
Pyotr Konstantinovich Leshchenko (russian: Пётр Константинович Лещенко; 2 June 189816 July 1954), a singer in the
Russian Empire, and later
Romania, is universally considered "the King of Russian Tango" and specifically known for his rendition of "
Serdtse"—a tango, sung unusually not in
Spanish but in
Russian.
Biography
He was born in the village of Isayevo,
Kherson Governorate (now part of
Odessa Oblast,
Ukraine) into a poor and illiterate Ukrainian peasant family. During the
First World War, his mother and stepfather moved to
Chișinău
Chișinău ( , , ), also known as Kishinev (russian: Кишинёв, r=Kishinjóv ), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Republic of Moldova. The city is Moldova's main industrial and commercial center, and is located in the ...
(
Bessarabia Governorate), which was later united with
Romania (today's
Moldova). He was drafted into the Russian army, and attended an officers college in
Kiev
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
. After graduating he was sent to the front, and was wounded soon thereafter, recuperating at a military hospital in Chișinău. He was proficient in numerous languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, German, and others. In his early childhood, he sang in a church choir and learned how to play the 7-string guitar.
After the war, Pyotr, who had never learned a real trade, worked at various restaurants, serving, dish-washing and performing small theatrical acts. He had a soft
baritone
A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the r ...
voice.
After taking some ballet lessons in Paris, he started performing with his
Latvian wife Zinaida Zakit, a dancer. Their act was a mixture of ballet, folklore dance and European tango, which was so popular it led to tours to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Germany, and Great Britain. It was at
Riga
Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...
, when he improvised
gypsy music and tango singing to make up for the absence of his pregnant wife, that he discovered he could sing in front of an audience. In 1935, he was at the peak of his success. Though he still included old
Russian romance
Russian romance (russian: рома́нс ''románs'') is a type of sentimental art song with hints of Gypsy influence that was developed in Imperial Russia by such composers as Nikolai Titov (1800-1875), Alexander Alyabyev (1787–1851), Alexa ...
s, and even Soviet songs (like "Serdtse", which was originally sung by
Leonid Utyosov) in his repertoire, songs were now composed for him exclusively (with the tango songs turning Argentine in style and arrangement). One of his favourite non-Russian composers was
Jerzy Petersburski, but he also sang work composed by Pavel German,
Konstantin Podrevsky and
Isaak Dunayevsky
Isaak Osipovich Dunayevsky (russian: Исаак Осипович Дунаевский ; also transliterated as Dunaevski or Dunaevskiy; 25 July 1955) was a Soviet film composer and conductor of the 1930s and 1940s, who composed music for operet ...
. Composers who composed certain songs specifically for him included Oscar Strok, Mark Maryanovsky and Yefim Sklyarov. Many lyrics of Leshchenko songs were written by
Boris Fomin.
Leshchenko performed for European nobles and "
White" (anti-Bolshevik) Russian
émigrés at his own "Leschenko" cabaret in
Bucharest (dubbed the "Eastern
Maxim's"). The first part of every performance would typically be dedicated to
gipsy music, but during the second part Leshchenko would dress up in a tuxedo, with a white silk handkerchief and sing and dance Argentine tango.
In the
Soviet Union his work was banned both because he was believed to be a
White émigré (which he was not legally) and because the style (tango and
foxtrot
The foxtrot is a smooth, progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. It is danced to big band (usually vocal) music. The dance is similar in its look to waltz, although the rhythm is in a tim ...
) was deemed
counter-revolutionary. Nevertheless, secretly he was very popular: people would even listen to Radio Tehran to hear his music, '78 records were smuggled into the country from the
Baltics, and specialists would
bootleg his music onto "
ribs" (used
X-ray plates). When during the
Second World War and the subsequent occupation of
Odessa
Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
by the
Romanian army, Leshchenko was finally able to perform in the country he still considered his own, people would queue for hours on end to buy a ticket to one of his Odessa concerts. It was at Odessa that Pyotr met his second wife, Vera Georgievna Belousova, for whom he would later, back in Romania, divorce Zinaida.
After Romania
switched sides in August 1944 and the Soviet army entered Romania, Leshchenko was not arrested, and became the protégé of
general Vladimir Ivanovich Burenin, military commander of the Red Army garrison in Bucharest. Some sources believe this was due to Marshal
Georgy Zhukov being a secret admirer of his music – Pyotr probably thought so, and after the war, wrote many letters to friends in the Soviet Union asking them to contact high-level officials so that he and Vera might be allowed back to the country of their birth.
In 1951, a week after receiving an official letter granting them permission to settle in the Soviet Union, Vera and Pyotr were arrested by the Romanian police. Vera was extradited to the Soviet Union, where she was condemned to forced labour for amongst other things, "marrying a foreigner". Pyotr was detained in a prison near Bucharest, and then was sent to a forced labor camp at the
Danube–Black Sea Canal. Both outlived
Joseph Stalin, but Pyotr died in a prison hospital in
Târgu Ocna on 16 July 1954, without Vera at his side (she had already been released but did not know her husband was still alive). Some friends present when he died claimed his last words were "Friends, I am happy, for I will return to my fatherland! I am going away, but I leave you my heart." Vera died on December 18, 2009, age 86.
In 1988, his 90th birthday was marked by several articles in Soviet newspapers, and several radio shows were dedicated to him at the time.
Notable songs
While most tango dancers around the world only know
Serdtse, on special theme evenings and modern CDs, other songs sung by Pyotr Leshchenko may get a mention. They include: the Argentinian Tangos ''Anikusha'', ''Barselona'', ''Chornye Glaza'', ''Davay Prostimsya'', ''Golubye Glaza'', ''Moyo Poslednee Tango'' (Strok), ''Ne Uhodi'', ''Ostansya'', ''Priznaysya Mne'', ''Studentochka'', ''Skazhite Pochemu'', ''Skuchno'', ''Ty I Eta Gitara'' (both sometimes called "Polish Tangos"), ''Vernulas Snova Ty'', ''Vino Lyubvi'' (Maryankovsky) and ''Zabyt Tebya'', the Gypsy Romances ''Chto Mne Gorye'' and ''Za Gitarnyi Perebor'' and finally the "waltzes" ''Moy Drug'' and ''Pesnya o Kapitane'' (this last one, like Serdtse, with text written by the Soviet poet
Vasily Lebedev-Kumach
Vasily Ivanovich Lebedev-Kumach () Moscow, — 20 February 1949) was a Soviet poet and lyricist.
Biography
Vasily was born August 5, 1898 to a shoe maker. He went on to work in the printing department of the Revolutionary Military Counci ...
)
In popular culture
* In August 2012, Russian production company,
Central Partnership, produced a television drama based on his biography, The series ''
Pyotr Leschenko. Everything That Was...'' stars
Konstantin Khabensky as Leshchenko.
References
*David Macfadyen. ''Songs for Fat People: Jazz Music in the USSR''. McGill-Queens Univ Press, 2002.
Google Books
*
"Я тоскую по Родине", или улица Петра Лещенко
External links
Discography of Pyotr Leshchenko on Russian-Records.com
*the German labe
has published four Pjotr Leschenko CDs
*a contemporary orchestra in Leipzig
recreate the rhythms of Pjotr and his era
"Ruhm und bitterer Tod des Sängers Pjotr K. Leschenko"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leshchenko, Pyotr
1898 births
1954 deaths
Romani musicians
20th-century Romanian male singers
Russian pop singers
Romanian male pop singers
Romanian restaurateurs
Ukrainian pop singers
Tango in Russia
Russian Romani people
Romanian people of Russian descent
White Russian emigrants to Romania
Tango singers
Inmates of the Danube–Black Sea Canal
Prisoners who died in Romanian detention
People from Odesa Oblast
Soviet male singers