The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 18

18 I OBITUARIES Ttt Guardian Wednesday June 18 1997 Bulat Okudzhava Andr Harris Dissident notes under dark skies BTll froni Ihe Communist Party picaresque) novels in the 1970s and 1980s, it was his parallel occupation as balladeer that brought him fame. He set many of his poems to music and from 1960 began to perform them in small groups or semi-official gatherings around Moscow, accompany ing himself on the guitar He also contributed songs to a number of popular films These songs did not always encounter official approval, in 1962 one leading ideologist declared they were "out of keep ing with the entire structure of our Okudzhava. a member of rehabilitation in 1955, Okudz hava's career prospects began to improve. He joined the Communist Party and moved back to Moscow, taking a job first in publishing then as poetry editor at the prestigious Literaturnaya Gazeta. He also joined the Writers' Union.

In 1959 his second collection of poems. Islands, appeared, but it was his short autobiographical work Good Luck, which attracted wide attention. This realistic, unsentimental depiction of life at the front for a raw, teenage recruit contrasted sharply S1I His realistic, unsentimental depiction of life at the front for a raw, teenage recruit contrasted sharply with the compulsory heroic portrayal of the Soviet contribution in the second world war the Moscow literary establishment, retained a critical distance from the Soviet regime without incurring the overt repression suffered by other writers. However he lost his job at Literaturnaya Gazeta in 1961 after it published Yevgeni Yevtushenko's famous poem Babi Yar commemorating the massacre of a group of Jews in Nazi-occupied Kiev. Okudzhava signed the petition for the writers Andrei Sinyavesky and Yuli Daniel whose trial in 1966 was a rallying point for intellectuals over this heavy handed attempt to silence creative talent.

In 1969 he signed a petition for Alexander Solzhenitsyn. However, like many writers. Okudzhava had to publish or republish some of his writings abroad. Threatened with expulsion 13 Day in the Culture Palace PHOTOGRAPH NOVObTi Helena Sanders A word to the workers Bulat Okudzhava speaks on Poetry of Moscow's Likhachev Automobile Works in December 1964 Cats of Venice preserv'd man. 46; Patricia Hutchinson, former ambassador to Uruguay.

71; Roy Jackson, tormer assistant general secretary. TUC. 69: Lt-Gen Sir Brian Kenny, governor. Royal Hospital, Chelsea, Sir Dennis Landau, chairman. Unity Trust, 70: Sir Paul McCartney, singer, songwriter.

55; Isabella Ros-sellini. actress. 45; Delia Smith, television cook. 56; Linda Thorscn, actress. 50.

Birthdays Eva Bartok, actress, 68; Peter Batty, television and film producer, 66; James Bishop, former editor-in-chief. Illustrated London News, 68; Michael Blake-more, theatre director, 69; Fernando Henrique Cardoso, president of Brazil. 66; Ian Carmichael, actor, 77; Carl de Winter, former secretary-general. Federation of British Artists. 63: Ian Har-greaves, editor.

New States mm1 mm mmm Harris audacious Smashing France's Vichy mirror AXDRK Harris, win. ha-died aged til. became famous as the author of the devastating film Cha unit et la I'uw. made by Mar eel Ophuis mt This was not inl a film it was an event which changed the way in which i i it- French regarrled the German occupation and the 'ich government. I'ntil it appeared there had been a period dominated by a Gaullist Communist mth, suggesting that almost all the French population had, in various vvavs, resisted the Germans Then there had lieen a period of organised forgetful ness Hut, as one historian has put it.

Lc Chagrin cl la Pine I smashed the mirror. The French were shown to have I been most preoccupied with finding something to eat. the I black market was more nnpor 1 tant than 1'etam's national revolution or the Resistance i Although 1'ierre Mendes France was given time to speak and to explain how he had never accepted the armistice, it was usually felt that there were onlv two sympa thetic characters in the film the two peasant brothers who had plaved minor roles in the Resistance Ophuis directed the same pointed wav that Harris hail planned the film the camera concentrating on the restless hands of the worn an who had Mnended the Germans. Not for the first time Harris found himself in conflict with the authorities While there were those who praised the audacious objectivity of the film, it was banned on French television for the next 12 years It was shown the cinema, however, and in Paris it was rare for the audience not to interrupt, especially to insult Christien de la Maieiv when he recounted how he had joined the Germans in the Charlemagne division, fight ing on the eastern front Naturally it was controwr sial and one historian immedi ately went to Clermont Ker rand where much of the film was filmed to get material to refute its searching account of French behaviour. But from then on.

Vichv U'came an obsession for historians and film-makers alike. After Lc Chagrin cl la I'Hic Harris made sev eral documentaries which examined unex plored or forgotten episodes French historv. siuli 1917 armv mutinies or aspects of the war in Algeria. He was also the author of several books, investigating the French national character or the position of Jews in Flench society In one of the more successful. Wiyagea I'm tencure clu ixirli aimmunistc.

written with Alain de Sedoiiv in 197). he inquired into the French Communist Party As a young man Harris went to Paris and worked as a part-time lournalist. before joining radio. In 1 f-Hit he be came political editor of the televised news service on TFI and then joined the Franco German television chain A RTF where he as pro gramme director until 1942 There lie faced a constani problem what is the type of programme best suited to French producers and what should be left to the Germans'' For Harris the answer was always the same the French were tiest at documentaries He is survived bv his wife Brigltte. Douglas Johnson Andr6 Harris, author, television producer and director, born July 13, 1933, died June 8, 1997 Death Notices BANKS.

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On June 14 a bt; w.l.- n.iit'iGf (Ji dnd'ri jtucr S'Slf anil Inenrt at St Md'y BerM ,1 Ffi'lay J.jn. 't ici. Clean- u. A i.f 't Stall Hnad Wa.nng i SMI IAP UI.AT Okudzhava. who has died aged 73, was a poet and writer, but was best known as a whose songs did balladeer much to brighten up the grey years of Brezhnev's rule in the Soviet Union.

Though lacking the acerbic bite of Alexander Galich or the streetwise colour of Vladimir Vysotsky. Okudzhava could pen deceptively simple songs of great lyrical beauty. He would sing them in the kitchens of friends' Moscow flats and tapes of the impromptu performances would circulate unofficially to evade censorship. He became more widely known abroad when in 199-4 he won the Russian Booker Prize with his novel The Show is Over. Okudzhava was hnrn in Moscow of a Georgian father and an Armenian mother.

Like many of his generation, his life was overshadowed by the cruelty of Stalin's regime. His father, a party official, was shot in 1937. His mother, also a party official, was arrested the same year and spent 10 years in a labour camp. In 19-42. at the most critical point of the Soviet fight against the Nazis, the young Okudzhava volunteered for the Red Army.

After two months' training he was sent to the front in the North Caucasus, here he was wounded. He was transferred to wireless work. After the war he studied Russian philology at Tbilisi State University in Georgia and in 1950 began a six-year spell as a teacher. Six years later his first collection of poetry appeared and he left teaching to become a newspaper journalist. In the wake of his mother's Raymonde Hawkins, founded the Anglo-Venetian charity Dingo named after Hawkins's dog for their welfare.

She organised the spaying, neutering, treatment and destruction of diseased and starving cats and visited the city regularly. Her husband Buy With Confidence From Time UK's leading PC Suopllor 'j rtiKisN! at ji Full tanrtta And tupaort Intaratt Fra radii isc mt Money Back Ouarantee Chooaa Mract Or Itotall Time Showroom Locotlona 30 STHHE 1 "IIIS 1972. he saved himself with an explanation published in l.i teratuniava daeta When Mikhail Gorbachev began his reforms after dc cades of oppression. Okiul, hava supported many of the campaigns to restore the conn try's lost heritage and com memorate the victims of the old regimes His last. Hooker I'rue-w inning novel was.

like much of his writing, autobiographical, looking back at his own child-hood and the fate of his ex tended family It describes i.avrentv Bella's ruthless terror in Tbilisi and the (lis parity between the standard of living of communist officials and the rest of the population The narrator's father is a leading Georgian communist who gets a job an official in the Urals, living the privileged istence of a prov incial apparatchik until arrested as a Trots kyite. His mother is arrested after pleading his cause with Beria This has echoes of Okudzhava's own life, encapsulating as it does the ironies of Soviet history He was a non-Russian who wrote in Russian and made his home in Russia He came from the communist elite, his family suffered at the hands of the regime and Okudzhava himself, though a member of the communist sponsored literary establish ment. was close to dissident circles. His writing was not anti Soviet, but un-Soviet. reflecting a simple, individual response to life He leaves a wife.

Olga. and a son. Felix Corley Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava poet writer, balladeer, born May 9. 1924 died June 12 1997 cian Guy Sanders She was IT "and a she told friends, adding that she took precautions against having children at such an advanced age. It was not an eas marriage as Guy had been trail matised by a loveless child hood, hut Helena eventuallv overcame his distrust and tendency to depression In Helena found Guy dead on a sofa She moved to Haddenham near Cambridge, with six cats and when they died adopted a toni and made arrangements for him should she die first.

A biography was published but she fretted at not being allowed to see the Ivpescnpt and cursed various inaccuracies. She spent her last months dictating an autobiography Valeria Grotvonor Myar Helena Sanders, charily worker born April 16 1911, dred June 14 1997 diver's heart rate slows right down to 20 beats a minute, and thev have a lung capacity more than twice that of the average human. The best freedivei can hold their breath for up to 10 mill utes while still. Freediving is a weird mix of physical extremity and en like calm and concentration. But it's actually a very cheap sport to get into.

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1 19 Far rinndun Road, London ECIH 3EH. Hannah Pool Cat woman Helena Sanders and friend Time Computers launch a truly amazing multimedia PC lor home and business users It comes complete with Intel best selling 166MHz Pent'um processor with MMX teennoiegy a massive 32Mb ct RAM iTicmOFy ariu an cmuiiiiuus 320u'v'b naiu uis Giuei eany anu receive a FREE 33 6 modem ana a FREE massive p-e- oaaed software bunrjle Compare the speo'ication cl cur 166 MMX Mu l-meda Special with any other high street PC we are confident thai you will agree that just E999VAT Uvs is by far the UK best MMX PC offer with the compulsory heroic portrayal of the Soviet contribution in the second world war and was interpreted as an endorsement of pacifism. The story was published in the 1961 anthology Pages from Tarusa, which had to be withdrawn after an official outcry. "A vindication of the fear of death!" was how one journal described Okudzhava's story, calling it an insult to the memory of those who fell in battle. But the book reappeared after the sponsor of the work, Kon-stantin Paustovsky.

apparently appealed to Khrushchev. However, it was not republished until the glasnost years. Although Okudzhava published further anthologies of poems as well as several major historical (or at least Guy became a licensed gondolier and plied for hire to raise funds for the group. Helena also founded the Cornwall Christian Fellowship for Animals and co-founded the Cornwall Cat Rescue Group. During her life she kept more than 40 cats, all conscientiously neutered.

She was born in Calcutta, where her father was in business. Her mother died when she was three and her father remarried, a source of lasting grief to her. After Heathfield School she graduated from Oxford, and took a social studies certificate at Bedford College. London. Helena became a passionate Christian socialist, and worked for the Industrial Christian Fellowship Asked to reactivate its youth committee, she wrote pamphlets and travelled all over the country to speak.

She was also presented at court. As a woman of independent means she spent most of her life in voluntary work, although her causes were not always wisely chosen and she came into conflict with bureaucrats and committees. Her money went into campaigns. In the 1920s it was the Bermondsey slums. She sat on Anglican committees with TS Eliot whom she disliked and Dorothy Sayers who was "charming." At the outbreak of war she joined the London Ambulance Volunteer service.

She also worked selflessly for Jewish refugees and after the war. horrified by the Holocaust, became a Zionist, joining the staff of the British Association for the Jewish National Home in Palestine. Helena lectured all over Britain, but when the State of Israel was founded in 1948. she was out of a job. Ad for it JUST how many precious consumer decisions holiday destination.

TV channel, flavour of pop do you make while staring at unopened cartons of chicken tikka ma-sala? Quite a lot according to certain people working in the British advertising industry, who believe that little adverts on everyday items like Indian takeaway lids can be as effective as big expensive ones on billboards, telly and in magazines. The principle is called ambient media, and the amount being spent on it in the UK has increased from 5m in 1995 to a pre- 166 MMX Multimedia Special ELENA Sanders, who has died aged 86. was made a Knight of St Mark by the city of Venice in recognition of her work for stray cats. On holiday there in 1964 she was distressed by the vast numbers of emaciated and, with Mabel 1173.83 Including VAT 33.6 u.i. uj.

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She offered her services to Cornwall county council as an unpaid social worker, but was rejected THIS prompted her to throw herself into the Celtic movement, learning Cornish and helping found the Cornish nationalist movement Mebyon Kernow. under the battle cry. "Cornish jobs for Cornish She continued to lecture, chaired meetings, formed team of Celtic dancers, and helped to revive an ancient Cornish folk play, performed by a cast of (SO in an Iron Age fort Helena also edited the ICF journal. Man Today, organised girls' clubs and friendly societies, and wrote for pamphlets and articles for the Church Times. In 1959, she met and married the sculptor and musi- dicted21m in 1997.

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