Secret Lives of the Tsars (2 page)

Having thus disposed of the False Dmitri, the unscrupulous Vasili Shuisky grabbed the crown for himself. His claim was shaky, however, and with discontent still roiling Russia, he occupied a very precarious throne. To bolster his regime, Vasili IV sought to discredit his predecessor by sowing incredible tales of the False Dmitri’s evil deeds (many of which have lingered over the centuries). He even went as far as to produce the fresh corpse of a young boy and declared it to be the real Dmitri, uncorrupted by decay because of his saintly qualities and the source of many miracles. The body was ceremoniously transferred from Uglich to Moscow and placed in the Kremlin’s Cathedral of the Archangel where it lay as a revered relic—until “St. Dmitri” started to stink and had to be hastily buried.

The cynical manufacture of the ersatz saint did little to placate the masses, or to discourage the appearance of a second False Dmitri in 1607. Like that of the first imposter, the identity of the second remains unknown. But such was the state of turmoil at the time that he gathered a significant following—his standing only enhanced when Marina Mniszech, widow of the first False Dmitri, “recognized” the new pretender as her miraculously saved husband and remarried him. (One Polish hetman wrote in his memoirs that about the only two
things False Dmitris I and II had in common were that “they were both human and usurpers.”)

Under threat from the second False Dmitri as he marched toward Moscow, Tsar Vasili ceded Russian territory to neighboring Sweden in exchange for a mercenary force. This, in turn, prompted Poland to seize the frontier town of Smolensk. “Russia’s neighbours were beginning moving in like jackals on a dying beast to dismember the Empire,” wrote historian Philip Longworth. “And still the chaotic civil war continued.”

In July 1610, Tsar Vasili was forcibly removed from the throne by a mob and publicly shorn as a monk in Red Square. Then, the following December, the second False Dmitri was murdered by one of his own men. Now Russia was without a tsar—or even a fake tsar (although
yet another
False Dmitri would briefly gain a following before being killed)—and the descent into chaos rapidly accelerated.

Lawlessness, disease, and famine overtook the land; villages and fields were destroyed by marauding brigands. And when Polish troops came to occupy the Kremlin, the very citadel of power and authority, it seemed Russia had reached its very nadir. Thus, by 1613, people were clamoring for a powerful central authority to restore order and to lead ruined Russia back to greatness. They wanted an autocrat.

To elect a new tsar, a great assembly of the land, or
zemsky sobor
, was convened with representatives from all strata of society (except the enslaved serfs). There would be no more ambitious boyars, or duplicitous pretenders allowed to occupy the sacred throne; only a candidate who represented legitimacy,
continuity, and true Orthodoxy would do. With these essential requirements, one name eventually emerged with near-total consensus: a teenager named Michael Romanov.

The frail, unassuming sixteen-year-old was an unlikely choice to lead a devastated realm into a new era of peace and prosperity—but he certainly had the right pedigree. His great-aunt was Ivan the Terrible’s beloved first wife, Anastasia, who, with her gentle piety, had stood in such striking contrast to her homicidal husband. And Anastasia’s brother, Nikita, Michael’s grandfather, was one of Ivan’s closest advisors, winning near-universal respect and adoration for his refusal to participate in his brother-in-law’s most vicious assaults on his own subjects.

Michael’s father, Feodor (who adopted the surname Romanov), had lost a power struggle with Boris Godunov after the death of his dim-witted first cousin Feodor I in 1598 and was exiled to the frozen outreaches of Siberia as a result. Although he and his wife Xenia managed to survive the brutal conditions there, both were forced to take religious vows and live apart—he as the unwilling monk renamed Philaret, she as the nun Martha. Feodor/Philaret’s fortunes improved in 1605 when the False Dmitri made him metropolitan (or bishop) of Rostov, but soon after he became a prisoner of the king of Poland while visiting the kingdom as part of a Russian delegation. There he rotted in a Polish cell as his son Michael became Russia’s new monarch.

The young man had not accepted the crown eagerly, having lived through all the tumult of “the troubles” since he was a five-year-old boy. It was then that his parents were dragged off to Siberia while he was sent to live in near poverty with an aunt. And later, during his father’s imprisonment in Poland,
Michael and his mother were reduced to living as nomads, wandering from monastery to church and existing on whatever succor might be provided. So, when the representatives of the
zemsky sobor
arrived at the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma to beg Michael to rule over them, the shy teenager at first refused. The throne was too unsteady, he insisted. Indeed, it was akin to asking a toddler to tame a wounded bear. Only when the delegation assured him that all the people wanted him as their sovereign, and that he would sit securely on the throne, did Michael at last relent. He was about to inherit a seemingly insurmountable mess.

The young tsar saw the vast destruction all around him as he traveled from Kostroma to Moscow to accept the crown, and his dim prospects seemed all the more apparent at his coronation when the elaborate ceremonial robes all but consumed his slight frame. Nevertheless, Michael did enjoy near universal support from a strife-weary people desperate for his success. And with the help of the
zemsky sobor
, which met regularly during the early part of his reign, the tsar was able to achieve peace with his two most threatening neighbors, Sweden and Poland. The price was steep in terms of land concessions and indemnities, but at least it allowed Russia to focus on its slow recovery.

While Michael’s early reign was accompanied by an unusual spirit of cooperation in the interests of the greater good, there were still elements of court intrigue and treachery that lingered after the Time of Troubles. This was particularly evident as the first Romanov tsar prepared to marry. His chosen bride, Maria Khlopova, was from an undistinguished aristocratic family, which left others of the boyar class seething with resentment over the bounty and privilege Maria’s obscure
clan would enjoy as a result of her exulted status. So they poisoned her. The powerful emetic placed in her food one evening caused violent convulsions, which were duly reported to the tsar as symptoms of an incurable disease, knowingly concealed by Maria and her family in their grasp for power. As a result of their “deception,” the Khlopovas were banished to Siberia.

Six years into Michael’s reign, his father was freed from his Polish imprisonment and returned home to become patriarch of Moscow and of all Russia. It was a joyful reunion, and the tsar was happy to cede the power Feodor/Philaret had long craved. Now the son was free to live as shadow sovereign, rarely seen except for the formal court ceremonials that required his presence. Compared to some of the weighty personalities of the later Romanov dynasty, like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, he was about as bland as a Russian tsar could possibly be. His only real purpose was to sire an heir.

To that end, Michael did eventually marry—twice. His first wife died within a year while giving birth to a stillborn child. The second was chosen in an oddly traditional way. All the realm’s eligible maidens—from the right families, of course, and with their virginity subject to verification—were assembled in Moscow for the tsar’s inspection. Out of this mass, Michael chose Eudoxia Streshneva, a squire’s daughter who, in 1629, bore the tsar an heir to carry on the fledgling dynasty.

Meanwhile, Feodor/Philaret continued to rule Russia until his death in 1633, after which the reign of Michael, the mildest of tsars, continued relatively uneventfully for another twelve years. He died in 1645—a colorless sovereign, certainly, but the founder of a royal line that was anything but.

Like his father, Alexis Romanov came to the throne at age sixteen. Unlike Michael, though, the second monarch of the dynasty presented the very image of power and majesty. A member of an English delegation later described the glory of Alexis seated on his throne:

“The Tsar like a sparkling sun darted forth most sumptuous rays, being most magnificently placed on his throne, with his scepter in his hand and having his crown on his head. His throne was of massy silver gilt, wrought curiously on top with several works and pyramids; and being seven or eight steps higher than the floor, it rendered the person of the Prince transcendentally majestic. His crown (which he wore upon a cap lined with black sables) was covered quite over with precious stones, terminating toward the top in the form of a pyramid with a golden cross at the spire. The scepter glittered also all over with jewels, his vest was set with the like from the top to the bottom and his collar was answerable to the same.”

Alexis was known in his time as the mildest and most pious of tsars, which was at least partially true. Certainly he was devout, attending numerous masses and devotions throughout the day. The tsar’s English physician reported, “On fast days he frequents midnight prayers, standing four, five, or six hours together, prostrating himself on the ground, sometimes a thousand times, and on great festivals, fifteen hundred.” But when it came to rebellion in his realm, the God-fearing Alexis became something akin to Ivan the Terrible.

Witness the gentle tsar’s grim retribution against Stenka Razin, who led a failed peasant revolt in 1670. The rebel’s skin was shredded by a Russian whip known as the knout, after which he was branded with hot irons and subjected to a
slow-drip water torture. Then Razin’s limbs were torn out of their sockets and shoved back into place. Finally, he was cut into quarters while still alive; his torso and entrails were tossed to the dogs. (The tsar’s heir, Peter the Great, would later embrace such cruel techniques and use the knout to lethal effect on his own son.)

Tsar Alexis married twice. His first wife, Maria Miloslavskaya, was picked from a parade of eligible brides, just as his own mother had been. (The tsar’s first choice, like that of his father, was similarly sabotaged by jealous nobles.) The tsarina was a good spouse by the standards of the time, devoting her life to prayer, embroidery, and bearing children—thirteen in all, including two future tsars. She kept herself secluded, as all royal women did, in a palace chamber known as the
terem
, and remained thoroughly conservative in dress and outlook until she died in 1669 trying to deliver her fourteenth child.

Alexis was disconsolate, but not for long, for in less than a year he found a buxom new bride, nearly a quarter century his junior. Her name was Natalya Naryshkina, the young ward of the tsar’s friend and chief advisor, Artamon Matveev. Having been raised in Matveev’s unusually westernized household, with his Scottish wife as an example, the dark-eyed Natalya was rare among women of the day in that she didn’t keep herself hidden from male guests, and even ventured to converse with them. The tsar was enchanted when he visited and sought her hand.

In an attempt to avoid the vicious scheming that had accompanied other royal marriages, Alexis decided to go through the motions of another presentation of eligible brides, with the prechosen Natalya among them. He hoped this charade would discourage the notion that Matveev, or Natalya’s family, were maneuvering for power. It didn’t work.
The relatives of the late tsarina Maria Miloslavskaya would stand to lose much of their privilege and prestige when the tsar remarried, and their resentment of Natalya and the Naryshkins would eventually turn to murderous hatred.

In the meantime, though, the vivacious new tsarina brought a refreshing element of modernity to the court. Some were scandalized by her boldness, such as one shocked observer who noted that she “opened the window of her carriage slightly.” Previously, royal women traveled virtually hidden from view by veils and heavy dark curtains. Natalya also encouraged her middle-aged husband’s natural curiosity, and spurred the introduction of some Western novelties, like the theater. Perhaps under the influence of his conservative first wife, Alexis had previously banned such entertainments—even going as far as to burn a pile of imported Western musical instruments in Red Square. Now he embraced them, although the resulting “music” was a little short of lilting. The tsar’s English physician described the cacophony as being like “a flight of screech owls, a nest of jackdaws, a pack of hungry wolves, seven hogs on a windy day, and as many cats with their corrivals.”

Yet despite the baby steps taken toward the West, Russia essentially remained in stagnant medieval mire, isolated and resistant to any variation of tradition. Perhaps this was most vividly apparent when Tsar Alexis, through the Orthodox patriarch, sought to implement some slight changes in church ritual to bring the Russian church more in harmony with its older Greek counterpart. It was decreed, for example, that three fingers rather than the traditional two should now be used by the faithful to cross themselves. But at a time when people sincerely believed that salvation absolutely depended
upon the precise performance of ritual, many chose to burn themselves alive rather than be forced to switch fingers.
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