the RCP (B.) And on party assignments engaged in the organization of the Komsomol in Georgia. From this time until 1921, when Soviet power was established in the country, he was underground and mastered the science of political struggle. After Shalva Okudzhava was appointed chairman of the Kutaisi provincial committee of the RCYM, and in 1921 he received promotion, becoming the head of the organizational department of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Georgia.

In Moscow

In 1921 Okudzhava Shalva Stepanovich was elected a delegate to the congress of the Comintern and first visited Moscow. During one of the meetings, V. Lenin delivered a report on the new economic policy. He made a deep impression on the young Communist, prompting him to engage in activities related to the development of the national economy of the young Soviet state. To this end Shalva Okudzhava stayed in the capital and enrolled in the Economics Department of the first State University. While studying in the capital, he met Ashkhen Stepanovna Nalbandyan, who was related to the famous poet Vahan Teryan. Young people fell in love and soon got married. In May 1924 they had a son - Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava.

In Tiflis

Shortly after the birth of his son, Shalva Okudzhava was urgently summoned to Tiflis, as the Georgian party organization was in great need of educated cadres. Already in December 1924 he was appointed head of the agitation and propaganda department of the Tiflis city party committee, and two years later he became the commissioner of the Georgian military command school. Then, in 1929, Shalva Stepanovich was sent to study in the capital, where he graduated from the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. Upon his return to his homeland at the age of 30, the young Communist was appointed secretary of the city party committee and was elected a member of the Central Committee of Georgia.

Relations with Beria

Despite the fact that outwardly in the life of Shalva Okudzhava everything was more than happy, in fact, clouds were gathering over his head. If in the beginning of his career he was under the patronage of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, then, after the Beria became a People's Commissar of Georgia, the situation changed dramatically. Honest and principled Okudzhava repeatedly spoke out against his personnel policy. There were also rumors that Lavrentiy Pavlovich was not indifferent to Ashkhen, who was considered one of the most beautiful women of the Georgian capital of that time. At the end Okudzhava realized that he had better leave Tiflis, and went with his family to Moscow. There he was offered a position in Nizhny Tagil, which he gladly agreed to.

In the Urals

The initiator of Okudzhava's appointment to the post of party secretary of Uralvagonstroy in Nizhny Tagil was Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who appreciated his professionalism and business qualities. In February 1934, Ordzhonikidze became a delegate to the 17th Party Congress, and a year later he had a new post - First Secretary of the Nizhny Tagil City Committee of the CPSU (B.). Thanks to his work, the working conditions of the workers improved, which was noted more than once by Ordzhonikidze, who often came to inspect the construction of Uralvagonzavod.

Arrest

February 18, 1937 employees of the Tagil NKVDD searched the apartment where Okudzhava Shalva Stepanovich lived. By a strange accident, it was on this day in Moscow that his friend and patron Sergo Ordzhonikidze shot himself.

Okudzhava has long understood the inevitability of his arrest. At that time, anyone could be sent to the camps for no reason, and Okudzhava had an Achilles heel-brothers counter-revolutionaries, who, after the proclamation of Soviet power in Georgia, joined the left-wing opposition. Although they had already left the link once, in 1936 they were again arrested and accused of Trotskyism.

Arrested director of the plant Uralvagonstroy L. Maryasin gave "evidence", according to which he and Okudzhava tried to organize an attempt on Sergo Ordzhonikidze during his arrival in Nizhny Tagil. Such a fabricated charge in 1937 was quite serious, and there could be no talk of salvation, especially since it was a family that was listed among the personal enemies of Laurentius Beria himself.

Shalva Okudzhava was on the list of persons who were subject to "repression in the first category". In the party jargon of those times, this formulation meant that the prisoner was waiting for the execution. The document about this was dated April 1, 1937, and under it stood the signatures of Stalin, Molotov and Kaganovich. The verdict was carried out on August 4, 1937.

Fate of relatives

After the arrest of the head of the family, his wife, who at that time worked as secretary of the district party committee in Nizhny Tagil, sons (Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava and Victor, born in 1934), as well as the elderly mother moved to Moscow and settled in a communal apartment on the Arbat. There they learned that the uncle of the future well-known bard was also shot. The misfortunes of the family did not end there, and in 1938 Okudzhava's mother was arrested in Moscow, and she was deported to Karlag. She returned to the capital only in 1947.

In Trotskyism, Shalva's sister Olga Okudzhava was also accused. The young woman was the wife of the famous Georgian poet Galaktion Tabidze. At the time of her arrest, she was seriously ill, but this did not stop the NKVD from sending her into exile. Olga long wandered around the prisons until she was in Orel. September 11, 1941, a woman, like more than 150 prisoners, NKVD officers shot in the Medvedev forest, which was several kilometers north of the city.

After the death of Joseph Stalin, Shalva Okudzhava 's wife began to seek the rehabilitation of her husband with all her might. This she managed at the cost of incredible efforts only in 1956. At the same time, former employees of the Nizhny Tagil City Committee and residents of the city were questioned, confirming the innocence of her husband.

Now you know who Okudzhava Shalva Stepanovich was and how he died. The wife of this convinced communist - Ashken Nalbandian - also became a victim of Stalinist repressions, and their son Bulat until the end of his life felt heartache, remembering the tragic fate of his parents.