The House of Meshchersky (Russian: Мещерский) is an old princely family whose title was recognized by the Russian Empire.
The family descends from the medieval independent rulers of the Meshchera tribe.[1] Their title of prince was confirmed by the Emperor Paul I of Russia on 30 June 1798.[1]
According to the Velvet Book of the 17th century, Bakhmet Husein,[2] the Prince of Shirin, after some disagreement in the Great Horde (according to Dmitry Ilovaysky princes of Shirin had a disagreement with Tsar of the Great Horde[3][a]), moved to Volga region and later conquered the land of Meschera in 1298.[4][3] He had a son by the name of Beklemish who in Andreev Gorodok [ru][5] (Andrew's City) was baptized as Mikhail.[4][3] Mikhail later build the temple of Transfiguration and along with oneself baptised a number of people.[3] His descendants until 1398 kept as their own the Meschera domain.[4] A grandson of Beklemish, Yuriy Fedorovich, joined with his regiment the Great Prince of Moscow Dmitriy Donskoy at the Kulikovo Battle.[3] In the 16–17th centuries many princes of Meschera were polk (regiment) or grad (city) voivodes.[4]
The family was somewhat arbitrarily grouped in documentation together with Tatar princely families of the Russian Empire. The neighboring Tatar kingdom subjugated lords of the Meshchera tribe under its suzerainty, and some of them converted to Islam and bore Muslim-like first names; but soon, under Russian subjugation, subsequent generations converted to the Eastern Orthodox faith and used Slavic Christian names. The family was listed in the first part of the Registers of the Nobility of Russia, which became formalized in the 19th century or earlier.
The book Notice sur les principales familles de la Russie does not mention the Meshchersky family at all, which may be attributable to the well-established animosity towards the Meshcherskys of its author, Prince Pyotr Vladimirovich Dolgorukov.
The Meshcherskys had estates particularly in Ukraine, examples of their lands being at: Pokrovskoe, Petrovskoe, Lotoshino, and the Vesholi-Podol Palace in Poltava. The estate of Petrovskoye-Alabino, near Moscow, is currently claimed by Yevgeniy Meshchersky.
Prince Ivan Sergeyevich Meshchersky (b. 11 December 1775 – d. 17 March 1851) m. to Sophia Sergeyevna Vsevolojskaya (b. 19 January 1775 – d. 4 October 1848)
Prince Petr Sergeyevich Meshchersky (b. 1778 – d. 1857) m. to Ekaterina Ivanova Chernysheva