Childhood and youth
Claudia Shulzhenko was born on March 24, 1906, in the city of Kharkov. The family of Ivan Ivanovich Shulzhenko, who served as an accountant in the railway department, and his wife had two children. Klava and her brother Kolya lived with their parents in the wing of a small house on Vladimirskaya Street.
Klavdiya Shulzhenko in her youth | One homeland
The girl's father played wind instruments and sang solo in his free time. Amateur concerts and performances were popular then. Ivan Ivanovich performed with an amateur artistic ensemble, and for the neighbors the family organized theatrical performances in the yard, in which children also participated, and little Klava selflessly sang and played.
Klavdiya Shulzhenko in her youth | One homeland
The girl studied at the gymnasium, but music and singing did not delight her. Claudia preferred literature, read the poems of Russian poets, learned them by heart and recited them to her friends.
The parents sent their daughter, who dreamed of the theater stage, to study music at the Kharkov Conservatory, with Professor N.L. Chemizov. Nikita Leontyevich instilled faith in the young debutante in her singing talent, telling her that she was given a voice by nature.
Early years and first performances of songs
Members of the girl’s family were involved in creative activities. Claudia's father worked as an accountant, but in his free time he loved to play a wind instrument and sing solo.
From time to time he performed with an amateur orchestra in front of the public, young Shulzhenko was delighted with the pleasant baritone of Ivan Ivanovich. Neighbors from all streets gathered in their yard when the Shulzhenko family performed plays and concerts.
Little Klava admired silent film actresses and dreamed of connecting her life with this type of art. Over the years, this desire has only strengthened. At the gymnasium, the girl received true pleasure from studying and reciting poems, and she was also excellent at French.
At the same time, the father saw his daughter exclusively in music, despite her disdain for her own talent. It is unknown how Claudia’s fate would have turned out if not for Nikita Chemizov, a teacher at the Kharkov Conservatory and professor. Her parents sent her to him for training, after which the musician touched the girl’s heart with the words that her voice was natural, you just need to develop and improve it to achieve success.
Dreams about the theater
The girl was delighted with her father’s beautiful baritone, but from an early age she dreamed of the theater stage. Silent film stars made an indelible impression on Claudia, but she loved the theater even more. Her father often took her with him to performances at the local drama theater, where Nikolai Sinelnikov then served as director. At the age of 15, young Claudia and her friend came to Sinelnikov “to become an actress.”
Klavdiya Shulzhenko in her youth | Ruspekh
During the audition, the girls sang several songs and played a short sketch. By the way, young Isaac Dunaevsky accompanied the girlfriends. The director liked Shulzhenko, and he enrolled her in the troupe. The young actress received episodic roles. Thus, Klavdia Ivanovna sang in the choir in the operetta and portrayed the deceased Nastasya Filippovna in the 4th act of “The Idiot”. According to the actress’s father, who attended this performance, she came out quite convincingly.
Klavdiya Shulzhenko | Russian news portal
Then there were other roles, often associated with song performances; Shulzhenko sang in clubs and in other theaters after the performances ended. Klavdia Ivanovna firmly decided to connect her life and biography with the theater. Her life at that time was scheduled minute by minute. In the morning she went to a rehearsal with Sinelnikov, then studied singing and music at the conservatory, took lessons in ballet choreography and basic dance, and in the evening she played in plays.
By the way, it is Sinelnikov who fans of Claudia Ivanovna’s work should be grateful to for her bright, soulful and soulful singing. “You must play the song and at the same time perform all the roles in it,” the director instructed the young actress.
First successes
Everything changed in 1924, when the famous singer Lydia Lipkovskaya came to Kharkov on tour. The girl plucked up courage and came to the opera diva’s hotel. She listened to several songs and was delighted. Lipkovskaya advised the singer to change her repertoire to a lyrical one, as this would reveal her talent even more clearly.
Then chance brought Claudia Ivanovna together with the young composer Pavel German. He himself approached her after the performance and offered to sing the songs he had composed. So her repertoire included “Note”, “Mine No. 3”, “I Don’t Regret”, “Bricks”. The verses for the songs “Cigarette Girl and Sailor”, “Red Poppy”, “On a Sleigh” were written for Claudia by the artist of the Krasnozavodsk Drama Theater Breitingham, and the music was composed by Yuri Meitus.
Singer career
In 1928 the debut took place at the Mariinsky Theater, and in 1929 at the Moscow Music Hall. The capital's audience listened to her songs with bated breath, and the flurry of applause continued for a long time.
Shulzhenko worked at the Leningrad Music Hall, sang two songs in the play “Conditionally Killed” to the music of Shostakovich. The singer collaborated with Skomorovsky’s jazz orchestra in the 1930s. Her repertoire included the songs “Andryusha”, “Hands”, “Mama” and others. Klavdia Shulzhenko's songs of that period were openly lyrical and at one time they were even banned from being performed for political reasons.
Klavdia Ivanovna began performing folk Ukrainian, Russian, Spanish, and Latin American songs. “Chelita” and “Simple Girl”, in the wake of promoting the friendship of peoples, completely suited the government in terms of political aspects, but the public perceived them as songs about peers, about love, friendship and youth. Critics scolded her for being melodramatic, but people loved her unconditionally; queues lined up for Shulzhenko’s first gramophone records.
In 1939, the singer became a laureate of a pop artist competition, her records are produced in large quantities, and her photos are published in the magazine “Soviet Art”; a jazz orchestra was organized in Leningrad especially for Klavdia Ivanovna.
When the war began, Shulzhenko was on tour in Yerevan. Klavdia Ivanovna and her husband joined the army, and their jazz orchestra received front-line status. The artists gave more than 500 concerts during the war, performing in besieged Leningrad, on the Road of Life, on the front line, under shelling. Two musicians from Shulzhenko's troupe died in Leningrad from exhaustion.
In 1942, after a performance, Mikhail Maksimov approached Klavdia Ivanovna and offered to perform a song of his own composition. It was the legendary "Blue Handkerchief". Shulzhenko’s soulful performance, popular motif and soulful lyrics made this song famous and truly popular.
Klavdiya Shulzhenko at the front | One homeland
In 1943, Klavdia Shulzhenko’s jazz orchestra toured the Caucasus and Central Asia; starting in the summer of 1945, the singer began performing solo. The discography of Claudia Ivanovna Shulzhenko (including recordings released during the singer’s lifetime) includes about two dozen records. Her repertoire includes hundreds of songs, collaborations with famous composers and musicians, singers and performers. The performer’s most favorite songs were “Waltz about a Waltz”, “Silence”, “Friends and Fellow Soldiers”, “Letter to Mother”, “School Waltz” and others.
"Simple girl"
Klava was born in Kharkov in 1906. The girl inherited musical talent from her father. He worked as an accountant, and in his free time he played a wind instrument in an amateur orchestra and enjoyed performing at concerts not only as a musician, but also as a solo singer.
The girl received a good education, graduating from the Drashkovskaya city gymnasium. At the same time, she took private vocal and music lessons from professor at the Kharkov Conservatory Nikita Chemizov. Klava took her first steps on stage in her native Kharkov. Then she moved to Leningrad and began performing in the city music hall. The general public recognized Shulzhenko in 1936 - it was then that the first gramophone recordings of songs performed by the artist were made: “Chelita” and “Simple Girl”.
In 1940, Shulzhenko and her husband, musician Vladimir Coralli , created a jazz orchestra and began to tour extensively around the country. The outbreak of war in the summer of 1941 finds the couple on a trip. At that moment, Claudia was most worried about her son Igor, who was visiting his grandmother in Kharkov. The Germans were already approaching the city. The singer was returning to Leningrad by train, passing through Kharkov. They agreed that the grandmother would bring the boy to the station and during the stop, Claudia would be able to put her son in her carriage. But at the moment when the train approached Kharkov, there was a German air raid. The station was bombed, and Shulzhenko's train passed through Kharkov without stopping. She wanted to jump out of the carriage, but the doors were tightly closed.
Returning to Leningrad, Shulzhenko did not find a place for herself. Imagine her happiness when a day later, alive and healthy, Igor appeared on the doorstep of the house. It turned out that the Raikin . They were among the last who managed to evacuate the city before the Germans occupied it. Shulzhenko’s colleagues found out that she was unable to pick up her son and took him with them. Until the end of her days, Klava thanked God for saving Igor. And she said to herself that God saved her during the war, because how many times she was bombed at the front.
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Personal life
The first and only official husband of Claudia Ivanovna Shulzhenko was an artist from Odessa, entertainer, musician Vladimir Coralli. Their marriage lasted from 1930 to 1955, in 1932 the couple had a son, Igor. The reason for the separation of the spouses was jealousy.
Klavdiya Shulzhenko with her husband and son | FMdon
In 1957, Shulzhenko met Georgy Epifanov, a cameraman who had been in absentia in love with the legendary singer for many years. He wrote letters to her, signing with his initials. At the time of the meeting, Klavdia Ivanovna was 50 years old, Georges was 12 years younger.
Klavdiya Shulzhenko - a great singer with an obstinate character
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Blonde girl Klava Shulzhenko was born on March 24, 1906 in the family of an accountant. Klava adored theater since childhood. She was sure that she would certainly become an actress.
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At the age of 17, I even went to a show at the Kharkov Drama Theater - I so wanted to shine on stage. But at the show she decided not to read any monologues or dialogues, but simply sing.
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“Unharness the horses, boys...” cried the blond girl and danced wildly at the same time. The Arts Council decided to give the girl a chance. True, she was not offered big roles in the city theater.
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But one day, under the patronage of Klava, she ended up at the Kharkov Conservatory. Professor Nikita Chemizov listened to the young talent and rendered a verdict: “Natural talent.”
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So Klavdiya Shulzhenko retrained from an actress to a singer. First, small concerts, then the staff of the Leningrad stage, music hall... They started talking about Shulzhenko in the Soviet Union.
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Klavdia Shulzhenko. Leningrad Front. 1941
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blue scarf
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Perhaps her career would have turned out differently if the Great Patriotic War had not begun on June 22, 1941. Shulzhenko was offered to go to the rear, but she refused. On the contrary, the girl voluntarily wrote a statement about her desire to join the Soviet army. With the front-line jazz orchestra, Klavdia Ivanovna traveled to many trenches and dugouts.
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During the siege of besieged Leningrad, Shulzhenko sang her famous “Blue Handkerchief” at more than 500 concerts.
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They said that Klavdia Ivanovna gladly put on a military uniform and went out to sing in front of the soldiers. She saw radiant, young, hopeful eyes in front of her, but somehow Shulzhenko noticed that every time she appeared the military public was somewhat disappointed. In the end, she was finally told the reason for the listeners’ dissatisfaction - it turns out that the soldiers each time hoped that the popular singer would come out to them not in trousers and a tunic, but in some beautiful dress worthy of her talent. Shulzhenko was very happy with such criticism - she was madly in love with all kinds of outfits.
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There is even such a legend: when Shulzhenko once again sang in front of the soldiers, a terrible shelling began from the sky. The singer was ordered to fall to the floor and cover her head with her hands. She did this, but first she grabbed her suitcase with concert props and fell on it, protecting the dresses that her beloved military audience and herself liked so much - everyone knew that Klavdia Shulzhenko often spends all her fees on dresses, perfumes and jewelry.
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Hard temper
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In general, Claudia Ivanovna’s character was always complex, and with age its complexity increased. Her first husband, Odessa musician-coupletist Vladimir Coralli, whom she met in the 1930s, no matter how much he loved her, left the family.
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Claudia Shulzhenko and Vladimir Coralli
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Claudia and Vladimir married in Kharkov in May 1930, the singer took the double surname Shulzhenko-Kemper. From the beginning of the thirties until the war, the creative duo Klavdiya Shulzhenko and Vladimir Coralli successfully toured the country.
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In those years, he was the main breadwinner of the family. Soon Shulzhenko and Coralli had a son, Igor.
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By the mid-thirties, Coralli's career as a coupletist and phrase-writer was practically over. Joking on stage became simply dangerous, and Vladimir completely switched to his wife. Shulzhenko began to experience a real rise in popularity. Her songs were released on records, concerts were held to thunderous applause.
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At the same time, there was an affair with pianist Ilya Jacques. Coralli was jealous, but managed to save the family, threatening his wife to take his son and give him to his Odessa grandmother.
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The war made us forget about family dramas, the couple volunteered and began giving concerts at the front. The songs sung by Shulzhenko during the war years became a real legend. With the support of her husband, she gave more than 500 concerts in front of the military.
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The name Shulzhenko saved her husband’s life. While visiting his mother's grave, he ran into a deserter who was trying to shoot Coralli. The man let the victim go after learning that this was the husband of a famous singer.
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Divorce
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In the post-war years, Shulzhenko became a real pop star. The popular singer performed wartime songs and new hits; there were simply countless concerts.
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Georgy Epifanov and Klavdiya Shulzhenko met when he was 39 and she was 50 years old, and threw themselves into this late love, like into a pool - headlong. By that time, Shulzhenko and Coralli, who had lived together for twenty-five years, had already raised a son and had grandchildren. And then in 1956 the divorce happened. Why? Some say Coralli cheated on his wife with a young dancer. Others claim that it was the husband who was tired of his wife’s infidelities and did not forgive her for her affair with Epifanov. But the divorce still took place.
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Offended by his wife, Coralli decided to divide everything he had acquired in half—every detail. The angry singer coldly suggested that her ex-husband share her earrings at the same time, one for each. In the end, he exchanged the three-room apartment and turned it into a communal apartment, moving another family in with his ex-wife. The son already had his own family, and he lived separately, so Klavdia Ivanovna was left completely alone.
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Late love
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But fate gave this incredible woman another chance to become happy; another man appeared in her life.
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Claudia and Georgy Epifanov
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But Shulzhenko never officially got married a second time, and Coralli never married again.
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The second husband, Georgy Epifanov, was her longtime fan, who fell in love with Shulzhenko’s work literally from a young age - Georgy was 12 years younger than Claudia, he collected all her records.
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And now it’s post-war time, 1957, she’s 50, he’s 38. Who was the head of the family? Of course, George. He always assured everyone that Klava was much younger than him. At least, she always felt like this next to him, he was her stone wall, protected, cherished, cherished.
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But the second husband also could not stand it one day and left the singer for several years, although before that he had been waiting for reciprocal love from Shulzhenko for many years. True, they later reunited...
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They say that Klavdia Ivanovna became so obstinate that sometimes it was impossible to work with her. Then the director of the Variety Theater came up with a cunning move: he invented a new vacancy in the theater - a fired employee.
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Each such employee worked in the team for only a few days until his main duty was completed - until Klavdiya Ivanovna Shulzhenko yelled at him and fired him. After such dismissals, Shulzhenko felt much better, and her character became not so unbearable.
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Everyone idolized the great Claudia Ivanovna, but at the end of her life the legendary singer lived on a modest pension. She sold almost all her jewelry, all her paintings, and antiques in order to spend her old age with dignity. Shulzhenko could not part with only the piano, which the great composer Dmitry Shostakovich once lost at cards.
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Many knew about Shulzhenko’s plight, but many also knew that she would never accept any handouts or help - she was too proud. They say that only Alla Pugacheva managed to cheat and leave food and money in Klavdia Ivanovna’s house.
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At the end of her life, Klavdia Ivanovna no longer appeared on stage; she was ill for a long time and was in hospitals.
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Shulzhenko died on June 17, 1984, and in 1996 Vladimir Coralli left this world. According to the will of the Odessa coupletist, he was buried next to his beloved woman, Claudia Shulzhenko.
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Death
In recent years, the actress lived in Moscow, in a separate apartment that she inherited at the end of her life. Being retired, she remained true to her habits, as in her youth, preferred French perfumes, did not know how to save money, did not want to part with the last antique things, although she had already sold most of them long ago.
Klavdiya Shulzhenko in recent years | Pesnyafet
Claudia Shulzhenko dreamed of visiting France, the grave of the legendary Edith Piaf, with whom she was compared in terms of strength and depth of talent. However, she was not released, and the singer toured only in Germany, Poland and Hungary.
Klavdiya Shulzhenko acted in films in episodic roles and performed songs for the comedy film “On Vacation.” In 1981, her memoirs “When You Ask Me...” were published.
Claudia Shulzhenko and Alla Pugacheva | One homeland
The elderly Soviet pop star was often visited by young musicians, singers, and artists, but Klavdia Ivanovna did not accept money from them, she only took gifts. Surprisingly, only Alla Pugacheva managed to deceive the vigilance of a proud and talented woman. When leaving, she slowly hid the bill under a napkin, and Klavdia Ivanovna was then surprised, thinking that she herself had forgotten it there.
Memorial plaque to Klavdiya Shulzhenko | One homeland
The brilliant performer died on June 17, 1984. Claudia Shulzhenko was buried in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Together with the people
The Great Patriotic War found Shulzhenko in Yerevan. She could have remained in evacuation, but instead returned to her native Leningrad and gave 500 concerts in the besieged city and among the troops defending the Northern capital. During these years, Shulzhenko’s calling card was “The Blue Handkerchief.” In 1943, she was invited to record a song at the Recording House in Moscow.
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They planned to send the record to the front. In a room that was not heated in winter, we had to warm the microphone with our own heat. Having performed the song with difficulty, Shulzhenko was about to leave, when suddenly a young girl ran up to her. It was a camera operator who became so emotional while listening to the song being performed that she burst into tears. Tears got on the wax and ruined the record. A “marriage” happened, which Shulzhenko could rightfully be proud of. Her singing had such an impact on people.
Interesting Facts
- Klavdia Ivanovna refused to come to the New Year's party with Stalin's son, saying that it was too late to change plans a few hours before the New Year and her friends were waiting for her.
- Shulzhenko was the first Soviet actress to appear on stage in a trouser suit; she adored outfits and exquisite perfumes. Klavdia Ivanovna managed to save her French toiletry case with perfume even during the bombings in Leningrad.
- The singer knew her worth and was not afraid of the authorities. When she was invited to be awarded the order not in the Kremlin, but in another hall, she refused the award. One day Furtseva made her wait for her audience, and Klavdia Ivanovna, angry, left, asking her to tell her that “the minister was poorly brought up.”
