Family of Alexei, the Mild Tzar, father of Peter the Great

[Romanov_fan]

Maria M. was very traditional, a typical Tsar's wife of the time. She was happy to live the traditional Muscovite life and have  many royal children. She never knew anything else. Natalaya N. came from a more modern household. She was not completely free of the old ways, but more western ways entered her head, and she was familiar with them.

[Suzanne]

I am curious to know if anyone has additional information or pictures concerning Tsarevna Natalia Alexeyevna (1673-1716).

Massie desribed her as a cheerful girl who shared Peter's enthusiam for Westernization and was one of the four women he really cared about in his life. (The others being his mother, Anna Mons and Catherine I). Natalia Pureshkeva's work "Women in Imperial Russia" has a short biography of her. She joined her mother in founding the first court theatre in Russia, based on models from Western Europe. The first shows took place in apartment. Between 1707 and 1711, she had a special theatre built at Preobrazhenskoe Village near Moscow, where she and Peter grew up. She thought that the purpose of theatre was to inculcate a sense of service to state and common good, which Peter strongly agreed with. She was enthusiastic about the building of St. Petersburg and helped design the plans for the cultural life of the capital. She eventually moved to Vasiliev island where she continued writing plays for the theatre and editing translated texts. In 1716, not long before her death, she founded Petersburg's first charity home, which took in abandoned children and educated them.

[Svetabel]

In fact not so much info on Tsarevna Natalia Alekseyevna. I think the info from the Massie and the Poushkareva books is quite a full bio of Natalia ...The same situation is with her portraits, the only one I've ever seen.

[Alexandrina-Sofia]

Portrait of Tsarevna Natalia. Ivan Nikitin.



Portrait of Tsarevna Natalia. Ivan Nikitin, 1716.

[beladona]

How was her relation to her brother, Tsar Peter I.?
Could he named his youngest daughter Natalia (1718-25), in memory of his sister?

[Svetabel]

How was her relation to her brother, Tsar Peter I.?
Could he named his youngest daughter Natalia (1718-25), in memory of his sister?

She was his favourite sister who shared his thoughts and ideas. Though it's not an easy destiny to be a fave sister of such Emperor as Peter I.

[Romanov_fan]

I'm sure his daughter was named for his sister- of course, it started out with his mother being named Natalia, so she was likely named for his mother as well.Not sure if any of Peter's other half sisters had the name.

[Suzanne]

Thanks for posting those pictures! I believe that name Natalia entered the Romanov family with Peter the Great's mother - his surviving half-sisters were Evdokia, Marfa, the famous Regent Sophia, Ekaterina, Maria and Feodosia. Peter and Natalia also had a full sister, Feodora, who died young

[agordon2000]

The fate of Peters half sisters besides Sofia: I know his half sister Maria did not approve of his reforms and was convicted of not telling Peter when she knew Alexei had left. He confided in her on his way to Austria. She was also convicted of helping him send letters to his mother. Her real crime was being opposed to Peter. She was put in jail for two years and was the first prisoner at  Schlusselburg and then under house arrest. She was released in 1721 and died in 1723. Marfa was put in the Dormitorium convent for supporting her sister and forced to become a nun in 1788. Feodosia voluntarily became a nun at the Monastery of the Assumption for rich women.  Ekaterina stayed out of politics but was arrested in 1716 suspected of political intrigue and died in jail. Eudoxia his oldest half sister went to the Novodevichy Convent but not as a nun and lived there all her life. The others died in childhood.