Ekaterina Svanidze

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Ekaterina Svanidze (April 2, 1880 - November 25, 1907) was the Georgian first wife of Joseph Stalin; they married in 1903.

Ekaterina Svanidze, nicknamed Kato, was a taylor who worked for the ladies of the russian army. On the only picture she made an elegant impression.

Her name sounds Georgian, but she had two sisters with the Japanese sounding names Sachiko and Moriko. Her brother, some times it is said brothers, had studied in Germany. So it is unlikely that Kato was from a poor family.

The known brother Alexander Semjonowich Svanidze spoke German and French. He was married to Maria Anissimowna Korona a yewish singer at the Tiflis Opera. The Svanidze famlily is said to be related to the family of Stalins mother Keke Geladze.

Stalin was born in Gori and spoke Georgian, but he was not of Georgian but of Ossetian background from both sides. So if the Svanidzes were related to the Geladses, they will neither have been Georgian. The semjonovich is untypical for a georgian name, but might be possible for an Ossetian person.

Kato married Joseph Stalin in 1903 in a church, and gave him a son, Yakov Dzhugashvili.

Stalin disliked this son very much. After the death of the mother he left him.

When his second wife tried to integrate him into the familiy Stalin did not talk to him Georgian, althoug the boy could not talk Russian.

Jakov joined the Red Army but was captured by the Nazis, what was a crime under Sowjet rule, so that Jakov's wife got jailed. Their daughter was left uncared until she was taken care for by Stalins daughter Swetlana. Jakov and committed suicide by running into an electric fence, after his father had neglected to trade a German military Marshal Friedrich Paulus to get back his son. Stalin was reported to have said "a lieutenant (his son), is not worth a General", but as mentioned above, he disliked this child anyway.