MOSCOW, August 28 (RIA Novosti) - Galina Dzhugashvili, a granddaughter of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, died on Monday afternoon at a military hospital in Moscow at the age of 69, after a long illness.

She passed away at 5:30 p.m. Moscow time [1:30 p.m. GMT] at the Burdenko hospital, having undergone several surgical operations in recent years. The farewell ceremony and cremation will be held Thursday.

Galina's father was Stalin's eldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, who died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1943. Her mother, ballerina Yulia Meltzer, died in 1967.

Galina Dzhugashvili was born in Moscow, and studied in Moscow State University's philology department, where she wrote her doctoral thesis. She was a member of Russia's Writers Union, and was married to an Algerian mathematician, employed by the United Nations.