Results of an early death of Peter I of Russia

[Marko]

The search engine just gives me a blank page so I am starting a new topic.


After reading some articles about modernisation of Russia during the reign of Peter I (the Great) I could not but wonder what would be the effects of Russia and Europe as a whole if Peter never becomes the Tzar and the conservative Sophia maintains power followed by reign of Ivan V.

As a POD lets say Peter suffers a fatal injury during one of his childhood wargames.

 

[MarshalBraginsky]

In that case, if Ivan V also dies as well, then expect Sofia to become the sole ruler. Her policies has yet to be seen though.

 

[Anaxagoras]

An underappreciated POD with potentially massive impact on the course of world history. No Peter the Great means that Russia will evolve in a completely different manner than it did IOTL, with all that implies for European and Asian history. Absolutely massive.

 

[Cecil]

In that case, if Ivan V also dies as well, then expect Sofia to become the sole ruler. Her policies has yet to be seen though.

Ehm why? It would be a cold day in hell before the boyars would allow a female ruler at that time. Peter pretty much had to raze the old system before they could accept a female ruler and even then it took a rather remarkable woman combined with an unclear succession and what was nothing less than a palace coup. And I´m using the word ruler generously here because real power was in the hand of Menshikov, Tolstoy and the rest.

Any cadet branches of house Romanov around at the time? Cant remember if Michael spawned any but Alexei had bad luck with his sons bar Peter.

 

[Razgriz 2K9]

Highly unlikely, the Romanov dynasty was relatively new. Alexei was the third Tsar of the Romanov line, and other than him, his elder sister Irina was the only other sibling to survive into adulthood. I dunno if this would lead to a cadet line. I guess the only way is if you somehow get Valdemar Christian of Denmark to marry her...but I don't know if succession is possible under a semi-Salic law in pre-Peter the Great Russia.

 

[MarshalBraginsky]

So this semi-Salic Law would imply that only Russian princes could become Tsars, right? It could take Alexei a lot of guts to change the system and have a backup plan just in case most of his heirs are dead.

 

[Gonzaga]

Highly unlikely, the Romanov dynasty was relatively new. Alexei was the third Tsar of the Romanov line, and other than him, his elder sister Irina was the only other sibling to survive into adulthood. I dunno if this would lead to a cadet line. I guess the only way is if you somehow get Valdemar Christian of Denmark to marry her...but I don't know if succession is possible under a semi-Salic law in pre-Peter the Great Russia.

I think they had no other options but to accept some kind of female succession. By the time of the death of Ivan V the Romanovs didn't have any cadet lines left (the last non-royal Romanov died in 1654). I have doubts if the boyars would want to repeat the state of confusion that happened during the Time of Troubles.