If you visited our site, you probably wondered who your ancestors and what kind of story of your kind are you? Probably, in your family retellings something was said about noble or noble origin, but you may be a bearer of a noble surname. In this, to tell the truth, there is nothing strange, because today among the Ukrainians there are many heirs of gentry. Many of them, unfortunately, are not guessed or little acquainted with their noble descent.
The nobility is a privileged state in Poland, and later in the Commonwealth. As a separate social position, gentry began its formation from the middle of the 14th century, when the Ukrainian lands were divided between Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In order to become a nobleman, it was necessary to be noted on the battlefield, to faithfully serve the monarch, for which the person could receive a nylobation - he would receive rights and privileges, generic coat of arms of the gentry. One of the defining moments of the gentry was the right to land tenure. After all, the real nobleman was to be a landowner. To emphasize the state of the proprietor, the gentry began to choose the names of the names of the center of their possessions. From here Pototsky - from the Flood, Ostrozky - with Ostrog, Terletsky - the nobility with Terla. If your last name ends with suffixes - tski, - tska, then this is one of the signs of your noble descent.
Despite the popular and often declared ideal of equality and fraternity in the Commonwealth, this position was far from homogeneous, and only from the point of view of a single property inequality, was sufficiently stratified.
On the upper pole of power and property, there was the domination, usually of Polish origin, which owned entire volosts and the keys of settlements, which consisted of dozens of villages, towns and fortified castles. Representatives of powerful families from generation to generation were represented at the highest government posts of the state, entering into the environment of kings. To such lovers of power from the sources of the West Ukrainian lands belonged to Tarnavsky, Kmit, Herburt, Kamenetsky and others. The peculiarity of the Ukrainian lands within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Kiev region, Volyn, Podillya) was that the upper layer was the princes here. Several dozens of families of princely descent, regardless of their property status, enjoyed a special respect and attitude in society, and the princely power acquired a considerable, almost sacred significance, surpassing in general the noble society of the state. The ancient princes belonged to the Ostroh, Vishnevetsky, Zaslavsky, Quaternist, and others.
The plural layer was the middle nobility, which owned several villages (on average up to 10 villages), actively participated in the political life of the region and the country, was represented on state posts of local significance. Over time, gentry of Ukrainian descent quickly adopted more prestigious niches, without giving way to the Polish gentry, converted to Catholic faith, as it accompanied the advancement in the social hierarchy, made it possible to conclude a profitable marriage and close to integration into the noble society of the Polish Crown.
However, without paying attention to the use of the Polish language and Catholic religion, the gentry of the Russian Voivodship had a sense of its own isolation; it itself was not without pride called the Ukrainian chivalry. Renaissance renowned renown publicist Stanislav Orekhovsky, being a Catholic, spoke Polish, described his identity as a formula for the dual self-identification of the "Gente Ruthenus natione Polonus" (according to the origin of the Rusyns, by the Polish citizenship).
The representative of the gentry of the Germanic origin of Gerburts, who settled in Galicia in the second half of the XIV century, Y.N. Schasnyy Gerburt, by the end of the fourteenth century, identified himself as "Rusyns", acted in defense of Orthodoxy, built churches, wrote songs in the Ukrainian language.
On the opposite pole of general nobility was a small nobility, which owned 1-2 villages. Often, dozens of families of one noble family owned parts of the estate in one village. Many of these families retained their Orthodox religion and belonged to Ukrainian nationality. Due to the fact that these families were numerous, their descendants still live - these are numerous Yavorsky, Kulchitsky, Terletsky, Dobryansky and others. Many of these families were not rich, and sometimes they were so marginalized, that over time, they differed little from ordinary villagers. And only a noble gonor, privileges and pride for their origin poured them over the society of commoners.
The insecure position saved these nobles from the fire of the class revolution, the struggle against the bourgeoisie, exploiting classes, which the Bolsheviks declared in Ukraine after 1917. Many families of noblemen were taken to Siberia, emigrated to the West or physically destroyed by Soviet power.