So glad you posted this review - the book sounds like something I really want to read. I had a biography of Alliluyeva that I meant to read for ages, but it was a digital copy that I lost access to when I moved jobs, so it fell off the list. I should probably just replace it with her memoir.
For obvious reasons, scholars tend to mine Svetlana Alliluyeva’s Twenty Letters to a Friend for tidbits about her father, Stalin
It feels like a shame to see a vibrant, complex woman’s life reduced in the public consciousness to “relative of so-and-so”. Of course, without the Stalin link, it’s unlikely anyone would be reading her memoir in the first place, so it’s understandable. But it sounds like she’d much rather people leave the book thinking about Alexandra Andreevna or Nadya than Stalin.
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Date: 2022-03-09 02:47 am (UTC)For obvious reasons, scholars tend to mine Svetlana Alliluyeva’s Twenty Letters to a Friend for tidbits about her father, Stalin
It feels like a shame to see a vibrant, complex woman’s life reduced in the public consciousness to “relative of so-and-so”. Of course, without the Stalin link, it’s unlikely anyone would be reading her memoir in the first place, so it’s understandable. But it sounds like she’d much rather people leave the book thinking about Alexandra Andreevna or Nadya than Stalin.