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Marfa Ivanova and the Expansion of the Role of the Tsar's Mother in the 17th Century
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Rude & Barbarous Kingdom Revisited: Essays in Russian History and Culture in Honor of Robert O. Crummey. Chester S. L. Dunning, Russell E. Martin, and Daniel Rowland, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2008, 109–29. Marfa Ivanovna and the Expansion of the Role of the Tsar’s Mother in the 17th Century Isolde Thyrêt Amongst the royal women of Muscovite Russia in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Marfa Ivanovna, the mother of the first Romanov tsar, Mikhail Fedorovich, stands out for her harsh treatment in historical literature. Previ-‐‑ ous tsaritsy, such as Mariia Grigor’evna Skuratova-‐‑Bel’skaia and Mariia Fedorovna Nagaia, understandably received bad publicity because of their association with unpopular or controversial blood lines during the Time of Troubles.1 One would expect, however, a positive characterization of Marfa Ivanovna, who after all was the matriarch of Russia’s new legitimate dynasty after the Time of Troubles. Nevertheless, prominent scholars of the early Romanov dynasty have few good words for the tsar mother. V. O. Kliuchev-‐‑ skii calls Marfa “a capricious intriguer who kept a tight hold on her son,” and S. V. Bakhrushin depicts her as “a power-‐‑loving, very mean, but by far not in-‐‑ telligent woman.”2 The scholarly prejudice reflects the tone of 17th-‐‑century sources, notably the Pskov Chronicle, which expresses resentment about the rise of some of Marfa’s kinsmen into leading positions at the Romanov court.3 Inquest records concerning treasonous activities against the royal family also contain mean-‐‑spirited comments about Marfa Ivanovna. In one case from July 1626, a prison guard in Mozhaisk allegedly blamed Marfa Ivanovna for Tsar Mikhail’s failed wedding to Mariia Khlopova and lamented that the tsar was oblivious of the intrigues of his meddlesome mother and did not have her sewn into a bearskin and then hunted down by dogs, as previous lords would 1 Isolde Thyrêt, Between God and Tsar: Religious Symbolism and the Royal Women of Mus-‐‑ covite Russia (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001), 103–17. 2 V. O. Kliuchevskii, A Course in Russian History: The Seventeenth Century, trans. Natalie Duddington (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), 82; S. V. Bakhrushin, “Politicheskie tolki v tsarstvovanie Mikhaila Fedorovicha,” in Trudy po istochnikovedeniiu, istoriografii i istorii Rossii epokhi feodalizma (nauchnoe nasledie), ed. B. V. Levshin (Moscow: Nauka, 1987), 95. 3 Pskovskie letopisi (hereafter, PL), 2 vols. (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1941–55), 1: 132–33; Bakhrushin, “Politicheskie tolki,” 98. 110 ISOLDE THYRÊT have done.4 In another incident, a retainer of the governor of Tobolsk was ac-‐‑ cused of rejoicing at Marfa Ivanovna'ʹs death in 1631, saying that Russians had escaped the first evil and now only had to get rid of her husband, Patriarch Filaret.5 The negative attitude toward the Romanov matriarch results from the fact that Marfa Ivanovna, who had never been a tsar’s wife and therefore could not claim having the blessed womb of a tsar mother, met the challenge of de-‐‑ fining her unique role head on.6 An examination of Marfa Ivanovna’s role in the events leading up to Mikhail Fedorovich’s coronation in 1613 shows that in order to appropriate the role of a tsaritsa, the Romanov matriarch carefully manipulated a Muscovite political ritual of pleading with a tsar candidate to assume the throne. Marfa Ivanovna was conscious of the fact that the delega-‐‑ tion of the Muscovite Assembly of the Land to Mikhail Fedorovich in Kos-‐‑ troma in 1613 followed the protocol a previous assembly had applied to Boris Godunov and his sister Irina in the succession crisis of 1598. Using this knowledge, she inserted herself into the pleading ritual in such a way that she expanded on Irina’s role and set herself up to assume a much more visible position at the future royal court than previous tsaritsy had enjoyed. Marfa Ivanovna’s potential dynastic significance became apparent shortly after the death of the last Rurikide tsar, Fedor Ivanovich, in 1598. Boris Godu-‐‑ nov’s subsequent ascendance to power was accompanied by reprisals against the Romanov clan, which had risen to political prominence after Ivan IV had married Anastasiia Romanova in 1547. In order to forestall a rival claim to the throne by Anastasiia’s influential and well-‐‑liked nephew, Fedor Nikitich Romanov, Boris Godunov forced him and his relatives to take monastic vows in 1600. Fedor’s wife, Kseniia Ivanovna Shestova, who later took the monastic name Marfa, was forced to share his...