The Romanovs

A Captivating Guide to the Last Imperial Dynasty to Rule Russia and the Impact the Romanov Family Had on Russian History

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Introduction

Modern Russia is the largest country in the world, stretching from Europe’s eastern borders to the Sea of Japan, and sharing its southern border with Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan. Its complicated history stretches back thousands of years, from the time of the Viking explorer Rurik’s first documented colony of Novgorod to the modern day. And an undoubtedly interesting, exciting, and dramatic chapter of its history was ruled over by the Romanov dynasty.

This powerful ruling family came to power shortly after the frightening rule of a legendary figure in Russian history: Ivan the Terrible. After murdering his own son and unborn grandson, Ivan died without an heir, resulting in the formation of a new dynasty. This was the Romanov family.

The Romanovs included some of the most famous names in all of history, from Peter the Great, who expanded its borders, to the mighty Empress Catherine the Great, a powerful female ruler in a time of rife male supremacy and who is still a symbol of feminine power to this day. The Romanovs ruled from the end of the Middle Ages to the dawn of a modern era that forcefully rejected the last Romanovs from a nation that no longer tolerated a monarchy. And every last one of these mighty monarchs had quirks and idiosyncrasies, likes and dislikes, pasts that were often troubled, and complicated family lives.

Every one of them was a person, complex, intricate, flawed, and fascinating. Their stories range from the beautiful to the tragic to the bizarre. And here they all are, laid out for you to enjoy.

Chapter 1 – Russia Before the Romanovs

Illustration I: Ilya Repin’s 19th-century depiction of Ivan the Terrible and his son

The Grand Duchy of Moscow was established in the 13th century, and many of Russia’s political and economic events have since centered on this ancient city and its location on the Moskva River.

Kievan Rus

The East Slavic state of Kievan Rus existed in a small region of Eastern Europe. Located just east of Poland and Hungary, and to the north of the Byzantine Empire, Kievan Rus was a state comprised of ancient communities that had been conquered by the Vikings in the 9th and 10th centuries.[1] It is told in the Russian Primary Chronicle, which was written in the 12th century and covers the history of the region from 850 to 1110, that the first Viking to lay claim to the city of Novgorod was named Rurik. Rurik was succeeded by his relative Oleg around 879, and the latter is credited with establishing the state of Kievan Rus.[2] To achieve this, Oleg first annexed the established cities of Smolensk and Kiev. The Viking founder moved onward, weaving Slavic and Finnish tribes into his nation, and in 911, he made a strategic trade deal with the Byzantine capital city of Constantinople.[3]

The economy of the early Kievan Rus state was carefully maintained. During the winter, princes of the state traveled among their neighboring tribes to collect tribute payments in the form of money, slaves, and furs. When warmer weather came, they put these items on small boats in the Dnieper River at Kiev and traveled toward Constantinople en masse. The river, as well as the nation’s trading treaties, are what kept Kievan Rus viable in those early centuries.

Rurik and his successors were the first of the Rurik dynasty, and they ruled Kievan Rus, the later-established Grand Duchy of Moscow, and the early Tsardom of Russia.

The Rurikids

By the end of the 10th century, Rurik’s successors and descendants had grown their domains up and down the Dnieper and Volga Rivers, bringing numerous East Slavic tribes under their control. What was more, their allegiance with the Byzantine Empire had a strong influence on their culture. For instance, in 988, under Prince Vladimir (the great-grandson of Rurik), the official religion of Kievan Rus changed to Christianity.[4]

It was not long, however, before the burgeoning new state would fall into internal disrepair. Vladimir had to fight tooth and nail to gain control over Kievan Rus, and his son, Yaroslav, had to as well. There was no real rule of succession—back then, it was every man for himself. Yaroslav would attempt to smooth out the transition from one leader to the next by leaving a detailed will after his death in 1054, which divided his domain among his numerous sons, with the eldest supposedly ruling over them all. War inevitably followed, and while the following generations made stumbling attempts at following Yaroslav’s model of succession, chaos would reign for centuries every time a ruler died. Kievan Rus was fractured into numerous smaller principalities or duchies, with Kiev as the capital.

As the princes of Kievan Rus squabbled among themselves for supremacy, their external enemies inevitably took advantage of their poorly guarded borders. The Poles, Lithuanians, and, most devastating of all, Mongols were all eager for a piece of the vast territory. The Mongol attacks were so devastating that Kiev itself fell before them.

In fact, that might have been the end of Russian history as we know it were it not for a handful of courageous heroes who rose up against these towering threats. The earliest of these was Alexander Nevsky, a Rurikid prince who famously stood up to the Teutonic Knights in 1242. These knights, whose mission was to spread Roman Catholicism as far as they could reach, would have changed life completely for the Eastern Orthodox Russians. In a thrilling battle on a frozen lake, Nevsky sent them packing, saving his people from what could have been a devastating cultural shift.[5]

In 1380, a hero rose up against the Mongols, this time finally driving them back beyond the Russian border. This was Dmitry Donskoy, another Rurikid, who had been ruler over Moscow since 1359 after having taken the throne when he was only nine years old. He faced the Golden Horde during the Battle of Kulikovo on September 8th, 1380, and ended Mongolian rule over his realm for two brief years. The Mongols returned to sack Moscow in 1382, but Donskoy’s victory had proven to the Russian people that the Mongols could be defeated. Donskoy’s successors would eventually throw off their Mongolian shackles and build their state into something far mightier.[6]

However, Kievan Rus, as it had been in the 10th century, was long gone. The Mongols had gained control of Kiev; the capital of Russia was now Moscow, and its ruler was known as the Grand Prince of Moscow. Technically, he only ruled over the lands of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, but he was still the supreme leader over the princes who ruled the various duchies that made up the rest of Russia.

A bloody civil war, which lasted from 1430 to 1453, finally brought an end to the chaotic mode of succession by establishing a more standard hereditary succession, with sons instead of brothers inheriting the title. This brought far greater unity for nearly two centuries, as well as a new title for the ruler of Russia, for the grand prince was about to become an emperor.

Ivan the Terrible has become legendary for his strange and often brutal acts, but he was also a powerful ruler. He would become the first to be known as the Tsar of All Russia in 1547.[7]

Ivan the Terrible

Ivan IV, known colloquially as Ivan the Terrible, was a member of the ancient Rurik family. He served as the grand prince of Moscow from 1533 until 1547. However, his rule did not end in 1547, for that was the year he was crowned head of the Tsardom of Russia (also called the Tsardom of Muscovy).[8] The word “Tsar” was derived from the Italian “Caesar.” It was the beginning of an era of unprecedented territorial expansion for the region, as rulers annexed the territories to the east at an average rate of 35,000 square kilometers per year from 1551 to 1700.[9]

The moniker “Terrible” is much debated, and many historians believe that the name refers to the first tsar’s erratic and violent behavior, particularly after the death of his wife, Anastasia.

Apparently convinced that the entire population of the city of Novgorod was plotting against him, in 1570, Ivan sacked the city at the head of his army and killed thousands of people.[10] In 1581, Ivan allegedly murdered his son and heir in a fit of rage, beating him to death with a wooden stick.[11] The incident was captured by contemporary painter Ilya Repin in a bloody scene entitled, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan. Although he was ruthless on a personal level, Ivan also brought that brutality to the battlefield. It was under his leadership that the Tsardom of Russia gained significant territorial gains to the north and east of Kiev and Novgorod. It started with the successful Siege of Kazan in 1552, in which the Russians overtook the capital city of their rivals, the Tatars.[12]

Though considerably larger than it had been, the Tsardom of Russia was exhausted and bankrupt by the time Ivan the Terrible died in 1584, and the royal family had only one living son to replace him: Fyodor.

Fyodor I, the son of Ivan the Terrible and Anastasia Romanovna, inherited the tsardom upon his father’s death in 1584 and continued the tradition of Rurik family rule.[13] Owing to what may have been mental health problems or learning difficulties, Fyodor was merely a figurehead, as his maternal uncle, Boris Godunov, dealt with the political matters of the state. Upon Fyodor’s death in 1598, the Rurik dynasty came to an abrupt end after more than 700 years of leadership.[14]

The False Dmitrys

Without an heir to take Fyodor’s crown, the nation fell into anarchy and confusion during a period called the Time of Troubles. A succession of “false Dmitrys” appeared in the guise of Dmitry Ivanovich, the youngest son of Ivan IV, who is believed to have died in 1591. Dmitry was in exile with his mother at the time, as they were sent out of Moscow by the boyar who controlled the state during Fyodor’s reign. His death was a suspicious one, for the eight-year-old boy was stabbed in the throat. While it was believed for many years that Boris Godunov, the boyar, had him assassinated, modern historians consider that he more than likely suffered an epileptic fit while holding a knife and accidentally stabbed himself. That would make his death a tragic accident.

However, it wasn’t the manner of Dmitry’s death that ultimately threw Russia into chaos. It was the fact that many impostors tried to make the people believe that it had never taken place at all. Each claimed that Dmitry’s death had been faked and that they were the lost prince of Russia. They caused constant trouble, as they attempted to lay their claims to the throne, despite the fact that the real Dmitry’s claim would have been shaky at best, thanks to the fact that he was the son of Ivan’s fifth wife. Back then, only three marriages were allowed by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Further problems arose during the famine of 1601–1603, during which an estimated one-third of the people within the Tsardom of Russia died of starvation and related illnesses.[15]

Still worse, the neighboring Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth took advantage of Russia’s weakened state to declare war, advancing into Russian territory and occupying Moscow from 1605 to 1612. The attack was led by one of the purported false Dmitrys, who, having been shunned from Moscow by Boris Godunov, fled to Poland and convinced important people in that country of his claim. The war went poorly for Dmitry until Godunov died suddenly in 1605, at which point the Russians themselves crowned the self-proclaimed heir of Ivan IV under the title Dmitry I.[16] Simultaneously, a coup was carried out to imprison the newly crowned Fyodor II, the son of Boris Godunov and Maria Skuratova-Belskaya.

Dmitry I’s rule was quite short, as he managed to critically offend the Russian nobility and commoners alike by marrying Marina Mniszech in May of 1606.[17] Mniszech was not of the Russian Orthodox Christian faith, as was customary for rulers of Russia, and when she did not convert, naysayers gossiped that the tsar planned to merge the Russian Orthodox Church back with the Holy See of Roman Catholicism. Furthermore, the new tsar had many close friendships with foreigners and progressive Russians with unorthodox lifestyles. A section of the Russian nobility, the boyars, was extremely unimpressed, and they planned to assassinate the tsar.

Vasili Shuisky led many of the boyars and allied commoners into the Kremlin on the morning of May 17th, murdering Dmitry I. Shuisky replaced him as tsar until 1610, when a second false Dmitry laid a claim to the title.[18] This time, however, the invading army, which was backed by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, made a surprise switch, and instead of having Dmitry crowned, they made a deal with the Russians to have Polish Prince Władysław made tsar. As the Władysław compromise was put into place, Polish troops moved to occupy Moscow and the Kremlin. Although Dmitry II still led a faction of supporters, it was not enough to prevent his assassination in December of that year.[19]

Dmitry II’s death and the fact that Władysław of Poland had allowed his troops to occupy Moscow without bothering to attempt any shared rule with the boyars as promised meant even further social decay. Sweden took offense, having been at war with the Poles already, and declared war on Russia as well. They had a false Dmitry of their own and planned to have him sworn in as tsar on their behalf. It was a civil war, with factions of Russians fighting with the Polish, the Swedes, or for some form of independence.

In September of 1612, the Battle of Moscow began.[20] Though the Polish-Lithuanian armies had managed to devastate the Russian city of Vologda, it was decided they would return home after a clear Russian victory in the capital city in December.

Chapter 2 – The First Romanovs

After having wrenched the nation back from the brink of collapse, the boyars quickly arranged a special parliament known as the Zemsky Sobor.

Understanding that the Tsardom of Russia was in desperate need of strong, traditional, and patriotic leadership, the boyars looked for a candidate that fit the bill. There was one they agreed on: Michael Fyodorovich Romanov.

The Romanovs before Their Rule

With the Rurik dynasty in tatters, a new family would have to be found that could become the royals of Russia, and the Romanovs were an obvious choice.

As the Grand Duchy of Moscow emerged as the ruling principality in Russia, the Romanovs became more and more powerful. They were not a particularly large family, but they did succeed in growing ever closer to the rulers of the time. In fact, Roman Yurievich Zakharyin-Yuriev, born in 1500, served as the okolnichy to Grand Prince Vasili III, who reigned from 1505 to 1533. The okolnichy did not hold power over great lands or huge armies at the time, but he was, nonetheless, very close to the ruler, as he was a sort of personal assistant who made travel arrangements and dealt with foreign ambassadors.

No one, however, would come quite so close to Ivan the Terrible as Zakharyin-Yuriev’s second daughter, Anastasia Romanovna.[21] She and Ivan may have met even before he became the grand prince of Moscow, and they appear to have truly fallen in love. Ivan was constantly devoted to his new bride, and many of his contemporaries considered her to be a taming influence on his wild and troubled temper. In fact, during Anastasia’s life, Ivan was a capable and ambitious ruler. It was after she died—as she had been poisoned, likely by those who were after the tsar’s own life—that his deep paranoia set in and transformed his reign into a madman’s rule of terror.

Nonetheless, once Ivan’s line died out, it was evident that the Romanov family was the closest thing to royalty that Russia still had. As a result, Michael Romanov, the great-nephew of Anastasia Romanovna, became the next tsar.

The Rule of Michael I

Unwelcome in Russia during the rule of Boris Godunov, Michael Romanov had been exiled to the subordinate city of Beloozero in 1600 or 1601.[22] The claims of treason made by Godunov against Michael’s father Fyodor were largely believed to have been false, and therefore, the sixteen-year-old Michael was a popular candidate for the leader of the nation.

After much politicking and threats, the Zemsky Sobor debated their options and ultimately made the unanimous decision to elect Michael Fyodorovich Romanov as the tsar of Russia on February 21st, 1613.[23]

Though young Michael Romanov had been successfully selected as the head of the Tsardom of Russia, no one had actually been in contact with him during the election process. Therefore, after the decision had already been made, emissaries from Moscow had to travel to the monastery where Michael lived with his mother near the city of Kostroma.

Upon being informed of the decision of the Zemsky Sobor, Michael was reluctant to accept the role he was offered. He had yet to turn seventeen and had very little formal education. He’d been living with his mother at the monastery since the rule of Boris Godunov had forced the latter to become a nun, and he expected to live a simple life. Nevertheless, the young man was persuaded to take up the rule, if only in name, and on July 21st, 1613, Michael Romanov was crowned tsar of Russia.[24]

Probably knowing full well that he was unfit to make many important political decisions, Michael allowed his mother’s relatives to take over much of the governmental affairs. Each had personal reasons—generally, the desire for power—for doing so, but in all, they succeeded in bringing Russia out of the chaos and uncertainty that overwhelmed them during the Time of Troubles. The Romanov family crushed internal strife within the tsardom and sought successful peace treaties with Sweden and Poland, which were ratified in 1617 and 1618, respectively.[25]

Once these peace treaties were in place, Michael’s own father was allowed to return from his exile and imprisonment in Poland. Fyodor Nikitich Romanov returned triumphantly to Moscow, having once been a primary candidate for the tsardom himself following the death of Ivan IV. He was named the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and named Patriarch of Moscow, which was the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. This effectively established him as the co-ruler of Russia.

One of the main objectives of Patriarch Fyodor was to create closer ties with Western Europe, thereby modernizing the Russian government so that it became much more centralized. He made extensive use of the Zemsky Sobor as a body of discussion and election, which assisted him in earning the trust and respect of Russia’s wealthy boyars. Once more in a bid to liken Russia to the ancient Roman Empire, Fyodor pushed to strengthen the economic policy of serfdom under his regime as well.

Serfdom was a practice in both ancient Rome and medieval Russia, and it meant the indentured servitude of millions of laborers. These laborers were not considered slaves; however, they were tied to specific pieces of land and the lords who owned and ruled those lands. Serfs worked the land to produce crops, meat, and other food products, as well as maintain roads and other aspects of the lord’s property. Any products produced on the land were the property of the lord. However, in exchange for working the land, each lord allowed his serfs to live on the land and cultivate their own plots for their needs. Serfs were not usually sold except as a package with the land itself.

For any agricultural society with plans of expansion and wealth, the serf class was seen as a necessary part of life. In many cases, serfs and the other poor classes in Russia were considered less intelligent and certainly less deserving of wealth than Russia’s high-born people. The belief that serfs were a lower form of humanity was important in allowing serfdom to become the fundamental economic principle of the tsardom. Many of these servants left their allotted lands and moved to the isolated steppe region of Russia to try to find another way of life. Understanding that such migratory patterns would be the downfall of his entire economic system, Romanov passed laws that bound the workers to the land upon which they toiled. He also reorganized the tax collection to ensure that the state coffers were quickly refilled and that they stayed that way.

The senior Romanov also reorganized the nation’s army, which meant that Russia was better prepared to weather a new war with Poland, which began in 1632.[26] This time, Russia was the aggressor. The former truce between Russia and Poland-Lithuania had ceded Russian land—a region called Smolensk—to the latter nation in exchange for peace, but this was due to expire in 1633. In an effort to reclaim that land, Romanov attacked at the most opportune moment, just after the death of King Sigismund III.

Unfortunately, Fyodor Romanov died in 1633, and his son lacked the military clout necessary to continue the war. Instead, Michael I went to the table with Poland-Lithuania and agreed to withdraw Russian troops for another treaty. Smolensk remained in foreign hands.

Due to a leg injury from a horse-riding accident in his youth, Tsar Michael I struggled to walk in the last few years of his life. With his mother’s relatives once more in charge of the government, the tsar’s primary focus was often on the marriages of his children. His second wife, Eudoxia Streshneva, bore him ten children following their wedding in 1626, and four of them survived into adulthood: Alexei, Irina, Anna, and Tatyana.[27] Michael’s last great ambition in life was to have his oldest daughter Irina married to the son of King Christian IV of Denmark. The discussions over this potential marriage eventually reached an impasse over the subject of religion. Michael I would have no members of the Russian royal family wed to anyone outside of the Russian Orthodox Church, and yet the intended bridegroom, Count Valdemar Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, was forbidden by his own family to change faiths.

It was reported that Tsar Michael was so completely devastated by the failure of these marital negotiations that he became seriously ill. In April 1645, the tsar became sick with what historians generally agree was a combination of scurvy, dropsy, and depression. His health declined rapidly, and on July 12th, he fainted while attending a church service. Eleven days later, he died, leaving the Tsardom of Russia to his son Alexei.[28]

Chapter 3 – A Twisted Tutor

Born in Moscow on March 29th, 1629, Alexei Mikhailovich I was the only son of Michael I and Eudoxia Streshneva to survive into adulthood.[29] Since it was customary for Russian men and women of royal and noble families to have separate living quarters, children such as Alexei lived with the women in the terem until the age of five. Thus, Alexei and his siblings would have been extremely isolated. The queen and her female counterparts were prevented from socializing with any men who were not a part of their immediate families, and when they did venture outside the royal gates, they would have been heavily cloaked or hidden in closed carriages.

The Influence of Boris Ivanovich Morozov

At the age of five, Alexei was permitted to leave the terem for the sake of his education. A tutor by the name of Boris Ivanovich Morozov taught the Russian prince how to read and write, as well as the fundamental elements of the Russian Orthodox Church. Faith was of the utmost importance to the royal family, as well as to the boyars and general public of the tsardom.

Christianity had been accepted as the major faith of Kievan Rus by the 10th century CE, as this was the year the regent of Kiev, St. Olga, was baptized.[30] During the period of Mongol rule, which lasted from the 13th to 15th centuries, the religion grew tremendously, as people flocked to join its monasteries. In 1448, the Rus people elected their own regional leader, known as the Metropolitan, and were thenceforth politically separated from the Christian center of Constantinople.[31] This was the birth of the Russian Orthodox Church, which remained independent from other major Christian churches of the medieval era.

Prince Alexei not only learned about the importance of his national church, but he also received a rather unusual education for the time. Though it was generally sufficient for royals to learn their letters and religion, Alexei’s tutor did not stop there. The prince also studied foreign languages, sciences, and military strategy. He was schooled in a style more in keeping with the nobility of Western Europe, and this would dramatically change the story of his own family and that of Russia as a nation.

When Alexei I came to power in 1645, he was the same age as his unsuspecting father had been when the boyars of Moscow came to tell him he had been elected as the new tsar. This accession made Alexei the second tsar of All Russia, as well as the second of the newly established Romanov dynasty. Although he was well educated, the young tsar initially relied heavily on his tutor, Morozov, in matters of state, as he was, after all, only sixteen years old. Two years after being named tsar, Alexei was expected to concentrate on finding a wife and starting his own family. To make the process as quick and efficient as possible, a traditional bride-show was organized, in which almost 200 eligible girls were brought together for the tsar to choose from.[32] Though it seemed Alexei had free rein to find the girl he preferred the most, Morozov had other ideas.

At first, Alexei decided to marry a girl by the name of Euphemia Feodorovna Vsevolozhaskaya, the daughter of a rich aristocrat. Morozov, however, was unhappy in this decision since it was his goal to use the royal marriage to make himself a legitimate relative of his former student. The scheme was not simple. To achieve his goal, Morozov needed to convince Alexei to marry Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya, the daughter of his good friend, and then wed Maria’s sister, Anna.

First, Morozov had to remove Feodorovna from the equation, and he apparently did so by paying a hairdresser to treat the girl’s hair so brutally that she fainted. The physician who examined the girl afterward was also paid by Morozov, this time to declare that Feodorovna suffered from epilepsy. Such a disease in a royal bride was not acceptable, and not only was the marriage of Feodorovna and Tsar Alexei called off, but the girl’s father was also accused of hiding his daughter’s disease so that she could marry the tsar. Subsequently, the girl and her family were exiled. The plan worked perfectly, and Morozov soon convinced Alexei to marry Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya on January 16th, 1648.[33] Ten days after the royal wedding, Morozov married the tsarina’s sister, Anna.[34]

The Salt Riots

In the course of a few years, Tsar Alexei began to take a firmer hand in the politics of his realm. One of the most important moments in his rule came during the same year as his marriage. Riots in Moscow, Novgorod, and other cities broke out over a change in tax legislation. To put more money in the royal treasury, Alexei was advised to start taxing salt. Already feeling the burden of state taxes, the serfs and other poor citizens rebelled in what would be called the salt riots. These people weren’t rebels—they were just hungry. Salted fish was a staple food in Russia, and with salt being taxed so harshly as to become nearly unaffordable, the people had no way of preserving their food. Starvation was an inevitable result. Boyars, however, often found loopholes in the legislation, which stopped them from paying their part.

There were more problems on the agricultural estates, as large numbers of serfs were escaping from the lands they were duty-bound to work. This was due in part to the cruelty of the landlords as well as to the infertility of much of Russia’s soil. Existing laws gave a certain period of time for landowners to recapture and claim their serfs, but as more and more land stood uncultivated, the lords insisted they needed to be given more time to do so. The tsar yielded, binding the laborers even more strictly to the land and authority of the landowners.

The middle- and lower-class Russian people, understanding that Tsar Alexei was governing the nation according to the advice of Boris Ivanovich Morozov, demanded the removal of the latter from office. Believing that the tsar was an exalted appointee of God, it was rare to see any criticism aimed directly at the head of the nation, although it was extremely common for people to target his advisors. On June 1st, 1648, crowds gathered at the Kremlin, hoping to appeal to the tsar directly and plead their case.[35] Upon reaching him and explaining their petition, however, the people were forcefully removed from the tsar’s presence by the police. Shocked at this treatment, the people collectively demanded that the head of police, Leontii Pleshcheyev, be surrendered to them along with Boris Morozov, Duma diak Nazar Chistoy, and Pyotr Trakhaniotov. Nazar Chistoy was involved in implementing the salt tax, and Trakhaniotov was another higher-up in the government, as well as Morozov’s brother-in-law.

The tsar’s guards, called the Streltsy, had a moral dilemma during these events, as many of them were members of the same class as the protesters. Though employed at the palace, the guards had other jobs in the city as artisans, and therefore, they were not willing to harm their fellow citizens, especially not for the sake of the incredibly unpopular head of the Moscow police. Alexei tried to placate the people on behalf of Pleshcheyev, but it did little good. On June 3rd, the tsar released Pleshcheyev into the hands of the waiting rioters, who attacked and killed him immediately.

According to a contemporary report, “they cudgeled him so black and blue and with axes they cut him asunder like a fish, the pieces they let lie naked here and there.”[36]

Excited by the capture and murder of their hated head of police, the rioters set fire to the central part of the city, burning thousands of homes and executing Nazar Chistoy. They set about hunting down unpopular boyars and other rich citizens of the city, attacking and killing many of them. With the city completely out of control, Tsar Alexei promised his Streltsy a pay raise if they ended the rioting and came back to work. The tsar spent another week trying to negotiate for the life of his most valuable friend and government official, Boris Morozov, but by June 12th, he had little choice but to exile Morozov to a Siberian monastery.[37]

The rioting died down soon after Morozov left the city, but by then, half of Moscow was burned to the ground. To keep his citizens calm and repair the damage done to property owners, Alexei promised the poor people that their delinquent accounts would not be canceled and that they would not have to pay the arrears until some point in the future. Furthermore, he provided the nobility with more lands, money, and serfs so that they could reestablish themselves. With so many of the former rioters pleased with these results, it became simple for the tsar’s government to learn who had been a leading force behind the protests and have those people arrested and executed.

The legal outcome of the Moscow salt riots was the Sobornoye Ulozheniye, a new code of laws that was passed in 1649.[38] According to this document, the slaves and free peasants of Russia were officially grouped together into a new class of serfs. Furthermore, the serfs were deemed to be a part of this class by hereditary inheritance, and therefore, they could do nothing to change it. As far as the poor were concerned, this restricted them from leaving the agricultural industry and seeking out new jobs and ways of life. To enforce this legislation, travel between towns was only possible with the proper documentation of an internal passport. In exchange for these reforms, which benefited them greatly, Russia’s nobility agreed to serve in the military.

It was of the utmost importance that the Sobornoye Ulozheniye be understood and adhered to, so to ensure that there were no misunderstandings, Tsar Alexei had a printing press brought to him—it was the first in Russia. Thanks to the printing press, the new code of laws could be easily published and sent to all government officials and police organizations in each of Russia’s cities and towns.

A Dilemma between the Church and the State

After only four months in exile, Boris Morozov returned secretly to Moscow. Though, by all outward appearances, he was no longer involved in the government, historians agree that he simply continued as before, using proxy agents to conduct business. Soon after his mentor had returned, Tsar Alexei found a new advisor in Metropolitan Nikon Novgorod. Impressed by the man’s devotion to the Russian Orthodox Church, the pious tsar developed a friendship with Novgorod that would influence his own dealings with the government. In 1652, Novgorod was made Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, at which point his views on foreign relations became a central focus of the Russian government.[39] Tsar Alexei also made Novgorod the archimandrite (prior) of the Novospassky Monastery in Moscow, which was affiliated with the House of Romanov.

The relationship between Novgorod and Tsar Alexei was positive and productive for several years until it became clear that the two held different views on whether the Church should influence state affairs. In addition to his beliefs that the Russian Orthodox Church should have a primary hand in the running of the state, Novgorod also believed that some of the traditional facets of Russian Orthodoxy were outdated. His church reforms led to a split between contemporary church members and a faction that became known as the Old Believers. The split, called the Raskol, was quite official, leaving many traditional Russians outside the fold of the new Russian Orthodox Church.

The modernization of the Church during the Raskol was implemented to bring Russia’s religion closer to the Greek Orthodox Church. Some of the changes included the accepted spelling of Jesus’s name in prayer books, as well as the exact number of fingers one must use to make the sign of the cross. Many Russians who had spent their entire lives following the old ways simply refused to acknowledge the new rules. For their loyalty to the old methods, the Old Believers were persecuted. Some were even imprisoned. Many Old Believers went into self-exile in frigid and isolated Siberia.

The tsar grew tired of these changes and, in particular, the trouble they caused himself, the people, and the government. In 1666, Alexei gathered the Great Moscow Synod to talk about the problems everyone was having with Novgorod. Since the members of the synod were, for the most part, in agreement with the tsar, they agreed to formally remove Novgorod from his positions. Thenceforth, the once-powerful church leader was only to be known as Monk Nikon, and he was to live in a Siberian monastery.

Later Years

Like his predecessors, Tsar Alexei faced war with Poland during his reign, and it was for the benefit of his nation that he continued to strengthen the military as his father had done. He implemented internal regiments within the body of the army, including cavalry, infantry, dragoons, and hussars. To bolster the overall effectiveness of this improved Russian army, the tsar also hired European mercenaries. The Russo-Polish War took place from 1654 to 1657, and this time, Russia emerged as the victor.[40] In fact, Alexei also attempted to make inroads in Swedish territory by waging war on Sweden between 1656 and 1658.[41] Though large territories were ceded to Russia as a result of the Polish war, Sweden remained just out of reach.

In 1669, Alexei’s wife Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya died shortly after giving birth to their thirteenth child.[42] Sadly, the child also died. Soon afterward, the couple’s eldest son, Alexei, died as well, leaving the tsar with only two sons to inherit his kingdom, both of whom had physical or mental disabilities. Distraught, Tsar Alexei attended another bride-show and chose a new wife immediately, marrying her on February 1st, 1671.[43] The new tsarina, Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina, gave birth to a son named Peter on June 9th, 1672.[44]

Just five years after marrying his second wife, Tsar Alexei I suffered a heart attack and died at the age of forty-six.[45] He was buried in the Kremlin, within the Cathedral of the Archangel.

Chapter 4 – The Sons of Alexei

Tsar Alexei’s’ eldest surviving son was Fyodor, who was only fifteen years old at the time of his father’s death. Fyodor was crowned Tsar of All Russia despite being underage. His uncle, Ivan B. Miloslavsky, took the more complicated aspects of the job in hand.

Fyodor III

In terms of physical health, Tsar Fyodor III was quite lacking, like his younger brother Ivan. In terms of educational prowess, however, Fyodor was very well educated on various subjects, including the Russian Orthodox Church, theology, Latin, and Polish. It was thanks to the monk Symeon Polotsky, tutor to Fyodor and his siblings, that the young tsar was so well learned. Polotsky was a poet, playwright, translator, and theologian who introduced the royal children, Fyodor included, to Western culture as well as Eastern Slavic culture. It was not long before the young tsar, full of ideas, replaced his uncle’s counsel with that of two aristocrats with a similar education and worldview as himself. Ivan Maksimovich Yazykov and Alexei Timofeievich Likhachev worked alongside Tsar Fyodor to introduce new cultural and religious customs to Russia. Though Fyodor himself was very devout, he supported governmental reforms that further centralized the Russian state and lessened the influence of the Church in state affairs.

Polish culture was greatly admired by the tsar and his advisors, though to older generations like that of Miloslavsky, Poland was still viewed primarily as a political and territorial rival. Furthermore, it was an annoyance to the clergy and churchgoers alike that the tsar wanted to implement some of the tenets of Roman Catholicism into the Russian Church, particularly after the Raskol. By this time, the factions of the Old Believers and the followers of the new Russian Orthodoxy were sharply defined, even though those responsible for legitimizing the changes had been let go from power or executed.

Nevertheless, Tsar Fyodor III pressed on with the modernization—also largely seen as Westernization—of his country. He was the first tsar to dress in Western clothing and shave his beard. At the age of eighteen, Fyodor took the advice of his counselors and decided to marry the daughter of a noble family, Agaphia Semenovna. Semenovna was very much to Fyodor’s liking, as she had been educated in the Western manner and could speak Polish, French, Latin, and Russian.

Unfortunately for the tsar, his love interest lived with an uncle who did not want her to marry at all. So, a bride-show was arranged on the pretext that Fyodor must be presented with all the unmarried, eligible girls so he could make his choice. He chose Semenovna, and according to tradition, there was little the girl’s uncle could do to negate the union. The two were married on July 18th, 1680, at the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin.[46] Sadly, Agaphia Semenovna died three days after giving birth to their son on July 11th, 1681.[47] The infant died a week later.

Fyodor married Marfa Matveyevna Apraksin the next year, but less than three months after the wedding, on May 7th, 1682, Tsar Fyodor III died.[48] He was only twenty years old, and he had neither any living offspring, nor had he made a legal declaration concerning his succession.

Fyodor’s second wife, Marfa, spent the rest of her life as an unmarried widow. She cultivated an excellent relationship with Tsar Peter I, who made sure that his sister-in-law received a life-long pension. Marfa lived in Moscow for a time before moving into her own palace in St. Petersburg. She died in that city on January 11th, 1716, and was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral at the Peter and Paul Fortress.[49]

Ivan V

The death of Tsar Fyodor III caused a desperate power struggle between the Miloslavsky and Naryshkin families. During Fyodor’s reign, his matrilineal Miloslavsky relatives had taken a firm hand in the Russian government. When young Ivan Alekseyevich became the heir to his brother’s kingdom in 1682, he was only sixteen years of age and considered ineligible to rule due to his learning disabilities and poor physical health.[50] The Miloslavskys, however, wanted him to be crowned regardless of his health because he shared the same mother as Fyodor. The youngest remaining son of Alexei I was Ivan’s half-brother Peter, who was just ten years old at the time of the accession in 1682.[51] Peter’s mother was a Naryshkin, so when the officials voted for Peter to take Fyodor’s place, the Miloslavskys rioted with the aid of the Streltsy (the monarch’s bodyguards). They demanded that both boys become co-rulers of the kingdom—under their families’ supervision, of course. This event was known as the Moscow Streltsy uprising.

A compromise was proposed by twenty-five-year-old Sophia Alekseyevna, the sister to both boys and the daughter of Tsar Alexei and his first wife, Maria Miloslavskaya, in which both boys were given the co-rule of the kingdom. The result was a double coronation, complete with a specially designed two-seated throne constructed from wood and embossed silver. Sophia Alekseyevna was appointed as regent over both the young tsars.[52]

As the country waited for Tsars Ivan and Peter to grow up, their sister worked with Russian Prince Vasily Golitsyn to scatter the Streltsy and implement strategies to industrialize the kingdom. Though it was the Streltsy that helped Sophia put her brother Ivan on the throne and thereby seize power for herself, she feared that the king’s bodyguards would change their minds and depose her. To keep this from happening, she relocated most of the soldiers to posts outside of Moscow. This was likely upon the advice of Golitsyn, as the two are believed to have been in a romantic relationship. In fact, Sophia preferred the counsel of Golitsyn to that of her own political advisors, and she ignored the advice of the latter on many policies.

As for Ivan V, he observed the regular rites of a Russian monarch, including the traditional choosing of a wife from a bride-show. In 1683 or 1684, it was decided that Praskovia Saltykova would make a good match for Ivan, and the two were married.[53] Though it is unclear whether Ivan or his sister Sophia actually chose Praskovia as the tsar’s wife, the bride-show and marriage were almost certainly the works of Sophia. Knowing that her brother would never be the true ruler of Russia, she would have tried to prevent Peter or his future offspring from taking over the throne by arranging Ivan to have children of his own. Saltykova proved to be an excellent wife to the mentally challenged tsar, as she became his constant companion and greatest advocate. The two had their first child, Maria Ivanovna, in 1689.[54]

Alarmed that Ivan had begun producing children, Peter’s mother, Natalya Naryshkina, quickly arranged for her son to marry Eudoxia Lopukhina that same year. Though it was not a happy marriage, Eudoxia bore the tsar three children: Alexei Petrovich, Alexander Petrovich, and Pavel Petrovich. Alexei was the only one to survive into adulthood.

Although the advisors to the regent declared their intent to continue Russia’s war with Poland, Sophia and Golitsyn instead went ahead with a formal peace treaty. The treaty, signed in 1686, was designed to cultivate a permanent state of peace between the nations instead of a mere pause.[55] The declaration gave the city of Kiev and the district of Zaporizhia to Russia, and in exchange, Russia promised to work with Poland and other European powers in the war against the encroaching Ottoman Empire.

Upholding her part of the bargain, Sophia prepared Russia for the military campaigns against the Crimean Tatars, who were vassals of the Ottomans. These campaigns took place in 1687 and 1689, but they were unsuccessful.[56] Due in part to these military failures, and also because of the continuing discontent among hungry peasants and religious dissidents, Sophia’s and Golitsyn’s management of the kingdom was not popular. As Sophia negotiated the Treaty of Nerchinsk with China in 1689, the Naryshkins plotted to have her removed from her position. Indeed, just as Sophia and the Chinese officials made an agreement to have their mutual border placed along the Amur River, the plot to have the regent deposed went ahead.

Realizing that her fate was uncertain, Sophia reached out once more to the Streltsy, but this time, she found the majority of them in Peter’s favor. With the consent of Peter himself, the Streltsy helped remove Sophia from power. After she was deposed, she was sent to the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow in September of 1689.[57]

Tsar Ivan V had been officially recognized as the senior tsar at the double coronation and was, therefore, a potential threat against the Naryshkins; however, Ivan and Peter were on good terms. Therefore, there was little resistance when the Naryshkins focused their energies on Peter, effectively selecting him as the most powerful of the brothers. For his part, seventeen-year-old Peter showed no animosity to his twenty-three-year-old half-brother, and Ivan was cared for as any senior member of the royal family.

Ivan V kept his title of senior tsar, but he did not actually attend government meetings or have anything to do with the administration of Russia. Instead, the mild young man preferred to spend his time devoted to the Church. Ivan prayed constantly and undertook regular religious fasts. He also spent time as a religious pilgrim, making his way to holy sites. He and Praskovia Saltykova had a total of five children, all girls. Three of those daughters, Ekaterina Ivanova, Anna Ivanovna, and Praskovia Ivanovna, survived into adulthood.

Ivan V’s physical health declined throughout adulthood, and by the time the tsar was twenty-seven years old, he was paralyzed and nearly blind. He was also reportedly senile. On February 8th, 1696, Ivan V died at the age of twenty-nine.[58]

Chapter 5 – Peter the Great

Illustration II: An equestrian statue of Peter the Great

Since it was as yet unprecedented for daughters to inherit royal duties in Russia, Ivan’s daughters had no rights to their father’s throne. Therefore, Peter became the sole tsar of Russia upon his half-brother’s death. This was not satisfactory to all factions, and in 1698, there was a brief and unsuccessful uprising of the Streltsy, who wanted to see Sophia Alekseyevna in power once more.[59] Sophia personally denounced the uprising and claimed to have nothing to do with it; nevertheless, she was tried in court in October of the same year and forced to become a nun.

Peter’s Reign Begins in Earnest

Ivan’s widow moved with her children just outside of Moscow into the Izmailovo Estate, which was originally the property of Tsar Alexei I. Praskovia also had the company of her steward, Vassili Alexeievich Yushkov, with whom she formed a romantic relationship. Tsar Peter I was fully aware of the relationship, and he accepted the presence of Yushkov in his sister-in-law’s household.

Peter had had little of the formal education expected of a royal child, as his sister’s attention had been focused on Ivan. That is not to say that Peter remained uneducated. Since he was free to pursue his own interests, Peter befriended people in the German colony near Preobrazhenskoye and developed a fondness of foreign cultures. He was allowed to learn whatever he found appealing, and he took a great interest in carpentry, seafaring, mathematics, and military practices.

However, this well-rounded education was not the only major influence on Peter’s outlook. In 1697, he embarked upon an eighteen-month visit to Europe that forever changed both Peter and his country. It was his first trip to the Western world, and during his stay in the cities of London and Amsterdam, the tsar discovered a deep love of the cultures he found there. Upon his return home to Moscow in September 1698, Peter cut off his Russian-style beard to embrace the style of the Europeans. Believing that it signaled the entrance of his empire into the modern age, Peter insisted that his friends and colleagues also cut their beards and went so far as to instate a beard tax to force compliance with this new style. With many still believing a beard was required by their religion, there was resistance, but the fines and public humiliation of being shaved by police were effective.

Inspired by the canal city of Amsterdam, Peter decided to found a new city in Russia that followed the same basic design. He did so in 1707 with the founding of St. Petersburg.[60] The first large-scale building in the new city was the Peter and Paul Fortress, designed by Swiss-Italian architect Domenico Trezzini. Tsar Peter was closely involved with the planning and construction of the city. St. Petersburg was likened to a window or gateway to Europe, and the tsar brought in between 20,000 and 30,000 workers to make his dream a reality.[61] A portion of residents from each Russian province was ordered to relocate to the new city, and by 1725, there were 40,000 people living there.[62] Peter himself—along with his entire court—had relocated by 1713, with the tsar calling the city his “Paradise.”[63] Without any official decree, St. Petersburg replaced Moscow as the capital of the Tsardom of Russia.

A Quest for the Seas

Tsar Peter I’s reign was the first in many years in which a tsar had real control over his government, and there were many things he wanted to accomplish. He had inherited the largest nation in the world, stretching from modern Ukraine to the Bering Sea, and down to China. However, the country was still landlocked in many ways, as its only access to high-volume trade was through the White Sea in the northwest. Peter wanted access to the Black Sea, Baltic Sea, and the Caspian Sea, both for reasons of trade and military strategy.

At the start of the 17th century, the Baltic Sea was controlled by Sweden. The Black and Caspian Seas were controlled by the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Empire. Beholden to the Polish-Lithuanian peace treaty his sister had overseen, Tsar Peter had a duty to his ally to wage war against the Ottoman Empire, so he carefully aimed his attacks on the Ottoman fortress of Azov. There, he hoped to not only beat back the Ottomans but to also take the fortress for himself and benefit from its ideal location upon the 1,870-kilometer (1,162-mile) Don River. The Don River connected to the Azov Sea and from there to the Black Sea.[64]

Peter came to the realization that Russia would need a navy if it were to be successful at Azov. He returned to Azov with thirty new ships in 1696 and was able to capture the city.[65]

Leading a coalition consisting of men from Frederick IV’s Denmark–Norway and Augustus II the Strong’s Saxony–Poland–Lithuania, Peter I engaged his army in the Great Northern War against Sweden from 1700 to 1721.[66] Sweden, under the leadership of King Gustav Vasa I (r. 1523–1560) and the sons who succeeded him, had turned into a leading European empire with lands as far away as North America. Within Europe, the country ruled over modern-day Sweden, Finland, and several principalities bordering the Baltic Sea. Peace treaties made in 1648 and 1658 with Westphalia and Denmark, respectively, transformed the growing Swedish Empire into a powerful and influential nation.[67] It was the Swedish encroachment on the Baltic that brought it into competition with powerful neighbors, including Russia.

With the succession of fifteen-year-old King Charles XII to the throne of Sweden in 1697, Peter and his allies believed it was an opportune time to wage war on the burgeoning empire—a war that would last for more than two decades and occupy Peter’s military for much of his reign.[68]

The Great Northern War

The war began in 1700, and Frederick IV was quickly conquered by the defending Swedish Empire. Peter himself suffered his first defeat in this war that same year when the Battle of Narva went horribly south on November 29th, 1700. Preparing for the war, Russian soldiers had hastily attempted to build fortifications around the city of Narva, located in modern-day Estonia. It was heavy going; a wet, frigid fall had turned the surrounding landscape into a giant, slippery mass of mud, and the 40,000 Russian soldiers were unable to prepare the city in time.

Ten thousand Swedes arrived under Charles XII, and what the young ruler lacked in experience, he made up for in fierce determination. His army fell upon Narva with unexpected force and violence, and despite being outnumbered four to one, his men put the Russians almost immediately to flight. They left Narva with their tails between their legs, leaving their valuable artillery train in Charles’s hands. The city itself was doomed.

Most men would have been utterly cowed by this resounding defeat, especially considering how badly the Swedes were outnumbered, but the effect on the twenty-eight-year-old Peter the Great was exactly the opposite. He would later call the Battle of Narva a blessing in disguise, saying that he’d been “invigorated” by the defeat. One draft from that bitter cup had made him determined never to drink from it again.

Charles XII, considering Peter to be a lesser threat than he had perhaps expected, decided to leave the Russians be and turned on Augustus the Strong instead. This ruler—a great, powerful bear of a man who lived up to his name—was not only strong in terms of his physical ability but also had a mighty army behind him. However, even he could not stand strong against Charles. A bitter, bloody war ensued between them, one with odds that rose increasingly in Charles’s favor.

In the meantime, however, Peter was not idle. He began to modernize one of Russia’s most important assets: its army. While whipping up his soldiers into a truly professional army—something that had been hitherto more or less unheard-of in Russia, except for the ever-rebellious Streltsy—Peter also began to build Russia’s very first navy. He constructed several warships that turned out to be formidable enough to stand against the Swedes, who had been waging naval warfare since the time of the Vikings. Russia’s first naval victory was won against them in 1703.[69]

By 1704, the Russian army was unrecognizable, and Peter knew that the time had come to take his revenge. He personally led them against the Swedes who were still occupying Narva and won a stunning victory against them, retaking the city and restoring it to its rightful status as part of the realm of Russia.

The war was by no means over. Only two years later, Augustus the Strong fell, as his strength was unable to save him from the relentless Swedish advances. That left Charles XII in charge of Poland. In September 1706, Augustus II was deposed in favor of Stanisław I, the Swedish choice for the new Polish king. In addition, the Swedish Army spent the winter in Saxony. Only Tsar Peter I pressed on with the war, determined to gain access to the Baltic Sea.

With only one enemy left to defeat, Charles, who was now maturing into a powerful ruler, turned his attention to Russia. He invaded Ukraine, which was rapidly divided between those who allied themselves to Charles and those who wished to maintain independence, and then began to make his way toward the Vorskla River. He hoped to follow its banks all the way to Moscow, which was still the heart of Russia and the seat of its government. Any small cities in his path were razed to the ground.[70]

One such city was Poltava. Situated on many major trade routes of Ukraine and the Don region, and not far from the Russian border, Poltava was not a large city in itself but was of tremendous strategic importance. At that time, it was under Russian control. Its garrison of 7,000 soldiers was commanded by a Russian general loyal to Peter. Charles was advancing with around 30,000 Swedes, Poles, and Cossacks, and Peter knew it was time to meet him in an open battle.

Mustering a tremendous army of around 102,000 soldiers, Peter marched on Poltava. Unfortunately, he did not get there before Charles had attacked. The Swedish king launched his assault in May 1709, and while the city withstood his attack, it was unable to defeat him. He laid siege to Poltava and dug in, ready to starve the people into submission. Charles was perhaps a little overconfident at this point. The loss of Narva had not been a particularly large blow to him; he more or less expected these Russians to be similar to the 40,000 cowards who’d fled before his 10,000 soldiers in 1700.

But the Russians had changed. Nine years of determined work by Peter had turned them into a world-class army, and with his agile intelligence commanding them, they were a force to be reckoned with. What was more, Charles’s army was not what it used to be. While Peter had been training and improving his troops, Charles’s men had been actively fighting for years. They’d also just survived a long winter in the north, and the Russians’ greatest defense was often the brutal weather of Russia itself. There were not many armies who could weather a winter in Russia without being weakened.

Arriving at Poltava, Peter briskly went on the offensive. He personally hatched a plan to show Charles that the Russian army had changed. Commanding his military engineers to build a series of redoubts (temporary fortifications) across the battlefield, he broke up the field completely, making it impossible for Charles to bring his 30,000 men through in a united front. Instead, when the Swedes did attack, they were forced to do so in fragmented groups. The Russians picked them off piece by piece until eventually Charles was forced to give up and return to Ukraine, leaving Poltava liberated and Russia safe from the Swedish attack.

The Great Northern War would continue for another twelve years, but it had effectively ended at Poltava. The defeat was so decisive that the Swedish Empire, which had already been crumbling as a result of internal struggles, came to a humiliating end soon after. Peter would campaign against the Turks in the north from 1710 to 1713, suffering some defeats, but eventually, he achieved his goal in 1721 when the Treaty of Nystad was signed. The Baltic’s east coast was signed over to Peter, a feat that he considered to be so important that he changed his own title in celebration. He was no longer merely a tsar; he was now an imperator, or emperor; he also took the title of “the Great” during this ceremony.[71]

This brought an end to the Great Northern War, but not to Peter’s military campaigns. With the Baltic won at last, Peter turned his attention to Persia, which was then a weak and struggling territory that was under threat of being attacked and overwhelmed by the ever-growing Ottoman Empire. In exchange for Peter’s assistance in the war, the Persians signed over much of the Caspian region to him, extending his territory even farther in 1723.

A Troubled Family Life

Peter had proven himself as a more than capable ruler, but as a father and husband, he had very human struggles.

In 1689, when he was sixteen and still ruling as co-tsar with Ivan V, Peter was married off to a young lady named Eudoxia Lopukhina. She was a well-connected, well-bred young woman who—Peter’s guardians may have hoped—would be a steadying and conservative influence on the rebellious young tsar. Her family was well-respected and very traditional, and it may have been hoped that Eudoxia would cause Peter to become more old-fashioned, the way that tsars were supposed to be. Instead, the exact opposite was true. Peter and Eudoxia failed to get along. She was reputed to be beautiful yet lacking the fierce intelligence and creative thinking that characterized her husband’s life. To make matters worse, sixteen-year-old Peter was perhaps not mature enough for married life. He preferred to spend his time drinking and carousing.

Despite the fact that Eudoxia bore him three sons—two of whom died young—their marriage was doomed from the start. They tolerated one another for nine years, only because Peter was hardly ever at home with his family, which allowed Eudoxia to support his enemies behind his back. In 1698, two years after Peter became the sole tsar of Russia, he could no longer bear it. He ordered Eudoxia to be made a nun and sent to a convent.

She went to the convent, but by no means did she take on the humble habit of a nun. Instead, Eudoxia indulged in a courtly lifestyle, even entertaining a string of male lovers. She was determined to return to politics no matter what her ex-husband wanted. Eight-year-old Alexei was sent to live with his aunts.

Part of the reason why Peter finally sent Eudoxia to the convent was a beautiful German woman named Anna Mons. Anna had a reputation for being something of a gold-digger, cultivating one relationship after another with the wealthy and powerful Russians surrounding her home in the German quarter of Moscow. She herself was a low-born nobody: the daughter of a wine merchant and hotel owner.

Peter must have been aware that Anna’s goal was to gain money and power by her seductive charms, but he nonetheless fell absolutely head-over-heels in love with her. He provided her with everything she could have wanted, including a huge and luxurious mansion, catering to her every need from the royal coffers of his domain. Her home was filled with beautiful treasures from the tsar, including a portrait of Peter composed entirely of diamonds. He was even determined to make her his tsarina after putting Eudoxia into the convent, but, thankfully, this never materialized. Before Peter could marry Anna, he discovered that he might have been the tsar of Russia, but he was not the sole ruler of Anna’s heart. She had been unfaithful to him.

Heartbroken, Peter placed Anna under house arrest and confiscated her mansion, but this failed to put an end to the enterprising German’s attempts to seduce the wealthy and powerful. A Prussian envoy was so deeply infatuated with her that he, too, tried to marry her, but the jealous Peter soon put a stop to that, even though he was no longer one of Anna’s lovers. The envoy died soon afterward, and the opportunistic Anna was quick to sue for his belongings, despite the fact that she had no legal claim to them.

Meanwhile, bigger problems were brewing for Peter in his family life. His son, Alexei, who grew up with his aunts, failed to be free of his mother’s influence, and it was no secret that she was Peter’s enemy. As a small boy, he’d grown up hearing about his father’s flaws and inadequacies. Alexei’s opinion of Peter was not helped by the fact that they hardly ever saw one another. Peter was far too busy expanding his empire and chasing after Anna Mons to spend any time with his young son and heir.

However, as Alexei entered his teens, Peter finally decided that the time had come to pay some sort of attention to the boy. He decided to give Alexei a position in the army. This was not some highly coveted rank of an officer, a position that many other tsars would give their sons. Instead, Alexei was in charge of mundane logistics and recruitment. He appears to have been rather mediocre at this task, and so, Peter attempted to steady him further by finding him a wife. In 1711, Alexei married a German princess named Charlotte, who would go on to endure a sad and lonely existence for four years, as she would only periodically see her husband, who, according to her, drank incessantly. Charlotte would die due to complications of childbirth in 1715.[72] Neither marriage nor the military had the effect that Peter had intended. In fact, Alexei’s relationship with his father deteriorated sharply.

After giving up on Anna Mons, Peter had found a new love interest in a German maidservant and prisoner. Marta Skavronskaya was a kept woman when Peter met her in the house of one of his powerful associates. She rapidly became Peter’s lover, willingly or unwillingly, and was sent to live with his family. Eventually, she was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church and given a new name, one that would ring down through centuries of history despite her ignominious origins: Catherine.

By 1712, Peter had made the decision to marry his new mistress and promptly did so. Alexei, however, refused to attend the wedding, citing ill health as his reason for his absence. In reality, Alexei wasn’t quite as sickly as he hoped his father would believe. He sometimes would even injure himself to avoid attending events with his father. It was clear that their relationship was nothing short of disastrous, as Alexei was terrified of his father, which only fed into Alexei’s hatred of him.

In 1715, things came to a head. Peter realized that, no matter how much he disliked the young man, Alexei would have to be made fit to rule somehow, or all Peter’s hard work would come to nothing. He composed a scathing letter to his son in which he bemoaned the fact that the past was filled with his great works, yet Russia’s future was dim thanks to Alexei’s rejection of making himself “capable of well-governing.”[73] He added that Alexei had absolutely no excuse, not even his weak constitution, and urged him to engage in learning the art of war. Peter even seemed to have tempered his ambition somewhat for the sake of talking sense into his son; he insinuated that he had no expectations of Alexei to expand the empire, only to defend it.

It would appear that the letter was Peter’s attempt to whip his son into shape as the ruler who would succeed him. However, the letter had the opposite effect.

Alexei composed his response after Charlotte’s funeral in late October 1715, and his words were shocking. He told his father that he had nothing to say to him, except that he wished Peter would remove his right to the throne completely. “I beg it of you,” he wrote, almost pleading with his father to take the burden of the nation from his shoulders, saying that his mind and memory were not strong enough to rule. “I desire nothing of you but a bare maintenance during my life,” he wrote, “leaving the whole to your consideration and to your will.” [74]

Charlotte had given birth to a son named Peter shortly before the letter was written; only a few weeks later, she died due to complications from childbirth. Alexei was already in a relationship with a mistress and hoped that he would be allowed to step away after making it clear to his father that he had no interest in the Russian crown. Peter agreed to this, but only if Alexei entered a monastery.

However, Alexei and his mistress instead fled Russia in 1716, and Peter was infuriated. In 1717, Alexei was found in Austria by Peter’s agents, and he was given a letter from his father that promised he would not be punished if he returned to Russia. However, the promise was false, and under the orders of his father, Alexei was imprisoned and tortured when he arrived in Russia. He died on July 7th, 1718, and despite the torture and ill-treatment he received, his death was listed as natural, even though he more than likely died of his wounds after a brutal whipping.[75]

Later Years

As a result of the dismal failure of his relationship with his son, Peter changed the laws of succession in 1722 so that he could choose who would become tsar when he died.[76] At the same time, he decided to end the terror that the boyars had been causing to the royal family and the Russian people. Where precedence had traditionally been established by birthright, Peter removed the power of the incompetent boyars in one fell swoop by creating the Table of Ranks. Under this new order of precedence, boyars had to earn their rank.

That same year, Peter launched his campaign in Persia. Catherine would accompany him on this grueling journey through an unforgiving landscape, one that would ultimately win him access to the Caspian Sea but also cost him his health. As he campaigned in the winter of 1723, Peter’s health began to decline significantly. He was plagued by periodical bladder infections that also occasionally led to agonizing blockages. The following year, he had to have surgery on his bladder to release a huge amount of blocked urine. It was the beginning of the end for the great emperor.

Legend has it that his death knell came as the result of a heroic act in the winter of 1724. That November, he spent some time along the Finnish Gulf, inspecting some ironworks. Cries for help reached his ears from the frigid gray sea, and when he looked out across those churning waves, he spotted the floundering shapes of drowning soldiers. Regardless of his ill health, Peter waded out into the cold water to come to their rescue.

This account has only ever been detailed by one German historian, and so, its legitimacy has been called into question. Either way, Peter was in the last months of his life. His bladder turned gangrenous and ultimately killed him on February 8th, 1725.[77]He was interred in St. Petersburg, the great city that he had built, where his bones rest to this day.

Chapter 6 – The First Empress

With Alexei dead by Peter’s hand, the future of Russia would have been horribly uncertain if the emperor hadn’t changed his laws to appoint his own successor. Catherine had borne him five sons—three of whom he hopefully named “Peter”—but none of them lived more than a few months. Only two of his daughters by Catherine were still alive at the time of Alexei’s death. That meant that, inevitably, the Russian Empire would have to be governed either by someone who was not from the royal family or—perhaps even more unthinkable—by a woman. To the shock of the world, Peter seemed to have decided that the latter was the more favorable option, even though it was a time when royal women were often considered to be little more than heir-bearing machines.

In 1724, he had his wife crowned Empress Catherine, even though, in practice, he continued to be the sole ruler of Russia. It was clear that he wished for her to have his throne, but political complications, not to mention sexism, were quick to make her succession a rocky one.

Early Life of Catherine I

Born Marta Skavronskaya in 1684, Peter the Great’s wife came from the most unlikely of upbringings. She grew up in modern-day Latvia, and her parents, who were two illiterate peasants, both died of the plague by the time Marta was three years old. Orphaned and alone, Marta might well have suffered the same fate if it wasn’t for the kindness—or, perhaps opportunism—of a local Lutheran pastor. The pastor raised her but not as his own daughter. She was an unpaid maidservant in his home.

However, scrubbing floors and washing clothes was better than starving to death, and Marta remained with the family throughout her teenage years. To the dismay of the pastor’s wife, the girl began to blossom into an incredibly beautiful young woman. Her striking looks attracted the attention of the pastor’s son, and perhaps in order to prevent any scandals between them, Marta was encouraged to marry.

She succumbed to the charms of a handsome military man named Johan Cruse, a Swede and a dragoon in the very army that was facing off against Russia during the Great Northern War, which had erupted in 1700. At seventeen years old, Marta could have done worse than marry a young soldier. However, their union did not last long. The couple had been married for only a matter of months—months in which Marta might have barely seen Johan—when the city they lived in was invaded by the Russians. Marienburg fell on August 24th, 1702, and its citizens were captured by Russia, including the pastor who had raised Marta, as well as Marta herself. The pastor was sent to Moscow to work as a translator. There is no record of what happened to Johan.[78]

So, Marta found herself being shipped off to Moscow, not so much as a prisoner of war but rather as a part of the spoils of battle. She was used as a “servant,” although she was probably more of a slave, in the laundry of one of the Russian officers. It is difficult to imagine how strange and awful it must have been for Marta to find herself among total strangers, performing hours of damp drudgery under the disapproving gaze of the enemies who had either killed her young husband or taken him from her. She was only a teenager, yet she had endured much, and one can only imagine the terrors that a beautiful and helpless young girl would have been subjected to in an army camp.

Eventually, her beauty was noticed by higher-ranking Russian men, and Marta was dragged into a fate that may have involved more material comfort but was possibly even worse than the laundry had been. She became a kind of human currency, little more than a prostitute passed this way and that by powerful men who had a habit of giving her to one another in exchange for alliances or favors. She eventually ended up with Count Aleksandr Menshikov, one of Peter’s advisors.[79] Menshikov was very much taken with the girl, and it appears that he treated her well, as Marta remained a friend of his for the rest of her life.

But she would not stay in his home forever. In August 1705, Marta would encounter the powerful man who would become the love of her life. Peter was at Menshikov’s home when he spotted her. He was still smarting over the loss of Anna Mons, and Marta’s beautiful face and sharp intelligence captured him immediately. Marta was as lovely as Eudoxia had been, but she had a keen wit and a sense for survival about her that Peter found irresistible. After what appears to have been a consensual bout of flirting, she retired with him to his bedroom that evening (willingly, by most accounts). After that, they became practically inseparable. Not long after, she was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church as Catherine.

Catherine would quickly prove to be a loyal and staunch supporter of Peter, as well as a beautiful lover. Peter quickly became infatuated with her—just as quick as he’d been to fall in love with Anna. - However, after his bad experience with his last mistress, he was reluctant to make Catherine anything more than just another lover. He fondly nicknamed her “Katerinushka,” and he treated her with a tenderness and genuine love that seems almost uncharacteristic of his harsh, ambitious, and violent nature. He murdered his own son, but when it came to Catherine, he handled her with gentleness and affection. Even his usually tight purse strings were easily loosened for Catherine, although it would appear that, unlike Anna, there was nothing avaricious about her connection with Peter.

Catherine wasted no time in bearing him children either. In 1704, the first of their children was born. She would give birth to another twelve children between 1704 and 1724. Only two of these children survived into adulthood (Anna, who was born in 1708, and Elizabeth, who was born in 1709). At some point during the construction of St. Petersburg, Peter and Catherine moved into an ordinary home for a while as they waited for their palace to be completed. The three-bedroom house had a little garden, and in this quiet intimacy, they lived together with their children like any other couple. It would appear that their love was deepening from a pure romance into a deep and meaningful connection, one that would last for the rest of Peter’s life.[80]

Still, even though Catherine had given birth to many of Peter’s children, he refused to make their marriage official (some sources claim they were secretly married in 1707). However, this changed when she saved his life in 1711. During the Russo-Turkish War, a spin-off of the Great Northern War, Peter suffered several ignominious defeats. One of the most humiliating must have been when his army was practically annihilated by Grand Vizier Baltadji (also known as Baltacı). Baltadji had surrounded the Russians and was coming dangerously close to killing them all, including the emperor and his lover, who had accompanied him on the campaign. But Catherine had not survived the plague, the war, and imprisonment only to die here. She gathered all the gold and jewels she and the other women on the campaign had in their possession and used them to bribe Baltadji to allow the Russians to retreat, saving thousands of lives in the process.

It was this little piece of heroism that finally persuaded Peter to make Catherine his wife. He officially married her in 1712, much to the chagrin of Alexei, and made her an empress in 1724.

All was not always well during their marriage, however, and this was what caused the chaos that ensued after the death of Peter.

The Succession of Catherine I

Tsar Peter I, having witnessed the political upheaval caused by his own crowing alongside his brother Ivan V, had been adamant that the law of succession be changed so that a ruling tsar may choose his own successor. The need for such legislation became even more apparent following the death of Alexei. Peter, however, failed to actually name his successor before his death.

Peter had intended to leave the throne to his wife Catherine; however, the year before his death, the pair had an argument that led to their estrangement. The subject of the ongoing argument was Matryona Balk and Willem Mons, brother and sister of Anna Mons. The two served the tsarina as her lady-in-waiting and secretary, respectively. Both Balk and Mons were friends of Catherine, and they had a great deal of influence when it came to convincing Catherine to take meetings with certain people. In turn, the two were able to have Catherine speak to Peter and encourage him to have meetings with the people they chose.

The siblings, therefore, started selling their services to people who wanted to speak with Catherine or Peter, a fact the tsarina either did not know or to which she did not give much thought. Peter, however, had spent his career trying to remove corruption from the court and the government, and when he discovered what Balk and Mons were doing, he had them arrested. Willem Mons was executed, and Matryona Balk was exiled. Catherine was furious at the loss of her companions, and apparently, she and the tsar did not speak to one another for months afterward. Even Catherine’s reputed affair with Menshikov had not been able to cause this kind of marital difficulty between them. (It should be noted Peter himself had been unfaithful several times). Yet now, all of Russia teetered on the brink of civil war thanks to one squabble between a husband and wife.

Catherine and Peter did eventually make up, but by then, the emperor was already desperately ill. No will was ever drawn up to replace the one that he’d torn to shreds after his argument with Catherine. Therefore, once Peter passed, there was no official documentation concerning his successor.

For Catherine, the future was immediately bleak. The fate of a royal woman without the power of her husband behind her could often be a grim one; she could have easily ended up in a convent like Eudoxia or even been executed. However, she had a strong ally in Menshikov, and he was quick to rally a band of supporters around her. Eager to gain power for themselves, the Senate convinced the Holy Synod that Catherine had a right to the throne even though she was a woman. If Catherine had been married to any of the conservative tsars that preceded her husband, she wouldn’t have stood a chance. But Peter had gone a long way toward weeding out traditionalism in the politics of Russia, and so, it was a much more open-minded group of nobles that placed Catherine on the throne and crowned her as the sole ruler of Russia.[81]

Even though Catherine was illiterate and could barely even sign her name on official documents, she quickly proved that she was no figurehead. Far from being the puppet that her allies had possibly hoped for, Catherine was actively involved in the government for the two brief years of her reign.

While Peter spent time building a large, strong army, Catherine went about cutting back on military expenses, which were taking a huge toll on the country’s economy. She was able to do this fairly easily, for when she took control of the throne, Russia was not actively engaged in any war. Reducing the military and the huge cost of it resulted in tax relief that was especially felt by the Russian peasants, who praised her as a fair ruler.

Peter had used the Russian Senate and the Holy Synod (the Russian Orthodox Church’s top governing body) to administer his wishes. Catherine alternately created the Supreme Privy Council, which consisted of appointed advisors, and she used that as the main way for the government to administer their work. This aided in the separation of the government from the Church.

Despite having been born a peasant and remaining illiterate her whole life, Catherine had risen to the top position in Russia and was an effective and admired leader.

Catherine died in May of 1727, only two years after her husband. She’d fallen ill with tuberculosis that resulted in lung problems. She was sure to name her successor before she died, so there would be no doubts as there had been when Peter I died. Catherine appointed Alexei’s son, who was also named Peter, as her heir.

Chapter 7 – Young Emperors and Empresses

Illustration III: Elizabeth as depicted in an 18th-century portrait

No sons remained from the previous monarchs to ascend to the throne after Catherine died. So, Catherine I chose her successor to be Peter’s grandson, the son of the treasonous Alexei: Peter II. As was always the case with young monarchs—since Peter was only eleven years old at the time of his crowning—the underage tsar was merely a figurehead. The real power of the throne fell to the late Catherine’s advisor: Prince Aleksandr Menshikov.

Peter II

Peter had not been favored by his grandfather Peter I. After Alexei’s death, Peter and his sister Natalia were orphans, and their grandfather took no interest in either of them. They were raised with little education under the supervision of the wife of a vintner and the wife of a tailor. At some point, Peter’s care was given to a Hungarian nobleman, who taught him the art of navigation.

Catherine had begun making arrangements for Peter II’s marriage before her death, and her wish was for Peter to wed Prince Menshikov’s daughter, Maria. The arrangements were completed within a year of Peter II’s ascension, but before the wedding could take place, the prince fell seriously ill. Thanks to his struggles with his health, Prince Menshikov stopped attending the royal court, which allowed the young tsar’s tutor, Vice-Chancellor Andrey Osterman, to become the primary advisor to the emperor. Due to Osterman’s influence, the tsar’s links to the Menshikovs were abruptly cut. The royal engagement was called off, Prince Menshikov was forced to resign his position at court, and the entire family was exiled to the city of Berezov in Siberia.

The Dolgoruky family, which had been a powerful noble family since the time of the Rurikids, replaced the Menshikovs as the most influential family—apart from the Romanovs, of course. Although the arrest of Prince Menshikov was made at the will of the tsar, it was more than likely the Dolgorukys were behind it, as they quickly took over his estates. This family also made the decision to move Peter’s court back to Moscow and to arrange his marriage to Princess Ekaterina Alekseyevna Dolgorukaya.

The royal marriage never took place. In 1730, Tsar Peter II contracted smallpox and died on January 30th at the age of fourteen—the very day on which he was supposed to be married to Princess Dolgorukaya.[82]

Once more, this left Russia without a clear heir, as Peter II had no offspring, and his sister Natalia had already died two years earlier at the age of fourteen. His grandfather, Peter the Great, had two living daughters from his marriage to Catherine I, but Anna and Elizabeth were immediately dismissed by the Supreme Privy Council. Given the work of Sophia Alekseyevna, the regent of Ivan V, and Catherine I, females were not immediately considered ineligible to inherit the throne of Russia. However, Anna and Elizabeth had been born before their parents were married. Anna’s son, Karl Peter, was dismissed for the same reason.

With Peter I’s descendants ineligible, the council looked to the heirs of Peter’s half-brother and co-ruler, Ivan V. Ivan’s eldest daughter, Catherine, was considered, but the council members disliked her husband, Karl Leopold of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. This may have been because Leopold fought for King Charles XII of Sweden. Ivan V’s youngest daughter, Anna, had been recently widowed following the death of her husband, Frederick William, Duke of Courland. Since Frederick had died very early in their marriage, Anna was childless, which the council considered beneficial to their purposes.

Anna Ivanovna

Anna was only three years old when her father Ivan V died and his half-brother Peter I became the sole ruler of Russia. Anna and her sisters were taught by their mother, who was a stern woman. They learned domesticity and religion, as well as languages and music. The family moved to St. Petersburg when Peter I set up his court there, and Anna learned about high society and the royal life once she became settled.

In 1730, after the death of Peter II, the Supreme Privy Council decided to offer the position of empress to Anna Ivanovic. However, they offered the position on several conditions. The council asked that Anna not remarry, nor choose her own heir, and insisted that she neither make war nor peace with another nation without their express permission. She would not be permitted to raise taxes, promote officials into high office, give out titles or estates, or use state funds for her own purposes. Members of the nobility were required to attend a trial before Anna could have them executed or take away their property, and the military was in the hands of the council. Furthermore, Anna was required to retain the current eight-member Supreme Privy Council as it was, making no changes.[83] 

The council told their decision to the Russian Senate and other governmental bodies—without mentioning their long list of conditions—and it was approved. Anna Ivanovich was consulted, and on January 28th, 1730, she accepted the deal.[84] On February 2nd, the succession and all the conditions that came with it were announced in Moscow ahead of the arrival of Anna herself. Everything was carefully prepared for the new leader to enter the capital of Russia, which she did on the 15th of that same month.[85]

Upon entering Moscow, Anna quickly discovered that there were many members of the gentry and officers of the guard who wanted her to have the full autocratic power of her title. Ten days after arriving in the city, Anna Ivanovich publicly ripped apart the document that outlined all the conditions that had been imposed upon her by the Supreme Privy Council.[86] She had the Dolgoruky family exiled, surrounded herself with newly appointed courtiers, and abolished the Supreme Privy Council all by March 4th. The Russian Senate was made the most powerful governmental body in its place.

Empress Anna was officially crowned on April 28th, 1730.[87] Her first year in power was extremely busy, mostly in ensuring that she would be a true monarch instead of a figurehead affixed to any self-important council. After clearing out much of the existing government, Anna brought in her own favorite people, most of whom were of German origin. One of those courtiers was Ernst Johann, Reichsgraf von Biron. The two had apparently been lovers since 1727, and upon Anna’s ascension, he followed her to the Russian capital, leaving behind his wife, Fräulein B.G. Trotta von Treiden.[88] Even though he was a foreigner without any formal position within the Russian government, Biron nevertheless had the most political influence of anyone in the country, and most Russian citizens hated him. He played a very large part in Anna’s government.

Anna left much of the nation’s administration to Biron and her other German favorites: Andrey Osterman and Burkhard Münnich. Osterman was the head of Russia’s foreign affairs, while Münnich was the chief of the army. In 1733, these advisors were responsible for leading Russia into a war with its old enemy of Poland in a bid to have a pro-Russian candidate placed on the rival throne following the death of King Augustus the Strong, who had been reinstated in 1709 thanks to the Russian victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War.[89]

Augustus died on February 1st, 1733, and though he had a grown son—Frederick Augustus II of Saxony—to inherit his crown, many Polish citizens preferred that honor to go to Stanisław I Leszczyński. Stanisław I had already served as the king of Poland from 1704 to 1709 after King Charles XII of Sweden deposed the true Polish king temporarily.[90] Now, with Augustus gone, many European rulers had something to gain by pushing their own candidate toward the empty throne, including Russia. Empress Anna and her advisors preferred to see Frederick Augustus take the crown, as did Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.

Empress Anna’s rule was considered somewhat cruel. The Slavery and serfdom continued, and the high taxation on the poor, as well as a fear of Anna and her cruelty, marked the era. In 1731, she ruled that the taxes of the serfs were the responsibility of their landlords, which only made life harder for the lowly serfs. In addition to this, a secret government office was instated under Anna to investigate people suspected of political crimes. This office often ordered brutal physical punishments for these alleged crimes. Tens of thousands of Russians, including those of the nobility, suffered under this order.

Anna was also known to make fun of people with disfigurements or disabilities. Her court was exceedingly lavish and extravagant, and she often left the difficult work to her agents while she enjoyed her time at court. From 1736 to 1739, during the Russian war with Turkey for access to the Baltic Sea, Anna’s circle of powerful supporters spent excessive amounts of money on the war effort, in which tens of thousands lost their lives from warfare and disease.[91] Although Russia gained a small piece of land from the war, they did not gain access to the sea, and the taxation on the poor to pay for the war effort was crippling. 

Despite Anna’s cruel ways and the growth of disparity between the rich and poor during her reign, her government was considered sensible and good for Russia when it came to science and culture.

Anna ruled for ten years. When she became ill at the age of forty-seven, she appointed the son of her niece Anna Leopoldovna (the daughter of Anna’s sister Catherine), Ivan VI, as her successor. She did this to ensure that her father’s descendants kept power. Ivan VI was only two months old at this time, and so, Anna named her trusted Biron as regent for the boy. 

Ivan VI

On October 28th, 1740, the day after Anna had named her successor, Empress Anna died, and the two-month-old Ivan Antonovich was pronounced emperor of Russia.[92] Ernst Johann Biron, Duke of Courland, became the acting regent for the infant tsar. He was not popular, however, as he had made many enemies during Anna’s rule. Just three weeks after the baby tsar came to power, Biron’s position as regent was taken from him and given to Ivan VI’s mother. Ironically, Biron’s removal was orchestrated by his German compatriots at court: Andrey Osterman and Burkhard Münnich.

None of this was to the liking of Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I. However, when she voiced her opinions to the acting regent, Anna Leopoldovna threatened to have her banished to a convent. Incensed, Elizabeth turned to unorthodox empathizers, including the French ambassador and other pro-French, anti-Austrian people who wanted to see Anna removed from power. Together with these supporters, Princess Elizabeth arranged a coup d’état to claim the Russian crown for herself.

On November 24th, 1741, she made her move, capturing and arresting Anna Leopoldovna, the baby tsar, and their primary advisors.[93] With the rival royals in captivity, Elizabeth summoned the high clergy and civil officers, demanding to be named the empress of Russia. They did as she asked. Ivan VI’s reign only lasted for thirteen months.

Once in power, Elizabeth ordered Ivan VI and his regent mother to be imprisoned. At first, the baby and his family were imprisoned together in relative comfort at Dünamünde, a former Swedish fortress. Two years later, Elizabeth moved Ivan to Kholmogory on the White Sea, where he was separated from his family for twelve years. He was moved again in 1756 to Shlisselburg as a secret prisoner without a name. Elizabeth tried to erase any mention of the infant tsar by destroying documents, coins, or any other evidence of his reign.

Ivan VI, though imprisoned his entire life, was seen as a threat to more than just his successor. Catherine II, who seized power from the short-lived successor of Elizabeth, Emperor Peter III, saw Ivan as a problem that had to be dealt with. Although Peter III showed some sympathy to Ivan VI, his wife did not, and she went so far as to order the death of Ivan if any attempt was made to free him.

A man named Vasily Mirovich, who was a lieutenant at the Shlisselburg prison, learned the true identity of the secret prisoner being held there. He sought to win favor by freeing the imprisoned tsar and returning him to power. However, Mirovich was unaware of the secret order to kill Ivan if any attempt to free him occurred. At midnight on July 5th, 1764, Mirovich and his supporters took control of part of the fortress and demanded the release of Ivan. When they reached Ivan, he had already been killed by the guards. Mirovich and his men were immediately arrested and put to death.

Ivan VI’s mother, Anna Leopoldovna, died at Kholmogory only two years after she and her baby had been imprisoned there.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter I and Catherine I, was born in 1709. After Peter and Catherine were officially married in St. Petersburg on February 9th, 1712, Elizabeth and her sister Anna were legitimized by Peter I.

It was not expected that Elizabeth would ever rise to any kind of power. When she was a child, it was thought that her half-brother Alexei from her father’s first marriage would be the heir to the throne and his children after that. Since it seemed very unlikely she would ever rule Russia, Elizabeth received little in the way of education. She did have a French governess, and she learned French, German, and Italian. Elizabeth was a physically active girl and a very good dancer.

Peter I arranged for the marriage of both his daughters in 1724. The two girls were to marry princes from Germany. Charles Frederick, who had been exiled from Germany and was already living in Russia, was to be wed to Anna. Elizabeth was to marry Charles Frederick’s first cousin, Charles Augustus. 

Anna went on to marry her betrothed as planned. However, in 1727, when seventeen-year-old Elizabeth was to be married, not only was her father, Peter I, dead but her mother, Catherine I, and her fiancé had also died, doing so within two weeks of each other. Elizabeth found herself with no royal offers of marriage once Peter II and successively Anna came to power. If she married a commoner, she would lose her right to the throne in the future, as well as her status and property rights. Elizabeth, therefore, remained unwed.

When the plot to overthrow the infant tsar and his regent mother came to a head in the winter of 1741, Elizabeth was ready.[94] She showed up at the headquarters of the elite Preobrazhensky Regiment, wearing the metal breastplate of a warrior over her dress, and asked the men if they would support her in getting her rightful place on the throne. The regiment chose to back Elizabeth and marched with her to the Winter Palace to seize power from the baby tsar.

Empress Elizabeth’s coronation ceremony was the largest in contemporary history. She had masquerades, balls, fireworks, and commissioned the building of Moscow’s Red Gates.

Elizabeth I was intent on saving Russia from the foreign influence it had been living under for some time. Her predecessors had allowed strong influence from their German advisors, and Elizabeth banished many of them from Russia. She also sought to return a stronger Christian faith back to the citizens. To this end, she gave herself the title of Empress of the Dormition Cathedral in order to oversee such measures, which included the abolition of the death penalty.

Elizabeth sought a resolution in the war with Sweden and opened negotiations with them in Turkey. The Treaty of Abo was consequently signed on August 7th, 1743, in which the south of Finland and two fortresses were given to Russia, and a border between the two countries was established. This finally brought peace after more than forty years of unease since her father had begun the Great Northern War. [95]

It didn’t take long, however, for the new empress to become bored with the complicated politics and boring administration that characterized most of a ruler’s everyday life. She had, after all, not been raised to be an empress but rather a princess, who would live a life of leisure and enjoyment. Tiring of international affairs, Elizabeth began to engage in exactly that kind of life—except now she had the great coffers of the Russian Empire behind her every endeavor.

This lovely, vain, well-built woman began to pour vast amounts of money into arts, culture, and learning in St. Petersburg. The majestic paintings hanging in the Winter Palace today were created thanks to her patronage, and she also built St. Petersburg’s first public theater, its Academy of Sciences, and its Academy of Fine Arts. In love with the French language, Elizabeth replaced Russian with French throughout much of her government, so much so that French would remain a predominant language among the nobility of Russia until the fall of the empire itself.

Elizabeth also loved to host elaborate parties and masquerades, even encouraging cross-dressing (then often seen as a gross misdemeanor) amongst her hundreds of guests. She had little regard for the poor, and she helped to expand the yawning gap between the Russian classes. Still, her reign is regarded as one that brought peace and prosperity to Russia in many ways. Her reasons for this cultural revival may have been selfish, but in reality, Russian culture benefited greatly from it—so much so that Elizabeth’s reign is known as an age of enlightenment in Russia. Tax reforms also helped prevent Elizabeth’s lavish lifestyle from depleting the nation’s funds; in fact, Russia grew in wealth, and its first banks were established during her rule.[96]

Despite Elizabeth’s vanity and reluctance to engage in diplomacy and the intricacies of administration, she did get involved in foreign affairs when the chips were down. And they certainly were during the devastating Seven Years’ War, which took place between 1756 and 1763. This conflict, which started when colonial tensions between the French and British rose to a boiling point (giving twenty-two-year-old George Washington his first taste of battle), dragged numerous nations into a widespread bloodbath that killed more than a million people. Austria and Prussia were quick to jump into the chaos, forming alliances with France and Britain, respectively, and widespread battles ensued across Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa.

While Russia was under no direct threat, the country was allied to Austria, and by 1759, Elizabeth realized that she could no longer allow her allies to suffer under the dreadful damage that Frederick II of Prussia was inflicting upon them. He was a skilled and formidable commander, and defeat loomed for the Austrians. After mobilizing 100,000 men, Elizabeth sent them to the front, securing a resounding defeat against Frederick. The Prussian ruler was eventually forced to surrender to the Russians in 1762, ceding East Prussia to Elizabeth.

At least, he would have done so if Elizabeth had still been alive. She died on Christmas Day, 1761, from a stroke at the age of fifty-two.

Chapter 8 – Catherine the Great

Illustration IV: Catherine the Great by Vigilus Erikson

Despite her father’s ambitions to marry her off to some suitably wealthy and powerful young man, Elizabeth remained legally single for her entire life. Her first lover was a sergeant in the army, but their relationship was quickly doomed by Elizabeth’s cousin, Empress Anna Ivanovna, when she had him mutilated and banished.

Elizabeth’s long-term consort turned out to be an ordinary serf named Alexei Razumovsky. Alexei may have been low-born, but he had a gentle heart and a noble appearance, and Elizabeth loved him fiercely. She eventually showered him with wealth and titles, but she never went so far as to legally marry him, preferring instead to keep her power to herself.

Ultimately, Elizabeth died without bearing any children, despite her rather active love life. She was, however, not idle when it came to ensuring that she had a viable heir who could rule Russia in her stead. This would turn out to be one of her closest living male relatives: her nephew, a German noble named Karl Peter Ulrich.

Peter III

Born in 1728, just three years after the death of Peter the Great, Peter III was the son of Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna, Peter I’s oldest surviving daughter. Anna and her husband, Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, both died when Peter was just a little boy.

The tutors and officials who were tasked with raising Peter in the court of Holstein hoped that they might be able to put him on the Swedish throne, thanks to his father’s family ties with Charles XII. They were far more interested in making him into a king than they were in raising a well-rounded and happy child. Orphaned and unhappy, Peter was often mistreated. It must have been a tremendous relief when his aunt, the benevolent Elizabeth, who failed to execute a single soul during her little over two decades of rule, decided that he would be her heir. Accordingly, Peter would come to live with her in St. Petersburg, and she would adopt him as her son.[97]

Peter was fourteen when he traveled to St. Petersburg, and Elizabeth made quick work of trying to get a Russian education instilled into the boy, who had to be baptized from his Lutheran faith into the Russian Orthodox Church, just like his grandmother Catherine I. While Peter disliked his studies, he took a keen interest in the military.

When Peter was seventeen, Elizabeth arranged for him to be married to a meek little German princess named Sophie. The girl was only sixteen years old at the time, and it would soon turn out that the whole world had underestimated her.

Thirty-three-year-old Peter’s succession was a peaceful one, thanks to the measures his aunt had put in place to ensure that he would bloodlessly become the emperor of Russia. Eagerly, Peter seized power, determined to change many of the things that his vain and mild aunt had instituted in the government. The death penalty was one thing that made a resounding comeback. Perhaps even worse, Peter III was a fan of Frederick II—a man who’d killed thousands of Russians in the Seven Years’ War. Peter’s interest in this ruler ruffled the feathers of his own subjects, but he felt far more German than Russian, so it was no real surprise that he chose to adore a German hero. In fact, Peter barely even spoke Russian at all. He must have felt like an outcast in the country he was ruling, and many of his subjects saw him as a foreigner, not a tsar.

So, when Frederick’s offer to surrender East Prussia reached St. Petersburg, Peter was eager to give it right back. He formed an alliance with Frederick and even changed the Russian uniform to the hated Prussian blue, a color that was associated with the many men who had killed thousands of Russian soldiers just months before. It seemed as if those Russian soldiers had perished in the war for nothing, making Peter immediately unpopular.

To make matters worse in the eyes of many powerful Russian groups, Peter, who had had little choice in converting from Lutheranism to Russian Orthodoxy, instituted religious freedom in Russia. While this may seem like a step toward liberty and equal rights, it certainly ruffled feathers throughout the Russian court in a time when the Holy Synod still held considerable political power.

Having ruled for only six months, Peter may have been making some changes for the better, but he was certainly making no allies. He also made some increasingly bizarre decisions, some of which were so strange that many historians think he may have had some kind of mental handicap. For example, he banned Latin books from the imperial library thanks to a childhood hatred of studying Latin. He also chose to dress his army in the same color as their enemies. Russia appeared to be slipping toward a reign of terror by an irrational madman, but a heroine, who arose from an unlikely quarter in an eerily similar manner to her late grandmother-in-law, soon stood up to take the reins.

Catherine’s Coup

The sweet, bright little princess that Elizabeth had chosen as a wife for Peter III might not have been chosen for her meekness after all. Sophie, born Princess Sophia Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst, was everything that an emperor’s bride should be: lovely to look at, meek, well-mannered, and educated. But her sweet facade hid a fierce intelligence, something that Elizabeth might have recognized when she chose Sophie to be Peter’s bride. Knowing that her adopted son was mentally challenged in some way, Elizabeth may have been looking for a girl just like Sophie, who could be the brains of the operation. Or perhaps she was just charmed by the girl’s good looks.

After their wedding in 1745, which took place a year after Sophie had arrived in Russia, the young princess was baptized into Russian Orthodoxy and renamed Catherine. She was probably named after Peter’s grandmother, Catherine I, in the hopes that she would bear a little of her greatness. No one expected that someday the younger Catherine would far outshine Russia’s first empress.

The intelligent and ambitious Catherine had married Peter for power, not love. That much was absolutely clear from the start. According to her own memoirs and letters, everything about Peter utterly repulsed her. Catherine was an avid academic and highly educated, unlike her namesake. She spoke and wrote in several languages and enjoyed diving into all kinds of subjects. Peter, on the other hand, hated studying and was constantly preoccupied with warfare. According to Catherine, he had no interest whatsoever in her, preferring to play with toy soldiers rather than pay attention to his beautiful young bride—even on their wedding night.

What Peter lacked in intelligence, he may have made up for in kindness or morality, but Catherine reported that he was cruel and even sadistic at times. One night in their lavish rooms in the palace, Catherine was horrified when Peter captured a mouse and forced her to watch as he took pleasure in performing an elaborate execution on the tiny animal, hanging it while its puny squeaks echoed through the darkened rooms. Peter also lacked any kind of physical appeal, as he had been horribly scarred by a bout of smallpox in his younger years. It even appears that he may have been either infertile or impotent. Catherine claimed that he never consummated their marriage, which may have been untrue.[98]

Either way, by the time Peter became the emperor in January 1762, Catherine had spent as much of her time as possible avoiding her hated husband. She had been bettering her mind instead, reading the likes of Voltaire and Tacitus, and also currying favor with a handsome young officer, Grigory Orlov. As Peter’s reign grew more and more unstable, Catherine realized that the nation was under threat, and so was her life. Peter may have known about her affair with Grigory, and she began to believe that he was intent on divorcing her. Divorce, for a royal woman, could end in one of two ways: banishment or death. Catherine didn’t fancy either of them, but the more she saw of her husband and his rule, the more she knew that she could do better.

Russia had seen its fair share of female rulers by this time, yet it was still unorthodox. However, Peter had made many enemies, most crucially the Church and the military. Fearing for her life and eager to realize her full potential, Catherine decided that not only could she do better, but she would do better. She wanted to prove to the world that a woman could rule with power and justice, and she began to plot a coup against her husband in the summer of 1762 after he had been ruling for just six months.

Disaster struck in early July. Peter discovered that Catherine and her co-conspirators had been plotting against him. One of them was arrested and executed. Catherine realized that if she was going to strike, it would have to be now, before Peter could muster his army and have her arrested—or worse.

Rushing out of her apartments, her panicky hairdresser still fussing over her half-finished hairdo, Catherine headed to put her coup in motion. Supported by the military, who hated Peter with an abiding passion, and the Church, it didn’t take long for Catherine’s men to arrest the emperor. Peter III was thrown into jail on July 9th, and Catherine was officially crowned as the empress of Russia, despite the fact that she bore not a single drop of Romanov blood and had no legal claim whatsoever to the throne.

As for Peter, his stint in jail wouldn’t last long. He died on July 17th, and it’s unknown exactly how. Some say that he engaged in a common brawl behind bars, while other sources suggest that he may have committed suicide. A few historians even believe that Grigory’s brother murdered him. This may have occurred on orders from Catherine, although there is little evidence to set the record straight.[99]

The Rule of Catherine the Great

Catherine’s rule began with splendor when she was crowned at the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow on September 22nd. Even though she was not a Romanov, her coronation did cause the creation of one of the Romanov family’s oldest and most beloved treasures: the Imperial Crown of Russia. This magnificent object is made of red velvet and encrusted with nearly 5,000 beautiful diamonds. It weighs nine pounds and includes seventy-four pearls, as well as a ruby spinel that is nearly four hundred carats.[100]

With this glittering crown on her head, Catherine strode into her new role as a powerful woman in her own right, which immediately surrounded her with scandal. Russia had had female rulers before, but Catherine II was something else. Elizabeth and Anna both had legitimate claims to the throne, and Catherine I had succeeded peacefully. But Catherine II had overthrown her weak-minded husband and seized power, despite having no claim to the throne at all. She was immediately hated, especially when it turned out that she was not content with parties and culture like Elizabeth had been. Catherine wanted to expand her kingdom and rule in every sense of the word.

She immediately set about expanding the Russian borders, appointing a constant series of lovers and favorites as generals and diplomats. Throughout her life, Catherine would maintain a string of relationships, often parting with her ex-lovers on good terms and giving them gifts of money, land, titles, and even slaves. One particular favorite was Grigory Potemkin.[101] She met him the day that Peter was arrested, as he was part of the armed guard who did the deed. Catherine was immediately smitten with the handsome young officer, and their relationship would endure until the end of Potemkin’s life in 1791. Grigory Orlov had, by that time, fallen out of favor. It was alleged that he had slept with a thirteen-year-old female relative, and Catherine rejected him soon afterward. Orlov brought her a gigantic diamond—named the Orlov Diamond after him—in a bid to win back her affections. Sadly, for him, Catherine had forged her new relationship with Potemkin. Her love for Potemkin was potentially the most enduring bond she would have in her life.

However, this did not prevent Catherine from being with other men. Her lust became legendary, but she would never marry. Like Elizabeth, Catherine knew that a marriage would be political death, and she’d fought too hard for her power to hand it over now.

Her lovers, often powerful military men, proved very useful in her work on expanding the Russian Empire. Throughout her reign, she repeatedly clashed with the powerful Turks who had managed to stand against Peter the Great. Catherine’s mighty army, driven by her ambition, was too much for them. She fought them in the two Russo-Turkish Wars, both of which ended in resounding defeats for the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty of Jassy, signed in 1792, forced the Ottoman Empire to cede Crimea to the Russians.[102]

Catherine soon set her sights on Persia, another area that Peter had attempted to conquer. Despite the fact that Catherine failed to use her experienced generals for this campaign, instead sending her lover’s younger brother to lead the troops, this was also a watershed moment for the Persians.

Between these military campaigns and some skilled diplomacy, Catherine managed to add 200,000 square miles to Russia’s territory during the more than three decades of her rule. She was also an excellent diplomat, often acting as a mediator between warring nations, a role that would later be filled by Victorian England. Reaching out to numerous other nations in an attempt to establish trade with them, Catherine tried to connect with the far-flung reaches of the Far East, sending trade missions to Japan and India. She was no friend of the Chinese emperor, however, but she still sheltered hundreds of Chinese refugees fleeing the Dzungar genocide.

As well as being a skilled politician, Catherine was deeply interested in arts, culture, and education. Her taste was unorthodox; she enjoyed ordinary comedies and romances, as well as the more enduring classics of her learned contemporaries. Voltaire was a particular favorite, and she would correspond with him for fifteen years. For his part, he considered her to be utterly brilliant. She wrote some fiction of her own, as well as memoirs and essays. She also wrote a guide on the education of small children.

For all of Catherine’s capability, however, she appears to have cared very little for her common people. The slaves that she gave away so freely to her lovers were commonly known as serfs, but the difference between serfdom and slavery was a small one. Even as she fought to modernize many aspects of her empire, Catherine treated the serfs like most nobles did, as if they were objects rather than people. In fact, her constant military campaigns resulted in even harsher taxes, which made the serfs’ lives harder.

As a result, Catherine had to face numerous revolts, as the hungry people of her suffering nation often rose up against her. These people were illiterate, hated, trampled upon, and constantly oppressed, and they didn’t care who Russia traded with, how big the empire was, or what kind of books Catherine was reading. They wanted to be fed and safe and treated like human beings, and they were willing to fight for it. The most serious rebellion was led by Yemelyan Pugachev, an angry ex-army officer whose peasant uprising seriously threatened Catherine’s power in 1773. Pugachev even claimed to be Peter III escaped from prison. His peasants couldn’t even hope to fight the mass of Catherine’s army (led by Potemkin), and the rebellion was put down in 1774.[103] Pugachev was executed in 1775.

Catherine’s reign may have been a cruel one, but it was certainly a long and illustrious one, too. She was harsh to her people and uncaring about the serfs, as well as serially unfaithful to her lovers. Yet she still stands today as a symbol of feminism in a time of male supremacy. She was born to be a meek little grand duchess who would simply produce heirs for her powerful husband and do everything he asked without question. Instead, Catherine proved to be a mighty ruler in her own right, one who earned her moniker of Catherine the Great and followed in the footsteps of Peter the Great despite the fact that she shared no family bonds with him. Fascinatingly, she was also a rather ordinary woman in many ways, ways in which many women today can strongly relate to her. She enjoyed light reading as well as heavier educational tomes, was devoted to her morning coffee, and enjoyed spending large amounts of time with her beloved horse, Dudley.

Her enemies would spread many malicious rumors about her death, some of which endure to this day, but truthfully, Catherine’s death was an ordinary one. She had a stroke on November 16th, sometime before nine in the morning, and died peacefully the next day at the age of sixty-seven.

Chapter 9 – The Mad Tsar

Unlike Elizabeth, Catherine was careless when it came to appointing her successor, even though she had a son and heir. Paul was born in 1754, eight years after Catherine’s marriage to Peter.

Paul I

Everything around the birth of Catherine’s son was a little strange and suspicious.

For one thing, the fact that she’d been married to Peter for nearly a decade before Paul was born was strange in an era where royal wives practically existed for the bearing of heirs. Catherine would later claim that the boy was not Peter’s son at all; instead, he was the offspring of Sergei Saltykov, a military officer and lover of Catherine at the time. There is much dispute over whether or not Catherine’s claim was true. She may simply have been trying to discredit Paul’s claim to the throne. If it was certain that Paul was not Peter’s son, then this book would be considerably shorter, for the Romanov line would have died in prison with Peter III.

However, Paul certainly bore a striking resemblance to the former emperor—not only in looks but also almost eerily in his ideas and ways. His reign, albeit longer than Peter’s, is evidence of what his father’s rule might have been.

Paul was taken away from his mother, who couldn’t care less about him, at an early age. Elizabeth insisted that she was going to raise him herself at the palace, and she did so for the seven years that she lived after her grandson was born. It was suspected that Elizabeth might have been grooming Paul to be her successor instead of Peter, having witnessed the latter’s reputed weakness of mind. However, the throne went to Peter in the end, and Paul was only eight years old when he heard the appalling news: not only had his father been deposed and killed, but his mother was behind it.

The mental trauma of this, even though his parents didn’t raise him, can hardly be underestimated in its impact on an eight-year-old child. Paul became instantly and horribly suspicious of everyone around him, with a mounting paranoia that had toppled greater rulers than he. It made him jittery and hasty, and he was impulsive in his actions and terrible at his studies. Catherine appears to have treated him coldly despite the fact that he was her heir apparent. When he came of age, she briskly had him marry a German princess, Natalia Alexeievna, who would die in childbirth in 1776.

By then, Paul was already looking like an unlikely successor for the illustrious Catherine. He had suffered from a life-threatening battle with typhus in 1771, which had reportedly made him both unhealthy and ugly; his appearance was often depicted rather unflatteringly in contemporary art. Nonetheless, shortly after Natalia’s death, he married a second wife: Maria Feodorovna. Although Peter may have been plagued by infertility, Paul most certainly wasn’t. Maria gave him ten children during their marriage, and one of them was a robust and healthy son named Alexander, who was born in 1777.

Catherine soon turned her attention to the boy, having him brought to the palace so that she could raise him herself. It was painfully evident that Catherine considered Alexander a worthier heir than Paul. However, if she ever created a will that left the throne to Alexander, it was destroyed, and it is entirely possible Paul did it himself. When Catherine died, Paul announced that he was the heir to the throne. Since he was her closest living male relative, there was little that could be done to stop him.

Paul was crowned Emperor Paul I, and his rule had instant and frightening throwbacks to that of his late father. Since he idolized Frederick II, he had all of his soldiers dressed in Prussian uniforms, complete with pompous wigs. His rage upon seeing any of the soldiers deviate from the uniform he had decreed—even when they wore fur coats to protect their bodies against the bitter cold of the Russian winter—was intense and devastating. In fact, Paul appears to have treated his army very much like the toy soldiers his father had preferred to his ambitious young wife. The men were forced to do endless drills and mock battles in front of the emperor’s palace solely for Paul’s enjoyment. It wasn’t long before resentment began to build up in the common soldiers and officers.

The color of his soldiers’ uniform wasn’t the only thing that Paul changed. In fact, he instituted nearly four times as many laws during his rule than Catherine did—an average of forty-two per month. Many of these were, by modern standards, wise decisions that allowed far greater liberties for the downtrodden lower classes. Paul allowed for greater religious freedom, and peasants could own land and testify in court. It was also illegal to make peasants work on Sundays.[104] Their lives were greatly improved during his rule; however, these laws bred resentment in the landowners, as the laws were hugely detrimental to them.

Paul also worked hard to stabilize the Russian currency, which had been suffering during the latter years of Catherine’s reign. He went so far as to melt down the palace silverware and have it made into coins. Paul also sold bread at lower prices from special royal stockpiles so that the price of food would be brought down.

Corruption was another thing that Paul could not stand. Even high-ranking officers who dared disobey him were swiftly fired.

In fact, Paul’s ideas were ahead of his time, and many of them truly improved the lives of his subjects. He was a deeply religious man who appears to have made many efforts to cling to his high ideals and standards of behavior. Unfortunately, Paul would go down in history as the Mad Tsar, thanks to his many eccentricities and unpredictable temper, which has led many historians to speculate whether he may have suffered from some form of mental illness.

Some of Paul’s strange habits were fairly harmless, if a little annoying. His deep hatred for the French Reign of Terror that was occurring at that time—one doubtlessly shared by monarchs all around the world—was manifested in some very strange laws regarding fashion. No one was allowed to wear any of the forward French fashions; instead, a strict dress code was adhered to, and even saying words like “patriotism” was illegal. Paul also loved bright colors, which were evident not only in the clothes his subjects wore but also in the gates, bridges, and other pieces of architecture that he caused to be brilliantly painted.[105]

Sadly, many of Paul’s quirks were both brutal and dangerous. He had a habit of flying off the handle and having violent, enraged outbursts, often exhibiting deep regret and apologizing profusely afterward. Worst of all, the paranoia that had been born in him when his mother had his father murdered continued to grow throughout his lifetime. He grew increasingly suspicious of everyone around him, especially his family. Growing abusive, controlling, possessive, and harsh, his treatment of Maria and the children was brutal. The secret police that his father had abolished was now back in full force, and spies could be found everywhere in the upper tiers of society. Paul was so focused on the internal affairs of Russia, particularly on his suspicions, that foreign policy was bitterly neglected. The ties that Catherine had fought so hard to establish with far-flung countries were completely ignored during Paul’s reign.

Paul’s suspicions, as it turned out, were not unfounded. In 1801, Alexander was twenty-three years old and beginning to tire of his role as the crown prince in a country ruled by an apparent madman. Paul had only been ruling for four years, but already, the nobility was sick of him. The peasants loved Paul for the rights and easier lives that they’d gained during his rule, but the nobility hated his very guts. They’d had their lands taken from them, their power stripped away by his more liberal laws, and even their dignity tarnished. The glorious wars they’d fought during Catherine’s rule were history now; instead, the officers who had led valiant charges and been rewarded with money and pride were now reduced to sparring and play-acting for the emperor’s pleasure. Paul had been good to many of his subjects, but he had angered the wrong ones.

It was General Levin August von Bennigsen and military commander Count Peter Ludwig von der Pahlen who finally put the plot into action. That evening, Paul had dined with some guests at his palace, Alexander among them. Alexander had been nervous and hardly ate at all, and perhaps it was Paul’s suspicious nature that alerted him that something was amiss. Paul hastily retreated to his own spacious chambers after dinner had concluded. It wasn’t long afterward that Bennigsen and Pahlen made their move. Their next actions appear to have been poorly planned. They seem to have wanted Paul to sign a notice of abdication, probably under duress; they had it with them as they fought off his valets and made their way up into his chambers, leaving the nervous Alexander outside. But when they burst into his room, the bed was rumpled, and the Mad Tsar was nowhere to be seen.

The men had imbibed a little too much liquid courage in their preparations to force the emperor out of his title. Pahlen, slurring his words, said, “The bird is flown.”

Bennigsen may have been a little unsteady on his feet as he crossed the floor and laid a hand on the bed. It was still warm. “The bird is not flown far,” he said.

It must have been a quiet noise—perhaps a whimper of terror—that alerted the men to the presence of Paul, who was hiding behind a screen. Lunging at him, Pahlen and Bennigsen intended to make him sign the abdication by force. But everything went wrong. Perhaps Paul, terrified for his life, fought back with more violence than the men had anticipated, or perhaps they were just too drunk to care. Either way, one of them looped a scarf around Paul’s neck and pulled and tugged on it until the emperor turned red, then purple, then blue. His breath left him, and Paul died exactly the way that he had always feared. Even his incessant paranoia couldn’t save him in the end.[106]

His opponents would later write unflattering memoirs of Paul, which eventually gave him the reputation of the Mad Tsar. There were certainly moments when Paul appears to have acted irrationally and without the faintest scrap of common sense or self-preservation, especially when it came to his treatment of the nobility. However, Paul had good and generous moments that eased the lives of his most oppressed citizens, and despite his ill-treatment of his family, he was known to be a kind man at times.

One can only wonder how different this troubled emperor’s life, rule, and death might have been if his mother had bothered to give him the time of day. If Catherine had taught Paul her business sense and sharp wit, then perhaps he would have followed in her footsteps, albeit with a gentler hand and a more compassionate heart toward the serfs. Instead, Catherine discarded him, then deposed his father and possibly had him killed. The ghosts of that fateful day would haunt Paul for the rest of his life, making him perhaps Catherine the Great’s single greatest failure. She was an outstanding empress, yet she left much to be desired as a mother.

Alexander I

Considering that Alexander seized power in a bloody coup, it was strange that he had never wanted to rule Russia.

Raised in the palace of Catherine the Great, Alexander’s childhood gave him all the riches and education he could possibly want, but he was emotionally charged with conflicting feelings. His grandmother had high expectations of him, while his father, on the other hand, was highly eccentric and hated his grandmother. Alexander had to figure out how to behave around his parents and around Catherine, and he kept his own opinions to himself to avoid ruffling the royal feathers of his family.

Things hardly improved upon the death of Alexander’s father. The young man, then only twenty-three, had been more or less dragged into the conspiracy. He had no aspirations for the throne and had been relieved when his father took it after Catherine’s death. Even though Alexander could see that Paul was causing turmoil in St. Petersburg, he was reluctant to take on his birthright. However, the Russian nobility was adamant. They wanted him to be the emperor. Alexander eventually agreed to the coup, but he never dreamed that it would end with the death of his father. He expected that Paul would be forced to abdicate and then live out the rest of his days in peace, if also in disgrace.

The news of Paul’s death, even though it wasn’t directly his fault, shattered Alexander and filled him with grief. It was an extremely troubled young man who became the Russian emperor in 1801.

Whether or not he wanted to be emperor, Alexander would soon have an occasion to rise to. Trouble was spreading from Western Europe toward the east, and few nations would escape it unscathed. The French Revolution had ended after ten years of terror in 1799. The same year that Alexander was being crowned in Russia, a new monarch had come to power in France, one who abolished all the new ideas of the French Revolution and brought back the oldest ambitions of a traditional monarch: absolute power and enormous dominions. This was Napoleon Bonaparte, and he was bent on conquering the length and breadth of the known world.

By the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, Napoleon’s army was razing everything in its path, crushing even the mighty ancient powers of Europe and bringing an end to the Holy Roman Empire itself. Russia would be next, and even though Alexander I had never wanted the crown that weighed so heavily on his head, it still made him Russia’s only hope of survival. It was no surprise when Napoleon invaded Russia, starting the Patriotic War of 1812.[107]

Alexander knew that a French victory in this war would signal not only the end of his dynasty but also the end of the Russian way of life. He was fighting for the survival of his people, and he fought to the death—and, ultimately, to victory. By December 1812, the glorious army that had brought Napoleon so much fame was a shadow of its former self, decimated by a Russian winter and by Alexander’s constant efforts to keep his nation free. Alexander rode all the way into Paris itself at the head of a victorious army; he was perhaps the most celebrated reluctant emperor of Russian history.

Alexander was a key figure in the formation of the Holy Alliance, a series of treaties bent on preventing further revolutions and restoring stability throughout Europe. He was also lauded for restoring the balance of power to the great and ancient nations of Europe. Without a doubt, history would have looked very different if the French had overrun Russia.

Within Russia itself, Alexander was a hugely popular ruler among the nobility and common people alike. He managed to find a balance between keeping the peace among the nobility while assisting the poor. While he promised to govern like Catherine the Great had—and he made good on his promise in many ways—Alexander did not share her lack of compassion for the lower classes. He reformed many laws to give the serfs a better quality of life, even drafting the abolition of indentured servitude, although this was not published during his reign.

Ultimately, though, no matter how much honor and glory he won with his rule, it never satisfied Alexander’s heart. His later years were spent in deep piety and a steady immersion in Christianity, as he was still grieving the death of his father and stewing in his unhappiness of wearing the Imperial Crown. He died of typhoid in 1825, although there were many legends surrounding his death, some of which stated that Alexander had simply abdicated and had become a monk instead. These legends gained popularity in the 1920s when the Soviet government opened his coffin only to find that his bones were not there. Either way, the ruler who saved Russia from Napoleon was remembered as Alexander the Blessed.[108]

Chapter 10 – Censorship and Emancipation

The death of Alexander, who was childless, instantly threw Russia into chaos. This must have come as a surprise to many Russians, as there was a logical heir to the Russian throne: Alexander’s brother, Constantine. The latter, however, renounced his claim to the throne, and so all eyes turned to Paul’s third son: Nicholas.

Nicholas I

Unlike Alexander, Nicholas had never expected to become the emperor. Also, unlike his brother, he was eager to seize this extensive power.

Nicholas was raised in his parents’ household, where he shared his father’s love of the extensive military drills that were performed every morning at eleven o’clock for his royal pleasure. His tutors were strict yet failed to cultivate the young prince’s interest in academia. Nicholas preferred the military, even though his own career as a soldier was a dismal one. When Constantine renounced the throne, and the crown fell to Nicholas, he hesitated momentarily. He had not been raised to become the emperor. He didn’t feel ready. However, Nicholas’s ego was quick to assert itself, and after nearly three weeks of uncertainty, he agreed to be crowned.

The coronation was an eventful one. Many Russians had sided with Constantine, and they were unhappy to see Nicholas swearing the oath of allegiance. A revolt broke out when a group of young officers stormed the ceremony. Nicholas, panicking, called for cannon fire. The cannons spat death into the ranks of the protesters, and St. Petersburg’s streets flowed with blood instead of celebration. Later known as the “Decembrists,” the survivors of the revolt were eventually banished to the inhospitable, frigid wasteland of Siberia.[109]

It’s difficult to blame Nicholas for the suspicion and paranoia that characterized his reign. However, where his father’s death had made Alexander a humbled and guilt-ridden ruler of fairness and piety, it made Nicholas a despotic tyrant. He became a control freak in every sense of the word, overreacting hugely to every perceived rebellion and attempting to control every act of his people. And there were many rebellions. The Polish attempted to throw off the Russian influence on their country, and their attempt was brutally crushed, with the country being converted back into a Russian province.

Nothing, however, was better evidence of Nicholas’s controlling tendencies than his censorship. The “Cast-Iron Censorship Charter,” enacted by the tsar less than a year after his coronation, was comprised of 19 chapters, in which there were 230 paragraphs.[110]

The new rulebook was extremely strict, with laws not only concerning subject matter but also grammar. “Essays and manuscripts in the Russian language, in which the rules and cleanliness of the Russian language are clearly violated or which are filled with grammatical errors, are not allowed for publication without proper correction by the writers or translators.”[111] Most importantly, the charter introduced the creation of a supremely powerful department of censorship, which was headed by the Supreme Censorship Committee. Populating the committee were ministers of foreign affairs, internal affairs, and education. These committee members were responsible for ensuring that published works did not criticize the monarchy, the government, or any other authorities. It also did not allow for proposals for reform.

The censorship itself was to be carried out by the Ministry of Publication, which was overseen by the Main Directorate of Censorship. The Supreme Censorship Committee was meant to support the efforts of the Ministry of Publication. These were not the only administrative bodies involved in the widespread project, however. The Spiritual Department, the Academy of Sciences, and all of the Russian universities were put to work as well.

In 1828, a slightly revised version of the charter was published, in which allowances were made for the publication of Russian history, geography, and statistics.[112] These were allowable as long as they fostered a sense of Russian loyalty and could not be deemed to harm the people’s faith and morality or the tsar himself.

These, as well as other brutal methods, made Nicholas I wildly unpopular. Leo Tolstoy, who lived during his reign, renounced Nicholas as “an enemy of enlightenment.” The rest of the world saw the Russian emperor as backward, for he was dragging Russia into the primitive past during a time when Western Europe was reaching for progress and on the very edge of the Industrial Revolution. Nicholas was not even remotely interested in culture or education. He was far more interested in expanding his empire, and he succeeded in doing so, pushing his borders as far as the Pacific.

His ambition would prove to be his downfall. Hoping to overthrow the mighty power of the Ottoman Empire, Nicholas started the Crimean War with them in 1853. Britain and France allied with the Turks to fight Russia, resulting in one ignominious defeat after the other. These defeats were said to have impacted Nicholas so severely that he committed suicide after hearing of one in 1855, although there is little evidence to prove this rumor.

Instead, it is more widely believed that Nicholas died from pneumonia, and he was attended on his deathbed by his wife, son, and physician. The latter was so impressed by the calm manner in which the fifty-eight-year-old emperor faced his oncoming doom that he would later write, “Never have I seen anyone die like this. There was something superhuman in [the carrying out of the emperor’s duties] to the very last breath.”[113]

Alexander II

The son at Nicholas I’s deathbed was Nicholas’s eldest son, the thirty-seven-year-old Alexander. Nicholas had controlled everything about his reign, and his successor was no exception, for he ensured that Alexander’s coming to power would be smooth and peaceful.

Alexander II found himself ruling over a Russia that had been decimated by the Crimean War.[114] Its coffers were empty, its army shattered, and it was culturally decades behind its western neighbors, as the Victorian era had blossomed into an age of academic and cultural growth. Alexander was well aware that many changes would have to be made and that many of them would not be easy to make.

Having been born long after the death of Paul, Alexander would be the first emperor in decades who wasn’t traumatized by that tragic murder, and it showed in his calm and rational approach to his rule. His travels in Europe as a boy (during which he had a significant, although unrequited, crush on Queen Victoria herself) allowed Alexander to have broader horizons than his father, and he lacked the crippling guilt that plagued his uncle. Alexander immediately began ushering in a series of reforms that would drag Russia kicking and screaming into a new era. These would be known as the Great Reforms. They included the drafting of a Russian Constitution, but more importantly, they changed the lives of millions of serfs across Alexander’s domain—and this time, it would be for good.

Numerous changes had already been brought about in the area of serfdom during the reigns of Alexander’s predecessors, but none of them had the same impact as his own. When Alexander II took power, serfs still had utterly miserable lives. Their masters were practically their owners, and serfs had no choice but to work the lands of the men they served. Even when they managed to own tiny parcels of land, they were only allowed to keep a small portion of the crops they eked out of the harsh Russian soil. The rest of it belonged to the wealthy landowners, who constantly benefited from the subjugation of these poor souls. Serfs had practically no rights whatsoever and lived in extreme poverty and oppression, with their lives being dictated by their masters. In fact, even though these men, women, and children were called “serfs” or sometimes “indentured servants,” they were practically slaves.

That was until March 3rd, 1861, when Alexander changed everything by publishing his Emancipation Manifesto in St. Petersburg. He openly admitted that the current legislation benefited only the upper and middle classes, which caused further oppression to the lower classes. Even though Alexander made an attempt at defending serfdom in the time of his predecessors—calling the forced servitude of the lower classes “affectionate submission” instead of what it really was: the frightened actions of people who had no other choice—he realized that serfdom could no longer continue. It had died out in Western Europe shortly after the Middle Ages, and it was high time for its demise in Russia.

Alexander II admitted that the peasants had been poorly treated and that serfdom was “no longer” beneficial to their welfare. He described the issue of improving the serfs’ welfare as “a sacred inheritance” that had been left to him by his predecessors. It was “a mission which, in the course of events, Divine Providence has called upon Us to fulfil.” Then he finally gave the serfs the news they’d been waiting to hear for generations. “The nobility voluntarily renounced its right to own serfs,” he told them.[115]

Arguably, not much changed about the serfs’ lives. They still lived in desperate poverty and had to work hard in an attempt to earn enough to buy some land from the wealthy landowners, who still tended to mistreat them. However, they were finally free people with the same rights as the nobles who had once treated them as nothing more than objects.

Although Alexander took some pressure off the army by selling a few of the empire’s more far-flung territories, including Alaska to the United States of America in 1867, he nonetheless continued to expand it, pushing his border all the way to Iran. The proceeds from the sale of Alaska were used for gilding the domes of the St. Isaac Cathedral in St. Petersburg.[116]

However, neither expansion nor reforms could truly satisfy the radical revolutionary groups that were forming during this time. One of these, the Narodnaya Volya (often translated to “People’s Will”), would ultimately cause the emperor’s demise.[117] Despite the fact that their first four attempts on Alexander’s life had failed, even the particularly creative act of derailing his royal train, they finally succeeded in killing him on March 1st, 1881, when they dropped numerous explosives into his carriage. They detonated, fatally wounding him.[118] He died later that day. His assassination would later be likened to Abraham Lincoln’s, as they both had died for emancipating those who had little to no freedoms.[119]

Alexander III

Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich, born on March 10thth, 1845, in St. Petersburg, was the second son of Tsar Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna.[120] As such, Alexander’s older brother, Nicholas, was groomed to take over the empire, while Alexander himself was set upon a military path. This all changed when Nicholas contracted meningitis during a visit to Europe and died while in France in 1865. Immediately, Alexander’s entire future changed. At the age of twenty, he was suddenly required to sit for lessons in history, law, and economics, all of which his tutors had merely brushed over in favor of horsemanship and military strategy.

Fortunately, Alexander Alexandrovich was an intelligent young man, and he already had command of the French, English, and German languages. He was also quite musical, having been taught how to play the trumpet and the trombone. People who knew him personally considered him athletic, healthy, and extremely modest. While he made up for the gaps in his education, Alexander continued his training with the Russian military, choosing to remain on his original career path alongside his duties as the heir apparent of Russia.

Prince Alexander was not only expected to step into the political vacuum left behind by his brother Nicholas, but he was also persuaded to marry his brother’s fiancée, Marie Sophie Frederikke Dagmar, better known as Maria Feodorovna. Nicholas begged Alexander to marry the Danish princess. Indeed, the two were married in 1866, and they had a fertile and happy marriage by all accounts. Alexander fondly nicknamed his wife “Minnie,” and she bore him six children.[121]

The death of Alexander’s father, which was done so violently and publicly at the hand of the revolutionaries, led his son to avoid the liberal policies that had so dismally failed to satisfy his father’s murderers. Alexander III canceled the institution of what could have been Russia’s first real constitution, and he reversed many of his father’s political reforms, although he did maintain the emancipation of serfdom. He declared himself an absolute monarch, putting a stop to what appeared to be Russia’s first baby steps toward something like democracy.

However, Alexander III was far from being a despot. He proved to be a gentle ruler who gave Russia an era of peace and prosperity during a troubled time for the rest of the world. During his reign, which lasted until 1894, Alexander became known as a cheerful, friendly family man who was deeply liked throughout Russia. He avoided warfare, for which he became known as Alexander the Peacemaker.[122]

In 1894, Alexander became ill with terminal kidney disease. It is speculated that a train accident in 1888, during which Alexander was hailed as a hero for lifting some wreckage on his shoulders to allow his family to escape, may have caused internal damage to one of his kidneys, leading to the infection that so badly afflicted him. Queen Olga of Greece, a relative of Alexander’s wife, offered to allow him to rest in a mansion in Corfu in the hopes that the gentle climate would be good to the ailing emperor. Sadly, Alexander never made it that far. He died in Crimea on November 1st, 1894, surrounded by his doting family. He would go down in history as the last Romanov ruler to truly wield imperial power throughout his reign.

He was not the last Romanov to reign, however. There would be one more emperor of his bloodline before the dynasty was finally, and horrifically, snuffed out forever.

Chapter 11 – A Bloody End to a Ruling Dynasty

Illustration V: The last Romanovs

Alexander III left behind a legitimate heir: his oldest son, Nicholas. The young man was twenty-six years old when his father died, and despite the fact that he’d been the crown prince of Russia all his life, Nicholas appeared to be woefully unprepared for the rule that lay before him.

The Bewildered Emperor

When Nicholas II became emperor in early November 1894, his first reaction appears to have been nothing but bewilderment. Like his father, he had been besotted with the military and avoided any training in politics, and it was coming back to bite him when the Imperial Crown, with its nine pounds of diamonds, was placed upon his youthful brow. “I know nothing of the business of ruling,” he confided in a friend, adding that he never wanted to be the emperor.[123] Whether he liked it or not, though, the imperial throne of Russia was his birthright, and Nicholas stepped into the government of a turbulent nation in a world that was rapidly descending toward its first real world war.

Things didn’t start well, as Nicholas’s coronation was nothing short of disastrous. He was crowned in 1896 alongside the woman he’d married two years ago, Alexandra Feodorovna. They were a happy young couple, smiling and waving at the people during their coronation. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to them, as their smiling faces looked out upon their people, a mob of spectators was breaking out into chaos. Over a thousand people were trampled to death in the madness, and Nicholas and Alexandra looked on, smiling and unaware. This immediately made him unpopular with the people.

Things were not improved by the fact that, like his father, Nicholas was a devoted autocrat who believed fervently in his divine right to the throne and his absolute authority over the people. These ideas easily fit in during the time of Peter the Great, and they might have been old-fashioned for Alexander III, but the people had swallowed them thanks to his kind and capable administration. With the incompetent Nicholas II on the throne, however, the people began to push back against the idea of an absolute monarchy.

Russia was already teetering on the edge of total instability, and it was not exempt from the tension that flooded Europe. Poverty was utterly rife, leaving hungry masses with revolution on their minds. Worse yet, Japan, feeling threatened by the ever-expanding Russian borders, decided to attack Russia in 1904.

The Russo-Japanese War had been a long time coming. Even though Peter the Great had succeeded in gaining access to the ocean, Russia was still in need of a port in the Pacific that wouldn’t freeze over during the winter. They only had Port Arthur, a port that Russia leased from Korea, which was not fully under Russian control. This may have been part of the reason why Russia lent its support to China during the Sino-Japanese War of 1895.

Less than a decade later, Japan was feeling increasingly threatened, as their negotiations with China failed to continue thanks to Russian interference. Eventually, on February 8th, 1904, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Port Arthur. When the Russians retaliated, the Russo-Japanese War began. It was a bloody prelude to the world wars that would follow. The Russo-Japanese War claimed around 170,000 lives, including 20,000 innocent Chinese civilians. Despite Russia’s best efforts, Japan’s strong navy proved to be too much for the Russians to overcome. Peace talks began in 1905, and the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed that year, which was mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

Rasputin

Even though Nicholas professed to believe fervently in his total authority over Russia, he appears to have lacked much interest in actually governing it. He was far more interested in his wife and kids. Alexandra gave him four daughters in fairly rapid succession after their marriage. Nicholas doted upon them, and he adored Alexandra, spending hours with his family instead of ruling over his nation.

The couple’s only son, Alexei, was born on August 12thth, 1904.[124] Tsar Nicholas II, who kept a regular journal, wrote, “There are no words enough to thank the Lord for this relief he sent us in these hard times!”[125]

The tsar and tsarina would soon discover, however, that the prince had been born with hemophilia, a disease that caused him great, prolonged pain at times when other children would simply get a bump, scratch, or bruise. He more than likely inherited this congenital disorder from his mother, whose grandmother was Queen Victoria, who is also known to have carried this disease. Hemophilia prevents blood from clotting quickly, meaning that bruises turned into lengthy internal bleeds, and cuts could cause a dangerous loss of blood. Prince Alexei suffered greatly from this disease, particularly when internal bleeding seeped into his joints and stopped him from either bending or straightening them. At times during the boy’s youth, he had to be carried about by servants.

When Alexei was two years old, the royal parents had a seminal meeting with an eccentric Siberian mystic by the name of Grigori Rasputin.[126] Rasputin, who had spent months in a Siberian monastery before wandering Russia as a self-proclaimed holy man, was introduced to Nicholas II and Alexandra by members of the Russian Orthodox Church, who had heard of his alleged healing powers. Desperate to find some solace for their young son, the royals invited Rasputin to visit the prince and see if there was anything he could do about the boy’s disease.

No precise medical documentation exists that can prove Rasputin did anything miraculous, but it is clear that Prince Alexei was soothed by the holy man’s presence and administrations. His sister Olga watched some of the healing sessions and explained that they consisted of Rasputin kneeling at the foot of Alexei’s bed, praying. Some Russians believed that he used some kind of magical powers—either evil or good—to heal the boy, while medical historians tend to believe it was the man’s calming presence on the entire Romanov household that alleviated some of Alexei’s suffering.

Bloody Sunday and the First World War

Rasputin may have been able to calm the Russian royal family, but there was no pacifying the rest of the nation. Starving and poorly treated by the upper classes, the ordinary Russians were starting to grow angry. Their young men were being conscripted into the war with Japan, in which the Russian army suffered defeat after defeat. Demands were not being met, and the people felt that their voices were going unheard. In 1905, things came to a head at last.

It started innocuously enough on the morning of January 22nd. A radical priest, Father Georgy Gapon, mustered a group of protesters and led them in a peaceful but loud march across St. Petersburg to the gates of the majestic Winter Palace. The people planned to demand social and political reforms that would improve their daily lives and alleviate their suffering. But when they reached the Winter Palace, suffering was all they found. Nicholas’s soldiers began to shoot at the unarmed ranks of protesters. Panic broke out, with screams and gunshots clashing in the still winter air. Blood mixed with snow and pooled on the pavement, and the protesters scattered, many of them wounded, many more lying still on the street, never to rise again. More than 1,000 people were killed in what became known as Bloody Sunday.[127]

Outraged by this horrific massacre of innocents, other lower- and middle-class people staged small rebellions all across Russia, which were suppressed with a similar level of violence. Thousands of people lost their lives, as Nicholas stopped his ears and refused to hear what they were saying to him. Many people died before he eventually promised to hold a series of special meetings to discuss social reform, which was yet another empty promise that the emperor never upheld.

Cowed by Nicholas’s brutal treatment of the protesters, the Russian people avoided open rebellions or protests, but discontent was still growing. Conditions were growing riper for a revolution, and in the shadows, people began to turn to the charismatic leaders of rebel groups, who seemed more likely to make good on their promises than Nicholas. The most prominent of these was Vladimir Lenin. His name is infamous now, but back then, he was just an angry, cunning young man who was still smarting after the 1887 execution of his brother, who had been part of one of the many plots to kill Alexander III. Lenin called his followers the Bolsheviks, and he quietly prepared them for war.

By 1915, however, a different conflict had dragged Nicholas’s attention away from the trouble brewing at home. World War I had broken out in 1914, and Russia had entered it as an ally of Great Britain, in part thanks to Alexandra and Nicholas’s marriage. Nicholas’s armies were performing poorly in the war, and in 1915, he decided with a heavy heart that it was time to leave his family behind and do the one thing that he was good at: command his troops. He traveled to the front, leaving Alexandra and his family safely behind in St. Petersburg.

Nicholas’s command strengthened the Russian military’s performance in the war, but at an appalling cost. He poured all of his resources into fighting the Germans as his own people starved in the streets. Russia simply couldn’t afford the First World War, and its people grew more and more discontent with the government of Empress Alexandra, who was making many administrative decisions in Nicholas’s absence. To make matters worse, she was strongly influenced by the mystic Rasputin. It was thanks to his advice that Alexandra replaced many capable government officials with some of Rasputin’s allies.

It did him no good in the end, however. In 1916, a group of nobles attacked and murdered Rasputin, hoping that ending his influence on Alexandra would restore some form of stability to the government. Alexandra only grew more suspicious and paranoid, however, and Russia continued on a downward spiral toward chaos.

The Russian Revolution

In 1917, word reached Nicholas of the growing trouble in his own country. By February, riots had erupted in the streets of St. Petersburg. He decided that it was time to leave his army behind and hurry home to his wife and children—and to the riots that were rapidly turning into a full-scale revolution. However, when Nicholas attempted to enter the nation that he was governing, his own army stopped him. They refused to let him come home. At the same time, a mutiny broke out among the soldiers who were supposed to be guarding St. Petersburg; instead of stopping the rioters, they joined right in.

It’s difficult to imagine how desperate Nicholas must have felt at that point in time. Considering how deeply he doted on his family, the two-year separation from them must have been intolerable to start with. Now, he was stranded hundreds of miles away from them, unable to return home and aware that murderous revolutionaries filled the city where they lived. They were unprotected without their guards, and Nicholas felt he had no choice. Without an army, he was as powerless as any of the ordinary people who’d starved under his regime. He signed his abdication on March 15th, 1917, ending the rule of the Romanov dynasty.

The Captive Royals

The end of the rule of the Romanovs had come, but the end of the Romanov family was far more brutal. Nicholas was, at least, reunited with his wife and children, who were now teenagers and young adults, the youngest being twelve-year-old Alexei. Although he was perhaps the most worried about his son, Nicholas must have been terrified of what would happen to all of them now that they were under the control of Russia’s Provisional Government.

At first, it appeared that being deposed and imprisoned was a dream come true for Nicholas. The family was taken to a mansion east of the Ural Mountains, and they were allowed to bring their vast staff of thirty-nine loyal servants with them. The tremendous weight of governing the empire was immediately lifted from Nicholas’s shoulders, and he found himself a free man even though he was behind bars. For the first time, Nicholas could do what he really wanted: stay at home with his beloved wife and children.

For a few happy months, Nicholas did not have to worry about wars. The family was well provided for, and he could spend happy moments in the home and garden with the family he’d missed for years while fighting a grim and bloody war. There was even hope that they might be exiled to Great Britain under the friendly care of King George V or allowed to go to their Crimean estate and holiday home. Nicholas lived his life in a more carefree manner for a few months. This didn’t last long.

Russia had rid itself of its monarchy but not of its supporters. After Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government in a relatively peaceful coup in 1917, Russia became Marxist, but not without a fight. Civil war broke out, as the country was sharply divided. Lenin’s Red Army battled against the White Army, which was composed of those who wanted the monarchy reinstated. They were determined to reach the Romanovs and wrestle Nicholas back onto the throne he’d never wanted in the first place.

As the White Army began to gain traction and push closer to Nicholas’s home, the nervous revolutionaries realized that they needed to prevent them from reaching Nicholas at all costs. In April 1918, they uprooted the entire family and moved them with just four of their servants to a profoundly anti-monarch town, Yekaterinburg, where they were placed in a plain home known as Ipatiev House. There, the Romanovs spent a relatively peaceful summer. Their guards were stern, and their contact with the outside world was utterly removed, but it would appear that they were treated well enough and lived as a fairly ordinary family. In fact, common women from the town who were brought in as cleaners would later say that the Romanovs appeared to be a nice, humble, modest, normal group of people. The Romanov girls, who had once been grand duchesses of Russia, even got down on their hands and knees to scrub the floors with the common women. Alexei was, as always, particularly charming. His huge, soft eyes captured hearts everywhere, summoning sympathy for his delicate, sickly appearance.

The Execution

There was no sympathy, however, in the hearts of Lenin’s supporters, who were in control of the Romanovs’ fate. With the White Army constantly gaining ground, they realized that there was only one way to solve the Romanov problem: the family would have to be completely removed from the equation.[128]

On July 17th, the Romanovs’ guards ordered them to move down into the basement, saying that they needed to hide from the advancing White Army for their own safety.[129] Even then, Nicholas suspected nothing. He agreed, willing to do anything possible to keep his family safe. He scooped little Alexei into his arms to protect him and led them down into the dusky little room beneath the house, unknowingly leading his own family and their loyal servants to their slaughter.

When they reached the basement, Nicholas was briskly informed that he was condemned to death for the crimes he’d committed against the people of Russia. The emperor did not have time to cry out or plead for the lives of his innocent children. Bullets ripped through his body, splattering his family with his blood; he was quickly killed, and a shot to the head dispatched Alexandra. Her children screamed. The Bolshevik soldiers fell upon the terrified children and servants, ignoring their screams and pleas, and began to rip into their bodies with their sharp bayonets. There was screaming, slicing, kicking, and yells of anger. And then there was only silence.

Horribly murdered, the Romanovs were all dead.

Conclusion

Most of the Romanovs lie safely interred in the cathedrals of their ancestors. Nicholas II and his family would not be given that dignity. Their bodies were burned, dissolved with acid, and cast carelessly into hasty graves. The Romanov dynasty perished with them. The Russian monarchy as a whole failed to survive as well, as it was soon replaced by the Soviet Union.

The tragic end of the Romanov family is one that has become almost legendary, and indeed, many legends arose after the deaths of Nicholas and his family. A series of “false Anastasias” appeared in the following years. These were young women attempting to restart the monarchy or simply trying to gain fame and fortune. These women, who claimed to be Nicholas II’s youngest daughter Anastasia, were all false. Genetic testing on the remains of the Romanovs after the fall of the Soviet Union would prove that Anastasia had been dead since 1918.

The Romanovs ruled for more than 300 years, a time during which Russia saw the whole world change dramatically. These leaders all had a massive role in changing the face of history forever, from the mighty but despotic Peter the Great, who murdered his own son, all the way to the doting Nicholas II, who unwittingly led his treasured family to their deaths. All of them carried extraordinary power, ruling over a nation so large that it eclipsed one-sixth of the earth’s surface at times.

Yet their stories all serve to point out one blatant truth: all of them were ordinary people. From the mad to the mundane, the ambitious to the paranoid, they were human beings who held more power than was good for them. And their stories serve as a cautionary tale about the nature of absolute power.

Illustration Sources

Illustration I: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iv%C3%A1n_el_Terrible_y_su_hijo,_por_Ili%C3%A1_Repin.jpg

Illustration II: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/%D0%9F%D0%B0%D0%BC%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D1%83_%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%BC%D1%83_%D0%B2_%D0%A0%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%B5.JPG

Illustration III: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_of_Russia_by_V.Eriksen.jpg

Illustration IV: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Catherine_II_of_Russia_by_Vigilius_Eriksen_-_%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%82_%D0%95%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8B_%D0%92%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9._-_1762.jpg

Illustration V: By Boasson and Eggler St. Petersburg Nevsky 24. - Uploaded from ru.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2907639

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[3]. Ibid. 

[4]. “Rurikid Dynasty,” Encyclopedia.com

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[18]. Borrero, Mauricio. Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present. 2009.

[19]. Ibid.

[20]. The Cambridge History of Poland. 2016.

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[32]. Flantzer, Susan. “Alexei I Tsar of all Russia.” Unofficial Royalty.

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[34]. Ibid.

[35]. Flantzer, Susan. “Alexei I Tsar of all Russia.” Unofficial Royalty.

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[45]. Ibid.

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[48]. Ibid.

[49]. “Wives of Tsar Feodor III of Russia.” Unofficial Royalty.

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[54]. Flantzer, Susan. “Praskovia Feodorovna Saltykova, Tsaritsa of All Russia.” Unofficial Royalty. Web.

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[74]. From LETTERS OF PETER THE GREAT AND HIS SON ALEXIS 1715.

[75]. Miles, J. St. Petersburg: Three Centuries of Murderous Desire. 2017.

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[77]. Petrucelli, A.W., Morbid Curiosity: The Disturbing Demise of the Famous and Infamous. 2009.

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[82]. DuVernet, M.A. Pushkin’s Ode to Liberty. 2014.

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[86]. Ibid.

[87]. Flantzer, Susan. “Anna I Empress of All Russia.” UnofficialRoyalty.

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[95]. “Prominent Russians: Elizaveta Petrovna Romanova,” Russiapedia. Web.

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[104]. “Paul I’s manifesto of three-day corvee.” EuroDocs > History of Russia: Primary Documents > 1796-1917. Web.

[105]. “Prominent Russians: Paul I,” Russiapedia. Web.

[106]. “The Murder of Tsar Paul I,” History Today. Web.

[107]. “Alexander I,” Saint-Petersburg.com. Web.

[108]. “Prominent Russians: Alexander I,” Russiapedia. Web.

[109]. “Prominent Russians: Nicholas I,” Russiapedia. Web.

[110]. “Introduction of a cast iron censorship charter under Nicholas 1. Cast iron censorship charter.” Parkvak. Web.

[111]. Ibid.

[112]. Ibid.

[113]. “Death of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia,” History Today. Web.

[114]. “Alexander II,” Saint-Petersburg.com. Web.

[115]. “The Emancipation Manifesto, March 3 1861.” Polnoe sobranie zakonov Russkoi Imperii (Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire), 2nd Series, vol. 36, no. 36490.

[116]. “Russia: A Timeline.”

[117]. “Narodnaya Volya,” Encyclopedia Britannica. Web.

[118]. “Czar Alexander II Assassinated in St. Petersburg,” History.com. Web.

[119]. “6 Facts About Alexander II,” Russia Beyond. Web.

[120]. “Alexander III.” St.Petersburg.com. Web.

[121]. Ibid.

[122]. “Prominent Russians: Alexander III the Peacemaker,” Russiapedia. Web.

[123]. “Nicholas II,” Biography.com. Web.

[124]. Yegorov, Oleg. “How the ‘Royal Disease’ Destroyed the Life of Russia’s Last Tsarevich.” Russia Beyond. August 21, 2018.

[125]. Ibid.

[126]. Harris, Carolyn. “The Murder of Rasputin 100 Years Later.” Smithsonian Magazine. December 27, 2016.

[127]. “Bloody Sunday Massacre in Russia,” History.com. Web.

[128]. “Why Czar Nicholas II and the Romanovs were Murdered,” History.com. Web.

[129]. “Death of a Dynasty: How the Romanovs met their end,” National Geographic. Web.