Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva: from the Kremlin to a nursing home
Svetlana with her father and brother Vasily
Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva lived a long, unusual and vibrant life. She managed to live in many countries, survived five husbands, left memoirs and numerous interviews. However, her identity is still controversial and controversial. So what kind of person was she really?
Childhood and youth
Svetlana was born in 1926. In 1932, a six-year-old girl experienced an event that left an imprint on her entire future life and undoubtedly influenced her character and psyche - her mother, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, committed suicide after a quarrel with her husband.
At the age of 16, Svetlana begins an affair with 40-year-old screenwriter Alexei Kapler. Upon learning of this, Stalin became furious. Kapler is arrested, accused of "anti-Soviet propaganda" and given five years in the camps.
Alexey Kapler and young Svetlana
Two years later, barely reaching adulthood, Svetlana marries a classmate of her brother Vasily Grigory Morozov. Stalin also did not like the new choice of his daughter.
he said to his daughter.
Svetlana fulfilled her father's condition: indeed, Stalin never saw Grigory Morozov during the entire marriage.
In the spring of 1945, Svetlana gave birth to a boy, named Joseph after his grandfather. However, her happy family life did not last long. Already in 1948, not without the intervention of Stalin, the marriage was officially annulled. Gregory's father was sent into exile. However, he himself was not hurt.
Svetlana's son Joseph (1945–2008)
The following year, Svetlana marries the son of Andrei Zhdanov, Yuri. However, this marriage did not last long: after three years, the couple divorced.
The third marriage of Svetlana with Ivan Svanidze lasted even less - only two years (1957-1959). It is noteworthy that both parents and Ivan's sister were shot during the Stalinist repressions, Ivan himself spent several years in exile after the war.
Death of the father
In 1953, an event occurred that Svetlana both expected and feared at the same time. Her father died. She was personally present at his death and 10 years later described this moment in detail in her book of memoirs "Twenty Letters to a Friend":
The death of her father, of course, was hard for Svetlana. But on the other hand, the 27-year-old girl lost that excessive guardianship that weighed on her all her life. No one else dictated to her how to build her personal life and how to behave.
Time for a change
From the point of view of everyday life, nothing has changed in Svetlana's life - she still continued to live in privileged conditions, not caring about where to earn a piece of bread. She was left with a dacha, an apartment and was assigned a pension of 4000 rubles.
However, significant changes were taking place in the life of the country at that time. First, Beria was arrested and shot - the most likely, as it seemed to many, Stalin's heir. Khrushchev, who came to power in 1956, at the XNUMXth Congress of the CPSU, reads a secret report on the exposure of Stalin's personality cult. When this report was given to Svetlana to read, she only said:
De-Stalinization begins. Svetlana herself took part in it. If until 1957 she bore the name of Stalin, now she takes the name of her mother - Alliluyeva. Moreover, he does this absolutely voluntarily, unlike his brother Vasily, who spent seven years in prison for “anti-Soviet propaganda”, and who, after his release, was forcibly deprived of his former surname. In the future, once again getting married, she will change her surname again. However, in history will enter exactly as Svetlana Alliluyeva.
In the early 1960s, another de facto spouse of Svetlana became an Indian citizen Brajesh Singh, who was much older than her and by that time already had health problems. In 1966, Singh dies, bequeathed to cremate his body and scatter the ashes over the Ganges River in India.
Emigration
Fulfilling the request of the deceased, Svetlana flies to India, where the Politburo released her for two months. Already in India, she had the idea not to return to the USSR. First, Svetlana asks Indira Gandhi for permission to stay in the country, but she, not wanting to spoil relations with the Soviet Union, refuses. Then Svetlana decides to take a desperate step. She takes her passport, a small suitcase with her things and arrives at the American embassy in Delhi, where she declares that she is Stalin's daughter and wants to emigrate to America. She later justified her emigration as follows:
Svetlana Alliluyeva in exile
Naturally, such a move caused a sensation in all the world's media. In April 1967, Svetlana arrives in the United States, where journalists from all over the world follow her relentlessly. Apparently, she did not think at all about what her children felt at that moment - 22-year-old Joseph and 16-year-old Katya, who remained in the USSR.
In the same year, in the USA, Svetlana publishes her book "Twenty Letters to a Friend", which she wrote back in 1963 in the USSR. The book instantly becomes a bestseller and brings the author, according to the most conservative estimates, about $ 2,5 million.
In the US, Svetlana is getting married for the fifth time. Now her husband is the architect William Peters. In 1971, their daughter Olga was born (who later changed her name to Chris Evans). However, Svetlana also did not live long with her fifth and this time her last husband, and they are getting divorced next year.
Chris Evans, daughter of Svetlana and granddaughter of Stalin
For the next 12 years, she leads a free life, travels to many countries, and for some time lives in the UK. However, in 1984 she again performs an amazing and unpredictable act - this time she decides to return to the USSR.
Return and second emigration
Even more surprising is the fact that the Soviet authorities gladly accept her and give her such honors, as if Stalin is still alive. However, the children abandoned to her 17 years ago never forgave Svetlana. Her daughter Ekaterina refused to even meet her mother, and a few months later she wrote her a short letter:
For about two years, Svetlana has been living in Georgia, after which she again decides to leave the USSR - this time forever. Soon after her departure, she needed money, and in 1992 Stalin's daughter ended up in a nursing home in Richland, Wisconsin, under the name Lana Peters. Everyone turned away from her: friends, relatives and even her own children.
One of the last photos of Svetlana. 2011 Wisconsin Nursing Home
And only journalists occasionally visited her to interview. She gave her last interview in 2008. It was remembered mainly by the fact that Svetlana refused to speak Russian with journalists from Russia, saying that she was not Russian. She died in 2011 at the age of 85.
As you can see, this woman lived an unusual life. Until the end of her days, she was never able to find happiness in her personal life. She could not choose a place where she would feel happy, constantly moving, changing countries and cities. Someone will say that she herself was to blame for all her troubles and failures. Or perhaps Svetlana just wanted to find herself throughout her life, but she never found it.
- Andrey Sarmatov
- https://ru.wikipedia.org
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