Nadezhda Krupskaya (Politician) - Pics, Videos, Dating, & News Nadezhda Krupskaya Female Born Feb 26, 1869 Nadezhda Konstantinovna "Nadya" Krupskaya was a Bolshevik revolutionary and politician. She married the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin in 1898. She was deputy minister (Comissar) of Education in 1929â1939, Doctor of Education. related links The Last Day Of The Soviet Union Irish Times Google News - Aug 13, 2011 'No leader&#39;s spouse played a public role in Soviet life before, except Lenin&#39;s wife, <mark>Nadezhda Krupskaya</mark>, who was a revolutionary and a member of the Politburo in her own right.

Yeltsin trumpeted to aides that Raisa had no business going with Gorbachev' Theater; A Glimmer Of Satire Amid Freedom's Obscurities NYTimes - Dec 17, 2000 'IN Prague, the best theater so far this season has not been in a theater, but in a castle. And spectacular theater it was. Consider the dramatist: Vaclav Havel. A heroic dissident and his country\'s leading playwright, today he is the president of the new Czech Republic. All the world\'s his stage now. So in October, for the fourth time in his' St. Petersburg Journal; City That Defeated Hitler Remembers Its Fallen NYTimes - Jan 29, 1994 'Aleksandr I. Yakovlev can still clearly hear the explosions his father set off to blast the ice-bound earth, and the dull ring of the frozen bodies as they were thrown into the rough graves. \"They brought them daily from the whole city, the dead,\" he recalled. \"They were piled up there by the road, mountains of them, higher than that memorial.' Vote?

Anger Pierces Russia's Suffering Heartland NYTimes - Dec 08, 1993 'Two old women walked past, bent by age and thickly bundled in worn quilted cotton and huge felt boots, but moving surprisingly fast through the carpet of new snow. \"So babushka, \'everyone to the elections,\' right?\" said a passer-by, invoking the old Soviet slogan that used to insure turnouts of 99 percent and better for an unopposed Communist' Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Nadezhda Krupskaya. CHILDHOOD 1869 Birth Born in 1869. TWENTIES 1894 25 Years Old Krupskaya first met Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (later known as Vladimir Lenin) in 1894 at a similar discussion group. … Read More Krupskaya was impressed by his speeches but not his personality, at least not at first. It is hard to know very much of the courtship between Lenin and Krupskaya as neither party spoke often of personal matters.

Read Less 1896 27 Years Old In October 1896, several months after Lenin was arrested, Krupskaya was also arrested. … Read More After some time, Lenin was sentenced to exile in Siberia. They had very little communication while in prison but before leaving for Siberia, Lenin wrote a "secret note" to Krupskaya that was delivered by her mother. It suggested that she could be permitted to join him in Siberia if she told people she was his fiancÃ©e. At that time, Krupskaya was still awaiting sentencing in Siberia. Read Less 1898 29 Years Old In 1898, Krupskaya was permitted to accompany Lenin but only if they were married as soon as she arrived. … Read More In her memoirs, Krupskaya notes "with him even such a job as translation was a labour of love". Her relationship with Lenin was more professional than marital, but she remained loyal, never once considering divorce.<br /><br /> Krupskaya is believed to have suffered from Graves' disease, an illness affecting the thyroid gland in the neck which causes the eyes to bulge and the neck to tighten.

It can also disrupt the menstrual cycle, which may explain why Lenin and Krupskaya never had children.<br /><br /> Upon his release, Lenin went off to Europe and settled in Munich where Krupskaya later met up with him upon her release (1901). After she had arrived the couple moved to London.<br /><br /> Krupskaya's political life was active: she was anything but a mere functionary of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from 1903. Read Less THIRTIES 1902 33 Years Old Leon Trotsky, who was working closely with Lenin and Krupskaya from 1902-1903, writes in his autobiography ("My Life", 1930) of the central importance of Krupskaya in the day-to-day work of the RSDLP and its newspaper, Iskra. "The secretary of the editorial board Iskra was Lenin's wife She was at the very center of all the organization work; she received comrades when they arrived, instructed them when they left, established connections, supplied secret addresses, wrote letters, and coded and decoded correspondence.

… Read More In her room there was always a smell of burned paper from the secret letters she heated over the fire to read " Read Less 1905 36 Years Old Krupskaya became secretary of the Central Committee in 1905; she returned to Russia the same year, but left again after the failed revolution of 1905 and worked as a teacher in France a couple of years. FORTIES 1917 48 Years Old After the October Revolution in 1917, she was appointed deputy to Anatoliy Lunacharskiy, the People's Commissar for Education, where she took charge of Vneshkol'nyi Otdel the Adult Education Division. FIFTIES 1920 51 Years Old She became chair of the education committee in 1920 and was the deputy education commissar (government minister) from 1929 to 1939. … Read More Krupskaya was instrumental in the foundation of Komsomol and the Pioneer movement as well as the Soviet educational system itself, including the censorship and political indoctrination within it.

She was also fundamental in the development of Soviet librarian-ship. Read Less 1924 55 Years Old Krupskaya became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1924, a member of its control commission in 1927, a member of the Supreme Soviet in 1931 and an honorary citizen in 1931. … Read More Krupskaya apparently favored Stalin in the great debates between the Left Opposition and the CPSU majority of the 1920s. Read Less Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya | Soviet politician | Britannica.com Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, (born Feb. 14 [Feb. 26, New Style], 1869, St. Petersburg , Russia —died Feb. 27, 1939, Moscow , Russia, U.S.S.R.), revolutionary who became the wife of Vladimir I .

Lenin , played a central role in the Bolshevik (later Communist) Party, and was a prominent member of the Soviet educational bureaucracy . A Marxist activist in St. Petersburg in the early 1890s, Krupskaya met Lenin about 1894. She was arrested in August 1896, and, when sentenced in 1898 to three years of exile, she obtained permission to spend her term with Lenin, who was then in exile in Shushenskoye, Siberia. On July 10 (July 22, New Style), 1898, Krupskaya and Lenin were married. In 1901, after serving her term, Krupskaya joined Lenin (who had finished his sentence in 1900) in Munich. She subsequently settled with him in several European cities, returning briefly to Russia in 1905. Despite her ill health she served as Lenin’s personal secretary as well as editorial secretary for his party newspapers and journals.

She supported him in his factional feuds within the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party , helped found the Bolsheviks, and assumed a large degree of responsibility for organizing its members inside Russia. Returning to Russia after the February Revolution of 1917, Krupskaya spread Bolshevik propaganda , carried messages from Lenin to his colleagues while he was hiding in Finland (July–October), and, after the Bolsheviks seized power (October 1917), became a member of the collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Education. After Lenin’s death (1924), Krupskaya joined Joseph Stalin’s opponents but later dissociated herself from the opposition and remained formally aloof from the intraparty struggles. She continued to serve the party, although her influence was never restored, and her memoirs, Vospominaniya o Lenine (1957; “Recollections of Lenin”), were criticized for erroneously depicting Lenin; her publications on education, Pedagogicheskive sochineniya, 11 vol. (1957–63; “Pedagogical Works”), were also condemned for conveying mistaken concepts of education and political training.

Learn More in these related articles: Nadezhda Krupskaya Nadezhda Krupskaya ▼ Primary Sources ▼ Nadezhda Krupskaya Nadezhda Krupskaya, the daughter of a military officer, was born in St. Petersburg on 26th February, 1869. A radical from an early age, Krupskaya was a committed Marxist and was the member of several illegal organizations. Krupskaya taught in an evening school for adults and in 1894 met fellow revolutionary, Lenin . Two years later Lenin was arrested and sentenced to three years internal exile in Siberia . Krupskaya joined Lenin in Shushenskoye and they married in July, 1898. While living in exile Lenin and Krupskaya also translated from English to Russian, The Theory and Practice of Trade Unionism by Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb . Released in February, 1900, Krupskaya, Lenin and Jules Martov decided to leave Russia.

They moved to Geneva where they joined up with George Plekhanov , Pavel Axelrod and other members of the Liberation of Labour to publish Iskra (Spark). The paper was named after a passage from a poem: "The spark will kindle a flame". Others who joined the venture included Gregory Zinoviev , Leon Trotsky and Vera Zasulich . Another revolutionary, Clara Zetkin , arranged for Iskra to be printed in Leipzig, Germany . At the Second Congress of the Social Democratic Labour Party in London in 1903, there was a dispute between Lenin and Julius Martov . Lenin argued for a small party of professional revolutionaries with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters. Martov disagreed believing it was better to have a large party of activists. Martov won the vote 28-23 but Lenin was unwilling to accept the result and formed a faction known as the Bolsheviks . Those who remained loyal to Martov became known as Mensheviks .

Those who joined the Bolsheviks included Krupskaya, Gregory Zinoviev , Joseph Stalin , Anatoli Lunacharsky , Mikhail Lashevich , Alexei Rykov , Yakov Sverdlov , Mikhail Frunze , Maxim Litvinov , Vladimir Antonov , Felix Dzerzhinsky , Gregory Ordzhonikidze , and Alexander Bogdanov. During the First World War Krupskaya and Vladimir Lenin lived in Switzerland. After the overthrow of Nicholas II in April, 1917, they returned to Russia. Lenin now joined with Leon Trotsky in plotting against the government being led by Alexander Kerensky . When the Provisional Government collapsed in October, Lenin and the Bolsheviks took control of Russia. Krupskaya had opposed Lenin's calls for an early revolution but after its success she hid her political differences with her husband. In November, 1917, Krupskaya was appointed to serve under Anatoli Lunacharsky as Deputy People's Commissar of Education and Enlightenment. Nadezhda Krupskaya and Vladimir Lenin in 1922.

Lenin's health declined after being shot by Dora Kaplan on 30th August, 1918. Two bullets entered his body and it was too dangerous to remove them. Lenin suffered a stroke in May, 1922 and a second one in December, 1922. Four days later he dictated his famous 'testament' where he assessed all the main party leaders. Three days after writing this testament Lenin had a third stroke. Lenin was no longer able to speak or write and although he lived for another ten months, he ceased to exist as a power within the Soviet Union. Krupskaya published her memoirs, Reminisces on Lenin in 1926. Nadezhda Krupskaya died on 27th February, 1939.

Krupskaya, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Encyclopedia > History > Biographies > Russian, Soviet, and CIS History: Biographies Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya Krupskaya, Nadezhda Konstantinovna (nŭdyĕˈzhdə kənstŭntyēˈnəvnə krōpˈskəyə) [ key ], 1869–1939, Russian revolutionary and educator, wife of Lenin . Krupskaya was a Marxist agitator for 25 years before the Russian Revolution in Oct., 1917; she married Lenin in 1898, while both were serving terms in exile. After her release in 1901, she was active in organizing the Bolsheviks and spreading the movement's propaganda. After the Bolsheviks seized power, she became a member of the People's Commissariat of Education. She helped develop systems of education that offered both academic and professional training and provided education to women and workers. At first an opponent of Stalin, Krupskaya later remained above party politics.

See her Pedagogical Works (11 vol., 1957–63). The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. Nadezhda Krupskaya - Metapedia Nadezhda Krupskaya [ O.S. 14 February] 1869 – February 27, 1939) [1] was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and politician. She married the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin in 1898. She was deputy minister (Comissar) of Education in 1929–1939, Doctor of Education. Contents 9 External links Early life She was born to an upper-class , but impoverished, family. Her father was a Russian military officer , a nobleman of the Russian Empire . Nadya’s father, Konstantin Ignat’evich Krupski , was orphaned in 1847 at nine years of age. He was educated and given a commission as an infantry officer in the Russian Army. Just before leaving for his assignment in Poland he married Nadya’s mother.

After six years of service, Krupski lost favor with his supervisors and was charged with “un-Russian activities.” He may have been suspected of being involved with revolutionaries. Following this time, he worked in factories or wherever he could find work until later in life when he was recommissioned just before his death. [2] Her mother, Elizaveta Vasilyevna Tistrova was the daughter of landless Russian nobles . Elizaveta’s parents died when she was young and she was enrolled in the Bestuzhev Courses , which happened to be the highest formal education available to women in Russia during this time. After earning her degree Elizaveta went on to work as a governess for noble families until she married Krupski. [3] Having parents who were well educated, and of aristocratic descent, combined with firsthand experience with lower class working conditions probably led to the formation of many of Nadya’s ideologies .

“From her very childhood Krupskaya was inspired with the spirit of protest against the ugly life around her.” [4] One of Nadya’s friends from gymnasium , Ariadne Tyrkova, described Krupskaya as “a tall, quiet girl, who did not flirt with the boys, moved and thought with deliberation, and had already formed strong convictions … She was one of those who are forever committed, once they have been possessed by their thoughts and feelings….” [5] Nadya breifly attended two different secondary schools before finding the perfect fit with Prince A.A. Obolensky 's Female Gymnasium, “a distinguished private girls’ secondary school in Petersburg .” This education was probably more liberal than most other gymnasiums since it was noted that some of the staff were former revolutionaries. [6] After her father’s death, Krupskaya and her mother gave lessons as a source of income. Krupskaya had expressed an interest in entering the education field from a young age. She was particularly drawn to Tolstoy ’s theories on education , which were fluid instead of structured.

They focused on the personal development of each individual student and centered on the importance of the teacher-student relationship. [7] This led Krupskaya to study many of Tolstoy’s works, including his theories of reformation. These were peaceful, law abiding ideologies, which focused on people abstaining from unneeded luxuries and being self-dependent instead of hiring someone else to tend your house, etc. Tolstoy had a lasting impression on Krupskaya, since it was said she had “a special contempt for stylish clothes and comfort.” [8] She was always modest in dress, as were her furnishings in her home and office. Krupskaya with her husband, Vladimir Lenin , 1919. As a devoted, lifelong student, Krupskaya began to participate in several discussion circles. These groups got together to study and discuss particular topics for the benefit of everyone involved. It was later, in one of these circles, that Krupskaya was first introduced to the theories of Marx . This piqued her interest as a potential way of making life better for her people. Krupskaya began an in-depth study of the subject. This was difficult since such books had been banned by the Russian government.

Consequently, revolutionaries had been collecting such books and keeping them in underground libraries. Married life It was at a similar discussion circle that Krupskaya first met Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov , a dedicated Marxist who later came to be called Lenin . Krupskaya was impressed by his speeches but not his personality, at least at first. It is hard to know very much of the courtship between Lenin and Krupskaya as neither party spoke often of personal matters. In October 1896, several months after Lenin was arrested, Krupskaya was also arrested. After some time, Lenin was sentenced to exile in Siberia . They had very little communication while in prison but before leaving for Siberia, Lenin wrote a "secret note" to Krupskaya that was delivered by her mother. It suggested that she could be permitted to join him in Siberia if she told people she was his fiancée . At that time, Krupskaya was still awaiting sentencing in Siberia. Krupskaya was permitted to accompany Lenin but only if they were married as soon as she arrived. In her memoirs, Krupskaya notes "with him even such a job as translation was a labour of love".

[9] Her relationship with Lenin was more professional than marital, which Kollontai compared to slavery, but she remained loyal, never once considering divorce . Krupskaya is believed to have suffered from Graves' disease , [10] an illness affecting the thyroid gland in the neck which causes the eyes to bulge and the neck to tighten. In female sufferers, it can also disrupt the menstrual cycle , which may explain why Lenin and Krupskaya never had children (and the rumors about Lenin having an affair with Inessa Armand [ citation needed ]). Upon his release, Lenin went off to Europe and settled in Munich where Krupskaya later met up with him upon her release (1901). After she had arrived the couple moved to London . Political career Krupskaya's political life was active: she was a functionary of the bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from 1903. She became secretary of the Central Committee in 1905; she returned to Russia the same year, but left again after the failed revolution of 1905 and worked as a teacher in France a couple of years.

After the October Revolution in 1917, she was appointed deputy to Anatoliy Lunacharskiy , the People's Commissar for Education , where she took charge of Vneshkol'nyi Otdel the Adult Education Division; she became chairman of the education committee in 1920 and was deputy commissar (government minister) from 1929 to 1939. She was instrumental in the foundation of Komsomol and the Pioneer movement as well as the Soviet educational system, including the censorship and political indoctrination within it. She was also fundamental in the development of Soviet librarianship . Krupskaya became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1924, a member of its control commission in 1927, a member of the Supreme Soviet in 1931 and an honorary citizen in 1931. She apparently favored Stalin in the great debates between the Left Opposition and the CPSU majority of the 1920s. In 1925, she attacked Lev Trotsky in a polemic that was in response to Trotsky's tract The Lessons of October.

In it, she stated that "Marxist analysis was never Comrade Trotsky’s strong point." In relation to the debate around Socialism in one country versus Permanent Revolution , she asserted that Trotsky "under-estimates the role played by the peasantry." Furthermore, she held that Trotsky had misinterpreted the revolutionary situation in post-WWI Germany. During the congress of 1925, she initially supported Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev , but eventually voted for the process against Nikolai Bukharin and the exclusion of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev from the party. [11] In 1936 she defended restrictions on abortion passed by the Soviet government in that year, arguing that they were part of a consistent policy pursued since 1920 to do away with the reasons to have an abortion. [12] Krupskaya is the author of the biography Reminiscences of Lenin, [13] which chronicles the life of her husband. Her biography is the most detailed account of Lenin’s life before coming to power. It ends in 1919, shortly after the Bolsheviks took power.

Soviet education and libraries Nadezhda Krupskaya Before the revolution , Krupskaya worked five years as an instructor for a factory owner who offered evening classes for his employees. Legally, reading, writing and arithmetic were taught. Illegally, classes with a revolutionary influence were taught for those students who might be ready for them. Krupskaya and other instructors were relieved of duty when nearly 30,000 factory workers in the area went on strike for better wages. [14] Even after the revolution her emphasis was on “the problems of youth organization and education.” [15] In order to become educated they needed better access to books and materials. [16] Pre-revolutionary Russian libraries had a tendency to exclude particular members. Some were exclusively for higher classes and some were only for employees of a particular company's "Trade Unions". In addition they also had narrow, Orthodox literature. It was hard to find any books with new ideas, which is exactly why the underground libraries began. Another problem was the low level of literacy of the masses. The revolution did not cause an overnight improvement in the libraries. In fact, for a while there were even more problems.

The Trade Unions still refused to allow general public use, funds for purchasing books and materials were in short supply and books that were already a part of the libraries were falling apart. In addition there was a low interest in the library career field due to low income and the libraries were sorely in need of re-organization. Krupskaya directed a census of the libraries in order to address these issues. [17] She encouraged libraries to collaborate and to open their doors to the general public. She encouraged librarians to use common speech when speaking with patrons. Knowing the workers needs was encouraged; what kind of books should be stocked, the subjects readers were interested in, and organizing the material in a fashion to better serve the readers. Committees were held to improve card catalogs. Krupskaya stated at a library conference: “We have a laughable number of libraries, and their book stocks are even more inadequate. Their quality is terrible, the majority of the population does not know how to use them and does not even know what a library is.” [18] She also sought better professional schools for librarians. Formal training was scarce in pre-revolutionary Russia for librarians and it only truly began in the 20th century.

Krupskaya, therefore, advocated the creation of library “seminaries” where practicing librarians would instruct aspiring librarians in the skills of their profession, similar to those in the West. The pedagogical characteristics were however those of the Soviet revolutionary period. Librarians were trained to determine what materials were suitable to patrons and whether or not they had the ability to appreciate what the resource had to offer. Also, Krupskaya desired that librarians possess greater verbal and writing skills so that they could more clearly explain why certain reading materials were better than others to their patrons. She believed that explaining resource choices to patrons was a courtesy and an opportunity for more education in socialist political values, not something that was required of the librarian. They were to become facilitators of the revolution and, later, those who helped preserve the values of the resulting socialist state. [19] Krupskaya was a committed Marxist for whom each element of public education was a step toward improving the life of her people, granting all individuals access to the tools of education and libraries, needed to forge a more fulfilling life. The fulfillment was education and the tools were education and library systems.

[20] Legacy Following her death in 1939 a Leningrad chocolate factory was renamed in her honour. Its chocolate bar product was named Krupskaya and retains that name today. [21] The asteroid 2071 Nadezhda discovered in 1971 by Soviet astronomer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova was named in her honour. [22] Gallery Krupskaya (middle) in the 1930s Board at a kindergarten in Berlin-Spandau , Germany References Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya (1869 - 1939) - Find A Grave Memorial Death: Feb. 27, 1939 Russian Communist Figure. A politician, author, teacher and adviser to Russian Communist Revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, she married Lenin in July 1898. She wrote his memoirs, "Reminiscences of Lenin," in 1933.

Nadezhda Krupskaya - Biography - IMDb Nadezhda Krupskaya Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) Overview (3) Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya Mini Bio (1) Nadezhda Krupskaya was born on February 26, 1869 in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire [now Russia] as Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya. She was married to V.I. Lenin . She died on February 27, 1939 in Moscow, USSR [now Russia]. Spouse (1) Nadezhda Krupskaya - Polyvore Nadezhda Krupskaya 5 years ago. 9,676 views. 31 likes. Follow Nadezhda Konstantinovna "Nadya" Krupskaya (26 February [O.S. 14 February] 1869 – February 27, 1939) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and politician. She married the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin in 1898.

She was deputy minister (Comissar) of Education in 1929–1939. She was the daughter of a Russian military officer. Nadya’s father, Krupski Konstantin Ignat’evich, was orphaned in 1847 at nine years of age. He was educated and given a commission as an infantry officer in the Russian Army. Just before leaving for his assignment in Poland he married Nadya’s mother. After six years of service, Krupski lost favor with his supervisors and was charged with “un-Russian activities.” He may have been suspected of being involved with revolutionaries. Following this time he worked in factories or wherever he could find work until later in life when he was recommissioned just before his death. Her mother, Elizaveta Vasilyevna Tistrova was the daughter of landless Russian nobles. Elizaveta’s parents died when she was young and she was enrolled in the Bestuzhev Courses, which happened to be the highest formal education available to women in Russia during this time. After earning her degree Elizaveta went on to work as a governess for noble families until she married Krupski.

Having parents who were well educated, and of aristocratic descent, combined with firsthand experience with lower class working conditions probably lead to the formation of many of Nadya’s ideologies. “From her very childhood Krupskaya was inspired with the spirit of protest against the ugly life around her.” One of Nadya’s friends from gymnasium, Ariadne Tyrkova, described Krupskaya as “a tall, quiet girl, who did not flirt with the boys, moved and thought with deliberation, and had already formed strong convictions… She was one of those who are forever committed, once they have been possessed by their thoughts and feelings….” Nadya attempted to attend two different secondary schools before finding the perfect fit with Prince A.A. Obolensky's Female Gymnazium “a distinguished private girls’ secondary school in Petersburg.” This education was probably more liberal than most other gymnasiums since it was noted that some of the staff were former revolutionaries. After her father’s death Krupskaya and her mother gave lessons as a source of income. Krupskaya had expressed an interest in entering the education field from a young age.

She was particularly drawn to Tolstoy’s theories on education, which were fluid instead of structured. They focused on the personal development of each individual student and centered on the importance of the teacher-student relationship. This led Krupskaya to study many of Tolstoy’s works, including his theories of reformation. These were peaceful, law abiding ideologies, which focused on people abstaining from unneeded luxuries and being self dependent instead of hiring someone else to tend your house, etc. Tolstoy had a lasting impression on Krupskaya, since it was said she had “a special contempt for stylish clothes and comfort.” She was always modest in dress, as were her furnishings in her home and office. As a devoted, lifelong student, Krupskaya began to participate in several discussion circles. These groups got together to study and discuss particular topics for the benefit of everyone involved. It was later, in one of these circles that Krupskaya was first introduced to the theories of Marx. This piqued her interest as a potential way of making life better for her people. Krupskaya began an in-depth study of the subject. This was difficult since such books had been banned by the Russian government.

Consequently, revolutionaries had been collecting such books and keeping them in underground libraries. It was at a similar discussion circle that Krupskaya first met Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, a dedicated Marxist who later came to be called Lenin. Krupskaya was impressed by his speeches, but not by his personality, at least not at first. It is hard to know very much of the courtship between Lenin and Krupskaya as neither party spoke often of personal matters. In October 1896, several months after Lenin was arrested, Krupskaya was also arrested. After some time Lenin was sentenced to exile in Siberia. They had very little communication while in prison but before leaving for Siberia, Lenin wrote a “secret note” to Krupskaya which was delivered by her mother. It suggested that she could be permitted to join him in Siberia as his if she told people she was his fiancée. At that time Krupskaya was still awaiting sentencing in Siberia. Krupskaya was permitted to accompany Lenin, but only under the stipulation that they were to be married as soon as she arrived. Whether she married for love or for the cause is unknown.

Her relationship with Lenin was more professional than marital – which Kollontai compared to slavery – but she remained loyal, never once considering divorce. Krupskaya is believed to have suffered from Graves' disease, an illness affecting the thyroid gland in the neck which causes the eyes to bulge and the neck to tighten. In female sufferers it can also disrupt the menstrual cycle, which may explain why Lenin and Krupskaya never had children (and the rumors about Lenin allegedly choosing to have an affair with Inessa Armand). Upon his release Lenin went off to Europe and settled in Munich where Krupskaya later met up with him upon her release (1901). After she had arrived the couple moved to London. Krupskaya's political life was active: she was a functionary of the bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from 1903. She became secretary of the Central Committee in 1905; she returned to Russia the same year, but left again after the failed revolution of 1905 and worked as a teacher in France a couple of years.

After the October Revolution in 1917, she was appointed deputy to Anatoliy Lunacharskiy, the People's Commissar for Education, where she took charge of Vneshkol'nyi Otdel the Adult Education Division; she became chairman of the education committee in 1920 and was deputy commissar (government minister) from 1929 to 1939. She was instrumental in the foundation of Komsomol and the Pioneer movement as well as the Soviet educational system, including the censorship and political indoctrination within it. She was also fundamental in the development of Soviet librarianship. Krupskaya became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1924, a member of its control commission in 1927, a member of the Supreme Soviet in 1931 and an honorary citizent in 1931. She apparently favored Stalin in the great debates between the Left Opposition and the CPSU majority of the 1920s. In 1925, she attacked Lev Trotsky in a polemic that was in response to Trotsky's tract The Lessons of October.

In it, she stated that "Marxist analysis was never Comrade Trotsky’s strong point." In relation to the debate around Socialism in one country versus Permanent Revolution, she asserted that Trotsky "under-estimates the role played by the peasantry." Furthermore, she held that Trotsky had misinterpreted the revolutionary situation in post-WWI Germany. During the congress of 1925, she initially supported Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, but eventually voted for the process against Nikolai Bukharin and the exclusion of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev from the party. Krupskaya is the author of the biography Reminiscences of Lenin, which chronicles the life of her husband. Her biography is the most detailed account of Lenin’s life before coming to power. It ends in 1919, shortly after the Bolsheviks took power. Before the revolution, Krupskaya worked five years as an instructor for a factory owner who offered evening classes for his employees. Legally, reading, writing and arithmetic were taught. Illegally, classes with a revolutionary influence were taught for those students who might be ready for them.

Krupskaya and other instructors were relieved of duty when nearly 30,000 factory workers in the area went on strike for better wages. Even after the revolution her emphasis was on “the problems of youth organization and education.” In order to become educated they needed better access to books and materials. Pre-revolutionary Russian libraries had a tendency to exclude particular members. Some were exclusively for higher classes and some were only for employees of a particular company's "Trade Unions". In addition they also had narrow, Orthodox literature. It was hard to find any books with new ideas, which is exactly why the underground libraries began. Another problem was the low level of literacy of the masses. The revolution did not cause an overnight improvement in the libraries. In fact, for a while there were even more problems. The Trade Unions still refused to allow general public use, funds for purchasing books and materials were in short supply and books that were already a part of the libraries were falling apart. In addition there was a low interest in the library career field due to low income and the libraries were sorely in need of re-organization. Krupskaya directed a census of the libraries in order to address these issues.

She encouraged libraries to collaborate and to open their doors to the general public. She encouraged librarians to use common speech when speaking with patrons. Knowing the workers needs was encouraged; what kind of books should be stocked, the subjects readers were interested in, and organizing the material in a fashion to better serve the readers. Committees were held to improve card catalogs. Krupskaya stated at a library conference: “We have a laughable number of libraries, and their book stocks are even more inadequate. Their quality is terrible, the majority of the population does not know how to use them and does not even know what a library is.” She also sought better professional schools for librarians. Formal training was scarce in pre-revolutionary Russia for librarians and it only truly began in the twentieth century. Krupskaya, therefore, advocated the creation of library “seminaries” where practicing librarians would instruct aspiring librarians in the skills of their profession, similar to those in the West. The pedagogical characteristics were however those of the Soviet revolutionary period. Librarians were trained to determine what materials were suitable to patrons and whether or not they had the ability to appreciate what the resource had to offer.

Also, Krupskaya desired that librarians possess greater verbal and writing skills so that they could more clearly explain why certain reading materials were better than others to their patrons. She believed that explaining resource choices to patrons was a courtesy and an opportunity for more education in socialist political values, not something that was required of the librarian. They were to become facilitators of the revolution and, later, those who helped preserve the values of the resulting socialist state. Krupskaya was a committed Marxist for whom each element of public education was a step toward improving the life of her people, granting all individuals access to the tools of education and libraries, needed to forge a more fulfilling life. The fulfillment was education and the tools were education and library systems. Krupskaya’s was a life of service and dedication to improving the quality of life of her people. Following her death in 1939 a Leningrad chocolate factory was renamed in her honour. Its chocolate bar product was named Krupskaya and retains that name today. The asteroid 2071 Nadezhda discovered in 1971 by Soviet astronomer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova was named in her honor.

31 Biography of Nadezhda Krupskaya 1869 – 1939 Who was Nadezhda Krupskaya? Nadezhda Konstantinovna "Nadya" Krupskaya was a Bolshevik revolutionary and politician. She married the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin in 1898. She was deputy minister of education from 1929 to 1939.

Question: Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was married to which Russian politician?
Answer: Vladimir Lenin