Sophia paleologist biography briefly. Sophia Paleolog: biography of the Grand Duchess of Moscow Sophia's reign in Rus'

Sophia Paleolog was one of the most significant figures on the Russian throne in terms of her origin, personal qualities, as well as those talented people whom she attracted to the service of the Moscow rulers. This woman had the talent of a statesman, she knew how to set goals and achieve results.

Family and lineage

The Byzantine imperial dynasty of Palaiologos ruled for two centuries, from the expulsion of the crusaders in 1261 to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1463.

Sophia's uncle Constantine XI is known as the last emperor of Byzantium. He died during the capture of the city by the Turks. Of the hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, only 5,000 came out for defense, foreign sailors and mercenaries, led by the emperor himself, fought with the invaders. Seeing that the enemies were winning, Constantine exclaimed in despair: “The city has fallen, but I am still alive,” after which, having torn off the signs of imperial dignity, he rushed into battle and was killed.

Sophia's father, Thomas Palaiologos, was the ruler of the Despotate of Morea on the Peloponnese peninsula. By her mother, Catherine of Akhai, the girl came from a noble Genoese family of Centurione.

The exact date of Sophia's birth is unknown, but her older sister Elena was born in 1531, and her brothers in 1553 and 1555. Therefore, those researchers who claim that at the time of her marriage to Ivan III in 1572 she was, according to the concepts of that time, for quite a few years.

Life in Rome

In 1453, the Turks captured Constantinople, and in 1460 they invaded the Peloponnese. Thomas managed to escape with his family to the island of Corfu, and then to Rome. To guarantee the location of the Vatican, Thomas converted to Catholicism.

Thomas and his wife died almost simultaneously in 1465. Sophia and her brothers were under the patronage of Pope Paul II. The training of young Palaiologos was entrusted to the Greek philosopher Bessarion of Nicaea, the author of the project for the union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches. Byzantium took this step in 1439, counting on support in the war against the Turks, but the European rulers did not provide any assistance.

The eldest son of Thomas, Andrew, was the legitimate heir of the Palaiologoi. Subsequently, he managed to get two million ducats from Sixtus IV for a military expedition, but spent them on other purposes. After that, he wandered around European courtyards in the hope of finding allies.

Andrew's brother Manuel returned to Constantinople and ceded his rights to the throne to Sultan Bayezid II in exchange for maintenance.

Marriage with Grand Duke Ivan III Pope Paul II expected to marry Sophia Paleolog in order to expand his influence with her assistance. But although the pope gave her a dowry of 6,000 ducats, she had neither land nor military power. She had a famous name, which only scared away the Greek rulers who did not want to quarrel with the Ottoman Empire, and Sophia refused marriages with Catholics.

In 1467, the 27-year-old Moscow Grand Duke Ivan III was widowed, and two years later the Greek ambassador offered him a marriage proposal with a Byzantine princess. The Grand Duke was presented with a miniature portrait of Sophia, and he agreed to the marriage.

Petrarch wrote of Renaissance Rome: "It is enough to see Rome to lose faith." This city was a place of concentration of all the vices of mankind, and the pontiffs of the Catholic Church were at the head of moral decay. Sophia was educated in the spirit of Uniatism. All this was well known in Moscow. Despite the fact that the bride unequivocally demonstrated her commitment to Orthodoxy while on the road, Metropolitan Philip disapproved of this marriage and avoided the wedding of the royal couple. The rite was performed by Archpriest Hosea of ​​Kolomna. The wedding took place immediately on the day of the bride's arrival - November 12, 1472. Such haste was explained by the fact that it was a holiday: the day of memory of John Chrysostom - the patron saint of the Grand Duke.

Despite the fears of the adherents of Orthodoxy, Sophia never tried to create a basis for religious conflicts. According to legend, she brought with her several Orthodox shrines, including the Byzantine miraculous icon of the Mother of God “Blessed Sky”.

The role of Sophia in the development of Russian art

Arriving in Rus', Sophia learned about the problem of the lack of experienced architects here enough to build large buildings. They invited masters from Pskov, but Pskov stands on a limestone foundation, and Moscow - on fragile clay, sand and peat bogs. In 1674, the almost completed Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin collapsed. Sophia Paleolog knew which of the Italian specialists was capable of solving this problem. One of the first invited was Aristotle Fioravanti, a talented engineer and architect from Bologna. In addition to many buildings in Italy, he also designed bridges across the Danube at the court of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus.

Maybe Fioravanti would not have agreed to come, but shortly before that he was falsely accused of selling counterfeit money, moreover, under Sixtus IV, the Inquisition began to gain momentum, and the architect considered it good to leave for Rus', taking his son with him.

For the construction of the Assumption Cathedral, Fioravanti set up a brick factory and identified as suitable deposits of white stone in Myachkovo, from where building material was taken a hundred years before for the first stone Kremlin. Outwardly, the temple looks like the ancient Assumption Cathedral of Vladimir, but inside it was not divided into small rooms, but represents one large hall.

In 1478, Fioravanti, as chief of artillery, participated in Ivan III's campaign against Novgorod, and built a pontoon bridge across the Volkhov River. Later, Fioravanti participated in campaigns against Kazan and Tver.

Italian architects rebuilt the Kremlin, giving it a modern look, erected dozens of churches and monasteries. They took into account Russian traditions, harmoniously combining them with their new products. In 1505-1508, under the leadership of the Italian architect Aleviz the New, the Kremlin Cathedral of Michael the Archangel was rebuilt. The architect designed the mosquitoes not as before, smooth, but in the form of shells. Everyone liked this idea so much that it was subsequently used everywhere.

Sophia's involvement in the conflict with the Horde

V. N. Tatishchev gives evidence that, under the influence of his wife, Ivan III refused to pay tribute to the Golden Horde Khan Akhmat. That Sophia wept bitterly over the dependent position of the Russian state and Ivan, moved, went into conflict with the Horde Khan. If this is true, then Sophia acted under the influence of European politicians. The events unfolded as follows: in 1472, the Tatar raid was repulsed, but in 1480 Akhmat went to Moscow, concluding an alliance with the king of Lithuania and Poland, Casimir. Ivan III was not at all sure of the outcome of the conflict and sent his wife with the treasury to Beloozero, in one of the chronicles it is even noted that the Grand Duke panicked: ambassador to Beloozero.

The Venetian Republic was actively looking for an ally who would help stop the advance of the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II. The mediator in the negotiations was the adventurer and merchant Giovanni Battista della Volpa, who had estates in Moscow, was known here as Ivan Fryazin, and it was he who was the ambassador, the appointed groom and the head of the wedding procession of Sophia Paleolog. According to Russian sources, Sophia kindly received members of the Venetian embassy. From all of the above, it follows that the Venetians were playing a double game and made an attempt, through the Grand Duchess, to screw Rus' into a difficult conflict with a bad prospect.

However, Moscow diplomacy also did not waste time: the Crimean Khanate of Girey was involved in an alliance with the Russians. Akhmat's campaign ended with "Standing on the Ugra", as a result of which the khan retreated without a general battle. Akhmat did not receive the promised help from Casimir due to the attack on his lands by Ivan III's allied Mengli Giray, and the Uzbek ruler Mohammed Sheibani attacked his own rear.

Difficulties in family relationships

The first two children of Sophia and Ivan were girls, they died in infancy. There is a legend that the young princess had visions of St. Sergius of Radonezh, the patron saint of the Moscow state, and after this sign from above, she gave birth to a son - the future Vasily III. In total, 12 children were born in the marriage, of which 4 died in infancy.

From his first marriage with a Tver princess, Ivan III had a son, Ivan Mladoy, heir to the throne, but in 1490 he fell ill with gout. From Venice, the doctor Mister Leon was discharged, who vouched for his recovery with his head. The treatment was carried out by such methods that completely ruined the prince's health, and at the age of 32, Ivan Mladoy died in terrible agony. The doctor was publicly executed, and two warring parties formed at the court: one supported the young Grand Duchess and her son, the other supported Dmitry, the infant son of Ivan the Younger.

For several years, Ivan III hesitated over who to give preference to. In 1498, the Grand Duke crowned Dmitry's grandson, a year later he changed his mind and crowned Vasily, Sophia's son. In 1502, he ordered Dmitry and his mother to be imprisoned, and just a year later Sophia Paleolog died. For Ivan, this was a heavy blow. In mourning, the Grand Duke made a number of pilgrimages to monasteries, where he diligently indulged in prayers. He died three years later at the age of 65.

What was the appearance of Sophia Paleolog

In 1994, the remains of the princess were removed and studied. Criminalist Sergei Nikitin restored her appearance. She was short - 160 cm, full build. This is confirmed by the Italian chronicle, which sarcastically called Sophia fat. In Rus', there were other canons of beauty, which the princess fully corresponded to: fullness, beautiful, expressive eyes and beautiful skin. Age was determined at 50-60 years.

This woman was credited with many important state deeds. Why is Sophia Paleolog so distinguished? Interesting facts about her, as well as biographical information are collected in this article.

Cardinal's Proposal

In February 1469, the ambassador of Cardinal Vissarion arrived in Moscow. He handed over a letter to the Grand Duke with a proposal to marry Sophia, the daughter of Theodore I, Despot of Morea. By the way, this letter also said that Sophia Paleolog (real name - Zoya, they decided to replace it with an Orthodox one for diplomatic reasons) had already refused two crowned suitors who were wooing her. They were the Duke of Milan and the French king. The fact is that Sophia did not want to marry a Catholic.

Sophia Palaiologos (of course, her photo cannot be found, but the portraits are presented in the article), according to the ideas of that distant time, she was no longer young. However, she was still quite attractive. She had expressive, amazingly beautiful eyes, as well as matte delicate skin, which was considered in Rus' a sign of excellent health. In addition, the bride was distinguished by her article and a sharp mind.

Who is Sofia Fominichna Paleolog?

Sofya Fominichna - niece of Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Since 1472, she was the wife of Ivan III Vasilyevich. Her father was Thomas Palaiologos, who fled to Rome with his family after the Turks captured Constantinople. Sophia Paleolog lived after the death of her father in the care of the great pope. For a number of reasons, he wished to marry her to Ivan III, who was widowed in 1467. He answered yes.

Sofia Paleolog gave birth to a son in 1479, who later became Vasily III Ivanovich. In addition, she achieved the announcement of Vasily the Grand Duke, whose place was to be taken by Dmitry, the grandson of Ivan III, who was crowned king. Ivan III used his marriage to Sophia to strengthen Rus' in the international arena.

Icon "Blessed Sky" and the image of Michael III

Sophia Paleolog, Grand Duchess of Moscow, brought several Orthodox icons. It is believed that among them was a rare image of the Mother of God. She was in the Kremlin Archangel Cathedral. However, according to another legend, the relic was transported from Constantinople to Smolensk, and when the latter was captured by Lithuania, Sofya Vitovtovna, the princess, was blessed with this icon for marriage when she married Vasily I, the Moscow prince. The image, which is today in the cathedral, is a list from an ancient icon, made at the end of the 17th century by order (pictured below). Muscovites, according to tradition, brought lamp oil and water to this icon. It was believed that they were filled with healing properties, because the image had healing power. This icon today is one of the most revered in our country.

In the Archangel Cathedral, after the wedding of Ivan III, an image of Michael III, the Byzantine emperor, who was the ancestor of the Palaiologos dynasty, also appeared. Thus, it was argued that Moscow is the successor of the Byzantine Empire, and the sovereigns of Rus' are the heirs of the Byzantine emperors.

The birth of the long-awaited heir

After Sophia Paleolog, the second wife of Ivan III, married him in the Assumption Cathedral and became his wife, she began to think about how to gain influence and become a real queen. Paleolog understood that for this it was necessary to present the prince with a gift that only she could do: to give birth to a son who would become the heir to the throne. To the chagrin of Sophia, the firstborn was a daughter who died almost immediately after birth. A year later, a girl was born again, who also died suddenly. Sophia Palaiologos cried, prayed to God to give her an heir, handed out handfuls of alms to the poor, donated to churches. After some time, the Mother of God heard her prayers - Sophia Paleolog became pregnant again.

Her biography was finally marked by a long-awaited event. It took place on March 25, 1479 at 8 pm, as stated in one of the Moscow chronicles. A son was born. He was named Vasily Pariysky. The boy was baptized by Vasiyan, Archbishop of Rostov, in the Sergius Monastery.

What did Sophia bring with her?

Sophia managed to inspire what was dear to her, and what was appreciated and understood in Moscow. She brought with her the customs and traditions of the Byzantine court, pride in her own lineage, and annoyance at having to marry a Mongol-Tatar tributary. It is unlikely that Sophia liked the simplicity of the situation in Moscow, as well as the unceremonious relations that prevailed at the court at that time. Ivan III himself was forced to listen to reproachful speeches from obstinate boyars. However, in the capital, even without it, many had a desire to change the old order, which did not correspond to the position of the Moscow sovereign. And the wife of Ivan III with the Greeks brought by her, who saw both Roman and Byzantine life, could give the Russians valuable instructions on what models and how to implement the changes desired by everyone.

Sophia's influence

The prince's wife cannot be denied influence on the behind-the-scenes life of the court and its decorative setting. She skillfully built personal relationships, she was excellent at court intrigues. However, Paleolog could only respond to political ones with suggestions that echoed the vague and secret thoughts of Ivan III. Especially clear was the idea that by her marriage the princess was making the rulers of Moscow the successors of the emperors of Byzantium, with the interests of the Orthodox East holding on to the latter. Therefore, Sophia Paleolog in the capital of the Russian state was valued mainly as a Byzantine princess, and not as a Grand Duchess of Moscow. She herself understood this. How she used the right to receive foreign embassies in Moscow. Therefore, her marriage to Ivan was a kind of political demonstration. It was announced to the whole world that the heiress of the Byzantine house, which had fallen shortly before, transferred its sovereign rights to Moscow, which became the new Constantinople. Here she shares these rights with her husband.

Reconstruction of the Kremlin, the overthrow of the Tatar yoke

Ivan, sensing his new position in the international arena, found the old Kremlin environment ugly and cramped. From Italy, following the princess, the masters were discharged. They built the Assumption Cathedral (St. Basil's Cathedral) on the site of the wooden choirs, as well as a new stone palace. In the Kremlin at that time, a strict and complex ceremonial began to start up at the court, imparting arrogance and stiffness to Moscow life. Just as in his own palace, Ivan III began to act in external relations with a more solemn step. Especially when the Tatar yoke without a fight, as if by itself, fell off the shoulders. And it weighed almost two centuries over the entire north-eastern Russia (from 1238 to 1480). A new language, more solemn, appears at this time in government papers, especially diplomatic ones. There is a lot of terminology.

The role of Sophia in overthrowing the Tatar yoke

Paleolog in Moscow was not loved for the influence it exerted on the Grand Duke, as well as for the changes in the life of Moscow - "great disorders" (in the words of the boyar Bersen-Beklemishev). Sophia interfered not only in internal, but also in foreign affairs. She demanded that Ivan III refuse to pay tribute to the Horde Khan and finally free himself from his power. Skillful advice Paleolog, as evidenced by V.O. Klyuchevsky, always met the intentions of her husband. Therefore, he refused to pay tribute. Ivan III trampled on the khan's charter in Zamoskovreche, in the Horde courtyard. Later, the Transfiguration Church was built on this site. However, even then the people "spoke" of Paleologus. Before Ivan III went to the great in 1480, he sent his wife and children to Beloozero. For this, the subjects attributed to the sovereign the intention to quit power in the event that he takes Moscow and flees with his wife.

"Duma" and a change in the treatment of subordinates

Ivan III, freed from the yoke, finally felt like a sovereign sovereign. Palace etiquette through the efforts of Sophia began to resemble Byzantine. The prince gave his wife a "gift": Ivan III allowed Paleolog to gather his own "thought" from the members of the retinue and arrange "diplomatic receptions" in his half. The princess received foreign ambassadors and conversed politely with them. This was an unprecedented innovation for Rus'. The treatment at the court of the sovereign also changed.

Sophia Palaiologos brought sovereign rights to her husband, as well as the right to the Byzantine throne, as noted by F.I. Uspensky, a historian who studied this period. The boyars had to reckon with this. Ivan III used to love disputes and objections, but under Sophia, he radically changed the treatment of his courtiers. Ivan began to hold himself impregnable, easily fell into anger, often imposed disgrace, demanded special respect for himself. Rumor also attributed all these misfortunes to the influence of Sophia Paleolog.

Fight for the throne

She was also accused of violating the throne. Enemies in 1497 told the prince that Sophia Paleologus planned to poison his grandson in order to put her own son on the throne, that fortune-tellers preparing a poisonous potion were secretly visiting her, that Vasily himself was participating in this conspiracy. Ivan III took the side of his grandson in this matter. He ordered the soothsayers to be drowned in the Moscow River, arrested Vasily, and removed his wife from him, defiantly executing several members of the Paleolog "thought". In 1498, Ivan III married Dmitry in the Assumption Cathedral as heir to the throne.

However, Sophia had in her blood the ability to court intrigues. She accused Elena Voloshanka of heresy and was able to bring about her downfall. The Grand Duke placed his grandson and daughter-in-law in disgrace and named Vasily in 1500 as the legitimate heir to the throne.

Sophia Paleolog: role in history

The marriage of Sophia Paleolog and Ivan III, of course, strengthened the Muscovite state. He contributed to its transformation into the Third Rome. Sofia Paleolog lived for over 30 years in Russia, having given birth to 12 children to her husband. However, she never managed to fully understand a foreign country, its laws and traditions. Even in official chronicles there are records condemning her behavior in some situations that are difficult for the country.

Sofia attracted architects and other cultural figures, as well as doctors, to the Russian capital. The creations of Italian architects have made Moscow not inferior in majesty and beauty to the capitals of Europe. This helped to strengthen the prestige of the Moscow sovereign, emphasized the continuity of the Russian capital to the Second Rome.

Sophia's death

Sophia died in Moscow on August 7, 1503. She was buried in the Ascension Convent of the Moscow Kremlin. In December 1994, in connection with the transfer of the remains of the royal and princely wives to the Archangel Cathedral, S. A. Nikitin restored her sculptural portrait based on the preserved skull of Sophia (pictured above). Now we can at least roughly imagine what Sophia Paleolog looked like. Interesting facts and biographical information about her are numerous. We tried to select the most important when compiling this article.

Sophia Paleolog, aka Zoya Paleolog (Ζωή Παλαιολόγου) was born around 1443-1448. Her father, Thomas Palaiologos, Despot of the Morea (the medieval name for the Peloponnese), was the younger brother of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, who died in 1453 during the fall of Constantinople.

After the capture of the Morea by Mehmed II in 1460, Zoya, along with her two brothers, endured all the hardships of exile and flight - first to the island of Kerkyra (Corfu), and then to Rome, where she received the name Sophia.

After the death of her father, Sophia lived in the care of the Pope, who chose her as an instrument of his plans: in order to restore the Florentine union of churches and join the Muscovite state to the union, he decided to marry the Byzantine princess to the Russian prince Ivan III, who was widowed in 1467.

The Pope began negotiations with him through Bessarion of Nicaea, an outstanding Greek church leader and educator, a supporter of the union of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, who in February 1469 sent an envoy to Moscow with an offer to the Grand Duke of the hand of Sophia Palaiologos. Ivan III liked the proposal to intermarry with the Palaiologos dynasty, and the very next month he sent his ambassador to Rome, the Italian Ivan Fryazin (Gian Batista della Volpe).

According to the wife of Lorenzo Medici, Clarissa Orsini, the young Sophia Paleolog was very pleasant: “Short in stature, the eastern flame sparkled in her eyes, the whiteness of her skin spoke of the nobility of her family.”

Already in June 1472, Sophia Palaiologos left Rome for Russia, and on October 1, a messenger rode to Pskov with an order to prepare for the meeting of the future empress.

Sophia, not stopping anywhere, accompanied by the Roman legate Anthony, hurried to Moscow, where she arrived on November 12, 1472. On the same day, her wedding with Ivan III took place, while the marriage of the Russian prince with the Greek princess had completely different consequences than the Pope expected. Sophia, instead of persuading Rus' to accept the union, accepted Orthodoxy; the ambassadors of the Pope were forced to leave with nothing.

Moreover, the Grand Russian Duchess brought with her all the covenants and traditions of the Byzantine Empire, famous for its Orthodox faith and wise state structure: the so-called "symphony" (consent) of state and church authorities, transferring the rights of the Byzantine emperors to her Orthodox spouse - the Grand Duke of Moscow and her future (from him) Orthodox descendants.

This marriage had a great influence on strengthening the international prestige of Rus' and the grand ducal power within the country. According to Bestuzhev-Ryumin, the heritage of Byzantium played a huge role, first of all, in the “gathering of Rus'” by Moscow, as well as in the development of the Russian national ideology of the Third Rome.

A visible sign of the continuity of Muscovite Rus' from Byzantium was the adoption of the dynastic sign of the Paleologs - the double-headed eagle - as the state emblem, on the chest of which, over time, an image of the ancient coat of arms of Moscow appeared - a horseman striking a serpent, while the horseman depicts as St. George the Victorious, and the Sovereign, striking with his spear all the enemies of the Fatherland and any anti-state evil.

The Grand Ducal couple, Sophia Paleolog and Ivan III, had a total of 12 children.

Following the two daughters who died immediately after birth, the Grand Duchess gave birth to a son, Vasily Ivanovich, having achieved the announcement of him as the Grand Duke instead of the grandson of Ivan III, crowned king, Dmitry.

Vasily III, for the first time in the history of Rus', was named tsar in an agreement dated 1514 with the Roman Emperor Maximilian I, inherited from his mother the Greek appearance, captured on one of the icons of the 16th century, which is currently on display at the State Historical Museum.

The Greek blood of Sophia Paleologus also affected Ivan IV the Terrible, who was very similar in his Mediterranean type of face to the royal grandmother (in direct contrast to his mother, Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya).

Sophia Palaiologos helped her husband, following the traditions of the empire, surround himself with splendor and start etiquette at court. In addition, doctors, artists and architects were called from Western Europe to decorate the palace and the capital.

So, in particular, was invited from Milan and Alberti (Aristotle) ​​Fioravanti, who was to build the Kremlin chambers. The Italian architect was considered one of the best specialists in Europe in underground hiding places and labyrinths: before laying the walls of the Kremlin, he built real catacombs under it, where in one of the underground chests of books that followed the Byzantine princess to Muscovy. According to contemporaries, these chests contained not only handwritten treasures from antiquity, but also the best of what was saved during the fire of the famous Library of Alexandria.

Aristotle Fioravanti built the Assumption and Annunciation Cathedrals. Moscow was decorated with the Palace of Facets, the Kremlin towers, as well as the Terem Palace and the Archangel Cathedral, built on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin. The grand ducal capital was preparing to become royal.

But most importantly, Sofia Fominichna persistently and consistently supported her husband's liberation policy against the Golden Horde.

Did you know that when the sculptural portrait of Princess Maria Staritskaya, the daughter of the disgraced Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, who was Ivan the Terrible's cousin, was made, the researchers were surprised by her resemblance to Sophia Paleolog, who was the girl's great-grandmother.

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Byzantine princess

Sofia Paleolog. Reconstruction by S.A. Nikitin. 1994. On May 29, 1453, the legendary Constantinople, besieged by the Turkish army, fell. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, died in battle defending Constantinople.

His younger brother Thomas Palaiologos, ruler of the small appanage state of Morea on the Peloponnese, fled with his family to Corfu and then to Rome. After all, Byzantium, hoping to receive military assistance from Europe in the fight against the Turks, signed the Union of Florence in 1439 on the unification of the Churches, and now its rulers could seek refuge from the papal throne. Thomas Palaiologos was able to take out the greatest shrines of the Christian world, including the head of the holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called. In gratitude for this, he received a house in Rome and a good boarding house from the papacy.

In 1465, Thomas died, leaving three children - the sons of Andrei and Manuel and the youngest daughter Zoya. The exact date of her birth is unknown. It is believed that she was born in 1443 or 1449 in her father's possessions in the Peloponnese, where she received her primary education. The education of the royal orphans was taken over by the Vatican, entrusting them to Cardinal Bessarion of Nicaea. A Greek by birth, a former archbishop of Nicaea, he was an ardent supporter of the signing of the Union of Florence, after which he became a cardinal in Rome. He brought up Zoya Palaiologos in European Catholic traditions and especially taught that she should humbly follow the principles of Catholicism in everything, calling her "the beloved daughter of the Roman Church." Only in this case, he inspired the pupil, fate will give you everything. However, it turned out quite the opposite.

In those years, the Vatican was looking for allies to organize a new crusade against the Turks, intending to involve all European sovereigns in it. Then, on the advice of Cardinal Vissarion, the pope decided to marry Zoya to the recently widowed Moscow sovereign Ivan III, knowing about his desire to become the heir to the Byzantine basileus. This marriage served two political purposes. First, they expected that the Grand Duke of Muscovy would now accept the Union of Florence and submit to Rome. And secondly, it will become a powerful ally and recapture the former possessions of Byzantium, taking some of them as dowry. So, by the irony of history, this fateful marriage for Russia was inspired by the Vatican. It remained to obtain the consent of Moscow.

In February 1469, the ambassador of Cardinal Vissarion arrived in Moscow with a letter to the Grand Duke, in which he was invited to marry legally with the daughter of the Despot of Morea. In the letter, among other things, it was mentioned that Sophia (the name Zoya was diplomatically replaced with the Orthodox Sophia) had already refused two crowned suitors who were wooing her - the French king and the Duke of Mediolan, not wanting to marry the Catholic ruler.

According to the ideas of that time, Sophia was already considered an elderly woman, but she was very attractive, with amazingly beautiful, expressive eyes and delicate matte skin, which in Rus' was considered a sign of excellent health. And most importantly, she was distinguished by a sharp mind and an article worthy of a Byzantine princess.

The Moscow sovereign accepted the offer. He sent his ambassador, the Italian Gian Battista della Volpe (he was nicknamed Ivan Fryazin in Moscow) to Rome to woo. The messenger returned a few months later, in November, bringing with him a portrait of the bride. This portrait, which seems to have begun the era of Sophia Paleolog in Moscow, is considered the first secular image in Rus'. At least, they were so amazed by him that the chronicler called the portrait an “icon”, not finding another word: “And bring the princess on the icon.”

However, the matchmaking dragged on, because Metropolitan Philip of Moscow objected for a long time to the marriage of the sovereign with a Uniate woman, moreover, a pupil of the papal throne, fearing the spread of Catholic influence in Rus'. Only in January 1472, having received the consent of the hierarch, Ivan III sent an embassy to Rome for the bride. Already on June 1, at the insistence of Cardinal Vissarion, a symbolic betrothal took place in Rome - the engagement of Princess Sophia and the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan, who was represented by the Russian ambassador Ivan Fryazin. In the same June, Sophia set off with an honorary retinue and the papal legate Anthony, who soon had to see firsthand the vain hopes placed by Rome on this marriage. According to Catholic tradition, a Latin cross was carried in front of the procession, which led to great confusion and excitement among the inhabitants of Russia. Upon learning of this, Metropolitan Philip threatened the Grand Duke: “If you allow in blessed Moscow to carry the cross in front of the Latin bishop, then he will enter the single gate, and I, your father, will go out of the city differently.” Ivan III immediately sent a boyar to meet the procession with an order to remove the cross from the sleigh, and the legate had to obey with great displeasure. The princess herself behaved as befits the future ruler of Rus'. Having entered the Pskov land, she first of all visited an Orthodox church, where she kissed the icons. The legate had to obey here too: to follow her to the church, and there to bow to the holy icons and venerate the image of the Mother of God by order of the despina (from the Greek despot - “ruler”). And then Sophia promised the admiring Pskovites her protection before the Grand Duke.

Ivan III did not intend to fight for the "inheritance" with the Turks, much less to accept the Union of Florence. And Sophia was not at all going to Catholicize Rus'. On the contrary, she showed herself to be an active Orthodox. Some historians believe that she did not care what faith she professed. Others suggest that Sophia, apparently raised in her childhood by the elders of Athos, opponents of the Union of Florence, was deeply Orthodox at heart. She skillfully hid her faith from the powerful Roman "patrons" who did not help her homeland, betraying her to the Gentiles for ruin and death. One way or another, this marriage only strengthened Muscovy, contributing to its conversion into the great Third Rome.

Kremlin Despina

Church procession. Shroud fragment. 1498. In the first row with a tablion on the chest - Sophia Palaiologos. Early in the morning of November 12, 1472, Sophia Paleolog arrived in Moscow, where everything was ready for the wedding celebration, timed to coincide with the name day of the Grand Duke - the day of memory of St. John Chrysostom. On the same day in the Kremlin, in a temporary wooden church, set up near the Assumption Cathedral under construction, so as not to stop worship, the sovereign married her. The Byzantine princess saw her husband for the first time then. The Grand Duke was young - only 32 years old, handsome, tall and stately. Especially remarkable were his eyes, "terrible eyes": when he was angry, women fainted from his terrible look. And before, Ivan Vasilyevich had a tough character, but now, having become related to the Byzantine monarchs, he turned into a formidable and powerful sovereign. This was a considerable merit of his young wife.

The wedding in a wooden church made a strong impression on Sophia Paleolog. The Byzantine princess, brought up in Europe, was different from Russian women in many ways. Sophia brought with her her ideas about the court and the power of power, and many Moscow orders were not to her liking. She did not like that her sovereign husband remained a tributary of the Tatar Khan, that the boyar entourage behaved too freely with their sovereign. That the Russian capital, built entirely of wood, stands with patched fortifications and dilapidated stone churches. That even the sovereign's mansions in the Kremlin are wooden, and that Russian women look at the world from the little window of the lighthouse. Sophia Paleolog not only made changes at court. Some Moscow monuments owe their appearance to her.

She brought a generous dowry to Rus'. After the wedding, Ivan III adopted the Byzantine double-headed eagle as a coat of arms - a symbol of royal power, placing it on his seal. The two heads of the eagle face West and East, Europe and Asia, symbolizing their unity, as well as the unity (“symphony”) of spiritual and secular power. Actually, Sophia's dowry was the legendary "liberia" - a library allegedly brought on 70 carts (better known as the "library of Ivan the Terrible"). It included Greek parchments, Latin chronographs, ancient Eastern manuscripts, among which were the poems of Homer unknown to us, the works of Aristotle and Plato, and even the surviving books from the famous library of Alexandria. Seeing wooden Moscow, burned after a fire in 1470, Sophia was frightened for the fate of the treasure and for the first time hid the books in the basement of the stone church of the Nativity of the Virgin on Senya, the home church of the Moscow Grand Duchesses, built by order of St. Evdokia, the widow of Dmitry Donskoy. And, according to Moscow custom, she put her own treasury to be stored in the underground of the Kremlin Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist - the very first church in Moscow, which stood until 1847.

According to legend, she brought with her a “bone throne” as a gift to her husband: its wooden frame was all covered with ivory and walrus ivory plates with biblical themes carved on them. This throne is known to us as the throne of Ivan the Terrible: the tsar is depicted on it by the sculptor M. Antokolsky. In 1896, the throne was installed in the Assumption Cathedral for the coronation of Nicholas II. But the sovereign ordered to place it for Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (according to other sources - for his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna), and he himself wished to be crowned on the throne of the first Romanov. And now the throne of Ivan the Terrible is the oldest in the Kremlin collection.

Sophia brought with her several Orthodox icons, including, as they say, a rare icon of the Mother of God "Blessed Heaven". The icon was in the local rank of the iconostasis of the Kremlin Archangel Cathedral. True, according to another legend, this icon was brought to ancient Smolensk from Constantinople, and when Lithuania captured the city, this way they blessed the Lithuanian princess Sofya Vitovtovna for marriage with the great Moscow prince Vasily I. The icon, which is now in the cathedral, is a list from that ancient image, executed by order of Fyodor Alekseevich at the end of the 17th century. According to tradition, Muscovites brought water and lamp oil to the image of the Mother of God "Blessed Sky", which were filled with healing properties, since this icon had a special, miraculous healing power. And even after the wedding of Ivan III, an image of the Byzantine emperor Michael III, the ancestor of the Palaiologos dynasty, with which the Moscow rulers intermarried, appeared in the Archangel Cathedral. Thus, the continuity of Moscow to the Byzantine Empire was affirmed, and the Moscow sovereigns appeared as the heirs of the Byzantine emperors.

After the wedding, Ivan III himself felt the need to rebuild the Kremlin into a powerful and impregnable citadel. It all started with the catastrophe of 1474, when the Assumption Cathedral, built by Pskov craftsmen, collapsed. Rumors immediately spread among the people that the trouble had befallen because of the “Greek”, who had previously been in “Latinism”. While they found out the reasons for the collapse, Sophia advised her husband to invite Italian architects, who were then the best masters in Europe. Their creations could make Moscow equal in beauty and majesty to European capitals and maintain the prestige of the Moscow sovereign, as well as emphasize the continuity of Moscow not only to the Second, but also to the First Rome. Scientists have noticed that the Italians went to the unknown Muscovy without fear, because despina could give them protection and help. Sometimes there is a statement that it was Sophia who suggested to her husband the idea of ​​​​inviting Aristotle Fioravanti, whom she could hear about in Italy or even know him personally, because he was famous in his homeland as the “new Archimedes”. Like it or not, only the Russian ambassador Semyon Tolbuzin, sent by Ivan III to Italy, invited Fioravanti to Moscow, and he happily agreed.

In Moscow, a special, secret order awaited him. Fioravanti drew up a master plan for the new Kremlin being built by his compatriots. There is an assumption that an impregnable fortress was built to protect Liberia. In the Assumption Cathedral, the architect made a deep underground crypt, where they put a priceless library. It was this cache that Grand Duke Vasily III accidentally discovered many years after the death of his parents. At his invitation, in 1518, Maxim the Greek came to Moscow to translate these books, who allegedly managed to tell Ivan the Terrible, the son of Vasily III, about them before his death. Where this library ended up during the time of Ivan the Terrible is still unknown. They searched for her in the Kremlin, and in Kolomenskoye, and in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, and at the site of the Oprichny Palace on Mokhovaya. And now there is an assumption that Liberia rests under the bottom of the Moscow River, in the dungeons dug from the chambers of Malyuta Skuratov.

The construction of some Kremlin churches is also associated with the name of Sophia Paleolog. The first of these was the Cathedral in the name of St. Nicholas Gostunsky, built near the bell tower of Ivan the Great. Previously, there was a Horde courtyard where the khan's governors lived, and such a neighborhood depressed the Kremlin despina. According to legend, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker himself appeared in a dream to Sophia and ordered to build an Orthodox church on that place. Sophia proved herself to be a subtle diplomat: she sent an embassy with rich gifts to the wife of the khan and, having told about the miraculous vision shown to her, asked to give her land in exchange for another - outside the Kremlin. Consent was obtained, and in 1477 the wooden Nikolsky Cathedral appeared, later replaced by a stone one and stood until 1817. (Recall that the first printer Ivan Fedorov was the deacon of this church). However, the historian Ivan Zabelin believed that, on the orders of Sophia Paleolog, another church was built in the Kremlin, consecrated in the name of Saints Cosmas and Damian, which did not survive to this day.

Traditions call Sophia Paleolog the founder of the Spassky Cathedral, which, however, was rebuilt during the construction of the Terem Palace in the 17th century and began to be called Verkhospassky at the same time - because of its location. Another legend says that Sophia Palaiologos brought to Moscow a temple image of the Savior Not Made by Hands of this cathedral. In the 19th century, the artist Sorokin painted from him the image of the Lord for the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. This image miraculously survived to this day and is now located in the lower (stylobate) Church of the Transfiguration as its main shrine. It is known that Sophia Paleolog indeed brought the image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, with which her father blessed her. In the Kremlin Cathedral of the Savior on Bor, a salary from this image was kept, and on the lectern lay the icon of the All-Merciful Savior, also brought by Sophia.

Another story is connected with the Church of the Savior on Bor, which was then the cathedral church of the Kremlin Spassky Monastery, and Despina, thanks to which the Novospassky Monastery appeared in Moscow. After the wedding, the Grand Duke still lived in wooden mansions, now and then burning in the frequent Moscow fires. Once Sophia herself had to escape from the fire, and she finally asked her husband to build a stone palace. The sovereign decided to please his wife and fulfilled her request. So the Cathedral of the Savior on Bor, together with the monastery, was constrained by new palace buildings. And in 1490 Ivan III moved the monastery to the banks of the Moskva River, five miles from the Kremlin. Since then, the monastery has become known as Novospassky, and the Cathedral of the Savior on Bor has remained an ordinary parish church. Due to the construction of the palace, the Kremlin Church of the Nativity of the Virgin on Senya, which also suffered from a fire, was not restored for a long time. Only when the palace was finally ready (and this happened only under Vasily III), did it have a second floor, and in 1514 the architect Aleviz Fryazin raised the Nativity Church to a new level, which is why it is still visible from Mokhovaya Street.

In the 19th century, during excavations in the Kremlin, a bowl with antique coins minted under the Roman emperor Tiberius was discovered. According to scientists, these coins were brought by someone from the numerous retinue of Sophia Palaiologos, in which there were natives of both Rome and Constantinople. Many of them took government posts, became treasurers, ambassadors, translators. A. Chicheri, the ancestor of Pushkin's grandmother, Olga Vasilievna Chicherina, and the famous Soviet diplomat, arrived in Rus' in the retinue of Despina. Later, Sophia invited doctors from Italy for the family of the Grand Duke. The occupation of medicine was then very dangerous for foreigners, especially when it came to treating the first person of the state. A complete recovery of the highest patient was required, but in the event of the death of the patient, the life of the doctor himself was taken away.

So, the doctor Leon, discharged by Sophia from Venice, vouched with his head that he would cure the heir who suffered from gout - Prince Ivan Ivanovich the Younger, the eldest son of Ivan III from his first wife. However, the heir died, and the doctor was executed in Zamoskvorechye on Bolvanovka. The people blamed Sophia for the death of the young prince: the death of the heir could be especially beneficial for her, for she dreamed of the throne for her son Vasily, who was born in 1479.

Sophia was not loved in Moscow for her influence on the Grand Duke and for the changes in Moscow life - “great discords,” as the boyar Bersen-Beklemishev put it. She also interfered in foreign policy affairs, insisting that Ivan III stop paying tribute to the Horde Khan and free himself from his power. And as if once she said to her husband: “I refused my hand to rich, strong princes and kings, for faith I married you, and now you want to make me and my children tributaries; do you not have enough troops? As noted by V.O. Klyuchevsky, Sophia's skilful advice always met her husband's secret intentions. Ivan III really refused to pay tribute and trampled on the Khan's charter right in the Horde courtyard in Zamoskvorechye, where the Transfiguration Church was later erected. But even then the people "spoke" of Sophia. Before leaving for the great stand on the Ugra in 1480, Ivan III sent his wife with small children to Beloozero, for which he was credited with secret intentions to quit power and flee with his wife if Khan Akhmat took Moscow.

Having freed himself from the yoke of the Khan, Ivan III felt himself a sovereign sovereign. Through the efforts of Sophia, palace etiquette began to resemble Byzantine. The Grand Duke gave his wife a "gift": he allowed her to have her own "thought" of the members of the retinue and arrange "diplomatic receptions" in her half. She received foreign ambassadors and struck up a courteous conversation with them. For Rus', this was an unheard-of innovation. The treatment at the sovereign's court also changed. The Byzantine princess brought sovereign rights to her husband and, according to the historian F.I. Uspensky, the right to the throne of Byzantium, which the boyars had to reckon with. Previously, Ivan III loved “a meeting against himself”, that is, objections and disputes, but under Sophia he changed his treatment of the courtiers, began to keep himself inaccessible, demanded special respect and easily fell into anger, now and then disgracing himself. These misfortunes were also attributed to the pernicious influence of Sophia Paleolog.

Meanwhile, their family life was not cloudless. In 1483, Sophia's brother Andrei married his daughter to Prince Vasily Vereisky, the great-grandson of Dmitry Donskoy. Sophia presented her niece for the wedding with a valuable gift from the sovereign's treasury - an ornament that had previously belonged to the first wife of Ivan III, Maria Borisovna, naturally believing that she had every right to make this gift. When the Grand Duke missed the jewelry to welcome his daughter-in-law Elena Voloshanka, who gave him a grandson Dmitry, such a storm broke out that Vereisky had to flee to Lithuania.

And soon storm clouds hung over the head of Sophia herself: strife began over the heir to the throne. Ivan III had a grandson Dmitry, born in 1483, from his eldest son. Sophia gave birth to his son Vasily. Which of them should have taken the throne? This uncertainty caused a struggle between the two court parties - supporters of Dmitry and his mother Elena Voloshanka and supporters of Vasily and Sophia Paleolog.

"Greek" was immediately accused of violating the legitimate succession to the throne. In 1497, enemies told the Grand Duke that Sophia wanted to poison his grandson in order to put her own son on the throne, that she was secretly visited by fortune-tellers preparing a poisonous potion, and that Vasily himself was participating in this conspiracy. Ivan III took the side of his grandson, arrested Vasily, ordered the fortune-teller to drown him in the Moscow River, and removed his wife from himself, defiantly executing several members of her “thought”. Already in 1498, he married Dmitry in the Assumption Cathedral as heir to the throne. Scientists believe that it was then that the famous “Legend of the Princes of Vladimir” was born - a literary monument of the late 15th - early 16th centuries, which tells about the Monomakh's hat, which the Byzantine emperor Konstantin Monomakh supposedly sent with regalia to his grandson, the Kiev prince Vladimir Monomakh. Thus, it was proved that the Russian princes had become related to the Byzantine rulers back in the time of Kievan Rus, and that the descendant of the older branch, that is, Dmitry, had a legal right to the throne.

However, the ability to weave court intrigues was in Sophia's blood. She managed to achieve the fall of Elena Voloshanka, accusing her of adherence to heresy. Then the Grand Duke placed his daughter-in-law and grandson in disgrace and in 1500 named Vasily the legitimate heir to the throne. Who knows what path Russian history would have taken if not for Sophia! But Sophia did not have long to enjoy the victory. She died in April 1503 and was buried with honor in the Kremlin Ascension Monastery. Ivan III died two years later, and in 1505 Vasily III ascended the throne.

Nowadays, scientists have managed to restore her sculptural portrait from the skull of Sophia Paleolog. Before us appears a woman of outstanding mind and strong will, which confirms the numerous legends built around her name.

Biography

Family

Her father, Thomas Palaiologos, was the brother of the last emperor of Byzantium, Constantine XI, and despot of the Morea (Peloponnese).

Despotate of Morea in 1450

Her maternal grandfather was Centurione II Zaccaria, the last Frankish prince of Achaia. Centurione came from a Genoese merchant family. His father was placed to rule Achaia by the Neapolitan king Charles III of Anjou. Centurione inherited power from his father and ruled in the principality until 1430, when the despot of the Morea, Thomas Palaiologos, launched a large-scale offensive against his possessions. This forced the prince to retreat to his hereditary castle in Messenia, where he died in 1432, two years after the peace treaty, according to which Thomas married his daughter Catherine. After his death, the territory of the principality became part of the despotate.

4 generations of Sophia's ancestors (family tree)

Zoya's elder sister Elena Paleologina Morejska (1431 - November 7, 1473) was the wife of the Serbian despot Lazar Brankovich from 1446, and after the capture of Serbia by Muslims in 1459, she fled to the Greek island of Lefkada, where she took the veil. Thomas also had two surviving sons, Andrew Palaiologos (1453-1502) and Manuel Palaiologos (1455-1512).

Italy

Sixtus IV Vissarion of Nicaea

Decisive in the fate of Zoya was the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Constantine died in 1453 during the capture of Constantinople, 7 years later, in 1460, Morea was captured by the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II, Thomas went to the island of Corfu, then to Rome, where he soon died. Zoya and her brothers, 7-year-old Andrei and 5-year-old Manuel, moved to Rome 5 years after their father. There she received the name Sophia. Palaiologos settled at the court of Pope Sixtus IV (customer of the Sistine Chapel). In order to gain support, Thomas converted to Catholicism in the last year of his life.

After the death of Thomas on May 12, 1465 (his wife Catherine died a little earlier in the same year), the well-known Greek scientist, Cardinal Bessarion of Nicaea, a supporter of the union, took care of his children. His letter has been preserved, in which he gave instructions to the teacher of orphans. From this letter it follows that the pope will continue to release 3600 ecu per year for their maintenance (200 ecu per month: for children, their clothes, horses and servants; plus it was necessary to save for a rainy day, and spend 100 ecu on the maintenance of a modest yard , which included a doctor, a professor of Latin, a professor of Greek, a translator and 1-2 priests).

After the death of Thomas, the crown of the Palaiologos was de jure inherited by his son Andrei, who sold it to various European monarchs and died in poverty. The second son of Thomas Palaiologos, Manuel, during the reign of Bayezid II returned to Istanbul and surrendered to the mercy of the Sultan. According to some sources, he converted to Islam, started a family and served in the Turkish navy.

In 1466, the Venetian lordship offered the Cypriot king Jacques II de Lusignan the candidacy of Sophia as a bride, but he refused. According to Fr. Pirlinga, the brilliance of her name and the glory of her ancestors were a poor bulwark against the Ottoman ships cruising the waters of the Mediterranean. Around 1467, Pope Paul II, through Cardinal Vissarion, offered her hand to Prince Caracciolo, a noble Italian rich man. They were solemnly engaged, but the marriage did not take place.

Wedding

Banner "Sermon of John the Baptist" from the Oratorio San Giovanni, Urbino. Italian experts believe that Vissarion and Sophia Palaiologos (3rd and 4th characters from the left) are depicted in the crowd of listeners. Gallery of the Province of the Marche, Urbino.

Ivan III was widowed in 1467 - his first wife Maria Borisovna, Princess of Tverskaya died, leaving him his only son, heir - Ivan the Young.

Sophia's marriage to Ivan III was proposed in 1469 by Pope Paul II, presumably in the hope of strengthening the influence of the Catholic Church in Rus' or, perhaps, bringing the Catholic and Orthodox churches closer together - to restore the Florentine connection of churches. Ivan III's motives were probably related to status, and the recently widowed monarch agreed to marry a Greek princess. The idea of ​​marriage may have been born in the mind of Cardinal Vissarion.

The negotiations lasted three years. The Russian chronicle narrates: On February 11, 1469, the Greek Yuri arrived in Moscow from Cardinal Vissarion to the Grand Duke with a sheet in which Sophia, the daughter of the Amorite despot Thomas, an “Orthodox Christian” was offered to the Grand Duke as a bride (she was silent about her conversion to Catholicism). Ivan III consulted with his mother, Metropolitan Philip and the boyars, and made a positive decision.

The front chronicle: “The same winter in February on the 11th day, a Greek named Yuri came from Rome from Cardinal Bessarion to the Grand Duke with a letter in which it is written that “the despot of Amorite Thomas the Old Testament from the kingdom of Constantinograd has a daughter named Sophia in Rome, Orthodox Christian; if he wants to take her as a wife, then I will send her to your state. And the king of France and the great prince Medyadinsky sent matchmakers to her, but she does not want to become Latin. Fryazi also came: Carlo by name, Ivan Fryazin, a Moscow moneyman, an older brother, and a nephew, their older brother's son Anton. The great prince heeded these words, and thinking about this with his father, Metropolitan Philip, and with his mother, and with the boyars, that same spring, on March 20, he sent Ivan Fryazin to Pope Paul and to that Cardinal Vissarion to see the princess. He came to the pope, saw the princess and, with what he was sent to the pope and Cardinal Vissarion, outlined. The princess, having learned that the Grand Duke and all his land was in the Orthodox Christian faith, admired him. The Pope, having honored the ambassador of the Grand Duke Ivan Fryazin, let him go to the Grand Duke in order to give the princess for him, but let him send his boyars for her. And dad gave his letters to Ivan Fryazin that the ambassadors of the Grand Duke voluntarily go for two years to all the lands that swear allegiance to his papacy, to Rome.

Fedor Bronnikov. “Meeting Princess Sophia Paleolog by Pskov posadniks and boyars at the mouth of the Embakh on Lake Peipus” Sophia Paleolog enters Moscow. Miniature of the Front Chronicle

In 1469 Ivan Fryazin (Gian Battista della Volpe) was sent to the Roman court to woo Grand Duke Sophia. The Sofia chronicle testifies that a portrait of the bride was sent back to Rus' with Ivan Fryazin, and such secular painting turned out to be an extreme surprise in Moscow - “... and bring the princess on the icon.” (This portrait has not been preserved, which is very regrettable, since it was probably painted by a painter in the papal service, the generation of Perugino, Melozzo da Forli and Pedro Berruguete). The Pope received the ambassador with great honour. He asked the Grand Duke to send the boyars for the bride. Fryazin went to Rome for the second time on January 16, 1472, and arrived there on May 23.

On June 1, 1472, an absentee betrothal took place in the Basilica of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Ivan Fryazin was the deputy of the Grand Duke. The wife of the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Clarice Orsini and the Queen of Bosnia, Katharina, were also guests. The Pope, in addition to gifts, gave the bride a dowry of 6,000 ducats.

On June 24, 1472, a large convoy of Sophia Palaiologos, together with Fryazin, left Rome. The bride was accompanied by Cardinal Bessarion of Nicaea, who was supposed to realize the opportunities that were opening up for the Holy See. Legend has it that Sophia's dowry included books that would form the basis of the collection of the famous library of Ivan the Terrible.

• Sophia's retinue: Yuri Trakhaniot, Dmitry Trakhaniot, Prince Konstantin, Dmitry (ambassador of her brothers), St. Cassian the Greek. And also - the papal legate Genoese Anthony Bonumbre, Bishop of Accia (his annals are erroneously called a cardinal). The nephew of diplomat Ivan Fryazin, architect Anton Fryazin, also arrived with her.

The itinerary of the journey was as follows: north from Italy through Germany, they arrived at the port of Lübeck on September 1. (I had to go around Poland, through which travelers usually went to Rus' by land - at that moment she was in a state of conflict with Ivan III). The sea voyage across the Baltic took 11 days. The ship landed in Kolyvan (modern Tallinn), from where the motorcade in October 1472 proceeded through Yuryev (modern Tartu), Pskov and Veliky Novgorod. November 12, 1472 Sophia entered Moscow.

Even during the bride's journey through the Russian lands, it became obvious that the plans of the Vatican to make her a conductor of Catholicism failed, since Sophia immediately demonstrated a return to the faith of her ancestors. The papal legate Anthony Bonumbre was deprived of the opportunity to enter Moscow, carrying a Latin cross in front of him (see Korsun cross).

The wedding in Russia took place on November 12 (22), 1472 in the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow. They were married by Metropolitan Philip (according to the Sophia Time Book - Archpriest Hosea of ​​Kolomna). According to some indications, Metropolitan Philip was against a marriage union with a Uniate woman. The official chronicle of the Grand Duke claims that it was the Metropolitan who married the Grand Duke, but the unofficial code (as part of the Annals of Sophia II and Lvov) denies the participation of the Metropolitan in this ceremony: “when crowning Archpriest Osei of Kolomna, you did not command your own confessor and archpriest here…”.

Dowry

The Moscow Kremlin Museums have several items associated with her name. Among them are several precious reliquaries originating from the Annunciation Cathedral, whose setting was probably created already in Moscow. According to the inscriptions, it can be assumed that she brought the relics in them from Rome.

"Savior Not Made by Hands". Board - 15th century (?), painting - 19th century (?), salary - last quarter (17th century). Tsata and drobnitsa with the image of Basil the Great - 1853. MMK. According to legend, recorded in Ser. 19th century, the image was brought to Moscow from Rome by Sophia Paleolog.

Reliquary pectoral icon. Frame - Moscow, second half of the 15th century; cameo - Byzantium, XII-XIII centuries. (?)

Pectoral icon. Constantinople, X-XI centuries; frame - the end of the XIII - the beginning of the XIV century.

Icon of Our Lady Hodegetria, 15th century

Married life

Sophia's family life, apparently, was successful, as evidenced by numerous offspring.

For her, special mansions and a courtyard were built in Moscow, but they soon burned down in 1493, and the treasury of the Grand Duchess also perished during the fire. Tatishchev conveys evidence that, thanks to the intervention of Sophia, the Tatar yoke was thrown off by Ivan III: when the demand of tribute by Khan Akhmat was discussed at the council of the Grand Duke, and many said that it was better to pacify the wicked with gifts than to shed blood, it was as if Sophia burst into tears and with reproaches she persuaded her husband to end the tributary relationship.

Before the invasion of Akhmat in 1480, for the sake of safety, with the children, the court, the boyars and the princely treasury, Sofia was sent first to Dmitrov, and then to Beloozero; in the event that Akhmat crosses the Oka and takes Moscow, then she was told to run further north to the sea. This gave rise to Vissarion, the lord of Rostov, in his message to warn the Grand Duke against constant thoughts and excessive attachment to his wife and children. In one of the chronicles, it is noted that Ivan panicked: “the horror was found on n, and you want to run away from the shore, and your Grand Duchess Roman and the treasury with her were sent to Beloozero.”

The family returned to Moscow only in winter. The Venetian ambassador Contarini says that in 1476 he introduced himself to the Grand Duchess Sophia, who received him politely and affectionately and convincingly asked her to bow to the brightest republic from her.

"Vision of St. Sergius of Radonezh to the Grand Duchess of Moscow Sophia Paleolog. Lithography. Workshop of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. 1866

There is a legend connected with the birth of Sophia's son Vasily III, the heir to the throne: as if during one of the pilgrimage campaigns to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, in Klementyevo, Grand Duchess Sophia Paleolog had a vision of St. gender."

Dynastic issues and rivalries

Over time, the second marriage of the Grand Duke became one of the sources of tension at court. Soon enough, two groups of court nobility formed, one of which supported the heir to the throne, Ivan Ivanovich the Young, and the second, the new Grand Duchess Sophia Paleolog. In 1476, the Venetian A. Contarini noted that the heir "is in disfavor with his father, because he does not behave well with Despina" (Sofya), but since 1477 Ivan Ivanovich has been mentioned as a co-ruler of his father.

In subsequent years, the grand duke's family increased significantly: Sophia gave birth to a total of nine children to the grand duke - five sons and four daughters.

"Veil of Elena Voloshanka". Workshop of Elena Stefanovna Voloshanka (?) depicting the 1498 ceremony. Sophia is probably depicted in the lower left corner in a yellow cloak with a round patch on her shoulder - a tablion, a sign of royal dignity.

Meanwhile, in January 1483, the heir to the throne, Ivan Ivanovich Molodoy, also married. His wife was the daughter of the sovereign of Moldavia, Stephen the Great, Elena Voloshanka, who immediately found herself with her mother-in-law “on knives”. On October 10, 1483, their son Dmitry was born. After the annexation of Tver in 1485, Ivan Molodoy was appointed prince of Tver as his father; in one of the sources of this period, Ivan III and Ivan Molodoy are called "autocrats of the Russian land." Thus, during all the 1480s, the position of Ivan Ivanovich as the legitimate heir was quite strong.

The position of the supporters of Sophia Palaiologos was less favorable. So, in particular, the Grand Duchess failed to get government posts for her relatives; her brother Andrey left Moscow with nothing, and her niece Maria, the wife of Prince Vasily Vereisky (the heir to the Vereisko-Belozersky principality), was forced to flee to Lithuania with her husband, which also affected Sophia's position. According to sources, Sophia, having arranged the marriage of her niece and Prince Vasily Vereisky, in 1483 presented her relative with a precious piece of jewelry - a "sazhen" with pearls and stones, which had previously belonged to the first wife of Ivan III, Maria Borisovna. The Grand Duke, who wished to bestow a “sazhen” on Elena Voloshanka, upon discovering the loss of the jewelry, became angry and ordered a search to be launched. Vasily Vereisky did not wait for measures against himself and, having captured his wife, fled to Lithuania. One of the results of this story was the transition of the Vereysko-Belozersky principality to Ivan III according to the will of the appanage prince Mikhail Vereisky, Vasily's father. Only in 1493 Sophia procured Vasily the mercy of the Grand Duke: the disgrace was removed.

By 1490, however, new circumstances came into play. The son of the Grand Duke, heir to the throne, Ivan Ivanovich, fell ill with "kamchugo in the legs" (gout). Sophia ordered a doctor from Venice - "Mistro Leon", who presumptuously promised Ivan III to cure the heir to the throne; nevertheless, all the efforts of the doctor were fruitless, and on March 7, 1490, Ivan the Young died. The doctor was executed, and rumors spread around Moscow about the poisoning of the heir; a hundred years later, these rumors, already as indisputable facts, were recorded by Andrei Kurbsky. Modern historians regard the hypothesis of the poisoning of Ivan the Young as unverifiable due to a lack of sources.

On February 4, 1498, the coronation of Prince Dmitry took place in the Assumption Cathedral. Sophia and her son Vasily were not invited. However, on April 11, 1502, the dynastic struggle came to its logical conclusion. According to the chronicle, Ivan III “placed disgrace on the grandson of his Grand Duke Dmitry and on his mother, the Grand Duchess Elena, and from that day on he did not order them to be remembered in litanies and litias, nor called the Grand Duke, and plant them for bailiffs.” A few days later, Vasily Ivanovich was granted a great reign; soon Dmitry the grandson and his mother Elena Voloshanka were transferred from house arrest to imprisonment. Thus, the struggle within the grand-ducal family ended in the victory of Prince Vasily; he became the co-ruler of his father and the rightful heir to a huge power. The fall of Dmitry the grandson and his mother also predetermined the fate of the Moscow-Novgorod reform movement in the Orthodox Church: the Church Council of 1503 finally defeated it; many prominent and progressive figures of this movement were executed. As for the fate of those who lost the dynastic struggle, it was sad: on January 18, 1505, Elena Stefanovna died in captivity, and in 1509 Dmitry himself died “in need, in prison”. “Some believe that he died from hunger and cold, others that he suffocated from smoke,” Herberstein reported about his death.

Death

Death and burial of the Grand Duchess

She was buried in a massive white stone sarcophagus in the tomb of the Ascension Cathedral in the Kremlin next to the grave of Maria Borisovna, the first wife of Ivan III. On the lid of the sarcophagus, the word "Sophia" was scratched with a sharp instrument.

This cathedral was destroyed in 1929, and the remains of Sophia, as well as other women of the reigning house, were transferred to the underground chamber of the southern extension of the Archangel Cathedral.

Personality

The attitude of contemporaries

The Byzantine princess was not popular, she was considered smart, but proud, cunning and treacherous. Hostility towards her was expressed even in the annals: for example, regarding her return from Beloozero, the chronicler notes: “Grand Duchess Sophia ... ran from the Tatars to Beloozero, and no one drove; and in which countries she went, the more so the Tatars - from boyar serfs, from Christian bloodsuckers. Repay them, O Lord, according to their deeds and according to the wickedness of their undertakings.

Shroud from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra

The disgraced duma man of Vasily III, Bersen Beklemishev, in a conversation with Maxim Grek, spoke of her like this: “Our Russian land lived in silence and in peace. As the mother of the Grand Duke Sophia came here with your Greeks, so our land got mixed up and great disturbances came to us, just like you had in Tsar-grad under your kings. Maxim objected: “Lord, Grand Duchess Sophia was of a great family on both sides: by her father she was of the royal family, and by her mother she was the Grand Duke of the Italian side.” Bersen replied: “Whatever it is; Yes, it has come to our disorder. This disorganization, according to Bersen, was reflected in the fact that since that time “the great prince changed the old customs”, “now our Sovereign, having locked himself in thirds by the bed, does all sorts of things.”

Prince Andrei Kurbsky is especially strict with Sophia. He is convinced that “The devil instilled evil morals into the good Russian princes, especially by their evil wives and sorcerers, like in Israel the kings, more than whom they were raped from foreigners”; accuses Sophia of poisoning John the Young, of the death of Elena, of imprisoning Dmitry, Prince Andrei Uglitsky and other persons, contemptuously calls her a Greek woman, a Greek “sorceress”.

In the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, a silk veil is kept, sewn by the hands of Sophia in 1498; her name is embroidered on the veil, and she calls herself not the Grand Duchess of Moscow, but the “Tsarina of Tsaregorodskaya”. Apparently, she highly valued her former title, if she remembers him even after 26 years of marriage.

Appearance

When in 1472 Clarice Orsini and the court poet of her husband Luigi Pulci witnessed an absentee marriage that took place in the Vatican, the poisonous wit Pulci, in order to amuse Lorenzo the Magnificent, who remained in Florence, sent him a report on this event and the appearance of the bride:

“We entered a room where a painted doll sat in an armchair on a high platform. She had two huge Turkish pearls on her chest, a double chin, thick cheeks, her whole face shone with fat, her eyes were wide open like bowls, and around her eyes there were such ridges of fat and meat, like high dams on the Po. The legs are also far from thin, and so are all other parts of the body - I have never seen such a funny and disgusting person as this fair cracker. All day long she chatted incessantly through an interpreter - this time it was her brother, the same thick-legged cudgel. Your wife, as if bewitched, saw in this monster in a woman's guise a beauty, and the interpreter's speech clearly gave her pleasure. One of our companions even admired the painted lips of this doll and considered that she spits amazingly gracefully. All day long, until evening, she chatted in Greek, but we were not allowed to eat or drink in Greek, Latin, or Italian. However, she somehow managed to explain to Donna Clarice that she was wearing a narrow and ugly dress, although this dress was of rich silk and cut from at least six pieces of fabric, so that they could cover the dome of Santa Maria Rotunda. Since then, every night I dream of mountains of butter, fat, lard, rags and other similar muck.

According to the review of the Bolognese chroniclers, who described the passage of her procession through the city, she was short in stature, had very beautiful eyes and amazing whiteness of skin. In appearance they gave her 24 years.

Sofia Paleolog

Measured good and evil
Weights of uneven domes,
O Byzantine brow,
Half-smile of bloodless lips!
Not by argument and not by the sword
Tsargrad was forged and molded.
The naive barbarian was seduced
His insidious beauty.
More than once a skilled bogomaz,
Creating on cypress boards
Saved him from destruction
The depiction of flat faces.
And where are the limits of triumph,
When - the obtained firebird -
They carried the overseas queen
In the capital city of Moscow.
Like helmets were domes.
They swayed to the sound.
She kept in her heart
Like white swallows palms.
And was already undeniable
The law of the sword in conditional matters ...
Half-smile of bloodless lips
She met the Third Rome.

In December 1994, studies of the remains of the princess began in Moscow. They are well preserved (almost complete skeleton except for some small bones). Criminalist Sergei Nikitin, who restored her appearance using the Gerasimov method, points out: “After comparing the skull, spine, sacrum, pelvic bones and lower limbs, taking into account the approximate thickness of the missing soft tissues and interosseous cartilage, it was possible to find out that Sophia was short, about 160 cm, full, with strong-willed features. According to the degree of overgrowth of the sutures of the skull and wear of the teeth, the biological age of the Grand Duchess was determined at 50-60 years, which corresponds to historical data. At first, her sculptural portrait was molded from special soft plasticine, and then a plaster casting was made and tinted to look like Carrara marble.

The features of the "Mediterranean" anthropological type in the appearance of Ivan the Terrible and his resemblance to his paternal grandmother finally refuted the rumors that his mother Elena Glinskaya gave birth to him from her lover.

Sofia, skull reconstruction

Vasily III, son

Ivan IV, grandson

Great-great-granddaughter, Princess Maria Staritskaya. According to scientists, her face shows a great resemblance to Sophia

Role in history

There are various versions regarding the role of Sophia Paleolog in the history of the Russian state:

• Artists and architects were called from Western Europe to decorate the palace and the capital. New temples, new palaces were erected. The Italian Alberti (Aristotle) ​​Fioravanti built the Assumption and Annunciation Cathedrals. Moscow was adorned with the Palace of Facets, the Kremlin towers, the Terem Palace, and, finally, the Archangel Cathedral was built.
• For the sake of the marriage of her son Vasily III, she introduced the Byzantine custom - a review of brides.
• Third Rome

In art

literature:

• Nikolai Spassky, novel "The Byzantine". The action takes place in Italy in the 15th century against the background of the consequences of the fall of Constantinople. The protagonist intrigues to pass off Zoya Paleolog for the Russian Tsar.
• Georgios Leonardos, novel "Sophia Palaiologos - from Byzantium to Russia".
• Nikolai Aksakov dedicated a story to the Venetian doctor Leon Zhidovin, which spoke about the friendship of the Jewish doctor with the humanist Pico della Mirandola, and about the journey from Italy together with the brother of Queen Sophia Andrei Paleolog, Russian envoys Semyon Tolbuzin, Manuil and Dmitry Ralev, and Italian masters - architects , jewelers, gunners. - invited to the service of the Moscow sovereign.
• Ivan Lazhechnikov. "Basurman" - a novel about the doctor Sofia.

in painting and graphics:

• As a 19th-century dictionary points out, there is a fresco on which, among the dethroned sovereigns surrounding Pope Sixtus IV, Sophia is also placed; “But judging by the costumes, this image was probably made not in the 15th century, but much later.”
• Abeghyan, Mher Manukovich (1909-1978). Drawing "Wedding of Ivan III with the Byzantine Princess Sophia".

Sofia Paleolog: genius and villainy

Start over. Sophia, or in infancy Zoya, was born in the family of Thomas Palaiologos, the despot of the Morea. He was the younger brother of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, who died during the fall of Constantinople in the middle of the 15th century.

It is after this phrase that sometimes gibberish begins in people's thinking. Well, if the father is a despot, then who should be a daughter? And the hail of accusations begins. Meanwhile, if we show a little curiosity and look into the dictionary, which interprets words for us not always in monosyllables, then we can read something else about the word "despot".

It turns out that the most senior Byzantine nobles were called despots. And despotates are such divisions in the state, similar to modern provinces or states. So Sofia's father was a nobleman who led one of these pieces of the state - a despotate.

She was not the only child in the family - she had two more brothers: Manuel and Andrei. The family professed Orthodoxy, the mother of the children, Ekaterina Akhaiskaya, was a very church-going woman, which she taught her children.

But the years were very difficult. The Byzantine Empire was on the verge of collapse. And when Constantine XI died and the capital was captured by the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II, the Palaiologos family was forced to flee from the family nest. First they settled on the island of Corfu, and later moved to Rome.

In Rome, children were orphaned. First, the mother died, and then, six months later, Thomas Palaiologos also went to the Lord. The education of orphans was taken up by the Greek scientist, the Uniate Vissarion of Nicaea, who served as a cardinal under Pope Sixtus IV (yes, it was he who ordered the construction of the chapel, which now bears his name - the Sistine).

And of course, Zoya and her brothers were brought up in Catholicism. But at the same time, the children received a good education. They knew Latin and Greek, mathematics and astronomy, and were fluent in several languages.

The Pope of Rome showed such virtue not only out of compassion for the orphans. His thoughts were much more pragmatic. In order to restore the Florentine union of churches and to attach the Moscow state to the union, he decided to marry Sophia Palaiologos to the Russian prince Ivan III, who had recently been a widower.

The widowed prince liked the desire of the Pope to make the ancient Moscow family related to the famous Palaiologos family. But he himself could not decide anything. Ivan III asked his mother for advice on what to do. The offer was tempting, but he was well aware that not only his personal fate was at stake, but also the fate of the state, whose ruler he would become. His father, the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily II, nicknamed the Dark One because of his blindness, appointed the 16-year-old son as his co-ruler. And at the time of the alleged matchmaking, Vasily II had already passed away.

The mother sent her son to Metropolitan Philip. He spoke out sharply against the planned marriage and did not give his highest blessing to the prince. As for Ivan III himself, he liked the idea of ​​marriage with a Byzantine princess. Indeed, in this way, Moscow became the heir of Byzantium - the “third Rome”, which inexpressibly strengthened the authority of the Grand Duke not only in his own country, but also in relations with neighboring states.

On reflection, he sent his ambassador to Rome, the Italian Jean-Baptiste della Volpe, who in Moscow was called much more simply: Ivan Fryazin. His personality is very interesting. He was not only the chief minter of coins at the court of Grand Duke Ivan III, but also the farmer of this very profitable business. But it's not about him now.

The wedding contract was concluded, and Sophia, along with several accompanying persons, left Rome for Russia.

She crossed all of Europe. In all the cities where she stayed, she was given a magnificent reception and was bombarded with souvenirs. The last stop before arriving in Moscow was the city of Novgorod. And then an unfortunate event happened.

There was a big Catholic cross in Sofia's convoy. The news of this reached Moscow and incredibly upset Metropolitan Philip, who did not give his blessing for this marriage anyway. Vladyka Philip delivered an ultimatum: if the cross is brought into Moscow, it will leave the city. The matter took a serious turn. The envoy of Ivan III acted in Russian simply: having met a convoy at the entrance to Moscow, he took and took away the cross from the representative of the Pope, who accompanied Sophia Palaiologos. Everything was resolved quickly and without much fuss.

Directly on the day of her arrival in Belokamennaya, namely on November 12, 1472, as evidenced by the annals of that time, her wedding with Ivan III took place. It took place in a temporary wooden church, placed near the Assumption Cathedral under construction, so as not to stop worship. Metropolitan Philip, still beside himself with rage, refused to hold the wedding ceremony. And this sacrament was performed by Archpriest Josiah of Kolomna, who was specially urgently invited to Moscow. Sophia Paleolog became the wife of Ivan III. But, to the great misfortune and disappointment of the Pope, things did not turn out the way he expected.

According to legend, she brought with her a “bone throne” as a gift to her husband: its wooden frame was all covered with ivory and walrus ivory plates with biblical themes carved on them. Sophia brought with her several Orthodox icons.

Sophia, whose goal was to incline Rus' to Catholicism, became Orthodox. Angry envoys of the union left Moscow with nothing. A number of historians are inclined to the version that Sophia secretly communicated with the Athonite elders, comprehending the basics of the Orthodox faith, which she liked more and more. There is evidence that several Gentiles wooed her, whom she refused solely because of a discrepancy in religious views.

“A visible sign of the continuity of Rus' from Byzantium is the double-headed eagle - the dynastic sign of the Palaiologos family”

Be that as it may, Paleolog became the Grand Russian Duchess Sophia Fominichnaya. And not just became it formally. She brought with her to Rus' a great baggage - the covenants and traditions of the Byzantine Empire, the so-called "symphony" of state and church power. And these were not just words. A visible sign of the continuity of Rus' from Byzantium is the double-headed eagle - the dynastic sign of the Palaiologos family. And this sign becomes the state emblem of Rus'. A little later, a horseman was added to it, striking a snake with a sword - St. George the Victorious, who used to be the coat of arms of Moscow.

The husband listened to the wise advice of his enlightened wife, although his boyars, who previously had undivided influence on the prince, did not like it.

And Sophia became not only her husband's assistant in state affairs, but also the mother of a huge family. She had 12 children, 9 of whom lived a long life. First, Elena was born, who died in early infancy. Fedosiya followed her, followed by Elena again. And finally - happiness! Heir! On the night of March 25-26, 1479, a boy was born, named after his grandfather Vasily. Sophia Palaiologos had a son, Vasily, the future Vasily III. For his mother, he always remained Gabriel - in honor of the Archangel Gabriel, to whom she tearfully prayed for the gift of an heir.

Fate also gave the spouses Yuri, Dmitry, Evdokia (who also died as a baby), Ivan (died as a child), Simeon, Andrei, again Evdokia and Boris.

Immediately after the birth of the heir, Sophia Paleologus ensured that he was declared the Grand Duke. By this action, she practically ousted the eldest son of Ivan III from a previous marriage, Ivan (Young), from the line for the throne, and after him - his son, that is, the grandson of Ivan III - Dmitry.

Naturally, this led to all sorts of rumors. But it seemed that they did not care for the Grand Duchess at all. She was worried about something else.

Sophia Palaiologos insisted that her husband surround himself with splendor, wealth and etiquette at court. These were the traditions of the empire, and they had to be observed. From Western Europe, doctors, artists, architects, architects flooded Moscow ... They were ordered to decorate the capital!

Aristotle Fioravanti was invited from Milan, who was charged with the task of building the Kremlin chambers. The choice was not accidental. Signor Aristotle was known as an excellent specialist in underground passages, caches and labyrinths.

And before laying the walls of the Kremlin, he built real catacombs under them, in one of the casemates of which a real treasury was hidden - a library in which manuscripts from antiquity and folios saved during the fire of the famous Alexandria Library were stored. Remember, on the feast of the Presentation, we talked about Simeon the God-Receiver? Just his translation of the book of the prophet Isaiah into Greek was kept in this library.

In addition to the Kremlin chambers, the architect Fioravanti built the Assumption and Annunciation Cathedrals. Thanks to the skill of other architects, the Faceted Chamber, the Kremlin towers, the Terem Palace, the Treasury Court and the Archangel Cathedral appeared in Moscow. Moscow every day became more beautiful and more beautiful, as if preparing to become royal.

But not only this cared for our heroine. Sophia Paleolog, having a great influence on her husband, who saw in her a reliable friend and wise adviser, convinced him to refuse to pay tribute to the Golden Horde. Ivan III finally threw off this long-term yoke. But the boyars were very afraid that the horde would go berserk after learning about the decision of the prince, and bloodshed would begin. But Ivan III was firm, enlisting the support of his wife.

Well. So far, we can say that Sophia Paleolog was a good genius both for her husband and for Mother Rus'. But we forgot about one person who did not think so at all. This man's name is Ivan. Ivan the Young, as he was called at court. And he was a son from the first marriage of Grand Duke Ivan III.

After Sophia's son Palaiologos was declared heir to the throne, the Russian nobility at court split. Two groups formed: one supported Ivan the Young, the other - Sophia.

From the very appearance at court, Ivan the Young did not have a relationship with Sophia, and she did not try to establish them, doing other state and personal affairs. Ivan Molodoy was only three years younger than his stepmother, and like all teenagers, he was jealous of his father for his new lover. Soon, Ivan the Young also married the daughter of the sovereign of Moldavia, Stephen the Great, Elena Voloshanka. And at the time of the birth of his half-brother, he himself was already the father of his son Dmitry.

Ivan Molodoy, Dmitry ... Vasily's chances of taking the throne were very illusory. And this did not suit Sophia Paleolog. It didn't suit me at all. Two women - Sophia and Elena - became sworn enemies and simply burned with the desire to get rid of not only each other, but also the offspring of a rival. Sophia Paleologus makes a mistake. But about this in order.

The Grand Duchess maintained very warm friendly relations with her brother Andrei. His daughter Maria married in Moscow Prince Vasily Vereisky, who was the nephew of Ivan III. And once Sophia, without asking her husband, gave her niece a jewel that once belonged to the first wife of Ivan III.

And the Grand Duke, seeing his daughter-in-law's dislike for his wife, decided to appease her and give her this family jewel. This is where the big failure happened! The prince was beside himself with anger! He demanded that Vasily Vereisky immediately return the family heirloom to him. But he refused. Say, a gift, sorry! Moreover, its cost was very, very impressive.

Ivan III was simply furious and ordered to plant Prince Vasily Vereisky and his wife in a dungeon! The relatives had to hastily flee to Lithuania, where they escaped the wrath of the sovereign. But the prince was angry with his wife for this act for a long time.

By the end of the 15th century, the passions in the grand ducal family subsided. At least the appearance of a cold world remained. Suddenly a new misfortune struck: Ivan Molodoy fell ill with an ache in his legs, he was practically paralyzed. The best doctors from Europe were hastily sent to him. But they couldn't help him. Soon Ivan Young died.

Doctors, as usual, were executed ... But in the circle of the boyars, the rumor began to emerge more and more clearly that Sophia Paleolog had a hand in the death of the heir. Say, she poisoned her rival Vasily. A rumor reached Ivan III that some dashing women with a potion came to Sophia. He was furious, and did not want to see his wife, and ordered his son Vasily to be kept in custody. The women who came to Sophia were drowned in the river, many were thrown into prison. But Sophia Paleolog did not stop at this.

After all, Ivan the Young left an heir, known as Dmitry Ivanovich Vnuk. Grandson of Ivan III. And on February 4, 1498, at the end of the 15th century, he was officially proclaimed heir to the throne.

But you have a bad idea of ​​​​the personality of Sophia Paleolog if you think that she has reconciled. Quite the opposite.

At that time, the Judaizing heresy began to spread in Rus'. She was brought to Rus' by some Kiev Jewish scientist named Skhariya. He began to alter Christianity in a Jewish manner, denied the Holy Trinity, put the Old Testament more important than the New, rejected the veneration of icons and relics of saints ... In general, in modern terms, he gathered the same sectarians like him, who broke away from holy Orthodoxy. Elena Voloshanka and Prince Dmitry somehow joined this sect.

It was a great trump card in the hands of Sophia Palaiologos. Immediately, sectarianism was reported to Ivan III. And Elena and Dmitry fell into disgrace. Sophia and Vasily again took their former position. From that time on, the sovereign began, according to the chroniclers, "not to take care of his grandson", and declared his son Vasily the Grand Duke of Novgorod and Pskov. Sophia achieved what was ordered to keep Dmitry and Elena in custody, not to commemorate them at litanies in the church and not to call Dmitry the Grand Duke.

Sophia Paleolog, who actually won the royal throne for her son, did not live to see this day. She died in 1503. Elena Voloshanka also died in prison.

Thanks to the method of plastic reconstruction from the skull, at the end of 1994, a sculptural portrait of Grand Duchess Sophia Paleolog was restored. She was short - about 160 cm, full, with strong-willed features and had a mustache that did not spoil her at all.

Ivan III, already feeling weak in health, prepared a will. Basil is listed as heir to the throne.

Meanwhile, it was time for Vasily to get married. An attempt to marry him to the daughter of the Danish king failed; then, on the advice of a courtier, a Greek, Ivan Vasilyevich followed the example of the Byzantine emperors. It was ordered to the court to gather the most beautiful girls, daughters of the boyars and boyar children, for the bride. They collected fifteen hundred of them. Vasily chose Solomonia, the daughter of the nobleman Saburov.

Ivan Vasilyevich, after the death of his wife, lost heart, became seriously ill. Apparently, Grand Duchess Sophia gave him the necessary energy to build a new power, her mind helped in state affairs, her sensitivity warned of dangers, her all-conquering love gave him strength and courage. Leaving all his affairs, he went on a trip to the monasteries, but failed to atone for sins. He was stricken with paralysis. On October 27, 1505, he passed away to the Lord, having outlived his beloved wife by only two years.

Vasily III, having ascended the throne, first of all tightened the conditions of detention of his nephew, Dmitry Vnuk. He was shackled and placed in a small stuffy cell. In 1509 he died.

Basil and Solomon had no children. On the advice of those close to him, he married Elena Glinskaya. On August 25, 1530, Elena Glinskaya gave birth to the heir Vasily III, who was named John at baptism. Then there was a rumor that when he was born, a terrible thunder swept across the Russian land, lightning flashed and the earth trembled ...

Ivan the Terrible was born, as modern scientists say, outwardly very similar to his grandmother - Sophia Paleolog. Ivan the Terrible is a maniac, a sadist, a libertine, a despot, an alcoholic, the first Russian tsar and the last in the Rurik dynasty. Ivan the Terrible, who accepted the schema on his deathbed and was buried in a cassock and a doll. But that's a completely different story.

And Sophia Paleolog was buried in a massive white stone sarcophagus in the tomb of the Ascension Cathedral in the Kremlin. Next to her rested the body of the first wife of Ivan III - Maria Borisovna. This cathedral was destroyed in 1929 by the new government. But the remains of the women of the royal house survived. They now rest in the underground chamber of the Archangel Cathedral.

Such was the life of Sophia Paleolog. Virtue and villainy, genius and meanness, the decoration of Moscow and the destruction of competitors - everything was in her difficult, but very bright biography.

Who she is - the embodiment of evil and intrigue or the creator of the new Muscovy - you decide, reader. In any case, her name is inscribed in the annals of history, and part of her family coat of arms - the double-headed eagle - we see today on Russian heraldry.

One thing is certain - she made a huge contribution to the history of the Moscow principality. May he rest in peace! The mere fact that she did not allow Moscow to become a Catholic state is priceless for us Orthodox!

The main photo is the meeting of Princess Sophia Paleolog by the Pskov posadniks and boyars at the mouth of the Embakh on Lake Peipsi. Bronnikov F.A.

The sudden death of the first wife of Ivan III, Princess Maria Borisovna, on April 22, 1467, made the Grand Duke of Moscow think about a new marriage. The widowed grand duke opted for the Fechian princess Sophia Palaiologos, who lived in Rome and was known as a Catholic. Some historians believe that the idea of ​​the "Roman-Byzantine" marriage union was born in Rome, others prefer Moscow, others - Vilna or Krakow.

Sophia (in Rome she was called Zoe) Palaiologos was the daughter of the Morean despot Thomas Palaiologos and was the niece of Emperors Constantine XI and John VIII. Despina Zoya spent her childhood in Morea and on the island of Corfu. She came to Rome with her brothers Andrei and Manuel after the death of her father in May 1465. The paleologists came under the auspices of Cardinal Bessarion, who retained sympathy for the Greeks. The Patriarch of Constantinople and Cardinal Vissarion tried to renew the union with Russia with the help of marriage.

Arriving in Moscow from Italy on February 11, 1469, Yuri Grek brought Ivan III a certain “leaf”. In this message, the author of which, apparently, was Pope Paul II himself, and the co-author was Cardinal Bessarion, the Grand Duke was informed about the stay in Rome of a noble bride devoted to Orthodoxy, Sophia Palaiologos. Dad promised Ivan his support in case he wants to woo her.

In Moscow, they did not like to rush into important matters, and they pondered over the new news from Rome for four months. Finally, all reflections, doubts and preparations were left behind. January 16, 1472 Moscow ambassadors set off on a long journey.

In Rome, the Muscovites were honorably received by the new Pope Gikctom IV. As a gift from Ivan III, the ambassadors presented the pontiff with sixty selected sable skins. From now on, the case quickly went to completion. A week later, Sixtus IV in St. Peter's Cathedral performs a solemn ceremony of Sophia's absentee betrothal to the Moscow sovereign.

At the end of June 1472, the bride, accompanied by Moscow ambassadors, the papal legate and a large retinue, went to Moscow. At parting, the Pope gave her a long audience and his blessing. He ordered to arrange magnificent, crowded meetings everywhere for Sofya and her retinue.

Sophia Paleolog arrived in Moscow on November 12, 1472, and her wedding with Ivan III took place right there. What is the reason for the rush? It turns out that the next day the memory of St. John Chrysostom, the heavenly patron of the Moscow sovereign, was celebrated. From now on, the family happiness of Prince Ivan was given under the patronage of the great saint.

Sophia became a full-fledged Grand Duchess of Moscow.

The very fact that Sophia agreed to go to seek her fortune from Rome to distant Moscow suggests that she was a brave, energetic and adventurous woman. In Moscow, she was expected not only by the honors rendered to the Grand Duchess, but also by the hostility of the local clergy and the heir to the throne. At every step she had to defend her rights.

Ivan, for all his love of luxury, was thrifty to the point of stinginess. He saved literally everything. Growing up in a completely different environment, Sophia Paleolog, on the contrary, strove to shine and show generosity. This was required by her ambition of a Byzantine princess, the niece of the last emperor. In addition, generosity made it possible to make friends among the Moscow nobility.

But the best way to assert yourself was, of course, childbearing. The Grand Duke wanted to have sons. Sophia herself wanted this. However, to the delight of ill-wishers, she gave birth to three daughters in a row - Elena (1474), Theodosia (1475) and again Elena (1476). Sophia prayed to God and all the saints for the gift of a son.

Finally, her request was granted. On the night of March 25-26, 1479, a boy was born, named after his grandfather Vasily. (For his mother, he always remained Gabriel - in honor of the Archangel Gabriel.) Happy parents connected the birth of their son with last year's pilgrimage and fervent prayer at the tomb of St. Sergius of Radonezh in the Trinity Monastery. Sophia said that when approaching the monastery, the great old man himself appeared to her, holding a boy in his arms.

Following Vasily, she had two more sons (Yuri and Dmitry), then two daughters (Elena and Feodosia), then three more sons (Semyon, Andrei and Boris) and the last, in 1492, a daughter, Evdokia.

But now the question inevitably arose about the future fate of Vasily and his brothers. The heir to the throne remained the son of Ivan III and Maria Borisovna, Ivan Molodoy, whose son Dmitry was born on October 10, 1483, in marriage with Elena Voloshanka. In the event of the death of the Sovereign, he would not hesitate in one way or another to get rid of Sophia and her family. The best they could hope for was exile or exile. At the thought of this, the Greek woman was seized with rage and impotent despair.

In the winter of 1490, Sophia's brother, Andrei Paleologus, came to Moscow from Rome. Together with him, the Moscow ambassadors who traveled to Italy returned. They brought to the Kremlin a lot of all kinds of craftsmen. One of them, a visiting doctor Leon, volunteered to heal Prince Ivan the Young of a leg disease. But when he put jars to the prince and gave his potions (from which he could hardly die), a certain attacker added poison to these potions. On March 7, 1490, 32-year-old Ivan the Young died.

This whole story gave rise to many rumors in Moscow and throughout Rus'. Hostile relations between Ivan the Young and Sophia Paleolog were well known. The Greek woman did not enjoy the love of Muscovites. It is quite clear that rumor attributed to her the murder of Ivan the Young. In The History of the Grand Duke of Moscow, Prince Kurbsky directly accused Ivan III of poisoning his own son, Ivan the Young. Yes, such a turn of events opened the way to the throne for the children of Sophia. Sovereign himself found himself in an extremely difficult position. Probably, in this intrigue, Ivan III, who ordered his son to use the services of a vain doctor, turned out to be only a blind tool in the hands of a cunning Greek woman.

After the death of Ivan the Young, the question of the heir to the throne escalated. There were two candidates: the son of Ivan the Young - Dmitry and the eldest son of Ivan III and Sophia

Paleolog - Vasily. The claims of Dmitry the grandson were reinforced by the fact that his father was officially proclaimed Grand Duke - co-ruler of Ivan III and heir to the throne.

The sovereign was faced with a painful choice: to send either his wife and son to prison, or his daughter-in-law and grandson ... The murder of an opponent has always been the usual price of supreme power.

In the autumn of 1497, Ivan III leaned over to the side of Dmitry. He ordered to prepare for the grandson a solemn "marriage to the kingdom." Upon learning of this, supporters of Sophia and Prince Vasily formed a conspiracy that included the murder of Dmitry, as well as Vasily's flight to Beloozero (from where the road to Novgorod opened in front of him), the seizure of the grand ducal treasury stored in Vologda and Beloozero. However, already in December, Ivan arrested all the conspirators, including Vasily.

The investigation revealed the involvement in the conspiracy of Sophia Paleolog. It is possible that she was the organizer of the enterprise. Sophia got the poison and waited for the right opportunity to poison Dmitry.

On Sunday, February 4, 1498, 14-year-old Dmitry was solemnly declared heir to the throne in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Sophia Paleolog and her son Vasily were absent from this coronation. It seemed that their case was finally lost. The courtiers rushed to please Elena Stefanovna and her crowned son. However, the crowd of flatterers soon retreated in bewilderment. Sovereign did not give Dmitry real power, giving him control over only some northern counties.

Ivan III continued to painfully seek a way out of the dynastic impasse. Now his original plan did not seem successful. The Sovereign felt sorry for his young sons Vasily, Yuri, Dmitry Zhilka, Semyon, Andrey ... And he lived together with Princess Sophia for a quarter of a century ... Ivan III understood that sooner or later Sophia's sons would revolt. There were only two ways to prevent the performance: either destroy the second family, or bequeath the throne to Vasily and destroy the family of Ivan the Young.

Sovereign this time chose the second path. On March 21, 1499, he "granted ... the son of his prince Vasil Ivanovich, named him the sovereign of the Grand Duke, gave him Great Novgorod and Pskov to the Grand Duchy." As a result, three great princes appeared in Rus' at once: father, son and grandson!

On Thursday, February 13, 1500, a magnificent wedding was played in Moscow. Ivan III gave his 14-year-old daughter Theodosius in marriage to Prince Vasily Danilovich Kholmsky, the son of the famous commander and leader of the Tver “fellowship” in Moscow. This marriage contributed to the rapprochement between the children of Sophia Paleolog and the top of the Moscow nobility. Unfortunately, exactly one year later Theodosius died.

The denouement of the family drama came only two years later. “The same spring (1502) the prince of great April And on Monday put disgrace on the grandson of his Grand Duke Dmitry and on his mother on the Grand Duchess Elena, and from that day he did not order them to be remembered in litanies and litias, nor to be called the Grand Duke, and put them on the bailiffs." Three days later, Ivan III "granted his son Vasily, blessed and planted autocrat on the Grand Duchy of Volodimer and Moscow and All Rus', with the blessing of Simon, Metropolitan of All Rus'."

Exactly one year after these events, on April 7, 1503, Sophia Paleolog died. The body of the Grand Duchess was buried in the cathedral of the Kremlin Ascension Monastery. She was buried next to the grave of the Tsar's first wife, Princess Maria Borisovna of Tver.

Soon the health of Ivan III himself deteriorated. On Thursday, September 21, 1503, he, together with the heir to the throne, Vasily and his younger sons, went on a pilgrimage to the northern monasteries. However, the saints were no longer inclined to help the penitent sovereign. Upon returning from the pilgrimage, Ivan was stricken with paralysis: "... took away his arm and leg and eye." Ivan III died on October 27, 1505.

On the radio "Echo of Moscow" I heard an exciting conversation with the head of the archaeological department of the Kremlin Museums Tatiana Dmitrievna Panova and expert anthropologist Sergei Alekseevich Nikitin. They spoke in detail about their latest work. Sergei Alekseevich Nikitin very competently described Zoya (Sofya) Fominichna Paleolog, who arrived in Moscow on November 12, 1473 from Rome from the most prominent Orthodox authority and then a cardinal under Pope Vissarion of Nicaea to marry the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan Vasilyevich III. About Zoya (Sofya) Paleolog as the bearer of the exploded Western European subjectivity and about her role in the history of Russia, see my previous notes. Interesting new details.

Tatyana Dmitrievna, Doctor of Historical Sciences, admits that during her first visit to the Kremlin Museum she experienced a strong shock from the image of Sophia Paleolog reconstructed from the skull. She could not move away from the appearance that struck her. Something in Sophia's face attracted her - interestingness and harshness, a certain zest.

On September 18, 2004, Tatyana Panova spoke about research in the Kremlin necropolis. “We open every sarcophagus, remove the remains and the remains of burial clothes. I must say that, for example, anthropologists work for us, of course, they make a lot of interesting observations on the remains of these women, since the physical appearance of people of the Middle Ages is also interesting, we, in general "we don't know much about him, and what diseases people had then. But in general, there are a lot of interesting questions. But in particular, one of such interesting areas is the reconstruction of skulls of portraits of sculptural people of that time. But you yourself know that we have a secular painting appears very late, only at the end of the 17th century, and here we have already reconstructed 5 portraits today.We can see the faces of Evdokia Donskaya, Sophia Paleolog - this is the second wife of Ivan III, Elena Glinskaya - the mother of Ivan the Terrible. Sophia Paleolog - Ivan's grandmother Ivan the Terrible, and Elena Glinskaya - his mother. Then now we have a portrait of Irina Godunova, for example, we also succeeded because the skull was preserved. And the last work is the third wife of Ivan the Terrible - Marfa Sobakina. Still a very young woman" (http://echo.msk.ru/programs/kremlin/27010/).

Then, as now, it was a turning point - Russia had to respond to the challenge of subjectivization, or the challenge of breaking through capitalism. The heresy of the Judaizers could well have prevailed. A serious struggle flared up at the top and, as in the West, took the form of a struggle for succession to the throne, for the victory of one party or another.

So, Elena Glinskaya died at the age of 30 and, as it turned out from the studies of her hair, a spectral analysis was carried out - she was poisoned with mercury salts. The same thing - the first wife of Ivan the Terrible, Anastasia Romanova, also turned out to have a huge amount of mercury salts.

Since Sophia Paleolog was a pupil of the Greek and Renaissance culture, she gave Rus' a powerful impulse of subjectivity. The biography of Zoe (she was nicknamed Sophia in Rus') Paleolog managed to recreate, collecting information bit by bit. But even today, even the exact date of her birth is unknown (somewhere between 1443 and 1449). She is the daughter of the Despot of Morea Thomas, whose possessions occupied the southwestern part of the Peloponnese peninsula, where Sparta once flourished, and in the first half of the 15th century in Mistra, under the auspices of the famous herald of the Right Faith, Gemistus Plethon, there was the spiritual center of Orthodoxy. Zoya Fominichna was the niece of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI, who died in 1453 on the walls of Constantinople while defending the city from the Turks. She grew up, figuratively speaking, in the hands of Gemist Plethon and his faithful disciple Vissarion of Nicaea.

Under the blows of the Sultan's army, Morea also fell, and Thomas moved first to the island of Corfu, then to Rome, where he soon died. Here, at the court of the head of the Catholic Church, where Bessarion of Nicaea firmly established himself after the Union of Florence in 1438, the children of Thomas, Zoya and her two brothers, Andreas and Manuel, were brought up.

The fate of the representatives of the once powerful Palaiologos dynasty was tragic. Converted to Islam, Manuel died in poverty in Constantinople. Andreas, who dreamed of returning the former possessions of the family, never reached the goal. Zoya's older sister, Elena, the Serbian queen, deprived of the throne by the Turkish conquerors, ended her days in one of the Greek monasteries. Against this background, the fate of Zoya Paleolog looks prosperous.

The strategically thinking Bessarion of Nicaea, who plays a leading role in the Vatican, after the fall of the Second Rome (Constantinople), turned his eyes to the northern stronghold of Orthodoxy, to Moscow Rus', which, although it was under the Tatar yoke, was clearly gaining strength and could soon appear as a new world power . And he led a complex intrigue in order to marry the heiress of the Byzantine emperors of the Palaiologos to marry shortly before (in 1467) the widowed Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III. The negotiations dragged on for three years because of the resistance of the Metropolitan of Moscow, but the will of the prince prevailed, and on June 24, 1472, a large convoy of Zoe Palaiologos left Rome.

The Greek princess crossed the whole of Europe: from Italy to the north of Germany, to Lübeck, where the motorcade arrived on September 1. Further sailing in the Baltic Sea proved difficult and lasted 11 days. From Kolyvan (as Tallinn was then called in Russian sources) in October 1472, the procession headed through Yuryev (now Tartu), Pskov and Novgorod to Moscow. Such a long journey had to be made because of bad relations with the Kingdom of Poland - a convenient overland road to Rus' was closed.

Only on November 12, 1472, Sophia entered Moscow, where on the same day she met and married Ivan III. Thus began the "Russian" period in her life.

She brought with her devoted Greek helpers, including Kerbush, from whom the Kashkin princes descended. She also brought a number of Italian things. Embroideries also came from her, setting patterns for future "Kremlin wives". Having become the mistress of the Kremlin, she tried in many ways to copy the images and orders of her native Italy, which in those years was experiencing a monstrously powerful explosion of subjectivity.

Bessarion of Nicaea sent a portrait of Zoe Paleologus to Moscow earlier, which impressed the Moscow elite as a bombshell. After all, a secular portrait, like a still life, is a symptom of subjectivity. In those years, every second family in the same most advanced "capital of the world" Florence had portraits of their owners, and in Rus' they were closer to subjectivity in "Judaizing" Novgorod than in more mossy Moscow. The appearance of a painting in Rus', unfamiliar with secular art, shocked people. From the Sophia Chronicle, we know that the chronicler, who first encountered such a phenomenon, could not renounce the church tradition and called the portrait an icon: "... and bring the princess written on the icon." The fate of the painting is unknown. Most likely, she died in one of the numerous fires of the Kremlin. No images of Sophia have survived in Rome either, although the Greek woman spent about ten years at the papal court. So we probably will never know what she was like in her youth.

Tatyana Panova in her article "Personification of the Middle Ages" http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/publishing/vs/column/?item_id=2556 notes that secular painting appeared in Rus' only at the end of the 17th century - before that it was under strict church ban. That's why we don't know what famous characters from our past looked like. "Now, thanks to the work of specialists from the Moscow Kremlin Museum-Reserve and forensic experts, we have the opportunity to see the appearance of the three legendary women of the Grand Duchesses: Evdokia Dmitrievna, Sofya Paleolog and Elena Glinskaya. And reveal the secrets of their life and death."

The wife of the Florentine ruler Lorenzo Medici - Clarissa Orsini - found the young Zoya Paleolog very pleasant: "Short in stature, the eastern flame sparkled in her eyes, the whiteness of her skin spoke of the nobility of her family." Mustache face. Height 160. Full. Ivan Vasilyevich fell in love at first sight and went with her to the marriage bed (after the wedding) on ​​the same day, November 12, 1473, when Zoya arrived in Moscow.

The arrival of a foreign woman was a significant event for Muscovites. The chronicler noted in the retinue of the bride "blue" and "black" people - Arabs and Africans, never seen before in Russia. Sophia became a participant in a complex dynastic struggle for the succession to the Russian throne. As a result, her eldest son Vasily (1479-1533) became the Grand Duke, bypassing the legitimate heir Ivan, whose early death allegedly from gout remains a mystery to this day. Having lived in Russia for more than 30 years, having given birth to her husband 12 children, Sophia Paleolog left an indelible mark on the history of our country. Her grandson Ivan the Terrible in many ways resembled her. Anthropologists and forensic experts have helped historians learn details about this man that are not in written sources. Now it is known that the Grand Duchess was short - no more than 160 cm, suffered from osteochondrosis and had serious hormonal disorders that led to a masculine appearance and behavior. Her death occurred due to natural causes at the age of 55-60 years (the scatter of numbers is due to the fact that the exact year of her birth is unknown). But, perhaps, the most interesting were the works on recreating Sophia's appearance, since her skull is well preserved. The technique of reconstructing a sculptural portrait of a person has long been actively used in forensic and search practice, and the accuracy of its results has been repeatedly proven.

“I,” says Tatyana Panova, “was lucky to see the stages of recreating the appearance of Sophia, not yet knowing all the circumstances of her difficult fate. As the facial features of this woman appeared, it became clear how much life situations and illness hardened the character of the Grand Duchess. and it could not be - the struggle for her own survival and the fate of her son could not but leave traces. Sophia ensured that her eldest son became Grand Duke Vasily III. The death of the legitimate heir, Ivan the Young, at the age of 32 from gout is still in doubt in her naturalness. By the way, the Italian Leon, invited by Sophia, took care of the prince's health. Vasily inherited from his mother not only the appearance that was captured on one of the icons of the 16th century - a unique case (the icon can be seen in the exposition of the State Historical Museum), but also a tough character Greek blood also affected Ivan IV the Terrible - he is very similar to his royal grandmother with a Mediterranean type of face. This is clearly seen when you look at the sculptural portrait of his mother, Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya."

As the forensic expert of the Moscow Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination S.A. Nikitin and T.D. Panova write in the article "Anthropological reconstruction" (http://bio.1september.ru/article.php?ID=200301806), the creation in mid-twentieth century national school of anthropological reconstruction and the work of its founder M.M. Gerasimov performed a miracle. Today we can look into the faces of Yaroslav the Wise, Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky and Timur, Tsar Ivan IV and his son Fyodor. To date, historical figures have been reconstructed: researcher of the Far North N.A. Begichev, Nestor the chronicler, the first Russian doctor Agapit, the first abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk monastery Varlaam, archimandrite Polikarp, Ilya Muromets, Sophia Paleolog and Elena Glinskaya (respectively, the grandmother and mother of Ivan the Terrible), Evdokia Donskaya (wife of Dmitry Donskoy), Irina Godunova (wife of Fyodor Ioanovich). The restoration of the face, carried out in 1986, from the skull of a pilot who died in 1941 in the battles for Moscow, made it possible to establish his name. Portraits of Vasily and Tatyana Pronchishchev, members of the Great Northern Expedition, have been restored. Developed by the school of M.M. Gerasimov, methods of anthropological restoration are also successfully used in the disclosure of criminal offenses.

And research on the remains of the Greek princess Sophia Paleologus began in December 1994. She was buried in a massive white stone sarcophagus in the tomb of the Ascension Cathedral in the Kremlin next to the grave of Maria Borisovna, the first wife of Ivan III. On the lid of the sarcophagus, “Sophia” was scratched with a sharp instrument.

The necropolis of the female Ascension Monastery on the territory of the Kremlin, where in the XV-XVII centuries. buried Russian Grand and specific princesses and queens, after the destruction of the monastery in 1929, it was saved by museum workers. Now the ashes of high-ranking persons rest in the basement chamber of the Archangel Cathedral. Time is merciless, and not all burials have come down to us completely, but the remains of Sophia Palaiologos are well preserved (almost a complete skeleton with the exception of individual small bones).

Modern osteologists can determine a lot by studying ancient burials - not only the sex, age and height of people, but also the illnesses they suffered during their lives and injuries. After comparing the skull, spine, sacrum, pelvic bones and lower limbs, taking into account the approximate thickness of the missing soft tissues and interosseous cartilage, it was possible to reconstruct Sophia's appearance. According to the degree of overgrowth of the sutures of the skull and wear of the teeth, the biological age of the Grand Duchess was determined at 50–60 years, which corresponds to historical data. At first, her sculptural portrait was molded from special soft plasticine, and then a plaster cast was made and tinted to look like Carrara marble.

Looking into the face of Sophia, you are convinced that such a woman could really be an active participant in the events, which are evidenced by written sources. Unfortunately, in modern historical literature there is no detailed biographical sketch dedicated to her fate.

Under the influence of Sophia Paleolog and her Greek-Italian entourage, Russian-Italian ties are activated. Grand Duke Ivan III invites qualified architects, doctors, jewelers, miners and weapon makers to Moscow. By decision of Ivan III, foreign architects were entrusted with the reconstruction of the Kremlin, and today we admire the monuments, the appearance of which in the capital is due to Aristotle Fiorovanti and Marco Ruffo, Aleviz Fryazin and Antonio Solari. It is amazing, but many buildings of the late XV - early years of the XVI century. in the ancient center of Moscow remained the same as they were during the life of Sophia Paleolog. These are the temples of the Kremlin (Assumption and Annunciation Cathedrals, the Church of the Deposition of the Robe), the Faceted Chamber - the main hall of the Grand Duke's court, the walls and towers of the fortress itself.

The strength and independence of Sophia Palaiologos were especially clearly manifested in the last decade of the life of the Grand Duchess, when in the 80s. 15th century in a dynastic dispute at the court of the Moscow sovereign, two groups of feudal nobility developed. The leader of one was the heir to the throne, Prince Ivan Molodoy, the son of Ivan III from his first marriage. The second was formed surrounded by "Greeks". Around Elena Voloshanka, the wife of Ivan the Young, a powerful and influential group of "Judeans" developed, which almost pulled Ivan III over to their side. Only the fall of Dmitry (the grandson of Ivan III from his first marriage) and his mother Elena (in 1502 they were sent to prison, where they died) put an end to this protracted conflict.

The sculptural portrait-reconstruction resurrects Sophia's appearance in the last years of her life. And today there is an amazing opportunity to compare the appearance of Sophia Paleolog and her grandson, Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich, whose sculptural portrait was recreated by M.M. Gerasimov back in the mid-1960s. It is clearly visible: the oval of the face, forehead and nose, eyes and chin of Ivan IV are almost the same as those of his grandmother. Studying the skull of the formidable king, M.M. Gerasimov singled out significant features of the Mediterranean type in it and unequivocally connected this with the origin of Sophia Paleolog.

In the arsenal of the Russian school of anthropological reconstruction, there are different methods: plastic, graphic, computer and combined. But the main thing in them is the search and proof of patterns in the shape, size and position of one or another part of the face. When recreating a portrait, various techniques are used. These are the developments of M.M. Gerasimov on the construction of the eyelids, lips, wings of the nose and the technique of G.V. Lebedinskaya concerning the reproduction of the profile drawing of the nose. The technique of modeling the general cover of soft tissues using calibrated thick ridges makes it possible to reproduce the cover more accurately and noticeably faster.

Based on the technique developed by Sergey Nikitin for comparing the appearance of the details of the face and the underlying part of the skull, specialists from the Forensic Expert Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation created a combined graphical method. The regularity of the position of the upper border of hair growth was established, a certain connection between the setting of the auricle and the degree of severity of the "supra-mastoid ridge" was revealed. In recent years, a method has been developed for determining the position of the eyeballs. The signs that allow to determine the presence and severity of the epicanthus (Mongoloid fold of the upper eyelid) are revealed.

Armed with advanced techniques, Sergei Alekseevich Nikitin and Tatyana Dmitrievna Panova revealed a number of nuances in the fate of Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya and great-granddaughter Sophia Paleolog - Maria Staritskaya.

The mother of Ivan the Terrible - Elena Glinskaya - was born around 1510. She died in 1538. She is the daughter of Vasily Glinsky, who, together with his brothers, fled from Lithuania to Russia after a failed uprising in his homeland. In 1526, Elena became the wife of Grand Duke Vasily III. His tender letters to her have been preserved. In 1533-1538, Elena was regent for her young son, the future Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible. During the years of her reign, the walls and towers of Kitay-gorod in Moscow were built, and a monetary reform was carried out (“the great prince Ivan Vasilyevich of All Rus' and his mother, Grand Duchess Elena, ordered the old money to be converted into a new coinage, for what was in the old money a lot of circumcised money and mix ... "), concluded a truce with Lithuania.
Under Glinskaya, two of her husband's brothers, Andrei and Yuri, pretenders to the Grand Duke's throne, died in prison. So the Grand Duchess tried to protect the rights of her son Ivan. The ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire, Sigmund Herberstein, wrote about Glinskaya: “After the death of the sovereign, Mikhail (the uncle of the princess) repeatedly reproached his widow for a dissolute life; for this she accused him of treason, and he unfortunately died in custody. A little later, the cruel one herself died from poison, and her lover, nicknamed Sheepskin, as they say, was torn to pieces and cut into pieces. Evidence of the poisoning of Elena Glinskaya was confirmed only at the end of the 20th century, when historians studied her remains.

“The idea of ​​the project that will be discussed,” recalls Tatyana Panova, “arose several years ago, when I participated in the examination of human remains found in the basement of an old Moscow house. The NKVD in Stalin's times.But the burials turned out to be part of a destroyed cemetery of the 17th-18th centuries.The investigator was glad to close the case, and Sergei Nikitin, who worked with me from the Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination, suddenly discovered that he and the historian-archaeologist had a common object for research - the remains of historical figures. Thus, in 1994, work began in the necropolis of Russian Grand Duchesses and Empresses of the 15th - early 18th centuries, which has been preserved since the 1930s in an underground chamber near the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin.

And now the reconstruction of the appearance of Elena Glinskaya highlighted her Baltic type. The Glinsky brothers - Mikhail, Ivan and Vasily - moved to Moscow at the beginning of the 16th century after a failed conspiracy of the Lithuanian nobility. In 1526, Vasily's daughter, Elena, who, according to the then concepts, had already sat up in girls, became the wife of Grand Duke Vasily III Ivanovich. She died suddenly at the age of 27-28. The face of the princess was distinguished by soft features. She was quite tall for women of that time - about 165 cm and harmoniously built. Anthropologist Denis Pezhemsky discovered a very rare anomaly in her skeleton: six lumbar vertebrae instead of five.

One of Ivan the Terrible's contemporaries noted the redness of his hair. Now it is clear whose suit the tsar inherited: the remains of the hair of Elena Glinskaya, red, like red copper, were preserved in the burial. It was the hair that helped to find out the cause of the unexpected death of a young woman. This is extremely important information, because the early death of Elena undoubtedly influenced the subsequent events of Russian history, the formation of the character of her orphaned son Ivan, the future formidable tsar.

As you know, the cleansing of the human body from harmful substances occurs through the liver-kidney system, but many toxins accumulate and remain for a long time also in the hair. Therefore, in cases where soft organs are not available for research, experts do a spectral analysis of the hair. The remains of Elena Glinskaya were analyzed by forensic expert Tamara Makarenko, candidate of biological sciences. The results are stunning. In the objects of study, the expert found concentrations of mercury salts that are a thousand times higher than the norm. The body could not accumulate such quantities gradually, which means that Elena immediately received a huge dose of poison, which caused acute poisoning and caused her imminent death.

Later, Makarenko repeated the analysis, which convinced her: there was no mistake, the picture of poisoning turned out to be so vivid. The young princess was exterminated with the help of mercury salts, or sublimate, one of the most common mineral poisons in that era.

So more than 400 years later, it was possible to find out the cause of the death of the Grand Duchess. And thus confirm the rumors about the poisoning of Glinskaya, given in the notes of some foreigners who visited Moscow in the 16th-17th centuries.

Nine-year-old Maria Staritskaya was also poisoned in October 1569, along with her father Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, cousin of Ivan IV Vasilyevich, on the way to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, in the midst of the Oprichnina, when potential contenders for the Moscow throne were destroyed. The Mediterranean ("Greek") type, clearly seen in the appearance of Sophia Paleolog and her grandson Ivan the Terrible, also distinguishes her great-granddaughter. Humpbacked nome, plump lips, manly face. And prone to bone disease. So, Sergei Nikitin found signs of frontal hyperostosis (growth of the frontal bone) on the skull of Sophia Paleolog, which is associated with the production of excess male hormones. And the great-granddaughter Maria was diagnosed with rickets.

As a result, the appearance of the past became close, tangible. Half a millennium - but as if yesterday.