Svetlana alliluyeva autobiography in five short

Today Kirsty is joined by fellow History Fox Michael Ng to talk about Svetlana Allilueva’s epistolary memoir Twenty Letters to a Friend.

Allilueva, the daughter of Iosif Stalin, wrote her memoir in 1963 and published it after her defection to the US in 1967.

Michael

I was hesitant when Kirsty mentioned she had a gift for me several months ago.

She said that it was a book which I would appreciate although it dealt with a topic she has greater knowledge of than I.  Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana, wrote a series of  letters which describe her childhood and her relationship with her, at the end, estranged father.

The letters give us a picture of her family life and portray Stalin as a father, a distracted grandfather, and also a man who spent so much of his life ‘at work’  The letters show a happy childhood with a mother who loved her children, uncles and aunts who would spoil their nieces and nephews,