LOST MILLION
Today in Belarus more than a million people have roots connecting them
with the historical noble class - the gentry and the nobility.
Word Nobility comes from German words S lahta - genus andSchlacht battle ... Literally - people of battle, warriors. It was a noble class that built and defended the Fatherland during the formation of the state.
According to legend, the ancestors of the ancient Lithuanian = Belarusian gentry families were the ancient Romans. " With this legend, the Lithuanians tried to prove their ancient origin: they are an old Roman gentry, while Poles-Poles were simple people who received their coats of arms in Chekhi ”(Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron. St. Petersburg, 1907).
The gentry in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were also often called knights.
Why were there so many gentry?
During the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the gentry accounted for 10-15% of the population. This concentration of the elite, the noble class, is unique in Europe. On the one hand, the gentry was an irregular army, a type of militia necessary to protect the borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. On the other hand, the gentry was the organizational structure of society, formed by the elite, who knew how to lead and lead.
The main wealth of the gentry were gonar i good- honour and dignity. The basic principles of the gentry democracy were freedom and equality.
It can be argued that “… The only carrier of the national consciousness of the Belarusian people was the gentry. It was the gentry - educated, who knew their history and the history of their ancestors, who had spiritual and political ideals - that expressed the soul of the people ”(VV Deruzhinsky. Secrets of Belarusian history, Minsk, FUAnform, 2009).
What does the Belarusian gentry mean
Rzeczpospolita and, accordingly, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania never had an official Heraldry as an institution for registering coats of arms. In fact, the function of registering coats of arms is implemented in the heralds of Okolsky, Paprotsky, Nessetsky, Bonetsky, etc., which have been published since the 16th century. Although all the primary sources on the history of the gentry are written in Polish, we can only talk about Polish the gentry is illegal, since the gentry on the one hand was multinational, and on the other hand, the gentry existed outside the Polish lands proper.
The gentry were Poles, Lithuanians = Belarusians, Zhemoytians = Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Tatars, Jews. They came to the service of the Polish king and the Grand Duke of Lithuania from Scotland and Denmark, from France and Hungary. It should be borne in mind that the gentry was also a lot of confessional: Catholic, Orthodox, Uniate, Protestant. In the system of the European noble class, the gentry stood out primarily for its unique socio-political role in the structure of the state.
Historically, the gentry was divided according to the provinces: the Vilna gentry, the Pinsk gentry, the Volyn gentry, etc. That's why the Belarusian gentry is an ancient noble class on the territory of Belarus.
How the lost million appeared
After the division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the re-registration of the gentry into the Russian nobility began. As a result of this re-registration, more than half of the gentry were struck out of the noble class and rewritten as burghers and peasants. This mainly concerned the poor gentry, odnodvorets.
In Russia, the nobility was less than 1% of the population, so the Russian government was worried about the large concentration of the gentry. The gentry got used to their rights, demanded respect for themselves, had their ambition- after all, for more than four centuries the nobility chose the entire vertical of power, including the king.
The gentry was finally destroyed after the October Revolution of 1917. Representatives of many clans left Belarus forever. Physical destruction, exile to Siberia and the northern regions of Russia forced people to destroy documents of belonging to the noble class, change their ancient surnames so as not to fall under the punishing hand of the "workers and peasants" authorities.
Do I need to look for the lost million
Gentry traditions are the most important part of our history, our national treasure. The gentry is 300-400 years older than the Russian nobility and has unique spiritual historical traditions. Our gentry coats of arms - knightly coats of arms, are inextricably linked with European heraldry and history.
Unfortunately, an objective concept of the Belarusian history - heroic and tragic - has not yet been formed. It is the history of the gentry that helps to take a fresh look at our past - the country of castles, the country of knights, the country of a proud freedom-loving people.
A very important remark was made at the collegium of the ministry in January 2010 by the Minister of Culture Pavel Latushko: "Acts of the past and the traditional buzz and aktynay of samadentsyfikatsi, of the best nationality of the Belarusian people."
Can a lost million be found
Alas, often thin threads connecting the past and present of the noble class in Belarus are family legends, sometimes only an original rare thing - a brooch, a box, sometimes a faded photograph.
The stories about the destruction of gentry letters are dramatic. Someone remembers how, after the death of their grandmother, a letter of nobility was found behind an icon. They got it ... And it crumbled to dust - the papers decayed from dryness. Someone remembers how for several years they were looking for a buried shell case, in which a noble letter was hidden. Someone remembers how already in the 70s, parents burned their aristocratic archives. They were no longer shot, imprisoned, or exiled for the nobility. But the family's father took up a nomenklatura position and feared for his career.
It is remarkable that the people's memory still retains something about the gentry past. In many villages, they remember the gentry outskirts, customs and manners, teasers for some noble families have been preserved.
How to look for confirmation of the gentry
Gentry encyclopedic dictionaries contain more than 20,000 surnames - "visiting cards" of the genus. These editions are compiled according to the principle: surname - coat of arms. Anyone can easily find a starting point to study their gentry family. You just need to keep in mind that almost all of this literature is in Polish (that's why Poland doesn't have its own lost million!). More recently, Ukrainian heraldry books have appeared. In 2002, the National Historical Archives of Belarus began to publish the “Coat of arms of the Belarusian gentry”. So far, volumes have been published on the letter A (circulation of 150 copies) and on the letter B (circulation of 300 copies).
All primary sources - heraldry books, gentry encyclopedias were published in Polish, and the translation of surnames from Belarusian and Russian into Polish is in some cases of great philological complexity.
If the surname is in the armorial books, then you can look for documentary evidence of noble roots in the National Historical Archives. However, for objective reasons, the documents that have survived in our country cover only a small part of the gentry surnames. Many documents related to the history of the Belarusian gentry ended up in the archives of Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine.
In this case, the following should be borne in mind.
If the surname is in the gentry heralds, then the likelihood that you are the heir to the noble class is great.
If a natural start letter is foundXIXcentury about the recognition of your ancestor as a nobleman, then it is very likely that you are a descendant of an ancient noble family. Why isn't the probability 100%? The fact is that as soon as the gentry in the 18th century was obliged to submit documents on the introduction into the noble class, “specialists” appeared in forging historical letters. An official document on the recognition of the gentry (noble) dignity could be issued on the basis of such a "linden".
And, finally, if your ancestor served the nobility in the Russian Empire, and you have an official document, the probability of a genetic connection with the noble class is almost 100%. Why almost? Alas, the transfer of the surname does not always correspond to the transfer of genes.
The heirs of the gentry
We live in the Republic of Belarus. We have a republic, not an estate state. Therefore, it is correct to say about the inheritance of the gentry tradition... Gentleness - in relation to their past. Gentleness - in compliance with the code of gentry (knightly, noble) honor. Gentleness in - behavior. Gentleness - in self-esteem.
The heirs of the gentry are addressed by the wonderful words of Yevhen Chernitsky, a member of the Ukrainian heraldic society, compiler of the "Right-Bearer Herb of Arms":
Hsitesgentryandno goiters' crochetandXia do Zhodnandx happyandx powersandx handhromadskandx setup for formal approval of your ownandseal handіnshandm document. Our ancestors, scho to resemble the ancient princes, also splatandlandat the right time in battles, "a tribute of blood", and that mandopenly right shanuvatandVlasny Rid i Coat of arms of the fact of the people from the gentryandx dad. Іншandx proof that permission is not required.
The present and future of the lost million
The heirs of the gentry families today - both in the power structures and among the heads of enterprises, and in science and culture. The genetics of noble families is manifested in the ability to lead, and in the desire for education, and in the preservation of a peculiar Belarusian phenotype (note how many truly beautiful people with noble faces and delicate manners we have).
Ideally, a nobleman is a person with firm moral principles, responsible and active, living in accordance with the code of noble honor. In ancient times, the nobleman could be poor, but in civil rights he was equal to the king himself, as in the saying "Shlyakhtsich on the harodze of the rony vayavodze."
The memory of their ancestors guarantees the connection of times, turns history from dry pages of a textbook into a living part of the family, clan. A person is imbued with a sense of a common history, a common land on which his ancestors lived, and his descendants will live. This is what is called patriotism.
The growing interest of Belarusians in their history - the history of the state and specifically their ancestors allows us to hope that the gentry traditions will not be forgotten, but will organically fit into our modernity, give a spiritual message to the future.
Chairman of the Minsk meeting of the heirs of the gentry and nobility
Igor Chekalov - Shidlovsky
Literature
Adam Maldzis. Yak zhyly nasha prodki ў XVIII stagoddzi. Minsk, Limaryus, 2001.
V.V. Deruzhinsky. Secrets of Belarusian history, Minsk, FUAnform, 2009
Anatol Tsitў. Heraldic of Belarus. Minsk kalyarovaga factory druku. 2007.
From the history of the noble estate in Belarus and neighboring states. Compiled by Igor Chekalov-Shidlovsky. Second revised edition. Minsk. Encyclopedix. 2009.
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Asablіva high gentry tsanіla pile "patched up freedom". Yana sapraўdy was of great significance, as was the case with the Dvaran of the neighboring regions. Udzel at the Seimas, Seimas and Tribunals dazvaliў shlahtsіchu іstotna plyvats on the external and internal policy of the land. The padpara gentry obeyed only these laws, as she jumped herself. Practical yana was an independent hell of the central settlement. The word of the Polish history of culture Alyaksandr Brukner, the nobleman called with the carnage only padymny padattacks abavyazak udzelnich in the “paspal” wars. The lagic compulsions of such "freedom" were self-will. Prafesar Adam Maldzis Shlyakhetskaya culture of Belarus (XVII-XIX st.) About slimers and kulizhnikiOld Belarusian cuisineThe strength of the GDL was built on the equality of people, land ownership and the immutability of legal equality |
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Racha Paspalitay had a noble nobility among the rightists. Tytuly princes and counts were known to be the most important ones (in Radzivilak, Sapegak and іnshykh), but they are extremely important to the empire Svyatarnai Rymskai emperors of the German nation. Only to the noschadkam of old princely families, the princely tytula took over. Ale ўse getyya tytuly did not give the ladalniks the first over the astatnyayu gentry. Navat themselves are poor noblemen, as for hours nya me zyamli svaih syalyanak, tearetychna to the tycoon, napryklad, Radzivil. Adsyul enlightened, chamu naybagatseishy chalavek from Racha Paspalitay from another palove of the XVIII century. - Prince Karol Radzivil (pa Myanushtsy to Pan-kakhanku) - he calls the sharahovaga of the gentry “Panam-brothers”. Tearetychna kozhny noblemen could have been abrans as punishment. Usyo geta saw the great shyrok noble demakratya. Shlyakhetskі gonar were natural and inadequate for the gentry. Prafesar Anatol Grytskevich EARTH UNDER WHITE WINGS Belarusian gentry lingvo.minsk.by ›skc / asveta / szlachta.htm |
Perasled i ўtsisk on zastsyankovuyu gentry pravodziўsya kasavannem Yai shlyahetstva, zapisam in adnaasobniki i zabirannem in rekruty, znyaveranaya i abdziranaya chynavenstvam, of pamyatstsyu hell dzyadov i batskoў great pile daўneyshyya Svaboda i roўnastsi gramadzyanskiya, kali shlyahtsits on naradze byў pavazhany for roўnaga of vayavodam, gentry zatsyarozhylasya ў saba i staunchly wanted ў svoih sersakh va sih pakalennyah love Aichyny i pasvyachennya spirit for yae, and ў familiarizing khatnih - folk traditions from daўniny.
Simple shchyraya faith, pabozhnasts i gastsinnasts, love aychynnai zyamli - geta va ўse hours of the administrative trot of the zastsyankovaga gentry.
Miron Narbut
Nobility roundabout
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... it was a lot of money for any paperwork and goods for men’s lines (for balls) that the noblemen’s good fortune for the Chalaveks was known by the flesh karparatsy of the gentry. Pavodle Daravalnaya gramata dvaranstvu of 1785, dastatkov ... to prove that the pakhodzhannya vysakarodnaga lichylasya dvanatsatsi dvaran ... on the base of the yakog dvaran, the gathering could be the name of the nobleman and issued in bulk. Kadydat of old navukVital Makarevich « Anti-parsing» gentry. Forgeries of noble documents and illegal nobilizations in Belarus in the 19th century. Vitaly MAKAREVICH(translated from Belarusian). |
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The gentry was sensitive to any attempts to demarcate the camp externally. In 1638, the Sejm refused to approve the Order of the Knights of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary proposed by Vladislav IV on the pretext that the entire gentry was equal. Another external sign of the gentry equality was the appeal to each other - "Pan Brace", adopted in secular and Diet circles, the transformation of a gentry manor, palace, house into possession inaccessible to the authorities. Then the proverb was born - "the nobleman in the zagrodze is equal to the governor." (Zagroda is a gentry yard outside a large settlement. Zagrodkovaya is a simple, often very poor gentry) |
The historical fate of the Belarusian people has developed in such a way that it has lost the memory of its past, its history to an enormous extent. But in the process of the formation of the Belarusian statehood and the further development of the Belarusian nation, turning to the past, and above all to the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, is inevitable. And here the Belarusians have an advantage over many peoples of the “post-Soviet space”. The appeal of Belarusians to the GDL is an appeal to a past that is much more in line with modern democratic norms and on which one can rely much more in building a democratic state than on historical patterns and examples of the past of many other peoples. If in their history they are proud not of wars of conquest and the enslavement of others, but of the proximity of the social order of the past to modern norms and values, Belarusians have something to be proud of.
Professor Georgy Golenchenko
Gentry democracy "in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
XVI-XVIII centuries
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Several noblemen from Poland were in Paris when the Bastille was being destroyed there. They were delighted that the fortress was swept away, into which the tyrant dared to imprison free citizens without a court sentence! But at the same time we read in the gentry memoirs, which were written in the 18th century, but were published only in the 19th century, that the largest Polish magnates had their own bastilles. Such a magnate, if he did not like the gentry, but served at his court, could put him there. And no one demanded anything about him, except that the prisoner had influential relatives. The gentry did not notice these small bastilles at all. Professor Janusz Tazbir |
After the death of the childless Sigismund II, the central power in the huge Polish-Lithuanian state began to weaken. At a stormy meeting of the Diet, a new king, Henry (Henryk) of Valois (reigned 1573-1574; later he became Henry III of France), was elected. At the same time, he was forced to accept the principle of "free election" (election of the king by the gentry), as well as the "pact of consent", which each new monarch had to swear to. The right of the king to choose his heir was transferred to the Diet. The king was also forbidden to declare war or increase taxes without the consent of parliament. He had to be neutral on religious matters, he had to marry on the recommendation of the Senate. The council, which consisted of 16 senators appointed by the Sejm, constantly gave him recommendations. If the king did not fulfill any of the articles, the people could refuse to obey him. Thus, Henryk's articles changed the status of the state - from a limited monarchy, Poland passed to an aristocratic parliamentary republic; the head of the executive branch, who was elected for life, did not have sufficient powers to govern the state.
History of Poland
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Directly Polish specificity was the absence of any legal differentiation within the knightly group and the internal hierarchy that divided the knights, according to feudal principles, into vassals and lords. The reigning prince acted as the only lord of the numerous knightly group, and each knight felt dependent only on him. ... the gentry managed to defend the fundamental principle of "nothing new" - "nihil poѵi" (1505). The ban on the introduction of any innovations without the consent of the representatives of the gentry was enshrined in 1506 in a code of laws drawn up on the initiative of Crown Chancellor Jan Laski. Since the beginning of the XVI century. The gentry, turning into a "gentry nation", was already a full-fledged master in the state and remained such a master until the end of the existence of the Commonwealth, that is, a republic - res publica.
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Pastaўce sabe metu:stats chalavek gentry... The task is not easy. Hamam byts nashmat lyagchei. And being a gentry, dy yashche ў boorish gramadism - a tsyazhka. I wish it would be for the gentry chalaveks, not for the valodats for sketches. Shlyakhetny chalavek yashche adukavans, pratsavits, maralny chysty, patryatychny and svaygo to the people and yago kashtounastsyaў (language, culture, history, tradytsyayak), vysokaadukavans, samahvyarny, svoychrodets, padrykhtya live, do not sprout a gill. It is only tada, kali ў gramadstvo, narrow dastatkovye camp of the gentry people (gentry elite), the number of the gentry will become “fashionable”, the coming of the cardinal change in the land. Shlyakhetnaya eleta - geta padmurak for natsiyanal-patryyatychnyh forces. At the ethnical teerytors of the Belarusian-Lithuanian іsnaval ON, the nobleman was a nobleman - geta yosts gistarichny padmurak for yae adradzhennya. Syarod our inhabitants live thousands of gramadzyans, yakia z'yaўlyayutsa nashchadkami shlakhetskіkh radoў. І ў skin conditions are such asoby, as simple as Nelga is not a ganaryzza. Galina Artsyomenka |
In the times of the Commonwealth, a nobleman could be poor, but in civil rights equal to the king himself, as in the saying "Shlyakhtsich on the harodze of the rўny vayavodze." Before the war, it was still possible to "calculate" a nobleman in everyday life. In a characteristic accent - with an abundance of distorted Polish words and expressions. According to the "dirty" attitude towards neighbors. On the other hand, when two women of different classes started a dispute, the one with “ambition” could call the opponent a “peasant” or cast a disdainful glance. In addition to the Catholic Grodno region, many gentry lived in Sluchina - the Radziwills ruled here, actively developed agriculture and invited nobles from all over the country here, giving them allotments and peasants. And least of all the aristocracy settled in the Mozyr region - in a traditionally sparsely populated region adjacent to our medieval "Chechnya" - the restless Ukrainian "Kazachchina".
Sophia Shumskaya, Victor Korbut
Interview with member of MSNShD Zhanna Korolenok.
http://gazetaby.com/index.php?&sn_nid=48743&sn_cat=35
This and other questions of the joint genealogical project of the Belarusian genealogical portal Radawod.by and the Christian information portal Krynica.info are answered by the well-known Belarusian researcher, specialist in gentry genealogy Vitold Khanetskiy.
- You can often hear that almost every Belarusian in one way or another has gentry roots. How true is this statement? Did the gentry really make up 10-12% of the population on our lands?
I do not exclude that it reached 15%. And if you delve deeply into the genealogies of even peasant families, you can find gentry ancestors. All this began in the 19th century, when, after the annexation of the Belarusian lands to the Russian Empire, the “analysis of the gentry” began. Then many of the gentry were transferred to the poorest estates, and gradually, from the middle of the 19th century, the gentry families began to interfere with the peasants. Previously, it was impossible for a nobleman to marry a peasant woman. In some places, this situation even persisted until World War II, and only the war had already redrawn all these ancient traditions.
- And what about the percentage of the gentry could not prove their gentry origin?
According to my observations, if we take the total number of births, then more than half - for sure. But there were several dozen representatives in each genus. And of these several dozen, only half of them may have taken hold. The rest were enrolled in odnodvorts and bourgeois. The property status was also different, and the proof of the nobility required a lot of money and a lot of time. Moreover, original documents were required. In addition, the gentry should have owned serfs. If they were not there, they were recorded among the nobles of the second category. Then such noblemen became one-courtier, and from one-courtier they were already copied into the bourgeoisie, and the poor - generally into the peasants.
Therefore, in one noble family there could be representatives approved and unapproved in the Russian nobility. Sometimes it took up to 40 years for approval in the nobility. My paternal ancestors were established in the nobility for 35 years. As for the mother, too, a smaller part of the clan was approved, and the rest were scattered: some in the peasants, some in the bourgeoisie. And that was the usual thing. And if today you ask your descendants who their ancestors were, then many answer that they were peasants. And if you dig a little deeper, they turn out to be from very ancient gentry families.
It so happened that the Russian Empire was interested in a smaller percentage of the nobility. After all, on their theories of the nobility was 2-3%, and we had more gentry, and she also constantly rebelled - it was not profitable for them. It was necessary to put the ol 'under the control. Also nobility in the Russian Empire did not pay taxes, but taxes were needed.
- Dmitry Drozd, while researching the biography of Dunin-Martsinkevich, discovered that he was actively engaged in falsifying documents to obtain the nobility. To what extent has this activity been streamlined? Have you met with similar fakes?
Fakes are constantly encountered. First of all, this concerns the Minsk Noble Deputy Assembly.
- Just where Dunin-Martsinkevich was ...
Yes exactly. There was a whole syndicate involved in pure crime: forgery, fraud. If not in every second, then in every third case, you can definitely find such documents. Moreover, even well-known and powerful families come across one or two false documents. For a specialist, there is no particular difficulty in recognizing this. But you need to pay close attention to the documents from the Minsk DDS. Those who were withdrawn from the Vitebsk region, Mogilev region, Grodno region have much fewer such fakes, but here they are also found.
- And what is the main feature of such falsified documents?
The main feature is the provision of not the originals of the document, but supposedly later, repeated extracts from those acts from the Oshmyany and Braslav courts. If such extracts were submitted, then they could not be verified, since there were several fires in those courts and many documents were burned. Thus, the officials could not verify these documents. Moreover, they used aged paper, forged seals and signatures, even handwriting. But today, a good specialist, based on special knowledge of the technique and grammar of performance, can detect these falsified documents.
- Has it ever happened that some clever peasants or bourgeois, whose ancestors had never been the gentry, tried to seize the moment?
Of course. And the peasants sought the nobility, and the bourgeoisie. This occurs all the time when some facts were attracted by the ears. And oddly enough, this worked very often, although the authorities were constantly complicating the system and putting a spoke in the wheel. But the dexterous, more stubborn, brought the matter to the end.
It so happened that the whole family is from near Minsk, and documents are submitted from the Oshmyany district. They never lived there, but they submitted documents from there!
- Can such people be considered a gentry?
If you approach it in principle, then no. Yes, they have developed a pedigree. But she can only be trusted since the 19th century, but not from the depths. Even the ancient nobility, who had the right to nobility and the corresponding roots, not all have the correct pedigrees. Sometimes, not being able to bring the gentry origin of a particular person, he was attached to another well-known branch of the same family family, to which he might not belong. There are many such cases.
- What other difficulties are there in drawing up a gentry pedigree? Is it more difficult to do than, for example, a peasant one?
Peasant pedigrees have a standard basic set, which can be traced back to the early 18th century. If the peasants belonged to the Radziwills or Jesuits, then it is possible to continue until the 17th century. The standard kit is, first of all, inventories and metrics. But everything also depends on the region, since the safety of the metrics is very different. For example, in the Mogilev region, it is very weak. Further - these are revision tales, in which the results of revisions from 1795 to 1858 were recorded.
It also includes redemption cases, which were drawn up after the agricultural reform of 1861, when state and landlord peasants received pieces of land. Redemption cases were started on each estate with all its villages. They are very well preserved and contain information up to the beginning of the twentieth century. There are no family lists, but the owners of the peasant households pass by. In case there is a lack of metrics or revision tales, then redemption deeds can fill this space.
The biggest problem throughout Belarus is the end of the 19th century - the beginning of the 20th century. During this period, the metrics were very poorly preserved. It's such a black hole. And it's good if even now someone from the elderly remembers those times. Then you can try to catch on to the latest revision tales by names. The preserved materials of the All-Russian census of 1897 concern a small number of regions of Belarus. Therefore, according to peasant genealogies, it is very important to catch on to 1858. If you fall within this limit, then there is a chance to make a pedigree very well.
- And what about the gentry pedigrees in this regard?
With gentry and easier, and more difficult. It is simpler, since in deputy meetings, when proving the nobility, ready-made family affairs were formed. But there is only basic evidence. There are no female lines either - only the year of birth. There are very few metrics about marriage; there are almost no metrics about death at all. But there are family lists, estate deeds, and many other miscellaneous things that can bring a family tree to life so that there are more than just math facts.
It is more difficult to restore the genealogy because the gentry was a free estate and could move. Therefore, it is very difficult to trace their paths. This, of course, can be done, but the search is complicated by geography. To find references, you have to be mobile yourself and search in different archives. Moreover, the archives of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania are scattered across the near abroad. Information on our lands is located in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine. If a person is mobile and can afford such business trips and long sitting in foreign archives, then there will be a chance to find a fairly complete picture.
- You yourself work a lot in foreign archives. What is there that is not in the Belarusian?
This is not to say that there is something there that we do not have. There are individual documents, archives of individual institutions. For example, the archive of the Uniate metropolitans was removed from Belarus. We also have a part of it, especially with regard to registers of births before 1839, when the union was abolished. But if we take the 18th century and the rest of the archive, then a lot of everything is in St. Petersburg, and in the western territories - in Vilnius.
As for individual institutions, in the Minsk region, the primary gentry documents drawn up for deputy noble meetings are located here. But in the Vitebsk region, a small part has survived. Basically, all this can be found in duplicates that were forwarded to the heraldry of the Russian Senate. These documents are kept in St. Petersburg today. The Grodno DDS has survived very poorly, and all this must also be looked for there.
- As I understand it, you started your pedigree searches from your roots. How far did you go?
Of course, I started first of all with my ancestry and managed to advance somewhere to the end of the 16th century.
- And how long have you been looking?
I am still looking.
- How long ago did you start?
He started somewhere in 1994. And I continue to this day, since it is impossible to stop it. All the time someone is born, gets married, dies, because I search all over the clan, and not only in my family. And although it seems that he has already climbed everything that is possible, all the same occasionally come across some new items that I did not even expect to meet.
- Could you tell us who the Hanetskys are? How old and rich is this family?
This is a poor family, the Belarusian dungeon gentry. Radziwill gentry. The family nest can be considered Koydanovschina. They had small plots of land, naturally, without peasants. We worked the land ourselves. They lived in a rather narrow region: Stolptsovschina (Nesvizh, Sverzhen) and Minsk region (Dzerzhinsk, Rakov and further a little under Logoisk). Another part lived in the Igumensky district. Then there were also settlers in Volyn, and a small industry appeared in the Mozyr district in the 18th century.
- Who was the first representative of the genus found?
The first known one dates back to the end of the 16th century. According to the documents, he was subdued by Novogrudok. But I doubt it a little, since I have not yet received concrete factual evidence on this matter. Everything needs to be rechecked, since my ancestors, when withdrawing the gentry, also submitted forged documents from the Oshmyany and Braslav districts - everything as it should be!
- But today you are not only dealing with your own pedigree?
I started with mine, as usual. Then he helped relatives, then - friends. In 1996 he joined the Association of the Belarusian gentry and there he also helped with consulting on genealogical searches for the members of the organization. And from there everything went and went, and as a result resulted in the corresponding official activity. If before I earned a living for others, and this was all an expensive hobby, now it has become a profession.
Compiling a pedigree requires a lot of knowledge, orientation not only in historical events, but also in legal aspects. You need to know paleography and several languages to read handwritten documents in Polish, Latin, sometimes even German. And not every handwriting can be read in Russian.
You can do it yourself and you should do it yourself, but people don't have time for everything. There are also queues in the archives. You also need to have some kind of intuition of your own where to look. When it comes to foreign archives, not everyone can spend several months of their time on this. Is it only retired, and then, if there is money.
And the archives of Belarus are the most closed in comparison with neighboring countries. They seem to be open, but it takes a long time to wait for the ordered documents. Digitization work is progressing slowly. As a result, searches stretch for a very long time. It would greatly simplify the work in the archives by the possibility of taking pictures of yourself, when you could take pictures of everything, and then study it at home. This would also solve the problem of overcrowding in the archives (although the first years would have been a great deal of excitement). The load on the documents themselves would also be reduced. This would have prompted many people to create databases of photographed documents. Both Polish and Lithuanian archives work according to this scheme. Even the Russian archives allowed this, however, they introduced a fee for it. It would be nice if the KGB archives were also made available to the public.
- For a quarter of a century you have been dealing with pedigrees, your own and your own. Spent a lot of time, effort, money. Do you think it is worth doing this? Would you recommend this to someone else?
It depends on what motives a person has. Sometimes situations happen that it might not be worth it for people to know some information. Sometimes it happens that people in the family were told one thing about their ancestors, and then everything turns out to be untrue. A person has not changed for centuries: there are frauds, and thefts, and rapes, and illegitimate children in genealogies - whatever you want. Not everyone wants to receive such information, so you need to be prepared. I also had such cases that I thought for a long time whether to reveal the truth or not, since a person was stubbornly confident in his illusions about his own pedigree, but everything turned out to be much worse.
But in any case, this is history, this is a family. Based on such facts, according to the events that happened before, one can trace the psychotype of the family, which influenced the behavior, character and even illness. In every family, behavior is transmitted to a greater or lesser extent. Sometimes people step on the same rake and cannot realize that it is not only about themselves, that they need to understand their roots in order to break this circle.
In general, this hobby is very expensive. I don't even know, I managed to work out everything that I put here. People who think it's cheap are very wrong. At the same time, it is not money that is important, it is the time you have invested that is important. But there is a very beautiful saying of one of the Polish leaders: “No one will ever return the time lost for genealogical searches. But this is a kind of tax to our ancestors to bring them out of oblivion. "
If you dig into history, every tenth Belarusian can be a nobleman. And now there is an opportunity to find their famous ancestors. How to do it? For the answer, the Znamenka correspondent turned to the chairman of the Minsk assembly of the heirs of the gentry and nobility, Igor Chekalov-Shidlovsky, and at the same time learned about her roots.
At the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the gentry constituted 10-15 percent of the population - set yourself a goal, about the same number of their descendants will be found now. But in order to find your roots and compose a family tree, you will have to work hard.
- The starting point for searches - Gentry encyclopedic dictionaries, which contain more than 20,000 surnames, that is, business cards of the family. Also in these books there is a coat of arms, - Igor Chekalov-Shidlovsky explained. - It should be remembered that almost all of this literature is in Polish. Therefore, before searching, it is better to find out how the surname is spelled in several languages. Not so long ago, Ukrainian heraldry books appeared. In 2002, the National Historical Archives of Belarus began to publish the “Coat of arms of the Belarusian gentry”. So far, volumes on the letters "A" and "B" have been published, but due to the small print runs, these books are in limited access.
Having opened a huge Talmud, which is not only difficult to hold in hands, but also difficult to lift, Igor Vladimirovich professionally ran through the names. Less than five minutes later, he found my name, and with him two coats of arms. I am surprised to learn that I belong to the famous Prokopovich family! The specialist did not delve into the symbolism of color and images, but he described in detail the further steps in the search for ancestors.
Lost people
- The next step is to search for documentary evidence of noble roots in the National Historical Archives. But here, too, not everything is so simple - the documents cover only a small part of the gentry surnames. The thing is that after the division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the re-registration of the gentry into the Russian nobility began. As a result of this re-registration, about 75 percent of the gentry (poor representatives, odnodvorets. - Author's note) were deleted from the noble class and rewritten as bourgeois and peasants.
In Russia, the nobility was less than one percent of the population, so the Russian government was worried about the large concentration of the gentry, who got used to their rights, demanded respect for themselves, had their own ambition. Moreover, for more than four centuries it was the gentry who elected the entire vertical of power, including the king.
The October Revolution of 1917 completely cleaned up the gentry. Then many descendants of ancient families hastily left Belarus or changed their surnames and destroyed documents certifying their belonging to the noble class. Therefore, now there are so many Belarusians who do not even know about their noble origin.
Certificate of nobility in ... a shell?
Today, people who are interested in family legends and decided to check them up often turn to the Minsk meeting of the heirs of the gentry and nobility. Or they found an original family thing - a brooch, a box, a faded photograph.
“Someone remembers how, after the death of his grandmother, a letter of nobility was found behind an icon,” recalls Igor Chekalov-Shidlovsky. - They got it ... And she crumbled to dust - the paper decayed from old age. Others recall how for several years they were looking for a buried shell case, in which a noble letter was hidden. In the third, in the 70s, their parents burned their aristocratic archives. They were no longer shot, imprisoned, or exiled for the nobility, but the father of the family took up a nomenklatura position and feared for his career.
There are family legends in the family of the Znamenka correspondent. After the October Revolution, a general dispossession took place, which also fell under our family: the estate with the estate was taken away, the stables with purebred horses were given to the collective farm. The only consolation is that the family was left alone. But the selected "extra luxury" did not go for the future. All the noble horses refused to pull the plows. Neither the stick nor the carrot helped, so the collective farmers had to send them to the meat-packing plant. The estate without an owner fell into disrepair. Now the foundation can hardly be found.
Linden documents
As Igor Vladimirovich noted, even if the surname is in the gentry heraldry books or a natural letter of the beginning of the 19th century was found on the recognition of the ancestor as a nobleman, the probability of the gentry is still not 100 percent.
As soon as in the 18th century the gentry was forced to present documents certifying their origin, “masters” appeared who forged letters. And the supporting document could be issued on the basis of a trick.
Nothing definite can be said about the surnames contained in the noble lists of the Russian Empire, since the nobles gave their surnames to entire villages, peasants and servants. The gentry kept her surname as a banner.
Modern gentry
- First of all, under the gentry we mean the inheritance of this tradition, - said Igor Vladimirovich. - Ideally, a nobleman is a person with firm moral principles, responsible and active, living in accordance with the code of noble honor. Gentleness - in relation to their past. Gentleness - in compliance with the code of gentry (knightly, noble) honor. Gentleness is in behavior. Gentleness - in self-esteem.
Therefore, the chairman of the Minsk Assembly of the heirs of the gentry and nobility is sure that the gentry traditions can become the foundation for the national idea:
- The memory of their ancestors guarantees the connection of times, turns history from dry pages of a textbook into a living part of the family, clan. A person is imbued with a sense of common history and the land on which his ancestors lived and his descendants will live. This is what is called patriotism. People are increasingly beginning to be guided by the following codes: I serve - the Fatherland, I answer - God; good is a reward, evil is retribution, dignity and nobility; generosity and justice.
The interest of Belarusians in the history of their family is increasing. For several years, more than three thousand people have applied to the Minsk Society. Many remained active participants in thematic evenings, balls, excursions, and further historical research. And this cannot but rejoice. Together with the search for ancestors, history and states, culture, spiritual values are carefully studied. The true traditions of chivalry are being revived: the idea of honor, nobility, service to high ideals.
Looking for ancestors
Every tenth Belarusian today can rank himself as the heirs of the noble class. This opinion is shared by members of the Minsk Assembly of the heirs of the gentry and nobility. In a public association, they do not limit themselves to verbal statements of fact, but even issue special certificates. How reliable is this information? TUT.BY went to visit those who today are not ashamed to wear the gentry kuntush.
They are greeted by clothes
Chairman of the Minsk meeting of the heirs of the gentry and nobility Igor Chekalov-Shidlovsky loves to meet journalists in all their glory. A funny hat and a bright red cape instantly take us back to the past. According to our interlocutor, this is exactly how the gentry dressed themselves many centuries ago.
Igor Chekalov-Shydlovsky has been studying the lifestyle and habits of the gentry for over 10 years. In the past, he taught mathematics at the Polytechnic Institute. Then life brought it into publishing. A genuine interest in the history of his surname woke up in our interlocutor after the seal of one of the heralds. It turned out that on the paternal side, he comes from the Russian noblemen - the Chekalovs. Mother has a gentry surname - Shidlovskaya. On both "braids" - a noble origin! How not to create a public association?
- I decided: why not show this path to other people? If I could find out more about my origin, I need to suggest how to do it,others!
Another heir to the gentry and concurrently head of the association's music programs Yuri Sheremet flaunts around the study in a smart "barma". This is also an element of the gentry costume.
- All awards are hung on the barma, its color corresponds to the color of the coat of arms. In such clothes you can come to diplomatic receptions.
Today the organization has about 350 full members and about two thousand so-called "candidates" - those who at least once were interested in their ancestry. In 99 percent of cases, according to Igor Chekalov-Shidlovsky, these people receive confirmation of belonging to the noble class.
- The fact is that random people rarely come to us. These are those who already have some information from relatives, know their family history. Very rarely, only at book exhibitions, they write applications all in a row, there they have to discard 30 percent. At the same time, I emphasize that we do not issue any real documents. All letters and emblems are reconstruction.
"Lost Million"
According to the estimates of the Minsk Assembly of the heirs of the gentry and the nobility, one tenth of the Belarusians are of gentry or noble origin. Here they say: "lost million". But only about 5 percent of the gentry, saysChekalov-Shidlovsky, could afford to live on a grand scale. The rest were poor and worked the land themselves. They went for a horse, but always with a saber.
- Carrying weapons is the privilege of the gentry class. This was not available to the peasants. In addition, the gentry had the right to participate in elections, could buy, bequeath land, and so on. Another feature is family name. The gentry held on to the surname like a banner, in contrast to the same Russia.
Igor Chekalov-Shydlovsky is often faced with the fact that people do not see the difference between the gentry and the nobility.
- The gentry is an ancient noble class, when there was not even a trace of nobility in the Russian Empire. At the end of the 18th century, Catherine the Second issued a decree to check what kind of gentry he was, who himself was following the horse. For 100 years there was a check, about a quarter of the gentry were transferred to the nobility, and all the rest were registered as peasants and bourgeois. But the real gentry always remembered their noble origin, even if they were not given supporting documents for this. Only at the beginning of the 20th century, when the Red Terror began, did they begin to disown the nobility. Many even changed a few letters in their surnames so as not to be considered gentry. Today these people are restoring their connection with their ancestors, we have such examples.
The heirs say that the surname indicates the gentry past. If it ends in -evich, -ovich and -ski (Shidlovsky, Yantsevich, Yanukovych), there is a high probability that your ancestors belonged to the noble class. According to the members of the Minsk Assembly, this is the first step. Next, you need to check your name with the surname heraldry. This service is provided here for free.
But in order to confirm the gentry origin, it is necessary to continue research work. There are rare heraldic books in which you can find a detailed story about all significant noble families. A detailed study of them can shed light on many things. The third stage is a detailed check of information in the National Archives. At this level, the history of the family is compiled, it is a long and painstaking work. Depending on the size of the case, interest in the history of your family will cost between $ 1,000 and $ 2,000. Some enthusiasts don't stop there either. They order the publication of a book about the history of a kind.
- How reliable is the information you provide to Belarusians?
- Everything that is written in the archive is reliable. Sometimes the surname can coincide by accident. We always warn about this: this is history, not geometry. There may be gaps here, but they are negligible as a percentage. After all, for the fact that you "greased" the gentry, they were punished. It was not easy: the landless peasant could be identified from the first steps.
From car mechanic to PhD
Anyone can join the modern heirs of the gentry, even a descendant of a peasant. But such people, according to the chairman of the Minsk Assembly of the heirs of the gentry and nobility, do not leave applications. Apparently, no one wants to go into the details of their ignoble origins. As for the heirs of the upper classes, today they occupy a very different social position. Among the members of the meeting there are both car mechanics and candidates of science. Nevertheless, the descendants of the noble classes, Chekalov-Shidlovsky believes, can be seen from afar.
To confirm his words, the chairman of the meeting shows us the Code of the gentry fitness. It was drawn up "on the move" and says that the heir to the gentry is obliged to love the Motherland, be interested in its history and respect its culture.
- This is a very wide platform. We have monarchists, republicans, Belarusian gentry, Russian nobility. For all the time, only 2 people were expelled from the organization. One - for unworthy behavior, the second - for the wrong attitude to alcohol. They were also expelled from the gentry for the same reasons.
Balls in the 21st century
Members of the organization lead extremely busy lives. They regularly meet at salons, balls and other social events. Yuri Sheremet says that he is a descendant of the Prussian king. Here he brought his entire family: his wife and daughter, even the granddaughter is interested in history.- We have absolutely no social life for people, as in Europe. In Soviet times, there were some trade union meetings, people somehow rallied, but where will the lady go now? Where to dress up? And people really appreciate our events as an element of social life. 
A charming lady in an equally charming hat confirms these words. As a true noblewoman, Svetlana Shandalova loves balls.
- About five years ago I attended a book exhibition. I walked in a beautiful hat, high heels and a straight back. They told me: you clearly have solid roots. And I knew that my grandfather was the son of a landowner. I was told about my ancient family and made a member of the organization.
During our conversation, modern gentry have repeatedly mentioned that their main goal is to raise the spirit of Belarusians. "Heir to the noble estate" - it sounds proudly. But maybe it just sounds?
