18. Peter the Great’s Family Had Serious Issues
The reformist Peter the Great, determined to protect his legacy from the threat of its getting overturned by a reactionary successor down the road, sought to force his son Alexei into seeing things his way. The pressure eventually got too much for the Tsarevich. In desperation, he escaped to Vienna, where he sought political asylum from the Habsburgs. That was bad enough, but then it got a whole lot worse. The roots of the family troubles were deep. Alexei’s mother had been religiously pious and conservative, so his father Peter forced her into a convent when Alexei was eight.
Understandably, that scarred Alexei and soured him against Peter. The father-son relationship cracked for good in 1715, when Peter, hoping to correct Alexei’s perceived weakness and other shortcomings, threatened to deprive him of the succession. To his astonishment, the Tsarevich agreed to relinquish his claim to the throne, and volunteered to enter a monastery. At the last moment, however, Alexei had a change of heart, and fled to Vienna, where he secured political asylum.
