Princes Cherkasskii or Circassian Murzas: The Kabardians in the Russian Boyar Elite, 1560-1700

The Russian ruling elite included many non-Russians from the time of Peter the Great onwards ? Baltic Germans, Poles, and other, but in earlier times it also included clans from other national groups. From the middle of the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth the most important were the Circassians. Originally relatives of the second wife of Ivan the Terrible, the Circassian princes of Kabarda married into the Romanov family and reached the pinnacle of power and wealth. Though Russian sources do not comment on their origins, their genealogy in the Rodoslovnye knigi preserves evidence of their continued awareness of their identity. European diplomats also noted their exotic origins. The decline in importance of Kabarda and the Russian fort at Terskii gorodok in present-day Dagestan led to the end of emigration to Moscow and the assimilation of the families as princes Cherkasskii in the eighteenth century.