On the occasion of the 160th birthday of Anna Ilyinichna Elizarova (Ulyanova), the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) has published in digital format some rare photographs and documents related to her.
RGASPI
Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova with her daughter Anna, photograph taken in 1865-1866.
In digitized form, RGASPI published Ulyanova’s birth certificate: Anna Elizarova was born on August 26 (August 14, old style), 1864 in Nizhny Novgorod. She is best known as Vladimir Lenin’s elder sister: Anna was the first child in the family of Ilya and Maria Ulyanov.
By the way, as part of the virtual exhibition you can see a rare photograph taken in 1865 or 1866. It shows Maria Ulyanova with her daughter Anna. Another unique photograph taken in 1870 shows Anna in the company of her younger brother Alexander.
Five years after Anna’s birth, the family moved to Simbirsk, where Ilya Ulyanov was transferred to the post of inspector of public schools in the Simbirsk province.
“Like other Ulyanov children, she received an excellent education at home, knew several foreign languages, and wrote poetry,” says Natalia Volkhonskaya, chief specialist of the RGASPI, “in November 1880, Anna Ilyinichna graduated from the Mariinsky girls’ gymnasium in Simbirsk with a silver medal, and in 1881, feeling a penchant for teaching work, she received a certificate from the Ministry of Public Education for the title of home teacher.”
The certificate for the title of home teacher was issued to Anna Ulyanova by the office of the administrator of the Kazan educational district on October 8 (20), 1881. The original of this document is stored in the funds of the RGASPI and can now also be found on the Internet. Anna worked for two years as an assistant teacher in one of the primary schools in Simbirsk.
“On March 1, 1887, she was arrested in the case of her brother for the attempted assassination of Emperor Alexander III and sentenced to deportation for 5 years to Siberia, which, at the request of her mother, was replaced by deportation to Kokushkino. The Kazan province is the family estate of Anna’s grandfather, A.D. Blank,” explains Natalia Volkhonskaya.
Anna spent most of her exile with her brother Vladimir. In July 1889, in the Samara province, she married a friend of her friend from St. Petersburg, Alexander Mark Timofeevich Elizarov.
An extract from the civil registry about the marriage of Ulyanova and Elizarov on July 28 (August 9, 1889) is also digitized and available for viewing. Since 1893, Elizarova settled in Moscow, began to participate in the work of social-democratic circles, published books and pamphlets, and then moved to St. Petersburg, where her party business was to help Vladimir, who was in prison.
In 1900, Elizarova traveled abroad, where she helped publish the Iskra newspaper and carried out orders from Vladimir Lenin. One of the virtual exhibitions captured her in the form of a photograph taken during Elizarova’s period of work at the Iskra group in Berlin in 1900-1902.
The RGASPI states that Lenin’s elder sister took an active part in revolutionary activities and in the subsequent construction of the Soviet Republic. But she found herself in the shadow of her brothers Alexander and Vladimir. Anna Elizarova died on 19 October 1935 in Moscow, but was buried in the Volkovskoye Cemetery in Leningrad next to her mother.
