Vasily Lebedev-Kumach

Who was Vasily Lebedev-Kumach?

Vasily Ivanovich Lebedev-Kumach Moscow, 5 August [O.S. 24 July] 1898 — 20 February 1949 was a Soviet Russian poet and lyricist.

Vasily was the son of shoe maker. He went on to work in the print department of the Revolutionary Military Council, moving on to ROSTO. He attended Moscow State University. He adopted the nickname Komuch, a name for a variety of red calico cloth used to make red armbands for the revolution. In time the nickname was added to his surname.

His satirical verses published in such papers as Rabochaia gazeta, Krest’ianskaia gazeta, Gudok, and Krokodil led to his growing popularity.

He wrote numerous songs, the most famous being probably Священная война, Песня о Родине and Как много девушек хороших, later immortalized as the Argentine Tango song Serdtse by Pyotr Leshchenko. He worked closely with the composer Isaak Dunayevsky.

He was also one of the first persons to use the term blat in print, when Krokodil published the poem Blat-not.