Alexander Ulyanov. The terrorist was the emperor's son? A surprise in Lenin's genealogy: why was this a surprise even for researchers of his biography? Why, after the collapse of the USSR, rumors discrediting the honor of the main revolutionary so quickly took root? What would have happened if Alexander Ulyanov had not been executed? Read about it in the documentary investigation "Moscow Trust".
Student, excellent student, terrorist
Family portrait of the Ulyanovs, one of the few that ever existed. On the right sits the future leader proletarian revolution Vladimir Lenin. In the very center stands his older brother Alexander. He will be hanged in the Shlisselburg fortress for an attempt on the life of the tsar, whom popular rumor will later write down as his father.
Early 1990s. Facilities mass media Almost every day they bring down on the citizens of the former Soviet republics a stream of sensations. Polished to a shine, the biographies of communist leaders suddenly seem not so smooth at all.
“These are precisely attempts to delegitimize all Soviet myths as much as possible. There is a cliché: Lenin loved children. Everyone has read a book by Bonch-Bruevich since childhood. Therefore, Volkogonov wrote an article stating that Lenin hated children. There was a thing that they were smart people, we prove that Lenin did not receive any education. If there was a book that Lenin was a good lawyer, we are trying to prove that he was a bad lawyer. It was just a reverse system,” says historian Yaroslav Listov.
Lenin gets the most. On October 27, 1995, an interview with journalist Alexander Kutenev appeared in the New Petersburg newspaper. We are talking about the illegitimate children of the emperor Alexander III. And one of them the journalist calls the older brother Ilyich Sasha. Like, his mother gave birth to him when she served as a maid of honor at court.
Moscow. State Archive socio-political history was created on the basis of the Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism and Leninism. Hundreds of documents from the Ulyanov family are stored here. These are the texts of petitions for pardon. They were written by Maria Ulyanova in 1887 to Emperor Alexander III. She asks for mercy from the one whom her eldest son Sasha had recently planned to kill. With the highest permission, Ulyanova could do a lot, even meet with a potential regicide.
"The terrorist faction "Narodnaya Volya" - under this loud name there was a student circle, ten-something people, young students, Alexander Ilyich himself is only 21 years old. And they decide to start a terrorist struggle immediately with the assassination of the tsar. Three bombs were prepared , Alexander Ilyich made two of them. He was well versed in chemistry, worked out the design, he made two out of three bombs, and there were bullets around the dynamite, which he also made himself. Alexander Ilyich made the bullets himself, and the bullets were poisoned with strychnine, it is one of the most terrible poisons.In addition, they had two pistols, - says historian Vladimir Lavrov.
Exactly six years have passed since the murder of the previous Russian emperor Alexander II. Almost all the Narodnaya Volya members who organized that terrible terrorist attack against the tsar were arrested. Sasha Ulyanov, an excellent student in St. Petersburg, studies at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the University, and then suddenly becomes one of the founders of the new radical wing of the Narodnaya Volya party.
“He was a very capable, talented child, but in his own way an unhappy person, because as a child he received a very serious spinal injury. Alexander Ulyanov was small in stature, and it always seemed to him that his family did not like him. He graduated from school with a gold medal, arrived to study in St. Petersburg.Already in the third year, not yet graduating from the university, he received gold medal for research in the field of biology," says journalist Andrey Binev.
The Lenin Museum is a forge of Soviet legends about the heroic life of Ilyich. Behind these walls, the biography of the leader of the proletariat was embellished in every possible way. The politically correct remained, the doubtful was hushed up. Galina Borodulina has been working at the Lenin Museum for many years, she is engaged in the genealogy of the Ulyanov family.
“There was a special approach to studying the life and work of Lenin and to creating his biography. Actually, this approach was defined. Back in the late 1920s, party historians were interested not so much in Lenin’s personality, not so much in his personal life how much Lenin's life in the party. Moreover, they didn’t see any contradictions between the fact that Lenin was the leader of the proletarian revolution and his noble origin, because there were quite a lot of people of noble origin among the leaders of the Communist Party, ”says historian Galina Borodulina.
Skeleton in the closet of the Ulyanov family
Journalist and writer Andrei Binev explored the story of the illegitimate origin of Alexander Ulyanov. In the late 90s, he worked on his own documentary.
"Maria Alexandrovna was born and raised in Kazan, she was a very educated and free woman, with an eye for free love, free relationships. Therefore, many who study her biography and family life assume that she gave birth to children from different husbands, because she followed And it turned out that Maria Alexandrovna and Ilya Nikolaevich slept in different rooms. There was a corridor between them. And the bedroom of the rest of the children went into this corridor. They could not, remaining unnoticed, meet, say, in the same bedroom, it was difficult By the way, this was one of the reasons why such legends were born," says Binev.
Writer Larisa Vasilyeva, author of the book "Kremlin Wives", is also involved in replicating the story of the too free behavior of Maria Ulyanova, nee Maria Blank. What was told in the kitchens as a spicy anecdote, Vasilyeva captured on paper. It was she who in 1993 reported that Alexander Ulyanov was the illegitimate son, however, not of the tsar, but of the terrorist Dmitry Karakozov.
"And it is quite possible that Maria Alexandrovna and Dmitry Karakozov did not just meet on the stairs, and her son Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov was born from Karakozov. And since Karakozov attempted on the emperor, somewhere before this attempt he disappeared somewhere from home, quite "perhaps he was near where she gave birth, and quite possibly he saw this child. But he disappeared, and then suddenly, like a bolt from the blue - Dmitry Karakozov encroaches on the emperor. And the persecution of everyone began democratically thinking people, and I think that Maria Alexandrovna lived in fear. I wouldn’t say all this now if one day I didn’t write in The Kremlin Wives that Inessa Armand told Ivan Fedorovich Popov: “The Lenin family had its own secret,” Vasilyeva believes.
And that is why, according to Vasilyeva, Sasha Ulyanov suddenly became a terrorist. He learned the truth and wanted to avenge his father, who was executed for an unsuccessful attempt on Alexander II. Dmitry Karakozov accepted execution by hanging in St. Petersburg in 1866.
Although professional researchers are sure that the paternity of the terrorist Karakozov is just a fiction of a writer. The work of Galina Borodulina in the archives showed that Maria Blank and Dmitry Karakozov hardly knew each other.
"Karakozov was familiar with Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, but he left Penza even before Maria Alexandrovna appeared there. He went to study in another city, so they simply could not meet anywhere with Maria Alexandrovna. In 1863, Maria Alexandrovna had already left married Ilya Nikolaevich, the eldest daughter Anna was born in 1964, Alexander was already born in 1966. By the way, those who write about the illegitimate origin of the Ulyanov children are very often confused, claiming that Alexander was the eldest, Anna was the youngest, this is already an indicator of how knowledgeable are the people who compose this kind of version," says Borodulina.
Emperor's illegitimate son
However, did Blanc and the emperor have a relationship, here main riddle. Petersburg, 1887. After Sasha's arrest, Maria urgently travels to the capital from Simbirsk and easily gets an appointment with Alexander III. She is allowed a meeting with a terrorist without delay. Perhaps, indeed, it is not only formalities that bind her and the king?
“Allegedly, Maria Blank, the mother of Vladimir Ilyich, was a maid of honor at the imperial court. I think one example, one fact will suffice here, and there are, in general, a lot of them to prove that this did not happen at all. that the imperial court was a kind of institution, and being a maid of honor of the imperial court meant performing certain official duties.Therefore, documents have been preserved that confirm that there was never a maid of honor Maria Blank at the imperial court. 1712. Another such fact.Alexander III was ten years younger than Maria Alexandrovna, Lenin's mother.She was born in 1935, he - in 1945, Maria Alexandrovna lived with her family in St. Petersburg until 1841. Then the family left Petersburg, and Maria Alexandrovna did not return there until the arrest of her eldest son Alexander," says Galina Borodulina.
And here are the archival documents. An entry from the church book about the marriage between Ilya Ulyanov and Maria Blank - 1863. This is data on the birth of children, first Anna, then Alexander. The version of the journalist Kutenev, published in the newspaper "New Petersburg" in 1995, about the illegitimate son of the emperor is nothing more than a fiction.
Historian Vladimir Lavrov gives another proof of the implausibility of the version of the journalist Kutenev. The origin of Maria Blanc would never have allowed her to become a lady-in-waiting of the imperial court. Such were the realities of tsarist Russia.
“As for Maria Alexandrovna, the mother of Alexander Ilyich and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Her father was a doctor, quite wealthy, absolutely unnoble, and only a noble noblewoman could become a maid of honor. I can say that the hereditary nobility was formalized by Maria Alexandrovna only after the death of her husband, so that receive a good pension. She received it from the tsarist government. During the time of Peter I, there were isolated cases when people of no nobility rose to the heights, but in the second half of the 19th century, it was already a different era, this was not the case, "says Lavrov.
Victim of freethinking
After the death of Alexander II, Alexander III takes the throne. Historians call 13 years of his reign controversial. As they will later write in textbooks, the economic well-being of the country is growing at a high pace. But corruption and humiliation of the working class flourishes. The situation in society also affected the Ulyanovs. Schools for the unprivileged classes, which had once been opened by the father of the family, Ilya Nikolaevich, began to close all over Russia.
"The fate of his father, Ilya Nikolaevich, who devoted his whole life to the cause of public education. He was an inspector of public schools in the Simbirsk province, thanks to him new schools were opened and teaching in them was brought to the proper level. And the example of his father, the facts that spoke of the onset of a new period in the history of Russia (at least the brutal dispersal of the student demonstration in 1886), I think, led Sasha to reflection. We know that Sasha was familiar with the works of Marx. I think ultimately that was the reason he accepted Active participation V revolutionary activity", - says Galina Borodulina.
It is these facts, and not at all the desire to take revenge on the tsar for his supposedly illegitimate origin, that historians call decisive in the fate of Alexander Ulyanov. It took him only a few months to create a circle and start organizing the assassination.
“In principle, a provincial guy from the city of Simbirsk, from an educated family, who lived, I would not say that it was completely in greenhouse conditions, but a little distant from the reality of what is happening, suddenly finds himself in the capital. In the capital, this provincial information vacuum disappears, global information from all over the country falls upon him, newspaper correspondence, discussions, conversations flock here. The institute where he studies is one of the most popular, people from all over the country come to it. All this fell upon the young Alexander, he was a rather impressionable person ". And like any young man, he wanted to solve all problems at once. And with this one and only way that can be solved, it seemed to kill the figure who stood at the head and personified the entire system of the regime. This is how this terrorist attack against Alexander III ripened ", - says the historian Yaroslav Listov.
Another way of Vladimir Ulyanov
There is another secret that was hidden by Soviet propaganda. Before the opening of the archives, it was believed that Alexander Ulyanov did not ask for himself, but it turned out that there was a document. Here is a copy of it: “I ask Your Majesty to replace me death penalty any other punishment." There is not a drop of remorse in the text, he simply asks not to hurt the mother.
"There are several memories. There is a memory of the lawyer Knyazev, who was present at the same time. There is a memory of Anna Ilyinichna, sister. Naturally, she was aware. Alexander Ilyich asked his mother for forgiveness for the grief caused to her, the family. She asked her son to write a petition Sovereign with a request for pardon. He refused, according to Knyazev's memoirs, citing the fact that he told his mother: "Just imagine a duel: I shot, my opponent has not shot yet, and I tell him:" Do not shoot, please. "However, all the same, there was a petition, but there was no repentance in this petition. He did not repent. The meaning of the petition was this: I think that I did the right thing, that I wanted to kill you, sovereign, but I ask you to leave me life for the sake of my mother, my families," says historian Lavrov.
Researchers of the biography of Vladimir Lenin often write that the relationship between the brothers was difficult. But the execution of Alexander decided the fate of Ilyich and the Ulyanov family as a whole: they simply became outcasts in provincial Simbirsk, they were afraid to communicate with them.
“This made a decisive impression on my brother, let’s say. The fact is that he was only 17 years old, a person is just entering life, and an example is when this tragedy occurs in one’s own family, because it is a tragedy twice. The first tragedy is this is the fact that your family member committed or tried to commit some kind of atrocity that attracts the attention of the whole society, and, in fact, all family members become handshakes.On the other hand, this is a personal tragedy - the loss of a person with whom he lived, with whom he communicated It was precisely from this that Lenin drew a conclusion, and then he uttered his famous phrase: "We will go the other way" - about the creation of a revolutionary party and the overthrow of the system. Not individuals, but a change in the system. That is, Lenin came to the conclusion that individual terror is useless and meaningless. And we see that it is indeed from this historical period that all the individual terror of the Russian Empire comes to naught. That is, the period when it seemed that let's kill the emperor, and everything will be fine, disappears," says Yaroslav Listov.
However, the historian Listov believes that the myth of kinship with the imperial crown was created by mass popular consciousness for a reason. The reason for the popularity of essentially gossip about an illegitimate son is simple. This is an attempt to bring the person of Lenin closer to the very anointed of God.
“There is a certain family to which it is given from God to be ruling. And this was especially important for the society of the period of transition from the Russian Empire to Soviet Union. After all, many myths about the ruling dynasties were born there. Imagine, after all, for almost 500 years people have been told: the ruling dynasties are God's anointed ones. These are people who not only ascended the throne, because it happened that way. political situation, but because God brought them here, they are, as it were, conductors of the divine will. And then suddenly - once - one emperor was killed, the second emperor was killed, then in general all the emperors were overthrown. And for them it is somehow incomprehensible, but where did the anointed of God go. And therefore, we will show: God turned away from these, and here we see that Alexander Ulyanov is the family of the emperor, ”says Listov.
The execution by hanging of the terrorists of the "Narodnaya Volya" faction took place on May 20, 1887 in the Shlisselburg fortress. In the verdict, the word “hang” is written by hand opposite five names, among them Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov. His mother, nee Maria Blanc, after these events became completely gray-haired.
30 years after this execution, the Romanovs ceased to rule Russia. On the night of July 16-17, 1918, Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Fedorovna, their children, a doctor and servants were killed in the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg. On whether Vladimir Lenin personally made the decision to execute him royal family, is still unknown.
One of the most common myths about Alexander Ulyanov says that he was the illegitimate son of Alexander III!
Allegedly, in her youth, Maria Blank served as a maid of honor at the imperial court and attracted the attention of the Grand Duke. She named her eldest son in honor of her real father. When he grew up, Maria told who his father, and he was so offended by the parent for the abused maternal honor that he decided to kill!
Meanwhile, Maria Alexandrovna hardly ever met the emperor, who, moreover, was ten years younger than her. And the first-born in the Ulyanov family was not Alexander, but daughter Anna, born in 1864.
According to another version, Alexander was the son of the terrorist Dmitry Karakozov, who in 1866 made an unsuccessful attempt on the life of Alexander II. But again, there is no evidence that Karakozov ever met Maria Ulyanova. All that was common between Karakozov and Ulyanov was an attempt at regicide and execution for it ...
Since the execution of Alexander, Vladimir Ulyanov saw only one way for himself - to complete the work of his brother. However, as legend has it, he uttered the words: "We will go the other way." If the Narodnaya Volya believed that the assassination of the emperor could change the situation in Russia for the better, then Lenin perfectly understood that one monarch would be replaced by another and that the existing system itself should be changed.
Who knows - if Alexander Ulyanov had not been carried away by the ideas of the revolution and had not been executed for them, then perhaps the October Revolution in 1917 would not have happened. And the execution of the royal family in July 1918 really looks like revenge ...
Alexander Ulyanov. The terrorist was the emperor's son? A surprise in Lenin's genealogy: why was this a surprise even for researchers of his biography? Why, after the collapse of the USSR, rumors discrediting the honor of the main revolutionary so quickly took root? What would have happened if Alexander Ulyanov had not been executed? Read about it in the documentary investigation "Moscow Trust".
Student, excellent student, terrorist
Family portrait of the Ulyanovs, one of the few that ever existed. On the right is the future leader of the proletarian revolution, Vladimir Lenin. In the very center stands his older brother Alexander. He will be hanged in the Shlisselburg fortress for an attempt on the life of the tsar, whom popular rumor will later write down as his father.
Portrait of the Ulyanov family
Early 1990s. The mass media unleash a stream of sensationalism on the citizens of the former Soviet republics almost daily. Polished to a shine, the biographies of communist leaders suddenly seem not so smooth at all.
“These are precisely attempts to delegitimize all Soviet myths as much as possible. There is a cliché: Lenin loved children. Everyone has read a book by Bonch-Bruevich since childhood. Therefore, Volkogonov wrote an article stating that Lenin hated children. There was a thing that they were smart people, we we prove that Lenin did not receive any education. If there was a book that Lenin was a good lawyer, we are trying to prove that he was a bad lawyer. It was just a reverse system, "says historian Yaroslav Listov.
Lenin gets the most. On October 27, 1995, an interview with journalist Alexander Kutenev appeared in the New Petersburg newspaper. We are talking about the illegitimate children of Emperor Alexander III. And one of them the journalist calls the older brother Ilyich Sasha. Like, his mother gave birth to him when she served as a maid of honor at court.
Moscow. The State Archive of Socio-Political History was created on the basis of the Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism and Leninism. Hundreds of documents from the Ulyanov family are stored here. These are the texts of petitions for pardon. They were written by Maria Ulyanova in 1887 to Emperor Alexander III. She asks for mercy from the one whom her eldest son Sasha had recently planned to kill. With the highest permission, Ulyanova could do a lot, even meet with a potential regicide.
"The terrorist faction" People's Will "- under this loud name was hiding a student circle, ten-something people, young students, Alexander Ilyich himself is only 21 years old. And they decide to start a terrorist struggle immediately with the assassination of the tsar. Three bombs were prepared , Alexander Ilyich made two of them. He was well versed in chemistry, worked out the design, he made two out of three bombs, and there were bullets around the dynamite, which he also made himself. Alexander Ilyich made the bullets himself, and the bullets were poisoned with strychnine, it is one of the most terrible poisons.In addition, they had two pistols, - says historian Vladimir Lavrov.
Exactly six years have passed since the assassination of the previous Russian Emperor Alexander II. Almost all the Narodnaya Volya members who organized that terrible terrorist attack against the tsar were arrested. Sasha Ulyanov, an excellent student in St. Petersburg, studies at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the university, and then suddenly becomes one of the founders of the new radical wing of the Narodnaya Volya party.
“He was a very capable, talented child, but in his own way an unhappy person, because as a child he received a very serious spinal injury. Alexander Ulyanov was small in stature, and it always seemed to him that his family did not like him. He graduated from school with a gold medal, arrived study in St. Petersburg. Already in the third year, not yet graduating from the university, he received a gold medal for research in the field of biology, "says journalist Andrey Binev.
The Lenin Museum is a forge of Soviet legends about the heroic life of Ilyich. Behind these walls, the biography of the leader of the proletariat was embellished in every possible way. The politically correct remained, the doubtful was hushed up.
Galina Borodulina has been working at the Lenin Museum for many years, she is engaged in the genealogy of the Ulyanov family.
“There was a special approach to the study of Lenin’s life and work and to the creation of his biography. Actually, this approach was defined. Back in the late 1920s, party historians were interested not so much in Lenin’s personality, not so much in his personal life, as in Lenin’s life in the party. Moreover, they didn’t see any contradictions between the fact that Lenin was the leader of the proletarian revolution and his noble origin, because there were quite a lot of people of noble origin among the leaders of the Communist Party, ”says historian Galina Borodulina.
Skeleton in the closet of the Ulyanov family
Journalist and writer Andrei Binev explored the story of the illegitimate origin of Alexander Ulyanov. In the late 90s, he worked on his own documentary.
"Maria Alexandrovna was born and raised in Kazan, she was a very educated and free woman, with an eye for free love, free relationships. Therefore, many who study her biography and family life assume that she gave birth to children from different husbands, because she followed And it turned out that Maria Alexandrovna and Ilya Nikolaevich slept in different rooms. There was a corridor between them. And the bedroom of the rest of the children went into this corridor. They could not, remaining unnoticed, meet, say, in the same bedroom, it was difficult By the way, this was one of the reasons why such legends were born," says Binev.
Alexander Ulyanov
Writer Larisa Vasilyeva, author of the book "Kremlin Wives", is also involved in replicating the story about the too free behavior of Maria Ulyanova, nee Maria Blank. What was told in the kitchens as a spicy anecdote, Vasilyeva captured on paper. It was she who in 1993 announced that Alexander Ulyanov was the illegitimate son, however, not of the tsar, but of the terrorist Dmitry Karakozov.
"And it is quite possible that Maria Alexandrovna and Dmitry Karakozov did not just meet on the stairs, and her son Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov was born from Karakozov. And since Karakozov attempted on the emperor, somewhere before this attempt he disappeared somewhere from home, quite "perhaps he was near where she gave birth, and quite possibly he saw this child. But he disappeared, and then suddenly, like a bolt from the blue - Dmitry Karakozov encroaches on the emperor. And the persecution of all democratically minded people began, and I think that Maria Alexandrovna lived in fear. I wouldn’t say all this now if one day I didn’t write in The Kremlin Wives that Inessa Armand told Ivan Fedorovich Popov: “The Lenin family had its own secret,” Vasilyeva believes .
Dmitry Karakozov
And that is why, according to Vasilyeva, Sasha Ulyanov suddenly became a terrorist. He learned the truth and wanted to avenge his father, who was executed for an unsuccessful attempt on Alexander II. Dmitry Karakozov accepted execution by hanging in St. Petersburg in 1866.
Although professional researchers are sure that the paternity of the terrorist Karakozov is just a fiction of a writer. The work of Galina Borodulina in the archives showed that Maria Blank and Dmitry Karakozov hardly knew each other.
"Karakozov was familiar with Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, but he left Penza even before Maria Alexandrovna appeared there. He went to study in another city, so they simply could not meet anywhere with Maria Alexandrovna. In 1863, Maria Alexandrovna had already left married Ilya Nikolaevich, the eldest daughter Anna was born in 1864, Alexander was already born in 1866. By the way, those who write about the illegitimate origin of the Ulyanov children are very often confused, claiming that Alexander was the eldest, Anna was the youngest, this is already an indicator of how knowledgeable are the people who compose this kind of version," says Borodulina.
Emperor's illegitimate son
However, whether Blanc and the emperor had a relationship, that's the main mystery. Petersburg, 1887. After Sasha's arrest, Maria urgently travels to the capital from Simbirsk and easily gets an appointment with Alexander III. She is allowed a meeting with a terrorist without delay. Perhaps, indeed, it is not only formalities that bind her and the king?
“Allegedly, Maria Blank, the mother of Vladimir Ilyich, was a maid of honor at the imperial court. I think one example, one fact will suffice here, and there are, in general, a lot of them to prove that this did not happen at all. that the imperial court was a kind of institution, and being a lady-in-waiting of the imperial court meant performing certain official duties.Therefore, documents have been preserved that confirm that there was never a lady-in-waiting Maria Blanc at the imperial court. 1712. Another fact: Alexander III was ten years younger than Maria Alexandrovna, Lenin's mother, she was born in 1835, he - in 1845, Maria Alexandrovna lived in St. Petersburg with her family until 1841. Then the family left Petersburg, and Maria Alexandrovna did not return there until the arrest of her eldest son Alexander," says Galina Borodulina.
Maria Ulyanova, 1931 Photo: ITAR-TASS
And here are the archival documents. An entry from the church book about the marriage between Ilya Ulyanov and Maria Blank - 1863. This is data on the birth of children, first Anna, then Alexander. The version of the journalist Kutenev, published in the newspaper "New Petersburg" in 1995, about the illegitimate son of the emperor is nothing more than a fiction.
Historian Vladimir Lavrov gives another proof of the implausibility of the version of the journalist Kutenev. The origin of Maria Blanc would never have allowed her to become a lady-in-waiting of the imperial court. Such were the realities of tsarist Russia.
“As for Maria Alexandrovna, the mother of Alexander Ilyich and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Her father was a doctor, quite wealthy, absolutely unnoble, and only a noble noblewoman could become a maid of honor. I can say that the hereditary nobility was formalized by Maria Alexandrovna only after the death of her husband, so that receive a good pension. She received it from the tsarist government. During the time of Peter I, there were isolated cases when people of no nobility rose to the heights, but in the second half of the 19th century, it was already a different era, this was not the case, "says Lavrov.
Victim of freethinking
After the death of Alexander II, Alexander III takes the throne. Historians call 13 years of his reign controversial. As they will later write in textbooks, the economic well-being of the country is growing at a high pace. But corruption and humiliation of the working class flourishes. The situation in society also affected the Ulyanovs. Schools for the unprivileged classes, which had once been opened by the father of the family, Ilya Nikolaevich, began to close all over Russia.
Russian Emperor Alexander III with his family. Photo: ITAR-TASS
"The fate of his father, Ilya Nikolayevich, who devoted his whole life to the cause of public education, is very indicative. He was an inspector of public schools in the Simbirsk province, thanks to him new schools were opened and teaching in them was put on the proper level. And the father's example, the facts that spoke about the beginning of a new period in the history of Russia (even if the brutal crackdown on the student demonstration in 1886), I think, led Sasha to reflect. We know that Sasha was familiar with the works of Marx. I think, ultimately, this was the reason that he took an active part in revolutionary activities," says Galina Borodulina.
It is these facts, and not at all the desire to take revenge on the tsar for his supposedly illegitimate origin, that historians call decisive in the fate of Alexander Ulyanov. It took him only a few months to create a circle and start organizing the assassination.
“In principle, a provincial guy from the city of Simbirsk, from an educated family, who lived, I would not say that it was completely in greenhouse conditions, but a little distant from the reality of what is happening, suddenly finds himself in the capital. In the capital, this provincial information vacuum disappears, global information from all over the country falls upon him, newspaper correspondence, discussions, conversations flock here. The institute where he studies is one of the most popular, people from all over the country come to it. All this fell upon the young Alexander, he was a rather impressionable person ". And like any young man, he wanted to solve all problems at once. And with this one and only way that can be solved, it seemed to kill the figure who stood at the head and personified the entire system of the regime. This is how this terrorist attack against Alexander III ripened ", - says the historian Yaroslav Listov.
Another way of Vladimir Ulyanov
There is another secret that was hidden by Soviet propaganda. Before the opening of the archives, it was believed that Alexander Ulyanov did not ask for himself, but it turned out that there was a document. Here is a copy of it: "I ask Your Majesty to replace my death penalty with some other punishment." There is not a drop of remorse in the text, he simply asks not to hurt the mother.
"There are several memories. There is a memory of the lawyer Knyazev, who was present at the same time. There is a memory of Anna Ilyinichna, sister. Naturally, she was aware. Alexander Ilyich asked his mother for forgiveness for the grief caused to her, the family. She asked her son to write a petition Sovereign with a request for pardon. He refused, according to Knyazev, citing the fact that he told his mother: "Just imagine a duel: I shot, my opponent has not shot yet, and I tell him:" Do not shoot, please. However, there was still a petition, but there was no repentance in this petition. He did not repent. mother, my family," says historian Lavrov.
Researchers of the biography of Vladimir Lenin often write that the relationship between the brothers was difficult. But the execution of Alexander decided the fate of Ilyich and the Ulyanov family as a whole: they simply became outcasts in provincial Simbirsk, they were afraid to communicate with them.
“This made a decisive impression on my brother, let’s say. The fact is that he was only 17 years old, a person is just entering life, and an example is when this tragedy occurs in one’s own family, because it is a tragedy twice. The first tragedy is it is that your family member has committed or attempted to commit some atrocity that attracts the attention of the whole society, and, in fact, all family members become handshakes.On the other hand, this is a personal tragedy - the loss of a person with whom he lived, with whom he communicated Lenin drew a conclusion from this, and then he uttered his famous phrase: "We will go the other way" - about the creation of a revolutionary party and the overthrow of the system. Not individuals, but a change in the system. That is, Lenin came to the conclusion that individual terror is useless and meaningless. And we see that it is indeed from this historical period that all individual terror of the Russian Empire comes to naught. That is, the period when it seemed that let's kill the emperor , and everything will be fine, disappears," says Yaroslav Listov.
Royal family, 1907. Photo: ITAR-TASS
However, the historian Listov believes that the myth of kinship with the imperial crown was created by mass popular consciousness for a reason. The reason for the popularity of essentially gossip about an illegitimate son is simple. This is an attempt to bring the person of Lenin closer to the very anointed of God.
“There is a certain family that was given by God to be ruling. And this was especially important for the society of the period of transition from the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union. After all, many myths about ruling dynasties were born there. Imagine, after all, for almost 500 years they said to people: the ruling dynasties are God's anointed ones. These are people who not only ascended the throne, because the political situation developed this way, but because God brought them here, they are, as it were, conductors of divine will. And then suddenly - once - one emperor was killed , the second emperor was killed, then all the emperors were overthrown. And for them it is somehow incomprehensible, but where did the anointed of God go. And therefore we will show: God turned away from these, and here we see that Alexander Ulyanov is the family of the emperor, "- Listov argues.
The execution by hanging of the terrorists of the "Narodnaya Volya" faction took place on May 20, 1887 in the Shlisselburg fortress. In the verdict, the word "hang" is written by hand in front of five names, among them Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov. His mother, nee Maria Blanc, after these events became completely gray-haired.
30 years after this execution, the Romanovs ceased to rule Russia. On the night of July 16-17, 1918, Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Fedorovna, their children, a doctor and servants were killed in the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg. It is still not known for certain whether Vladimir Lenin personally made the decision to execute the royal family.
A noticeable trace in the revolutionary movement of the second half of the 1880s was left by the circle of Ulyanov, Shevyrev, Lukashevich and others. Their program is an attempt to reconcile the theory and practice of Narodnaya Volya with social democracy and to give a "scientific explanation" of terror. The idea of drawing up a program was born in the circle, according to A. Ulyanov, approximately in the second half of December 1886.
Then, having gathered his friends and his sister Anna at the apartment, young Alexander Ulyanov outlined to them his thoughts, which boiled down to the fact that “in the fight against the revolutionaries, the government uses extreme measures of intimidation, therefore the intelligentsia was forced to resort to the form of struggle indicated by the government, that is, terror.
Terror is, therefore, a clash between the government and the intelligentsia, which is deprived of the possibility of a peaceful, cultural influence on public life. Terror must act systematically and, by disorganizing the government, it will have an enormous psychological effect: it will raise the revolutionary spirit of the people ...
The faction stands for the decentralization of the terrorist struggle: let the wave of red terror spread widely and throughout the province, where the system of intimidation is even more needed as a protest against administrative oppression.
In fact, it was a call for mass murder of everyone who did not like the brother and sister Ulyanov. The boys enthusiastically accepted the calls of their twenty-year-old leader and set about preparing the first terrorist attack. To some extent, one can understand these provincial romantics, who lived in an atmosphere of philistinism and despondency. But like this, go out into the streets and start killing people...
First of all, it was decided to kill the king (it was he who was a tasty morsel in the eyes of young people). The original plan to shoot at the king was rejected, they decided to throw bombs. Their preparation required a special room, dynamite, mercury and nitric acid, which at first were prepared in a "home" way. Gerasimov and Andreyushkin expressed their desire to throw bombs.
However, from the day of the first terrorist attacks by the Ishutins, the authorities began to pay close attention to “pale young men with burning eyes,” especially those who excelled at demonstrations. And, in particular, they did not hesitate to peruse their letters. So, once, having opened a letter addressed to a certain Nikitin, the Kharkov police officer almost fell off his chair after reading the following passage: “The most merciless terror is possible in our country, and I firmly believe that it will be, and even in a short time.”
Nikitin was shaken out of the name of a correspondent - a St. Petersburg friend of Andreyushkin, an active member of the faction. The police launched a meticulous operation to identify all actors an impending terrorist attack. They established round-the-clock surveillance of the apartment of the bloodthirsty Andreyushkin and all its visitors. Meanwhile, the gendarmes also received alarming information about the impending assassination attempt, only on February 28, if we trust the most humble report of their chief. On March 1, the Minister of the Interior, Count D. Tolstoy, informed the Tsar: “Yesterday, the head of the St. Petersburg secret department received intelligence through intelligence that a circle of intruders intends to carry out a terrorist act in the near future and that for this purpose these persons have at their disposal projectiles brought to St. Petersburg ready to "come" from Kharkov.
Meanwhile, the terrorists decided to go hunting for the king precisely on March 1, and if the assassination attempt on that day fails and the king goes south, then follow him and kill him along the way. However, even the police remembered this date - March 1 - too memorable for both the government and the revolutionaries, so the head of the Secret Department, without waiting for the tsar's resolution, ordered the immediate arrest of the persons tracked down by the agents, hardly suggesting that these were the terrorists, about who had already been warned.
On March 1, 1887, three students, Osipanov, Andreyushkin and Generalov, were captured with explosive shells on Nevsky
avenue. The “frank testimony” of signalmen arrested at the same time (Kancher and Gorkun) allowed the gendarmes to quickly identify the participants in the terrorist organization and the leading role in it of students Ulyanov and Shevyrev. In total, 25 people were arrested in the very first days of March, and later 49 more people. 15 people were put on trial, and the rest of the cases were resolved in an administrative manner.
The police department immediately compiled a report on the arrest of terrorists and sent it to the tsar with a brief notice of the conspiracy and some biographical information about the arrested, signed by Tolstoy. “This time God saved us,” the tsar wrote at the report, “but for how long? Thanks to all the ranks of the police that do not sleep and act successfully - send everything that you learn more.
At first, the king did not attach much importance to the prank of the students. When “in order to avoid exaggerated rumors” Count Tolstoy on March 1 asked the sovereign for permission to print a special notice, the tsar wrote a resolution on the report: “I absolutely approve, and in general it is advisable not to attach too much of great importance these arrests. In my opinion, it would be better, having learned everything that is possible from them, not to put them on trial, but simply send them to the Shlisselburg fortress without any noise - this is the most severe and unpleasant punishment. Alexander".
However, having become more familiar with the activities of the faction, the king changed his mind. So, he was presented with the “Program of the terrorist faction of the Narodnaya Volya party”, written personally by Alexander Ulyanov. And the first resolution that the tsar put on it was: "This is not even a madman's note, but a pure idiot."
The “final requirements” necessary “to ensure the political and economic independence of the people and their free development” were reduced by Ulyanov to 8 points:
1. A permanent people's government, freely chosen by direct and universal suffrage.
2. Broad local self-government.
3. Independence of the community as an economic and administrative unit.
4. Complete freedom of conscience, speech, press, meetings and movement.
5. Nationalization of land.6. Nationalization of factories, plants and instruments of production.
7. Replacing the standing army with a zemstvo militia.
8. Free initial training.
The main task of the faction was the elimination of Alexander III.
"The purest commune," Alexander III attributed.
When collecting materials, the gendarmes did not stop at any difficulties and were not embarrassed by any means.
As a result, they received detailed testimony from signalmen Kancher and Gorkun. This service was appreciated by the court and by the tsar himself, who, on the death sentence of 15 people presented to him, with a petition for mitigation of punishment for some of the convicts, made the inscription: “Absolutely right, I believe that Kancher and Gorkun could still reduce the punishment for their frank testimony and repentance.
Only ministers, their comrades, members of the State Council, senators and specially listed persons from the highest bureaucracy were allowed to enter the courtroom. In this respect trial in the case of March 1, 1887, he left far behind the trial in the case of March 1, 1881, at which representatives of the press were present during the trial and verbatim records were kept.
The relatives of the defendants were not allowed not only into the courtroom, but also to visit them. So, for example, on the request of Ulyanov's mother to allow her to meet with her son, the following resolution was imposed: "If Mrs. Ulyanov manages to cope, announce that visits are not allowed."
Characteristically, instead of responding to Ulyanova's petition, the director of the police department ordered to respond only in the event of her new appeal.
The Minister of the Interior received a report from the police department on each court session. The Minister of Justice submitted written reports to the Tsar about each meeting. Police Department reports confirm that Senator Dreyer has lived up to expectations. For example, he did not give Ulyanov the opportunity to talk about his attitude towards terror.
The report noted Ulyanov's attempts to defend the defendant Novorussky. He tried to prove that Novorussky could not guess about the manufacture of an explosive in his apartment.
With apparent pleasure, it was reported to the Minister of the Interior that "the speeches of the defenders were short and very decent." This gendarme praise does not do honor to the defenders, but at the same time characterizes the conditions in which the defense was placed.
Of the several dozens prosecuted in the case on March 1, 1887, 15 people were put on trial: Ulyanov Alexander, Osipanov, Andreyushkin, Generalov, Shevyrev, Lukashevich, Novorussky, Ananyina, Pilsudsky Bronislav, Pashkovsky, Shmidova, Kancher, Gorkun, Volokhov and Serdyukova.
Of these defendants, 12 were students. All defendants were sentenced to death, but the Special Presence of the Senate petitioned for eight defendants to commute the death penalty to other punishments. Alexander III approved the death sentence for five convicts, namely: for Ulyanov, Shevyrev, Generalov, Osipanov and Andreyushkin.
An interesting detail: due to the absence of the executioner in St. Petersburg, an encrypted telegram was sent to the Warsaw chief of police with a request to send the executioner on demand, and on April 30 the demand followed: "Send the executioner immediately." Four days later, five sentenced to death and two to life imprisonment were taken from the Trubetskoy bastion to Shlisselburg. The execution took place on May 8th.
On the same day, Count Tolstoy reported in writing to the emperor: “Today in the Shlisselburg prison, according to the verdict of the Special Presence of the Governing Senate, which took place on April 15-19, state criminals were sentenced to death: Shevyrev, Ulyanov, Osipanov, Andreyushkin and Generalov.
According to information reported by Deputy Prosecutor of the St. Petersburg District Court Shcheglovitov, who carried out the sentence of the Senate, the convicted, in view of their transfer to the Shlisselburg prison, assumed that they had been granted a pardon. Nevertheless, when they announced to them half an hour before the execution, namely at 3 1/2 o'clock in the morning, about the upcoming execution of the sentence, they all remained completely calm and refused to confess and receive the holy mysteries.
Due to the fact that the location of the Shlisselburg prison did not provide an opportunity to execute all five at the same time, the scaffold was arranged for three people. The first to be executed were Generalov, Andreyushkin and Osipanov. After hearing the verdict, they said goodbye to each other, kissed the cross and cheerfully entered the scaffold, after which Generalov and Andreyushkin said in a loud voice: “Long live the People’s Will!” Osipanov intended to do the same, but did not have time, as a bag was thrown over him. After removing the corpses of the executed criminals, Shevyrev and Ulyanov were taken out, who also cheerfully and calmly entered the scaffold, and Ulyanov venerated the cross, and Shevyrev pushed the priest's hand away.
On the report, apart from the usual sign about the reading of it by the king, there is no other mark.
The execution of the death sentence and the imprisonment of convicts in hard labor prisons was not the end of extensive clerical work on the process of March 1, 1887, the administrative reprisal against many of the arrested continued, and it began even before the judicial reprisal.
But at the same time, Alexander took up social work: in his first year, he organized a community of students to help the poor, then became a member of the economic circle at the student's "Union of Compatriots", and, apparently, he fell under the influence of radicals here. Together with other students, he took part in the procession dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the death of N. Dobrolyubov. The procession acquired such proportions that the police of St. Petersburg got scared and dispersed the students. This made such a strong impression on Ulyanov that the next morning he burst into a proclamation criticizing the authorities.
Writer Sergei Yesin in his book “Lenin. Death of a Titan" mentions that in last summer During his life, Alexander became interested in reading Marx and other "progressive" economists.
The creation of a revolutionary terrorist cell took place in December 1886, when Alexander got to a meeting of a group formed by Pyotr Shevyrev.
Ulyanov quickly became its ideologue and wrote the Manifesto, in which he declared the main goals: the nationalization of land and enterprises, freedom of speech, self-government, the elimination of the army and the creation of an elected government. At the same time, he proclaimed "merciless terror", "systematic" and "disorganizing" as the main method of achieving these goals. Ulyanov became cement.
The first target for the attack was immediately chosen - the emperor. To buy components for the bomb, Alexander sold the university medal. From the parts that were delivered to him from Kharkov, he made three bombs; one of them was disguised as a book.
Surprisingly, right before the assassination attempt, Pyotr Shevyrev fell ill and went abroad, leaving his comrades-in-arms to finish the job.
When Ulyanov was arrested, the failed terrorist took all the blame, although the gendarmes did not believe it. During interrogations, they tried to find out the role of a certain person with a patronymic Sergeevich, that is, they were looking for adults and dangerous people behind the boys.
