We know almost everything about historical figures like dictators when it comes to their political careers, but not much about their family lives.

Iosif Stalin, the ruthless Soviet dictator, had married a Georgian woman named Ekaterina Svanidze before embarking on his political rise. In 1905, Ekaterina and her family moved to Tbilisi, where she met the young Stalin, who was still known by his birth name, Iosif Dzhugashvili. It was Ekaterina's brother, Aleksandar, who introduced them, as Stalin was his classmate in seminary school. Stalin fell in love with her at first sight and immediately proposed marriage. Her family agreed, but only on the condition that the two wed in a religious ceremony. The marriage took place in 1906, and that same year, their first son, Yakov, was born. 

Unfortunately, just a year later, in 1907, Ekaterina fell ill with tuberculosis and died at the age of 22. Stalin was so devastated that during her funeral, he threw himself on her grave in tears. Stalin's family life was marked by tragedy: his second wife also died prematurely, having committed suicide after countless misunderstandings with Stalin. Yakov, their eldest son, died during World War II at the hands of the Germans, who had taken him as a prisoner of war. Stalin's second son, born from his second marriage, later died from alcoholism. Even Ekaterina's relatives were not spared from Stalin’s wrath, as they perished during the Great Purges.

The love Stalin had for his first wife doesn’t align with the brutal, paranoid dictator history remembers him as. Stalin even had a favorite song, a Georgian poem called Suliko. The song tells the story of a man wandering through a cemetery searching for the grave of his beloved. It’s possible that Stalin’s deep connection to this song was tied to the bond he shared with his first wife, who died so young.