Yakov Dzhugashvili

Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili (31 March 1907 – 14 April 1943) was the eldest son of Joseph Stalin, the only child of Stalin's first wife, Kato Svanidze, who died nine months after his birth.

His father, then a young revolutionary in his mid-20s, left the child to be raised by his late wife's family.

Dzhugashvili was born 31 March 1907 in Baji, a village in the Kutais Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in Georgia).

His mother, Kato Svanidze, was from Racha and a descendant of minor Georgian nobility.

His father, Ioseb Dzhugashvili, was from Gori and was a Bolshevik revolutionary.

A few months after Dzhugashvili's birth, his father was involved in a high-profile Tiflis bank robbery, and the three of them fled to Baku to avoid arrest.

They rented a "Tartar house with a low ceiling on the Bailov Peninsula" just outside the city right on the sea.

They returned to Tiflis in October that year as Svanidze was quite ill.

She died on 5 December 1907, having likely contracted typhus on the trip back.

Ioseb left Tiflis immediately after her death, abandoning 8-month-old Iakob to be raised by his Svanidze relatives.

Ioseb, who later adopted the name Joseph Stalin, would not return to visit his son for several years, and Iakob would spend the next fourteen years being raised by his aunts.

In 1921, when Dzhugashvili had reached the age of fourteen, he was brought to Moscow, where his father had become a leading figure in the Bolshevik government, eventually becoming head of the Soviet Union.

Disregarded by Stalin, Dzhugashvili was a shy, quiet child who appeared unhappy and attempted suicide several times as a youth.

Married twice, Dzhugashvili had three children, two of whom reached adulthood.

Dzhugashvili studied to become an engineer, then – on his father's insistence – he enrolled in training to be an artillery officer.

In 1921, Dzhugashvili was brought to Moscow to live with his father.

His half-siblings Svetlana and Vasily were born after he moved.

This proved difficult for Dzhugashvili as he did not understand Russian and his father was hostile to him, even forbidding Dzhugashvili to adopt the name "Stalin."

It is not clear why Stalin had hostility to his son, but it is believed that he reminded Stalin of Svanidze, which was one of the happier times in Stalin's life.

Living in Stalin's apartments at the Amusement Palace in the Kremlin, Dzhugashvili slept in the dining room.

A kind individual, Dzhughashvili was close to his half-siblings, as well as his step-mother Nadezhda Alliluyeva, who was only six years older than him.

In 1928, Dzhugashvili made it known that he wanted to marry Zoya, who was then sixteen.

Stalin became enraged at the idea and in response Dzhugashvili attempted suicide, shooting himself in the chest and narrowly missing his heart.

While Alliluyeva and Svetlana helped Dzhugashvili, Stalin is reported to have brushed off the attempt by saying "He can't even shoot straight."

Dzhugashvili spent several months in the hospital recovering from this ordeal, though the couple did ultimately marry and moved to Leningrad.

A daughter was born on 7 February 1929, but she died eight months later of pneumonia and Dzhugashvili and Gunina split up, although they did not officially divorce.

After his return to Moscow, Dzhugashvili was rumoured to be marrying Ketevan Orakhelashvili, the daughter of Mamia Orakhelashvili, the First Secretary of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.

However, Dzhugashvili was shy around her so she instead married Evgeni Mikeladze, a prominent orchestra conductor, earning ridicule from Stalin.

His next girlfriend was Olga Golysheva, who was also a student at the Moscow Aviation School.

They became engaged but soon that ended and she returned to her home in the Stalingrad Oblast.

Though Dzhugashvili was interested in studying at a university, Stalin did not initially allow it, and it was not until 1930 when he was 23 that Dzhugashvili was admitted.

He graduated from the Institute of Transport in 1935, and for the next couple years worked as a chimney-sweep engineer at an electric plant factory named after his father.

A son, Yevgeny was born on 10 January 1936, after Golysheva returned home.

Dzugashvili only learnt of his son in 1938 and ensured he took his surname, though Stalin never recognised Yevgeny as his grandson.

Dzhugashvili married Yulia Meltzer, a well-known Jewish dancer from Odessa.

After meeting Meltzer at a reception in a restaurant, Dzhugashvili fought with her second husband, an NKVD officer called Nikolai Bessarab, an aide to Stanislav Redens, the head of the Moscow Oblast NKVD and brother-in-law of Stalin.

He finished his studies weeks before Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

In 1937, he entered the Artillery Academy, and graduated from there on 9 May 1941.

Dzhugashvili's first serious relationship was with Zoya Gunina, the daughter of an Orthodox priest and a former classmate of his.

Sent to the front, he was imprisoned by the Germans and died at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1943 after his father refused to make a deal to secure his release.