Alexius Petrovich

Alexius Petrovich (Алексей Петрович in Russian) (1690–1718), a Russian tsarevich, was the son of Tsar Peter I and his first wife Eudoxia Lopukhina.

Contents

1 Childhood 2 Military Career 3 Self-Exile 4 The Return 5 Further Reading

Childhood

The young Alexius was brought up by his mother, who fostered an atmosphere of disdain towards Peter the Great, Alexius's father. Alexius's relations with his father suffered from the hatred between his father and his mother, as it was very difficult for him to feel affection for his mother's worst persecutor. From the ages of 6 to 9, Alexius was educated by his tutor Vyazemsky, but after the removal of his mother by Peter the Great to the Suzdal Intercession Convent, Alexius was confined to the care of educated foreigners, who taught him history, geography, mathematics and French.

Military Career

In 1703, Alexius was ordered to follow the army to the field as a private in a bombardier regiment. In 1704, he was present at the capture of Narva. At this period, the preceptors of the tsarevich had the highest opinion of his ability. Alexius had strong leanings towards archaeology and ecclesiology. However, Peter had wished his son and heir to dedicate himself to the service of new Russia, and demanded from him unceasing labour in order to maintain Russia's new wealth and power. Painful relations between father and son, quite apart from the prior personal antipathies, were therefore inevitable. It was an additional misfortune for Alexius that his father should have been too busy to attend to him just as he was growing up from boyhood to manhood. He was left in the hands of reactionary boyars and priests, who encouraged him to hate his father and wish for the death of the tsar-antichrist.

In 1708 Peter sent Alexius to Smolensk to collect provender and recruits, and after that to Moscow to fortify it against Charles XII of Sweden. At the end of 1709, Alexius went to Dresden for one year. There, he finished lessons in French, German, mathematics and fortification. After his education, Alexius married princess Charlotte of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, greatly against his will. The wedding was celebrated at Torgau on October 14, 1711, in the house of the queen of Poland. Three weeks later, the bridegroom was hurried away by his father to Torun to superintend the provisioning of the Russian troops in Poland. For the next twelve months Alexius was kept constantly on the move. His wife joined him at Torun in December, but in April 1712 a peremptory ukase ordered him off to the army in Pomerania, and in the autumn of the same year he was forced to accompany his father on a tour of inspection through Finland.

Self-Exile

Immediately on his return from Finland, Alexius was despatched by his father to Staraya Russa and Lake Ladoga to see to the building of new ships. This was the last commission entrusted to him, since Peter had not been satisfied with his son's performance and his lack of enthusiasm. Nevertheless, Peter made one last effort to "reclaim" his son. On October 22, 1715, princess Charlotte died, after giving birth to a son, the grand-duke Peter, future tsar Peter II. On the day of the funeral, Peter sent Alexius a stern letter, urging him to take interest in the affairs of the state. Peter threatened to cut him off if he did not acquiesce in his father's plans. Alexius wrote a pitiful reply to his father, offering to renounce the succession in favour of his baby half-brother Peter, who had been born the day after the princess Charlotte's funeral. Furthermore, in January of 1716, Alexius asked his father for permission to become a monk.

Still, Peter did not despair. On the August 26, 1716 he wrote to Alexius from abroad, urging him, if he desired to remain tsarevich, to join him and the army without delay. Rather than face this ordeal, Alexius fled to Vienna and placed himself under the protection of his brother-in-law, the emperor Charles VI, who sent him for safety first to the Tirolean fortress of Ahrenberg, and finally to the castle of San Elmo at Naples. He was accompanied throughout his journey by his mistress, the Finnish girl Afrosina. That the emperor sincerely sympathized with Alexius, and suspected Peter of harbouring murderous designs against his son, is plain from his confidential letter to George I of the United Kingdom, whom he consulted on this delicate affair. Peter felt insulted. The flight of the tsarevich to a foreign potentate was a reproach and a scandal. He had to be recovered and brought back to Russia at all costs. This difficult task was accomplished by Count Peter Tolstoi, the most subtle and unscrupulous of Peter's servants.

The Return

Alexius would only consent to return on his father solemnly swearing, that if he came back he should not be punished in the least, but cherished as a son and allowed to live quietly on his estates and marry Afrosina. On the 31st of January 1718 the tsarevich reached Moscow. Peter had already determined to institute a most searching inquisition in order to get at the bottom of the mystery of the flight. On the 18th of February a "confession" was extorted from Alexius which implicated most of his friends, and he then publicly renounced the succession to the throne in favour of the baby grand-duke Peter Petrovich. A horrible reign of terror ensued, in the course of which the ex-tsaritsa Eudoxia was dragged from her monastery and publicly tried for alleged adultery, while all who had in any way befriended Alexius were impaled, broken on the wheel and otherwise lingeringly done to death. All this was done to terrorize the reactionaries and isolate the tsarevich.

In April 1718 fresh confessions were extorted from Alexius. Yet even now there were no actual facts to go upon. The worst that could be brought against him was that he had wished his father's death. In the eyes of Peter, his son was now a self-convicted and most dangerous traitor, whose life was forfeit. But there was no getting over the fact that his father had sworn to pardon him and let him live in peace if he returned to Russia. The whole matter was solemnly submitted to a grand council of prelates, senators, ministers and other dignitaries on the 13th of June 1718. The clergy left the matter to the tsar's own decision. The temporal dignitaries declared the evidence to be insufficient and suggested that Alexius should be examined by torture.

Accordingly, on the 19th of June, the weak and ailing tsarevich received twenty-five strokes with the knout, and on the 24th - fifteen more. It was hardly possible that he could survive such treatment. On June 26, Alexius died in the Petropavlovskaya fortress in Saint Petersburg, two days after the senate had condemned him to death for conspiring rebellion against his father, and for hoping for the cooperation of the common people and the armed intervention of his brother-in-law, the emperor. Some historians believe that Alexius actually died of strangulation by one of Peter's servants.

Further Reading

• Matthew S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978).
• Robert Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs 1613 – 1725 (London, 1905; reprint, New York, 1967).
• Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great, His Life and World (New York: Ballantine, 1981).
• B.H. Sumner, Peter the Great and the Emergence of Russia (London: English UP, 1968).
• Fredrick Charles Weber, The Present State of Russia vol 1, (1723; reprint, London: Frank Cass and Co, 1968).
• ---,The Present State of Russia vol 2, (1723; reprint, London: Frank Cass and Co, 1968).de:Alexei von Russland