Living with Stalin’s name

He was born in 1945 in Pogradec, when World War II was finally over with the Russians defeating Germany. His father was a big fan of Josif Stalin and decided to name his baby boy after the famous Russian leader. The 63 years old man seems to have benefited from it, somehow. He recalls a long time ago, when he was only twelve, being stuck in a quicklime hole. Everyone was screaming, “Stalin fell down in a hole. Stalin is burning,” so people hurried to help him since they heard that Stalin was burning. Then he was sent to the hospital in Tirana where the best doctors took care of him. It was then that the party officials decided that the young boy should change his name from Stalin to Jovan. The incident was not a joyous one for the communist party because the irony was clear. The dictator could not tolerate people making fun of his great ally since the incident became a funny story. But even nowadays everybody calls him Stalo, a short version of Stalin. On the other hand, the name Stalin assured him a good job back then, even though he did not have the proper education.
Stalin says that this name has gotten him into trouble, too. He has never been a good student, but the teachers would not leave him alone because they said that he should honor the name he had by studying harder.
When WWII ended, Albania established good relations with the Soviet Union, which continued until 1960 when Hrushov came to power and began to institute some democratic reforms. Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha thought this was a deviation from communism, so he decided to break diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.