Sentencing His Son to Death

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0:31Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Listener discretion advised. The year is 1718 and the Russian jurists are about to hand down their verdict. The charge is incredibly serious. Treason against the Tsar, Peter the Great. Punishable by death. Some of the members of the jury are sweating, but they're all pretending not to. They've been instructed that they should treat the accused in exactly the same way that they would treat any man who comes before them. They should not play nice or go gentle on him.

1:17They've been promised that they won't be punished, even if they find him guilty. But the jury has reason to be a little anxious about the situation, because the accused, the man standing trial for treason against the Tsar of Russia, is the Tsarevich, the son of the Tsar. And so the jury handed in their verdict. Tsarevich Alexei, 28 years old, the heir to the Russian throne, the only one of Peter's many children who had survived to adulthood, was guilty. Everyone in the courtroom knew what that meant. A sentence of death. The jurors all prayed that the emperor would not rescind his promise and decide to kill them after all.

2:09But they also knew that the ultimate fate of Alexei did not rest with them. Peter the Great would have to sign off on any punishment himself. If he wanted his own son and heir killed, then he would have to approve it with his own hand. Surely, some in the room believed, he would never approve it. Yes, Peter and Alexei had had their struggles. The boy was weak, the son of Peter's unloved first wife. Alexei was an endless chooser of flight over fight, too eager to voluntarily abdicate his place in the succession. But Peter had also given him chance after chance before. Alexei was his own flesh and blood, after all.

3:01Surely Peter would not allow that flesh and blood torn torturously apart on his watch. But then again, Peter the Great didn't get that nickname for nothing. Great and terrible are terribly close words when we speak of Russian monarchs. And if we've learned one thing over the course of this podcast, it's that when it comes to royal families, the royal wins out over the family with chilling frequency. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. The emperor, who would later be known as Peter the Great, came to the throne as Tsar Peter I in 1682, when he was only 10 years old. He was co-ruler with his older half-brother, Ivan V.

3:58But Ivan was at least partially paralyzed, blind, and likely cognitively impaired. They were both basically dominated by Peter's older half-sister, Sophia, who was regent. All this meant that even though Peter was officially czar, he didn't grow up in the palace. He hung out with his mother, who was more open to Western influence than the Russian monarchs. In 1689, when Peter was 17, his mother arranged his marriage to a woman named Eudoxia Lopkina. Peter never seemed to love his wife, but one year later, on February 28, 1690, their son and heir Alexei Petrovich was born. Peter set off fireworks in celebration.

4:48Then in 1696, Peter's half-brother Ivan died, leaving Peter as sole Tsar of Russia. Naturally, he had Sophia, the former regent, banished to a convent, which was the Russian ruler's common solution for unwanted sisters, wives, and generally pesky women. Peter was known for a ton of innovations in Russia that we don't have the time to list in full. But he established the Empire of Russia, so he was the first Russian ruler to be not only czar but also emperor. He developed Russia's military might, and he was considered a modernizing and westernizing force. He modernized and even designed the Russian written alphabet and, in 1702, established the first Russian newspaper.

5:44He also founded the city of St. Petersburg and moved the capital there from Moscow. He was a strange man. I can only give you some of the strangest highlights. Though standing at an almost unheard-of six-foot-seven, he preferred to live in little houses with small ceilings called Domeki. His cabinet of curiosities was famous for its bizarre and grotesque collection of human and animal fetuses with birth defects. He once held a grand event known as the Most Drunken Snynod of Fools and Jesters. In an effort to force Russian men to accord with the shaven-faced fashion of Europe, he instituted a beard tax on any Russian who wore a beard.

6:39If you paid it, you received a coin engraved with an actual image of a beard and mustache to prove that your style was allowed. A hipster mustache-loving dream. Not only are mustaches special, they're also exclusive. He had two wives. First was Eudoxia, whom he was never wild about. In 1698, after nearly 10 years of marriage, he had her banished to surprise a convent. Then Peter officially married his second wife, Catherine I, in 1707. Of course, Peter also had many mistresses, including the famous British actress of Drury Lane, Letitia Cross. Between his two wives, Peter had 15 legitimate children, although only three of them survived to adulthood.

7:35But even when you look at that claim with modern eyes, it's heartbreakingly short-term. Only one child by Catherine I, Elizaveta Petrovna, lived past her twenties. It is hard to imagine the grief of Catherine, who had twelve babies and watched ten of them die as infants or as very young children. And it is hard to imagine what Peter the Great must have been thinking in autumn of 1715, when he was contemplating his heirs for the Russian throne. He had only one living son at this point, Tsarevich Alexei, the daughter of Eudoxia. Four other sons had died as infants. Alexei and his father had always had a strained relationship.

8:28After setting off fireworks and celebrations for little Alexei's birth, Peter largely lost interest in the boy. After all, he was the son of Peter's unloved first wife, Eudoxia. When Alexei was eight, his father sent his mother off to a convent, wrenching him away from her. Alexei was a somewhat sickly boy, cowardly and uninterested in military action, not qualities that particularly excited Peter about an heir. Alexei was so afraid of his father that he once shot himself in the hand to avoid having to see him. Classic Alexei, though, he missed, burning himself badly. and then he lied to his father that it was an accident.

9:19He wrote that he, quote, would rather be a galley slave or have a burning fever than have to go to see a Russian ship launched. His mother-in-law said that, quote, it is quite useless for his father to force him to attend to military matters as he would rather have a rosary than a pistol in his hand. In other words, in his father's eyes, he was just kind of a bummer. But Peter, nonetheless, wanted his son to become a man he could trust as his successor. Starting when Alexei was 12, Peter took the boy along with him on various military sieges as preparation for his future as a military leader. When Alexei was 17, Peter put him in charge of the defense of Moscow.

10:11But Alexei never took an interest in his father's warring. He was meek. He accepted Peter's idea that he marry a German princess, Charlotte, in 1711, when he was 21 and she 17. Alexei doted on their daughter, Natalia, but he drank so often and so much that he largely ignored his wife, Charlotte, leaving her to a bedroom where the rain came through the roof in a storm. Peter had to reprimand his son to take some care of his wife. So by 1715, it was clear to Peter that his son Alexei was a weak candidate to be his heir to the empire. But in the autumn of 1715, there was reason to think that Peter's outlook might change.

11:08Two reasons, in fact, because there were not one but two heavily pregnant women in Russian court. On October 23, 1715, Alexei's wife Charlotte gave birth to their second child, a boy. He was named Peter Alexovich. And one week after that, on November 9, 1715, Peter the Great's wife Catherine also gave birth to a son, Peter Petrovich. The baby survived his first days, and then weeks, and then months of life. Peter wrote, God has sent me a new recruit. So by the time 1716 dawned, Peter the Great found himself in a very different position than he had been at the beginning of 1715. There were now two little Peters in Russia, both legitimate heirs to his throne, which meant that suddenly, when it came to the Russian line of succession, Peter the Great had other options.

12:20The story of what happened next between Peter the Great and his oldest surviving son, Alexei, can be told in a set of fantastic letters that we still have between father and son. The whole story is there. Alexei's wife, Charlotte, died ten days after giving birth to Alexei's son. On her funeral day, Peter the Great gave his son a letter. A declaration to my son, it read, You, my son, reject all means of making yourself capable of governing well after me. I say your incapacity is voluntary, because you cannot excuse yourself with want of natural parts and strength of body, as if God had not given you sufficient share of either.

13:11And though your constitution is none the strongest, yet it cannot be said that it is altogether weak. Peter articulated a philosophy of governing and his personal disappointment in his son. He articulated his sadness that his son didn't care about war and described his belief that the Russian people would follow a leader like Alexei into forgetting about the importance of war. Peter said that physical sickness has nothing to do with a sovereign's inclination toward or interest in war and gave the example of his even sicker brother Ivan V, who was nonetheless interested in war unlike Alexei. The letter ends, quote, I am a man and consequently I must die.

13:59Peter wonders if Alexei is up to the succession and expresses that he is not, and offers him a bit more time to see if he can rise to the occasion. If he doesn't, Peter says then, quote, I will deprive you of the succession as one may cut off a useless member. Harsh words, especially to get on the day of your wife's funeral. But to me, the most important and interesting part in the letter comes after. Also, the most fateful and tragic. Do not fancy that. I only write this, Peter said, to terrify you. To me, it's clear that Peter's great disappointment with his son is all about desire. He just wants his son to want the throne.

14:55Don't want to be disinherited, Peter is saying. If you want to rule, if you want to be interested in war, that is enough. And the tragedy is that Peter the Great and his son Alexei really were, in this, ships passing in the night. It's like they simply could not hear each other. If what Peter cared about most was Alexei wanting the throne, then the last thing Alexei should have done was accept the threat of his removal from the line of succession. Alexei went running to his advisors, and on their counsel, he wrote back to his father, saying that if you, quote, will deprive me of the succession to the crown of Russia by reason of my incapacity, your will be done.

15:45I even most urgently beg it of you. It's like these two men just cannot see each other. It's not an incapacity that Peter hates in his son. He gives the positive example of his actually much weaker and more incapacitated brother. It's that very proclivity to accept meekness and powerlessness. And that was exactly what the ever-disappointing Alexei did. In the meantime, Peter was getting sick, and Alexei was basically just hoping to outlive his father and have this whole affair be over. But de-escalation is not a thing in the Russian court. Peter writes back to Alexei, escalating. Accept the emperorship, says Peter, or else become a monk.

16:39Peter hopes that threats will make Alexei finally snap and want power, but he doesn't see his son just as his son does not see him. All threats do is make the boy even meeker. I will embrace the monastical state and desire your gracious consent to it, Alexei writes back to Peter. It really is kind of hard to avoid the conclusion that Alexei really would have been a kind of weak ruler who didn't really want to rule. But at this point, Peter is getting really angry at his weak son, and Alexei is getting pretty afraid of his father. He really doesn't seem to want the throne. The one thing he actually seems to want is to be with his mistress, a woman named Afrasina.

17:34So in consultation with his advisors, Alexei decides to do something really foolish. He runs away. He dresses his mistress as a boy page, and they get out of Dodge. The pair land in Vienna, and Alexei asks his brother-in-law, Emperor Charles VI, to conceal him there. It really wasn't the most intelligent move. He kept on doing exactly the things that would most disappoint his father, and a disappointed Peter was soon an enraged one. Of course, the situation couldn't last long. Though Charles VI did agree to let Alexei hide at court, the disguise started failing pretty shortly thereafter. Ephrassina was pregnant, so her disguise as a boy page fell apart.

18:34Peter found out that Vienna was hiding his son, and now the Russian and the Viennese emperors are both realizing that this could escalate to an international crisis. So everyone had to proceed with delicacy. Peter sent an emissary named Tolstoy, not the famous writer, to get Alexei back by any means, including outright duplicity if necessary. Naturally, Peter continued to threaten Alexei via letter, not that his strategy of threats ever worked. He wrote, quote, If you return, I will love you better than ever. But if you refuse, then I declare you traitor, and I assure you I will find the means to use you as such.

19:23Again, threats never worked with Alexei, but the key was the girl, the mistress that he loved, because Alexei did truly love her. All he wants, Alexei told Tolstoy, is to get to marry Afrasina and go live in a country cottage together with her. Would his father agree to that? It's a nice dream, but Alexei had noble blood running through his veins. As any listener of this podcast might already know, retiring to a cute cabin with a wife that you love is not really a likely option for an heir to a throne. Peter the Great promised that Alexei could marry the mistress. Alexei was not smart enough not to believe him.

20:15In an earlier letter to his son, Peter had quoted the Bible. King David said, all men are liars. This kid did not have the strategic mind he would have needed to find a way out of his predicament. He could not out-strategize his father. And so Alexei agreed to go back to Russia. The historian Robert K. Massey, one of the most helpful sources for this episode, quotes the response to Alexei's choice. Quote, he will have a coffin instead of a wedding. In February 1718, the Kremlin was full, as Alexei publicly confessed to running away to Europe, and he renounced his claim to the throne. Peter accepted, pardoning his son on condition that Alexei share all of his co-conspirators.

21:11It was the beginning of a brutal, bloody retribution that Peter enacted on seemingly everyone except Alexei, at first. Peter found his ex-wife Eudoxia who was living in a monastery, but not as a nun. Her lover was tortured. Her brother was killed. along with four others condemned to death for having helped Alexei flee to Europe. And Alexei seemingly didn't care. As the people who helped him were investigated, tortured, or killed, all he seemed to want to do was marry Afrasina, who, by the way, he wasn't physically with. Due to her pregnancy, he did not bring her back to Russia with him upon his return from Europe.

22:03But he wrote her loving, longing letters, desperate for her in their separation. Well, she kind of isn't writing that sort of letter back. Secretaries write her letters back to him. Once, she adds an ask for caviar. But the worst for Alexei is yet to come. Peter the Great did, for once, unlock the keys to his son. He found Ephrassina, and without subjecting her to any torture at all, she betrayed her lover. Yes, she said, Alexei wanted Peter dead. He spoke of it often. She repeated the claims to Alexei's face. It's hard to imagine how much this must have pained him. The one thing he seemed to genuinely love in this life.

22:57The one thing he seemed to actually fight for. Who knows what he felt when he saw his beloved Afrasina again and had to watch her sell him out. His dreams of a country cottage shimmered before him, and then they were wiped out in an instant. Maybe whatever will he had left to live left him at that moment. After Ephrosina's confessions, there was nothing else for it. Alexei went on trial. Peter called both an ecclesiastical court and a secular court. Do not be moved, he told them, by the fact that you are to judge the son of your sovereign. For we swear to you that you have absolutely nothing to fear.

23:47Of course, Peter had also promised Alexei that he could marry Afrasina and go live a cottagecore life with her. But nonetheless, Peter's orders to the jury were clear. Anyone else on trial would have been tortured to extract a confession. And so was Alexei. He was struck 25 times with a knot, a kind of whipping torture, on June 19th. Five days later, he received 15 more blows. His back was bleeding. The whipping torture had killed stronger men than Alexei. He confessed to having wished for his father's death. And on June 24th, the jury did what it had to do after such a confession. had found Alexei guilty of rebellion against the emperor.

24:39So Tsarevich Alexei, heir to the Russian throne, was condemned to death. But it was up to Peter the Great to decide whether to allow the sentence to be carried out. In a tragic or perhaps gracious twist of fate, Peter never had to make a decision. Alexei fell ill. He requested his father see him, and Peter did, reportedly crying alongside his dying son. Alexei died on June 26, 1718, at the age of 28. No one official acknowledged it explicitly, but it's likely he simply did not survive the blows with the gnaud. Alexei was stronger than he'd always thought, but weaker than his father had always wished.

25:34Peter had not signed off on condemning his own son to the death penalty, but he did allow the torture that almost certainly killed him.

25:48After Alexei's death, he was mourned like a tsarevich rather than a criminal, interred in state. Peter the Great died on February 8, 1725, at the age of 52. He did not name a successor, and after he died, the succession was confusing. Of the two baby Peters who had given him such hope, his own little son had died in 1719 at age 3. His wife Catherine ruled as Empress for two years until her own death in 1727. And then, maybe in small revenge for Alexei, it was his own son Peter who took the throne, though for not quite three years before he died at age 14. Peter the Great is not the only Russian monarch to have killed his son.

26:47Nearly 150 years earlier, in 1581, the first Tsar of Russia, Ivan the Terrible, had flown into a rage and killed his own son and only competent heir when the boy was 27, almost exactly the same age as Alexei was when he died. But Peter was not raging like Ivan was when he coolly instructed the court to treat Alexei as they would any other accused criminal. So far as I know, said the historian Jonathan Daly, there were no other European monarchs who oversaw the torture of their own children. What would Peter have done if his son had not died? Would he have sentenced his own son to the death penalty?

27:37We can't know. History can only be left to wonder. But at Alexei's funeral, the preacher quoted from the Old Testament, O Absalom, my son, my son.

27:55That's the story of Russian Emperor Peter the Great killing his son, albeit indirectly. But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear about the women in the story.

28:16What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where Culture Meets the Soul, a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated.

28:54Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

29:16What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated.

29:54Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

30:13You may be wondering a little bit about the women in the story. As for Afrasina, Alexei's beloved mistress, intended wife, and ultimate betrayer, her child disappeared from history. No one knows whether Alexei and Afrasina's child lived or died, or where the child was born. Afrasina got married herself and lived another 30 years in St. Petersburg. As for Eudoxia, Peter the Great's unloved first wife and Alexei's mother, who had been banished to a convent, her lover had been brutally tortured and her brother was killed over the Alexei affair. But she wound up with the last laugh. It was her grandson, Peter Alexievich, who wound up on the throne after Catherine, the second wife's, death.

31:07And when he got there, Eudoxia left the convent at last. Despite her husband having banished her, Eudoxia wound up dying at court.