Maria Alexandrovna Blank

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Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (Blank) (Мария Александровна Ульянова (Бланк) in Russian) (6 March [O.S. 22 February] 1835 — 25 July [O.S. 12 July] 1916) was Vladimir Lenin's mother.

Ulyanova was a daughter of well to do physician who was Jewish convert to Christianity. Her mother was of mixed Swedish and German descent. She was homeschooled. She studied German, French and English languages and Russian and Western literature. In 1863, Ulyanova took an external degree and became an elementary school teacher. However, she dedicated most of her life to her children, some of whom would become prominent revolutionaries.

Maria Ulyanova displayed an incredible courage and firmness in the face of tragedies and misfortunes that would haunt her family during her lifetime, namely, the death of her husband Ilya Ulyanov in 1886, the execution of her son Aleksandr Ulyanov in 1887, the death of her daughter Olga in 1891, the multiple arrests and exiles of the rest of her children - Vladimir, Anna, Dmitry and Maria. She even went abroad twice to meet with Vladimir Lenin (to France in the summer of 1902 and Stockholm in the fall of 1910).