Feodor III of Russia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tsar Feodor III | |
|---|---|
| Tsar of all Russia | |
| Image:Tsar Fydor III -cropped.JPG | |
| Reign | 29 January, 1676 - 7 May, 1682 |
| Coronation | 18 June, 1676 |
| Full name | Feodor Alexeevich Romanov |
| Born | 9 June, 1661 |
| Moscow | |
| Died | 7 May, 1682 |
| Moscow | |
| Predecessor | Alexis I |
| Successor | Peter I and Ivan V |
| Wife/wives | Agaphia Simeonovna Gruszewska |
| Marfa Matveievna Apraksina | |
| Issue | None |
| Dynasty | Romanov |
| Father | Alexis Mihailovich |
| Mother | Maria Miloslavskaya |
Feodor (Theodore) III Alexeevich of Russia (In Russian: Фёдор III Алексеевич) (June 9, 1661 - May 7, 1682) was the Tsar of all Russia between 1676 and 1682.
Feodor was born in Moscow, the eldest surviving son of Tsar Alexis and Maria Miloslavskaya. In 1676, at the age of fifteen, he succeeded his father on the throne. He was endowed with a fine intellect and a noble disposition; he had received an excellent education at the hands of Simeon Polotsky, the most learned Slavonic monk of the day, knew Polish, and even possessed the unusual accomplishment of Latin; but, horribly disfigured and half paralyzed by a mysterious disease, supposed to be scurvy, he had been a hopeless invalid from the day of his birth. He spent most of the time with young nobles, Yazykov and Likhachov, who would later introduce the Russian court to Polish ceremonies, dress, and language.
On July 28, 1680 he married a Ukranian noblewoman Agaphia Simeonovna Grushevskaya, daughter of Simeon Feodorovich Grushevsky and wife Maria Ivanovna Zaborovskaya, and assumed the sceptre. His native energy, though crippled, was not crushed by his terrible disabilities; and he soon showed that he was as thorough and devoted a reformer as a man incompetent to lead armies and obliged to issue his orders from his litter, or his bed-chamber, could possibly be. The atmosphere of the court ceased to be oppressive; the light of a new liberalism shone in the highest places; and the severity of the penal laws was considerably mitigated. He founded the academy of sciences in the Zaikonospassky monastery, where everything not expressly forbidden by the Orthodox church, including Slavonic, Greek, Latin and Polish, was to be taught by competent professors.
The chief difference between the Feodorean and the later Petrine reforms was that while the former were primarily, though not exclusively, for the benefit of the church, the latter were primarily for the benefit of the state. The most notable reform of Feodor III, however, was the abolition, at the suggestion of Vasily Galitzine, the system of mestnichestvo, or "place priority," which had paralyzed the whole civil and military administration of Muscovy for generations. Henceforth all appointments to the civil and military services were to be determined by merit and the will of the sovereign, while pedigree (nobility) books were to be destroyed. Feodor's first consort, Agaphia Simeonovna Grushevsky shared his progressive views. She was the first to advocate beard-shaving. On her death (4th of July 1681) Feodor married the next year Marfa Matveievna Apraksina (1667-1716), daughter of Matvei Vasilievich Apraksin and wife Domna Bogdanovna Lovchikova.
Fyodor died on May 7, 1682, without issue. The news of his death sparked the Moscow Uprising of 1682.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
| Preceded by Alexis I | Tsar of Russia 1676–1682 | Succeeded by Peter I and Ivan V |
bg:Фьодор III ca:Teodor III de Rússia da:Feodor 3. af Rusland de:Fjodor III. et:Fjodor III es:Teodoro III de Rusia fr:Fédor III hr:Fjodor III., car Rusije it:Fëdor III di Russia ka:თედორე III (რუსეთი) nl:Fjodor III van Rusland ja:フョードル3世 no:Fjodor III av Russland pl:Fiodor III Romanow ru:Фёдор III Алексеевич sh:Fjodor III., car Rusije fi:Fjodor III sv:Fjodor III uk:Федір Олексійович zh:费奥多尔·阿列克谢耶维奇
