Birth Name: Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili
Place of Birth: Gori, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire
Date of Birth: 18 December 1878
Place of Death: Kuntsevo Dacha, Kuntsevo, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Date of Death: 5 March 1953
Ethnicity: Georgian, possibly some Ossetian
Joseph Stalin was a Georgian politician and dictator. He led the Soviet Union for approximately three decades. Stalin was General secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 3 April, 1922 until 16 October, 1952, as well as Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 6 May, 1941 until his death on 5 March, 1953.
His father, Besarion Vanovis Jughashvili, was Georgian, and possibly had some Ossetian ancestry. His mother, Ketevan “Keke” Geladze, was also Georgian.
Stalin’s paternal grandfather was Ivan Vano Jughashvili (the son of Zaza Jughashvili). The identity of Stalin’s paternal grandmother is not known. It is thought that Ivan was of at least partly Ossetian descent. The poem “Stalin Epigram” by Russian poet Osip Mandelstam is thought by some, including British historian Robert Service, to perhaps reference Stalin’s Ossetian ancestry in the last line. The line goes, depending on the translation, “And Ossetian torso is wide” or “For the broad-chested Ossete”. It is also said that Stalin’s surname, “Jughashvili”, is of Ossetian origin, only with the Georgian suffix “shvili” added, since “Jugayev” is a common Ossetian surname, and many Ossetian surnames were written with Georgian suffixes before the Revolution. Stalin’s birthtown, Gori, is not far from the border from the disputed territory South Ossetia, where the Ossetians live.
Stalin’s maternal grandparents were Glakh Geladze and Melania Home Zurashvili. They were both Georgian.
There have been some claims that Stalin was of partly Jewish descent. These derive mostly from anti-Jewish websites and sources that claim that Stalin’s surname, “Jughashvili”, means “Jew-son” or “son of a Jew” in Georgian. “Shvili” does mean “son” or “child”, but the Georgian word for “Jew” is “Ebraeli”, not “Jugha”. No evidence has been produced that Stalin had Jewish ancestry.
Source: Genealogy of Joseph Stalin – http://www.geni.com