Word: stalinization
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...feverish enthusiasm for people and places could quickly turn into disappointment and recrimination, as evidenced by a trail of broken friendships and angry words. In retrospect, it seems clear that her ultimate quarrel was with her father, whom she fatefully resembled. As she once said about the Soviet people, Stalin's "shadow still stands over all of us. It still dictates to us, and we very often obey." The story of Svetlana's life is the chronicle of her losing battle with the specter of her father...
...architect's widow perceived Stalin's daughter as a mystical representative, possibly even the reincarnation, of her own daughter, who had died in an auto accident in 1946. Mrs. Wright, a disciple of the Russian-born mystic Georgi Gurdjieff, was spellbound by some coincidences between the living and the dead. Her daughter, by an earlier marriage in Russia, had also been named Svetlana; moreover, she had been born in Georgia, the region from which Svetlana Alliluyeva's father hailed. Somehow it followed in Mrs. Wright's mind that Stalin's daughter should marry the first Svetlana's widower, William Wesley...
...Senator recollects. Overpowered, Svetlana tried to persuade Peters to leave Taliesin West, where he had worked since 1932 as Wright's disciple and chosen successor. Peters temporized, and after 20 months of marriage, Svetlana stormed out, cursing Mrs. Wright and all that she represented with a wrath that recalled Stalin's. Taliesin West, "with all its horrible modern architecture," Svetlana said, should be burned to the ground...
...picked her up to comfort her. But her mother started smacking her on the bottom for falling down." Olga's upbringing was almost a case study of how some parents tend to reenact with their own offspring what they suffered as children. Svetlana's mother, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, whom Stalin married in 1919, had been a harsh disciplinarian. When Svetlana damaged a tablecloth with scissors, her mother hit her repeatedly on the hands. Nadezhda committed suicide when Svetlana was six, leaving her daughter's discipline to Stalin...
...Svetlana remembered her papochka, Stalin was tender with her in her early childhood, bestowing "loud moist kisses" and calling her "little sparrow." But as she reached adolescence, he became incensed by her independent spirit. He berated her for the "insolence" on her face. He made a scene when he found her wearing a tight sweater. He hated the sight of her in short skirts and made her wear hers much longer than other schoolgirls did. When he learned that she had a lover, he slapped her twice across the face...