Nobles in Soviet politics and culture. Personal nobility

Nobles who owned the province real estate, were subject to entry into the genealogical books of this province, which were carried out only at the request of these nobles. Every nobleman, especially those who did not serve, had to be registered in the genealogical book of the province where he had permanent place residence. At the same time, nobles who proved their nobility through their ancestors, but who did not have any real estate anywhere, were entered in the register of the province where their ancestors owned the estate. Those who received nobility by rank or order could be entered into the register of the province where they wished, regardless of whether they had real estate there. The same rule also applied to foreign nobles, but the latter were included in the genealogical books only after a preliminary presentation about them to the Department of Heraldry. The hereditary nobles of the Cossack troops were included: the Don Troops in the genealogical book of the Troops, and the rest of the troops - in the genealogical books of those provinces and regions where these troops were located. When the nobles of the Cossack troops were entered into the genealogical books, their affiliation with these troops was indicated. Personal nobles were not included in the genealogical books. The genealogical book was divided into six parts. The first part included “the families of the nobility, granted or actual”; in the second part - the families of the military nobility; in the third - families of the nobility acquired in the civil service, as well as those who received the right of hereditary nobility by order; in the fourth - all foreign births; in the fifth - titled clans; in the sixth part - “ancient noble noble families”. In practice, persons who received nobility through an order were also included in the first part, especially if this order complained outside the usual official order. Given the legal equality of all nobles, regardless of which part of the genealogical book they were recorded in, entry in the first part was considered less honorable than in the second and third, and all together the first three parts were considered less honorable than the fifth and sixth. The fifth part included families that had the Russian titles of barons, counts, princes and most serene princes, and the Baltic barony meant belonging to an ancient family, a barony granted to a Russian family - its initially humble origin, occupation in trade and industry. The title of count meant a particularly high position and special imperial favor, the rise of the family in the 18th - early. XIX centuries, so that in other cases it was even more honorable than princely, not supported by the high position of the bearer of this title. The sixth part included families whose nobility was a century old at the time of publication of the Charter. Formally, recording in the sixth part of the genealogical book did not give any privileges, except for one: only the sons of nobles recorded in the fifth and sixth parts of the genealogical books were enrolled in the Corps of Pages, the Alexander (Tsarskoye Selo) Lyceum and the School of Law.

Genealogical books were compiled in each province by the deputy assembly together with the provincial leader of the nobility. The district leaders of the nobility compiled alphabetical lists of the noble families of their district, indicating each nobleman's first and last name, information about marriage, wife, children, real estate, place of residence, rank, service or retirement. These lists were submitted, signed by the district marshal of the nobility, to the provincial marshal. The deputy assembly was based on these lists when entering each clan into the genealogical book, and the decision on such entry had to be based on irrefutable evidence.

Federal archives: funds of the Heraldry Office (RGADA), Department of Heraldry (RGIA). Regional archives: funds of provincial noble deputy assemblies, personal funds.

(Romanova S.N., Glukhovskaya I.I. Index of types of documents containing genealogical information (XVI century - 1917) // Journal "Bulletin of the Archivist". No. 46-50. 1998-1999).

(Illustration: Korzukhin A.I. Separation. 1872)

Nobility

Nobles are the main characters in most Russian works. classical literature. Most of the Russian classical writers, from Fonvizin to Bunin, were also nobles. What is nobility?

This was the name of the most privileged class of Tsarist Russia. The nobles, as a rule, owned the land and, until 1861, the peasants who lived on this land. Since the era of Peter I, the title of HERANED NOBLEMAN could be obtained upon reaching a certain rank in the military or civil service, when awarded certain orders, as well as for special personal merits.

Initially, a NOBLEMAN was a name given to a person who served at a grand-ducal or royal court - hence the root of the word. Since the 14th century, Russian nobles began to receive land - ESTATE - from the great princes and then the tsars as payment for their service. In 1714, Peter I assigned this land to them forever as hereditary land. At the same time, feudal boyars, who owned the land by inheritance from their ancestors, also joined the nobility. VOTCHINA, that is, land that belonged to the family since ancient times, and the estate - land granted by the king for service - have since merged into the concept of ESTATE. In both cases, land ownership was usually called an ESTATE, and its owner - a LANDLORD.

An estate-estate should not be confused with an ESTATE: an estate is not all land ownership, but only a landowner’s house with adjacent buildings, a yard and a garden.

Since Peter the Great's time, the nobility, equal in rights before the law, was divided by origin into FAMILY (POLAND) and SERVANT (NEW), achieved by length of service in the public service. The descendants of ancient noble families who owned estates called themselves PILLAR NOBLEMS, and in XVI-XVII centuries recorded in genealogical books - COLUMN, that is, lists in the form of glued scrolls. The pillar nobles, even the impoverished ones, felt their moral superiority over the later, serving nobles who were pushing them aside. Pushkin, who was proud of his 600-year-old family, sarcastically wrote in the poem “My Genealogy”: “ We have a new birth of nobility, / And the newer, the more noble" And one of the characters in his “Novel in Letters” writes to a friend: “ Official aristocracy will not replace tribal aristocracy».

Peter I ordered that male nobles, in payment for their privileges, certainly serve in public service, and from the lowest rank. Young noblemen were enlisted in the rank and file of the guards regiments. Under Peter's successors, the situation changed: in order to save their children from the hardships of military service, parents immediately after their birth began to enroll their sons in the guards regiments as non-commissioned officers, without sending them to serve there, but keeping them with them until adulthood. The hero " The captain's daughter»Pushkin Pyotr Grinev was registered as a guard sergeant even before he was born. " I was considered on leave until I graduated from science"- says Grinev. It's about about primitive home education, described in this story or familiar to us from Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor.” When Grinev turned 16 years old, his strict father sent him to serve not in the St. Petersburg Guards Regiment, where Peter was enlisted (which he would have every right to do), but in a remote province, in the army - “ let him push" Arriving at Belogorsk fortress, “Guard Sergeant” Grinev is soon promoted to officer.

To educate growing children, the nobility hired not only home teachers, but also visiting teachers, with whom they often paid not for each lesson, but for several at once; the certificate for the lesson was called a TICKET, and a reward was subsequently paid for it. This method of paying incoming teachers is mentioned in “Woe from Wit”: “... We take tramps, both into the house and with tickets...»

UNDERGROUND were the noble sons under 15-16 years old, that is, not yet of age for bearing civil service. This word served as an official term equivalent to the concept of teenager, minor. Therefore, we should not be surprised that in the documents submitted for admission to the Lyceum, 12-year-old Pushkin is called a minor. The word acquired a negative connotation with the growing popularity of Fonvizin’s comedy - gradually it became a designation for a stupid and spoiled barchuk.

In 1762, Emperor Peter III issued a MANIFESTO ON THE LIBERTY OF THE NOBILITY, which freed nobles from compulsory public service. Most of the nobles left the service and moved to their estates, living in idleness and living at the expense of their serfs.

Pushkin was rightly indignant at these laws and wrote about them: “ ...decrees of which our ancestors were so proud and of which they rightly should have been ashamed».

Accused of tyranny, the ignorant landowner Prostakova protests in the comedy “The Minor”: “... But why have we been given a decree on the freedom of the nobility?- interpreting it as granting complete freedom to landowners in dealing with serfs. To this Starodum mockingly remarks: “ A master at interpreting decrees!“After Prostakova is removed from managing the estate, Pravdin tells her son Mitrofanushka: “ With you, my friend, I know what to do. I went to serve».

The second half of the 18th century was the time of the highest development of the Russian noble class at the expense of the enslaved peasantry. The horrors of serfdom at the end of this century were described with stunning force by Radishchev in “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.” Obolt-Obolduev recalls the omnipotence of the local nobility during the period of serfdom and its complete arbitrariness in his estates in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”:

There is no contradiction in anyone,

I will have mercy on whomever I want,

Whoever I want, I’ll execute.

The law is my desire!

The fist is my police!

The landowner had the right to exile disobedient peasants to Siberia, and more often than not, during the next recruitment, he turned them over to soldiers.

However, nobility is an ambiguous concept. Being the most privileged class, it was also the most educated. Many progressive people of Russia came from the nobility - generals and public figures, writers and scientists, artists and musicians. Many fighters against autocracy and serfdom were also nobles.

No matter how the nobles were exterminated, expelled, or harassed under Soviet rule, they still played a noticeable role in the first working people's state. Is it any wonder if the organizer himself October revolution Lenin was a nobleman. However, his parents came from bourgeoisie. Father received hereditary nobility, when Volodya Ulyanov turned 11 years old.

Among the Polish nobles was the leader of the terrifying Cheka (later became the OGPU) Dzerzhinsky. He was no stranger noble deeds. During the Civil War, the pregnant wife of the White Guard general Slashchev fell into the hands of the Reds. Dzerzhinsky ordered her to be transported across the front line to her husband. His successor Menzhinsky and Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, a revolutionary and party leader, are also Polish nobles. Lunacharsky, Krupskaya, and Chicherin had noble origins. Ordzhonikidze was a nobleman. It was probably because of this, because of his noble character, that he committed suicide. I couldn’t come to terms with Stalin’s methods.

Among the nobles was the world's first female ambassador, Alexandra Kollontai (nee Domontovich). In her youth, she refused to marry the adjutant of Tsar Alexander III. Kollontai, the daughter of a general, chose a poor officer as her husband. Then she left him and her son to completely devote herself to revolutionary activities. She believed that marriage and family limit a woman’s freedom. Men fell surprisingly easily under her spell. After the revolution, she entered into a civil marriage with a Baltic sailor, later Army Commander Dybenko, who was 17 years younger than her. A few years later they broke up, and on her initiative.

Larisa Reisner, revolutionary, commissar of the Baltic Fleet, on her mother’s side came from the noble family of Khitrovo.

The fate of Princess Evgenia Shakhovskaya is unusual. She became one of the first female aviators in Russia and the first military pilot in the world. During the First World War, she was suspected of spying for Germany and sentenced to death penalty. The king commuted this sentence to life imprisonment. Released after the February Revolution. She joined the Bolsheviks. She worked as an investigator in the Kyiv Cheka. She was distinguished by her cruelty. In 1920, the 31-year-old beautiful princess was shot dead during a quarrel with fellow security officers.

Revolutionaries brothers Fyodor Raskolnikov and Alexander Ilyin-Zhenevsky (their real name- Ilyin) are nobles on their mother’s side. Raskolnikov worked as a diplomat in the 20s and 30s. In 1938, he refused to return to the USSR, anticipating his arrest. He wrote the famous “Open Letter to Stalin”, in which he condemned the repressions. It was published an hour after his death in 1939. According to one version, he died of pneumonia, according to another, he was killed by NKVD agents. His wife His brother Ilyin-Zhenevsky was not only a party leader, but also a famous chess player (he won one game against the world champion Capablanca). In 1941 he died under bombing during the evacuation from Leningrad.

A prominent party figure, one of the organizers of the Red Terror in Crimea, Pyatakov is also a nobleman. Shot in 1937. A noblewoman on her mother’s side, revolutionary Evgenia Bosh. The father of Merkulov, People's Commissar of State Security, was a nobleman. And the mother came from Georgian princely family Tsinamdzgerishvili. In 1953, Merkulov was shot as Beria's henchman. Noble blood flowed in Ulrich (her mother was a noblewoman) and in Vyshinsky (from an old Polish noble family), key figures in Stalin’s repressions. Simple soviet people listened to the angry speeches of Prosecutor General Vyshinsky against the enemies of the people, filled with sophisticated insults. They had no idea that he himself had committed such a crime against the Soviet authorities that he should be shot first! After the February Revolution, police commissar Vyshinsky (then a Menshevik) signed an order “on the strict implementation<…>order of the Provisional Government to search for, arrest and bring to trial Lenin as a German spy.” That may be why he was so zealous in denunciations. Stalin knew about this, but did not touch Vyshinsky, obviously believing that with such compromising evidence he would be the most devoted servant. Vyshinsky was rude with his subordinates, and servile with Stalin and Molotov. It is difficult to find something noble in this odious personality. Malenkov, who headed the Soviet government after Stalin’s death, did not look at all like a nobleman. Although his father was from the Macedonian nobles.

From a German noble family, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II (in the world Riediger).

A noble military leader suppresses a peasant uprising. What era is this from? Catherine II? No, it's 1921. The Soviet commander Tukhachevsky deals with the Tambov peasants who rebelled against the Bolshevik rule. Paradoxes of history... Marshal Tukhachevsky acquired, not least because of his origin, many ill-wishers. This predetermined his fall and death.

In addition to Tukhachevsky, there were many other prominent Soviet military men of noble origin. Member of the Revolutionary Military Council Altvater. Alexander Krusser. Died in civil war. Brusilov, who made the famous breakthrough of the Austro-Hungarian front during the First World War. He held high positions in the Red Army.

Shchastny. Tsarsky Marine officer, son of a general. In the winter and spring of 1918, in difficult conditions, he supervised the relocation of ships of the Baltic Fleet from Revel to Helsingfors, and then from Helsingfors to Kronstadt. The fleet was saved from capture by the Germans and Finns. He was soon arrested by order of Trotsky. One of the accusations was: “Shchastny, by performing a heroic feat, thereby created popularity for himself, intending to subsequently use it against the Soviet regime.” Convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal and shot.

Evgeny Berens. In 1919-1920 he commanded the Naval Forces of the Republic. By the way, a little later his brother Mikhail took command of the White Guard Russian squadron based in Tunisia.

Mikhail Beklemishev. One of the creators of the first Russian submarine "Dolphin" and its first commander. After the revolution, he was the head of one of the departments of the Main Directorate of Shipbuilding. Several times his former tsarist general, were arrested, but released.

Count Ignatiev. In 1925, while living in France, he transmitted Soviet government 225,000,000 rubles in gold invested in his name in French banks. This money belonged to Russia. White emigrants were indignant. Returning to his homeland, he occupied high positions in the army.

Tsarsky and Soviet general Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich (brother of Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich). After the revolution, he refused the Bolshevik offer to become Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Arrested in 1931, soon released.

Lukirsky. After the February Revolution he became a general. Voluntarily joined the Red Army. In 1930 he was arrested and convicted. A year later he was released. Promoted to division commander. In 1938 he was arrested and executed.

Baron Mikhail von Rosenberg was a military designer both under the Tsar and under Soviet rule. Children also became military designers. Son Mikhail is a two-time winner of the Stalin Prize. Daughter Vera participated in the development of the T-34 tank turret. She also received the Stalin Prize.

Karbyshev. From the Kryashen Tatars (Tatars who converted to Orthodoxy). Lieutenant Colonel of the Tsarist Army. In December 1917 he joined the Red Army. In 1940 he was promoted to general. In 1941, while trying to escape the encirclement, he was shell-shocked and captured. In the concentration camp, Mauthausen was doused with water in the cold and turned into a pillar of ice.

From a noble family was the father of Marshal Rokossovsky, one of the most talented commanders of the Great Patriotic War. In 1937, Rokossovsky was arrested, accused of having connections with Polish and Japanese intelligence, and tortured. However, he did not incriminate himself or others. Released in 1940.

Pilot Grizodubova comes from a noble family. She was the first woman to become a Hero Soviet Union.

The nobles made a great contribution to Soviet science and art.

These are the famous scientists Michurin and Timiryazev.

This is Tsiolkovsky, who laid the foundations of modern cosmonautics. From Polish nobles. Abundance Polish surnames is explained by the fact that among the Poles the percentage of nobles has traditionally been unusually high. In 1919 he was arrested, interrogated for several weeks at Lubyanka, then released.

Chizhevsky, founder of aeroionification (Chizhevsky's chandelier), space biology, heliobiology, electrohemodynamics. In 1935, persecution began against him. In 1939, the first international congress on biological physics and space biology was held in New York. Chizhevsky was elected honorary president. But the Soviet authorities did not allow him to go abroad. Congress took the initiative to nominate him for competition Nobel Prize. However, Chizhevsky was against it, obviously fearing that his life in the USSR might become more complicated. Nevertheless, in 1942 he ended up in the Gulag.

Biologist and geneticist Timofeev-Ressovsky, the prototype of the main character of Daniil Danin’s novel “Bison”. He amazed those around him with the independence and courage of his political statements. In 1925 he began working in Germany, at the Institute for Brain Research (as a Soviet scientist). Together with Delbrück, the future Nobel laureate, created the first biophysical model of gene structure. Having learned about the beginning of the repressions, he refused to return to the USSR. During the war he continued to work in Germany. This can be explained by the fact that he was completely absorbed in scientific interests. However, Timofeev-Ressovsky issued the necessary certificates to the escaped “Ostarbeiters”, and his son, a member of the underground anti-fascist organization, died in a concentration camp. He waited for the arrival of the Soviet troops, preserving the staff and equipment of his department of the institute. Despite this, he received 10 years in the camps as a traitor to the Motherland.

Engineer, builder of the first Soviet hydroelectric power stations, Heinrich Graftio, is from a Dutch noble family. Arrested in 1921. Released after Lenin's intervention.

Orientalist Oldenburg - Minister of Public Education of the Provisional Government, for a quarter of a century secretary of the Academy of Sciences (1904-1929), since 1930 head of the Institute of Oriental Studies. He, like the biochemist Engelhardt, is from the German nobility. Organic chemist, inventor of the gas mask Nikolai Zelinsky. Director for many years State Hermitage there was an archaeologist and Egyptologist Boris Piotrovsky. Now the Hermitage is headed by his son, the orientalist Mikhail Piotrovsky. Historian, creator of the passionary theory of ethnogenesis Lev Gumilyov is the son of poets Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov. He was arrested several times and spent many years in camps. Obruchev, a scientist and science fiction writer, was also born into a noble family. The long-term president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Keldysh, boldly wrote in all his questionnaires: “from the nobility.” From a princely family, physicist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Georgy Golitsyn.

The founder of colloidal chemistry of soils, Konstantin Gedroits, and one of the world's first women professors of surgery, Vera Gedroits, from a Lithuanian princely family. First world war Vera Gedroits taught nursing to the Empress and Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana, then supervised their work in the infirmary. The Ukrainian noblewoman was the mother of Vernadsky, the creator of the doctrine of the noosphere. On the maternal side, from the Polish nobles, the philosopher Shpet. Arrested in 1935, shot in 1937 as a member of an anti-Soviet organization. The mother of priest Pavel Florensky, a talented scientist and philosopher who died in a camp, came from an ancient Armenian family. And the mother of the physiologist Orbeli was born Princess Argutinskaya.

Among the nobles, the famous doctor Pletnev. Among his patients were Lenin and Krupskaya. During the years of repression, he was arrested, tortured, and convicted. In 1941 he was shot.

The main proletarian poet is the nobleman Mayakovsky. Among the nobles were the prose writers A.N. Tolstoy (the Soviet count, as he was called), Panteleimon Romanov, Olga Forsh (the daughter of the Tsar’s general), Vishnevsky, Mariengof, Chulkov, Zoshchenko, Andronikov, Oleg Volkov. From the Polish nobles Olesha and Alexander Green (real name - Grinevsky). One of the Russified Swedish nobles was Shtilmark, who wrote the novel “The Heir from Calcutta” in the camp.

In 1934 he was arrested along with eldest daughter Varvara children's writer Prince Vladimir Sergeevich Trubetskoy (pseudonym V. Vetov). They were exiled to Uzbekistan. A century ago, the wife of the Decembrist Trubetskoy, who was sentenced to hard labor, went to see him in Siberia. Now the wife of another prince Trubetskoy voluntarily, together with her children, went to Andijan, the place of his exile. There, in 1937, he and his three older children were arrested. The prince and twenty-year-old Varvara were shot. Grigory and Alexandra ended up in the camp. The widow Elizaveta Trubetskaya was sent to Butyrka prison in 1943, where she died a month later.

Father of a writer and poet, winner of six Stalin Prizes Konstantina Simonova - from a noble family Armenian origin, Major General of the Tsarist Army. And his mother was born Princess Obolenskaya. The father of the prose writer Yuri Nagibin was the nobleman Kirill Nagibin. In 1920 he was shot by the Bolsheviks. The writer was born after the death of his father. He received his middle name from his stepfather Mark Leventhal.

Already under Brezhnev, critic and writer Andrei Sinyavsky, who published in the West under the pseudonym Abram Tertz, was arrested on charges of anti-Soviet propaganda. I was sitting in the camp.

Among the nobles on the maternal side were the writers Arkady Gaidar, Krymov, brothers Valentin Kataev and Evgeniy Petrov (real name Kataev: died at the front in 1942), Boris Vasiliev. Writer Tatyana Tolstaya is the granddaughter of A.N. Tolstoy.

From a boyar family, the author of the text of the anthem of the Soviet Union, fabulist and children's poet Sergey Mikhalkov. Nobles - poets Akhmatova, Kuzmin, Gorodetsky, Abashidze (from a Georgian princely family), Oshanin. Poet and translator Lozinsky. One of the Polish nobles is the mother of the satirist Mikhail Zadornov.

Composer Bogoslovsky, who wrote such famous songs, like “Beloved City”, “Dark Mounds Sleep”, “ Dark night", "Scows". In 1934, after the murder of Kirov, all nobles were subject to expulsion from Leningrad. Bogoslovsky, risking his freedom, if not his life, did not leave. By some miracle they didn’t remember him then.

Author famous romances Fomin. The composer served a year in Butyrka prison. He died in 1948 in oblivion (romance was officially considered an alien genre). And twenty years later, Paul McCartney decided to try himself as a producer and invited no one famous singer Mary Hopkin will sing the song “Those Were The Days” - an English version of Fomin’s romance “The Long Road”. The success was stunning. The song topped the English charts for six weeks, ahead of the Beatles' songs. It was sung all over the world. But on all the records with this version, the only author is an American who wrote the English text.

Avant-garde composer Prince Andrei Volkonsky, "Rurikovich". Born in Geneva, he came to the USSR with his parents in 1947. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory and was expelled. Created an ensemble early music"Madrigal". In 1972 he left for the West. His son, Prince Peeter (Peter) Volkonsky, is a famous Estonian rock musician and actor.

The singers Obukhova, Zarudnaya, Gverdtsiteli, Otieva (from the family of Armenian princes Amatuni) are of noble origin. Singers Vertinsky (on his mother’s side), Vyacheslav and Igor Voinarovsky (from Polish nobles). Music and theater critic Sollertinsky. Ballerina Lepeshinskaya. Conductor Mravinsky. Cellists Leopold and Mstislav

Evgeny Berens. In 1919-1920 he commanded the Naval Forces of the Republic. By the way, his brother Mikhail a little later took command of the White Guard Russian squadron based in Tunisia.

Mikhail Beklemishev. One of the designers of the first Russian submarine "Dolphin" and its first commander. After the revolution, he was the head of one of the departments of the Main Directorate of Shipbuilding. Several times he, a former tsarist general, was arrested but released.

Count Ignatiev. In 1925, while living in France, he transferred to the Soviet government 225,000,000 rubles in gold invested in his name in French banks. This money belonged to Russia. White emigrants were indignant. Returning to his homeland, he held high positions in the Red Army.

Lukirsky. After the February Revolution he became a general. Voluntarily joined the Red Army. In 1930 arrested and convicted. A year later he was released. Promoted to division commander. In 1938 arrested and shot.

Karbyshev. From the Kryashen Tatars (Tatars who converted to Orthodoxy). Lieutenant Colonel of the Tsarist Army.
In December 1917 he joined the Red Army. In 1940 he was promoted to general. In 1941, while trying to escape the encirclement, he was shell-shocked and captured. In the Mauthausen concentration camp, he was doused with water in the cold and turned into a column of ice.

The father of Marshal Rokossovsky, one of the most talented commanders of the Great Patriotic War, was from a noble family. In 1937 Rokossovsky was arrested, accused of having connections with Polish and Japanese intelligence, and tortured. However, he did not incriminate himself or others. In 1940 he was released.

in the photo is Prince Dolgorukov M.M. 1937

The nobles made a great contribution to Soviet science and art.

These are famous scientists Michurin and Timiryazev.

This is Tsiolkovsky, who laid the foundations of modern cosmonautics. From Polish nobles. The abundance of Polish surnames is explained by the fact that among Poles the percentage of nobles has traditionally been unusually high. In 1919 he was arrested, interrogated for several weeks in Lubyanka, then released.

This is Chizhevsky, the founder of aeroionification (Chizhevsky's chandelier), space biology, heliobiology, electrohemodynamics. Since 1935 persecution began against him. In 1939 The first international congress on biological physics and space biology took place in New York. Chizhevsky was elected honorary president. But the Soviet authorities did not allow him to go abroad. Congress took the initiative to nominate him for the Nobel Prize. However, Chizhevsky was against it, fearing, obviously, that his life in the USSR might become more complicated. Nevertheless, in 1942 he ended up in the Gulag.

This is the biologist and geneticist Timofeev-Ressovsky, the prototype of the main character of Daniil Danin’s novel “Bison”. He amazed those around him with the independence and courage of his political statements. In 1925 began working in Germany, at the Institute for Brain Research (as a Soviet scientist).

Together with Delbrück, a future Nobel laureate, he created the first biophysical model of gene structure. Having learned about the repression that had begun, he refused to return to the USSR. During the war he continued to work in Germany. This can be explained by the fact that he was completely absorbed in scientific interests. However, Timofeev-Ressovsky issued the necessary certificates to the escaped “Ostarbeiters”, and his son, a member of the underground anti-fascist organization, died in a concentration camp. He waited for the arrival of the Soviet troops, preserving the staff and equipment of his department of the institute. Despite this, he received 10 years in the camps as a traitor to the Motherland.

Engineer, builder of the first Soviet hydroelectric power stations, Heinrich Graftio, is from a Dutch noble family. Arrested in 1921. Released after Lenin's intervention.

Orientalist Oldenburg. Minister of Public Education under the Provisional Government. For a quarter of a century (1904-1929) Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. Since 1930 Head of the Institute of Oriental Studies. He, like the biochemist Engelhardt, is from the German nobility. Organic chemist, inventor of the gas mask Nikolai Zelinsky.

For many years, the director of the State Hermitage was the archaeologist and Egyptologist Boris Piotrovsky. Now the Hermitage is headed by his son, the orientalist Mikhail Piotrovsky.

Historian, creator of the passionary theory of ethnogenesis Lev Gumilyov is the son of poets Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov. He was repeatedly arrested and spent many years in camps. Also, the scientist and science fiction writer Obruchev was born into a noble family. The long-term president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Keldysh, boldly wrote in all his questionnaires: “from the nobility.” From a princely family, physicist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Georgy Golitsyn.

The founder of colloidal soil chemistry, Konstantin Gedroits, and one of the world's first women professors of surgery, Vera Gedroits, from a Lithuanian princely family. During the First World War, Vera Gedroits taught nursing to the Empress and Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana, then supervised their work in the infirmary. The mother of Vernadsky, the creator of the doctrine of the noosphere, was a Ukrainian noblewoman. On the maternal side, from the Polish nobles, the philosopher Shpet. In 1935 arrested in 1937 shot as a member of an anti-Soviet organization. From an ancient Armenian family, the mother of the priest Pavel Florensky, a talented scientist and philosopher who died in the camp. And the mother of the physiologist Orbeli was born Princess Argutinskaya.

The main proletarian poet is the nobleman Mayakovsky. Among the noblemen are the prose writers A.N. Tolstoy (Soviet count, as he was called), Panteleimon Romanov, Olga Forsh (daughter of the Tsar’s general), Vishnevsky, Mariengof, Chulkov, Zoshchenko, Andronikov, Oleg Volkov. From the Polish nobles Olesha and Alexander Green (Grinevsky). One of the Russified Swedish nobles was Shtilmark, who wrote the novel “The Heir from Calcutta” in the camp.

In 1934 The children's writer Prince Vladimir Sergeevich Trubetskoy (pseudonym V. Vetov) was arrested along with his daughter Varvara. They were exiled to Uzbekistan. A century ago, the wife of the Decembrist Trubetskoy, who was sentenced to hard labor, went to see him in Siberia. Now the wife of another Prince Trubetskoy voluntarily, together with her children, went to Andijan, the place of his exile. There in 1937. he and three children were arrested. The prince and twenty-year-old Varvara were shot. Grigory and Alexandra ended up in a camp. The widow Elizaveta Trubetskaya in 1943. She was sent to Butyrka prison, where she died a month later.

The father of the writer and poet, winner of six Stalin Prizes, Konstantin Simonov, is from a noble family of Armenian origin, a major general in the tsarist army. And her mother was born Princess Obolenskaya. Yuri Nagibin's father was the nobleman Kirill Nagibin. In 1920 he was shot by the Bolsheviks. The writer was born after the death of his father. He received his patronymic from his stepfather Mark Leventhal.

From the nobles on the maternal side, writers Arkady Gaidar, Krymov, brothers Valentin Kataev and Evgeniy Petrov (real name Kataev; died at the front in 1942), Boris Vasiliev. Writer Tatyana Tolstaya is the granddaughter of A.N. Tolstoy.

Composer Bogoslovsky, who wrote such famous songs as “Beloved City”, “Dark Mounds Are Sleeping”, “Dark Night”, “Scows”. In 1934, after the murder of Kirov, all nobles were subject to deportation from Leningrad. Bogoslovsky, risking his freedom, if not his life, did not leave. By some miracle, they did not remember about him then.

Author of popular romances Fomin. The composer served a year in Butyrka prison. Died in 1948. into oblivion (romance was officially considered an alien genre). And 20 years later, Paul McCartney decided to try himself as a producer and invited the unknown singer Mary Hopkin to perform the song “Those Were The Days” - the English version of Fomin’s romance “The Long Road”. The success was stunning. The song topped the English hit parade for six weeks, ahead of the Beatles' songs. It was sung all over the world. But on all the records with this version, the only author listed is an American who wrote the English lyrics.

Avant-garde composer Prince Andrei Volkonsky, “Rurikovich”. Born in Geneva, in 1947. He came to the USSR with his parents. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory and was expelled. He created the ancient music ensemble “Madrigal”. In 1972 left for the West. His son Peter (Peter) Volkonsky is a famous Estonian rock musician and actor.

The singers Obukhova, Zarudnaya, Gerdtsiteli, Otieva (from the family of Armenian princes Amatuni) were of noble origin. Singers Vertinsky (on his mother’s side), Vyacheslav and Igor Voinarovsky (from Polish nobles). Music and theater critic Sollertinsky. Ballerina Lepeshinskaya. Conductor Mravinsky. Pianist Richter (on his mother's side).

The author of the project and the builder of the Mausoleum, architect Shchusev, is also a nobleman. One of the Polish nobles was the artist Malevich, who painted the world-famous “Black Square”. Arrested in 1930, released a few months later. The sculptor Manuilova is a noblewoman.

Among the nobles were actresses Andreeva, Lyubov Orlova, Giatsintova, Okunevskaya (6 years in prisons and camps), Dobrzhanskaya, Lyudmila Gurchenko (on her mother’s side). Actors Massalsky, Velyaminov (9 years in the camps), Steblov, Lev Durov, Yursky. From the Polish nobles Vaclav Dvorzhetsky. From 1929 to 1937 he was in the Gulag, doing the most difficult work. In 1941 arrested again, released after 5 years. His sons Vladislav and Evgeniy also became actors. From the Polish noble families there are also Aroseva (on the mother’s side) and Oleg Yankovsky.

The creator of the eerie images of Baba Yaga and Kashchei Millyar is from the French noble family of de Milliet. The surname was changed, the noble prefix was removed. Millyar hid not only his origin, but also the fact that he was fluent in French and German. Even this could become a compromising fact at that time time. From a noble family originating in France, actor George Menglet and his daughter actress Maya Menglet. From French nobles and great-grandfather of Natalia Varley, engineer Eugene Barbot de Marny.

Directors Nemirovich-Danchenko and Tarkovsky were nobles by origin. Director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov, director Andrei Konchalovsky are the sons of Sergei Mikhalkov. The TV presenters are second cousins ​​Peter and Fekla Tolstoy - great-great-grandsons of L.N. Tolstoy.

Someone died during the revolution and civil war. The most famous example- poet Gumilyov. Executed in 1921. as a participant in a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. In 1919. The Odessa Cheka arrested and sentenced to death the brilliant chess player Alekhine. He was saved by the last-minute intervention of a prominent Bolshevik. He soon emigrated and a few years later became the world champion.

How much longer famous nobles emigrated after the revolution!

Writers Bunin, Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Zaitsev. Poets: Severyanin (second cousin of Kollontai), Khodasevich (from the Poles). Composer Rachmaninov. Linguist and philosopher Prince Nikolai Sergeevich Trubetskoy (brother of Vladimir Trubetskoy). He opposed National Socialism and called it biological materialism. In 1938 after the Anschluss of Austria he was persecuted by the Gestapo (he then lived in Vienna). He was arrested for three days. During the search, many manuscripts were confiscated. Soon after this, the prince died of a heart attack.

Many nobles were among the best representatives of the intelligentsia expelled in 1922. from Soviet Russia. For example, philosophers Berdyaev, Ivan Ilyin, writer Osorgin. Can a government be correct if, in order to preserve itself, it is forced to get rid of the intellectual color of the nation? The answer is obvious. Still, under Lenin they were only deported. Under Stalin, unwanted people were no longer expelled. Either execution or the Gulag awaited them.

Some have already become famous abroad. For example, the writer Vladimir Nabokov. Or Anna Marley (née Betulinskaya), author of the famous “Song of the Partisans,” which became the anthem of the French resistance.

Someone was born abroad and became famous. This is actress Marina Vladi (real name Polyakova-Baidarova or de Polyakoff-Baidaroff). This is film director Roger Vadim (pseudonym of Vladimir Plemyannikov). Roger Vadim's first film, “And God Created Woman,” made both him and his wife Brigitte Bardot famous.

Some noble emigrants returned. The literary critic Prince Svyatopolk-Mirsky, having become a Marxist, returned to the USSR in 1932. He was a regular at diplomatic receptions: the Soviet government wanted to show its loyalty to former aristocrats. However, this power did not tolerate the prince for long. In 1937 he was arrested on suspicion of espionage and died in a camp two years later. Kuprin returned. In 1939 The poetess Tsvetaeva returned to her homeland. Two years later she hanged herself.

How many talents our culture lost as a result of the October Revolution!

The nobles who had no merit to the Soviet regime had a very bad time. At least until Khrushchev came to power. They were deliberately and cynically brought to the brink of survival. They were kicked out of houses and apartments, their property was taken away, they were not hired, they were not accepted into higher education. educational establishments. They suffered insults and humiliation.

With their pride, with their sense of honor! No one wanted to know that the ancestors of many of them had done so much for the glory of Russia. They were especially hostile towards titled nobles. During times Stalin's repressions could be sent to a camp for just one thing noble origin. Those who left after the revolution were branded, called enemies and traitors, and at the same time, those who did not want to leave were dealt with. How Stalinist this is!

The nobles had to hide their origin, write in their questionnaires: “from the employees.”
Some sincerely accepted Soviet power and worked for her. (for example S. Mikhalkov).

For centuries, nobles have been the mainstay of power, so they may be genetically predisposed to support existing power.

But most of the nobles, until repression reached them, simply did their work honestly and conscientiously. Nobility is, first of all, internal decency.

© Copyright: Vladimir Nolletov, 2012

I haven’t posted anything on the topic of “genealogy” for a long time. And already questions arose. For example, what are “noble genealogy books”?

Here is a short answer (Petrovich on the IOP forum website)
In each province, a kind of “record sheet” of the nobles of the province was kept - the Noble Genealogical Book. As a rule, nobles - owners of real estate in the province - were included in it. If there was no real estate - at the place of birth or service. Depending on the grounds for inclusion in the nobility, the contingent was divided into 6 categories. The most honorable are the 5th (titled nobility) and the 6th (ancient nobility). As a rule, introducing a gender into the Dv. Genus. The book was first passed at the provincial level - the applicant submitted Required documents, and everything was approved in St. Petersburg by Decree of the Governing Senate. Cases of admission to the nobility, family lists, etc. you should look in the provincial archives - in the State Military Academy, as well as in St. Petersburg, in the Russian State Historical Archive... The preservation of these funds in different provinces, let's say, is different. By the way, being considered a member of the nobility is not a cheap procedure at all. IN different time- 120-150 rubles “from the nose”. Plus the cost of stamp paper, the artist who drew the coat of arms, however, the coat of arms was approved separately, and much more. Cases for admission to the nobility often lasted for years.

On the Internet, if you search well, you can find 5-7 books of noble genealogies.

Lists of noble families Russian Empire by province. Bibliographic index
Compiled S.V.Dumin
(Chronicle of the Historical and Genealogical Society in Moscow, issue 3 (47), M., 1995, pp. 88–100)

One of the most important tasks of modern Russian genealogy should be recognized as working on bibliographic reference books. When starting to study family history, the researcher often does not even suspect that the data he is interested in can be found in certain genealogical works. But even in cases where the family tree is not reflected in printed publications, information about it can be found in various lists, guidebooks, memorial books and address calendars. For a long time now, the publication edited by Prof. has become a reference book for any somewhat experienced genealogist. P.A. Zayonchkovsky “Handbooks on the history of pre-revolutionary Russia” (Moscow, 1975). Among the reference literature mentioned in this publication are: printed lists nobles
Unfortunately, there has never been a complete list of nobles of the Russian Empire, although shortly before the revolution, the so-called All-Russian Noble Genealogy Book was established by the Department of Heraldry of the Governing Senate - for persons who served the nobility, but for some reason were not counted among the nobility of a certain province. The fact is that at the beginning of the twentieth century. noble assemblies received the right to refuse inclusion in the local nobility. Sometimes they were guided by the religion of these individuals: for example, similar petitions from people of the Jewish faith were considered without enthusiasm. However, an Orthodox person could also be denied inclusion in the nobility of a given province. So, for example, the Moscow Deputy Assembly refused to include the Gantimurov princes, approved by the Senate in the dignity of Tungus princes, in the local genealogical book, since the family did not have real estate in the province.
Belonging to the nobility was proven in the provincial assembly of the nobility; since 1785, i.e. since the publication of the “Charter of Grant to the Nobility” by Empress Catherine II, persons recognized as nobles by origin or personal merit were included in the provincial genealogical book; from the province, affairs of the nobility were submitted to the Heraldry of the Senate for approval; lists of persons included in the families already approved in the nobility were sent there annually from provincial assemblies. Origin from the nobility of a certain province was also recorded in the service records of officials and military personnel (although often it was not the province in which their family was registered that was indicated, but the province in which they themselves were born).
Localization of the family being studied in a particular province makes further genealogical search (referring to the relevant regional archives, registry books, land acts, specific cases of nobility, lists and genealogical books in the archives of the Department of Heraldry, etc.) more targeted. At the same time, in reference books devoted to the nobility of some provinces, one can also find detailed information - from the names of persons belonging to a given clan to more or less carefully presented pedigrees of each family.
Unfortunately, neither the reference book mentioned above, edited by P.A. Zayonchkovsky, nor the pre-revolutionary indexes of L.M. Savelov and D.V. Ulyaninsky (which have long become a bibliographic rarity) do not provide an exhaustive list of publications of this type. Perhaps the reader will note some gaps in our list (compiled, of course, mainly on the basis of the works of predecessors). We deliberately refused to include in it various publications devoted not to genealogy itself, but to the history of the nobility of individual provinces. As a rule, we do not indicate lists of persons who served in elections, books devoted to noble militias and other “general historical” works that are also of interest to the researcher, but are not directly related to publications of the type that interests us. An exception was made for multi-volume publications dedicated to the nobility of some provinces: we considered it inappropriate to exclude any volumes from the description. Publications of a more general type are also given in cases where there are no actual lists of nobility.
Our list does not include publications dedicated to the nobility of Finland, as well as the Baltic provinces - Courland, Livonia and Estland. Pre-revolutionary publications are significantly supplemented by foreign German publications of a later time, and a general index should be compiled taking into account both. Such work requires additional bibliographic research, and we consider it possible to postpone it for the future.
God willing, over time this modest work, along with many other reference books, will be used in the development of a new detailed bibliographic index on Russian genealogy. However, we hope that until that happy time, the publication of our “list of lists” will make it easier for genealogists to do their genealogical search.
The compiler sincerely thanks his respected colleagues Vladimir Alekseevich Ponsov, Nikolai Vladimirovich Lopatin, Olga Vladimirovna Rykova and Andrei Aleksandrovich Shumkov for their assistance in this work.

Astrakhan province
1. List of hereditary nobles of the Astrakhan province recorded in the noble genealogy book, compiled according to the latest changes by March 1, 1910. Astrakhan, 1910. 209 p.
2. Alphabetical list of noble families of the Astrakhan province included in the noble genealogy book. Compiled by Secretary of the Nobility K.A. Nikolaev. Astrakhan, 1893. 28 p.
3. List of hereditary nobles of the Astrakhan province, compiled according to the most recent changes by January 1, 1900. B.m., b.g. [Astrakhan, 1900]. 173s.
4. G.g. hereditary nobles, included in the genealogical books //Noble address-calendar for 1897. Ed. N.V. Shaposhnikova. St. Petersburg, 1897, pp. 117–339. [The publication contains lists of nobles of 43 provinces; none of them are complete; most often, lists are published only for some counties; as a rule, these are lists of persons who have the right to participate in the affairs of the noble assembly, that is, those who have the appropriate land or service qualifications; usually the list indicates the rank, the name of the estate; small-scale nobles who were not allowed to participate in the elections were not included in these lists; however, the publication can be recommended for reference, especially for provinces where complete lists of nobles have not been published.]

Bessarabian Governorate
5. Alphabetical list of noble families of the Bessarabian province included in the noble genealogical book on January 1, 1901. Chisinau, 1901. 24 p.
6. Alphabetical list of noble families of the Bessarabian province included in the noble genealogy book for 1909. Chisinau, 1909.
7. Lists of nobles of the Bessarabian province. [Without title pages and covers. Published for the meeting of the nobility in 1898. by districts: Bendery and Akkerman (3 pp.), Beletsky (4 pp.), Chisinau (4 pp.), Orhei (4 pp.), Khotyn (3 pp.); the place of publication is not indicated; it is noted that the lists were reviewed and approved by the meeting on December 12, 1898]
8. Krupensky A.N. Full list persons elected by the Bessarabia nobility to regional, provincial and district positions from the time of Bessarabia's annexation to the Russian Empire until 1912. With a historical introduction. St. Petersburg, 1912. 136 p. [Attached is a list of noble families of the Bessarabian province included in the genealogical book on January 1, 1911]
See also .

Warsaw Governorate
See: Kingdom of Poland