When was Lenin born what date. Secrets of the last days. How and from what did Vladimir Lenin die?

Time passes and changes political systems, views, values. Leaders are changing. Many children born in the 21st century cannot answer with certainty who Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev were ... Although until recently, every self-respecting Soviet citizen knew not only the year of Lenin's birth and where the leader of the world proletariat was born, but also the main theses of each plenum. Our contemporaries do not consider it necessary to memorize such information. It makes no sense to discuss whether this is good or bad, but for the sake of erudition, you can find out where Lenin was born. And it happened in the city of Simbirsk. In 1924 it was renamed Ulyanovsk.

A bit from the history of the city where Lenin was born

This city is located on the banks of the Volga and Sviyaga rivers, almost 1000 km southeast of Moscow. Founded in 1648 as a fortress to protect against raids by nomadic tribes from the east. A decree on this was issued by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. This fortress was called Simber. After more than 200 years, Catherine the Second renamed the city Simbirsk and made it the center Emperor Paul in 1796 confirmed this administrative status of the city.

Relocation of the Ulyanov family to Simbirsk

Vladimir Ulyanov's parents were educated and intelligent people. In particular, his father, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kazan University, and in 1854 he received a candidate of mathematical sciences. He was a successful teacher in the gymnasiums of Penza and Nizhny Novgorod, but for ideological reasons he moved to Simbirsk. Why? The fact is that after in 1861 Russia was swept by a wave of Europeanization and public education. All conscious teachers were eager to work in this field and contribute to the education of the common people, and not just the children of wealthy parents, as was the case before. Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov was seized by this idea. Therefore, when the post of inspector of public schools became vacant in Simbirsk, he moved his family there without hesitation and was appointed to the post in 1869.

Simbirsk in the time of the Ulyanovs

The population of the city at the time of the arrival of the parents of Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) was 26 thousand inhabitants, but it could not be called far from cultural life province. Back in the 18th century, the first theater in Russia existed here, in 1838 its own newspaper began to be printed, and public library the telegraph worked. That is, all the benefits of civilization of that time were available. In addition, since Simbirsk was located on the large navigable Volga River, the waterway connected it with other major cities. As a result, trade also developed. Thus, the city where Vladimir Lenin was born justified the title of "noble nest".

Also, five years before the Ulyanovs moved, Simbirsk experienced a big fire. But this even served the benefit of the city, because it was rebuilt according to a new plan, wide streets and beautiful gardens appeared.

Nomadic life in rented apartments

As an inspector of public schools, official Ulyanov was not supposed to have state housing, so the growing family had to be content with rented housing. That is why during the 18 years they lived in Simbirsk, they had to change seven houses.

The first housing was the outbuilding of the house on Streletskaya street, which belonged to Pribylovsky. Ilya Nikolaevich moved there in the autumn of 1869 with his wife and two children, Anna and Alexander. Immediately in 1970, the third child was born, Vladimir - the future builder of communism.

Six months later, the family moved to live from the wing to one of the apartments in the same house. Then daughter Olga was born. But they did not live long in the house where Lenin was born. They had to move to a neighboring one on the same street, which belonged to Zharkova. Then there were three more rented apartments, until Ilya Nikolaevich in 1878 purchased his own house on Moskovskaya Street. But there the family also lived relatively little. The breadwinner and head of the family passed away early, and the eldest son Alexander was also executed on charges of plotting against the emperor. Therefore, in 1887, the house was decided to be sold. Shortly thereafter, the Ulyanovs left Simbirsk and

Lenin memorial in Ulyanovsk

Lenin's hometown was renamed Ulyanovsk in 1924. And in 1970, on the centenary of his birth, a memorial memorial was opened in the city where Lenin Vladimir Ilyich was born. It includes the houses of Pribylovsky and Zharkova, where the Ulyanovs lived, their own house on Moskovskaya, as well as the Large Universal Concert Hall and the House of Political Education. In the apartments where the Ulyanov family lived, everything was kept almost unchanged. You can also see a diorama depicting Simbirsk in the 1880s.

Lenin's hometown today

Now Ulyanovsk is a large regional center with a population of over 600,000. It is divided into four districts: Leninsky, Zheleznodorozhny, Zasviyazhsky and Zavolzhsky. The latter is located on the opposite bank and is connected to the other two bridges - Imperial and Presidential. But the Leninsky district has always been considered the most prestigious. Even before the arrival of the Ulyanovs, only merchants and nobles lived here. Many buildings of those times have been preserved in their original form. And the street where Lenin was born is considered a historical monument and is pedestrian.

Many Russians and foreigners come to Ulyanovsk every year. They want to visit this street and the house where Lenin was born. The city is also of considerable interest. It annually receives thousands of tourists who want to visit the homeland of the light October revolution.

The biography of Lenin is one of the most interesting and mysterious among world famous politicians. Indeed, it was Lenin who was the main organizer of the October Revolution of 1917, which radically changed the history not only, but also of the world.

Vladimir Lenin wrote many works concerning Marxism, communism, socialism and political philosophy.

Some consider him the greatest revolutionary and reformer, while others accuse him of serious crimes and call him a madman. So who is he, Vladimir Lenin, a genius or a villain?

In this article, we will highlight the most significant events in Lenin's biography, and also try to understand why his activities still cause radically opposite opinions and assessments.

Biography of Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born on April 10, 1870 in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk). His father, Ilya Nikolaevich, worked as an inspector of public repositories, and his mother, Maria Alexandrovna, was a home teacher.

Childhood and youth

During the biography of 1879-1887. Vladimir Lenin studied at the Simbirsk Gymnasium, from which he graduated with honors. In 1887, his older brother Alexander was executed for preparing an assassination attempt on the tsar.

This event shocked the entire Ulyanov family, because no one even knew that Alexander was engaged in revolutionary activities.


Special signs of V. I. Lenin

Lenin's education

After the gymnasium, Lenin continued his studies at Kazan University at the Faculty of Law. It was then that he began to take a serious interest in politics.

The execution of his brother greatly influenced his worldview, so it is not surprising that he quickly became interested in new political movements.

Having not studied at the university for half a year, Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin was expelled from it for participating in student riots.

At the age of 21, he graduated from law school as an external student. Petersburg University. After that, Lenin worked for some time as an assistant to a barrister.

But this work did not bring him inner satisfaction, because he dreamed of great achievements.

Personal life

The only official wife of Lenin was who supported her husband in everything.

The last years of Lenin's life

Obviously, the many political events that took place in Lenin's biography over the past few years could not but affect his health.

Thus, in the spring of 1922, he suffered 2 strokes, but at the same time he retained his sanity. Last thing public speaking Lenin took place on November 20, 1922 at the plenum of the Moscow City Council.

On December 16, 1922, his health deteriorated sharply again, and on May 15, 1923, due to illness, he moved to the Gorki estate near Moscow.


Sick Lenin in Gorki

But even in this state, Lenin, with the help of a stenographer, dictated letters and various notes. A year later, he suffered a 3rd stroke, which made him completely unable to work.

Farewell to the leader of the world proletariat took place within 5 days. On the sixth day after his death, Lenin's body was embalmed and placed in the Mausoleum.

Many cities and streets of the USSR were named after the leader. It was difficult to find such a city, wherever there were streets or squares named after Lenin, not to mention tens of thousands of monuments erected throughout Russia.

After Lenin, power over Soviet Union accepted, who ruled for almost 30 years.


Lenin and in Gorki, 1922
  • An interesting fact is that during his life Vladimir Lenin wrote about 30,000 documents. At the same time, he managed to speak at hundreds of rallies and lead a huge state.
  • Lenin played chess all his life.
  • Ilyich had a party nickname, which was used by his comrades and himself: "The Old Man."
  • Lenin's height was 164 cm.
  • The Russian inventor Lev Termen, who personally met with Lenin, noted that he was very surprised by the bright red hair of the leader.
  • According to the recollections of many contemporaries, Lenin was a very cheerful person who loved a good joke.
  • At school, Lenin was an excellent student, and upon graduation he received a gold medal.

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The figure of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin has attracted the close attention of historians and politicians around the world for almost a century. One of the most taboo topics in the “Leninian” in the USSR is the origin of Lenin, his genealogy. The same topic was subject to the greatest speculations on the part of the geopolitical opponents of the state, whose founder and “banner” was V.I. Lenin.

Secrets of Lenin's biography

How the children of serfs became hereditary nobles, why Soviet authority classified information about the maternal ancestors of the leader, and how did Vladimir Ulyanov turn into Nikolai Lenin in the early 1900s?
Ulyanov family. From left to right: standing - Olga, Alexander, Anna; sitting - Maria Alexandrovna with youngest daughter Maria, Dmitry, Ilya Nikolaevich, Vladimir. Simbirsk. 1879 Provided by M. Zolotarev

Biographical chronicle of V.I. Lenin” begins with the entry: “April, 10 (22). Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) was born. Vladimir Ilyich's father, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, was at that time an inspector, and then the director of public schools in the Simbirsk province. He came from the poor townspeople of the city of Astrakhan. His father was previously a serf. Lenin's mother Maria Alexandrovna was the daughter of a doctor A.D. Blanca".

It is curious that Lenin himself did not know many details of his ancestry. In their family, as in the families of other commoners, it was somehow not customary to delve into their "genealogical roots". It was only later, after the death of Vladimir Ilyich, when interest in such problems began to grow, that his sisters took up these studies. Therefore, when in 1922 Lenin received a detailed party census questionnaire, when asked about the occupation of his paternal grandfather, he sincerely answered: “I don’t know.”

GRANDSON OF serfs

Meanwhile, Lenin's paternal grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were indeed serfs. Great-great-grandfather - Nikita Grigoryevich Ulyanin - was born in 1711. According to the revision tale of 1782, he and the family of his youngest son Feofan were recorded as a house serf of the landowner of the village of Androsov, Sergach district of the Nizhny Novgorod viceroy Marfa Semyonovna Myakinina.

According to the same revision, his eldest son Vasily Nikitich Ulyanin, born in 1733, with his wife Anna Semionovna and children Samoila, Porfiry and Nikolai lived there, but were listed as yard cornet Stepan Mikhailovich Brekhov. According to the revision of 1795, Lenin's grandfather Nikolai Vasilyevich, 25 years old, single, lived with his mother and brothers all in the same village, but they were already listed as servants of ensign Mikhail Stepanovich Brekhov.

Of course, he was listed, but he was no longer in the village ...

The Astrakhan archive contains the document “Lists of registered landlord peasants who have come in from different provinces and are expected to be counted”, where under number 223 it is written: “Nikolai Vasilyev, son of Ulyanin ... Nizhny Novgorod province, Sergach district, Androsov village, landowner Stepan Mikhailovich Brekhov, a peasant. Absent in 1791. He was a fugitive or released for quitrent and redeemed - it is not known for sure, but in 1799 in Astrakhan Nikolai Vasilyevich was transferred to the category of state peasants, and in 1808 he was admitted to the bourgeois class, to the workshop of artisans-tailors.

Having got rid of serfdom and becoming a free man, Nikolai Vasilievich changed his surname Ulyanin to Ulyaninov, and then Ulyanov. Soon he married the daughter of the Astrakhan tradesman Alexei Lukyanovich Smirnov - Anna, who was born in 1788 and was younger than husband for 18 years.

Based on some archival documents, the writer Marietta Shaginyan put forward a version according to which Anna Alekseevna is not own daughter Smirnov, but a baptized Kalmyk, rescued by him from slavery and allegedly adopted only in March 1825.

There is no indisputable evidence of this version, especially since already in 1812 they had a son Alexander with Nikolai Ulyanov, who died four months old, in 1819 son Vasily was born, in 1821 - daughter Maria, in 1823 - Theodosius and, finally, in July 1831, when the head of the family was already over 60, his son Ilya was the father of the future leader of the world proletariat.

FATHER'S TEACHER'S CAREER

After the death of Nikolai Vasilyevich, the care of the family and the upbringing of children fell on the shoulders of his eldest son Vasily Nikolayevich. Working at that time as a clerk of the well-known Astrakhan firm "The Sapozhnikov Brothers" and not having own family, he managed to ensure prosperity in the house and even gave younger brother Elijah education.

ILYA NIKOLAEVICH ULYANOV GRADUATED FACULTY OF PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS OF KAZAN UNIVERSITY.
HE WAS PROPOSED TO STAY AT THE DEPARTMENT FOR "IMPROVEMENT IN SCIENTIFIC WORK" - THE FAMOUS MATHEMATIST NIKOLAI IVANOVICH LOBACHEVSKY INSISTED ON THIS

In 1850, Ilya Nikolaevich graduated from silver medal Astrakhan Gymnasium and entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kazan University, where he completed his studies in 1854, receiving the title of Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the right to teach in secondary schools. educational institutions. And although he was asked to remain at the department for "improvement in scientific work”(The famous mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, by the way, insisted on this), Ilya Nikolaevich preferred a career as a teacher.

Monument to Lobachevsky in Kazan. Beginning of XX century. Provided by M. Zolotarev

The first place of his work - from May 7, 1855 - was the Noble Institute in Penza. In July 1860, Ivan Dmitrievich Veretennikov came here as an inspector of the institute. Ilya Nikolaevich became friends with him and his wife, and in the same year Anna Alexandrovna Veretennikova (née Blank) introduced him to her sister Maria Alexandrovna Blank, who came to visit her in the winter. Ilya Nikolaevich began to help Maria in preparing for the exam for the title of teacher, and she helped him in spoken English. The young people fell in love, and in the spring of 1863 they were engaged.

On July 15 of the same year, after successfully passing the external exams at the Samara Men's Gymnasium, "the daughter of the court counselor, the maiden Maria Blank" received the title of teacher primary school"with the right to teach the Law of God, the Russian language, arithmetic, German and French". And in August they already played a wedding, and “maiden Maria Blank” became the wife of court adviser Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov - this rank was also granted to him in July 1863.

Panorama of Simbirsk from the side of the Moscow tract. 1866–1867. Provided by M. Zolotarev

The pedigree of the Blank family began to be studied by Lenin's sisters, Anna and Maria. Anna Ilyinichna said: “The elders could not find out for us. The surname seemed to us a French root, but there was no evidence of such an origin. For a long time, I personally began to think about the possibility of Jewish origin, which was prompted mainly by my mother's message that my grandfather was born in Zhytomyr, a well-known Jewish center. Grandmother - mother's mother - was born in St. Petersburg and was a German by origin from Riga. But while mother and her sisters kept in touch with their mother’s relatives for quite a long time, her father’s relatives, A.D. Blanc, no one heard. He was like a cut off piece, which also led me to think about his Jewish origin. None of the grandfather's stories about his childhood or youth have been preserved in the memory of his daughters.

Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova reported to Joseph Stalin in 1932 and 1934 about the results of the searches that confirmed her assumption. “The fact of our origin, which I assumed before,” she wrote, “was not known during his [Lenin's] life ... I don’t know what motives we Communists can have for hushing up this fact.”

“To be absolutely silent about him” was Stalin's categorical answer. Yes, and the second sister of Lenin, Maria Ilyinichna, also believed that this fact "let it be known sometime in a hundred years."

Lenin's great-grandfather, Moshe Itskovich Blank, was apparently born in 1763. The first mention of it is contained in the revision of 1795, where among the townspeople of the city of Starokonstantinov, Volyn province, Moishka Blank is recorded under number 394. Where he came from in these places is unclear. However…
Some time ago, the famous bibliographer Maya Dvorkina introduced a curious fact into scientific circulation. Somewhere in the mid-1920s, the archivist Yulian Grigorievich Oksman, who, on the instructions of the director of the Lenin Library Vladimir Ivanovich Nevsky, was studying the genealogy of the leader of the world proletariat, discovered a petition from one of the Jewish communities of the Minsk province, allegedly referring to early XIX century, about the exemption from the tax of a certain boy, because he is "the illegitimate son of a major Minsk official", and therefore, they say, the community should not pay for him. The boy's last name was Blank.

According to Oksman, Nevsky took him to Lev Kamenev, and then the three of them came to Nikolai Bukharin. Showing the document, Kamenev muttered: "I always thought so." To which Bukharin replied: “What do you think, it doesn’t matter, but what are we going to do?” They took the word from Oksman that he would not tell anyone about the find. And since then no one has seen this document.

One way or another, Moshe Blank appeared in Starokonstantinov, already an adult, and in 1793 he married a local 29-year-old girl Maryam (Marem) Froimovich. From subsequent revisions, it follows that he read both Jewish and Russian, had his own house, was engaged in trade, and besides, he rented 5 morgues (about 3 hectares) of land from the town of Rogachevo, which were sown with chicory.

In 1794, his son Aba (Abel) was born, and in 1799, his son Srul (Israel). Probably, from the very beginning, Moshe Itskovich did not have a relationship with the local Jewish community. He was "a man who did not want, or perhaps did not know how to find mutual language with my compatriots." In other words, the community simply hated him. And after in 1808, from a fire, and possibly arson, Blank's house burned down, the family moved to Zhytomyr.

LETTER TO THE EMPEROR

Many years later, in September 1846, Moshe Blank wrote a letter to Emperor Nicholas I, from which it is clear that already "40 years ago" he "renounced the Jews", but because of his "excessively pious wife", who died in 1834 , converted to Christianity and received the name Dmitry only on January 1, 1835.

But the reason for the letter was different: while maintaining hostility towards his fellow tribesmen, Dmitry (Moshe) Blank proposed - in order to assimilate the Jews - to prohibit them from wearing national clothes, and most importantly, to oblige them to pray in synagogues for the Russian emperor and the imperial family.

It is curious that in October of that year the letter was reported to Nicholas I and he fully agreed with the proposals of the "baptized Jew Blank", as a result of which in 1850 Jews were forbidden to wear national clothes, and in 1854 they introduced the corresponding text of the prayer. The researcher Mikhail Stein, who collected and carefully analyzed the most complete data on the Blank pedigree, rightly noted that due to hostility to his people, Moshe Itskovich “can be compared, perhaps, only with another baptized Jew - one of the founders and leaders of the Moscow Union of the Russian people V.A. . Gringmuth "...

Alexander Dmitrievich Blank (1799–1870). Provided by M. Zolotarev

The fact that Blank decided to break with the Jewish community long before his baptism was evidenced by something else. Both of his sons, Abel and Israel, like their father, also knew how to read Russian, and when a county (district) school was opened in Zhytomyr in 1816, they were enrolled there and successfully graduated from it. From the point of view of believing Jews, this was blasphemy. And yet, belonging to the Jewish faith doomed them to vegetate within the boundaries of the Pale of Settlement. And only the event that happened in the spring of 1820 dramatically changed the fate of young people ...

In April, he arrived in Zhytomyr on a business trip " high rank"- the ruler of the affairs of the so-called Jewish Committee, senator and poet Dmitry Osipovich Baranov. Somehow, Blanc managed to meet him, and he asked the senator to assist his sons in entering the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. Baranov did not sympathize with the Jews at all, but the conversion of two "lost souls" to Christianity, which was quite rare at that time, in his opinion, was a good deed, and he agreed.

The brothers immediately went to the capital and filed a petition in the name of Metropolitan Mikhail of Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Estland and Finland. “Having now settled down to live in St. Petersburg,” they wrote, “and having the constant treatment of Christians who profess the Greco-Russian religion, we now wish to accept it.”

The petition was granted, and already on May 25, 1820, the priest of the Church of St. Sampson the Hospitable in St. Petersburg Fyodor Barsov “enlightened” both brothers with baptism. Abel became Dmitry Dmitrievich, and Israel became Alexander Dmitrievich. Younger son Moshe Blanca received a new name in honor of his successor (godfather) Count Alexander Ivanovich Apraksin, and a patronymic - in honor of Abel's successor Senator Dmitry Osipovich Baranov. And on July 31 of the same year, at the direction of the Minister of Education, Prince Alexander Nikolayevich Golitsyn, the brothers were identified as “pupils of the Medical and Surgical Academy”, which they graduated in 1824, having received the academic title of doctors of the 2nd department and a present in the form of a pocket set of surgical tools.

MARRIAGE OF THE HEADQUARTER

Dmitry Blank remained in the capital as a police doctor, and in August 1824 Alexander began his service in the city of Porechie, Smolensk province, as a county doctor. True, already in October 1825 he returned to St. Petersburg and was enrolled, like his brother, as a doctor in the city police staff. In 1828 he was promoted to the staff physician. It's time to think about getting married...

His godfather, Count Alexander Apraksin, was at that time an official for special assignments at the Ministry of Finance. So Alexander Dmitrievich, despite his origin, could well count on a decent game. Apparently, at his other benefactor, Senator Dmitry Baranov, who was fond of poetry and chess, who visited Alexander Pushkin and almost all of “enlightened Petersburg” gathered, the younger Blank met the Groshopf brothers and was received in their house.

Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (1831–1886) and Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (1835–1916)

The head of this very respectable family, Ivan Fedorovich (Johann Gottlieb) Groshopf, was from the Baltic Germans, was a consultant of the State Justice College of Livonian, Estonian and Finnish Affairs and rose to the rank of provincial secretary. His wife Anna Karlovna, nee Estedt, was a Swedish Lutheran. There were eight children in the family: three sons - Johann, who served in the Russian army, Karl, vice director in the foreign trade department of the Ministry of Finance, and Gustav, who was in charge of the Riga customs, and five daughters - Alexandra, Anna, Ekaterina (married von Essen) , Carolina (married Biuberg) and the younger Amalia. Having got acquainted with this family, the staff doctor made an offer to Anna Ivanovna.

MASHENKA BLANK

At first, Alexander Dmitrievich's affairs were going well. As a police doctor, he received 1,000 rubles a year. For "quickness and diligence" he was repeatedly awarded thanks.

But in June 1831, during the cholera riots in the capital, his brother Dmitry, who was on duty in the central cholera hospital, was brutally killed by a rebellious crowd. This death shocked Alexander Blanc so much that he quit the police and did not work for more than a year. Only in April 1833 did he again enter the service - as an intern at the City Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene for the poor from the river regions of St. Petersburg. By the way, it was here that Taras Shevchenko was treated by him in 1838. At the same time (from May 1833 to April 1837) Blank worked in the Naval Department. In 1837, after passing the exams, he was recognized as an inspector of the medical board, and in 1838 - a medical surgeon.

IN 1874, ILYA NIKOLAEVICH ULYANOV RECEIVED THE POSITION OF DIRECTOR OF THE PEOPLE'S SCHOOLS OF THE SIMBIRSK PROVINCE.
AND IN 1877, HE WAS AWARDED THE RANK OF ACTIVE STATE COUNSELOR, EQUAL IN THE TABLE OF RANKS TO THE GENERAL RANK AND GIVING THE RIGHT TO HEREDIC NOBILITY

The private practice of Alexander Dmitrievich also expanded. Among his patients were representatives high nobility. This allowed him to move to a decent apartment in the outbuilding of one of the luxurious mansions on the English Embankment, which belonged to the emperor's life physician and president of the Medical and Surgical Academy, Baronet Yakov Vasilievich Willie. Maria Blanc was born here in 1835. Godfather Mashenka became their neighbor - in the past adjutant of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, and since 1833 - master of the horse Imperial court Ivan Dmitrievich Chertkov.

In 1840, Anna Ivanovna fell seriously ill, died and was buried in St. Petersburg at the Smolensk Evangelical Cemetery. Then her sister Ekaterina von Essen, who was widowed in the same year, completely took care of the children. Alexander Dmitrievich, apparently, had sympathized with her before. It is no coincidence that he named his daughter, born in 1833, Catherine. After the death of Anna Ivanovna, they become even closer, and in April 1841 Blank decides to enter into a legal marriage with Ekaterina Ivanovna. However, such marriages - with the godmother of daughters and sister late wife - the law did not allow. And Catherine von Essen becomes his civil wife.

In the same April, they all leave the capital and move to Perm, where Alexander Dmitrievich received the post of inspector of the Perm Medical Council and doctor of the Perm Gymnasium. Thanks to the latter circumstance, Blank met the Latin teacher Ivan Dmitrievich Veretennikov, who became his husband in 1850. eldest daughter Anna, and a mathematics teacher Andrei Alexandrovich Zalezhsky, who married another daughter, Ekaterina.

Alexander Blank entered the history of Russian medicine as one of the pioneers of balneology - treatment mineral waters. Having retired at the end of 1847 from the post of doctor of the Zlatoust arms factory, he left for the Kazan province, where in 1848 the Kokushkino estate with 462 acres (503.6 hectares) of land, a water mill and 39 serfs was bought in the Laishevsky district. On August 4, 1859, the Senate approved Alexander Dmitrievich Blank and his children in the hereditary nobility, and they were entered in the book of the Kazan noble assembly.

ULYANOV FAMILY

This is how Maria Alexandrovna Blank ended up in Kazan, and then in Penza, where she met Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov ...

Their wedding on August 25, 1863, like the weddings of the other Blanc sisters before, was played in Kokushkino. On September 22, the newlyweds left for Nizhny Novgorod, where Ilya Nikolayevich was appointed to the position of senior teacher of mathematics and physics at the male gymnasium. On August 14, 1864, daughter Anna was born. A year and a half later - on March 31, 1866 - son Alexander ... But soon - a sad loss: daughter Olga, who was born in 1868, did not live even a year, fell ill and died on July 18 in the same Kokushkino ...

On September 6, 1869, Ilya Nikolayevich was appointed inspector of public schools in the Simbirsk province. The family moved to Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk), which at that time was a quiet provincial town with a little over 40 thousand inhabitants, of which 57.5% were listed as petty bourgeois, 17% as military, 11% as peasants, 8.8% as nobles, 3.2% - merchants and honorary citizens, and 1.8% - people of the clergy, persons of other classes and foreigners. Accordingly, the city was divided into three parts: noble, commercial and petty-bourgeois. In the nobles' quarters there were kerosene lanterns and plank sidewalks, and in the petty-bourgeois quarters they kept all sorts of cattle in the yards, and this living creature, contrary to prohibitions, roamed the streets.
Here, on April 10 (22), 1870, the Ulyanovs' son Vladimir was born. On April 16, priest Vasily Umov and deacon Vladimir Znamensky baptized the newborn. The godfather was the head of the specific office in Simbirsk, the actual state councilor Arseniy Fedorovich Belokrysenko, and the godfather was the mother of a colleague Ilya Nikolaevich, collegiate assessor Natalia Ivanovna Aunovskaya.

Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (sitting third from right) among the teachers of the Simbirsk men's classical gymnasium. 1874 Provided by M. Zolotarev

The family continued to grow. On November 4, 1871, the fourth child was born - daughter Olga. Son Nikolai died before he even lived a month, and on August 4, 1874, son Dmitry was born, on February 6, 1878, daughter Maria. Six children.
On July 11, 1874, Ilya Nikolayevich received the post of director of public schools in the Simbirsk province. And in December 1877, he was awarded the rank of real state councilor, equal in the table of ranks to the rank of general and giving the right to hereditary nobility.

The salary increase made it possible to realize an old dream. Having changed six rented apartments since 1870 and having accumulated the necessary funds, on August 2, 1878, the Ulyanovs finally bought their own house on Moskovskaya Street for 4 thousand silver - from the widow of the titular adviser Ekaterina Petrovna Molchanova. It was wooden, one floor from the facade and with mezzanines under the roof from the side of the courtyard. And behind the yard, overgrown with grass and chamomile, there is a beautiful garden with silvery poplars, thick elms, yellow acacia and lilacs along the fence ...
Ilya Nikolaevich died in Simbirsk in January 1886, Maria Alexandrovna - in Petrograd in July 1916, outliving her husband by 30 years.

WHERE DID "LENIN" COME FROM?

The question of how and where in the spring of 1901 Vladimir Ulyanov got the pseudonym Nikolai Lenin has always aroused the interest of researchers, there were many versions. Among them are toponymic ones: both the Lena River (analogy: Plekhanov - Volgin) and the village of Lenin near Berlin appear. At the time of the formation of "Leninism" as a profession, "amorous" sources were looked for. Thus, the assertion was born that the Kazan beauty Elena Lenina was allegedly to blame for everything, in another version, the chorus girl of the Mariinsky Theater Elena Zaretskaya, etc. But none of these versions could stand up to the slightest degree of serious scrutiny.

However, back in the 1950s and 1960s, the Central Party Archives received letters from relatives of a certain Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin, in which a fairly convincing everyday story was presented. The deputy head of the archive, Rostislav Aleksandrovich Lavrov, forwarded these letters to the Central Committee of the CPSU, and, naturally, they did not become the property of a wide circle of researchers.

Meanwhile, the Lenin family originates from the Cossack Posnik, who in the 17th century was awarded the nobility, the surname Lenin and an estate in the Vologda province for his services related to the conquest of Siberia and the creation of winter quarters on the Lena River. Numerous descendants of him distinguished themselves more than once both in military and civil service. One of them - Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin - fell ill and retired, having risen to the rank of state councilor, in the 80s 19th century and settled in the Yaroslavl province.

Volodya Ulyanov with his sister Olga. Simbirsk. 1874 Provided by M. Zolotarev

His daughter Olga Nikolaevna, having graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of the Bestuzhev Courses in 1883, went to work at the Smolensk evening working school in St. Petersburg, where she met Nadezhda Krupskaya. And when there was a fear that the authorities might refuse to issue a foreign passport to Vladimir Ulyanov, and friends began to look for smuggling options for crossing the border, Krupskaya turned to Lenina for help. Olga Nikolaevna then conveyed this request to her brother, a prominent official of the Ministry of Agriculture, agronomist Sergei Nikolaevich Lenin. In addition, a similar request came to him, apparently, from his friend, the statistician Alexander Dmitrievich Tsyurupa, who in 1900 met the future leader of the proletariat.

Knew Vladimir Ilyich and Sergey Nikolayevich himself - from meetings in Volny economic society in 1895, as well as from his writings. In turn, Ulyanov also knew Lenin: for example, he refers three times to his articles in the monograph The Development of Capitalism in Russia. After consulting, the brother and sister decided to give Ulyanov the passport of his father, Nikolai Yegorovich, who by that time was already quite ill (he died on April 6, 1902).

According to family tradition, in 1900 Sergei Nikolaevich went to Pskov on official business. There, on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, he received Sacca plows and other agricultural machines arriving in Russia from Germany. In one of the Pskov hotels, Lenin handed over his father's passport with a revised date of birth to Vladimir Ilyich, who then lived in Pskov. Probably, this is how the origin of Ulyanov's main pseudonym, N. Lenin, is explained.

How did the children of serfs become hereditary nobles, why did the Soviet authorities keep information about the maternal ancestors of the leader secret, and how did Vladimir Ulyanov turn into Nikolai Lenin in the early 1900s?

Ulyanov family. From left to right: standing - Olga, Alexander, Anna; sitting - Maria Alexandrovna with her youngest daughter Maria, Dmitry, Ilya Nikolaevich, Vladimir. Simbirsk. 1879 Provided by M. Zolotarev

Biographical chronicle of V.I. Lenin” begins with the entry: “April, 10 (22). Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) was born. Vladimir Ilyich's father Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov was at that time an inspector, and then the director of public schools in the Simbirsk province. He came from the poor townspeople of the city of Astrakhan. His father was previously a serf. Lenin's mother Maria Alexandrovna was the daughter of the doctor A.D. Blanca".

It is curious that Lenin himself did not know many details of his ancestry. In their family, as in the families of other commoners, it was somehow not customary to delve into their "genealogical roots". It was only later, after the death of Vladimir Ilyich, when interest in such problems began to grow, that his sisters took up these studies. Therefore, when in 1922 Lenin received a detailed party census questionnaire, when asked about the occupation of his paternal grandfather, he sincerely answered: “I don’t know.”

GRANDSON OF serfs

Meanwhile, Lenin's paternal grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were indeed serfs. Great-great-grandfather - Nikita Grigorievich Ulyanin- was born in 1711. According to the revision tale of 1782, he and the family of his youngest son Feofan were recorded as a house serf of the landowner of the village of Androsov, Sergach district of the Nizhny Novgorod viceroy Marfa Semyonovna Myakinina.

According to the same revision, his eldest son Vasily Nikitich Ulyanin, born in 1733, with his wife Anna Semionovna and children Samoila, Porfiry and Nikolai lived there, but were considered yard cornets Stepan Mikhailovich Brekhov. According to the revision of 1795, Lenin's grandfather Nikolai Vasilyevich, 25 years old, single, lived with his mother and brothers all in the same village, but they were already listed as servants of ensign Mikhail Stepanovich Brekhov.

Of course, he was listed, but he was no longer in the village ...

The Astrakhan archive contains the document “Lists of registered landlord peasants who have come in from different provinces and are expected to be counted”, where under number 223 it is written: “Nikolai Vasilyev, son of Ulyanin ... Nizhny Novgorod province, Sergach district, Androsov village, landowner Stepan Mikhailovich Brekhov, a peasant. Absent in 1791. He was a fugitive or released for quitrent and redeemed - it is not known for sure, but in 1799 in Astrakhan Nikolai Vasilyevich was transferred to the category of state peasants, and in 1808 he was admitted to the bourgeois class, to the workshop of artisans-tailors.

Having got rid of serfdom and becoming a free man, Nikolai Vasilievich changed his surname Ulyanin to Ulyaninov, and then Ulyanov. Soon he married the daughter of the Astrakhan tradesman Alexei Lukyanovich Smirnov, Anna, who was born in 1788 and was 18 years younger than her husband.

Based on some archival documents, the writer Marietta Shahinyan put forward a version according to which Anna Alekseevna is not Smirnov’s own daughter, but a baptized Kalmyk girl, rescued by him from slavery and allegedly adopted only in March 1825.

There is no indisputable evidence of this version, especially since already in 1812 they had a son Alexander with Nikolai Ulyanov, who died four months old, in 1819 son Vasily was born, in 1821 - daughter Maria, in 1823 - Theodosius and, finally, in July 1831, when the head of the family was already over 60, his son Ilya was the father of the future leader of the world proletariat.

FATHER'S TEACHER'S CAREER

After the death of Nikolai Vasilyevich, the care of the family and the upbringing of children fell on the shoulders of his eldest son Vasily Nikolayevich. Working at that time as a clerk of the well-known Astrakhan firm "The Sapozhnikov Brothers" and not having his own family, he managed to provide prosperity in the house and even gave his younger brother Ilya an education.

ILYA NIKOLAEVICH ULYANOV GRADUATED FACULTY OF PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS OF KAZAN UNIVERSITY.
He was asked to stay at the department for "improvement in scientific work" - the famous mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky insisted on this

In 1850, Ilya Nikolayevich graduated from the Astrakhan gymnasium with a silver medal and entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kazan University, where he completed his studies in 1854, receiving the title of Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the right to teach in secondary schools. And although he was offered to stay at the department for "improvement in scientific work" (the famous mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, by the way, insisted on this), Ilya Nikolayevich preferred a career as a teacher.

Monument to Lobachevsky in Kazan. Beginning of XX century. Provided by M. Zolotarev

The first place of his work - from May 7, 1855 - was the Noble Institute in Penza. In July 1860, Ivan Dmitrievich Veretennikov came here as an inspector of the institute. Ilya Nikolaevich became friends with him and his wife, and in the same year Anna Alexandrovna Veretennikova (née Blank) introduced him to her sister Maria Alexandrovna Blank, who came to visit her in the winter. Ilya Nikolaevich began to help Maria in preparing for the exam for the title of teacher, and she helped him in spoken English. The young people fell in love, and in the spring of 1863 they were engaged.

On July 15 of the same year, after successfully passing the external exams at the Samara Men's Gymnasium, "the daughter of the court counselor, the maiden Maria Blank" received the title of primary school teacher "with the right to teach the Law of God, the Russian language, arithmetic, German and French." And in August they already played a wedding, and “maiden Maria Blank” became the wife of court adviser Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov - this rank was also granted to him in July 1863.

"ON THE POSSIBILITY OF JEWISH ORIGIN"

The pedigree of the Blank family began to be studied by Lenin's sisters, Anna and Maria. Anna Ilyinichna said: “The elders could not find out for us. The surname seemed to us a French root, but there was no evidence of such an origin. For a long time, I personally began to think about the possibility of Jewish origin, which was prompted mainly by my mother's message that my grandfather was born in Zhytomyr, a well-known Jewish center. Grandmother - mother's mother - was born in St. Petersburg and was a German by origin from Riga. But while mother and her sisters kept in touch with their mother’s relatives for quite a long time, her father’s relatives, A.D. Blanc, no one heard. He was like a cut off piece, which also led me to think about his Jewish origin. None of the grandfather's stories about his childhood or youth have been preserved in the memory of his daughters.

Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova reported to Joseph Stalin in 1932 and 1934 about the results of the searches that confirmed her assumption. “The fact of our origin, which I assumed before,” she wrote, “was not known during his [Lenin's] life ... I don’t know what motives we Communists can have for hushing up this fact.”

“To be absolutely silent about him” was Stalin's categorical answer. Yes, and the second sister of Lenin, Maria Ilyinichna, also believed that this fact "let it be known sometime in a hundred years."

Lenin's great-grandfather Moshe Itskovich Blank- Born, apparently, in 1763. The first mention of it is contained in the revision of 1795, where among the townspeople of the city of Starokonstantinov, Volyn province, Moishka Blank is recorded under number 394. Where he came from in these places is unclear. However…

Panorama of Simbirsk from the side of the Moscow tract. 1866–1867. Provided by M. Zolotarev

Some time ago, a well-known bibliographer Maya Dvorkina introduced a curious fact into scientific circulation. Somewhere in the mid-1920s, an archivist Yulian Grigorievich Oksman, who, on the instructions of the director of the Lenin Library, Vladimir Ivanovich Nevsky, studied the genealogy of the leader of the world proletariat, discovered a petition from one of the Jewish communities of the Minsk province, allegedly dating back to the beginning of the 19th century, for the release of a certain boy from the tax, because he is "the illegitimate son of a major Minsk official", and therefore, they say, the community should not pay for it. The boy's last name was Blank.

According to Oksman, Nevsky took him to Lev Kamenev, and then the three of them came to Nikolai Bukharin. Showing the document, Kamenev muttered: "I always thought so." To which Bukharin replied: “What do you think, it doesn’t matter, but what are we going to do?” They took the word from Oksman that he would not tell anyone about the find. And since then no one has seen this document.

One way or another, Moshe Blank appeared in Starokonstantinov, already an adult, and in 1793 he married a local 29-year-old girl Maryam (Marem) Froimovich. From subsequent revisions, it follows that he read both Jewish and Russian, had his own house, was engaged in trade, and besides, he rented 5 morgues (about 3 hectares) of land from the town of Rogachevo, which were sown with chicory.

In 1794, his son Aba (Abel) was born, and in 1799, his son Srul (Israel). Probably, from the very beginning, Moshe Itskovich did not have a relationship with the local Jewish community. He was "a man who did not want or, perhaps, did not know how to find a common language with his fellow tribesmen." In other words, the community simply hated him. And after in 1808, from a fire, and possibly arson, Blank's house burned down, the family moved to Zhytomyr.

LETTER TO THE EMPEROR

Many years later, in September 1846, Moshe Blank wrote a letter to Emperor Nicholas I, from which it is clear that already "40 years ago" he "renounced the Jews", but because of his "excessively pious wife", who died in 1834 , converted to Christianity and received the name Dmitry only on January 1, 1835.

But the reason for the letter was something else: while maintaining hostility towards his fellow tribesmen, Dmitry (Moshe) Blank proposed - in order to assimilate the Jews - to prohibit them from wearing national clothes, and most importantly, to oblige them to pray in synagogues for the Russian emperor and the imperial family.

It is curious that in October of that year the letter was reported to Nicholas I and he fully agreed with the proposals of the "baptized Jew Blank", as a result of which in 1850 Jews were forbidden to wear national clothes, and in 1854 they introduced the corresponding text of the prayer. The researcher Mikhail Stein, who collected and carefully analyzed the most complete data on the Blank pedigree, rightly noted that due to hostility to his people, Moshe Itskovich “can be compared, perhaps, only with another baptized Jew - one of the founders and leaders of the Moscow Union of the Russian people V.A. . Gringmuth "...

Alexander Dmitrievich Blank (1799–1870). Provided by M. Zolotarev

The fact that Blank decided to break with the Jewish community long before his baptism was evidenced by something else. Both of his sons, Abel and Israel, like their father, also knew how to read Russian, and when a county (district) school was opened in Zhytomyr in 1816, they were enrolled there and successfully graduated from it. From the point of view of believing Jews, this was blasphemy. And yet, belonging to the Jewish faith doomed them to vegetate within the boundaries of the Pale of Settlement. And only the event that happened in the spring of 1820 dramatically changed the fate of young people ...

In April, a "high rank" arrived in Zhytomyr on a business trip - the ruler of the affairs of the so-called Jewish Committee, senator and poet Dmitry Osipovich Baranov. Somehow, Blanc managed to meet him, and he asked the senator to assist his sons in entering the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. Baranov did not sympathize with the Jews at all, but the conversion of two "lost souls" to Christianity, which was quite rare at that time, in his opinion, was a good deed, and he agreed.

The brothers immediately went to the capital and filed a petition in the name of Metropolitan Mikhail of Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Estland and Finland. “Having now settled down to live in St. Petersburg,” they wrote, “and having the constant treatment of Christians who profess the Greco-Russian religion, we now wish to accept it.”

The petition was granted, and already on May 25, 1820, the priest of the Church of St. Sampson the Hospitable in St. Petersburg Fyodor Barsov “enlightened” both brothers with baptism. Abel became Dmitry Dmitrievich, and Israel became Alexander Dmitrievich. The youngest son of Moshe Blank received a new name in honor of his successor (godfather) Count Alexander Ivanovich Apraksin, and a patronymic in honor of Abel's successor Senator Dmitry Osipovich Baranov. And on July 31 of the same year, at the direction of the Minister of Education, Prince Alexander Nikolayevich Golitsyn, the brothers were identified as “pupils of the Medical and Surgical Academy”, which they graduated in 1824, having received the academic title of doctors of the 2nd department and a present in the form of a pocket set of surgical tools.

MARRIAGE OF THE HEADQUARTER

Dmitry Blank remained in the capital as a police doctor, and in August 1824 Alexander began his service in the city of Porechie, Smolensk province, as a county doctor. True, already in October 1825 he returned to St. Petersburg and was enrolled, like his brother, as a doctor in the city police staff. In 1828 he was promoted to the staff physician. It's time to think about getting married...

His godfather, Count Alexander Apraksin, was at that time an official for special assignments at the Ministry of Finance. So Alexander Dmitrievich, despite his origin, could well count on a decent game. Apparently, at his other benefactor, Senator Dmitry Baranov, who was fond of poetry and chess, who visited Alexander Pushkin and almost all of “enlightened Petersburg” gathered, the younger Blank met the Groshopf brothers and was received in their house.

Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (1831–1886) and Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (1835–1916)

The head of this very respectable family Ivan Fedorovich (Johann Gottlieb) Groshopf was from the Baltic Germans, was a consultant of the State Justice College of Livonian, Estonian and Finnish affairs and rose to the rank of provincial secretary. His wife Anna Karlovna, nee Estedt, was a Swedish Lutheran. There were eight children in the family: three sons - Johann, who served in the Russian army, Karl, vice director in the foreign trade department of the Ministry of Finance, and Gustav, who was in charge of the Riga customs, and five daughters - Alexandra, Anna, Ekaterina (married von Essen) , Carolina (married Biuberg) and the younger Amalia. Having got acquainted with this family, the staff doctor made an offer to Anna Ivanovna.

MASHENKA BLANK

At first, Alexander Dmitrievich's affairs were going well. As a police doctor, he received 1,000 rubles a year. For "quickness and diligence" he was repeatedly awarded thanks.

But in June 1831, during the cholera riots in the capital, his brother Dmitry, who was on duty in the central cholera hospital, was brutally killed by a rebellious crowd. This death shocked Alexander Blanc so much that he quit the police and did not work for more than a year. Only in April 1833 did he again enter the service - as an intern at the City Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene for the poor from the river regions of St. Petersburg. By the way, it was here that Taras Shevchenko was treated by him in 1838. At the same time (from May 1833 to April 1837) Blank worked in the Naval Department. In 1837, after passing the exams, he was recognized as an inspector of the medical board, and in 1838 - a medical surgeon.

IN 1874, ILYA NIKOLAEVICH ULYANOV RECEIVED THE POSITION OF DIRECTOR OF THE PEOPLE'S SCHOOLS OF THE SIMBIRSK PROVINCE.
And in 1877 he was awarded the rank of real state councilor, equal in the table of ranks to the rank of general and giving the right to hereditary nobility

The private practice of Alexander Dmitrievich also expanded. Among his patients were representatives of the highest nobility. This allowed him to move to a decent apartment in the outbuilding of one of the luxurious mansions on the English Embankment, which belonged to the emperor's life physician and president of the Medical and Surgical Academy, Baronet Yakov Vasilievich Willie. Maria Blanc was born here in 1835. Mashenka's godfather was their neighbor, former adjutant of the Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, and since 1833 Ivan Dmitrievich Chertkov, the ringmaster of the Imperial Court.

In 1840, Anna Ivanovna fell seriously ill, died and was buried in St. Petersburg at the Smolensk Evangelical Cemetery. Then her sister Ekaterina von Essen, who was widowed in the same year, completely took care of the children. Alexander Dmitrievich, apparently, had sympathized with her before. It is no coincidence that he named his daughter, born in 1833, Catherine. After the death of Anna Ivanovna, they become even closer, and in April 1841 Blank decides to enter into a legal marriage with Ekaterina Ivanovna. However, such marriages - with the godmother of daughters and the sister of the late wife - were not allowed by law. And Catherine von Essen becomes his common-law wife.

In the same April, they all leave the capital and move to Perm, where Alexander Dmitrievich received the post of inspector of the Perm Medical Council and doctor of the Perm Gymnasium. Thanks to the latter circumstance, Blank met the Latin teacher Ivan Dmitrievich Veretennikov, who became the husband of his eldest daughter Anna in 1850, and the mathematics teacher Andrei Aleksandrovich Zalezhsky, who married another daughter, Catherine.

Alexander Blank entered the history of Russian medicine as one of the pioneers of balneology - treatment with mineral waters. Having retired at the end of 1847 from the post of doctor of the Zlatoust arms factory, he left for the Kazan province, where in 1848 the Kokushkino estate with 462 acres (503.6 hectares) of land, a water mill and 39 serfs was bought in the Laishevsky district. On August 4, 1859, the Senate approved Alexander Dmitrievich Blank and his children in the hereditary nobility, and they were entered in the book of the Kazan noble assembly.

ULYANOV FAMILY

This is how Maria Alexandrovna Blank ended up in Kazan, and then in Penza, where she met Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov ...

Their wedding on August 25, 1863, like the weddings of the other Blanc sisters before, was played in Kokushkino. On September 22, the newlyweds left for Nizhny Novgorod, where Ilya Nikolayevich was appointed to the position of senior teacher of mathematics and physics at the male gymnasium. On August 14, 1864, daughter Anna was born. A year and a half later - on March 31, 1866 - son Alexander ... But soon - a sad loss: daughter Olga, who was born in 1868, did not live even a year, fell ill and died on July 18 in the same Kokushkino ...

On September 6, 1869, Ilya Nikolayevich was appointed inspector of public schools in the Simbirsk province. The family moved to Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk), which at that time was a quiet provincial town with a little over 40 thousand inhabitants, of which 57.5% were listed as petty bourgeois, 17% as military, 11% as peasants, 8.8% as nobles, 3.2% - merchants and honorary citizens, and 1.8% - people of the clergy, persons of other classes and foreigners. Accordingly, the city was divided into three parts: noble, commercial and petty-bourgeois. In the nobles' quarters there were kerosene lanterns and plank sidewalks, and in the petty-bourgeois quarters they kept all sorts of cattle in the yards, and this living creature, contrary to prohibitions, roamed the streets.
Here, on April 10 (22), 1870, the Ulyanovs' son Vladimir was born. On April 16, priest Vasily Umov and deacon Vladimir Znamensky baptized the newborn. The godfather was the head of the specific office in Simbirsk, the actual state councilor Arseniy Fedorovich Belokrysenko, and the godfather was the mother of a colleague Ilya Nikolaevich, collegiate assessor Natalia Ivanovna Aunovskaya.

Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (sitting third from right) among the teachers of the Simbirsk men's classical gymnasium. 1874 Provided by M. Zolotarev

The family continued to grow. On November 4, 1871, the fourth child was born - daughter Olga. Son Nikolai died before he even lived a month, and on August 4, 1874, son Dmitry was born, on February 6, 1878, daughter Maria. Six children.
On July 11, 1874, Ilya Nikolayevich received the post of director of public schools in the Simbirsk province. And in December 1877, he was awarded the rank of real state councilor, equal in the table of ranks to the rank of general and giving the right to hereditary nobility.

The salary increase made it possible to realize an old dream. Having changed six rented apartments since 1870 and having accumulated the necessary funds, on August 2, 1878, the Ulyanovs finally bought their own house on Moskovskaya Street for 4 thousand silver - from the widow of the titular adviser Ekaterina Petrovna Molchanova. It was wooden, one floor from the facade and with mezzanines under the roof from the side of the courtyard. And behind the yard, overgrown with grass and chamomile, there is a beautiful garden with silvery poplars, thick elms, yellow acacia and lilacs along the fence ...
Ilya Nikolaevich died in Simbirsk in January 1886, Maria Alexandrovna - in Petrograd in July 1916, outliving her husband by 30 years.

WHERE DID "LENIN" COME FROM?

The question of how and where in the spring of 1901 Vladimir Ulyanov got the pseudonym Nikolai Lenin has always aroused the interest of researchers, there were many versions. Among them are toponymic ones: both the Lena River (analogy: Plekhanov - Volgin) and the village of Lenin near Berlin appear. At the time of the formation of "Leninism" as a profession, "amorous" sources were looked for. Thus, the assertion was born that the Kazan beauty Elena Lenina was allegedly to blame for everything, in another version, the chorus girl of the Mariinsky Theater Elena Zaretskaya, etc. But none of these versions could stand up to the slightest degree of serious scrutiny.

However, back in the 1950s and 1960s, the Central Party Archives received letters from relatives of a certain Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin, in which a fairly convincing everyday story was presented. The deputy head of the archive, Rostislav Aleksandrovich Lavrov, forwarded these letters to the Central Committee of the CPSU, and, naturally, they did not become the property of a wide circle of researchers.

Meanwhile, the Lenin family originates from the Cossack Posnik, who in the 17th century was awarded the nobility, the surname Lenin and an estate in the Vologda province for his services related to the conquest of Siberia and the creation of winter quarters on the Lena River. Numerous descendants of him distinguished themselves more than once both in military and civil service. One of them, Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin, fell ill and retired, having risen to the rank of State Councilor, in the 80s of the XIX century and settled in the Yaroslavl province.

Volodya Ulyanov with his sister Olga. Simbirsk. 1874 Provided by M. Zolotarev

His daughter Olga Nikolaevna, having graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of the Bestuzhev Courses in 1883, went to work at the Smolensk evening working school in St. Petersburg, where she met Nadezhda Krupskaya. And when there was a fear that the authorities might refuse to issue a foreign passport to Vladimir Ulyanov, and friends began to look for smuggling options for crossing the border, Krupskaya turned to Lenina for help. Olga Nikolaevna then conveyed this request to her brother, a prominent official of the Ministry of Agriculture, agronomist Sergei Nikolaevich Lenin. In addition, a similar request came to him, apparently, from his friend, the statistician Alexander Dmitrievich Tsyurupa, who in 1900 met the future leader of the proletariat.

Sergey Nikolayevich himself knew Vladimir Ilyich - from meetings in the Free Economic Society in 1895, as well as from his works. In turn, Ulyanov also knew Lenin: for example, he refers three times to his articles in the monograph The Development of Capitalism in Russia. After consulting, the brother and sister decided to give Ulyanov the passport of his father, Nikolai Yegorovich, who by that time was already quite ill (he died on April 6, 1902).

According to family tradition, in 1900 Sergei Nikolaevich went to Pskov on official business. There, on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, he received Sacca plows and other agricultural machines arriving in Russia from Germany. In one of the Pskov hotels, Lenin handed over his father's passport with a revised date of birth to Vladimir Ilyich, who then lived in Pskov. Probably, this is how the origin of Ulyanov's main pseudonym, N. Lenin, is explained.

Stein M.G. Ulyanovs and Lenins. Secrets of the pedigree and pseudonym. SPb., 1997
Loginov V.T. Vladimir Lenin: how to become a leader. M., 2011

Russian revolution

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Ulyanov) was born on April 22, 1870 in Simbirsk. Until the age of 16 he belonged to the Society St. Sergius Radonezh. In 1887 he graduated from the Simbirsk gymnasium, the director of which was F.M. Kerensky, father of A. Kerensky. In the same year, the elder brother V.I. was executed for participating in the assassination attempt on Alexander the 3rd. Ulyanova - Alexander.

After graduating from the gymnasium, Lenin entered Kazan University at the Faculty of Law. However, his studies at the university were short-lived. Soon Vladimir Ulyanov was expelled for active assistance to the student movement and participation in the People's Will circle. After that, having become interested in the ideas of K. Marx, he joined one of the Marxist circles. In the same period, Ulyanov began to study political economy, to be interested in journalism. As a result of student unrest, Vladimir was arrested for the first time and subsequently exiled to the Kazan province (village of Kokushkino), where he spent time until the winter of 1889. revolutionary activity Lenin.

A brief biography of Lenin is impossible without mentioning his exile in the Yenisei province (village Shushenskoye). Vladimir Lenin became the founder of a party called the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. As a result of her activities, he was arrested in 1895 along with many other members of the party. For a year Lenin was imprisoned, and during the next three years, spent in exile in Shushenskoye, he wrote most their works. Lenin's works relating to this period are quite numerous.

During his exile, Vladimir Ulyanov married Nadezhda Krupskaya. The marriage was registered in 1897, before that Krupskaya was his common-law wife. However, Lenin was not destined to have children, although some historians believe given fact controversial and mention in connection with this relationship between Vladimir Ilyich and Inessa Armand.

In 1898, the 1st congress, which was attended by nine delegates, established the RSDLP party. Almost immediately after that, all the participants were arrested. Lenin was sent into exile, after which he founded the Iskra newspaper and actively participated in its work. Later, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin became one of the organizers of the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP.

During the first Russian revolution (1905-1907) Ulyanov was in Switzerland. However, during the 3rd Congress of the RSDLP in London, he noted that the main goal of the revolution should be the destruction of the remnants of serfdom and the overthrow of the autocracy. In 1905, under a false name, he arrives in St. Petersburg, where he leads the St. Petersburg Central Committee, prepares an uprising, writes new works, and collaborates with the Pravda newspaper. But soon after that, he left for Finland, where in December Lenin and Stalin met personally.

Then there was a long period of frequent moving and emigration. Only at the beginning of the February Revolution of 1917 did Lenin return to Russia and become the head of the uprising. A few months later, he delivered a report known today as the "April Theses". After the authorities issued an order for his arrest, Ulyanov continued active underground work.

As a result of the October Revolution of 1917 and the dispersal Constituent Assembly power completely passed to Lenin's party. He headed the new government of the country, founded the Red Army, made peace with Germany. In an effort to improve the welfare of the population, he replaced War Communism with the NEP (New Economic Policy).

Lenin's death came as a result sharp deterioration state of health on January 21, 1924 (according to some sources, due to an assassination attempt). The body of the leader was preserved and placed in the mausoleum. The first, wooden version of Lenin's mausoleum was ready by the day of his funeral.