Vissarion Jughashvili

Vissarion (Beso) Ivanovich Jugashvili (Виссарион (Бесо) Иванович Джугашвили in Russian; ბესარიონ ჯუღაშვილი Besarion Jughashvili in Georgian) (c. 1850 - 1890?) was Joseph Stalin's father. Hus surname is derived from jugha, the Ossetian word for trash.

Related Topics:
Russian - Georgian - C. - 1850 - 1890 - Joseph Stalin - Ossetian

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The little information available on Vissarion Jugashvili is sometimes contradictory. He is known to have been born into an Orthodox Christian peasant family from the village of Didi Lilo in Georgia, most likely in 1850. According to the Arsoshvili family (Jugashvili's relatives and longtime residents of Didi Lilo), Jugashvili couldn't afford paying a three-ruble tax and had to move to Gori in search of employment. In Gori, he lived in a house of an Ossetian named Kulumbegashvili. Here, Jugashvili found a job as a cobbler and married Ekaterina (Keke) Geladze in 1874. It is known that two of their children (Mikhail and Konstantin) died as infants. It is possible that the family lived in Didi Lilo, but when Ekaterina was about to give birth to their third child, Joseph, she returned to Gori (it was customary for a pregnant woman to stay with her relatives during labor and some time after the child was born). Vissarion had to make his way back to Gori in order to care for his wife and a newborn son. It turned out that he never returned to Didi Lilo. Jugashvili also worked at Adelkhanov's shoe factory in Tiflis for some time. He was apparently a long time alcoholic , and beat his wife and son frequently. Before Joseph was 10, Jugashvili left home (or, according to some reports, was thrown out by his wife). In any event, it is likely that the young Stalin never saw his father again.

Related Topics:
Orthodox Christian - Peasant - Ruble - Gori - Ossetian - Cobbler - Ekaterina (Keke) Geladze - Tiflis

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Even though the circumstances of Vissarion Jugashvili's death are not clear, most historians tend to trust the account of Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva. In one of her letters to a friend, she wrote that Jugashvili had died in a scuffle from a stab wound. Some historians tend to believe Soviet sources, which claimed that Vissarion had died from natural causes in 1906. It becomes even more confusing when one looks at a police report (№136) on Stalin's arrest for his revolutionary activities and transfer to Vologda in 1909: "Iosif (Joseph) Vissarionovich Jugashvili. Comes from Georgian peasants. Has a 55-year old father Vissarion Ivanovich and mother Ekaterina. Mother lives in Gori, father leads a migratory lifestyle..." In 1912, Stalin gave a different statement to the police: "Father is deceased, mother lives in Gori". It is not completely clear whether Stalin tried to confuse the police or whether his father was still alive at that time (Stalin was known for lying about his past). Vissarion Jugashvili's grave has never been found.

Related Topics:
Svetlana Alliluyeva - Soviet - 1906 - Revolutionary - Vologda - 1909 - 1912

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