The House of Kropotkin (Russian: Князья Кропоткины) is an ancient Russian noble family of Rurik stock descending from Prince Dmitry Vasilyevich nicknamed Kropotka, a nephew of the last Grand Duke of Smolensk, Yuri Svyatoslavich.[1] Princes Kropotkin are listed in the 5th part (titled nobility) of the Kazan, Kaluga, Mogilyov, Moscow, Ryazan, Saint-Petersburg and Tula genealogical books and 2nd part (military nobility) of the Moscow genealogical book.[1]
Princes Kropotkin Князья Кропоткины | |
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princely family, boyar scions | |
Parent family | Rurik dynasty |
Current region | Russia |
Place of origin | Principality of Smolensk |
Founded | 15th century |
Founder | Prince Dmitry Vasilyevich Kropotka |
Connected families | Kropotka-Jełowicki |
In the 15th-early 16th centuries, Princes Kropotkin were vassals of the Grand Duke of Lithuania. In 1496 Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Kropotkin (d. 1502) received the village of Jelowiczi in Lutsk Powiat, but around the beginning of the 16th century he turned to the Muscovite side and died in the Russo-Lithuanian war of 1500 — 1503.[1] His brother, Prince Alexander Dmitrievich Kropotkin (d. 1520), was the founder of the senior lineage. The son of Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Kropotkin, Vasily Kropotka-Jełowicki (d. circa 1542), was the founder of the Lithuanian branch.[1] When his son, Prince Jakob Kropotka-Jełowicki died in 1564, this branch became extinct.
The family had owned lands in the regions of Veliky Novgorod and Ryazan since the 16th century. In the 16th century many Kropotkins served as boyar scions. The family was included in Ivan the Terrible's Book of One Thousand of 1550 listing 1000 best vassals from provincial nobility. Despite some Kropotkins reaching the rank of stolnik in the 17th century, none of them had ever been in the rank of boyar. Many family members were voivodes, commanders, courtiers and later generals. However, in the early 18th century, some of the Ryazanian branch had degraded to poor gentry and even odnodvortsy. For example, Prince Dmitry Timofeevich Kropotkin, an early 18th-century landlord of the Demidovo village, Ponitski stan, and a dragoon of the Senate company (Senatskaya rota), was statused as an odnodvorets, but his relations of the very same village, were counted as full nobility.[2] Despite many other impoverished Rurikid families, the Kropotkins managed to maintain the princely title.
To the general public the family is mainly known for the famed Russian revolutionary Pyotr Kropotkin.
Descendants of Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Kropotkin (d. 1520)