Alexis of Russia

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Alexis Алексей Михайлович
Portrait of Alexis by an unknown Russian artist, c. 1670 – c. 1680
Tsar of all Russia
Reign	12 July 1645 – 29 January 1676
Coronation	28 September 1645
Predecessor	Michael
Successor	Feodor III
Born	(1629-03-29)29 March 1629 Moscow, Russia
Died	8 February 1676(1676-02-08) (aged 46) Moscow, Russia
Burial	Cathedral of the Archangel
Spouse	Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya ​ ​ (m. 1648; died 1669)​ Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina ​ ​ (m. 1671)​
Issue among others...	Tsarevich Dmitri Alexeevich Tsarevna Yevdokia Alekseevna Tsarevna Marfa Alekseyevna Tsarevich Alexei Alexeevich Sofia Alexeevna, Regent of Russia Tsarevna Ekaterina Alexeevna Tsarevna Maria Alexeevna Fyodor III Tsarevna Feodosia Alexeyevna Tsarevich Simeon Alexeyevich Ivan V Peter I Tsarevna Natalya Alexeevna
Names Alexei Mikhailovich
Romanov
Father	Michael of Russia
Mother	Eudoxia Streshneva
Religion	Russian Orthodox

Alexei Mikhailovich^[a] (Russian: Алексей Михайлович,^[b] IPA: [ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ]; 29 March [O.S. 19 March] 1629 – 8 February [O.S. 29 January] 1676), also known as Alexis,^[1] was Tsar of all Russia from 1645 until his death in 1676.^[2]

He was the first tsar to sign laws on his own authority and his council passed the Sobornoye Ulozheniye of 1649, which strengthened the bonds between autocracy and the lower nobility.^[3]

In religious matters, he sided closely with Patriarch Nikon during the schism in the Russian Orthodox Church which saw unpopular liturgical reforms.^[2][3]

While finding success in foreign affairs, his reign saw several wars with

Born in Moscow on 29 March [O.S. 19 March] 1629,^[2] the son of Tsar Michael and Eudoxia Streshneva,^[4] the sixteen-year-old Alexis acceded to the throne after his father's death on 12 July 1645. In August, the Tsar's mother died, and following a pilgrimage to Sergiyev Posad he was crowned on 28 September in the Dormition Cathedral.^[5] He was committed to the care of his tutor Boris Morozov, a shrewd boyar open to Western ideas.^[6]

Morozov pursued a peaceful foreign policy, securing a truce with the

Alexis empowered Morozov to conduct reforms in reducing social tensions, however his measure of tripling the tax burden (arrears for the two years preceding 1648 was demanded) saw heightened popular discontent.

The main direction of the reform was the mass creation of New Order Regiments: Reiters, Soldiers, Dragoons and Hussars.^[8] These regiments formed the backbone of the new army of Tsar Alexis. To fulfill the reform goals, a large number of European military specialists were hired for service. This became possible because of the end of the Thirty Years' War, which created a colossal surplus of military professionals in Europe.^[9]

Rebellions

Throughout his reign, Alexis faced rebellions across Russia. After resolving the 1648

By the 1660s, Alexis's wars with Poland and Sweden had put an increasing strain on the Russian economy and public finances. In response, Alexis's government had begun minting large numbers of copper coins in 1654 to increase government revenue but this led to a devaluation of the ruble and a severe financial crisis. As a result, angry Moscow residents revolted in the 1662 Copper Riot, which was put down violently.^[7]

In 1669, the

In 1651,

In 1653, the weakness and disorder of Poland, which had just emerged from the Khmelnytsky Uprising, encouraged Alexis to attempt to annex the old Rus' lands. On 1 October 1653 a national assembly met at Moscow to sanction the war and find the means of carrying it out, and in April 1654 the army was blessed by Nikon, who had been elected patriarch in 1652.^[6]

The

In the summer of 1655, a sudden invasion by

When Charles I of England was beheaded by the Parliamentarians under Oliver Cromwell in 1649, an outraged Alexis broke off diplomatic relations with England and accepted Royalist refugees in Moscow. He also banned all English merchants from his country (notably members of the Muscovy Company) and provided financial assistance to "the disconsolate widow of that glorious martyr, King Charles I."^[12]

Schism with the Old Believers

Across Russia, Old Believers were harshly persecuted. One such old believer was Avvakum "the leader of the old Believers". Alexis "had his wife and children buried alive in front of him; he himself was exiled".^[14]

Several old believers fled to the monastery of Solovki which had revolted in the Solovetsky Monastery uprising. The monastery would be besieged for seven years until 22 January 1676 which was a few days before Alexis's death on 8 February 1676.

Assessment

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition:

It is the crowning merit of the Tsar Alexei that he discovered so many great men (like Fyodor Rtishchev, Ordin, Matveyev, the best of Peter's precursors) and suitably employed them. He was not a man of superior strength of character, or he would never have submitted to the dictation of Nikon. But, on the other hand, he was naturally, if timorously, progressive, or he would never have encouraged the great reforming boyar Matveyev. His last years, notwithstanding the terrible rebellion of Stenka Razin, were deservedly tranquil.^[6]

Alexis's letters were first published by Pyotr Bartenev in 1856. They have earned him a place in the history of Russian literature, as assessed by D. S. Mirsky:

A few private letters and an instruction to his falconers is all we have of him. But it is sufficient for Sergey Platonov to proclaim him the most attractive of Russian monarchs. He acquired the moniker Tishayshy, which means "most quiet" or "most peaceful". He received this moniker through the ways he behaved—he would be kind and friendly, but the sounds created from instruments would provoke him. Certain aspects of Russian Orthodoxy, not its most purely spiritual, but its aesthetic and worldly aspects, found in him their most complete expression. The essence of Alexis's personality is a certain spiritual Epicureanism, manifested in an optimistic Christian faith, in a profound, but unfanatical, attachment to the traditions and ritual of the Church, in a desire to see everyone round him happy and at peace, and in a highly developed capacity to extract a quiet and mellow enjoyment from all things.^[15]

Personal description

In 1666, his doctor Samuel Collins described Alexis (then aged 37) as having "a sanguine complexion with light brown hair, his beard uncut. He is tall and fat of a majestical deportment, severe in his anger, bountiful, charitable".^[16]

Title

The full title of Alexis in 1667 was:^[17]

Obdoria, Kondia, and Ruler of all the Northern Countries, the Sovereign of the Iverian Lands, the Kartlian and Georgian Tsars and the Kabardian

Lands, the Cherkasy and Mountainous Princes and many other States and Lands of the East and West, and the North from Father and Grandfather, and Heir, and Sovereign, and Possessor.

Alexis's first marriage to Miloslavskaya was harmonious and felicitous. They had thirteen children (five sons and eight daughters) in twenty-one years of marriage, and she died only weeks after her thirteenth childbirth. Four sons survived her (Alexei, Fyodor, Semyon and Ivan), but within six months of her death two of these were dead, including Alexei, the 15-year-old heir to the throne. The couple's children were:

• Tsarevich Dmitri Alexeevich (1648–1649); crown prince; died in infancy
• Yevdokia Alekseevna
  (1650–1712)
• Tsarevna Marfa Alekseyevna (1652–1707)
• Tsarevich Alexei Alexeevich (1654–1670); crown prince; died unwed aged 15
• Tsarevna Anna Alexeevna (1655–1659); died in infancy
• Tsarevna Sofia Alexeevna (1657–1704), regent of Russia (1682–89) for her two younger brothers;^[18] never married
• Tsarevna Ekaterina Alexeevna (1658–1718)
• Tsarevna Maria Alexeevna (1660–1723)
• Tsar of Russia;^[19]
  died childless
• Tsarevna Feodosia Alexeyevna (1662–1713)
• Tsarevich Simeon Alexeyevich (1665–1669); died in infancy
• Ivan V (1666–1696); was co-ruler along with his younger half-brother Peter the Great;^[20] father of Empress Anna
• Tsarevna Yevdokia Alexeevna (1669–1669)

Alexis remarried on 1 February 1671 to Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina (1 September 1651 – 4 February 1694). She had been brought up in the house of Artamon Matveyev, whose wife was the Scottish-descended Mary Hamilton. Their children were:

• Tsar of Russia and first Emperor of the Russian Empire
• Tsarevna Natalya Alexeevna (1673–1716)
• Tsarevna Fyodora Alexeevna (1674–1678)

See also

• Family tree of Russian monarchs

Notes

References

Sources

See also: Bibliography of Russian history (1613–1917)

• Matthee, Rudolph P. (1999). The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600-1730. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 978-0521641319
  .
• Matthee, Rudi (2012). Persia in Crisis: Safavid Decline and the Fall of Isfahan. I.B.Tauris.
  ISBN 978-1845117450
  .
• Grigory Kotoshikhin's On Russia during the reign of Alexey Mikhailovich (1665) is a key source on domestic life of the tsar and his court.
• Yury Krizhanich
  's treatises from the 1660s are also very informative.
• Longworth, Philip (1984). Alexis, Tsar of All the Russias. Franklin Watts.
  ISBN 978-0531097700
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alexis I of Russia.

• Romanovs: The first film. Michael I, Alexis I – Historical reconstruction "The Romanovs". StarMedia. Babich-Design(Russia, 2013)

Regnal titles
Preceded by Michael	Tsar of Russia 1645–1676	Succeeded by Feodor III