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Stalin's only daughter dies at 85

Stalin's daughter Lana Peters dies in US of cancer

The only daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin has died in the US at the age of 85.

Svetlana Alliluyeva, also known as Lana Peters, died of colon cancer at a care home in the state of Wisconsin last Tuesday, officials say.

Her defection from the Soviet Union in 1967 was a propaganda coup for the US. She wrote four books, including two best-selling memoirs.

But she said she could not escape the shadow of her father.

'Little sparrow'

When Peters arrived in the US, she said she had come for the "self-expression that has been denied me for so long in Russia".

She said her defection was partly motivated by the Soviet authorities' poor treatment of Brajesh Singh, an Indian communist whom she had a relationship with.

Although she later referred to Singh as her husband, the two were never allowed to marry.

Peters went to India in 1966 to spread Singh's ashes, but instead of returning to the Soviet Union she walked into the US embassy to seek political asylum.

She burned her passport, denouncing communism and her father, whom she called "a moral and spiritual monster".

She graduated from Moscow University in 1949, initially working as a teacher and translator.

Peters was married three times and had two daughters and a son.

Her first memoir, Twenty Letters to a Friend, was published in 1967 and made more than $2.5m (£1.6m).

She took the name Lana Peters upon marrying architect William Wesley Peters in the US.

The couple settled in central Wisconsin and had a daughter, Olga, before divorcing in 1973. Lana Peters is photographed on a rural road outside of Richland Center, Wis., Tuesday, April 13, 2010. Svetlana Alliluyeva said people could not understand her past

She returned to the Soviet Union briefly in the 1980s, renouncing the US, but left again after feuding with relatives.

In an interview in 1990 with Britain's Independent newspaper, Peters said she had no money and was living with Olga in a rented house.

Stalin, who died in 1953, is deemed responsible for the deaths of millions of his countrymen.

Peters - who was six years old when her mother took her own life - was once close to her father, who called her his "little sparrow". But they grew distant in his final years.

He sent her first love, a Jewish filmmaker, to Siberia.

Her brother, Jacob, died in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II when her father refused to exchange him for a German general, and her other brother, Vasili, died an alcoholic, aged 40.

Lana Peters bemoaned the constant association with her father.

"People say, 'Stalin's daughter, Stalin's daughter,' meaning I'm supposed to walk around with a rifle and shoot the Americans," she once said.

"Or they say, 'No, she came here. She is an American citizen.' That means I'm with a bomb against the others.

"No, I'm neither one. I'm somewhere in between."

While Peters denounced her father's regime, she also blamed other communist party leaders for the Soviet Union's policy of sending millions to labour camps.

Speaking to the BBC in 1990, Peters said that life in the USSR became much easier for everyone, herself included, after Nikita Khrushchev came to power.

She revealed that Khrushchev showed her his speech to the 20th party congress in advance, so she wouldn't be shocked. In this address, three years after Stalin's death, Khrushchev denounced his predecessor as a brutal despot.

Interviewed in Cambridge, Peters said "When my mother left us, he [Stalin] was left completely alone. And I think what came next, in the late 30s and after the war in the 40s - I think that was a result of his complete loneliness on top of the world. Nobody would argue with him anymore."

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Stalin's Daughter Dies in Wisconsin

Nov. 29, 2011 -- The only daughter of brutal Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin -- who defected to the United States in 1967 and became a vocal critic of the Soviet Union -- died of colon cancer at age 85 on November 22 in Richland Center, Wisconsin.

Born Svetlana Stalina on Feb. 28, 1926, she led an epic and complex life that ended in obscurity and poverty after decades of wandering.

Her two name changes reflected her shifting fortunes. She took her mother's last name, Alliluyeva, after Stalin's 1953 death and fall from grace.

She then became Lana Peters in 1970 after her defection and brief marriage to American architect William Wesley Peters.

But she could never escape her father's shadow.

In a 2010 interview with the Wisconsin State Journal, Peters said of her father: "He broke my life."

"Wherever I go," she said, "here, or Switzerland, or India, or wherever -- Australia, some island -- I always will be a political prisoner of my father's name."

Asked if she thought Stalin loved her, Peters said yes, adding, "I looked like his mother."

"He was a very simple man," she told the paper. "Very rude. Very cruel. There was nothing in him that was complicated. He was very simple with us. He loved me and he wanted me to be with him and become an educated Marxist."

Known as "the little princess" of the Kremlin, she was a child celebrity in the Soviet Union, where thousands of babies were named Svetlana in her honor.

Stalin showered his daughter with presents and called her his "little sparrow" but became abusive and distant in her teenage years when he was consumed by World War II, the Times reported.

At 17, she fell in love with an older man -- a Jewish writer and filmmaker -- and a disapproving Stalin had him sent to a labor camp in Siberia.

She succeeded in defying her father's objection to her next love -- a fellow student at Moscow University she married in 1945 and divorced in 1947 after they had one child, Iosif.

Her next marriage, in 1949, was to Yuri Zhdanov, the son of Stalin's right-hand man Andrei Zhdanov. They had one daughter, Yekaterina, but soon divorced.

She lost most of her privileges after Stalin's death, and Soviet officials refused to let her marry Brijesh Singh, an Indian Communist who was visiting Moscow. They did, however, reluctantly give her permission to take his ashes home to India after he became ill and died in early 1967.

Once in India, Peters evaded Soviet agents and sought asylum at the US embassy in New Delhi.

She denounced the Soviet regime at a news conference upon her arrival in New York and earned more than $2.5 million from her autobiography, "Twenty Letters to a Friend," according to the Times. She recounted her defection in a second memoir, "Only One Year," published in 1969.

Peters returned to Moscow in November 1984 -- where she denounced the West and said she had been a pet of the CIA -- after officials began to rehabilitate Stalin's legacy and allowed her to communicate with the children she left behind.

She returned to the United States in April 1986 and disavowed her anti-Western statements. Friends told the Times she spent much of her life wandering from the United States to England, France and even a convent in Switzerland.

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Stalin's daughter Svetlana dies in Wisconsin

CHICAGO — The only daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, Svetlana Peters, who denounced communism after a Cold War defection worthy of a novel, has died in Wisconsin, authorities said on Monday.

She died November 22, age 85, from colon cancer, according to Benjamin Southwick, the county attorney in Richland County, Wisconsin. He said the county coroner had confirmed her death.

Svetlana had settled in central Wisconsin after marrying architect William Peters, an apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright, in 1970. They lived in Spring Green, near Madison, the site of Wright's Taliesen workshop, and had a daughter, Olga, then divorced.

Her 1967 Cold War-era defection from the Soviet Union while in India involved the CIA, who helped her get to the United States where she was met by reporters upon her arrival. She denounced communism and her father and his policies, calling him "a moral and spiritual monster."

Josef Stalin died in 1953 after three decades of brutal rule and was deemed responsible for the deaths of millions.

She wrote two best-selling memoirs, including "Twenty Letters to a Friend" that earned her about 1 million British pounds, or roughly $1.7 million.

But in a rare interview in 1990 with the Independent newspaper, she said she had no money and no income from her books and was living with Olga in a shared rented house at the time. Advertise | AdChoices

She had left two children from her first two marriages in the former Soviet Union. Both marriages ended in divorce.

A documentary filmmaker, Lana Parshina, found her in a retirement home in Wisconsin and interviewed her for "Svetlana About Svetlana," a film about her complicated life that the New York Times said was "worthy of a Russian novel."

In an interview last year with the Wisconsin State Journal, she sought to retract a comment in the film in which she said she regretted coming to the United States and wished she had stayed in a neutral country, like Switzerland.

"I am quite happy here," she said.

"Wherever I go," she said, "here, or Switzerland, or India, or wherever. Australia. Some island. I always will be a political prisoner of my father's name."

She was once close to her father, who called her his "little sparrow," the New York Times reported. She was known as Svetlana Alliluyeva and compared to U.S. actress Shirley Temple, with thousands of Russian children named Svetlana after her.

She was 6 years old when her mother died from suicide, though she was told she had been ill. Her brother was killed during the Second World War with Germany when her father refused to exchange him for a German general, the Times reported.

She studied history, not her chosen field of art, at her father's direction. He sent her first love, a Jewish filmmaker, to Siberia. She became a translator and taught literature and English.