He was born as an illegitimate child of the Russian Empire in Isayevo village of the Kherson Governorate (now part of Odessa Oblast, Ukraine) into a poor and illiterate Ukrainian peasant family. During the First World War, his mother and stepfather moved to Chișinău (Bessarabia Governorate), which was later united with Romania (today's Moldova). He was drafted into the Russian army, and attended an officers college in Kiev. After graduating he was sent to the front, and was wounded soon thereafter, recuperating at a military hospital in Chișinău. 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 7-string guitar.