The Anrep family is a Baltic-German noble family, belonging also to Swedish and Russian nobility.

Anrep Coat of arms - historical image
Anrep: Coat of arms

History

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The family originates from Anreppen, a village on Lippe river in Westfalia, Germany (now a part of Delbrück town). In 15th century Anreps, belonging to the Teutonic Knights, settled in Livonia. In 1626, during the Thirty Years' War, this country became a dominion of Sweden.

Anrep family was soon naturalized in Sweden and introduced to the Riddarhuset, or House of Knights, in 1635. According to Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, German von Anrep was a Field Marshal in Sweden in the 16th century, and some Anreps were later also on French and Prussian military service [1].

By 1710, in the Great Northern War between Peter I of Russia and Charles XII of Sweden, Frederick Wilhelm I von Anrep, a captain in the Swedish army, had been taken to Moscow as a prisoner. From that time his branch of the family remained in Russia, serving the Tsars, generally in military or naval posts. Russian Anreps retained the Lutheran religion of their ancestors.

Sources

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  1. Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (1890 – 1907, 86 vol.)
  2. Russian Biographies Dictionary by A.A. Polovtzov (1899 – 1918, 25 vol.)
  3. Annabel Farjeon. The adventures of Russian artist: the biography of Boris Anrep. - St.Petersburg, 2003. (Russian translation of the unpublished English manuscript)

See also

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