Galina Yakovlevna Dzhugashvili (russian: Галина Яковлевна Джугашвили; 19 February 1938 – 27 August 2007) was a Russian translator of French. She was the granddaughter of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

, the daughter of Stalin's elder son, Yakov Dzhugashvili. She consistently challenged widely accepted accounts of her father's internment and death at a Nazi prison camp.

Biography

Galina Dzhugashvili was born in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

. Her mother was Yulia Meltzer, a well-known Jewish dancer from Odessa. After meeting Yulia at a reception, Yakov fought with her second husband, an

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

officer called Nikolai Bessarab, and arranged her divorce. Bessarab was later arrested by the NKVD and executed. Yakov became her third husband. Yakov was a senior lieutenant in the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

artillery in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. Historians have traditionally maintained that he was captured by the

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

in 1941 and died at the

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoner ...

in 1943 after Stalin declined to exchange him for the captured German general Field Marshal

Friedrich Paulus Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (23 September 1890 – 1 February 1957) was a German field marshal during World War II who is best known for commanding the 6th Army during the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943). The battle ende ...

. The

United States Defense Department The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...

was in possession of documents which indicated that Yakov Dzhugashvili was shot by a concentration camp guard, which were shown to 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.''The Times'' obituary refers to an interview published in '' Komsomolskaya Pravda'' in June 2006. Galina Dzhugashvili studied

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

, and received a doctorate. She was a member of the Russian Writers Union, and worked all her life as a translator of French, mainly for the

Gorky Institute of World Literature The Gorky Institute of World Literature (IMLI; russian: Институт мировой литературы им. А. М. Горького РАН) is a research institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Not to be confused with the G ...

. She was married to Husein ben Saad, an Algerian mathematician living in exile in Moscow and employed by the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

, but kept her maiden name. They had one son, Selim, born 15 November 1971, who was born deaf. Dzhugashvili died from cancer at the

Burdenko Nikolay Nilovich Burdenko (russian: Николай Нилович Бурденко; – 11 November 1946) was a Russian Empire and Soviet surgeon, the founder of Russian neurosurgery. He was Surgeon-General of the Red Army (1937–1946), a ...

military hospital in Moscow, aged 69.

References

External links

*
New York Times obituaryObituary, ''The Independent'', 15 September 2007Obituary, ''The Times'', 10 September 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dzhugashvili, Galina Stalin family Soviet writers Soviet translators French–Russian translators Writers from Moscow Russian people of Georgian descent Russian people of Jewish descent 1938 births 2007 deaths Deaths from cancer in Russia Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery 20th-century translators