Peter’s Sister Sophia in Power

Sophia had triumphed: she reigned in the name of her two brothers, Ivan and Peter.

Continuing Peter the Great Suppresses the Streltsi,
our selection from History of Russia by Alfred Rambaud published in 1878. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages. The selection is presented in six easy 5 minute installments.

Previously in Peter the Great Suppresses the Streltsi.

Time: 1689
Place: Moscow

The following days were consecrated to the purifying of the palace and the administration, and the seventh day of the revolt they sent their commandant, the prince-boyar, Khovanski, to declare that they would have two czars — Ivan at the head, and Peter as coadjutor; and if this were refused, they would again rebel. The boyars of the douma deliberated on this proposal, and the greater number of the boyars were opposed to it. In Russia the absolute power had never been shared, but the orators of the terem cited many examples both from sacred and profane history: Pharaoh and Joseph, Arcadius and Honorius, Basil II and Constantine VIII; and the best of all the arguments were the pikes of the streltsi (1682).

Sophia had triumphed: she reigned in the name of her two brothers, Ivan and Peter. She made a point of showing herself in public, at processions, solemn services, and dedications of churches. At the Ouspienski Sobor, while her brothers occupied the place of the czar, she filled that of the czarina; only she raised the curtains and boldly allowed herself to be incensed by the patriarch. When the raskolniks challenged the heads of the orthodox church to discussion, she wished to preside and hold the meeting in the open air, at the Lobnoe Miesto on the Red Place. There was, however, so much opposition that she was forced to call the assembly in the Palace of Facets, and sat behind the throne of her two brothers, present though invisible. The double-seated throne used on those occasions is still preserved at Moscow; there is an opening in the back, hidden by a veil of silk, and behind this sat Sophia. This singular piece of furniture is the symbol of a government previously unknown to Russia, composed of two visible czars and one invisible sovereign.

The streltsi, however, felt their prejudices against female sovereignty awaken. They shrank from the contempt heaped by the Czarevna upon the ancient manners. Sophia had already become in their eyes a “scandalous person” (pozornoe litzo). Another cause of misunderstanding was the support she gave to the state church, as reformed by Nicon, while the streltsi and the greater part of the people held to the “old faith.” She had arrested certain “old believers,” who at the discussion in the Palace of Facets had challenged the patriarchs and orthodox prelates, and she had caused the ringleader to be executed. Khovanski, chief of the streltsi, whether from sympathy with the raskol or whether he wished to please his subordinates, affected to share their discontent. The court no longer felt itself safe at Moscow. Sophia took refuge with the Czarina and the two young princes in the fortified monastery of Troitsa, and summoned around her the gentlemen-at-arms. Khovanski was invited to attend, was arrested on the way, and put to death with his son. The streltsi attempted a new rising, but, with the usual fickleness of a popular militia, suddenly passed from the extreme of insolence to the extreme of humility. They marched to Troitsa, this time in the guise of suppliants, with cords round their necks, carrying axes and blocks for the death they expected. The patriarch consented to intercede for them, and Sophia contented herself with the sacrifice of the ringleaders.

Sophia, having got rid of her accomplices, governed by aid of her two favorites — Chaklovity, the new commandant of the streltsi, whom she had drawn from obscurity, and who was completely devoted to her, and Prince Vasili Galitsyne. Galitsyne has become the hero of a historic school which opposes his genius to that of Peter the Great, in the same way as in France Henry, Duke of Guise, has been exalted at the expense of Henry IV. He was the special favorite, the intimate friend, of Sophia, the director of her foreign policy, and her right hand in military affairs. Sophia and Galitsyne labored to organize a holy league between Russia, Poland, Venice, and Austria against the Turks and Tartars. They also tried to gain the countenance of the Catholic powers of the West; and in 1687 Jacob Dolgorouki and Jacob Mychetski disembarked at Dunkirk as envoys to the court of Louis XIV. They were not received very favorably: the King of France was not at all inclined to make war against the Turks; he was, on the other hand, the ally of Mahomet IV, who was about to besiege Vienna while Louis blockaded Luxemburg. The whole plan of the campaign was, however, thrown out by the intervention of Russia and John Sobieski in favor of Austria. The Russian ambassadors received orders to reembark at Havre, without going farther south.

The government of the Czarevna still persisted in its warlike projects. In return for an active cooperation against the Ottomans, Poland had consented to ratify the conditions of the Treaty of Androussovo, and to sign a perpetual peace (1686). A hundred thousand Muscovites, under the command of Prince Galitsyne, and fifty thousand Little Russian Cossacks, under the orders of the hetman Samoilovitch, marched against the Crimea (1687). The army suffered greatly in the southern steppes, as the Tartars had fired the grassy plains. Galitsyne was forced to return without having encountered the enemy. Samoilovitch was accused of treason, deprived of his command, and sent to Siberia; and Mazeppa, who owed to Samoilovitch his appointment as secretary-at-war, and whose denunciations had chiefly contributed to his downfall, was appointed his successor.

In the spring of 1689 the Muscovite and Ukranian armies, commanded by Galitsyne and Mazeppa, again set out for the Crimea. The second expedition was hardly more fortunate than the first: they got as far as Perekop, and were then obliged to retreat without even having taken the fortress. This double defeat did not hinder Sophia from preparing for her favorite a triumphal entry into Moscow. In vain Peter forbade her to leave the palace; she braved his displeasure and headed the procession, accompanied by the clergy and the images and followed by the army of the Crimea, admitted the generals to kiss her hand and distributed glasses of brandy among the officers. Peter left Moscow in anger, and retired to the village of Preobrajenskoe. The foreign policy of the Czarevna was marked by another display of weakness. By the Treaty of Nertchinsk she restored to the Chinese empire the fertile regions of the Amur, which had been conquered by a handful of Cossacks, and razed the fortress of Albazine, where those adventurers had braved all the forces of the East. On all sides Russia seemed to retreat before the barbarians.

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