Svetlana Allilueva (1926–2011)

A compelling, captivating and honest memoir from the daughter of one of the most notorious tyrants in history, Stalin. You can hardly find more inside knowledge than this. Her cold misogynist father, the politics of the country, her own tormenting decision to escape and the actual process of her defection - all this is written with a skill of a person who truly knows herself, and, for me, the book is a fine answer to all the negative speculations that were abundant at the time when she broke all ties with her country. True, not every woman would leave her 2 children (17 and 22 at the time, the older one married) never to return (well, she did return much, much later, but it was not a successful return), but I also feel that we cannot judge her, we can only try to put ourselves in her shoes...… (more)