As you know, the leader of the proletarian revolution bore the pseudonym "Nikolai Lenin". Having headed the revolutionary government, Vladimir Ulyanov began to put a signature, which consisted of his real name with the addition of the surname of the pseudonym: "Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin)." But for a long time Ulyanov continued to sign: "Nikolai Lenin" or "N. Lenin ".
When in 1920 the first edition of the book of the American journalist John Reed about the Russian revolution "Ten Days That Shook the World" was published. Ulyanov-Lenin wrote, at the author's request, a short preface to the American edition. There is a signature under it: “N. Lenin ".
Fake passport for emigration
Thus, any versions about where and why Vladimir Ulyanov took this pseudonym for himself should explain not only his “family” part - Lenin, but also his “personal” part - Nikolai. Therefore, you should immediately reject any suggestions that this pseudonym was invented from the name of the Siberian river Lena or in memory of a certain mistress of Volodya Ulyanov, whose name was Lena. We will not even bother to refute them. Everything is much simpler. It has long been established that Vladimir Ulyanov was holding an official passport, issued in the name of Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin.
The question of how he ended up with Ulyanov is quite interesting in itself, so we will devote a few lines to him. Let's say right away: how Ulyanov became the owner of this passport is not known exactly. What is known?
In 1900, upon his return from exile in the village of Shushenskoye, Yenisei province, Ulyanov decides to move abroad. It was difficult for him, as a secretly supervised person who is prohibited from staying in many places of the Russian Empire, and requires police permission even to leave the Pskov province, where he lived at that time, it was difficult to implement his plan. True, in the end, Ulyanov emigrated in July 1900 with a passport issued in his real name. However, in the process of preparing for emigration, he was also preparing to leave with a forged passport. Moreover, he managed to get such a passport.
There are different versions regarding who exactly assisted Ulyanov in obtaining this (and real, too) passport, when exactly he received it. But the main thing is that a man named Nikolai Lenin really existed.
Landowner and State Councilor
The history of the surname of the Lenins, who were familiar with the Ulyanovs, was discovered by Soviet archivists. Over time, it was supplemented with new information. It is now known that the noble family of the Lenins existed at least from the end of the 15th century. True, it is not known whether it was one genus. The ancestors of Nikolai Lenin since the 17th century were known in the lands of the Vologda, Novgorod and Nizhny Novgorod provinces.
Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin himself was born in the village of Vysokoe, Yaroslavl province on February 3, 1827. He was a very wealthy landowner, owning two large estates (780 and 750 dessiatines; tithe = 1.09 hectares) in the Yaroslavl and Vologda provinces, an average (115 dessiatines) estate near Rybinsk and a small (28 dessiatines) near Kirillov (then Novgorod province, now - the Vologda region).
Nikolai Lenin devoted his life to serving the tsar and the fatherland along the civil path and in 1894, 67 years old, retired with the rank of state councilor (V grade), equivalent to a colonel in military service. In 1902, Nikolai Yegorovich died.
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How Ulyanov got his passport
What connected the Ulyanovs with the Lenins? In one of the first fundamental works of Vladimir Ulyanov, The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899), which he began in St. Petersburg and completed in Shushenskoye, there is a reference to an article by Sergei Nikolaevich Lenin, the son of Nikolai Yegorovich. Sergei Lenin was an agronomist and economist, a member of the Free Economic Society and the Imperial St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists and Physicians. However, this reference to the article was hardly enough for Vladimir Ulyanov to draw attention to himself, especially in such a delicate matter as obtaining a fake passport in the name of Sergei Lenin's father.
Exactly how Ulyanov got hold of Nikolai Lenin's passport, and to whom he turned for this, it is not known for certain. The assumptions made by historians are as follows.
Sister Vladimir Ulyanov, Maria Ilyinichna, was personally acquainted with Sergei Lenin, who lived in Nizhny Novgorod. However, by the time Ulyanov was released from exile, Lenin had already moved to St. Petersburg, where he served in the Ministry of Agriculture and State Property with the rank of collegiate counselor (VI grade). And Ulyanov himself was unable to personally meet either Sergei or Nikolai Lenin.
There is a version that Ulyanov, not finding Sergei Lenin in Nizhny, managed to meet with the teacher Vera Vasilyevna Lenina, who lived there, the daughter of the landowner Vasily Mikhailovich Lenin, the godfather of Nikolai Lenin. But how and why Vera Lenina got the passport of her godbrother, and how later this passport migrated to Ulyanov's pocket, one can only guess.
It is possible that Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya turned directly to the daughter of Nikolai Yegorovich - Olga, whom she might have known from the Bestuzhevsky women's courses in St. Petersburg. This was suggested by the first Soviet researcher of the issue, Mikhail Stein. But Olya Lenina graduated from the Bestuzhev courses in 1883, and Nadya Krupskaya entered there only in 1889.
Nothing is clear here yet, and it is not a fact that it will be revealed for sure someday.
What happened to the Lenins
As you can see, Vladimir Ulyanov was 43 years younger than Nikolai Lenin, so they had to resort to erasures in the obtained passport. Moreover, there were no photographs in the passports of that time, but the owner's signs were described in detail. Therefore, Ulyanov probably did not dare to use this passport to travel abroad, especially if he had a chance to get a legal document.
It is curious that the tsarist police only in 1907 found out who exactly was hiding under the pseudonym "Nikolai Lenin" in the illegal press. The very same person who bore this name died, as we already know, five years before.
As for the other Lenins, it is interesting that the youngest son of Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin was also named Nikolai. He was only a year older than Vladimir Ulyanov, and his passport might have been better suited if he could get it. The fate of both Nikolaevichs turned out to be tragic. Perhaps, the surname, which the "workers 'and peasants' government" considered stolen from the bright leader, also played a role. Sergei Lenin was shot in 1919 in Poshekhonye in the form of a red terror, and Nikolai Nikolaevich Lenin died there in a Chekist prison from typhus a year earlier.
Yaroslav Butakov
