Anna Ilyinichna Yelizarova-Ulyanova (August 14 [26], 1864, Nizhny Novgorod — October 19, 1935, Moscow) was a revolutionary, a Soviet Party and state official, a writer, and a translator; the elder sister and comrade-in-arms of V. I. Lenin. She was a member of the RSDLP (later the VKP(b)) from 1898. She was born in Nizhny Novgorod into the family of Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, a gymnasium teacher.[1]

Origins and education

Anna Ulyanova grew up in Nizhny Novgorod, where her father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, worked as a gymnasium teacher.[1] In 1880 she graduated from the Simbirsk Gymnasium, and from 1883 she studied at the Bestuzhev Higher Courses for Women in St. Petersburg, where from 1886 she took part in the student revolutionary movement.[3] In July 1889 she married Mark Timofeyevich Yelizarov, taking a double surname.[4]

Revolutionary activity

In 1887 Anna was arrested in connection with the case of her brother Alexander Ulyanov, who was accused of plotting an assassination attempt on Emperor Alexander III, and was sentenced to five years of exile, which she served in the village of Kokushkino, in Kazan, and in Samara.[1][3] In 1894 she joined the Social Democratic movement in Moscow, establishing ties with workers' circles; in 1898 she became a member of the first Moscow Committee of the RSDLP.[3]

In 1896, in St. Petersburg, Anna arranged contact between the imprisoned Lenin and the "Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class": she supplied her brother with literature and copied out the Party documents and letters he composed in prison.[3] In the summer of 1897, abroad, she made contact with the "Emancipation of Labor" group, and between 1900 and 1902 she worked in Berlin and Paris on distributing the newspaper Iskra.[3] In 1908–1909 in Moscow she arranged the publication of Lenin's book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.[3]

From 1909 to 1913 she lived in Saratov, where she published the legal Social Democratic Privolzhskaya Gazeta.[1] From 1913 to 1918 she worked on the editorial staff of Pravda in St. Petersburg/Petrograd, served as secretary of the journal Prosveshchenie, and sat on the editorial board of the journal Rabotnitsa.[1] She was arrested for her revolutionary activity in 1904, 1907, 1912, 1916, and 1917.[3]

After the February Revolution of 1917, she joined the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, became secretary of Pravda, and later editor of the journal Tkach ("The Weaver"); she took part in preparing the October Revolution.[1] From 1918 to 1921 she headed the child protection department — first at the People's Commissariat of Social Security, then at the People's Commissariat of Education.[3] She was one of the organizers of Istpart and of the V. I. Lenin Institute; until the end of 1932 she worked as a research fellow at the Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute, and served as secretary and member of the editorial board of the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya ("Proletarian Revolution").[1]

Literary legacy

Besides her party work, Anna Ilyinichna was active as a writer and translator. Her publications include children's stories ("Friendship in the Animal World," 1901; "My New Mom," 1902), the pamphlet "Fundamentals of Social Upbringing from the Standpoint of Communism" (1920), and the memoirs "Ilyich's Childhood and School Years" (1925) and "Recollections of Ilyich" (1926), which were reissued many times during her lifetime.[2] She also translated into Russian Wilhelm Liebknecht's book on the 1848 revolution in Germany.[3]

Nizhny Novgorod connection and memory

Anna Yelizarova-Ulyanova was born in Nizhny Novgorod, where her father taught at the gymnasium.[1] A memorial plaque in her honor is installed on the building of the former Nizhny Novgorod Gymnasium — now the main building of Minin University at 1 Ulyanova Street.[1]

Anna Ilyinichna died in Moscow on October 19, 1935. She is buried at the Literatorskie Mostki ("Writers' Walkways") of the Volkovo Cemetery in Leningrad, next to her mother, her husband, and her younger sister Olga.[4]

Sources

  1. names52.ru — Yelizarova-Ulyanova Anna Ilyinichna
  2. ru.wikisource.org — Author: Anna Ilyinichna Yelizarova-Ulyanova — Wikisource
  3. alcala.ru — Yelizarova-Ulyanova Anna Ilyinichna: Great Soviet Encyclopedia
  4. familio.org — Yelizarova (Ulyanova) Anna Ilyinichna, August 14, 1864 — find relatives by surname on Familio
  5. rus-lit.ru — Works by the author "Yelizarova-Ulyanova Anna Ilyinichna". Russian Literature