To his daughter Svetlana

Stalin, Josef (Dzhugashvili), Russian dictator (1878-1953). Autograph letter signed.

No place, 18. X. 1935.

8vo. 2 ff. on 2 pp. In red crayon.

 185,000.00

In Russian, to his nine-year-old daughter Svetlana: "Hello, little lady of the house! I am sending you pomegranates, tangerines, and candied fruit. Eat - and enjoy, my little lady of the house. There's nothing for Vasja because he is still doing poorly at school and keeps making empty promises. Explain to him that I do not trust long-winded promises and shall believe him only when he really applies himself and delivers a performance that can be called at least middle-rate. I report, dear lady of the house, that I spent a day in Tbilisi. I was visiting [my] mother and said many greetings from you and from Vasja. She is tolerably well and sends you many kisses. That's all for now. Kisses. I shall be seeing you soon. / Secretary to Svetlana - poor paterfamilias, J. Stalin". Svetlana Iosifovna (Stalina) Alliluyeva, born in Moscow in 1926, died in Richland Center, Wisconsin, USA, in 2011.

Traces of horizontal folds; very well preserved. Includes: portrait photograph of Stalin (vintage). Probably Moscow, ca. 1935. Albumen print, 209 x 269 mm, mounted on backing cardboard (298 x 400 mm). A large head-and-shoulders portrait, likely taken shortly before the beginning of the Great Purges. With a few unobtrusive scuff marks; backing cardboard smudged and stained. Russian lab label on reverse: "Foto-Laboratorija, U.P.P. Leningradskogo Otdelenija, Muzfonda SSSR, Leningrad. Lenoblgorlit No. 1094". Rare.

Stock Code: BN#47228 Tags: ,