Svetlana Alliluyeva

Svetlana Alliluyeva , 1926–, only daughter of the Soviet Communist leader Joseph Stalin and his second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Originally Svetlana Stalina, she took her mother's surname after her father's death (1953), and was a teacher and translator in the Soviet Union. In 1966, while returning her third husband's ashes to his native India, she defected to the West; she left a grown son and daughter from earlier marriages behind in the USSR. She settled in the United States in 1967, and published a memoir, Twenty Letters to a Friend (1967), and Only One Year (1969). In 1970 she married an American architect, William W. Peters, and afterwards used the name Lana Peters; they had a daughter but divorced in 1973. Now a U.S. citizen, she returned to the Soviet Union in 1984 and renounced her defection, but she left again in 1986 and subsequently lived in the United States and Europe.

Cite this article
Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

  • MLA
  • Chicago
  • APA

"Svetlana Alliluyeva." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 25 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

"Svetlana Alliluyeva." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 25, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Alliluye.html

"Svetlana Alliluyeva." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Alliluye.html

Learn more about citation styles

For students and teachers!

Encyclopedia.com provides students and teachers facts, information, and biographies from verified, citable sources, including:

Encyclopedia.com provides students and teachers facts, information, and biographies from verified, citable sources, including: