About author
Abstract. The paper is devoted to the almost unknown Moscow period of the life of the famous companion of Peter the Great – Prince Alexander Bekovich Cherkassky. This episode had not attracted much attention before, and as a result, many misconceptions about its details are firmly entrenched in Russian and foreign historiography. The research is based on fragmentary information from published sources of the late 17th–early 20th century and considers the history of the transformation of the Kabardian prince from the noble family into the Moscow nobleman. Details of the time of his appearance in Moscow, the adoption of Orthodoxy, the service in the Life Guards Regiment and the training abroad are also specified. All these fragmentary data on the Moscow period of life of the young Kabardian Prince allow to consider him as the Orthodox believer, the builder of churches, the zealous landowner collecting and buying up allotments. He became a confidant, in fact, for his “old” boyar nobility, that part of it, whose representatives supported the young tsar Peter Alekseevich in his endeavors.
Keywords: Prince Alexander Cherkassky, Moscow nobility, Peter the Great, Boris Alekseevich Golitsyn, The Great Kabarda, Bekmurzins, Life-Guard Preobrazhensky regiment.