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Birth of Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, Russian statesman and party leader, theorist and organizer of Soviet pedagogical science and public education system
On February 14 (26), 1869 in St. Petersburg, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, a Russian statesman and party leader, theorist, organizer of Soviet pedagogical science and the public education system, wife and comrade-in-arms of Vladimir Lenin was born in the family of lieutenant Konstantin Ignatievich Krupsky (1838–1883) and Elizaveta Vasilyevna (nee Tistrova) (about 1841–1915).
In 1887, Krupskaya graduated with honors from the private women's gymnasium of Princess A. A. Obolenskaya in St. Petersburg, then in 1889 she entered the historical and philological department of the Bestuzhev courses. During this period, she was a member of student Social Democratic circles. N. K. Krupskaya learned about Marxism through the revolutionary N. I. Utin. He took care of her and her mother after the death in 1883 of father K. I. Krupsky, who was his assistant in the Russian section of the First International.
From 1891 to 1896 she taught at the St. Petersburg evening Sunday school for working youth behind the Nevskaya Zastava, where she was engaged in propaganda work. In 1894, she met the 24-year-old Marxist Vladimir Lenin, who bore the party nickname “Old Man”. She participated in the organization and activities of the St. Petersburg “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class”. In 1897, after being imprisoned, she was sentenced to exile in the Ufa province, but at her own request she served it in the village of Shushenskoye, Yenisei province, where in July 1898 she married Lenin. Since 1898, she has been a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP).
After her release in 1901, she emigrated to Germany. She worked as secretary of the editorial offices of the newspapers “Iskra” and “Forward” and participated in the preparation and holding of the 2nd and 3rd congresses of the RSDLP (1903, 1905). She dealt with the problem of the position of women in Russian society. In 1905 she returned to Russia and was secretary of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. After the defeat of the First Russian Revolution (1905–1907), she emigrated again with Lenin. She was his secretary, taught at the party school in Longjumeau near Paris (1911), initiated the publication of the magazine “Worker” (1914), participated in the International Anti-War Women's Conference in Bern, as well as in the preparation of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal international socialist conferences (1915, 1916).
After the February Revolution of 1917, the couple returned to Russia. Nadezhda Krupskaya began working at the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR and in 1929 became deputy people's commissar. In 1920–1930 she was also the chairman of the Main Political and Educational Committee of the People's Commissariat for Education. Since 1924 - member of the Central Control Commission (Central Control Commission) of the party, since 1927 - member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
She participated in the creation of the Soviet system of public education, including the development of the Regulations on the Unified Labor School of the RSFSR and “Basic Principles of the Unified Labor School” (1918). Created on the initiative of N. K. Krupskaya in the 1920s the scientific and pedagogical section of the State Academic Council was the theoretical center of Soviet school and pedagogy. The name of Nadezhda Krupskaya is associated with the creation of a pioneer organization, the Komsomol, the formation of Soviet theory and practice of preschool education, out-of-school education and adult education. She was the author of the decree of November 3, 1920 “On the centralization of library science in the RSFSR” according to which the country’s libraries were united into a single network under the leadership of the People’s Commissariat for Education. She was an active supporter of censorship and anti-religious propaganda. She compiled lists of “ideologically harmful and outdated” literature that was subject to removal from libraries.
After the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1925–1926 she joined the “new opposition” of G. E. Zinoviev and L. B. Kamenev, but then left it and called for support for the Central Committee of the party. In the 1930s she was practically removed from work in the People's Commissariat for Education and began working on issues of library science.
She died on February 27, 1939, the day after her 70th birthday. The ashes with the urn are placed in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow. Many educational and cultural institutions, as well as enterprises, bear the name of N. K. Krupskaya (Krupskaya Confectionery Factory in St. Petersburg). From 1924 to 1991 the St. Petersburg State Institute of Culture was named after N. K. Krupskaya.
Лит.: Богуславский М. В. Крупская Надежда Константиновна // Большая российская энциклопедия. Электронная версия (2023). Режим доступа: https://old.bigenc.ru/domestic_history/text/2637574; Красовицкая Т. Ю. Н. К. Крупская – идеолог большевистской реформы образования // Труды Института российской истории РАН. М., 2005. Вып. 5; Торчинов В. А., Леонтюк А. М. Вокруг Сталина. Историко-биографический справочник. СПб., 2000.
Based on the Presidential Library's materials:
Крупская Н. К. Воспоминания. М.; Л., 1926;
ГА РФ. Ф.Р130 Оп.3 Д.514. Телеграммы о маршруте парохода "Красная Звезда" и состоянии здоровья Надежды Константиновны Крупской. 1919 (Доступно в ЭЧЗ);
ГА РФ. Ф.Р3316 Оп.18 Д.900. Об оказании помощи на постройку школы, яслей и больницы (имеется автограф Крупской Н. К.). 1925 (Доступно в ЭЧЗ);
ГА РФ. Ф.Р3316. Оп.22. Д.673. О награждении орденом "Трудового Красного Знамени" Крупской Н. К. 1929–1932 (Доступно в ЭЧЗ);
Санкт-Петербургский государственный институт культуры: [цифровая коллекция].