Niece of Nadezhda Alliluyeva - about "Uncle Joseph"
Stalin is in vogue: films are made about him, TV shows are made. The details of his personal life are being discussed. The revelations of the retinue are brought to light. According to the rules of political glamour, it is no longer appropriate to recall how the Stalin era went through millions of compatriots. Including the fate of his relatives. On the 55th anniversary of the death of the leader, The New Times correspondent talked about this with Kira Alliluyeva, niece of Joseph Stalin. She calls Stalin "uncle"...
Kira Pavlovna, how were you arrested?
First my mother was arrested. Her name was Evgenia Alexandrovna Alliluyeva. This is my father's surname, Pavel Sergeevich Alliluyev, Aunt Nadya's brother. In general, my mother was Zemlyanitsyna, and she was so ruddy that everyone said: “You are a real strawberry” ... The arrest happened on December 21, 1947, on my mother’s birthday! We were at home. The doorbell rang, a tall man comes in, two more with him, and says: “Where is your mother?” I answer: "And my mother is over there - sewing a dress, sitting in the room." At that time, I was rehearsing some kind of role for the Maly Theater, for vaudeville1, and suddenly I hear my mother say: “Well, they don’t refuse prison and scrip,” and she goes. When I heard “from prison”, I jumped out to meet her, and she pushed me away ... It turns out that she wanted to throw herself from the eighth floor into the flight of stairs, but I didn’t let her. So it happened by chance.
Then I began to walk and look for my mother. Like all. Because then there were a lot of arrests. And nowhere was her last name, in general, so I didn’t find my mother then. Then they came for me. This was already in 1948. It was evening, I was getting ready for bed, and suddenly the doorbell rang again. My little brother Sashenka opened the door and said to me: "Kira, they are asking you." They told me: "Kira Pavlovna, dress warmly." I don't even remember what I took. It doesn't seem to be what was needed. And so they put me in a car and took me to the Lubyanka. Then they sent me to Lefortovo.
The heroine of the interview is 8 years old. Berlin, 1927
Mother of Kira Alliluyeva Evgenia Alliluyeva
Kira Alliluyeva: "Uncle Joseph and Aunt Nadia on vacation." Crimea, 1932
He knew me since 1919. Did the investigators know that you were Stalin's niece? Well, they wouldn't know! Iosif Vissarionovich started everything. Dad had already died by this time, and Stalin decided that mom had poisoned dad. And we all had to be imprisoned. All the same, my uncle was paranoid, and he had such periods when he hated everyone and did not want to see anyone. So, I ended up in Lefortovo. They took me to some room and said: “Take everything off, strip naked.” They took my clothes for disinfection… I sat like this all night, then my clothes were returned, smelling of chemicals and with cut buttons. Everything fell off me, and I had to hold it with my hands. Can you imagine the horror? And into the cell me ... There was a lot of shouting down there. They must have beaten them... There were terrible screams. Where will you hide them? Do you know what Lefortovo is? This is a huge prison, and everything is heard there.
Have you tried contacting Stalin?
Did you fall off the moon? I'm in jail! Where to apply? What is the appeal there? I just thought nothing else would happen. No, without his order, the hair would not have fallen from my head. He knew me from the 19th year, I was quite small. You understand what politics means and what a king means.
Have you talked to him often before?
Well, how about. He knew me from childhood. We all lived in the Kremlin. Everyone has different rooms, but one common kitchen. Everything is nearby. And we, and Stalin with his Nadezhda Sergeevna, and Anna Sergeevna - all lived in a heap. We went to visit him. Mom called, he - "of course of course", and went to visit.
How did you end up in exile?
I was half a year in Lefortovo. Then some NKVD officer called me. And so he said: “Kira Pavlovna, don’t worry. Stalin got angry with you today, but tomorrow he will let you out.” I say, “No, you don't know my uncle. He’s not like that – he won’t let him out.” And he says to me: “Where to send you into exile?” And I told him: "You know - anywhere, only where there is a theater." He thought: "Well, there is in Shuya." I answer: "That's fine, let me go to Shuya." And I'm going there. It was a nightmare, of course, I don't know anyone, nobody knows me. And yes, she was arrested. Link for 5 years. Well, I found an apartment for myself, entered the theater, began to play my favorite old women. I was happy that I was still there in the theater. But I don’t know anything about my mother, it was terrible ... And for a very long time I didn’t know anything about my mother, until I went out and until they called me and said: “You will go now for your mother.”
Have you returned to Moscow?
Yes, but I was no longer allowed to live in the Government House, the house on the embankment, as it is also called. We had an apartment there. I could only go during the day, and I had no right to spend the night there. But since both of my younger brothers lived there, they let me in there. I started living with my aunt. Until Stalin died, my mother was not released ... She was in the Vladimir prison, it turns out. They called me and said: you will go for Evgenia Alexandrovna. I, terribly worried, put on a Scottish skirt and something inappropriate for it. And now my mother comes to meet me, I go to her, and she says to me: “Couldn’t you dress more tastelessly?” I say: “Well, mom, you are my fruit!” Can you imagine - such a meeting ...
Why did Stalin imprison the Alliluyevs at all, what do you think?
Don't know. I think he was paranoid. I don’t know why… He, too, once sat, and grandfather hid him, grandfather sent him food. So we were surprised, we could never understand - how could he put us in prison? When his grandfather helped him...
I forgave him a long time ago
Tell me, did you somehow cross paths with Svetlana, Vasily, Yakov?
Necessarily. I remember Svetlana had a nanny - very old, so plump, and, apparently, her heart was not good. And suddenly she calls me (this is after the link): “Kirochka, won’t you go out for a walk?” I say: "Yes, I'll go out now." - "Fine". I left. She says to me: "You know, Svetlana thinks that you don't want to see her." I say: "What is she, crazy?" And Sveta came out, we kissed her and began to be friends again, to go to each other. And Vaska was sent somewhere. He drank, was an alcoholic and unreliable. My mother and I decided a long time ago that we would not communicate with him, because what the hell is he talking about. Well, he was generally bad in the head.
And Jacob?
Oh, Yashenka, my love. Yasha was wonderful. But he didn't go anywhere. He married some Ukrainian woman from some small town, and he lived there. He never climbed, he was of a completely different disposition. They are completely different. Even from the same father. It still means a lot.
Tell me, what was the attitude towards Joseph Vissarionovich in the family?
Very good, well, before the arrests, of course. He didn't do anything to us. We were simply amazed. We decided that we were still paranoid. He shot, then stopped, then again ... some kind of wave found such cruelty on him. When I was in Sochi, I always ran to him. He had a mansion there, and, of course, they let me in there - please. Everyone knew that I would come. He always asked about his mother, because everyone really liked her - such a strawberry. And she was so fighting, she was not afraid of anyone. Once she said, I don’t remember for what reason: “What do you want? Again, he said something there ... This Joseph is playing the fool again. Of course, Beria quickly handed it over to him. The king was offended...
Have you forgiven him?
Yes, I forgave him. Firstly, I will say - I am not vicious. And secondly, I never scolded him anywhere. What will I scold him for? Will this make it easier for me?
Now they are talking about Stalin with love again. What do you think about it?
The people need a Fuhrer. They want some kind of strength - so that the owner is strong, so that everyone loves and respects him. In our country, this is, in my opinion, a natural state.
Leo Razgon, from the book "Uninvented" ("Jailors")
Listen! Do you remember this pause in the radio broadcasts on the third of March?! This incredibly, incredibly prolonged pause, after which not a single word has yet been said - only music ... Only this wonderful, this amazing, this extraordinary music !!! Without a single word, replacing each other, Bach and Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Beethoven poured out on us all the funeral sadness that they were capable of. For me, this mournful music sounded like an ode to "Joy". One of them! Who? Really? God, is he? And the longer was this incredible musical pause, this long overture to the unknown, the more I became stronger in the certainty: He! Surely He! And finally, the familiar, mournful and triumphant (finally, there is an opportunity to use this famous timbre, this low, velvety tone!) Levitan's voice: “Moscow is speaking! All radio stations of the Soviet Union are working ... "
The first government message, the first bulletin, was transmitted. I don’t remember whether after this bulletin or after the second, in general, after the one in which it was said: “CheinStokes’ breath” - we rushed to the medical unit. We - this is Kostya Shulga, the rationing officer Potapov, two more clerical people - demanded from our head physician Boris Petrovich that he gather a council and - on the basis of the information transmitted in the bulletin - tell us what we can hope for ...
In addition to the head physician, the second doctor, the former military surgeon Pavlovsky, and the paramedic, the red-haired village paramedic Vorozhbin, took part in the consultation. They conferred in the head physician's office for an unbearably long time - forty minutes. We sat in the corridor of the hospital and were silent. I was trembling, and I could not stop this idiotic chatter of teeth that was beyond my control. Then the door, from which we did not take our eyes off, opened, and Boris Petrovich came out. He was all beaming, and everything became clear to us even before he said: “Guys! No hope!!”
And Potapov threw himself on my neck - a restrained and silent Potapov, a career officer, intelligence officer, a former captain who had not yet forgotten his numerous orders ... And the whole next day (or days - I don’t remember ...) we sat at the loudspeaker and listened to music - wonderful, divine music, the best music in the world.
And on the fifth evening, a soldier from the guards brought Kostya Shulga a bottle of vodka for ten cans of stew and another hundred rubles. Kostya and I went behind the unfinished bathhouse, poured vodka into prepared jars, and I said:
- Drink, Kostya! This is our freedom!
... I was released only after more than two years. Kostya even longer. But all the same - and these two years I lived with a new sense of freedom. Stalin is over...
Evgenia Ginzburg, from the book "The Steep Route"
...He goes up to the wall, plugs the loudspeaker into the plug. And suddenly, through the crackling discharges, I hear ... What do I hear, merciful God!
“…Deterioration set in… Cardiac interruptions… Pulse is filiform…”
The announcer's voice, strained like a string, rings with suppressed grief. A desperate, incredible guess cuts through my brain in a fiery zigzag, but I don’t dare to trust it. I stand in front of Geis with bulging eyes, not letting go of the floorcloth from which water flows.
“…We were transmitting a sickness bulletin…”
Because of the noise in my head - as if the sounds of the tide came here from Nagaevo Bay - I do not hear the enumerated ranks and titles. But this is very clear:
"Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin..."
The clean floorcloth tore from my hands and clattered back into the bucket of dirty water. And silence... And in the silence I distinctly hear Anton's hurried steps along the corridor.
- He's back!
- Passport taken away! - he proclaims in a jubilant voice, like the good news. - They remembered that I have neither exile nor settlement. They will transfer to the settlement, that's all ...
“It remains to be seen whether they will transfer,” Geis says cryptically.
Anton began to talk about the conversation in the "red house", but the loudspeaker crackled again at the top of his lungs. And again: "We are passing the bulletin ..." - Antosha, - I repeated, clutching Anton's hand,
“Antosha… What if… what if he gets better?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Zhenyusha,” the excited Anton almost shouted, “I’m telling you as a doctor: recovery is impossible. Do you hear? Cheyne-Stokes breathing... It's agony...
“You are just babies,” Geis said in an icy voice, “do you really think that if there was a hope for recovery, the people would be informed about this disease?” Most likely, he is already dead.
I dropped my hands on the table and sobbed violently. My body shook. It was a détente not only for the last few months of waiting for the third arrest. I cried for two decades at once. Everything flashed before me in one minute. All torture and all cells. All the ranks of the executed and countless crowds of the tortured. And my, my own life, destroyed by HIS devilish will. And my boy, my dead son...
Somewhere out there, in Moscow, which is already unreal for us, the bloody Idol of the century breathed its last - and this was the greatest event for millions of its victims, not yet tortured, for their loved ones and relatives, and for every single little life.
I confess: I sobbed not only over the monumental historical tragedy, but above all over myself. What did this person do with me, with my soul, with my children, with my mother…
