Aleksandr Ulyanov

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The Ulyanov family, 1879 (Aleksandr standing in the middle, Vladimir sitting to the right).

Aleksandr Ilyich Ulyanov (Template:Langx; 12 April [O.S. 31 March] 1866 – 20 May [O.S. 8 May] 1887) was a Russian revolutionary and political activist who was executed for planning an assassination against Alexander III of Russia. He was the elder brother of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union; his execution pushed his younger brother into activism.

Early life

Ulyanov was born in Nizhny Novgorod, the second child and eldest son of schoolteachers Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov and Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova. He was often referred to as Sasha, a common diminutive form of the name Aleksandr. Through his father, Ulyanov was a member of the Russian nobility.

He graduated with honors from the Classical Gymnasium of Simbirsk in 1883 and later attended Saint Petersburg Imperial University, where he majored in Natural Sciences and earned a degree in zoology. While at university, he participated in illegal meetings and demonstrations, often handing out pamphlets and making speeches to students and workers.

Revolutionary

In 1886 Ulyanov became a member of the "terrorist faction", which was part of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) party. He was one of the authors of the party's program. Acknowledging the working class as the "nucleus of the Socialist Party", the program affirmed the revolutionary's initiative of fighting autocracy through terrorism.

Attempted assassination of Alexander III

Ulyanov and his comrades conspired to assassinate Alexander III of Russia. On 1 March 1887 (Julian calendar), the day of the sixth anniversary of Alexander II's murder, three party members were arrested in the Nevsky Prospekt carrying handmade bombs filled with dynamite and lead pellets poisoned with strychnine. Police suspected that when Alexander III visited church on the anniversary of his father's assassination, the plotters would throw bombs into the Emperor's carriage. The attempt is known as "The Second First of March".

Ulyanov, who served as both the main ideologist of the group as well as the bomb-maker, was later arrested. In court Ulyanov gave a political speech. The conspirators were initially sentenced to death; all but five were then pardoned by Alexander III. Ulyanov was not among those pardoned. On 8 May, he and his four comrades – Pakhomy Andreyushkin, Vasily Generalov, Vasili Osipanov, and Petr Shevyrev – were hanged at Shlisselburg.

Aleksandr's execution drove his younger brother Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (later known as Vladimir Lenin) into fervent political activity. Before Aleksandr's arrest, Lenin and the family had not known of Aleksander's activism and were comfortably middle class and essentially apolitical, holding no strong feelings for or against the Russian monarchy. Historian James D. White reported that Lenin's introduction to radical politics came only after Aleksandr's death in an attempt to understand the events: "The actions of Lenin and Olga in the period following Sasha’s [Aleksandr's nickname] execution suggest that they had resolved that their brother’s death would not be in vain and that they would serve the cause for which he had sacrificed himself – just as soon as they could discover what that cause had been."

Later in life, Lenin recalled thinking, "No, my brother won't make a revolutionary, I thought at the time. A revolutionary can't give so much time to the study of worms." Lenin also remembered how his family were shunned by liberal circles in Simbirsk following his brother's arrest.

Legacy

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Memorial plaque to Aleksandr Ulyanov in the citadel: Oreshek fortress. Shlisselburg, Kirovsky district, Leningrad region

A minor planet, 2112 Ulyanov, was discovered in 1972 by Soviet astronomer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova and named after him.