Born: 27 September 1657, Russia
Died: 14 July 1704
Country most active: Russia
Also known as: Sophia Alekseyevna Romanova
Carolyn Harris on Russia’s Age of Empresses
Sophia Alekseyevna ruled Russia with a firm hand from 1682 to 1689, as regent for her brother Ivan V and half-brother Peter I. The actions of this “bogatyr-tsarevna” was particularly extraordinary, given that upper-class Muscovite women of the time were confined to the upper-floor terem, and veiled and guarded in public, and were kept from any open involvement in politics.
In 1682, rebels attempted to stage an uprising, hoping to depose Sophia and to make her former ally, Prince Ivan Khovansky, the new regent. Gathering the gentry militia, Sophia suppressed the so-called Khovanshchina. Silencing the dissatisfied parties until Peter (later called Peter the Great) reached his majority, Sophia executed Khovansky and the other figureheads of the failed rebellion. This rebellion ingrained a distrust in nobility that later came to define Peter’s leadership.
During her regency, Sophia loosened detention policies towards runaway peasants, which caused discontent among the nobles. She also made an effort to further organization of the military. Intrigued by baroque style architecture, Sophia was responsible for promoting the foreign district, and creating the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy, the first Russian higher learning institution. Foregin policy highlights include the Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686 with Poland, the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk with China, and the Crimean campaigns against Turkey. Sophia’s reign oversaw two of the earliest diplomatic treaties and underwent internal growth and progress. Peter later banished her to a life of seclusion in a convent, where she lived until her death.