Eudoxia Lopukhina

Who was Eudoxia Lopukhina?

Tsarina Evdokiya Feodorovna Lopukhina was the first wife of Peter I of Russia. They married in 1689 but divorced in 1698. She is the mother of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich and the paternal grandmother of Peter II of Russia.

Eudoxia was born to Feodor Abramovich Lopukhin and Ustinia Bogdanovna Rtishcheva. Like parents of all the 17th century Tsarinas, they did not belong to the highest aristocracy.

She was chosen as a bride for the Tsar by his mother Natalia Naryshkina primarily on account of Eudoxia's mother's relation to the famous boyar Fyodor Rtishchev. She was crowned Tsarina in 1689 and gave birth to Grand Duke Alexei Petrovich of Russia the following year. She would have two more sons by Peter, Alexander in 1692 and Paul in 1693, but both died during infancy. The Tsar could not stand her conservative relatives and soon abandoned her for a German beauty, Anna Mons. Eudoxia's letters to Peter were full of complaints and exhortations of unrequited love.

In 1696, during his prolonged journey to Western Europe, Peter asked his Naryshkin relatives to persuade Eudoxia to enter a monastery. This could not be effected until 1698, when she was finally banished to the Intercession Convent of Suzdal. The local hegumen, however, allowed her to live there much as a lay woman would. She even found herself a lover, an officer named Stepan Glebov, who later would be executed by quartering.