During the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, reforming the army, creating regiments of a new system, reducing the role of the noble militia strengthened the armed forces of Russia. Under Alexei Mikhailovich, Zemsky Sobors met less and less often.

Cathedral Code (1649)

The rebellion in Moscow in the summer of 1648 began to gradually subside. However, following Moscow, unrest broke out in many provincial cities. And in the capital itself, the shaky order could hardly be maintained. Among the court nobility there were smart people who were able to explain to the young king that serious transformations were needed to truly pacify society. The Zemsky Sobor, convened in July 1648, spoke in favor of drawing up a code of laws designed to take into account the requirements of the estates. The Tsar instructed the boyar prince to prepare a draft of the future code N. I. Odoevsky.

Alarming news of new unrest forced the government to act quickly. Already in September 1648, the new Zemsky Sobor began its work. It was attended by about 350 elected representatives from various classes, with the exception of peasants and slaves. They listened to the entire text of the draft Code, discussed it, and in January 1649, at the Zemsky Sobor, they approved the final version of the Council Code with their signatures. The Code was printed in book form.

The Council Code was a big step forward in the development of Russian legislation. It systematized numerous royal decrees that appeared after the Code of Laws of 1550, and supplemented them with a number of new provisions.

The Council Code was a set of laws, the execution and observance of which was mandatory for the entire country. The Code emphasized the special role of the king in the country; Severe punishments were provided for crimes against the honor and health of the king, his family, church and government officials. An indefinite search for fugitive peasants was established, practically they turned into serfs (they were attached to the land of their owner), and legal norms were also defined for servicemen and townspeople.

Uprisings under Alexei Mikhailovich

Church schism Nikon

Foreign policy of Alexei Mikhailovich

The government of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich begins a difficult struggle for Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states. At the same time, the military danger on the southern border, where one could always expect a devastating raid by the Crimean Tatars, has not weakened for a day.

Return of Azov

In 1642, the Zemsky Sobor was convened due to the fact that the Don Cossacks captured the city of Azov from the Turks. They turned to Moscow for help with a proposal to annex Azov to Russia. This meant war with the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, the Cossacks’ proposal was rejected, and Azov was returned to the Turks.

The second tsar from the Romanov dynasty on the Russian throne was the son of Mikhail Fedorovich and his second wife Evdokia Streshneva - Alexei Mikhailovich, the father of one of the largest reformers in the history of Russia, Peter the Great. The more than thirty-year reign of Alexei Mikhailovich was filled with turbulent events: numerous wars and rebellions, reunification with Ukraine and the annexation of Siberia, the uprising of Stepan Razin and a schism in the Russian Orthodox Church.

The second half of the 17th century, which included the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, is of interest to historians, first of all, as the so-called. “pre-Petrine” era, preparatory to major political and economic transformations, socio-cultural innovations borrowed from the West.

This was a time of coexistence of two cultural trends in the life of the Russian state, belonging both to the “old thinkers” - such as the first dissenters, and to the innovators “Westerners” - supporters of enlightenment, foreign borrowing, trade and diplomatic relations with Europe. An entire generation of Peter’s predecessors grew up and lived amid the struggle between old concepts and new trends, and the question of education and borrowing from the West, according to the general belief of historians, was definitely born under the father of Peter I. In this regard, the very personality of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, his psychological portrait and lifestyle has repeatedly become the subject of research by many famous scientists.

The outstanding Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky wrote that Alexey Mikhailovich “grew up with a generation that need for the first time forced them to look carefully and anxiously at the heretical West in the hope of finding there a means to get out of domestic difficulties, without renouncing the concepts, habits and beliefs of pious antiquity.”

Tsarevich Alexei was born on March 19 (29), 1629, and until the age of five he grew up in the mansion of a Moscow palace, surrounded by numerous “mothers.” In the sixth year, he was transferred to the care of the “uncle” - boyar Boris Ivanovich Morozov, under whose supervision he completed a full course of ancient Russian education: first he studied using an alphabet book specially compiled for him by the patriarchal clerk on the order of his grandfather, Patriarch Philaret; then he moved on to reading the book of hours, the psalter, studied the Acts of the Apostles, at the age of seven he learned to write, and in the ninth year, with the regent of the palace choir, he began to learn the “Octoechos” - a liturgical book of music, from which he moved on to the study of “terrible singing”, i.e. church hymns of Holy Week, especially difficult in their melody.

The Tsarevich was not deprived of amusements: among the toys of the future Tsar there was a horse of “German design”, children’s armor, musical instruments, sleds and sleds, a curious novelty for that time - “German printed sheets”, i.e. pictures engraved in Germany, which were used as visual educational material by Boris Morozov, one of the first Russian boyars to show interest in Western education. Probably, the latter introduced a more daring innovation to the Moscow sovereign palace: he dressed Tsarevich Alexei and his brother Ivan in German dress.

By the age of 12, the prince had already formed his own small library of 13 volumes - mainly gifts from his grandfather, uncles and teachers. For the most part these were books of Holy Scripture and liturgical books, but among them were the Lexicon and Grammar, as well as Cosmography, published in Lithuania. In general, Alexei Mikhailovich’s education was traditional. However, upon completion of his studies, he did not lose interest in books and subsequently, of his own free will, engaged in self-education, read a lot and constantly, so that he soon joined the ranks of the then few Moscow intellectuals.

By the age of ten, the prince could quickly read the Hours in church and, not without success, sing stichera and canons with the sexton in the choir in hook notes; At the same time, he studied the rite of church worship to the smallest detail, in which he could argue with any monastery and even cathedral charter.

In the 14th year of his life, the prince was solemnly “announced” to the people and boyars. The rite of “announcement” meant that the heir to the throne, previously carefully protected from prying eyes and evil intentions, appeared before the courtiers and people as a person who had reached the age of majority and received the right to publicly participate in ceremonies and state affairs; this also served as a guarantee against imposture in any of its manifestations. And at the age of 16, after the death of his father Mikhail Fedorovich, Alexei Mikhailovich ascended the Russian throne. As soon as the oath was taken to the young tsar, which was to be followed by the crowning of the kingdom, a new blow fell on Alexei: having barely outlived her husband, the blessed queen Evdokia Lukyanovna died.

Grigory Sedov. The choice of a bride by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich

At the beginning of his reign, the orphaned young tsar was strongly influenced by his former mentor, boyar Morozov, who, in fact, directed the entire work of the state apparatus. Subsequently, when the king matured and from a boy turned into a man with a definite and even original worldview and established political views, his reign, according to contemporaries and the general opinion of historians, was characterized by even more autocratic rule than that of his father.

However, the awareness of the autocracy of his power was softened by the pious meekness and deep humility of the king. “It is better to repair the fishery with tears, zeal and baseness before God than with force and glory,” he wrote to one of his governors. In a letter to Prince Nikita Odoevsky in 1652, he reported: “And we, the great sovereign, daily ask the Creator and His Most Pure Mother of God and all the saints, so that the Lord God grants to us, the great sovereign, and you, the boyars, with us unanimously His Svetov people really manage everything smoothly.”

Alexei Mikhailovich understood his presence on the throne of Russia, first of all, as responsibility for the fate of the kingdom before God; for him, royal service was akin to severe hierarchal service.

The desire to strengthen the kingdom and protect the faith, to assuage “the many sorrows of the righteous,” according to him, was explained not by the search for the unfading glory of an earthly ruler, but by a necessary condition for one’s own salvation, “for by the wide path the soul of sinners is brought into the gates of fierce hell, and by the narrow path the soul of the righteous is brought into the gates to the Kingdom of Heaven." “I strive... to be not a great sun, but at least a small luminary, a small star there, and not here,” the king wrote.

Soon after ascending the throne, 17-year-old Alexei Mikhailovich announced his intention to get married. According to custom, the best brides were collected, from whom the tsar chose Evfemia Feodorovna Vsevolozhskaya, the daughter of the Kasimov landowner, an extraordinary beauty, according to contemporaries. However, when she was first dressed in royal clothes, her hair was pulled too tight, and she fainted in front of the king. For “hiding” the illness, the bride and her family were exiled to distant Tyumen. The king was extremely saddened, and, after some time, not forgetting about his first bride, he returned her from exile.

Popular rumor explained what happened as the machinations of boyar Morozov, who allegedly deliberately defamed the bride before the sovereign out of fear that the new royal relatives would push him out of power. In any case, the boyar soon arranged the king’s marriage, at the same time managing to further strengthen his position. His assistant, Ilya Miloslavsky, a man of little birth, but not without agility and ability, had two beautiful daughters. Morozov praised them to the Tsar and arranged it so that Alexei Mikhailovich could see them. On January 16, 1648, the tsar married Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya, whom he liked. Morozov himself, an old man according to the standards of that time, since he was 58 years old, took as his wife his younger sister, Anna Miloslavskaya, who was old enough to be his granddaughter, thus becoming the Tsar’s brother-in-law.

The king's marriage, concluded for love, turned out to be happy. During 21 years of marriage, Maria Miloslavskaya gave birth to 13 children to Alexei Mikhailovich: five princes and eight princesses. True, the princes were born weak and soon went to their graves: the first-born Dmitry did not live even a year; Alexey, with whom great hopes were associated, died before reaching the age of 16; Simeon - at 5 years old; Fyodor and Ivan, who became tsars, lived longer - Fyodor until almost 22 years old, Ivan until 29. The latter, Ivan Alekseevich, co-ruler of Peter I, in addition to physical weakness, probably also suffered from mental relaxation.

V.A. Leiben. The Tsar's Bride

Alexei Mikhailovich’s daughters, on the contrary, were distinguished by good health and relative longevity, although none of them married. As for the Morozov couple, according to the caustic remark of the court physician, the Englishman Samuel Collins, who was aware of many palace gossips, instead of children, jealousy was born, which “produced a belt whip as thick as a finger.”

If there is very scant information about Alexei Mikhailovich in his young years, then about the mature tsar and the Moscow court in the later period of his reign, contemporaries left numerous testimonies and verbose descriptions, of which the greatest interest for historians, as a rule, are the reports and memories of foreigners - Austrian ambassador Augustin Meyerberg (“Meyerberg’s Report”, 1663 and “Travel to Muscovy”, 1663), secretary of the German imperial embassy Adolf Liesek (“Report of the Embassy”, 1670), English doctor at the royal court Samuel Collins (“On the current state of Russia, 1671), Courland traveler Jacob Reitenfels (“Tales of the Most Serene Duke of Tuscany Cosmas the Third about Muscovy,” 1676). Also, extensive material is provided by the essay of Grigory Kotoshikhin, an official of the Russian Ambassadorial Prikaz who defected to Sweden, “On Russia during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich.”

In addition to the memories of eyewitnesses, a significant part of the literary works of Tsar Alexei himself has reached us - he loved to write, he was equally interested in the Polish war, and the illness of a courtier, and the household of the deceased patriarch, and the question of how to sing for many years in church, and gardening, and petty quarrels in his beloved monastery. In addition to a large number of letters of both a business and personal nature, he wrote poetry, drew up a detailed order for his falconers, “The Code of the Falconer’s Way,” tried to write memoirs and, in the words of the historian S. F. Platonov, “even had the habit of manually correcting the text and making additions in official documents, and did not always match the tone of the order’s presentation.”

Contemporaries describe the tsar as a man of very pleasant appearance, bursting with health, good-natured, cheerful disposition and even prone to mischief. The appearance of the sovereign immediately attracted everyone: a rare kindness shone in his blue eyes, the look of these eyes did not frighten anyone, but encouraged and encouraged.

The sovereign's face, full and ruddy, bordered by a light brown beard, was good-natured, friendly and at the same time serious and important, and his plump figure always maintained a dignified posture, which was given to the king by the awareness of the significance and holiness of his rank.

The tsar was distinguished by his piety, zealously observed all religious prohibitions and regulations, was not prone to drinking, and was known as an exemplary family man. He loved hunting and spent the summer almost constantly in the picturesque village of Kolomenskoye. Alexey Mikhailovich appreciated beauty in its old Moscow sense: he constantly built and rebuilt his wooden palace in Kolomenskoye, trying to give it a perfect look, he loved the solemn ritual of royal entrances, dinners, and pilgrimages.

Valdai Monastery. Moscow. Late 17th century

Throughout his life, Tsar Alexei represented a model of piety and piety: he could compete with any monk in the art of praying and fasting. According to S. Collins, during Lent and the Dormition, on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, the king ate once a day, and his food consisted of cabbage, milk mushrooms and berries - all without butter; on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays during all fasts he did not eat or drink anything.

In the church he sometimes stood “for five or six hours at a time, making a thousand prostrations, and on other days even one and a half thousand.” Even illness could not always disrupt the strict order.

Daily prayer exercises, severe fasting, ardent repentance and tireless spiritual work constituted a significant part of the king’s life. According to V. O. Klyuchevsky, “he was a devout ancient Russian pilgrim who harmoniously and completely combined physical labor with the intensity of religious feeling in the feat of spiritual salvation.”

Most contemporaries noted the tsar's meekness and mercy, gentleness of character, and respect for human dignity in his subjects. Thus, the Austrian ambassador Augustin Meyerberg wrote with surprise that this king, with his unlimited power over the people, did not encroach on anyone’s property, anyone’s life, or anyone’s honor. Sometimes it is even believed that it was Alexei Mikhailovich’s personal qualities that earned him the nickname “The Quietest,” although in reality “the quietest” (Latin clementissimus) is an honorary title of Latin origin, which was later replaced in diplomacy by the French “most merciful” (French tresgracieux).

But kindness, cheerfulness and lightness of character really distinguished the second representative of the Romanovs on the Russian throne. Alexei Mikhailovich was the first to begin to weaken the strictness of the prim etiquette established at the Moscow court, which made court relations so difficult and strained. He condescended to joke with the courtiers, easily went to visit them, invited them to his evening meals, and took an interest in their household affairs. The ability to enter into the position of others, to understand and take to heart their grief and joy was one of the best traits in the king’s character. As an example of this, his consoling letters to Prince N.I. are often cited. Odoevsky on the occasion of the death of his son and to A.L. Ordin-Nashchokin regarding his son’s escape abroad.

The son of Prince Odoevsky, who served as a governor in Kazan, died of fever in 1652 almost in front of the tsar. The king reported this in a letter to his old father, telling in detail about his unexpected death. Along with numerous words of consolation, he wrote: “And you, our boyar, should not grieve too much, but you cannot, so as not to grieve and cry, and you need to cry, only in moderation, so as not to anger God.” The letter ended with a postscript: “Prince Nikita Ivanovich! Don’t worry, but trust in God and be reliable in us.”

In 1660, the son of a prominent diplomat and statesman Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin committed a serious crime - he fled from Russia to Poland, and then to France, taking with him important state documents and money. The fugitive's father was terribly embarrassed and heartbroken; he himself notified the king of his misfortune and asked for his resignation. In such a situation, he could have expected disgrace and even execution, but Alexey Mikhailovich sent him a sympathetic letter, consoling him in the grief that had befallen him: “You are asking to give you your resignation; Why did you get the idea to ask for this? I think from immeasurable sadness. And is it any wonder that your son cheated? I did this out of stupidity. He is a young man, I wanted to look at the world of God and his works; just as a bird flies back and forth and, having swooped in, flies to its nest, so your son will remember his nest and his spiritual attachment and will soon return to you.” Oddly enough, the king’s words turned out to be prophetic: the “prodigal son” returned and repented. In 1665, he received a royal letter in Riga, in which Alexey Mikhailovich notified him of permission to return and of forgiveness: “Having accepted your petition graciously, we forgive and hope to be safe and without slander. Your parent, our mercy is in vain, remains near us.” According to a number of researchers, it was these events that inspired Simeon of Polotsk to create one of the monuments of ancient Russian literature - a “school drama” for the nascent theater called “The Comedy of the Parable of the Prodigal Son,” which enjoyed particular success.

For all his responsive character and natural complacency, Alexey Mikhailovich was nevertheless also distinguished by his temper, easily lost his composure, and often gave excessive freedom to his tongue and hands. In all the portraits of the king there is a certain severity: knitted eyebrows, a glance from under his brows. S. Collins, reporting on the exactingness and exactingness of the sovereign, writes that the tsar is sometimes angry and unkind because he is surrounded by informers and boyars, “who direct his good intentions to evil” and prevent him from becoming “along with the kindest sovereigns.”

In his anger, Alexey Mikhailovich was easy to cope with, quickly and sincerely moving from abuse to kindness. Even when the sovereign’s irritation reached its highest limit, it was soon replaced by repentance and a desire for peace and quiet. So, at one of the meetings of the Boyar Duma, having flared up at the tactless trick of his father-in-law, boyar Ivan Miloslavsky, the tsar scolded him, beat him and kicked him out of the room. However, this did not deteriorate the good relationship between father-in-law and son-in-law: both easily forgot what happened.

Another time, the tsar lost his temper when one of the courtiers, Rodion Streshnev, refused, due to his old age, to “open” his own blood with the tsar (the sovereign, feeling relief from the bloodletting, invited the courtiers to follow his example). The refusal seemed to Alexei Mikhailovich a manifestation of arrogance and pride, for which he flared up and hit the old man: “Is your blood more valuable than mine? or do you consider yourself better than everyone else? Afterwards, he did not know how to appease and console the venerable courtier, he asked for peace and sent him rich gifts.

The court under Alexei Mikhailovich acquired unprecedented grandeur. The life of the king was subordinated to the performance of carefully thought out, deeply symbolic rituals.

He got up early - at four o'clock in the morning, prayed, with special care venerating the icon of the saint whose memory was celebrated that day. Then he went to a ceremonial meeting with the queen. After Matins he was engaged in state affairs: he “sat” with the boyars. At a certain hour he walked with them to mass.

If a church holiday fell on this day, the royal clothes changed - Alexei Mikhailovich put on a gold dress instead of a velvet one. After mass, the tsar listened to the reports of the boyars and officials. In the afternoon, business was abandoned and the royal dinner began, usually quite lengthy. After dinner, the Tsar, like every Russian person, had to sleep until Vespers. After dinner, he spent time with family and friends, playing chess or listening to the stories of experienced people about antiquity and unknown countries. Foreigners also report the king’s tendency to work at night: “The king examines the protocols of his clerks at night. He checks which decisions have been made and which petitions have not been answered.”

Going on a pilgrimage

Alexey Mikhailovich was in constant motion. Many weeks of his life were filled with countless movements, journeys, trips - most often, not particularly distant ones, to the palace villages and hunting grounds of Kolomenskoye, Khoroshevo, Ostrov, Chertanovo, Vorobyovo, Preobrazhenskoye, Pokrovskoye, Izmailovo near Moscow; less often - more distant pilgrimage trips to monasteries, where it took several days to get there. The Tsar’s trips were arranged with extraordinary solemnity: even if the Tsar left the Kremlin for several hours to watch fist fights on the Moscow River, a special decree was drawn up about who would “be in charge of the state” during his absence.

The reign of Alexei Mikhailovich became the heyday of the court and church ceremonial of the Moscow kingdom, which acquired a special monumentality and significance. According to one of the biographers, Alexei Mikhailovich, being a man of duty and living faith, looked at his participation in church and court ceremonies as something destined for him from above, as direct royal service, no less important than protecting borders or a fair trial. An indispensable participant in the most important secular and church ceremonies and holidays, the tsar gave them a special splendor and solemnity, intervened in their course, composed speeches, distributed roles and even took care of their “design.” Alexey Mikhailovich most often made “ordinary” royal outings to mass and pilgrimage on holidays on foot. Sometimes, in bad weather or in winter, he was given a carriage or sleigh on which he could return to the palace at the end of the ceremony or get to the place of the holiday if it took place far from the palace. The very vestments of the king and the number of dress changes testified to the “rank of the event.” In most cases, it is from the description of secular celebrations and church services with the participation of Alexei Mikhailovich that historians can recreate the ceremony of the Moscow court and imagine what it was like in early times.

On major church holidays, on the eve of the royal name day and on memorial days, there were royal exits “with the sovereign’s salary” to the poor, to almshouses and prisons. Alexey Mikhailovich personally distributed money to prisoners and convicts, and immediately released some of them.

The distribution usually began very early: the king got up two or three hours before dawn and, accompanied by several people, set off with alms. The amount of money spent and the number of people “granted by grace” reached very impressive figures. The distributions were especially large during Lent, primarily during Holy Week, and also on Easter, when the doors of stockades and prisons were opened and the inmates were told: “Christ has risen for you too.” On behalf of the king, everyone was presented with Easter eggs, clothes and alms for breaking the fast.

In general, for Alexei Mikhailovich, as for every inhabitant of medieval Rus', the Resurrection of Christ was the brightest holiday. On the eve of the Holy Day, the Tsar, according to the recollections of his contemporaries, was in high spirits; he was bright, kind and cheerful. According to tradition, Alexei Mikhailovich went to listen to the Midnight Office in the Throne Room of the Terem Palace. The festive Easter matins ended with the celebration of Christ; the Tsar was the first to approach the Patriarch to congratulate and celebrate Christ. Then Alexei Mikhailovich made Christ with the bishops and offered the hands of lower-ranking clergy, while presenting each with Easter eggs. Then the courtiers strictly approached the king.

The ceremony was opened by nearby boyars and ended by Moscow nobles, all dressed in golden caftans. Alexey Mikhailovich, in accordance with nobility, rank and personal attitude towards everyone, gave chicken, goose or even turned wooden eggs in different quantities. At the end of the ceremony, the Tsar went to the Archangel Cathedral and “Christed with his parents,” i.e. bowed to the tombs of his ancestors and laid Easter eggs on the tombs. Then he went around the Kremlin cathedrals and monasteries, kissed icons and other shrines, giving eggs to the local clergy. Upon returning to the palace, Alexei Mikhailovich said Christ with his family.

On Bright Week, most often on Wednesday, Alexey Mikhailovich received the Patriarch and the authorities in the Golden Chamber, who came to him with an offering. The Patriarch blessed the Tsar with an icon and a golden cross, and offered cups, expensive materials, and sable furs. All members of the royal family also received gifts. Those church hierarchs who could not participate in the ceremony, and all large monasteries, necessarily sent gifts from their regions - images of saints, Easter eggs, etc. bringing - “Velikodensky honey fur” (fur is a vessel, like a leather bag. In the old days, various liquid products were stored in furs - author’s note) and gold. During these days, the Moscow white clergy and monastic authorities came to the Tsar in a religious procession with a offering of bread and kvass. With a symbolic tribute to the tsar in gold coins, Alexei Mikhailovich also had guests and merchants. In general, during the Easter days, the sovereign was visited by hundreds of people from different classes and ranks. In most cases, they hastily bowed, touched their hand and received an Easter gift. According to researchers, at Easter, up to 37 thousand of colored eggs alone were needed for distribution to the king.

An important holiday for Russian subjects was the Tsar's name day. On this day, all work was prohibited, shopping arcades were closed, and there were no weddings or funeral services for the dead in churches.

Contemporaries left several descriptions of the name day of Alexei Mikhailovich. On the day of the royal name day the feast of St. right Alexy, so the tsar’s morning began with a trip to the Alekseevsky nunnery, where he, with the courtiers and high clergy, attended the festive Liturgy. The outing was distinguished by the richness of outfits and the large number of participants. Alexey Mikhailovich rode in a tall black fox hat and a caftan decorated with precious stones.

Petitioners in great numbers handed over petitions to the king, which, “if he orders,” were accepted by the courtiers. Upon returning to the palace, the king treated his loved ones to a birthday cake. Since these were the days of Lent, the birthday table was held quite rarely. As a sign of special respect, Alexei Mikhailovich sometimes went with a birthday cake to the Patriarch. Boyars, courtiers and foreign guests were given birthday cakes in the dining room or in the entrance hall of the Terem Palace.

Part of the court ceremonial was the king's hunting trips - a colorful and mesmerizing event. Alexey Mikhailovich was an avid hunter, especially loved falconry, which he was ready to go on at any time. The tsar mastered the hunting craft to its subtleties, could guess the quality of a bird at a glance, and knew his merlin-keepers, falconers and hawk-keepers well. The Tsar's falcon yard in the village of Semenovskoye impressed even foreigners: the falconers alone numbered about a hundred people, the number of birds exceeded three thousand. There were falcons, gyrfalcons, cheligs, coccyxes, hawks and, apparently, even eagles. There were exotic red and white hawks in the krechatna. In addition to birds of prey, swans, geese, cranes, and herons lived in the yard. In Semenovsky, Alexey Mikhailovich located the largest of his menageries. There were many bears here, both tamed and wild, who were kept for fighting, baiting and other entertainment.

Another strong hobby of the king was farming. The place for his economic experiments was a property near Moscow in the village of Izmailovo, where Alexey Mikhailovich started exemplary fields and gardens and grew grapes, watermelons and even mulberry trees. In addition to field cultivation and gardening, the tsar established extensive gardening, livestock, poultry, and apiary yards in Izmailovo. The economic complex included various buildings, stone barns for storing crops, and seven flour mills. For constant water pressure, a system of 37 ponds was created. To top it all off, flax and glass factories operated, and the products of the latter were even sold.

Alexey Mikhailovich's hobbies were not limited to hunting and interest in farming. The tsar equally enjoyed reading, chess, and even rough and uncomplicated court fun. He loved to listen to church chants and wrote the texts of the chants himself. The total number of the royal choir, which was extremely difficult to get into, reached 180 people. There was also an organ at court.

In 1671, the widowed Alexei Mikhailovich married for the second time - to 19-year-old Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina, who was brought up in the house of the tsar's close boyar Artamon Matveev, where, it is believed, the tsar saw her. From this marriage two daughters and a son were born, two survived: the future Tsar Peter I and daughter Natalya. Under the influence of his second wife and boyar Matveev, the tsar allowed the establishment of a new product at court - the “comedy house”. This is how the Russian theater was born. The built theater stage was a semicircle with scenery, a curtain and an orchestra consisting of an organ, pipes, drums, flutes, violins and timpani. The performance usually lasted for several hours. The king sat on a dais, his seat was upholstered with red cloth. In the spirit of Asian customs, the young Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna watched the performance through the bars of the gallery, closed from prying eyes.

Thus, despite the dominance in the life of the second tsar from the House of Romanov of old Russian traditions and centuries-old ceremonial, he still lived at a time when Russian society was steadily moving closer to European culture. The question of what, how and to what extent should be borrowed from the West, and whether it should be borrowed at all, acquired the character of a national problem.

Under such circumstances, Alexei Mikhailovich’s reluctance to make a clear choice between antiquity and innovation, to make a sharp break with the former or categorically abandon the latter, was blamed on him by subsequent generations of historians and gave rise to accusations of passivity of character, lack of talent as a statesman, and inability to stand at the head of the reform movement.

On the other hand, the undeniable fact is that Tsar Alexei significantly contributed to the success of the reform movement, giving the first reformers the opportunity to feel free, to show their strength, and opened a wide path for their activities.

In the words of V. O. Klyuchevsky, Alexei Mikhailovich, with his often chaotic and inconsistent impulses towards something new and his ability to smooth out and settle everything, “tamed the timid Russian thought to influences coming from a foreign side” and created a transformative mood.

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“But, whatever you say, not a single king can marry for love,” she once sang Alla Pugacheva. The ironic words of this song are fully consistent with historical truth - European kings and Russian tsars very rarely had the opportunity to choose life partners to their liking.

A royal marriage is, first of all, a way to strengthen the ruling dynasty and the opportunity to create the necessary political alliances. Whether the spouses like each other does not matter at all.

Alexey Mikhailovich Quiet, second representative of the dynasty Romanovs on the Russian throne, he formally chose his first wife himself, but in reality the choice was made for him by influential associates.

In 1647, a review of the royal brides took place in Russia - a similar custom came to the country from Byzantium. Before appearing before the Tsar, 200 girls were pre-selected by the boyars and then examined by a doctor. The doctor had to give an opinion on whether the girl was capable of giving birth to a healthy heir.

Maria comes on as a substitute

From among the finalists, Alexey Mikhailovich chose Euphemia Vsevolozhskaya, daughter of the Kasimov landowner Raf Vsevolozhsky. However, when they began to prepare the girl for the wedding, she suddenly fainted. Boris Morozov immediately declared the girl sick, and she was immediately removed from the royal chambers.

According to historians, this whole scene played out not without the help of the royal educator, who needed to eliminate the unfavorable candidate. Instead of her, the daughter of the royal steward was presented to the king's eyes. Ilya Miloslavsky Maria.

The girl was five years older than the groom, but had a huge advantage in the eyes of Morozov - her father, like all the Miloslavskys, belonged to the Morozov court party.

After the Tsar's wedding, Morozov married the Tsarina's sister Anna Miloslavskaya, becoming not just Alexei Mikhailovich’s mentor, but also his relative.

Did Alexey love his wife? In any case, over time he got used to it, and it suited him quite well. It turned out that the young king was a very temperamental man, so the queen was almost constantly in an interesting position.

Over 21 years of marriage, she gave birth to Alexei Mikhailovich 13 children - 5 boys and 8 girls. True, boys born from Maria Miloslavskaya, were not distinguished by good health: Dmitry and Simeon died in early childhood, Alexei lived only until he was 16 years old, and Fyodor and Ivan, who nevertheless tried on the royal crown, also lived short lives full of illnesses.

Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya died on March 13, 1669 from puerperal fever, five days after the birth of her last child, daughter Evdokia. The girl did not survive, living for two days and dying three days before her mother.

Artamon's friend's pupil

Alexei Mikhailovich turned 40 years old in the year of the queen’s death. He was no longer young for that time, but not quite old either. Widowhood of monarchs in Rus' was not welcomed, so the question arose about a new marriage of the sovereign.

Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina, Russian queen. Photo: reproduction

Boris Morozov was no longer alive by that time, but the Miloslavsky court party was in force. The prospect of a new marriage worried the relatives of Alexei Mikhailovich’s first wife. Firstly, the Miloslavskys were aware of the state of health of the princes and were worried that the birth of a healthy boy from a new wife could lead to a revision of the entire order of succession to the throne. Secondly, along with the new queen, a competing court party could gain access to the king with the unpleasant prospect of the Miloslavskys losing warm and “bread” places in the structures of government.

During this period, the person closest to the king was replaced by Artamon Sergeevich Matveev, one of the first Russian “Westernizers”, who willingly adopted foreign innovations and introduced the Tsar to them.

Alexei Mikhailovich and Artamon Matveev could even be called friends. And after the death of his wife, the widowed king, seeking consolation, often came to his friend’s house.

One day at Matveev’s, the king drew attention to a young girl whose face seemed very pleasant. Alexey Mikhailovich reproached his friend: why, they say, have you until now hidden the fact that you have a beautiful daughter?

Matveev explained: Natasha is not a daughter, but a pupil. Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina was the daughter of a small nobleman Kirill Poluektovich Naryshkin and his wife, Anna Leopoldovna. Artamon Matveev, a distant relative of Natasha, took the girl from her parents to raise her. This practice was quite common in the 17th century.

Winning number 36

Historians of the times of the Russian Empire, describing the acquaintance of the tsar and Natalya Naryshkina, argued that after Alexei Mikhailovich began to make hints about matchmaking, the frightened boyar Matveev began to tearfully beg to free him and his pupil from such a high honor, fearing that envious people would ruin the girl’s life.

It's unlikely that this was actually true. With such modest behavior, Artamon Matveev would never have risen so high on the power ladder of the Russian state. It seems that Matveev understood all the risks, but also understood the enormous prospects of a possible marriage.

In 1670, a new bridal show was officially announced, to which Natalya Naryshkina also received an invitation. The Miloslavsky clan put up a whole scattering of candidates for the competition to replace the deceased queen, but Alexey Mikhailovich decisively rejected all of them.

After looking through 70 candidates, the tsar decisively settled on “candidate number 36” - she was Natalya Naryshkina.

The Miloslavskys, feeling that power was beginning to slip out of their hands, used the old trick, declaring that the girl was obviously sick and, if she did not die immediately, she would not be able to give birth to an heir.

However, as already mentioned, Morozov’s teacher was not alive, and no one could seriously influence Alexei Mikhailovich, forcing him to reconsider his decision.

On February 1, 1671, 19-year-old Natalya Naryshkina was married to Alexei Mikhailovich, who was almost 42 years old.

Artamon Matveev headed the Ambassadorial Prikaz and actually became the head of the Russian government.

Queen with a "Western" slant

Alexey Mikhailovich, who in his second marriage received the rare opportunity to choose the one he really wanted as his wife, doted on his young wife and spoiled her in every possible way.

Young Natalya, although she received a good education in the Matveevs’ house, was not distinguished by her outstanding statesmanship or the makings of a politician. Queen Natalya was kind and gentle in character, and at the same time she was excellent at conveying to her husband thoughts and ideas that were beneficial to the Naryshkin clan.

In 1672, Natalya Naryshkina gave birth to a boy, who was named Peter. To the great joy of the father and to the extreme irritation of the Miloslavskys, the baby was born strong and healthy.

After the birth of his son, Alexey Mikhailovich was ready to carry his wife in his arms. She was allowed something that queens had not been allowed to do before. Brought up in the house of Artamon Matveev and imbued with the “Western” spirit, Natalya Kirillovna attended all festive ceremonial services in cathedrals herself, and in the summer she rode in an open carriage, which previously was simply unacceptable, which caused embarrassment to many.

Natalya gave birth to her husband two more daughters - Natalya and Theodora. The second daughter, unfortunately, died at the age of three.

In an effort to please his wife, Alexei Mikhailovich ordered the construction of a “Comedy Chamber” in the Kremlin and opened a theater.

But the Kremlin chambers were a burden to Natalya. Together with her children, she preferred to spend time outside the city, in the royal villages of Izmailovo, Kolomenskoye, Vorobyovo and Preobrazhenskoye.

Fight for the throne

The couple could have had more children, but in early February 1676, Alexei Mikhailovich died before his 47th birthday.

The happy time of Queen Natalia is over - for the Miloslavskys she turned into the hated leader of a hostile clan. The eldest living son of Alexei Mikhailovich, Fyodor Alekseevich, ascended the throne, after which the dowager queen and her children were removed from the capital.

As already mentioned, Natalya felt much better and more confident outside the city than in Moscow, so she endured the years of Tsar Fedor’s reign relatively calmly.

But in the spring of 1682, Fedor died childless, and the dispute for the throne flared up with renewed vigor. There were two applicants - 15-year-old Ivan and 9-year-old Peter. Ivan had more rights, but his health indicated that his reign would not be long. Against this background, healthy and vigorous Peter seemed a more promising candidate, and the boyar Duma supported him.

The Miloslavskys decided to take extreme measures, raising a Streltsy revolt. The Naryshkins were accused of trying to poison Tsarevich Ivan.

The Streltsy burst into the Kremlin, where the killings of representatives of the Naryshkin clan began. Artamon Matveev, the queen’s two brothers Afanasy and Ivan, and a number of other noble boyars, as well as rifle chiefs who did not support the rebellion, died. The queen's elderly father was exiled to a monastery.

Both Natalya herself and little Peter experienced a terrible shock these days. It is possible that the outbursts of rage of the adult Pyotr Alekseevich were a consequence of the horror suffered at the age of 9.

Sometimes it seemed that the queen and her children would also become victims of the angry crowd, but they were still not touched. As a result, it was announced that both Ivan and Peter would ascend the throne, and Princess Sophia would become regent.

Mother of the first emperor

Natalya Naryshkina and her children again found themselves in exile, but this time the situation was tense. Everyone understood that this was not the end - upon reaching adulthood, Peter received all rights to the throne, and the Miloslavsky party was aware that the young tsar would not miss the opportunity to get even for his murdered relatives.

As you know, the struggle between Peter and Sophia ultimately ended in the victory of the former in 1689. The Naryshkins again gained access to state power, since the 17-year-old tsar was more interested in the amusing fleet on Lake Pleshcheyevo and the amusing army.

Natalya Kirillovna, despite the “Westernization” received in the house of Artamon Matveev, did not approve of Peter’s hobbies and did not understand. But at the same time, she loved her son very much and was sad when he went on long trips.

Pyotr Alekseevich was also strongly attached to his mother. Under her influence, his first marriage took place - marriage to Evdokia Lopukhina.

This loss seriously affected my son. Pyotr Alekseevich finally took state power into his own hands, making it clear to relatives and close boyars that from now on they would only be obedient executors of his will.

The era of Peter the Great began - a grandiose period in Russian history, which, of course, would never have happened without his mother.

Board of Directors of Alexey Mikhailovich (briefly)

Board of Directors of Alexey Mikhailovich (briefly)

It was not for nothing that the Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was given the nickname The Quietest. It was born of his demonstrative Christian humility in the behavior of the king himself. He was quiet and good-natured, trying to listen to each of his close associates. On the other hand, historians often call the years of this ruler’s reign a “rebellious age.” The decisions and actions that followed them often led to uprisings and riots, which were nevertheless very harshly suppressed.

It was under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich that the process of rapprochement between two cultures (Western European and Russian) began. By his order, the translation into Russian of various foreign books, scientific and historical works is organized.

However, the main result of the reign of this king was the complete transformation into an absolute estate-representative monarchy, as well as the legislative establishment of serfdom as the basis of social and economic life.

The main directions of Alexey Mikhailovich’s policy:

Chronology of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich:

Main dates of the reign:

· 1632-1634: Smolensk War. The country enters into a war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which holds the Smolensk lands and does not recognize Michael’s rights to the throne, considering Vladislav the legitimate king.

· 1634: Peace with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The country returned all the lands taken from it during the hostilities, and Prince Vladislav himself renounced his claims to power in Russia. It was never possible to return the Smolensk territory.

· 1645: the beginning of the Salt Riot, which swept across the country. After this riot, the duty on salt was abolished.

· 1649: new Council Code with new legislative principles. The sole absolute power of the king is established.

· 1653-1655: Patriarch Nikon carries out church reforms.

· 1654: Ukraine becomes part of Russia.

· 1654: War is declared on Poland.

· 1656: Russia declares war on Sweden, but the Russian army soon retreats. In Ukraine, Bogdan Khmelnitsky dies and a new unrest begins, requiring war with Poland. Russia makes peace in Cardissa.

· 1659: The city of Irkutsk is founded.

· 1662: Beginning of the Copper Riot over the issue of copper coins. The revolt worked - copper money was abolished.

· 1666-1667: Church Council takes place to carry out the trial of Nikon. The Patriarch himself considered church power higher than the power of the tsar.

· 1667: The Truce of Andrusovo was concluded with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

· 1670-1671: Revolt of the Cossacks and peasants led by Stepan Razin.

- the second Tsar of Moscow from the House of Romanov, the son of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich and his second wife Evdokia Lukyanovna (Streshneva). Alexei Mikhailovich was born in 1629 and from the age of three was raised under the guidance of boyar Boris Ivanovich Morozov, an intelligent and educated man for that time, slightly inclined towards “new” (Western) customs, but cunning and self-interested. Being with Tsarevich Alexei continuously for 13 years, Morozov acquired a very strong influence on his pet, who was distinguished by his complacency and affection.

On July 13, 1645, 16-year-old Alexei Mikhailovich inherited the throne of his father, and, as can be seen from the certificate Kotoshikhina, indirectly confirmed by some other indications (for example, Olearia), followed by the convening of the Zemsky Sobor, which sanctioned the accession of the new sovereign - a sign that, according to the views of people of the 17th century, the suffrage of the land, expressed in the act of electing Mikhail Romanov to the kingdom in 1613, did not cease with the death of the first tsar from the new Romanov dynasty. According to Kotoshikhin, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, like his father, was elected to the throne by people of all ranks of the Moscow state, however, without limiting (public or secret) his royal power due to a purely subjective reason - the personal character of the young tsar, who was reputed to be “much quiet” and who retained for himself not only in the mouths of his contemporaries, but also in history the nickname “the quietest.” Consequently, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich ruled more autocratically than his father. The habit and need to turn to the zemshchina for assistance, inherited from the Time of Troubles, weakened under it. Zemstvo councils, especially full ones, are still convened, but much less frequently, especially in the later years of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, and the command principle in state life little by little takes precedence over the zemstvo council. The king finally becomes the embodiment of the nation, the focus from which everything comes and to which everything returns. This development of the autocratic principle corresponds to the external environment of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich: a previously unheard-of development of court splendor and etiquette, which, however, did not eliminate the simple-minded, patriarchal treatment of the tsar with his entourage.

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Late 1670s

Not immediately, however, Alexei Mikhailovich could raise his power to an unattainable height: the first years of his reign are reminiscent of the events of Ivan the Terrible’s youth or the difficulties that Tsar Mikhail had to struggle with at first. After the death of his mother (August 18 of the same 1645), Alexei Mikhailovich completely submitted to the influence of Morozov, who no longer had rivals. The latter, in order to strengthen his position, managed to resolve the issue of the tsar’s marriage in the sense he desired, arranging his marriage with the daughter of his faithful assistant, Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya. This marriage took place on January 16, 1648, after the bride, originally chosen by Alexei Mikhailovich himself (Vsevolozhskaya), was eliminated under the pretext of epilepsy. Morozov himself married the sister of the new queen. The Tsar's father-in-law Miloslavsky and Morozov, taking advantage of their position, began to nominate their relatives and friends, who did not miss the opportunity to make money. While young Alexei Mikhailovich, relying in everything on his beloved and revered “second father,” did not delve into matters personally, discontent accumulated among the people: on the one hand, the lack of justice, extortion, the severity of taxes, the salt duty introduced in 1646 (cancelled at the beginning of 1648), in conjunction with crop failure and cattle mortality, and on the other hand, the ruler’s favor towards foreigners (closeness to Morozov and the influential position of the breeder Vinius) and foreign customs (permission to consume tobacco, which was made the subject of a state monopoly) - all this in May 1648 led to a bloody catastrophe - the “salt riot”. The direct appeal of the crowd on the street to Alexei Mikhailovich himself, to whom complaints did not reach in any other way due to the rude interference of Morozov’s minions, broke out in a riot that lasted several days, complicated by a strong fire, which, however, served to stop further unrest. Morozov managed to be saved from the rage of the crowd and hidden in the Kirillov Belozersky Monastery, but his accomplices paid even more: the Duma clerk Nazar the Chisty, killed by the rebels, and the hated heads of the Zemsky and Pushkar orders, Pleshcheev and Trakhaniot, who had to be sacrificed by handing them over for execution, and the first was even torn from the hands of the executioner and barbarously killed by the crowd itself. When the excitement subsided, Alexei Mikhailovich personally addressed the people on the appointed day and touched them with the sincerity of his promises so much that the main culprit of what happened, Morozov, for whom the tsar asked, could soon return to Moscow; but his reign ended forever.

Salt riot in Moscow 1648. Painting by E. Lissner, 1938

The Moscow revolt echoed in the same year with similar outbreaks in distant Solvychegodsk and Ustyug; in January 1649, new, suppressed attempts at indignation, again against Morozov and Miloslavsky, were discovered in Moscow itself. Much more serious were the riots that broke out in 1650 in Novgorod and Pskov, where at the beginning of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, grain was bought up to pay the Swedes part of the agreed amount for defectors from the regions that went to Sweden under the Stolbovsky Treaty of 1617. The rise in price of bread exported abroad gave rise to rumors about the betrayal of the boyars, who were in charge of everything without the knowledge of the tsar, who were friends with foreigners and, at the same time, plotting with them to starve out the Russian land. To pacify the riots, it was necessary to resort to exhortations, explanations and military force, especially regarding Pskov, where the unrest stubbornly continued for several months.

However, in the midst of these unrest and turmoil, the government of Alexei Mikhailovich managed to carry out legislative work of very significant importance - the codification of the Council Code of 1649. In accordance with the long-standing desire of Russian trading people, in 1649 the English company was deprived of its privileges, the reason for which, in addition to various abuses, was the execution of King Charles I: English merchants were henceforth allowed to trade only in Arkhangelsk and with the payment of the usual duties. The reaction against the beginning of rapprochement with foreigners and the assimilation of foreign customs was reflected in the renewal of the ban on the tobacco trade. Despite the efforts of the English government after the Stuart restoration, the previous benefits to the British were not renewed.

But the restriction of foreign trade within the state led to unforeseen consequences in the subsequent years of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, when the wars with Poland and Sweden required extreme strain on payment forces: the treasury had to collect the largest possible reserves of silver coins, and meanwhile a strong reduction in the supply of silver was discovered , previously supplied by English merchants in bullion and in specie, which was then re-coined. The government of Alexei Mikhailovich resorted from 1655 to issuing copper money, which was supposed to circulate on a par and at the same price with silver, which, however, soon turned out to be impossible, since, paying salaries in copper, the treasury demanded that fees and arrears be paid in silver, and excessive issues of copper coins and without that, making the exchange a fiction, led to a rapid depreciation of the exchange rate. Finally, the production of counterfeit money, which also developed on an enormous scale, completely undermined confidence in the new means of payment, and an extreme depreciation of copper followed and, consequently, an exorbitant rise in the price of all purchased items. In 1662, the financial crisis erupted in a new rebellion in Moscow (“Copper Riot”), from where a crowd rushed to the village of Kolomenskoye, Alexei Mikhailovich’s favorite summer residence, demanding the extradition of the boyars considered guilty of abuses and general disaster. This time the unrest was pacified by armed force, and the rebels suffered severe retribution. But the copper money, which had been in circulation for a whole year and had fallen in price by 15 times its normal value, was then destroyed.

Copper riot. Painting by E. Lissner, 1938

The state experienced an even more severe shock in 1670-71, when it had to endure a life-and-death struggle with the Cossack freemen, who found a leader in the person of Stenka Razin and carried away the masses of black people and the Volga foreign population. The government of Alexei Mikhailovich, however, turned out to be strong enough to overcome the aspirations hostile to it and to withstand the dangerous struggle of a social nature.

Stepan Razin. Painting by S. Kirillov, 1985–1988

Finally, the era of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov also marks a grave crisis in the church life of the Russian people, the beginning of a century-long bifurcation caused by Nikon’s “innovations”, but rooted in the very depths of the people’s worldview. The church schism openly expressed the Russian people's commitment to their own national principles. The mass of the Russian population began a desperate struggle to preserve their shrine, against the influx of new, Ukrainian and Greek influences, which were felt more and more as the end of the 17th century approached. The harsh repressive measures of Nikon, persecution and exile, which resulted in an extreme aggravation of religious passions, the exalted martyrdom of the “schismatics” mercilessly persecuted for their adherence to Russian customs, to which they responded with voluntary self-immolations or self-burials - this is the general picture of the situation created by the ambition of the patriarch, who started his reform most of all for the purpose of personal self-aggrandizement. Nikon hoped that the fame of the cleanser of the Russian Church from imaginary heresy would help him advance to the role of heads of the entire Orthodox world , to become higher than his other patriarchs and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich himself. Nikon's unheard-of power-hungry ambitions led to a sharp clash between him and the complacent king. The patriarch, who during one of the periods of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich had unlimited influence on the tsar and the entire course of state affairs, the second “great sovereign”, the closest (after the removal of Morozov) friend and adviser to the monarch, quarreled with him and left his throne. The unfortunate conflict ended with a cathedral court in 1666-1667, which deprived the patriarch of his holy orders and condemned him to imprisonment in a monastery. But the same council of 1666-1667 confirmed Nikon’s main cause and, having imposed an irrevocable anathema on his opponents, finally destroyed the possibility of reconciliation and declared a decisive war on the schism. It was accepted: for 8 years (1668 - 1676) the tsarist commanders had to besiege the Solovetsky Monastery, one of the most revered national shrines, which has now become a stronghold of national antiquity, take it by storm and hang the captured rebels.

Alexey Mikhailovich and Nikon at the tomb of St. Metropolitan Philip. Painting by A. Litovchenko

Simultaneously with all these difficult internal events of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, from 1654 until the very end of his reign, external wars did not stop, the impetus for which was given by events in Little Russia, where Bogdan Khmelnitsky raised the banner of religious-national struggle. Bound at first by the unfavorable Peace of Polyanovsky, concluded under his father, who in the early years maintained friendly relations with Poland (a plan for common actions against Crimea), Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov could not abandon the age-old traditions of Moscow, its national tasks. After some hesitation, he had to act as a decisive intercessor for the Orthodox Russian southwest and take Hetman Bogdan with all of Ukraine under his hand, which meant war with Poland. It was difficult to decide to take this step, but not to take advantage of the favorable opportunity to realize long-standing cherished aspirations, to push Little Russia away from itself with the risk that it would rush into the arms of Turkey, would mean renouncing its mission and committing political recklessness that is difficult to correct. The issue was resolved at the Zemstvo Council in 1653, after which the Ukrainians took the oath to Tsar Alexei at the Rada in Pereyaslavl (January 8, 1654), and Little Rus' officially came under the rule of the Moscow Tsar on conditions that ensured its autonomy. The war that immediately opened, in which Alexey Mikhailovich took a personal part, was marked by brilliant, hitherto unprecedented successes of Moscow weapons, the conquest of Smolensk, captured in the Time of Troubles and finally taken over the world in 1654, all of Belarus, even native Lithuania with its capital Vilna ( -). The Moscow sovereign adopted into his title the title of “All Great, Lesser and White Rus' autocrat,” as well as the Grand Duke of Lithuania.

Pereyaslav Rada 1654 Painting by M. Khmelko, 1951

The age-old dispute seemed close to being resolved; Poland, which had already incurred a victorious Swedish invasion, was on the verge of destruction, but it was the joint actions against it of two enemies, who were by no means allies, but rather interfered with each other and laid claim to the same prey (Lithuania), that served to save Rech Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The intervention of Austria, friendly and of the same faith to the Poles, interested in supporting Poland against an overly strengthened Sweden, managed, with the help of Allegretti’s embassy, ​​to persuade Alexei Mikhailovich to a truce with Poland in 1656, with the retention of what he had won and with the deceptive hope of the future election of himself to the Polish throne. Even more importantly, the Austrians and Poles managed to induce the tsar to war with Sweden, as a much more dangerous enemy. This new war with the Swedes, in which Alexei Mikhailovich also personally participated (from 1656), was very untimely until the dispute with Poland received a final resolution. But it was difficult to avoid it for the reasons stated above: believing that in the near future he would become the king of Poland, Alexei Mikhailovich even turned out to be personally interested in preserving it. Having started the war, Alexei Mikhailovich decided to try to implement another long-standing and no less important historical task of Russia - to break through to the Baltic Sea, but the attempt was unsuccessful and turned out to be premature. After initial successes (the capture of Dinaburg, Kokenhausen, Dorpat), they had to suffer complete failure during the siege of Riga, as well as Noteburg (Oreshka) and Kexholm (Korela). The Kardis Peace of 1661 was a confirmation of Stolbovsky, i.e. everything taken during Alexei Mikhailovich’s campaign was given back to the Swedes.

Such a concession was forced by the unrest that began in Little Russia after the death of Khmelnitsky (1657) and the renewed Polish war. The annexation of Little Russia was still far from being durable: displeasure and misunderstandings were not slow to arise between the “Muscovites” and the “Khokhols,” who were in many ways very different from each other and still not well acquainted with each other. The desire of the region, which voluntarily succumbed to Russia and Alexei Mikhailovich, to keep its administrative independence intact from it, met with the Moscow tendency towards the possible unification of management and all external forms of life. The independence granted to the hetman not only in the internal affairs of Ukraine, but also in international relations, was difficult to reconcile with the autocratic power of the Russian Tsar. The Cossack military aristocracy felt freer under the Polish order than under the Moscow one, and could not get along with the tsarist governors, about whom, however, the common people, who were more drawn to the same faith in tsarist Moscow than to the gentry Poland, had more than once reason to complain. Bogdan already had troubles with the government of Alexei Mikhailovich, could not get used to the new relationship, and was very dissatisfied with the end of the Polish and the start of the Swedish war. After his death, the struggle for the hetmanship opened, a long chain of intrigues and civil strife, vacillations from side to side, denunciations and accusations, in which it was difficult for the government not to get entangled. Vygovsky, who intercepted the hetmanship from the too young and incapable Yuri Khmelnitsky, a nobleman by origin and sympathies, secretly transferred himself to Poland on the most apparently tempting terms of the Gadyach Treaty (1658) and, with the help of the Crimean Tatars, inflicted a strong defeat on Prince Trubetskoy near Konotop (1659) . Vygovsky’s case nevertheless failed due to the lack of sympathy for him among the ordinary Cossack masses, but the Little Russian unrest did not end there.

Hetman Ivan Vygovsky

At the same time, the war resumed with Poland, which had managed to get rid of the Swedes and now broke recent promises to elect Alexei Mikhailovich as its king in the hope of Ukrainian unrest. There was no longer any talk about the election of Tsar Alexei to the Polish throne, which had previously been promised only as a political maneuver. After the first successes (Khovansky’s victory over Gonsevsky in the fall of 1659), the war with Poland went far less successfully for Russia than in the first stage (defeat of Khovansky by Charnetsky at Polonka, betrayal of Yuri Khmelnitsky, disaster at Chudnov, Sheremetev in Crimean captivity - 1660 g.; loss of Vilna, Grodno, Mogilev - 1661). The right bank of the Dnieper was almost lost: after the refusal of the hetmanship of Khmelnytsky, who became a monk, his successor was also Teterya, who had sworn allegiance to the Polish king. But on the left side, which remained behind Moscow, after some unrest, another hetman appeared, Bryukhovetsky: this was the beginning of the political bifurcation of Ukraine. In 1663 - 64 The Poles fought with success on the left side, but could not take Glukhov and retreated with heavy losses beyond the Desna. After long negotiations, both states, extremely tired of the war, finally concluded in 1667 the famous Truce of Andrusovo for 13 and a half years, which cut Little Russia in two. Alexey Mikhailovich received Smolensk and Seversk land lost by his father and acquired left-bank Ukraine. However, on the right bank, only Kyiv and its immediate surroundings remained behind Russia (at first, ceded by the Poles only temporarily, for two years, but then not given back by Russia).

The government of Alexei Mikhailovich could consider this outcome of the war successful in some sense, but it was far from meeting initial expectations (for example, regarding Lithuania). To a certain extent, satisfying the national pride of Moscow, the Andrusov Treaty greatly disappointed and irritated the Little Russian patriots, whose fatherland was divided and more than half returned under the hated dominion from which it had tried for so long and with such efforts to escape (Kiev region, Volyn, Podolia , Galicia, not to mention White Rus'). However, the Ukrainians themselves contributed to this with their constant betrayal of the Russians and throwing from side to side in the war. The Little Russian unrest did not stop, but even became more complicated after the Truce of Andrusovo. The hetman of right-bank Ukraine, Doroshenko, who did not want to submit to Poland, was ready to serve the government of Alexei Mikhailovich, but only under the condition of complete autonomy and the indispensable unification of all of Ukraine, decided, due to the impracticability of the last condition, to come under the hand of Turkey in order to achieve the unification of Little Russia under its authority. The danger that threatened both Moscow and Poland from Turkey prompted these former enemies to conclude an agreement on joint actions against the Turks at the end of 1667. This treaty was then renewed with King Michael Vishnevetsky in 1672, and the Sultan's invasion of Ukraine followed in the same year Mehmed IV, which was joined by the Crimean Khan and Doroshenko, the capture of Kamenets and the conclusion by the king of a humiliating peace with the Turks, which however did not stop the war. The troops of Alexei Mikhailovich and the left bank Cossacks in 1673 - 1674. successfully operated on the right side of the Dnieper, and a significant part of the latter again submitted to Moscow. In 1674, right-bank Ukraine experienced the horrors of Turkish-Tatar devastation for the second time, but the hordes of the Sultan again withdrew without uniting Little Russia.

On January 29, 1676, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich died. His first wife died already on March 2, 1669, after which Alexei, extremely attached to his new favorite, boyar Artamon Matveev, married a second time (January 22, 1671) to his distant relative Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina. Soon she gave birth to a son from Alexei Mikhailovich - the future Peter the Great. Already earlier, in the first years of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, European influences penetrated into Moscow under the auspices of Morozov. Then the annexation of Little Russia with its schools gave a new strong impetus towards the West. It resulted in the appearance and activity of Kyiv scientists in Moscow, the founding by Rtishchev of the St. Andrew's Monastery with a learned fraternity, the activity of Simeon of Polotsk, a tireless writer of poetry and prose, a preacher and mentor of the elder royal sons, in general, the transfer of Latin-Polish and Greco-Slavic scholasticism to new soil . Further, the favorite of Alexei Mikhailovich Ordin-Nashchokin, the former head of the embassy department, is an “imitator of foreign customs”, the founder of posts for foreign correspondence and the founder of handwritten chimes (the first Russian newspapers); and the clerk of the same order, Kotoshikhin, who fled abroad, the author of a famous essay on contemporary Russia, also seems to be an undoubted and ardent Westerner. In the era of Matveev’s power, cultural borrowings became even more noticeable: from 1672, foreign and then their own “comedians” appeared at the court of Alexei Mikhailovich, and the first theatrical “actions” began to take place. The tsar and the boyars acquired European carriages, new furniture, in other cases foreign books, friendship with foreigners, and knowledge of languages. Smoking tobacco is no longer persecuted as before. The seclusion of women comes to an end: the queen already travels in an open carriage, is present at theatrical performances, the daughters of Alexei Mikhailovich even study with Simeon of Polotsk.

The proximity of the era of decisive transformations is clearly felt in all these facts, as well as in the beginning of military reorganization in the appearance of regiments of the “foreign system”, in the decline of the moribund localism, in the attempt to organize a fleet (the shipyard in the village of Dednov, the ship “Eagle”, burned by Razin on the lower Volga; the idea of ​​purchasing the Courland harbors for Russian ships), in the beginning of the construction of factories, in an effort to break through to the sea in the west. The diplomacy of Alexei Mikhailovich little by little spreads to the whole of Europe, up to and including Spain, while in Siberia Russian rule had already reached the Great Ocean, and the establishment on the Amur led to the first acquaintance and then a clash with China.

Yenisei region, Baikal region and Transbaikalia during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich

The reign of Alexei Mikhailovich represents an era of transition from old Rus' to new Russia, a difficult era, when backwardness from Europe made itself felt at every step by failures in the war and sharp turmoil within the state. The government of Alexei Mikhailovich was looking for ways to satisfy the increasingly complex tasks of domestic and foreign policy, was already aware of its backwardness in all spheres of life and the need to take a new path, but did not yet dare to declare war on the old isolation and tried to get by with the help of palliatives. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was a typical man of his era, combining a strong attachment to the old tradition with a love for useful and pleasant innovations: still standing firmly on the old soil, being an example of ancient Russian piety and patriarchy, he is already raising one foot to the other shore. A man of a more lively and active temperament than his father (Alexei Mikhailovich’s personal participation in campaigns), inquisitive, friendly, welcoming and cheerful, at the same time a zealous pilgrim and faster, an exemplary family man and a model of complacency (albeit with strong temper at times) - Alexey Mikhailovich was not a man of strong character, was deprived of the qualities of a transformer, was capable of innovations that did not require drastic measures, but was not born to fight and break, like his son Peter I. His ability to become strongly attached to people (Morozov, Nikon, Matveev ) and his kindness could easily lead to evil, opening the way to all sorts of influences during his reign, creating all-powerful temporary workers and preparing in the future the struggle of parties, intrigues and disasters like the events of 1648.

Alexei Mikhailovich's favorite summer residence was the village of Kolomenskoye, where he built himself a palace; favorite pastime is falconry. Dying, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich left a large family: his second wife Natalya, three sisters, two sons (Fedor and Ivan) and six daughters (see Princess Sophia) from his first wife, son Peter (born May 30, 1672) and two daughters from his second wife. Two camps of his relatives through two different wives - the Miloslavskys and the Naryshkins - did not hesitate after his death to begin a struggle among themselves, rich in historical consequences.

Literature on the biography of Alexei Mikhailovich

S. M. Solovyov, “History of Russia since ancient times,” vol. X – XII;

N. I. Kostomarov, “Russian history in the biographies of its main figures,” vol. II, part 1: “Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich”;

V. O. Klyuchevsky, “Course of Russian History”, Part III;