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.
And without that it’s not the same good health Nadezhda 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 to 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 a simple point of view everyday relations, but Inessa and Nadezhda remained on good terms. 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 bring Lenin back to active work. 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 Nadezhda Krupskaya’s personal political position.
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 is a 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.
Biography
Nadya Krupskaya grew up in a poor family. Her father, considered “unreliable,” at one time became close to the populists, so the family received a small pension for him. A modest and silent girl, after completing the Bestuzhev courses, began working at an evening school. I memorized German specifically for studying Marxism. Her passion for Marxism quickly acquired the characteristics of fanaticism.
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 the series indirect signs, 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 to Ufa for three years for her revolutionary activities, Nadya decided that serving her 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.
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. A cooking skills The young wife even cut off the appetite of those close to her. 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 together and were inseparable until the death of Vladimir Ilyich. Lenin showed deterioration in health and pronounced signs of illness in early spring 1922. All symptoms pointed to ordinary mental fatigue: severe headaches, weakened memory, insomnia, irritability, increased sensitivity at the 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 Lenin’s misgivings did not leave him, and he made a terrible promise from Stalin: to give him potassium cyanide in the event that a blow suddenly befalls. 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 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..."
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.
KRUPSKAYA (Ulyanova) Nadezhda Konstantinovna participant revolutionary movement, Soviet statesman and party leader, one of the founders of the Soviet public education system, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences (1936), honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1931). Member Communist Party since 1898.
Born into the family of a democratically minded officer. As a student at the Higher Women's Courses in St. Petersburg, from 1890 she was a member of Marxist student circles. In 1891-96 she taught at an evening and Sunday school behind the Nevskaya Zastava, conducted revolutionary propaganda among the workers. In 1894 she met with V.I. Lenin.
In 1895 she participated in the organization and work of the St. Petersburg “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.” In August 1896 she was arrested. In 1898 she was sentenced to exile for 3 years in the Ufa province, which, at her request, was replaced by the village. Shushenskoye, Yenisei province, where Lenin served his exile; here Krupskaya became his wife.
In 1900 she ended her term of exile in Ufa; She taught classes in a workers' circle and trained future Iskra correspondents. After liberation, she came (1901) to Lenin in Munich; worked as secretary of the editorial office of the newspaper Iskra, from December 1904 - to the newspaper Vpered, from May 1905 secretary of the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. In November 1905, she returned to Russia with Lenin; first in St. Petersburg, and from the end of 1906 in Kuokkala (Finland) she worked as secretary of the party Central Committee.
At the end of 1907, Lenin and Krupskaya emigrated again; in Geneva, Krupskaya was the secretary of the newspaper "Proletary", then the newspaper "Social Democrat".
In 1911 he became a teacher at the party school in Longjumeau. From 1912 in Krakow, she helped Lenin maintain connections with Pravda and the Bolshevik faction of the 4th State Duma. At the end of 1913 - beginning of 1914, she participated in organizing the publication of the legal Bolshevik magazine "Rabotnitsa".
Delegate to the 2nd-4th congresses of the RSDLP, participant in party conferences [incl. 6th (Prague)] and responsible party meetings (including the Conference of 22 Bolsheviks) held until 1917.
On April 3 (16), 1917, she returned to Russia with Lenin. Delegate to the 7th April Conference and 6th Congress of the RSDLP(b). Participated in the creation of socialist youth unions. She took an active part in the October Revolution of 1917; through Krupskaya, Lenin transmitted leadership letters to the Central Committee and the St. Petersburg Party Committee, to the Military Revolutionary Committee; being a member of the Vyborg district committee of the RSDLP (b), she worked in it during the days of the October armed uprising.
According to M.N. Pokrovsky, before the October Revolution of 1917, Krupskaya, being Lenin’s closest collaborator, “... did the same thing that real good “deputies” do now,” she relieved Lenin of all current work, saving his time for such large things like “What should I do?” (Memoirs of N.K. Krupskaya, 1966, p. 16).
After the establishment of Soviet power, Krupskaya was a member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR; together with A.V. Lunacharsky and M.N. Pokrovsky, she prepared the first decrees on public education, one of the organizers of political and educational work. In 1918 she was elected a full member of the Socialist Academy of Social Sciences.
In 1919, on the ship "Red Star" she took part in a propaganda campaign through the Volga regions that had just been liberated from the White Guards. Since November 1920, Chairman of the Glavpolitprosvet under the People's Commissariat for Education. Since 1921, chairman of the scientific and methodological section of the State Educational Council (GUS) of the People's Commissariat for Education. She taught at the Academy of Communist Education. She was the organizer of a number of voluntary societies: “Down with Illiteracy”, “Friend of Children”, chairman of the Society of Marxist Teachers. 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 socialist construction; labor and polytechnic education; determination of the content of education; issues of age-related pedagogy; basics of organizational forms of children's communist movement, fostering collectivism, etc.
Krupskaya attached great importance to the fight against child homelessness and neglect, the work of orphanages, and preschool education. 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", "Izba-reading room", etc.
Delegate to the 7th-17th party congresses. From 1924 a member of the Central Control Commission, from 1927 a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of all convocations, deputy and member of the Presidium Supreme Council USSR 1st convocation. Participant in all congresses of the Komsomol (except for the 3rd). Active figure in the international communist movement, delegate to the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th congresses of the Comintern.
Krupskaya is a prominent publicist and speaker. She spoke at numerous party, Komsomol, trade union congresses and conferences, meetings of workers, peasants, and teachers. Author of many works about Lenin and the party, on issues of public education and communist education. Krupskaya's memories of Lenin are the most valuable historical source, covering the life and work of Lenin and many important events in the history of the Communist Party.
She was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. She was buried on Red Square near the Kremlin wall.
Nadezhda Krupskaya to Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova:
(Venedikt Erofeev, “My Little Leniniana”)Still, I feel sorry that I’m not a man, otherwise I’d be hanging around ten times more.
Mom and Dad
Elizaveta Vasilievna Krupskaya, née Tistrova, was very worried that her only daughter was not at all pretty and did not look like her handsome father. The former governess, who successfully married Lieutenant Konstantin Ignatievich, was afraid that Nadenka would not be able to find someone who would covet her exceptional mental abilities and forgive her ordinary appearance.
However, marriage with Krupsky can only be considered a relative success. Having met during his service in Kielce (Poland), the young people fell in love at first sight. There was nothing surprising in this: orphans from impoverished noble families, raised at public expense, she - in the Pavlovsk Military Orphan Institute for Noble Maidens, he - in the Konstantinovsky cadet corps, they were similar in their views on life, in their attitude towards the world, in their aspirations and had a common value system.
The girl Tistrova was distinguished by her cheerful disposition, playfulness and homeliness. Krupsky, with his intelligence and literary abilities, was considered the life of the party. In general, many members of this family were noted for their literary abilities. Here is an excerpt from a petition written by Krupsky to his superiors, in which he insists on his transfer from rebellious Poland. He, a member of the First International, was disgusted by the service obliging him to suppress the national liberation uprising: “From the age of nine, the service separated me from everyone close to my heart, and together with my dear native land, leaving in my soul sweet memories of happy years childhood, picturesque places of my native nest!. About everything that is so dear to everyone! From such circumstances of life, some unbearable melancholy oppresses the soul - my whole body, and the desire to serve native land day by day it takes greater hold of my feelings, paralyzing my thoughts.” Not an official note, but a poem! Elizaveta Vasilievna published the book “Children's Day” in 1874. She devoted 12 quatrains with pictures to discussions about the benefits of work, without once mentioning God.
He managed to escape from Poland by entering the St. Petersburg Military Law Academy. Here, on February 26, 1869, the Krupskys’ daughter Nadezhda was born. After graduating from the academy, Krupsky received the position of head of the district in Grojec (Poland). The family lived in prosperity for three years. But all this time the landowners-latifundists were denouncing the administrator, known for his revolutionary-democratic views. And the matter ended sadly - resignation, trial, ban on living in the capital. An appeal was filed, the consideration of which lasted until 1880. All this time, Nadenka was considered the daughter of a defendant, and this greatly complicated her life: her father could not find a job, and her mother wrote in the sources of payment for her daughter’s education, shameful for that time, “from E.V. Krupskaya’s own funds.” And although Konstantin Ignatievich was acquitted, emotional stress led to a sharp deterioration in his health, weakened by tuberculosis. And the daughter, who was strongly attached to her father, fell ill with signs of a nervous breakdown. This is how her thyroid gland made itself known for the first time.
Having moved to St. Petersburg, the parents sent their daughter to the most advanced educational institution for girls at that time - the Obolenskaya gymnasium, where brilliant representatives of the Russian intellectual elite taught: physicist Kovalevsky, mathematicians Litvinova and Bilibin, collector of Russian folklore Smirnov. And here she was the best student.
The family lived a difficult life - due to the deplorable state of health, the father practically did not work. Friends who were participants in the revolutionary democratic movement helped. Nadya grew up listening to their conversations about the great future of Russia, free from the oppression of tsarism.
On February 26, 1883, Krupsky died. On the birthday of his daughter, who loved him so much.
To make ends meet, Elizaveta Vasilievna took off large apartment, and rented out rooms to telephone operators, seamstresses, students, and paramedics. They lived on the difference. 14-year-old Nadya gave mathematics lessons. In 1887, she graduated from the 8th pedagogical class and received a diploma as a “home tutor.”
A prosperous life did not suit the young girl; she dreamed of continuing her father’s work in the struggle for universal happiness and equality. I even wrote a letter to Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. At this mirror of the future revolution, Nadenka asked about what she should do with herself next, how to benefit the fatherland. I received the answer not from Himself, but from Tatyana Lvovna (interestingly, in just ten years she herself will play the same role at the torch of the future revolution) - the volume of “The Count of Monte Cristo”. What did the writer’s daughter want to say by this, into what abysses should she send her young soul thirsty for social achievement? Nadezhda Konstantinovna approached the matter in detail: she checked the original text with the abridged and simplified Sytin edition for the people, corrected it, removed illogicalities and sent the result of her efforts back to Tolstoy. However, there was no answer.
In 1889 she entered the Bestuzhev courses. She joined the Marxist circle of Mikhail Brusnev.
In spring and summer, mother and daughter Krupsky rented a hut in the Pskov region. They lived on what the peasants gave for the fact that Nadenka worked with their children during field work.
Returning to St. Petersburg, she left her lucrative position as a gymnasium teacher and went to teach for free at a school for working youth behind the Nevskaya Zastava.
At the end of February 1894, at engineer Robert Eduardovich Klasson’s Maslenitsa pancakes, St. Petersburg workers met with the famous Marxist nicknamed “The Old Man,” the author of the sensational brochure “What are “Friends of the People”” in their circles, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. Teacher Nadya was also here. It was these girls who served as conductors of revolutionary ideas from the heated heads of commoners to the souls and hearts of workers who attended charity classes.
Thank you
Thanks to Nadezhda Konstantinovna, education in our country was genderless for 80 years: boys and girls ran races, threw hammers, chopped coal in mines, and solved trigonometry problems. As a result, Russia lost its men. But they still don’t want to do housework.
Ulyanov and Nadezhda began dating. He asked in detail about the life of the working people, their way of life and morals. One day, in order to answer some of the questions, Nadenka dressed up as a weaver and with a friend staged a spy raid into a workers’ dormitory. The oldest member of the “Union for the Liberation of Workers,” in which Ulyanov and Krupskaya were members, Mikhail Silvin, assessed the role of Nadezhda Konstantinovna this way: “She maintained and renewed connections, was the core of our organization.” Ilyich greatly appreciated the information she provided.
When he got sick, the girl looked after him. Her friends cooked, washed, cleaned for the young leader, while she sat by his bed, read aloud, and told the latest news.
Three years have passed. Mom was worried in vain. Having been rejected from the gate when courting Nadya’s friend, also a socialist and teacher, Apollinaria Yakubova, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, in a letter from prison, asked for the hand of his faithful comrade Nadya. “A wife, a wife! “- the revolutionary girl happily agreed.
curious
Krupskaya did not just write pedagogical projects. She meticulously participated in their implementation. Sarkis Nanushyan, a famous Moscow architect who was entrusted with
to design standard buildings for children's institutions, recalled that Nadezhda Konstantinovna specifically met with him several times to discuss the smallest details of the layout of kindergartens and schools.
Volodya
Before the wedding, Nadya was arrested. There were almost no materials for it, but one of the student workers pawned the entire team. Krupskaya received three years of exile in Ufa.
Her mother petitioned for her release, writing in her petition: “My daughter is generally in poor health, very nervous, and has suffered from catarrh of the stomach and anemia since childhood.” The prison doctor also confirmed the deplorable state of the convict’s body, finding it “extremely unsatisfactory.” But this had no consequences.
Ilyich and Krupskaya sent a petition asking them to serve their exile together in Shushenskoye. To get money for the long journey, Elizaveta Vasilievna sold the plot next to her husband’s grave at the Novodevichy cemetery.
The groom found the appearance of the arriving bride “unsatisfactory,” which he wrote to his sister about. Nadenka’s mother was also worried about her unhealthy “paleness.” The girl reassured: “Well, mom, I’m a match for northern nature, there are no bright colors in me.”
At the insistence of the mother-in-law, the wedding took place not according to revolutionary, but according to church canons on July 10, 1898.
Data
Shushenskoye, like Kokushkino, were family estates of the Ulyanov family. The annual income from them ranged from 8 to 17 thousand rubles.
Once a week for the master, the future leader of the revolution, they slaughtered one ram (sheep), one adult wild boar, and 3-5 poultry (turkeys and chickens). From the memoirs of Nadezhda Konstantinovna: “True, lunch and dinner were simple - one week they killed a sheep for Vladimir Ilyich, which they fed him day after day, until he had eaten everything, as soon as he had eaten - they bought meat for the week, the worker in the yard in a trough ... chopped bought meat for cutlets for Vladimir Ilyich, also for a week... In general, the exile went well... In my opinion, he has gotten terribly healthy, and he looks brilliant... One local Polish resident says: “Mr. Ulyanov is always cheerful.” He is terribly interested in hunting, and everyone here is generally an inveterate hunter.”
The exile was paid, according to some sources, 9 rubles. 24 kopecks, according to others - 8 rubles. 17 kopecks per month. During these years in Siberia, a ram cost from 20 to 30 kopecks.
Krupskaya recalled life in Shushenskoye as one of the happiest periods in her life. The mother, who took on all the household chores (and diligently performed them until death), hired a 15-year-old au pair. The funds received by two exiles and the pension of the widow of a collegiate assessor were quite enough for a comfortable existence: books and beloved Volodya were ordered from the capitals mineral water(which, by the way, he received in prison). Nadenka worked in the morning - she corresponded with her comrades who remained in freedom, read newspapers, and prepared excerpts for her husband’s articles. She edited his translation of “The Theory and Practice of English Tradeunianism” by Sidney and Beatrice Webb (translation commissioned, from the publisher, paid). During the day we walked a lot, Ilyich taught his wife to do gymnastics, went boating, cycling, and swam. We went hunting, picked mushrooms and berries. From evening until late at night, my husband sat at his desk.
Throughout their life together, he treated her with the same warmth, tenderness and care as his suddenly deceased beloved sister Olga. There is a lot of evidence of this, especially in Lenin’s correspondence with his relatives. The parents of Ilyich and Krupskaya, who adhered to Narodnaya Volya views, were supporters of the same educational system. It’s not surprising that their children found them so quickly mutual language and throughout their entire life together they understood each other in half a glance, half a word, no. Nadezhda was very friendly with Ilyich’s mother, before last days was best friend his sister Maria.
Neither of them were people without passions. There is evidence that in her youth, Krupskaya accepted the advances of a member of her revolutionary circle, the worker Babushkin, and in exile she became interested in the handsome revolutionary Viktor Konstantinovich Kurnatovsky. But when Lenin was reported about this, and even sister Anna wrote an indignant letter about this, he brushed it off: “This is not the time, Annushka, to engage in all sorts of gossip. We are now faced with grandiose tasks of a revolutionary nature, and you come to me with some kind of womanish talk.”
Ilyich himself once became seriously interested in the beautiful Inessa Armand, the daughter of a French opera singer and the wife of a very rich man. Beauty, she was the exact opposite Nadezhda Konstantinovna. It happened in Lanjumeau, at a school for revolutionary workers. It was a beautiful, passionate romance. Krupskaya offered Lenin a divorce. But he refused, rejected Armand and returned to his revolutionary girlfriend. Do not forget that the beauty had five children from two marriages, and Krupskaya had a mother with a pension as the widow of a collegiate assessor.
There are rumors that the fruit of love between Armand and Lenin, the boy Andrei, was secretly raised and lived his life in the Baltic states. The beauty's relatives even deny the fact of the affair, but letters have been preserved indicating the opposite. After the breakup, from Paris, Inessa wrote to Lenin: “We broke up, we broke up, dear, you and I! And it hurts so much. I know, I feel, you will never come here! Looking at familiar places, I was clearly aware, as never before, of what great place You were still here in Paris, so important in my life that almost all my activities here in Paris were connected by a thousand threads with the thought of you. I wasn’t in love with you at all then, but even then I loved you very much. Even now I would do without kisses, just to see you, sometimes talking to you would be a joy - and it could not hurt anyone. Why was I deprived of this? You're asking if I'm angry that you handled the breakup. No, I think you didn’t do it for yourself...”
Only one thing is known for sure: supporting Vladimir Ilyich, who was losing consciousness in grief, at the coffin of Inessa, who died in Beslan from cholera (Lenin, knowing her problems with tuberculosis, recommended going to the Caucasus. So she went), Nadezhda Konstantinovna vowed to take care of her young children. And she kept her oath: for some time the younger girls grew up in Gorki. Later they were sent abroad. Until her last day, Krupskaya was in intimate correspondence with them. She especially loved the youngest, Inessa, and called her son “granddaughter.”
Teacher
In Shushenskoye, Krupskaya, at the insistence of Ilyich, wrote her first brochure: “Woman Worker.” Here are the lines from it: “A working woman or a peasant woman has almost no opportunity to raise her children, leaving them to fend for themselves all day long.” People's wolf Vera Zasulich highly praised this work, telling Ilyich that it was written “with both paws.” The book was published without the author's signature. And in 1906 it was declared anti-state and publicly destroyed.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna believed: the problem is not to free women from the need to work on an equal basis with men, but to create a system in which maternal, family education is replaced by public education. To this she devoted a significant part of her pedagogical works, which by the end of her life amounted to 11 weighty volumes, and her efforts: after the revolution, as Deputy People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky, it was she who laid the foundations of the Soviet system of children's educational institutions: nurseries, gardens, camps, boarding schools , schools, work colleges. She also took a direct part in the creation of youth—pioneer and Komsomol—organizations. For the latter, by the way, I wrote the charter.
Educational program
Graves' disease is an autoimmune disease, diffuse toxic goiter. This disease got its name in honor of the German doctor Karl Adolf von Basedow, who gave it a complete and accurate description.
Graves' disease is accompanied by an increase in size thyroid gland and an increase in its function due to autoimmune processes occurring in the patient’s body.
The main causes of Graves' disease include:
long-term chronic foci of infection in the body;
hereditary predisposition;
chronic sore throats.
People of all ages are susceptible to the disease, but young and middle-aged women are most often affected. Various viral infections also contribute to the occurrence of toxic goiter.
A specific symptom for Graves' disease is changes in the eyes. When looking down at open eyes appears white stripe above the pupil, although normally the eyelid usually drops with the eyeball. The eyeball appears enlarged and protruded. The eyes shine, they are wide open, blinking is rare. The eyelids may be swollen. Due to malnutrition of the eyeball, different kinds infections and conjunctivitis occurs.
Emigration
After exile, Lenin emigrated to Austria. Nadezhda Konstantinovna and her mother went to Ufa to serve out their sentence. Here she again ended up in the hospital, where the doctor diagnosed “a disease of the endocrine system.”
The first Social Democratic newspaper Iskra began publication. It was published abroad, but money for this was collected in Russia. Notes made in Ilyich’s hand have been preserved: “427 marks 88 pfenings received from Russia (from Ufa).” This money was collected through the efforts of his wife, treasurer of the local Social Democratic organization Krupskaya.
Living in Ufa, Nadezhda Konstantinovna prepared for life in exile. Attended French language courses (3 times a week for an hour, 6 rubles per month). For comparison, her own lessons to students were paid much more: for 6 hours she charged 62 rubles.
The couple united in 1901 in London. The first period of emigration lasted until 1905, the second - from 1907 to 1917.
They lived in Geneva, Lausanne, Vienna, Munich, Longjumeau, and Paris. We spent some time in remote Russian territories– in Finland and Poland. All this time, Krupskaya played the role of an entire secretariat: she corresponded with compatriots, prepared and held congresses and conferences, edited printed publications, acted as a translator and her husband’s personal assistant. She gave lectures to French hatmakers about the role of women in the revolution. Years later, speaking at an evening dedicated to Ilyich’s 50th birthday, the famous revolutionary Olminsky assessed Krupskaya’s performance as follows: “. She did all the menial work, so to speak, she left the cleanest work to him, and all the secret communications, encryption, transport, relations with Russia, she did everything herself. And therefore, when we say that Lenin is a great organizer, I add that Lenin, with the help of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, is a great organizer.”
The couple usually spent their summers in European mountain resorts: the Alps, the Tatras. This was required by Krupskaya’s poor health: she was tormented by attacks of arrhythmia. In 1912, the situation worsened, and the question of an operation arose. The funds made it possible to do this with the best European specialist - Dr. Kocher Berne. For a while the disease subsided.
In 1915, Krupskaya’s mother died, and the family faced an acute crisis. financial issue. Long years It was her pension that served as the main source of livelihood. I had to look for lessons and translations. But in her letters, Krupskaya refutes rumors both about fattening at government expense and about a hungry existence: “We didn’t know the need when you don’t know what to buy bread with.”
In power
The Bolsheviks learned about the revolution that would bring them to power from the morning Parisian newspapers. The return to Russia was triumphant, but the holiday did not last long. And although a few months later the party took the leadership of the country into its own hands, all subsequent years were complicated not only by wars, famine and devastation, but also by intra-factional struggle.
The main problem for Krupskaya during these years was Ilyich’s health. Beginning in 1918, doctors periodically forbade him to work altogether - the general overwork of his weak body became increasingly worse and affected his intellectual abilities. And then ridiculous notes from him flew to the authorities. 1919: “Inform the Scientific and Food Institute that in 3 months they must provide accurate and complete data on the practical success of producing sugar from sawdust.” 1921, to Lunacharsky: “I advise you to put all theaters in a coffin.” Taking care of her husband, and herself tormented by attacks of chronic illnesses, Nadezhda Konstantinovna foresaw the end and last minute life of a beloved comrade held his hand in hers.
After Lenin's death, she devoted herself entirely to government work. The productivity of this elderly, unhealthy woman is amazing: in 1934 she wrote 90 articles, held 90 speeches and 178 meetings, viewed 225 letters and responded to them. One month was lost due to hospitalization, one month due to restorative rest.
Death
The year 1939 came - the year of her 70th birthday. At the next party congress, she was preparing to speak out condemning the punitive policies of Stalinism.
She celebrated her birthday in Arkhangelskoye. Stalin sent a cake - it was known that after Ilyich’s death, Nadezhda Konstantinovna stopped playing sports, did not take too much care of her appearance and often spoiled herself with cakes. There is a version that the cake was poisoned. But it is refuted by the fact that the old Bolsheviks in Arkhangelsk ate it together with the birthday girl.
At night she became ill - her appendicitis worsened. They called the doctors, but the NKVD arrived. Only a few hours later, Krupskaya was examined by specialists and urgently hospitalized. Appendicitis was complicated by peritonitis, inflammation of the peritoneum. General health and age did not allow surgical intervention. On the night of February 26-27, a fateful date for her fate, Nadezhda Konstantinovna died.
The urn with ashes was carried personally by Comrade Stalin to the burial place - the Kremlin wall.
Elena Kurasova
P.S. Krupskaya replaced Lenin's deceased sister Olga, with whom they dreamed of making a revolution together. That’s why he was so faithful to her. I understood one thing for sure: a woman even made a revolution in this country.
Krupskaya turned out to be probably the most mysterious character in Russian history over the last century. She herself wrote about her life. In Soviet times, her biography was corrected to be glossy and ideal. After the 1990s, this gloss began to be thrown into the mud, and as thoroughly as it was previously bleached. So who was this woman?
Biography of Lenin's wife
Born on February 14 (26), 1869 in a family of poor nobles. Father - Konstantin Ignatievich Krupsky - lawyer. Mother - Elizaveta Vasilievna Tistrova - governess.
About father for a long time they wrote that he was a revolutionary, in his youth he supported the participants in the Polish uprising of 1863. Perhaps this was the case, if not for a nuance: he became the head of the district in Groetz (Poland) after graduating from the St. Petersburg Military Law Academy. It is difficult to reconcile such views with the type of profession. True, they say, because of his worldview, he received his resignation and trial. But it is not known for certain.
There was no big money in the family, although only daughter They took care of her and sent her to a gymnasium, about which there is great disagreement between former historians and current ones.
Large online library They once wrote that Krupskaya was an excellent student at the gymnasium and graduated in 1887 with a gold medal. But Nadezhda Konstantinovna herself writes in the book “My Life” that studying was always difficult, they taught in the gymnasium was boring, it was difficult to understand, etc. And no one has ever seen her gold medal, and there are no gymnasium friends who would later (in Moscow or in exile) talk about studying together. Therefore, the fact that she graduated from the gymnasium, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna later worked there as a teacher, is fair, but there is no evidence of a medal.
Everything is for you Next, Bestuzhev courses in St. Petersburg. The girl stayed there for two months, but for some reason she considered the Marxist circle and teaching at an evening school for workers more important higher education. I did this work for 5 years, until my first arrest.
A friend from the circle introduced her. His passion for Marx's ideas and ability to convince others impressed me. And he paid attention to her, although she was not a beauty. Still, we believe that Nadezhda Konstantinovna had high intelligence, despite her incomplete education.
Revolutionary
1896 Arrest and exile to Ufa. At the same time, Vladimir Ulyanov was also exiled to Shushenskoye. He and Krupskaya’s mother, with whom the girl went to Siberia, wrote many letters to the authorities so that she would be allowed to serve exile in Shushenskoye in connection with the wedding. By the way, the plot where my father’s grave was located was sold to raise money. The Ulyanovs got married in a church marriage in 1898. In the same year she joined the RSDLP.
UA Modna In 1917, having returned to Russia, Krupskaya was actively preparing the October Revolution. Later she stood at the origins of the Komsomol and the pioneer organization (having studied the scout movement in Europe, she considered that it would fit perfectly into Russian reality, having changed to suit the interests of the Bolsheviks).
Her next concern was education. In 1917, Krupskaya became a member of the State Education Commission. In 1924 - a member of the Central Committee of the Party, since 1929 - Deputy People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR, one of the creators of the Soviet public education system.
UA Modna However, it is difficult to evaluate this activity only with a plus or a minus. Not having her own children, Krupskaya spent her love and energy on children in general, regardless of origin and nationality. She cared about their lives and how to make their mothers' lives easier. At the same time, she criticized Makarenko’s system, based on education through labor, arguing that communist ideology is more important. She was outraged by fairy tales, not understanding the importance of magic and fantasy for children.
Social activity
After Lenin’s death, Krupskaya tried to somehow resist the decisions, but gave up quite quickly. She supported Zinoviev and Kamenev, and then considered her opinion erroneous. She tried to ask for Lenin’s repressed comrades, but there was no result, and it cannot be said that she had no influence, no will to achieve her goal - perhaps so.
| TVNZ In the 1930s, she saw how persecution began not only against “enemies of the people”, but also against their children, she tried to resist, but she was removed from work and sent to library work, which is what she did, and again wrote about her husband, reviewed films about him.
N.K. Krupskaya contributed a lot to the opening of museums, for example Lermontov in Tarkhany. She was elected to committees related to childhood. In 1937, she was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st convocation and received the degree of Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences.
Nadezhda Krupskaya in last years| Everything is for you She died at an old age in 1939, but her death happened strangely: immediately after her birthday, which was celebrated on a grand scale. Suddenly peritonitis developed, but for some reason the operation was not performed.
And if she had known in advance where she would be buried, she would also have been indignant: Krupskaya’s ashes were placed in the Kremlin wall on Red Square, but she was even against Lenin being in the Mausoleum, and more than once turned to Stalin with a request to bury her husband in the cemetery, "humanly".
Krupskaya's career
Be that as it may, Nadezhda Konstantinovna gained fame because she was married to a man who managed to shift the centuries-old Russian world order. And Lenin’s wife is her main advantage.
Tradition Political career Krupskaya - the ability to be everything to her husband: a friend, an assistant, an adviser, support, a “stone wall.” However, it should still be noted that Krupskaya herself was quite a wise woman.
She did not completely dissolve into a man, as most wives of geniuses do, as the Kremlin wives behaved, but she forced those around her to reckon with herself. By the way, Vladimir Ilyich himself understood this very well.
TVNZ When Krupskaya realized that her personal life was not working out, there would be no children, her husband had a mistress, Inessa Armand, she did not do any harm, create scenes, offered to break up and even remained on friendly terms with Armand, then babysat her grandson. Here, after weighing all the pros and cons, Lenin (a great analyst, by the way) refused to get a divorce and preferred Krupskaya, breaking up with Inessa, although he loved Armand and was very shocked by her death.
Personal life
We are accustomed to seeing Krupskaya in numerous photographs as a rather scary, plump woman with bulging eyes. Graves' disease spoiled her appearance and, as modern doctors believe, did not allow her to have children. But this was not always the case.
Young Krupskaya was a sweet girl, quite determined and purposeful. The quiet life of a high school teacher or governess did not suit her at all. She wanted to remake the world, just as Marx wanted.
Large online library A friend of A. Yakubova introduced her to her future husband, to whom, by the way, Ulyanov proposed, but was refused. Nadezhda could not have been unaware of this, but she chose him as her husband and was not mistaken. And she acted very wisely, like a woman: she showed him her passion for Marxism (much like a smart wife today enthusiastically watches football with her husband or goes ice fishing with him), and then “fed” her mother some pickles. Krupskaya herself never knew how to cook and did not want to learn; she did nothing except make omelettes and scrambled eggs. And Elizaveta Vasilievna tried! And this continued until her death.
Everything is for you Another girl would worry about her appearance. Perhaps Nadezhda was also worried, and probably cried when future husband he came up with secret nicknames for her: “Fish”, “Lamprey”, and his relatives generally said that she had a “herring look” because of her bulging eyes due to a disease. But in real life no one found out about this!
She married him and became the “first lady” of the new state, taking on an important function - educating the younger generation in the spirit of communism, i.e. she thought broadly and looked far ahead, even if Golden medal The gymnasium did not exist at all. And you never know what else Interesting Facts History has hidden from us about Krupskaya.
Krupskaya occupied a special place in the Soviet leadership. As one of the ordinary communists innocently noted: “The party loves Nadezhda Konstantinovna not because she is a great person, but because she is a close person to our great Lenin...”.
How did Krupskaya die?
Magazine: Secrets of the USSR No. 8, November 2017
Category: Kremlin funeral
Nadezhda Krupskaya could not seriously influence the policy of the USSR. But, as the widow of the founder of the state, she was an untouchable figure.
Family of revolutionaries
Lenin and Krupskaya met in 1894, and a little over a year later they were arrested as members of the St. Petersburg “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.” The church marriage took place in July 1898, while serving exile in Shushenskoye.
Soon, Lenin’s mother asked her daughter-in-law in a letter “when to expect the chicks.” She laconicly replied that “there will be no chicks.” Krupskaya could not have children, apparently due to complications caused by Graves' disease. This same disease is not better side changed her appearance.
When Lenin was struck by the first blow in May 1922, Nadezhda Konstantinovna devotedly looked after her husband and informed him about events in the party. It was from her that Lenin learned about the “Great Russian holdouts”, the Georgian Ordzhonikidze and the Pole Dzerzhinsky, who so energetically opposed the separatists from Tiflis that they even hit one of them in the face.
Lenin rained down thunder and lightning on the Derzhimorords, and Stalin, who sympathized with them, called Krupskaya and scolded her for poorly protecting the peace of the party leader.
In response to Krupskaya’s remark that she, as a wife, knew better the needs of her husband, Stalin flared up: “We’ll see what kind of Lenin’s wife you are.”
Ilyich, having learned about the conflict, sent him an angry message, demanding to “take back what he said and apologize.” Stalin, of course, apologized and never tried to challenge the status of Lenin’s wife, although at the XIV Congress (1925) she supported “ new opposition"Trotsky and Zinoviev. The opposition was defeated, and after that Krupskaya no longer deviated from the “general line” pursued by Stalin.
Last holiday
In the early 1960s, writer Galina Serebryakova asked Stalin’s former secretary Poskrebyshev: “Why did Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya die so suddenly?” He hesitated and said: “You can’t even imagine how often the “master” resorted to poison as a proven means of eliminating people he disliked.”
But was Krupskaya dangerous for Stalin? On the one hand, people close to her said that she planned to criticize the repressive system by speaking at the XVIII Congress of the CPSU (b), which was supposed to open on March 10, 1939. On the other hand, Krupskaya’s friend Anna Kravchenko recalled how she visited her shortly before her death. “I asked, hugging her, how she was preparing for the convention. She sadly noted that the speech she had planned would not help the cause, that she probably would not speak at all.”
Stalin had reason to fear that Krupskaya would raise the topic of repression, but this did not pose a threat to him. It was quite easy to convince the old sick woman not to make an escapade. Krupskaya was not pushed into the background. Her not very graceful figure was constantly present in information field. And the press periodically recalled the approaching 70th anniversary of Lenin’s widow.
On her birthday - February 26 - Krupskaya decided to take a day off, and on the 23rd she appeared at her workplace for the last time.
She wrote letters, called, received visitors, and then left for a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars. In the evening, together with her secretary Vera Dridzo, she left Moscow, going by car to the Arkhangelskoye holiday home. On the way she joked and laughed.
On Sunday morning I corrected the transcript of my report from two weeks ago, and in the evening I decided to celebrate the anniversary, although they say that it’s a birthday ahead of schedule- Bad sign. There were about thirty guests, including the spouses Gleb and Zinaida Krzhizhanovsky, who were witnesses at their wedding with Lenin, and the brother of her late husband, Dmitry Ulyanov.
The main food was Moscow dumplings. Alcohol - wine and champagne. The most intriguing thing is the dessert. Stalin sent a cake and frozen strawberries for the anniversary.
Krupskaya tried a little of everything and took a sip of champagne. The atmosphere was quite cheerful and relaxed. But at about 7 p.m. the birthday girl began to feel ill.
Later, a version arose that the gifts sent by Stalin were poisoned. But besides Krupskaya, others present tried them, and no one felt bad. Although theoretically the birthday girl could have been given a poisoned piece or berry.
Called “emergency” by telephone from the Kremlin hospital, Associate Professor Kogan took 3.5 hours to travel, and it is unclear what the doctors on duty at the rest home were doing during that time. Having arrived; measured blood pressure and pulse. I gave him a stimulating injection and put a heating pad on his stomach. Since there was no improvement, I called two more professors for consultation, who reached Arkhangelsk in just 1.5 hours. The consultation diagnosed him with appendicitis.
Incurable appendicitis
At four o'clock in the morning on February 25, Krupskaya was taken to the Great Kremlin Hospital. The diagnosis of appendicitis was confirmed, and since heating pads were contraindicated for such an illness, they began putting ice on her stomach, which, however, did not improve her condition.
For appendicitis the only way treatment consisted of surgery. But the doctors were not going to perform the operation at all, citing the fact that Krupskaya’s heart might not withstand it.
Krupskaya did not know that her sentence had already been signed. On the evening of February 25, having come to her senses, she said that “let the doctors there say whatever they want, but I’ll go to the congress.” Meanwhile, Dmitry Ulyanov, who visited her in the evening, told the family to go to Krupskaya tomorrow to say goodbye.
On February 26, her birthday, Nadezhda Konstantinovna suffered from sharp abdominal pain. At 17:30, doctors sent a report to the Kremlin. “The patient is still in a state close to unconsciousness. Significant blueness. Coldness of the extremities. Sticky sweat. The pulse is arrhythmic... The general condition remains extremely serious, which does not exclude the possibility of an imminent sad outcome.” Krupskaya’s last words were a question addressed to the secretary: “What in the world is going on?”
On February 27, at 5:55, the agony began, and at 6:15, “with symptoms of cardiac paralysis,” Krupskaya died.
Reports of her death appeared in the newspapers the next day. They decided to bury Krupskaya through cremation, fashionable among the party leadership, followed by walling up the urn with ashes in the Kremlin wall. A niche for the urn was prepared on the left side of the columbarium - after the niches with the ashes of Lenin’s sister Maria Ilyinichna (with whom Krupskaya was friends) and Valery Chkalov, who died during the tests. A little over two months later, Krupskaya’s “neighbor” became the hero of the war in Spain, Anatoly Serov, an aviator who died during testing.
The farewell ceremony took place on March 1 in the Column Hall of the House of Unions. Stalin was among those who, accompanied by funeral music, stood at Krupskaya’s coffin as a guard of honor, and the next day carried an urn containing her ashes to the Kremlin wall. All those close to him walked with him, including Molotov, Kalinin, Voroshilov. To the sounds of the “Internationale,” the urn was placed in a niche and walled up with a board with the name, dates of birth and death of the deceased. Then they decorated it with wreaths and mourning ribbons. The most beautiful ribbon was from the Council of People's Commissars with the inscription: “To an ardent fighter for the cause of communism, to the closest assistant of the great Lenin.”
Initially, instead of “closest assistant” there was “closest friend”. Stalin personally corrected the text.
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