Клавдия Шульженко | de

Клавдия Ивановна Шульженко (English: Klavdiya Ivanovna Shulzhenko; 24 March 1906, Kharkov — June 17, 1984, Moscow) was the most popular female singer of the Soviet Union before the rise of Alla Pugachova's star in the 1970s. Shulzhenko started singing with jazz and pop bands in the late 1920s. She rose to fame in the late 1930s with her version of Sebastian Yradier's La Paloma, subsequently covered by Pugachova. In 1939, she was awarded at the first all-Soviet competition of pop singers. During World War II, Shulzhenko performed about a thousand concerts for Soviet soldiers in besieged Leningrad and elsewhere. The...