As the Romanovs ruled. Mikhail Andreevich Romanov. Descendants of the Romanov family, who cannot pass on the royal family by inheritance, and controversial contenders for membership of the Imperial House

25.09.2019

Russian history is stable with a succession of ruling dynasties. In the entire history of the development of the state, only two dynasties have replaced the throne: and the Romanovs. And it is the Romanov dynasty that is connected with the largest historical events shaped the appearance modern state. The chronology of their presence in power goes back about 300 years.

Where did the Romanov family tree begin?

Russian history is bizarre. In theory, it is known quite well, but if you delve into ancient periods, it turns out to be quite contradictory and confusing. The history of the Romanov family can be considered one of the confirmations of this opinion. Let's start with the fact that even the exact data from where he came to Moscow, so that later on take the throne for three centuries, not known for certain:

According to representatives of the dynasty itself, the origins of the clan are hidden in Prussia, from where the founder of the clan arrived in Rus' in the 14th century.
Professional historians, including academician and archaeographer Stepan Borisovich Veselovsky, are confident that the origins royal family are located in Veliky Novgorod.

Chronicles and ancient manuscripts name the first reliable name of the founder of the dynasty. He became boyar Andrei Kobyla.

He belonged to the retinue of the Moscow prince Simeon the Proud (1317-1353). The boyar gave rise to the Koshkin surname, the first representative of which was Andrei Kobyla’s son Fyodor Koshka.

The zigzags of history led the Zakharyins during their reign to the very foundation of the royal throne. The legendary last representative of the Rurikovich family was the husband of Anastasia Zakharyina. Ivan the Terrible left no male heirs, and his wife’s nephews became real contenders for a place on the throne.

And the representative of the new one took it ruling family- Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. He was the grandson of Ivan the Terrible’s wife’s brother, Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina, and the son of her nephew Fyodor Nikitovich. Later, having converted to monasticism, he took the name Patriarch Filaret. By the way, it was he turned the Zakharyins' surname into the Romanovs, taking as his surname the name of his grandfather, boyar Roman Zakharyin.

Important! The most surprising thing is that, in fact, such a surname for the royal family did not officially exist at all until 1917. Representatives royal dynasty bore the names: Tsarevich Ivan Alekseevich, Grand Duke Nikolai Alexandrovich. The royal family had to adopt the surname officially after the decree of the Provisional Government in 1917.

Reasons for inviting the Romanovs to the throne

By the time of the death of Ivan Rurikovich the Terrible, the Rurikovich family had ceased. At that moment, Russia was once again going through a difficult period, which was called the “Time of Troubles.” During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the state went through a series of lost wars, mass executions, . This weakened the state, and famine reigned in many territories. The population was exhausted by the ever-increasing tax burden.

During this period, serfdom of peasants began. Foreign representatives began to lay claim to the empty throne of the weakened country. Among them is the English king James the First.

Against this background, the Great Russian Cossacks decided to intervene in the distribution of space on the throne of the sovereign. Patriarch Filaret, with his help, elevated his 16-year-old son Mikhail to the throne.

This event marked the coming to power of the dynasty. To this day, most historians are confident that Filaret was the real ruler of the state. Moreover, Mikhail was in poor health and died at the age of only 49 years. But the Romanov family had already ascended to the throne. It is not difficult to trace how many years the legendary dynasty then ruled.

When the first representative of the dynasty died, he was replaced by Alexey Mikhailovich Romanov, who bore the nickname “The Quietest.” In the first years of his reign, the tsar was strongly influenced by the boyar Boris Morozov. Moreover, as a result of intrigues, the head of the Russian state became the husband of Boris Morozov’s protege, Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya. Boyarin Morozov became a husband sister Empress Anna Ilyinichna.

Then he began to exert pressure on the sovereign significant influence Patriarch Nikon. The head of the church government became so influential that after the convening of the Church Council he would propose to the tsar to share power. The years of Nikon's rise ended with the gathering of the Great Moscow Cathedral in 1666. It was after the year-long Council and the removal of the disgraced patriarch that Orthodox Church divided, the Old Believers emerged from it.

Important! Despite the nickname, the years of Alexei Mikhailovich’s reign can hardly be called calm. In addition to the church schism, it was during the reign of this representative of the clan that the military reform, the result of which was the creation of foreign regiments in Russia. After the Zemsky Sobor, the Zaporozhye centurion Bogdan Khmelnitsky transferred to Russian citizenship, and Stepan Razin rebelled.

A significant moment in the reign of the Quiet Tsar was the implementation of the Monetary Reform, which gave rise to the circulation of the ruble in Rus'. He's the one became the initiator of the development of the Council Code, which became the code of laws of the country. Historians recognize that an enlightened and intelligent sovereign, prone to contemplation and reflection, was able to lead the state out of a severe economic crisis. Historians rarely give such reviews about the Romanov family.

Alexei Mikhailovich was replaced on the throne after his death by his brother Fyodor II Alekseevich, whose reign was at 1676-1682. Apart from poor health, this representative of the Romanov family was not remembered for major deeds. Instead, various boyar families tried to rule the state, with varying degrees of success. Fyodor Alekseevich did not leave a decree on succession to the throne after his death. The throne passed to the first oldest son of Alexei Mikhailovich, Ivan I, whose sister, Princess Sophia, became regent, and his younger brother became co-ruler.

The transition from king to sovereign

During these years of the reign of the Romanov family, the royal dynasty of the Russian state was finally formed.

Ivan Alekseevich was another of its representatives, who was distinguished by poor health. He died when he was only 30 years old. The throne passed to his co-ruler and brother, whom history today calls Peter the Great.

Peter Alekseevich assumed the rank of sovereign. At the same time, he became the last official Tsar of Rus'.

This is where the rulers of the Romanov Tsars ended. They were replaced by a dynasty of sovereigns.

Dynasty of the Romanov sovereigns

The tangled history of the ruling house did not end with the change of name. On the contrary, it has entered a new stage. Indeed, in fact, Emperor Peter the Great became the only representative of the clan in this status. His male line on him ceased. Pyotr Alekseevich was married twice. The first wife of the ruler was Evdokia Lopukhina. The same one who gave birth to the head of state’s son Alexei, who was killed by his father. Alexei had a son, Peter II. He even managed to visit the throne in 1727. The boy was only 11 years old. Three years later, the last representative of the family male line died of smallpox.

This would be the end of the clan's reign. But at a new stage in history, women began to rule the state. Moreover, to manage successfully, giving rise to the real Golden Age of state development. The first of them, but far from the most glorious, was the daughter of Ivan V Alekseevich, Anna Ioanovna, who was quickly elevated to the throne.

These years became the period of reign of the empress's favorite E.I. Birona. According to the will, the grandson of Ivan V, Ivan VI, ascended to the throne after the death of Anna Ioanovna, but he short reign ended tragically. The infant sovereign was quickly overthrown and spent most of his short life in prison. Historical tradition attributes his death to Catherine I.

The first of the beautiful rulers was the second wife of Peter the Great, Martha Skavronskaya, who took the name Catherine I during her reign. The legendary rulers of Russia in the 18th century also included Catherine’s daughter Elizaveta Petrovna and the wife of her grandson, who at birth bore the name Sophia Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst. For just a year, the grandson of Catherine I from her daughter Anna, Peter III, “wedged itself” into the list of beautiful rulers. The dates of his reign are 1761 - 1762.

Quiet 19th century for the Romanov dynasty

The period of female rule, which became an enlightened century in the development of the country, ended with accession to the throne in 1796, the son of Catherine II, Paul I. His reign was short.

As a result of a palace coup, the unloved grandson of Catherine the Great was overthrown. There is a legend in history that he could have been directly involved in his death native son Alexander. The same one who became Alexander I after the murder of his father in his sleep in his own bed.

Then, with various upheavals, but not as global as in past centuries, rulers with the names Nicholas and Alexander replaced the throne. Under Nicholas the First, the Decembrist uprising was suppressed in 1825. Under Alexander the Second, serfdom was abolished. The death of this representative of the Romanov family came as a shock to the country. He died from his wounds after an assassination attempt by Narodnaya Volya member Ignatius Grinevitsky, who threw a bomb at the ruler’s feet.

At the same time, the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th outwardly seemed quite calm for the ruling Romanov dynasty. Until the pattern of generations of rulers was stopped during two revolutions at once in 1917. After the coup of 1917, the history of the dynasty ceased. Nicholas II, who ruled during the coup, officially abdicated the throne in favor of his brother Mikhail. This last of the Romanovs also renounced his rights to rule. The history of this royal dynasty of Europe came to a tragic end. Nikolay Romanov was executed along with his entire family. His brother, Mikhail Romanov, abdication did not help. He was killed in the forest near Perm on the night of June 12-13, 1918.

Brief chronology of the reign of Russian dynasties

Chart of government of the House of Romanov

Conclusion

They say that upon the accession of the first Romanov to the throne, the royal family was cursed, and had to begin with Mikhail and end with Mikhail. In theory, at the moment, representatives of a dynasty coming to power is possible. Many distant relatives of the dynasty that has ruled for three centuries live on this planet in different countries, but their rights are for the most part rather dubious.

The family belongs to the ancient families of the Moscow boyars. The first ancestor of this family known to us from the chronicles is Andrei Ivanovich, who had the nickname Mare, in 1347 he was in the service of the Great Prince of Vladimir and Moscow, Semyon Ivanovich Proud.

Semyon Proud was the eldest son and heir and continued the policies of his father. At that time, the Moscow principality strengthened significantly, and Moscow began to claim leadership among other lands of North-Eastern Rus'. The Moscow princes not only established good relations with the Golden Horde, but also began to play a more important role in all-Russian affairs. Among the Russian princes, Semyon was considered the eldest, and few of them dared to contradict him. His character was clearly evident in his family life. After the death of his first wife, the daughter of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas, Semyon remarried.

His chosen one was the Smolensk princess Eupraxia, but a year after the wedding the Moscow prince for some reason sent her back to her father, Prince Fyodor Svyatoslavich. Then Semyon decided on a third marriage, this time turning to Moscow's old rivals - the Tver princes. In 1347, an embassy went to Tver to woo Princess Maria, the daughter of Tver Prince Alexander Mikhailovich.

At one time, Alexander Mikhailovich died tragically in the Horde, falling victim to the intrigues of Ivan Kalita, Semyon’s father. And now the children of irreconcilable enemies were united by marriage. The embassy to Tver was headed by two Moscow boyars - Andrei Kobyla and Alexei Bosovolkov. This is how the ancestor of Tsar Mikhail Romanov appeared on the historical stage for the first time.

The embassy was successful. But Metropolitan Theognost unexpectedly intervened and refused to bless this marriage. Moreover, he ordered the closure of Moscow churches to prevent weddings. This position was apparently caused by Semyon’s previous divorce. But the prince sent generous gifts to the Patriarch of Constantinople, to whom the Moscow Metropolitan was subordinate, and received permission for the marriage. In 1353, Semyon the Proud died from the plague that raged in Rus'. Nothing more is known about Andrei Kobyl, but his descendants continued to serve the Moscow princes.

According to genealogists, the offspring of Andrei Kobyla was extensive. He left five sons, who became the founders of many famous noble families. The sons' names were: Semyon Stallion (didn't he get his name in honor of Semyon the Proud?), Alexander Yolka, Vasily Ivantey (or Vantey), Gavrila Gavsha (Gavsha is the same as Gabriel, only in a diminutive form; such endings of names in "-sha" were extended to Novgorod land) and Fyodor Koshka. In addition, Andrei had a younger brother Fyodor Shevlyaga, from whom came the noble families of Motovilovs, Trusovs, Vorobins and Grabezhevs. The nicknames Mare, Stallion and Shevlyaga (“nag”) are close in meaning to each other, which is not surprising, since several noble families have a similar tradition - representatives of the same family could bear nicknames from the same semantic circle. However, what was the origin of the brothers Andrei and Fyodor Ivanovich themselves?

The genealogies of the 16th – early 17th centuries do not report anything about this. But already in the first half of the 17th century, when they gained a foothold on the Russian throne, a legend about their ancestors appeared. Many noble families traced themselves to people from other countries and lands. This became a kind of tradition of the ancient Russian nobility, which, thus, almost entirely had “foreign” origin. Moreover, the most popular were two “directions” from where the noble ancestors supposedly “exited”: either “from the Germans” or “from the Horde”. “Germans” meant not only the inhabitants of Germany, but all Europeans in general. Therefore, in the legends about the “excursions” of the founders of the clans, one can find the following clarifications: “From German, from Prus” or “From German, from Svei (i.e., Swedish) land.”

All these legends were similar to each other. Usually, a certain “honest man” with a strange name, unusual for Russian ears, came, often with a retinue, to serve one of the Grand Dukes. Here he was baptized, and his descendants became part of the Russian elite. Then, from their nicknames, noble surnames arose, and since many clans traced themselves back to one ancestor, it is quite understandable that various options the same legends. The reasons for creating these stories are quite clear. By inventing foreign ancestors for themselves, Russian aristocrats “justified” their leadership position in society.

They made their families more ancient, constructed a high origin, because many of the ancestors were considered descendants of foreign princes and rulers, thereby emphasizing their exclusivity. Of course, this does not mean that absolutely all the legends were fictitious; probably, the most ancient of them could have a real basis (for example, the ancestor of the Pushkins, Radsha, judging by the end of the name, was related to Novgorod and lived in the 12th century, according to some researchers, could actually be of foreign origin). But highlight these historical facts behind the layers of conjectures and conjectures, it’s not quite simple. And besides, it can be difficult to unambiguously confirm or refute such a story due to the lack of sources. Towards the end of the 17th century, and especially in the 18th century, such legends acquired an increasingly fabulous character, turning into pure fantasies of authors poorly familiar with history. The Romanovs did not escape this either.

The creation of the family legend was “took upon themselves” by representatives of those families who had common ancestors with the Romanovs: the Sheremetevs, the already mentioned Trusovs, the Kolychevs. When the official genealogical book of the Muscovite kingdom was created in the 1680s, which later received the name “Velvet” because of its binding, noble families submitted their genealogies to the Rank Order, which was in charge of this matter. The Sheremetevs also presented the painting of their ancestors, and it turned out that, according to their information, the Russian boyar Andrei Ivanovich Kobyla was in fact a prince who came from Prussia.

The “Prussian” origin of the ancestor was very common at that time among ancient families. It has been suggested that this happened because of the “Prussian Street” at one end of ancient Novgorod. Along this street there was a road to Pskov, the so-called. "The Prussian Way". After the annexation of Novgorod to the Moscow state, many noble families of this city were resettled to the Moscow volosts, and vice versa. Thus, thanks to a misunderstood name, “Prussian” immigrants joined the Moscow nobility. But in the case of Andrei Kobyla, one can rather see the influence of another legend, very famous at that time.

At the turn of the 15th–16th centuries, when a unified Moscow state was formed and the Moscow princes began to lay claim to the royal (cesar, i.e., imperial) title, the well-known idea “Moscow is the Third Rome” appeared. Moscow became the heir to the great Orthodox tradition The Second Rome - Constantinople, and through it the imperial power of the First Rome - the Rome of the emperors Augustus and Constantine the Great. The continuity of power was ensured by the marriage of Ivan III with Sophia Palaeologus, and the legend “about the gifts of Monomakh” - the Byzantine emperor, who transferred the royal crown and other regalia of royal power to Rus' to his grandson Vladimir Monomakh, and acceptance as state symbol imperial double-headed eagle. Visible proof of the greatness of the new kingdom was built under Ivan III and Vasily III magnificent ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin. This idea was also maintained at the genealogical level. It was at this time that the legend about the origin of the then ruling Rurik dynasty arose. Rurik’s foreign, Varangian origin could not fit into the new ideology, and the founder of the princely dynasty became a 14th-generation descendant of a certain Prus, a relative of Emperor Augustus himself. Prus was supposedly the ruler of ancient Prussia, once inhabited by Slavs, and his descendants became the rulers of Rus'. And just as the Rurikovichs turned out to be the successors of the Prussian kings, and through them the Roman emperors, so the descendants of Andrei Kobyla created a “Prussian” legend for themselves.
Subsequently, the legend acquired new details. In a more complete form, it was drawn up by the steward Stepan Andreevich Kolychev, who under Peter I became the first Russian king of arms. In 1722, he headed the Heraldry Office under the Senate, a special institution that dealt with state heraldry and was in charge of accounting and class affairs of the nobility. Now the origins of Andrei Kobyla have “acquired” new features.

In 373 (or even 305) AD (at that time the Roman Empire still existed), the Prussian king Pruteno gave the kingdom to his brother Weidewut, and he himself became the high priest of his pagan tribe in the city of Romanov. This city seemed to be located on the banks of the Dubissa and Nevyazha rivers, at the confluence of which a sacred, evergreen oak tree of extraordinary height and thickness grew. Before his death, Veidevuth divided his kingdom among his twelve sons. The fourth son was Nedron, whose descendants owned the Samogit lands (part of Lithuania). In the ninth generation, a descendant of Nedron was Divon. He lived already in the 13th century and constantly defended his lands from the knights of the sword. Finally, in 1280, his sons, Russingen and Glanda Kambila, were baptized, and in 1283 Glanda (Glandal or Glandus) Kambila came to Rus' to serve the Moscow prince Daniil Alexandrovich. Here he was baptized and began to be called Mare. According to other versions, Glanda was baptized with the name Ivan in 1287, and Andrei Kobyla was his son.

The artificiality of this story is obvious. Everything about it is fantastic, and no matter how hard some historians tried to verify its authenticity, their attempts were unsuccessful. Two characteristic motifs are striking. Firstly, the 12 sons of Veydevut are very reminiscent of the 12 sons of Prince Vladimir, the baptist of Rus', and the fourth son Nedron is the fourth son of Vladimir, Yaroslav the Wise. Secondly, the author’s desire to connect the beginning of the Romanov family in Rus' with the first Moscow princes is obvious. After all, Daniil Alexandrovich was not only the founder of the Moscow principality, but also the founder of the Moscow dynasty, whose successors were the Romanovs.
Nevertheless, the “Prussian” legend became very popular and was officially recorded in the “General Arms Book of the Noble Families of the All-Russian Empire,” created on the initiative of Paul I, who decided to streamline all Russian noble heraldry. The noble family coats of arms were entered into the armorial book, which were approved by the emperor, and along with the image and description of the coat of arms, a certificate of the origin of the family was given. The descendants of Mare - the Sheremetevs, Konovnitsyns, Neplyuevs, Yakovlevs and others, noting their “Prussian” origin, introduced the image of a “sacred” oak as one of the figures in their family coats of arms, and borrowed the central image itself (two crosses above which a crown is placed) from the heraldry of the city of Danzig (Gdansk).

Of course, as we develop historical science researchers were not only critical of the legend about the origin of the Mare, but also tried to discover any real historical basis in it. The most extensive study of the “Prussian” roots of the Romanovs was undertaken by the outstanding pre-revolutionary historian V.K. Trutovsky, who saw some correspondence between the information in the legend about Glanda Kambile and the real situation in Prussia lands XIII V. Historians did not abandon such attempts in the future. But if the legend about Glanda Kambila could convey to us some grains of historical data, then its “external” design practically reduces this significance to nothing. It may be of interest from the point of view of the social consciousness of the Russian nobility of the 17th–18th centuries, but not in the matter of clarifying the true origin of the reigning family. Such a brilliant expert on Russian genealogy as A.A. Zimin wrote that Andrei Kobyla “probably came from native Moscow (and Pereslavl) landowners.” In any case, be that as it may, it is Andrei Ivanovich who remains the first reliable ancestor of the Romanov dynasty.
Let's return to the real pedigree of his descendants. The eldest son of Mare, Semyon Stallion, became the founder of the nobles Lodygins, Konovnitsyns, Kokorevs, Obraztsovs, Gorbunovs. Of these, the Lodygins and Konovnitsyns left the greatest mark on Russian history. The Lodygins come from the son of Semyon the Stallion - Grigory Lodyga (“lodyga” is an ancient Russian word meaning foot, stand, ankle). The famous engineer Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin (1847–1923), who in 1872 invented the electric incandescent lamp in Russia, belonged to this family.

The Konovnitsyns descend from the grandson of Grigory Lodyga - Ivan Semyonovich Konovnitsa. Among them, General Pyotr Petrovich Konovnitsyn (1764–1822), the hero of many wars waged by Russia at the end of the 18th century, became famous. early XIX century, including the Patriotic War of 1812. He distinguished himself in the battles for Smolensk, Maloyaroslavets, in the “Battle of the Nations” near Leipzig, and in the Battle of Borodino he commanded the Second Army after Prince P.I. was wounded. Bagration. In 1815–1819, Konovnitsyn was Minister of War, and in 1819, together with his descendants, he was elevated to the dignity of count of the Russian Empire.
From the second son of Andrei Kobyla, Alexander Yolka, came the families of the Kolychevs, Sukhovo-Kobylins, Sterbeevs, Khludenevs, Neplyuevs. Alexander's eldest son Fyodor Kolych (from the word "kolcha", i.e. lame) became the founder of the Kolychevs. Of the representatives of this genus, the most famous is St. Philip (in the world Fyodor Stepanovich Kolychev, 1507–1569). In 1566 he became Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus'. Angrily denouncing the atrocities of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, Philip was deposed in 1568 and then strangled by one of the leaders of the guardsmen, Malyuta Skuratov.

The Sukhovo-Kobylins descend from another son of Alexander Yolka, Ivan Sukhoi (i.e., “thin”). The most prominent representative of this family was the playwright Alexander Vasilyevich Sukhovo-Kobylin (1817–1903), author of the trilogy “Krechinsky’s Wedding”, “The Affair” and “The Death of Tarelkin”. In 1902 he was elected honorary academician Imperial Academy sciences in the category of fine literature. His sister, Sofya Vasilyevna (1825–1867), an artist who received a major prize in 1854 for a landscape from life gold medal Imperial Academy of Arts (which is depicted in the painting of the same name from the collection Tretyakov Gallery), also painted portraits and genre compositions. Another sister, Elizaveta Vasilievna (1815–1892), married to Countess Salias de Tournemire, gained fame as a writer under the pseudonym Evgenia Tour. Her son - Count Evgeniy Andreevich Salias de Tournemire (1840–1908) - was also a famous writer and historical novelist in his time (he was called the Russian Alexandre Dumas). His sister, Maria Andreevna (1841–1906), was the wife of Field Marshal Joseph Vladimirovich Gurko (1828–1901), and his granddaughter, Princess Evdokia (Eda) Yuryevna Urusova (1908–1996), was an outstanding theater and film actress of the Soviet era.

The youngest son of Alexander Yolka - Fyodor Dyutka (Dyudka, Dudka or even Detko) became the founder of the Neplyuev family. Among the Neplyuevs, Ivan Ivanovich Neplyuev (1693–1773), a diplomat who was a Russian resident in Turkey (1721–1734), and then the governor of the Orenburg region, and from 1760 a senator and conference minister, stands out.
Vasily Ivantey's descendants ended with his son Gregory, who died childless.

From the fourth son of Kobyla, Gavrila Gavsha, came the Boborykins. This family produced the talented writer Pyotr Dmitrievich Boborykin (1836–1921), the author of the novels “Dealers”, “China Town” and, among others, by the way, “Vasily Terkin” (except for the name, this literary character has nothing in common with the hero A. T. Tvardovsky).
Finally, the fifth son of Andrei Kobyla, Fyodor Koshka, was the direct ancestor of the Romanovs. He served Dmitry Donskoy and is repeatedly mentioned in chronicles among his entourage. Perhaps it was he who was entrusted by the prince to defend Moscow during famous war with Mamai, which ended with the victory of the Russians on the Kulikovo Field. Before his death, Koshka took monastic vows and was named Theodoret. His family became related to the Moscow and Tver princely dynasties - branches of the Rurikovich family. Thus, Fyodor’s daughter Anna was married to the Mikulin prince Fyodor Mikhailovich in 1391. The Mikulin inheritance was part of the Tver land, and Fyodor Mikhailovich himself was the youngest son of the Tver prince Mikhail Alexandrovich. Mikhail Alexandrovich was at enmity with Dmitry Donskoy for a long time. Three times he received a label from the Horde for the Great Reign of Vladimir, but each time, due to Dmitry’s opposition, he could not become the main Russian prince. However, gradually the strife between the Moscow and Tver princes faded away. Back in 1375, at the head of an entire coalition of princes, Dmitry made a successful campaign against Tver, and since then Mikhail Alexandrovich abandoned attempts to seize leadership from the Moscow prince, although relations between them remained tense. The marriage with the Koshkins was probably supposed to help establish friendly relations between the eternal enemies.

But not only Tver was embraced by the descendants of Fyodor Koshka with their matrimonial politics. Soon the Moscow princes themselves fell into their orbit. Among the sons of Koshka was Fyodor Goltai, whose daughter, Maria, was married in the winter of 1407 by one of the sons of the Serpukhov and Borovsk prince Vladimir Andreevich, Yaroslav.
Vladimir Andreevich, the founder of Serpukhov, was Dmitry Donskoy’s cousin. There were always the kindest friendly relations between them. Many important steps The brothers did everything together in the life of the Moscow state. So, together they supervised the construction of the white-stone Moscow Kremlin, together they fought on the Kulikovo Field. Moreover, it was Vladimir Andreevich with the governor D.M. Bobrok-Volynsky commanded an ambush regiment, which at a critical moment decided the outcome of the entire battle. Therefore, he entered with the nickname not only Brave, but also Donskoy.

Yaroslav Vladimirovich, and in his honor the city of Maloyaroslavets was founded, where he reigned, he also bore the name Afanasy in baptism. This was one of the latest cases, when, according to a long-standing tradition, the Rurikovichs gave their children double names: secular and baptismal. The prince died of a pestilence in 1426 and was buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, where his grave exists to this day. From his marriage to the granddaughter of Fyodor Koshka, Yaroslav had a son, Vasily, who inherited the entire Borovsk-Serpukhov inheritance, and two daughters, Maria and Elena. In 1433, Maria was married to the young Moscow prince Vasily II Vasilyevich, grandson of Dmitry Donskoy.
At this time, a brutal strife began on Moscow soil between Vasily and his mother Sofia Vitovtovna, on the one hand, and the family of his uncle Yuri Dmitrievich, Prince of Zvenigorod, on the other. Yuri and his sons - Vasily (in the future, blinded in one eye and became Kosy) and Dmitry Shemyaka (the nickname comes from the Tatar “chimek” - “outfit”) - laid claim to the Moscow reign. Both Yuryevichs attended Vasily’s wedding in Moscow. And it was here that the famous historical episode took place, fueling this irreconcilable struggle. Seeing Vasily Yuryevich wearing a gold belt that once belonged to Dmitry Donskoy, Grand Duchess Sofya Vitovtovna tore it off, deciding that it did not rightfully belong to the Zvenigorod prince. One of the initiators of this scandal was Fyodor Koshka’s grandson Zakhary Ivanovich. The offended Yuryevichs left wedding feast, and soon the war broke out. During it, Vasily II was blinded by Shemyaka and became Dark, but ultimately victory remained on his side. With the death of Shemyaka, poisoned in Novgorod, Vasily could no longer worry about the future of his reign. During the war, Vasily Yaroslavich, who became the brother-in-law of the Moscow prince, supported him in everything. But in 1456, Vasily II ordered the arrest of a relative and sent him to prison in the city of Uglich. There the unfortunate son of Maria Goltyaeva spent 27 years until he died in 1483. His grave can be seen on the left side of the iconostasis of the Moscow Archangel Cathedral. There is also a portrait image of this prince. The children of Vasily Yaroslavich died in captivity, and his second wife and her son from her first marriage, Ivan, managed to flee to Lithuania. The family of Borovsk princes continued there for a short time.

From Maria Yaroslavna, Vasily II had several sons, including Ivan III. Thus, all representatives of the Moscow princely dynasty, starting with Vasily II and up to the sons and granddaughter of Ivan the Terrible, were descendants of the Koshkins on the female line.
Grand Duchess Sofya Vitovtovna tearing off the belt from Vasily Kosoy at the wedding of Vasily the Dark. From a painting by P.P. Chistyakova. 1861
The descendants of Fyodor Koshka successively bore the family names Koshkins, Zakharyins, Yuryevs and, finally, Romanovs. In addition to his daughter Anna and son Fyodor Goltai, mentioned above, Fyodor Koshka had sons Ivan, Alexander Bezzubets, Nikifor and Mikhail Durny. Alexander's descendants were called the Bezzubtsevs, and then the Sheremetevs and Epanchins. The Sheremetevs descend from Alexander’s grandson, Andrei Konstantinovich Sheremet, and the Epanchins from another grandson, Semyon Konstantinovich Epancha (ancient clothing in the form of a cloak was called an epancha).

The Sheremetevs are one of the most famous Russian noble families. Probably the most famous of the Sheremetevs is Boris Petrovich (1652–1719). An associate of Peter the Great, one of the first Russian field marshals (the first Russian by origin), he participated in the Crimean and Azov campaigns, became famous for his victories in the Northern War, and commanded the Russian army in the Battle of Poltava. He was one of the first to be elevated by Peter to the dignity of a count of the Russian Empire (obviously, this happened in 1710). Among the descendants of Boris Petrovich Sheremetev, Russian historians especially revere Count Sergei Dmitrievich (1844–1918), a prominent researcher of Russian antiquity, chairman of the Archaeographic Commission under the Ministry of Public Education, who did a lot for the publication and study of documents of the Russian Middle Ages. His wife was the granddaughter of Prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky, and his son Pavel Sergeevich (1871–1943) also became a famous historian and genealogist. This branch of the family owned the famous Ostafyevo near Moscow (inherited from the Vyazemskys), preserved through the efforts of Pavel Sergeevich after the revolutionary events of 1917. The descendants of Sergei Dmitrievich, who found themselves in exile, became related there with the Romanovs. This family still exists today, in particular, the descendant of Sergei Dmitrievich, Count Pyotr Petrovich, who now lives in Paris, heads the Russian Conservatory named after S.V. Rachmaninov. The Sheremetevs owned two architectural pearls near Moscow: Ostankino and Kuskovo. How can one not recall here the serf actress Praskovya Kovaleva-Zhemchugova, who became Countess Sheremeteva, and her wife Count Nikolai Petrovich (1751–1809), the founder of the famous Moscow Hospice House (now its building houses the N.V. Sklifosovsky Institute of Emergency Medicine). Sergei Dmitrievich was the grandson of N.P. Sheremetev and the serf actress.

The Epanchins are less noticeable in Russian history, but they also left their mark on it. In the 19th century, representatives of this family served in the navy, and two of them, Nikolai and Ivan Petrovich, heroes of the Battle of Navarino in 1827, became Russian admirals. Their great-nephew, General Nikolai Alekseevich Epanchin (1857–1941), a famous military historian, served as director of the Corps of Pages in 1900–1907. Already in exile, he wrote interesting memoirs “In the Service of Three Emperors,” published in Russia in 1996.

Actually, the Romanov family descends from the eldest son of Fyodor Koshka, Ivan, who was a boyar of Vasily I. It was Ivan Koshka’s son Zakhary Ivanovich who identified the notorious belt in 1433 at the wedding of Vasily the Dark. Zachary had three sons, so the Koshkins were divided into three more branches. The younger ones - the Lyatskys (Lyatskys) - left to serve in Lithuania, and their traces were lost there. The eldest son of Zakhary, Yakov Zakharyevich (died in 1510), a boyar and governor under Ivan III and Vasily III, served as viceroy in Novgorod and Kolomna for some time, took part in the war with Lithuania and, in particular, took the cities of Bryansk and Putivl, which then seceded to the Russian state. The descendants of Yakov formed the noble family of the Yakovlevs. He is known for his two “illegal” representatives: in 1812, the wealthy landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev (1767–1846) and the daughter of a German official Louise Ivanovna Haag (1795–1851), who were not legally married, had a son, Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (d. . in 1870) (grandson of A.I. Herzen - Pyotr Aleksandrovich Herzen (1871–1947) - one of the largest domestic surgeons, a specialist in the field of clinical oncology). And in 1819, his brother Lev Alekseevich Yakovlev had an illegitimate son, Sergei Lvovich Levitsky (died in 1898), one of the most famous Russian photographers (who was thus A.I. Herzen’s cousin).

Zakhary's middle son, Yuri Zakharyevich (died in 1505 [?]), a boyar and governor under Ivan III, like his older brother, fought with the Lithuanians in the famous battle near the Vedrosha River in 1500. His wife was Irina Ivanovna Tuchkova, a representative of the famous noble family. The surname Romanov came from one of the sons of Yuri and Irina, the okolnichy Roman Yuryevich (died in 1543). It was his family who became related to the royal dynasty.

On February 3, 1547, the sixteen-year-old Tsar, who had been crowned king half a month earlier in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, married the daughter of Roman Yuryevich Zakharyin, Anastasia. Family life Ivana and Anastasia were happy. The young wife gave her husband three sons and three daughters. Unfortunately, the daughters died in childhood. The fate of the sons was different. The eldest son Dmitry died at the age of nine months. When the royal family made a pilgrimage to the Kirillov Monastery on Beloozero, they took the little prince with them.

There was a strict ceremony at court: the baby was carried in the arms of a nanny, and she was supported by two boyars, relatives of Queen Anastasia. The journey took place along rivers and on plows. One day, the nanny with the prince and the boyars stepped onto the shaky gangplank of the plow, and, unable to resist, they all fell into the water. Dmitry choked. Then Ivan called his youngest son from last marriage with Maria Naga. However, the fate of this boy turned out to be tragic: at the age of nine he... The name Dmitry turned out to be unlucky for the Grozny family.

The tsar’s second son, Ivan Ivanovich, had a difficult character. Cruel and domineering, he could become a complete image of his father. But in 1581, the 27-year-old prince was mortally wounded by Grozny during a quarrel. The reason for the unbridled outburst of anger was allegedly the third wife of Tsarevich Ivan (he sent the first two to the monastery) - Elena Ivanovna Sheremeteva, a distant relative of the Romanovs. Being pregnant, she appeared to her father-in-law in a light shirt, “in an indecent manner.” The king beat his daughter-in-law, who later had a miscarriage. Ivan stood up for his wife and immediately received a blow to the temple with an iron staff. A few days later he died, and Elena was tonsured with the name Leonidas in one of the monasteries.

After the death of the heir, Ivan the Terrible was succeeded by his third son from Anastasia, Fedor. In 1584 he became the Tsar of Moscow. Fyodor Ivanovich was distinguished by a quiet and meek disposition. He was disgusted by the cruel tyranny of his father, and he spent a significant part of his reign in prayers and fasts, atonement for the sins of his ancestors. Such a high spiritual attitude of the tsar seemed strange to his subjects, which is why the popular legend about Fedor’s dementia appeared. In 1598, he serenely fell asleep forever, and his brother-in-law Boris Godunov took over the throne. Fyodor's only daughter Theodosia died before reaching the age of two. Thus ended the offspring of Anastasia Romanovna.
With her kind, gentle character, Anastasia restrained the king’s cruel temper. But in August 1560 the queen died. An analysis of her remains, now located in the basement chamber of the Archangel Cathedral, already carried out in our time, showed a high probability that Anastasia was poisoned. After her death it began new stage in the life of Ivan the Terrible: the era of Oprichnina and lawlessness.

Ivan's marriage to Anastasia brought her relatives to the forefront of Moscow politics. The queen’s brother, Nikita Romanovich (died in 1586), was especially popular. He became famous as a talented commander and brave warrior during the Livonian War, rose to the rank of boyar and was one of the close associates of Ivan the Terrible. He was part of the inner circle of Tsar Fedor. Shortly before his death, Nikita took monastic vows with the name Nifont. Was married twice. His first wife, Varvara Ivanovna Khovrina, came from the Khovrin-Golovin family, which later produced several famous figures in Russian history, including Peter I’s associate, Admiral Fyodor Alekseevich Golovin. Nikita Romanovich’s second wife, Princess Evdokia Alexandrovna Gorbataya-Shuiskaya, belonged to the descendants of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod Rurikovichs. Nikita Romanovich lived in his chambers on Varvarka Street in Moscow, where in the middle of the 19th century. a museum was opened.

Seven sons and five daughters of Nikita Romanovich continued this boyar family. For a long time, researchers doubted which marriage of Nikita Romanovich gave birth to his eldest son Fyodor Nikitich, the future Patriarch Filaret, the father of the first tsar from the Romanov dynasty. After all, if his mother was Princess Gorbataya-Shuiskaya, then the Romanovs are thus descendants of the Rurikovichs through the female line. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, historians assumed that Fyodor Nikitich was most likely born from his father’s first marriage. And only in recent years has this issue apparently been finally resolved. During the study of the Romanov necropolis in the Moscow Novospassky Monastery, the tombstone of Varvara Ivanovna Khovrina was discovered. In the tombstone epitaph, the year of her death should perhaps be read as 7063, i.e. 1555 (she died on June 29), and not 7060 (1552), as previously believed. This dating removes the question of the origin of Fyodor Nikitich, who died in 1633, being “more than 80 years old.” The ancestors of Varvara Ivanovna and, therefore, the ancestors of the entire royal House of Romanov, the Khovrins, came from the trading people of the Crimean Sudak and had Greek roots.

Fyodor Nikitich Romanov served as a regimental commander, took part in campaigns against the cities of Koporye, Yam and Ivangorod during the successful Russian-Swedish war of 1590–1595, and defended the southern borders of Russia from Crimean raids. A prominent position at court made it possible for the Romanovs to become related to other then-known families: the princes of Sitsky, Cherkasy, as well as the Godunovs (Boris Fedorovich’s nephew married Nikita Romanovich’s daughter, Irina). But these family ties did not save the Romanovs from disgrace after the death of their benefactor Tsar Fedor.

With his accession to the throne, everything changed. Hating the entire Romanov family and fearing them as potential rivals in the struggle for power, the new tsar began to eliminate his opponents one by one. In 1600–1601, repression fell on the Romanovs. Fyodor Nikitich was forcibly tonsured a monk (under the name Filaret) and sent to the distant Anthony Siysky Monastery in Arkhangelsk district. The same fate befell his wife Ksenia Ivanovna Shestova. Tonsured under the name of Martha, she was exiled to the Tolvuisky churchyard in Zaonezhye, and then lived with her children in the village of Klin, Yuryevsky district. Her young daughter Tatyana and son Mikhail (the future Tsar) were taken to prison on Beloozero along with her aunt Anastasia Nikitichna, who later became the wife of a prominent figure in the Time of Troubles, Prince Boris Mikhailovich Lykov-Obolensky. Fyodor Nikitich's brother, boyar Alexander, was exiled on a false denunciation to one of the villages of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery, where he was killed. Another brother, the okolnichy Mikhail, also died in disgrace, transported from Moscow to the remote Perm village of Nyrob. There he died in prison and in chains from hunger. Another son of Nikita, steward Vasily, died in the city of Pelym, where he and his brother Ivan were kept chained to the wall. And their sisters Efimiya (monastically Evdokia) and Martha went into exile together with their husbands - the princes of Sitsky and Cherkassy. Only Martha survived imprisonment. Thus, almost the entire Romanov family was destroyed. Miraculously, only Ivan Nikitich, nicknamed Kasha, survived, returned after a short exile.

But the Godunov dynasty was not allowed to rule in Rus'. The fire of the Great Troubles was already flaring up, and in this seething cauldron the Romanovs emerged from oblivion. The active and energetic Fyodor Nikitich (Filaret) returned to “big” politics at the first opportunity - False Dmitry I made his benefactor Metropolitan of Rostov and Yaroslavl. The fact is that Grigory Otrepiev was once his servant. There is even a version that the Romanovs specially prepared the ambitious adventurer for the role of the “legitimate” heir to the Moscow throne. Be that as it may, Filaret took a prominent place in the church hierarchy.

He made a new career “leap” with the help of another impostor - False Dmitry II, the “Tushinsky Thief”. In 1608, during the capture of Rostov, the Tushins captured Filaret and brought the impostor to the camp. False Dmitry invited him to become patriarch, and Filaret agreed. In Tushino, in general, a kind of second capital was formed: it had its own king, it had its own boyars, its own orders, and now also its own patriarch (in Moscow, the patriarchal throne was occupied by Hermogenes). When the Tushin camp collapsed, Filaret managed to return to Moscow, where he participated in the overthrow of Tsar Vasily Shuisky. The Seven Boyars that formed after this included the younger brother of the “patriarch” Ivan Nikitich Romanov, who received the boyars on the day of Otrepiev’s crowning. As is known, the new government decided to invite the son of the Polish king, Vladislav, to the Russian throne and concluded a corresponding agreement with Hetman Stanislav Zolkiewski, and in order to settle all the formalities, a “great embassy” was sent from Moscow to Smolensk, where the king was located, headed by Filaret. However, negotiations with King Sigismund reached a dead end, the ambassadors were arrested and sent to Poland. There, in captivity, Filaret remained until 1619 and only after the conclusion of the Deulin truce and the end of the many years of war did he return to Moscow. His son Mikhail was already the Russian Tsar.
Filaret had now become the “legitimate” Moscow Patriarch and had a very significant influence on the policies of the young tsar. He showed himself to be a very powerful and at times even tough person. His courtyard was built on the model of the royal one, and several special, patriarchal orders were formed to manage land holdings. Filaret also cared about education, resuming the printing of liturgical books in Moscow after the ruin. He paid great attention to issues foreign policy and even created one of the diplomatic ciphers of that time.

Fyodor-Filaret's wife Ksenia Ivanovna came from the ancient Shestov family. Their ancestor was considered to be Mikhail Prushanin, or, as he was also called, Misha, an associate of Alexander Nevsky. He was also the founder of such famous families as the Morozovs, Saltykovs, Sheins, Tuchkovs, Cheglokovs, Scriabins. Misha's descendants became related to the Romanovs back in the 15th century, since the mother of Roman Yuryevich Zakharyin was one of the Tuchkovs. By the way, the Shestovs’ ancestral estates included the Kostroma village of Domnino, where Ksenia and her son Mikhail lived for some time after the liberation of Moscow from the Poles. The headman of this village, Ivan Susanin, became famous for saving the young king from death at the cost of his life. After her son’s accession to the throne, the “great old lady” Martha helped him in governing the country until his father, Filaret, returned from captivity.

Ksenia-Marfa had a kind character. So, remembering the widows of previous tsars who lived in monasteries - Ivan the Terrible, Vasily Shuisky, Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich - she repeatedly sent them gifts. She often went on pilgrimages, was strict in matters of religion, but did not shy away from the joys of life: in the Ascension Kremlin Monastery she organized a gold-embroidery workshop, which produced beautiful fabrics and clothes for the royal court.
Mikhail Fedorovich's uncle Ivan Nikitich (died in 1640) also occupied a prominent place at his nephew's court. With the death of his son, boyar and butler Nikita Ivanovich in 1654, all other branches of the Romanovs, except for the royal offspring of Mikhail Fedorovich, were cut short. The ancestral tomb of the Romanovs was the Moscow Novospassky Monastery, where in recent years much work has been carried out to study and restore this ancient necropolis. As a result, many burials of the ancestors of the royal dynasty were identified, and from some remains, experts even recreated portrait images, including that of Roman Yuryevich Zakharyin, the great-grandfather of Tsar Mikhail.

The Romanov family coat of arms dates back to Livonian heraldry and was created in the mid-19th century. the outstanding Russian heraldist Baron B.V. Köne based on emblematic images found on objects that belonged to the Romanovs in the second half of the 16th - early 17th centuries. The description of the coat of arms is as follows:
“In a silver field is a scarlet vulture holding a golden sword and tarch, crowned with a small eagle; on the black border are eight severed lion heads: four gold and four silver.”

Evgeny Vladimirovich Pchelov
Romanovs. History of a great dynasty

According to some information, the Romanovs are not of Russian blood at all, but came from Prussia; according to the historian Veselovsky, they are still Novgorodians. The first Romanov appeared as a result of the interweaving of genera Koshkins-Zakharyins-Yurievs-Shuiskys-Ruriks in the guise of Mikhail Fedorovich, elected Tsar of the House of Romanov. Romanovs, in different interpretations surnames and names, ruled until 1917.

The Romanov family: a story of life and death - summary

The era of the Romanovs is a 304-year usurpation of power in the vastness of Russia by one family of boyars. According to the social classification of feudal society of the 10th – 17th centuries, large latifundists were called boyars in Moscow Rus'. IN 10th – 17th centuries it was upper layer ruling class. According to Danube-Bulgarian origin, “boyar” is translated as “nobleman”. Their history is a time of unrest and irreconcilable struggle with the kings for complete power.

Exactly 405 years ago, a dynasty of kings of this name appeared. 297 years ago, Peter the Great took the title of All-Russian Emperor. In order not to degenerate by blood, leapfrog began with its mixing along the male and female lines. After Catherine the First and Paul the Second, the branch of Mikhail Romanov sank into oblivion. But new branches arose, with an admixture of other bloods. The surname Romanov was also borne by Fyodor Nikitich, Russian Patriarch Filaret.

In 1913, the three-hundredth anniversary of the Romanov dynasty was celebrated magnificently and solemnly.

High-ranking officials of Russia invited from European countries, they didn’t even suspect that a fire was already heating up under the house, which would burn out the last emperor and his family in just four years.

At the time in question, members of the imperial families did not have surnames. They were called crown princes, grand dukes, and princesses. After the Great October Revolution socialist revolution, which critics of Russia call a terrible coup for the country, its Provisional Government decreed that all members of this house should be called Romanovs.

More details on the main reigning persons of the Russian state

16-year-old first king. The appointment and election of children and grandchildren who are essentially inexperienced in politics or even young ones during the transition of power is not new for Russia. This was often practiced so that the curators of child rulers would solve their own problems before they came of age. IN in this case Mikhail the First razed the “time of troubles” to the ground, brought peace and brought the almost collapsed country together. Of his ten family offspring also 16 years old Tsarevich Alexei (1629 - 1675) replaced Michael in the royal post.

The first attempt on the life of the Romanovs by relatives. Tsar Feodor the Third dies at the age of twenty. The tsar, who was in poor health (he could barely endure the coronation), meanwhile, turned out to be strong in politics, reforms, organization of the army and civil service.

The Romanov family - a story of life and death (photo)

In March 1917, under pressure from the masses, Nicholas II terminated his imperial powers in favor of his brother Michael. But he was even more cowardly and abandoned the throne. And this meant only one thing: the end of the monarchy had come. At that time, there were 65 people in the Romanov dynasty. Men were shot by the Bolsheviks in a number of cities in the Middle Urals and in St. Petersburg. Forty-seven managed to escape into emigration.

The Emperor and his family were put on a train and sent into Siberian exile in August 1917. Where everyone who was disliked by the authorities was driven into the bitter cold. The location was briefly identified as the small town of Tobolsk, but it soon became clear that the Kolchakites could have captured them there and used them for their own purposes. Therefore, the train was hastily returned to the Urals, to Yekaterinburg, where the Bolsheviks ruled.

Red Terror in action

Members of the imperial family were secretly placed in the basement of a house. The shooting took place there. The emperor, his family members, and assistants were killed. The execution was given a legal basis in the form of a resolution of the Bolshevik regional council of workers', peasants' and soldiers' deputies.

In fact, without a court decision, and it was an illegal action.

A number of historians believe that the Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks received sanction from Moscow, most likely from the weak-willed All-Russian elder Sverdlov, and maybe personally from Lenin. According to testimony, the residents of Yekaterinburg rejected the court hearing because of the possible advance of Admiral Kolchak’s troops to the Urals. And this is legally no longer repression in retaliation against tsarism, but murder.

The representative of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Solovyov, who investigated (1993) the circumstances of the execution of the royal family, argued that neither Sverdlov nor Lenin had anything to do with the execution. Even a fool would not leave such traces, especially the country's top leaders.

For more than 300 years, the Romanov dynasty was in power in Russia. There are several versions of the origin of the Romanov family. According to one of them, the Romanovs came from Novgorod. The family tradition says that the origins of the family should be sought in Prussia, from where the ancestors of the Romanovs moved to Russia at the beginning of the 14th century. The first reliably established ancestor of the family is the Moscow boyar Ivan Kobyla.

The beginning of the ruling Romanov dynasty was laid by the great-nephew of Ivan the Terrible’s wife, Mikhail Fedorovich. He was elected to reign by the Zemsky Sobor in 1613, after the suppression of the Moscow branch of the Rurikovichs.

Since the 18th century, the Romanovs stopped calling themselves tsars. On November 2, 1721, Peter I was declared Emperor of All Russia. He became the first emperor in the dynasty.

The reign of the dynasty ended in 1917, when Emperor Nicholas II abdicated the throne as a result of the February Revolution. In July 1918, he was shot by the Bolsheviks along with his family (including five children) and associates in Tobolsk.

Numerous descendants of the Romanovs now live abroad. However, none of them, from the point of view of the Russian law on succession to the throne, has the right to the Russian throne.

Below is a chronology of the reign of the Romanov family with the dating of the reign.

Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. Reign: 1613-1645

He laid the foundation for a new dynasty, being elected at the age of 16 to reign by the Zemsky Sobor in 1613. He belonged to an ancient boyar family. He restored the functioning of the economy and trade in the country, which he had inherited in a deplorable state after the Time of Troubles. Concluded " eternal peace"with Sweden (1617). At the same time, he lost access to the Baltic Sea, but returned vast Russian territories previously conquered by Sweden. Concluded an “eternal peace” with Poland (1618), while losing Smolensk and the Seversk land. Annexed the lands along the Yaik, Baikal region, Yakutia, access to the Pacific Ocean.

Alexey Mikhailovich Romanov (Quiet). Reign: 1645-1676

He ascended the throne at the age of 16. He was a gentle, good-natured and very religious person. He continued the army reform begun by his father. At the same time, he attracted a large number of foreign military specialists who were left idle after the end of the Thirty Years' War. Under him, Nikon's church reform was carried out, affecting the main church rituals and books. He returned Smolensk and Seversk land. Annexed Ukraine to Russia (1654). Suppressed the uprising of Stepan Razin (1667-1671)

Fedor Alekseevich Romanov. Reign: 1676-1682

The short reign of the extremely painful tsar was marked by a war with Turkey and the Crimean Khanate and the further conclusion of the Bakhchisarai Peace Treaty (1681), according to which Turkey recognized Left Bank Ukraine and Kyiv as Russia. A general census of the population was carried out (1678). The fight against the Old Believers took a new turn - Archpriest Avvakum was burned. He died at the age of twenty.

Peter I Alekseevich Romanov (the Great). Reigned: 1682-1725 (ruled independently from 1689)

The previous tsar (Fyodor Alekseevich) died without making orders regarding the succession to the throne. As a result, two tsars were crowned on the throne at the same time - Fyodor Alekseevich’s young brothers Ivan and Peter under the regency of their older sister Sophia Alekseevna (until 1689 - Sophia’s regency, until 1696 - formal co-rule with Ivan V). Since 1721, the first All-Russian Emperor.

He was an ardent supporter of the Western way of life. For all its ambiguity, it is recognized by both adherents and critics as “The Great Sovereign”.

His bright reign was marked by the Azov campaigns (1695 and 1696) against the Turks, which resulted in the capture of the Azov fortress. The result of the campaigns was, among other things, the tsar’s awareness of the need for army reform. The old army was disbanded - the army began to be created according to a new model. From 1700 to 1721 - participation in the most difficult conflict with Sweden, the result of which was the defeat of the hitherto invincible Charles XII and Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea.

In 1722-1724, the largest foreign policy event of Peter the Great after the Northern War was the Caspian (Persian) campaign, which ended with the capture of Derbent, Baku and other cities by Russia.

During his reign, Peter founded St. Petersburg (1703), established the Senate (1711) and the Collegium (1718), and introduced the “Table of Ranks” (1722).

Catherine I. Years of reign: 1725-1727

Second wife of Peter I. A former servant named Martha Kruse, captured during the Northern War. Nationality is unknown. She was the mistress of Field Marshal Sheremetev. Later, Prince Menshikov took her to his place. In 1703, she fell in love with Peter, who made her his mistress, and later his wife. She was baptized into Orthodoxy, changing her name to Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova.

Under her, the Supreme Privy Council was created (1726) and an alliance was concluded with Austria (1726).

Peter II Alekseevich Romanov. Reign: 1727-1730

Grandson of Peter I, son of Tsarevich Alexei. The last representative of the Romanov family in the direct male line. He ascended the throne at the age of 11. He died at the age of 14 from smallpox. In fact, the government of the state was carried out by the Supreme Privy Council. According to the recollections of contemporaries, the young emperor was distinguished by his willfulness and adored entertainment. It was entertainment, fun and hunting that the young emperor devoted all his time to. Under him, Menshikov was overthrown (1727), and the capital was returned to Moscow (1728).

Anna Ioannovna Romanova. Reign: 1730-1740

Daughter of Ivan V, granddaughter of Alexei Mikhailovich. She was invited to the Russian throne in 1730 by the Supreme Privy Council, which she subsequently successfully dissolved. Instead of the Supreme Council, a cabinet of ministers was created (1730). The capital was returned to St. Petersburg (1732). 1735-1739 were marked by the Russian-Turkish war, which ended with a peace treaty in Belgrade. Under the terms of the Russian treaty, Azov was ceded to Russia, but it was forbidden to have a fleet in the Black Sea. The years of her reign are characterized in literature as “the era of German dominance at court,” or as “Bironovism” (after the name of her favorite).

Ivan VI Antonovich Romanov. Reign: 1740-1741

Great-grandson of Ivan V. Was proclaimed emperor at the age of two months. The baby was proclaimed emperor during the regency of Duke Biron of Courland, but two weeks later the guards removed the duke from power. The emperor's mother, Anna Leopoldovna, became the new regent. At the age of two he was overthrown. His short reign was subject to a law condemning the name - all his portraits were removed from circulation, all his portraits were confiscated (or destroyed) and all documents containing the name of the emperor were confiscated (or destroyed). He spent until he was 23 years old in solitary confinement, where (already half-insane) he was stabbed to death by guards.

Elizaveta I Petrovna Romanova. Reign: 1741-1761

Daughter of Peter I and Catherine I. Under her, for the first time in Russia, death penalty. A university was opened in Moscow (1755). In 1756-1762 Russia took part in the largest military conflict of the 18th century - the Seven Years' War. As a result of the fighting, Russian troops captured all of East Prussia and even briefly took Berlin. However, the fleeting death of the empress and the rise to power of the pro-Prussian Peter III nullified all military achievements - the conquered lands were returned to Prussia, and peace was concluded.

Peter III Fedorovich Romanov. Reign: 1761-1762

Nephew of Elizaveta Petrovna, grandson of Peter I - son of his daughter Anna. Reigned for 186 days. A lover of everything Prussian, he stopped the war with Sweden immediately after coming to power on conditions that were extremely unfavorable for Russia. I had difficulty speaking Russian. During his reign, the manifesto “On the Freedom of the Nobility”, the union of Prussia and Russia, and a decree on freedom of religion were issued (all in 1762). Stopped the persecution of Old Believers. He was overthrown by his wife and died a week later (according to the official version - from fever).

Already during the reign of Catherine II, the leader of the peasant war, Emelyan Pugachev, in 1773 pretended to be the “miracle survivor” of Peter III.

Catherine II Alekseevna Romanova (Great). Reign: 1762-1796

Wife of Peter III. It enslaved the peasants as much as possible, expanding the powers of the nobility. Significantly expanded the territory of the Empire during the Russian-Turkish wars (1768-1774 and 1787-1791) and the partition of Poland (1772, 1793 and 1795). The reign was marked by the largest peasant uprising of Emelyan Pugachev, posing as Peter III (1773-1775). A provincial reform was carried out (1775).

Pavel I Petrovich Romanov: 1796-1801

Son of Catherine II and Peter III, 72nd Grand Master of the Order of Malta. He ascended the throne at the age of 42. Introduced compulsory succession to the throne only through the male line (1797). Significantly eased the situation of the peasants (decree on three-day corvee, ban on selling serfs without land (1797)). From foreign policy, the war with France (1798-1799) and the Italian and Swiss campaigns of Suvorov (1799) are worthy of mention. Killed by guards (not without the knowledge of his son Alexander) in his own bedroom (strangled). The official version is a stroke.

Alexander I Pavlovich Romanov. Reign: 1801-1825

Son of Paul I. During the reign of Paul I, Russia defeated French troops during the Patriotic War of 1812. The result of the war was a new European order, consolidated by the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815. During numerous wars, he significantly expanded the territory of Russia - he annexed Eastern and Western Georgia, Mingrelia, Imereti, Guria, Finland, Bessarabia, and most of Poland. He died suddenly in 1825 in Taganrog from fever. For a long time, there was a legend among the people that the emperor, tormented by conscience for the death of his father, did not die, but continued to live under the name of Elder Fyodor Kuzmich.

Nicholas I Pavlovich Romanov. Reign: 1825-1855

The third son of Paul I. The beginning of his reign was marked by the Decembrist uprising of 1825. The Code of Laws of the Russian Empire was created (1833), monetary reform was carried out, and reform was carried out in the state village. The Crimean War (1853-1856) began, the emperor did not live to see its devastating end. In addition, Russia took part in the Caucasian War (1817-1864), the Russian-Persian War (1826-1828), the Russian-Turkish War (1828-1829), and the Crimean War (1853-1856).

Alexander II Nikolaevich Romanov (Liberator). Reign: 1855-1881

Son of Nicholas I. During his reign, the Crimean War was ended by the Paris Peace Treaty (1856), humiliating for Russia. In 1861, serfdom was abolished. In 1864, zemstvo and judicial reforms were carried out. Alaska was sold to the United States (1867). Subjected to reform financial system, education, city government, army. In 1870, the restrictive articles of the Peace of Paris were repealed. As a result Russian-Turkish war 1877–1878 returned Bessarabia, lost during the Crimean War, to Russia. Died as a result terrorist attack, committed Narodnaya Volya.

Alexander III Alexandrovich Romanov (Tsar the Peacemaker). Reign: 1881-1894

Son of Alexander II. During his reign, Russia did not wage a single war. His reign is characterized as conservative and counter-reformist. A manifesto on the inviolability of autocracy, the Regulations on Strengthening Emergency Security (1881), was adopted. He pursued an active policy of Russification of the outskirts of the empire. A military-political Franco-Russian alliance was concluded with France, which laid the foundation for the foreign policy of the two states until 1917. This alliance preceded the creation of the Triple Entente.

Nicholas II Alexandrovich Romanov. Reign: 1894-1917

Son of Alexander III. The Last Emperor of All Russia. A difficult and controversial period for Russia, accompanied by serious upheavals for the empire. Russo-Japanese War(1904-1905) turned into a heavy defeat for the country and the almost complete destruction of the Russian fleet. The defeat in the war was followed by the First Russian Revolution of 1905-1907. In 1914, Russia entered the First World War (1914-1918). The emperor was not destined to live to see the end of the war - in 1917 he abdicated the throne as a result, and in 1918 he was shot with his entire family by the Bolsheviks.

For almost 400 years of the existence of this title, it was worn completely different people- from adventurers and liberals to tyrants and conservatives.

Rurikovich

Over the years, Russia (from Rurik to Putin) has changed its political system many times. At first rulers wore princely title. When after the period political fragmentation something new has developed around Moscow Russian state, the owners of the Kremlin began to think about accepting the royal title.

This was accomplished under Ivan the Terrible (1547-1584). This one decided to marry into the kingdom. And this decision was not accidental. So the Moscow monarch emphasized that he was the legal successor. It was they who bestowed Orthodoxy on Russia. In the 16th century, Byzantium no longer existed (it fell under the onslaught of the Ottomans), so Ivan the Terrible rightly believed that his act would have serious symbolic significance.

Such historical figures had a great influence on the development of the entire country. In addition to changing his title, Ivan the Terrible also captured the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, beginning Russian expansion to the East.

Ivan's son Fedor (1584-1598) was distinguished by his weak character and health. Nevertheless, under him the state continued to develop. The patriarchate was established. Rulers have always paid a lot of attention to the issue of succession to the throne. This time he became especially acute. Fedor had no children. When he died, the Rurik dynasty on the Moscow throne came to an end.

Time of Troubles

After Fyodor's death, Boris Godunov (1598-1605), his brother-in-law, came to power. He did not belong to the reigning family, and many considered him a usurper. Under him, due to natural disasters, a colossal famine began. The tsars and presidents of Russia have always tried to maintain calm in the provinces. Due to the tense situation, Godunov was unable to do this. Several peasant uprisings took place in the country.

In addition, the adventurer Grishka Otrepyev called himself one of the sons of Ivan the Terrible and began a military campaign against Moscow. He actually managed to capture the capital and become king. Boris Godunov did not live to see this moment - he died from health complications. His son Feodor II was captured by the comrades of False Dmitry and killed.

The impostor ruled for only a year, after which he was overthrown during the Moscow uprising, inspired by disgruntled Russian boyars who did not like the fact that False Dmitry surrounded himself with Catholic Poles. decided to transfer the crown to Vasily Shuisky (1606-1610). IN Troubled times The rulers of Russia changed frequently.

The princes, tsars and presidents of Russia had to carefully guard their power. Shuisky could not restrain her and was overthrown by the Polish interventionists.

The first Romanovs

When Moscow was liberated from foreign invaders in 1613, the question arose of who should be made sovereign. This text presents all the kings of Russia in order (with portraits). Now the time has come to talk about the rise to the throne of the Romanov dynasty.

The first sovereign from this family - Mikhail (1613-1645) - was just a youth when he was put in charge of a huge country. His main goal was the fight with Poland for the lands it captured during the Time of Troubles.

These were the biographies of the rulers and the dates of their reign until the middle of the 17th century. After Mikhail, his son Alexei (1645-1676) ruled. He annexed left-bank Ukraine and Kyiv to Russia. So, after several centuries of fragmentation and Lithuanian rule, the fraternal peoples finally began to live in one country.

Alexei had many sons. The eldest of them, Feodor III (1676-1682), died at a young age. After him came the simultaneous reign of two children - Ivan and Peter.

Peter the Great

Ivan Alekseevich was unable to rule the country. Therefore, in 1689, the sole reign of Peter the Great began. He completely rebuilt the country in a European manner. Russia - from Rurik to Putin (we will consider all the rulers in chronological order) - knows few examples of an era so saturated with changes.

Appeared new army and the fleet. For this, Peter started a war against Sweden. The Northern War lasted 21 years. During it, the Swedish army was defeated, and the kingdom agreed to cede its southern Baltic lands. St. Petersburg was founded in this region in 1703 - new capital Russia. Peter's successes made him think about changing his title. In 1721 he became emperor. However, this change did not abolish the royal title - in everyday speech, monarchs continued to be called kings.

The era of palace coups

Peter's death was followed by a long period of instability in power. Monarchs replaced each other with enviable regularity, which was facilitated by the Guard or certain courtiers, as a rule, at the head of these changes. This era was ruled by Catherine I (1725-1727), Peter II (1727-1730), Anna Ioannovna (1730-1740), Ivan VI (1740-1741), Elizaveta Petrovna (1741-1761) and Peter III (1761-1762) ).

The last of them was German by birth. Under Peter III's predecessor, Elizabeth, Russia waged a victorious war against Prussia. The new monarch renounced all his conquests, returned Berlin to the king and concluded a peace treaty. With this act he signed his own death warrant. The Guard organized another palace coup, after which Peter's wife Catherine II found herself on the throne.

Catherine II and Paul I

Catherine II (1762-1796) had a deep state mind. On the throne, she began to pursue a policy of enlightened absolutism. The Empress organized the work of the famous laid down commission, the purpose of which was to prepare a comprehensive project of reforms in Russia. She also wrote the Order. This document contained many considerations about the transformations necessary for the country. The reforms were curtailed when a peasant uprising led by Pugachev broke out in the Volga region in the 1770s.

All the tsars and presidents of Russia (we have listed all the royal persons in chronological order) made sure that the country looked decent in the external arena. She was no exception. She conducted several successful military campaigns against Turkey. As a result, Crimea and other important Black Sea regions were annexed to Russia. At the end of Catherine's reign, three divisions of Poland occurred. So Russian Empire received important acquisitions in the west.

After the death of the great empress, her son Paul I (1796-1801) came to power. This quarrelsome man was not liked by many in the St. Petersburg elite.

First half of the 19th century

In 1801, the next and last palace coup took place. A group of conspirators dealt with Pavel. His son Alexander I (1801-1825) was on the throne. His reign was Patriotic War and Napoleon's invasion. Rulers Russian state For two centuries they have not faced such a serious enemy intervention. Despite the capture of Moscow, Bonaparte was defeated. Alexander became the most popular and famous monarch of the Old World. He was also called the "liberator of Europe."

Within his country, Alexander in his youth tried to implement liberal reforms. Historical figures often change their policies as they age. So Alexander soon abandoned his ideas. He died in Taganrog in 1825 under mysterious circumstances.

At the beginning of the reign of his brother Nicholas I (1825-1855), the Decembrist uprising occurred. Because of this, conservative orders triumphed in the country for thirty years.

Second half of the 19th century

All the kings of Russia are presented here in order, with portraits. Next we will talk about the main reformer of Russian statehood - Alexander II (1855-1881). He initiated the manifesto for the liberation of the peasants. The destruction of serfdom allowed the Russian market and capitalism to develop. Economic growth began in the country. Reforms also affected the judiciary, local government, administrative and conscription systems. The monarch tried to raise the country to its feet and learn the lessons that the lost beginnings under Nicholas I taught him.

But Alexander's reforms were not enough for the radicals. Terrorists made several attempts on his life. In 1881 they achieved success. Alexander II died from a bomb explosion. The news came as a shock to the whole world.

Because of what happened, the son of the deceased monarch Alexander III(1881-1894) forever became a tough reactionary and conservative. But most of all he is known as a peacemaker. During his reign, Russia did not wage a single war.

The last king

In 1894, Alexander III died. Power passed into the hands of Nicholas II (1894-1917) - his son and the last Russian monarch. By that time, the old world order with the absolute power of kings and kings had already outlived its usefulness. Russia - from Rurik to Putin - has known a lot of upheavals, but it was under Nicholas that more than ever happened.

In 1904-1905 The country experienced a humiliating war with Japan. It was followed by the first revolution. Although the unrest was suppressed, the king had to make concessions public opinion. He agreed to establish a constitutional monarchy and parliament.

Tsars and presidents of Russia at all times faced a certain opposition within the state. Now people could elect deputies who expressed these sentiments.

In 1914, the First World War began. No one then suspected that it would end with the fall of several empires at once, including the Russian one. In 1917 it broke out February Revolution, and the last king had to abdicate the throne. Nicholas II and his family were shot by the Bolsheviks in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg.