Career
Shulzhenko started singing with jazz and popular bands in the late 1920s. She rose to fame in the late 1930s with her version of Sebastian Yradier"s Louisiana Paloma. In 1939, she was awarded at the first all-Soviet competition of popular singers.
During World World War II, Shulzhenko performed about a thousand concerts for Soviet soldiers in besieged Leningrad and elsewhere.
The lyrics of one of her prewar songs, The Blue Headscarf, were adapted so as to suit wartime realities. Another iconic song of the Eastern Front (World World War II), Let"s Smoke, was later used by Vladimir Menshov in his Oscar-winning movie Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears.
On April 10, 1976, Shulzhenko performed to enraptured audience in the Column Hall of the House of Unions in what would become her most famous concert. She, as traditional popular singer, was named People"s Artist of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics in 1971.
