Trubetskoy (English), Трубецкой (Russian), Трубяцкі (Belarusian), Trubecki (Polish), Trubetsky (Ruthenian), Трубецький (Ukrainian), Troubetzkoy (French), Trubezkoi or Trubetzkoy (German), is a Ruthenian Gediminid gentry family of Black Ruthenian stock, like many other princely houses of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, later prominent in Russian history, science, and arts. They are descended from Algirdas's son Demetrius I Starshiy (1327 – 12 August 1399 Battle of the Vorskla River). They used the Pogoń Litewska Coat of arms and the Troubetzkoy Coat of Arms [1].
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Princes Troubetzkoy descend from Demetrius I Starshiy, one of Algirdas's sons, who ruled the towns of Bryansk and Starodub. He was killed together with his elder sons in the unfortunate Battle of the Vorskla River (1399). Demetrius' descendants continued to rule the town of Trubetsk until the 1530s, when they had to convert to Roman Catholicism or leave their patrimony and settle in Moscow. They chose the latter, and were accepted with great ceremony at the court of Vasili III of Russia.
Undoubtedly the most prominent of early Troubetzkoys was Prince Dmitry Timofeievich, who helped Prince Dmitry Pozharsky to raise a volunteer army and deliver Moscow from the Poles in 1612. The Time of Troubles over, Dmitry was addressed by people as "Liberator of the Motherland" and asked to accept the Tsar's throne. He contented himself, however, with the governorship of Siberia and the title of the Duke (derzhavets) of Shenkursk. Prince Dmitry died on May 24, 1625 and was interred in the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra.
Quite different was a stance of his first cousin, Prince Wigund-Jeronym Trubetsky. He supported the Poles and followed them to Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Time of Troubles. Here his descendants were given enviable positions at the court and married into other princely families of Poland. By 1660s, however, the only Troubetzkoy left, Prince Yuriy Trubetskoy, returned to Moscow and was given a boyar title by Tsar Alexis I of Russia. All the branches of the family descend from his marriage to Princess Irina Galitzine.
Dennis Stocks, "Russian Freemasonry": "In 1756 the first Russian lodge to actually be consecrated with a name was formed in St. Petersburg under the patronage of the Anglophile Count R. L. Vorontsov, Worshipful Master of The Lodge of Silence. The members of Vorontsov's Lodge included many men who later became famous, viz: Sumarokov (author), Prince Scherbatov (Historian), Mamonov (Literary fame), Prince Dashkov, Prince Golitzin, Prince Troubetzkoy and Prince Meschersky.
King Gustav III of Sweden gave Swedish Masonry a special stamp of respectability by freely flaunting his masonic ties in 1776 during a state visit to St. Petersburg and won the patronage of Grand Duke Paul -- a famous Russian patriot, historian and political rival to and personal enemy of Catherine. This led to a linking of Russian and Swedish Freemasonry into one system when, in 1778, the Moscow Lodge of Prince Troubetzkoy joined the Swedish System.
It is true, however, that other Freemasons who were "punished" (N. Troubetzkoy, I. Lopukhin and I. Turgenev, for example, were merely rusticated on their country estates) had not been directly involved in the efforts to enlist Paul into the M^Asited Paul on behalf of Nikolai Novikov, escaped without issue. Madariaga (Russian in the Age...p. 530) has suggested that this may be because Troubetzkoy et al. were members of the highest aristocracy and Bazhenov was too lowly."