Background
Grigorii Nikolaevich Trubetskoi was born in 1873 to one of Russia's oldest noble families, a family which traces its princely
title to the twelfth century Grand Prince of Lithuania Gediminas. Grigorii had nine sisters and was the youngest of four renowned
brothers. The eldest, Piotr Nikolaevich, was Marshal of the Nobility in Moscow. Sergei Nikolaevich was the rector of Moscow
University, a prominent philosopher, and a popular professor. His funeral spurred large student demonstrations and proved
to be an important event in the 1905 revolution. Evgenii Nikolaevich was also one of Russia's leading philosophers, a professor
at Moscow University, and the editor of Moskovskii ezhenedel'nik, an important liberal weekly journal that published broadly on foreign affairs and other topics from 1906 to 1911.