Nikita Romanovich

Nikita Romanovich (Никита Романович) (died 23 April 1586), also known as Nikita Romanovich Zakharyin-Yuriev, was a Muscovite Boyar in 1563 whose grandson Mikhail Feodorovich founded the Romanov dynasty of Russian tsars.

He was a son of the Boyar Roman Yurievich Zakharyin-Koshkin, Okolnichi, who died on 16 February 1543, who gave his name to the Romanov dynasty of Russian monarchs, and wife Uliana Ivanovna, who died in 1579, and the brother-in-law of Ivan IV of Russia, who had married his sister Anastasia Romanovna. His great-grandfather was Zakhary Ivanovich Koshkin.

Nikita Romanovich is first recorded in 1547, when, on account of the tsar's wedding with Anastasia Zakharyina, he was promoted to spalnik and stolnik. He participated as a rynda (bodyguard) of the tsar in the unlucky campaigns against the Khanate of Kazan in 1547 and 1548. Later, he was the assistant to the Princes Vasily Serebryany and Andrey Nogtev-Suzdalsky with the rank of okolnichy in the Livonian campaign of 1559.

He was granted a boyar dignity in 1562. Four years later, following the death of his brother Daniil Romanovich, he became the governor of Tver. He commanded detachments of the Muscovite army during the winter campaign of 1572 in Novgorod and against Sweden. He also took part in the Livonian campaigns of 1573 and 1577.

On his deathbed Ivan the Terrible left his two sons, Fyodor and Dmitry, to the care of trusted associates. Until the illness incapacitated him in late 1584, Nikita Romanovich led the regency, as the only uncle of the young tsar. He died on 23 April 1586 and was buried in the Novospassky Monastery.

He married twice to :
 * Varvara Ivanovna Khovrina-Golovina (d. 18 June 1556), daughter of the hereditary treasurer of Muscovy and of a Rurikid princess
 * Princess Evdokiya Alexandrovna Gorbataya-Shuyskaya (d. 4 April 1581), a sixth cousin of the future Vasili IV.

His children by first marriage were:
 * Anna (d. 1585), married to Prince Ivan Fyodorovich Troyekurov (d. 29 May 1621)
 * Euphimia (d. murdered 23 March 1602), married to Prince Ivan Vasilievich Sitski (d. Kozheozero Monastery, 23 March 1608)

His children by second marriage were:
 * Fyodor Nikitich Romanov
 * Marfa (d. 1610), married to Prince Boris Keybulatovich Tcherkasskiy (d. 22 April 1601)
 * Lev (d. 1595)
 * Mikhail (d. Nyrob, 18 March 1605), Okolnichi
 * Alexander (d. murdered in Usolie-Lud 15 March 1605), Boyar (1599), married firstly to Princess Eudoxia Ivanovna Galitsyna (d. 1 August 1597) and secondly to Juliana Semyonovna Pogozhaya (d. 1622), without issue
 * Nikifor (d. 1601)
 * Ivan "Kascha" (d. 1640), Boyar (1605), married to Princess Uliana Fyodorovna Litvinova-Massalaskaya (d. 1650), and had:
 * Nikita (c. 1607 – 21 December 1654), Boyar 1645
 * Andrey (d. 25 April 1609)
 * Dmitry (d. 4 November 1611)
 * Irina (d. 10 September 1615)
 * Praskovia (d. 25 October 1622)
 * Ivan (d. 30 July 1625)
 * Uliana (d. 1565)
 * Irina (d. 6 June 1636), married in 1602 to Ivan Ivanovich Godunov (d. drowned 1610), Okolnichi (1603), a second cousin of Boris Godunov, and had:
 * Pyotr, Steward, who married and had: 
 * Grigory, Steward (1678), married to Marfa Afanasievna, without issue
 * Anastasiya (d. 1655), married to Prince Boris Mikhailovich Lykov-Obolenskiy, participant of Seven Boyars
 * Vasily (d. Pelym, 15 February 1601)