biography
pronunciation:
[sohfeea aleksayev
| sex:
| female
|
| lived:
| (1657–1704)
|
| biography:
| Regent of Russia (1682–9), born in Moscow, Russia, the daughter of Tsar Alexey I Mihailovitch and his first wife, Maria Miloslavskaya. On the death of her brother, Tsar Fyodor Alexeyevich (1682), she opposed the accession of her half-brother, Peter (the future Peter the Great), and took advantage of a popular uprising in Moscow to press the candidature of her mentally deficient brother, Ivan. A compromise was reached whereby both Ivan (V) and Peter were proclaimed joint tsars, with Sophia as regent. Supported by leading boyars, she became the de facto ruler of Russia. A faction of the nobility succeeded in removing her from power in 1689, and (apart from a failed attempt to regain power in 1698) she spent the rest of her life in a convent in Moscow. |
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