Leonid A. Belyaev

Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow (labeliaev@mtu-net.ru)

Key words: the House of Romanov, the Riurik dynasty, epigraphic, chronology, genealogy, Novospassky Monastery, tsar tombs.

One of the questions in the Romanov’s genealogy is a question of origin of Feodor/Philaret, the father of Mikhail, the first tsar from the dynasty. Feodor’s father is Nikita Romanovich Zakhar’in-Yur’ev. And his mother might have been the first wife of Nikita, Barbara Khovrina, as well as the second one, Eudoxia Gorbataia-Shuiskaia. The former situation means that the House of Romanov has the distant family connection with the Princes of the Riurik dynasty. Therefore the question was important in the light of the rights for a throne. During the excavations in family tomb of the House of Romanov in Novospassky Monastery (Moscow) the burial of Barbara Khovrina was examined. What is more the date in the inscription of the sarcophagus was read as 1555, which would have solved the case of the origin of Feodor. He would have become Khovrin as his mother because he was likely to be bom before 1553. The new date was put without checking into genealogical tables and fundamental works. Nevertheless, it was misread. The article is devoted to the correction of this obvious mistake in the date’s reading. With countless examples it has been proved that on the cover of the sarcophagus there is the same date as on the headstone and in the lists of the buried in the Monastery, 1552. The find of the sarcophagus has not solved the question of the year of death of Barbara Khovrina. The old problem of the origin of the House of Romanov is still open to discussion.