Romanov (redirected from House of Romanov)

Romanov (rō`mənŏf, Rus. rəmä`nəf), ruling dynasty of Russia from 1613 to 1917. The name Romanov was adopted in the 16th cent. by a family of boyars (great nobles) that traced its beginnings to the 14th cent. Czar Ivan IV took as his first wife Anastasia Romanov. Anastasia's brother, Nikita, was a regent for her son, Czar Feodor I. Nikita's son, Philaret, whom Boris Godunov forced to take monastic vows, was patriarch of Moscow from 1619 until his death in 1633. Michael, Philaret's son, was chosen in 1613 as czar of Russia; his election ended a turbulent period in Russian history. Except for the period from 1722 to 1797, the succession was thereafter regulated by the law of primogeniture.

The direct successors of Michael were Alexis (1645–76) and Feodor III (1676–82). Ivan V and Peter I (Peter the Great) reigned jointly under the regency of their sister Sophia Alekseyevna until 1689, when Peter assumed sole rule. In 1721, Peter took the title emperor of Russia in addition to that of czar; the new title was borne by all his successors. His succession decree of 1722 denounced the law of primogeniture and declared that the choice of a successor lay solely with the ruling emperor.

In 1723, Peter made his consort joint ruler as Catherine I, and after his death (1725) she continued to rule until she died in 1727. Peter's son by his first marriage, Czarevich Alexis, had been executed in 1718. His second marriage, with Catherine, produced two daughters: Anna, who married Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp, and Elizabeth. They were bypassed in the succession of 1727 in favor of Peter II (1727–30), son of Czarevich Alexis.

Peter II was the last of the direct male Romanov line, and on his death Anna, duchess of Courland, a daughter of Ivan V, ascended the throne. She died without heirs and was succeeded (1740) by Ivan VI, a great-grandson of Ivan V. He was a German, son of the duke of Brunswick and of Anna Leopoldovna, a princess of Mecklenburg.

The rule of foreigners was unpopular, and Peter I's daughter Elizabeth executed a coup in 1741 and was proclaimed czarina. Her nephew Peter III succeeded her in 1762 but was deposed (and probably assassinated) that year in a coup that made his consort, a princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, empress as Catherine II (Catherine the Great). There was some argument as to the paternity of Catherine's son and successor, Paul I (1796–1801), but it is now generally believed that he was the son of Peter III.

Paul, who was assassinated, restored the succession by primogeniture in 1797. His successors reigned as Alexander I (1801–25), Nicholas I (1825–55), Alexander II (1855–81; assassinated), Alexander III (1881–94), and Nicholas II (1894–1917). The marriage of Nicholas II to Princess Alix of Hesse (Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna) brought hemophilia into the family; their son, Czarevich Alexis (1904–18), was afflicted with the disease. In 1918, after the Russian Revolution, Nicholas II and his immediate family were executed. The members of the Romanov family who escaped execution fled abroad.

Bibliography

See D. Lieven, Russian Rulers before the Revolution (1989); R. K. Masie, The Romanovs (1995), M. D. Steinberg and V. M. Khrustaëv, The Fall of the Romanovs (1995); J. Van der Kiste, The Romanovs, 1818–1959 (1998), and J. C. Perry and C. V. Pleshakov, The Flight of the Romanovs (1999).

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Romanov

any of the Russian imperial dynasty that ruled from the crowning (1613) of Mikhail Fyodorovich to the abdication (1917) of Nicholas II during the February Revolution

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Romanov 

a boyar clan; from 1613 a tsarist dynasty and from 1721 through February 1917 an imperial dynasty in Russia.

There is documentary evidence that Andrei Ivanovich Koby-la, a boyar of the Moscow princes in the mid-14th century, was an ancestor of the Romanovs. Until the beginning of the 16th century the surname of the Romanovs’ ancestors was Koshkin, which was derived from the nickname of Andrei Ivanovich’s fifth son, Fedor Koshka (“the cat”). Later, the ancestors of the Romanovs had the surname Zakhar’in. The rise of the Zakhar’-ins, which dates from the second third of the 16th century, is associated with the marriage of Ivan IV to the daughter of Roman Iur’evich, Anastasia, who died in 1560. The founder of the Romanov dynasty was Roman’s third son, Nikita Romano-vich, who died in 1586. A boyar from 1562 and an active participant in the Livonian War as well as in many diplomatic negotiations, Nikita Romanovich headed the regency council from the death of Ivan IV until the end of 1584. Of his sons, the best known were Fedor (later known as Filaret) and Ivan (died 1640), who became a boyar in 1605 and served as a member of the government of the “seven boyars.” After Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, the son of Filaret and the nephew of Ivan, became tsar, Ivan and his son Nikita were very influential at court.

With the death of Tsar Fedor Ivanovich in 1598 the Rurik dynasty came to an end. During the preparations for the election of a new tsar, Fedor Nikitich Romanov was named as a possible candidate for the throne. The Romanovs fell out of favor during the reign of Boris Godunov (1600) and were banished (1601) to Beloozero, Iarensk, and other places far from Moscow. Fedor was forced to become a monk and took the name Filaret. The Romanovs became stronger during the rule of the First False Dmitrii. In the Tushino camp of the Second False Dmitrii, Filaret was designated patriarch of Russia.

At the zemskii sobor of 1613, Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, the son of Fedor (Filaret) Romanov, was elected tsar. He ruled from 1613 to 1645. Mikhail was not only lacking in intelligence but also indecisive and sickly. Until he died in 1633, the patriarch Filaret, Mikhail’s father, played the principal role in governing the country. During the reign of Aleksei Mikhailovich (1645–76), social and political reforms were initiated. Aleksei, who, by the standards of the time, was an educated man, took part in the affairs of state. His successor, Fedor Alekseevich (reigned 1676–82), was a sickly youth who did not participate in affairs of state. Under his brother Peter I the Great (reigned 1682–1725) extremely important reforms were carried out, and a successful foreign policy made Russia one of the most powerful countries in Europe. In 1721, Russia became an empire, and Peter I, the first Russian emperor. Under an edict on the succession issued by Peter I on Feb. 5, 1722, and ratified in 1731 and 1761, the emperor was to choose a member of the imperial family to succeed him.

Because Peter I died without naming an heir, he was succeeded by his wife Catherine I Alekseevna (1725–27). His son, the tsarevich Aleksei Petrovich, had been executed on June 26, 1718, for his active opposition to the reforms. Aleksei Petro-vich’s son, Peter II Alekseevich, occupied the throne from 1727 through 1730. With his death in 1730, the direct male line of the Romanov dynasty came to an end. Anna Ivanovna, the granddaughter of Aleksei Mikhailovich and the niece of Peter I, reigned from 1730 to 1740, and Elizaveta Petrovna, Peter I’s daughter, ruled from 1741 until her death in 1761, which brought an end to the direct female line of the Romanov dynasty. However, the Romanov family name was borne by the several members of the Holstein-Gottorp dynasty: Peter III (the son of Charles Frederick, duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and Anna, the daughter of Peter I), who reigned from 1761 to 1762; his wife, Catherine II, a princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, who reigned from 1762 to 1796; their son Paul I, who reigned from 1796 to 1801; and his descendants.

Under the conditions of developing capitalist relations, Catherine II, Paul I, Alexander I (1801–25), and Nicholas I (1825–55) harshly repressed the revolutionary liberation movement as they strove to preserve the serf-holding system and the absolute monarchy. Alexander II (reigned 1855–81), the son of Nicholas I, was compelled to abolish serfdom in 1861. Nevertheless, the most important posts in the government, the bureaucracy, and the army remained in the hands of the dvorianstvo (nobility or gentry). Wishing to further consolidate their power, the Romanovs, especially Alexander III (reigned 1881–94) and Nicholas II (1894–1917), pursued a reactionary domestic and foreign policy. Among the many grand dukes from the Romanov dynasty who occupied high posts in the army and in the bureaucracy, several were particularly reactionary: Nikolai Nikolaevich the Elder (1831–91), Mikhail Nikolaevich (1832–1909), Sergei Aleksandrovich (1857–1905), and Nikolai Nikolaevich the Younger (1856–1929).

The Romanov dynasty was overthrown during the bourgeois-democratic February Revolution of 1917. Nicholas II abdicated on Mar. 2 (15), 1917, and in July 1918 he and his family were shot in Ekaterinburg, in connection with an offensive by the White Guards and by decree of the Urals oblast Soviet. After the Revolution of October 1917 many members of the Romanov family emigrated. Several of them, including Nikolai Nikolaevich the Younger and Kirill Vladimirovich, considered themselves pretenders to the Russian throne.

REFERENCES

Selifontov, N. N. Sb. materialov po istorii predkov tsaria Mikhaila Fedo-rovicha Romanova, parts 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1898–1901.
Letopisnyi i litsevoi izbornik doma Romanovykh, parts 1–2. Moscow, 1913.
Veselovskii, S. B. Issledovaniia po istorii oprichniny. Moscow, 1963.
Eroshkin, N. P. “Poslednie Romanovy i ikh sud’by.” Prepodavanie istorii ν shkole, 1967, no. 2.