Gundareva Natalya Georgievna Soviet and Russian theater and film actress, People's Artist of the RSFSR, 1948–2005 Once in an interview, Natalya Gundareva was asked what was the driving force in her life. The actress told the following story. She was walking along a Moscow street one day and

Catherine II Alekseevna Born Sophia Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst, in Orthodoxy Catherine Alekseevna, Russian empress from 1762, came to power in a palace coup that overthrew her husband from the throne Peter III, 1729–1796 Once upon a time Catherine II

Ranevskaya Faina Georgievna Soviet theater and film actress, People's Artist of the USSR, 1896–1984 Once Faina Ranevskaya brought the aspiring actress Iya Savvina to tears during a rehearsal. But in the evening Ranevskaya herself called: “I’m so lonely, all my friends have died, my whole life is

Russian empire Russian empire
USSR USSR

Glakha Geladze

Louisa Almeda Claflin

Ekaterina (Keke) Georgievna Geladze(cargo. ეკატერინე (კეკე) გელაძე ; -) - mother of Joseph Stalin.

Biography

Born into the family of a serf gardener, Gruzinskaya Orthodox Church in Gambareuli (Georgia) in 1858. Despite the fact that her father, Glakha Geladze, died young and the family always lived in poverty, her adoptive mother, Melania Khomezurashvili, contributed to her daughter’s learning to read and write.

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Literature

• Rybas S. Yu. Stalin. - 2nd ed. - M.: Young Guard. 2010. (Series: Lives of remarkable people)

Notes

Links

• (Russian) . CHRONOS - www.chrono.info. Retrieved April 1, 2013. .

An excerpt characterizing Dzhugashvili, Ekaterina Georgievna

Pelageya Danilovna Melyukova, a broad, energetic woman, wearing glasses and a swinging hood, was sitting in the living room, surrounded by her daughters, whom she tried not to let get bored. They were quietly pouring wax and looking at the shadows of the emerging figures when the footsteps and voices of visitors began to rustle in the hallway.
Hussars, ladies, witches, payassas, bears, clearing their throats and wiping their frost-covered faces in the hallway, entered the hall, where candles were hastily lit. The clown - Dimmler and the lady - Nikolai opened the dance. Surrounded by screaming children, the mummers, covering their faces and changing their voices, bowed to the hostess and positioned themselves around the room.
- Oh, it’s impossible to find out! And Natasha! Look who she looks like! Really, it reminds me of someone. Eduard Karlych is so good! I didn't recognize it. Yes, how she dances! Oh, fathers, and some kind of Circassian; right, how it suits Sonyushka. Who else is this? Well, they consoled me! Take the tables, Nikita, Vanya. And we sat so quietly!
- Ha ha ha!... Hussar this, hussar that! Just like a boy, and his legs!... I can’t see... - voices were heard.
Natasha, the favorite of the young Melyukovs, disappeared with them into the back rooms, where they needed cork and various dressing gowns and men's dresses, which through the open door received the bare girlish hands from the footman. Ten minutes later, all the youth of the Melyukov family joined the mummers.
Pelageya Danilovna, having ordered the clearing of the place for the guests and refreshments for the gentlemen and servants, without taking off her glasses, with a restrained smile, walked among the mummers, looking closely into their faces and not recognizing anyone. Not only did she not recognize the Rostovs and Dimmler, but she also could not recognize either her daughters or her husband’s robes and uniforms that they were wearing.
-Whose is this? - she said, turning to her governess and looking into the face of her daughter, who represented the Kazan Tatar. - It seems like someone from Rostov. Well, Mr. Hussar, what regiment do you serve in? – she asked Natasha. “Give the Turk, give the Turk some marshmallows,” she said to the bartender who was serving them: “this is not prohibited by their law.”
Sometimes, looking at the strange but funny steps performed by the dancers, who had decided once and for all that they were dressed up, that no one would recognize them and therefore were not embarrassed, Pelageya Danilovna covered herself with a scarf, and her entire corpulent body shook from the uncontrollable, kind, old lady’s laughter . - Sashinet is mine, Sashinet is that! - she said.
After Russian dances and round dances, Pelageya Danilovna united all the servants and gentlemen together, in one large circle; They brought a ring, a string and a ruble, and general games were arranged.
An hour later, all the suits were wrinkled and upset. Cork mustaches and eyebrows were smeared across sweaty, flushed and cheerful faces. Pelageya Danilovna began to recognize the mummers, admired how well the costumes were made, how they suited especially the young ladies, and thanked everyone for making her so happy. The guests were invited to dine in the living room, and the courtyard was served in the hall.
- No, guessing in the bathhouse, that’s scary! - said the old girl who lived with the Melyukovs at dinner.
- From what? – asked the eldest daughter of the Melyukovs.
- Don’t go, you need courage...

The process of disintegration of the Dzhugashvili family lasted a long time. Unpleasant incidents also occurred during Soso’s adolescence. His father and mother became strangers to each other. Sometimes Beso sent money for his son and made other attempts to return home. But in fact, the connection between him and his son was broken long before he finally decided to leave the family. This happened around 1890, when Soso was eleven years old.

Since the brothers were against the divorce, Keke left them and settled on the second floor of the house of a familiar priest, Christopher Charkviani. Around the same time, seven-year-old Soso began to beg his mother to teach him to read and write. His mother and grandmother always dreamed of him receiving a spiritual education. They reverently listened to the ringing of the bells with which the bishops arriving from Tbilisi were greeted in Gori. My father considered studying a shameful matter. A waste of time, he gave preference to mastering a useful craft.

Keke made a request to the Charkviani children, who loved little Soso very much, to teach him to read and write. They willingly got down to business. Beso was still in Gori at that time, so the Charkviani brothers worked with Soso when his father went to work. But soon this secret was revealed and Beso forcibly took the boy to a shoe workshop. The mother came to her son's aid immediately, and classes resumed.

Soso turned out to be a capable and diligent student. He mastered the Georgian primer, which usually took a whole year to study, in a week. During breaks between classes, Soso often played dolls with the priest's youngest daughter. Years later, when he was already in the third grade of the Gori Theological School, his friend G. Elisabedashvili (the last name is spelled the same as Elisabedashvili . – V.G.) with a smile reminded him of his love for Charkviani’s daughter.

To replenish the family budget, Keke was going to take up baking or sewing. But the husband forbade his wife to work outside the home. The family of priest Charkviani helped her in every possible way. Mariam, the wife of Jacob Egnatashivili, regularly sent her a basket of food.

The Gori school provided elementary spiritual education, but even then only children of clergy were accepted there. In order for Soso to be allowed to take the exams, Christopher Charkviani resorted to forgery. He declared Beso Dzhugashvili his deacon(8). Soso passed brilliantly entrance tests. This fact, as well as the fact that he was older in age than the rest of the first-graders, he was immediately enrolled in the middle class. It was 1988.

Left alone, Keke finally took up sewing. At one time she worked in the house of Soso’s peer, police prefect Damian Davrischev. The rector of the school, Belyaev, sent her clothes to wash and paid her well. When two sisters Darejan and Lisa Kulidzhanov opened a sewing workshop in Gori, Keke hired them. For the next seventeen years, she, among other things, was invariably engaged in sewing women's dresses. For that time, she was an extraordinary person, if only because she was not afraid of life without a husband.

Modest and deeply religious, she tirelessly cared for the well-being of her son. Svetlana Alliluyeva recalled that her father loved his mother very much and treated her with respect. In the book "Twenty Letters to a Friend" she says the following:

The grandmother was a believer and dreamed of becoming a clergyman for her son. She carried this dream throughout her life, and when her father visited her shortly before his death, she sighed with bitterness that he never became a priest. Her father often repeated these words of hers. He remembered his mother many times.

Stalin considered his poorly educated mother intelligent and strong-willed. When she died in 1937 at the age of approximately 80, according to the memoirs of S. Alliluyeva, he was very worried.

...Earnings from sewing allowed Keke to dress her son more or less well. He had good shoes, a woolen coat, and a warm winter hat knitted by his mother. Soso slept on the ottoman. And when the ottoman became too small for him, his mother remade and lengthened it herself.

Their existence, of course, was not prosperous and comfortable. School teachers periodically visited students at home. One day they came to Dzhugashvili in rainy weather and discovered that water was flowing from the ceiling, which is why mother and son huddled in the corner of the room.

Although Soso's mother did not fully live up to the ideal of a Georgian wife, she was a strong and principled woman. But Father Soso did not at all resemble the image of a real Georgian. He did not have the proper authority in his family, he earned little, he often drank - in a word, a typical loser.

Stalin's biographers write a lot about the fact that his pathologies originate from the beatings that little Soso received in childhood, although Keke does not refer to this in his memoirs. There was even a case when Soso, outraged by his father’s behavior, threw a knife at him. But, Keke reports, Soso was worried, but endured insults from his mother. Soso grew up in a family where the traditional, patriarchal authority of the father was destroyed by the mother’s disobedience to the head of the family. This reversal of roles certainly influenced little Soso. (To the North American, and to other speculators from historical science I really want Stalin to have pathologies, so that he throws knives like Texas, since he couldn’t fire from a Colt. Let us leave them in this delusion, which so pleases the professor’s soul. Moreover, R. Suni comes to his senses and then quickly admits: it is impossible, they say, to establish what was the cause of the pathologies - beatings of the father or simply hostility towards him on the part of the son for drunkenness? True, Stalin himself spoke completely differently about his parents and family relationships. But, according to would-be researchers, you can’t trust him, but you can trust gossipers, envious people and haters . – V.G.)

Religion, specifically Orthodoxy, played a big role in Soso's childhood. His mother's dream of seeing her son become a priest never left her. When one day S. Goglichidze proposed to transfer Soso from a religious school to a pedagogical school educational institution, which made it possible to continue her studies at the university, Keke flatly refused.

The time has come to graduate from the Gori School. At that time, due to unrest at the Tbilisi Theological Seminary, a decision was made: only the sons of priests were allowed to take the entrance exams. This circumstance alarmed Soso, but his mother reassured him. She stocked up with excellent characteristics and recommendations and went to Tbilisi with her son.

This large provincial city was very different from the quiet provincial Gori, where almost all the inhabitants knew each other. Successful Gori residents worried about the unsuccessful ones. They cared for orphans as if they were their own children. No one went hungry. Not only the relatives of the deceased, but also the neighbors took care of the ritual funeral chores. The whole world collected money for the funeral and other assistance.

In Tbilisi, every visitor had to take care of himself. Finding accommodation for the night on your own, making friends - this is what everyone who arrived here went through. In the Caucasus, family and friendly ties have always been the key to success. Official laws were of secondary importance; money played a significant role.

Tbilisi society consisted of many ethnic and social strata. At the top steps of the social ladder, which was headed by the Tsar's viceroy, also known as the Governor-General, were the highest Russian officials. Next to him were high-born Georgian aristocrats. In addition to the Russian and Georgian princes, richest people There were Armenian magnates in the city, who built large apartment buildings and patronized hospitals. Numerous Armenian traders competed with no less numerous quinto(9).

On the streets of Tbilisi Georgian language mixed with Russian, Armenian, Azerbaijani. The English traveler James Bryce, long before Soso arrived in Tbilisi, was fascinated by the exotic diversity, noisy and vibrant life of this city.

In his work “Transcaucasia and Ararat: Notes on Travel in 1876,” he wrote that in Tbilisi, the greatest impression on a visitor was not the sights, but the city as a whole, which was a conglomerate of languages, nationalities, religions and customs. His character was determined by the fact that it was not one, but a total set of characters. Different peoples lived here side by side. They worked, sold, bought, although they tried not to come into close contact. They didn't love each other, but they didn't hate each other either.

At the lowest rungs of the social ladder stood artisans and workers. These were former peasants who moved here from the villages in search of a better life. The rapidly developing city provided them with work in factories, factories, and trade.

In the summer of 1894, Keke and fifteen-year-old Soso arrived in Tbilisi. Keke recalls that as soon as the train approached the city, his son burst into tears. He was attacked by the fear of meeting his father and possibly being forced to work at a shoe factory. Through tears he said: I would rather die than become a shoemaker.

Keke was also afraid of the possible meeting. In case of such a turn of events, she was going to raise a cry and call the police. But everything worked out.

They arrived in Tbilisi in the morning. Soso was fascinated by the city. Keke did not have enough money to rent housing. She did not dare to disturb her relatives. The room was found in one of the old districts of Tbilisi. The owner, a young Armenian woman, was alone, since all her household members had temporarily left for the village. Keke quickly became friends with her. The hostess was glad to have unexpected guests and believed that the lodgers brought her happiness, because she soon got married. After that, she happily refused to charge for accommodation and even gave Soso’s mother a beautiful shawl.

It was necessary to find those who would help arrange admission to the seminary exams. Keke asked for help from a distant relative, Kato Anariashvili, whose neighbor was the priest Chagunava, who worked at the seminary. Keke and Kato turned to the priest’s wife, Maka, talking about the boy’s abilities.

Appearing before the priest, Soso won his favor and he recommended him famous historian and ethnographer Tedo Jordania.

Eventually Soso was allowed to take the exams. Keke was so happy that she gave benefactor Maka a gift: she sewed and quilted a blanket. It was a typically Caucasian act and gift.

Soso Dzhugashvili successfully passed the exams and was enrolled as a seminarian on a partial government basis. The seminarian needed uniforms and Keke urgently went to Gori to raise funds for the necessary purchases. In the meantime, she was informed that after the final summing up of the entrance exams, Soso received full state support. In addition, as a result of the efforts of Tedo Jordania, the newly minted seminarian was given a place in the dormitory. All this allowed us to save up to one hundred rubles, which was a large sum at that time.

It's time for Soso independent life. He regularly sent letters to his mother twice a week. She read and re-read them, looked forward to Christmas and Easter, when her son came for the holidays. On his first visit, Soso brought a gift: a handful of sugar he had saved up ahead of time - part of his meager ration. The mother extended the pleasure of enjoying her son's surprise for a whole year.

They loved each other very much, but soon clouds gathered over Keke’s cloudless happiness.

Soso studied well and was considered an exemplary seminarian. After his first year of study, he was eighth in his class in academic performance - a very good indicator. At first, no signs of freethinking were noticed in him. He treated teachers with respect and tried to gain as much knowledge as possible.

BRODSKY Isaac Izrailevich (1883-1939) “Portrait of the mother of I.V. Stalin - Ekaterina Georgievna Dzhugashvili." 1927

Photocopy of a pictorial portrait, in the lower right corner - a fragment of a letter addressed to M.I. KALININ with a proposal to award Ekaterina Dzhugashvili the Order of Lenin (she was not awarded).
S. ALLILUEVA “Only one year”: “The artist I. Brodsky made a beautiful portrait of her in pencil.”

Ekaterina (Keke) Georgievna GELADZE (1858-1937) was born into the family of a gardener in Gambareuli in 1858, received a home education: she learned to read and write in Georgian. IN mid-19th V. In Russia, a literate peasant was a rarity, and an even more rare was a literate peasant woman. Catherine married Vissarion (Beso) Ivanovich DZHUGASHVILI (1850-1909), a shoemaker by profession. The sacrament of the wedding took place in the Assumption Cathedral in the city of Gori on May 17, 1874, the ceremony was performed by Archpriest KHAKHANOV.

Three sons were born into the family. The first two died in infancy, the third, named Joseph (at home - Coco), was born on December 6/18, 1878 and was baptized on December 17/29, which was recorded in the metric book of the Holy Assumption Cathedral.

Little Gori in the early 1880s experienced the consequences of a deep economic crisis that covered the entire empire. The Dzhugashvili family also suffered. Family life things went wrong, and Vissarion left his wife. He, however, tried to take his son, but Catherine did not give him up.

She was very pious and dreamed of her son becoming a priest. This was extremely difficult - the religious school was open only to people from the clergy, and, in addition, training was conducted in Russian. The fact that the boy mastered the Russian language, graduated with honors from the theological school in Gori, and entered the Tiflis Theological Seminary is all thanks to his mother. When Stalin visited his mother shortly before her death, she quietly told him: “It’s a pity that you never became a priest” (Alliluyeva S. “Twenty Letters to a Friend”).

Her earnings as a laundress were insignificant, but she learned to cut and sew, mastered a new profession as a milliner (dressmaker), and began to earn more. Semyon GOGLICHIDZE, a singing teacher, recalled: “Soso’s mother, Keke, was a laundress. Who didn’t know this lively and hardworking woman who spent her whole life at work?! This naturally gifted woman had everything in her hands - cutting and sewing, baking bread, combing wool, cleaning...”

Only after the revolution was Stalin able to help his mother. First of all, he moved her not just anywhere, but to the former palace of the governor of the Caucasus. But she only occupied a small room where her friends came to visit her.

“My mother tried to persuade her to live with us in Moscow, but the old woman refused. She never left Georgia and didn’t see any cities except Tiflis” (S. Alliluyeva “Only One Year”). “She lived in some old, beautiful palace with a park; she occupied a dark, low room with small windows looking out onto the courtyard. In the corner there was an iron bed, a screen, the room was full of old women - all in black, as it should be in Georgia... We soon left and never went to the “palace” again - and I kept wondering why my grandmother was living so poorly? It was the first time in my life that I had seen such a terrible black iron bed. Grandmother had her own principles - the principles of a religious person who lived a strict, hard, honest and worthy life. Her firmness, stubbornness, her severity towards herself, her Puritan morality, her stern, courageous character - all this passed on to her father. Standing at her grave, remembering her whole life, is it possible not to think about God, in whom she believed so much? (S. Alliluyeva “Twenty letters to a friend”).

Ekaterina Geladze died on June 4, 1937. “She was buried next to GRIBOEDOV on Mount David in Tbilisi, near the Church of St. David. There is peace and beauty, not spoiled by anything, not vulgarized by anything.” Stalin, absorbed in the political struggle, could not leave Moscow and did not attend his mother’s funeral. “My father was very upset and often talked about her later. But he was a bad, inattentive son, like a father and husband... His whole being was entirely devoted to something else - politics, struggle - therefore strangers were always more important and significant to him than those close to him" (S. Alliluyeva "Twenty Letters to a Friend" ).

Ekaterina Georgievna Geladze, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria (1899-1953), Nestor Apollonovich Lakoba (1893-1936), Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin in Tiflis. Photo from 1935

NALBANDYAN Dmitry Arkadyevich (1906-1993) “I.V. Stalin with his mother in Gori."

Unknown artist “I.V. Stalin with his mother in Gori." State Museum I.V. Stalin, Gori (Georgia).