Ilya Ulyanov

Ilya Ulyanov
Ilya Ulyanov, after 1882
Born	Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov (1831-07-31)31 July 1831 Astrakhan, Russian Empire
Died	24 January 1886(1886-01-24) (aged 54) Simbirsk, Russian Empire
Occupation	Teacher, public education administrator
Known for	Father of Vladimir Lenin

Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov (Russian: Илья́ Никола́евич Улья́нов; 31 July [O.S. 19 July] 1831—24 January [O.S. 12 January] 1886, Simbirsk) was a Russian public figure in the field of public education. He was the father of revolutionaries Vladimir Lenin, who became a Bolshevik leader and founder of the Soviet Union, and Aleksandr Ulyanov, who was executed for his attempt to assassinate Tsar Alexander III in 1887.

Ilya Ulyanov was born in Astrakhan to a Chuvash father, Nikolai Vasilievich Ulyanov (or Ulyanin; 1765–1838), a port-city tailor and a former serf 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 who hailed from a wealthy Kalmyk family. Nikolai married the 23-year-old Anna in 1823. Ilya had three sisters and a brother.

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 for the Dvoryane, and later at a gymnasium and a school for women in Nizhny Novgorod. Around that time, he married Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova. While in Penza, Ulyanov conducted meteorological observations, on the basis of which he would write a couple of scientific works called On the Benefits of Meteorological Observations and Some Conclusions on Their Use for Penza (О пользе метеорологических наблюдений и некоторые выводы из них для Пензы) and On Thunderstorm and Lightning rods (О грозе и громоотводах).