Name Ilya Ulyanov Role Educator | ||
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Full Name Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov Occupation teacher, public education administrator Children Vladimir Lenin, Aleksandr Ulyanov Parents Anna Alekseyevna Smirnova, Nikolai Vasilievich Ulyanov Similar People Vladimir Lenin, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova, Aleksandr Ulyanov, Dmitry Ilyich Ulyanov, Anna Ilichina Ulianova | ||
Grandchildren Olga Dimitrievna Ulyanova | ||
Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov (Russian: Илья́ Никола́евич Улья́нов; 31 July [O.S. 19 July] 1831—24 January [O.S. 12 January] 1886, Simbirsk) was a Russian public figure in the field of public education. He was the father of revolutionaries Vladimir Lenin, who became a Bolshevik leader and founder of the Soviet Union, and Aleksandr Ulyanov, who was executed for his attempt to assassinate Tsar Alexander III in 1887.
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Life
Ilya Ulyanov was born in Astrakhan to a Chuvash father, Nikolai Vasilievich Ulyanov (or Ulyanin; 1765–1838), a port-city tailor and a former serf who came from Sergachsky District, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. He received his freedom from a landowner, Stepan Mikhailovich Brekhov. Ilya's mother, Anna Alexeyevna Smirnova (1793–1871), was the daughter of a rich city-dweller Alexei Lukyanovich Smirnov, a son of Lukyan Smirnov who hailed from a wealthy Kalmyk family. Nikolai married the 23-year-old Anna in 1823. Ilya had three sisters and a brother.
Ilya Ulyanov graduated from Kazan University's Department of Physics and Mathematics in 1854. In the 1850s and 1860s, he taught mathematics and physics at Penza Institute for the Dvoryane, and later at a gymnasium and a school for women in Nizhny Novgorod. Around that time, he married Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova. While in Penza, Ulyanov conducted meteorological observations, on the basis of which he would write a couple of scientific works called On the Benefits of Meteorological Observations and Some Conclusions on Their Use for Penza (О пользе метеорологических наблюдений и некоторые выводы из них для Пензы) and On Thunderstorm and Lightning rods (О грозе и громоотводах).
In 1869, Ulyanov was appointed inspector of public schools in the Simbirsk guberniya (in 1874-1886 - their director). In 1882, Ulyanov was promoted to the rank of Actual Civil Councillor, which gave him a privilege of hereditary dvoryanstvo and accompanied with the award of the Order of St.Vladimir, 3rd Class.
Ilya Ulyanov was a well-educated man with excellent organizational and teaching skills. Some Soviet historians believed that his pedagogical views had been formed under the influence of the revolutionary ideas of Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov. Ulyanov contributed immensely to elaboration of theory and practice of elementary education. He was an advocate of equal rights for education regardless of gender, nationality and social status. In 1871, Ulyanov opened the first Chuvash school in Simbirsk, which would later be transformed into Chuvash teacher's seminar. He also established national schools for Mordvins and Tatars. Furthermore, Ulyanov organized and presided over many teacher's congresses and other events of the similar kind.
In 1886, Ulyanov died suddenly of a heart aneurysm in Simbirsk, later renamed Ulyanovsk in honor of Lenin.