Alexis Mikhailovitch, second czar of Russia of the Romanoff lineage, born March 10, 1629, succeeded his father Michael Fedoro-vitch July 12,1645, died Jan. 29,1676. During the earlier years of his reign he had for advisers his tutor, Morozoff, and the grand chancellor Plesoff. An insurrection broke out against his counsellors, and Plesoff was slain. Next (1648) appeared two pretenders to the crown: one calling himself Dimitri (the last pretender who took that name), the other a certain Ankudinoff, calling himself a son of the czar Basil Shuiskoi. Alexis put them down, and afterward proved himself one of the best sovereigns who ever occupied the Russian throne. His reign marked the dawn of that civilization which his son Peter the Great more widely diffused over Russia. He encouraged learning, fostered printing establishments, attracted to Russia from abroad men of letters, artists, physicians, manufacturers, and operatives. He was active, intelligent, and temperate. To break the pride of the princes and boyars, who refused generally to obey the orders of a military or civil superior when the date of his title was later than their own, Alexis ordered these rebels to deposit all the documents relating to their rank in the chancery of the imperial council, and then burned them together with the old nobiliar record of the empire, called the Velvet Book. Under his reign Russia for the first time began to have the advantage over the Poles, whom he defeated in two wars.

By the treaties of Moscow (1656) and Andruszow (1667) Alexis recovered several provinces formerly taken from Russia. He was also for several years at war with Sweden, which ended with an armistice in 1658 and a treaty in 1661, mutually guaranteeing their former possessions. During his reign the Cossacks of the Ukraine, for centuries tributaries of Poland, seceded and submitted to Russia. He was twice married, and left children by both wives. The first was a Milos-lavska, of a Russian boyar family; the second a Naryshkin, a person of lower rank, whom Alexis chose from the sight of her shoe, which made him think she had a very small foot. She was the mother of Peter the Great.