Romodanovsky (family)

Romodanovsky (Russian: Ромодановские) was a Rurikid princely family descending from sovereign rulers of Starodub-on-the-Klyazma. Their progenitor was Prince Vasily Fyodorovich Starodubsky (Василий Фёдорович Стародубский) who changed his name to Romodanovsky after the village of Romodanovo where he lived in. Although the family was one of the first Rurikids to enter the service of the Grand Duke of Muscovy, it was in the 17th century that they finally rose to the highest offices of Muscovite Russia.

Among Vasily's sons, one was Ivan III's okolnichi, another sat in the Boyar Duma during Vasily III's reign. Their nephew was sent by Ivan the Terrible as a Russian ambassador to Copenhagen. The latter's nephew, Prince Ivan Petrovich Romodanovsky, was killed by the Kalmucks on his way from Persia in 1607.

Since the 17th century, the family was divided into senior and cadet lines, both of which benefited from extinction of the higher-placed families of Muscovy after the Oprichnina purges and the Time of Troubles. During the reign of the first Romanovs, the Romodanovsky came to be regarded among the noblest families of Muscovy. It was one of a few clans whose adult males were promoted boyars skipping the lower ranks like stolnik.

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