On 21 February 1613, amidst the smouldering ruins of the Time of Troubles, the 16-year-old Michael Romanov was elected Tsar of Russia, marking the inception of a dynasty that would reign for over three centuries.
His selection by the Zemsky Sobor, a national assembly of clergy, nobility, and commoners, was as much an act of desperation as of deliberation, for Russia had been ravaged by foreign invasions, internal strife, and the chaos of an interregnum following the Rurikid extinction.
The young monarch, initially reluctant and sheltered within the Monastery of the Trinity-St. Sergius, was persuaded to accept the crown, his lineage to Ivan IV’s first wife lending him a veneer of legitimacy.
With his ascension, the House of Romanov commenced its dominion, one that would steer Russia through wars, reforms, revolutions, and the eventual twilight of imperial rule in 1917.
