Pyotr Leshchenko

Pyotr Konstantinovich Leshchenko (Russian: Пётр Константинович Лещенко; 2 June 1898 – 16 July 1954), a singer in the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, 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. He was born as a citizen of the Russian Empire in Isayevo village of the Kherson Governorate (now part of Odessa Oblast, Ukraine) into a poor and illiterate peasant family. During the First World War, his mother and stepfather moved to Kishinev (Bessarabia Governorate), which was later united with Romania (today's Moldova). 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 guitar and the balalaika.

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 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 Britain. It was at Riga, 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 romances, 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. 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.

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