Painting #C01 - Sofia at Novodevichy Convent

Grand Duchess Sofia at the Novodevichy Convent
- Ilya Repin (1844-1930, Russian)
- oil (202 × 145 cm) in 1879
- Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow)

Sofia (1657-1682-1689-1704) was regent (or defacto monarch) during the reigns of kid brother Ivan V (1666-1682-1696, retarded) and kid half-brother Peter I (1672-1682-1725, later Peter the Great).

In 1689, Peter waged a successful coup against Sofia, and locked up Sofia in this Moscow convent.

In the summer of 1698, while Peter was on a long study tour to Europe, a failed coup broke out at Moscow. After about 1500 tortured deaths, left to rot in the streets of Moscow for months, there was still no evidence that Sofia was behind the coup.

Peter could not but only punish Sofia by making her a nun. Soldiers and monks took hours to talk Sofia into opening up the door. Painter Repin tried to depict what they saw when they gingerly entered the room. The corpses of the three coup accomplices were still hanging outside her window.