Vasily Lebedev-Kumach is a famous poet who is the author of words to a large number of songs popular in the Soviet Union. In 1941, he was awarded the Stalin Prize of the second degree. He worked in the direction of socialist realism, his favorite genres were satirical poems and songs. It is considered one of the creators of the special genre of the Soviet mass song, which must be imbued with patriotism. Examples of such works included the "March of happy guys" ("Easy on the heart from a cheerful song ..."), "Song of the Motherland" ("My country is wide my dear ..."), "Moscow in May" ("Morning colors tender light ... "). Often collaborated with directors, wrote lyrics for songs that sound in famous Soviet paintings, and was repeatedly accused of plagiarism.
The biography of the poet
Vasily Lebedev-Kumach was born in Moscow in 1898. His father, Ivan Nikitich Kumach, was a poor shoemaker, and his mother, Maria Mikhailovna Lebedeva, was a dressmaker. At the time of the birth of the hero of our article, his father was 28 years old and his wife was 25. The real name of the hero of our article is Lebedev, he took the creative pseudonym Lebedev-Kumach much later.
He received secondary education at Moscow gymnasium No. 10. Lebedev-Kumach turned out to be a capable student, so he studied at the gymnasium for free, on a scholarship allocated by the historian Pavel Vinogradov, a well-known medievalist, author of works on medieval estates in England, the origin of feudal relations in Italy, essays on theory rights.
In 1917, an important event took place in the biography of Lebedev-Kumach: he graduated from the gymnasium with a gold medal, which opens up many ways for further education.
In the same year, the hero of our article enters the Moscow University of History and Philosophy, but the October Revolution takes place, followed by a civil war, so he is unable to graduate from the university.
Labor activity
Vasily Ivanovich Lebedev-Kumach began working relatively early. One of its first official places of employment was the bureau press of the administration of the Revolutionary Military Council, as well as the military department of AgitROST.
After that, he began to work in various periodicals. From 1922 to 1934 he was a full-time employee of the editorial board of the magazine "Crocodile", he constantly wrote various works for cinema and pop, which we will discuss in more detail below.
In the Writers Union
In 1934 he became a member of the Union of Writers of the Soviet Union, in addition, it is considered one of the founders of this creative union, which stood at its origins. In 1938, Lebedev-Kumach became a deputy of the Supreme Council, and in 1939 joined the Communist Party.
When the Great Patriotic War began, he served as a political worker in the Navy, and he regularly worked in the newspaper "Red Fleet". After the war he quit the rank of captain of the first rank.
In the last years of life
Vasily Ivanovich Lebedev-Kumach died early enough, he died in February 1949. The poet was only 50 years old.
As contemporaries and researchers of his biography noted, the health of the hero of our article was greatly shaken in the 1940s. He had several heart attacks at once, and in 1946 he admitted in his personal diary that the creative crisis had also begun. This was a black line in the biography of Lebedev-Kumach, as the poet noted that he was suffering from the grayness of his own life and mediocrity. The wealth and glory that surrounded him ceased to delight and satisfy.
Death
After some time, he noted that sooner or later all the secret becomes apparent, noting that he means frivolity, servility, unclean methods of work and hacking.
The hero of our article was buried in the Novodevichy cemetery. An obituary published in the newspaper Pravda noted that the poet Lebedev-Kumach donated works of deep and simple form to the treasury of Russian literature, which became an important part of modern socialist culture.
Creation
The hero of our article published his first poems in 1916 in a small metropolitan magazine called Hermes. These were translations of the ancient Roman poet Horace, as well as their own poems on ancient subjects.
At the very beginning of his work, Lebedev-Kumach mainly wrote satirical short stories, poems and feuilleton. It was with this set of genres that he began cooperation with the magazines and newspapers Gudok, Poor Poor, Peasant Newspaper, Rabochaya Gazeta, Krasnoarmeets, and a little later with Crocodile.
Also in the 1920s, separate collections of the writer were published under the name "Tea in a saucer", "Divorce", "Protective color", "From all volosts", "People and affairs", "Sad smiles".
Many Lebedev-Kumach writes texts for pop artists, in particular for the Soviet propaganda theater "Blue Blouse", amateur groups.
Songwriting
The real glory to the hero of our article comes when songs on the verses of Lebedev-Kumach begin to sound in Soviet films. He especially succeeds in collaborating with the director Grigory Alexandrov.
In 1934, the comedy "Funny Guys" was released on the screens of the country. This is Alexandrov’s first musical comedy, lyrics for songs are written by Lebedev-Kumach, and music is written by Isaac Dunaevsky.
The picture represents the adventures of the musical and talented shepherd Kostya Potekhin performed by Leonid Utesov. He is mistakenly mistaken for a fashionable overseas guest performer; he also makes a real sensation in the capital's music hall, becoming the conductor of a jazz orchestra. An ordinary domestic worker Anuta, played by Lyubov Orlova, makes a career as a singer.
In 1936, Lebedev-Kumach’s songs were played in the comedy Circus, which Alexandrov was filming with Isidor Simkov. This time, the action takes place in the 1930s in the Soviet Union. The American circus attraction "Flight to the Moon" comes on tour. The main star of the Marion Dixon program, which is operated and blackmailed by the creator of the room, German Franz von Kneissitz, who knows about her "skeletons in the closet", is very popular.
In 1938, another collaboration was released - the comedy Volga-Volga, in which Lyubov Orlova again played the main role. This time, the picture tells about the fate of a small troupe of provincial artists who travel to Moscow for an amateur art contest on a wheeled motor ship along the Volga. Most of the movie scenes unfold just on board this ship.
Mass song
Lebedev-Kumach is considered one of the founders of such a popular future genre as the Soviet mass song. In addition to the compositions already listed at the very beginning of the article, “Moscow May” (“Morning paints the walls of the ancient Kremlin with gentle light ...”) of 1937, the composition “Life became better, life became more fun”.
In 1939, Lebedev-Kumach wrote "The Anthem of the Bolshevik Party", and in 1941 Alexandrov wrote music for one of his most famous poems - "The Holy War." This is a patriotic song written by the hero of our article shortly after the start of World War II. She became a kind of anthem of the defenders of the motherland, who fought against the Nazi invaders. The song is famous for its amazing combination of melodic hymns and the formidable treads of the march.
"Holy war"
The text of the Holy War was published on June 24, 1941, just two days after Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union, and was simultaneously printed in The Red Star and Izvestia. After its publication, Aleksandrov wrote music, and he did it in chalk on a blackboard, because there was simply no time to print notes and words. Musicians and singers copied them into their notebooks, only one day was allotted for the rehearsal of the recording of the composition.
On June 26, the Red Banner Ensemble of the Red Army Song and Dance of the USSR first performed this song at the Belorussky Train Station. However, until mid-October, the "Holy War" by Lebedev-Kumach did not spread widely, as it was considered too tragic a work. It refers not to the speedy victory that everyone promised then, but to the deadly battle. Only after the Germans occupied Rzhev, Kaluga and Kalinin, the Holy War began to be broadcast daily on the All-Union radio immediately after the battle of the Kremlin chimes every morning.
Get up, the country is huge
Get up to the mortal battle
With fascist power in the dark
With a damned horde.
May the fury be noble
Boils like a wave
There is a people's war
Holy war!
Like two different poles,
In everything we are hostile.
We fight for light and peace
They are for the kingdom of darkness.
The song became popular among the troops, at a difficult moment it supported morale, especially during exhausting and unsuccessful defensive battles. After the war, it became one of the most frequently performed and beloved compositions of the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Soviet Army.
During the war, Vasily Ivanovich wrote many poems, almost every day his new patriotic works appeared in newspapers.
Accusations of plagiarism
Lebedev-Kumach is a Soviet poet, who, perhaps, was most often accused of plagiarism. In particular, the professor of music history of the Moscow Conservatory Levashev writes about a large number of borrowings in the work of the hero of our article.
For example, he claims that the songwriter stole the stanza for “Moscow of May” from Abram Paley, and the text of the song performed in the film “Sailors” from Vladimir Tan-Bogoraz.
From the same article it is known that in 1940 Fadeev convened a Plenum of the Board of the Writers' Union after receiving official complaints. It presented 12 evidence of theft, but after the call of some influential official, things were hushed up.
Levashev also wrote that the author of the poem "Holy War" is not Lebedev-Kumach, but a literature teacher from Rybinsk, Alexander Bode. It is believed that he wrote it during the First World War.
They tried to establish authorship of the Holy War in court. Themis recognized the information about plagiarism as untrue. Largely because the conclusions of experts who accused the hero of our article of theft, relied only on indirect sources of information. The granddaughter of the poet appealed to the court. The decision was made in 1999.
Reviews about creativity
Lebedev-Kumach was one of the most famous and sought-after Soviet poets. In 1941, critic Becker wrote that he was able to convey with surprising accuracy the sense of youth that distinguishes all people of the Stalin era, and also calls him the creator of the genre of a cheerful and cheerful song.
At the same time, Fadeev, who was one of the leaders of the Union of Writers of the USSR, had a negative attitude not only to the work of Lebedev-Kumach, but also to himself as a person. He openly regarded Vasily Ivanovich as a cowardly fittest. As an example, I often talked about the case that during the battle for Moscow Lebedev-Kumach tried to escape from the city. To do this, he brought to the station two cars of things that he could not load anywhere.
The literary critic Wolfgang Kazak also reacted negatively to him, writing that the poet’s songs depend on party slogans, are imbued with cheap idealization and tendentious optimism. At the same time, they remain primitive in terms of vocabulary with a banal rhyme and content, empty epithets.
A family
The personal life of Lebedev-Kumach was not easy. He married in 1928, having moved with his family to a large apartment in the area of the Belorussky railway station.
Moreover, it was said that the poet took the bride away from his colleague in the workshop, the artist Konstantin Rotov, with whom they worked together in the Crocodile magazine. Once the company together went on a trip to the south, there Vasily Ivanovich fell in love with Kirochka.
But after a few years, Lebedev-Kumach's wife went to her chosen one, who returned from the camps. And she settled with him in a large apartment in the center of the capital, and sent Vasily Ivanovich himself to live in the country. According to rumors, he had a relationship with Lyubov Orlova.
At the end of his life's journey, he was left without a Lebedev-Kumach family. He spent the last two years at a summer cottage in the Moscow Region in the company of a cat and his beloved dog. All this time he worked on his autobiography.