Ekaterina Svanidze Yakov Galina Baku Red Army Russian
Stalin married his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, in 1906. According to Montefiore, theirs was "a true love match"; Volkogonov suggested that she was "probably the one human being he had really loved". When she died, Stalin allegedly said: "This creature softened my heart of stone." However, Russian historian Anton Antonov-Ovseenko wrote that Stalin was physically abusive to his first wife Kato in Baku with “his boots that Koba knocked his pregnant wife, Keto, around”. They had a son, Yakov, who often frustrated and annoyed Stalin. Yakov had a daughter, Galina, before fighting for the Red Army in the Second World War. He was captured by the German Army and then committed suicide.
