Meryle Secrest collection, bulk 1994-1994

Printable guide [HTML]
Request items

Summary

Creators:
Secrest, Meryle and Allilueva, Svetlana, 1926-2011
Abstract:
Sound recordings, notes, writings, clippings, and photographs relating to Svetlana Allilueva, daughter of Joseph Stalin, compiled by Meryle Secrest as working materials for an unfinished biography of Allilueva. Includes recorded interviews with Allilueva conducted in 1994.
Extent:
1 manuscript box, 3 card file boxes (1.7 Linear Feet)
Language:
In English with some items in Russian
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Meryle Secrest collection, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Background

Scope and content:

The Meryle Secrest collection contains sound recordings, notes, writings, clippings, and photographs compiled by Secrest as working materials for an unfinished biography of Svetlana Allilueva. Included are Secrest's taped recordings of her interviews with Allilueva as well as her handwritten notes regarding the interviews. Also included are news clippings about Allilueva, Joseph Stalin, and Russia, photographs of Allilueva and her family, copies of autobiographical works by Allilueva, and copies of works translated by Allilueva related to her father, Joseph Stalin.

Svetlana Allilueva, also known as Svetlana Alliluyeva, Svetlana Stalina, and Lana Peters, was the youngest child and only daughter of Joseph Stalin and his second wife, Nadezhda Allilueva. In 1967, she defected to the United States after denouncing the Soviet Union, causing an international uproar. She briefly returned to the Soviet Union in 1984 after denouncing the United States, but eventually came back to the US. Allilueva passed away in 2011 in Richland Center, Wisconsin at the age of 85.

Biographical / historical:

Meryle Secrest is an award-winning biographer, mainly of artists and other prominent figures in the art world. She was born on April 23, 1930 in Bath, England. She was educated there, but later immigrated to Canada with her family. Secrest worked as a journalist for the Hamilton News in Ontario, where she was named "Most Promising Young Writer" by the Canadian Women's Press Club. In 1964, Secrest began writing profile interviews for the Washington Post, but left in 1975 in order to write books full-time.

Secrest's catalog of published works includes biographies of Frank Lloyd Wright, Salvador Dali, Stephen Sondheim, and Elsa Schiaparelli. She has received several awards for her work, including the American Library Association's George Freedley Memorial Award in 1999 and the Presidential National Humanities Medal in 2006. Her biography Being Bernard Berenson was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Awards. In 2007, she published an autobiography titled, Shoot the Widow: Adventurers of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject.

Acquisition information:
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library Archives in 2001.
Arrangement:

Materials are not organized into series; however, similar items have been grouped together.

Physical location:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Indexed terms

Subjects:
Audiotapes
Names:
Stalin, Joseph, 1878-1953
Secrest, Meryle

Access and use

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.

Terms of access:

For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Meryle Secrest collection, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Location of this collection:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6003, US
Contact:
(650) 723-3563
hooverarchives@stanford.edu
Website