Maria Miloslavskaya | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tsaritsa consort of All Russia | |||||
Tenure | 16 January 1648–18 August 1669 | ||||
Born | c. 1625 Moscow |
||||
Died | 18 August 1669 (aged 43–44) Moscow |
||||
Burial | Ascension Convent, Kolomenskoye Archangel Cathedral, Kremlin (1929) |
||||
Spouse | Alexis Mikhailovich | ||||
Issue among others... |
Tsarevna Sofia Alexeevna Fyodor III Ivan V |
||||
|
|||||
House | Romanov (by marriage) | ||||
Father | Ilya Danilovich Miloslavsky | ||||
Mother | Ekaterina Feodorovna Narbekova | ||||
Religion | Eastern Orthodox |
Full name | |
---|---|
Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya |
Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya (Russian: Мария Ильинична Милославская, 1625–1669) was a Russian tsaritsa as the first spouse of tsar Alexis of Russia. She was the mother of tsar Feodor III of Russia, tsar Ivan V of Russia, and the princess regent Sophia Alekseyevna.
Maria Ilyinichna was a younger daughter of the noble Ilya Danilovich Miloslavsky (d. 1668) and Ekaterina Fedorovna Miloslavskaya (Narbekova). Her father was a relative and supporter of Boris Morozov, the influential tutor and favorite of the tsar.
In 1647, tsar Alexis I of Russia reached the age required for marriage. The tsar was to choose his bride from a Bride-show of hundreds of daughters of the nobility, who were summoned to the imperial court for selection. This method to select a bride for the tsar reportedly originated from the reign of Ivan III, whose spouse Sophia Palaiologina came from the Byzantine empire, were this method had once been used to chose a bride for the Byzantine emperor.
The bridal selection of Alexis I was managed by Boris Morozov, and gathered to almost two hundred daughters of the nobility, among them Maria Miloslavskaya. She had the support of Boris Morozov, who intended to marry her sister Anna Miloslavskaya, and hoped that Alexis I would chose Maria, which would make him the brother-in-law of the tsar. During the selection ceremony, however, the tsar chose Euphemia F. Vsevolozhskaya, by presenting her with a handkerchief and a ring as a symbol of their engagement. Boris Morozov then bribed a courtier to make Vsevolozhskaya faint; he then bribed a court physician to diagnose her with epilepsy. This disqualified Vsevolozhskaya as tsaritsa and resulted in both her and her father to be exiled accused of attempting to hide her illness for the tsar, and thus the first choice of the tsar was annulled.