ALEXIUS MIKHAILOVICH (1629-1676), tsar of Muscovy, the son
of Tsar Michael Romanov and Eudoxia Stryeshnevaya, was born
on the 9th of March 1629. A youth at his father's death
(1645), he was committed to the care of the boyarin Boris
Ivanovich Morozov, a shrewd and sensible guardian, sufficiently
enlightened to recognize the needs of his country, and by no
means inaccessible to Western ideas. Morozov's foreign policy was
pacificatory. He secured the truce with Poland and carefully
avoided complications with the Porte. His domestic policy was
severely equitable, and aimed at relieving the public burdens
by limiting the privileges of foreign traders and abolishing
a great many useless and expensive court offices. On the 17th
of January 1648 he procured the marriage of the tsar with Maria
Miloslavshaya, himself marrying her sister, Anna, ten days
later. The Miloslavskis were typical self-seeking 17th century
boyars, whose extortions made them generally detested. In
May 1648 the people of Moscow rose against them, and the
young tsar was compelled to dismiss both them and their patron
Morozov. The successful issue of the Moscow riots was the
occasion of disquieting disturbances all over the tsardom
culminating in dangerous rebellions at Pskov and Great Novgorod,
with which the government was so unable to cope that they
surrendered, practically granting the malcontents their own
terms. One man only had displayed equal tact and courage at Great
Novgorod, the metropolitan Nikon (q.v.), who in consequence
became in 1651 the tsar's chief minister. In 1653 the weakness
and disorder of Poland, which had just emerged, bleeding at
every pore, from the savage Cossack war, encouraged Alexius
to attempt to recover from her secular rival the old Russian
lands. On the 1st of October 1653 a national assembly met
at Moscow to sanction the war and find the means of carrying
it on, and in April 1654 the army was blessed by Nikon (now
patriarch). The campaign of 1654 was an uninterrupted triumph,
and scores of towns, including the important fortress of
Smolensk, fell into the hands of the Muscovites. In January
1655 the rout of Ochmatov arrested their progress; but in
the summer of the same year, the sudden invasion by Charles
X. of Sweden for the moment swept the Polish state out of
existence; the Muscovites, unopposed, quickly appropriated
nearly everything which was not already occupied by the
Swedes, and when at last the Poles offered to negotiate, the
whole grand-duchy of Lithuania was the least of the demands of
Alexius. Fortunately for Poland, the tsar and the king of
Sweden now quarrelled over the apportionment of the spoil, and
at the end of May 1656 Alexius, stimulated by the emperor and
the other enemies of Sweden, declared war against her. Great
things were expected of the Swedish war, but nothing came of
it. Dorpat was taken, but countless multitudes were lost
in vain before Riga. In the meantime Poland had so far
recovered herself as to become a much more dangerous foe
than Sweden, and, as it was impossible to wage war with both
simultaneously, the tsar resolved to rid himself of the Swedes
first. This he did by the peace of Kardis (July 2, 1661),
whereby Muscovy retroceded all her conquests. The Polish war
dragged on for six years longer and was then concluded by a
truce, nominally for thirteen years, which proved the most
durable of treaties. By the truce of Andrussowo (February
11, 1667) Vitebsk, Polotsk and Polish Livonia were restored
to Poland, but the infinitely more important Smolensk and
Kiev remained in the hands of the Muscovite together with
the whole eastern bank of the Dnieper. This truce was the
achievement of Athanasy Orduin-Nashchokin, the first Russian
chancellor and diplomatist in the modern sense, who after
the disgrace of Nikon became the tsar's first minister till
1670, when he was superseded by the equally able Artamon
Matvyeev, whose beneficent influence prevailed to the end
of the reign. It is the crowning merit of the ever amiable
and courteous tsar Alexius that he discovered so many great
men (like Nikon, Orduin, Matvyeev, the best of Peter's
precursors) and suitably employed them. He was not a man
of superior strength of character, or he would never have
submitted to the dictation of Nikon. But, on the other
hand, he was naturally, if timorously, progressive, or he
would never have encouraged the great reforming boyarin
Matvyeev. His education was necessarily narrow; yet he
was learned in his way, wrote verses, and even began a
history of his own times. His last years, notwithstanding
the terrible rebellion of Stenka Razin, were deservedly
tranquil. By his first consort he had thirteen children,
of whom two sickly sons and eight healthy daughters survived
him. By his second consort, Natalia Naruishkina, he had two
children, the tsarevich Peter and the tsarevna Natalia.
See Robert Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs (London, 1905). (R. N. B.)
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed