Volkonsky

Volkonsky Coat of Arms

Volkonsky is a famous Russian princely house. It inherited some Rurikid land along the Volkona river sometime in the dark centuries of Mongol disturbances in Russia and it is not totally clear what was the route of the inheritance. according to Almagro, Rurikid princes disputed for centuries the legitimacy of the Volkonski claim to the princely rank. The Volkonski -although well-established in Moscow already since the 1500s- are not listed in the Velvet Book as Rurikids. Their descent from Rurik and the landed inheritance may be through a foremother (since the Volkonski do not have the Y DNA of the genuine Rurikids), and it is believed Oleg I of Chernigov of Chernigov's Olegovichey as well as the saint prince Michael Vsevolodovich Chernigovsky, executed in 1246, were ancestors in some root of the Volkonsky. Michael's younger son, Yuri, inherited udel Tarusa. Yuri's grandchildren moved to Alexinsky region (Dubensky region in Tula oblast), where they bought votchina on the banks of river Volkona (Volkchona). A non-Rurikid heir of theirs probably inherited that land, and from its name they started to claim the rank and name of princes Volkonsky. From then on they had split up into three separate branches. So, their lineage starts from late-medieval epoch.

sources:

• Almagro (1843), Notice sur les principales familles de la Russie, par le comte d'Almagro