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.