
I’ve finally gotten around to watching the Russian miniseries Sophia (2016) after years of seeing it come across my Pinterest feed and thinking, “I should really watch this.” Seeing no other alternative when it finally popped up on my suggested videos on Amazon Prime, I decided to give it a go, not really knowing what to expect. I’m still not quite sure what to think, mainly because the historical period and location is just beyond my comfort zone, but I do have a few thoughts that may, or may not be worth mentioning.
The series revolves around the origin story and subsequent life history of Sophia Paleologue (née Zoe), a 15th-century Greek princess, who was raised in Rome under the care of Pope Sixtus IV, and who was eventually married to Ivan III Vasilyevich, Grand Prince of Moscow. There are a lot of intricacies of Sophia’s pre-marriage life that are lightly touched on in the series, but are super interesting to unpack, such as being the niece of the Byzantine Emperor and therefore affiliated with the Eastern Orthodox Church, but then coming under the protection of the Roman Catholic pontiff who tried to use her as a bargaining chip for converting Orthodox Russia to the “one true church.” The conditions of Sophia’s marriage to Ivan, at least from Rome’s point of view, was to influence Ivan to reject Russian Orthodoxy and embrace Roman Catholicism, but that didn’t quite go as planned. At least according to the show, Sophia was a team player when it came to her new husband and his customs and beliefs, and she went all in on embracing the Orthodox church in Russia.
It was honestly refreshing to see a show featuring a heroine who understood that her whole objective was to marry a total stranger and then try to become the best wife ever, avoiding the trope of these types of shows which often show the plucky heroine being shocked to find out she’s about to marry some prince somewhere on the other side of the planet and then spending the rest of the show rebelling against the strictures of marriage and the expectations put on her. I know, it’s not the typical feminist angle to say that a young woman accepting her role in a patriarchal society is “refreshing,” but after the hundredth show about a rebellious noblewoman who refuses to abide by society’s rules in the middle ages, well, here we are.












So how authentic are the costumes? Well, that’s the problem, I don’t really know. Finding reliable sources for 15th-century Russian costume is not easy, and a lot of what looks the most similar to the outfits seen in the show are either 19th-century drawings or photos of Russian tzars dressing up in “old timey” outfits for photos, or it’s all Russian reenactors who admittedly have fabulous costumes, but not so much on the documentation side of things. The only English language source that I was able to find that provided historical sources for their documentation was this one, and you can see by the images that well, there’s a lot of extrapolation. That said, the end result in Sophia looks plausibly accurate and is certainly far more realistic than most modern historical shows are willing to go.
Have you watched Sophia (2016)? Tell us about it in the comments!
I saw this several years ago and loved it. I especially appreciated that it is one of the few shows I’ve seen where the mens’ costuming equals or exceeds the women in terms of lushness and color. The interiors were rich and warm too which was a nice contrast to the harsh climate.
Interesting, I’ll have to check this out!
I agree it is refreshing to see a princess accepting her destiny as a wife and queen and doing the labor to make it work.
Good grief, they look as cozy and shiny as one would hope to see in a pre-modern Russia.
Having looked through this article under the impression that the Tzarina Sophia was the mother of Ivan ‘the Terrible’ (Whom I recall died at an early age) it’s more than a little
bit of a relief to learn that she died aged a bit more than fifty.
Young by our standards, but at least not painfully young.