Yakov Dzhugashvili
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Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili (Georgian: იაკობ ჯუღაშვილი, Russian: Яков Иосифович Джугашвили) (March 18, 1907–April 14, 1943) was one of Joseph Stalin's three known children (along with Svetlana Alliluyeva and Vasily Dzhugashvili). Yakov was the son of Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze.
[edit] Biography
Yakov was born in the village of Borji (near Kutaisi) in Georgia, then part of Imperial Russia. Until the age of fourteen, Yakov was raised by his aunt in Tbilisi. In 1921, Yakov’s uncle Alexander Svanidze urged him to leave for Moscow to acquire a higher education. Yakov only spoke Georgian and after his arrival in Moscow he commenced with learning the Russian language, aiming to apply for University studies.
Yakov and his father Stalin never got along. Allegedly once Stalin referred to Yakov as a "mere cobbler." Later according to Yakov's stepmother Nadezhda Alliluyeva she saw a young girl running away from their Moscow dacha in tears. When she entered she saw a despairing Yakov looking near faint in the room. He ran immediately to his bedroom. It turned out that the girl was Yakov's Jewish fiancée, and when they told Stalin of their engagement he became enraged.
While Stalin and his wife were arguing about this a shot was heard from Yakov's room. He tried to kill himself with a shot in the head but due to frayed nerves from his father's tirade only managed in wounding himself[citation needed]. While she tended to his wounds and sent for a doctor all his father said was, "He can't even do that right."
Dzhugashvili did marry and was survived by two children. His son, Yevgeni, gave many interviews about his grandfather. He also had a daughter, Galina, who died in 2007[1].
Dzhugashvili served in the Red Army during World War II. He was captured by the Wehrmacht during the war. The Germans offered to exchange Yakov for Friedrich Paulus, the German Field Marshal captured by the Soviets after the Battle of Stalingrad, but Stalin turned the offer down, allegedly saying "I do not change the soldier for the marshal"; others credit him with saying "I have no son," to this offer.
It is not clear when and how he died. The Germans stated officially that Yakov died by running into an electric fence in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was being held. Some have contended that Yakov committed suicide at the camp while others have suggested that he was murdered.
The United States Defense Department was in possession of documents which indicated that Yakov Dzhugashvili was shot trying to escape, which were shown to his daughter Galina Dzhugashvili in 2003, but which she rejected, claiming that her father was never taken prisoner by the Germans, but rather was killed in battle in 1941. She continuously maintained that any photographs or letters indicating her father was at the prison camp were Nazi propaganda[citation needed].
[edit] External links
- Rising scions of the Soviet past (Information about Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, Yakov's son)
- Information on Yakov's family
- Great grandson of Joseph Stalin Vissarion Djugashvili intends to make a movie depicting the “American dream."
- Revealed: how Stalin's brutal massacre at Katyn shamed his PoW son into suicide
- Documents Shed Light on Stalin Son's Fate
