Stalin’s Daughter
by Rosemary Sullivan, Fourth ESTATE, £25
Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Joseph Stalin, not only had the courage to defect from Russia but also the ability to describe the experience of growing up in her father’s monstrous shadow. Her book, Twenty Letters to a Friend, published soon after her defection in 1967, became a sensation.
Though she left Russia and ultimately converted to Catholicism, Svetlana could never escape her father’s legacy. Her mother had committed suicide when she was six. Her maternal uncle and his wife were executed by Stalin in the purges of the late 1930s. Her first romantic interest was summarily sent to the gulag for 10 years. Her half-brother was killed by the Nazis during the war and her older brother became an alcoholic.
