Tchaikovsky (song) Stanisław Moniuszko, Witold Maliszewski and Leopold Godowsky are actually Polish, not Russian, but all three were born in what was then part of the Russian Empire. Ira Gershwin began his career writing lyrics for his brother George Gershwin. Ira, the more self-effacing of the Gershwin brothers, was concerned that music publishers might think that George had chosen him as lyricist on the basis of nepotism rather than talent, so Ira originally chose to write lyrics under the pseudonym "Arthur Francis" (derived from the names of his other brother Arthur and his sister Frances). The song was originally a nonsense poem
Ira Chernus Ira Chernus Ira Chernus (born October 29, 1946) is a journalist, author, and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his Ph.D. in Religion from Temple University, specializing in the history of rabbinic Judaism. His academic writing now focuses on the foreign policy of US presidents. He has published books on Dwight Eisenhower and George W. Bush and is currently writing a book on Franklin D. Roosevelt. As a journalist, he has written extensively on peace, war, foreign policy, and nationalism in the United States, as well as the Israel-Palestine conflict and U.S. Middle East