The offspring of Peter I: How were the fates of the numerous sons and daughters of the first Russian emperor

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

If you forget for a minute about how the history of the Russian state developed, in what order the Russian monarchs inherited the throne, you can see behind the official annals the usual human inclinations, affections and antipathies, those that led to the birth of future great monarchs or became the cause of disgrace and the deaths of promising contenders for the throne. Peter I is known as the main Russian reformer and in general a figure of great magnitude. Much less often he is described as a person who is carried away, easily having romances, and also children of whom Peter had either eleven or more - in a word, there is something to study in this part of the family tree of the Romanov family.

The first marriage of Peter and Tsarevich Alexei

There are two famous offspring of Peter I - Tsarevich Alexei, apparently killed at the behest of his father, and Tsarevna Elizabeth, who became empress. But the list of the emperor's heirs was not limited to two of them - however, very few of Peter's children managed to survive infancy.

The first wife of the future emperor and reformer was Evdokia Lopukhina - for whom the young tsar at that time did not feel any particularly warm feelings, over time, the wife generally began to weigh Peter, eventually going to the monastery. During the marriage, she managed to give birth to the sons of Alexei and Alexander. The first one grew up in the care of his mother and grandmother, he communicated a little with his father, and over time the cooling became more and the future heir to the throne, who was supposed to get ahead of Alexei, whose right to the royal title was consecrated by centuries of tradition. Alexander, who died at the age of seven months, became the second son of Evdokia Lopukhina from Peter. Rumor attributed to the spouses another son, Paul, that he died either during childbirth or immediately after them.

Second marriage and children from Catherine I

Since 1703, the emperor had a relationship with Martha Skavronskaya, who after baptism took the name of Ekaterina Alekseevna. The first offspring of this couple were Peter and Paul, but the official chronicle begins the list with Catherine, who was born in 1707 and lived only a few months. The next of the series of daughters born to the future empress was Anna, the one thanks to whom the ruling branch of the Romanov dynasty will continue. Anna died at twenty, shortly after giving birth to Karl Peter Ulrich, the future Emperor Peter III.

Elizabeth, the third daughter of Peter, lived longer than all the official children of the emperor, it is interesting that she was distinguished by excellent physical characteristics, while her brothers and sisters often could not survive the first months and years of life, died during childbirth or due to infections and insufficient hygiene …

After Elizabeth, Natalya was born - nicknamed the eldest, so as not to be confused with her younger sister, also Natalya. By the way, these two relatives never met, the first died at the age of two, the second lived seven, becoming the last child of Peter and Catherine. Before her, the couple also had Margarita (who lived for 1 year), Peter and Pavel, who died almost immediately after birth. Tsarevich Alexei. The emperor was not particularly attached to his eldest son, and if for some time he looked at him as the successor of his work, it was only because of the absence of other sons.

It is known how the cool relations between the father and the eldest son turned out - in 1718, the arrested Alexei died in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and little Peter became the official heir to the throne. In fact, he received his name in honor of his father - to emphasize the continuity of power, to indicate the continuation of Peter's policy I in the future, during the reign of the new emperor. But the little prince did not manage to become them: he died before he was four years old, in 1719, and the state was on the verge of a crisis of succession to the throne.

True, the son of the murdered Alexei remained - also Peter, but he was a very undesirable figure, because his father had already been compromised by intrigues with Western rulers, and in Russia he was supported by the ill-wishers of Peter I. was released in 1722. According to this document, the monarch himself appointed his successor to the Russian throne. It is assumed that it was his wife Catherine Peter who wanted to see her take the throne, shortly before his death he crowned her empress and co-ruler - however, he did not have time to give the appropriate order to appoint her as his successor. Despite this, it was she who occupied the throne after Peter I; it is also known that Peter Alekseevich did manage to rule for several years under the name of Peter II.

Unrecognized children of Peter

Eleven children born in two official marriages - apparently not an exhaustive list, some researchers come to the conclusion that this is almost a third of all children born to Peter I. Because the emperor was famous for his rather hot temperament, every now and then he entered into a love affair with women of both noble families and from simpler families. There is no official confirmation that children were actually born in these relations, Peter himself also did not recognize any of the illegitimate children (with the exception of those who were born to him and Catherine I before their official wedding in 1712).

But rumors circulated - especially since the emperor often gave his mistresses in marriage, without terminating relations with them - and therefore it is possible that some of the nobles born during the marriage were in fact just the next Petrovichs and Petrovnas. There was such a rumor about Peter Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky, based, among other things, on his outward resemblance to Peter I.

Among the ladies who enjoyed the special favor of the emperor were Avdotya Rzhevskaya (married to Chernysheva), Peter's long love Anna Mons, Maria Hamilton, convicted and executed for infanticide, Maria Cantemir, the daughter of the Moldovan ruler, Prince Dmitry Cantemir. She was indeed pregnant by the emperor - the case was in 1722, and from the correspondence of those close to the court, one can learn that in the event of the birth of an heir, Peter was even ready to divorce his wife in order to remarry with Cantemir. But Mary could not bear the child.

The offspring of Peter is an interesting object for study, many questions have not yet received an explanation. For example, why the rule was violated to call children "traditional" names of the Romanov family - why Peter's daughters were baptized as Elizabeth and Margarita. The question remains even about the number of children in the official marriages of the emperor - sometimes it is argued that there was another Tsarevich Peter, by the way, this once gave food for the imagination of impostors - in 1732, Peter Petrovich and a claimant to the throne declared himself a certain Larion Starodubtsev.

About Peter's love for Anna Mons: here.