How the Jew Kapler seduced Stalin's underage daughter and survived

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the history of the relationship between Kapler and Alliluyeva, everything is surprising. How did the mutual attraction arise between a 38-year-old man with two official marriages (with famous actresses - Tatyana Tarnovskaya and Tatyana Zlatogorova) and a series of stormy romances, and a 16-year-old schoolgirl, whose life was strictly regulated and completely controlled? How could Kapler afford it and why did he survive, encroaching on Stalin's beloved daughter? They were not destined to stay together, but each of them for many years kept in his heart that sudden and, at the same time, deep feeling.

How did childhood in a golden cage affect the formation of the personality of Stalin's daughter?

After the death of her mother - Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Svetlana, in fact, was an orphan. Her father adored her, but he was almost never there. From the age of six, the child grew up in the care of strangers in the closed world of a government dacha. The father spoiled his daughter in his own way: he came up with a very peculiar game from a psychological and pedagogical point of view, in which she was the commander, the "mistress", and he was the executor of her orders (and not only he, but also his closest circle). It is not surprising that the girl has formed an imperious and strong character. She did not need anything material, but she had no one to talk to frankly, no one to bow her head and cry when she found sadness.

From her mother, a closed, dryish and pedantic person (while she was alive), the girl also received little warmth. Moreover, the father, with all his adoration of his daughter, remained clothed in the shell of his characteristic detachment. Brothers are boys, where can they understand her emotional experiences. Moreover, this constant supervision - a person was assigned to Svetlana, who followed her everywhere, every step she took was reported to Stalin.

Svetlana read a lot, studied languages (German, English), whiled away the evenings watching films on a home cinema projector. She also had friends to whom she had to write out special passes so that they could go to their Kremlin apartment or dacha. But she could not "confess" and be frank with them. In her soul, a feeling of loneliness, a feeling of isolation, constantly accumulated and intensified. The Kremlin princess lived in her golden cage and did not suspect that very soon her relationship with her father would irrevocably change.

Who is Alexey Kapler and how did he manage to win the heart of 16-year-old Svetlana Alliluyeva?

It was only possible for Stalin's children to get away from complete total control when their father was very busy. On one of these days, at the end of October 1942, Svetlana's older brother, Vasily, returned from the front to improve his health after being wounded. Guests were invited to the dacha.

Among those invited were documentary filmmaker Roman Carmen, writer Konstantin Simonov with his wife, actress Serova, and Stalin Prize laureate Kapler, who planned to write a screenplay for a film about pilots, he needed Vasily's advice (most likely, he, like other distinguished guests, there was a desire through Stalin's children to get closer to him). The latter, in the course of stormy communication, noticed a bored Svetlana, who could not so easily communicate with those present due to her age and character, and approached her.

To his surprise, Kapler discovered that Svetlana is a person of an extraordinary mind, a whole and strong nature, this is a rarity for a girl of her age. Well, Svetlana herself fell in love. An experienced man, a heartthrob with a pleasant appearance and a disposable manner of communication, an intelligent interlocutor, a brilliant storyteller - she could not help but reach for him. He himself, apparently, decided to play with fire. Soft and light in character, he was not at all a coward or a weakling, he had some kind of enthusiasm, a desire for thrills, some kind of hussar insolence.

Kapler was interested and pleased to develop Svetlana. He gladly took her to private screenings at the Committee of Cinematography, to theatrical premieres, concerts of classical music, to museums.

Unbeknownst to himself, Alexei also fell in love, he was conquered by the still unspent power of her soul and feelings. When they were around, loneliness did not exist, they were happy. Of course, they were under vigilant surveillance. For a while, Stalin did not react in any way to what was happening. But in December 1942, the knight in love makes a very romantic, but not careful act: he writes an article in the newspaper Pravda, which is called "Letter of Lieutenant L. From Stalingrad." In addition to the story of what is happening at the front, it contains memories of meetings with his beloved in Moscow. So, in this part of the letter there were moments that unequivocally indicate the relationship between Alexei and Svetlana.

On Kapler's return from Stalingrad, the lovers met. Svetlana was tormented by bad forebodings, she begged her beloved not to meet again and not even call each other. They lasted about three weeks, but at the same time their desire to see only intensified.

Ten years for love: where and under what conditions did the keen adventurer Kapler serve his sentence?

Stalin was a jealous parent. The beloved daughter should have belonged only to him, always be there and give her father devoted love. In addition, he had strict views on gender relations, especially when it came to his own daughter. A very unpleasant conversation took place between Stalin and Svetlana, during which the father rudely expressed his extreme disappointment with the choice of his daughter and her behavior. Svetlana for the first time truly showed character and dared to contradict her father. She said that she really loved Alexei. In anger, Stalin shouted that Kapler did not need her - he had love affairs at every step, said that he was arrested, and if Svetlana was stubborn, then this would await her.

Kapler was convicted of having links with foreign agents. During interrogations lasting at least two hours, he tried to explain that these were just business contacts with representatives of the foreign film industry, but his testimony was interpreted differently. To the credit of Alexei Yakovlevich, he behaved with dignity, tried to answer questions in such a way as to mention other people as little as possible, not wanting to cause them any harm with his testimony.

The conditions for serving his sentence in Vorkuta for Kapler turned out to be sparing (perhaps this was influenced by the fact that he was the creator of the film "Lenin in 1918", for which he was given the Stalin Prize of the first degree). In a small room that was allocated to him, he set up a photo studio, at the same time it was his home. If we compare this option with logging and life in the prison barracks, then everything turned out quite happily.

Kapler even married a third time, and again to the actress - Valentina Tokarskaya. He did not forget Svetlana, but he and she understood that the 5 years for which he was sentenced was a long term, and where is the guarantee that after Alexei was released they would be allowed to be together. At the end of his sentence, Kapler returned to the profession. He was forbidden to return to Moscow. But he got himself a business trip, first to Kiev, and then to Moscow. Most likely, Alexey intended to find Svetlana, but people in civilian clothes were already waiting for him at the metropolitan station. He was arrested again - history repeated itself. He served the second "Stalinist five-year plan" in Komi in a camp for political prisoners.

Not destiny, or how did the story of two loving hearts develop after Stalin's death?

Alexei Kapler was released after Stalin's death. In 1954 he was completely rehabilitated. Returning to Moscow, for the fourth time he married the poetess Yulia Drunina, was the head of the script workshop at VGIK, worked on television as the host of "Kinopanorama".

Svetlana graduated with honors from school, entered Moscow State University, and after defending her dissertation she married her brother's friend Grigory Morozov. It was an escape from the Kremlin, which she did in order to understand herself, to understand what she herself wants. The father was again dissatisfied, but the grandson born in this marriage, named after him by Joseph, accepted and fell in love.

But the relationship in this marriage did not work out. Soon after the divorce, Svetlana marries again, but for the candidate proposed by her father - Yuri Zhdanov, the son of her father's party associate. The young couple had a daughter, Catherine. Everything seemed to be the way his father wanted. But this marriage did not last long. In 1953, sitting next to her dying father, Svetlana thought about Kapler. She knew nothing about him. She regretted her father and her lost happiness. A year later, Svetlana Alliluyeva and Alexei Kapler will meet at a meeting of the Writers' Union. They will speak, holding hands, for several hours in a row. But this meeting was the last, they will never be together.

Svetlana married three more times. Her husbands were Ivan Svanidze, Doctor of Economics, Brajesh Singh, a communist from India, and William Peters, an American architect. In 2011, at the age of 85, Svetlana Alliluyeva dies in a nursing home in the US state of Wisconsin. Alexey Kapler left this world much earlier - in 1979.

Stalin was always a very inaccessible person for everyone, he tried not to let anyone into his life. It is all the more surprising that during his life the photographers managed to do these are pictures in which the leader is resting with his family.