Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova (1878–1937) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, journalist and party worker, Lenin. Nizhny Novgorod of her administrative exile: in November 1899, after her first arrest, she was sent there under police surveillance.[4]

Origins and education

Maria was the youngest of the Ulyanov children; at home she was called "Manyasha" until old age — a nickname coined by her elder brother Vladimir, who was eight years older and had looked after his sister since childhood: he helped her draw geographical maps and studied foreign languages with her.[4] She studied first at a gymnasium in Simbirsk, then at one in Moscow, from which she graduated in 1893. She failed to gain admission to the physics and chemistry department of the Higher (Bestuzhev) Courses for Women in St. Petersburg; she attended the Moscow Higher Courses for Women and received a home tutor's diploma.[4] In 1898 she continued her education at the University of Brussels, and in 1908 she enrolled at the Sorbonne, where she obtained a diploma as a teacher of French — the only one of the Ulyanov daughters to hold a university diploma.[3][4]

Revolutionary activity and arrests

Maria Ilyinichna's revolutionary work was accompanied by five arrests.[3] In November 1899 she was arrested for the first time and exiled to Nizhny Novgorod — she was accused of ties with revolutionaries abroad and of helping to smuggle political literature into Russia. For lack of evidence she was allowed to return to Moscow in January 1900, but her foreign passport was confiscated.[4] A new arrest soon followed — in the case of the Moscow organization of the RSDLP) — and exile to Samara under open police surveillance. In Samara, and later in Kyiv, she worked as a correspondent and agent of Lenin's "Iskra". In 1904 she left for Geneva to join Vladimir Ilyich.[4] One of her party aliases was "the Bear" — her comrades apparently meant her directness and readiness to push through obstacles, although her contemporaries described her as a delicate person who took any rudeness as a personal insult.[3][4]

Work in the Soviet period

After the The February Revolution Maria Ilyinichna worked for about twelve years at the newspaper "Pravda"; she then headed the Bureau of Complaints of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate of the USSR, and later served as a senior official of the Soviet Control Commission under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.[1][3] Labor collectives awarded her honorary titles: "Honorary Weaver," "Honorary Warper of the Reutovo Spinning Mill," "Honorary Coal Miner of Donbass." From Ulyanovsk Governorate she received membership cards as an honorary member of the association of Red directors and of the Society for the Rescue on Waters.[4] Maria Ilyinichna devoted several years to working on memoirs about her brother — she maintained a warm relationship with Vladimir Ilyich throughout her life.[3] She was never married; the person closest to her in her personal life was Stanislav Stanislavovich Krzhizhanovsky, whom she met in Saratov in 1910.[4]

Death

Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova died on June 12, 1937, without having finished her memoirs about her brother's life and illnesses; the manuscript was kept classified for many years.[1] The farewell ceremony was held at the Club of the Council of People's Commissars' Administration — without wide state ceremonies. At the civil memorial service, Lenin's widow Nadezhda Krupskaya, according to contemporaries, spoke about the repressions taking place in the country.[1]

Sources

  1. ulpravda.ru — Ulpravda — The Most Honored Woman of the USSR. Why Maria Ulyanova Became "The Bear" and Why Lenin's Sister Was Respected — 08.03.2023 (archive)
  2. ul.aif.ru — Nicknamed "The Bear". What Is Known About Lenin's Sister Maria Ulyanova (archive)
  3. Kommersant (Privolzhye) — "Vladimir Ilyich Had Already Been Given Morphine" — Vladimir Lenin:… (archive)
  4. mapy.com