The name of the famous Soviet and Russian poet and bard Bulat Okudzhava is familiar to most, if not all. However, not many people know the tragic life story of his parents. Meanwhile, Okudzhava Shalva Stepanovich was once one of the organizers of the Georgian Komsomol and played a large role in the development of the industrial power of the Urals.
Ancestors
Grandfather Shalva Okudzhava from her mother's name was Pavel Peremushev. He moved to Georgia in the middle of the 19th century. It is known that by that time P. Peremushev had already served 25 years in recruits and after completing the service received a land allotment in Kutaisi. There are different opinions about its origin. According to the most common, he was either Russian or Mordvin. Some scholars are inclined to consider him a Jew from the cantonists. In Kutaisi, P. Peremushev began working as a tailor and soon married the Georgian Salome Medzmariashvili. He had three daughters, the eldest of whom, Elizabeth, became the wife of the clerk Stepan Okudzhava. In this marriage, eight children were born.
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 Noble Gymnasium of Kutaisi. 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 during the February Revolution.
At party work
In 1918, Shalva Okudzhava joined the RCP (b) and, on a party basis, began organizing the Komsomol in Georgia. From that 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 RKSM, and in 1921 he was promoted to become 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 made a speech in front of the audience regarding a new economic policy. He made a deep impression on the young communist, prompting a desire to engage in activities related to the development of the national economy of the young Soviet state. To this end, Shalva Okudzhava remained in the capital and entered the Faculty of Economics of the first State University. While studying in the capital, he met Ashkhen Stepanovna Nalbandyan, who was a relative of the famous poet Vahan Teryan. Young people fell in love and soon got married. In May 1924, their son was born - Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava.
In Tiflis
Soon after the birth of his son, Shalva Okudzhava was urgently summoned to Tiflis, as the Georgian party organization really needed educated cadres. Already in December 1924 he was appointed head of the department of agitation and propaganda of the Tiflis city party committee, and after 2 years he became commissar 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 returning 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 everything was more than happy in the life of Shalva Okudzhava, in fact, clouds were gathering over his head. If at the beginning of his career he was under the auspices of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, then after Beria became the People's Commissar of Georgia, the situation changed dramatically. Honest and principled Okudzhava has repeatedly sharply opposed his personnel policy. There were also rumors that Lavrenty Pavlovich was not indifferent to Ashkhen, who was considered one of the most beautiful women in 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, to which he gladly agreed.
In the Urals
The initiator of the appointment of Okudzhava to the post of secretary of the party committee of Uralvagonstroy in Nizhny Tagil was Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who greatly 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 - the 1st Secretary of the Nizhny Tagil City Committee of the CPSU (B.). Thanks to his work, the working conditions of workers improved, which was repeatedly noted by Ordzhonikidze, who often came to inspect the construction of the Uralvagonzavod.
Arrest
On February 18, 1937, employees of the Tagil UNKVD searched the apartment where Okudzhava Shalva Stepanovich lived. By a strange coincidence, it was on this day in Moscow that his friend and patron Sergo Ordzhonikidze shot himself dead.
Okudzhava had long understood the inevitability of his arrest. In those days, anyone could be sent to camps without any reason, and Okudzhava had an Achilles heel - the counterrevolutionary brothers who, after the proclamation of Soviet power in Georgia, joined the left opposition. Although they had already served the exile once, in 1936 they were again arrested and charged with Trotskyism.
The arrested director of the Uralvagonstroy plant 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 trumped-up charge in 1937 was quite serious, and there was no longer any talk of salvation, especially since it was a family that was listed among the personal enemies of Lawrence Beria himself.
Shalva Okudzhava was on the list of individuals who were subject to "repression in the first category." In the party jargon of those times, this wording meant that the arrested person would be shot. The document about this was dated April 1, 1937, and under it were the signatures of Stalin, Molotov and Kaganovich. The sentence was carried out on August 4, 1937.
The fate of relatives
After the arrest of the head of the family, his wife, who at that time worked as secretary of the party’s district committee in Nizhny Tagil, sons (Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava and Victor, born in 1934), as well as an elderly mother moved to Moscow and settled in a communal apartment on Arbat. There they learned that the uncles of the future famous bard were also shot. Family misfortunes did not end there, and in 1938, Okudzhava's mother was arrested in Moscow, and she was exiled to Karlag. She returned to the capital only in 1947.
Shalva’s sister, Olga Okudzhava, was also accused of Trotskyism. 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 prevent the NKVD from sending her into exile. Olga wandered around prisons for a long time until she ended up in Orel. On September 11, 1941, a woman, like more than 150 prisoners, was shot by NKVD officers in the Medvedevsky forest, which was located several kilometers north of the city.
After the death of Joseph Stalin, the wife of Shalva Okudzhava began by all means to seek the rehabilitation of her husband. She succeeded 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 - Ashkhen Nalbandyan - was also the victim of Stalinist repressions, and their son Bulat suffered mental pain until the end of his life, recalling the tragic fate of his parents.