The Romanov dynasty after Peter the Great. Romanov dynasty: family tree

The ruling Romanov dynasty gave the country many brilliant kings and emperors. It is interesting that this surname does not belong to all of its representatives; noblemen Koshkins, Kobylins, Miloslavskys, Naryshkins met in the family. The family tree of the Romanov dynasty shows us that the history of this family dates back to 1596.

Family tree of the Romanov dynasty: the beginning

The founder of the family is the son of boyar Fyodor Romanov and noblewoman Ksenia Ivanovna, Mikhail Fedorovich. The first king of the dynasty. He was a cousin of the last emperor from the Moscow branch of the Rurikovich family - Fyodor the First Ioannovich. On February 7, 1613, he was elected to reign. On July 21 of the same year, the ceremony for reign was performed. It was this moment that marked the beginning of the reign of the great Romanov dynasty.

At the beginning of 1917, the Romanov dynasty numbered 32 male representatives, 13 of whom were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918-19. Those who escaped this settled in Western Europe (mainly France) and the USA. In the 1920s and 30s, a significant part of the dynasty continued to hope for the collapse of Soviet power in Russia and the restoration of the monarchy.

1. The Council recognized that the right to exercise Supreme power in Russia belongs to the dynasty of the House of Romanov.
2. The Council considered it necessary and consistent with the wishes of the population to head the national statehood by the Supreme Ruler from the members of the Dynasty, whom the members of the House of Romanov would point to.
3. The government was asked to enter into negotiations with representatives of the House of Romanov.

All current representatives of this family are descendants of the four sons of Nicholas I:

* Alexandrovichi, descendants of Alexander II. This branch has four living representatives - his great-great-granddaughter, Maria Vladimirovna, her son Georgy, and brothers Dmitry and Mikhail Pavlovich Romanov-Ilyinsky (the youngest of whom was born in 1961).
* Konstantinovichi, descendants of Konstantin Nikolaevich. In the male line, the branch was terminated in 1973 (with the death of Vsevolod, the son of John Konstantinovich).
* Nikolaevichs, descendants of Nikolai Nikolaevich the Elder. The two living male representatives are brothers Nikolai and Dmitry Romanovich Romanov, the youngest of whom was born in 1926.
* Mikhailovichi, descendants of Mikhail Nikolaevich. All other living male Romanovs belong to this branch (see below), the youngest of them was born in 2009.

Only two of the male line descendants of the Romanovs remained on the territory of the USSR - the children of Alexander Iskander: (Natalia and Kirill (1915-1992) Androsov); the rest either left or died.

On December 22, 2011, the President of the unrecognized Transnistrian Moldavian Republic I.N. Smirnov signed the Decree “On the status of the Russian Imperial House in the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.” According to this decree, on the territory of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, the Russian Imperial House is recognized as a unique historical institution without the rights of a legal entity, taking part in the patriotic, spiritual and moral education of citizens of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, preserving the historical and cultural heritage and traditions of Pridnestrovian society. Back in 2009, Maria Vladimirovna Romanova was awarded the highest award of the PMR - the Order of the Republic. On June 9, 2011, for the first time since 1917, a representative of the House of Romanov was awarded a Russian state award: Prince Romanov, Dmitry Romanovich.

In total, as of May 2010, the Romanov clan consisted of 12 male representatives. Among them, only four (grandsons and great-grandson of Prince Rostislav Alexandrovich) are no older than forty years.

Outstanding personalities - the Romanov dynasty.

The family tree includes about 80 people. In this article we will not touch on everyone, but only on the reigning persons and their families.

Family tree of the Romanov dynasty

Mikhail Fedorovich and his wife Evdokia had one son, Alexey. He headed the throne from 1645 to 1676. Was married twice. The first wife was Maria Miloslavskaya, from this marriage the tsar had three children: Fedor - the eldest son, Ivan the Fifth and daughter Sophia. From his marriage to Natalya Naryshkina, Mikhail had one son, Peter the Great, who later became a great reformer. Ivan married Praskovya Saltykova, from this marriage they had two daughters - Anna Ioannovna and Ekaterina. Peter had two marriages - with Evdokia Lopukhina and Catherine the First. From his first marriage, the tsar had a son, Alexei, who later married Sophia Charlotte. From this marriage Peter the Second was born.

Family tree of the Romanov dynasty: Peter the Great and Catherine the First

Three children were born from the marriage - Elizabeth, Anna and Peter. Anna married Karl Friedrich, and they had a son, Peter the Third, who married

Family tree of the Romanov dynasty: Miloslavsky branch Catherine II. She, in turn, took the crown from her husband. But Catherine had a son - Pavel I, who married Maria Fedorovna. From this marriage an emperor was born who later married Alexandra Feodorovna. From this marriage Alexander II was born. He had two marriages - with Maria Alexandrovna and Ekaterina Dolgorukova. The future heir to the throne - Alexander the Third - was born from his first marriage. He, in turn, married Maria Feodorovna. The son from this union became the last emperor of Russia: we are talking about Nicholas II.

Ivan the Fourth and Praskovya Saltykova had two daughters - Ekaterina and Anna. Catherine married Karl Leopold. From this marriage Anna Leopoldovna was born, who married Anton Ulrich. The couple had a son, known to us as Ivan the Fourth.

This is the Romanov family tree in a nutshell. The scheme includes all the wives and children of the rulers of the Russian Empire. Secondary relatives are not considered. Undoubtedly, the Romanovs are the brightest and strongest dynasty that ruled Russia.

The family belongs to the ancient families of the Moscow boyars. The first ancestor of this family known to us from the chronicles is Andrei Ivanovich, who had the nickname Mare, in 1347 he was in the service of the Great Prince of Vladimir and Moscow, Semyon Ivanovich Proud.

Semyon Proud was the eldest son and heir and continued the policies of his father. At that time, the Moscow principality strengthened significantly, and Moscow began to claim leadership among other lands of North-Eastern Rus'. The Moscow princes not only established good relations with the Golden Horde, but also began to play a more important role in all-Russian affairs. Among the Russian princes, Semyon was considered the eldest, and few of them dared to contradict him. His character was clearly evident in his family life. After the death of his first wife, the daughter of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas, Semyon remarried.

His chosen one was the Smolensk princess Eupraxia, but a year after the wedding the Moscow prince for some reason sent her back to her father, Prince Fyodor Svyatoslavich. Then Semyon decided on a third marriage, this time turning to Moscow's old rivals - the Tver princes. In 1347, an embassy went to Tver to woo Princess Maria, the daughter of Tver Prince Alexander Mikhailovich.

At one time, Alexander Mikhailovich died tragically in the Horde, falling victim to the intrigues of Ivan Kalita, Semyon’s father. And now the children of irreconcilable enemies were united by marriage. The embassy to Tver was headed by two Moscow boyars - Andrei Kobyla and Alexei Bosovolkov. This is how the ancestor of Tsar Mikhail Romanov appeared on the historical stage for the first time.

The embassy was successful. But Metropolitan Theognost unexpectedly intervened and refused to bless this marriage. Moreover, he ordered the closure of Moscow churches to prevent weddings. This position was apparently caused by Semyon’s previous divorce. But the prince sent generous gifts to the Patriarch of Constantinople, to whom the Moscow Metropolitan was subordinate, and received permission for the marriage. In 1353, Semyon the Proud died from the plague that raged in Rus'. Nothing more is known about Andrei Kobyl, but his descendants continued to serve the Moscow princes.

According to genealogists, the offspring of Andrei Kobyla was extensive. He left five sons, who became the founders of many famous noble families. The sons' names were: Semyon Stallion (didn't he get his name in honor of Semyon the Proud?), Alexander Yolka, Vasily Ivantey (or Vantey), Gavrila Gavsha (Gavsha is the same as Gabriel, only in a diminutive form; such endings of names in “-sha” were common in Novgorod land) and Fedor Koshka. In addition, Andrei had a younger brother Fyodor Shevlyaga, from whom came the noble families of Motovilovs, Trusovs, Vorobins and Grabezhevs. The nicknames Mare, Stallion and Shevlyaga (“nag”) are close in meaning to each other, which is not surprising, since several noble families have a similar tradition - representatives of the same family could bear nicknames from the same semantic circle. However, what was the origin of the brothers Andrei and Fyodor Ivanovich themselves?

The genealogies of the 16th – early 17th centuries do not report anything about this. But already in the first half of the 17th century, when they gained a foothold on the Russian throne, a legend about their ancestors appeared. Many noble families traced themselves to people from other countries and lands. This became a kind of tradition of the ancient Russian nobility, which, thus, almost entirely had “foreign” origin. Moreover, the most popular were two “directions” from where the noble ancestors supposedly “exited”: either “from the Germans” or “from the Horde”. “Germans” meant not only the inhabitants of Germany, but all Europeans in general. Therefore, in the legends about the “excursions” of the founders of the clans, one can find the following clarifications: “From German, from Prus” or “From German, from Svei (i.e., Swedish) land.”

All these legends were similar to each other. Usually, a certain “honest man” with a strange name, unusual for Russian ears, came, often with a retinue, to serve one of the Grand Dukes. Here he was baptized, and his descendants became part of the Russian elite. Then noble families arose from their nicknames, and since many families traced themselves back to the same ancestor, it is understandable that different versions of the same legends appeared. The reasons for creating these stories are quite clear. By inventing foreign ancestors for themselves, Russian aristocrats “justified” their leadership position in society.

They made their families more ancient, constructed a high origin, because many of the ancestors were considered descendants of foreign princes and rulers, thereby emphasizing their exclusivity. Of course, this does not mean that absolutely all the legends were fictitious; probably, the most ancient of them could have had a real basis (for example, the ancestor of the Pushkins, Radsha, judging by the end of the name, was related to Novgorod and lived in the 12th century, according to some researchers, could actually be of foreign origin). But it is quite difficult to isolate these historical facts behind the layers of conjectures and conjectures. And besides, it can be difficult to unambiguously confirm or refute such a story due to the lack of sources. By the end of the 17th century, and especially in the 18th century, such legends acquired an increasingly fabulous character, turning into pure fantasies of authors poorly familiar with history. The Romanovs did not escape this either.

The creation of the family legend was “took upon themselves” by representatives of those families who had common ancestors with the Romanovs: the Sheremetevs, the already mentioned Trusovs, the Kolychevs. When the official genealogical book of the Muscovite kingdom was created in the 1680s, which later received the name “Velvet” because of its binding, noble families submitted their genealogies to the Rank Order, which was in charge of this matter. The Sheremetevs also presented the painting of their ancestors, and it turned out that, according to their information, the Russian boyar Andrei Ivanovich Kobyla was in fact a prince who came from Prussia.

The “Prussian” origin of the ancestor was very common at that time among ancient families. It has been suggested that this happened because of the “Prussian Street” at one end of ancient Novgorod. Along this street there was a road to Pskov, the so-called. "The Prussian Way". After the annexation of Novgorod to the Moscow state, many noble families of this city were resettled to the Moscow volosts, and vice versa. Thus, thanks to a misunderstood name, “Prussian” immigrants joined the Moscow nobility. But in the case of Andrei Kobyla, one can rather see the influence of another legend, very famous at that time.

At the turn of the 15th–16th centuries, when a unified Moscow state was formed and the Moscow princes began to lay claim to the royal (cesar, i.e., imperial) title, the well-known idea “Moscow is the Third Rome” appeared. Moscow became the heir to the great Orthodox tradition of the Second Rome - Constantinople, and through it the imperial power of the First Rome - the Rome of the emperors Augustus and Constantine the Great. The continuity of power was ensured by the marriage of Ivan III with Sophia Palaeologus, and the legend “about the gifts of Monomakh” - the Byzantine emperor, who transferred the royal crown and other regalia of royal power to his grandson Vladimir Monomakh in Rus', and the adoption of the imperial double-headed eagle as a state symbol. Visible proof of the greatness of the new kingdom was the magnificent ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin built under Ivan III and Vasily III. This idea was also maintained at the genealogical level. It was at this time that the legend about the origin of the then ruling Rurik dynasty arose. Rurik’s foreign, Varangian origin could not fit into the new ideology, and the founder of the princely dynasty became a 14th-generation descendant of a certain Prus, a relative of Emperor Augustus himself. Prus was supposedly the ruler of ancient Prussia, once inhabited by Slavs, and his descendants became the rulers of Rus'. And just as the Rurikovichs turned out to be the successors of the Prussian kings, and through them the Roman emperors, so the descendants of Andrei Kobyla created a “Prussian” legend for themselves.
Subsequently, the legend acquired new details. In a more complete form, it was drawn up by the steward Stepan Andreevich Kolychev, who under Peter I became the first Russian king of arms. In 1722, he headed the Heraldry Office under the Senate, a special institution that dealt with state heraldry and was in charge of accounting and class affairs of the nobility. Now the origins of Andrei Kobyla have “acquired” new features.

In 373 (or even 305) AD (at that time the Roman Empire still existed), the Prussian king Pruteno gave the kingdom to his brother Weidewut, and he himself became the high priest of his pagan tribe in the city of Romanov. This city seemed to be located on the banks of the Dubissa and Nevyazha rivers, at the confluence of which grew a sacred, evergreen oak tree of extraordinary height and thickness. Before his death, Veidevuth divided his kingdom among his twelve sons. The fourth son was Nedron, whose descendants owned the Samogit lands (part of Lithuania). In the ninth generation, a descendant of Nedron was Divon. He lived already in the 13th century and constantly defended his lands from the knights of the sword. Finally, in 1280, his sons, Russingen and Glanda Kambila, were baptized, and in 1283 Glanda (Glandal or Glandus) Kambila came to Rus' to serve the Moscow prince Daniil Alexandrovich. Here he was baptized and began to be called Mare. According to other versions, Glanda was baptized with the name Ivan in 1287, and Andrei Kobyla was his son.

The artificiality of this story is obvious. Everything about it is fantastic, and no matter how hard some historians tried to verify its authenticity, their attempts were unsuccessful. Two characteristic motifs are striking. Firstly, the 12 sons of Veydevut are very reminiscent of the 12 sons of Prince Vladimir, the baptist of Rus', and the fourth son Nedron is the fourth son of Vladimir, Yaroslav the Wise. Secondly, the author’s desire to connect the beginning of the Romanov family in Rus' with the first Moscow princes is obvious. After all, Daniil Alexandrovich was not only the founder of the Moscow principality, but also the founder of the Moscow dynasty, whose successors were the Romanovs.
Nevertheless, the “Prussian” legend became very popular and was officially recorded in the “General Arms Book of the Noble Families of the All-Russian Empire,” created on the initiative of Paul I, who decided to streamline all Russian noble heraldry. The noble family coats of arms were entered into the armorial book, which were approved by the emperor, and along with the image and description of the coat of arms, a certificate of the origin of the family was also given. The descendants of Kobyla - the Sheremetevs, Konovnitsyns, Neplyuevs, Yakovlevs and others, noting their “Prussian” origin, introduced the image of a “sacred” oak as one of the figures in their family coats of arms, and borrowed the central image itself (two crosses above which a crown is placed) from the heraldry of the city of Danzig (Gdansk).

Of course, as historical science developed, researchers not only were critical of the legend about the origin of the Mare, but also tried to discover any real historical basis in it. The most extensive study of the “Prussian” roots of the Romanovs was undertaken by the outstanding pre-revolutionary historian V.K. Trutovsky, who saw some correspondence between the information in the legend about Glanda Kambila and the real situation in the Prussian lands of the 13th century. Historians did not abandon such attempts in the future. But if the legend about Glanda Kambile could convey to us some grains of historical data, then its “external” design practically reduces this significance to nothing. It may be of interest from the point of view of the social consciousness of the Russian nobility of the 17th–18th centuries, but not in the matter of clarifying the true origin of the reigning family. Such a brilliant expert on Russian genealogy as A.A. Zimin wrote that Andrei Kobyla “probably came from native Moscow (and Pereslavl) landowners.” In any case, be that as it may, it is Andrei Ivanovich who remains the first reliable ancestor of the Romanov dynasty.
Let's return to the real pedigree of his descendants. The eldest son of Mare, Semyon Stallion, became the founder of the nobles Lodygins, Konovnitsyns, Kokorevs, Obraztsovs, Gorbunovs. Of these, the Lodygins and Konovnitsyns left the greatest mark on Russian history. The Lodygins come from the son of Semyon Stallion - Grigory Lodyga (“lodyga” is an ancient Russian word meaning foot, stand, ankle). The famous engineer Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin (1847–1923), who in 1872 invented the electric incandescent lamp in Russia, belonged to this family.

The Konovnitsyns descend from the grandson of Grigory Lodyga - Ivan Semyonovich Konovnitsa. Among them, General Pyotr Petrovich Konovnitsyn (1764–1822), a hero of many wars waged by Russia at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, including the Patriotic War of 1812, became famous. He distinguished himself in the battles for Smolensk, Maloyaroslavets, in the “Battle of the Nations” near Leipzig, and in the Battle of Borodino he commanded the Second Army after Prince P.I. was wounded. Bagration. In 1815–1819, Konovnitsyn was Minister of War, and in 1819, together with his descendants, he was elevated to the dignity of count of the Russian Empire.
From the second son of Andrei Kobyla, Alexander Yolka, came the families of the Kolychevs, Sukhovo-Kobylins, Sterbeevs, Khludenevs, Neplyuevs. Alexander's eldest son Fyodor Kolych (from the word "kolcha", i.e. lame) became the founder of the Kolychevs. Of the representatives of this genus, the most famous is St. Philip (in the world Fyodor Stepanovich Kolychev, 1507–1569). In 1566 he became Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus'. Angrily denouncing the atrocities of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, Philip was deposed in 1568 and then strangled by one of the leaders of the guardsmen, Malyuta Skuratov.

The Sukhovo-Kobylins descend from another son of Alexander Yolka, Ivan Sukhoi (i.e., “thin”). The most prominent representative of this family was the playwright Alexander Vasilyevich Sukhovo-Kobylin (1817–1903), author of the trilogy “Krechinsky’s Wedding”, “The Affair” and “The Death of Tarelkin”. In 1902, he was elected an honorary academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature. His sister, Sofya Vasilievna (1825–1867), an artist who received a large gold medal from the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1854 for a landscape from life (which she depicted in the painting of the same name from the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery), also painted portraits and genre compositions. Another sister, Elizaveta Vasilievna (1815–1892), married Countess Salias de Tournemire, gained fame as a writer under the pseudonym Evgenia Tour. Her son, Count Evgeniy Andreevich Salias de Tournemire (1840–1908), was also a famous writer and historical novelist in his time (he was called the Russian Alexandre Dumas). His sister, Maria Andreevna (1841–1906), was the wife of Field Marshal Joseph Vladimirovich Gurko (1828–1901), and his granddaughter, Princess Evdokia (Eda) Yuryevna Urusova (1908–1996), was an outstanding theater and film actress of the Soviet era.

The youngest son of Alexander Yolka, Fyodor Dyutka (Dyudka, Dudka or even Detko), became the founder of the Neplyuev family. Among the Neplyuevs, Ivan Ivanovich Neplyuev (1693–1773), a diplomat who was a Russian resident in Turkey (1721–1734), and then the governor of the Orenburg region, and from 1760 a senator and conference minister, stands out.
Vasily Ivantey's descendants ended with his son Gregory, who died childless.

From the fourth son of Kobyla, Gavrila Gavsha, came the Boborykins. This family produced the talented writer Pyotr Dmitrievich Boborykin (1836–1921), the author of the novels “Dealers”, “China Town” and, among others, by the way, “Vasily Terkin” (except for the name, this literary character has nothing in common with the hero A. T. Tvardovsky).
Finally, Andrei Kobyla's fifth son, Fyodor Koshka, was the direct ancestor of the Romanovs. He served Dmitry Donskoy and is repeatedly mentioned in chronicles among his entourage. Perhaps it was he who was entrusted by the prince to defend Moscow during the famous war with Mamai, which ended in the victory of the Russians on the Kulikovo Field. Before his death, the Cat took monastic vows and was named Theodoret. His family became related to the Moscow and Tver princely dynasties - branches of the Rurikovich family. Thus, Fyodor’s daughter Anna was married to the Mikulin prince Fyodor Mikhailovich in 1391. The Mikulin inheritance was part of the Tver land, and Fyodor Mikhailovich himself was the youngest son of the Tver prince Mikhail Alexandrovich. Mikhail Alexandrovich was at enmity with Dmitry Donskoy for a long time. Three times he received a label from the Horde for the Great Reign of Vladimir, but each time, due to Dmitry’s opposition, he could not become the main Russian prince. However, gradually the strife between the Moscow and Tver princes faded away. Back in 1375, at the head of an entire coalition of princes, Dmitry made a successful campaign against Tver, and since then Mikhail Alexandrovich abandoned attempts to seize leadership from the Moscow prince, although relations between them remained tense. The marriage with the Koshkins was probably supposed to help establish friendly relations between the eternal enemies.

But not only Tver was embraced by the descendants of Fyodor Koshka with their matrimonial politics. Soon the Moscow princes themselves fell into their orbit. Among the sons of Koshka was Fyodor Goltai, whose daughter, Maria, was married in the winter of 1407 by one of the sons of the Serpukhov and Borovsk prince Vladimir Andreevich, Yaroslav.
Vladimir Andreevich, the founder of Serpukhov, was Dmitry Donskoy’s cousin. There were always the kindest friendly relations between them. The brothers took many important steps in the life of the Moscow state together. So, together they supervised the construction of the white-stone Moscow Kremlin, together they fought on the Kulikovo Field. Moreover, it was Vladimir Andreevich with the governor D.M. Bobrok-Volynsky commanded an ambush regiment, which at a critical moment decided the outcome of the entire battle. Therefore, he entered with the nickname not only Brave, but also Donskoy.

Yaroslav Vladimirovich, and in his honor the city of Maloyaroslavets was founded, where he reigned, he also bore the name Afanasy at baptism. This was one of the last cases when, according to a long-standing tradition, the Rurikovichs gave their children double names: secular and baptismal. The prince died of a pestilence in 1426 and was buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, where his grave exists to this day. From his marriage to the granddaughter of Fyodor Koshka, Yaroslav had a son, Vasily, who inherited the entire Borovsk-Serpukhov inheritance, and two daughters, Maria and Elena. In 1433, Maria was married to the young Moscow prince Vasily II Vasilyevich, grandson of Dmitry Donskoy.
At this time, a brutal strife began on Moscow soil between Vasily and his mother Sofia Vitovtovna, on the one hand, and the family of his uncle Yuri Dmitrievich, Prince of Zvenigorod, on the other. Yuri and his sons - Vasily (in the future, blinded in one eye and became Kosym) and Dmitry Shemyaka (the nickname comes from the Tatar “chimek” - “outfit”) - laid claim to the Moscow reign. Both Yuryevichs attended Vasily’s wedding in Moscow. And it was here that the famous historical episode took place, fueling this irreconcilable struggle. Seeing Vasily Yuryevich wearing a gold belt that once belonged to Dmitry Donskoy, Grand Duchess Sofya Vitovtovna tore it off, deciding that it did not rightfully belong to the Zvenigorod prince. One of the initiators of this scandal was Fyodor Koshka’s grandson Zakhary Ivanovich. The offended Yuryevichs left the wedding feast, and war soon broke out. During it, Vasily II was blinded by Shemyaka and became Dark, but ultimately victory remained on his side. With the death of Shemyaka, poisoned in Novgorod, Vasily could no longer worry about the future of his reign. During the war, Vasily Yaroslavich, who became the brother-in-law of the Moscow prince, supported him in everything. But in 1456, Vasily II ordered the arrest of a relative and sent him to prison in the city of Uglich. There the unfortunate son of Maria Goltyaeva spent 27 years until he died in 1483. His grave can be seen on the left side of the iconostasis of the Moscow Archangel Cathedral. There is also a portrait image of this prince. The children of Vasily Yaroslavich died in captivity, and his second wife and her son from her first marriage, Ivan, managed to flee to Lithuania. The family of Borovsk princes continued there for a short time.

From Maria Yaroslavna, Vasily II had several sons, including Ivan III. Thus, all representatives of the Moscow princely dynasty, starting with Vasily II and up to the sons and granddaughter of Ivan the Terrible, were descendants of the Koshkins on the female line.
Grand Duchess Sofya Vitovtovna tearing off the belt from Vasily Kosoy at the wedding of Vasily the Dark. From a painting by P.P. Chistyakova. 1861
The descendants of Fyodor Koshka successively bore the family names Koshkins, Zakharyins, Yuryevs and, finally, Romanovs. In addition to his daughter Anna and son Fyodor Goltai, mentioned above, Fyodor Koshka had sons Ivan, Alexander Bezzubets, Nikifor and Mikhail Durny. Alexander's descendants were called the Bezzubtsevs, and then the Sheremetevs and Epanchins. The Sheremetevs descend from Alexander’s grandson, Andrei Konstantinovich Sheremet, and the Epanchins from another grandson, Semyon Konstantinovich Epancha (ancient clothing in the form of a cloak was called an epancha).

The Sheremetevs are one of the most famous Russian noble families. Probably the most famous of the Sheremetevs is Boris Petrovich (1652–1719). An associate of Peter the Great, one of the first Russian field marshals (the first Russian by origin), he participated in the Crimean and Azov campaigns, became famous for his victories in the Northern War, and commanded the Russian army in the Battle of Poltava. He was one of the first to be elevated by Peter to the dignity of a count of the Russian Empire (obviously, this happened in 1710). Among the descendants of Boris Petrovich Sheremetev, Russian historians especially revere Count Sergei Dmitrievich (1844–1918), a prominent researcher of Russian antiquity, chairman of the Archaeographic Commission under the Ministry of Public Education, who did a lot for the publication and study of documents of the Russian Middle Ages. His wife was the granddaughter of Prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky, and his son Pavel Sergeevich (1871–1943) also became a famous historian and genealogist. This branch of the family owned the famous Ostafyevo near Moscow (inherited from the Vyazemskys), preserved through the efforts of Pavel Sergeevich after the revolutionary events of 1917. The descendants of Sergei Dmitrievich, who found themselves in exile, became related there with the Romanovs. This family still exists today, in particular, the descendant of Sergei Dmitrievich, Count Pyotr Petrovich, who now lives in Paris, heads the Russian Conservatory named after S.V. Rachmaninov. The Sheremetevs owned two architectural pearls near Moscow: Ostankino and Kuskovo. How can one not recall here the serf actress Praskovya Kovaleva-Zhemchugova, who became Countess Sheremeteva, and her wife Count Nikolai Petrovich (1751–1809), the founder of the famous Moscow Hospice House (now the N.V. Sklifosovsky Institute of Emergency Medicine is located in its building). Sergei Dmitrievich was the grandson of N.P. Sheremetev and the serf actress.

The Epanchins are less noticeable in Russian history, but they also left their mark on it. In the 19th century, representatives of this family served in the navy, and two of them, Nikolai and Ivan Petrovich, heroes of the Battle of Navarino in 1827, became Russian admirals. Their great-nephew, General Nikolai Alekseevich Epanchin (1857–1941), a famous military historian, served as director of the Corps of Pages in 1900–1907. Already in exile, he wrote interesting memoirs “In the Service of Three Emperors,” published in Russia in 1996.

Actually, the Romanov family descends from the eldest son of Fyodor Koshka, Ivan, who was a boyar of Vasily I. It was Ivan Koshka’s son Zakhary Ivanovich who identified the notorious belt in 1433 at the wedding of Vasily the Dark. Zachary had three sons, so the Koshkins were divided into three more branches. The younger ones - the Lyatskys (Lyatskys) - left to serve in Lithuania, and their traces were lost there. The eldest son of Zakhary, Yakov Zakharyevich (died in 1510), a boyar and governor under Ivan III and Vasily III, served as viceroy in Novgorod and Kolomna for some time, took part in the war with Lithuania and, in particular, took the cities of Bryansk and Putivl, which then seceded to the Russian state. The descendants of Yakov formed the noble family of the Yakovlevs. He is known for his two “illegal” representatives: in 1812, the wealthy landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev (1767–1846) and the daughter of a German official Louise Ivanovna Haag (1795–1851), who were not legally married, had a son, Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (d. . in 1870) (grandson of A.I. Herzen - Pyotr Aleksandrovich Herzen (1871–1947) - one of the largest domestic surgeons, a specialist in the field of clinical oncology). And in 1819, his brother Lev Alekseevich Yakovlev had an illegitimate son, Sergei Lvovich Levitsky (died in 1898), one of the most famous Russian photographers (who was thus A.I. Herzen’s cousin).

Zakhary's middle son, Yuri Zakharyevich (died in 1505 [?]), a boyar and governor under Ivan III, like his older brother, fought with the Lithuanians in the famous battle near the Vedrosha River in 1500. His wife was Irina Ivanovna Tuchkova, a representative of a famous noble family. The surname Romanov came from one of the sons of Yuri and Irina, the okolnichy Roman Yuryevich (died in 1543). It was his family that became related to the royal dynasty.

On February 3, 1547, the sixteen-year-old Tsar, who had been crowned king half a month earlier in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, married the daughter of Roman Yuryevich Zakharyin, Anastasia.

There was a strict ceremony at court: the baby was carried in the arms of a nanny, and she was supported by two boyars, relatives of Queen Anastasia. The journey took place along rivers and on plows. One day, the nanny with the prince and the boyars stepped onto the shaky gangplank of the plow, and, unable to resist, they all fell into the water. Dmitry choked. Then Ivan named his youngest son from his last marriage with Maria Naga by this name. However, the fate of this boy turned out to be tragic: at the age of nine he... The name Dmitry turned out to be unlucky for the Grozny family.

The tsar’s second son, Ivan Ivanovich, had a difficult character. Cruel and domineering, he could become a complete image of his father. But in 1581, the 27-year-old prince was mortally wounded by Grozny during a quarrel. The reason for the unbridled outburst of anger was allegedly the third wife of Tsarevich Ivan (he sent the first two to the monastery) - Elena Ivanovna Sheremeteva, a distant relative of the Romanovs. Being pregnant, she appeared to her father-in-law in a light shirt, “in an indecent appearance.” The king beat his daughter-in-law, who later had a miscarriage. Ivan stood up for his wife and immediately received a blow to the temple with an iron staff. A few days later he died, and Elena was tonsured with the name Leonidas in one of the monasteries.

After the death of the heir, Ivan the Terrible was succeeded by his third son from Anastasia, Fedor. In 1584 he became the Tsar of Moscow. Fyodor Ivanovich was distinguished by a quiet and meek disposition. He was disgusted by the cruel tyranny of his father, and he spent a significant part of his reign in prayers and fasts, atonement for the sins of his ancestors. Such a high spiritual attitude of the tsar seemed strange to his subjects, which is why the popular legend about Fedor’s dementia appeared. In 1598, he serenely fell asleep forever, and his brother-in-law Boris Godunov took over the throne. Fyodor's only daughter Theodosia died before reaching the age of two. Thus ended the offspring of Anastasia Romanovna.
With her kind, gentle character, Anastasia restrained the king’s cruel temper. But in August 1560 the queen died. An analysis of her remains, now located in the basement chamber of the Archangel Cathedral, already carried out in our time, showed a high probability that Anastasia was poisoned. After her death, a new stage began in the life of Ivan the Terrible: the era of Oprichnina and lawlessness.

Ivan's marriage to Anastasia brought her relatives to the forefront of Moscow politics. The queen’s brother, Nikita Romanovich (died in 1586), was especially popular. He became famous as a talented commander and brave warrior during the Livonian War, rose to the rank of boyar and was one of the close associates of Ivan the Terrible. He was part of the inner circle of Tsar Fedor. Shortly before his death, Nikita took monastic vows with the name Nifont. Was married twice. His first wife, Varvara Ivanovna Khovrina, came from the Khovrin-Golovin family, which later produced several famous figures in Russian history, including Peter I’s associate, Admiral Fyodor Alekseevich Golovin. Nikita Romanovich’s second wife, Princess Evdokia Alexandrovna Gorbataya-Shuyskaya, belonged to the descendants of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod Rurikovichs. Nikita Romanovich lived in his chambers on Varvarka Street in Moscow, where in the middle of the 19th century. a museum was opened.

Seven sons and five daughters of Nikita Romanovich continued this boyar family. For a long time, researchers doubted which marriage of Nikita Romanovich gave birth to his eldest son Fyodor Nikitich, the future Patriarch Filaret, the father of the first tsar from the Romanov dynasty. After all, if his mother was Princess Gorbataya-Shuiskaya, then the Romanovs are thus descendants of the Rurikovichs through the female line. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, historians assumed that Fyodor Nikitich was most likely born from his father’s first marriage. And only in recent years has this issue apparently been finally resolved. During the study of the Romanov necropolis in the Moscow Novospassky Monastery, the tombstone of Varvara Ivanovna Khovrina was discovered. In the tombstone epitaph, the year of her death should perhaps be read as 7063, i.e. 1555 (she died on June 29), and not 7060 (1552), as previously believed. This dating removes the question of the origin of Fyodor Nikitich, who died in 1633, being “more than 80 years old.” The ancestors of Varvara Ivanovna and, therefore, the ancestors of the entire royal House of Romanov, the Khovrins, came from the trading people of the Crimean Sudak and had Greek roots.

Fyodor Nikitich Romanov served as a regimental commander, took part in campaigns against the cities of Koporye, Yam and Ivangorod during the successful Russian-Swedish war of 1590–1595, defended the southern borders of Russia from Crimean raids. A prominent position at court made it possible for the Romanovs to become related to other then-known families: the princes of Sitsky, Cherkasy, as well as the Godunovs (Boris Fedorovich’s nephew married Nikita Romanovich’s daughter, Irina). But these family ties did not save the Romanovs from disgrace after the death of their benefactor Tsar Fedor.

With his accession to the throne, everything changed. Hating the entire Romanov family and fearing them as potential rivals in the struggle for power, the new tsar began to eliminate his opponents one by one. In 1600–1601, repression fell on the Romanovs. Fyodor Nikitich was forcibly tonsured a monk (under the name Filaret) and sent to the distant Anthony Siysky Monastery in Arkhangelsk district. The same fate befell his wife Ksenia Ivanovna Shestova. Tonsured under the name of Martha, she was exiled to the Tolvuisky churchyard in Zaonezhye, and then lived with her children in the village of Klin, Yuryevsky district. Her young daughter Tatyana and son Mikhail (the future Tsar) were taken to prison on Beloozero along with her aunt Anastasia Nikitichna, who later became the wife of a prominent figure in the Time of Troubles, Prince Boris Mikhailovich Lykov-Obolensky. Fyodor Nikitich's brother, boyar Alexander, was exiled on a false denunciation to one of the villages of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery, where he was killed. Another brother, the okolnichy Mikhail, also died in disgrace, transported from Moscow to the remote Perm village of Nyrob. There he died in prison and in chains from hunger. Another son of Nikita, steward Vasily, died in the city of Pelym, where he and his brother Ivan were kept chained to the wall. And their sisters Efimiya (monastically Evdokia) and Martha went into exile together with their husbands, the princes of Sitsky and Cherkassy. Only Martha survived imprisonment. Thus, almost the entire Romanov family was destroyed. Miraculously, only Ivan Nikitich, nicknamed Kasha, survived, returned after a short exile.

But the Godunov dynasty was not allowed to rule in Rus'. The fire of the Great Troubles was already flaring up, and in this seething cauldron the Romanovs emerged from oblivion. The active and energetic Fyodor Nikitich (Filaret) returned to “big” politics at the first opportunity - False Dmitry I made his benefactor Metropolitan of Rostov and Yaroslavl. The fact is that Grigory Otrepiev was once his servant. There is even a version that the Romanovs specially prepared the ambitious adventurer for the role of the “legitimate” heir to the Moscow throne. Be that as it may, Filaret took a prominent place in the church hierarchy.

He made a new career “leap” with the help of another impostor - False Dmitry II, the “Tushinsky Thief”. In 1608, during the capture of Rostov, the Tushins captured Filaret and brought the impostor to the camp.
False Dmitry invited him to become patriarch, and Filaret agreed. In Tushino, in general, a kind of second capital was formed: it had its own king, it had its own boyars, its own orders, and now also its own patriarch (in Moscow, the patriarchal throne was occupied by Hermogenes). When the Tushin camp collapsed, Filaret managed to return to Moscow, where he participated in the overthrow of Tsar Vasily Shuisky. The Seven Boyars that formed after this included the younger brother of the “patriarch” Ivan Nikitich Romanov, who received the boyars on the day of Otrepiev’s crowning. As is known, the new government decided to invite the son of the Polish king, Vladislav, to the Russian throne and concluded a corresponding agreement with Hetman Stanislav Zolkiewski, and in order to settle all the formalities, a “great embassy” was sent from Moscow to Smolensk, where the king was located, headed by Filaret. However, negotiations with King Sigismund reached a dead end, the ambassadors were arrested and sent to Poland. There, in captivity, Filaret remained until 1619 and only after the conclusion of the Deulin truce and the end of the many years of war did he return to Moscow. His son Mikhail was already the Russian Tsar.

Fyodor-Filaret's wife Ksenia Ivanovna came from the ancient Shestov family. Their ancestor was considered to be Mikhail Prushanin, or, as he was also called, Misha, an associate of Alexander Nevsky. He was also the founder of such famous families as the Morozovs, Saltykovs, Sheins, Tuchkovs, Cheglokovs, Scriabins. Misha's descendants became related to the Romanovs back in the 15th century, since the mother of Roman Yuryevich Zakharyin was one of the Tuchkovs. By the way, the Shestovs’ ancestral estates included the Kostroma village of Domnino, where Ksenia and her son Mikhail lived for some time after the liberation of Moscow from the Poles. The headman of this village, Ivan Susanin, became famous for saving the young king from death at the cost of his life. After her son’s accession to the throne, the “great old lady” Martha helped him in governing the country until his father, Filaret, returned from captivity.

Ksenia-Marfa had a kind character. So, remembering the widows of previous tsars who lived in monasteries - Ivan the Terrible, Vasily Shuisky, Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich - she repeatedly sent them gifts. She often went on pilgrimages, was strict in matters of religion, but did not shy away from the joys of life: in the Ascension Kremlin Monastery she organized a gold-embroidery workshop, which produced beautiful fabrics and clothes for the royal court.
Mikhail Fedorovich's uncle Ivan Nikitich (died in 1640) also occupied a prominent place at his nephew's court. With the death of his son, boyar and butler Nikita Ivanovich in 1654, all other branches of the Romanovs, except for the royal offspring of Mikhail Fedorovich, were cut short. The ancestral tomb of the Romanovs was the Moscow Novospassky Monastery, where in recent years much work has been carried out to study and restore this ancient necropolis. As a result, many burials of the ancestors of the royal dynasty were identified, and from some remains, experts even recreated portrait images, including that of Roman Yuryevich Zakharyin, the great-grandfather of Tsar Mikhail.

The Romanov family coat of arms dates back to Livonian heraldry and was created in the mid-19th century. the outstanding Russian heraldist Baron B.V. Köne based on emblematic images found on objects that belonged to the Romanovs in the second half of the 16th - early 17th centuries. The description of the coat of arms is as follows:
“In a silver field is a scarlet vulture holding a golden sword and tarch, crowned with a small eagle; on the black border are eight severed lion heads: four gold and four silver.”

Evgeny Vladimirovich Pchelov
Romanovs. History of a great dynasty

The last 300-plus years of Russian autocracy (1613-1917) are historically associated with the Romanov dynasty, which secured the Russian throne during a period known as the Time of Troubles. The emergence of a new dynasty on the throne is always a major political event and is often associated with a revolution or coup, that is, the violent removal of the old dynasty. In Russia, the change of dynasties was caused by the suppression of the ruling branch of the Rurikovichs in the descendants of Ivan the Terrible. Problems of succession to the throne gave rise to a deep socio-political crisis, accompanied by the intervention of foreigners. Never in Russia have the supreme rulers changed so often, each time bringing a new dynasty to the throne. Among the contenders for the throne were representatives from different social strata, and there were also foreign candidates from among the “natural” dynasties. The kings became either the descendants of the Rurikovichs (Vasily Shuisky, 1606-1610), or those from among the untitled boyars (Boris Godunov, 1598-1605), or impostors (False Dmitry I, 1605-1606; False Dmitry II, 1607-1610 .). No one managed to gain a foothold on the Russian throne until 1613, when Mikhail Romanov was elected to the throne, and in his person a new ruling dynasty was finally established. Why did the historical choice fall on the Romanov family? Where did they come from and what were they like by the time they came to power?
The genealogical past of the Romanovs was quite clear already in the middle of the 16th century, when the rise of their family began. In accordance with the political tradition of that time, the genealogies contained a legend about the “departure.” Having become related to the Rurikovichs (see table), the boyar family of the Romanovs also borrowed the general direction of the legend: Rurik in the 14th “tribe” was derived from the legendary Prussian, and the ancestor of the Romanovs was recognized as a native of “Prussia”. The Sheremetevs, Kolychevs, Yakovlevs, Sukhovo-Kobylins and other families known in Russian history are traditionally considered to be of the same origin as the Romanovs (from the legendary Kambila).
An original interpretation of the origin of all clans with a legend about leaving “from Prussia” (with a primary interest in the ruling house of the Romanovs) was given in the 19th century. Petrov P. N., whose work has been republished in large quantities even today. (Petrov P. N. History of the families of the Russian nobility. Vol. 1–2, St. Petersburg, - 1886. Republished: M. - 1991. - 420 pp. ; 318 pp.). He considers the ancestors of these families to be Novgorodians who broke with their homeland for political reasons at the turn of the 13th-14th centuries. and went to serve the Moscow prince. The assumption is based on the fact that at the Zagorodsky end of Novgorod there was Prusskaya Street, from which the road to Pskov began. Its inhabitants traditionally supported the opposition against the Novgorod aristocracy and were called “Prussians.” “Why should we look for foreign Prussians?...” asks P.N. Petrov, calling to “dispel the darkness of fairy tales, which have hitherto been accepted as truth and who wanted to impose non-Russian origins on the Romanov family at all costs.”

Table 1.

The genealogical roots of the Romanov family (XII – XIV centuries) are given in the interpretation of P.N. Petrov. (Petrov P.N. History of the clans of the Russian nobility. T. 1–2, - St. Petersburg, - 1886. Republished: M. - 1991. - 420 pp.; 318 pp.).
1 Ratsha (Radsha, Christian name Stefan) is the legendary founder of many noble families of Russia: Sheremetevs, Kolychevs, Neplyuevs, Kobylins, etc. A native of “Prussian descent,” according to Petrov P.N., Novgorodian, servant of Vsevolod Olgovich, and maybe Mstislav the Great; according to another version of Serbian origin
2 Yakun (Christian name Mikhail), mayor of Novgorod, died as a monk with the name Mitrofan in 1206
3 Alexa (Christian name Gorislav), monastically St. Varlaam. Khutynsky, died in 1215 or 1243.
4 Gabriel, hero of the Battle of the Neva in 1240, died in 1241
5 Ivan is a Christian name, in the Pushkin family tree it is Ivan Morkhinya. According to Petrov P.N. before baptism his name was Gland Kambila Divonovich, he came “from Prussia” in the 13th century, and is the generally accepted ancestor of the Romanovs.;
6 Petrov P.N. considers this Andrei to be Andrei Ivanovich Kobyla, whose five sons became the founders of 17 families of the Russian nobility, including the Romanovs.
7 Grigory Alexandrovich Pushka - the founder of the Pushkin family, mentioned in 1380. From him the branch was called Pushkin.
8 Anastasia Romanova is the first wife of Ivan IV, the mother of the last Tsar Rurikovich - Fyodor Ivanovich, through her the genealogical relationship of the Rurikovich dynasties with the Romanovs and Pushkins is established.
9 Fyodor Nikitich Romanov (born between 1554-1560, d. 1663) from 1587 - boyar, from 1601 - tonsured a monk with the name Filaret, patriarch from 1619. Father of the first king of the new dynasty.
10 Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov - the founder of the new dynasty, elected to the throne in 1613 by the Zemsky Sobor. The Romanov dynasty occupied the Russian throne until the 1917 revolution.
11 Alexei Mikhailovich - Tsar (1645-1676).
12 Maria Alekseevna Pushkina married Osip (Abram) Petrovich Hannibal, their daughter Nadezhda Osipovna is the mother of the great Russian poet. Through it is the intersection of the Pushkin and Hannibal families.

Without discarding the traditionally recognized ancestor of the Romanovs in the person of Andrei Ivanovich, but developing the idea of ​​the Novgorod origin of “those who left Prussia”, P.N. Petrov. believes that Andrei Ivanovich Kobyla is the grandson of the Novgorodian Iakinthos the Great and is related to the Ratsha family (Ratsha is a diminutive of Ratislav. (see Table 2).
In the chronicle he is mentioned in 1146 along with other Novgorodians on the side of Vsevolod Olgovich (son-in-law of Mstislav, Grand Duke of Kyiv 1125-32). At the same time, Gland Kambila Divonovich, the traditional ancestor, “a native of Prussia,” disappears from the scheme, and until the middle of the 12th century. the Novgorod roots of Andrei Kobyla are traced, who, as mentioned above, is considered the first documented ancestor of the Romanovs.
The formation of the reigning ruler from the beginning of the 17th century. clan and the allocation of the ruling branch is presented in the form of a chain of Kobylina – Koshkina – Zakharyina – Yuryevs – Romanovs (see Table 3), reflecting the transformation of the clan nickname into a surname. The rise of the family dates back to the second third of the 16th century. and is associated with the marriage of Ivan IV to the daughter of Roman Yuryevich Zakharyin, Anastasia. (see Table 4. At that time, this was the only untitled surname that remained in the forefront of the Old Moscow boyars in the stream of new titled servants who surged to the sovereign’s Court in the second half of the 15th century - the beginning of the 16th century (princes Shuisky, Vorotynsky, Mstislavsky , Trubetskoys).
The ancestor of the Romanov branch was the third son of Roman Yuryevich Za-Kharin - Nikita Romanovich (d. 1586), the brother of Queen Anastasia. His descendants were already called Romanovs. Nikita Romanovich was a Moscow boyar from 1562, an active participant in the Livonian War and diplomatic negotiations, after the death of Ivan IV he headed the regency council (until the end of 1584). One of the few Moscow boyars of the 16th century who left a good memory among the people: name preserved by a folk epic depicting him as a good-natured mediator between the people and the formidable Tsar Ivan.
Of the six sons of Nikita Romanovich, the eldest was especially outstanding - Fyodor Nikitich (later Patriarch Filaret, the unofficial co-ruler of the first Russian Tsar of the Romanov family) and Ivan Nikitich, who was part of the Seven Boyars. The popularity of the Romanovs, acquired by their personal qualities, increased from the persecution they were subjected to by Boris Godunov, who saw them as potential rivals in the struggle for the royal throne.

Table 2 and 3.

Election of Mikhail Romanov to the throne. The rise to power of a new dynasty

In October 1612, as a result of the successful actions of the second militia under the command of Prince Pozharsky and the merchant Minin, Moscow was liberated from the Poles. A Provisional Government was created and elections to the Zemsky Sobor were announced, the convening of which was planned for the beginning of 1613. There was one, but extremely pressing issue on the agenda - the election of a new dynasty. They unanimously decided not to choose from foreign royal houses, but there was no unity regarding domestic candidates. Among the noble candidates for the throne (princes Golitsyn, Mstislavsky, Pozharsky, Trubetskoy) was 16-year-old Mikhail Romanov from a long-standing boyar, but untitled family. On his own, he had little chance of winning, but the interests of the nobility and the Cossacks, who played a certain role during the Time of Troubles, converged on his candidacy. The boyars hoped for his inexperience and intended to maintain their political positions, strengthened during the years of the Seven Boyars. The political past of the Romanov family also played into its favor, as discussed above. They wanted to choose not the most capable, but the most convenient. There was active campaigning among the people in favor of Michael, which also played an important role in his establishment on the throne. The final decision was made on February 21, 1613. Michael was chosen by the Council and approved by “the whole earth.” The outcome of the case was decided by a note from an unknown chieftain, who stated that Mikhail Romanov was the closest relative to the previous dynasty and could be considered a “natural” Russian tsar.
Thus, autocracy of a legitimate nature (by right of birth) was restored in his person. The opportunities for alternative political development of Russia, laid down during the Time of Troubles, or rather, in the then established tradition of electing (and therefore replacing) monarchs, were lost.
Behind Tsar Mikhail for 14 years stood his father, Fyodor Nikitich, better known as Philaret, patriarch of the Russian Church (officially since 1619). The case is unique not only in Russian history: the son occupies the highest government position, the father the highest church position. This is hardly a coincidence. Some interesting facts suggest some interesting facts about the role of the Romanov family during the Time of Troubles. For example, it is known that Grigory Otrepiev, who appeared on the Russian throne under the name of False Dmitry I, was a slave of the Romanovs before being exiled to a monastery, and he, having become a self-proclaimed tsar, returned Filaret from exile and elevated him to the rank of metropolitan. False Dmitry II, in whose Tushino headquarters Filaret was, promoted him to patriarch. But be that as it may, at the beginning of the 17th century. A new dynasty established itself in Russia, with which the state functioned for more than three hundred years, experiencing ups and downs.

Tables 4 and 5.

Dynastic marriages of the Romanovs, their role in Russian history

During the 18th century. Genealogical connections of the House of Romanov with other dynasties were intensively established, which expanded to such an extent that, figuratively speaking, the Romanovs themselves disappeared into them. These connections were formed mainly through the system of dynastic marriages that had been established in Russia since the time of Peter I (see Tables 7-9). The tradition of equal marriages in the conditions of dynastic crises, so characteristic of Russia in the 20-60s of the 18th century, led to the transfer of the Russian throne into the hands of another dynasty, the representative of which acted on behalf of the extinct Romanov dynasty (in male offspring - after death in 1730 Peter II).
During the 18th century. the transition from one dynasty to another was carried out both through the line of Ivan V - to representatives of the Mecklenburg and Brunswick dynasties (see table 6), and through the line of Peter I - to members of the Holstein-Gottorp dynasty (see table 6), whose descendants occupied the Russian throne on behalf of the Romanovs from Peter III to Nicholas II (see Table 5). The Holstein-Gottorp dynasty, in turn, was a junior branch of the Danish Oldenburg dynasty. In the 19th century the tradition of dynastic marriages continued, genealogical connections multiplied (see Table 9), giving rise to the desire to “hide” the foreign roots of the first Romanovs, so traditional for the Russian centralized state and burdensome for the second half of the 18th – 19th centuries. The political need to emphasize the Slavic roots of the ruling dynasty was reflected in the interpretation of P.N. Petrov.

Table 6.

Table 7.

Ivan V was on the Russian throne for 14 years (1682-96) together with Peter I (1682-1726), initially under the regency of his elder sister Sophia (1682-89). He did not take an active part in governing the country, had no male descendants, his two daughters (Anna and Ekaterina) were married off based on the state interests of Russia at the beginning of the 18th century (see Table 6). In the conditions of the dynastic crisis of 1730, when the male descendants of the line of Peter I were extinguished, the descendants of Ivan V established themselves on the Russian throne: daughter Anna Ioannovna (1730-40), great-grandson Ivan VI (1740-41) under the regency of mother Anna Leopoldovna , in whose person the representatives of the Brunswick dynasty actually ended up on the Russian throne. The coup of 1741 returned the throne into the hands of the descendants of Peter I. However, having no direct heirs, Elizaveta Petrovna transferred the Russian throne to her nephew Peter III, whose father belonged to the Holstein-Gottorp dynasty. The Oldenburg dynasty (via the Holstein-Gottorp branch) is united with the House of Romanov in the person of Peter III and his descendants.

Table 8.

1 Peter II is the grandson of Peter I, the last male representative of the Romanov family (on his mother’s side, a representative of the Blankenburg-Wolfenbüttel dynasty).

2 Paul I and his descendants, who ruled Russia until 1917, in terms of origin, did not belong to the Romanov family (Paul I was a representative of the Holstein-Gottorp dynasty on his father’s side, and an Anhalt-Zerbt dynasty on his mother’s side).

Table 9.

1 Paul I had seven children, of whom: Anna - the wife of Prince William, later King of the Netherlands (1840-49); Catherine - since 1809 the prince's wife
George of Oldenburg, married from 1816 to Prince William of Württemburg, who later became king; Alexandra’s first marriage was with Gustav IV of Sweden (before 1796), her second marriage was with Archduke Joseph, Hungarian stole, in 1799.
2 Daughters of Nicholas I: Maria - since 1839, the wife of Maximilian, Duke of Leitenberg; Olga has been the wife of the Württemberg Crown Prince since 1846, then of King Charles I.
3 Other children of Alexander II: Maria - since 1874, married to Alfred Albert, Duke of Edinburgh, later Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; Sergei - married to Elizaveta Feodorovna, daughter of the Duke of Hesse; Pavel has been married to the Greek royal Alexandra Georgievna since 1889.

On February 27, 1917, a revolution took place in Russia, during which the autocracy was overthrown. On March 3, 1917, the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II signed his abdication in a military trailer near Mogilev, where Headquarters was located at that time. This was the end of the history of monarchical Russia, which was declared a republic on September 1, 1917. The family of the overthrown emperor was arrested and exiled to Yekaterinburg, and in the summer of 1918, when there was a threat of the city being captured by the army of A.V. Kolchak, they were shot on the orders of the Bolsheviks. Together with the emperor, his heir, his minor son Alexei, was liquidated. The younger brother Mikhail Alexandrovich, the heir of the second circle, in whose favor Nicholas II abdicated the throne, was killed a few days earlier near Perm. This is where the story of the Romanov family should end. However, excluding any legends and versions, we can reliably say that this family has not died out. The lateral branch, in relation to the last emperors, survived - the descendants of Alexander II (see table 9, continued). Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich (1876 - 1938) was next in line of succession to the throne after Mikhail Alexandrovich, the younger brother of the last emperor. In 1922, after the end of the civil war in Russia and the final confirmation of information about the death of the entire imperial family, Kirill Vladimirovich declared himself Guardian of the Throne, and in 1924 accepted the title of Emperor of All Russia, Head of the Russian Imperial House abroad. His seven-year-old son Vladimir Kirillovich was proclaimed heir to the throne with the title Grand Duke Heir Tsarevich. He succeeded his father in 1938 and was the Head of the Russian Imperial House abroad until his death in 1992 (see Table 9, continued.) He was buried on May 29, 1992 under the arches of the Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. The head of the Russian Imperial House (abroad) was his daughter Maria Vladimirovna.

Milevich S.V. - Methodological guide for studying the genealogy course. Odessa, 2000.

Name: Mikhail Romanov (Mikhail Fedorovich)

Age: 49 years old

Activity: the first Russian Tsar from the Romanov dynasty

Family status: was married

Mikhail Romanov: biography

Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov is one of the rulers of Rus', who ascended the throne in 1613. Mikhail Romanov is the first tsar of the Romanov dynasty, which later gave the country many sovereigns, including the opener of the window to Europe, who stopped the seven-year war of her husband, who abolished serfdom and many others. Although in fairness it should be said that not all of the reigning Romanov family tree were descendants of Mikhail Fedorovich by blood.

The future Tsar Mikhail Romanov, whose biography dates back to 1596, was born into the family of boyar Fyodor Nikitich and his wife Ksenia Ivanovna. It was the father who was a relatively close relative of the last tsar from the Rurik dynasty, Fyodor Ioannovich. But since Romanov Sr., by coincidence, took the spiritual path and turned into Patriarch Filaret, there was no longer any talk of succession to the throne of the Romanov branch through him.

The following circumstances contributed to this. During the reign of Boris Godunov, a denunciation was written against the Romanov family, which “convicted” Nikita Romanov, the grandfather of the future Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, of witchcraft and the desire to kill Godunov and his family. What followed was the immediate arrest of all males, forced universal tonsure as monks and exile to Siberia, where almost all family members died. When he ascended the throne, he ordered pardon for the exiled boyars, including the Romanovs. By that time, only Patriarch Filaret with his wife and son, as well as his brother Ivan Nikitich, were able to return.

The further biography of Mikhail Romanov was briefly connected with the town of Kliny, which now belongs to the Vladimir region. When the Seven Boyars came to power in Russia, the family lived in Moscow for a couple of years, and later, during the Russian-Polish War of the Time of Troubles, they took refuge from persecution by Polish-Lithuanian troops in the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma.

Kingdom of Mikhail Romanov

The election of Mikhail Romanov to the throne became possible thanks to the unification of the Moscow common people with the Great Russian Cossacks. The nobility was going to give the throne to the King of England and Scotland, James I, but this did not suit the Cossacks. The fact is that they, not without reason, feared that foreign rulers would take away their territories and, in addition, reduce the size of their grain allowance. As a result, the Zemsky Sobor chose as heir to the throne the closest relative of the last Russian Tsar, who turned out to be 16-year-old Mikhail Romanov.

It should be noted that neither he nor his mother were initially happy about the idea of ​​Moscow reign, realizing what a heavy burden it was. But the ambassadors briefly explained to Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov why his consent was so important, and the young man left for the capital. Along the way, he stopped in all major cities, for example, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Suzdal, Rostov. In Moscow, he went straight through Red Square to the Kremlin and was solemnly greeted by overjoyed people at the Spassky Gate. After the coronation, or as they said then, the crowning of the kingdom, the royal dynasty of Mikhail Romanov began, which ruled Russia for the next three hundred years and brought it to the ranks of the great powers of the world.

Since the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov began when he was only 16 years old, there is no need to talk about any experience of the tsar. Moreover, he was not raised with an eye to government and, according to rumors, the young king could barely read. Therefore, in the first years of Mikhail Romanov, politics depended more on the decisions of the Zemsky Sobor. When his father, Patriarch Filaret, returned to Moscow, he became an actual, although not obvious, co-ruler, prompting, directing and influencing the policies of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. State charters of that time were written on behalf of the tsar and the patriarch.

Mikhail Romanov's foreign policy was aimed at ending ruinous wars with Western countries. He stopped the bloodshed with Swedish and Polish troops, although at the cost of losing some territory, including access to the Baltic Sea. Actually, because of these territories, many years later Peter I will participate in the Northern War. Mikhail Romanov's domestic policy was also aimed at stabilizing life and centralizing power. He managed to bring harmony to secular and spiritual society, restore agriculture and trade, destroyed during the Time of Troubles, establish the country's first factories, and transform the tax system depending on the size of land.

It is also worth noting such innovations as the first tsar of the Romanov dynasty, such as the first census of the population and their property carried out in the country, which made it possible to stabilize the tax system, as well as the state’s encouragement of the development of creative talents. Tsar Mikhail Romanov ordered the employment of the artist John Deters and instructed him to teach painting to capable Russian students.

In general, the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was characterized by an improvement in the position of Russia. By the end of his reign, the consequences of the Time of Troubles were eliminated and conditions were created for the future prosperity of Russia. By the way, it was under Mikhail Fedorovich that the German Settlement appeared in Moscow, which would play such an important role in the reforms of Peter I the Great.

Personal life

When Tsar Mikhail Romanov turned 20, a bride show was held, because if he had not given the state an heir, unrest and unrest could have begun again. It is interesting that these viewings were initially a fiction - the mother had already chosen a future wife from the noble Saltykov family for the autocrat. But Mikhail Fedorovich confused her plans - he chose his own bride. She turned out to be the hawthorn Maria Khlopova, but the girl was not destined to become a queen. The angry Saltykovs began to secretly poison the girl’s food, and due to the symptoms of the disease that appeared, she was recognized as an unsuitable candidate. However, the tsar discovered the boyars’ intrigue and exiled the Saltykov family.

But Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was too gentle in character to insist on a wedding with Maria Khlopova. He wooed foreign brides. Although they agreed to the marriage, but only on condition of maintaining the Catholic faith, which turned out to be unacceptable for Rus'. As a result, the noble princess Maria Dolgorukaya became the wife of Mikhail Romanov. However, literally a few days after the wedding, she fell ill and soon died. The people called this death a punishment for insulting Maria Khlopova, and historians do not rule out a new poisoning.

By the age of 30, Tsar Mikhail Romanov was not only single, but most importantly, childless. The bridesmaid ceremony was organized again, the future queen was chosen in advance behind the scenes, and again Romanov showed his willfulness. He chose the daughter of a nobleman, Evdokia Streshneva, who was not even listed as a candidate and did not participate in the competition, but came as a servant of one of the girls. The wedding was very modest, the bride was protected from assassination with all possible forces, and when she showed that she was not interested in the politics of Mikhail Romanov, all the intriguers left the tsar’s wife behind.

The family life of Mikhail Fedorovich and Evdokia Lukyanovna was relatively happy. The couple became the founders of the Romanov dynasty and produced ten children, although six of them died in infancy. The future Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was the third child and first son of the ruling parents. Besides him, three daughters of Mikhail Romanov survived - Irina, Tatyana and Anna. Evdokia Streshneva herself, in addition to the main duty of the queen - the birth of heirs, was engaged in charity, helping churches and poor people, building temples and leading a pious life. She survived the royal husband by only one month.

Death

Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was a sickly man from birth. Moreover, he had both physical and psychological ailments, for example, he was often in a state of depression, as they said then - “suffered from melancholy.” In addition, he moved very little, which is why he had problems with his legs. By the age of 30, the king could barely walk and was often carried out of his chambers by servants in their arms.

However, he lived quite a long time and died the day after his 49th birthday. Doctors named the official cause of death as water sickness, caused by constant sitting and drinking copious amounts of cold water. Mikhail Romanov was buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.

The Romanovs are the great dynasty of kings and emperors of Russia, an ancient boyar family that began its existence at the end of the 16th century. and still exists today.

Etymology and history of the surname

The Romanovs are not quite the correct historical surname of the family. Initially, the Romanovs came from the Zakharyevs. However, Patriarch Filaret (Fyodor Nikitich Zakharyev) decided to take the surname Romanov in honor of his father and grandfather, Nikita Romanovich and Roman Yuryevich. This is how the family received a surname that is still used today.

The boyar family of the Romanovs gave history one of the most famous royal dynasties in the world. The first royal representative of the Romanovs was Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, and the last was Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov. Although the royal family was interrupted, the Romanovs still exist to this day (several branches). All representatives of the great family and their descendants live abroad today, about 200 people have royal titles, but none of them has the right to lead the Russian throne in the event of the return of the monarchy.

The large Romanov family was called the House of Romanov. The huge and extensive family tree has connections with almost all the royal dynasties of the world.

In 1856 the family received an official coat of arms. It depicts a vulture holding a golden sword and a tarch in its paws, and along the edges of the coat of arms are eight severed lion heads.

Background to the emergence of the Romanov royal dynasty

As already mentioned, the Romanov family descended from the Zakharyevs, but where the Zakharyevs came to the Moscow lands is unknown. Some scholars believe that family members were natives of the Novgorod land, and some say that the first Romanov came from Prussia.

In the 16th century. The boyar family received a new status, its representatives became relatives of the sovereign himself. This happened due to the fact that he married Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina. Now all of Anastasia Romanovna’s relatives could count on the royal throne in the future. The opportunity to take the throne came very soon, after the suppression. When the question of further succession to the throne arose, the Romanovs came into play.

In 1613, the first representative of the family, Mikhail Fedorovich, was elected to the throne. The era of the Romanovs began.

Tsars and emperors from the Romanov family

Starting from Mikhail Fedorovich, several more kings from this family ruled in Rus' (five in total).

These were:

• Fedor Alekseevich Romanov;
• Ivan the 5th (Ioann Antonovich);

In 1721, Rus' was finally reorganized into the Russian Empire, and the sovereign received the title of emperor. The first emperor was Peter the 1st, who until recently was called Tsar. In total, the Romanov family gave Russia 14 emperors and empresses. After Peter the 1st they ruled:

The end of the Romanov dynasty. The Last of the Romanovs

After the death of Peter the 1st, the Russian throne was often occupied by women, but Paul the 1st passed a law according to which only a direct heir, a man, could become emperor. Since then, women have no longer ascended the throne.

The last representative of the imperial family was Nicholas II, who received the nickname Bloody for the thousands of people who died during the two great revolutions. According to historians, Nicholas II was a fairly mild ruler and made several unfortunate mistakes in domestic and foreign policy, which led to the escalation of the situation within the country. Unsuccessful, and also greatly undermined the prestige of the royal family and the sovereign personally.

In 1905, an outbreak broke out, as a result of which Nicholas was forced to give the people the desired civil rights and freedoms - the power of the sovereign weakened. However, this was not enough, and in 1917 it happened again. This time Nicholas was forced to resign his powers and renounce the throne. But this was not enough: the royal family was caught by the Bolsheviks and imprisoned. The monarchical system of Russia gradually collapsed in favor of a new type of government.

On the night of July 16-17, 1917, the entire royal family, including Nicholas's five children and his wife, was shot. The only possible heir, Nikolai's son, also died. All relatives hiding in Tsarskoe Selo, St. Petersburg and other places were found and killed. Only those Romanovs who were abroad survived. The reign of the Romanov imperial family was interrupted, and with it the monarchy in Russia collapsed.

Results of the Romanov reign

Although during the 300 years of rule of this family there were many bloody wars and uprisings, on the whole the power of the Romanovs brought benefits to Russia. It was thanks to the representatives of this family that Rus' finally moved away from feudalism, increased its economic, military and political power and turned into a huge and powerful empire.