Vasily Lebedev-Kumach
Vasily Ivanovich Lebedev-Kumach was a Soviet 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 Kumach, a name for a variety of red cloth used to symbolize 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 also wrote songs for the film Late for a Date.
He wrote numerous songs, the most famous being probably Священная война, Песня о Родине, Гимн партии большевиков 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.
