Mikhail Fedorovich, 15961645, the first monarch from the Romanov dynasty. He dies, as a contemporary testifies, from melancholy, «that is, torpor» and «a lot of sitting.» The four children he earned in marriage with his unloved, or at least not chosen by him Evdokia Streshneva, continue the dynasty.
In January 1613, an all-estate meeting, the Zemsky Sobor, was convened. The goal is to elect a new king. Among the applicants are Pozharsky, Trubetskoy, the Swedish prince Karl Philip, Vladislav Vaza and Ivan, the son of Maria Mnishek. The fate of this child is sad. In 1615, he was transported from Astrakhan to the capital, where he was executed along with the ataman Zarutsky.
The election is won by the son of Patriarch Filaret, Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. Patriarchs are not supposed to have children, but Fyodor Romanov and his wife Xenia did not always have a monastic rank. They had to go to a monastery under Boris Godunov, but by that time they already had a son, Mikhail. In 1611, Filaret became the «named» patriarch in the Tushino camp, in parallel with Hermogenes staying in Moscow. Then the Poles take him to Poland, but there he also finds ways to communicate with the Zemsky Sobor.
So, to Mikhail Fedorovich and his mother, who are hiding from the persecution of the Poles in the Ipatiev Monastery (Kostroma), the embassy of the Zemsky Cathedral arrives and reports important news. The young man becomes the first king of the Romanov dynasty.
Three years later, Polish troops, together with the Cossacks of the gentry Pyotr Konashevich (Sagaidachny), are trying to restore Vladislav Vaza to the rights of king, storm Moscow, but unsuccessfully. Nevertheless, according to the Treaty of Deulina, concluded in 1618, Russia is losing 26 cities. Among them are Smolensk, Chernigov and Putivl, together with the population, except for the clergy and nobility, who are allowed to move to the Russian lands.
Alexei Mikhailovich (16291676), tsar, father of Peter the Great. A monarch of a good-natured disposition, peacefully combining Russian and Western orders, keen on astrology and European music, the founder of the «new order» regiments Reitars, soldiers, dragoons and hussars.
Vladislav Vaza still claims the Russian throne.
Mikhail the First is going to get married and, examining the line of brides, chooses Maria Khlopova. The girl does not like the queen mother. At her instigation, doctors conclude that «Maria Khlopova is fragile to the royal joy.» Other doctors come to a different conclusion, however, the last word is for the nun. Some time later, with the assistance of his father, who returned from Polish captivity, Mikhail almost marries Khlopova, but his mothers influence outweighs. In the end, the tsar enters into an alliance with Evdokia Streshneva, the confidante of one of the boyars who came to the bride. The marriage is happy, except for the fact that, even with royal care, six out of ten children die before reaching adulthood (the usual statistics of that time).
In 1636 Michael declares war on Poland. Russian troops besiege Smolensk. The governors return to Moscow with 8 thousand soldiers, the initial number being 32 thousand. The state of affairs remains. The only plus is that the King of Poland, Vladislav, renounces his claims to the Russian throne.
In 1645, Mikhails son, Alexei Mikhailovich (Quietest), became tsar. During his reign, the reunification of Ukraine and Russia, the Copper and Salt riots and the church schism took place. The church council of 1666 supports the reform of the high priest Nikon, anathematizes the Old Believers and, regardless of all that, condemns the patriarch to imprisonment in a monastery. Open resistance to the new religious charter lasted until the capture of the Solovetsky monastery by the troops in 1676. In 1654, in connection with the annexation of Ukraine, a new Russian-Polish war began. The combined troops of Buturlin and Khmelnitsky are making progress. They are already fighting on the territory of ethnic Poland and Lithuania. The entry into the war of a strong player, Sweden, which snatched Warsaw and Krakow from the hands of Russia, forces the parties to the conflict to sign the Vilna truce. Nevertheless, there is an interesting prospect for the election of Alexei Mikhailovich to the Polish throne.
Ukraine then, both in colloquial speech and in all official documents, is called Little Russia, or the Hetmanate. The agreement between the Russian tsar and the Cossacks is drawn up in the «Belarusian language». Muscovite Rus at that time was called «White». Later, the toponym shifts to the West and denotes present-day Belarus.
Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky (15951657)
In 1658 the war continues, but without the deceased Bohdan Khmelnitsky.
The former secretary, Ivan Vyhovsky, who himself became the «hetman of the Grand Duchy of Russia», carries out mass repressions among the Cossacks and concludes a separate agreement with the Commonwealth. According to its clauses, the Hetmanate becomes a federal unit of Poland. In the same year, Vyhovsky cracked down on the Cossack foreman, who was trying to find out where the tsarist money allocated for the maintenance of the Zaporozhye army went.
In 1659, Vygovsky succeeded in attracting the Crimean Khan Mehmed Giray the Fourth with a 30,000-strong army as an allies. Together they defeat the Russian detachment of A. Trubetskoy, which is besieging Konotop. Loss of seven for seven thousand. In Ukraine, more and more uprisings break out against Vyhovsky. The next hetman is the 18-year-old son of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. Yuri is not the successor of his fathers work, speaking, in general, against the unification of the lands. The offspring of Khmelnytsky is a henchman of the Poles, Ottomans, and does not pursue an independent policy. Realizing that the hetmanship is not for him, he becomes a monk, gets to the Tatars, Turks, who in the end deprive him of his head.
In the fall of 1663, the Polish army, plus the Crimean Tatars and detachments of the Principality of Lithuania, led by King Jan Kazimierz, made the last major operation. With heavy fighting, it occupies a dozen cities. The initiative is waking up in the Russian commanders. Competently leading the troops, they perform deceptive maneuvers, block the enemy garrisons, and raid the rear. The Polish-Lithuanian army retreats, losing three quarters of its strength. In 1666, the right-bank hetman Petro Doroshenko, who declared himself a vassal of the Turkish sultan, revolted against Poland. Thirty thousand Crimean Tatars come to the aid of his fifteen thousand Cossacks. The turmoil lasts for five years. Poland is restoring the state of affairs, but it is completely exhausting its strength. In the end, on January 30, 1667, the Andrusov armistice was signed between Russia and Poland. Rzeczpospolita recognizes the annexation of the Left-Bank Ukraine, Smolensk, the Chernigov Voivodeship, a number of small towns, preserves the Right-Bank Ukraine and Belarus. Russia is not yet in a position to retain some of its large territorial acquisitions.
Hetman Petro Doroshenko (16271698)
In the summer of 1672 Poland was attacked by the Ottoman Empire. By this time, the Turks and their vassal Doroshenko already owned the entire Right-Bank Little Russia. There is Islamization, the alteration of churches in the mosque, the recruitment of boys to janissaries, girls, again boys to harems, and the like. Fearing the invasion of the warriors of the Port on the Left Bank Ukraine, and not wanting to humiliate the Christian world, Russia enters the war with Turkey. Relations with Poland immediately warmed up. Cossacks and Cossacks (usually, Zaporozhye Cossacks are called through the vowel «O») are invited to attack the Crimean Tatar and Turkish possessions from the sea. Russia is trying to form a European coalition and even become its head. She does not succeed in this, but at least this attempt itself is evaluated favorably by the Western community. The fighting is covered in detail by the European press.
Poland is losing the war and officially gives the Right-Bank Ukraine to the Ottomans. Alexei Mikhailovich considers this a reason for extending the power of the crown to the whole of Little Russia, in the event of a victory over the mighty Port, of course. Events are not developing quite the way the Russians want them to. They are fighting the Turks and Crimean Tatars. Those intensify the repression against the population. The population falls away from the Ottomans and is immediately given over to the well-functioning Polish administration. A significant part of the inhabitants flees to the Russian Left-Bank Ukraine. The city of Chigirin occupies a special place in Ukraine at that time. It is the unofficial capital of the Hetmanate, a large Cossack camp and covers the strategic crossing of the Dnieper. The Russian-Ukrainian army captures the city, forces Doroshenko to swear allegiance to the Russian Tsar and withstands, intermittently, two Turkish sieges. The second of them (1678) shows the lack of experienced gunners, while the Ottoman guns shoot almost without a miss. Four Turkish guns are «super heavy». It takes 32 buffaloes to transport each. The ratio of forces in people is 1:10. The Turks are losing 30 thousand fighters from the 120-thousand army. The Russian-Ukrainian coalition is losing 15 thousand of the original 65 thousand. In the end, Romodanovskys troops, having formed in a huge square, retreat to the Dnieper and are evacuated to the Left-Bank Ukraine.
The war is reaching a dead end. Right-bank Ukraine, in any case, is arranged according to the Polish model. It is difficult to win back and keep it without an alliance with Poland. The Poles themselves, as a condition of the alliance, require huge sums to support their troops. In the end, according to the Bakhchisarai Peace Treaty (1680), the Port recognizes the entry of the Left-Bank Ukraine and Kiev into Russia. Right-bank Little Russia is now ruled by a Turkish vassal, the Moldovan ruler Gheorghe Duca. The Zaporizhzhya Sich becomes independent from Moscow. As before, Russia pays a semblance of tribute to the Crimean Khan.
In 1676, having declared the fifteen-year-old Fedor (mother Maria Miloslavskaya) heir, the tsar died of a heart attack. Fyodor the Third reigns happily, but not for long, five years, leaving no heirs. It is not he, and not his brother Ivan the Fifth, who becomes the great emperor, but Peter the First, born in marriage with his second wife Natalia Naryshkina.
The Naryshkin clan declares that, dying, Tsar Fyodor personally handed over the scepter to Peter. The Miloslavskys angered the archers with rumors that the Naryshkins strangled Tsarevich Ivan. The military, despite the fact that they are introduced to the princes with their own eyes, kill several boyars. They do not dare to deal with Peter.
As a result, representatives of the Miloslavsky and Naryshkin families were married to the kingdom in 1682 at the same time. For the princes, they even arrange a throne with two seats. In fact, an active daughter from the first marriage of Alexei Tishaishy, the second regent of the royal brothers, Princess Sophia, rules.
In 1686 the tsarina signed the «Eternal Peace» with Poland. Kiev is assigned to the Russian kingdom (146 thousand rubles of compensation are paid), Zaporozhye, Smolensk, Chernigov. A number of devastated lands are included in the buffer territories. In addition, Russia joins the countries leading the war with the Ottoman Empire, the Holy League. In fulfillment of allied obligations, the First and Second Crimean campaigns are being undertaken. Both end the same way. Almost 100-thousand army, suffering deprivation of supplies and fresh water, returns back. In the first case (1687), the army gets to the Konka River, located 150 kilometers south of Dnepropetrovsk. In the second (1689) it reaches Perekop. The idea of building fortresses to accumulate supplies is not being implemented. The troops of the more proactive Grigory Kosagov capture the strategically important Ochakov (Kara-Kermen, Black Fortress), located on the Black Sea coast near the mouth of the Dnieper. Only then, finally, the Russian kingdom ceases to pay tribute to the Crimean Khan.
Princess Sophia Alekseevna (16571704)
The first, the Nerchinsk agreement with China is concluded. In general, Sophias reign was not marked by special events. Russia is accumulating strength to withstand the era of Peter the Great. Peter turns 17 in May 1689, and at the insistence of his mother he marries Evdokia Lopukhina. Love lasts a year. The Tsar finds solace in the arms of the daughter of a goldsmith from the German Suburb, Anna Mons. Despite the beginning of adulthood, almost no one around Peter takes his orders seriously. Rumors of an impending assassination attempt reach the king. Together with his closest relatives and confidants, Peter takes refuge in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. From here he sends instructions to the regimental commanders to appear with a dozen people in person. Arriving archers are waiting for the sovereigns mercy, vodka and feasts, but Peter himself leads the exemplary life of the Moscow Tsar. Sophia loses her supporters. She has to retire to the Novodevichy Convent, although she does not become a real nun until the suppression of the Strelets uprising. Ivan the Fifth meets Peter in the Assumption Cathedral and in fact gives up all power.
Peter likes to fight. In 1695 he carried out the First Azov campaign. More than 30,000 troops travel along the Don to the Azov (the top of the Sea of Azov), on transport ships and by land. Here it is revealed that it is impossible to take the city without warships. Only two fortresses overlapping the river are captured.
In the village of Preobrazhenskoye, on the banks of the Yauza, not far from Moscow, new transport and military ships are being built in a wild haste. They are disassembled and transported to Voronezh, to the Don, where they are assembled again. The number of troops reaches 70 thousand. In May 1696, Azov again fell into a siege. In July, after massive shelling, the garrison surrenders. According to the agreement, the Ottomans leave the city with their families and movable property. Voivode Shein becomes the first Russian generalissimo. Under the Constantinople Peace Treaty of 1700, Russia is officially exempted from paying tribute to the Crimean Khan. She receives Azov and a number of adjacent territories. But, the main goal access to the Black Sea, even though through the Kerch Strait, is still not achieved.
Peter the Great (16721725)
In 1697, Peter the Great, who a year ago became the autocratic tsar, presented as a «sergeant of the Preobrazhensky regiment», set off on a journey across Europe. The goal of the «Great Embassy» (60 people) is to gain allies in the fight against Turkey, purchase weapons and hire craftsmen. There are many inconsistencies during this period of government. Meetings with the English king William III in Utrecht, the ruler of Austria Leopold the First, with Newton, Leibniz, Levenguk, Halley (the same astronomer), are still classified as «secret». Some historians believe that Peter the Great does not participate in the Embassy at all.
.. It is impossible to reach an agreement with Austria and Holland on an alliance against the Ottomans. Vienna refuses even to recognize the transfer of Kerch and the corresponding strait to Russia, if they were captured by it. The young tsar has personal friendship only with the king of the Commonwealth Augustus II. For the election of his candidacy at the Polish Sejm, Peter the Great at one time made certain efforts and resources. Among other things, colleagues of the same age manage to agree on a joint war against Sweden.