Secret Lives of the Tsars (4 page)

Confronted with an armed mob screaming for blood, the Tsarina Natalya had no choice but to produce her stepson Ivan in order to prove he was still alive. It had to have been a terrifying ordeal, but the regent bravely appeared at the top of the Red Staircase with Peter and Ivan on either side of her, each holding her hand. Seeing this, the mutinous crowd was stunned into silence. Natalya then addressed them: “Here is the Lord Tsar Peter Alexeevich. And here is the Lord Tsarevitch Ivan Alexeevich. Thanks be to God, they are well and have not suffered at the hands of traitors. There are no traitors at the palace. You have been deceived.”

Some of the
streltsy
were unconvinced and climbed the staircase to have a closer look. “Are you really Ivan?” they asked the half-blind and befuddled boy, who answered affirmatively. “No one is mistreating me,” he said, “and I have no complaints against anyone.” With that, the fury of the soldiers seemed to subside. Yet it was merely a lull.

Artamon Matveev, the friend and minister of the late Tsar Alexis (and caretaker of his wife, Natalya, before her marriage), was also a respected former commander of the
streltsy
. He managed to further placate the soldiers by gently admonishing them for their misguided rebellion, urging their dispersal, and reminding them of their duty to the tsar. But almost as soon as Matveev finished speaking and retreated back inside the palace, Prince Michael Dolgoruky, a commander of the
streltsy
, appeared before the simmering regiments and fiercely upbraided them for their outrageous behavior. It was a spectacularly ill-timed rebuke, for which Dolgoruky paid dearly at the business end of the
streltsy
’s pikes. Having now tasted blood, the beast was unstoppable in its search for more.

With their fury reignited, the
streltsy
stormed into the palace
and spotted Matveev talking with the regent Natalya, who was still holding the hands of Ivan and Peter. The old man who had just managed to calm the agitated mob now fell victim to it. As the royal family looked on with horror, their confidant was ripped away from them, taken out front, and tossed over the stairway to be butchered the same way Dolgoruky had been. And the hunt continued. Rampaging through the palace, thrusting their pikes into any potential hiding place, the maddened
streltsy
searched for what appeared to be a preselected list of enemies.

Natalya and her son Peter were spared the
streltsy
’s violent retribution, though certainly not the terror that accompanied it. Other members of their family weren’t so fortunate. One of the regent’s brothers, Afanasy Naryshkin, was slaughtered after a court dwarf led a pack of soldiers to his hiding place behind the altar of the Church of the Resurrection. Another, the despised Ivan, was tortured for hours before he, too, was torn to pieces.

With the death of these hated Naryshkins, the bloodlust of the
streltsy
had at last been satiated. But not their preening sense of self-importance and instinct to survive. In addition to their demands for enormous pay arrears, as well as amnesty for the revolt, they insisted a triumphal column be erected in Red Square celebrating their recent deeds—with the names of their victims attached to it on bronze plates. The
streltsy
also sought to correct what they perceived to be a gross mishandling of the royal succession, when Tsarevitch Ivan was bypassed in favor of his younger half-brother Peter. Threatening further violence, they demanded that the throne be shared by both boys, with Ivan serving as the senior tsar.

Sophia, who had emerged as the royal family’s representative during the three days of unrest, heard the
streltsy
’s
demands—and acquiesced to them. Summoning the victorious regiments before her, she praised them for their loyalty and feted them with food and vodka. Then, after a show of reluctance, Sophia accepted their petition that she rule as regent while her younger siblings remained incapable due to the tender age of one and the multiple disabilities of the other. Thus, on June 25, 1682, Ivan V and Peter I were crowned together as co-tsars.

It was a strange tableau, unprecedented in European royal history: two sibling monarchs, in full ceremonial regalia, sharing the same throne. Seated listlessly on one side was the drooling half-wit Ivan V; on the other was his infinitely more robust half-brother Peter. “Nature develops herself with advantage and good fortune in his whole personality,” the Dutch ambassador wrote of the younger tsar in 1685. “His stature is great and his mien is fine; he grows visibly and advances with as much in intelligence and understanding as he gains the affection and love of all. He has such a strong preference for military pursuits that when he comes of age we may surely expect from him brave actions and heroic deeds.”

Missing from the scene, but controlling it nonetheless, was Sophia, sister of the tsars and the power behind them—literally—for at the back of Ivan and Peter’s two-seated throne, hidden from view, was a chair upon which big sister Sophia or one of her representatives sat, whispering instructions to the young co-monarchs through an opening cut out for the purpose. Sophia was now Russia’s de facto ruler; the young tsars merely props. “It is clear as day to many people that she is gifted with a high degree of talent for governing,” one foreign correspondent reported. It was also clear that Sophia
possessed a degree of ruthlessness that helped sustain her lofty position for seven years.

Within just three months of assuming power, at the age of twenty-five, Sophia demonstrated her might by taming the same force that had helped elevate her. The
streltsy
swaggered with increased confidence in the wake of their murderous revolt, as did the newly appointed director of their department, Prince Ivan Khovansky. So Sophia chopped off his head. The once-rabid
streltsy
was now left a writhing, leaderless mass that now sought only conciliation. “We have no evil intentions, nor shall we have,” they assured the tsars in a statement. Thus a delegation of
streltsy
was permitted to go to Trinity Monastery, where, amid much weeping, the members humbled themselves before the royal family and swore to obey a stringent set of regulations set out before them. It was a triumph for Sophia, punctuated not long after when the column recently erected in Red Square at the
streltsy
’s insistence was torn down.

Though Sophia was now Russia’s undisputed ruler, her strength and position depended entirely on her brothers—the co-tsars Ivan and Peter—remaining ineffectual puppets. Peter could one day rise to challenge her, as indeed he did, but for now his youth kept him at bay. Sophia was content to have him away from court while she attempted to build a power base around her ever pliable brother Ivan. “She guards Ivan so well that he never goes anywhere and no one visits him without her leave,” one observer reported.

Like Sophia, Ivan was a Miloslavsky. And she needed her brother to sire more Miloslavskys to ensure that the succession would be perpetuated by their side of the family before Peter grew old enough to have his own sons. Accordingly, Sophia arranged a marriage for her decidedly less than
sprightly sibling. The Austrian envoy, for one, was doubtful the marriage would be fruitful, writing, “In my humble opinion this seems a lost cause insofar as Tsar Ivan is very infirm and congenitally blind, with a growth of skin right over his eyes.” Yet despite his numerous handicaps, Ivan V did manage to father three girls—including the future Empress Anna—but this was not enough to permanently secure Sophia’s position. She needed to
reign
as well as rule.

The regent gradually began behaving as if she was in fact the third sovereign, adopting many of the monarchical trappings of the tsars themselves. Her face was stamped on coins. Portraits featured her in full royal regalia, which she often adorned herself with when meeting foreign visitors. In 1684, for example, after a Swedish delegation was received by the two enthroned tsars, Ivan and Peter, they were taken to another chamber to see Sophia, “who was seated on her royal throne which was studded with diamonds, wearing a crown adorned with pearls, a cloak of gold-threaded samite [a luxurious, heavy silk fabric] lined with sables, and next to the sables an edging of lace. And the sovereign lady was attended by ladies-in-waiting, two on each side of the throne … and by female dwarves wearing embroidered sashes and gold sable-lined cloaks.”

Sophia’s name was always included with her brothers’ on all official documents, but in 1686 she began sharing the title of
autocrat
with them. The following year, she actually tried to get herself formally crowned—an effort that never gathered much momentum as no one was prepared to elevate a woman quite that high. Big sister would have to content herself looking and behaving like the sovereign, and for seven years she did. But then, in a most unwelcome development, half-brother Peter began to assert himself.

While Sophia was busy ruling Russia, Peter was often away from court at his late father’s country estate, Preobrazhenskoe, happily pursuing his own interests—particularly war games, which became increasingly sophisticated, and, later, shipbuilding. The young tsar only came to Moscow, most reluctantly, when his presence was required at various ceremonials. Otherwise, he lived almost entirely free, indulged in his interests by an ambitious half-sister who was pleased to have him out of her way. It was an ideal state of affairs, but, inevitably, change was coming.

“Tsar Peter has already grown taller than all the gentlemen of the court,” the Dutch ambassador recorded in July 1688. “We are convinced that this young prince will soon undertake the duties of a sovereign. If those changes do take place, then we shall see affairs taking a new direction.”

Urged on by his adherents, including his mother, Natalya, Peter did gradually begin to take more of an active part in governing. Early in 1688, for example, it was reported that he joined Sophia and Ivan at a council meeting for the first time, and soon after he appointed some of his Naryshkin relatives to powerful posts. But it wasn’t until the following year that Peter finally took on his sister, at a time when her regime was particularly vulnerable.

Sophia’s chief minister (and reputed lover), Vasili Golitsyn, had led two disastrous military campaigns against the Crimean Tatars. But rather than acknowledge defeat, Sophia instead treated Golitsyn—“my lord and light and hope”—as a conquering hero. In the name of both tsars, Golitsyn was to be richly rewarded “for the glorious and splendid victory over the infidel.” Peter, however, was having none of it. For a week
he refused to sanction the gifts to Golitsyn and his officers, and only later reluctantly agreed under pressure.

“Everyone saw plainly and knew that the consent of the younger Tsar had not been extorted without the greatest difficulty,” wrote General Patrick Gordon, a Scottish soldier in the Russian service, “and that this merely made him more excited against the generalissimo [Golitsyn] and the most prominent members of the other party at court; for it was now seen that an open breach was imminent.”

On the night of August 7, 1689, Peter was roused from his sleep at his country retreat at Preobrazhenskoe and told that the
streltsy
were marching out from Moscow to kill him and his family. Wearing just his nightshirt, the terrified tsar leapt onto his horse, raced to a hidden copse, and waited for his clothes to be brought to him. Then he rode all night to the Trinity Monastery, where, it was reported, “he immediately threw himself upon a bed and fell a weeping bitterly relating the case to the abbot and desiring the protection and assistance of them.” The wounds left seven years earlier, when the ten-year-old boy watched in terror as those closest to him were torn to pieces, were still raw.

Several accounts from the period insist there really was a plot hatched in the Kremlin to kill the young tsar, although some historians have asserted that it was Peter’s own party—eager to force a confrontation with Sophia—that raised a false alarm. If so, it was an effective, though utterly heartless, ploy. The uncrowned regent now faced a formidable threat from an anointed tsar whose ire had been (perhaps artificially) aroused.

A week after arriving at the monastery, Peter sent a written summons to the colonels of all the
streltsy
regiments, ordering them to attend him there. Sophia tried to stop such a disastrous
exodus with what Patrick Gordon described as an “eloquent oration,” urging the
streltsy
to disobey and not “meddle themselves in the differences betwixt her and her brother.” When several voted to go anyway, she “took them up very sharply, telling them that if any went thither, she would cause [to] interrupt them, and strike off their heads.”

It was imperative to Sophia’s survival that she quickly resolve the conflict that had so suddenly erupted. She set off with several of her sisters to see Peter, but before they could reach the monastery, the party was intercepted by a messenger from the tsar with orders to proceed no farther. When Sophia defiantly announced that she would continue the journey, another messenger arrived to inform her that she would be dealt with “dishonorably” if she continued to disobey.