This week in the magazine, I’ve written about my friendship with Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva. Alliluyeva and I began exchanging letters in 2006, while I was working on a book about the Cold War, and we continued corresponding until she died, in 2011. In the article, I’ve tried to delineate parts of her long, complicated life, which began in the Kremlin and ended in a retirement home in Wisconsin.
Here’s a short video about Alliluyeva and the incredible letters that she wrote. Subscribers can read the full Personal History online. (A statement that Alliluyeva gave to the American Embassy in India, when she defected, in 1967, is also available.)
