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1681 - 1685 AD:

On July 11th, 1681, Agafiya Grushetskaya, the wife of Feodor III, Tsar of All Russia, gave birth to the long-awaited male heir, who they named Ilya (Elijah). Unfortunately, complications during the birth too a heavy toll on Agafiya, who died three days later. Feodor was heartbroken and his health began to deteriorate once more. He had further plans for his country and his wife had been one of the few who truly shared his views. Seven days later, young Ilya fell ill as well, but miraculously recovered *. The news seemed to have been an epiphany to Feodor - God wanted his son to live. God wanted him to live. And so the Tsar soldiered on, and although he remarried seven months later, the pain of losing Agafiya would torment him for the rest of his life.

Feodor III had come to the throne in 1676 upon the death of his father and elder brother, both named Alexei. Like his father, Feodor was determined to reform his country, mainly with influences from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Because of Feodor's ill health, when his father died, Artamon Matveyev, Alexei's chief counselor, advocated naming as Tsar Peter, the only son of Alexei's second wife, Natalia Naryshkina. Backed by the reactionary boyars, Feodor was proclaimed Tsar and Matveyev was banished.

Most recently, he had concluded a war with the Ottomans and their Crimean ally in the south. Beating a Turkish-Tartar invasion of the Ukraine despite being outnumbered two-to-one. The year of Ilya's birth, Feodor signed the Treaty of Bakhchisarai with Khan Murad of Crimea and Sultan Mehmed IV. A 20 year peace was signed between the three realms, and a buffer zone was created between the Dnieper and Southern Bug rivers.

Feodor had married his second wife, Marfa Apraksina, in May 1682, but he did not consummate the marriage until Christmas Day, 1683**. Nine months later, she had given birth to a son - Alexei, named after the Tsar's father. When Feodor died on May 7th 1685, Marfa was pregnant again. Two months later, Marfa gave birth to another boy, who she named Michael, after both the angel and Feodor's grandfather.

Feodor's chronic illness and sledge injuries had finally caught up with him. Despite this, different rumors still circulated about the circumstances of his death. Because of his wife's pregnancy, some suggested that he had worn himself out with sex, much like Louis XII of France. In later years, a more malicious theory was suggested:

Fragments of Feodor's journals, discovered centuries later, reveal that at the time of his death, Feodor was planning to reform the royal succession. He had named Ilya his heir, but what to do with the rest of his family? After Artamon Matveyev's plot, Feodor watched Natalia Naryshkin carefully but bore Peter no ill will, and in fact, encouraged his natural curiosity about Western culture. While Peter was healthy, the middle brother, Ivan, was physically and mentally disabled, sitting still for hours on end. Ivan had expressed no wish to rule, and so Feodor had convinced him to enter a monastary. And then there was his sister, Sofia.

At the start of his reign, Sofia had been one of Feodor's closest advisors, but her influence had waned as the years went by. Some have suggested that Sofia may have discovered Feodor's plans and, worried as to where they might head, poisoned her brother. No evidence has ever been found to support this view, but it lived on as an urban myth.

In the course of Feodor's short reign, his accomplishments included:

* Replacing several new taxes with a single tax - each household was to pay 90 kopeks a year.
* Completing a census of the entire (tax-paying) population of Russia.
* Settling disputes over land ownership and fixing the boundaries of private, royal and church estates.
* Organising the most settled parts of Russia into 9 military districts, each with its own regiment.
* Re-opening the Court of Petitions, overseeing many petitions personally.
* Abolishing the custom of mutilating prisoners.
* Beginning the reconstruction of Moscow from wood to stone, in order to decrease the risk and threat of accidental fires.
* Founding the Slavic Greek Latin Academy, which was meant to teach everything not expressly forbidden by the Orthodox Church, including Church Slavonic, Greek, Latin and Polish.

Not all of Feodor's actions were popular. He and Agafiya had advocated the shaving of beards and the adoption of Polish style clothing at court. Also, on the advice of Vasily Galitzine, he had abolished the system of mestnichestvo, the system by which nobles could inherit government positions. All pedigree books were burned, and from then on, all civil and military appointments would be determined by birth and the judgement of the Tsar.

So the four-year-old Tsar already had a tough act to follow in the coming decades...
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*: This is the POD. IOTL, the infant died seven days after the death of his mother.
**: This would be January 7th, going by the Julian Calendar, as opposed to December 25th on the Gregorian calendar (whic, IOTL, was only accepted in Russia after the October Revolution). Thanks to Valena for pointing this out.

As always, I gladly welcome any comments, advice and constructive criticism.
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Children of Feodor III of Russia:

By Agafiya Grushetskaya:

Ilya of Russia (b. 1681)

By Marfa Apraksina:

Alexei (b. 1683)
Michael (b. 1685)
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