This month's Iconic Image is...
Stalin: The Children's Friend
Intro
This photograph was taken in January of 1936, and published on June 29 of the same year. It shows Joseph Stalin (the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) holding a girl while also holding a bouquet of flowers that the latter had just given him. This image would become a powerful symbol of the power of propaganda photographs in society. It would also become a symbol of a very beautiful illusion, yet one that could not have been further from the truth.
Part I
By the year 1936, Joseph Stalin was in control of the Soviet Union. He had successfully taken full control of all political parties and purged anyone who dared to appear as a threat. One of his most effective tools was his use of photography. Stalin was very obsessed with creating the perfect image of himself to present to the people of the Soviet Union. He commissioned heroic paintings. He had movies made that romanticized his role in Russian history (Mikheil Gelovani was the only actor he permitted to play him). He even rewrote his own personal history of his childhood in Georgia. Photography was among his favorite tools.
Like many leaders of his time, Stalin knew that photographs with children were often the most captivating when it came to public relations. He was determined to pose for the perfect photograph with a Soviet child. The opportunity came when a man named, Ardan Markizova arrived in Moscow with his seven-year-old daughter, Engelsina (Gelya). Markizova was an ardent Communist supporter of Buryat (a Russian-Mongolian ethnic group) descent. He had reached the rank of People's Commissar for Agriculture of the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Province in Siberia. For he and his daughter, a trip to Moscow to visit the Kremlin was a dream come true.
Part II
When they arrived in Moscow, Gelya had brought two bouquets of flowers to give to Stalin. She and her father then went to the Kremlin and attended a meeting. After there was a break in the conversations, Gelya walked up to Stalin and presented him with the flowers saying, "These flowers are for Comrade Stalin from the children of the Buryat-Mongol Republic". Although startled by the unexpected gift, Stalin was very pleased by the young girl and proceeded to gather her in an embrace. She then gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Almost immediately, multiple cameras began snapping photographs. In gratitude, Stalin gave Gelya a gold watch and a gramophone (record player) to her parents.
For a short time, Gelya Markizova became a major celebrity throughout Russia. One of the photographs of her with Stalin was printed on the Communist newspaper, Pravda (truth). The editor-in-chief of the Pravda newspaper (Lev Mekhlis) was quoted as saying, "God himself has sent us this little Buryat girl. We'll make her an icon of a happy childhood". Upon returning to her home with her father, Gelya was greeted by thousands of residents who praised her for her patriotism. A famous sculptor named, Georgy Lavrov, created a small monument to Gelya and Stalin, which soon became iconic all throughout the Soviet Union. But less than two years later, everything changed.
Part III
In 1937, Joseph Stalin launched a new Great Purge against perceived enemies of the Soviet Union. The first purge began in 1934, with the killing of the leader of the Leningrad Party, Sergei Kirov, on the orders of Stalin himself (he then had the assassin executed to cover up his tracks). The one in 1936 targeted members of the Soviet government and influential Communists who had inspired the Russian Revolution of 1917. This purge in 1937, was mainly directed toward the leaders of the Red Army and Red Navy. Stalin had grown suspicious and envious of the Soviet officers who had fought in the Russian Civil War and was determined to kill them off in order to assert his dominance. And in spite of what they had done for Stalin, the Markizova family would not be spared from the Great Purge.
On December 11, 1937, three members of the Soviet NKVD (the secret police) barged into the Markizova house and arrested Gelya's father on charges of espionage and treason. Both Gelya and her mother (Dominka) wrote letters to Stalin begging for him to intervene and release Ardan (who had been nothing but supportive of Stalin). But the letters did no good. Ardan Markizova was accused and convicted of spying for Japan, being a Trotskyite (a follower of Stalin's exiled political rival, Leon Trotsky), terrorism, and subversive plotting against Stalin. He was shot in the Summer of 1938.
Just days after this, Gelya's mother, Dominka, was arrested as well. She was then deported from Russia to the neighboring country of, Kazakhstan. She was later found dead in the country of unknown causes. Many years later, a letter referring to Dominka Markizova written by Stalin's chief of the NKVD (Lavrenty Beria) was later discovered that ended with the words: Eliminate.
Epilogue
Now an orphan and a daughter of an, "enemy of the people", Gelya Markizova found herself living with her extended family. Her photograph with Joseph Stalin remained on public perches throughout Moscow. But the Soviet propagandists quickly began the cunning practice of changing the identity of the girl in the image without changing the portrait. They decided to use the identity of a Tajik girl named, Mamlakat Nakhangova, who had received the Order of Lenin for working as a cotton picker.
From that point onward, Gelya lived with her aunt and uncle in Moscow under her aunt's surname, "Dobeyeva". Unlike her parents, she survived the Great Purge and also World War II. She married twice, had three children, and worked as an Orientalist scholar in the country of Cambodia. On March 10, 1995, Gelya spoke to the Washington Post about her life as the girl on Stalin's arm. When asked about seeing a sculpture of her and Stalin at a museum in Russia, Gelya said, "It was very funny. I was at the museum about five years ago and we were going up the stairs in a tour, and one of the women in my group saw this sculptor by the window. It had been removed from the cellar, and there was rust between Stalin's fingers. It looked like blood. And the woman asked the tour guide, 'Why do you still have this sculptor?' And I said, 'Because one of us is still alive,'". Gelya died on May 11, 2004.
The images of Gelya Markizova with Joseph Stalin mostly disappeared from public view after the latter's death in 1953. Today it is regarded as a symbol of one of the most beautiful and tragic lies about who Joseph Stalin was. It shows the kind face that he put on for the cameras and while hiding a much darker truth.
https://www.rbth.com/history/328538-stalin-children-gelya-markizova
https://www.voxnews.al/english/histori/miku-i-femijeve-historia-e-erret-qe-fshihet-pas-fotos-se-famshme-te-stal-i17951
https://www.history.com/news/josef-stalin-great-purge-photo-retouching
https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/propaganda-portrait-joseph-stalin-father-of-nations/
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