Alexander Mikhailovich of Tver

Alexander Mikhailovich (1300-1339) was prince of Tver and grand prince of Vladimir, the son of Prince Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tver, the holy right-⁠believing martyr. He was killed at the Golden Horde together with his son Feodor. He had no separate canonization, general or local; his name was entered in the Tver Paterikon (1908) and, later, in the Synaxis of All Saints Who Shone Forth in the Russian Land.

He was born on 7 October 1300 and was the second son of Prince Mikhail. After his elder brother Dmitry was executed on 15 September 1326 at the Horde, he received from Khan Uzbek the yarlyk for the grand principality of Vladimir, but lost it the next year because of the uprising against the Tatars in Tver, which he first tried unsuccessfully to prevent, then led. In the winter of 1327-1328, after a punitive campaign of the khan's armies, in which Russian princes took part, among them Ivan Danilovich Kalita, he took refuge in Pskov, where he was received as prince. The khan demanded that he be "sought," and the Pskovians refused to give him up, until Metropolitan Theognostus of Kyiv excommunicated them, together with the prince, in 1329. Then Alexander fled to Lithuania, but stayed in touch with Pskov and in 1331 was prince there again, as a vassal of the Lithuanian grand prince Gediminas. This second reign at Pskov lasted until 1337 and was tied to Pskov's wish for autonomy from Novgorod. In 1337 he went to the khan, who returned the throne of Tver to him. His return was understood as a renewal of the rivalry with Ivan Danilovich for the grand principality of Vladimir, which led to conflict with the Tver boyars, partisans of his brother Constantine's policy of loyalty to Moscow.

In 1339, as a result of the struggle between Moscow and Tver at the khan's court or of the khan's unfulfilled hopes that Alexander would mediate in relations with Lithuania, he was summoned to the Horde and executed together with his son Feodor. The khan announced the sentence three days before the execution. Before death he confessed and received the Holy Mysteries. The death of him and his son astonished contemporaries by its cruelty; "The Tale of the Killing of Alexander of Tver" says that they were cut to pieces. He died on 28 October 1339.

From the time of his reign dates the completion of the Tver chronicle, begun under his father (the so-⁠called compilation of 1327). His role in the codification of Pskov law remains a subject of discussion.