Peter's family relationships. State criminal or victim of intrigue: why Peter I condemned his son to death

According to official records kept in the archives of the Secret Chancellery of Sovereign Peter I, on June 26 (July 7), 1718, in a cell of the Peter and Paul Fortress, a previously convicted state criminal, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich Romanov, died of a stroke (cerebral hemorrhage). This version of the death of the heir to the throne raises great doubts among historians and makes them think about his murder, committed on the orders of the king.

Childhood of the heir to the throne

Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, who by right of birth was supposed to succeed his father, Tsar Peter I, on the Russian throne, was born on February 18 (28), 1690 in the village of Preobrazhenskoye near Moscow, where the royal summer residence was located. It was founded by his grandfather - Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who died in 1676, in whose honor the young heir to the crown received his name. From then on, Saint Alexis, the man of God, became his heavenly patron. The Tsarevich’s mother was the first wife of Peter I, Evdokia Fedorovna (née Lopukhina), who was imprisoned by him in a monastery in 1698 and, according to legend, cursed the entire Romanov family.

IN early years During his life, Alexei Petrovich lived in the care of his grandmother - the Dowager Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna (nee Naryshkina) - the second wife of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. According to contemporaries, even then he was distinguished by a hot-tempered disposition, which is why, having begun to learn to read and write at the age of six, he often beat his mentor, the petty nobleman Nikifor Vyazemsky. He also loved to pull the beard of the confessor assigned to him, Yakov Ignatiev, a deeply pious and pious man.

In 1698, after his wife was imprisoned in the Suzdal-Pokrovsky Monastery, Peter transferred his son to the care of his beloved sister, Natalya Alekseevna. And before, the sovereign had little interest in the details of Alyosha’s life, but from then on he stopped worrying about him altogether, limiting himself only to sending his son new teachers twice in a short time, whom he selected from among highly educated foreigners.

Difficult child

However, no matter how hard the teachers tried to instill the European spirit in the young man, all their efforts were in vain. According to Vyazemsky’s denunciation, which he sent to the Tsar in 1708, Alexey Petrovich tried in every possible way to evade the activities prescribed for him, preferring to communicate with them various kinds“priests and black monks,” among whom he was often given to drunkenness. The time spent with them contributed to the rooting of hypocrisy and hypocrisy in him, which had a detrimental effect on the formation of the young man’s character.

In order to eradicate these extremely undesirable inclinations in his son and introduce him to the real business, the tsar instructed him to supervise the training of recruits recruited in connection with the advance of the Swedes deep into Russia. However, the results of his activities were extremely insignificant, and, worst of all, he went without permission to the Suzdal-Pokrovsky Monastery, where he met his mother. With this rash act, the prince incurred the wrath of his father.

Brief married life

In 1707, when Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich turned 17 years old, the question arose about his marriage. From among the contenders for marriage with the heir to the throne, the 13-year-old Austrian princess Charlotte of Wolfenbüttel was chosen, who was very cleverly matched to the future groom by his teacher and tutor, Baron Hussein. Marriage between members of the reigning families is a purely political issue, so they were in no particular hurry with it, carefully considering everything possible consequences this step. As a result, the wedding, which was celebrated with extraordinary pomp, took place only in October 1711.

Three years after marriage, his wife gave birth to a girl, Natalya, and after some time a boy. This only son of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, named after his crowned grandfather, eventually ascended to the Russian throne and became Tsar Peter II. However, soon a misfortune happened - as a result of complications that arose during childbirth, Charlotte unexpectedly died. The widowed prince never married again, and he was consoled as best he could by the young beauty Euphrosyne, a serf maiden given to him by Vyazemsky.

Son rejected by father

From the biography of Alexei Petrovich it is known that further events took an extremely unfavorable turn for him. The fact is that in 1705, his father’s second wife, Catherine, gave birth to a child who turned out to be a boy and, therefore, the heir to the throne, in the event that Alexei abandoned him. In this situation, the sovereign, who had not previously loved his son, born of a woman, which he treacherously hid in a monastery, became imbued with hatred towards him.

This feeling, raging in the tsar’s chest, was largely fueled by anger caused by Alexei Petrovich’s reluctance to share with him the work of Europeanizing patriarchal Russia, and by the desire to leave the throne to the new contender who had barely been born - Pyotr Petrovich. As you know, fate opposed this wish of his, and the child died at an early age.

In order to stop all attempts by his eldest son to claim the crown in the future, and to remove himself out of sight, Peter I decided to follow the path already trodden by him and force him to become a monk, as he once did with his mother. Subsequently, the conflict between Alexei Petrovich and Peter I became even more sharp character, forcing the young man to take the most drastic measures.

Flight from Russia

In March 1716, when the sovereign was in Denmark, the prince also went abroad, allegedly wanting to meet his father in Copenhagen and inform him of his decision regarding monastic tonsure. Voivode Vasily Petrovich Kikin, who then held the position of head of the St. Petersburg Admiralty, helped him cross the border, contrary to the royal ban. He subsequently paid for this service with his life.

Finding himself outside of Russia, the heir to the throne Alexei Petrovich, the son of Peter I, unexpectedly for the retinue accompanying him, changed his route, and, bypassing Gdansk, went straight to Vienna, where he then conducted separate negotiations both with the Austrian Emperor Charles himself and with the whole a number of other European rulers. This desperate step, which the prince was forced to take by circumstances, was nothing more than high treason, but he had no other choice.

Far-reaching plans

As is clear from the materials of the investigation, in which the fugitive prince became a defendant some time later, he planned, having settled on the territory of the Holy Roman Empire, to wait for the death of his father, who, according to rumors, was seriously ill at that time and could die at any moment. After this, he hoped, with the help of the same Emperor Charles, to ascend to the Russian throne, resorting, if necessary, to the help of the Austrian army.

In Vienna they reacted very sympathetically to his plans, believing that Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, the son of Peter I, would be an obedient puppet in their hands, but they did not dare to openly intervene, considering it too risky an undertaking. They sent the conspirator himself to Naples, where under the skies of Italy he had to hide from all seeing eye Secret Chancellery and monitor further developments.

Historians have at their disposal a very interesting document - a report from the Austrian diplomat Count Schoenberg, which he sent to Emperor Charles in 1715. It states, among other things, that the Russian Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich Romanov has neither the intelligence, nor the energy, nor the courage necessary for decisive action aimed at seizing power. Based on this, the count considered it inappropriate to provide him with any assistance. It is possible that it was this message that saved Russia from another foreign invasion.

Homecoming

Having learned about the flight of his son abroad and foreseeing the possible consequences, Peter I took the most decisive measures to capture him. He entrusted direct leadership of the operation to the Russian ambassador to the Viennese court, Count A.P. Veselovsky, but he, as it turned out later, assisted the prince, hoping that when he came to power he would reward him for the services rendered. This miscalculation brought him to the chopping block.

Nevertheless, agents of the Secret Chancellery very soon established the location of the fugitive hiding in Naples. The Holy Roman Emperor responded to their request for the extradition of a state criminal with a decisive refusal, but allowed the royal envoys - Alexander Rumyantsev and Peter Tolstoy - to meet with him. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the nobles handed the prince a letter in which his father guaranteed him forgiveness of guilt and personal safety in the event of a voluntary return to his homeland.

As subsequent events showed, this letter was just an insidious trick aimed at luring the fugitive to Russia and dealing with him there. Anticipating such an outcome of events and no longer hoping for help from Austria, the prince tried to win over the Swedish king to his side, but never received an answer to the letter sent to him. As a result, after a series of persuasion, intimidation and all sorts of promises, the fugitive heir to the Russian throne, Alexei Petrovich Romanov, agreed to return to his homeland.

Under the yoke of accusations

Repression fell on the prince as soon as he arrived in Moscow. It began with the fact that on February 3 (14), 1718, the sovereign’s manifesto was published depriving him of all rights of succession to the throne. In addition, as if wanting to enjoy the humiliation of his own son, Peter I forced him within the walls of the Assumption Cathedral to publicly swear an oath that he would never again lay claim to the crown and would renounce it in favor of his half-brother, the young Peter Petrovich. At the same time, the sovereign again committed an obvious deception, promising Alexei, subject to a voluntary admission of guilt, complete forgiveness.

Literally the next day after the oath taken in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, the head of the Secret Chancellery, Count Tolstoy, began an investigation. His goal was to clarify all the circumstances related to the treason committed by the prince. From the records of the inquiry it is clear that during interrogations, Alexey Petrovich, showing cowardice, tried to shift the blame to the closest dignitaries, who allegedly forced him to enter into separate negotiations with the rulers of foreign states.

Everyone he pointed out was immediately executed, but this did not help him avoid answering. The defendant was exposed by many irrefutable evidence of guilt, among which the testimony of his mistress, the same serf maiden Euphrosyne, generously given to him by Vyazemsky, turned out to be especially disastrous.

Death Sentence

The Emperor closely followed the progress of the investigation, and sometimes he himself conducted the investigation, which formed the basis of the plot of the famous painting by N. N. Ge, in which Tsar Peter interrogates Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich in Peterhof. Historians note that at this stage the defendants were not handed over to executioners and their testimony was considered voluntary. However, there is a possibility that the former heir slandered himself out of fear of possible torment, and the girl Euphrosyne was simply bribed.

One way or another, by the end of the spring of 1718, the investigation had sufficient materials to accuse Alexei Petrovich of treason, and the trial that took place soon sentenced him to death. It is known that at the meetings his attempt to seek help from Sweden, a state with which Russia was then at war, was not mentioned, and the decision was made on the basis of the remaining episodes of the case. According to contemporaries, upon hearing the verdict, the prince was horrified and on his knees begged his father to forgive him, promising to immediately become a monk.

The defendant spent the entire previous period of time in one of the casemates of the Peter and Paul Fortress, ironically becoming the first prisoner of the notorious political prison into which the citadel founded by his father gradually turned. Thus, the building with which the history of St. Petersburg began is forever associated with the name of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich (a photo of the fortress is presented in the article).

Various versions of the death of the prince

Now let's turn to the official version of the death of this unfortunate scion of the House of Romanov. As mentioned above, the cause of death that occurred even before the sentence was carried out was called a blow, that is, hemorrhage in the brain. Perhaps in court circles they believed this, but modern researchers have great doubts about this version.

First of all, in the second half of the 19th century, Russian historian N. G. Ustryalov published documents according to which, after the verdict, Tsarevich Alexei was subjected to terrible torture, apparently wanting to find out some additional circumstances of the case. It is possible that the executioner was overzealous and his actions caused his unexpected death.

In addition, there is evidence from persons involved in the investigation who claimed that while in the fortress, the prince was secretly killed on the orders of his father, who did not want to compromise the Romanov family name with a public execution. This option is quite probable, but the fact is that their testimony is extremely contradictory in detail, and therefore cannot be taken on faith.

By the way, at the end of the 19th century, a letter allegedly written by a direct participant in those events, Count A.I. Rumyantsev, and addressed to a prominent statesman of the Peter the Great era, V.N. Tatishchev, became widely known in Russia. In it, the author talks in detail about the violent death of the prince at the hands of jailers who carried out the order of the sovereign. However, after proper examination, it was determined that this document was a fake.

And finally, there is another version of what happened. According to some information, Tsarevich Alexei suffered from tuberculosis for a long time. It is possible that the experiences caused by the trial and the death sentence imposed on him provoked a sharp exacerbation of the disease, which became the cause of his sudden death. However, this version of what happened is not supported by convincing evidence.

Disgrace and subsequent rehabilitation

Alexei was buried in the cathedral of the very Peter and Paul Fortress, of which he happened to be the first prisoner. Tsar Peter Alekseevich was personally present at the burial, wanting to make sure that the body of his hated son was swallowed up by the earth. He soon issued several manifestos condemning the deceased, and Novgorod Archbishop Feofan (Prokopovich) wrote an appeal to all Russians, in which he justified the tsar’s actions.

The name of the disgraced prince was consigned to oblivion and was not mentioned until 1727, when, by the will of fate, his son ascended to the Russian throne and became Emperor of Russia, Peter II. Having come to power, this young man (he was barely 12 years old at the time) completely rehabilitated his father, ordering that all articles and manifestos compromising him be withdrawn from circulation. As for the work of Archbishop Feofan, published at one time under the title “The Truth of the Will of the Monarchs,” it, too, was declared to be malicious sedition.

Real events through the eyes of artists

The image of Tsarevich Alexei is reflected in the works of many Russian artists. It is enough to recall the names of the writers - D. S. Merezhkovsky, D. L. Mordovtsev, A. N. Tolstoy, as well as the artist N. N. Ge, who was already mentioned above. He created a portrait of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, full of drama and historical truth. But one of his most striking incarnations was the role played by Nikolai Cherkasov in the film “Peter the First,” directed by the outstanding Soviet director V. M. Petrov.

This one is in it historical character appears as a symbol of a bygone century and deeply conservative forces that prevented the implementation of progressive reforms, as well as the danger posed by foreign powers. This interpretation of the image was fully consistent with official Soviet historiography; his death was presented as an act of just retribution.

Alexey Petrovich (1690-1718) - Tsarevich, son of Peter I and his first wife Evdokia Lopukhina. He had a negative attitude towards his father’s reforms, which aroused his anger. In 1716 he secretly left for Vienna; returned to Russia and imprisoned Peter and Paul Fortress. Under torture, he betrayed his accomplices and confessed to treason against his father’s cause. He was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court and two days later found death in the Peter and Paul Fortress under unclear circumstances.

Orlov A.S., Georgieva N.G., Georgiev V.A. Historical Dictionary. 2nd ed. M., 2012, p. 14.

Alexey Petrovich (02/18/1690-06/26/1718), prince, eldest son of Peter I from his first wife E.F. Lopukhina. Until the age of 8, he was raised by his mother in an environment hostile to Peter I. He feared and hated his father and was reluctant to carry out his instructions, especially of a military nature. The lack of will and indecisiveness of Alexei Petrovich was used by the political enemies of Peter I. In 1705-06, the opposition of the clergy and boyars grouped around the prince, opposing the reforms of Peter I. In October. 1711 Alexey Petrovich married Princess Sophia Charlotte of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (d. 1715), with whom he had a son, Peter (later Peter II, 1715-30). Peter I, threatening disinheritance and imprisonment in a monastery, repeatedly demanded that Alexei change his behavior. In 1716, fearing punishment, Alexei fled to Vienna under the protection of the Austrian Emperor. Charles VI. He hid in Ehrenberg Castle (Tirol), from May 1717 - in Naples. With threats and promises, Peter I achieved the return of his son (Jan. 1718) and forced him to renounce his rights to the throne and hand over his accomplices. On June 24, 1718, the Supreme Court of the generals, senators and Synod sentenced Alexei to death. According to the current version, he was strangled by the associates of Peter I in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Materials used from the site Great Encyclopedia of the Russian People - http://www.rusinst.ru

Alexey Petrovich (18.II.1690 - 26.VI.1718) - Tsarevich, eldest son of Peter I from his first wife E. R. Lopukhina. Until the age of 8, he was raised by his mother in an environment hostile to Peter I. He feared and hated his father and was reluctant to carry out his instructions, especially of a military nature. The lack of will and indecisiveness of Alexei Petrovich was used by the political enemies of Peter I. In 1705-1706, the reactionary opposition of the clergy and boyars grouped around the prince, opposing the reforms of Peter I. In October 1711, Alexei Petrovich married Princess Sophia Charlotte of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (d. 1715), from whom he had a son, Peter (later Peter II, 1715-1730). Peter I, threatening disinheritance and imprisonment in a monastery, repeatedly demanded that Alexey Petrovich change his behavior. At the end of 1716, fearing punishment, Alexei Petrovich fled to Vienna under the protection of the Austrian Emperor Charles VI. He hid in Ehrenberg Castle (Tirol), from May 1717 - in Naples. With threats and promises, Peter I achieved the return of his son (January 1718) and forced him to renounce his rights to the throne and hand over his accomplices. On June 24, 1718, the supreme court of the generals, senators and Synod sentenced Alexei Petrovich to death. According to the current version, he was strangled by the associates of Peter I in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Soviet historical encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1973-1982. Volume 1. AALTONEN – AYANY. 1961.

Literature: Solovyov S. M., History of Russia, St. Petersburg, book. 4, vol. 17, ch. 2; Ustryalov N., History of the reign of Peter the Great, vol. 6, St. Petersburg, 1859; Pogodin M.P., The trial of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, M., 1860; Execution of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich. Reported by L. A. Karasev, "PC", 1905, Aug. (book 8); Essays on the history of the USSR... Russia in the first quarter. XVIII century, M., 1954.

Alexey Petrovich (02/18/1690, the village of Preobrazhensk near Moscow - 06/26/1718, St. Petersburg) - prince, eldest son of Peter I and his first wife Evdokia Lopukhina. After the imprisonment of Queen Evdokia in the Pokrovsky Monastery in 1698, he was raised by Peter's sister, Princess Natalya. His confessor Yakov Ignatiev had a strong influence on the prince. Alexey was well-read and knew several foreign languages. As heir to the throne, he carried out his father's instructions during Northern War: supervision of work to strengthen Moscow (1707–1708), inspection of warehouses in Vyazma (1709), etc. In 1709–1712 he traveled around Western Europe to continue his education, as well as choose a bride. In October 1711 in Torgau he married Sophia-Charlotte of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (baptized Evdokia, died in 1715). He aroused the anger of Peter I and the threat of removal from the throne and tonsure as a monk due to his reluctance to break with opponents of the reforms carried out by the tsar. At the end of 1716 he fled with his mistress Euphrosyne to Vienna under the protection of the Austrian Emperor Charles VI. He hid in Ehrenberg Castle (Tirol), and from May 1717 - in Naples. In January 1718, Peter I, with the help of P. A. Tolstoy, achieved the return of his son, forced him to renounce his rights to the throne and hand over his “accomplices.” On June 24, 1718, the Supreme Court sentenced Alexei to death. According to one version, he was strangled by those close to Peter I in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

L. A. Tsyganova.

Russian historical encyclopedia. T. 1. M., 2015, p. 272.

Alexey Petrovich (18.2.1690, village of Preobrazhenskoye, near Moscow, - 26 6.1718, St. Petersburg), prince, eldest son Peter I from his marriage with Evdokia Fedorovna Lopukhina . He spent the first years of his childhood mainly in the company of his mother and grandmother ( Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina ), since Peter in 1693-1696 was first engaged in shipbuilding in Arkhangelsk, and then undertook the Azov campaigns. After the imprisonment of Queen Evdokia in the Suzdal Intercession Monastery in 1698, Tsarevich Alexei was taken to the village of Preobrazhenskoye by Peter’s sister, the princess Natalya Alekseevna . In 1699, Peter intended to send the prince abroad for education, but then changed this plan and invited the German Neugebauer to be his teacher. In 1703 he was replaced by Baron Huyssen; according to the latter’s reviews, the prince was diligent, loved mathematics and foreign languages, and was eager to get to know foreign countries. Studies in science were interrupted, however, at the request of Peter, either by a trip to Arkhangelsk in 1702, or by participation in the campaign to Nyenschanz, or by his presence in 1704 at the siege of Narva. In 1705, Huyssen was sent abroad by Peter on a diplomatic mission, and the prince was left without a leader. The prince's confessor, archpriest of the Verkhospassky Cathedral, Yakov Ignatiev, had a special influence on Alexei, who tried to maintain in him the memory of his mother as an innocent sufferer. At the end of 1706 or at the beginning of 1707, the prince visited his mother in the Suzdal monastery. Having learned about this, Peter immediately summoned him to his place and expressed his anger to him. In the fall of 1707, Alexei was entrusted with overseeing the work to strengthen Moscow in case of attack Charles XII , in August 1708 he was entrusted with inspecting food stores in Vyazma. In the fall of 1708, Alexey continued his studies with Huyssen, who had returned from abroad. At the beginning of 1709, the prince presented the tsar in Sumy with five regiments collected and organized by himself, then was present in Voronezh during the launching of the ships, and in the fall he went to Kiev to be with that part of the army that was intended to act against Stanislav Leshchinsky. In 1709 he went on a trip abroad to continue his education, as well as to choose a bride (back in 1707, Baron Urbich and Huyssen were instructed by Peter I to find a bride for the prince). Vice-Chancellor Kaunitz answered their question regarding the possibility of matchmaking with the eldest daughter of the Austrian emperor rather evasively. As a result, Baron Urbich turned his attention to Princess Sophia-Charlotte of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and suggested that Peter send the prince abroad to make it more convenient to negotiate. On his way to Dresden, Alexey Petrovich spent three months in Krakow. According to the description of a contemporary, Alexey Petrovich was very thoughtful and taciturn in unfamiliar company; rather melancholic than cheerful; secretive, fearful and suspicious to the point of pettiness, as if someone wanted to encroach on his life. At the same time, the prince was very inquisitive, visited the churches and monasteries of Krakow, attended debates at universities, bought many books, mainly of theological content and partly historical, and spent 6-7 hours daily not only on reading, but also on extracts from books, and did not show his extracts to anyone. According to Vilchek, Alexey Petrovich “has good abilities and can make great progress if those around him do not interfere with him”. In March 1709, Alexey Petrovich arrived in Warsaw, where he exchanged visits with Polish king. In October 1711 in Torgau, in the presence of Peter I, who had just returned from the Prut campaign, Alexey Petrovich married Sophia-Charlotte of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (baptized Evdokia, died in 1715; their children are Natalya (1714-1728) and Peter (future emperor Peter II ). In 1714, Alexey Petrovich, with the permission of Peter I, was treated in Carlsbad for consumption. Stubbornly refusing to become a faithful associate of Peter I, he aroused the anger of his father and the threat of removal from succession to the throne and tonsure into a monastery. Peter I, in a letter to his son, outlined the reasons for his dissatisfaction with the prince and ended it with a threat to deprive his son of his inheritance if he did not reform. Three days later, Alexey Petrovich submitted an answer to his father, in which he himself asked to be deprived of his inheritance. “As soon as I see myself,” he wrote, “I am inconvenient and indecent for this matter, I am also very devoid of memory (without which nothing can be done) and with all my mental and physical strength (from various illnesses) I have weakened and become indecent for the rule of so many people, where I require a person not as rotten as me. For the sake of the legacy (God bless you with many years of health!) Russian after you (even if I didn’t have a brother, but now, thank God, I have a brother, to whom God bless him) I don’t claim and will not claim in the future.”. With this letter, the prince renounced the inheritance not only for himself, but also for his son. Peter was dissatisfied with the prince’s tone. At the end of September, Alexey Petrovich received a letter in which Peter demanded an answer whether he intended to get down to business or wanted to enter a monastery. Then the prince carried out his long-standing intention and, with the help of A.V. Kikina’s plan, at the end of 1716 he fled abroad with his “Chukhonka” mistress Afrosinya. In November, Alexey Petrovich appeared in Vienna to Vice-Chancellor Schönborn and asked for protection from the injustice of his father, who wanted to cut his hair in order to deprive him and his son of their inheritance. Emperor Charles VI gathered a council, and it was decided to give the prince refuge; from November 12 to December 7, he stayed in the town of Weyerburg, and then was transferred to the Tyrolean castle of Ehrenberg. At the beginning of April 1717, Veselovsky handed over to Emperor Charles VI a letter from Peter with a request, if Alexei Petrovich was within the empire, to send it to him “for fatherly correction.” The emperor replied that he knew nothing, and turned to the English king with a request whether he would take part in the fate of the prince, suffering from the “tyranny” of his father. The Austrian secretary Keil, who arrived on the orders of his emperor in Ehrenberg, showed the prince the above-mentioned letters and advised him to leave for Naples if he did not want to return to his father. Alexey Petrovich was in despair and begged not to extradite him. He was escorted to Naples. A.I.Rumyantsev discovered this location of the prince and, arriving in Vienna with P.A. Tolstoy , demanded from the emperor the extradition of Alexei Petrovich or at least a meeting with him. Tolstoy promised Alexei Petrovich to obtain permission to marry Afrosinya and live in the village. This promise encouraged the prince, and Peter’s letter dated November 17, in which he promised to forgive him, completely reassured him. January 31, 1718 Alexey Petrovich arrived in Moscow; On February 3, he met with his father. The prince pleaded guilty to everything and tearfully begged for mercy. Peter confirmed his promise to forgive, but demanded that he renounce his inheritance and indicate those people who advised him to flee abroad. On the same day, the prince solemnly abdicated the throne; A manifesto prepared in advance was published about this, and the prince was declared heir to the throne, “for we have no other heir of age.” In a confrontation with Afrosinya, the prince first denied it, and then not only confirmed all her testimony, but even revealed his secret thoughts and hopes. On June 13, Peter made announcements to the clergy and the Senate. He asked the clergy to give him instructions from Holy Scripture, what to do with his son, and instructed the Senate to consider the case and judge what punishment the prince deserves. On June 14, Alexey Petrovich was transferred to the Peter and Paul Fortress, interrogated and tortured several times. Members of the Supreme Court (127 people) signed the death warrant, which stated that “The prince hid his rebellious intentions against his father and his sovereign, and his deliberate search from long ago, and his search for the throne of his father and at his belly, through various insidious inventions and falsehoods, and the hope for the mob and the desire for his father and sovereign for his speedy death.”. On June 26 at 6 pm Alexey Petrovich died. According to a version shared by some contemporaries, Alexey Petrovich was secretly strangled in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Book materials used: Sukhareva O.V. Who was who in Russia from Peter I to Paul I, Moscow, 2005

Ge N.N. Peter I interrogates Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich in Peterhof.

Alexey Petrovich (1690, Moscow - 1718, St. Petersburg) - Tsarevich, eldest son of Peter Z and his first wife E.F. Lopukhina. In 1698, Peter I imprisoned Alexei Petrovich's mother in the Suzdal monastery, and from childhood the prince hated and feared his father. The Tsarevich's mentors "in science and moral teaching" N. Vyazemsky, Neugebauer, Baron Huysen quickly succeeded each other and had little influence on Alexei Petrovich, who was distinguished by his curiosity and interest in learning, especially spiritual writings, but who did not like military science and military exercises. Usually Alexey Petrovich lived in Moscow surrounded by boyars who hated the reforms of Peter I. His confessor Yakov Ignatiev had a strong influence on Alexey Petrovich. Smart, but inactive and hostile to his father, Alexey Petrovich hated his father’s court: “It would be better if I were in hard labor or lying in a fever than to be there.” Peter I tried to accustom his son to practical activities: in 1703 took him on a campaign as a soldier in a bombardment company, and in 1704 forced him to participate in the capture of Narva; in 1708 he ordered the collection of recruits and the construction of car washes. fortifications in case of attack by Charles XII. The prince performed his duties reluctantly, which aroused the anger of his father and was beaten by him more than once. In 1709, Alexei Petrovich was sent to Germany to continue his studies and to marry Princess Sophia Charlotte (d. 1715), who bore Alexei Petrovich a daughter and a son (the future Peter II). In 1713, Alexey Petrovich returned to Russia, where he had to take an exam in front of his father, but, fearing that Peter I would demand drawings, he unsuccessfully tried to shoot himself in the hand, for which he was severely beaten and expelled by Peter I with a ban on appearing at court. After the birth of his son, Alexei Petrovich received a letter from his father, in which Peter I demanded either to correct himself or to renounce the throne. On the advice of friends (“Vit, the hood is not nailed to the head: you can take it off”) Alexey Petrovich asked permission to go to the monastery. Peter I gave his son a six-month deferment. Under the guise of a trip to his father in Denmark, Alexei Petrovich fled to Austria under the protection of Emperor Charles VI. In 1718, with threats and promises, Peter I managed to return Alexei Petrovich to Russia. At the request of his father, the prince abdicated the throne, betrayed his accomplices who knew the plan for his escape, but hid (this became known from his mistress Euphrosyne) that he intended to overthrow Peter I with the help of foreign troops (“when I am sovereign, I will live in Moscow, and Petersburg I’ll just leave it as a city; I won’t keep ships; I’ll keep an army only for defense, and I don’t want to have a war with anyone." 127 senior dignitaries (clergy, senators, generals) found Alexei Petrovich guilty of intending to kill his father and seize power and sentenced him to death. He died under torture or was strangled in the Peter and Paul Fortress. His death meant the victory of the supporters of reforms.

Book materials used: Shikman A.P. Figures of Russian history. Biographical reference book. Moscow, 1997

From the pre-revolutionary encyclopedia

Alexey Petrovich, Tsarevich - the eldest son of Peter the Great from his first marriage with E.F. Lopukhina, b. 18 Feb 1690, d. June 26, 1718 Tsarevich Alexei for the first years of his life remained in the care of his grandmother, Natalya Kirillovna and mother, Evdokia Fedorovna; his father was too busy with hectic social activities, from which he rested not at the family hearth, but at military fun or in the German settlement. After the death of Natalya Kirillovna (in 1694), his mother took the main place in the life of the prince, which had an impact on the friendly relations in which he remained with her in later times. At the age of six, Tsarevich Alexei began to learn to read and write using the book of hours and the primer from Nikifor Vyazemsky, a simple and poorly educated man, and also became acquainted with “the nature of writing, the stress of the voice and the punctuation of words” according to the grammar of Karion Istomin. In September 1698, following the imprisonment of Queen Evdokia in the Suzdal monastery, the prince was deprived of his mother's care and transported to his aunt, Natalya Alekseevna, in the village of Preobrazhenskoye. Here, however, under the guidance of his teacher N. Vyazemsky and the Naryshkins’ educators (Alexey and Vasily), he did little, except perhaps for “hut amusements” and “learned more to be prudes.” He was surrounded at this time by the Naryshkins (Vasily and Mikhail Grigorievich, Alexey and Ivan Ivanovich) and the Vyazemskys (Nikifor, Sergey, Lev, Peter, Andrey). His confessor, the Verkhospassky priest, then the archpriest Yakov Ignatiev, the Blagoveshchensk sacristan Alexy, and the priest Leonty Menshikov, who, in charge of the prince’s upbringing, deliberately neglected the matter in order to discredit Alexei Petrovich in the eyes of the tsar, had a bad influence on him. The king, however, made his decision (in 1699). sent his son to Dresden to study science, but soon (perhaps under the influence of the death of General Karlovich, who was supposed to entrust this training) changed his mind.

The Saxon Neugebauer, a former student at the University of Leipzig, was invited to mentor the prince. He failed to bind the prince to himself, quarreled with his former teachers and annoyed Menshikov, and therefore in July 1702 he lost his position. The following year, his place was taken by Huyssen, a flattering man who did not want to take responsibility for the assignment entrusted to him, and therefore was not very reliable in his stories about the prince. But Huyssen, obviously, did not care too much about the successful education of Alexei Petrovich, since even after Huyssen’s departure in 1705, Tsarevich Alexei still continued to study. In 1708, N. Vyazemsky reported that the prince was studying the German and French languages, studying “the four parts of numbers,” repeating declensions and cases, writing an atlas and reading history. At this time, however, the prince was entering a period of more independent activity. Already in 1707, Huyssen (sent abroad on diplomatic missions) proposed Princess Charlotte of Wolfenbüttel as his wife to Alexei Petrovich, to which the tsar agreed. During his journey to Dresden in 1709, a journey undertaken for the purpose of teaching German and French, geometry, fortification and “political affairs”, together with Alexander Golovkin (son of the chancellor) and Prince. Yuri Trubetskoy, the Tsarevich met with the princess in Schlakenberg in the spring of 1710, and a year later, on April 11, a marriage contract was signed. The marriage itself took place on October 14, 1711 in Torgau (in Saxony).

The prince entered into marriage with a foreign princess of a non-Orthodox religion only on the orders of the king. His relationship with his father played a leading role in his life and was formed partly under the influence of his character, partly due to external circumstances. Prominent for his spiritual gifts, the prince was distinguished by a rather indecisive and secretive character. These traits developed under the influence of the situation in which he found himself in his youth. From 1694 to 1698, the prince lived with his mother, who then no longer enjoyed the royal favor. I had to choose between my father and mother, and it was difficult to collapse. But the prince loved his mother and maintained relations with her even after her imprisonment, for example, he went on a date with her in 1707; by this, of course, he aroused a feeling of hostility in his father. I had to hide my affection for my mother from my father’s anger. The weak soul of the prince was afraid of the powerful energy of his father, and the latter became more and more convinced of his son’s inability to become an active champion of his plans, feared for the fate of the reforms, the introduction of which he had devoted his whole life to, and therefore began to treat his son harshly. Alexey Petrovich was afraid of life's struggle; he sought refuge from her in religious rituals. It was not for nothing that he read the Bible six times, made extracts from Baronius about church dogmas, rituals and miracles, and bought books of religious content. The king, on the contrary, had a deep practical sense and an iron will; in the struggle his strength grew stronger and multiplied; he sacrificed everything to introduce reforms that his superstitious son considered contrary to Orthodoxy. When the prince lived in Preobrazhenskoye (1705 - 1709), he was surrounded by people who, in his own words, taught him to “be hypocritical and to have conversions with priests and monks and to often go to them and get drunk.” In his treatment of these subordinates, the prince, who knew how to bow to the strong will of his father, himself showed signs of self-will and cruelty. He beat N. Vyazemsky and tore at the “honest brotherhood of his guardian,” confessor Yakov Ignatiev. Already at this time, the prince confessed to his closest friend, the same Yakov Ignatiev, that he wanted his father to die, and the archpriest consoled him with the fact that God would forgive and that they all wished the same. And in this case, the behavior of the prince in Preobrazhenskoye did not, of course, remain unknown to his father. Rumors also began to circulate among the people about the discord between the prince and the king. During the torture and executions after the Streltsy riot, the monastery groom Kuzmin told the Streltsy the following: “The Emperor loves the Germans, but the Tsarevich does not like them, a German came to him and said unknown words and the Tsarevich burned the dress on that German and scorched him. Nemchin complained to the sovereign and he said: why are you going to him, while I’m alive, then so are you.”

Another time, in 1708, there were rumors among the dissatisfied that the Tsarevich was also dissatisfied, surrounded himself with Cossacks, who, at his behest, punished the boyars who indulged the Tsar, and said that the Tsar was neither his father nor the Tsar. Thus, popular rumor personified in Tsarevich Alexei the hope of liberation from under the heavy oppression of Peter’s reforms and gave a shade of political enmity to the hostile relations of two different characters; family discord began to turn into party struggle. If in 1708 the prince proposed to the tsar articles on strengthening the Moscow fortification, on correcting the garrison, on the formation of several infantry regiments, on the search and training of undergrowth, if in the same year he recruited regiments at Smolensk, sent Swedish soldiers to St. Petersburg, and informed about military operations against the Don Cossacks with Bulavin at the head, he went to inspect stores in Vyazma, in 1709 he brought regiments to his father in Sumy, but in later times he did not show such activity and enjoyed the tsar’s trust less and less. The prince's trips abroad hardly brought him any significant benefit. After the first of them (1709 - 1712), the prince treated his wife badly, indulged in drunkenness and continued to be friends with the priests. After the second, he entered into a relationship with Euphrosyne Fedorovna, a prisoner who belonged to his teacher N. Vyazemsky. At the same time, he began to show disobedience, stubbornness, and also an aversion to military affairs and began to think about escaping abroad. The king, apparently, did not know these secret thoughts, but nevertheless noticed a change for the worse in his son. On the very day of Crown Princess Charlotte's death, 22 October. 1715, the tsar demanded in writing from the prince that he either reform or become a monk, and in a letter dated January 19. 1716 added that otherwise he would treat him as a “villain.” Then Alexey Petrovich, supported by the sympathy of A. Kikin, F. Dubrovsky and the valet Ivan the Bolshoi, fled with Euphrosyne through Danzig to Vienna, where he appeared before Chancellor Schönborn on November 10, 1716. Having secured the patronage of Emperor Charles VI (who was his brother-in-law), Alexey Petrovich traveled to Tyrol, where he stayed at Ehrenberg Castle on December 7. 1716, and on May 6, 1717 arrived at the Neapolitan castle of Saint Elmo. Here he was found by Peter Tolstoy and Alexander Rumyantsev, sent by the Tsar. Despite the Tsarevich’s fears, Tolstoy managed to persuade him to go back to Russia (October 14), and during his return, Alexey Petrovich received permission to marry Euphrosyne Fedorovna, but not abroad, but upon entering Russia in order to have less shame. The first meeting between father and son took place on February 3, 1718. Following this, the prince was deprived of the right to inherit the throne, torture and executions began (Kikin, Glebov and many others). The search was initially carried out in Moscow, in mid-March, then transferred to St. Petersburg. The prince was also tortured from June 19 to June 26, when he died at 6 p.m. without waiting for the death sentence to be carried out. From Crown Princess Charlotte, the prince had two children: daughter Natalia, b. July 12, 1714 and son Peter, b. 12 Oct. 1715. From Evfrosinya Feodorovna, Alexey Petrovich was also supposed to have a child in April 1717; his fate remains unknown.

Literature:

N. Ustryalov, “History of the reign of Peter the Great,” vol. VI;

Ustryalov N., History of the reign of Peter the Great, vol. 6, St. Petersburg, 1859;

Solovyov S. M., History of Russia, St. Petersburg, book. 4, vol. 17, ch. 2;

S. Soloviev, "History of Russia", volume XVII;

A. Brickner, "The History of Peter the Great";

M. Pogodin, “The Trial of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich” (in “Russian Bes.” 1860, book pp. 1 - 84);

N. Kostomarov, “Tsarevich Alexey Petrovich” (in “Ancient and New Russia.” vol. 1, pp. 31 - 54 and 134 - 152).

Kostomarov N.I. Tsarevich Alexey Petrovich. (About the painting by N. N. Ge). Autocratic youth. M., 1989;

Kozlov O.F. The case of Tsarevich Alexei // Questions of history. 1969. N 9.

Pavlenko N.I. Peter the Great. M., 1990.

Pogodin M.P., The trial of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, M., 1860;

Essays on the history of the USSR... Russia in the first quarter. XVIII century, M., 1954.

Tsarevich Alexei is a very unpopular personality not only among novelists, but also among professional historians. He is usually portrayed as a weak-willed, sickly, almost weak-minded young man who dreams of returning to the order of old Moscow Rus', avoids cooperation with his famous father in every possible way and is absolutely unfit to rule a huge empire. Peter I, who sentenced him to death, on the contrary, is portrayed in the works of Russian historians and novelists as a hero from ancient times, sacrificing his son to public interests and deeply suffering from his tragic decision.

Peter I interrogates Tsarevich Alexei in Peterhof. Artist N.N. Ge

“Peter, in his grief as a father and in the tragedy of a statesman, arouses sympathy and understanding... In the entire unsurpassed gallery of Shakespearean images and situations, it is difficult to find anything similar in its tragedy,” writes, for example, N. Molchanov. And indeed, what else could the unfortunate emperor do if his son intended to return the capital of Russia to Moscow (by the way, where is it now?), “abandon the fleet” and remove his faithful comrades from governing the country? The fact that the “chicks of Petrov’s nest” managed well without Alexei and destroyed each other on their own (even the incredibly cautious Osterman had to go into exile after the accession of the beloved daughter of the prudent emperor) does not bother anyone. Russian fleet, despite the death of Alexei, for some reason it still fell into decay - there were a lot of admirals, and the ships existed mainly on paper. In 1765, Catherine II complained in a letter to Count Panin: “We have neither a fleet nor sailors.” But who cares? The main thing, as official historiographers of the Romanovs and Soviet historians who agree with them say, is that the death of Alexei allowed our country to avoid returning to the past.

And only a rare reader of near-historical novels will come up with a strange and seditious thought: what if it was precisely such a ruler, who did not inherit the temperament and warlike disposition of his father, that mortally tired and ruined Russia needed? So-called charismatic leaders are good in small doses; two great reformers in a row are too much: the country can break down. In Sweden, for example, after the death of Charles XII, there is a clear shortage of people who are ready to sacrifice the lives of several tens of thousands of their fellow citizens in the name of great goals and the public good. The Swedish Empire did not materialize, Finland, Norway and the Baltic states were lost, but no one in this country is lamenting about this.

Of course, comparing Russians and Swedes is not entirely correct, because... The Scandinavians got rid of excessive passionarity back in the Viking era. Having scared Europe to death with terrible berserker warriors (the last of whom can be considered Charles XII, who was lost in time) and, having provided the Icelandic skalds with the richest material for creating wonderful sagas, they could afford to take a place not on the stage, but in the stalls. The Russians, as representatives of a younger ethnic group, still had to splash out their energy and declare themselves as a great people. But for the successful continuation of the work begun by Peter, at a minimum it was necessary for a new generation of soldiers to grow up in a depopulated country, future poets, scientists, generals and diplomats to be born and educated. Until they come, nothing will change in Russia, but they will come, they will come very soon. V.K. Trediakovsky (1703), M.V. Lomonosov (1711) and A.P. Sumarokov (1717) were already born. In January 1725, two weeks before the death of Peter I, the future field marshal P.A. Rumyantsev was born, on February 8, 1728 - the founder of the Russian theater F.G. Volkov, on November 13, 1729 - A.V. Suvorov. Peter's successor must provide Russia with 10, or better yet, 20 years of peace. And Alexei’s plans are fully consistent with the historical situation: “I will keep the army only for defense, but I don’t want to have a war with anyone, I will be content with the old,” he tells his supporters in confidential conversations. Now think about it, is the unfortunate prince really so bad that even the reigns of the eternally drunk Catherine I, the creepy Anna Ioannovna and the cheerful Elizabeth should be considered a gift of fate? And is the dynastic crisis that shook the Russian empire in the first half of the 18th century and the subsequent era of palace coups that brought extremely dubious contenders to power, whose rule Germaine de Staël characterized as “autocracy limited by a stranglehold,” really such a good thing?

Before answering these questions, readers should be told that Peter I, who, according to V.O. Klyuchevsky, “ruined the country worse than any enemy,” was not at all popular among his subjects and was by no means perceived by them as a hero and savior of the fatherland. The era of Peter the Great for Russia became a time of bloody and not always successful wars, mass self-immolations of Old Believers and extreme impoverishment of all segments of the population of our country. Few people know that it was under Peter I that the classic “wild” version of Russian serfdom, known from many works of Russian literature, arose. And about the construction of St. Petersburg, V. Klyuchevsky said: “There is no battle in history that would claim so many lives.” It is not surprising that in the people's memory Peter I remained the oppressive king, and even moreover, the Antichrist, who appeared as punishment for sins Russian people. The cult of Peter the Great began to be introduced into the national consciousness only during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna. Elizabeth was the illegitimate daughter of Peter (she was born in 1710, the secret wedding of Peter I and Martha Skavronskaya took place in 1711, and their public wedding only in 1712) and therefore was never seriously considered by anyone as a contender for the throne . Having ascended to the Russian throne thanks to a palace coup carried out by a handful of soldiers of the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment, Elizabeth spent her entire life fearing becoming a victim of a new conspiracy and, by glorifying the deeds of her father, sought to emphasize the legitimacy of her dynastic rights.

Subsequently, the cult of Peter I turned out to be extremely beneficial to another person with adventurous character traits - Catherine II, who, having overthrown the grandson of the first Russian Emperor, declared herself the heir and continuer of the work of Peter the Great. To emphasize the innovative and progressive nature of the reign of Peter I, official historians of the Romanovs had to resort to forgery and attribute to him some innovations that became widespread under his father Alexei Mikhailovich and brother Fyodor Alekseevich. The Russian Empire in the second half of the 18th century was on the rise; great heroes and enlightened monarchs of the educated part of society were needed much more than tyrants and despots. Therefore, it is not surprising that early XIX century, admiration for the genius of Peter began to be considered good manners among the Russian nobility.

However, the attitude of the common people towards this emperor remained generally negative, and the genius of A.S. was required. Pushkin in order to radically change it. The great Russian poet was a good historian and intelligently understood the inconsistency of the activities of his beloved hero: “I have now sorted out a lot of materials about Peter and will never write his story, because there are many facts that I cannot agree with in any way with my personal respect for him,” - he wrote in 1836. However, you cannot command your heart, and the poet easily defeated the historian. It was with the light hand of Pushkin that Peter I became a true idol of the broad masses of Russia. With the strengthening of the authority of Peter I, the reputation of Tsarevich Alexei perished completely and irrevocably: if the great emperor, tirelessly concerned about the good of the state and his subjects, suddenly begins to personally torture, and then signs an order for the execution of his own son and heir, then there was a reason. The situation is like the German proverb: if a dog was killed, it means it had scabies. But what really happened in the imperial family?

In January 1689, 16-year-old Peter I, at the insistence of his mother, married Evdokia Fedorovna Lopukhina, who was three years older than him. Such a wife, who grew up in a closed mansion and is very far from vital interests young Peter, of course, did not suit the future emperor. Very soon, the unfortunate Evdokia became for him the personification of the hated order of old Moscow Rus', boyar laziness, arrogance and inertia. Despite the birth of children (Alexey was born on February 8, 1690, then Alexander and Pavel were born, who died in infancy), relations between the spouses were very strained. Peter's hatred and contempt for his wife could not but be reflected in his attitude towards his son. The denouement came on September 23, 1698: by order of Peter I, Empress Eudokia was taken to the Intercession Suzdal Nunnery, where she was forcibly tonsured a nun.

In the history of Russia, Evdokia became the only queen who, when imprisoned in a monastery, was not assigned any maintenance and was not assigned servants. In the same year, the Streltsy regiments were cashed out, a year before these events a decree on shaving beards was published, and the next year a new calendar was introduced and a decree on clothing was signed: the tsar changed everything - his wife, the army, the appearance of his subjects, and even time. And only the son, in the absence of another heir, remained the same for now. Alexei was 9 years old when Peter I’s sister Natalya snatched the boy from the hands of his mother, who was forcibly taken to the monastery. From then on, he began to live under the supervision of Natalya Alekseevna, who treated him with undisguised hatred. The prince saw his father rarely and, apparently, did not suffer much from separation from him, since he was far from delighted with Peter’s unceremonious favorites and the noisy feasts received in his circle. However, it has been proven that Alexey never showed open dissatisfaction with his father. He also did not shy away from studying: it is known that the prince knew history well and holy books, mastered the French and German languages ​​perfectly, studied 4 operations of arithmetic, which was quite a lot for Russia at the beginning of the 18th century, and had the concept of fortification. Peter I himself, at the age of 16, could boast only of the ability to read, write and knowledge of two arithmetic operations. And Alexei’s older contemporary, the famous French king Louis XIV, may seem ignorant compared to our hero.

At the age of 11, Alexey traveled with Peter I to Arkhangelsk, and a year later, with the rank of a soldier in a bombardment company, he already participated in the capture of the Nyenschanz fortress (May 1, 1703). Please note: “meek” Alexei first takes part in the war at the age of 12, his warlike father only at the age of 23! In 1704, 14-year-old Alexey was constantly in the army during the siege of Narva. The first serious disagreement between the emperor and his son occurred in 1706. The reason for this was a secret meeting with his mother: Alexey was called to Zholkva (now Nesterov near Lvov), where he received a severe reprimand. However, later the relationship between Peter and Alexei normalized, and the emperor sent his son to Smolensk to stockpile provisions and collect recruits. Peter I was dissatisfied with the recruits that Alexei sent, which he announced in a letter to the prince. However, the point here, apparently, was not a lack of zeal, but a difficult demographic situation that developed in Russia not without the help of Peter himself: “At that time, I couldn’t find a better one soon, but you deigned to send it soon,” he justifies himself. Alexey, and his father is forced to admit that he is right. April 25, 1707 Peter I sends Alexei to supervise the repair and construction of new fortifications in Kitay-Gorod and the Kremlin. The comparison is again not in favor of the famous emperor: 17-year-old Peter amuses himself with building small boats on Lake Pleshcheyevo, and his son at the same age is preparing Moscow for a possible siege by the troops of Charles XII. In addition, Alexei is entrusted with leading the suppression of the Bulavinsky uprising. In 1711, Alexey was in Poland, where he managed the procurement of provisions for Russian army located abroad. The country was devastated by the war and therefore the activities of the prince were not crowned with much success.

A number of very authoritative historians emphasize in their works that Alexei in many cases was a “figurehead.” Agreeing with this statement, it should be said that the majority of his illustrious peers were the same nominal commanders and rulers. We calmly read reports that the twelve-year-old son of the famous Prince Igor Vladimir in 1185 commanded the squad of the city of Putivl, and his peer from Norway (the future king Olav the Holy) in 1007 ravaged the coasts of Jutland, Frisia and England. But only in the case of Alexey we maliciously notice: but he could not seriously lead because of his youth and inexperience.

So, until 1711, the emperor was quite tolerant of his son, and then his attitude towards Alexei suddenly changed sharply for the worse. What happened in that ill-fated year? On March 6, Peter I secretly married Martha Skavronskaya, and on October 14, Alexei married Crown Princess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel Charlotte Christina-Sophia. At this time, Peter I thought for the first time: who should now be the heir to the throne? To the son from an unloved wife, Alexei, or to the children of a dearly beloved woman, “Katerinushka’s dear friend,” who would soon, on February 19, 1712, become the Russian Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna? The relationship between an unloved father and a son unloved by his heart could hardly be called cloudless before, but now they are completely deteriorating. Alexey, who was afraid of Peter before, now experiences panic fear when communicating with him and, in order to avoid a humiliating exam when returning from abroad in 1712, he even shoots him in the palm. This case is usually presented as an illustration of the thesis about the pathological laziness of the heir and his inability to learn. However, let's imagine the composition of the “examination committee”. Here, with a pipe in his mouth, lounging on a chair, sits the not entirely sober Emperor Pyotr Alekseevich. Standing next to him, grinning impudently, is an illiterate member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Great Britain, Alexander Danilych Menshikov. Other “chicks of Petrov’s nest” crowd nearby, who carefully monitor any reaction of their master: if he smiles, they will rush to kiss him, if he frowns, they will trample on him without any pity. Would you like to be in Alexey's place?

As other evidence of the “unfitness” of the heir to the throne, the prince’s own letters to his father are often cited, in which he characterizes himself as a lazy, uneducated, physically and mentally weak person. Here it should be said that until the time of Catherine II, only one person had the right to be smart and strong in Russia - the ruling monarch. Everyone else in official documents, addressed to the king or emperor, they called themselves “poor in mind,” “poor,” “slow serfs,” “unworthy slaves,” and so on, so on, so on. Therefore, by humiliating himself, Alexei, firstly, follows the generally accepted rules of good manners, and secondly, demonstrates his loyalty to his father, the emperor. And we won’t even talk about testimony obtained under torture in this article.

After 1711, Peter I began to suspect his son and daughter-in-law of treachery and in 1714 he sent Mrs. Bruce and Abbess Rzhevskaya to monitor how the birth of the Crown Princess would proceed: God forbid, they would replace a stillborn child and finally close the path to the top for Catherine’s children. A girl is born and the situation temporarily loses its urgency. But on October 12, 1715, a boy was born into Alexei’s family - the future Emperor Peter II, and on October 29 of the same year, the son of Empress Catherine Alekseevna, also named Peter, was born. Alexei’s wife dies after giving birth, and at her funeral the emperor hands his son a letter demanding that he “improperly correct himself.” Peter reproaches his 25-year-old son, who served not brilliantly, but served fairly well, for his dislike for military affairs and warns: “Don’t imagine that you are my only son.” Alexei understands everything correctly: on October 31, he renounces his claims to the throne and asks his father to let him go to the monastery. And Peter I was afraid: in the monastery, Alexei, having become inaccessible to secular authorities, would still be dangerous for Catherine’s long-awaited and previously beloved son. Peter knows perfectly well how his subjects treat him and understands that the pious son, who innocently suffered from the tyranny of his “Antichrist” father, will certainly be called to power after his death: the hood is not nailed to his head. At the same time, the emperor cannot clearly resist Alexei’s pious desire. Peter orders his son to “think” and takes a “time out” - he goes abroad. In Copenhagen, Peter I makes another move: he offers his son a choice: go to a monastery, or go (not alone, but with his beloved woman - Euphrosyne!) to join him abroad. This is very similar to a provocation: the prince, driven to despair, is given the opportunity to escape, so that he can later be executed for treason.

In the 30s of the twentieth century, Stalin tried to repeat this trick with Bukharin. In February 1936, in the hope that the “party favorite”, severely criticized in Pravda, would run away and ruin his good name forever, he sent him and his beloved wife to Paris. Bukharin, to the great disappointment of the leader of the peoples, returned.

And naive Alexey fell for the bait. Peter calculated correctly: Alexey was not going to betray his homeland and therefore did not ask for asylum in Sweden (“Hertz, this evil genius of Charles XII ... terribly regretted that he could not use Alexey’s betrayal against Russia,” writes N. Molchanov) or in Turkey. There was no doubt that from these countries Alexei, after the death of Peter I, would sooner or later return to Russia as emperor, but the prince preferred neutral Austria. The Austrian emperor had no need to quarrel with Russia, and therefore it was not difficult for Peter’s emissaries to return the fugitive to his homeland: “Sent to Austria by Peter to return Alexei, P.A. Tolstoy managed to complete his task with amazing ease... The Emperor hastened to get rid of his guest” (N. Molchanov).

In a letter dated November 17, 1717, Peter I solemnly promises his son forgiveness, and on January 31, 1718, the prince returns to Moscow. And already on February 3, arrests begin among the heir’s friends. They are tortured and forced to give the necessary testimony. On March 20, the notorious Secret Chancellery was created to investigate the prince’s case. June 19, 1718 was the day the torture of Alexei began. He died from these tortures on June 26 (according to other sources, he was strangled so as not to carry out the death sentence). And the very next day, June 27, Peter I threw a luxurious ball on the occasion of the anniversary of the Poltava victory.

So there was no trace of any internal struggle and no hesitation of the emperor. It all ended very sadly: on April 25, 1719, the son of Peter I and Ekaterina Alekseevna died. The autopsy showed that the boy was terminally ill from the moment of birth, and Peter I in vain killed his first son, clearing the path to the throne for the second.

Peter and Paul Fortress, the place of the famous ghost of Princess Tarakanova (see my post, who found herself a prisoner of these gloomy walls due to the betrayal of her loved one. It is a sad coincidence that another eminent prisoner of Peter and Paul Fortress, Tsarevich Alexei, son of Peter I, found himself in similar trouble at the beginning of the 18th century. Love also played a fatal role in the arrest and death of the prince: Alexei was betrayed by his favorite Afrosinya Fedorova (Efrosinya), a serf girl whom he was ready to marry.

Peter and Paul Fortress, where Tsarevich Alexei died. They say his sad ghost haunts there. Afrosinya's shadow is also doomed to wander there and look for the prince to ask for forgiveness... This is the only way they will find peace. Nobody knows how to help restless souls.

Tsarevich Alexei is often credited with all sorts of obscurantism, and the same qualities will be given to his companion. "A serf is a working girl." However, judging by her letters, Afrosinya belonged to that category of serfs who studied “together with the young ladies in various sciences” and became companions of their masters.

Afrosinya became the companion of Tsarevich Alexei and accompanied him everywhere in the costume of a page; the Tsarevich traveled with her throughout Europe. Chancellor Schönborn called the Tsarvich's companion "petite page" (little page), mentioning her miniature physique. In Italy, pageboy costumes were made from colored velvet fabric, which the ladies really liked, and every fashionista had such a men's outfit in her wardrobe. Quite in the style of the gallant century, but the romantic story of the prince ended tragically.
Tsar Peter was not sad about his son’s passion, since he himself “married a washerwoman,” as his fellow monarchs grumbled.

The favorite proved herself to be a “faithful friend” of the prince, and her sudden testimony against Alexei causes bewilderment among researchers. According to one version, she was intimidated - Afrosinya and Alexey had a young son at the party. Another version is sadder - Afrosinya was a secret agent of Count Tolstoy, who promised the girl a rich reward and long-awaited freedom for a successful mission. This is the basis for Afrosinya’s brilliant education and confident journey through Europe with Alexey. Tolstoy, as the head of the Secret Chancellery, prepared Afrosinya in advance.

Ceremonial portrait of the prince

In their correspondence, the prince and Afrosinya discuss opera, which fully indicates education.
“But I didn’t catch any opera or comedy, just one day I went on a gondola to church with Pyotr Ivanovich and Ivan Fedorovich to listen to music, I didn’t go anywhere else...”

The prince answers Afrosinya:
“Ride in a letig*, slowly, because in the Tyrolean mountains the road is rocky: you yourself know; and where you want, rest for as many days as you want.”

*letiga – carriage

Letter from Afrosinya

The favorite clearly reported to the prince about her expenses: “I am informing you about my purchases, which, while in Venice, I bought: 13 cubits of gold cloth, 167 ducats were given for this cloth, and a cross made of stones, earrings, a lavender ring, and 75 ducats were given for this headdress...”

Contrary to stereotypes, Tsarevich Alexei did not hate Europe, but he loved Italy and the Czech Republic and would not refuse to settle in these fertile lands away from his father’s turbulent politics. Alexey spoke and wrote fluent German.

Historian Pogodin notes “The Tsarevich was inquisitive: from his handwritten travel expenses book we see that in all the cities where he stopped, he bought almost first of all books and for significant sums. These books were not only of spiritual content, but also historical, literary, maps, portraits, I saw the sights everywhere.”

Contemporary Huysen wrote about the prince: “He has ambition, tempered by prudence, common sense, a great desire to distinguish himself and acquire everything that is considered necessary for the heir of a large state; He is of a compliant and quiet disposition and shows a desire to replenish with greater diligence what was missed in his upbringing.”

The prince and his father had disagreements over political reasons. Peter called Alexei to arms, and the prince was a supporter of peaceful life; he was more interested in the well-being of his own estates. Alexey was not ready for war and intrigue, but he should not be considered a stupid obscurantist either. Usually history is written by the winner, making the losers look bad. So it was then with Peter III and Paul I.

Researchers explain Alexey’s disagreements with his father:
“For 13 years (from 9 to 20 years of the prince’s life), the tsar saw his son no more than 5-7 times and almost always addressed him with a severe reprimand.”
“The caution, secrecy, and fear visible in Alexei’s letters testify not only to the cold, but even hostile relationship between the son and his father. In one letter, the prince calls it a prosperous time when his father leaves.”

Having listened to those close to him, Peter became worried that the prince might find allies in Europe and try to get the crown without waiting for his father’s natural death. Peter ordered Count Tolstoy to return his son to Russia.

Presumably, Tolstoy ordered his agent, Afrosinya, to influence the decision of Alexei, who agreed to carry out his father’s will.
“My gentlemen! I received your letter, and that my son, trusting my forgiveness, has actually already gone with you, which made me very happy. Why do you write that he wants to marry the one who is with him, and he will be allowed to do so when he comes to our region, even in Riga, or in his own cities, or in Courland at his niece’s house, but to marry in foreign lands , it will bring more shame. If he doubts that he will not be allowed, he can judge: when did I absolve him of such a great guilt, and why should I not allow him this small matter? I wrote about this in advance and reassured him about it, which I still confirm today. Also, to live wherever he wants, in his villages, in which you firmly reassure him with my word.”- wrote Peter I, giving Alexei’s consent to marry a serf.

Alexei abdicated the throne, wanting a quiet life on his estate:
“Father took me to eat with him and acts kindly towards me! God grant that this will continue in the same way, and that I may wait for you in joy. Thank God that we were excommunicated from the inheritance, so that we can remain in peace with you. God grant that we live happily with you in the village, since you and I wanted nothing more than to live in Rozhdestvenka; You yourself know that I don’t want anything other than to live with you until death.”- he wrote to Afrosinya.

To which Vasily Dolgoruky said: “What a fool! He believed that his father promised him to marry Afrosinya! Pity him, not marriage! Damn him: everyone is deceiving him on purpose!”

Dolgoruky paid for such chatter; the spies reported everything to Peter.

Princess Charlotte, Alexei's legal wife. Their marriage lasted 4 years. Dynastic ties without reciprocity brought suffering to both. Charlotte died at the age of 21. “I am nothing more than a poor victim of my family, who did not bring her the slightest benefit, and I am dying a slow death under the burden of grief.”- Charlotte wrote down.

“He took a certain idle and working girl and lived with her clearly lawlessly, leaving his lawful wife, who then soon passed away her life, albeit from illness, but not without the opinion that the contrition from his dishonest life with her was a lot of that helped"- Alexey was condemned.

Pyotr Alekseevich - son of Charlotte and Alexei (future Peter II)

Peter refused to believe in his son’s conspiracy; he suspected that it was all to blame for troublemakers like Kikin, an embezzler, and his comrades who wanted to fly higher (see my post. The traitors wanted to overthrow their tsar-benefactor, to overthrow him, so that they could then rule in the name of Alexei, removing him from affairs of state.The tsar also suspected his first wife Evdokia of conspiracy, who did not accept his policies and was exiled to a monastery.

“If it weren’t for the nun (Peter’s first wife), the monk (Bishop Dosifei) and Kikin, Alexey would not have dared to commit such unheard-of evil. Oh, bearded men! The root of much evil is old women and priests; my father dealt with one bearded man (Patriarch Nikon), and I dealt with thousands.”- said Peter.

The testimony of Afrosinya, who was under arrest in the Peter and Paul Fortress, decided the fate of the prince:
“The prince wrote letters in Russian to the bishops and in German to Vienna, complaining about his father. The prince said that there was a riot in the Russian troops and that this made him very happy. I rejoiced every time I heard about the unrest in Russia. Having learned that the younger prince was sick, he thanked God for this mercy towards him, Alexei. He said that he would transfer all the “old” ones and elect the “new” ones of his own free will. That when he becomes a sovereign, he will live in Moscow, and will leave Petersburg as a simple city, will not keep ships at all, and will have an army only for defense, because he does not want war with anyone. He dreamed that maybe his father would die, then there would be great turmoil, because some would stand for Alexei, and others would stand for Petrusha the Bigwig, and his stepmother was too stupid to cope with the turmoil...”

Afrosinya during interrogation in prison (Ekaterina Kulakova, film "Tsarevich Alexey")

“But he, the prince, used to say: when he becomes a sovereign, then he will live in Moscow, and Piterburkh will leave a simple city; He will also leave the ships and will not keep them; and he would keep the troops only for defense, and did not want to have a war with anyone, but wanted to be content with the old possession, and intended to live the winter in Moscow and the summer in Yaroslavl; and when I heard about some visions or read in the chimes that it was quiet and calm in St. Petersburg, I used to say that the vision and silence were not without reason.”

“Perhaps either my father will die, or there will be a rebellion: my father, I don’t know why, doesn’t love me, and wants to make my brother heir, he is still a baby, and my father hopes that his wife, and my stepmother, is smart ; and when, having done this, he dies, then there will be a woman’s kingdom. And there will be no good, but there will be confusion: some will stand for their brother, and others will stand for me... When I become king, I will transfer all the old ones, and recruit new ones for myself according to my own will..."

Alexey was arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where, under pain of torture, he confirmed the testimony of his favorite. The youngest son of Peter I, to whom the Tsar wanted to bequeath the throne, recently died. The tragedy in the family made Peter especially suspicious of political treason.

Peter placed the fate of his son in the hands of the judges: “ I ask you, so that they truly carry out justice, which is worthy, without flattering me (from the French flatter - to flatter, to please.) and without fearing that if this matter is worthy of a light punishment, and when you inflict condemnation in such a way that I would be disgusted, in Therefore, do not be afraid at all: also do not reason that this judgment should be inflicted on you, as your sovereign, son; but regardless of face, do the truth and do not destroy your souls and mine, so that our consciences remain pure and the fatherland is comfortable.”

Judges - 127 people sentenced the prince to death, which was not carried out.
The Tsarevich died in the prison of the Peter and Paul Fortress on June 26 (July 7), 1718 at the age of 28. The exact circumstances of the death are unknown. For one reason, he was “in poor health,” for another, his own father ordered him to be killed, fearing a conspiracy; another version is that Count Tolstoy’s agents again tried to prevent the reconciliation of son and father.

According to historian Golikov: “The tears of this great parent (Peter) and his contrition prove that he had no intention of executing his son and that the investigation and trial carried out on him were used as a necessary means solely so that, by showing him the one to which he brought himself, to create in him a fear of continuing to follow the same erroneous paths.”

The French philosopher Voltaire wrote:
“People shrug their shoulders when they hear that the 23-year-old prince died of a stroke while reading a verdict that he should have hoped to have overturned.”(the philosopher was mistaken about Alexei’s age).

A.S. Pushkin believed that the prince was poisoned " 25 (June 1718) the ruling and sentence of the prince were read in the Senate... 26 the prince died poisoned.”

After the death of his son, Peter issued a decree: “Everyone knows how arrogant our son Alexei was by Absalom’s anger, and that it was not through his repentance that this intention, but by the grace of God, was stopped for our entire fatherland, and this grew out for nothing else, except from the old custom that the greatest son was given an inheritance, Moreover, at that time he was the only male of our surname, and for this reason he did not want to look at any fatherly punishment. ... Why did they decide to make this charter, so that it would always be in the will of the ruling sovereign, whoever he wants, to determine the inheritance, and to a certain one, seeing what obscenity, to repeal it, so that the children and descendants do not fall into such anger as is written , having this bridle on you. For this reason, we command that all our faithful subjects, spiritual and temporal, without exception, confirm this charter of ours before God and His Gospel on such a basis that anyone who is contrary to this, or interprets it in any other way, is considered a traitor, subject to the death penalty. and will be subject to a church oath. Peter".

After Alexei’s sad ending, Afrosinya was acquitted and received the long-awaited freedom “wherever she wants to go”:
“Give the girl Afrosinya to the commandant’s house, and let her live with him, and let her go with his people wherever she wants to go.”

Afrosinya also received a generous reward from the Secret Chancellery “To the girl Afrosinya, as a dowry, give her sovereign’s salary as an order of three thousand rubles from the money taken, blessed to the memory of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich.”
To compare the scale of the award, in Peter’s era the maintenance of an infantryman cost the treasury - 28 rubles. 40 kopecks per year, and one dragoon - 40 rubles. 17 kopecks
Not everyone received such a “salary” from Peter’s secret service.

The further fate of Afrosinya Fedorova is unknown. It is believed that she and her son went abroad. They said that she did not expect that her testimony would lead to the death of Tsarevich Alexei... She believed Count Tolstoy that Alexei would only face exile - and she and her son would go with him. Until the end of her life, Afrosinya was haunted by the shadow of a man for whom she was a “dear friend,” and whom she betrayed... Freedom and money became the traitor’s “silver coins.” The plot for a novel from the times of the gallant age.

The stories of the gallant age did not always have happy ending, alas...

Song about Tsarevich Alexei

Don't croak, crows, but above the clear falcon,
Don't laugh, people, at the daring fellow,
Over the daring fellow and over Alexei Petrovich.
And the gusli, you gusli!
Don't win, Guselians, well done to annoy you!

When I, a fine fellow, had a good time,
My dear sir loved me, my mother cherished me, they want to execute Tsarevich Alexei
And now she refused, the royal birth has gone crazy,
That they rang the bell, the bell is sad:
At the white oak block the executioners were all frightened,
Everyone ran away in the Senate...

One Vanka Ignashenok the thief,
He, the barbarian, was not afraid, he was not afraid.
He stands on the heels of the deaf woman and the cart,
In the middle of nowhere, in a cart, a daring good fellow
Alexey Petrovich-light...
He sits without a cross and without a belt,
The head is tied with a scarf...

They brought the cart to the field on Kulikovo,
To the steppe and to Potashkina, to the white oak block.
Alexey Petrovich sends a petition
To my dear uncle, to Mikita Romanovich.
It didn’t happen to him at home, he wasn’t in the mansion,
He went into the soap bar and into the parsha
Yes, wash, and take a steam bath.

Petitioners come to their dear uncle
In the soapy warmth of the bathhouse.
He didn’t wash or take a steam bath,
He puts a broom on the silks
On an oak bench,
Puts down Kostroma soap
On the squinting window,
He takes the gold keys,
He goes to the white stone stable,
He has a good horse,
He saddles and saddles from Cherkassy,
And he galloped to the white oak block,
To my dear nephew Alexey and Petrovich,
He turned his nephew
From execution from hanging.

He comes to his white-stone chambers,
He started a party and a merry party.
And his dear father,
Peter, yes, the First,
There is sadness and sadness in the house,
The windows are hung with black velvet.
He calls and demands
Dear son-in-law and Mikita Romanovich:
“What, dear son-in-law, are you drinking in joy, tipsy,
And I’m feeling sad and sad:
My dear son Alexei and Petrovich is missing.”

Nikita Romanovich answers: “I’m drinking tipsy, out of joy, My dear one is visiting me.”
nephew Alexey and Petrovich...”
The Tsar-Sovereign was very happy about this,
He ordered his casement windows to be opened for light, for white people, and to be hung up.
scarlet velvet.

Tsarevich, eldest son of Peter the Great from his marriage to Evdokia Fedorovna Lopukhina, b. 18th February 1690, d. June 26, 1718 Almost nothing is known about the first years of the prince’s life, which, as must be assumed, he spent mainly in the company of his mother and grandmother who dearly loved him. The influence of his father, who spent most of his time outside the home (in 1693 and 1694 in Arkhangelsk, in 1695 and 1696 in the Azov campaigns) and was distracted from the family by endless and varied government concerns, could not greatly affect his son. In letters to his mother and grandmother, “Oleshanka” is often mentioned. Little more is known about the prince's initial upbringing. Already in 1692, Karion Istomin compiled an ABC book for him, which was engraved by the famous Bunin. As Pekarsky believes, the primer of 1696 was printed for the prince. In addition to greetings in verse and prose, it contained various soul-saving articles, prayers and commandments. In 1696, the teacher Nikifor Vyazemsky was invited to the Tsarevich, with whom Peter, as can be seen from Vyazemsky’s response letters, corresponded about the Tsarevich’s teachings. In eloquent letters, the teacher informed Peter that Alexey “in a short time (having learned) letters and syllables, according to the custom of the alphabet, teaches the book of hours.” In the same 1696, Karion Istomin wrote a small grammar in which he outlined “the teaching of the nature of writing, the stress of the voice and the punctuation of words.” The dedication proved, with the help of texts from the Holy Scriptures, that the goal of the teaching is to achieve the kingdom of heaven, and the teaching itself consists of knowledge of the books of the Old and New Testaments. These and similar instructions, says Pekarsky, were the only ones the prince heard in childhood, almost until he was 12 years old, and undoubtedly had an influence on his subsequent way of thinking: when he came of age, he loved to talk “from books about the elders,” sang poems from church services and etc. “My disobedience to my father,” the prince later said, “is that from my infancy he lived somewhat with his mother and with the girls, where he learned nothing other than hut amusements, but rather learned to be prude, which is why I inclined by nature." The gap between father and mother must have affected the child's sympathies. Being under the influence of his mother, the prince could not love his father and gradually became imbued with dislike and disgust for him, especially since in the person of Evdokia and with her everything old Moscow-Russian was insulted: customs, morals and the church. From the data of the search case about the last Streltsy riot, it is known that already at that time the people seemed to understand that the force of circumstances would put the son in a hostile relationship with his father. The archers, who decided to kill the boyars - adherents of Peter and the Germans - thought, in the event of Sophia's refusal, to take the prince to the kingdom; rumors spread that the boyars wanted to strangle the prince; already at that time he seemed to be an opponent of the Germans and, therefore, of his father’s innovations. The wives of the archers said: “It’s not just the archers who are disappearing, the royal seeds are also crying.” Tsarevna Tatyana Mikhailovna complained to the Tsarevich about Boyar Streshnev that he starved them to death: if it weren’t for the monasteries that fed us, we would have died long ago. And the Tsarevich told her "Give me time, I'll pick them up. The Emperor loves the Germans, but the Tsarevich does not," etc.

After the imprisonment of Queen Evdokia in 1698, Alexei was taken by Princess Natalya Alekseevna from the Kremlin chambers to the village of Preobrazhenskoye. The following year, Peter decided to send him abroad for education; it is possible that this decision was influenced by the aforementioned conversations between the archers. A Saxon diplomat, General Karlovich, who was in Russian service, was supposed to accompany Alexei to Dresden and supervise his studies there; Lefort’s son was also supposed to arrive there from Geneva for joint studies with Alexei; but Karlovich was killed in March 1700, during the siege of Dunamünde. Why did Peter, despite intense requests in 1701 and 1702? the Viennese Court to send the prince “for science” to Vienna, abandoned this plan - unknown; but it is curious that already at this time rumors about this plan of Peter were very confusing to such zealots of the purity of Orthodoxy and enemies of the evil West as Patriarch of Jerusalem Dositheus; having decided to replace sending his son abroad with an invitation to a foreigner to be his tutor, the tsar chose the German Neugebauer, who had previously been in Karlovich’s retinue and in whose company Alexey spent about a year; this choice, however, turned out to not be particularly successful: Neugebauer was an educated man, but his constant clashes, and of the most rude nature, with the Tsarevich’s Russian associates, especially with Vyazemsky, were, of course, not a good educational example; in addition, Neugebauer did not want to obey Menshikov, who at that time was, as they say, entrusted with the main supervision over the upbringing of the prince. In May 1702, in Arkhangelsk, where Alexei accompanied his father, a major clash occurred between Neugebauer and Vyazemsky, during which the former burst into abuse against everything Russian. Removed from office, he responded with a number of pamphlets, in which, among other things, he said that the 11-year-old prince was forced by his father to humiliate himself before Menshikov, etc. In the spring of 1703, Neugebauer’s place was taken by the famous Baron Huyssen, who compiled a broadcast consisting of 9 chapters, divided into §§, a plan for the upbringing of the prince. After a detailed discussion of moral education, Huyssen recommends, first of all, reading the Bible and studying French, as the most common language; then you should begin studying “History and geography, as the true foundations of politics, mainly according to the works of Puffendorf, geometry and arithmetic, style, calligraphy and military exercises”; after two years, it is necessary to explain to the prince: “1) about all political affairs in the world; 2) about the true benefit of states, about the interest of all sovereigns of Europe, especially the border ones, about all military arts,” etc. Taught by the experience of Neugebauer, the new mentor rejected the appointment to the post of chief chamberlain under the prince and proposed Menshikov in his place, under whose command he, as he said, would willingly be. To him, “as the supreme representative,” Huyssen submitted reports on the upbringing of the prince. Little is known about the results of this upbringing. Huyssen, in a letter to Leibniz, spoke in the best possible way about the prince’s abilities and diligence, noting his love of mathematics, foreign languages ​​and his ardent desire to see foreign countries; Count Wilczek, who saw him in 1710, also spoke about the prince. In view of the fact that the prince continued to study German declensions back in 1708, doubt was expressed that Huyssen’s activities were really as successful as he claimed, but from Wilczek’s report it is known that in 1710 The prince actually spoke German and Polish quite satisfactorily. The prince, it seems, never knew the French language, the knowledge of which Huyssen attached special importance to. Huyssen reported that the prince read the Bible in Slavic five times and once in German, that he diligently re-read the works of the Greek church fathers, as well as books printed in Moscow, Kiev or Moldova, or manuscripts translated for him; Wilczek says that Huyssen translated and explained to the prince the very widespread work of Saavedra at that time, “Idea de un Principe politico christiano”, from which the prince allegedly knew the first 24 chapters by heart and read with him the famous works of the Roman historians Quintus Curtius (De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni) and Valery Maxim (Facta et dicta memorabilia). However, it was hardly possible to expect particularly brilliant success from studying with Huyssen, even given the prince’s very good abilities: Peter constantly took his son away from his studies, perhaps because he wanted to accustom him to the labors and worries of wartime and bring him closer to to yourself. Upon returning from Arkhangelsk in 1702, the prince in 1703, even before the start of the training, took part, as a soldier in a bombardment company, in the campaign to Nyenschantz, and in March 1704 he went with Huyssen to St. Petersburg, and from here to Narva, under the siege of which he remained all the time. At the beginning of 1705, Peter again deprived him of his leadership, sending Huyssen abroad. The proposal of the French court to send the prince to Paris to be raised was rejected, and thus he was left without proper leadership for a long time. Many were inclined to consider this attitude of Peter towards his son deliberate and attributed it partly to the influence of Menshikov. Be that as it may, this circumstance is fatal for the entire subsequent life of Alexei Petrovich: during this particular time he became friends and became close to a whole circle of people, whose influence finally determined the direction of his sympathies. To this circle belonged several Naryshkins, who entered the Tsarevich, as Pogodin suggests, due to their relationship with Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina, Nikifor Vyazemsky, the Kolychevs, the Tsarevich’s housekeeper Evarlakov and a number of clergy: the Annunciation sergeant Ivan Afanasyev, Archpriest Alexei Vasiliev, priest Leonty Grigoriev from Gryaznoy Sloboda in Moscow, the prince's confessor, archpriest of the Verkhospassky Cathedral Yakov Ignatiev and others. All these persons formed a close, friendly circle around the prince and for several years maintained relations with him, surrounded by all sorts of precautions. Such secrecy and mystery indicate that all these persons belonged to a party whose sympathies did not lie with Peter; most of them were representatives of the clergy, the class most dissatisfied with the king’s innovations. Meanwhile, it was precisely the clergy that the prince had a special affection for. “He had a great passion for priests,” according to his valet Afanasyev. The Tsarevich subsequently accused Vyazemsky and the Naryshkins, his first leaders, of not preventing the development of these inclinations in him. IN harmful influence Peter was also convinced of the clergy against Alexei; This influence was also noted by foreigners. “If it weren’t for the nun, the monk, and Kikin,” said the Tsar, “Alexey would not have dared to commit such unheard-of evil. O bearded men! The root of much evil is the elders and priests.” In Weber's reports there is an indication that the clergy distracted the prince from all other interests. Particular influence among the members of the circle was enjoyed by Alexei Petrovich’s confessor, Ignatiev, the only energetic personality among his Moscow friends, whose relationship with the prince was more than once compared with Nikon’s attitude towards Alexei Mikhailovich and in whose speeches Pogodin heard the speeches of Pope Gregory VII himself. Alexei was very attached to his confessor. “In this life,” he wrote to him from abroad, “I have no other such friend. If you were to be transferred from here to the future, then I would be very Russian state return is undesirable." Ignatiev tried to maintain in Alexey the memory of his mother, as an innocent victim of his father's lawlessness; he said how the people loved him and drank to his health, calling him the hope of Russia; through Ignatiev, apparently, the relations between the prince and his imprisoned mother took place These persons constituted the constant “company” of the prince, each member of which had a special nickname “for mocking the house,” as Alexey Naryshkin put it; the company loved to feast, “have fun spiritually and physically,” as Alexey Petrovich said, and it is possible that in this time, the prince became addicted to wine. All members of the company were bound by the closest bonds of friendship, and the prince did not leave the influence of some of them throughout the rest of his life. All Peter’s attempts to destroy the influence of these “big beards,” these “obscene people who had rude and frozen customs," remained unsuccessful. Historians, defenders of Tsarevich Alexei, explained this failure by the fact that the father, not loving his son and always treating him despotically harshly, thereby only strengthened the feelings that arose in the prince from childhood: enmity towards his father and to all his aspirations. In fact, there is very little direct indication of the nature of the relationship between father and son during this time and the detrimental influence for Alexei that Catherine and the Menshikov are said to have had on Peter, and when judging all this one must be content with various assumptions. Thus, Huyssen contains indications that the tsar treated his son strictly and ordered Menshikov to treat him without flattery. The Austrian ambassador Player talked about rumors that in the camp near Nyenschanz Menshikov, grabbing Alexei by the hair, threw him to the ground, and that the tsar did not make any reprimand to his favorite for this. The fact that Menshikov scolded Tsarevich Alexei in public with “vilifying words” was later recounted by the Tsarevich himself. The severity of the attitude is also visible in Peter’s speech to Alexei in Narva, as reported by Huyssen. “I took you on a campaign,” Peter said to his son after the capture of Narva, “to show you that I am not afraid of labor or danger. I may die today or tomorrow, but know that you will get little joy if you do not follow my example ... If my advice is carried away by the wind, and you do not want to do what I wish, then I will not recognize you as my son: I will pray to God that He will punish you in this and the future life.” So early Peter foresaw, if you believe Hussein’s story, the possibility of a collision with his son. The idea expressed by Solovyov that Peter did not suspect any influence harmful to his son in anyone around him and was only afraid of the connection with Suzdal and the influence of his mother, seems to be partially confirmed by the fact that he only learned from his sister, Natalya Alekseevna, about the prince’s visit mother at the end of 1706 (or beginning of 1707), he immediately summoned Alexei to his place in Poland (in the town of Zholkva) and, “expressing his anger to him,” made the first serious attempt to involve the prince in government activities. From this moment a new period begins in the life of Alexei Petrovich.

Directly from Zholkva, the prince went to Smolensk with various instructions concerning the supply and inspection of recruits and the collection of provisions, and in October 1707 he returned to Moscow, where he was destined for the role of ruler: in view of the expected attack of Charles XII on Moscow, Alexei was entrusted with supervision of work to strengthen the city. According to everyone, the prince showed quite active activity at that time (this was also noted by foreigners who were then in Moscow). The king's orders were transmitted through him, he himself took strict measures, such as, for example, to collect serf officers and minors, and monitored the progress of serf work; Captured Swedes were under his supervision, he sent Peter news of military operations against Bulavin, etc. In August 1708, the prince went to Vyazma to inspect stores, at the beginning of 1709 he led five regiments collected and organized by him to Little Russia, which he presented to the king in Sumy; Peter was apparently pleased. But, says Kostomarov, “these were the kind of cases where it was impossible to see: whether he himself acted, or others for him.” On the way to Sumy, Alexei caught a cold and became so ill that Peter did not dare to leave for some time; Only on January 30th did he go to Voronezh, leaving his doctor Donel with his son. In February, having recovered from his illness, the prince went by order of his father to Bogodukhov and on the 16th reported on the reception of a recruit; After that, he came to his father in Voronezh, where he was present at the launching of the ships "Laska" and "Eagle", and then, in April, together with Natalya Alekseevna, he accompanied his father to Tavrov and from here to Holy Week returned to Moscow. Carrying out the assignments assigned to him, the prince constantly reported on the progress and results of his activities. Based, by the way, on these letters, Pogodin concludes that the prince was “not only not stupid, but even smart, with a remarkable mind.” Simultaneously with his government activities, the prince continued his education. He studied German grammar, history, drew an atlas, and in October 1708, upon the arrival of Huyssen, he took up the French language. Upon his return to Moscow in 1709, the prince informed Peter that he had begun to study fortification from a visiting engineer whom Huyssen had found for him. Peter, apparently, was interested in his son’s activities. After spending the summer of 1709 in Moscow, the prince went to Kyiv in the fall and then had to remain with that part of the army that was intended to act against Stanislav Leshchinsky. In October 1709, his father ordered him to go to Dresden. “Meanwhile, we order you,” wrote Peter, “that while you are there, you should live honestly and be more diligent in your studies, namely languages ​​(which you are already learning, German and French), geometry and fortification, and also partly in political affairs.” The following were chosen as the Tsarevich's companions and interlocutors: Prince Yuri Yuryevich Trubetskoy and one of the chancellor's sons, Count Alexander Gavrilovich Golovkin. Huyssen also went with the prince. The instructions given by Menshikov to Trubetskoy and Golovkin instructed them to observe incognito in Dresden and that the Tsarevich “in addition to what he was told to study, play florettes and learn to dance in French.” Teaching was not, however, the only purpose of sending the prince abroad; it is possible that it was only a pretext. Already at the time when the prince was studying German declensions and doing arithmetic in Moscow, negotiations were underway regarding his marriage with some foreign princess - negotiations about which he, it seems, knew nothing. At the beginning of 1707, Baron Urbich and Huyssen were busy in Vienna choosing a bride for the prince, and initially settled on the eldest daughter of the Austrian emperor. “If the rumors about sending the prince to Vienna for education come true,” Vice-Chancellor Kaunitz responded to the request made to him, “and the imperial family gets to know the prince’s character better, then the marriage will not be impossible.” After such an evasive answer, Urbich pointed to Princess Sophia-Charlotte of Blankenburg and suggested, for a more successful course of negotiations, to send the prince abroad for a year or two, to which Peter agreed. Thanks to the efforts of King Augustus, who wanted to serve Peter, as well as the impression made by the Battle of Poltava, the negotiations, despite various intrigues (by the way, from the Vienna Court, which did not abandon the thought of the prince’s marriage with the Archduchess), took a rather favorable turn , and a draft marriage contract had already been drawn up in Wolfenbüttel.

Meanwhile, the prince arrived in Krakow in December 1709 and stayed here, awaiting further orders, until March (or April) 1710. The description of him made, on behalf of the Vienna Court, by Count Wilczek, who saw the prince personally. Vilchek describes Alexey as a young man, above average height, but not tall, broad-shouldered with a well-developed chest, thin waist, small feet. The prince's face was oblong, his forehead was high and wide, his mouth and nose were regular, Brown eyes, dark brown eyebrows and the same hair, which the prince combed back without wearing a wig; his complexion was dark-yellow, his voice was rough; his gait was so fast that none of those around him could keep up with him. Vilchek explains by his bad upbringing that the prince does not know how to hold himself and, being of good height, seems stooped; the last sign, he says, is a consequence of the fact that the prince lived exclusively in the company of women until the age of 12, and then ended up with the priests, who forced him to read, according to their custom, sitting on a chair and holding a book on his lap, in the same way and write; in addition, he never studied either fencing or dancing. Vilchek attributes the Tsarevich’s taciturnity in society to his bad upbringing. strangers; according to him, Alexey Petrovich often sat thoughtfully, rolling his eyes around and hanging his head first in one direction or the other. The prince's character is more melancholic than cheerful; he is secretive, fearful and suspicious to the point of pettiness, as if someone was making an attempt on his life. He is extremely inquisitive, constantly buys books and spends 6 to 7 hours reading every day, and from everything he reads he makes extracts that he does not show to anyone. The prince visited the churches and monasteries of Krakow and attended debates at the university, taking an interest in everything, asking about everything and writing down what he learned upon returning home. Wilczek especially points out his passionate desire to see foreign countries and learn something, and believes that the prince will make great success in everything if those around him do not interfere with his good endeavors. Describing the prince’s lifestyle, Vilchek reports that Alexei Petrovich gets up at 4 a.m., prays and reads. At 7 o'clock Huyssen arrives, and then other close associates; at 9½ the prince sits down to dinner, and he ate a lot and drank very moderately, then he either reads or goes to inspect the churches. At 12, Colonel Engineer Kuap arrives, sent by Peter to teach Alexei fortification, mathematics, geometry and geography; These classes will take 2 hours. At 3 o'clock Huyssen comes again with his retinue and the time until 6 o'clock is devoted to conversations or walks; At 6 o'clock there is dinner, at 8 - the prince goes to bed. Speaking about the prince’s entourage, Vilchek notes a good education Trubetskoy and Golovkin; Trubetskoy enjoys special influence on the Tsarevich, and not always in a favorable sense, since he began to draw the Tsarevich’s attention too early to his high position as the heir to such a great state. Huyssen, on the contrary, did not enjoy, according to Wilczek, special authority. Arriving in Warsaw in March, the prince exchanged a visit with the Polish king and went through Dresden to Carlsbad. On the way, he examined the mountain mines of Saxony, and in Dresden, the sights of the city and was present at the opening of the Saxon Landtag. Not far from Carlsbad, in the town of Schlakenwerte, the first meeting of the bride and groom took place, and the prince, it seems, made a pleasant impression on the princess. When Alexey found out about his upcoming marriage is unknown, but it seems that this important event He generally played a rather passive role. Shafirov, in a letter to Gordon, reported that Peter decided to arrange this marriage only if the young people liked each other; In accordance with this, Count Fitztum reported from St. Petersburg that the tsar was giving his son a free choice; but this freedom was in fact only relative: “...and on that princess,” Alexey wrote to Ignatiev (as Solovyov suggests, at the beginning of 1711), “they had already matched me for a long time, however It wasn’t entirely revealed to me from my father, and I saw her and this became known to the priest and he wrote to me now, how I liked her and whether it was my will to marry her, and I already know that he doesn’t want to marry me to a Russian, but to the one here, the one I want, and I wrote that when it is his will, that I should be married to a foreigner, and I will agree with his will, so that I can marry the above-mentioned princess, whom I have already seen, and it seemed to me that she is a kind person and it would be better for me not to find her here "Meanwhile, back in August 1710, the prince, having learned that the newspapers considered the question of marriage resolved, became very angry, declaring that his father had given him a free choice. Returning from Schnackenwerth to Dresden, the prince began his interrupted studies. From correspondence between Princess Charlotte and her entourage, we learn that Alexey Petrovich led a secluded life, was very diligent and did everything he did very diligently. “He is now taking,” Princess Charlotte wrote to her mother, “dancing lessons from Boti, and his French teacher is the same one who gave lessons to me; he is also studying geography and, as they say, is very diligent." From another letter to Princess Charlotte it is clear that the prince was given French performances twice a week, which, despite his lack of knowledge of the language, gave him great pleasure. "The sovereign prince is found in good health,” Trubetskoy and Golovkin wrote to Menshikov (in December 1710) from Dresden, “and he is diligent in the sciences shown, in addition to those geometric parts about which we reported on December 7th, he also learned occupational dimetry and stereometry, and so with God's help I completed all geometry." The classes did not interfere, however, with the prince and the people close to him who followed him (Vyazemsky, Evarlakov, Ivan Afanasyev) "to have fun spiritually and physically, not in German, but in Russian"; "we “We drink in Moscow,” Alexey wrote to Ignatiev from Wolfenbüttel, “to wish you great blessings before.” At the end of September, the prince visited Princess Charlotte in Torgau; he seemed pleased, and in his behavior, as Princess Charlotte wrote, he changed for the better; Having returned to Dresden, he decided to propose to the princess. In January 1711, Peter's official consent was received; Several letters from the prince to the bride's relatives date back to this time; the letters - rather meaningless - were written in German, and, as Guerrier suggests, in someone else's hand; some of them were copied by the prince in crooked, incoherent letters on pencil-lined paper. In May, the prince went to Wolfenbüttel to meet the bride’s parents and, according to his father’s instructions, take part in drawing up the marriage contract. To clarify some points of this agreement, Privy Councilor Schleinitz was sent to Peter in June, who came to him in Yavorov. “I would not like,” Peter told him in a conversation, “to delay the happiness of my son, but I would not want to give up the pleasure myself: he is my only son, and I would like, at the end of the campaign, to be present at his wedding.” In response to Schleinitz's praise of the Tsarevich's excellent qualities, Peter said that these words were very pleasant to him, but that he considered such praise to be exaggerated, and when Schleinitz continued to insist, the Tsar spoke of something else. When asked what to tell Alexey, Peter answered: “Everything a father can tell his son.” According to his stories, Ekaterina Alekseevna was very kind to Schleinitz, and she was very happy about the Tsarevich’s marriage. In October 1711, the wedding of Alexei Petrovich was celebrated in Torgau, which was attended by Peter, who had just returned from the Prut campaign. On the fourth day after the wedding, the prince received his father's order to go to Thorn, where he was supposed to oversee the procurement of provisions for the Russian army, intended for the campaign in Pomerania. Having remained, with Peter's permission, for some time in Braunschweig, where the wedding festivities took place, Alexey went to Thorn on November 7, where he took up the assignment entrusted to him. In May of the following year he went to the theater of war, and Princess Charlotte, by order of Peter, moved to Elbing. The prince's relationship with his wife during this first period of their life together seems to have been quite good; Princess Charlotte was given great joy by rumors that reached her about a strong clash that supposedly took place because of her between Alexei Petrovich and Menshikov. This was also the attitude towards the daughter-in-law of Peter and Catherine, who were passing through Elbing. Peter told Catherine that his son did not deserve such a wife; He said much in the same way to Princess Charlotte, who wrote to her mother that all this would have pleased her if she had not seen from everything how little the father loved his son.

A whole series dates back to this time. business letters the prince to his father, about various activities to collect provisions and about the difficulties with which he had to struggle. In February 1713, Alexei, together with Catherine, went to St. Petersburg, then participated in Peter’s Finnish campaign, traveled on instructions to Moscow, and during the summer months he observed the cutting of timber for shipbuilding in the Novgorod province. On August 17, 1713, he returned to St. Petersburg.

This was the external course of events in the prince’s life before his return to St. Petersburg. From this time a new period begins. Soon after Alexei Petrovich arrived in St. Petersburg, the hostile relationship between him and his father ceased to be a secret; It is therefore necessary first of all to clarify the question of what these relations were like in the previous time. Alexey Petrovich himself spoke about this later, that while his father entrusted him with instructions and transferred control of the state, everything went well; but this statement can hardly be attached great importance. The source for clarifying this issue is the correspondence of this prince with Moscow friends, relations with whom were not interrupted either by his travel abroad or by marriage. More than 40 letters from the prince to Ignatiev have been preserved, written from everywhere he visited during this time. This correspondence partly explains the nature of the relationship between father and son. The mysterious, incomprehensible hints with which all of Alexei’s letters are filled, the secrecy with which he surrounded his relations with friends, undoubtedly indicate that in reality the relationship between father and son was only good in appearance. The secrecy reached the point that the friends used the “digital alphabet,” and the prince, in addition, asked Ignatiev: “what is more secret, send through Popp or Stroganov.” Alexei’s only feeling for his father was, it seems, an insurmountable fear: while still in Russia, he was afraid of everything, he was afraid even to write to his father “idly,” and when the tsar once reprimanded him, accusing him of laziness, Alexei did not limit himself to tearful assurances that he slandered, but begged for Catherine’s intercession, then thanking her for the mercy shown and asking her “to continue not to be abandoned in any incidents that happen”; The Tsarevich’s letters not only to Peter, but also to Menshikov are imbued with fear and servility. Long before leaving abroad, soon after the tsar expressed anger to his son in Zholkva for visiting his mother, the tsarevich’s friends considered themselves entitled to save themselves for him, they even feared for his life, as Pogodin suggests. Reporting that he received a letter from his father with an order to go to Minsk, the prince adds: “My friends are writing to me from there, telling me to go without any fear". The mystery of many of the letters gave rise to assumptions that already at this time the prince’s friends were expecting some kind of change in circumstances in his favor and were plotting something against Peter; As particularly mysterious in this sense, they pointed to one undated letter from Narva, which Solovyov, without any particular reason, as it seems, dates back to the time of the prince’s flight abroad; In this letter, the prince asks that they no longer write to him, but that Ignatiev pray that something " It happened quickly, but I hope it won’t delay.” In other letters there were indications that the prince, already when he was in Warsaw, was thinking not to return to Russia; This assumption was caused by some orders made by the prince from Warsaw to his Moscow friends, such as. about the sale of things (with the invariable addition “in a prosperous time”, when the “highest ones” will not be in Moscow), about the release of people, etc. The Tsarevich’s trip abroad, without stopping his relations with Moscow friends, made them so in an even more mysterious way. Wanting to have a confessor, the prince did not dare to ask for it openly, and had to turn to Ignatiev with a request to get a priest in Moscow, who was instructed to come secretly, “putting on the priestly signs,” that is, changing clothes and shaving off his beard and mustache: “about shaving beard, the prince writes, he would not have doubted: it is better to overstep a little than to destroy our souls without repentance"; he had to “suffer the high horse ride” and “be called an orderly, but except for me,” adds the prince, “and Nikifor (Vyazemsky) no one will know this secret. And in Moscow, as much as possible, keep this secret.” The prince was especially afraid that his father would not suspect his relations with Queen Evdokia through his Moscow friends. Several letters have been preserved in which Alexey begged Ignatiev not to go “to the fatherland, to Vladimir,” to avoid communicating with the Lopukhins, “since you yourself know about this, that this is not good for us and you, and especially harmful, for this reason it is necessary to preserve this very much.” ". The fear that his father instilled in him is well characterized by the stories of the prince himself about how, upon his arrival in St. Petersburg, he was asked by Peter if he had forgotten what he had studied, and fearing that his father would force him to draw in front of him, he attempted to shoot himself in the hand . This fear reached the point that Alexei, as was later related, confessed to his confessor that he wished his father to die, to which he received in response: “God will forgive you. We all wish him death because there are many burdens among the people.” With this last testimony, which, like many others, was obtained through interrogation, partly, perhaps, through torture, and could arouse some doubt, it is necessary to compare the statements of the tsar himself, who in 1715 said that he not only scolded son, but “even beat him and for how many years, almost, did not speak to him.” Thus, there is no doubt that long before the prince’s arrival in St. Petersburg, his relationship with his father was not good; They did not change for the better upon their return.

Deprived of the company of Ignatiev, from whom he still occasionally received letters and who sometimes visited St. Petersburg, the prince became close to another, no less energetic person, Alexander Kikin (his brother was previously the treasurer of the prince). Having previously been close to Peter, Alexander Kikin fell into disgrace and became his worst enemy. Vyazemsky and the Naryshkins remained with the prince; Aunt Marya Alekseevna also influenced him. According to Player's story, the prince, on whom German morals had no effect, drank and spent all his time in bad company (Peter later accused him of debauchery). When Alexei Petrovich had to attend ceremonial dinners with the Tsar or Prince Menshikov, he said: “It would be better for me to be in hard labor or lying in a fever than to go there.” The prince's relationship with his wife, who did not have the slightest influence on him, very soon became very bad. Princess Charlotte had to endure the most rude scenes, including the proposal to go abroad. While drunk, the Tsarevich complained about Trubetskoy and Golovkin that they had forced a devil wife on him and threatened to impale them afterwards; under the influence of wine, he allowed himself more dangerous frankness. “People close to father,” said the prince, “will sit on stakes. Petersburg will not be behind us for long.” When they warned Alexei Petrovich and said that they would stop coming to him with such speeches, he replied: “I don’t give a damn about everyone, if only the mob would be healthy for me.” Obviously remembering Yavorsky’s speech and feeling dissatisfied with him, mainly among the clergy, the prince said: “When I have time without my father, then I will whisper to the bishops, the bishops to the parish priests, and the priests to the townspeople, then they will reluctantly make me ruler.” . And among the noblest dignitaries close to Peter, the prince, as he himself said, saw sympathy for himself: these were representatives of the prince’s families. Dolgorukovs and Golitsyns, dissatisfied with the rise of Menshikov. “Perhaps, don’t come to me,” said Prince Yakov Dolgorukov, “others who come to me are watching me.” “You are smarter than your father,” said Vasily Vladimirovich Dolgoruky, although your father is smart, he just doesn’t know people, and you will know smart people better” (i.e., you will eliminate Menshikov and elevate the Dolgorukovs). The Tsarevich considered both Prince Dimitry Golitsyn and Boris Sheremetev, who advised him to keep with Peter “a little one so that he would know those at his father’s court,” and Boris Kurakin, who asked him back in Pomerania whether his stepmother was kind to him, his friends.

In 1714, Alexei Petrovich, whose doctors suspected developing consumption as a consequence of a wild life, took, with Peter’s permission, a trip to Carlsbad, where he stayed for about six months, until December.

Between the extracts from Baronius, made by the prince in Carlsbad, some are quite curious, and indicate how busy Alexey Petrovich was with his hidden struggle with his father: “It is not the Caesar’s business to suppress a free tongue; "To call everyone who, even in the slightest sign, is separated from Orthodoxy. Valentine the Caesar was killed for damaging church statutes and adultery. Maxim the Caesar was killed because he trusted himself to his wife. Chilperic, the French king, was killed to take away his estate from the church." Already before this trip, the prince, partly under the influence of Kikin, was seriously thinking about not returning to Russia. Having failed to carry out his plan, he even then expressed fear that he would be forced to cut his hair. At this time, the prince was already in connection with the “Chukhonka” Afrosinya. In the absence of her husband, Princess Charlotte, to whom Alexei never wrote, gave birth to a daughter; the latter circumstance greatly delighted Catherine, who hated her daughter-in-law for fear that she would give birth to a son, to whom her own son should be a subject. Princess Charlotte was very offended that Peter took some precautions by ordering Golovina, Bruce and Rzhevskaya to be present at the birth. To characterize how at that time society looked at the tsar’s relationship with his son, a curious akathist to Alexei the man of God, published by Tepchegorsky in the same 1714, in which the prince is depicted kneeling before Peter and laying a crown, orb, and sword at his feet and keys.

Upon returning to St. Petersburg, the prince continued to lead his previous lifestyle and, according to the story of Princess Charlotte, almost every night he got drunk to the point of insensibility. Catherine and Charlotte were pregnant at the same time. On October 12, 1715, Charlotte gave birth to a son, Peter, and died on the night of the 22nd; On October 28, Catherine gave birth to a son. The day before, on the 27th, Peter gave his son a letter signed on October 11th. Reproaching him mainly for negligence in military affairs, Peter said that Alexei could not excuse himself with mental and physical weakness, since God had not deprived him of his reason, and demanded from the prince not work, but only a desire for military affairs, “which the disease cannot wean off." “You,” said Peter, “if only you could live at home or have fun.” Neither the scolding, nor the beatings, nor the fact that he had not spoken to his son for “how many years” had any effect, according to Peter. The letter ended with a threat to deprive his son of his inheritance if he did not reform. “And don’t imagine that you are my only son... It’s better to be a good stranger than your own indecent one.” The fact that Peter gave the letter, signed on the 11th, i.e. even before the birth of his grandson, only on the 27th, gave rise to various assumptions. Why did the letter lie there for 16 days and was it really written before the birth of the grandson? Both Pogodin and Kostomarov accuse Peter of forgery. When Alexey's son was born, th O , according to Player, caused Catherine great annoyance, Peter decided to carry out his intention to deprive his son of his inheritance. Only, observing the “anstatt”, he signed the letter retroactively; had he acted differently, it would have immediately seemed that he was angry with his son for giving birth to an heir. On the other hand, it was necessary to hurry, since if Catherine had a son, the whole thing would look like Peter was striking Alexei only because he himself had a son from his beloved wife, and then he could not say: “It would be better if someone else’s kindness than one’s own indecent one.” “If Peter,” says Kostomarov, “had no intention of depriving his grandson of the throne, why would he give his son such a letter, which was supposedly written before the birth of his grandson.” Soloviev explains the matter more simply. Peter, as you know, was very ill during the birth of Princess Charlotte and her illness, and therefore could not give the letters. If, says Solovyov, there was no such reason, then it is quite natural that Peter postponed such a difficult, decisive step. Having received the letter, the prince was very sad and turned to his friends for advice. “You will have peace as soon as you get away from everything,” Kikin advised, “I know that you cannot bear it due to your weakness, but it was in vain that you did not leave, and there is nowhere to take it.” “God is willing, yes the crown,” says Vyazemsky, “if only there is peace.” After this, the prince asked Apraksin and Dolgorukov to persuade Peter to deprive him of his inheritance and let him go. Both promised, and Dolgorukov added: “Give me at least a thousand letters, when that happens... this is not a record with a penalty, as we previously gave among ourselves.” Three days later, Alexey sent his father a letter in which he asked to deprive him of his inheritance. “As soon as I see myself,” he wrote, “I am inconvenient and inappropriate for this matter, I am also very devoid of memory (without which nothing can be done) and with all my mental and physical strength (from various illnesses) I have become weak and indecent for the rule of so many people, where I require a person who is not as rotten as I. For the sake of the legacy (God grant you many years of health!) Russian after you (even if I didn’t have a brother, but now thank God I have a brother, to whom God bless him) I don’t pretend to be in the future I won’t apply." Thus, Alexey refuses for unknown reasons and for his son. Dolgorukov told Alexei that Peter seemed pleased with his letter and would deprive him of his inheritance, but added: “I took you off the chopping block from your father. Now you rejoice, nothing will happen to you.” Peter, meanwhile, fell dangerously ill and only on January 18, 1716, a response to Alexei’s letter came. Peter expresses displeasure that the prince allegedly does not respond to reproaches for his reluctance to do anything and excuses himself only by his inability, “also, that I have been dissatisfied with you for several years, everything is neglected here and not mentioned; for this reason I argue that It’s not a matter of looking at your father’s forgiveness.” Peter no longer finds it possible to believe in renouncing his heritage. “In the same way,” he writes, “even if you truly wanted to keep (that is, an oath), then you can be persuaded and forced by large beards, which, for the sake of their parasitism, are now not found in avantage, to which you are now strongly inclined” and before." For this reason, it is impossible to remain as you want to be, neither fish nor meat, but either abolish your character and unhypocritically honor yourself as an heir, or become a monk: for without this my spirit cannot be calm, and especially since I am in little health now became. To which, upon receiving this, give an answer immediately. And if you do not do this, then I will deal with you as with a villain." Friends advised the prince to cut his hair, because the hood, as Kikin said, “is not nailed to the head”; Vyazemsky, in addition, advised letting his spiritual father know that he was going to the monastery under duress “for no guilt,” which was in fact done. On January 20, Alexei answered his father that “due to illness he cannot write much and wants to become a monk.” Not satisfied with the first answer, Peter was not satisfied with this either. Renunciation was not enough for him, for he felt his son’s insincerity; just like Kikin, he understood that the hood was not nailed down, but he did not know what to decide, and demanded the impossible from the prince - to change his character. This indecisiveness of Peter also explains the inconsistency in his course of action - changing the demand every time, after his son agrees to everything. Both sides delayed the final decision. Leaving abroad at the end of January, Peter visited his son and said: “This young man It’s not easy, think again, don’t rush. Wait six months." - “And I put it aside,” the prince said later.

The Danish ambassador Westphalen says that Catherine, intending to follow Peter abroad, was afraid to leave Alexei in Russia, who, in the event of Peter’s death, would take over the throne to the detriment of her and her children: therefore, she insisted that the king resolve the prince’s matter before leaving Petersburg ; he did not have time to do this, forced to leave earlier.

Remaining in St. Petersburg, the prince was embarrassed by various rumors. Kikin told him that Prince. You. Dolgorukov allegedly advised Peter to carry him everywhere with him so that he would die from such red tape. Various revelations were conveyed to the Tsarevich by his friends: that Peter would not live long, that Petersburg would collapse, that Catherine would live only 5 years, and her son only 7, etc. The thought of escape was not abandoned. Kikin, leaving abroad with Tsarevna Marya Alekseevna, said to the prince: “I’ll find you some place.” During the 6 months given to him for reflection, Alexey wrote to his father, and Peter reproachfully noticed that his letters were filled only with comments about his health. At the end of September, he received a letter from Peter, in which the Tsar demanded a final decision, “so that I have peace in my conscience, what can I expect from you.” “If you get the first thing (that is, you decide to get down to business), wrote Peter, then don’t hesitate for more than a week, because you can still be in time for the action. If you get the other thing (that is, you go to the monastery), then write it down where and in what time and day. Which we again confirm, so that this is done of course, for I see that you are only spending time in your usual barrenness.” Having received the letter, the prince decided to carry out the escape plan, which he informed his valet Ivan Afanasyev Bolshoi and another of his household, Fyodor Dubrovsky, to whom, at his request, he gave 500 rubles to send his mother to Suzdal. On the advice of Menshikov, he took Afrosinya with him. This was treacherous advice, Pogodin and Kostomarov believe: Menshikov should have known how such an act would harm Alexei in the eyes of his father. Before leaving, the prince went to the Senate to say goodbye to the senators and at the same time said in the ear of Prince Yakov Dolgorukov: “Perhaps, don’t leave me” - “I’m always glad,” Dolgorukov answered, “just don’t say any more: others are looking at us.” Having left St. Petersburg on September 26, the prince near Libau met with Princess Marya Alekseevna, who was returning from abroad, with whom he had an interesting conversation. Having informed his aunt that he was going to his father, Alexey Petrovich added with tears: “I don’t know myself from grief; I would be glad to have somewhere to hide.” His aunt told him about the revelation that Peter would take Evdokia back and that “Petersburg will not stand behind us; it will be empty”; She also reported that Bishop Dmitry and Ephraim, and Ryazansky and Prince Romodanovsky were inclined towards him, being dissatisfied with the proclamation of Catherine as queen. In Libau, Alexey met with Kikin, who told him that he had found refuge for him in Vienna; the Russian resident in this city, Veselovsky, who admitted to Kikin his intention not to return to Russia, received assurance from the emperor that he would accept Alexei as a son. In Libau, it was decided to take some precautions, which were mainly aimed at transferring to other persons (Menshikov, Dolgorukov) the suspicion that they knew about the flight of the prince and contributed to it. When several weeks passed and the prince was nowhere to be heard, a search began. Those close to the prince who remained in Russia were horrified; Ignatiev wrote to Alexei in St. Petersburg, begging him to tell him something about himself; Catherine was also worried in her letters to Peter. Foreigners living in Russia were also excited. Particularly interesting is the letter from Player, who reported various rumors, such as, for example, that the guards and other regiments had made a reservation to kill the tsar, and to imprison the queen and her children in the very monastery where the former queen sat, to release the latter and give the reign to Alexei, as the real heir. “Everything here is ready for outrage,” wrote Player. Peter soon realized where Alexei had disappeared, gave the order to General Weide to look for him and summoned Veselovsky to Amsterdam, to whom he gave the same order and a handwritten letter to hand over to the emperor. Veselovsky traced the path of the prince, who was traveling under the name of the Russian officer Kokhansky, to Vienna; here Kokhansky’s trace was lost and instead of him the Polish gentleman Kremepirsky appeared, asking how to get to Rome. Captain Alexander Rumyantsev, sent by Veselovsky to the Tyrol Guard, who was sent by Peter for the search, reported that Alexey was in Ehrenberg Castle.

Meanwhile, back in November, the prince appeared in Vienna to Vice-Chancellor Schönborn and asked for protection from the emperor. In terrible excitement, he complained to his father, that they wanted to deprive him and his children of their inheritance, that Menshikov deliberately raised him this way, drugging him and ruining his health; Menshikov and the queen, said the prince, constantly irritated his father against him, “they certainly want my death or tonsure.” The prince admitted that he had no desire to become a soldier, but noticed that, nevertheless, everything went well when his father entrusted him with control until the queen gave birth to a son. Then the prince said that he had enough intelligence to govern and that he did not want to cut his hair. This would mean destroying soul and body. to go to your father means to go to torment. The council assembled by the emperor decided to give the prince asylum, and on November 12, Alexei Petrovich was transported to the town of Weyerburg, closest to Vienna, where he stayed until December 7. Here the prince repeated to the imperial minister sent to him what he had told in Vienna and assured that he had not plotted anything against his father, although the Russians loved him, the prince, and hated Peter because he had abolished ancient customs. Begging the Tsar in the name of his children, the Tsarevich began to cry. On December 7, Alexey Petrovich was transported to the Tyrol castle of Ehrenberg, where he was supposed to hide under the guise of a state criminal. The prince was kept fairly well and complained only about the absence of a Greek priest. He corresponded with Vice-Chancellor Count Schönborn, who provided him with new information and, by the way, reported the above-mentioned letter from Player. Meanwhile, Veselovsky, having learned, thanks to Rumyantsev, about the whereabouts of the prince, handed over to the emperor, in early April, a letter from Peter, in which he asked, if the prince was secretly or openly in the Austrian regions, to send him to his father “for fatherly correction.” The emperor replied that he knew nothing, promised to investigate the matter and write to the king, and he immediately turned to the English king with a request whether he would like to take part in the defense of the prince, and the “clear and constant tyranny of his father” was exposed. The emperor wrote a very evasive answer to Peter, which insulted him, in which, completely silent about Alexei’s stay within Austrian borders, he promised him that he would try to prevent Alexei from falling into enemy hands, but was “instructed to preserve his father’s mercy and follow his father’s paths in the right of one's birth." Secretary Keil, sent to Ehrenberg, showed Alexei both Peter’s letter to the emperor and the letter to the English king, informing him that his refuge was open and that it was necessary, if he did not want to return to his father, to go further away, namely to Naples. After reading his father’s letter, the prince was horrified: he ran around the room, waved his arms, cried, sobbed, talked to himself, and finally fell to his knees and, shedding tears, begged not to give him away. The next day, with Keil and one minister, he went to Naples, where he arrived on May 6th. From here the prince wrote letters of gratitude to the emperor and Schönborn and gave Keil three letters to his friends, the bishops of Rostov and Krutitsky and to the senators. In these letters, of which two have survived, Alexey Petrovich reported that he had fled from anger, since they wanted to forcefully tonsure him, and that he was under the patronage of a certain high person until the time “when the Lord, who has preserved me, commands me to return to the fatherland again, under which In any case, please don’t leave me forgotten.” Although these letters did not reach their destination, they served as one of the main reasons for Peter, who learned about them, to treat his son especially strictly. Meanwhile, the last refuge of the prince was discovered by Rumyantsev. In July, Peter Tolstoy appeared in Vienna, who, together with Rumyantsev, was supposed to achieve the return of the prince to Russia. They were supposed to express Peter's displeasure at the emperor's evasive answer and his interference in the family feud. In the instructions, Peter promised Alexei a pardon, ordered Tolstoy to assure the emperor that he did not force Alexei to go to him in Copenhagen, and to insist on the extradition of Alexei, or at least on a meeting with him, “announcing what they have from us to him and to in writing, and in words, such proposals as they expect will be pleasant to him.” They had to show the Tsarevich all the madness of his act and explain to him that “he did it in vain without any reason, for he did not need any bitterness or bondage from us, but we trusted everything to his will... and We will parentally forgive him this act and accept him back into our mercy and promise to support him as a father in all freedom and mercy and contentment without any anger or coercion.” In a letter to his son, Peter repeated the same promises even more persistently and reassured him by God and the court that there would be no punishment for him. In case of refusal to return, Tolstoy had to threaten with terrible punishments. The conference convened by the emperor decided that it was necessary to admit Tolstoy to the prince and try to drag out the matter until it became clear how the king’s last campaign would end; in addition, we must hurry to conclude an alliance with the English king. But it is, in any case, impossible to hand over the prince against his will. Viceroy Daun in Naples was given instructions to persuade the prince to see Tolstoy, but at the same time to assure him of the emperor's intercession. The Tsarevich's mother-in-law, the Duchess of Wolfenbüttel, who was in Vienna, also wrote to him after Tolstoy authorized her to promise the Tsarevich permission to live anywhere. “I know the prince’s nature,” said the duchess, “his father works in vain and forces him to do great things: he would rather have a rosary in his hands than pistols.” At the very end of September, the ambassadors arrived in Naples and had a meeting with Alexei. The Tsarevich, having read his father’s letter, trembled with fear, fearing that he would be killed, and he was especially afraid of Rumyantsev. Two days later, on the second date, he refused to go. “My affairs,” Tolstoy wrote to Veselovsky, “are in great difficulty: if our child of the protection under which he lives does not despair, he will never think of going.” In order to overcome the “frozen stubbornness of our beast,” as Tolstoy called the prince, he took the following measures: he bribed Down’s secretary, Weingardt, who convinced Alexei that the Tsar would not defend him with weapons, persuaded Down to threaten him by taking Afrosinya away from him, and informed him that Peter himself was going to Italy. Having thus received “nasty information” from three sides and frightened mainly by the news of Peter’s arrival, the prince decided to go after Tolstoy promised to obtain permission for him to marry and live in the village. According to Westphalen's story, Tolstoy, as soon as he took on Peter's instructions, decided to get closer to Afrosyne and promised to marry his son to her; she allegedly influenced the prince. Informing Shafirov about the unexpectedly successful outcome of his mission, Tolstoy advised agreeing to Alexei’s request, because then everyone would see “that he didn’t leave because of any insult, just for that girl,” by this he would upset the Tsar, and “reject the danger of his decent marriage to a good quality, otherwise it’s still unsafe here...", in addition, "even in his own state it will show what his condition is." Before leaving Naples, the prince went to Bari to venerate the relics of St. Nicholas, and in Rome he visited the sights of the city and the Vatican. He slowed down his journey, wanting at all costs to get permission to marry Afrosinya abroad. Fearing that Alexei might change his intentions, Tolstoy and Rumyantsev arranged it so that the prince did not appear in Vienna to the emperor, although he expressed a desire to thank him. The Emperor, assuming that Alexei was being taken away by force, ordered the Moravian governor, Count Coloredo, to detain the travelers in Brunn and see, if possible, alone with the prince, but Tolstoy finally opposed this. On December 23, the Tsarevich, in the presence of Tolstoy and Rumyantsev, announced to Coloredo that he did not appear before the emperor only because of “traffic circumstances.” At this time, as Kostomarov suggests, the prince received a letter from Peter dated November 17, in which the king confirmed his forgiveness with the words: “in which be very reliable.” On November 22, Peter wrote to Tolstoy that he allowed Alexei’s marriage, but only within Russia, because “getting married in foreign lands would bring more shame,” he asked to reassure Alexei “firmly with my word” and confirm his permission to live in his villages. Absolutely confident after all these promises in the happy outcome of the matter, the prince wrote letters full of love and caring to Afrosinya, who, due to pregnancy, was traveling more slowly, by a different route - through Nuremberg, Augsburg and Berlin. Already from Russia, just before arriving in Moscow, he wrote to her: “Everything is fine, I hope they will fire me from everything, that we will live with you, God willing, in the village and we will not care about anything.” Afrosinya reported in the most detail about her path; From Novgorod, the prince gave orders that a priest and two women be sent to her for help in case of childbirth. The player says that the people expressed their love to the prince during his passage. If previously many rejoiced when they learned that the prince had escaped from the Tsar, now everyone was filled with horror. There was little faith in Peter's forgiveness. “Have you heard,” said Vasily Dolgorukov, “that the fool prince is coming here, because his father allowed him to marry Afrosinya? I wish him no marriage! Damn him, everyone is deceiving him on purpose.” Kikin and Afanasyev discussed how to warn the prince so that he would not go to Moscow. Ivan Naryshkin said: “Judas Peter Tolstoy deceived the prince, lured him out.” On January 31, the prince arrived in Moscow, and on February 3, he was brought to Peter, who was surrounded by dignitaries; Having fallen at his father’s feet, the son admitted that he was guilty of everything and, bursting into tears, asked for mercy. The father confirmed his promise to pardon, but set two conditions that were not mentioned in the letters: if he renounces the inheritance and reveals all the people who advised flight. On the same day, a solemn abdication followed and the publication of the previously prepared manifesto on depriving the prince of the throne followed. Tsarevich Peter Petrovich was declared the heir: “for we have no other heir.” The next day, February 4th, the process began. Alexey Petrovich had to fulfill the second condition and open up like-minded people. Peter offered Alexei “points” in which he demanded to reveal to him who the advisers were in the decision to go to the monastery, in terms of escape, and who forced him to write letters to Russia from Naples. “And if you hide something,” Peter ended with the same threat, and then it will obviously happen, don’t blame me: it was also announced yesterday in front of all the people that for this, sorry, no problem.” The Tsarevich confessed on February 8th in his conversations with Kikin, Vyazemsky, Apraksin and Dolgorukov; discovered that he wrote letters to the Senate and to the bishops under the compulsion of Secretary Keil, who said: “there are some reports that you died, others say that you were caught and exiled to Siberia; for this reason, write.” Immediately after this testimony, Kikin and Afanasyev were captured in St. Petersburg, tortured there and brought to Moscow; Here they confessed under terrible torture. Senator Prince Vasily Dolgorukov was arrested and sent to Moscow; Everyone involved in the case was also brought there. With each torture, the circle of those arrested expanded; Thus, the priest Liberius, who was with the prince back in Thorn and Karlsbad, was tortured because he wanted to get to him in Ehrenberg. Before Peter returned to St. Petersburg, travel from this city to Moscow was prohibited; the western border was locked to prevent the escape of anyone involved in the matter; however, news appeared in one of the Dutch newspapers about the arrival in Breslavl of one escaped servant, Alexei, who was mistaken for himself. Queen Evdokia and her entourage were immediately involved in the prince’s case; with each new torture, the hatred that was felt towards him among the clergy and among the people was revealed to Peter. Glebov and Dosifey were executed; the latter, admitting that he wanted the death of Peter and the accession of Alexei Petrovich, said: “Look, what’s in everyone’s hearts? Please let your ears go to the people, that O people say." At his execution, according to Weber, Alexey was supposed to be present in the closed carriage. Kolesov was the clerk Dokukin, who refused to swear allegiance to Peter Petrovich, blasphemed Peter and Catherine. Weber wrote that the tsar could not trust even his closest confidants, that a conspiracy was discovered in which almost half of Russia was involved, and which consisted in the fact that they wanted to elevate the prince to the throne, make peace with Sweden, and return all acquisitions to her. These stories about conspiracies are found among all modern foreigners; they show what excitement the society was in, and make it possible to understand the moral state of Peter at this time. The prince, who betrayed everyone, considered himself completely safe. “Father,” he wrote to Afrosinya, “he took me to eat with him and is treating me mercifully!” God grant that this will continue in the future too, and that I may wait for you in joy. Thank God that we were excommunicated from the inheritance, so that we can remain in peace with you. God grant that we live happily with you in the village, since you and I wanted nothing more than to live in Rozhdestvennoe; you yourself know that I don’t want anything, just to live with you in peace until death.” But the prince was cruelly mistaken: Peter far from considered the matter over, trying hard to get Alexei’s letters to the senators from Vienna and find out whether they were really written according to at Keil's instigation. On March 18, taking Alexei with him, the Tsar returned to St. Petersburg. In mid-April, Afrosinya arrived, but there was no talk of Peter fulfilling his promise regarding marriage: Afrosinya was imprisoned in a fortress. Weber's reports date back to this time that The prince did not go out anywhere and at times, as they said, he lost his mind.According to Player's story, the prince on the Holy Day, during the usual congratulations of the queen, fell at her feet and did not get up for a long time, begging her to ask her father for permission to marry.

In mid-May, Peter went with his son to Peterhof, where Afrosinya was brought and interrogated. From the report of the Dutch resident De Bie it is clear that Afrosinya’s testimony was significant in the sense that if Peter himself (i.e. Alexei) still “respected him (that is, Alexei) more for the one who carried out, as De Bie puts it, than for the conductor and head of that plan , then now, after Afrosinya’s testimony, he could come to a different conclusion. Afrosinya testified that the Tsarevich wrote letters to the bishops without coercion, “so that they would be swept up,” that he often wrote complaints to the Tsar about the sovereign, told her that there was a riot in the Russian army, and there was an uprising near Moscow, as he learned from newspapers and letters. Hearing about the unrest, he rejoiced, and when he learned about the illness of his younger brother, he said: “You see what God is doing: the priest is doing his own, and God is doing his.” According to Afrosinya, the prince He left because the sovereign sought in every possible way so that he would not live, and added that “although the priest does what he wants, only as the senates want; I bet the senates won’t do what the priest wants.” “When I become a sovereign,” said Alexei Petrovich, “I will transfer all the old ones and choose new ones for myself, of my own free will I will live in Moscow, and I will leave Petersburg as a simple city; I will not keep ships; I will keep the army only for defense, but I don’t want to have a war with anyone, I will be content with the old possession, I will live in Moscow for the winter and Yaroslavl for the summer.” Further, according to Afrosinya, the prince expressed the hope that his father would die, or there would be a riot In a confrontation with Afrosinya, the prince tried to deny it, but then he began to talk not only about his actions, but also about all the conversations he had ever had, about all his thoughts, and told things that he was not even asked about He slandered Yakov Dolgorukov, Boris Sheremetev, Dmitry Golitsyn, Kurakin, Golovkin, Streshnev, calling them friends who, as he thought, were ready, if necessary, to take his side. He spoke about the hopes with which he was filled before fleeing: that after death father (who was expected soon), senators and ministers will recognize him, if not as a sovereign, then at least as a ruler; that General Bour, who stood in Poland, Archimandrite Pechora, whom all of Ukraine believes, and the Bishop of Kiev will help him. “And so everything from Europe “My border would be,” added the prince. To the strange question whether he would have joined the rebels during his father’s life, the prince replied: “Even if they sent me (that is, the rebels) while I was alive, if they were strong, then I could go.” On June 13, Peter gave two announcements: to the clergy, in which, saying that he could not “heal his own illness,” he called on him to give him instruction from the Holy Scriptures, and to the Senate, asking him to consider the case and make a decision, “not fearing that if this matter is worthy of a light punishment, then I would be disgusted." On June 14, Alexey was transported to the Peter and Paul Fortress and placed in Trubetskoy. The clergy answered on June 18 to Peter that it was a matter for the civil court to resolve the issue of the prince’s guilt, but that it was the will of the king to punish and have mercy, and cited examples from the Bible and the Gospel for both. But already on June 17, the prince spoke before the Senate about all his hopes for the people. These testimonies led to interrogations of Dubrovsky, Vyazemsky, Lopukhin and others, in the presence of the prince. In the interrogations that followed (partly under torture), the prince explained the reasons for his disobedience by his upbringing and the influence of those around him and made a confession, which was not required of him, that he, without sparing anything, “would have accessed the inheritance even with an armed hand and with the help of the emperor.” . On June 24, the torture was repeated, it seems, after the death sentence was signed by members of the Supreme Court (127 people). The verdict included, among other things, the idea that the promise of forgiveness given to the prince was not valid, since “the prince concealed his rebellious intent against his father and his sovereign, and the intentional search from long ago, and the search for the throne of his father and under his belly , through various insidious inventions and pretenses, and hope for the mob and the desire of his father and sovereign for his speedy death." The next day the prince was asked for what purpose he made extracts from Baronius; On June 26, at 8 o’clock in the morning, as recorded in the garrison book, they arrived at the garrison: “His Majesty, Menshikov and other dignitaries and a dungeon was committed, and then, having been in the garrison until 11 o’clock, they left. On the same date, At noon at 6 o'clock, while on guard, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich died."

If this news of torture on the 26th refers to Alexei, then it is natural to assume that his death was a consequence of torture. There are a number of stories about this immediate cause of the prince’s death. So, they said that the prince was beheaded (Player), that he died from the dissolution of his veins (De Bie), they also talked about poison; in the famous letter from Rumyantsev to Titov, which aroused many disputes regarding its authenticity, it is described in the most detailed way how the author of the letter with three other persons, on the instructions of Peter, suffocated Alexei with pillows. The Saxon resident said that on June 26, the king began to beat his son with a whip three times, who died during the torture. There were stories among the people that the father executed his son with his own hands. Even at the end of the 18th century, stories appeared that Adam Weide cut off the prince’s head and Anna Kramer sewed it to his body. All these rumors that spread among the people led to a whole series of searches (such, for example, as the Korolka case); Player and De Bie also paid for the messages they sent abroad and for their conversations. In the rescript that followed, Peter wrote that after pronouncing the sentence, he hesitated “like a father, between a natural feat of mercy and due care for the integrity and future security of our state.” A month after the death of Alexei, the Tsar wrote to Catherine: “What she ordered with Makarov, that the deceased discovered something - when God deigns to see you (“that is, we’ll talk about it when we see you,” Solovyov complements this phrase) I heard such a wonder here about him, which is almost worse than everything that has clearly appeared.” Was it not about Alexei’s relations with Sweden, as Solovyov suggests, that Peter heard; There is news that the prince turned to Hertz for help. Immediately after the death of the Tsarevich, Peter issued an “Announcement of the search and trial, by decree of His Tsar's Majesty, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich was sent to St. Petersburg.” This announcement was translated into French, German, English and Dutch. In addition, several brochures were published abroad, which proved the justice of the actions against Alexei Petrovich. Soon after the death of the prince, impostors appeared: the beggar Alexei Rodionov (in the Vologda province, in 1723), Alexander Semikov (in the city of Pochep, at the end of the reign of Peter and the beginning of the reign of Catherine), the beggar Tikhon Truzhenik (among the Don Cossacks, in 1732 .). A certain Minitsky turned out to be especially dangerous, who in 1738 gathered quite a lot of followers around him near Kyiv and in whom the people believed.

The tragic fate of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich gave rise to a number of attempts to one way or another explain the sad outcome of his clash with his father, and many of these attempts suffer from the desire to find one specific reason for the explanation - Peter’s dislike for his son and the cruelty of his character, the complete inability of his son, his commitment to Moscow antiquity, the influence of Catherine and Menshikov, etc. The researcher of this episode first of all turns, of course, to the personality of the prince himself, reviews of whom are quite contradictory. Reviews about the prince’s character and spiritual qualities are no less contradictory. Some noted, as characteristic, features of gross cruelty in the character of the prince, and it was pointed out that in fits of anger the prince tore the beard of his beloved confessor and mutilated his other associates, so that they “cry out in blood”; Nikifor Vyazemsky also complained about Alexei’s cruel treatment. Others, in his treatment of friends, in the participation that he constantly took in their fate, saw a kind heart, and pointed, among other things, to his love for his old nurse, expressed in correspondence that lasted for years. Neither one nor the other traits in the character of Alexei Petrovich give, however, the right to any precise conclusion. What seems certain is that the prince was not, as they liked to imagine him at one time, either an unconditional opponent of education, or a person devoid of all intellectual interests. As proof of the first, his letter to Ignatiev is usually cited, in which he orders him to “take and send Peter Ivlya to school to study, so that he does not waste his days in vain,” orders him to teach him Latin and German, “and, if possible, French.” ". The same is evidenced by Vilczek’s story about the pleasure with which the prince traveled abroad. That the prince was not completely devoid of intellectual interests is evident from his love for books, which he constantly collected. In his letters from Germany, he took care that the books he had collected while he was in Moscow would not be lost; on his way abroad in Krakow, he, as is known from Wilczek’s report, bought books, in the same way during his second trip in 1714 to Carlsbad; books were sent to him, at his request and “on his own behalf,” by Prince Dmitry Golitsyn from Kyiv, as well as by the abbot of the Kyiv Golden-Domed Monastery Ioannikiy Stepanovich. But the composition and nature of the books acquired by Alexei Petrovich shows the one-sided direction of his sympathies, which, of course, could not meet with sympathy from Peter. Thanks to the receipt and expenditure book that the prince kept during his travels in 1714, the names of the books he acquired are known: most of them contain theological content, although, however, there are several historical and literary works. The library of the prince in the village of Rozhdestvenskoye was compiled exclusively from theological books, which was described in 1718 during the search. Foreigners also pointed out the prince's passion for theological books. Thus, Weber reports that the prince’s reference book was Ketzerhistorie Arnold. The prince’s interest in everything theological is even better characterized by the extracts that he made from Baronius in Carlsbad: all of them concerned exclusively rituals, issues of church discipline, church history, controversial points between the Eastern and Western churches; the prince converted Special attention on everything concerning the relationship of the church to the state, and was very interested in miracles: “hails in Syria, the prince writes, were transported six miles by shaking the earth with people and a fence: it will be true - a miracle in truth.” It is a fair observation that “such notes, which would have done honor to the grandfather of Tsarevich Alexei, the quietest Alexei Mikhailovich, went against what could have occupied Alekseev’s father.” Thus, the prince, it seems, is not stupid and, in any case, inquisitive, seems to be an educated, perhaps even in a certain sense, an advanced person, but not of the new generation, but of the old one, the era of Alexei Mikhailovich and Fyodor Alekseevich, which was also not poor in people educated for their time. This contrast between the personality of father and son can be traced further. The Tsarevich was not a person incapable of any activity: everything that is known regarding his fulfillment of the orders assigned to him by Peter does not give the right to such a conclusion; but he was only a submissive performer and certainly did not sympathize with the activities that Peter demanded of him. In correspondence with relatives, Alexey seems to be a managerial person: he was obviously a good owner, he loved to work on reports on the management of his own estates, make comments, write resolutions, etc. But such activities, of course, could not satisfy Peter, and instead of love for the activity that he demanded from everyone, the love of military affairs, he encountered in his son, which he himself later admitted, only instinctive disgust. In general, a whole series of instructions gives the right to see in the prince an ordinary private person, in contrast to Peter - a person wholly imbued with state interests. This is how Alexey Petrovich appears in his numerous letters, in which there is the most detailed information about his pastime, in which remarkable concern for his friends is visible, and at the same time, over a number of years, there is not a single indication that he was at all interested in the activities of and his father’s plans, and meanwhile, the years to which all this correspondence relates were years of the most intense struggle for Peter. Thus, Peter, understanding his son perfectly, had reason to consider him incapable of continuing his father’s work. This opposition of two natures must be recognized as the main cause of the catastrophe; at the same time, however, family relationships and the tsar’s tough temperament played a very important role. Peter hardly ever had tender feelings for his son, and his cold treatment, together with a careless upbringing, contributed, of course, to the fact that the son became a man who certainly did not understand his father’s aspirations and did not sympathize with them. The Tsar’s marriage to Catherine, in general, had, of course, an unfavorable effect on the fate of the Tsarevich, but what role the influence of Catherine and Menshikov played in the sad outcome of the collision is difficult to decide; Some explain everything by this influence, others, like Solovyov, deny it absolutely. There is no doubt that if Alexei Petrovich was by nature a different person and if there were sympathies between him and his father, then it is unlikely that family relationships alone, it is unlikely that Catherine’s influence alone could have led to such a catastrophe; but given all the other data, the influence of Catherine (about which all foreigners talk) and family relations in general undoubtedly affected the fact that Peter, without any reason, together with the prince, disinherited all his offspring, giving the throne to Catherine’s children. This influence, however, was apparently exercised very cautiously; Outwardly, Alexei Petrovich’s relationship with his stepmother was always the best, although in his letters to her one can feel servility and fear; he was always very respectful to her and made various requests, which she fulfilled. Shortly before his death, he begged her for intercession. As for Menshikov, it is known that the prince hated him. The methods that accompanied the efforts to return the prince from abroad, and the search case itself, are striking in their cruelty, but part of this cruelty must, of course, be attributed to the mores of the time and the picture that the search case revealed to Peter. Alexey Petrovich could not, however, be considered a spiritual representative of the masses that were outraged by innovations, and he personally was not positively capable of fighting Peter, but this mass, nevertheless, pinned all their hopes on him, deeply sympathizing with him and becoming always on his side, as a representative who could unite all groups of dissatisfied people. Much later, the accession to the throne of the rejected son Alexei Petrovich and the return to Moscow of Queen Evdokia caused a movement among the supporters of the prince and adherents of Moscow antiquity. Already in 1712, Peter undoubtedly knew about this sympathy for the prince: this year, on St. Alexey, Stefan Yavorsky preached a sermon in which this sympathy found clear expression. This is also the significance of the search case about Tsarevich Alexei; This case, as well as the closely related case of Queen Eudokia, did not give any indication of the existence of any conspiracy, but it revealed to Peter how strong the displeasure was against all his aspirations, how widespread it was in all classes of society; it also showed him that the personality of the prince was lovingly opposed to the personality of the king.

N. Ustryalov, "History of the reign of Peter the Great", vol. VI, St. Petersburg. 1859 - M. Pogodin, “The Trial of Tsarevich Alexei” (Russian Conversation, 1860, No. 1). - M. Pogodin, “Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, according to newly discovered evidence” (“Readings in the Moscow Society of History and Antiquities” 1861, book 3). - "Letters of Russian Sovereigns", vol. III. - P. Pekarsky in the Encyclopedic Dictionary compiled by Russian scientists and writers, vol. III. 1861 - S. Solovyov, “History of Russia”, vol. XVII, ch. II. - N. Kostomarov, “Tsarevich Alexey Petrovich” (“Ancient and New Russia"1875, vol. I). - A. Brückner, "Der Zarewitsch Alexei (1690-1718), Heidelberg, 1880. - E. Herrman, "Peter der Grosse und der Zarewitsch Alexei" (Zeitgenössische Berichte zur Geschichte Russlands, II), Leipzig, 1880 - Report of Count Wilczek, who, on behalf of Count Schönborn, visited the prince in Krakow, under the title: “Beschreibung der Leibs und gemiths gestalt dess Czarischen Cron-Prinsen” 5 Febr. 1710 (manuscript from the Vienna State Archive) and a number of small articles: M. Semevsky, “Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich” (“Illustration”, vol. III, 1859); M. Semevsky, "Supporters of Tsarevich Alexei" ("Library for Reading", vol. 165, 1861); M. Semevsky, “The Nurse of Alexei Petrovich” (“Dawn”, vol. IX, 1861); Pekarsky, “Information about the life of Alexei Petrovich” (Contemporary, 1860, vol. 79).

(Polovtsov)

Alexey Petrovich, son of Peter I

(1690-1718) - Tsarevich, the eldest son of Peter I from his marriage to Evdokia Lopukhina. Until the age of 8, A.P. lived with his mother, in an environment hostile to Peter, amid constant complaints about his father, a stranger to the family. After the imprisonment of Queen Evdokia in a monastery (1698), A.P. came under the care of the Tsar’s sister, Natalia. According to the bar. Huyssen, his teacher, A.P. studied willingly, read a lot (chief books, spiritual books), and was inquisitive; He was not good at military sciences, and he could not stand military exercises. Peter often took his son away from his studies: for example, A.P., as a soldier of a bombardment company, took part in the campaign against Nyenschanz (1703) and in the siege of Narva (1704). After Huyssen left abroad (1705), A.P. was left without specific occupations and lived in the village. Preobrazhensky, left to his own devices. Quiet and calm, more inclined to desk work, A.P. was the complete opposite of his fidgety father, whom he did not like and was afraid of. Little by little, a circle of people dissatisfied with Peter and his policies forms around the prince. Most of all the clergy were here, but representatives of the largest nobility were also drawn here, pushed into the background by “new people” like Menshikov. His confessor, Archpriest Yakov Ignatiev, Peter’s sworn enemy, had a special influence on A.P. He tirelessly repeated to A.P. how the people loved him (the prince) and how good it would be without the priest; he also helped A.P. correspond with his mother and even arranged a meeting with her. Peter found out about this by chance, became very angry and beat the prince, which he did on other occasions. To distract his son from the “big beards,” from 1707 Peter gave him a number of important assignments: to monitor the delivery of provisions for the troops, form regiments, monitor the fortification of the Kremlin (in case of an attack by Charles XII), etc., strictly punishing for the slightest omission. In 1709 A.P. was sent to Dresden to study science, and in 1711, by order of his father, he married Sophia-Charlotte of Blankenburg. Returning to Russia soon after the wedding, A.P. participated in the Finnish campaign, monitored the construction of ships in Ladoga, etc. And Peter’s orders, and his fist reprisals with his son, and his marriage with a foreign woman - all this extremely embittered the prince and caused He has a blind hatred of his father, and at the same time a dull animal fear. A.P. carried out all his father’s instructions carelessly, and Peter finally gave up on him. Anticipating the inevitable clash between A.P. and his father, the prince’s friends advised him not to return from Carlsbad, where he had gone in 1714 for water. However, the prince, fearing his father, returned. In 1714, Charlotte had a daughter, Natalia, and in 1715, a son, the future Emperor Peter II; a few days after his birth, Charlotte died. Meanwhile, among the “new people” surrounding Peter, who feared for their position, the question of removing A.P. from the throne was raised. Peter himself more than once addressed his son with long messages, exhorting him to come to his senses, threatening to deprive him of his inheritance. On the advice of friends, A.P. even agreed to be tonsured as a monk (“the hood is not nailed to the head, it will be possible to remove it when necessary,” said one of them, Kikin). Peter, however, did not believe his son. At the end of 1716, A.P. finally fled to Vienna, hoping for the support of Emperor Charles VI, his brother-in-law (the husband of the late Charlotte's sister). Along with A.P. was also his favorite, a former serf, Euphrosyne, with whom A.P. became acquainted while his wife was still alive, fell in love with her very much and wanted to marry her. A.P.’s hopes for the emperor were not justified. After much trouble, threats and promises, Peter managed to summon his son to Russia (Jan. 1718). A.P. renounced his rights to the throne in favor of his brother, Tsarevich Peter (son of Catherine I), betrayed a number of like-minded people and waited until he was finally allowed to retire into private life. Meanwhile, Euphrosyne, imprisoned in the fortress, revealed everything that A.P. had hidden in his confessions - dreams of accession when his father dies, threats to his stepmother (Catherine), hopes for rebellion and the violent death of his father. After such testimony, confirmed by the prince, he was taken into custody and tortured. Peter convened a special trial of his son from the generals, the Senate and the Synod. The Tsarevich was repeatedly tortured - beaten with a whip on the rack. On 24/VI 1718 the death sentence was pronounced. According to the story of A. Rumyantsev, Peter’s orderly, who took a close part in A.P.’s case, Peter, after pronouncing the sentence, instructed P. Tolstoy, Buturlin, Ushakov and Rumyantsev to “execute (A.P.) by death, as befits the execution of traitors to the sovereign and to the fatherland,” but “quietly and inaudibly,” so as “not to disgrace the royal blood by popular execution.” The order was immediately carried out: A.P. was suffocated in prison with two pillows on the night of 26/VI. Peter dealt harshly with like-minded people of A.P., many were wheeled, impaled, beaten with a whip and exiled to Siberia and other places.

- (1690 1718), prince, eldest son of Peter I from his first wife E.F. Lopukhina. Until the age of 8, he was raised by his mother in an environment hostile to Peter I, subsequently he feared and hated his father, and reluctantly carried out his instructions. In 1705 06 around A.P.... ... St. Petersburg (encyclopedia)

Modern encyclopedia

Alexey Petrovich- (1690 1718), Russian prince. Son of Peter I and his first wife E.F. Lopukhina. He was well-read and knew languages. He was hostile to the reforms of Peter I. At the end of 1716 he fled abroad. He returned (January 1718), hoping for the forgiveness promised... ... Illustrated encyclopedic Dictionary

- (1690 1718), prince, son of Peter I. Became a participant in the opposition to his father’s policies. He fled abroad, and after returning he was sentenced to execution. According to the widespread version, he was strangled in the Peter and Paul Fortress.