Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva was the darling of her formidable father. It would seem that a girl born in the family of a man who led a huge country, destined for a brilliant fate. But in reality, everything turned out differently. The life of Stalin’s daughter turned out to be a complete adventure that had nothing to do with the fate of the offspring of high-ranking political figures of the Soviet Union.
Birth
Svetlana was born in Leningrad on the last day of the winter of 1926. She was the second child in the marriage of Joseph Stalin with Nadezhda Alliluyeva. In addition to her, the “leader of all times and peoples” and his wife grew up son Vasily. The girl also had a brother, Jacob, whom his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, gave birth to his father (he died in German captivity during the war).
Alliluyeva’s life after mother’s suicide
In prosperity, which others could only dream of, grew up Stalin's daughter Svetlana. The biography of her childhood was overshadowed by the early death of her mother, who committed suicide when the girl was 6 years old. They concealed from Svetlana the true cause of her mother’s death, informing her that she died on the operating table during an attack of acute appendicitis. But, as Alliluyeva herself later recalled, the mother simply could not stand the humiliation and insults from her high-ranking husband. After her suicide, Svetlana and Vasily were virtually orphans, because Joseph Vissarionovich was too busy with state affairs and did not have enough time to educate his offspring.
Sveta grew up surrounded by numerous nannies and governesses. A personal driver drove her to classes. She studied well at school, knew English. After the outbreak of the war, she and her brother Vasily were evacuated to Kuibyshev. The girl’s life was boring. She was forbidden to walk, make friends with neighboring children, talk with strangers. The only entertainment for Svetlana was the films that she watched on a home movie projector.
First love
Basil, unlike his sister, did not want to be bored. His father was rarely at home, and the young man, taking advantage of his absence, often had noisy parties. Among the acquaintances of his brother, one could meet famous artists, singers and athletes at that time. At one of these parties, 16-year-old Svetlana met with 39-year-old screenwriter and actor Alexei Kapler. Stalin's daughter fell in love with him. The biography of this woman will continue to be full of novels, but she will never forget her first adult love. A solid age difference did not bother either the girl or her chosen one. Alexey was incredibly beautiful and enjoyed success with women. By the time he met Svetlana, he managed to get a divorce twice. His ex-wives were famous Soviet actresses.
Young Light struck Kapler with her erudition and adult reasoning about life. He was a mature man and understood that an affair with the daughter of the “leader of the peoples” could end badly for him, but there was nothing he could do about his feelings. Although Sveta was always on the heels of a personal bodyguard, she managed to escape from his pursuit and wander along the quiet streets with her lover, attend the Tretyakov Gallery, theatrical performances, and closed film sessions at the Cinematography Committee with him. In her memoirs, Svetlana Iosifovna wrote that there were no close relations between them, because in the Soviet Union sex before marriage was considered a shame.
Stalin became aware of the daughter's first adult feeling very soon. The Secretary General of the USSR immediately disliked Kapler, and in the life of the actor, troubles began. He was repeatedly called to the Lubyanka and subjected to interrogation for many hours. Since it was impossible to judge Kapler for his love affair with Svetlana, he was accused of espionage in favor of the UK and sent to Vorkuta labor camp for 10 years. For the girl herself, this novel ended with several weighty slaps in the face from a strict father.
First marriage
A further biography of Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva is connected with her studies at Moscow State University. After graduation, she entered the Faculty of Philology, but, having completed her first year, under the pressure of her father, she transferred to the historical. The girl hated history, but was forced to submit to the will of the pope, who did not consider literature and writing activities as worthy occupations.
In her student years, Svetlana married Grigory Morozov, her brother’s school friend. The girl then turned 18 years old. Stalin was against this marriage and categorically refused to see his son-in-law. In 1945, a child was born to a young couple, who was named Joseph. Svetlana’s first marriage lasted only 4 years and, to Stalin’s great joy, fell apart. As Alliluyeva said in one of her interviews, Grigory Morozov refused to protect himself and wanted her to give birth to ten children. Svetlana was not going to become a mother-heroine. Instead, she planned to graduate. Over the years of marriage with Morozov, the young woman had 4 abortions, after which she became ill and filed for divorce.
Marriage at the insistence of the father
In 1949, the daughter of Joseph Stalin, Svetlana Alliluyev, married again. This time her husband chose her husband. He was the son of the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Andrei Zhdanov, Yuri. Before the wedding, young people did not have a single date. They got married because Stalin wanted it so. Yuri officially adopted the son of Svetlana from his first marriage. A year later, Alliluyeva gave birth to a daughter, Catherine, and then filed for divorce. Joseph Vissarionovich was dissatisfied with such a trick of Svetlana, but he could not force her to live with an unloved person. The USSR Secretary General realized that his daughter would no longer obey him, and reconciled with her rebellious character.
Life after father's death
In March 1953, the "leader of all peoples" was gone. After the death of his father, Svetlana was given his savings book, which accounted for only 900 rubles. All personal belongings and documents of Stalin were taken from her. But the woman could not complain about the government’s lack of attention to herself. She had a good relationship with Nikita Khrushchev, with whom she studied at the university. The place of work of Svetlana since 1956 was the Institute of World Literature, where she studied books of Soviet writers.
Well, what did Svetlana's daughter of Stalin do next? Her personal life in the 50s was replenished with another marriage. This time, the choice of Alliluyeva was the Soviet African scientist Ivan Svanidze. The life together lasted from 1957 to 1959 and ended, as in previous cases, by divorce. The spouses did not have common children. To brighten up her loneliness, Svetlana started short-term novels. At this time, the list of her lovers was supplemented by the Soviet writer and literary critic Andrei Sinyavsky and the poet David Samoilov.
Escape to the West
In the 60s, with the onset of the Khrushchev "thaw," the fate of Stalin's daughter changed dramatically. Svetlana Alliluyeva met in Moscow and Indian citizen Brajes Singh and became his common-law wife (she was not allowed to enter into an official marriage with a foreigner). The Hindu was seriously ill and died at the end of 1966. The woman, using her connections in the government, asked the Soviet government to allow her to take her husband's ashes to her homeland. Having received permission from the member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee A. Kosygin, she went to India.
Being away from the Soviet Union, Svetlana realized that she did not want to return home. For three months she lived in Singh's ancestral village, after which she went to the American Embassy in Delhi and asked the United States for political asylum. Alliluyeva’s unexpected trick caused a scandal in the USSR. The Soviet government automatically enrolled her in the list of traitors. The situation was aggravated by the fact that at home Svetlana had a son and a daughter. But the woman did not think that she had abandoned them, because, in her opinion, the children were already quite old and could well live on their own. By that time, Joseph had already managed to get his own family, and Catherine was in her first year at the university.
Turning into Lana Peters
Alliluyeva failed to leave India directly to the States. In order not to spoil the already strained relations with the Soviet Union, American diplomats sent a woman to Switzerland. For some time, Svetlana lived in Europe, and then moved to America. In the West, Stalin's daughter was not in poverty. In 1967, she published a book, 20 Letters to a Friend, in which she talked about her father and her own life before leaving Moscow. Svetlana Iosifovna began to write it back in the USSR. This book became a worldwide sensation and brought the author about $ 2.5 million in revenue.
Living in faraway America, Svetlana tried to arrange a personal life with the architect William Peters. After her marriage in 1970, she took her husband's surname and shortened her name, becoming just Lana. Soon, the newly made Mrs. Peters had a daughter, Olga. Madly in love with her American husband, Svetlana invested almost all of her money in his projects. When her savings were over, the marriage broke up. Alliluyeva later realized that his sister had wise to marry her Peters, confident that the “Soviet princess” should have many millions from her father. Realizing that she had miscalculated, she did everything so that her brother divorced. After the dissolution of the marriage in 1972, Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva (photo with William Peters is presented below) retained her husband's name and remained alone with Olga. The main sources of her income were writing and donations from charitable organizations.
Alliluyeva returns to the Union
In 1982, Svetlana moved to London. There she left Olga in a Quaker boarding school and went to travel the world. Unexpectedly for all, a woman returned to the USSR in 1984. She later explained the reason for this decision by the fact that Olga needed to be given a good education, and in the USSR it was provided free of charge. Soviet authorities greeted the fugitive kindly. She was restored citizenship, given housing, a car with a personal driver, and a pension. But the woman did not like living in Moscow, and she moved to her father’s homeland in Georgia. Here Alliluyeva was granted royal living conditions. Olga began to attend school, take Russian and Georgian language classes and engage in equestrian sports. But life in Tbilisi did not bring Svetlana joy. She failed to restore damaged relations with children. Joseph and Catherine were offended by their mother because she abandoned them almost 20 years ago. She could not find understanding among the relatives of Stalin's daughter Svetlana. Her biography contains information that in 1986 she and her youngest daughter again emigrated to America. This time there were no problems with the departure. Gorbachev personally ordered the daughter of the “leader of the peoples” to be freely released from the country. Returning to the States, Alliluyeva forever refused Soviet citizenship.
Re-emigration and sunset of life
How and where did Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva live after her second departure from the USSR? Returning to the States, an elderly woman settled in the town of Richland (Wisconsin). She completely stopped communicating with her son Joseph and daughter Catherine. Soon Olga began to live separately from her and earn a living on her own. First, Svetlana Iosifovna rented a separate apartment, then moved to a nursing home. In the 90s, she lived in an almshouse in London, then again left for the USA. Alliluyeva spent the last years of her life in a nursing home in the American city of Madison. She died of cancer on November 22, 2011. In her dying order, Alliluyeva asked to be buried under the name of Lana Peters. The place of her burial is unknown.
Children of Svetlana Iosifovna
85 years old, the daughter of Stalin lived in this world. The biography of this woman will be incomplete, if not to mention how the fate of her three children has developed. Alliluyev's eldest son Joseph devoted his life to medicine. He was engaged in cardiology and wrote many scientific papers on heart ailments. Joseph Grigoryevich did not like to tell reporters about his mother; he was in a bad relationship with her. Lived 63 years. He died of a stroke in 2008.
The daughter of Svetlana Iosifovna Ekaterina works as a volcanologist. Like her older brother, she was very offended by Alliluyeva when she left for the West, leaving the children alone. Ekaterina Yurievna prefers not to answer questions from journalists about her mother, claiming that she never knew this woman. In order to hide away from increased attention from the press and special services, the daughter of Alliluyeva left for Kamchatka, where she still lives today. Leads a closed life.
The youngest daughter, Olga Peters, became Alliluyeva’s late child. She gave birth to her at the age of five. As an adult, Olga changed her name to Chris Evans. Today she lives in the USA, works as a seller. The woman practically does not speak Russian. Like her older brothers and sisters, Olga did not have a relationship with her mother.
Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva was able to live a long and bright life. The biography with photos presented in the article allowed readers to find out many interesting facts about her fate. This woman was not afraid of scandals, public opinion and condemnation. The daughter of the “leader of the peoples” knew how to love, suffer and start life anew. She could not become a good mother for her children, but she never suffered from it. Svetlana Iosifovna did not tolerate when she was called the daughter of Stalin, therefore, once in the West, she said goodbye to her old name forever. But, having become Lana Peters, she remained for the whole world a "Soviet princess."