Keke Geladze

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Keke Geladze
კეკე გელაძე (Georgian)
Кеке Геладзе (Russian)
Ekaterina Dzhugashvili.jpg
Geladze in later life
Born
Ekaterine Giorgis asuli Geladze

(1858-02-05)5 February 1858
Gambareuli, Gori, Russian Empire
Died4 June 1937(1937-06-04) (aged 79)
Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union
OccupationSeamstress
Spouse(s)Ekaterine Geladze
ChildrenMikheil
Giorgi
Ioseb
Parent(s)Giorgi Geladze (father)
Melania Khomezurashvili (mother)

Ekaterine Giorgis asuli Jughashvili[1][2] (née Geladze;[3] 5 February 1858 – 4 June 1937), commonly known as Keke, was the mother of Joseph Stalin.

Born into a family of peasants outside of Gori, she married Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, and had three sons; only the youngest, Ioseb, lived. Besarion would leave the family, leaving Geladze to raise her son. Deeply religious, she wanted Ioseb to become a priest, working as a seamstress in Gori in order to pay for his education. Geladze remained in Gori when Ioseb moved to the Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary, and stayed there until his rise to power in the Soviet Union as Joseph Stalin. In her older age Geladze lived in Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia; while Stalin frequently wrote to her, he visited rarely, with the last visit in 1935. She died in 1937, and was buried in the Mtatsminda Pantheon in Tbilisi.

Early life[edit]

Geladze was born to a family of Georgian Orthodox Christian serfs in Gambareuli near Gori in either 1856 or 1858.[4] Her father, Giorgi (or Glakha) Geladze, was either a bricklayer or potter, serf belonging to Prince Amilakhvari.[5] He died around the time of Geladze's birth, though her mother Melania ensured that Geladze learned to read and write, which was unusual for women at the time.[6][7] She had two brothers: Gio and Sandala.[6] Melania died while Geladze was young, leaving the children to be raised by Melania's brother, who moved them into Gori around 1864, when serfs were emancipated in the Caucasus (they had been freed in Russia in 1861).[7]

Marriage and motherhood[edit]

Besarion Jughashvili, Keke's husband.

As a teenager Geladze was apparently quite "an attractive freckled girl with auburn hair (Geladze would later brag that among her friends she "became the desired and beautiful girl").[8] She was sought out by Besarion Jughashvili, a local cobbler, and the two married in either 1872 or 1874, when she was likely 16.[7][9] They had three children, all boys, though the first two, Mikheil (born 14 February 1875) and Giorgi (born 24 December 1876), died aged two months and six months, respectively.[10][11] Their third and final son, Ioseb, was born on 6 December 1878.[12]

Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore writes that after the death of Mikheil, Jughashvili started to drink heavily, and that the marriage began to deteriorate.[10] This was likely exacerbated by rumours of Geladze flirting with married men in Gori: rumours linked her to several men, including Yakov Egnatashvili, who served as best man at the wedding and godfather to the first two children; Damian Davrishevi, a police officer; and Kristopore Charkviani, a priest.[13][14] This also fed the idea that Ioseb was not the son of Jughashvili, but was instead fathered by one of the other men.[15] However there is no evidence to show either that Geladze was flirtatious, or even that the men came to her, and there has been no proof that Jughashvili was not Ioseb's father.[14][16]

Known as Soso, Ioseb grew up in a violent home: both his mother and father struck him, while his father was incessantly drunk and would beat his mother and him frequently. Once Ioseb was beaten so hard there was blood in his urine for just over a week.[17] When Ioseb's father beat Keke, Keke occasionally fought back.[18] Once, a blood soaked Ioseb ran to the Gori police chief Davrichewy crying: "Help! Come quickly! He's killing my mother!" Joseph even threw a knife at his father while defending his mother. In 1884 Jughashvili left the family and moved to Tiflis.[14][19] He returned to his old job at the Adelkhanov factory. He sent some money to Keke, as well as offers to reconcile, but all efforts to do so failed.[20]

Ioseb Jughashvili, Jughashvili's third son, and the only one who survived childhood, pictured in 1894. He would grow up and take the name Joseph Stalin.

To support herself and her son, Geladze took on any menial job available; mainly housework, sewing and laundering.[20] They had nine homes in the next decade.[21] She returned once when Beso promised to improve, but she soon left to live with Father Charkviani.[22]

Keke often worked in the houses of rich Jewish traders in Gori, and sometimes took her son along. She did housework for Davrichewy, laundered for Egnatashvili (the best man at her wedding), with whom she may have had an affair, though there is no conclusive evidence.[18][14] Beso would smash his tavern windows when he heard. She eventually settled in a couture shop where she worked for 17 years.[23] Ioseb was said to have been a smart child and he entertained some of the householders, including David Pismamedov who encouraged the young Stalin to study, and gave him money and books to read. Charkviani's sons taught Joseph Russian.

His mother's ambition was for Ioseb to become a bishop and she somehow accumulated enough money for his education, perhaps with Pismamedov's help. In 1888, she was able to enroll Ioseb into the Gori Church School and, later, with his mother's encouragement, he obtained a scholarship to the Tiflis Theological Seminary, a Georgian Orthodox institution which he attended from the age of sixteen. She had made sure he was the best dressed of the boys on his first school day despite being the poorest. In 1890, Ioseb's father kidnapped him after a serious street accident and made him work in the Adelkhanov shoe factory. His horrified mother fought desperately to send him back to school, appealing to all her friends and even the Exarch of the Georgian Church. Keke now laundered for the chairman of the school board at a salary of 10 rubles a month. Keke was so angry with Ioseb when he was expelled from the seminary that he hid outside Gori for a while; friends brought him food.[24]

Later life[edit]

Grave of Keke Geladze at the Mtatsminda Pantheon in Tbilisi.

Later in life, when Stalin achieved prominence in the communist regime in the 1920s, his mother was installed in a palace in the Caucasus, formerly used by the tsar's viceroy. There she is said to have occupied only one tiny room from where she wrote frequent letters (in Georgian – she never managed to learn good Russian) to her son and daughter-in-law.

Stalin visited his mother very rarely after the Revolution. Lavrentiy Beria took responsibility for her care.[25] Stalin wrote letters to Geladze occasionally: only 18 letters from Stalin were archived, while one from Geladze remained.[26] These letters were affectionate and upbeat, but short; it took him an excessively long time to write them because it had become difficult for him to write in Georgian (the only language his mother understood).[27] N. Kipshidze, a doctor who treated Keke in her old age, recalled that when Stalin visited his mother in October 1935, he asked her: "Why did you beat me so hard?" "That's why you turned out so well", Keke answered. In return, his mother asked him: "Joseph – who exactly are you now?" "Do you remember the tsar? Well, I'm like a tsar", replied Stalin. "You'd have done better to have become a priest" was his mother's retort.[28]

Geladze died of pneumonia on 4 June 1937. Although her death was reported in Georgia, Stalin ordered that the news not be reported across the rest of the Soviet Union. Stalin did not attend the funeral, held on 8 June; the Great Purge had reached a frenzied intensity, and Stalin was apparently preoccupied by the purge of the Red Army leadership at the time. He sent a wreath, on which he referred to himself by his original name, Joseph Dzhugashvili. Despite Geladze's devout religious beliefs, she was given a secular funeral fit for a leading Bolshevik, with Beria as one of her pallbearers.[27]

In later years, Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, remarked that Stalin was never afraid of anyone, except his mother. Keke was a distant figure to the young Svetlana, as she chose to remain in Georgia; she died while Svetlana was still a child, and Svetlana apparently visited her on only one occasion.[29]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Obituary of Ekaterine Jughashvili, from the newspaper of Tbilisi University, 1937 (archived in the library of Tibilisi State University)
    4 ივნისს ქ.თბილისში მძიმე ავადმყფობის შემდეგ გარდაიცვალა ეკატერინე გიორგის– ასული ჯუღაშვილი.–საერთაშორისო პროლეტარიატის დიდი ბელადის, ამხანაგ სტალინის დედა(გელაძის ქალი).იგი დაიბადა 1856 წ.სოფელ ღამბარეულში, განიცდიდა უკიდურეს გაჭირვებას. 1874 წელს მისთხოვდა ბესარიონ ჯუღაშვილს. 1879 წელს 21 დეკემბერს დაიბადა იოსებ ბესარიონის–ძე სტალინი.
    trans.: After a severe illness in Tbilisi, on 4 June, Ekaterine Giorgis-asuli Jughashvili has died. She was the mother of Comrade Stalin, born in 1856 in the village of Ghambareulshi, and suffered extreme hardship. In 1874 she married Besarion Jughashvili. On 21 December 1879, Ioseb Besarionis-dze Stalin was born.
  2. ^ Georgian: ეკატერინე გიორგის ასული ჯუღაშვილი; Russian: Екатерина Георгиевна Джугашвили
    Some sources give her name as "Katerine", "Yekaterina", or "Ketevan". However, the church records of Gori and Keke's obituary both list her name as "Ekaterine".
    "Giorgis asuli" means "daughter of Giorgi" in Georgian. The birth register entry for her son, Ioseb, notes her name as "Ekaterina, daughter of Gabriel". This is probably a clerical error, as in her memoirs, Keke gave her father's name as "Glakha, or Giorgi".
  3. ^ Georgian: გელაძე
  4. ^ Kotkin 2014, p. 742, note 21; Soviet sources also gave her birth date as 1860. Kotkin suggests the discrepancy relates to her wedding, and an attempt to make Geladze appear older than she was.
  5. ^ Montefiore 2007, p. 19
  6. ^ a b Montefiore 2007, p. 22
  7. ^ a b c Kotkin 2014, p. 16
  8. ^ Montefiore 2007, p. 17
  9. ^ Montefiore and Rayfield state the wedding took place in 1872 (see Montefiore 2007, p. 17 and Rayfield 2004, p. 5), while Kotkin states it was in 1874. Kotin also points out that Montefiore's timeline doesn't work, as Montefiore states that "just over nine months after the wedding, on 14 February 1875" (Kotkin 2014, p. 742, note 21)
  10. ^ a b Montefiore 2007, p. 20
  11. ^ Kotkin 2014, p. 17
  12. ^ Ioseb would later change his name to Joseph Stalin.
  13. ^ Montefiore 2007, pp. 18, 20–21
  14. ^ a b c d Kotkin 2014, p. 20
  15. ^ Montefiore 2007, pp. 24–26
  16. ^ Geladze was quoted as saying in later life that, "When I was young, I cleaned house for people and when I met a good-looking boy, I didn't waste the opportunity." However this was written in the memoirs of Lavrentiy Beria's son Sergo, and not reliable. See Kotkin 2014, p. 742, note 35.
  17. ^ Montefiore 2007, p. 23
  18. ^ a b Montefiore 2007, p. 24
  19. ^ Montefiore (Montefiore 2007, p. 29) states that Jughashvili left after Ioseb contracted smallpox, though Kotin (Kotkin 2014, p. 20) suggests the events were unrelated, and implies Jughashvili left before the smallpox outbreak, and that he was told to leave by the Gori police chief after attacking him.
  20. ^ a b Montefiore 2007, p. 31
  21. ^ Montefiore 2007, p. 28
  22. ^ Kotkin 2014, p. 21
  23. ^ Montefiore 2007, p. 26
  24. ^ Montefiore 2007, p. 63
  25. ^ Montefiore 2003, p. 186
  26. ^ Kotkin 2017, p. 108
  27. ^ a b Zhores and Roy Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin (2003), pages 300–305.
  28. ^ Radzinsky 1997, p. 32
  29. ^ Rosemary Sullivan, Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva (2015).

Bibliography[edit]

  • Deutscher, Isaac (1966), Stalin: A Political Biography (Second ed.), New York City: Oxford University Press
  • Kotkin, Stephen (2014), Stalin, Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928, New York City: Penguin Press, ISBN 978-1-59420-379-4
  • Kotkin, Stephen (2017), Stalin, Volume II: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941, New York City: Penguin Press, ISBN 978-1-59420-380-0
  • Montefiore, Simon Sebag (2003), Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, London: Phoenix, ISBN 978-0-7538-1766-7
  • Montefiore, Simon Sebag (2007), Young Stalin, London: Phoenix, ISBN 978-0-297-85068-7
  • Radzinsky, Edvard (1997), Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives, Anchor, ISBN 978-0-385-47954-7
  • Rayfield, Donald (2004), Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him, New York City: Random House, ISBN 0-375-50632-2
  • Service, Robert (2005), Stalin: A Biography, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of University, ISBN 0-674-01697-1


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