Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva (
née
The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...
Stalina; 28 February 1926 – 22 November 2011), later known as Lana Peters, was the youngest child and only daughter of
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
leader
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
and his second wife
Nadezhda Alliluyeva. In 1967, she became an international sensation when she
defected to the United States and, in 1978, became a
naturalized
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-national of a country acquires the nationality of that country after birth. The definition of naturalization by the International Organization for Migration of the ...
citizen. From 1984 to 1986, she briefly returned to the Soviet Union and had her Soviet citizenship reinstated.
She was Stalin's last surviving child.
Early life
Svetlana Stalina was born on 28 February 1926.
As her mother was interested in pursuing a professional career, Alexandra Bychokova was hired as a
nanny
A nanny is a person who provides child care. Typically, this care is given within the children's family setting. Throughout history, nannies were usually servants in large households and reported directly to the lady of the house. Today, modern ...
to look after Alliluyeva and her older brother
Vasily (born 1921). Alliluyeva and Bychokova became quite close, and remained friends for 30 years, until Bychokova died in 1956.
On 9 November 1932, Alliluyeva's mother shot herself. To conceal the suicide, the children were told that she had died of
peritonitis
Peritonitis is inflammation of the localized or generalized peritoneum, the lining of the inner wall of the abdomen and covering of the abdominal organs. Symptoms may include severe pain, swelling of the abdomen, fever, or weight loss. One pa ...
, a complication from
appendicitis
Appendicitis is inflammation of the Appendix (anatomy), appendix. Symptoms commonly include right lower abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, fever and anorexia (symptom), decreased appetite. However, approximately 40% of people do not have these t ...
. It would be 10 years before they learned the truth of their mother's death.
In 1933, Alliluyeva and
Vasily began attending ; while Vasily was transferred to a new school in 1937, Alliluyeva would stay until 1943 when she graduated the 10th grade. At the school, Alliluyeva was given no special treatment, and was regarded simply as another student.
Several other relatives of Alliluyeva were killed in the aftermath of the
Great Purge
The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...
, including her aunt Anna, and Anna's husband,
Stanislav Redens, who was shot in January 1940.
On 15 August 1942,
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
saw Alliluyeva in Stalin's private apartments at the Kremlin, describing her as "a handsome red-haired girl, who kissed her father dutifully". Churchill says Stalin "looked at me with a twinkle in his eye as if, so I thought, to convey 'You see, even we
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
have a family life.' "
At the age of 16, Alliluyeva fell in love with
Aleksei Kapler, a Jewish Soviet filmmaker who was 38 years old. Her father vehemently disapproved of the relationship and Kapler was sentenced to five years of exile in 1943 to
Vorkuta and was then sentenced again in 1948 to five years in
labor camps in
Inta.
Marriages
Alliluyeva was first married in 1944 to , a student at
Moscow University's Institute of International Affairs. Her father did not like Morozov, who was Jewish, though he never met him. They had one child, a son
Iosif, who was born in 1945. The couple divorced in 1947, but remained close friends for decades afterwards.
Alliluyeva's second marriage was arranged for her to
Yuri Zhdanov, the son of Stalin's right-hand man
Andrei Zhdanov and himself one of Stalin's close associates. The couple married early in 1949. Alliluyeva lived with Zhdanov's family at this time, though felt herself dominated by his mother, Zinaida, which was something Stalin had warned her of. Yuri was devoted to Zinaida, and busied himself with Party work, so did not spend a lot of time with Alliluyeva. In 1950, Alliluyeva gave birth to a daughter, Yekaterina. The marriage was dissolved soon afterwards.
In 1962, she married
Ivan Svanidze, the nephew of Stalin's first wife,
Kato Svanidze, soon after meeting him for the first time since his parents' arrest in 1937. They went against Soviet policy by marrying in a church. Svanidze was not healthy, owing to difficulties of his internal exile in Kazakhstan, and the marriage ended within a year.
From 1970 to 1973, she was married to American architect
William Wesley Peters
William Wesley Peters (June 12, 1912 – July 17, 1991) was an American architect and engineer, apprentice to and protégé of his father-in-law Frank Lloyd Wright.
Early life
Wes, as he was known to friends and associates, was born in Terre Hau ...
(a son-in-law of
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...
), with whom she had a daughter, Olga Peters (later known also as Chrese Evans).
After the death of Stalin
After
her father's death in 1953, Alliluyeva worked as a lecturer and translator in
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
. Her training was in History and Political Thought, a subject she was forced to study by her father, although her true passion was literature and writing.
In a 2010 interview, she stated that his refusal to let her study arts and his treatment of Kapler were the two times that Stalin "broke my life", and that Stalin loved her but was "a very simple man. Very rude. Very cruel."
When asked at a New York conference about whether she agreed with her father's rule, she said that she was disapproving of a lot of his decisions but also noted that the responsibility for them also lay with the Communist regime in general.
Relationship with Brajesh Singh
In 1963, while in hospital for a
tonsillectomy, Alliluyeva met
Kunwar Brajesh Singh, an
Indian Communist visiting Moscow. The two fell in love. Singh was mild-mannered and well-educated but gravely ill with
bronchiectasis and
emphysema
Emphysema is any air-filled enlargement in the body's tissues. Most commonly emphysema refers to the permanent enlargement of air spaces (alveoli) in the lungs, and is also known as pulmonary emphysema.
Emphysema is a lower respiratory tract di ...
. The romance grew deeper and stronger still while the couple were recuperating in
Sochi
Sochi ( rus, Сочи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-Сочи.ogg, from – ''seaside'') is the largest Resort town, resort city in Russia. The city is situated on the Sochi (river), Sochi River, along the Black Sea in the North Caucasus of Souther ...
near the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...
. Singh returned to Moscow in 1965 to work as a translator, but he and Alliluyeva were not allowed to marry. He died the following year, in 1966. For her first trip outside the Soviet Union, she was allowed to travel to
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
to take his ashes to his family to pour into the
Ganges
The Ganges ( ; in India: Ganga, ; in Bangladesh: Padma, ). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international which goes through India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China." is a trans-boundary rive ...
river.
In an interview on 26 April 1967, she referred to Singh as her husband but also stated that they were never allowed to marry officially.
Political asylum and later life

Alliluyeva asked to have an official permission to stay in India through the Soviet ambassador,
Ivan Benediktov.
However, her request was not accepted, and instead, she was ordered to return to the Soviet Union.
[ Then, on 9 March 1967, Alliluyeva approached the United States Embassy in New Delhi. After she stated her desire to defect in writing, the United States ambassador ]Chester Bowles
Chester Bliss Bowles (April 5, 1901 – May 25, 1986) was an American diplomat and ambassador, List of governors of Connecticut, governor of Connecticut, congressman and co-founder of a major advertising agency, Benton & Bowles, now part of Publi ...
offered her political asylum
The right of asylum, sometimes called right of political asylum (''asylum'' ), is a juridical concept, under which people persecuted by their own rulers might be protected by another sovereignty, sovereign authority, such as a second country or ...
and a new life in the United States.
Alliluyeva accepted. The Indian government feared condemnation by the Soviet Union, so she was immediately sent from India to Rome. When the Qantas
Qantas ( ), formally Qantas Airways Limited, is the flag carrier of Australia, and the largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations in Australia and List of largest airlines in Oceania, Oceania. A foundi ...
flight arrived in Rome, Alliluyeva immediately traveled farther to Geneva
Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...
, Switzerland, where the government arranged her a tourist visa and accommodation for six weeks. She traveled to the United States, leaving her adult children in the USSR. Upon her arrival in New York City in April 1967, she gave a press conference denouncing her father's legacy and the Soviet government.
After living for several months in Mill Neck, Long Island under Secret Service protection, Alliluyeva moved to Princeton, New Jersey
The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...
, where she lectured and wrote, later moving to Pennington, and then to Wisconsin.
In a 2010 interview, she described herself as "quite happy here n Wisconsin" Her children who were left behind in the Soviet Union did not maintain contact with her. While Western sources saw a KGB
The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
hand behind this, her children claimed that this is because of her complex character. In 1983, after the Soviet government had stopped blocking Alliluyeva's attempts to communicate with her USSR-based children, her son Iosif began to call her regularly and planned to visit her in England, but was refused permission to travel by the Soviet authorities.
She experimented with various religions. Her first book, ''Twenty Letters to a Friend'', caused a worldwide sensation and brought her, some estimate, about $2,500,000. Alliluyeva herself stated that she gave away much of her book proceeds to charity and by around 1986 had become impoverished, facing debt and failed investments.
In 1970, Alliluyeva answered an invitation from Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...
's widow, Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, to visit Wright's winter studio, Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, Arizona
Scottsdale is a city in eastern Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and is part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Named Scottsdale in 1894 after its founder Winfield Scott (chaplain), Winfield Scott, a retired Chaplain Corps (United States ...
. In 1978, Alliluyeva became a US citizen as Lana Peters, and in 1982, she moved with her daughter to Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
in England, where they shared an apartment near the Cambridge University Botanic Garden.
In October 1984, during a time where Stalin's legacy saw partial rehabilitation in the Soviet Union, she moved back together with her daughter Olga, and both were given Soviet citizenship.
The British journalist Miriam Gross with whom Alliluyeva conducted her final interview before moving back from England to the Soviet Union in 1984, described Svetlana's increasingly fragile state of mind in a series of letters she wrote to Gross following the interview:
In April 1986, she again moved back from the Soviet Union to the U.S. with Olga, and after her return denied anti-Western comments she had made while back in the USSR (including that she had not enjoyed "one single day" of freedom in the West and had been a pet of the CIA).[
Alliluyeva, for the most part, lived the last two years of her life in southern ]Wisconsin
Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...
, either in Richland Center or in Spring Green
Spring Green or spring green may refer to:
Colors
* Spring green
** Spring bud, formerly known as spring green
Plants
* Spring greens, edible young leaves of certain plants
* Spring greens (Brassica oleracea), vegetables
Places in the United S ...
, the location of Wright's summer studio Taliesin
Taliesin ( , ; 6th century AD) was an early Britons (Celtic people), Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the ''Book of Taliesin''. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to ...
.[ She died on 22 November 2011 from complications arising from ]colon cancer
Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel ...
in Richland Center, where she had spent time while visiting from Cambridge.
Olga Margedant Peters (b. 21 May 1971), Alliluyeva's daughter with Peters, now goes by the name Chrese Evans and lives in Portland, Oregon
Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...
.[ Her older daughter, Yekaterina, is a volcanologist in Siberia's ]Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively.
Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...
. Alliluyeva's son Iosif, a cardiologist, died in Russia in 2008. Iosif's son Ilya Voznesensky was previously in a relationship with Boris Berezovsky's daughter Elizaveta, with whom he has a son, Savva.
Religion
Alliluyeva was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...
on 20 March 1963. During her years of exile, she experimented with various religions. She then turned to the Orthodox Church and is also reported to have thought of becoming a nun.
In 1967, Alliluyeva found herself spending time with Roman Catholics
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
in Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
and encountered many denominations during her time in the United States. She received a letter from Father Garbolino, an Italian Catholic priest from Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
, inviting her to make a pilgrimage to Fátima, Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...
, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the famous apparitions there. In 1969, Garbolino was in New Jersey
New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
and went to visit Alliluyeva at Princeton. In California, she lived with a Catholic couple, Michael and Rose Ginciracusa, for two years (1976–78). She read books by authors such as Raissa Maritain. While living in Cambridge, on 13 December 1982, the feast of Saint Lucy of Syracuse, Alliluyeva converted to Catholicism
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
.
Works
While in the Soviet Union, Alliluyeva had written a memoir in Russian in 1963. The manuscript was carried safely out of the country by Indian Ambassador T. N. Kaul, who returned it to her in New Delhi. Alliluyeva handed her memoir over to the CIA agent Robert Rayle at the time of her own defection. Rayle made a copy of it. The book was titled ''Twenty Letters to a Friend'' ("Dvadtsat' pisem k drugu"). It was the only thing other than a few items of clothing taken by Alliluyeva on a secret passenger flight out of India. Raymond Pearson, in ''Russia and Eastern Europe'', described Alliluyeva's book as a naïve attempt to shift the blame for Stalinist crimes onto Lavrentiy Beria, and whitewash her own father.
Bibliography
*
*
*
In popular culture
Alliluyeva was portrayed by Joanna Roth in the HBO's 1992 television film ''Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
'' and Andrea Riseborough in the 2017 satirical film '' The Death of Stalin''.
Alliluyeva is the subject of the 2015 biography ''Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva'' by Canadian writer Rosemary Sullivan.
Alliluyeva is the subject of the 2019 novel ''The Red Daughter'' by American writer John Burnham Schwartz.
See also
* List of Eastern Bloc defectors
* List of people granted political asylum
Notes
References
Works cited
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External links
* (donated by Thomas Whitney in 1991)
The Papers of Svetlana Alliluyeva
held at Churchill Archives Centre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alliluyeva, Svetlana
1926 births
2011 deaths
American emigrants to England
American people of Georgian (country) descent
American people of German-Russian descent
American people of Russian descent
American people of Romani descent
American people of Ukrainian descent
Children of Joseph Stalin
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy
Deaths from cancer in Wisconsin
Deaths from colorectal cancer in the United States
Former American Orthodox Christians
Georgian (country) memoirists
Moscow State University alumni
Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
Naturalized citizens of the United States
People from Cambridge
People from Pennington, New Jersey
People from Princeton, New Jersey
People from Richland Center, Wisconsin
Russian Roman Catholics
Soviet dissidents
Soviet emigrants to the United Kingdom
Soviet emigrants to the United States
Soviet memoirists
Soviet women writers
Writers from Moscow
Russian lecturers