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Like most children of high-ranking Soviet officials, Svetlana was raised by a nurse and only occasionally saw her parents. Her mother, Nadezhda Alliluyeva (Stalin's second wife), died on November 9, 1932, when Svetlana was six. Nadezhda's death was officially ruled as peritonitis resulting from a burst appendix; various other theories are that the cause was suicide, or murder on the orders of Stalin, or that she was killed by Stalin himself.
Svetlana fell in love at age 16 with a Jewish filmmaker, Alexei Kapler. Stalin vehemently disapproved of the romance, and found a pretense to sentence Kapler to ten years in the labor camp of Vorkuta in Siberia.
At 17, she fell in love with a fellow student at Moscow University, Grigori Morozov, also Jewish. Her father grudgingly allowed the couple to marry, although he made a point of never meeting the bridegroom. After the birth of a son Joseph in 1945, the couple divorced in 1947Events January January 1 British mines nationalized January 1 Nigeria gains limited autonomy January 1 The Canadian Citizenship Act went into effect January 3 Proceedings of the United States Congress are televised for the first time. January 10 United Na.
Svetlana's second husband was a close associate of Stalin's, Yuri Zhdanov (son of his right-hand-man, Andrei ZhdanovAndrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov ( February 26 [ February 14, Old Style], 1896 August 31, 1948) was a Soviet politician and an ally of Joseph Stalin. Zhdanov joined the Bolsheviks in 1915 and rose through the party ranks, becoming the party leader in Leningr). They were married in 19491949 is the common year starting on Saturday. see link for calendar) Events January-February January 4 RMS Caronia of the Cunard Line departs Southampton for New York on her maiden voyage January 4 February 22 Series of winter storms in Nebraska, Wyoming,, and had a daughter, Ekaterina, in 1950Events January January 5 US Senator Estes Kefauver introduces a resolution calling for examination of organized crime in the USA January 6 The United Kingdom recognizes the People's Republic of China. The Republic of China severs diplomatic relations with, but this marriage also dissolved soon afterward.
After her father's death in 19531953 is a common year starting on Thursday (click on link for the calendar). Events January events January 7 President Harry S. Truman announces the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb. January 13 Marshal Josip Broz Tito chosen President of Yugosl, Svetlana adopted her mother's maiden name and worked as a teacher and translator in MoscowMoscow ( Russian: Moskva capital of Russia, located on the river Moskva, and encompassing 878. The city's population is rapidly increasing, with 11. 2 million inhabitants counted in 2004. The city is in the federal district called Central Russia (which is. In 1963Events January-March January 11 The Whisky A Go-Go night club in Los Angeles, the first disco in the USA, is opened. January 14 George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. January 22 Elysee treaty between France and Germany January 28 Black student Harvey she met an IndiaThe Republic of India is a large multicultural country in South Asia, with a population of over one billion. The Indian economy is the fourth largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, and is the world's second-fastest growing economy.n communist visiting Moscow, Brajesh Singh. He returned to Moscow in 1965, to work as a translator, but they were not allowed to marry. Singh died in 1966 and Svetlana was allowed to travel to India to take his ashes back, for his family to pour them into the Ganges. She stayed there for two months and became immersed in local customs.
On March 6, 1967, after first having visited the Soviet embassy in New Delhi, Alliluyeva went to the U.S. embassy and formally petitioned Ambassador Chester Bowles for political asylum. This was granted; however, owing to concerns that the Indian government might suffer from possible ill feeling from the Soviet Union, it was arranged for her to leave India immediately for Switzerland, via Rome. She stayed in Switzerland for 6 weeks before proceeding to the United States.
Upon her arrival in April 1967, Alliluyeva gave a press conference denouncing her father's regime and the Soviet government. Her intention to publish her autobiographical Twenty Letters To A Friend on the fiftieth anniversary of the Soviet revolution caused a furor in the USSR, and the government there threatened to release an unauthorized version; the publication in the west was therefore moved to an earlier date, and that particular diplomatic problem defused.
Due to the high profile of Alliuyeva's defection, her outspokenness, her connections as daughter of Stalin, etc., the Soviet Union demanded and received from the United States, in December 1967, an assurance that any future Soviet defectors would be debriefed by Soviet officials before being granted asylum.
Alliluyeva became a naturalized citizen of the United States and moved to Spring Green, Wisconsin. Soon afterward married William Wesley Peters, a noted architect, in 1970 and adopted the name Lana Peters. The couple had a daughter, Olga, but the marriage dissolved soon afterward.
In 1982 she moved with her daughter to Cambridge in the UK, and in 1984 returned to the Soviet Union, where she and her daughter were granted citizenship, and settled in Tbilisi. In 1986 Alliluyeva returned to the United States, and later returned back to the UK in the 1990s. She now lives in a retirement home in Wisconsin.