What happened to the main character. "The Fate of Man" main characters

Have you ever wondered why Stalin was called Stalin? The period of Soviet power was very complex and ambiguous. With all the cruelty domestic policy, numerous repressions, exiles and denunciations, it was during this period that the country became one of the strongest powers economically and politically. All this is the merit of one of the most extraordinary politicians and state leaders of that time.

The childhood of the great leader

In December 1878, a boy, Soso, was born in the Georgian city of Gori. Full name Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili.

From birth he had two fused toes. As a child, he suffered from smallpox, which left wounds on his face. As a teenager, he injured his hand in an accident, which over time began to dry out and stopped developing.

The boy's father was a shoemaker. He drank a lot and often beat his mother. There are opinions that Vissarion was not the biological father. Joseph's relationship with his mother was cold.

The last time he saw his mother was a year before her death. The son did not go to the funeral, sending a wreath with a memorial inscription.

Due to physical impairment, the boy could not get into fights, so he preferred conspiracies or strategies in the fight against the enemy. He was distinguished by vindictiveness and cruelty.

Why was Stalin nicknamed Koba?

Why young Dzhugashvili called himself Koba is also not known for certain. Joseph Vissarionovich never talked about this.

Exists several versions of origin this alias:

• The main character of Stalin’s favorite Georgian novel “The Patricide” by A. Kazbegi was the lonely highlander Koba. He was a revolutionary and fighter for the independence of his homeland, had a sense of justice and nobility. According to one version, Dzhugashvili was very impressed with this hero;
• In Church Slavonic, the name Koba means “foresight omen”, “magic”. One of Stalin's pseudonyms, Kato, was close in meaning;
• The name Koba was borne by the medieval king of Persia. Under him, the lands of Georgia were expanded, the new capital. The life story of the great king amazingly largely coincided with the biography of Stalin.

Thus, Joseph Vissarionovich bore the name “Koba” for quite a long time. I replaced him only with the tougher Stalin. However, his party comrades called him Koba almost until the very end.

History of the great family

As you know, the real name of the Soviet leader is Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. However, according to some sources, he had about thirty pseudonyms. Today no one knows exactly the history of this surname, but there are many legends about this:

1. In Georgia, Dzhugashvili was closely acquainted with Lyudmila Stahl and knew her as a revolutionary person. The surname was taken in memory of her;
2. The pseudonym was taken due to the similarity of the properties of steel and the character of the bearer of the surname;
3. The native surname Dzhugashvili translated from the ancient Georgian language means “son of steel”;
4. The name of the journalist, publisher, translator E. S. Stalinsky played a role in the choice;

In addition, such a pseudonym has become very successful from a political point of view. It accurately reflected the nature of Joseph Vissarionovich’s activities in the position of head of state, was similar to the surname of the leader of the world proletariat, Lenin, and was easily written and pronounced in different languages.

Stalin and the people: why was there no uprising?

With all the horrors of that regime, studying the history of Stalin’s reign, we are really surprised why the people were inactive and did not overthrow this cruel government. The still living grandparents who lived during this difficult time will be able to tell you about the reasons for such a resigned acceptance of Soviet repression.

There are several official versions:

1. Dictatorship, established in those years, was extremely cruel. People could not freely talk about their dissatisfaction with the authorities, since a system of denunciations existed and, importantly, worked. Any person could report these arguments and statements to the relevant authorities, after which the culprit was sent into exile or shot. Thus human obedience was achieved through intimidation;
2. The Soviet Union participated in many wars in those years, including a civil war in some territories. People were forced to survive in war conditions. Everyone who was not on the front line worked several shifts a day in factories to support the military. There could not even be a thought about a coup;
3. Socialism at its core idealizes the supreme leader. Stalin was a kind of divine being for people. Without him and his reign future life country was unthinkable. There was a so-called cult of personality;
4. Having received a country in complete ruin, Joseph Vissarionovich made it one of the most advanced in the world, won the war, created nuclear weapons, thereby protecting the borders of a huge state.

Most likely, all of the above reasons played a role in people's minds. We have no right to condemn them for this.

Why didn't the leader expect war?

It cannot be said that Joseph Stalin did not at all expect Hitler’s attack. He understood that sooner or later German troops would invade the territory of the USSR. Therefore, although preparations for war were going on, they were not at all at the pace at which it was necessary.

There were two reasons:

1. At that time, Germany fought on the British front. And although the British warned Stalin several times about the impending attack on the Soviet Union, the leader considered this a provocation on the part of England. He did not believe that Hitler would dare to unleash a second front;
2. The USSR knew that the German army was not prepared for war in the winter. Counting on the thoroughness and love of order of the Germans, Joseph Vissarionovich hoped that the war would begin no earlier than 1942.

It is a mistake to believe that the agreements signed with Germany before the start of the war convinced the Soviet leader of Hitler's pure intentions. However, it was precisely because of the effect of surprise that we suffered heavy losses in the first months of the war.

Why did Stalin deport the Chechens and Ingush?

About a year before the end of the Great Patriotic War, Stalin signed a decree on the eviction of Chechens and Ingush from the territory of the corresponding ASSR. The exact cause remains historically unknown.

However, there are several assumptions:

• According to some sources, quite a lot, about 50 thousand Chechens and Ingush deserted during the war. A fairly large part of this population did not show up for conscription;
• These nationalities collaborated with the invaders;
• Anti-Soviet activity flourished in the republic;
• The territory was oversaturated with bandit groups;
• In the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, uprisings against Soviet power periodically arose.

It is known that the people were evicted illegally, dividing the territory between North Ossetia, Dagestan, Georgia and the newly created Grozny region. Almost every fourth resident of the republic died during and after the eviction.

As a result of examining the personality, it becomes clear why Stalin was called Stalin. All the many pseudonyms of this great man faded into the background and most of his contemporaries remembered him this way. One can argue a lot about the rehabilitation of Stalin and his political mistakes. However, his enormous role in the fate of the Soviet Union and the history of our current state will remain undeniable.

Video about the evolution of a pseudonym

In this video, historian Arkady Lobanov will tell the most reliable version about the origin of the pseudonym “Stalin”, why it was influenced love story leader:

A "pseudonym" is literally a false name or nickname that someone deliberately chooses to hide their official passport name.

Pseudonyms became very widespread at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. In Russia they arose with the advent of socio-political literature from the 40s to the 60s of the 18th century. The main reason for their emergence was the difficult censorship conditions of tsarist times, as well as the desire of high-ranking authors to express their views, hiding their true name and official position for a number of reasons.

Among various secret measures, the party also began to use pseudonyms as party nicknames. It was proposed to form pseudonyms from the most common Russian names. As a result, the most famous figures of the RSDLP received the following party pseudonyms:

ANTONOV (V. A. Ovseenko)

BOGDANOV (A. A. Malinovsky)

VOLODIN (K. E. Voroshilov)

DANILOV (F. I. Gurvich)

EGOROV (Levin)

ZINOVIEV (O. A. Appelbaum)

IVANOV (Levina)

MARTYNOV (A. S. Picker)

MIKHAILOV (Postolovsky)

OSIPOV (Zalkind)

PANIN (Halberstadt)

SERGEEV (A.I. Rykov)

FOMIN (V.N. Krokhmal)

Against such a background, the surname LENIN (from the name Lena) did not make any special impression, and the pseudonym IVANOVICH, chosen by I.V. Dzhugashvili for registration at the IV Congress, did not particularly stand out.

However, only Lenin and Stalin retained both their surname and pseudonym after the revolution, signing with both surname and pseudonym at the same time:

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. I. Ulyanov-Lenin

People's Commissariat of Nationalities I. V. Dzhugashvili - Stalin

And people remembered both their pseudonyms and last names equally well. Both have become equally part of history. At the same time, pseudonyms survived longer than surnames and became the main names with which the activities of these historical figures. And this suggests that both pseudonyms were extremely well chosen. For Lenin, this was one of the one and a half hundred pseudonyms he used. For Stalin, this was also one of his three dozen pseudonyms, and the very last one. How did he come up with it? Accidentally? Or did you pursue your quest purposefully and consistently?

Almost all biographers of Stalin are “subjective idealists.” They all create a “targeted”, pre-planned historical version, which is spurred on by everything that “works” for it, which allows them to make the “biography of the villain” fascinating to read, like a detective story. All the rest, so-called. “controversial” or “neutral” facts are quietly discarded.

Some elementary facts of Stalin's biography are still unknown, especially personal facts, usually known for figures of a much smaller scale. For example, the year of birth is still controversial, as discussed below. All his pseudonyms are unknown. There is no idea about his most important, main pseudonym - Stalin- under which he entered world history.

Paradoxically, even during Stalin’s lifetime the question of publishing the 17th volume of his collected works was not raised, and hence the question of 18th volume, reference, which should have completed the entire publication.

The publication of the Works unexpectedly stalled at volume 13. But IMEL and its leadership simply “lay low” and decided not to remind about themselves, being well informed that this issue did not seem relevant to Stalin himself.

This automatically entailed the fact that no one at IMEL was ever entrusted with the “dangerous” work of collecting, systematizing and commenting on pseudonyms on this topic in the period 1947 - 49. not a single special research article was devoted to the historical-party and academic press, although as an honorary academician, he had every reason to receive attention from the “Biographical” and “bibliographical” series published by the USSR Academy of Sciences about the country’s scientists. IMEL and Istpart publications also remained deeply silent on this matter.

At the same time, in 1949, during the period of struggle against “cosmopolitans”, when newspapers began to reveal literary pseudonyms such as “Viktorov”, “Marinin”, reporting Jewish surnames their true owners (i.e. writers, poets, journalists hiding for decades behind these pseudonyms), Stalin publicly spoke at one of the meetings and condemned those who revealed literary pseudonyms, emphasizing that this is unacceptable. In this “instruction” IMEL saw a hint that the question of the pseudonyms of Stalin himself could not be the subject of not only research, but also any attention. Such was the atmosphere of the “cult,” which gave rise to the most unexpected interpretation of the “leader’s instructions” on the part of the clique of sworn “ideologists.”

List of Stalin's pseudonyms

Without considering what we were able to find to be completely exhaustive, we have collected together all the known printed (written) and oral pseudonyms (nicknames, nicknames) of Stalin and arranged them alphabetically.

Among them 18 pseudonyms from printed works 6 party nicknames given in a short biography written in 1925 by I. Tovstukha (then an IMEL employee and a prominent party worker), and three literary pseudonyms identified from Georgian periodicals late XIX century. Besides, two oral pseudonyms not indicated by I. Tovstukha in 1925 are given without reference to the source in the book by D. Volkogonov, and one- in the book of Hungarian Sovietologists.

The total number of all identified Stalinist oral and printed pseudonyms is 30 units.

1. Beshoshvili I.
   
2. Basil
   
3. Gilashvili
   
4. David
   
5. J-shvili
   
6. Ivanovich
7. K.S.
8. Ice rink.
9. Co..
10. K.Co.
11. Koba
12. Koba Ivanovich
13. Comrade K.
    
14. Nizharadze (Nizheradze)
    
15. Melikyants
    
16. Same
    
17. Chizhikov
    
18. Chopur
19. S -n.K
20. Salin, K.
21. Solin, K.
22. Soseli (Sozeli)
23. Soselo
24. Art. AND.
25. Art. TO.
26. Stalin, K.
27. Stephin, K.
28. Stalin, I.V.

For comparison, the number of pseudonyms of V.I. Lenin is 146 units, and of them 17 foreign and 129 Russians.

By carefully studying the above list, we already get some idea about the process of Stalin's pseudonym creation, about some of his favorite and specific letters and words that he chose for pseudonyms, about his consistent variation of some pseudonyms and the complete randomness of others. If you weed out random pseudonyms, it is easier to operate with constant, stable ones and understand their logic.

First of all, some surnames do not look like pseudonyms at all. The only thing that differentiates them from pseudonyms is that there are no initials. Therefore, these are nicknames, party names for appearances, and not pseudonyms. Indeed, “Vasily”, “Gilashvili”, “Ivanovich”, “Nizharadze”, “Chizhikov”, “Chopur” are nicknames used by Stalin in extremely short periods- immediately after escaping from prison or exile, or when traveling to a party congress or to another region, that is, almost every time in isolated cases and every time anew, including using a false passport, which was simply thrown away when the need had passed. All these “pseudonyms” are based on the names of real people: for example, a worker Nizharadze was known to Stalin from Batumi, P. A. Chizhikov- in Vologda (with his real passport, Stalin fled from Vologda exile). How "Ivanovich" Stalin was delegated to IV Unification party congress in Stockholm and is noted in its minutes as a representative of the Tiflis organization.

In fact, only two letters - TO. And WITH. attracted Stalin and were used by him in different variations to create pseudonyms. And this is no coincidence: TO And WITH- the two most common letters of the Russian alphabet, they have the most words in the Russian language.

The history of the pseudonym "Koba"

Starting with the letter " TO"was Stalin's first stable pseudonym - Koba, under which he entered the history of the revolutionary movement in the Caucasus and by which he was generally known in the party until 1917.

Starting with the letter " WITH"Stalin's main pseudonym was created, under which he entered into world history. But he did not come to him right away. Before "Stalin" there were several other pseudonyms starting with the letter WITH, including his first two pseudonyms, under which his poems were published in Georgian in the newspapers “Iveria” and “Kvali”. These aliases Soselo And Sozeli- diminutives of Joseph, and equivalent to Russian - Osenka and Osechka. Stalin first used these pseudonyms in 1895, 1896 and 1899, when his poem was reprinted in a collection dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Rafiel Eristavi. These were pseudonyms without any pretensions or frills.

But other pseudonyms that preceded or coexisted until 1907 with his more permanent pseudonym Koba contained a hint of pretension. And Stalin, as can be seen from the analysis of these pseudonyms, while choosing and inventing them for himself, hesitated all the time, not daring to dwell on them precisely because of their rather transparent pretentiousness. But his pretentiousness was restrained, it was hidden behind the simplicity of the form and was lexically brief. Two syllables - this is how young Joseph Dzhugashvili limited the length of his pseudonyms: Da-vid, Ka-to, Ko-ba, Sa-lin, So-lin, Ste-fin.

Variants of pseudonyms built on a Georgian nominal basis using the name of the father or mother were decisively rejected by him after one or two uses. Yes, pseudonym I. Beshshvili, appeared several times in the Gantiali newspaper, then disappeared without a trace. It was based on Georgian name father - Besarion or Beso. Based on another nickname - Kato- originally the name of the mother was Ekaterina Dzhugashvili and the first wife of Ekaterina Svanidze, in Georgian Keke or Kete.

However, Stalin's claims went in a completely different direction, and not in the affirmation or glorification of related principles. The pseudonym speaks eloquently about this “ David", that is, the small, modest biblical David - the conqueror of the huge Goliath - this is the meaning of this early “oral” pseudonym, or nickname, which Stalin at one time wanted to establish for himself.

Even more serious claims were associated with the rethought pseudonym “ K.Kato", i.e. none other than the ancient Roman figure - Marcus Porcius Cato - consul, augur, censor, commander, writer, strict adherent of discipline and order, progressive in the conduct of affairs, consistent opponent of Carthage ( "Carthage must be destroyed!") - these are what historical characters impressed Stalin at the age of 23-26. And there was no accident in the choice, everything was carefully thought out, even the initials: K. Kato. They testified that Stalin was well acquainted with the Latin original. For although in school textbooks Cato was always called Marcus Porcius, his Latin name, to distinguish him from his son, Cato the Younger, was usually written C. Cato, for he was given the honorary name Censorius. But “Kato” was too transparent, and Stalin did not dwell on it.

His pseudonym is approximately from the summer of 1903(in Kutaisi prison) becomes Koba, and from January 1904 under this pseudonym Stalin became known in revolutionary movement Transcaucasia.

He varies this pseudonym in the illegal press, but it remains easily recognizable everywhere: K., K.Ko., Koba Ivanovich, Comrade K. And it easily takes root, is well remembered, although not everyone (especially outside the Caucasus) can understand it hidden meaning and meaning. But this is exactly what Stalin needs: he wants to have a pseudonym with meaning, but in such a way that this meaning is not very obvious and would not be offered, as they say, “on the forehead.” Let only the very smart guess.

What did the name Koba mean?

No matter how we interpret this word, no matter what versions we accept as genuine, oddly enough, we always come to the conclusion that this pseudonym had a symbolic meaning for the young Dzhugashvili. And very deeply symbolic.

If assume that Koba (Kobe, Kova, Kob) taken from Church Slavonic, then it means - witchcraft, omen of augur, sorcerer, soothsayer, which is very close to the previous Stalinist pseudonym K. Kato, but in a broader and more generalized sense.

If but proceed from the fact that this word Georgian and means a name, then Koba is the Georgian equivalent of the name Persian king Kobades, who played a big role in the early medieval history of Georgia.

King Koba conquered Eastern Georgia, under him the capital of Georgia was moved from Mtskheta to Tbilisi (end of the 5th century).

But Koba not just a king from the Sassanid dynasty, he - according to the Byzantine historian Theophanes - great wizard. Obliged at one time by his throne magicians from an early communist sect that preached equal division of all property, Koba brought the sectarians closer to control, which caused horror among the upper classes, who decided to plot against Koba and overthrew him from the throne. But the imprisoned communist king was freed by a woman devoted to him and he regained his throne. These details of the biography of Tsar Koba are in some ways (communist ideals, prison, a woman’s help in escaping, triumphant return to the throne) coincided with the facts of Stalin’s biography. Moreover, they continued to coincide even when Stalin parted with this pseudonym, because in 1904 - 1907. Stalin could not, of course, foresee 1936-38, but he knew that his double, Tsar Koba, in 529 (two years before his death) brutally dealt with all his former allies, the Mazdakite communists.

Some foreign biographers of Stalin (and, after him, domestic ones who imitate them), relying on the instructions of some of their superficial Georgian informants, believe that Stalin allegedly borrowed the pseudonym Koba from the name of the hero of one of the novels of the Georgian classic A. Kazbegi - “The Patricide” whose name was also Koboi, and who appears in the novel as an abrek mountaineer leading the struggle for the independence of his homeland. However, it should be borne in mind that A. Kazbegi himself has a secondary name Koba, it was taken from King Koba, after whom it became widespread in Georgia. But it is also important to note that Stalin could not be impressed by the image of a lone abrek, since the image of the communist Tsar Koba was both historically significant and symbolically immeasurably closer to Stalin’s entire worldview. Besides, in political articles and Stalin's speeches in the period 1902 - 1907. we find clear traces of his familiarity with Persian history of the Sassanid era. One of them is the systematic and favorite use of the term by Stalin satraps to designate tsarist officials in Russia.

For Georgians, this was not only a generally understood, but also a multi-talking term. There's no doubt that historical prototype, which served as the basis for the pseudonym Koba, i.e. Communist Tsar Kobades impressed Stalin as a state and politically strong, significant personality, and in addition, he had in his biography features strikingly similar to the biography and psychology of Stalin himself.

However, the pseudonym Koba was convenient only in the Caucasus. As soon as Joseph Dzhugashvili found himself more closely connected with Russian party organizations, as soon as he “worn out” in Russian prisons and Siberian exile, as soon as he began to work in such purely Russian regions as the Vologda province and St. Petersburg, the question of a change arose before him. too Georgian pseudonym Koba to some other one that sounds Russian and makes sense for Russian people.

And it is quite logical that after being in exile in Solvychegodsk (or as the local Vologda residents then said - “on the Salt”), Joseph Dzhugashvili appears in the newspaper “Social Democrat” under new pseudonyms (1910) - K.S. - K.S-n, K.Stefin, and a little later, in 1912, in Zvezda - already K.Salin, and then K. Solin. The latter is completely clear in its connection with Sol, Usolye, Solvychegodsk, - it is transparent. Before him, Stalin used the less transparent K. Salin (from Latin, and not from the Russian name for salt - salsa). But this pseudonym immediately showed its unsuitability due to the fact that it could easily be confused with the Russian “lard,” which had a clearly negative meaning, which Stalin initially simply could not have known due to insufficient familiarity with the Russian language, and even more so with Russian culinary traditions. symbolism. But he also did not stay with the pseudonym Solin: in the meaning of “salt of the earth,” that is, in the figurative high evangelical meaning, the Russian people did not perceive salt. And this was quite enough for Stalin to discard this version of the pseudonym without regret.

Moreover, his pseudonym passed briefly K.Stefin, i.e. Stephin Koba, Koba Stefa (Stepanida, Stefania) - the first of those who followed after the escape from Solvychegodsk exile. This pseudonym was, apparently, the last tribute to feeling on Stalin’s part: it was taken in honor of the woman who helped him escape from the house of M.P. Kuznakova, where he was under surveillance by the local police. A certain Stefa lulled the vigilance of both the hostess Kuznakova and the local police officer, undoubtedly under the influence of the masculine charm of the fiery Georgian I. Dzhugashvili.

Stalin turned 32 years old. He had been working in the revolutionary movement for almost 15 years, during which time he changed two dozen different pseudonyms. Of these, only one - Koba - took root well and had a meaning that completely satisfied Stalin. But it could not be preserved further due to the expansion of Stalin’s activities beyond the Transcaucasus.

The question of choosing a new pseudonym (along with Koba or instead of Koba) arose before Stalin almost no earlier than the fall of 1911. However, this question acquired particular relevance for Stalin in the following year, 1912.

Stalin's "arshin of vodka"

Arriving for the first time in the North of Russia, in Solvychegodsk, in March 1908, and then after a quick escape, he was again sent there in March 1910 and stayed there until the fall of 1911, i.e., having lived in the North of Russia in total 2 years and 9 months, Stalin discovered Russia, the real Russian people, getting to know its best, purest part - the Vologda residents, the Vycheg residents, that is, the descendants of the ancient Novgorodians, not affected by the corrupting influence of Central and Southern Russia.

Here, in the North, having broken away from the Transcaucasian environment and intrigues, Stalin for the first time feels what Russia is like, what a huge moral and political potential for revolution lies in the local Russian people, deeply pure in soul, crystal honest, sincerely alien to any capitalist temptations, ready for self-sacrifice and endless patience.

Stalin encounters the Russian indigenous people for the first time and realizes that it will be quite easy for him to win the sympathy of this people, because these people are trusting, open, and ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of a bright idea and for the sake of someone who seems to him smarter, stronger and more decisive than himself. And this opens up completely new perspectives both in revolutionary work and in the revolutionary career of Koba himself.

The fact is that in December 1912 Stalin was about to turn 33 years. Already on the eve of this event, at the end of 1911, he considered this period to be key for himself, as a result of which he decided at all costs to escape from exile in the fall of 1911. The failure associated with the arrest on September 9 did not discourage him, given that the decisions of the Prague Conference only confirmed his confidence in his lucky star and the need to be the smith of your own happiness precisely at the decisive moment of your 33rd birthday - the age of great achievements. That is why, having found himself again in St. Petersburg from the end of February 1912, Stalin developed vigorous activity in preparation for the release of the first issue of Pravda, which happened on April 22, 1912. On the same day, Stalin was arrested and exiled away from St. Petersburg, into the very wilderness - in Narym region. But Stalin also escaped from Narym exile, and in the same 1912, the most important and decisive year for him. Stalin himself considered this escape so brilliant and classic that, contrary to his rules, he told details about it after the revolution to some foreign interviewers. For example, the observant Henri Barbusse noted that the main reason for the success of this escape was Stalin’s excellent knowledge of the psychology of the ordinary Russian people.

Stalin was not betrayed (despite his accent and appearance) by the simplest and most seasoned Russian people - coachmen, peasants, inn servants, without whose assistance no escape across all of Russia would have been possible. Other Russian revolutionaries, especially among the intelligentsia, often could not find mutual language With ordinary people, or they stood out so much from the masses with their “lordly” habits or behavior that they aroused suspicion among common people, who, being strictly accustomed to Russian state discipline, immediately reported “strange bars” to their superiors. It was thanks to such denunciations of coachmen, maids, janitors and other “forced people” that the most skillfully prepared escapes from the Siberian exiles of the Decembrists, Chernyshevsky and the mass of Narodnaya Volya nobles were thwarted and failed.

Stalin, intuitively and consciously using some traits of the Russian character, knew how to win over the coachmen on the Siberian highways. He did not beg them to hide him from the police with promises of money and did not offer them, like a master, to “give them vodka.” Stalin did his best to avoid people perceiving him as a person who wanted to “bribe” them, to do something illegal for a bribe, because he well understood how such proposals offended open, naive, honest, simple Russian provincial people. Instead, he “honestly” told the coachmen that he had no money to pay for the trip, but fortunately he had a couple of bottles of vodka and he offered to pay at "Arshina of vodka" for each run between settlements how long will these damasks last? The coachman, of course, laughingly began to assure this clearly non-Russian foreigner that vodka is measured in buckets, not arshins. And then Stalin pulled out a wooden arshin - a 71 cm long board - from behind his boot, took out several metal cups from the bag, tightly placed the arshin with them, poured vodka into them and showed in practice how he understood “arshin of vodka”. This caused everyone to laugh and have fun, since all this was somehow new, unusual, and pleasantly “disturbed” the Russian people in the atmosphere of dullness and routine of provincial life. The main thing is that this approach turned a bribe from a “handout” and “bribery” into a friendly game, deprived this entire transaction of the indecency that embarrassed people, because it created a situation of friendly jokes, excitement and friendly interaction, since often the second or third “arshin of vodka” was drunk together. “And where did you come from, such a cheerful guy!- the coachmen said, not without regret parting with the unusual passenger. - “Come to us again!”, - since he got off after three or four stations, from where he continued the same game with other coachmen, - always driving a short section of the route and never saying the final destination of his journey, and generally not mentioning a single station that he did not know in I didn’t want to get the name wrong. He drove as long as “an arshin of vodka” or several arshins was enough. And so he steadily and reliably moved from Siberia to European Russia, avoiding any encounters with the police.

So, despite all his Georgian, “Kapkaz” appearance and despite his clearly non-Russian accent and speech, Stalin succeeded in his daring escapes from the most remote corners Russian Empire. He knew the people. And the people, feeling this, were on his side, of course, without suspecting who they were really dealing with.

He is unbending and flexible like steel

Arriving in St. Petersburg in mid-September 1912, Stalin threw himself headlong into revolutionary work. His 33rd anniversary takes on a solemn character with record-breaking victorious results from his decisive year in his life:

1. Three times successful escapes.
2. Election to the party leadership.
3. Active, triumphant work in St. Petersburg for the elections of Bolshevik deputies to the State Duma.
4. The successful and expanding emergence of Pravda, the formation around it of a broad Bolshevik core among the working class and in the revolutionary movement.
5. Clearly the open approval and favorable attitude of V.I. Lenin himself.

All these facts taken together cause Stalin to make a previously formed decision - to devote his activities exclusively to work in Russia, to leave, break away from his Transcaucasian region, and enter the broad road of all-Russian political activity.

Trips abroad, to Austria-Hungary, left the impression on Stalin: “It turns out that the devil is not so scary!” It turns out that it is not scary to participate in solving not only purely internal problems and the Russian labor movement, but also in the international problems of the labor movement, which still remained the prerogative of such refined representatives of the highly educated intelligentsia in the party as Ganetsky, Lunacharsky, Krasin, Kollontai, Litvinov, Armand, Borovsky, who formed the vanguard of Lenin’s diplomatic cohort, who had an appropriate upbringing, a scientific level and experience in secular communication, and, not least, possessed knowledge of three or four European languages.

Stalin, of course, could not at that time dream of joining this cohort closely, but after visiting Krakow and Vienna at the end of 1912, he could already recognize himself as understanding “foreign problems.” He began to intensively study the German language, beginning to read and understand German political literature quite well.

All this taken together predetermined the planned change of pseudonym. Neither in the party of the Russian proletariat, nor even more so in the face of the international labor movement, Joseph Dzhugashvili, as a member of the Bolshevik leadership, could no longer remain Koba. It became completely incomprehensible against the background of a different language environment, and even turned into something frivolous, slightly comical. And the old seminarian Joseph Dzhugashvili, who diligently studied ancient Greek philosophy, knew perfectly well the classical philosophical postulate of Aristotle that funny is the main reflection of the imperfect, and therefore funny is the most unacceptable thing in politics.

Humor, laughs, giggles and hahahanki have always been associated with the idea of ​​clowning, buffoonery, also among the common Russian people, who considered such “humorists” as holy fools, and therefore did not treat them seriously for the most part.

The Russian people needed serious, strict, respectable leaders who did not throw words to the wind. His pseudonym would now be:

1. Sounding Russian and Russian in design.
2. Extremely serious, significant, impressive in content, not allowing any interpretations or misunderstandings.
3. Have deep meaning, and at the same time not particularly conspicuous, not trying to achieve effect, be calm.
4. Easily pronounced in any language and phonetically close to Lenin’s pseudonym, but in such a way that the similarity is also not felt “over the top.”

Stalin came to all these conclusions gradually if we analyze his work on his 22 pseudonyms over ... 17 years (1895 - 1912). And all these conditions were met by the pseudonym - Stalin.

It’s hard to say now, when there is no one left alive from the old Bolshevik party, as there was then perceived Stalin's new pseudonym. It can be assumed that they nevertheless noticed him, but they reacted calmly: there were a lot of pseudonyms in the party at that time. But in 1935, Henri Barbusse wrote without hiding his admiration: "This - iron Man. His surname gives us his image: Stalin - steel. He is unbending and flexible, like steel.".

Apparently Barbusse grabbed main idea Stalin, who guided him in his choice: this pseudonym for the leader of the revolutionary movement in a huge, diverse empire, whose task is to forge a strong, steely, iron party, ready for the upcoming battles. Steel has one meaning - this is clear to everyone: strong, tough, inevitable, irresistible. Iron not only is steel softer, iron is “softer” phonetically. Steel has only two syllables - and even, if you think about it, one. Be gathered into a fist, don’t get carried away, act tough, tougher, even tougher! - this is the meaning that this pseudonym carried. The complexity and romanticism of Koba were discarded as not meeting the new national and historical conditions.

I. V. Dzhugashvili began to sign with a new pseudonym "TO. Stalin", starting in January 1913. Thus, the first serious major theoretical work, “Marxism and the National Question,” was signed.

Stalin allowed himself to keep only one initial from the pseudonym “Koba” "TO". It served as a “link” with the previous period of activity, and as a “signal” to friends, and simply as a “memorable sign” for oneself, a memory that one stage in life had been passed.

At the beginning of the 20s, in the party environment and especially among the intelligentsia, there was a widespread opinion that “Stalin” is a simple translation into Russian of the Georgian root of his surname - "Juga", which supposedly means "steel". This belief was confirmed on the Georgian side. Many major Georgian intellectuals, academics, writers, in their private conversations with their Moscow and Leningrad colleagues, often confirmed this version: “Yes, “juga” in Georgian, or rather in ancient Georgian, means “steel”, “damask steel”.

However, this is not only not true, but is also an outright fabrication., which has no factual or philological basis. The point is that you modern Georgians they just don’t know what the word “juga” means, because the word is very ancient. It seems to sound Georgian, but its meaning has simply been lost. In such cases, they reason something like this: “The devil knows what it means. They say “steel”, so people seem to think so, so let it be “steel”.

The Georgian word “juga” also belongs to this type of “forgotten” words. And it doesn’t mean “steel” at all. "Juga" is a very ancient pagan Georgian word with a Persian connotation, common during the period of Iranian rule over Georgia, and it just means a name. The meaning, like many names, is not translatable. Name like name like Russian Ivan. Therefore, Dzhugashvili means simply "son of Juga" and nothing else.

The Mystery of Leopard Skin

Soon after the baby arrived Soso(as Joseph Vissarionovich was affectionately called in childhood) at school, namely, in 1889, when Joseph was 10 years old, a significant event took place for that time in cultural life Georgia. An unusual for that time edition of Shota Rustaveli’s work “Leopard Skin” appeared in Tiflis, translated into five languages.

It is not known whether Dzhugashvili’s student could have seen this publication then or a little later, but it is known that when he was 15-16 years old, Soso came up with the idea of ​​supplementing his education by ... reading books in ... second-hand bookstores, standing for a long time at the counter immersed in reading supposedly " the book under consideration.

When this trick was discovered and he was almost banned from bookstores, young Dzhugashvili came up with another trick: he began to rent books from the store for reading, paying 10 kopecks. per day. But he did not read these books, but persuaded several friends to collectively rewrite them. Two people copied it at once - each one a page, sitting on both sides of an open book on the table. This technique speeded up rewriting so much that friends managed to rewrite a fairly thick book costing 3 rubles in three days, and, therefore, it cost them only 30 kopecks. (for three), i.e. ten times cheaper. The manuscripts were carefully intertwined and in this way, in a relatively short time, Soso compiled a fairly decent library. When he was expelled from the seminary and began working at the observatory, this “library” was kept in his room. Later, when Joseph Dzhugashvili went illegal (1901), the library was distributed among friends, but they continued to use it together.

Among the books in this “library”, undoubtedly, there should have been a volume by Shota Rustaveli. In any case, it is known that Dzhugashvili met "Vephis kaosani", as it was called in Georgian "Vityaz in tiger skin» , at least between 1895 - 1901 Since Tiflis 1889 edition was the closest in time, and the St. Petersburg editions dating back to 1841, 1846, 1860 were practically unavailable in Tiflis, and new editions of Rustaveli’s poem appeared only when Stalin was no longer in Georgia, i.e. in 1903, 1913 and 1914, then the only opportunity for Stalin remained to get acquainted with the work of Georgian medieval classics or Georgian edition text 1880, or publication closer to his time 1889, also released much large circulation. The latest edition is supported by the fact that Stalin always quoted the most popular sayings of Rustaveli in his works and in oral speech, usually on Russian language!

One of Stalin’s favorites was, for example, an aphorism often repeated by Rustaveli himself, and, apparently, attached to himself: "My life is as ruthless as a beast". Stalin remembered him especially often after the suicide of his wife, N.S. Alliluyeva. Very early, already in the period 1905 - 1907, and even more so later, they became for Stalin the guiding principle of life and struggle no less famous words Rustaveli: “A close friend who turns out to be an enemy is more dangerous than a friend”. They explain to us much more and more truthfully all of Stalin’s activities.

In 1936 - 1937 solemnly celebrated 750th anniversary of Shota Rustaveli. There was everything that was required in such cases. However, at the exhibition of all published books “The Knight in the Skin of Tigers” There was only one edition missing - 1889. Why?

And the point was this. On title page 1889 edition, hidden in honor of the 750th anniversary in the distant museum storerooms, it read:

And then the reason for the removal of this particular publication from exhibitions in honor of the 750th anniversary became clear.

Indeed, the appearance of the name of some pre-revolutionary translator of Stalinsky, and even on a Georgian poem, in the Stalin era, in the era of the Stalin Constitution, if alive, it would have been at least strange and shocking, and in fact simply defiant for millions of Soviet people, accustomed to seeing Stalin as the one and only leader, with their only in the country by surname. Such a “phenomenon” would be unpleasantly offensive to everyone’s ears, and could become a source of dissemination of the most incredible and absurd tales, the less solid, the more ignorant the people who spread them could be.

Therefore, all protective measures were met with full understanding among literary critics, historians and bibliographers, for these were smart, honest and disciplined people of the thirties.

Such a “ban” was quite understandable, and according to the beliefs of the 30s, it was completely justified and even extremely necessary from a large, state point of view. For nothing can be shaken, nothing can be turned into a toy or “sensation” in state shrines, so as not to introduce unnecessary, but inevitable doubts and hesitations, if the whole country really wants to care about state peace and good.

If there is no very fact of the presence of such a book before people’s eyes, then there will be no problem of rumors, anecdotes, etc. Therefore, the book published in 1889 was temporarily put away in storage, but, of course, it was preserved in the collections.

But there was another side to this phenomenon, which at that time remained completely outside the attention of scientists. It didn't occur to anyone, What exactly surname Stalinsky and served as the basis for the choice of a pseudonym by Joseph Dzhugashvili. And Stalin, giving the order to conceal the 1889 edition, was primarily concerned that the “secret” of his choice of his pseudonym would not be revealed. (Briefly about Stalinsky. This is the son of an expelled Polish officer, whose real name is Khrustalinsky or Kristalinsky. The son “discarded” the first three letters.)

Thus, even the “Russian” pseudonym, specifically intended for activities in Russia, turned out to be closely connected with Georgia, the Caucasus, its culture and with the memories of childhood and youth for Stalin.

Stalin remained a romantic at heart in 1912. This is beyond doubt. But he had already learned to chain his heart, his feelings in an impenetrable steel shell, for life had taught him to hide his "I", or more precisely, not to reveal yourself to others. Too many disappointments were associated with the increased youthful Caucasian emotionality and frankness. He suffered too many blows - both personal and party in this regard. But he endured everything. Survived everything. And he came out of the fight hardened - like good damask steel. He realized that to succeed in the political struggle, one must be able not to open one’s feelings, mind and heart to the outside world, even to friends. That's more true. No one should penetrate the holy of holies of his soul - neither a friend nor a beloved woman. And no one should ever assume that he steel alias has some connection with his romantic youth and serves as its distant and hidden echo.

Based on all this, Stalin decided from now on to resort to yet another means of masking his uneradicated "romance" - to outwardly rude behavior, which gradually, and at critical moments, sometimes became simply rude, and attracted the attention of his party comrades, and Lenin personally, who, not understanding the reasons for this phenomenon, that is, without guessing about the hidden motives of this “ “masks,” which had become second nature, treated this trait of Stalin’s character with regret and condemnation, since, from their point of view, it did not make him popular, much less the party.

But Stalin had a different view on this matter and was more focused on the masses, on the ideas about the norms of behavior of the “superiors” among, so to speak, a less intelligent environment, among the “subordinates.” He believed that he understood the psychology of the Russian people. No wonder, after the Great Patriotic War, he openly called “patience” - main feature Russian national character.

Thus, appeared on January 1, 1913 not only a new political figure in the revolutionary movement of Russia - Stalin- but also ceased to exist, "disappeared" old party comrade, "cheerful guy Koba".

After his 33rd birthday, Stalin significantly changed his behavior and began to acquire, as we would now say, a “new image” as secretary of the Russian Bureau of the Party Central Committee. Most importantly, he became even more restrained and even less inclined than before to reveal his inner feelings to others.

The mystery of Stalin's birth date

Official date of birth, according to all reference books, encyclopedias and documents, it is considered December 21, 1879(December 9, 1879 old style).

However, according to metric book of the Gori Assumption Cathedral Church, which registered the fact of Stalin’s birth, it is indicated that “the peasants Vissarion Ivanovich Dzhugashvili and his wife Ekaterina Gavrilovna had a son, Joseph - December 6, 1878, who was baptized on December 17, in the same church".

Finally, there is with his own hand a questionnaire filled out by Stalin with questions about his biography, addressed to him by the Swedish newspaper Folkets Dagblad Politiken in 1920, where he himself wrote the date of his birth - 1878 This, by the way, is the only document where the date is affixed by Stalin’s hand. In all other cases, in the materials and questionnaires of the party congresses, starting from the 6th, in party cards, in the lists of members of the Central Committee, etc., Stalin’s date of birth is stamped everywhere by the hand of the corresponding secretary, registrar, or assistant, and everywhere it is only 1879.

Let's stop at the birthday party. The metric book states December 6, 1878 This is a holiday for the Orthodox, the day of St. Nicholas. Because the this holiday was one of the most revered and prominent, it would be impossible to confuse his day. However, in official documents, since 1918, another day appears - 9th December according to the old style, from which the date is counted 21 December, as an official birthday according to the New Style. It's clear that December 9 is a date that appeared as a result of a typo, moreover, a typo made in the institution, and in the presence of a typewriter. Such a situation could only exist after 1917, in one of the central Soviet institutions - the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the Council of People's Commissars and the Revolutionary Military Council of the Red Army. It was in these institutions that, when issuing this or that mandate to Stalin, they could instead "6" type "9". And since in pre-revolutionary times the party did not pay much attention to birthdays, and Stalin himself never saw his own metrics in his life, then since 1922, when it was necessary to compile an accurate authorized biography for the collection “Figures of the USSR and the October Revolution” or to give an entirely personal autobiography, then Stalin first pointed out birthday on December 21 according to the new style, counting from December 9, i.e. from an erroneous date. It is possible that someone made this mistake from secretaries or assistants, because Stalin only ordered prepare your biography and then I reviewed and edited this text personally, paying main attention to the wording, and not taking into account that the number 21 counted according to the new style not from 6 December, and from 9 . Thus, the origin of the date December 21 is the result of a technical error or error. Moreover, this error is, in essence, insignificant, because it does not change anything. A man celebrates his birthday three days late. But when this man achieves this social status Since the whole country celebrates this date, it is even more impossible to correct or change such a date. This is how the birthday came about - December 21st. The only person who knew that this was not so and could be dissatisfied with such a mistake was only old Keke - Ekaterina Georgievna Dzhugashvili, Stalin’s mother, but she, of course, wise from experience, did not share this “trifle” with anyone.

Let's look at something more important now discrepancy in year of birth: 1878 And 1879 . Stalin, of course, firmly remembered his metric year of birth and indicated it correctly everywhere, right up to 1920. But in party documents after 1917, 1879 appeared everywhere. This date first appeared in the materials (questionnaires) of the VI Party Congress. It is known that Stalin was prone to the mysticism of numbers. According to the Georgian-Persian account the number 5 was endowed with a magical meaning. Everything that was multiple 5 was supposed to bring happiness, or come true. IN 1917 first came fifth anniversary after 1912, “years of achievement” for Stalin. Stalin believed that in 1917 there would not only be a revolution, but also that it would succeed and would certainly win. And when this really happened, he became even more confident in his Marxist knowledge and conclusions, and in his faith in happy high five.

In this regard, he mentally looked over the entire path traveled before the revolution, comparing it with "five-year plans". IN 1889 the publication “Vephis tkaosani” appeared, which was destined to help him choose a “strong” pseudonym, and at that time he was smooth 10 years. IN 1899 he was expelled from the seminary and he became a professional revolutionary, and at that time he turned smooth 20 years. Hence, It is much more correct to count from 1879., and not formally since 1878. For only a few days at the end of December separate him from 1879, and if not for an accident, and his mother would have carried him to term for another week, then he would have been born both formally and actually in 1879. After all, in fact, his life began not with the almost completely past 1878, but with the beginning of 1879. That is why he always cited only this date in Russia, and after 1917 he decided to finally adhere to it as real, and not “dogmatic”, which was 1878. And when, contrary to the rule he had already accepted, in 1920 he indicated 1878 g., then this was done because the date was indicated for abroad, where, as Stalin knew very well, terribly bureaucratic and formal views dominated and where a departure from the date in metrics would be considered sensational.

Thus, we see that there is a completely clear, understandable, logical and plausible explanation for why the official date of birth was indicated in the USSR as 1879, and not 1878, as in the metrics, and for what reasons Stalin himself “corrected” this date.

(Based on materials from the work of V.V. Pokhlebkin “The Great Pseudonym”)

To Dzhugashvili or Koba. What was he like before he became Stalin?

Everyone knows that the real name of the leader of the people was not Stalin. Before going down in history, most of young Joseph’s friends called him simply Koba. He was the son of a housewife and a simple shoemaker. Vissarion, his father, an alcoholic and rowdy, was arrested after an attack on the city police chief.

1894 15-year-old Joseph Dzhugashvili.

But the boy was quite capable and, despite his unlucky father, received a grant to study at the elementary Russian Orthodox seminary. True, just a year later, young Joseph decided that there was no God and, as a result, never completed his education. But he liked Lenin’s ideas and joined a Marxist political group.

The future leader took his first pseudonym while still in seminary. He called himself Koba and demanded that his comrades call him the same. This is the name of the hero from Joseph’s favorite novel “The Patricide,” written by Alexander Kazbegi. In the novel, Koba is a young peasant who can easily be called “ noble robber", only, unlike Robin Hood, more realistic.

1901 Stalin at the age of 23. Pictures from police archives.

After leaving church school Stalin worked at the weather station until 1901, then finally became an underground revolutionary. Koba organized rallies, started riots and constantly wrote articles for underground propaganda leaflets. In 1904 he joined Lenin's new Bolshevik group.

1906

March 1908. Photos of Stalin after his arrest.

Personal file of Joseph Stalin. The profile was opened after his arrest in Baku in 1910.

In 1911, Koba takes his second and last pseudonym, which for the next few decades will inspire fear and respect throughout the world - he begins to call himself Stalin.

1911

1911

1911 Photos taken by the secret police in St. Petersburg.

During the First World War, Joseph Stalin never went to the front. As a child, he was twice run over by a horse-drawn carriage, as a result of which he received serious injuries to his left arm and was released from service. In April 1917, at the congress of the Communist Party, Stalin was elected to the Central Committee. Six months later the Committee voted for a revolution, which subsequently led to civil war.

In less than 10 years, Joseph Stalin will become Secretary General Communist Party. Along with his appointment, the leader received a number of nicknames that were firmly attached to him among the people: the Genius of Humanity, the Great Architect of Communism and many others.

1915 Stalin (second row, third from left) with a group of Bolsheviks in the village of Turukhansk, Russia.

1917

1918

Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin and Mikhail Kalinin in 1919.

Joseph Stalin died 63 years ago - on March 5, 1953, however, despite this, his biography is still full of gaps and dark spots. This is especially true of the pre-revolutionary period of the leader’s life. Why did this happen and how can we explain the appearance of unreliable versions? The candidate of historical sciences, researcher was looking for answers to these questions State Archive RF Olga Edelman is the author of the study “Stalin, Koba and Soso. Young Stalin in historical sources."

Stalin in 1918. Tsaritsyn Front

Book Olga Edelman It starts off very intriguing. Already on the first pages, the author writes that the young Stalin looks “like one big hoax: a man with an invented last name, confusion with his date of birth, doubts about his nationality (Georgians or Ossetians?), a cascade of false names and documents, rumors about some dark spots in the past " To begin with, we decided to deal with the invented surname...

Nicknames, pseudonyms, nicknames

– When did Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili become Soso, Soso became Koba, and Koba became Stalin?

– Soso is childhood nickname Dzhugashvili. Diminutive name for Joseph. Then, already at the initial stage of its revolutionary activities, Dzhugashvili began to use this name as one of his party nicknames. In April 1902, he was arrested for the first time for organizing a demonstration in Batum. In the fall of 1903, he was sent into exile to the village of Novaya Uda, Balagansky district, Irkutsk province.

Dzhugashvili soon fled from there, after which he became Koba. In the novel by Alexander Kazbegi, this name was given to a romantic robber, a kind of Caucasian Robin Hood. Perhaps it was in honor of this hero that in 1904 Dzhugashvili, returning to the Caucasus, took the nickname Koba. And his most famous pseudonym, Stalin, appeared much later, in 1912. And first with the initial K. - K. Stalin. I think Koba was meant.

I note that the revolutionaries of the early twentieth century had many nicknames - for different occasions. There was a party nickname by which the revolutionary was known to his fellow party members. At the same time, there could be a literary pseudonym. By the way, already in Turukhansk exile, having become Stalin, Dzhugashvili wrote about Stalin in the third person. So he tried to mislead the gendarmes so that they would not identify him with Stalin.

Under the pseudonym Ivanovich, he appeared in the protocols of the IV and V party congresses. As you can see, this pseudonym is not related to the party nickname. Finally, gendarmerie surveillance agents gave their nicknames to the revolutionaries. So in reality, the nicknames and pseudonyms of Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, of course, are not limited to the three named, the most famous...

– Now about the date of birth of Stalin. In the literature you can find two dates: the textbook one, included in the official biography of the leader - December 9 (21), 1879, and another one - December 6 (18), 1878. Which one do you think is more reliable?

– More reasons to consider the correct date of birth Joseph Dzhugashvili December 6 (18), 1878. However, these and other dates can be found in his profiles. I think he himself was not very interested in knowing exactly when he was born. In general, the pre-revolutionary part of his biography is still little studied, replete with ambiguities, gaps, rumors and versions of varying degrees of fantasticality and unreliability. And this despite the fact that out of more than 74 years of his life, more than half - almost 39 - he lived under the “old regime”.

There is a clear disproportion: entire libraries of studies have been written about Stalin’s post-revolutionary period, but his activities as an underground revolutionary are still in the shadows. But he came to power with a wealth of life experience, with formed likes and dislikes. All this could not but affect the behavior of Stalin the leader...

Modesty adorns a person

– What is the reason for such a low degree of study of the issue?

– First of all, in order to study the pre-revolutionary period under a huge number Of various memories, we have very little evidence that can be unconditionally trusted. Those that exist are very specific: there is not a single category of sources about the young Stalin that would be a priori trustworthy. All memoirists wrote from some political position. Roughly speaking, the authors were divided into outright enemies who accused Stalin of everything, and overzealous friends who insisted that Stalin was in charge of everything almost from a young age.

Joseph Dzhugashvili was born in poor family shoemaker in the city of Gori, Tiflis province

In general, the life of Joseph Dzhugashvili, an illegal revolutionary, was such that it excluded the possibility of the existence of third-party, more or less objective and at the same time informed observers. He didn’t have any close people who were ready to talk about him. His comrades in power, those who knew him from his youth and in the underground, such as Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Vyacheslav Molotov, Mikhail Tskhakaya, did not leave memoirs about him. The memoirist closest to him is his daughter Svetlana. Her relationship with her father was complex, and it is clear that she was not an eyewitness to the events relating to his young years.

Stalin's youth was spent in the revolutionary underground, prisons and exile. Information card on I.V. Dzhugashvili from the archives of the secret police in St. Petersburg. Circa 1911

The reliability of the memoirists’ testimony can be verified using the information contained in the gendarmerie documents. However, sources originating from the depths of the gendarmerie department, for obvious reasons, often demonstrate the low awareness of their authors. How could it be otherwise, we were talking about a member of a well-conspiracy underground, who tried in every possible way to confuse the secret police. So, when studying Stalin’s biography, one has to confront several mutually exclusive versions of the same events at once and try to build a more or less consistent picture.

DZHUGASHVILI'S CHILDREN'S NICKNAME IS SOSO, A SMALL NAME OF JOSEPH. In 1904, it became Koba - in honor of the hero of the novel Alexander Kazbegi, who created the image of a kind of Caucasian Robin Hood. And the most famous pseudonym - Stalin - Dzhugashvili began to be used since 1912

– One cannot ignore the natural secrecy of the research object itself...

– Indeed, it is difficult to name someone who could be considered an intimate friend of Koba. At the same time, during the life of Stalin himself, the facts of his biography, especially those relating to his youth, were not emphasized. There have been very few very sparse publications on this topic. Unlike Lenin, about whose childhood volumes were written at one time (there was a whole genre of literature about how “Lenin was little with a curly head”), there were no stories about “little Stalin.” In the archive I saw only a few manuscripts written by his childhood acquaintances. But these “biographies of the leader” were never published.

- Why?

– Stalin made it clear in every possible way that it was not good to stick oneself out, and did not encourage stories about his childhood and revolutionary youth. During the life of the leader, his complete scientific biography was not published. Instead, Stalin directed his efforts towards publishing collected works. Which is pretty smart. This made it possible to avoid the publication of a detailed biography and at the same time create a corpus of texts suitable for quotation.

– What, in your opinion, lay at the basis of this approach—actually modesty or the exaggerated secrecy of the leader?

– And secrecy too, but also calculation. In the 1920s, some old party members still spoke with delight about their revolutionary exploits, which, if I were Stalin, I would also have forbidden anyone to publish anything about. These are, for example, stories about how a tsarist secret police agent was cleverly stabbed to death right on the street. Or about how they stuffed a bomb.

The ruling party needs to have a decent appearance, but here it is almost a crime. In addition, those who came to power should not have given instructions to their enemies on how to fight the regime. And the experience of the Bolsheviks was the experience of just such a struggle.

Today, historians have no doubt that Eremin’s letter, on which Stalin’s accusations of connections with the Tsarist secret police were based, is a fake - Valentin Kuzmin / TASS

On December 13, 1931, Stalin had a very interesting conversation with German writer Emil Ludwig. The latter asked the leader the following question:

“You have decades of underground work behind you. You had to clandestinely transport weapons, literature, etc. Don’t you think that the enemies of the Soviet regime can borrow your experience and fight the Soviet regime using the same methods?”

Stalin responded lapidarily: “This, of course, is quite possible.”

Agree that it is somehow unreasonable to actually publish your own instructions on organizing underground work. Why should the authorities teach this to their potential opponents?

Finally, let's not forget: already in the 1920s, biographies of party leaders became an instrument of internal party struggle. While Stalin was moving to power, publications appeared in the press, for example, letters Yakova Sverdlova from the Turukhansk exile about the difficult character of Koba or letters from Stalin himself, where about the undertaking Lenin He speaks of the internal party conflict as a storm in a teacup.

Then it was compromising evidence. It is not surprising that, having established himself in power, by the early 1930s Stalin took strict control over everything that came out of the press regarding not only his own revolutionary past, but also the history of the party in general.

Provocateur, militant, criminal?

– Did you have to remember that any information can be used against you?

- Exactly. It would be clearly imprudent to reveal the details of his biography in the conditions of an acute internal party struggle, accompanied by a war of not just incriminating evidence, but often unfounded rumors spread. And Stalin was in no hurry to do this...

– Stalin was often declared an agent of the tsarist secret police.

– It was common for the underground to look for provocateurs in their midst, and indeed there were many of them, especially in Caucasian organizations. However, everything archival searches They gave absolutely no reliable evidence of Joseph Dzhugashvili’s cooperation with the police, but there were many serious arguments that did not allow the development of such suspicions.

The voiced version is clearly refuted Zinaida Peregudova in her articles and book “Political Investigation of Russia. 1880–1917", published in 2000. After the publication of her works, there is no longer any reason to consider Stalin an agent of the tsarist secret police. Peregudova convincingly proved that the so-called “Eremin’s letter”, on which the accusations against Stalin are based ( long years this letter was passed off as part of the correspondence of gendarmerie officers), nothing more than a fake.

Future leaders Soviet state Joseph Stalin (top row, third from left) and Yakov Sverdlov (top row, third from right) in exile in the Turukhansk region. 1915

By the way, not only rumors that Stalin was an employee of the secret police became widespread. He was also accused of being an expropriating bandit, and also a terrible coward, avoiding danger at every opportunity. Of course, one can imagine combining a militant, an expropriator and a criminal in one person. But how could the same person also be a coward? Here we are at Once again We are faced with the complete inconsistency of Stalin’s enemies.

– Party comrades accused Stalin of participating in the so-called “Tiflis ex” of 1907, as a result of which the Bolsheviks took a gigantic sum for those times - 250 thousand rubles.

– At the same time, it was known that the “ex” organized Kamo ( Simon Ter-Petrosyan). And Stalin was blamed for the very action for which Kamo was considered a hero.

However, Koba did not directly participate in the ex. The names of all the militants who took part in it are known. They were caught and tried. Dzhugashvili was not among them. And it’s clear why: by that time he had already become a prominent party leader. And he had someone to send to the task. Let's say, the same Kamo, with whom they were fellow countrymen. I can’t believe that Koba himself ran with bombs. But Dzhugashvili could and most likely had something to do with sending money abroad to Vladimir Lenin.

– How right are those who molded Stalin into an inveterate militant?

– U Fazil Iskander in the novel “Sandro from Chegem”, based on one of the short stories Yuri Kara shot the sensational film “The Feast of Belshazzar, or a Night with Stalin” in the late 1980s, Koba is presented as an inveterate militant. But this fiction, based on rumors, the origins of which, apparently, should be sought in the same party squabbles of the early 1920s.

We know, let me remind you, that Joseph Dzhugashvili had a defect in the shoulder and elbow joints of his left hand. They write different things about the origin of this injury. However, we do not have reliable information about when and under what circumstances young Joseph injured his hand. This is not surprising: no one thought to document what happened to the boy from the dysfunctional family of a poor shoemaker.

But I seriously doubt that a man with a withered hand could be a militant. In addition, there is famous photograph, where we see young Joseph with his classmates. In this photo, Soso is standing in the last row at the edge. And he is perhaps the smallest and thinnest of all. Could a frail young man with a withered hand become an inveterate terrorist? I think no. His strength lay elsewhere: he took advantage of his intelligence and ability to manipulate people, the ability to be a behind-the-scenes puppeteer.

Revolutionary racket in Baku

– Is there any confirmation in the sources that Stalin extorted money for the party from Baku oil industrialists? That is, he was engaged in banal racketeering?

– All revolutionary parties were involved in extorting money from Baku oil industrialists. It really was a revolutionary racket. It is known, for example, that the father of the future academician Lev Landau paid money to the Baku committee of the RSDLP, which included Stalin. For Baku at that time, this situation was the norm.

– How and why did this happen?

“Life around the oil fields was difficult. Baku is a kind of Kuwait at the beginning of the twentieth century. The city grew very quickly. Life there was incredibly colorful. There were many temporary workers at the oil fields - from among the surrounding peasants who came to earn money. There were also subjects of Persia among them. For the police, everyone looked the same. They come and go.

The local police and administration were unable to cope with the influx of non-resident population. Production was not stable. Industrialists received an order for a certain volume of oil and recruited temporary workers. As soon as the order was completed, the workers were dismissed until the next time. In this circulation of human flows, the revolutionaries lived almost openly and felt calm.

Simon Ter-Petrosyan, better known under the nickname Kamo, was one of the organizers of the famous “Tiflis ex” on June 12 (25), 1907 - TASS Photo Chronicle

Baku gendarmes reported that they could not keep track of the revolutionaries because the spies were being killed. They killed not only the spies, but also all unwanted “outsiders.” Late travelers were regularly killed. The crime rate was extremely high.

Of course, the oil owners had security from local bandits. But oil fields are a rather fragile thing. A worker could, as it were, accidentally drop a bucket into the well - and thereby take it out of circulation for a long time. Unrest in the fields was fraught with arson. Therefore, the oil industrialists understood that they could not quarrel with anyone: neither with their workers, nor with anyone else. As a result, everyone agreed with everyone.

By the way, it was after the general strike in Baku in December 1904, in the organization of which Dzhugashvili took some part (but did not lead it, as his apologists wrote), that the first collective agreement in the history of Russia was concluded between workers and entrepreneurs.

– There were several revolutionary parties in Russia. If you pay everyone, you will go broke. Why did the Social Democrats take money?

– We have no direct evidence of this. What exactly did the RSDLP take money for? Maybe because there won't be a strike. Or maybe for the fact that it will be. The same strike of 1904 was organized neither by the Bolsheviks nor the Mensheviks, but by the Shendrikov group [created in August 1904 in Baku by the brothers Leo, Ilya And Gleb Shendrikov the group was called the Organization of Balakhani and Bibiheybat Workers, and from 1905 – the Union of Baku Workers. – "Historian"].

The Shendrikovs were populists. The Bolsheviks were outraged that they led workers to set fire to industries and called for violence. A prominent Baku Social Democrat at that time was Vladimir Noskov(Glebov). He said that people from industrialists came to him and offered him first 30 thousand rubles, and then 50 thousand for the strike to continue for another two weeks. The strike in the fields had a magical effect on rising prices. So now it is difficult to understand who paid whom and for what.

Was the archives cleaned?

– You can often hear that Stalin, having become a leader, allegedly cleaned out the archives, hiding or even destroying documents about his past...

“They were convinced of this in emigrant circles, because they believed in the veracity of the rumors that Stalin was an agent of the tsarist secret police and a criminal. Naturally, the emigrant authors could not get into the Soviet archives in any way and only said that in the USSR, of course, all inconvenient documents were destroyed. But from our archivists, who kept and are storing the archives of the Police Department, I have not heard anything like this.

In our archives, employees work for a long time, they come with a fresh college diploma and stay for life, they are not in a hurry to retire, they are very faithful to their profession. Therefore, there is a continuity of “oral tradition” about what happened in the institution more than half a century ago.

So everything is simple: you need to ask distinguished employees, and if they themselves have not witnessed certain events, then they must have heard about them from their senior colleagues. For example, in this way - not first-hand, but second-hand - we know how the evacuation of archives during the war took place. But the “archival legend” does not talk about any purges of pre-revolutionary police funds.

In the late 1980s, film director Yuri Kara made the film “The Feasts of Belshazzar, or a Night with Stalin,” in which the “father of nations” in his youth is shown as an inveterate militant

– After all, this is a very difficult task - to clean the archives so that it is not noticeable. In addition, only professionals can do this: it is difficult for the party chief to find documents to be confiscated.

- Let's try to imagine a dictator at the apogee of power, instructing someone to find and seize documents about his cooperation with the secret police. That is, it is assumed that the suspicious and cunning Stalin directly into the hands of one of his comrades (and at the same time his rivals) gives such compromising material about himself? The archival system was then entirely subordinated to the NKVD.

Who should Stalin have sent? Nikolai Yezhov? Or Beria? Is it really smart and cunning? Lavrentiy Beria, to whom he entrusted archival research on the history of party organizations in Transcaucasia? By the way, this fact alone means that Stalin did not feel any dark past behind him, which had to be reliably hidden. Because, obviously, Beria is the first one whom it made sense to beware of.

Further, Beria himself would not have gone to the archives, if only because he would not have been able to find the necessary documents among tens of thousands of storage units there on his own, without the help of archivists. This means that a whole team of proven employees of state security agencies, and at the same time archival employees helping them, had to participate in the search for documents incriminating the leader. Well, how can this be? Stalin was certainly not stupid.

Even if he had assumed that in the depths of the archives there might be something that cast a shadow on him, he, like any somewhat prudent dictator (and Stalin was more than prudent), would have preferred to simply limit as much as possible the access of the curious to the relevant folders and shelves, but would not make their contents available to representatives of literally the entire hierarchical system of the NKVD.

Smart Bolshevik

– What role did Stalin play in the Bolshevik party before 1917?

– By the beginning of the First Russian Revolution, he became a prominent figure in Transcaucasia. But Stalin was not elected to the Third Party Congress in the spring of 1905. A year later, he found himself a delegate to the IV Congress of the RSDLP, although his mandate was disputed. Stalin became a national figure around 1912. At this time he established good contact with Lenin.

– Thanks to what qualities did Stalin make his career as a revolutionary?

– It seems to me that we overestimate many of Stalin’s party comrades. Among them there were indeed a number of bright people. But compared to many Bolsheviks, Stalin looks like one of the most intelligent. Take, for example, the publication of the newspaper Pravda: it was not immediately possible to establish it. Lenin sent to St. Petersburg angry letters, but there was no result until Ilyich instructed Stalin and Sverdlov to take over the newspaper. And then things started to happen.

You need to understand that among the underground there were not many people capable of organizing something. Who did the revolutionary underground consist of? Mostly from dropout students and high school students. And if we take the Caucasus, then they were not even real Marxists, they simply did not really know the theory. Works Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels were not translated into Georgian, and therefore the Transcaucasian revolutionaries used “amateur” abstracts.

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Lavrentiy Beria - RIA Novosti

Don't overestimate these guys. These were people who did not fit into legal life, did not find a place for themselves in it and did not have a good profession. It is clear that this was a problem of the Russian Empire, which threw too many young people to the sidelines. Remember Chekhov's image of a half-educated student. The revolutionary underground made it possible for these eternal students stop being extra people and even gaining a certain status of respected people allowed them to realize their ambitions.

Who would Stalin be in legal life? A village teacher or a village priest. After all, the family did not have money for Joseph to receive a higher education. In this sense, his choice of the revolutionary path is quite obvious.

– Stalin is often reproached for being a tongue-tied and inexpressive speaker...

– Stalin was a speaker adequate to the tasks facing him. And Leon Trotsky, for example, called him a bad speaker - his worst enemy for many decades.

Meanwhile, the phenomenon of Stalin’s career was not based on anything other than popularity among the workers of Transcaucasia. He had no starting advantages. There was no group that would support and promote it. If we talk about Stalin’s early texts, they are tongue-tied, viscous, and long (by the way, the works of many other revolutionaries are written simply monstrously from the point of view of journalism). But subsequent texts demonstrate the growth of Stalin the propagandist. It is clear that he was learning to write more clearly and intelligibly.

As a result, Stalin found his own language and style of presenting information. The workers who listened to him said that they liked Soso because he “didn’t look like an intellectual.” Dzhugashvili did not make hours-long speeches and did not use learned words, the meaning of which the workers did not understand. They were impressed that he was dressed approximately the same as them, and that he behaved on an equal footing with them. When communicating with ordinary people, Stalin was often interested in how they lived, what cared and worried them. He knew how to find an approach to people. And in public debates with the Mensheviks he liked to speak last. Unlike them, he spoke concisely and clearly, and the workers voted for him.

– In his mature years, Stalin was distinguished by the fact that he read a lot, knew world literature well, had an excellent memory and a tenacious mind. But it would seem that neither childhood spent on the outskirts of the empire in the family of a poor Georgian shoemaker, nor youth spent in the revolutionary underground contributed to the formation of such qualities and interests.

– An important feature of Stalin, which is often forgotten, is that he was an incredibly “self-taught” man. Born in poverty Georgian family, Joseph Dzhugashvili learned Russian, in which he later read a lot throughout his life. At the Tiflis Seminary he received a decent liberal arts education, but in the field of natural sciences his education was not so good. Joseph also tried to teach foreign languages, German and French. However, nothing worked out with them.

In Baku at the beginning of the twentieth century, many revolutionary parties found sources of funding

When Dzhugashvili was studying at the seminary, according to entries in the journal, he was subject to penalties for regularly borrowing from the city library books and legal newspapers that were not permitted for seminarians (that is, let us note, not illegal literature, but what was prohibited by the seminary authorities). Once he was punished for reading Victor Hugo. It is noteworthy that Dzhugashvili’s classmates were punished for fighting, getting drunk, smoking and rowdying.

Memoir revenge

– When Stalin became the leader, he was praised, when at the 20th Congress the cult of his personality was debunked, at first they began to scold him, and then they kept silent about a lot. During the years of perestroika, they wrote about him exclusively in a negative way. The political situation had an effect, not only here, but also in the West...

– Abroad, the first books about Stalin appeared in the 1930s. They were part of political journalism and laid down traditions that still exist today. Western scientists were faced with an acute shortage of information: Soviet archives, of course, were inaccessible to them, and official historical party publications aroused distrust. So they were based primarily on emigrant memoirs (primarily Georgian Mensheviks); the stories of Stalin's political and often personal opponents seemed to them more objective, because at least it was not false apologetics.

Museum I.V. Stalin in Gori. Georgia

That is why the books “Portraits of Revolutionaries” and “Stalin” enjoyed enormous authority. Leon Trotsky- a major party figure, aware of many, if not all, of the intricacies. However, what could Lev Davidovich know about Stalin’s pre-revolutionary past? Just what everyone was talking about. Trotsky was not a member of the Bolshevik faction and until 1917 saw Dzhugashvili only briefly in Vienna.

The information vacuum gave rise to increased interest in dubious documents of various kinds, including such as Eremin’s letter, which we have already discussed, or the memoirs of an NKVD officer who fled to the West Alexandra Orlova. The latter, in particular, said that a folder from the secret safe of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs allegedly fell into his hands, which contained documents confirming Stalin's connection with the secret police. Currently, authoritative researchers of Stalinism are convinced that Orlov’s memoirs are not trustworthy.

The nature of the denunciations made by the defectors is understandable. It is quite obvious that they were guided by the conjuncture, the demand for anti-Soviet speeches that existed in the West at that time, and took advantage of the fact that it was impossible to verify or refute their words.

– But such “memoirs” were very popular among Western, and then also among our perestroika authors. Why?

– Western biographers of Stalin, relying on the emigrant tradition, for some reason believed that enemies should judge and talk about him more objectively than friends and adherents. And for many years in our country, it was customary to accept any critical remark addressed to Stalin with complete confidence, and a priori consider everything written in a laudatory manner to be completely falsified. By the way, often behind exaggerated praise there are real facts, only greatly inflated.

Meanwhile, each time, from my point of view, one should pay attention to the personality of the critic himself. What goals did he set, what relationship connected him with Stalin? Thus, the Mensheviks who found themselves in the West often not only distorted the facts, but also directly slandered Stalin. There were also those who, having lost to him in the political struggle, tried to take revenge on the pages of their “memoirs” and even tried to literally rewrite the unsuccessful episodes of their own biography...

Interviewed by Vladimir Rudakov and Oleg Nazarov

Russian Revolution

How did it happen that an ordinary teenager from the provincial Georgian village of Gori became the “head of the people”? We decided to look at what factors contributed to the fact that Koba, who lived in robbery, became Joseph Stalin.
Father factor
Father's upbringing plays a big role in a man's maturation. Joseph Dzhugashvili was actually deprived of it. Koba's official father, shoemaker Vissarion Dzhugashvili, drank a lot. Ekaterina Geladze divorced him when her son was 12 years old.
The paternity of Vissarion Dzhugashvili is still disputed by historians. Simon Montefiori, in his book “Young Stalin,” writes about three “contenders” for this role: wine merchant Yakov Ignatashvili, Gori police chief Damian Davrichui and priest Christopher Charkviani.
Childhood trauma
Stalin's character as a child was seriously affected by the trauma he received at the age of twelve: in a road accident Joseph injured left hand, over time it became shorter and weaker than the right one. Due to his withered hands, Koba could not fully participate in youthful fights; he could only win them with the help of cunning. A hand injury prevented Kobe from learning to swim. Joseph also suffered from smallpox at the age of five and barely survived, after which he developed his first “special mark”: “a pockmarked face with smallpox marks.”
The feeling of physical inferiority affected Stalin's character. Biographers note the vindictiveness of young Koba, his temper, secrecy and penchant for conspiracy.
Relationship with mother
Stalin's relationship with his mother was difficult. They wrote letters to each other, but met rarely. When the mother visited her son for the last time, this happened a year before her death, in 1936, she expressed regret that he never became a priest. Stalin was only amused by this. When his mother died, Stalin did not go to the funeral, only sent a wreath with the inscription “To my dear and beloved mother from her son Joseph Dzhugashvili.”
Such a cool relationship between Stalin and his mother can be explained by the fact that Ekaterina Georgievna was an independent person and was never shy in her assessments. For the sake of her son, when Joseph was neither Koba nor Stalin, she learned to cut and sew, mastered the profession of a milliner, but she did not have enough time to raise her son. Joseph grew up on the street.
Birth of Koba
The future Stalin had many party nicknames. He was called “Osip”, “Ivanovich”, “Vasiliev”, “Vasily”, but the most famous nickname of young Joseph Dzhugashvili was Koba. It is significant that Mikoyan and Molotov addressed Stalin this way even in the 1930s. Why Koba? Literature influenced. One of the young revolutionary’s favorite books was the novel “The Patricide” by the Georgian writer Alexander Kazbegi. This is a book about the struggle of mountain peasants for their independence. One of the heroes of the novel - the intrepid Koba - also became a hero for the young Stalin, who, after reading the book, began to call himself Koba.
Women
In the book “Young Stalin” by British historian Simon Montefiore, the author claims that Koba was very loving in his youth. Montefiore, however, does not consider this to be anything special; this way of life, the historian writes, was characteristic of revolutionaries.
Montefiore claims that Koba’s mistresses included peasant women, noblewomen, and party comrades (Vera Schweitzer, Valentina Lobova, Lyudmila Stal).
The British historian also claims that two peasant women from Siberian villages (Maria Kuzakova, Lidiya Pereprygina), where Koba was serving his exile, gave birth to sons from him, whom Stalin never recognized.
Despite such turbulent relationships with women, Koba’s main business was, of course, the revolution. In his interview with Ogonyok magazine, Simon Montefiore commented on the information he obtained: “ Worthy of respect Only party comrades were considered. Love and family were expelled from life, which should have been devoted only to the revolution. What seems immoral and criminal in their behavior to us did not matter to them.”
"Exes"
Today it is already well known that Koba in his youth did not disdain illegal activities. Koba showed particular zeal during expropriations. At the Bolshevik congress in Stockholm in 1906, the so-called “exes” were banned; a year later, at the London congress, this decision was confirmed. It is significant that the congress in London ended on June 1, 1907, and the most sensational robbery of two State Bank carriages, organized by Koba Ivanovich, occurred later - on June 13. Koba did not comply with the demands of the congress for the reason that he considered them Menshevik; on the issue of “ex”, he took the position of Lenin, who approved them.
During the mentioned robbery, Koba’s group managed to get 250 thousand rubles. 80 percent of this money was sent to Lenin, the rest went to the needs of the cell.
Stalin's not-so-clean reputation could become an obstacle to his advancement in the future. In 1918, the head of the Mensheviks, Yuli Martov, published an article in which he gave three examples of Koba’s illegal activities: the robbery of State Bank carriages in Tiflis, the murder of a worker in Baku, and the seizure of the steamship “Nicholas I” in Baku.
Moreover, Martov even wrote that Stalin had no right to hold government positions, since he was expelled from the party in 1907. Stalin was furious at this article; he claimed that this exclusion was illegal, since it was carried out by the Tiflis cell, controlled by the Mensheviks. That is, Stalin still did not deny the fact of his exclusion. But he threatened Martov with a revolutionary tribunal.
Why "Stalin"?
Throughout his life, Stalin had three dozen pseudonyms. At the same time, it is significant that Joseph Vissarionovich did not make a secret of his surname. Who now remembers Apfelbaum, Rosenfeld and Wallach (Zinoviev, Kamenev, Litvinov)? But Ulyanov-Lenin and Dzhugashvili-Stalin are well known. Stalin chose the pseudonym quite deliberately. According to William Pokhlebkin, who devoted his work “The Great Pseudonym” to this issue, several factors coincided when choosing a pseudonym. The real source when choosing a pseudonym was the surname of a liberal journalist, first close to the populists and then to the Socialist Revolutionaries, Evgeniy Stefanovich Stalinsky, one of the prominent Russian professional publishers of periodicals in the province and translator into Russian of Sh. Rustaveli’s poem “The Knight in the Skin of the Tiger.” Stalin loved this poem very much. There is also a version that Stalin took a pseudonym based on the name of one of his mistresses, party comrades Lyudmila Stal.