International Tribune, Volume 2, Issue 47, December 2-8, 2011
Josef Stalin’s youngest daughter Svetlana died as an American in Wisconsin. She was 85.
Svetlana was born into this world with a silver spoon. Or, at least, it was for a good portion of her life. She was the most adorned little girl who grew up under the arms of one of the most feared men in history. A privileged life for Svetlana was not easy. The shadow of her dark past followed her until the day that she died.
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| Svetlana also known as the "Little Sparrow" with her father. Photo by AP. |
Life certainly does not promise anyone a bed of roses no matter what family lineage one comes from. As the only daughter and the youngest child of Josef Stalin from his second wife, Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva lived a life of loneliness, isolation, and fear caused by the "Man of Steel" himself during his long and tumultuous reign in the Kremlin. Svetlana’s life was beleaguered with numerous personal tragedies, failed romances, and including having to succumb to a realization that perhaps leaving her original world behind could bring justice to her loss and bring some sort of normalcy into her life. The life of the most privileged daughter of the most powerful man in the Soviet Union defected and abandoned everything she had to start anew in a small town in Wisconsin.
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| The Stalin family. From left to right, Vasily Stalin, Andrei, Svetlana, Josef Stalin, Jacob Stalin. Photo by AP. |
Tragedy struck the Stalin family one after another. Svetlana lost almost every member of her family at a very young age. The death of her mother, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, was officially ruled as a burst of appendix although other theories came out as the cause of her death. Many say that she committed suicide and others say that she was shot in sheer cold blood by the nefarious dictator himself. Svetlana had two brothers, Vasily and Jacob. Her eldest and half-brother Jacob was captured by the Nazis in 1941. He could have survived but his father traded his life for the sake of one of his war generals. Jacob eventually died in a German concentration camp. On the other hand, Vasily, the middle child, attempted to commit suicide after an argument with his father regarding his Jewish girlfriend. When the bullet missed his head, Stalin was very upset- and not because of his wrongdoings but because Vasily’s inability to kill himself. "He can't even shoot straight," said the shameful father. Vasily lived up to the age of forty and died because of alcohol abuse.
It gets even worse. One can imagine that having a private life as the daughter of a dictator could be a nightmare. Svetlana’s first love was a Jewish filmmaker Alexei Kapler. Her father disapproved of the romance and Kepler was sentenced to ten years in a labor camp in Siberia. A year later, when Svetlana was 17, she fell in love with Grigori Morozov a fellow student at Moscow University. They married and had a son Joseph in 1945 but divorced two years later. She married her second husband, Yuri Zhdanov in 1949, the year she graduated from Moscow University. They had a daughter, Ekaterina in 1950 but also divorced afterwards.
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| Brajesh Singh. Photo by BBC News India. |
Finally, destiny brought the fate of two lonely hearts; Svetlana met Brajesh Singh in Sochi, the biggest resort city of Russia. Brajesh had everything to sweep a woman off her feet. He was handsome, suave, of a royal Indian lineage from Kalakanker- and above all a communist. There were many Indian Communists who studied in the Soviet Union during this era. The two lived for a long time in Sochi even though marriage was out of the question for both. Brajesh was still married back home and divorce was not very easy during those days. Their relationship lasted worthy of the time to make Svetlana his common wife. And so, the unconventional couple lived happily until Brajesh died of emphysema in October 1966. Because of her true love and devotion to Brajesh, Svetlana traveled to India against all odds to scatter his ashes in the Ganges in accordance with his last will. Both the Communist Party and the Indian Government made Svetlana’s trip politically impossible. At the same time, cultural tradition intervened and played an enormous obstacle to the widow of an orthodox Hindu. In Hindi burial ritual, the wife is expected to follow the dead husband. Hindus sometimes burned the widow along to the decease’s next life. Luckily, Svetlana was exempted from this tradition.
India became a nice retreat for the grieving widow- it was a good environment for someone to reflect. The godless Svetlana started to discover religion. Because of this, she decided to extend her time in India with Brajesh’s family in their palace at Kalakanker. Svetlana reinvented herself and found solace in this mystical journey. According to Svetlana, “It was impossible to exist without God in one’s heart.” Not for long, the Communist Party requested her immediate return to the Soviet Union but Svetlana just could not simply go back in the same limited existence at home. Svetlana took a chance and changed the course of her destiny. After India, life will never be the same for the daughter of Stalin.
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| Svetlana's press conference in New York City. Time & Life Photo. |
The story of the great escape could not have been more dramatic. After her time with Brajesh’s family, she was asked to stay at the Soviet embassy where Ambassador Nikolai Benediktov strongly advised her to return home. The pressure surmounted, it seems like she had no other choice but to go back. Pretending that she was going out to finalize her travel arrangements and pack, Svetlana called a taxi and drove straight to the American Embassy. The American Embassy was close when she arrived. Svetlana begged the security officer in duty to let her in- that she is the daughter of the late Josef Stalin and would like to defect to the United States. In panic, the duty officer rang up Ambassador Chester Bowles and told him that he must come to his office right away to deal with a matter that could not be discussed on the phone. Before you know it, Svetlana was escorted by CIA officers to Switzerland, and then to the United States.
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| Photo by AP |
Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva defected and arrived in the United States in April 1967 at the age of forty one. Upon her arrival, Svetlana gave a press conference denouncing her father's regime and the Soviet government. In front of millions of viewers in New York City, according to Svetlana, “I have come here to seek the self-expression that has been denied me for so long in Russia. I had come to doubt that communism I was taught growing up and believed there weren’t capitalists or communists, just good and bad human beings.”
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| Lana Peters and William Peters. Photo by Alfred Eisens / Time & Life Pictures |
Svetlana wrote two books and became best sellers. Eventually, she settled in Wisconsin. As a patron of the arts and intellectual circle, Svetlana met William Wesley Peters, an American architect and an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright. Svetlana and William were married in 1970 and had a daughter named Olga. Svetlana was sworn in as a naturalized US citizen and changed her name to Lana Peters. The marriage only lasted for 3 years. Shortly after giving birth to Olga, the couple separated.
Lana and Olga traveled all around the United States and for a couple of years stayed in Great Britain. Evidently, Lana was unable to maintain a long-term commitment anywhere or with
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| Lana Peters in one of her rare interviews. |
During her last years, Lana lived in seclusion until her death. Lana Peters died on November 22, 2011 in Richland Center, Wisconsin of colon cancer.
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