Born in 1926, Svetlana Alliluyeva grew up inside the Kremlin as her father’s power soared along with that of the Soviet Union. Eighty-five years later, she died alone in rural Wisconsin. Revealed here for the first time, the many lives of Joseph Stalin’s daughter form a riveting portrait of a woman who fled halfway around the world to escape her birthright. Svetlana was protected from the horrors that her father inflicted upon Soviet citizens, but she was not immune to tragedy. Her mother committed suicide, and her father’s purges claimed the lives of aunts and uncles; he also exiled her lover to Siberia. After her father’s death, she defected to the United States at the height of the Cold War—leaving behind two children. For a time, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin community, overseen by his controversial third wife, was a second family; Svetlana married a member, and they had a child. But Wright’s widow manipulated their friendship for financial gain, and the marriage disintegrated. Drawing on FBI, CIA, and Russian State Archives, and with the cooperation of Svetlana’s daughter, Rosemary Sullivan has created this masterful biography that places Svetlana in a broader context, without losing sight of her powerfully human story that reveals the heart of a brutal world and offers an unprecedented look at its mastermind.
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"[A] measured, informative biography...fascinating...an admiring portrait of an amazingly adaptable person facing all but insurmountable odds...[and who] refused to let her lineage seal her fate." Janet Maslin, New York Times Book Review
'A tremendously exciting and stimulating biography ... Never have I read a biography that reminded my more of a picaresque novel, with its heroine bouncing like a pinball from one location to another, from one bizarre situation to another ... Her life may have been a mess, but this masterful biography shows that it was her mess, and a magnificent mess, too, in its own particular way' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday *****
'It takes a fine biographer to capture a woman as parti-coloured as this, and Sullivan has produced a delicate, balanced and unforgettably good portrait of a courageous and magnificent woman' Daily Telegraph *****
'What would it mean to be the child of one of the most feared mass murderers in history? Rosemary Sullivan's compelling biography of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin's only daughter, makes an admirable attempt at an answer...The remarkable thing about Stalin's daughter was not that she was imperious, infuriating, batty at times, but that she had survived at all - and survived, as this entertaining book shows, with her dignity and integrity in tact' Sunday Times
'Was Stalin a monster? Oh, yes. The question that threads through this lively intelligent book is a more interesting one, though: can you live with the idea that you are the daughter of a monster?' The Times
'Reading this extensively researched book it is impossible not to feel for a woman who grew up "the political prisoner of my father's name"' Independent on Sunday
'Sullivan controls her widespread canvas and large cast in exemplary fashion. Svetlana was chaotic, exasperating, difficult to the point of impossible - but never boring. She was one of the few credits that you can attribute to Stalin' Book of the Week, Daily Mail
'A biography on an epic scale, with a combination of tragedy and history worthy of a Russian novel. She recreates with clarity and compassion the life of a brave woman' Independent
'A singular story, brilliantly told' Daily Telegraph
'It takes a fine biographer to capture a woman as parti-coloured as this, and Sullivan has produced a delicate, balanced and unforgettably good portrait of a courageous and magnificent woman' Daily Telegraph *****
'What would it mean to be the child of one of the most feared mass murderers in history? Rosemary Sullivan's compelling biography of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin's only daughter, makes an admirable attempt at an answer...The remarkable thing about Stalin's daughter was not that she was imperious, infuriating, batty at times, but that she had survived at all - and survived, as this entertaining book shows, with her dignity and integrity in tact' Sunday Times
'Was Stalin a monster? Oh, yes. The question that threads through this lively intelligent book is a more interesting one, though: can you live with the idea that you are the daughter of a monster?' The Times
'Reading this extensively researched book it is impossible not to feel for a woman who grew up "the political prisoner of my father's name"' Independent on Sunday
'Sullivan controls her widespread canvas and large cast in exemplary fashion. Svetlana was chaotic, exasperating, difficult to the point of impossible - but never boring. She was one of the few credits that you can attribute to Stalin' Book of the Week, Daily Mail
'A biography on an epic scale, with a combination of tragedy and history worthy of a Russian novel. She recreates with clarity and compassion the life of a brave woman' Independent
'A singular story, brilliantly told' Daily Telegraph