Peter the Great

by Robert K. Massie

  Inevitably, time would have changed the relations between Peter and Sophia, but their confrontation was precipitated by the disastrous outcome of the second Crimean campaign. As long as Sophia's government was successful, it was difficult to challenge her, but Golitsyn's two campaigns revealed more than military failures: By calling attention to the relationship between the Regent and the army commander, they gave Sophia's enemies something specific to attack.

  Peter himself had taken no part in either the peace treaty with Poland or the military campaigns against the Tatars, but he was keenly interested in military affairs and was as anxious as any other Russian to put an end to the Tatar raids into the Ukraine. Accordingly, he had followed with excitement the course of Golitsyn's military campaigns. When, in June 1689, Golitsyn returned from his second disastrous campaign, Peter was angry and contemptuous. On July 18, an incident brought this growing antagonism to public attention. At the festival celebrating the miraculous appearance of the icon of Our Lady of Kazan, Sophia appeared with her two brothers in the Assumption Cathedral, just as she had done in preceding years. When the service was over, Peter, after a whispered remark from one of his companions, walked over to Sophia and asked her to step out of the procession. This was an open challenge: to prevent the Regent from walking with the Tsars was to strip away her authority. Sophia understood the implication and refused to obey. Instead, she personally took the icon from the Metropolitan and, carrying it, defiantly continued to walk in the procession. Incensed and frustrated, Peter immediately left the procession and returned to fume and sulk in the country.

  The tension between the two parties was mounting; rumors filled the air, each side feared a sudden move by the other and each was convinced that its own best strategy was to remain on the defensive. Neither party wished to forfeit the moral advantage by striking the first blow. Outwardly, Peter had no good reason to attack his half-sister and half-brother in the Kremlin. They were ruling according to the agreement of the 1682 coronation of the two Tsars; they had not in any way repudiated that agreement or infringed his prerogative. Similarly, Sophia could find no public excuse to attack Peter at Preobrazhenskoe; he was an anointed tsar. Although the Streltsy, on Shaklovity's urging, might support her against an attack by the Naryshkins and Peter's play troops, persuading them to march on Preobrazhenskoe to attack the Lord's anointed would be far more difficult.

  These same considerations made both sides unsure of their actual strength. In numbers, Sophia held a great advantage; she had most of the Streltsy behind her, along with the foreign officers in the German Suburb. Peter's numerical strength was small: He had only his family, his companions, his play troops, who numbered about 600, and the probable support of the Sukharev Regiment of the Streltsy. Yet, though her physical strength was greater, it was based on weakness; Sophia could never be sure how deeply the loyalty of the Streltsy ran, and she had an exaggerated fear of even the small number of armed men gathered around Peter. That summer, wherever the Regent went, she was always surrounded by a strong guard of her own Streltsy. She lavished on them gifts of money and plied them with pleas and exhortations: "Do not abandon us. May we depend on you? If we are unnecessary, my brother and I will take refuge in a monastery."

  As Sophia struggled to maintain her influence, Vasily Golitsyn, the returning "hero" of Perekop, remained silent, unwilling to become involved in any attack or open opposition to Peter and the boyars around him. Sophia's other admirer and lieutenant, Shaklovity, was more determined. Frequently, he went among the Streltsy and openly denounced the members of Peter's party; he did not mention Peter's name, but talked of eliminating his leading supporters and sending the Tsaritsa Natalya to a convent. , July ended and August began, the tension in Moscow rising with the heat. On July 31, Gordon noted in his diary: "The heat and bitterness are even greater and greater and it appears that they must break out soon." A few days later, he referred to "rumors unsafe to be uttered." Both sides waited nervously through the midsummer days and nights. The situation was layered with powdery, dry tinder. Any rumor could become the spark.

  8

  SOPHIA OVERTHROWN

  The crisis exploded on August 17, 1689. Earlier that summer, while Golitsyn was still in the south, Sophia had developed the habit of making pilgrimages on foot to churches and monasteries in the vicinity of Moscow. On the afternoon of the 17th, she asked Shaklovity to provide an escort of Streltsy to accompany her the following morning to the Donskoy Monastery about two miles from the Kremlin. Because a murder had recently occurred near the monastery, the company of Streltsy which Shaklovity ordered into the Kremlin was larger and better armed than usual. The march through the streets of this column of heavily armed musketeers [did not go unnoticed. Then, as the detachment was making its bivouac inside the Kremlin, an anonymous letter began to circulate in the palace warning that on that very night Peter's Preobrazhehskoe play soldiers would attack the Kremlin and attempt to kill Tsar Ivan and the Regent Sophia. No one took time to investigate the authenticity of the letter; it may even have been contrived by Shaklovity. Understandably, Sophia became extremely upset. To calm her, Shaklovity ordered the great Kremlin gates closed and summoned more Streltsy to garrison the citadel. Scouts were posted along the road to Preobrazhenskoe to report any sign of soldiers moving from Peter's camp in the direction of Moscow. Inside the Kremlin, a long rope was attached to the alarm bell of the cathedral so that it could be pulled from within the palace; a man running out to pull it might be cut down by pre-assigned assassins.

  The people of Moscow watched the mobilization of the Streltsy with alarm and dread. They remembered the bloodbath seven years before, and now a new upheaval seemed very near. Even the Streltsy were uneasy. They assumed that they would be ordered to march on the Naryshkin court at Preobrazhenskoe, and, for many, the prospect was troubling. Peter, after all, was an anointed tsar whom they were sworn to defend, just as they were sworn to defend Tsar Ivan and the Regent Sophia. It was an unhappy business of mixed and hesitating loyalties. And, most important, no one wanted to be on the losing side.

  Meanwhile, at Preobrazhenskoe, news of the tumult in Moscow caused excitement but no special precautions. During the evening, one of Peter's chamberlains rode into the city carrying a routine dispatch from the Tsar to the Kremlin. His arrival, however, was misinterpreted by some of the nervous and overexcited Streltsy. Knowing that he was from Peter, they pulled the chamberlain from his horse, beat him and dragged him into the palace to see Shaklovity.

  This bit of violence had immediate and unexpected repercussions. During the preceding weeks, the older and more experienced of Peter's adherents, his uncle Lev Naryshkin and Prince Boris Golitsyn, a cousin of Sophia's favorite, Vasily Golitsyn, aware that a confrontation with Sophia and Shaklovity was coming, had been working quietly to gain informers among the Streltsy. Seven men had been won over, the chief of whom was Lieutenant Colonel Larion Elizarov, and their standing orders were to report any decisive move made by Shaklovity. Alerted by the mobilization of the Streltsy, Elizarov was watching closely for a sign that the soldiers would be ordered to march on the Naryshkin camp at Preobrazhenskoe. On learning that Peter's messenger had been dragged from his horse, beaten and taken to Shaklovity, he assumed that the attack on Peter was beginning. Two horses had been saddled, and two of Elizarov's fellow conspirators were ordered to ride urgently to warn the Tsar.

  At Preobrazhenskoe, all was quiet when, a little after midnight, the two messengers galloped into the courtyard. Peter was asleep, but an attendant burst into his room and shouted that he must run for his life, the Streltsy were on the march, coming for him. Peter leaped from his bed and, still in his nightgown and with bare feet, ran to the stables, mounted a horse and galloped to a temporary hiding place in a nearby grove of trees where he waited while his companions brought his clothes. Then he dressed quickly, remounted and, accompanied by a small band, set off on the road to the Troitsky Monastery, forty-five miles northeast of Moscow. The trip took the rest of
the night. When Peter arrived at six in the morning, he was so tired that he had to be lifted from his horse.

  To those who saw him, it was apparent that the terror of the night had taken a toll on the highly strung seventeen-year-old. For seven years, the nightmare of the Streltsy hunting down Naryshr kins had been a part of Peter's dreams. To be startled awake with the news that they were actually coming was to mingle nightmare with reality. At Troitsky, he was carried to bed, but he was so exhausted and overwrought that he burst into tears and sobbed convulsively, telling the abbot between sobs that his sister had planned to kill him with all his family. Gradually, as weariness overcame him, he dropped into a deep sleep. While Peter slept, there were other arrivals at Troitsky. Within two hours, Natalya and Eudoxia reached the monastery, both aroused and hurried away from Preobrazhenskoe, and accompanied by the soldiers of Peter's play regiments. Later that day, the entire Sukharev Regiment of Streltsy arrived from Moscow to rally to the younger Tsar.

  The nature of what had happened—Peter pulled from his bed and fleeing—suggests that the decision to seek sanctuary was taken in panic. This was not the case; indeed, the decision to go was not Peter's. As part of their overall plan for confronting Sophia, Lev Naryshkin and Boris Golitsyn had worked out in advance an escape route for Peter and all the court at Preobrazhenskoe: If and when an emergency made it necessary, the entire party would flee to Troitsky. Thus, Peter's arrival and the rapid assembly of his forces inside the powerful walls of the fortified monastery had been carefully prearranged. Peter, however, had not been told about this plan and, when he was awakened in the middle of the night and told to run for his life, he was terrified. Later, the story that an anointed tsar had had to flee in his nightshirt from the approach of his enemies lent weight to the charges against Sophia. Unwittingly, Peter had played his role perfectly. I

  In fact, he had not been in any danger at all, because the Streltsy had never been ordered to march against Preobrazhenskoe and, when news of Peter's flight to Troitsky reached the Kremlin, no one knew what to make of it. Sophia, hearing the report as she emerged from matins, was convinced that Peter's behavior implied some threat to her. "Except for my precautions, they would have murdered all of us," she said to the Streltsy around her. Shaklovity was contemptuous. "Let him run," he said. "He has plainly gone mad."

  As she studied the new situation, however, Sophia became uneasy. More clearly than Shaklovity, she realized the significance of what had happened. Spurred by a false danger, Peter had taken a decisive step. The Troitsky Monastery was more than an impregnable fortress; it was perhaps the holiest place in Russia, a traditional sanctuary for the royal family in time of greatest danger. Now, if Peter's adherents were able to paint a picture of the Tsar fleeing to Troitsky to rally all Russians against a usurper, they would gain an enormous advantage, h would be impossible to persuade the Streltsy to march against the Troitsky Monastery, and to the people Peter's flight would signify that the Tsar's life was in danger. Her position, Sophia realized, was seriously threatened, and unless she moved very carefully, she could lose everything.

  The famous monastery of Troitskaya-Sergeeva, or, to use its full name, the Laurel of St. Sergius under the Blessing of the Holy Trinity, was about forty-five miles northeast of Moscow on the Great Russian Road that leads from the capital to Great Rostov and then to Yaroslavl on the Volga. The origins of this hallowed and historic place lay in the fourteenth century, when it became the site of a small wooden church and monastery founded by a monk named Sergius who blessed Russian arms before the great Battle of Kulikovo against the Tatars. When the Russians won, the monastery became a national shrine. In the sixteenth century, Troitsky became rich and powerful: dying tsars and noblemen in hope of salvation bequeathed their wealth to the monastery, and its treasure vaults were choked with gold, silver, pearls and jewels. Huge white walls, from thirty to fifty feet high and twenty feet thick, circled the monastery for a mile in circumference, making it impregnable. From the ramparts and from the immense round towers which stood at the corners, the muzzles of scores of brass cannon looked out on the countryside. In 1608-1609, during the Time of Troubles, Troitsky withstood a siege by 30,000 Poles, whose cannonballs simply bounded off the monastery's massive walls.*

  Safe within this mighty bastion, the huge ramparts garrisoned by play soldiers and loyal Streltsy, Peter and his party planned their counterattack. Their first move was to send a messenger to Sophia asking why so many Streltsy had gathered the previous day in the Kremlin. It was a difficult question for Sophia to answer. With the two sides still outwardly observing all formal courtesies, Sophia could not reply that she had mobilized the Streltsy because she expected an attack by her brother Peter. The answer she gave—that she had summoned the soldiers to escort her on her walk to the Donskoy Monastery—seemed flimsy; thousands of armed men were unnecessary for this purpose, and Peter's supporters were further convinced of her bad faith.

  Peter's next move was to order the colonel of the elite Stremyani Regiment, Ivan Tsykler, to come to Troitsky with fifty of his men. To Sophia, this summons seemed ominous; Tsykler had been one of the leaders of the 1682 Streltsy revolt and thereafter one of her most loyal officers. If he was allowed to go, and if under torture he told what he knew about Shaklovity's schemes for suppressing the Naryshkins, the breach with Peter would be irreparable. Yet, again, she had no choice. Peter was tsar, it was a royal command, to defy it meant an open challenge. When Tsykler arrived, he told everything he knew without torture. Observing Peter's star ascending, he had offered to come to Peter's side if only the Tsar would protect him by issuing a royal command.

  From the beginning, Sophia understood the weakness of her position. If it came to a fight, Peter would surely overwhelm her; her only chance of survival lay in reconciliation. However, if she could persuade Peter to leave Troitsky and return to Moscow, stripping him of the sanctity and protection of those powerful walls, then she could deal with his advisors, Peter himself could be sent back to play with his soldiers and boats, and her authority as regent would be reestablished. Accordingly, she dispatched Prince Ivan Troekurov, whose son was an intimate friend of Peter's, to persuade Peter to return. Troekurov's mission failed. Peter clearly understood the advantage of remaining at Troitsky,

  *Today, the monastery is commonly called Zagorsk after the industrial town which now spreads beneath its walls. An oasis of religious life in Soviet Russia, it is, as it has been for centuries, an attraction for pilgrims from all over Russia. As one of the richest assemblages of religious architecture to be found in the Soviet Union, it has also become a regular stop for most foreign tourists who visit Moscow. Happily, even now, Troitsky still exudes something of the beauty, the grandeur and the holiness of its past.

  and he sent Troekurov back with the message that he would no longer consent to be governed by a woman.

  It was Peter's move. In his own hand, he wrote letters to the colonels of all the Streltsy regiments, commanding them to come to Troitsky with ten men from each regiment. When this news reached the Kremlin, Sophia reacted violently. She summoned the Streltsy colonels and warned them not to become involved in the dispute between her brother and herself. When the colonels hesitated, telling her that they had orders from the Tsar himself which they dared not disobey, Sophia declared passionately that any man attempting to leave for Troitsky would be beheaded. Vasily Golitsyn, still commander of the army, ordered that no foreign officer leave Moscow for any reason. Under these threats, the Streltsy colonels and the foreign officers remained in Moscow.

  The following day, Peter increased the pressure by sending official notice to Tsar Ivan and Sophia that he had commanded the Streltsy colonels to come to Troitsky. He asked that Sophia, as regent, see that his orders were obeyed. In reply, Sophia sent Ivan's tutor and Peter's confessor to Troitsky to explain that the soldiers were delayed and to beg for reconciliation. These two returned to Moscow two days later, empty-handed. Meanwhile, Shaklovity sent spies to Troitsky to observe t
he activity there and count the numbers of Peter's adherents. They came back with fresh reports of Peter's growing strength and confidence, and, in fact, Shaklovity had only to muster his own men every morning to realize that growing numbers were deserting at night and taking the road to Troitsky.

  Sophia appealed to the Patriarch Joachim to go to Troitsky and use the great weight of his office to attempt a reconciliation with Peter. The Patriarch agreed, and promptly, on arriving, cast in his lot with Peter. Subsequently, when new defectors from Moscow arrived at Troitsky, they were received by Peter and Joachim, the Tsar and the Patriarch, standing side by side.

  Joachim's act was not, as he saw it, a betrayal. Although he had submitted to Sophia as regent, he was from a boyar family that opposed her government. Personally, he disliked Sophia and Golitsyn for their Western manners, and he had resisted her ambition to be crowned. More important, he detested the monk Sylvester Medvedev for trespassing on church matters which he insisted lay within the province of the Patriarch. Until this moment of* crisis, he had supported the Regent, not out of sympathy, but in recognition of her authority; his change of allegiance was a clear sign that power and authority were being transferred.

  The defection of the Patriarch was a massive blow to Sophia. His departure encouraged others to follow. But still the mass of the Streltsy and the leading citizens of Moscow remained in the city, uncertain what to do, awaiting some further indication as to who was likely to win.

  On August 27, Peter moved again. He sent stern letters repeating his command that all the Streltsy colonels and ten soldiers from each regiment report immediately to Troitsky. A similar order summoned numerous representatives of the people of Moscow. This time, all who failed to obey were threatened with death. These letters, threatening explicit punishment, had a great impact, and a disorganized mass of Streltsy led by five colonels immediately set out to submit to the Tsar.