Feodor III orFyodor III Alekseyevich (Russian:Фёдор III Алексеевич;[a] 9 June 1661 – 7 May 1682)[1] wasTsar of all Russia from 1676 until his death in 1682. Despite poor health from childhood, he managed to pass reforms on improving meritocracy within the civil and military state administration as well as founding theSlavic Greek Latin Academy.
Born inMoscow, Fyodor, as the eldest surviving son ofTsar Alexis andMaria Miloslavskaya, succeeded his father on the throne in 1676 at the age of fifteen. He had a fine intellect and a noble disposition; he had received an excellent education at the hands ofSimeon Polotsky, the most learned Slavonic monk of the day. He knewPolish and even possessed the unusual accomplishment ofLatin.[citation needed] He had been disabled from birth, however, horribly disfigured and half paralysed by a mysterious disease, supposedlyscurvy.[2] He spent most of his time with young nobles,Ivan Maksimovich Yazykov [ru] andAleksei Timofeievich Likhachov [ru].
On 28 July 1680 he married a noblewoman,Agaphia Simeonovna Grushevskaya (1663–1681), daughter of Simeon Feodorovich Grushevsky and of his wife Maria Ivanovna Zaborovskaya, and assumed the sceptre. His native energy, though crippled, was not crushed by his disabilities. He soon showed himself as a thorough and devoted reformer. The atmosphere of the court ceased to be oppressive, the light of a newliberalism shone, and the severity of the penal laws was considerably mitigated.[citation needed] The Tsar foundedthe academy of sciences in theZaikonospassky monastery, where competent professors were to teach everything not expressly forbidden by the Orthodox church – the syllabus includedSlavonic,Greek,Latin andPolish.[2]
The Feodorean and the laterPetrine reforms differed in that while the former were primarily, though not exclusively, for the benefit of the church, the latter were primarily for the benefit of the state. A household census took place in 1678.[3] The most notable reform of Feodor III, made at the suggestion ofVasily Galitzine, involved the abolition in 1682 of the system ofmestnichestvo, or "place priority", which had paralyzed the whole civil and military administration ofTsardom of Russia for generations. Henceforth all appointments to the civil and military services were to be determined by merit and by the will of the sovereign,[4] while pedigree (nobility) books were to be destroyed.
Fyodor's first consort, Agaphia Simeonovna Grushevskaya, shared his progressive views. She was the first to advocate beard-shaving.[5] On 11 July 1681, the Tsaritsa gave birth to her son, Tsarevich Ilya Fyodorovich, the expected heir to the throne. Agaphia died as a consequence of the childbirth three days later, on 14 July, and seven days later, on 21 July, the Tsarevich also died.
A portrait of Feodor III's second wife, Marfa Apraxina
Seven months later, on 24 February 1682 Fyodor married a second timeMarfa Apraksina (1667–1716), daughter of Matvei Vasilievich Apraksin and wife Domna Bogdanovna Lovchikova. Feodor was so weak that he could not stand at the wedding. Feodor died three months after his second wedding, on 7 May, without surviving issue. The news of his death sparked theMoscow Uprising of 1682.
^Norris, Stephen M.; Sunderland, Willard (2012).Russia's People of Empire: Life Stories from Eurasia, 1500 to the Present. Indiana University Press. p. 60.ISBN978-0-253-00184-9.
^Moon, David (1999). "1: Population".The Russian Peasantry 1600–1930: The World the Peasants Made (revised ed.). London: Routledge (published 2014). p. 20.ISBN9781317895190. Retrieved2019-01-27.The main sources for the population of the Russian state in the two centuries or so before 1897 are the ten poll tax censuses or revisions (revizii) held between 1719-21 and 1857-58 and the household tax census of 1678.
