At the end of the 19th century, Joseph Stalin spent five years studying at the seminary in Tiflis. Did the bloody dictator really want to become a clergyman? Did the man who had thousands of popes and the destruction of the Russian Church on his conscience dreamed of becoming an Orthodox bishop? Or maybe the stay at the seminary was just a coincidence?
"I always wanted him to become a bishop, because whenever a bishop came from Tiflis, I couldn't take my eyes off him with delight," Stalin's mother once confessed. Perhaps it was she who chose an Orthodox future for him, and the boy simply submitted to his loving and dominant mother. Perhaps he also tried to become a clergyman for a completely different reason.
Well, Stalin's father, the shoemaker Vissarion Dzhugashvili, known as the Mad Beso, not only beat the boy when drunk, but also wanted the kid to follow in his footsteps, i.e. to become a shoemaker. Little Josif did not like the prospect of spending all days on the cobbler's hoof in a dark and stuffy workshop. So he saw in his mother's dream an opportunity to change his fate.
This talented boy was…
As Christopher Macht writes in the recently published book "Stalin's Confession", science was supposed to lead the young Stalin to the clergy, the more so as the boy turned out to be exceptionally gifted. He quickly learned Russian (classes in Georgian schools were in this language), and he mastered writing and reading faster than other, even older children.
This is what Josif Dzhugashvili looked like when he entered the seminary.
An additional encouragement to gain knowledge was the behavior of his father, who, drunk, was furious that Soso was being distracted from his work in the workshop. He shouted:"Don't spoil my son, you will remember!" Rapid progress in science made the dream of the mother of the future leader of the USSR take real shape. She decided to put Iosif in an Orthodox school in Gori's hometown.
Soso is the terror of teachers
Although only the children of clergy were admitted there, a friend of the family, Pope Christofor Czarkwiani, interceded for Iosif, who stated that the boy's father was a deacon, but he had no documents for it. The story was believed in school, and Soso took entrance exams (in religion, reading, arithmetic, and Russian). He passed it so well that he was admitted straight to the second grade.
He studied very well. He read a lot and helped weaker students. "He never missed lessons, was never late and always wanted to be first in everything," recalled one of his schoolmates. He even impressed teachers with his knowledge. There is an account of the school inspector, Butyrsky, who left social gatherings earlier, saying:
If I don't prepare [for tomorrow's lesson], there's a student named Dzhugashvili who will surely catch me!
The text is based on the book "Spowiedź Stalina" by Christopher Makt (Bellona Publishing House 2017).
Book of Psalms for Joseph
While studying at the church school, another feature of young Stalin was revealed:he was extremely pious at that time. He did not miss any service and reminded his colleagues of their importance.
Best of all, he read psalms in the church. Other students were not allowed to read them until Stalin had prepared them. The school offered him the Book of Psalms of David with the dedication:"To Josif Dzhugashvili for excellent progress, celebration, and excellent recitation and singing of the psalter."
All of this would make the thesis that Stalin did indeed feel a vocation to the clergy.
The future dictator preferred to attend and celebrate the liturgy than to be a shoemaker.
I will not become a shoemaker!
After graduating from school in Gori, Stalin was to continue his education at "the best religious educational institution in the southern part of the empire" - a seminary in Tiflis (today's Tbilisi). In July 1893, at the age of 15, he passed his exams with flying colors. As the famous biographer of Stalin, Simon Sebag Montefiore writes, the boy was constantly afraid that his father-drunk would find him in Tiflis and forcing him to become a shoemaker ... “I want to study. I will kill myself sooner than become a shoemaker, "quotes the boy Montefiore.
The Tiflis seminar was "a fountain of Georgian intellectual life, with historical foundations in an apparently perfect civilization." On the other hand, however, it resembled a strict 19th-century English school, in which students were subjected to rigor, surveillance and denunciation, locked in a penance and limited in their intellectual development. As Lev Trotsky wrote, Russian seminaries “were famous for their wild manners, medieval pedagogy and the right of the fist. All the transgressions forbidden by the Scriptures proliferated in this fountain of godliness. ”
Everyone is forbidden after Pushkin
The seminarians slept in rooms with 20-30 beds. They got up at 7 am and went to the chapel to pray. Then they got tea and started lessons, which lasted until 2 pm. At 3 p.m. lunch was served, after which the boys had an hour and a half off. then there was a roll call, after which the boys were not allowed to go outside. Dinner was served at 8pm, after the evening prayers, then there were lessons and prayers again, and people went to bed at 10pm.
This is the building where Josif Dzugashvili studied and prayed.
As in secondary schools in the Kingdom of Poland, far-reaching Russification was used in the Tiflis seminary. All manifestations of Georgianness were exterminated. It was forbidden to speak Georgian and any other Georgian literature. Moreover, all Russian authors who wrote after Pushkin were forbidden, including Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Turgenev.
Stalin is a classic of Georgian poetry
Initially, Stalin stuck to his intention to become a pop. He completed his first year of education with an excellent grade, ranking eighth in the entire school. In the 1894-1895 school year, he had high-fives for singing and language, and fives and fours for knowledge of the Scriptures. He received an excellent grade for his performance. As he had a good voice, he sang in the choir as first tenor on the right wing.
After his second year of study, Soso improved his results:this time he was fifth with even more excellent marks. During this time, he developed strongly intellectually and began to write poetry. He took them to the editorial office of the well-known newspaper "Iveria" ("Georgia"), where it was received by the greatest Georgian poet, Prince Ilya Chavchavadze, who decided that they were worth publishing and selected five for publication. Interestingly, the poems published in "Iveria" were widely read and admired, and with time they became a sort of Georgian classic, published in anthologies until the 1960s.
One of the first to notice Stalin's poetic talent was Ilya Chavchavadze.
Former priest and Caucasian bandit idols
As in the Congress Poland schools, also in the Tiflis seminary, students formed secret circles in which they read forbidden literature. Stalin joined one of them. It was called Cheap Library.
Dzhugashvili admired the works of Victor Hugo, especially his "Ninety-third Year" . One of the heroes of the novel, set during the royalist uprising in the Vendée, was a recent priest and now revolutionary Cimourdain, a man devoted to the cause of the revolution, tough, ideological and strict. This character became a role model for young Soso.
Apart from Hugo, Stalin also read Zola, Balzak, Chekhov, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, and later also Marx and Engels. He was greatly impressed by the forbidden Georgian novel "Patricide" by Alexander Kazbega about a Caucasian bandit named Koba, who fought with the Russians. Fascinated by him, Josif told his friends to call him Koba.
The text is based on the book "Spowiedź Stalina" by Christopher Makt (Bellona Publishing House 2017).
An atheist in a seminar
Over time, Soso began to deviate from the faith. He was no longer thinking about a career as a clergyman. He was fascinated by socialism and revolution.
This was the moment when Joseph the poet began to pupate into Joseph the politician. I stopped writing poetry, quit my studies and focused on politics. The fascination with Marxism was then relatively common
- this is what the dictator himself says about it in Christopher Mack's book "Stalin's Confession". He disregarded his seminar duties more and more. Entries in the school diary show that he was caught reading forbidden books thirteen times and received nine warnings. He used to be rude, did not bow to teachers, talked during prayers, left the classroom early and was late for lessons.
He was only twenty-three out of twenty-three at the beginning of the fifth grade, and his grades were mostly three. He also waged a private war with one of the lecturers, the school inspector, Father Dimitri, whom he called "Black Spot". Dzhugashvili began attending meetings of Russian workers' circles. Finally, Josif proclaimed himself an atheist, and in August 1898, at the age of almost twenty, he joined the local structure of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Russia.
At the turn of the century, Stalin was already a staunch communist. Photo taken in 1902.
Atheist factory
In May 1899, the seminary journal wrote about Stalin:"Relegated for failing to appear at the exams." Years later, the dictator himself spread the version that he had been expelled for Marxist propaganda. In turn, the already quoted Simon Sebag Montefiore claims that Dzhugashvili was expelled because ... he did not pay 25 rubles of tuition, which was unexpectedly increased due to the "Black Spot". I don't think we'll know what the reality was.
One thing is certain:in the Tiflis seminary, young Stalin abandoned his faith, gave up his desire to be a priest and became a revolutionist. He's not the only one. As another student of this institution and Stalin's comrade, Philip Macharadze wrote years later, "no secular school has released as many atheists as the Tiflis seminary" ... This is confirmed by the statement by the dictator in Christopher Mack's book:
If it weren't for the seminary, there wouldn't have been a revolutionary Joseph Stalin! It was there and the Jesuit methods used there that pushed me towards revolution and Marxism .
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