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Title: Meryle Secrest collection
Date (bulk): 1994-1994
Collection Number: 2001C50
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material: In English with some items in Russian
Physical Description:
1 manuscript box, 3 card file boxes
(1.7 Linear Feet)
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.
source:
Secrest, Meryle
Creator:
Allilueva, Svetlana, 1926-2011
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
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.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2001.
[Identification of item], Meryle Secrest collection, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
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.
Scope and Content of Collection
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.
Materials are not organized into series; however, similar items have been grouped together.
The book
The Long Shadow: Inside Stalin's Family by Rosamon Richardson has been transferred to the Hoover Library.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Audiotapes
Stalin, Joseph, 1878-1953
Secrest, Meryle