Ilya Ulyanov

Ilya Ulyanov was born in Astrakhan to father, Nikolai Vasilievich Ulyanov (or Ulyanin; 1765–1838), a port-city tailor and a former serf of possible Chuvash or Mordvinian descent,[2] who came from Sergachsky District, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. He received his freedom from a landowner, Stepan Mikhailovich Brekhov. Ilya's mother, Anna Alexeyevna Smirnova (1793–1871), was the daughter of a rich city-dweller Alexei Lukyanovich Smirnov, a son of Lukyan Smirnov. Nikolai married the 30-year-old Anna in 1823. Ilya had three sisters and a brother.[3]

Ilya Ulyanov graduated from Kazan University's Department of Physics and Mathematics in 1854. In the 1850s and 1860s, he taught mathematics and physics at Penza Institute for the Dvoryane, and later at a gymnasium and a school for women in Nizhny Novgorod. Around that time, he married Maria Alexandrovna Blank. While in Penza, Ulyanov conducted meteorological observations, on the basis of which he would write several scientific works.[4]

In 1869, Ulyanov was appointed inspector of public schools in the Simbirsk guberniya (in 1874-1886 he was their director). In 1882, Ulyanov was promoted to the rank of Active State Councillor, which gave him a privilege of hereditary nobility and accompanied with the award of the Order of Saint Vladimir, 3rd Class.[3]

Ilya Ulyanov was a well-educated man with excellent organizational and teaching skills. Some Soviet historians believed that his pedagogical views had been formed under the influence of the revolutionary ideas of Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov. Ulyanov contributed immensely to elaboration of theory and practice of elementary education. He was an advocate of equal rights for education regardless of gender, nationality and social status. In 1871, Ulyanov opened the first Chuvash school in Simbirsk, which would later be transformed into Chuvash teacher's seminar. He also established national schools for Mordvins and Tatars.[5] Furthermore, Ulyanov organized and presided over many teacher's congresses and other events of the similar kind.[1]

In 1886, Ulyanov died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage while in Simbirsk, which was later renamed Ulyanovsk in honor of his son.[3][6]

• Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova, married 1863. Eight children, out of which two died as infants.
  • Anna (1864 – 1935)
  • Aleksandr (1866 – 1887)
  • Olga (1868 – 1869)
  • Vladimir (1870 – 1924)
  • Olga (1871 – 1891)
  • Nikolai (1873 – 1873)
  • Dmitri (1874 – 1943)
  • Maria (1878 – 1937)