Svetlana Alliluyeva

Born

1926-02-28

Died

2011-11-22

Birthplace

Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union

Biography

Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva, later known as Lana Peters, was the youngest child and only daughter of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin's second wife. In 1967, she caused an international furore when she defected and became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Upon her arrival in New York City in April 1967, she gave a press conference denouncing her father's legacy and the Soviet government. Svetlana Alliluyeva became the talk of the town and was introduced into the New York hip crowd by Mary Hayward Weir, Jerzy Kosinski and Anita Goldstein among other. In 1984, she returned to the Soviet Union and had her Soviet citizenship returned.