Vissarion Ivanovitch Djougachvili (in géorgien: ბესარიონძეჯუღაშვილი Bessarion dze Djoughachvili ) (Didi-Lilo towards 1850 - Tiflis (Tbilissi)? , 1890 or 1909?), was the father of Joseph Stalin. Its patronym would be derived from the village géorgien of Jugaani, from where its ancestors are originating.

One does not know large thing of the father of Stalin, since the testimonys written in the villages géorgiens are very rare: the oral communication prevailed. Bezo as it was called was a brutal man. Originating, from a small village géorgien, it would have been born in a country orthodoxe family about 1850; certain authors give him origins ossètes. His/her father was called Vano (Ivan) and it had a Georgy brother.

The professor Irémachvili, declared that Vissarion was " an uncultivated and brutal man like all Ossètes of the high mountains of Caucase". According to Arsoshvili, it would not have had the means of paying a tax and had to move to seek an employment. Some think that he would have worked in a factory of paving stones and others which he still held of the vines in Didi-Lilo and which it would have met there Ekaterina Gavrilovna Gueladzé (1858 - 1937) at the time of a fair to the wines. They marry little time after in 1874.

Of this union, two their children died in low age: Mikhail and Georgy: that assigns the family deeply. Vissarion enivre and beats a woman who would be of unsteady nature. With an unspecified date, they leave Didi-Lilo to settle with Gori, a borough of 6000 inhabitants, in the street Sobornaïa. Vissarion worked in Adelkhanov shoe manufacture in Tiflis. It evoked only very seldom his father, only to be made the son of a " workman with the shoe manufacture of Tiflis". According to Boris Souvarine, the fastening of some fingers (proven) and a crippled left hand (not proven) of the dictator would come from a " heredity alcoolique". In 1883, it left the family home, to go to live in Tiflis.

When did Vissarion die?

The circumstances and the exact date of the death of Vissarion are not clear. A first version, that of the girl of Stalin, Svetlana Al, explains in one of its letters why his/her grandfather would have died in a brawl of tavern in 1890 or in 1909. One second version, official and Soviet, claims that it would be deceased of a natural death in 1906. Neither his wife nor her son seems to have regretted the loss of Vissarion. Other elements still come to complicate the investigation. A police report making following the arrestion of Stalin in 1909 declares: “Joseph Vissarionovitch Djougachvili is originating in a country géorgienne family. His/her father is 55 years old and his/her mother is called Ekaterina… ”. In 1912, Stalin declared: “dad is deceased and mom still lives in Gori”.

Illegitimate Stalin wire of Vissarion: myth or reality?

Certain authors, by taking again a series of testimonys, speak today of a different paternal origin for Joseph Stalin: a priest? the count Iakov Egnatachvili? or the explorer Nikolaï Mikhaïlovitch Prjevalski (death in 1888)? In 1878, this last took a convalescence with Gori. It was accommodated by a local prince who proposed the service of Ekaterina to him, woman fallen in full destitution following violence from her husband. Nikolaï and Ekaterina remained close a long time, and after its departure, this one continued to send money to him. Several elements could make think that Vissarion was not the natural father of Joseph Stalin. Initially the mystery of the birth date of the dictator: why to have continued to deny the very date of 1878 when it did not have any more troubles with the police force? Perhaps to scramble any bringing together with another paternity? Joseph was always accommodated cordially in the Egnatachvili family, in whom her mother was housewife and nurse. Stalin made strike a medal in the name of Prjevalski and made come his " frère" Alexandre Egnatachvili in the Kremlin whereas he hated the nobility. Even if she always recognizes Vissarion like her great-grandfather, Galina, the grand-daughter of Stalin nevertheless recognized a certain resemblance between Egnatachvili and Stalin. The grand-daughter of Stalin, Nadejda, claims that the official photography of Vissarion was faked since this one had never been photographed, but one cannot affirm that.