Plot World History with Andrey Sidorchik
Historical legends are dearer to ordinary people than the truth of life. It is more interesting for citizens to read history, like a novel, than to face reality, in which everything can be sorted out on the shelves.
Fiction is always more interesting than the truth
The second wife of Joseph Stalin Nadezhda Alliluyeva during the years of perestroika, she was turned into a heroine of either a Shakespearean tragedy, or an ancient Greek myth. A spouse who sees a tyrant in her husband openly challenges him, and then passes away, not wanting to be part of the system created by the person she once loved.
This image has also migrated to Western cinema, where Alliluyeva appears almost as the first victim of Stalin’s terror.
Joseph Stalin with his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva and Kliment Voroshilov and his wife Ekaterina. Photo: Public Domain
Supporters of this version appeal to the revelations of the daughter of Nadezhda and JosephSvetlana Alliluyeva. But there is one serious but: when her mother died, Sveta was only six years old, so she did not have her own clear memories of her parents ‘ relationship, which she honestly admitted herself.
The head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria, with the daughter of Joseph Stalin, Svetlana Alliluyeva. In the background, Stalin. Photo: RIA Novosti
Of course, the death of his wife greatly affected Stalin, but it hardly had anything to do with him as a politician. It is more correct to talk about a great personal tragedy.
Stalin’s first marriage to Ekaterina Svanidze turned out to be short: his wife died, leaving her husband a son, Yakov, who was only six months old. The boy was brought up by his wife’s relatives — Joseph himself plunged headlong into the revolutionary struggle.
Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Photo: Public Domain
I want a “wonderful Georgian”!
In September 1901, the first article of the young Iosif Dzhugashvili was published in the illegal newspaper “Struggle” in Baku. In the same month, in the same place, in Baku, in the family of a revolutionary worker Sergey Alliluyev had a daughter, who was named Nadia.
Family legend said that at the age of two, the girl almost drowned, falling into the sea. But there was a young and brave guy who jumped into the water and saved her. The name of the savior was Iosif Dzhugashvili.
A few years later, the Alliluyevs moved to St. Petersburg. Nadia, like the rest of the children in the family, joined the revolutionary activities of her parents from a young age. She was 16 when Stalin, who had returned from exile, appeared in their house. The girl fell madly in love with the “wonderful Georgian”.
On her father’s side, Nadia had Gypsy roots, and, apparently, she got a very hot temperament from her ancestors. Sergei Alliluyev in the planned novel was not afraid of the age difference of 21 years between his daughter and Stalin, but precisely the fervor of Hope.
But it was almost impossible to stop the girl if she wanted something. When the Civil War broke out and Stalin went to the front, Nadia left with him. In 1919, in the midst of the battles, they married.
Passion and everyday life
Witnesses unanimously admit that there really was a passion between them, and the emotions of Hope were just off the scale. At the same time, the couple saw their family future somewhat differently.
Joseph, who survived the loss of his first wife, spent many years in exile and in illegal apartments, dreamed of family comfort. Nadia was ready to do everything for her beloved, but she was not going to become a housewife completely.
She worked in the People’s Commissariat for Ethnic Affairs, in the secretariat of Lenin, collaborated in the editorial office of the magazine “Revolution and Culture” and in the newspaper “Pravda”.
The conflicts of the first years of Nadezhda and Joseph’s family life had nothing to do with politics. Rather, the age difference affected. Tired in the service, Stalin wanted peace at home, and the energetic Nadia often began to immerse him again in the issues of state construction.
Sometimes the quarrels were generally comic in nature. One day, Joseph simply stopped talking to his wife. Nadia could see that he was offended, but she could not understand what exactly. Then it turned out that out of habit she continued to call him in “you”, and Stalin wanted a loved one to address him in “you”.
Big family
In 1921, a son was born Vasily, then a small child was taken into the family for upbringing.Artem Sergeev, the son of the deceased revolutionary. Then the relatives brought the eldest son of Stalin Yakovto his father in Moscow. Nadezhda was helped to cope with household chores by the servants, but those who knew her at that time write that she herself was a good hostess, despite all the emotionality.
Stalin liked the fact that he had his own house and people who loved him. But how to behave in the home circle, he often did not understand. The rudeness and harshness developed over the years of the revolutionary struggle were sometimes manifested in relations with his wife and children.
But when a daughter was born in 1926, who was named Svetlana, Stalin melted. She became a favorite of her father, who was ready to fulfill any of her whims.
The situation in the family began to escalate again when Sveta was three years old. Nadezhda told her husband that she would continue to pursue her own career. Joseph was against it, but, as we already know, no one could stop Nadezhda when she really wanted something. She became a student of the Faculty of Textile Industry of the Industrial Academy.
Jealousy and illness
Throughout almost the entire life together, there was jealousy in the relationship between Stalin and Alliluyeva. Moreover, it did not come from Joseph at all-firstly, Stalin was sure in the Hope, and secondly, his wife never gave a reason. But she tormented herself with suspicions, which sometimes manifested itself in correspondence.
“I haven’t heard from you yet… Probably, the trip to the quails was carried away or just too lazy to write. …I heard about you from a young interesting woman that you look great, Nadezhda wrote to her husband when he was on vacation in Sochi. Stalin, as he could, tried to dispel all doubts, but he did not do it very well.
In fact, he did not have any affairs on the side. At least, today there is not even indirect evidence of something like this. But Nadezhda continued to be jealous.
It is possible that the reason was not only the temperament, but also the first manifestations of the disease that tormented the woman all the last years of her life. Stalin’s adopted son Artyom told in an interview with the Russian newspaper: “I was 11 years old when she was no longer there. She had wild headaches. On November 7, she brought Vasily and me to the parade. Twenty minutes later, she left & nbsp; & mdash; she couldn’t stand it. She, judging by everything, had an incorrect fusion of the bones of the cranial vault, and in such cases suicide is not uncommon.
The same was said by Nadezhda’s nephew Vladimir Alliluyev: “At my mother’s (Anna Sergeevna) I got the impression that she was driven by headaches. The thing is what. When Alliluyeva was only 24 years old, she wrote in letters to my mother: “I have a hellish headache, but I hope that it will pass.” In fact, the pain did not go away. What she just did not do, as soon as she was not treated. StalinI sent my wife for treatment in Germany to the best professors. Uselessly. I even have a memory from my childhood: if the door to Nadezhda Sergeevna’s room is closed, it means that she has a headache and is resting. So we have one version: she was not able to cope with the wild, excruciating pain anymore.
“Alliluyeva was, in my opinion, a bit of a psychopath at this time”
But what about the conflict on political grounds? It is not documented at all. Moreover, it is clear from the correspondence of the spouses in recent years that they discussed political topics among themselves calmly, without any tension.
& laquo;I will send the book Dmitrievsky & nbsp;& bdquo;About & nbsp; Stalin and & nbsp; Lenin“ & nbsp; (this non-returnee)… I read in the white press about her, where they write that this is the most interesting material about you. Curious? Therefore, I asked her to get it, Nadezhda writes to Stalin. It is clear that we are talking about not the most complimentary material, to put it mildly. But the husbandhe answers quite calmly, without a hint of irritation, and it becomes clear that it was customary in their family to get acquainted with “enemy” literature and discuss it. This does not resemble the relationship of people between whom there is an insurmountable conflict.
November 7, 1932 in the apartment Voroshilovs& nbsp;celebrated the holiday. It was there that the last quarrel between Stalin and Alliluyeva took place. This scene has been described many times, and, as a rule, the authors simply speculated about the circumstances.
There was no denunciation of the tyrant there. Most of all, the story of the person who was directly present at the celebration deserves confidence Vyacheslav Molotov“We had a big company after November 7, 1932, at Voroshilov’s apartment. Stalin rolled up a ball of bread and threw this ball at Egorov’s wife in front of everyone. I saw it, but I didn’t pay attention. As if it would have played a role. Alliluyeva was, in my opinion, a little bit of a psychopath at that time. All this affected her in such a way that she could not really hold herself in her hands. From this evening, she left with my wife,Polina Semyonovna. They walked around the Kremlin. It was late at night, and she was complaining to my wife that she didn’t like it, she didn’t like it. About this hairdresser… Why did he flirt so much in the evening… and it was just like that, he drank a little, a joke. Nothing special, but it worked on her. She was very jealous of him. Gypsy blood».
That is, in fact, there was another domestic conflict on the basis of jealousy. Which, obviously, was aggravated by the headaches that tormented Nadezhda.
Stalin did not understand how serious everything was. As mentioned above, during conflicts, he often preferred to remain silent. And this time he did not understand that his wife had turned into a taut string that could snap at any moment.
& laquo;A toy pistol»
On the night of November 9, 1932, a shot rang out in Stalin’s apartment. Next to the body of Nadezhda, they found a pistol “Walter”, which her brother gave her, Pavel Alliluyev, a Soviet military figure, one of the creators of the Main Armored Vehicle Directorate of the Red Army.
“It’s a toy pistol, I shot it once a year,” Stalin said after the tragedy.
All the stories that a husband could shoot at Nadezhda are not even conspiracy theories, but just fairy tales for an audience ready to consume anything. Even Stalin’s enemies said that for him the death of his beloved wife was a great shock.
He was not used to showing his feelings, but three years later, in one of the conversations, he blurted out: “What about the children, they forgot her after a few days, and she crippled me for my whole life.”
Until his death, Stalin sometimes interrupted the planned affairs and briefly commanded: “Let’s go to Novodevichye!”He came to his wife’s grave and stood for a long time in silence. What he was thinking at that moment, what he remembered, no one will know now.