Russian bayors

Bayors, Swedish: baijorer, ryss(e)baijorer [baˈjuːrəɹ], a Swedish transmogrification of Russian: бояринъ ‘boyar’, designating in the early modern era all Russian noblemen in general, and particularly a group of Russian noble families who had entered Swedish service in the late sixteenth–early seventeenth centuries and were incorporated into the Swedish nobility. Of these, the most notable were the families

which were all immatriculated (‘introduced’) at the Swedish House of Nobility (for their immatriculation numbers, see the List of Swedish noble families). In 1818, those families resident east of the Bothnian were similarly immatriculated at the Finnish House of Nobility, then in the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland (compare the List of Finnish noble families). The coats-of-arms granted by the kings of Sweden almost invariably allude to military prowess and tend to include weaponry which was regarded as 'Muscovite' (sabres, bows and arrows, maces; sometimes ‘tamed’ or ‘Swedicised’ by the crown within which they are crossed), mounted warriors and ‘northern’ animals. Of particular importance as a model, was the coat-of-arms of the Aminoffs.

During the seventeenth century, most of the bayor families were closely associated with the province of Ingria, where they were supposed to constitute a part of the ruling class that might be more acceptable to the Orthodox, to a large extent Russian, population than was the Lutheran Swedish and German nobility. Simultaneously, however, the bayors were expected to raise their sons as good Lutherans in order to retain an ‘eligibility’ to offices in the state and in the army. This fact led to nearly full integration into the Swedish nobility by the end of the seventeenth century, although at home, and especially among the women, Orthodoxy and syncreticism may still have been fairly widespread. The bayor families practiced endogamy to a large extent in the seventeenth century, which might have allowed Russian traditions to live on ‘at home’ but show increasingly less outwardly. This is to be contrasted with the state of affairs in c.1640 when almost all bayors would have regarded – and showed – themselves as Orthodox, as the elderly still did in the 1660s. Till the mid-century they frequently interceded for the protection of Orthodox institutions. Interestingly, the French Ingrian family Baro(h)n, several of whose members spoke Russian and were used as interpreters, was occasionally added to the group on a par with the ‘true’ bayors.

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