Bulat Okudzhava, the poet and creator of 'The Merry Drummer,' 'The Midnight Trolleybus,' 'Sentimental March,' 'The Sentinels of Love,' 'Drops of the Danish King,' 'The Painters,' 'The Arbat Romance,' and numerous other songs and poems, needs no introduction. Less well-known is Okudzhava the novelist, author of the historical novels 'Poor Avrosimov,' 'The Journey of Dilettantes,' and 'A Date with Bonaparte,' the novellas 'Bless You, Schoolboy,' 'The Adventures of Shipov, or Old-Time Vaudeville,' and 'The Adventures of a Secret Baptist,' as well as the biographical book 'The Abolished Theater,' which won the Russian Booker Prize in 1994. 'The Journey of Dilettantes' (1971–1977, published 1976–1978) is a fictionalized account of the true story of the tragic love of Prince Sergei Trubetskoy (named Myatlev in the book) and Lavinia Zhadimirovskaya (named Ladimirovskaya in the novel). The lovers' scandalous affair and their escape to the Caucasus become a challenge to social conventions, an example of passive yet unwavering resistance to the despotism of everyday life. Their fate after their capture exemplifies the fidelity to one's feelings that overcomes all adverse circumstances and is no less relevant to modern times than it was to the reign of Nicholas I.