Choreographing the “Tsar's Happy Occasion”: Tradition, Change, and Dynastic Legitimacy in the Weddings of Tsar Mikhail Romanov

The Romanov dynasty came to the throne in 1613 after fifteen years of pretenders, peasant revolts, and foreign interventions, but the establishment of Romanov legitimacy would require time. In this article, Russell E. Martin explores how the wedding ritual of Tsar Mikhail Romanov was carefully constructed on the basis of previous royal weddings so as to appear fully consistent with previous Muscovite tradition. But Martin also shows that many elements of the wedding ritual were choreographed anew to create the image of the Romanovs as the legitimate heirs of the old Riurikid dynasty that had died out in 1598. Viewed in light of other efforts to legitimate their rule, the evidence from the weddings of the first Romanov tsar suggests how tenuous the new dynasty's hold on power was in its first decades on the throne and the ways that symbol and ritual were exploited to help establish the new regime.