House of Romanov. The Zemsky Sobor of 1613

House of Romanov. The Zemsky Sobor of 1613

The collection includes about 900 items. There are the official documents, memoirs, diaries, business and personal correspondence, newsreel snippets, photographs and paintings, audio records of radio programs, popular science movies, historical studies, bibliography and more among them.

The materials of collection are published in thematic sections, provided with brief summaries. Inside each section the documents are grouped based on biographical principle and arranged in chronological order from birth to death of a person. In cases with a large number of documents separate headings are created, as the sources, researches and materials, childhood, coronation, travel, death, portrayals and so on.

An access to the entire array is carried out in the electronic reading room, a large part of the documents is in open access on the library Internet resource.

For this collection were selected materials from the collections of the following institutions: the Library of Congress, the Library of the Moscow Theological Academy, the Vladimir Regional Universal Scientific Library named after M. Gorky, the Tretyakov Gallery, the State Public Historical Library, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the State Historical and Literary National Park and Museum of A. S. Pushkin, the Moscow Regional State Scientific Library named after N. K. Krupskaya, the National Library of the Republic of Karelia, the Omsk State Regional Scientific Library named after A. S. Pushkin, the “Nashe Radio” station, the Russian State Library, the Russian National Library, the Russian State Film and Photo Archive, the Russian State Historical Archive, the Ryazan Oblast Universal Scientific Library named after M. Gorky, the North-West Academy of Public Administration, the “Centre of National Movie” studio, the Tobolsk State Historical and Architectural National Park and Museum, the Center of Information Technologies and Systems of Executive Authority - CITIS.

Historical background

On February 21 (March 3), 1613, Zemsky Sobor that gathered in Moscow elected the sixteen-years-old Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov to the throne. The elect was belonging to an ancient boyar family and accounted a grandnephew of the first wife of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible. On top of that, his candidature ultimately suited all the warring parties. The proclamation of the new tsar is not only marked the beginning of the dynasty, which replaced on the historical scene the Rurik family, but also summed up the time of troubles, severe internal and external crisis, tortured Russia in the early XVII century.

The men's line of direct descendants of Mikhail Fyodorovich was interrupted in 1730 with a death of the Emperor Peter II, a female one - with Elizabeth's death in 1761. Afterwards, the descendants of the daughter of Peter I - Anna and Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp occupied the throne of the Russian Empire. In the genealogical literature reigned in Russian dynasty was called Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov. However, the name “Romanovs” and “House of the Romanovs” also continued to be widely used.

During the XVII century the royal family was quite small. Until 1682 a son and a grandson of Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich - the tsars Aleksey Mikhailovich and Fyodor Alekseyevich had been mounting the throne one after another. In 1682, as a result of the political struggle two tsars were crown at once. Joann Alekseyevich, a son of Alexei Mikhailovich from his first marriage with Maria Ilyinichna (nee Miloslavskaya) became an “elder” Tsar, Peter Alekseyevich, a son of Alexei Mikhailovich from his second marriage with Natalia Kirillovna (nee Naryshkina) - the “younger” one. In 1682-1689 years their older sister Princess Sophia was a regent for John and Peter. A diarchy formally ended with the death of Joann Alekseyevich in 1696.

In 1721, Peter Alekseyevich took the title of emperor. From the tsar dynasty Romanovs turned into the imperial dynasty.

The situation with the Imperial throne during the XVIII century became even more perplex. Peter I issued a law according to which the emperor had the right to choose his successor. However, the great reformer died and never named the future emperor. A sequence of palace take-overs, when the nomination of the new monarch affirmed by means of the Guards infantry, followed after his death. Only in 1797 Paul I changed a procedure of succession to the throne. Crown began handed from one to the other following the male line in the order of primogeniture. In 1820 Alexander I amended and supplemented his father's law that considered unequal marriages of members of the imperial family as morganatic and deprive the possible offspring of such marriages of a right to the throne.

Since the end of the XVIII century the Russian Imperial House began to form. By the middle of the XIX century a few grand-ducal lines stood out, received basing on the names of the four sons of Nicholas I the conventional names Alexandrovichs, Konstantinovichs, Nikolaevichs, Mikhailovichs. The Grand Dukes, closely associated with the emperors with family ties, were holding the key military posts, were directly involved in the work of state bodies, influenced the cultural development of the country.

Overgrown imperial family requested more spending. In 1886 Alexander III approved the “Proposition on the royal family”, according to which the title of the great princes remained only for the children and grandchildren of the Emperor, great-grandchildren became “princes of the royal blood” with the reduction of benefits and privileges.

During the February Revolution of 1917, Russia was proclaimed a republic. Nicholas II and his brother Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich abdicated. The fate of the Romanovs after the October Revolution of 1917 was tragic. In the years 1918-1919 in Ekaterinburg, Alapaevsk, Perm, St. Petersburg seventeen members of the royal family were killed, including Nicholas II, who was shot with his family. The rest of the Romanovs occurred in exile.
 

  • General section

    The Section includes general works and albums on the history of the Romanov dynasty. Most of them were published in 1913 in honor of the 300th anniversary of the imperial dynasty.

  • Romanov genealogy

    The section features genealogical studies of the Romanov family. Most of the works comprising the section cover the parents of Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich - Fedor Nikitich Romanov (Patriarch of Moscow, Filaret) and Xenia Ivanovna, born Shestova (nun Martha).

  • The Romanov family in the 17th century

    he section contains materials on the history of the Romanov dynasty in the 17th century. There are works about Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich (1596-1645), his son - Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1629-1676), spouses of Alexei Mikhailovich and his children - Tsar Fedor Alexeevich (1661-1682) and Tsar Ivan Alexeevich (1666-1696), Tsarevna Sophia Alexeevna (1657-1704) and Tsarevna Natalia Alexeevna (1673-1716).

  • The Romanov family in the 18th century

    The section includes materials on the history of the Romanov dynasty in the 18th century. It opens with a set of documents on the Emperor Peter I (1672-1725), his first wife Evdokiya Lopukhina (1669-1731) and their son - Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich (1690-1718). Other materials characterize the personality of empresses and emperors who succeeded one another to the Russian throne in the 18th century. In 1725, the Empress was the second wife of Peter I, who ascended the throne under the name of Catherine I (1684-1727). Her successor was the son of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich - Peter II (1715-1730). Then the power went into the hands of the descendants of Ivan Alexeevich. In 1730, the Empress was his daughter - Anna Ioannovna (1693-1740), and after her death the throne ascended the grand-nephew of Anna Ioannovna - infant Ivan Antonovich (1740-1764), who in 1741 was overthrown by the daughter of Peter I and Catherine I - Elizabeth (1709-1761). Elizabeth named her successor the son of her sister Anna, who became Emperor Peter III (1728-1762). He was soon deposed by his wife, née Princess Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst, who ruled Russia under the name of Catherine II (1729-1796).

  • The Romanovs in the late XVIII − the early XX century

    The section contains materials on the history of the Romanov dynasty in the late 18th - early 20th centuries. It features documents about Emperor Paul I (1754-1801), his wife Maria Feodorovna (1759-1828) and their descendants. After the death of Paul I, the Russian throne was consistently occupied by his sons - Alexander I (1777-1825) and Nicholas I (1779-1826). Until 1917, the power was in the hands of the descendants of Nicholas I - son of Alexander II (1818-1881), grandson of Alexander III (1845-1894) and great-grandson of Nicholas II (1868-1918). The section includes the materials not only about the emperors, but also about their spouses, children, grandchildren and their families.

  • In memory of the Romanov family

    The section includes materials about the monuments to members of the Romanov dynasty, memorable places related with their name, the reflection of the Romanovs in works of literature and art, as well as the celebration of the anniversaries of the reign of the dynasty in 1913 and 2013.

  • Internet resources about the Romanov family

    The guide contains annotated links to the most relevant online resources about the history of the Romanov dynasty, events and projects related to the 400th anniversary of the accession of Mikhail Romanov, the present state of the descendants of the Romanov dynasty.