When Krupskaya's hope died. Interesting facts about Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya!!! October Revolution. Communist education of youth
In Soviet historiography Nadezhda Krupskaya was mentioned exclusively in the status of “wife and comrade-in-arms” Vladimir Lenin. In the post-Soviet period, because of this same status, she was subjected to mockery and insults from all kinds of “accusers” and “subverters.”
It seems that neither one nor the other was interested in the personality of this extraordinary woman, whose whole life was painted in tragic tones.
She was born on February 26, 1869 in St. Petersburg into an impoverished noble family. Nadenka graduated from the pedagogical class of the gymnasium with a gold medal and entered the Higher Women's Courses, but studied there for only a year.
Nadezhda Krupskaya, 1895. Photo: www.globallookpress.comNadya’s father was close to participants in the Narodnaya Volya movement, so it is not surprising that the girl was infected with left-wing ideas from her youth, which is why she very quickly found herself on the list of “unreliables.”
Her father died in 1883, after which Nadya and her mother had a particularly difficult time. The girl made a living by giving private lessons, while simultaneously teaching at the St. Petersburg Sunday evening school for adults behind the Nevskaya Zastava.
Nadezhda’s already not very good health suffered greatly during the years when she ran from student to student through the damp and cold streets of St. Petersburg. Subsequently, this will affect the fate of the girl in a tragic way.
Party beauty
Since 1890, Nadezhda Krupskaya was a member of the Marxist circle. In 1894, in a circle, she met “The Old Man” - this was the party nickname of the young and energetic socialist Vladimir Ulyanov. A sharp mind, a brilliant sense of humor, excellent oratory skills - many revolutionary-minded young ladies fell in love with Ulyanov.
Later they would write that the future leader of the revolution was not attracted to Krupskaya female beauty, which did not exist, but exclusively ideological closeness.
This is not entirely true. Of course, the main unifying principle for Krupskaya and Ulyanov was political struggle. However, it is also true that Vladimir was attracted to Nadya by female beauty.
She was very attractive in her youth, but this beauty was taken away from her by a terrible autoimmune disease - Graves' disease, which affects women eight times more often than men, and is also known by another name - diffuse toxic goiter. One of its most striking manifestations is its bulging eyes.
Photo: www.globallookpress.comNadezhda inherited the disease and already in her youth it manifested itself in lethargy and regular ailments. Frequent colds in St. Petersburg, and then prison and exile led to an exacerbation of the disease.
IN late XIX- early 20th century effective ways There has not yet been a fight against this disease. Nadezhda Krupskaya's disease crippled her entire life.
Work instead of children
In 1896, Nadezhda Krupskaya was imprisoned as an activist of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class created by Ulyanov. The leader of the “Union” himself was already in prison by that time, from where he asked for Nadezhda’s hand in marriage. She agreed, but her own arrest postponed the wedding.
They got married in Siberia, in Shushenskoye, in July 1898.
Ulyanov and Krupskaya did not have children, which is why speculation arose - Nadezhda was frigid, Vladimir was not attracted to her, etc.
This is all nonsense. The relationship between the spouses, at least in the first years, was full-fledged, and they thought about children. But a progressive illness deprived Nadezhda of the opportunity to become a mother.
She tightly closed this pain in her heart, concentrating on political activity, becoming the main and most reliable assistant her husband.
Her comrades noted Nadezhda’s fantastic ability to work - all the years, next to Vladimir, she processed a huge volume of correspondence and materials, delving into completely different issues and at the same time managing to write her own articles.
She was next to her husband both in exile and in exile, helping him in the most difficult moments. Meanwhile, her own strength was undermined by an illness, due to which her appearance became more and more ugly. What it was like for Nadezhda to experience all this, only she knew.
Vladimir Lenin and Nadezhda Krupskaya with Lenin’s nephew Viktor and the worker’s daughter Vera in Gorki. August - September 1922. Photo: www.russianlook.com
Love-party triangle
Nadezhda was aware that Vladimir might become interested in other women. And so it happened - he began an affair with another fellow fighter, Inessa Armand.
Inessa Armand, 1914. Photo: Public Domain
These relations continued after the political emigrant Vladimir Ulyanov became the leader of the Soviet state, Vladimir Lenin, in 1917.
The story that Krupskaya allegedly hated her rival and her entire family is a fiction. Nadezhda understood everything and repeatedly offered her husband freedom, even being ready to leave herself, seeing his hesitation.
But Vladimir Ilyich, making a difficult life choice rather than a political one, stayed with his wife.
This is difficult to understand from the point of view of simple everyday relationships, but Inessa and Nadezhda remained in good relations. Their political struggle came before personal happiness.
Inessa Armand died of cholera in 1920. For Lenin, this death was a heavy blow, and Nadezhda helped him survive.
In 1921, a serious illness struck down Lenin himself. Nadezhda brought her semi-paralyzed husband back to life, using all her pedagogical talent, re-teaching him to speak, read and write. She managed the almost impossible - to return Lenin to active work again. But a new stroke brought all efforts to naught, making Vladimir Ilyich’s condition almost hopeless.
Life after Lenin
After January 1924, work became the only meaning of Nadezhda Krupskaya’s life. She did a lot for development in the USSR pioneer organization, women's movement, journalism and literature. At the same time, she believed Chukovsky’s fairy tales were harmful to children and spoke critically of the pedagogical system Anton Makarenko.
In a word, Nadezhda Konstantinovna, like all major political and statesmen, was a contradictory and ambiguous person.
The trouble was that Krupskaya, a talented, intelligent, self-sufficient person, was perceived by many in the USSR exclusively as “Lenin’s wife.” This status, on the one hand, evoked universal respect, and on the other, sometimes disdain for personal political position Nadezhda Krupskaya.
The significance of the confrontation Stalin and Krupskaya in the 1930s is clearly exaggerated. Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not have sufficient leverage to pose a threat to Joseph Vissarionovich in the political struggle.
“The Party loves Nadezhda Konstantinovna not because she great person, but because she close person our great Lenin,” this phrase once said from a high rostrum very accurately defined Krupskaya’s position in the USSR in the 1930s.
Death at the Jubilee
She continued to work, wrote articles on pedagogy, memories of Lenin, and warmly communicated with Inessa's daughter Armand. She considered Inessa's grandson her grandson. In her declining years, this lonely woman clearly lacked simple family happiness, which was deprived of her by a serious illness and political struggle.
Claudia Nikolaeva and Nadezhda Krupskaya in Arkhangelskoye, 1936. Photo: Public Domain
On February 26, 1939, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya celebrated her 70th birthday. Old Bolsheviks gathered to celebrate with her. Stalin sent a cake as a gift - everyone knew that Lenin’s comrade-in-arms loved sweets.
This cake will later become the reason for accusations against Stalin of the murder of Krupskaya. But in fact, not only Nadezhda Konstantinovna ate the cake, and such a plot itself looks somehow too unrealistic.
A few hours after the celebration, Krupskaya became ill. Nadezhda Konstantinovna was diagnosed with acute appendicitis, which soon turned into peritonitis. She was taken to the hospital, but could not be saved.
The resting place of Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was a niche in the Kremlin wall.
She devoted her entire life to her husband, the revolution and the building of a new society, never complaining about the fate that deprived her of simple female happiness.
Interesting Facts about Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya!!!Name of an outstanding politician Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya is always mentioned when we talk about the leader of the world proletariat V.I. Lenin. She was not only a faithful comrade in the struggle, but also a wife who shared bold ideas and brought people back to life after dangerous illnesses. But few people know that Nadezhda Konstantinovna was also a teacher, left a lot of work on educating the younger generation, and dealt with the development of literature. February 26, on the 145th anniversary of the birth of N.K. Krupskaya, I suggest you familiarize yourself with 20 interesting facts from her biography.
1. Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was born on February 26, 1869 in St. Petersburg into a noble family. Her father, Konstantin Ignatievich, after graduating from the cadet corps, received the position of head of the district in the Polish Groets. Mother Elizaveta Vasilievna, graduate of the Institute noble maidens, worked as a governess. Her father died when Nadya Krupskaya was 14 years old, but it was he who captivated the girl with the ideas of the populists.
2. In 1887 N.K. Krupskaya graduated from the Obolenskaya private women's gymnasium with a gold medal, and was friends with A. Tyrkova-Williams, the future wife of P. B. Struve. She adhered to the views of L.N. Tolstoy. Having received a diploma as a home tutor, Nadezhda successfully teaches, preparing students from Princess Obolenskaya’s gymnasium for exams. In 1889, she entered the Bestuzhev courses, but after studying for only a year, she left this prestigious educational institution- She was fascinated by the Marxist environment.
3. Nadezhda studies the heritage of K. Marx and F. Engels, specially mastered for these purposes German language, since August 1891, Krupskaya has been teaching at a men's evening and Sunday school, promoting social democratic ideas.
4. In January 1894, 24-year-old revolutionary Vladimir Ulyanov arrived in St. Petersburg, behind whom were the execution of his older brother Alexander, surveillance, arrest, and exile. Nadezhda met Vladimir Ilyich at a meeting of St. Petersburg Marxists in February 1894. They were introduced to each other by Lenin's longtime acquaintance Apollinaria Yakubova (a classmate of Ilyich's sister Olga). Vladimir flirts with both of them, and visits the Krupskys’ house. Despite the fact that Nadezhda was a year older than her chosen one, he had a more sober, adult outlook on life.
5. In 1895, Ilyich was arrested. “When they (the prisoners) were taken for a walk, from one window of the corridor a piece of the Shpalernaya sidewalk was visible for a minute. So he (Lenin) came up with the idea that we - I and Apollinaria Aleksandrovna Yakubova - in certain hour come and stand on this piece of sidewalk, then he will see us. For some reason, Apollinaria couldn’t go, but I walked for several days and stood for a long time on this piece.”
Perhaps such devotion and responsiveness forced Ulyanov not only to have a comradely attitude towards Nadezhda, but when his relationship with Yakubova came to naught, Vladimir Ilyich, sentenced to exile in Siberia, in one of his notes invited Krupskaya to become his wife. According to another version, Nadezhda herself invited Lenin to formalize the marriage when Siberia loomed over him. Vladimir Ilyich hesitated for a long time, but was forced to give up - after all, the “lovers” could be settled nearby, which is what happened later. According to the third version, Krupskaya went to Shushenskoye not only as a bride, but also as a propagandist distributing revolutionary ideas and related literature. In 1898, Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Vladimir Ilyich got married, and got married, although they adhered to the views of “free love.” Krupskaya’s mother insisted on holding a church ceremony.
N.K. Krupskaya(on right) with mother on the eve of exile
6. Krupskaya’s party pseudonyms were Sablina, Lenina, N.K. Artamonova, Onegina, Ryba, Lamprey, Rybkina, Sharko, Katya, Frey, Galileo.
7. In 1899, N.K. Krupskaya wrote her first book, “Woman Worker,” where she described the living conditions of working women in Russia and, from a Marxist perspective, highlighted the issues of raising proletarian children.
After the end of her exile, N.K. Krupskaya went abroad, where Vladimir Ilyich was already living at that time, and took an active part in the creation of Communist Party and preparation for the future revolution. Returning from V.I. Lenin in 1905 to Russia, Nadezhda Konstantinovna, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, carried out propaganda work, which she then continued abroad, where she emigrated again with V.I. Lenin in 1907. She was a faithful assistant and secretary to her husband, and participated in the work of the Bolshevik press.
8. In years forced emigration Krupskaya has to survive Lenin's infatuation with Inessa Armand. Already in those days, Nadezhda Konstantinovna suffered from Graves' disease (or, as the common people say, goiter) - her bulging eyes made the already unattractive person more frightening. Lenin called his wife a “herring.” A thyroid disease deprived Krupskaya of motherhood, and she devoted her entire life to the revolutionary struggle.
9. Nadezhda Konstantinovna had a fantastic ability to work: she shoveled through piles of literature, sorted out correspondence, answered a variety of questions, delving into the essence of problems, and wrote her own articles.
10. After the victory of the October Revolution, Nadezhda Konstantinovna, together with activists, stood at the origins of the Socialist Union of Working Youth, Komsomol, Pioneers, was a member of the State Commission on Education, issues of communist education of children.
11. When Lenin was seriously wounded, Krupskaya, using all her teaching talent, brought him back to life, re-teaching him to speak, read and write. She managed the almost impossible - to return her husband to active work again. But a new stroke brought all efforts to naught, making Vladimir Ilyich’s condition almost hopeless.
12. After the death of V.I. Lenina Krupskaya is a member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR; together with Lunacharsky and M.N. Pokrovsky, she prepared the first decrees on public education, and is engaged in political and educational work. Nadezhda Konstantinovna organizes such voluntary societies as “Down with Illiteracy”, “Friend of Children”, and is the chairman of the society of Marxist teachers.
13. Since 1929 - Deputy People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR. She made a major contribution to the development of the most important problems of Marxist pedagogy - determining the goals and objectives of communist education; connection between the school and the practice of social construction; labor and polytechnic education; determination of the content of education; issues of age-related pedagogy; basics organizational forms children's communist movement, education of collectivism, etc.
14. Great importance Nadezhda Konstantinovna attached importance to the fight against child homelessness and neglect, the work of orphanages, preschool education, did not share the views of A.S. Makarenko. She edited the magazine "People's Education", "People's Teacher", "On the Way to new school”, “About our children”, “Help to self-education”, “Red Librarian”, “School for Adults”, “Communist Education”, “Reading Hut”, etc. She was a delegate to the VII-XVII party congresses. The author of numerous books about Lenin, she contributed to the development of Leninism in the country, in particular, she helped with the publication of the book by M. Shaginyan.
15. Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was awarded the Order of Lenin (1935) and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. For more than 20 years she led public education, was the secretary of the Glavpolitprosvet, was the leader of the women's movement in the country, the organizer of teachers' trade unions, movements for the socialization of the disabled and for the education of all peoples of the country in native language, many newspapers and magazines in Russia that still exist today. Her direct merit was the social orientation of Soviet education at all levels: kindergarten, school, library, children's art house, recreation camp, school site. And although her cherished ideas of labor high school were never fully implemented, the USSR became the first state in the world with a widely developed network of institutions vocational education. Krupskaya was not only the first doctor of pedagogical sciences in the history of Russia, but also the permanent and uncomplaining deputy of three people's commissars of education.
16. Krupskaya played a very unseemly role in the creative fate of K.I. Chukovsky, she considered his poems to be disrespectful to the child’s personality. Her article “About Chukovsky’s Crocodile” ended with the words that these poems “You don’t need to give it to our boys...”
The speech of the leader's widow in the press at that time actually meant a ban on the profession. In order to remain in children's literature, Chukovsky had to publicly “renounce” fairy tales for some time (until 1942).
17. Krupskaya was disliked by Stalin because she was going to publish Lenin’s posthumous letter, which said that another candidate should be considered for the role of leader. In addition, she opposed the policy of terror, although she defended Kamenev, Bukharin, Trotsky and Zinoviev to no avail, and protested against the persecution of children by “enemies of the people.”
18. Joseph Vissarionovich, in retaliation against the old Bolshevik, threatened that in history textbooks he would present Lenin’s wife as a completely different person (for example, E.D. Stasova), and showed disrespect for Nadezhda Konstantinovna in every possible way.
19. On February 26, 1939, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya celebrated her 70th birthday. Old Bolsheviks gathered to celebrate with her. Stalin sent a cake as a gift - everyone knew that Lenin’s comrade-in-arms loved sweets. A few hours after the celebration, Krupskaya became ill. Nadezhda Konstantinovna was diagnosed with purulent appendicitis, which soon turned into peritonitis. She was taken to the hospital, but could not be saved. The day after the anniversary, Krupskaya died.
20. Her body was cremated. The urn with the ashes is placed in the Kremlin wall.
Krupskaya N.K. (1869-1939; autobiography) - b. In Petersburg.
The parents, although noble by birth, were both orphaned early and were raised at government expense - the mother at the institute, the father in the corps.
After graduating from college, my mother became a governess, my father graduated Military Academy and was serving military service.
The parents did not have any movable or immovable property.
Both were early captured by revolutionary ideas, and in the house of K.’s parents from the very early years I saw revolutionaries of various directions.
My father put his revolutionary ideas into practice, for which he was put on trial, although he was later acquitted.
All his life, K.’s parents had to move from city to city, depending on the change in his father’s service. His father died when K. was 14 years old, and since then he and his mother have been doing odd jobs: correspondence, lessons, renting out rooms to tenants.
K. studied at the Obolenskaya gymnasium, from which she graduated with a gold medal.
After graduating from high school, I was a sweatshirt for some time.
From 1891 to 1896 she studied in Sunday school and evening classes in Smolensk for workers (behind the Nevskaya Zastava).
At the same time, she becomes a Marxist, conducts propaganda among workers, and participates in the creation of the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.” During the strikes of 1890, she was arrested and imprisoned for 6 months, and then sent for 3 years to the Minusinsk district, to the village of Shushenskoye, where she married Vl. Ilyich Ulyanov, with whom I previously worked in St. Petersburg, in the Union of Wrestling.
In 1901 she was issued a foreign passport.
Arriving in Munich in the spring of 1901, she became secretary of Iskra, then a member of the Foreign League of Russian Social Democrats, then, after the 3rd Party Congress, secretary of the foreign part of the Central Committee and Central Organ. At the end of 1905 he returned to Russia, where he worked full-time as secretary of the Central Committee. At the very beginning of 1908 he left again abroad.
Zaglazno is involved in three cases under Article 102.
Abroad, he again works as a secretary of Bolshevik organizations, while at the same time studying pedagogical foreign literature and foreign schools. From abroad he writes articles for Free Education and is working on the book “Public Education and Workers’ Democracy.” Upon arrival in Russia, he first works in the secretariat of the Central Committee, but is soon elected to the Vyborg District Duma, works there in the council, in charge of business public education, and takes part in the revolutionary movement.
After the October Revolution, he became a member of the board of the People's Commissariat for Education, where he first conducted extracurricular work, then also worked as chairman of the scientific and political section of Hus. At the same time, he helps the women's department, the Komsomol, the pioneers, and writes in newspapers and magazines.
All her life, starting from 1894, she helped Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his work in any way she could. [Since 1929, Deputy People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR. Since 1924 member of the Central Control Commission, since 1927 member of the Party Central Committee.] (Granat) Krupskaya, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Rod. 1869, d. 1939. Revolutionary, politician, wife of V.I. Lenin (see). IN early years was a follower of L.N. Tolstoy.
One of the founders of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class. She spent several years in exile, from 1901-1905. and 1908-1917 in exile (secretary of party publications, assistant to V.I. Lenin).
After the October Revolution - government commissioner, member of the State Education Commission, head of the extracurricular department of the People's Commissariat of Education and deputy commissar of education.
The initiator of the creation and the head of Glavpolitprosvet.
In the 20s head of the scientific and pedagogical section of the State Academic Council, chairman of the society of Marxist teachers at the Communist Academy.
She was also a member of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) (from 1924), the Central Control Commission (1927), the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Council for Cultural Construction under the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. In the 30s headed the Library Department of the People's Commissariat for Education.
She met Vladimir Ulyanov thanks to her friend Apollinaria Yakubova, who brought Nadya to a Marxist gathering, organized under the plausible pretext of pancakes.
“Before his marriage in July 1898 in Shushenskoye to Nadezhda Krupskaya, only one noticeable “courtship” of Vladimir Ulyanov is known,” says historian Dmitry Volkogonov. “He was seriously attracted to Krupskaya’s friend, Apollinaria Yakubova, also a socialist and teacher.
Ulyanov, no longer very young (he was then over twenty-six), wooed Yakubova, but was met with a polite but firm refusal. Judging by a number of indirect signs, the unsuccessful matchmaking did not become a noticeable drama for the future leader of the Russian Jacobins..."
Vladimir Ilyich immediately impressed Nadezhda with his leadership abilities. The girl tried to interest the future leader - firstly, with Marxist conversations, which Ulyanov adored, and secondly, with her mother’s cooking. Elizaveta Vasilievna, seeing him at home, was happy. She considered her daughter unattractive and did not predict happiness for her in her personal life. One can imagine how happy she was for her Nadenka when she saw a pleasant person in her house. young man from a good family!
On the other hand, having become Ulyanov’s bride, Nadya did not cause much delight among his family: they found that she had a very “herring look.” This statement meant, first of all, that Krupskaya’s eyes were bulging, like a fish’s - one of the signs of Graves’ disease discovered later, because of which, it is assumed, Nadezhda Konstantinovna could not have children. Vladimir Ulyanov himself treated Nadyusha’s “herring” with humor, assigning the bride the appropriate party nicknames: Fish and Lamprey.
Already in prison, he invited Nadenka to become his wife. “Well, a wife is a wife,” she replied.
Having been exiled for three years to Ufa for her revolutionary activity, Nadya decided that serving exile with Ulyanov would be more fun. Therefore, she asked to be sent to Shushenskoye, Minusinsk district, where the groom was already located, and, having obtained permission from the police officials, she and her mother followed her chosen one.
The first thing that the future mother-in-law said to Lenin when they met was: “How you were blown away!” Ilyich ate well in Shushenskoye and led healthy image life: he hunted regularly, ate his favorite sour cream and other peasant delicacies. The future leader lived in the hut of the peasant Zyryanov, but after the arrival of his bride he began to look for another place to live - with a room for his mother-in-law.
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Arriving in Shushenskoye, Elizaveta Vasilievna insisted that the marriage be concluded without delay, and “in full Orthodox form.” Ulyanov, who was already twenty-eight, and Krupskaya, one year older than him, obeyed. A long red tape began to obtain a marriage license: without this, Nadya and her mother could not live with Ilyich. But permission for a wedding was not given without a residence permit, which, in turn, was impossible without marriage... Lenin sent complaints to Minusinsk and Krasnoyarsk about the arbitrariness of the authorities, and finally, by the summer of 1898, Krupskaya was allowed to become his wife. The wedding took place in the Peter and Paul Church, the bride wore a white blouse and a black skirt, and the groom wore an ordinary, very shabby brown suit. Lenin made his next suit only in Europe...
Many exiles from the surrounding villages had fun at the wedding, and they sang so loudly that the owners of the hut came in to ask them to calm down...
“We were newlyweds,” Nadezhda Konstantinovna recalled about life in Shushenskoye, “and this brightened up the exile. The fact that I don’t write about this in my memoirs does not mean at all that there was no poetry or young passion in our lives...”
Ilyich turned out to be a caring husband. In the very first days after the wedding, he hired a fifteen-year-old girl-assistant for Nadya: Krupskaya never learned how to operate a Russian stove and grip. And the culinary skills of the young wife even took away the appetite of close people. When Elizaveta Vasilievna died in 1915, the couple had to eat in cheap canteens until their return to Russia. Nadezhda Konstantinovna admitted: after the death of her mother, “our family life became even more student-like.”
“The couple never shared their pain with anyone: the childlessness of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, who suffered from Graves’ disease and, as Vladimir Ilyich himself writes, not only that. In a letter to his mother loving son reports: “Nadya must be lying down: the doctor found (as she wrote a week ago) that her illness (female) requires persistent treatment, that she should lie down for 2-6 weeks. I sent her more money (I received 100 rubles from Vodovozova), because treatment will require considerable expenses...” (D. Volkogonov).
Some of Lenin's entourage hinted that Vladimir Ilyich often gets abused by his wife. G.I. Petrovsky, one of his associates, recalled: “I had to observe how Nadezhda Konstantinovna, during a discussion on various issues, did not agree with the opinion of Vladimir Ilyich. It was very interesting. It was very difficult to object to Vladimir Ilyich, since everything was thought out and logical for him. But Nadezhda Konstantinovna noticed “errors” in his speech, excessive enthusiasm for something... When Nadezhda Konstantinovna made her comments, Vladimir Ilyich chuckled and scratched the back of his head. His whole appearance said that sometimes he gets it too.”
There is also a story that one day Krupskaya, who knew about her husband’s love for Inessa Armand, invited him to break up so that he could arrange his own personal happiness. But Vladimir Ilyich chose to stay with his wife. It was rumored that Ilyich’s friend, the exiled Kurnatovsky, was secretly in love with Nadezhda Konstantinovna. He very often went to the Ulyanovs, supposedly to talk about Marxism... Be that as it may, the revolutionaries, who linked their destinies, lived a long life life together and were inseparable until the death of Vladimir Ilyich. Feeling worse and brighter pronounced signs Lenin developed diseases in early spring 1922. All symptoms pointed to ordinary mental fatigue: severe headaches, weakened memory, insomnia, irritability, increased sensitivity to noise. However, doctors disagreed on the diagnosis. The German professor Klemperer considered the main cause of headaches to be poisoning of the body with lead bullets, which were not removed from the leader’s body after being wounded in 1918. In April 1922, he underwent surgery under local anesthesia and one of the bullets in the neck was finally removed. But Ilyich’s health did not improve. Professor Darshkevich, who diagnosed overwork, prescribed him rest. But bad feelings did not leave Lenin, and he made a terrible promise from Stalin: to give him potassium cyanide in the event that he suddenly suffered a stroke. Vladimir Ilyich feared paralysis, which doomed him to complete, humiliating helplessness, more than anything else.
He spent that spring in Gorki. On the night of May 25, as usual, I could not fall asleep for a long time. And then, as luck would have it, a nightingale sang under the windows. Lenin went out into the garden, picked up pebbles and began throwing them at the nightingale, and suddenly noticed that his right hand was hard to obey...
By morning he was already very ill. Speech and memory suffered: Ilyich at times did not understand what was being said to him, and could not find words to express his thoughts.
On May 30, Ilyich called Stalin to Gorki and reminded him of this promise. He seemingly agreed, and on the way to the car he told everything to the leader’s sister Maria Ilyinichna. Together, they persuaded Lenin to wait to commit suicide, convincing him that the doctors had not lost hope for his full recovery. He believed.
“We’ll see what kind of wife you are to him,” Joseph Vissarionovich Krupskoy hinted more than once. And one day Nadezhda Konstantinovna, an extremely reserved woman, lost her temper: she became hysterical and cried. This, according to one version, allegedly finished off the barely alive Ilyich.
In the first ten days of March of the following year, Ilyich had already lost his speech forever, although until the end of his days he understood everything that was happening to him. From the notes of the doctor on duty: “On March 9, he looked at Krupskaya and told her: “We need to call my wife...”
These days, Nadezhda Konstantinovna, apparently, nevertheless made an attempt to stop her husband’s suffering. From Stalin’s secret note dated March 17, members of the Politburo know that she “arch-conspiratorially” asked to give Lenin poison, saying that she tried to do it herself, but she did not have enough strength. Stalin again promised to “show humanism” and again did not keep his word... However, Vladimir Ilyich’s days were already numbered.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna outlived her husband by fifteen years, full of squabbles and intrigues. When the leader of the world proletariat died, Stalin entered into a fierce struggle with his widow, not intending to share power with anyone. Nadezhda Konstantinovna begged to bury her husband, but instead his body was turned into a mummy...
“In the summer of 1930, before the 16th Party Congress, district party conferences were held in Moscow,” historian Roy Medvedev writes in his book “They Surrounded Stalin.” – At the Bauman Conference, V.I. Lenin’s widow, N.K. Krupskaya, spoke and criticized the methods of Stalinist collectivization, saying that this collectivization had nothing to do with Lenin’s cooperative plan. Krupskaya accused the Party Central Committee of ignorance of the mood of the peasantry and refusal to consult with the people. “There is no need to blame the local authorities,” said Nadezhda Konstantinovna, “for the mistakes that were made by the Central Committee itself.”
When Krupskaya was still making her speech, the leaders of the district committee let Kaganovich know about this, and he immediately went to the conference. Having risen to the podium after Krupskaya, Kaganovich subjected her speech to rude criticism. Rejecting her criticism on the merits, he also stated that she, as a member of the Central Committee, did not have the right to bring her critical remarks to the podium of the district party conference. “Let N.K. Krupskaya not think,” said Kaganovich, “that if she was Lenin’s wife, then she has a monopoly on Leninism.”
In 1938, writer Marietta Shaginyan approached Krupskaya about reviewing and supporting her novel about Lenin, Ticket to History. Nadezhda Konstantinovna responded to her with a detailed letter, which caused Stalin’s terrible indignation. A scandal broke out and became the subject of discussion by the Party Central Committee.
“To condemn the behavior of Krupskaya, who, having received the manuscript of Shaginyan’s novel, not only did not prevent the birth of the novel, but, on the contrary, encouraged Shaginyan in every possible way, gave information about the manuscript positive reviews and advised Shaginyan on various aspects of the Ulyanovs’ life and thereby carried full responsibility for this book. Consider Krupskaya’s behavior all the more unacceptable and tactless because Comrade Krupskaya did all this without the knowledge and consent of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, thereby turning the all-party matter of compiling works about Lenin into a private and family matter and acting as a monopolist and interpreter of public and personal life and work of Lenin and his family, which the Central Committee never gave anyone the right to do..."
Her death was mysterious. It came on the eve of the XVIII Party Congress, at which Nadezhda Konstantinovna was going to speak. On the afternoon of February 24, 1939, friends visited her in Arkhangelskoye to celebrate her hostess’s approaching seventieth birthday. The table was set, Nadezhda Konstantinovna seemed very animated... In the evening she suddenly felt ill. They called a doctor, but for some reason he arrived after more than three hours. The diagnosis was made immediately: “acute appendicitis-peritonitis-thrombosis.” For some reason the necessary urgent operation was not performed. Three days later, Krupskaya died in terrible agony at the age of seventy.
Nadya Krupskaya was born on February 26 (new style) 1869 in St. Petersburg into a poor noble family. Father Konstantin Ignatievich, after graduating from the Cadet Corps, received the position of head of the district in the Polish Groets, and mother Elizaveta Vasilievna worked as a governess. Her father died when Nadya Krupskaya was 14 years old, since her father was considered “unreliable” due to his connection with the populists, the family received a small pension for him. Nadezhda lived with her mother Elizaveta Vasilievna.
Krupskaya studied in St. Petersburg at the private gymnasium of Princess Obolenskaya, and was friends with A. Tyrkova-Williams, her future wife P.B.Struve. Graduated from high school with gold medal, was fond of , was a “sweatshirt”. After graduating from the eighth pedagogical class. Krupskaya received a diploma as a home tutor and successfully teaches, preparing students of Princess Obolenskaya’s gymnasium for exams. Then she studied at the Bestuzhev courses.
In the fall of 1890, Nadya abandoned the prestigious women's Bestuzhev courses. She studies the books of Marx and Engels and teaches classes in social democratic circles. I memorized German specifically for studying Marxism.
Nadezhda Krupskaya meets Vladimir Ulyanov
In January 1894, a young revolutionary comes to St. Petersburg. Behind the back of the modest, twenty-four-year-old provincial, however, there were many experiences: the sudden death of his father, the execution of his older brother Alexander, the death of his beloved sister Olga from a serious illness. He went through surveillance, arrest, and easy exile to his mother’s estate.
In St. Petersburg, Ulyanov establishes legal and illegal connections with the city’s Marxists, the leaders of some Social Democratic circles, and makes new acquaintances. In February, a meeting of a group of city Marxists took place at the apartment of engineer Klasson. Vladimir meets two activists - Apollinaria Yakubova and Nadezhda Krupskaya.
After this, Ulyanov often meets with his friends, both together and separately. On Sundays he usually paid visits to the Krupsky family.
“Before his marriage in July 1898 in Shushenskoye to Nadezhda Krupskaya, only one noticeable “courtship” of Vladimir Ulyanov is known,” says historian Dmitry Volkogonov. - He was seriously attracted to Krupskaya’s friend, Apollinaria Yakubova, also a socialist and teacher.
Ulyanov, no longer very young (he was then over twenty-six), wooed Yakubova, but was met with a polite but firm refusal. Judging by a number of indirect signs, the unsuccessful matchmaking did not become a noticeable drama for the future leader of the Russian Jacobins..."
Vladimir Ilyich immediately impressed Nadezhda Krupskaya with his leadership abilities. The girl tried to interest the future leader - firstly, with Marxist conversations, which Ulyanov adored, and secondly, with her mother’s cooking. Elizaveta Vasilievna, seeing him at home, was happy. She considered her daughter unattractive and did not predict happiness for her in her personal life. One can imagine how happy she was for her Nadenka when she saw a pleasant young man from a good family in her house!
On the other hand, having become Ulyanov’s bride, Nadya did not cause much delight among his family: they found that she had a very “herring look.” This statement meant, first of all, that Krupskaya’s eyes were bulging, like a fish’s - one of the signs of Graves’ disease discovered later, because of which, it is assumed, Nadezhda Konstantinovna could not have children. Vladimir Ulyanov himself treated Nadyusha’s “herring” with humor, assigning the bride the appropriate party nicknames: Fish And Lamprey.
Already in prison, he invited Nadenka to become his wife. “Well, a wife is a wife,” she replied.
Having been exiled for three years in Ufa for her revolutionary activities, Nadya decided that serving exile with Ulyanov would be more fun. Therefore, she asked to be sent to Shushenskoye, Minusinsk district, where the groom was already located, and, having obtained permission from the police officials, she and her mother followed her chosen one.
Nadezhda Krupskaya and Vladimir Ulyanov in Shushenskoye
The first thing that the future mother-in-law said to Lenin when they met was: “How you were blown away!” In Shushenskoye, Ilyich ate well and led a healthy lifestyle: he hunted regularly, ate his favorite sour cream and other peasant delicacies. The future leader lived in the hut of the peasant Zyryanov, but after the arrival of his bride he began to look for other housing - with a room for his mother-in-law.
Arriving in Shushenskoye, Elizaveta Vasilievna insisted that the marriage be concluded without delay, and “in full Orthodox form.” Ulyanov, who was already twenty-eight, and Krupskaya, one year older than him, obeyed. A long red tape began to obtain a marriage license: without this, Nadya and her mother could not live with Ilyich. But permission for a wedding was not given without a residence permit, which, in turn, was impossible without marriage... Lenin sent complaints to Minusinsk and Krasnoyarsk about the arbitrariness of the authorities, and finally, by the summer of 1898, Krupskaya was allowed to become his wife. The wedding took place in the Peter and Paul Church, the bride wore a white blouse and a black skirt, and the groom wore an ordinary, very shabby brown suit. Lenin made his next suit only in Europe...
Vladimir invited Krzhizhanovsky, Starkov, and other exiled friends to the wedding. On July 10, 1898, a modest wedding took place, at which ordinary peasants from Shushenskoye were witnesses. At the wedding they had fun and sang so loudly that the owners of the hut came in to ask to calm down...
“We were newlyweds,” Nadezhda Konstantinovna recalled about life in Shushenskoye, “and this brightened up the exile. The fact that I don’t write about this in my memoirs does not mean at all that there was no poetry or young passion in our lives...”
Ilyich turned out to be a caring husband. In the very first days after the wedding, he hired a fifteen-year-old girl-assistant for Nadya: Krupskaya never learned how to operate a Russian stove and grip. And the culinary skills of the young wife even took away the appetite of close people. When Elizaveta Vasilievna died in 1915, the couple had to eat in cheap canteens until their return to Russia. Nadezhda Konstantinovna admitted: after the death of her mother, “our family life became even more student-like.”
Nadezhda Konstantinovna immediately becomes “at home”, indispensable when selecting material and copying individual fragments. Ulyanov reads some chapters of his manuscripts to his wife, but there are always few critical comments from her.
For a young woman, family is always connected not only with her husband, but also with children. It was destined that this marriage would be childless. The couple never publicly, even with close people, shared their pain about this. True, Vladimir Ilyich, in one of his letters to his mother, when they had already left Shushenskoye, spoke quite transparently about his wife’s illness (she was not with him in Pskov at that time). “Nadya,” Ulyanov wrote, “must be lying down: the doctor found (as she wrote about a week ago) that her illness (a woman’s) requires persistent treatment, that she should lie down for 2-6 weeks. I sent her more money (I received 100 rubles from Vodovozova), because treatment will require considerable expenses...” Later, already abroad, Krupskaya fell ill with Graves' disease and had to undergo surgery. In a letter to his mother, Ulyanov reported that Nadya “was very bad - extreme fever and delirium, so I was pretty scared...”.
Some of Lenin's entourage hinted that Vladimir Ilyich often gets abused by his wife. G. I. Petrovsky, one of his associates, recalled: “I had to observe how Nadezhda Konstantinovna, during a discussion on various issues, did not agree with the opinion of Vladimir Ilyich. It was very interesting. It was very difficult to object to Vladimir Ilyich, since everything was thought out and logical for him. But Nadezhda Konstantinovna noticed “errors” in his speech, excessive enthusiasm for something... When Nadezhda Konstantinovna made her comments, Vladimir Ilyich chuckled and scratched the back of his head. His whole appearance said that sometimes he gets it too.”
Nadezhda Krupskaya and Vladimir Ulyanov abroad
Once abroad, Krupskaya quickly adopted the gentle walking regime that Ulyanov adhered to. From Geneva, Vladimir Ilyich writes: “... I still lead a summer lifestyle, walking, swimming and lazing around”; from Finland: “It’s a wonderful holiday here, swimming, walking, solitude, idleness. Desertion and idleness are best for me...” From France: “We are going on vacation to Brittany, probably this Saturday...”
The Ulyanovs spent a decade and a half abroad. They did not have a permanent source of income. Before the start of the war, Nadezhda Krupskaya received an inheritance from her aunt, who died in Novocherkassk; in addition, Anna, Elizarov and Maria continued to occasionally send money to Vladimir...
At the end of December 1909, the couple, after much hesitation, moved to Paris, where Ulyanov was destined to meet. A lovely Frenchwoman, the charming wife of the rich man Armand, a lonely exile, a fiery revolutionary, a true Bolshevik, a faithful student of Lenin, mother of many children. Judging by the correspondence between Vladimir and Inessa (a significant part of which has been preserved), we can conclude that the relationship between these people was illuminated by bright feelings.
As I told you A. Kollontai, “in general, Krupskaya was aware . She knew that Lenin was very attached to Inessa, and more than once expressed her intention to leave. Lenin held her back."
Nadezhda Konstantinovna believed that the most difficult years of emigration had to be spent in Paris. But she did not create scenes of jealousy and was able to establish outwardly even, even friendly relations with the beautiful Frenchwoman. She answered Krupskaya in the same way...
The couple maintained a warm relationship with each other. Nadezhda Konstantinovna is worried about her husband: “From the very beginning of the congress, Ilyich’s nerves were tense to the extreme. The Belgian worker with whom we settled in Brussels was very upset that Vladimir Ilyich did not eat the wonderful radishes and Dutch cheese that she served him in the morning, and even then he had no time for food. In London, he reached the point where he stopped sleeping completely and was terribly worried.”
Vladimir values his wife and comrade-in-arms: “Ilyich spoke flatteringly about my investigative abilities... I became his zealous reporter. Usually, when we lived in Russia, I could move much more freely than Vladimir Ilyich, talk with much more big amount roles. Based on two or three questions he posed, I already knew what he wanted to know, and I looked with all my might,” Krupskaya wrote many years after her husband’s death.
Most likely, without his faithful girlfriend, Vladimir Ilyich would never have achieved all his stunning successes.
The long-awaited often comes unexpectedly. “One day, when Ilyich was already getting ready to go to the library after dinner, and I had finished putting away the dishes, Bronsky came with the words: “You don’t know anything?!” There is a revolution in Russia!” We went to the lake, where all the newspapers were hung on the shore under a canopy... There really was a revolution in Russia.”
Return of Nadezhda Krupskaya and Vladimir Ulyanov to Russia
They returned in February 1917 to Russia, which they lived in thoughts about every day and which they had not visited for many years. In a sealed carriage Vladimir Ulyanov, Nadezhda Krupskaya and traveled in the same compartment.
In Russia, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya meets with her husband in fits and starts, but keeps him informed of all matters. And he, seeing her abilities, burdens Krupskaya more and more with affairs.
In the autumn of 1917, events rapidly escalate. On the afternoon of October 24, Nadezhda Konstantinovna is found in the Vyborg District Duma and given a note. She opens it. Lenin writes to the Bolshevik Central Committee: “Delay in an uprising is like death.”
Krupskaya understands that the time has come. She runs to Smolny. From that moment on, she was inseparable from Lenin, but the euphoria of happiness and success passed quickly. Cruel everyday life ate away the joy.
In the summer of 1918, Krupskaya settled in the Kremlin in a modest small apartment specially equipped for her and Lenin. She didn't mind.
And then there was Civil War. The fight against counter-revolution. Diseases of Nadezhda Konstantinovna. Shot by a Socialist-Revolutionary at Lenin. Death ...
The sudden illness of her husband frightened Nadezhda Konstantinovna. No matter what they said, the spouses were attached to each other. Elizaveta Drabkina recalls the story of her friend, Kremlin course cadet Vanya Troitsky, how once, when he was on duty late at night near Lenin’s apartment in the Kremlin, Vladimir Ilyich asked him if he heard the steps of Nadezhda Konstantinovna down the stairs, who had been delayed at some meeting , knock on the door and call him. Vanya listened to the silence of the night. Everything was quiet. But suddenly the apartment door opened and Vladimir Ilyich quickly came out.
“There’s no one,” said Vanya.
Vladimir Ilyich made a sign to him.
“He’s coming,” he whispered conspiratorially and ran down the stairs to meet Nadezhda Konstantinovna: she walked, walking quietly, but he still heard.”
Illness of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Lenin began to experience deterioration in health and pronounced signs of illness in the early spring of 1922. All symptoms pointed to ordinary mental fatigue: severe headaches, memory loss, insomnia, irritability, increased sensitivity to noise. However, doctors disagreed on the diagnosis. The German professor Klemperer considered the main cause of headaches to be poisoning of the body with lead bullets, which were not removed from the leader’s body after being wounded in 1918. In April 1922, he underwent surgery under local anesthesia and one of the bullets in the neck was finally removed. But Ilyich’s health did not improve. And so Lenin was struck down by the first attack of illness. Krupskaya, by duty and right of wife, is on duty at Vladimir Ilyich’s bedside. They bend over the sick person best doctors and render a verdict: complete peace. But bad feelings did not leave Lenin, and he made a terrible promise from Stalin: to give him potassium cyanide in the event that he suddenly suffered a stroke. Vladimir Ilyich feared paralysis, which doomed him to complete, humiliating helplessness, more than anything else.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) entrusts its Secretary General, Comrade, with responsibility for compliance with the regime established by doctors.
On December 21, 1922, Lenin asked, and Krupskaya wrote a letter under his dictation regarding the monopoly of foreign trade.
Having learned about this, Stalin did not spare rude words for Nadezhda Konstantinovna on the phone. And in conclusion he said: she violated the doctors’ ban, and he will transfer the case about her to the Central Control Commission parties.
Krupskaya's quarrel with Stalin occurred a few days after the onset of Lenin's illness, in December 1922. Lenin learned about the quarrel only on March 5, 1923 and dictated a letter to Stalin to his secretary: “You had the rudeness to call my wife to the telephone and scold her. Although she expressed her consent to forget what she said, nevertheless this fact became known through her to Zinoviev and Kamenev. I do not intend to forget so easily what was done against me, and there is no need to say that I consider what was done against my wife to have been done against me. Therefore, I ask you to weigh whether you agree to take back what was said and apologize or whether you prefer to break off relations between us.”
After the dictation, Lenin was very excited. Both the secretaries and Dr. Kozhevnikov noticed this.
The next morning, he asked the secretary to re-read the letter, hand it over personally to Stalin and receive an answer. Soon after she left, his condition deteriorated sharply. The temperature has risen. Paralysis spread to the left side. Ilyich had already lost his speech forever, although until the end of his days he understood everything that was happening to him.
These days, Nadezhda Konstantinovna, apparently, nevertheless made an attempt to stop her husband’s suffering. From Stalin’s secret note dated March 17, members of the Politburo know that she “arch-conspiratorially” asked to give Lenin poison, saying that she tried to do it herself, but she did not have enough strength. Stalin again promised to “show humanism” and again did not keep his word...
Vladimir Ilyich lived for almost another whole year. Breathed. Krupskaya did not leave his side.
January 21, 1924 at 6:50 pm Ulyanov Vladimir Ilyich, 54 years old, died.
People didn’t see a single tear in Krupskaya’s eyes during the funeral days. Nadezhda Konstantinovna spoke at the memorial service, addressing the people and the party: “Don’t build monuments to him, palaces named after him, magnificent celebrations in his memory - he attached such little importance to all this during his life, he was so burdened by it. Remember that much has not yet been arranged in our country...”
The life of Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya without Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Krupskaya survived her husband by fifteen years. A long-standing illness tormented and exhausted her. She didn't give up. I worked every day, wrote reviews, gave instructions, taught how to live. I wrote a book of memories. The People's Commissariat for Education, where she worked, surrounded her with love and reverence, appreciating Krupskaya's natural spiritual kindness, which coexisted quite peacefully with her strong ideas.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna outlived her husband by fifteen years, full of squabbles and intrigues. When the leader of the world proletariat died, Stalin entered into a fierce struggle with his widow, not intending to share power with anyone. Nadezhda Konstantinovna begged to bury her husband, but instead his body was turned into a mummy...
“In the summer of 1930, before the 16th Party Congress, district party conferences were held in Moscow,” historian Roy Medvedev writes in his book “They Surrounded Stalin.” - At the Bauman conference, V.I. Lenin’s widow, N.K. Krupskaya, spoke and criticized the methods of Stalinist collectivization, saying that this collectivization had nothing to do with Lenin’s cooperative plan. Krupskaya accused the Party Central Committee of ignorance of the mood of the peasantry and refusal to consult with the people. “There is no need to blame the local authorities,” said Nadezhda Konstantinovna, “for the mistakes that were made by the Central Committee itself.”
When Krupskaya was still making her speech, the leaders of the district committee let Kaganovich know about this, and he immediately went to the conference. Having risen to the podium after Krupskaya, Kaganovich subjected her speech to rude criticism. Rejecting her criticism on the merits, he also stated that she, as a member of the Central Committee, did not have the right to bring her critical remarks to the podium of the district party conference. “Let N.K. Krupskaya not think,” said Kaganovich, “that if she was Lenin’s wife, then she has a monopoly on Leninism.”
In 1938, the writer Marietta Shahinyan approached Krupskaya about reviewing and supporting her novel about Lenin, “Ticket to History.” Nadezhda Konstantinovna responded to her with a detailed letter, which caused Stalin’s terrible indignation. A scandal broke out and became the subject of discussion by the Party Central Committee.
“To condemn the behavior of Krupskaya, who, having received the manuscript of Shaginyan’s novel, not only did not prevent the birth of the novel, but, on the contrary, encouraged Shaginyan in every possible way, gave positive reviews about the manuscript and advised Shaginyan on various aspects of the life of the Ulyanovs and thereby bore full responsibility for this book. Consider Krupskaya’s behavior all the more unacceptable and tactless because Comrade Krupskaya did all this without the knowledge and consent of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, thereby turning the all-party matter of compiling works about Lenin into a private and family matter and acting as a monopolist and interpreter of public and personal life and work of Lenin and his family, which the Central Committee never gave anyone the right to do..."
The mystery of the death of Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya
Her death was mysterious. It came on the eve of the XVIII Party Congress, at which Nadezhda Konstantinovna was going to speak. On the afternoon of February 24, 1939, friends visited her in Arkhangelskoye to celebrate her hostess’s approaching seventieth birthday. The table was set, Stalin sent a cake. Everyone ate it together. Nadezhda Konstantinovna seemed very animated... In the evening she suddenly felt ill. They called a doctor, but for some reason he arrived after more than three hours. The diagnosis was made immediately: “acute appendicitis-peritonitis-thrombosis.” For some reason the necessary urgent operation was not performed. Three days later, Krupskaya died in terrible agony at the age of seventy.
Stalin personally carried the urn with Krupskaya’s ashes.