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ALEXIUS PETROVICH (169o-1718)
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ALEXIUS PETROVICH (169o-1718) , See also:Russian tsarevich, the See also:sole surviving son of See also:Peter I. and Eudoxia Lopukhina, was See also:born on the 19th of See also:February 169o. The See also:young See also:tsar married the boyarinva Lopukhina at his See also:mother's command. We know
nothing of the See also:bride except that she was beautiful, modest and " brought up in the fear of the See also:Lord." She would, doubtless, have made a See also:model tsaritsa of the pre-Petrine See also:period, but, unfortunately, she was no See also:fit wife for such a vagabond of See also:genius as Peter the See also:Great. From the first her society bored Peter unspeakably, and, after the See also:birth of their second See also:short-lived son See also: To a See also:prince of his temperament the vehement activity of his abnormally energetic father was very offensive. He liked neither the labour itself nor its See also:object. Yet Peter, not unnaturally, wished his See also:heir to dedicate himself to the service of new See also:Russia, and demanded from him unceasing labour in See also:order to maintain the See also:brand-new See also:state at the high level of greatness to which it had been raised. Painful relations between father and son, quite apart from the See also:personal antipathies already existing, were there-fore 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 See also:left in the hands of reactionary boyars and priests, who encouraged him to hate his father and wish for the See also:death of the tsar-See also:antichrist. His See also:confessor, Yakov See also:Ignatiev, whom he promised to obey as " an See also:angel and apostle of See also:God," was his See also:chief counsellor in these days.
In 1708 Peter sent Alexius to See also:Smolensk to collect provender and recruits, and thence to See also:Moscow to fortify it against See also: Evidently Peter was determined to See also:tear his son away from a See also:life of indolent ease. Immediately on his return from Finland Alexius was despatched by his father to Staraya Rusya and See also:Ladoga to see to the See also:building of new See also:ships. This was the last See also:commission entrusted to him. On his return to the See also:capital Peter, in order to see what progress his son had made in See also:mechanics and mathematics, asked him to draw something of a technical nature for his inspection. Alexius, in order to See also:escape such an See also:ordeal, resorted to the abject expedient of disabling his right See also:hand by a See also:pistol-shot. In no other way could the tsarevich have offended his father so deeply. He had behaved like a cowardly recruit who mutilates himself to escape military service. After this, Peter seemed for a See also:time to take no further See also:interest in Alexius. He left him entirely to himself. He employed him no more. He no longer pressed him to attend public functions. Alexius rejoiced at this welcome See also:change, but he had cause rather to fearit. It marked the deepening of a hatred which might have been overcome. Alexius was evidently consoling himself with the reflexion that the future belonged to him.. He was well aware that the See also:mass of the Russian nation was on his See also:side. 'Nearly all the prelates were devoted to him. Equally friendly were the great See also:boyar families. All Alexius had to do was to sit still, keep out of his father's way as much as possible and await the natural course of events. But with Peter the present was every-thing. He could not afford to leave anything to See also:chance. All his life See also:long he had been working incessantly with a single object —the regeneration of Russia. What if his successor refused to tread in his father's footsteps or, still worse, tried to destroy his father's See also:work? By some such See also:process of reasoning as this must the See also:idea of changing the See also:succession to the throne, by setting aside Alexius-, have first occurred to the mind of Peter the Great. Nevertheless he made one last effort to reclaim his son. On the 22nd of October 1715 Alexius' See also:consort, the princess Charlotte, died, after giving birth to a son, the See also:grand-See also:duke Peter, afterwards Peter II. On the See also:day of the funeral Peter addressed to Alexius a stern See also:letter of warning and remonstrance, urging him no longer to resemble the slothful servant in the See also:parable, and threatening to cut him off, as though he were a gangrenous swelling, if he did not acquiesce in his father's plans. But it was now that Alexius showed what a poor creature he really was. He wrote a pitiful reply to his father, offering to renounce the succession in favour of his baby See also:half-See also:brother Peter, who had been born the day after the princess Charlotte's funeral. As if this were not enough, in See also:January 1716 he wrote to his father for permission to become a See also: He must be recovered and brought back to Russia at all hazards. This difficult task was accomplished by See also:Count Peter Tolstoi, the most subtle and unscrupulous of Peter's servants; but terrorized though he was, Alexius would only consent to return on his father solemnly See also:swearing, " before God and His See also:judgment seat," 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 See also:institute a most searching See also:inquisition in order to get at the bottom of the See also:mystery of the flight. On the 18th of February a " See also:confession " was extorted from Alexius which implicated most of his See also: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 See also:adultery, while all who had in any way befriended Alexius were impaled, broken on the See also: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, now utterly broken and half idiotic with fright. Yet even now there were no actual facts to go upon. Alexius' " evil designs " were still in fora conscientiae, and had not been, perhaps never would be, translated into practice. 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 " before the Almighty and His judgment seat " to See also:pardon him and let him live in See also:peace if he returned to Russia. From Peter's point of view the question was, did the enormity of the tsarevich's See also:crime absolve the tsar from the See also:oath which he had taken to spare the life of this prodigal son? This question was solemnly submitted to a grand See also:council of prelates, senators, ministers and other dignitaries on the 13th of See also:June 1718. The See also:clergy left the See also:matter to the tsar's own decision. The temporal dignitaries declared the See also:evidence to be insufficient and suggested that Alexius should be examined by See also:torture. Accordingly, on the 19th of June, the weak and ailing tsarevich received twenty-five strokes with the See also:knout (as then administered nobody ever survived See also:thirty), and on the 24th fifteen more. It was hardly possible that he could survive such treatment; the natural inference is that he was not intended to survive it. Anyway, he expired two days later in the guardhouse of the citadel of St See also:Petersburg, two days after the See also:senate had condemned him to death for imagining See also:rebellion against his father, and for hoping for the co-operation of the See also:common See also:people and the armed intervention of his brother-in-law, the emperor. This shameful See also:sentence was the outcome of mingled terror and obsequiousness. Abominable, unnatural as Peter's conduct to his unhappy and See also:innocent son undoubtedly was, there is no See also:reason to suppose that he ever regretted it. He argued that a single worthless life stood in Russia's way, and he therefore removed it. See R. N. See also:Bain, The First Ramonovs (See also:London, 1905). (R. N. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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