.In Stalin's Shadow: Svetlana Alliluyeva - HiGu > .USSR | Joseph Stalin | Svetlana Alliluyeva interview | 1980's > .
Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva (28 February 1926 – 22 November 2011), later known as Lana Peters, was the youngest child and only daughter of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and his second wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva. In 1967, she caused an international furor when she defected to the United States and, in 1978, became a naturalized citizen. From 1984 to 1986, she briefly returned to the Soviet Union and had her Soviet citizenship reinstated. She was Stalin's last surviving child.
Svetlana Alliluyeva was born in 1926 to Stalin’s second wife, and grew up with her father’s almost continuous interference in her life as ‘the little princess of the Kremlin’. After Stalin died in 1953 she changed her surname from Stalina to Alliluyeva, her mother’s maiden name, in an attempt to find some independence but found the Soviet government continued to be a powerful force in her life.
A decade later, whilst in hospital for a tonsillectomy, she met and fell in love with Indian Communist Kunwar Brajesh Singh who was also in Moscow for medical treatment. Following Singh’s death in October 1966, she secured permission to take his ashes to India to be scattered in the sacred Ganges River.
Alliluyeva sought permission to stay in India, but after this was refused she visited the United States Embassy in New Delhi. Ambassador Chester Bowles met with her two days before her scheduled return to the Soviet Union and, after not hearing anything in response to his messages to Washington, he arranged for her to board a Qantas flight to Rome just a few hours later. From here she headed to Geneva in Switzerland, where she stayed for six weeks until President Lyndon B. Johnson agreed to allow her to fly to the United States on humanitarian grounds.
Alliluyeva arrived at New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport on 21 April 1967. The sensational defection of Stalin’s only surviving child made international news and four days later, at a press conference in the Plaza Hotel, she denounced the Soviet Communist regime and her father’s leadership. She became a naturalized American citizen in 1978.
A decade later, whilst in hospital for a tonsillectomy, she met and fell in love with Indian Communist Kunwar Brajesh Singh who was also in Moscow for medical treatment. Following Singh’s death in October 1966, she secured permission to take his ashes to India to be scattered in the sacred Ganges River.
Alliluyeva sought permission to stay in India, but after this was refused she visited the United States Embassy in New Delhi. Ambassador Chester Bowles met with her two days before her scheduled return to the Soviet Union and, after not hearing anything in response to his messages to Washington, he arranged for her to board a Qantas flight to Rome just a few hours later. From here she headed to Geneva in Switzerland, where she stayed for six weeks until President Lyndon B. Johnson agreed to allow her to fly to the United States on humanitarian grounds.
Alliluyeva arrived at New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport on 21 April 1967. The sensational defection of Stalin’s only surviving child made international news and four days later, at a press conference in the Plaza Hotel, she denounced the Soviet Communist regime and her father’s leadership. She became a naturalized American citizen in 1978.
