The Forgotten Brides

A fair amount has been written about the various wives of Ivan the Terrible, but the sad fates of the wives of his son, Tsarevich Ivan, are less well known.

In 1571, Ivan the Terrible decided to wed for the third time. As was customary, young ladies of high birth were brought from various corners of Muscovy to be paraded before the tsar. The process was associated with all sorts of court intrigues, as various boyars tried to promote their candidates.

For himself, Ivan chose Marfa Sobakina, who wound up dying a mere two weeks after the wedding. But during that same viewing, Ivan also picked out a bride for his 17-year-old son and heir, also Ivan. Yevdokia (often transliterated based on the Greek spelling as Eudoxia) Saburova was descended from the same line as another ill-starred tsaritsa: Solomonia, the first wife of the Terrible’s father, Vasily III (who also figures in our story on Yelena of Moldavia, page 36). Solomonia had not managed to produce an heir and was forced into a convent so that Vasily could marry Ivan’s mother, Yelena Glinskaya.

Now the Saburovs were promoting a new candidate, and they apparently had the support of their relative Boris Godunov, who was hoping to use the marriage to enhance his own stature.

The tsar and tsarevich were betrothed on the same day, and six days after the tsar married Marfa Sobakina, Tsarevich Ivan was wed to Yevdokia. He seemed to sincerely love her, and perhaps it is not surprising that a sheltered 17-year-old boy might become attached to his wife, even one chosen for him by his father. But just a few months later, Yevdokia Saburova wound up exchanging her royal quarters for a nun’s cell. It was not that her husband had any complaints; more likely the tsar had found her somehow objectionable.

The tsarevich was soon married to Feodosia Solovaya, with whom he lived four years before she too was sent to a convent, since she also had not managed to produce an heir.

Later, the tsar found a third wife for his son, Yelena Sheremeteva, who finally did become pregnant. Alas, nobody in Ivan the Terrible’s circle was allowed to live a normal life or enjoy a normal relationship. At one point the tsar came unannounced into his son’s chambers and saw his pregnant daughter-in-law relaxing and not fully clothed. He took her appearance as a personal insult (even though she had no way of anticipating his visit) and began to physically attack her. The tsarevich attempted to intercede on his wife’s behalf and received a mortal blow from the tsar’s staff. A few days later, Yelena miscarried. She soon followed in the footsteps of her two predecessors and took her vows. She died a few years later.

Soon, Russian history would enter a period of turmoil that would leave little room for concern over the fates of a string of unfortunate tsaritsas. Several years after his son’s violent death, the Terrible himself died, and the throne was assumed by another son, Fyodor, who was not at all suited to rule. Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of Ivan’s last wife, was sent into a comfortable exile in Uglich, where he died under circumstances that are still a matter of dispute. After Fyodor’s death, the boyars elected Boris Godunov tsar, and several years later his reign was challenged by the appearance of an impostor claiming to be the supposedly-dead Dmitry. Russia was plunged into the chaos of the Time of Troubles.

Throughout these troubled times, hard as it may be to imagine, the two royal brides – Yevdokia (now the nun Alexandra) and Feodosia (now Paraskeva) – were still living in Suzdal’s Pokrovsky (Intercession) Convent. What did they talk about? Were they friends? Did they argue? Did they ponder the fact that, several decades before, their former husband’s grandmother, Solomonia Saburova, had lived within the same walls and was even rumored to have given birth to a child there?

We know that Yevdokia and Feodosia lived fairly well there. They both received income from estates they had been allotted, and they were treated with respect. We also know that they were both drawn into political intrigues. Feodosia was somehow tied to the Shuysky family and even left the convent to stay with them and lend her support in a plot against Godunov. The Shuysky conspiracy was unsuccessful, and Feodosia wound up back in the convent.

Yevdokia also made an attempt to escape the convent, taking advantage of Dmitry’s ascent to power. She publicly identified him as her husband’s brother and was rewarded with a prosperous village. But the pretender was overthrown and killed, and so back to the convent Yevdokia went.

Several years later, the boyar Vasily Shuysky succeeded in ascending Muscovy’s throne. Whether or not he remembered his former supporter, the nun Feodosia, we do not know, but soon enough, he himself was overthrown and forced to take vows of his own.

At that point, a Polish garrison occupied Moscow and detachments of Polish, Swedish, Cossack, and Russian militia troops were on the move throughout the principality, all aiming to take control of Moscow. The foreign invaders were finally expelled, and in 1613 a Zemsky Sobor was assembled to elect Mikhail Romanov, who at the time was also in hiding in a monastery, in Kostroma. A delegation set out to bring him to Moscow, and after some resistance, he consented to go with them, marking the beginning of the Romanov dynasty, the end of the Time of Troubles, and the end of war (for a time) with Poland and Sweden.

And all that time, throughout all these tumultuous years, two unfortunate women, very young at first, then not so young, and finally very old, lived on in the convent.

Yevdokia Saburova, the nun Alexandra, tsarevich Ivan’s first wife, died in 1620. Ivan’s second wife, Feodosia Solovaya, known as the nun Paraskeva, outlived her by one year. But in any case, by then, the two were long since forgotten.