Q 01/05

In which country of the Russian Empire was Stalin born?

A) Armenia

B) Russia proper

C) Ukraine

D) Georgia

Answer · why

D) Georgia

He grew up speaking Georgian and did not start learning Russian until he was eight or nine; he kept the accent all his life.

Q 02/05

What was Stalin's birth surname?

A) Mikoyan

B) Jughashvili

C) Beria

D) Ordzhonikidze

Answer · why

B) Jughashvili

Russified as Dzhugashvili; he was his parents' third child and the only one to survive infancy.

Q 03/05

What was the trade of Stalin's father, Besarion?

A) Priest

B) Shoemaker

C) Wine merchant

D) Blacksmith

Answer · why

B) Shoemaker

When the workshop declined he became a violent alcoholic, and mother and son left home by 1883.

Q 04/05

What childhood accident left Stalin with a lifelong disability in his left arm?

A) He was kicked by a horse

B) He was struck by a phaeton carriage

C) He fell from a church roof

D) He was crushed by a cart of wine barrels

Answer · why

B) He was struck by a phaeton carriage

He was 12; a smallpox infection at six had already scarred his face, later airbrushed from photographs.

Q 05/05

What was Stalin training to become when he enrolled at the Tiflis Theological Seminary in 1894?

A) A Russian Orthodox priest

B) A provincial lawyer

C) A village schoolteacher

D) A church choir cantor

Answer · why

A) A Russian Orthodox priest

He read Marx there and left in April 1899 to attend secret workers' meetings instead.