Vasily Ivanovich Lebedev-Kumach (); — 20 February 1949) was a Soviet poet and lyricist.
Vasily was born on 5 August 1898, to a shoemaker. He went on to work in the printing department of the Revolutionary Military Council, moving on to ROSTO. He attended Moscow State University. He adopted the nickname Kumach, a Turkish name for a variety of red cloth used to symbolize revolution. In time the nickname was added to his surname.
Vasily's satirical verses published in such papers as Rabochaia gazeta, KrestâÂÂianskaia gazeta, Gudok, and Krokodil led to his growing popularity. He also wrote songs for the film Late for a Date (1936).
Vasily wrote numerous songs, the most famous being probably áòÃÂÃÂõýýðàòþùýð (Svyaschennaya Voyna, 'The Sacred War'), ÃÂõÃÂýàþ àþôøýõ (A Song About the Motherland), ÃÂøüý ÿðÃÂÃÂøø ñþûÃÂÃÂõòøúþò (Hymn of the Bolshevik Party) and ÃÂðú üýþóþ ôõòÃÂÃÂõú àþÃÂþÃÂøà(Such a lot of nice girls!), later immortalized as the Argentine Tango song Serdtse (áõÃÂôÃÂõ-Heart) by Pyotr Leshchenko. He worked closely with the composer Isaak Dunayevsky. Composer Lyubov Streicher used Lebediv-KumachâÂÂs text for her song "A Simple Soviet Man", which was recorded commercially by pianist Maria Yudina in 1937. He was also one of the first persons to use the term blat (ñûðÃÂ) in print, when Krokodil published the poem Blat-not.