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The origin and history of the genus

There is another nice example, the arms of Kozhin, the scions of George Fahrensbach who was said to immigrate into Russia from Sweden in 15th century(28). The family legend and the arms of Kozhin are reflected one in another; three elements of the quartered Kozhin’s arms correspond to three periods of the Kozhin’s history (German roots and the ancient castle of Fahrensbach; immigration from Sweden; military merits on the Russian service). One can be temptated to give the same explanation to the lions in arms of Shepelev and Novosiltsov, also of Swedish origin(29). But in this cases there is a lack of additional convincing information. In the beginning of 18th century the perception of lion’s theme in Russian culture was indeed marked by a specific anomaly. Lion signified Sweden. In hundreds of cartoonish and solemn compositions of the times of the Northern War (1700-1721) the king of beasts symbolised the Swedish enemy. It is important, that this absolute concretization of sense existed outside of armory as such, in baroque allegories. The armorial lions in Russia of the time usually preserved their indefinitely positive meaning; and even in the arms of those who descended from Swedes lions could be “just lions”(30). We examined the two ways of assumption of territorial arms by Russian noble families: as marks of genealogical relationship with monarchs and merely as regional symbols which evoke the native country or province of ancestors. In both cases the genealogical motivation is evident. Now let us come to the third way: an assumption of a territorial emblem without clear genealogical reason. Read this article Coat of Arms, heraldry on the site dictionary of FA Brockhaus and IA Efron .