The Early Romanovs
Michael Romanov’s selection to become Tsar in 1613 ended the Time of Troubles. The new Tsar was only sixteen when he ascended the throne, so the state was run by his father, Patriarch Filaret. After Tsar Michael came of age, his father continued to wield considerable power, and Russia was ruled by father and son jointly, acting as de facto co-Tsars.
One of the early Romanovs’ most significant steps, which had a great impact on subsequent Russian society and history, was the enactment of laws formalizing the transformation of the peasants into serfs, and chaining them to the soil. It was a measure against the migration of the increasingly downtrodden serfs to the Steppe, where they sought a fresh start as free peasants. Henceforth, such serf migrants were deemed to be fugitives, who could forcibly be returned to their masters’ lands.
Michael I was succeeded by his son Alexis I in 1645. The new Tsar’s reign was marked by wars against Sweden and Poland, a bloody Cossack revolt led by Stenka Razin, and a huge schism in the Russian Orthodox Church. Nonetheless, Russia’s borders expanded significantly under his rule. Alexis was not a great Tsar, but he had been a mild one, who earned the moniker “Alexis the Quietest” because of his pacific inclinations.
His death in 1676 ushered in a period of dynastic struggles between his children from his first wife, the future Tsars Feodor III and Ivan V, plus their sister Sofia, and his son by his second wife, the future Tsar Peter the Great. Peter would ultimately prevail and consolidate his hold on power, then launch reforms that would wrench Russia from its medieval ways and thrust it into the modern European mainstream.
