ALEXIS MICHAELOWITZ.
Alexis was married in the same manner as his father, and from among the young women presented, he chose the one who appeared the most amiable in his eyes. He married a daughter of the boyard Meloslauski, in 1647; his second wife, whom he married in 1671, was of the family of Nariskin, and his favourite Morosow was married to another. There cannot be a more suitable title found for this favourite than that of vizier, for he governed the empire in a despotic manner; and, by his great power, excited several commotions among the strelitzes and the populace, as frequently happens at Constantinople.
The reign of Alexis was disturbed by bloody insurrections, and by domestic and foreign wars. A chief of the Don Cossacks, named Stenko-Rasin, endeavoured to make himself king of Astracan, and was for a long time very formidable; but, being at length defeated and taken prisoner, he ended his life by the hands of the executioner; like all those of this stamp, who have nothing to expect but a throne or a scaffold. About twelve thousand of his adherents are said to have been hanged on the high road to Astracan. In this part of the world, men being uninfluenced by morality, were to be governed only by rigour; and from this severity, frequently carried on to a degree of cruelty, arose slavery, and a secret thirst of revenge.
Alexis had a war with the Poles that proved successful, and terminated in a peace, which secured to him the possession of Smolensko, Kiow, and the Ukraine: but he was unfortunate against the Swedes, and the boundaries of the Russian empire were contracted within a very narrow compass on that side of the kingdom.
The Turks were at that time his most formidable enemies: they invaded Poland, and threatened the dominions of the czar that bordered upon Crim Tartary, the ancient Taurica Chersonesus. In 1671, they took the important city of Kaminiek, and all that belonged to Poland in the Ukraine. The Cossacks of that country, ever averse to subjection, knew not whether they belonged to the Turks, Poland, or Russia. Sultan Mahomet IV. who had conquered the Poles, and had just imposed a tribute upon them, demanded, with all the haughtiness of an Ottoman victor, that the czar should evacuate his possessions in the Ukraine, but received as haughty a denial from that prince. Men did not know at that time how to disguise their pride, by an outside of civility. The sultan, in his letter, styled the sovereign of the Russias only Christian Hospodar, and entitled himself 'most gracious majesty, king of the universe.' The czar replied in these terms, 'that he scorned to submit to a Mahometan dog, and that his scimetar was as good as the grand seignior's sabre.'
Alexis at that time formed a design which seemed to presage the influence which the Russian empire would one day obtain in the Christian world. He sent ambassadors to the pope, and to almost all the great sovereigns in Europe, excepting France (which was in alliance with the Turks), in order to establish a league against the Ottoman Porte. His ambassadors at the court of Rome succeeded only in not being obliged to kiss the pope's toe; and in other courts they met with only unprofitable good wishes; the quarrels of the Christian princes between themselves, and the jarring interests arising from those quarrels, having constantly prevented them from uniting against the common enemy of Christianity.
In the mean time, the Turks threatened to chastise the Poles, who refused to pay their tribute: czar Alexis assisted on the side of Crim Tartary, and John Sobieski, general of the crown, wiped off his country's stain in the blood of the Turks, at the famous battle of Choczim,[19] in 1674, which paved his way to the throne. Alexis disputed this very throne with him, and proposed to unite his extensive dominions to Poland, as the Jagellons had done; but in regard to Lithuania, the greatness of his offer was the cause of its being rejected. He is said to have been very deserving of the new kingdom, by the manner in which he governed his own. He was the first who caused a body of laws to be digested in Russia, though imperfect; and introduced both linen and silk manufactures, which indeed were not long kept up; nevertheless, he had the merit of their first establishment. He peopled the deserts about the Wolga and the Kama, with Lithuanian, Polish, and Tartarian families, whom he had taken prisoners in his wars: before his reign, all prisoners of war were the slaves of those to whose lot they fell. Alexis employed them in agriculture: he did his utmost endeavours to introduce discipline among his troops. In a word, he was worthy of being the father of Peter the Great; but he had no time to perfect what he had begun, being snatched away by a sudden death, at the age of forty-six, in the beginning of the year 1677, according to our style, which is eleven days forwarder than that of Russia.