Yulia Meltzer


Yudith "Yulia" Isaakovna Meltzer was a Jewish Ukrainian ballerina. She was the wife of Yakov Dzhugashvili, and the daughter-in-law of Joseph Stalin. She was the mother of Stalin's granddaughter, translator Galina Dzhugashvili.

Early life and marriage

Meltzer was from a Jewish family in Odessa. She was twice married when she met Dzhugashvili at a reception, who fought with her second husband, an NKVD officer called Nikolai Bessarab, and arranged for her divorce. Bessarab was later arrested by the NKVD and executed. Dzhugashvili then became her third husband. Together they had two children: a daughter born in 1938, Galina, who died in 2007; and a son born in 1936, Yevgeni, who died in 2016, and gave many interviews about his grandfather.
Meltzer was reported imprisoned by Stalin between 1941 and 1943 after Yakov was imprisoned in a German concentration camp. She died of cancer in 1968.