on arrival in the manner of most Muscovite hosts, gently advised him not to take it as it was usually not pleasant for foreigners. During the leisurely after-dinner discussions in Latin, topics ranged from the merits of new firearms and projectiles to European politics.
Golitsyn passionately admired France and Louis XIV; he insisted that his son constantly wear a miniature portrait of the Sun King. To the French agent in Moscow, De Neuville, he revealed his hopes and dreams. He talked of further reforms in the army, of trading across Siberia, of establishing permanent relations with the West, of sending young Russians to study in Western cities, of stabilizing money, proclaiming freedom of worship and even emancipating the serfs. As Golitsyn talked, his vision expanded: He dreamed of 'peopling the deserts, of enriching the beggars, turning savages into men and cowards into heroes and shepherds' huts into palaces of stone.'
Sophia met this unusual man when she was twenty-four, in the full bloom of her rebellion against the terem. Golitsyn was thirty-nine, blue-eyed, wore a small mustache, a neatly trimmed Van Dyke beard and, over his shoulders, an elegant fur-lined cape. Among a crowd of conventional Muscovite boyars in their heavy caftans and bushy beards, he looked like a dashing earl just arrived from England. With her intelligence, her taste for learning and her ambition, it was natural that Sophia should see in Golitsyn the personification of an ideal and the attraction was inevitable.
Golitsyn had a wife and grown children, but it did not matter. Strong-minded and passionate, now plunging into life with abandon, Sophia had cast caution to the winds in her move for power. She would do no less for love. What is more, she would combine the two. With Golitsyn she would share power and love, and together they would rule: He, with his vision, would propose ideas and policies; she, with her authority, would see that they were executed. On her proclamation as regent, she named Golitsyn head of the Foreign Office. Two years later, she conferred on him the rare distinction of Keeper of the Great Seal; in effect, prime minister.
In her early years as regent, Sophia's role was difficult. In private she ruled the state, but in public she shielded her person and her activities behind the ceremonial figures of the two boy Tsars and the administrative offices of Golitsyn. People rarely saw her. Her name appeared on public documents only as 'The Most Orthodox Princess, the Sister of Their Majesties.' When she did appear in public, it was separately from her brothers and in a manner which made her appear at least co-equal with them. An example was the farewell for departing Swedish ambassadors taking home from Moscow a reconfirmation of the treaty of peace between Russia and Sweden. In the morning, the ambassadors were summoned to watch the formal ceremony in which the boy Tsars pledged their oath on the Holy Gospel to keep the terms of the treaty. The ambassadors arrived in royal carriages to be greeted by Prince Golitsyn, who escorted them between lines of red-coated Streltsy up the Red Staircase into the banqueting hall, where Peter and Ivan sat on their double throne. Benches along the walls of the room were lined with boyars and state officials. The Tsars and the ambassadors exchanged formal greetings, and both sides pledged to keep the peace. Then Peter and Ivan rose, removed the crowns from their heads, walked to a table holding the Holy Gospels and a document containing the text of the treaty, and there, invoking God as a witness, promised that Russia would never break the treaty and attack Sweden. The Tsars kissed the Gospels, and Golitsyn handed the treaty document to the ambassadors.
The official ceremony was thus concluded. The real farewell audience for the ambassadors came later the same day. Once again, the ambassadors were conducted through lines of Streltsy armed with gleaming halberds. At the entrance to the Golden Hall, two chamberlains announced that the great lady, the Noble Tsarevna, the Grand Duchess Sophia Alexeevna, Imperial Highness of all Great and Little and White Russia, was prepared to receive them. The ambassadors bowed and entered the hall. Sophia sat on the Diamond Throne presented to her father by the Shah of Persia. She wore a robe of silver cloth embroidered with gold, lined with sables and covered with mantles of fine lace. On her head was a crown of pearls. Her attendants—the wives of boyars and two female dwarfs—stood nearby. Before the throne stood Vasily Golitsyn and Ivan Miloslavsky. When the ambassadors had saluted her, Sophia beckoned them forward and spoke to them for a few minutes. They kissed her hand, she dismissed them, and subsequently, in the gesture of a Russian autocrat, sent them dinner from her own table.
Under Sophia's regency, Golitsyn prided himself on administering 'a reign based on justice and general consent.' The people of Moscow seemed content; on holidays, crowds strolled through the public gardens and along the banks of the river. Among the nobility, a strong Polish influence was felt; Polish gloves, fur caps and soap were in demand. Russians became fond of tracing genealogies and creating family coats of arms. Sophia herself continued her intellectual life, writing verses in Russian and even plays, some of which were performed in the Kremlin.
The appearance as well as the manners of Moscow began to change. Golitsyn was interested in architecture, and the number of devastating fires in Moscow cleared wide areas for him to exercise his influence. In the autumn of 1688, the Treasury was temporarily unable to pay the salaries of foreign officers, for every rouble had been advanced in loans to help citizens rebuild houses destroyed by flames. To combat fire, a decree ordered that wooden roofs be covered with earth to reduce burnable surface. Golitsyn urged Muscovites to build of stone, and during his administration all new public buildings and a bridge across the Moscow River were erected of stone.
But Kremlin theatricals, Polish gloves and even new stone buildings in Moscow did not mean a real reform of Russian society. As the years, went by, the regime increasingly was forced to content itself with keeping order at home, and Golitsyn's larger dreams remained unrealized. The army seemed to improve under the leadership of foreign officers, but it was to fail miserably when put to the test of war. The colonization of distant Siberian provinces was halted as all the state's military resources were thrown into war against the Tatars. Russia's trade remained in foreign hands, and amelioration of the lot of the serfs was never mentioned outside Golitsyn's elegant salon. 'Peopling the deserts, enriching the beggars, turning savages into men and cowards into heroes' remained the stuff of fantasy.
The one great achievement of the regency lay in the realm of foreign policy. From the beginning, Sophia and Golitsyn had resolved on a policy of peace with all of Russia's neighbors. Large pieces of formerly Russian territory were still in foreign hands: The Swedes held the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, the Poles occupied White Russia and Lithuania. But Sophia and Golitsyn decided not to contest these conquests. Thus, as soon as her government was firmly established, Sophia sent embassies to Stockholm, Warsaw, Copenhagen and Vienna, declaring Russia's willingness to accept the status quo by confirming all existing treaties.
In Stockholm, King Charles XI was pleased to hear that Tsars Ivan and Peter would make no attempt to recover the Russian Baltic provinces surrendered to Sweden in 1661 by Tsar Alexis in the Treaty of Kardis. In Warsaw, Sophia's embassy confronted a more complicated situation. Poles and Russians were traditional enemies. For two centuries they had warred, with Poland generally having the upper hand. Polish armies had penetrated deep into Russia, Polish troops had occupied the Kremlin, a Polish tsar had even been placed on the Russian throne. The most recent war had ended, after twelve years of fighting, with a truce signed in 1667. By its terms, Tsar Alexis established Russia's western frontier at Smolensk and won title to all the Ukraine east of the Dnieper River. He was also permitted to keep, for two years only, the ancient city of Kiev; at the end of two years, it was to be returned to Poland.
It was a promise impossible to keep. Years passed, the truce was maintained, but Alexis and, after him, his son Fedor found themselves unable to give up Kiev. Kiev meant too much: it was one of the oldest of Russian cities, it was the capital of the Ukraine, it was; Orthodox. To surrender it back to Catholic Poland was difficult, painful and, finally, unthinkable. Therefore, in negotiations Moscow hedged, argued and delayed, while the Poles stubbornly refused to give up their claim. It was here that matters stood when Sophia's peace proposals arrived.
In the meantime, however, a new crisis had arisen to confront the Poles. Poland and Austria were at war with the Ottoman Empire. In 1683, the year after Peter's accession, the Ottoman tide reached its high-water mark in Europe as Turkish armies besieged Vienna. It was the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski, who led the Christian armies to victory under the city's walls. The Turks retreated down the Danube, but the war continued, and both Poland and Austria were eager for Russian help. In 1685, the Poles were severely defeated by the Turks, and the following spring a splendid Polish embassy with 1,000 men and 1,500 horses arrived in Moscow to seek a Russo-Polish alliance. Golitsyn received them royally; they were escorted through the streets by special detachments of Streltsy and feasted by the highest Russian nobility. After prolonged negotiations, both sides achieved their objectives. Both sides also paid a heavy price.
Poland formally ceded Kiev to Russia, giving up forever her claim to the great city. For Russia, for Sophia, for Golitsyn, this was the greatest triumph of the Tsarevna's regency. The Russian negotiators, led by Golitsyn, were lavishly rewarded with praise, gifts, serfs and estates; the two Tsars themselves handed them goblets from which to drink. In Warsaw, King Jan Sobieski was desolate at losing Kiev; when he agreed to the treaty, tears flowed from
