merely a mask. I’m not a Pharisee,” he said, refusing to embrace. The obsession with masked traitors never left him.
There were frenzied searches for the atheists’ Life of Christ by Renan, which Stalin proudly owned. His bedside table was repeatedly raided by the prince-monk-inquisitor—who found nothing. One of the boys cleverly hid the book under the rector’s own pillow. Stalin remembered how the boys would be summoned into call-over and then come out to find that all their footlockers had been ransacked.
Soso was losing interest in his studies. By the start of his fifth grade he was twentieth out of twenty-three, scoring mainly 3s where he used to score 5s. He wrote to Rector Serafim blaming his bad studies on illness, but he still had to resit some of his exams.
Meanwhile Black Spot “watched us ever more vigilantly” and the other boys were encouraged to inform on the rebels. But Stalin was getting more daring and defiant by the week. When he and his allies started reading funny verses from his copybook, the sneaks reported it to Abashidze, who crept up and listened. He burst into the room and grabbed the journal. Stalin tried to snatch it back. Priest and teenager scuffled but the Black Spot won, frog-marching Stalin back to his flat where he “forced these unclean souls to douse their subversive writings” with paraffin. Then he set fire to the papers.
Finally Abashidze intensified his spying on Stalin: “At 9 p.m., the Inspector noticed in the dining-room a group of pupils around Djugashvili who was reading them something. On approach, Djugashvili tried to hide the notes and only after insistence did he reveal he was reading unauthorized books. Signed: D. Abashidze.”
Stalin’s mother heard “the evil talk that he had become a rebel.” Being Keke, she dressed up and took the train to Tiflis to save the day—but for the first time “he got angry with me. He shouted that it wasn’t my business. I said, ‘My son, you’re my only child, don’t kill me—but how will you be able to defeat Emperor Nicholas II? Leave that to those who have brothers and sisters.’” Soso soothed and hugged her, telling her that he was not a rebel. “It was his first lie,” remembers Keke sadly.
She was not the only concerned parent. Stalin was still seeing his ne’er-do-well father, probably unbeknown to Keke. * Accompanied by his mother’s cousin Anna Geladze, Stalin visited Beso, who liked to present him with lovingly sewn boots. “I should mention,” adds Anna, “that Soso had liked wearing boots ever since childhood.” The dictator in jackboots was not just a militaristic pose but an unspoken tribute to his father and to the beautiful leather boots he made with his own hands.
Perhaps his maturity had alleviated his fear of Beso, his Marxism softening his intolerance. Beso, now working humbly in a clothing-repair shop, came to “love his child doubly, talking about him all the time,” says Kote Charkviani. “Soso and I used to visit him. He didn’t raise his voice to Soso”—but he did mutter: “I hear he’s now rebelling against Nicholas II. As if he’s ever going to overthrow him!”
The war between the Black Spot and Stalin was hotting up. The seminary journal reports that Stalin declared himself an atheist, stalked out ofprayers, chatted in class, was late for tea and refused to doff his hat to monks. He had eleven more warnings.
Their confrontations were increasingly farcical as the boys lost all respect for their inquisitor. Some of Soso’s buddies were chatting in Yerevan Square’s Pushkin Gardens when a boy ran out and reported that Stalin’s footlocker was being raided (again) by Father Abashidze. They sprinted back into the seminary just in time to see the inspector force open Stalin’s trunk and find some forbidden works. Abashidze grabbed them and was triumphantly bearing his prize up the stairs when one of the group, Vaso Kelbakiani, charged and rammed the monk, almost
There were frenzied searches for the atheists’ Life of Christ by Renan, which Stalin proudly owned. His bedside table was repeatedly raided by the prince-monk-inquisitor—who found nothing. One of the boys cleverly hid the book under the rector’s own pillow. Stalin remembered how the boys would be summoned into call-over and then come out to find that all their footlockers had been ransacked.
Soso was losing interest in his studies. By the start of his fifth grade he was twentieth out of twenty-three, scoring mainly 3s where he used to score 5s. He wrote to Rector Serafim blaming his bad studies on illness, but he still had to resit some of his exams.
Meanwhile Black Spot “watched us ever more vigilantly” and the other boys were encouraged to inform on the rebels. But Stalin was getting more daring and defiant by the week. When he and his allies started reading funny verses from his copybook, the sneaks reported it to Abashidze, who crept up and listened. He burst into the room and grabbed the journal. Stalin tried to snatch it back. Priest and teenager scuffled but the Black Spot won, frog-marching Stalin back to his flat where he “forced these unclean souls to douse their subversive writings” with paraffin. Then he set fire to the papers.
Finally Abashidze intensified his spying on Stalin: “At 9 p.m., the Inspector noticed in the dining-room a group of pupils around Djugashvili who was reading them something. On approach, Djugashvili tried to hide the notes and only after insistence did he reveal he was reading unauthorized books. Signed: D. Abashidze.”
Stalin’s mother heard “the evil talk that he had become a rebel.” Being Keke, she dressed up and took the train to Tiflis to save the day—but for the first time “he got angry with me. He shouted that it wasn’t my business. I said, ‘My son, you’re my only child, don’t kill me—but how will you be able to defeat Emperor Nicholas II? Leave that to those who have brothers and sisters.’” Soso soothed and hugged her, telling her that he was not a rebel. “It was his first lie,” remembers Keke sadly.
She was not the only concerned parent. Stalin was still seeing his ne’er-do-well father, probably unbeknown to Keke. * Accompanied by his mother’s cousin Anna Geladze, Stalin visited Beso, who liked to present him with lovingly sewn boots. “I should mention,” adds Anna, “that Soso had liked wearing boots ever since childhood.” The dictator in jackboots was not just a militaristic pose but an unspoken tribute to his father and to the beautiful leather boots he made with his own hands.
Perhaps his maturity had alleviated his fear of Beso, his Marxism softening his intolerance. Beso, now working humbly in a clothing-repair shop, came to “love his child doubly, talking about him all the time,” says Kote Charkviani. “Soso and I used to visit him. He didn’t raise his voice to Soso”—but he did mutter: “I hear he’s now rebelling against Nicholas II. As if he’s ever going to overthrow him!”
The war between the Black Spot and Stalin was hotting up. The seminary journal reports that Stalin declared himself an atheist, stalked out ofprayers, chatted in class, was late for tea and refused to doff his hat to monks. He had eleven more warnings.
Their confrontations were increasingly farcical as the boys lost all respect for their inquisitor. Some of Soso’s buddies were chatting in Yerevan Square’s Pushkin Gardens when a boy ran out and reported that Stalin’s footlocker was being raided (again) by Father Abashidze. They sprinted back into the seminary just in time to see the inspector force open Stalin’s trunk and find some forbidden works. Abashidze grabbed them and was triumphantly bearing his prize up the stairs when one of the group, Vaso Kelbakiani, charged and rammed the monk, almost
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