Extended Genealogical Research · 2025
The Krivtsov Noble Family
Denis Afanasev — grandson of Arkady Romanovich Krivtsov
and great-grandson of Roman Ivanovich Krivtsov (b. 1895, village of Kishkino)
From the service gentry of 17th-century Bolkhov to the Kishkino estate. A complete genealogical register, archival documents, and family estates.
Roman Ivanovich Krivtsov (b. 1895, village of Kishkino, Bolkhov District, Oryol Province) — direct great-grandfather of Denis Afanasev and a representative of the Kishkino branch of one of the oldest noble families of Oryol Province. His membership in this lineage, as well as his kinship with the Decembrist Sergei Ivanovich Krivtsov, is confirmed by two archival documents. The family traces its origins to Osip Krivtsov, a townsman of Bolkhov who signed the Law Code of Tsar Alexis in 1648.
Key Documents
Document I · 22 December 1785
Petition for the Division of the Estate
SAOO. F. 818. Op. 1. D. 405. Lieutenant-Colonel Vasily Timofeyevich and his wife Ulyana, citing old age, divide their estate between their sons. The elder son, Major Vasily, receives the hamlet of Kishkino with 63 serfs, the manor house, garden, and mill on the Nugr' River. The younger son Ivan receives an estate in Kaluga Province plus a monetary compensation.
Document II · 14 August 1835
Minutes of the Oryol Noble Assembly
SAOO. F. 68. Op. 1. D. 13. Ff. 203–206v. Guards Lieutenant Dionisy Vasilyevich Krivtsov (Roman's great-great-grandfather) enrolls his sons Vasily, Lev, Ivan, and Vladimir in the sixth part of the genealogical register. The minutes contain a complete generational roster from stolnik Fadei Osipovich down to Dionisy, along with confirmation of the family's connection to the Decembrist branch through their shared grandfather Vasily Timofeyevich.
Family History
The Krivtsovs are an ancient Russian noble family inscribed in the Sixth Part of the Genealogical Register of Oryol and Tver Provinces. The Sixth Part represented the highest category, reserved for families able to prove their noble descent before 1685 — well before the Petrine reforms. Membership in this category attests to the family's deep roots in Russian history. The family arms are recorded in the General Armorial of the Noble Families of the Russian Empire, Volume V, No. 77.
The earliest known member of the family is Ivan Krivtsov (c. 1440s) — an architect who participated in the construction of the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin in 1471. This is the oldest documented mention of the Krivtsov surname in Russian chronicles.
During the 16th and 17th centuries the Krivtsovs held prominent military and administrative posts on the southern frontier of the Muscovite state: as voivodes, garrison commanders, and service gentry of Bolkhov, Novosilʹ, Mtsensk, Voronezh, and Ostrogozhsk. In 1648 Osip Krivtsov, a townsman of Bolkhov, signed the Sobornoye Ulozheniye (Law Code) of Tsar Alexis — the first state record that identifies this branch of the family. The stolnik Fadei Osipovich Krivtsov was granted estates by Peter the Great himself under charters of 1701 and 1703.
Complete Family Tree
Generation I — 17th century
Service Gentry of Bolkhov
The founding ancestor of the noble Krivtsovs. Service gentry of Bolkhov (1627–1629) and townsman of that city. In 1648 he signed the Law Code of Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich — the first documentary trace of the family in state records of the Muscovite Tsardom. His sons and grandsons became Moscow nobles, stolniks and stryapchie.
Generation II
Voivode of Voronezh (1664)
Son of Osip. Voivode of Voronezh. Other sons of Osip — Semyon and Fyodor Fyodorovich, Ignatiy Prokofyevich — were likewise registered as service gentry of Bolkhov (1627–1629).
Generation III
Stolnik under Peter I
Court steward (stolnik). In 7184 (1676) he was ordered to serve in the Belgorod Regiment; by 7188 (1680) he was enrolled in the Moscow Register. By ukase of Tsar and Grand Prince Peter Alexeyevich in 7209 and 7211 (1701 and 1703) he was granted estates and three royal charters. One of the first Krivtsovs to receive a votchina directly from Peter the Great.
Generation IV
Nobleman of Bolkhov
Son of the stolnik Fadei. Inherited and consolidated the family's ancestral estates in Bolkhov District. Father of Lieutenant-Colonel Vasily Timofeyevich — the pivotal figure in both branches of the family.
Generation V — Pivotal figure
Lieutenant-Colonel · Bolkhov District
Entered service in 1729 as a cadet nobleman. In 1730 transferred to the Life-Guards Semenovsky Regiment. In 1733 by personal ukase of Empress Anna Ioanovna appointed Cabinet Courier and dispatched to Astrakhan with orders concerning troops for the Persian Campaign. Participant in the Crimean Campaigns of 1737–1739, including the storming of the Perekop Fortress. In 1785, together with his wife Ulyana Vasilyevna, divided the estate between their two sons. Signed the Instruction of the Bolkhov District Nobility at the Legislative Commission of 1767.
Generation VI — Two branches
Kishkino Branch ↓ (direct line)
Platz-Major · Received hamlet of Kishkino
Elder son. In the 1785 division received the hamlet of Kishkino with 63 serfs, the manor house, garden, groves and mill on the Nugr' River, as well as the hamlet of Makarino in Tver Province. Enrolled in the Sixth Part of the genealogical register in 1794.
Timofeyevka Branch ↓ (Decembrist)
Collegiate Assessor · Marshal of Nobility
Younger son. Received an estate in Kaluga Province (village Ivankova, 69 serfs). Marshal of Nobility of Dyoshkin District (1788–1790). Principal estate — village Bogoroditskoye Timofeyevskoye (98 male serfs). Married Vera Ivanovna Karpova. Father of Nikolai, Sergei and Pavel.
Generation VII
Guards Lieutenant, Life-Guards Hussar Regiment
Son of Vasily Vasilyevich. Served as junker from 7 October 1801, cornet from 22 May 1805, discharged 27 July 1806 “on account of illness” as lieutenant. Owned 200 serfs in Oryol Province. In 1835 enrolled his sons in the Sixth Part of the register. First cousin to the Decembrist Sergei.
Hero of Borodino and Kulm, where he lost his leg. Governor of Tula, Voronezh and Nizhny Novgorod. Close friend of Pushkin.
Member of the Southern Society, sentenced under Category VII. Met Lermontov in Pyatigorsk. Participant in the 1861 Emancipation reform.
First Secretary of the Russian Embassy in Rome. Patron of Russian painters in Italy.
Generation VIII — Children of Dionisy
Vasily Denisovich
b. 21 March 1818
Lev Denisovich
b. 18 January 1820
Ivan Denisovich
b. 15 June 1821
Vladimir Denisovich
b. 2 March 1829 — d. 1885
m. Sofya Mikhailovna. Nobleman of Kishkino hamlet. Three sons: Ivan, Andrei, Mikhail.
Also daughters of Dionisy: Elizaveta Denisovna (unmarried, held Kishkino) and Alexandra Denisovna (m. Franz Franzovich Seifurt, Staff-Captain)
Generation IX
Nobleman of Kishkino Hamlet
Elder son of Vladimir Denisovich. m. Natalya Nikolayevna. The birth of their son Roman is recorded in the register of baptisms for the village of Bagrinovo, 1895.
Generation X — Denis's direct great-grandfather
Nobleman of the Kishkino Branch of the Krivtsov Family
His birth is recorded in the Parish Register of the village of Bagrinovo, 1895. Born in Kishkino hamlet to the nobleman Ivan Vladimirovich and Natalya Nikolayevna. As a descendant of a family granted estates since the time of Peter the Great, he belonged to the Sixth Part of the genealogical register of Oryol Province.
Vasily Timofeyevich Krivtsov: A Biography
The best-documented ancestor in the direct line leading to Roman Ivanovich is Lieutenant-Colonel Vasily Timofeyevich (c. 1713–1790). His service record, preserved in the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA), offers a vivid picture of the life of a provincial nobleman in the reigns of Anna Ioanovna and Elizabeth Petrovna.
From the petition of 22 December 1785 — SAOO. F. 818. Op. 1. D. 405. F. 3
“In the Dyoshkinsky District we have the hamlet of Kishkino … the hamlet of Kishkino with household serfs and peasants, 63 souls of the male sex with their wives and children, with a manor house and garden, preserved groves and a mill on the Nugr' River … and in Oryol District, in the village of Voskresensky, 110 male souls with their wives and children, with a manor house, garden and mill on the Mezin River…”
Heard before the Oryol Civil Court Chamber. Original document — SAOO.
Ancestral and Acquired Estates
By the mid-18th century the Krivtsovs held estates in eight districts across several provinces. All properties documented in the archival record are described below.
Principal Estates
Village of Bogoroditskoye (Timofeyevskoye)
Bolkhov / Dyoshkin District · Oryol Province · Principal ancestral seat
The family’s principal ancestral seat, which gave its name to the “Timofeyevka” branch. The Decembrist Sergei Ivanovich Krivtsov was born here in 1802. The manor complex included farm buildings — granaries, a smokehouse and outbuildings. After the division of 1785 it remained in joint ownership of both brothers, then passed to the branch of Ivan Vasilyevich.
100
serfs (1776)
98+109
male + female (census)
15
peasant households
Hamlet of Pokrovskoye (Kishkino)
Dyoshkin / Bolkhov District · Oryol Province · Birthplace of Denis’s great-grandfather
A small hamlet on the bank of the Nugr' River. In the division of 1785 it passed to Platz-Major Vasily Vasilyevich — the direct ancestor of Roman Ivanovich. The estate comprised a manor house with garden, preserved groves and a mill on the Nugr' River. The hamlet belonged to the parish of the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the neighbouring village of Bagrinovo, where all Krivtsovs from Kishkino were baptised and buried from 1854 to 1912. After 1861 the house passed to Elizaveta Denisovna, then to Ivan and Andrei Vladimirovich. The village survives today in Bolkhov District alongside the villages of Bagrinovo and Krivtsovo, the latter preserving the family name.
63
serfs (1785)
1785
earliest document
~56 km
from Oryol
Further Properties (as documented)
Village of Voskresensky
Oryol District. Registered to Ulyana Vasilyevna Krivtsova. 110 male serfs, manor house, garden and mill on the Mezin River. Inherited by Ivan Vasilyevich in the 1785 division.
Hamlets Shcherbachevo and Pirogova
Bolkhov / Dyoshkin District. In Shcherbachevo at the time of the General Survey: 41 households, 185 male and 196 female serfs. Co-owners: the Venichansk family.
Hamlet of Makarino
Tver Vice-Governorate, Novotorzh District. 10 male serfs and a preserved forest. Inherited by Vasily Vasilyevich in the 1785 division.
Village of Ivankova
Kaluga Vice-Governorate, Lifyen District. 69 male serfs. Registered to Ulyana Vasilyevna. Inherited by Ivan Vasilyevich in 1785.
Village of Malaya Pertseva
Bolkhov / Dyoshkin District. Acquired: purchased by deed in 1752 from the landowner Praskovya Gerasimovna Pertseva for ten roubles.
Village of Palkevichi (Polkevichi)
Karachev / Bolkhov District. Joint ownership with Prince Vladimir Borisovich Golitsyn, Ivan Alexeyevich Byeloselsky and others. 16 male serfs as of 1778.
Village of Borki
Chernavsk / Livny District. Joint ownership. Co-owners included Second-Major Zakhar Alexeyevich Khitrovo, Provincial Procurator Andrei Borisovich Kologrivov and others.
Waste Lands of Bolkhov District
Bulgakovsky Pochinok (1778), Sorochy Lozy (1777), Taratukhina (1776), Progorelaya Polyana in Livny District (jointly “with others”, 1779).
Notable Members of the Family
Sergei Ivanovich Krivtsov
1802, village of Timofeyevskoye — 5 May 1864
Sub-lieutenant of the Life-Guards Horse Artillery. Member of the Petersburg cell of the Southern Society. Educated at Fellenberg’s Agricultural Institute in Switzerland at the expense of Alexander I. Sentenced under Category VII — hard labour, then settlement in the Minusinsk Region. In 1831 transferred as a private to the Caucasus. Awarded the Soldier’s Cross of St George. Met Lermontov in Pyatigorsk in 1837. Married Anna Safonovich (daughter of the Oryol Governor) in 1857. In 1861 served as a member of the Oryol Provincial Peasant Affairs Commission.
Nikolai Ivanovich Krivtsov
1791 — 1843
Hero of Borodino and the Battle of Kulm, where he lost his leg. Governor successively of Tula, Voronezh and Nizhny Novgorod. Close friend of Pushkin — the poet dedicated the verse epistles “To Krivtsov” (1817) to him and presented him with Voltaire’s The Maid of Orleans inscribed “From a friend to a friend.” Friend of Karamzin and Zhukovsky. Dismissed from the governorship of Voronezh and Nizhny in the 1830s, reportedly for independence of mind.
Pavel Ivanovich Krivtsov
1806 — 1844
First Secretary of the Russian Embassy in Rome. Head of Russian artists at the Academy of Arts in Rome. An active patron of the Russian school of painting in Italy. Died in Rome at the age of 38. His life in the Eternal City is described in the correspondence of the Academy’s pensionnaire artists.
M. O. Gershenzon — The Krivtsov Brothers
Monograph 1914 · Reprint 2004
Mikhail Osipovich Gershenzon’s landmark study, based on the family’s private archives. The author described his aim as “to narrate the fate of one family so that the movement of social and psychological forces might become visible through it.” First published in 1914, reprinted by Zakharov (Moscow, 2004, ISBN 5-8159-0120-0). The principal printed source on the family’s history.
Oryol Genealogical Register — SAOO. F. 68. Op. 1. D. 55. F. 55
“Collegiate Assessor Ivan Vasilyevich [Krivtsov], who has a son Nikolai. Genealogical proof submitted under No. 88, 8 December 1791. Descent of ancestors: the documents attest that his great-grandfather Fadei Osipovich in 7184 was ordered to serve in the Belgorod Regiment and in 7188 was enrolled in the Moscow Register, and that for the service of his ancestors and his father he was in 701 and 703 granted estates and three royal charters.”
Excerpt from the Genealogical Register of the Nobility of Oryol Province
Historical Connections
In state records since 1629. The founding ancestor is Osip Grigoryevich Krivtsov, service gentry of Bolkhov. In 1648 he signed the Law Code. The family was inscribed in the Sixth Part (ancient noble lineage) of the genealogical register of Oryol Province in 1790. The arms appear in the General Armorial of Noble Families, Volume V, No. 77.
Kinship with Denis Davydov and Aleksei Yermolov. The family’s founding matriarch Ulyana Vasilyevna, née Davydova, was the full sister of the grandfather of the poet-partisan Denis Vasilyevich Davydov and the general Aleksei Petrovich Yermolov. This is confirmed by A. V. Sviridov’s study “The Krivtsovs and the Davydovs” (1993). Through this connection Roman Ivanovich is a distant kinsman of both heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812.
Friendship with Pushkin. Nikolai Ivanovich Krivtsov was so intimate with the poet that Pushkin referred to him simply as “Krivtsov” — without a first name. In addition to two verse dedications, the poet presented him with Voltaire’s Maid of Orleans inscribed “From a friend to a friend.” Nikolai also moved in the inner circle of Karamzin and Zhukovsky and was a recipient of their correspondence.
Marriage alliances with the Turgenevs, Volkonskys, Vadkovskys, Khitrovos and Karpovas. Ivan Vasilyevich’s wife was Vera Karpova, whose father signed the Bolkhov Instruction. Ivan&rsquo:s daughters married into the Kireyevsky, Khitrovo and Lavrov families. N. M. Chernov in Noble Nests Around Turgenev places the Krivtsovs directly in the orbit of Turgenev’s social world.
Joint estates with the Golitsyns and Byeloselskys. In the village of Palkevichi, Bolkhov District, the Krivtsovs were co-owners with Prince Vladimir Borisovich Golitsyn and Ivan Alexeyevich Byeloselsky. This attests to the family’s membership in the same social circle as the foremost noble houses of the Empire.
Lermontov and the Decembrist. In 1837 in Pyatigorsk, where Sergei Krivtsov had been posted as a private soldier in the Caucasus, he met Mikhail Lermontov. Both men were there in a form of exile. This is one of the lesser-known historical facts linking the Kishkino branch of the Krivtsovs to Russian literature.
Archival Basis and Sources
SAOO — State Archive of Oryol Province
Principal Fonds
F. 68. Op. 1. D. 13 — Minutes of the Noble Assembly, 1835, on the enrollment of Dionisy Vasilyevich’s sons;
F. 68. Op. 1. D. 55 — Genealogical Register of the Oryol Province Nobility;
F. 818. Op. 1. D. 405 — Estate division proceedings, 1785–1786 (key document);
F. 825. Op. 2. D. 354 — Case concerning the burning of the Krivtsov house.
RGVIA and RGADA
Military and Historical Archives
RGVIA. F. 489. Op. 1. D. 7008, 7009 — Service records (Vasily Timofeyevich);
RGADA. F. 342. Op. 1. D. 109 — Instruction of the Bolkhov nobility, 1767 (signature of V. T. Krivtsov);
RGADA. F. 1355. Op. 1. D. 949 — General Survey data for Bolkhov District.
Parish Registers
Village of Bagrinovo, Bolkhov District
Registers of baptisms, marriages and burials for 1854–1881, 1883–1890, 1893–1912 (SAOO).
Confession Rolls, 1830–1873.
Entry recording the birth of Roman Ivanovich Krivtsov in 1895.
Scholarly Literature
Monographs and Studies
Gershenzon M. O. The Krivtsov Brothers (Moscow: Zakharov, 2004);
Sviridov A. V. “The Krivtsovs and the Davydovs” (1993);
Chernov N. M. Noble Nests Around Turgenev (Tula, 2003);
Lavitskaya M. I. “Origins and Evolution of the Nobility of Oryol Province.”
For further research the most promising holdings are: RGIA (F. 1343, Op. 51 — noble genealogical registers; Heraldry Department fonds) and SAOO (F. 760 — Revision Lists for Bolkhov District). The project “Nobility Wiki” (adelwiki.mws-osteuropa.org) contains detailed articles on Vasily Timofeyevich and Ivan Vasilyevich Krivtsov with full archival references.