Feodor III

Feodor was the eldest surviving son of tsar Alexi Mikhailovich. In 1676 he succeeded his father on the throne. He was highly intelligent, but horribly disfigured and half paralyzed by a mysterious disease, supposed to be scurvy. He ruled for the most part from his bed-chamber. In 1680 he married a Ukrainian noblewoman named Agatha Gruszewska. He was a known for his reforms. He abolished the system of Mestnichestvo, in 1682 which had paralyzed the whole civil and military administration of Muscovy for generations. He founded the academy of Sciences in the Zaikonospassky monastery, where everything not expressly forbidden by the Orthodox Church was taught. In 1681 Agatha gave birth to their son Tsarevich IIya Fyodorovich. Agatha died as a result of childbirth three days later, and six days later the son died. Feodor went on to marry a second time to Martha Apraksina. Feodor died three months after his second marriage without an heir to the throne causing the Moscow uprising of 1682.