Conclusions
Nicholas Zharkikh
1. The Glynski princes played a certain role in the history of Eastern Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries – in Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Moscow State.
2. Surname Glynski had five independent families of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. All of them were self-proclaimed princes (such that the parents of the protoplasts were not princes). The hypothesis of their origin from a single protoplast is not supported by available sources.
3. Princes Borisovych Glynski are known in two generations from 1437 to 1507. Their estates were insignificant, their highest positions were – governors in various towns in the Ukraine.
4. Princes Semenovych Glynski are known in 5 generations from 1448 to the early 17th century. The family continued to exist in later times, but its genealogy in the 17th – 19th centuries not documented. Originally, they had small estates in the Smolensk land and lost them due to Moscow’s aggression. In the 16th century they had small estates in Vitebsk, Polotsk Voivodeships, Slonim County, Podlasie, and Žemaitija. The highest position of a representative of this family was the clerk of the county court.
5. The Dashkovich Glynski princes are known in one generation from 1488 to 1507, they had small estates in the north of the Kyiv Voivodeship. The highest position is the governor in Cherkasy.
6. Princes Fedorovych Glynski are known in 4 generations from the middle of the 15th century. There was only one representative in each generation. The family died out before 1576. In 1495-1500, Prince Bohdan Fedorovych Glynsky held the highest position – governor in Putivl. The family owned relatively large estates in the Kyiv Voivodeship.
7. The Lvovich Glynski princes are known in three generations from 1486 to 1602. Until 1508, three Lvovich brothers served in the Grand Duke of Lithuania and all three were members of the council under the Grand Duke, two were also marshals, and one was also a voivode.
After M. L. Glynsky’s action, they emigrated to Muscovy, where they came in kinship with ruling family, were boyars, commanders in military campaigns, and governors in cities.
8. The youngest of the Lvovich princes – Mykhailo Lvovich Glynsky – was a man of remarkable abilities and a true decoration of the generally not brilliant group of bearers of the surname Glynski. He had great influence on King Alexander, but under the next king Sigismund, he began to lose his position, and with the action of 1508, he finally qualified as traitor and fled to Moscow. This action was not the cause of the Muscovite-Lithuanian war (it started back in 1507), but Moscow tried to use it in its interests – in the end, without success.
In Moscow, he sometime occupied a high position under the Grand Duke, and sometime put in prison, where he died. He played a significant, though not a key, role in the conquest of Smolensk by Moscow in 1514.
9. The lack of kinship between different groups of the Glynski princes is evident from the following facts:
9.1. The princes of different groups never called themselves relatives, did not use terms of kinship, and did not even have the opportunity to do so, because there are almost no documents in which representatives of different groups are mentioned at the same time.
9.2. Princes of different groups did not inherit any estates from their supposed protoplast.
9.3. The princes of different groups did not have estates in any territorial proximity, which (theoretically) could be formed as a result of the division between relatives of some single ancient estate, which is not directly mentioned in the sources.
9.4. Princes of different groups did not inherit estates from princes of other groups and did not declare their "right of proximity" to such estates.
9.5. There were no disputes or lawsuits between the princes of different groups for the division / inheritance of properties.
9.6. Finally, in politics, the princes Lvovich Glynski stood in solidarity, took part in the action of 1508, and then all of them emigrated to Moscow together. On the other hand, their contemporaries – princes Semenovich Glynski – did not take any part in the action of 1508, did not emigrate to Moscow, did not succumb to repression, and their estates were not confiscated for treason.
10. The idea of a common origin of all the Glynski princes arose at the end of the 16th century (approximately in 1598) in Moscow, when the Glynski family was finally recorded in the official Moscow family book. This genealogy, quite undeservedly, enjoys the full confidence of all researchers up to the present day. Meanwhile, it is not a source, but only an attempt to reconstruct the genealogy, to rationalize the information available to the author.
10.1. The beginning of the family from "Tsar Mamai" is based on the pattern of all other genealogies in the book, which are equally fantastic in their beginnings. Deriving one’s family from some foreigner was an indispensable requirement for Muscovites who applied for high positions.
10.2. The "sons" of the mythical Prince Ivan – Boris, Semen and Fedir, about whom we have documentary references, were never called Ivanovich – neither during their lifetime, nor in later references. Nor did they call each other "brothers".
10.3. The genealogy knows absolutely nothing about the Dashkovich Glynski.
10.4. The genealogy does not know the real Hryhorij Borisovych Glynsky at all, instead it gives Lev as the "son" of Prince Boris, which is not attested by any source.
10.5. The genealogy is weakly oriented in the Fedorovych Glynsky, it shows the mythical prince "Mikhail Putymskyi" there and does not know the last representative – Bohdan Volodymyrovych (although he died long before the compilation of the genealogy).
10.6. The genealogy gives confused and very incomplete information about the Semenovych Glynski.
10.7. All genealogy information should be discarded and genealogies compiled by me should be used instead.
11. The immense latifundia, which allegedly covered the basins of Sula and Vorskla rivers and which supposedly belonged to some princes Glynski, was invented by the Kyiv scribe Fedir Proskura, who submitted his falsified "documents" to the consideration of the border commission in 1638. The model for such a fiction was the real latifundia of the princes Vyshnevetsky on Sula. In fact, none of the Glynski – neither the contemporaries of that "latifundia" at the end of the 15th century, nor the later representatives of all the Glynski groups – not only did not own anything in this area, but even had no idea about it.
The mapping of the delimitation of the Grand Duchies of Lithuania and Moscow from 1508 clearly shows that not only the Vorskla basin, but also the Sula basin lay far beyond the borders of the state territories, which ended in the south with Putivl and Cherkasy.
12. Mapping of geographical names Glynsk showed that any Prince Glynsky did not possess some place named Glynsk, and had no idea about him. All settlements with a name Glynsk arose independently of the Glynski princes, and all groups of the Glynski princes arose independently of these settlements.
13. Mentions of Glynsk in the charts of the Crimean khans for the Grand Dukes of Lithuania are limited to the period from 1507 to 1541. Glynsk does not mentioned neither in the older nor in the later charts, in its place there are other names in the lists. The appearance of Glynsk in translations of charts an echo of the great glory of the Lvovich Glynski family in 1507, and the disappearance of this name is due to the decline of the memory of the Glynski family in the middle of the 16th century.