Ketewan Svanidze

Ketevan (Kato or Ekaterina) Svanidze ( Georgia ქეთევან სვანიძე * 2 April 1880 in the region Racha , Russian Empire , now Georgia , † November 22 ^jul. / 5. December 1907 ^greg. In Tbilisi ) the first wife was the later Soviet government and party leader Josef Stalin .

Life

Ketewan Swanidze was born the daughter of a teacher and a noblewoman. She learned the tailoring trade . Together with her sisters Aleksandra ( Saschiko ) and Maria ( Mariko ), she ran a fashion shop in Tbilisi, the Atelier Hervieu , where clothes and uniforms were made. Her brother was the historian and old Bolshevik Alexander Swanidze ( Aljoscha ). Some sources suggest that she had more than one brother.

On July 15, 1906, she married Stalin, who at that time lived as a revolutionary under the code name Galiashvili and raised money for the party through bank robberies , and took his family name Dschugashvili. On March 18, 1907, their son Jakow Dschugaschwili was born. In the same year she died of typhus or tuberculosis , which she contracted in Baku that summer .

Stalin later discovered that, besides his mother, she was the only person he really loved. At her funeral, organized according to the Georgian Orthodox rite, he told a former comrade that every human feeling in him died with her: “This creature has been able to soften my stony heart. Now she is dead, and with her my last warm feelings for all human beings have died. ”Pointing to his chest, Stalin is said to have added:“ In here it has become empty, so unspeakably empty! ”

Web links

Commons : Ekaterina Svanidze - collection of images

Individual evidence

↑ Simon Sebag Montefiore : The young Stalin. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-050608-5 , p. 266 ff.
↑ Josef Kirchengast: The handwriting of love in world history. In: The Standard . March 25, 2013, accessed December 18, 2018 .
^ Maximilien Rubel : Josef W. Stalin . 11th edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-499-50224-0 , p. 29 .

personal data
SURNAME	Svanidze, Ketewan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	ქეთევან სვანიძე (Georgian); Swanidze, Kato; Svanidze, Ekaterina; Jugashvili, Ketevan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	first wife of Josef Stalin
DATE OF BIRTH	April 2, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH	Georgia
DATE OF DEATH	December 5, 1907
Place of death	Tbilisi

[1] Simon Sebag Montefiore : The young Stalin. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-050608-5 , p. 266 ff.

[2] Josef Kirchengast: The handwriting of love in world history. In: The Standard . March 25, 2013, accessed December 18, 2018 .

[3] Maximilien Rubel : Josef W. Stalin . 11th edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-499-50224-0 , p. 29 .