For centuries in Russia surnames were more than surnames. By surnames, as they were called in official documents, understanding people could establish not only the social status of a subject of the Russian Empire, but often the occupation of his ancestors, as well as the part of the country where their family appeared and strengthened.
That is why the Russian peasants before the abolition of serfdom did not have surnames at all, and the appearance of a family name meant a transition to the next step of the social ladder - at least leaving for a recreational trade and acquiring in this connection the most important of the papers - a passport.
At the same time, the patronymic was entered as a surname in the document without further ado, and therefore in Russia there was no count of Ivanovs, Petrovs and Sidorovs. Individual, highly valued workers were given surnames according to their professions, which led to the emergence of the Kuznetsovs, Sapozhnikovs, Plotnikovs and others. But for those who were unlucky, they entered street nicknames given by evil-speaking fellow villagers or owners of peasant souls as their surnames. And therefore, among the subjects of the Russian Empire, the Pentyukhovs, Durakovs, Durnovs, Durnevs and even Debilovs were found in abundance.
It must be admitted that the landowners, endowing the farmers with surnames, were not limited to assessing their intellectual capabilities - and along with the Fools, the Kosorotovs, Kosorukovs, Kosobryukhovs, Kosolapovs, Tolstobryukhovs and Tolstopyatovs appeared. And the Sukins, Kobelevs, Martyshkins and other Skotinins in Russian cities and villages were a dime a dozen. However, this was not the limit. Particularly cynical representatives of the color of Russian society gave their peasants surnames, among which Zadov and Siskin belonged to the most euphonious.
The situation was no better for the nobles themselves. Unlike Europe, where noble surnames came from the names of estates passed down from generation to generation, in Russia only in the rarest cases, as a rule, among princes, surnames were derived from the names of their lands and estates. Most of the nobility and aristocracy did not have ancestral lands. And to be called by the name of the estate received for the service and for the duration of the service, it never occurred to anyone. So the noble family names sometimes not only did not differ in nobility, but also betrayed the origin, which their carriers tried to hide in every way.
For example, representatives of the famous Tatishchev family everywhere and everywhere argued that their surname does not come from the word "thief" (thief, robber), but from the two words "thief" and "seek", and their ancestors did not rob, but caught robbers. The nobles Naryshkins took a different path. There is a version that initially they were called Yaryshkins, and their ancestors, judging by their surname, served in the old days as small police officers - Yarygs. But having fallen into the mercy of the tsar, they allegedly asked for the right to change their surname and began to be called Naryshkins.
Over time, the change of the surname solely by royal favor became for the Russian nobility the main and then the only way to improve and ennoble the family name. However, it was not possible to change absolutely all not quite euphonious and rustic surnames of the nobles and at the same time not to confuse the entire state accounting.
Catherine II made an attempt to establish elementary order and separate the servicemen of the Ivanov nobles from the Ivanov townspeople. By her decree, a different spelling of patronymics was introduced for officials and officers of various classes. The one who would now be called, for example, Pyotr Ivanovich Kuznetsov, having a low rank in Catherine's times, up to and including the captain, was recorded in official papers without a patronymic - Pyotr Kuznetsov. Having received the next ranks, but not becoming a general, he was already called Peter Ivanov Kuznetsov. But only having acquired the rank of general, he became Pyotr Ivanovich Kuznetsov.
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However, the tricks of the German mind of the Empress did not help the ordering of Russian life. Each nobleman in his heart imagined himself a high rank and therefore called himself in unofficial correspondence in the general's way. And after the nobles, the same form of writing the patronymic was taken up by merchants and small urban inhabitants, so that the method of spelling the full name introduced by Catherine II was retained only in state documents.
Of all the Russian estates, only one - the clergy - received the right to practically free change of surnames. There was a certain logic in such a decision. The priests in most cases had peasant roots, and as a result of this, one of them could well be called "Father Jeremiah Sukin", which hardly raised the authority of his spiritual dignity. And therefore, in theological schools, seminaries and academies, it was widely practiced to change surnames to new ones, invented by teachers and church authorities.
Often, family names differed only slightly from common names. But the future clergy were called not Ivanovs, but Ioannovs, not Larionovs, but Illarionovs. But far more often seminarians were given surnames in honor of biblical heroes, saints or church holidays. So in Russia, the Resurrection, Annunciation, Preobrazhensky, Peter and Paul, Pervozvan and even Magdala ones appeared. A lot of seminary surnames came from the names of animals, plants and minerals. And also had Latin or Greek roots, strange for the Russian ear. Therefore, having met a person with the surname Diamonds or Tranquilitatin, there was no doubt that you were dealing with a former seminarian or a descendant of a clergyman.
The surnames of the seminarians were also given depending on their academic success, and the best students received the surnames Lyubomudrov or Dobromyslov. Those whose successes left much to be desired could henceforth be called the Vetrinsky. Moreover, during his studies, the surname could be changed more than once, and a case was described when a seminarian who became lazy for edification was changed his surname to Krapivin, in honor of the plant with which they tried to guide him on the right path.
The ease with which the surnames of future clergy were changed was explained very simply. In the Russian Empire, the church took care of all civil status acts - births, baptisms, weddings and deaths. And his own hand, as you know, is the lord.
For the same reason, until the middle of the 19th century, there was another category of the population, which, at the request of the church, was allowed to easily receive a new surname, but only once - Jews who converted to Orthodoxy. However, in 1850, the government decided that the right to live outside the Pale of Settlement, received after baptism, was sufficient incentive to leave Judaism. And the combination of a Christian name and patronymic with a Jewish surname allows you to accurately determine the class belonging of their carrier. So the change of surnames was banned for the "cross".
In those same years, the whole system of changing the family name took shape in a more or less complete form. The right to a surname, as well as to a husband's title, was acquired by his spouse after the wedding. But there was no question of any right to leave a maiden name in marriage. Exceptions were not allowed, and the spouses could receive a double surname only with the highest permission and for special reasons.
For example, the surname of a dying family, where there were no male heirs, was allowed to be transferred to the husband of a bearer of a noble surname. And when he married the heiress of the Yusupov princes, Count Sumarokov-Elston was allowed to be named with both titles and three surnames.
A special order existed for the appearance of the names of illegitimate children. At their baptism, the name was given according to the calendar, the patronymic - on behalf of the godfather, and from him the surname was formed. So in this case, by the coincidence of the middle name and surname, one could assume that their bearer was illegitimate. Only if the father of the disgraced girl agreed to give his grandson or granddaughter his surname, an exception to the general rule was made for the newborn. True, this category of subjects of the empire could change their surnames without much trouble. But only in one case - if the child was recognized by his father.
The surname could be changed in case of adoption. But at the same time, there were a lot of rules and reservations that made changing the name, if not impossible, then extremely difficult. Well, for all carriers of dissonant surnames, there was only one way - to write a petition to the highest name and wait for an answer, which, as a rule, was negative. And the surname, which poisons the lives of its carriers, continued to be passed from father to son for many decades.
There were, however, exceptions to the general rule that occurred at the initiative of the military commanders. The famous shipbuilder academician Alexei Krylov recalled:
“NF Drozdov was appointed chairman of the board of the Putilov plant, and in his place the head of the plant, a major general from the crusaders of artillery, with a loud surname that sounds strange in Russian: Bordel von Bordelius.
However, in Kronstadt for a long time the respected secret adviser Bardakov was in charge of the commissariat part. His son entered the Marine Corps. Once, bypassing a company standing in the front, Arseniev (head of the corps Dmitry Arseniev - "Power") asks:
- Your last name?
- Bardakov, your excellency.
- What a vile name! Add it to the lists under the name "Burdyukov".
The change of surname according to the law was carried out only by a decree of the Senate on the department of heraldry "with the highest permission requested through the commission of petitions." Arseniev, having appropriated the royal rights, simplified this procedure."
A massive change of surnames took place at the beginning of the First World War, when the family names of Russian subjects of German origin were russified. But this exception only confirmed the general rule.
After the February Revolution, practically nothing has changed. The petitioners still submitted documents to the Office of Petitions, but at first the fate of the Chancellery itself under the new democratic government hung in the balance, and then the Provisional Government thought more about its own survival than about the names of the citizens of free Russia. And then the citizens decided to take the question of the family name into their own hands. Regional governments that were formed in different parts of the former empire received a stream of requests to change their names. For example, the later famous white general Shkuro, before the revolution bore the name Shkura and passionately wanted to get rid of it. In November 1917, he turned to the Kuban government with a request to change his surname to Shkurinsky. But then he independently reduced the received surname to Shkuro.
Not only opponents of the Soviet regime, but also its supporters demanded to change the names. In January 1918, the newly created People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs received a petition to change the names of a group of sailors of the Black Sea Fleet. Some of the petitioners wanted to change dissonant surnames. For example, Anton Petrov Kobelev wanted to continue to be called Skobelev, as a famous general. The sailor Ivan Durakov wanted to become Vinogradov, Efrem Gnilokvas - Stepanov, Semyon Pauk - Pavlovsky, and Kondrat Scheka - Shcheglovsky. And only Valentin Sevruk from the destroyer "General Kondratenko" wanted to get a revolutionary surname - Garibaldi.
Demands of this kind became more and more, and it became more difficult to ignore them. It turned out that the people's government did not want to heed the aspirations of the people.
As a result, after several delays in the discussion at the Council of People's Commissars, the Small Council of People's Commissars took up the issue, where serious passions flared up. The freedom to change the surname, in fact, destroyed, if not brilliant, population records that existed under the previous government. But giving citizens incomplete freedom was unworthy of real revolutionaries. So on March 4, 1918, the text of the decree "On the right of citizens to change their surnames and nicknames", developed by the Council of People's Commissars commission, was approved by the government and signed by Lenin. It said:
1. Every citizen of the Russian Soviet Federative Republic, upon reaching the age of eighteen, is granted the right to change his family or generic nickname freely, at his will, since this does not affect the rights of third parties secured by special legalizations.
2. Persons wishing to change their family or ancestral nicknames apply at the place of their residence to the head of the department of registration of marriages and births and personally submit to him a written statement with the attachment of documents proving their identity, or copies of these documents, certified by the established procedure.
3. The head of the department draws up a protocol about the statement made, publishes it at the applicant's expense in the local government newspaper within two weeks and at the same time sends it for publication to the central government newspaper, and also notifies the institution that keeps the criminal records.
Note. The institution that keeps lists of convictions is also responsible for maintaining lists of amended names and their periodic publication.
4. After two months have passed since the publication of the central authority in the government newspaper, the person who changed his surname or nickname has the right to demand that this name be entered into all acts of civil status.
5. When a surname or nickname changes on the part of persons who are in a family union, this change is followed by their children under the age of eighteen.
6. Spouses of persons who change their surnames or nicknames, and their children over eighteen years of age, adopt their new names: the first - the spouses, the second - the parents, in case of their consent. These persons make a written statement about their consent or disagreement either jointly with their spouses or parents, or independently of them, in the order indicated above.
The order established then was maintained for a long time. As the poem of those times said, I'll go to the Izvestia office, // I'll deposit eighteen rubles
// And there I will say goodbye forever
// With my former name.
// Kozlov I was Alexander, // I don't want to be them anymore!
// Call Orlov Nikandr, // I pay money for this.
// Perhaps with a new surname
// My fate will be different
// And life will flow differently, // When I get home …
“The Durnevs became Rudnevs, the Vshivkins became the Volsky, the Yaichkins became the Kostroma, the Borers became the Dontsovs, and the Bzdikins became the Lenskys. However, as soon as the process of Stalin's state-building passed into the stage of tightening the screws, the freedom to change surnames became a revolutionary thing. And again, as in tsarist times, compelling valid reasons were required to obtain permission. It was strictly forbidden to change the surname, "if the applicant is under investigation, a court or he has a criminal record" or "if there are objections to the change of surname, first name, patronymic on the part of the state authorities concerned." And in the questionnaires, a column appeared where it was necessary to indicate all the changes of names and their reasons.
Again, as before the revolution, the supreme ruler, at his own will, could change the name of the subject, and often did so.
After the disappearance of the USSR, the freedom to change surnames came again. The only question is, for how long.