1E - The Regency
Learn how the succession crisis of 1682 created joint rule and Sophia's regency, and why Peter's emergence as ruler happened in stages. Follow the interaction between dynastic legitimacy, court alliances and armed force.
The succession crisis of 1682
Fyodor III's death in 1682 left no son to succeed him. Two surviving half-brothers represented rival branches of the family of Tsar Alexis: Ivan, associated with the Miloslavsky relatives of Alexis's first wife, and ten-year-old Peter, whose mother Natalia belonged to the Naryshkin family. Ivan was older but suffered from ill health; Peter's supporters initially secured his proclamation as tsar.
The Streltsy, hereditary musketeer regiments, helped overturn that outcome. They served in war and guarded the capital, but many also maintained households and trades in Moscow. Complaints over pay, harsh treatment and exploitation by officers made their discontent more than a simple instrument of a royal faction. Rumours that Ivan had been murdered brought them into violent action in May. Ivan was shown alive, yet the unrest continued and members or supporters of the Naryshkin party were killed, including Artamon Matveev.
The result was a compromise backed by armed pressure: Ivan V became senior tsar and Peter junior tsar. Their sister Sophia acted as regent. Dynastic legitimacy remained essential; the Streltsy did not replace monarchy with soldier government. However, they demonstrated that organised troops near the palace could determine how royal legitimacy was exercised. The massacre also exposed the young Peter to the danger of court conflict, although his later policies should not be explained by that experience alone.
Regency
Government exercised on behalf of a monarch who cannot yet, or cannot fully, govern personally. A regent's practical power can be considerable while the monarch retains the crown.
Sophia's government and its vulnerabilities
Sophia governed from 1682 to 1689, while the two tsars retained ceremonial and dynastic roles. Her position was unusual for a royal woman in a political culture that usually restricted their public activity. She needed the support of court families, officials, soldiers and the Church; possessing the title of regent did not remove the need for a coalition.
Sophia and her leading adviser Vasilii Golitsyn pursued active government and diplomacy. The 1686 settlement with Poland secured recognition of important Russian territorial gains and brought Russia into the anti-Ottoman coalition. The Treaty of Nerchinsk with Qing China in 1689 settled a frontier dispute through negotiation. These developments show that Sophia's Russia was involved in international affairs before Peter's Great Embassy.
The Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689, led by Golitsyn, failed to achieve their military objectives. Long distances, supply difficulties and the environment of the steppe made projecting force southward difficult. Their failure damaged the prestige of the regency and its leading adviser. It was a vulnerability, rather than a sufficient cause of Sophia's fall: unsuccessful foreign policy became politically decisive only when another coalition could offer a viable ruler.
Peter grew older, gathered supporters and married Evdokia Lopukhina in 1689. Marriage strengthened the impression that he could assume adult responsibilities. Sophia's authority had always been justified through the needs of the tsars; the maturation of a rival power centre weakened that justification. The regency's structural problem was therefore a combination of disputed political support and an approaching end to Peter's minority.
The transfer of power in 1689
The crisis of 1689 was resolved through a movement of allegiance, rather than a single battle in which Peter personally defeated Sophia. Reports that troops might move against him led Peter to seek protection at the fortified Trinity–St Sergius monastery. From there his supporters drew nobles and military commanders to his side. His trained regiments, the Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky, supplied a dependable military base; other troops and leading figures increasingly recognised him.
Patriarch Joachim's support helped give the transfer religious legitimacy. This is a reminder that the Church was not always Peter's enemy: a conservative patriarch could support his dynastic claim while later Church figures resisted particular reforms. Sophia lost the coalition necessary to govern and was confined to the Novodevichy convent; Golitsyn was removed from power and exiled. Peter had displaced the regency, but Ivan remained co-tsar.
The Streltsy's behaviour also requires discrimination. Armed pressure had helped create the settlement of 1682, but they did not act as one permanently united political party. Peter succeeded partly because Sophia could not command enough reliable armed support against the forces assembling around him. Treating all musketeers as consistently loyal to Sophia would conceal the changes in allegiance that made the transfer possible.
From joint rule to sole rule
Three dates describe different changes in Peter's power: accession in 1682, Sophia's removal in 1689 and Ivan's death in 1696. Collapsing them into one date obscures the difference between title and active government. After 1689 Ivan remained the senior co-tsar in formal terms, but took little part in directing policy. Peter's mother Natalia and her associates initially handled much routine government while Peter pursued military training and ships.
Natalia's death in 1694 reduced this continuing mediation of power. Peter's involvement in the Azov campaigns of 1695–1696 then showed increasingly direct engagement in royal policy. Ivan's death in 1696 finally ended the joint monarchy and left Peter sole tsar. The creation of personal rule was therefore a process, involving the removal of a regent, a shift towards active decision-making and the disappearance of the second crowned ruler.
A supported judgement about this sequence should compare the sources of power. Birth gave Peter a legitimate claim but did not prevent the crisis of 1682. Troops helped him survive, yet a military force alone could not make his claim accepted across the government. Nobles and the Church translated that claim into a coalition in 1689. Peter's personal development mattered, but his emergence depended on institutions and groups he would later attempt to reshape.
Peter became a tsar before he became the dominant decision-maker. He removed Sophia's regency in 1689 and became sole tsar only when Ivan V died in 1696.