We also know how False Dmitry explained his salvation to those around him. These explanations were preserved in the clearest form in the diary of the impostor’s wife, Marina Mnishek. “There was a doctor with the prince,- writes Marina, - originally Italian. Having learned about the evil intent, he... found a boy similar to Dmitry, and ordered him to be constantly with the prince, even to sleep in the same bed. When the boy fell asleep, the careful doctor transferred Dmitry to another bed. As a result, another boy was killed, not Dmitry, but the doctor took Dmitry out of Uglich and fled with him to the Arctic Ocean.".

The testimony of Yuri Mnishk, Marina’s father, who was arrested after the overthrow of the impostor, is very close to this explanation. Mniszech reported that his son-in-law said that “The Lord God, with the help of his doctor, saved him from death, putting in his place another boy, who was stabbed to death in his place in Uglich: and that this doctor then gave him to be raised by one boyar’s son, who then advised him to hide among the monks.”.

Many foreigners also talk about the foreign doctor who saved Dmitry from death. The German merchant Georg Paerle, who arrived in Moscow just before the wedding of False Dmitry and Marina, writes that the prince’s mentor Simeon replaced Dmitry in bed with another boy, and he himself fled, hiding Dmitry in a monastery. The Pole Tovyanovsky claims that the doctor Simon Godunov entrusted the murder of Dmitry, and he put a servant in the prince’s bed. The captain of the company of False Dmitry's bodyguards, the Frenchman Jacques Margeret, also spoke about the substitution, only he attributed it to the queen and the boyars.

Kobrin V. Tomb in the Moscow Kremlin

THE ROLE OF THE IMPOSTER IN RUSSIAN HISTORY

The Time of Troubles was the first civil war in Russian history. Its first explosion brought power to False Dmitry I. The assertion that the impostor ascended the throne thanks to peasant uprisings, and then, during his short reign, prepared the ground for the restoration of St. George’s Day and the destruction of the serfdom of the peasants, is one of the historiographical myths. The same myth is the thesis according to which the peasant war began in 1602-603, and the events of 1604-1606 are only the second stage of this war. The decisive role in the overthrow of the elected zemstvo dynasty of the Godunovs was played not by peasant uprisings, but by the rebellion of service people near Kromy and the uprising of the capital garrison and the population of Moscow in June 1605. This was the only time in Russian history when the tsar, in the person of False Dmitry I, received power from the hands of the rebels. However, this fact did not have any noticeable impact on the structure of Russian society and its political development. Coming from a small noble family, a former boyar serf, defrocked monk Yuri Otrepiev, having accepted the title of Emperor of All Rus', kept all socio-political orders and institutions intact. His policy was of the same pro-noble character as the policy of Boris Godunov. His measures regarding the peasants met the interests of the feudal landowners. However, the short-term reign of False Dmitry did not destroy faith in the good king. Before the appearance of the impostor in Russia, it is impossible to find traces of the idea of ​​​​the coming of the “good tsar-savior” in the sources. But soon after the coup, expectations and faith in the return of the “good tsar”, overthrown by the evil boyars, spread throughout Russia. This belief was shared by people from all walks of life.

The first Russian emperor lost power and life as a result of a palace coup organized by boyar conspirators. As soon as the boyar Vasily Shuisky ascended the throne, the news spread throughout the country that the “dashing” boyars tried to kill the “good sovereign,” but he escaped a second time and was waiting for help from his people. Mass uprisings on the southern outskirts of the state marked the beginning of a new stage of the civil war, marked by the highest rise in the struggle of the oppressed lower classes. In a country engulfed in the fires of civil war, new impostors have appeared. But none of them had the chance to play the same role in the history of the Time of Troubles as Yuri Bogdanovich Otrepyev played.

Skrynnikov R. Impostors in Russia at the beginning of the 17th century

THE APPEARANCE OF AN IMPOSTER

Modern news says that a young man, who later called himself Demetrius, appeared first in Kyiv, in monastic clothes, and then lived and studied in Goshcha, in Volyn. There were then two gentlemen, Gabriel and Roman Goysky (father and son), zealous followers of the so-called Arian sect, whose foundations were as follows: the recognition of one God, but not the Trinity, the recognition of Jesus Christ not as God, but as a divinely inspired man, an allegorical understanding of Christian dogmas and sacraments and, in general, the desire to place free thinking above obligatory belief in the invisible and incomprehensible. The Goyskys established two schools with the aim of spreading Arian teachings. Here the young man managed to learn a thing or two and pick up the inch of Polish liberal education; his stay in this school of free-thinking left on him the stamp of that religious indifference that even the Jesuits could not erase from him. From here, in 1603 and 1604, this young man entered the “orshak” (court servants) of Prince Adam Vishnevetsky, announced himself that he was Tsarevich Dimitri, then came to Adam’s brother, Prince Konstantin Vishnevetsky, who brought him to his father-in-law Yuri Mnishka, voivode of Sendomir, where the young man fell passionately in love with one of his daughters, Marina. This gentleman, a senator of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, suffered the worst reputation in his fatherland, although he was strong and influential in his connections.

THE ARRIVAL OF MARINA MNISHEK AND THE DEATH OF THE FALSE DMITRY

On Friday, May 12, the Empress - Dmitry's wife - entered Moscow more solemnly than had ever been seen in Russia. Her carriage was harnessed to ten Nogai horses, white with black spots, like tigers or leopards, which were so similar that it was impossible to distinguish one from the other; she had four detachments of Polish cavalry on very good horses and in rich clothes, then a detachment of haiduks as bodyguards, and there were many nobles in her retinue. She was taken to the monastery to the empress - the mother of the emperor, where she lived until the seventeenth, when she was taken to the upper chambers of the palace. The next day she was crowned with the same rites as the emperor. She was led by the ambassador of the Polish king, Kastellan Maloschsky, under his right hand, by the wife of Mstislavsky, under his left, and when leaving the church, Emperor Dmitry led her by the hand, and Vasily Shuisky led her under his left hand. On this day, only Russians were present at the feast; On the nineteenth the wedding celebrations began, where all the Poles were present, with the exception of the ambassador, because the emperor refused to allow him to the table. And although, according to Russian custom, an ambassador is not seated at the imperial table, the said castellan of Malosch, the ambassador of the Polish king, did not fail to notice to the emperor that his ambassador was given a similar honor by the king - his overlord, since during wedding celebrations he was always seated at his own the king's table. But on Saturday and Sunday he dined at a separate table next to their Majesties' table. At this time, both the father-in-law, the Sandomierz governor, and the secretary Pyotr Basmanov, and others warned Emperor Dmitry that some intrigues were being hatched against him; some were taken into custody, but the emperor did not seem to attach much importance to this.

Finally, on Saturday May 27 (here, as in other places, the new style is implied, although the Russians count according to the old style), at six o'clock in the morning, when they least thought about it, the fateful day came when Emperor Dmitry Ivanovich was inhumanly killed and It is believed that one thousand seven hundred and five Poles were brutally murdered because they lived far from each other. The head of the conspirators was Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky. Pyotr Fedorovich Basmanov was killed in the gallery opposite the emperor’s chambers and received the first blow from Mikhail Tatishchev, to whom he had shortly before asked for freedom, and several shooters from the bodyguards were killed. The Empress, the wife of Emperor Dmitry, her father, brother, son-in-law and many others who escaped the people's fury were taken into custody, each in a separate house. The late Dmitry, dead and naked, was dragged past the monastery of the empress - his mother - to the square where Vasily Shuisky's head was to be cut off, and Dmitry was laid on a table about an arshin long, so that the head hung on one side and the legs on the other, and Peter Basmanov was put under the table. They remained a spectacle for everyone for three days, until the head of the conspiracy, Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, the one about whom we talked so much, was elected emperor (although this kingdom is not elective, but hereditary, but, since Dmitry was the last in the family and there were none left relatives by blood, Shuisky was elected as a result of his intrigues and machinations, as Boris Fedorovich did after the death of Fedor, as we mentioned above); he ordered Dmitry to be buried outside the city near the main road.

CHARACTER OF MARINA MNISHEK

Brought up from childhood in the consciousness of her noble origin, even in a very young age she was distinguished by extraordinary arrogance. Nemoevsky gives a very characteristic detail in this regard.

During her wedding in Moscow, when one day the Polish servants tried to look into the room where the feast was taking place, the queen, indignant at this, exclaimed:

Tell them: if any of them comes here, I will order not once, but three times to beat him with a whip!

The same insane arrogance and exaggerated sense of her own immeasurable superiority are also evident in her later correspondence. In her letters, she says that she prefers death to the consciousness “that the world will mock her grief longer”; that “being the ruler of nations, the Moscow queen, she does not think and cannot be a subject again and return to the class of the Polish noblewoman.” She even compared herself to the sun, which never ceases to shine, although “it is sometimes covered by black clouds.”

Marina was also distinguished by her extraordinary courage, eloquence and energy. She surprisingly proved this mainly in Tushino and Dmitrov.

When, at the beginning of 1610, the Poles who served the Pretender intended to go over to Sigismund’s side, the “queen” bypassed their camps; with her eloquence she convinced many of them to leave the king and strengthened them in devotion to her husband.

Also in Dmitrov, she “in a hussar dress entered the military council, where with her plaintive speech” she made a great impression and even “revolted many of the army.” Marina was distinguished by extraordinary courage. During her flight to Kaluga, she set off only accompanied by a dozen or two Don people, and in Dmitrov she even more - as Markhotsky puts it - “discovered her courage.” When our people, alarmed, weakly began to defend themselves, she ran out of her apartment to the ramparts and exclaimed:

What are you doing, evil people? I'm a woman, but I haven't lost my courage!

With the appearance in 1607 of a second Russian impostor, who took the name of Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich, a full-scale civil war began, engulfing the entire center of the country, putting Russia on the brink of destruction and leading to a foreign invasion.

In portraits of the 17th century, False Dmitry II was depicted as False Dmitry I, which, of course, is by no means accidental, since the new, second impostor no longer posed as Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible, who allegedly escaped once in Uglich, but as “Tsar Dmitry "(Grigory Otrepyev), crowned king on July 30, 1605 and supposedly miraculously escaped death on May 17, 1606 (many claimed that then his double was killed instead of the tsar).

Probably, in appearance, False Dmitry II really looked like his predecessor. As for everything else, the second impostor was the complete opposite of Grigory Otrepiev. Russian historian Sergei Platonov noted that False Dmitry I was in fact the leader of the movement he raised. “The thief [False Dmitry II], - the researcher emphasized, - came out of a drunken prison to do his job and declared himself king under pain of beatings and torture. It was not he who led the crowds of his supporters and subjects, but, on the contrary, they pulled him along in a spontaneous ferment, the motive of which was not the interest of the applicant, but the own interests of his troops.”

One of many

The first news of False Dmitry II dates back to the winter of 1607, when a pretender to the name of the miraculously saved Tsar Dmitry was discovered in Lithuania. This impostor was then one of many who pretended to be a royal person. Among the Terek Cossacks appeared “Tsarevich Peter Fedorovich” (allegedly the son of Tsar Fyodor, that is, the grandson of Ivan the Terrible) and “Tsarevich Ivan-August” (allegedly the son of Ivan the Terrible from his marriage to Anna Koltovskaya). The first shed blood in the south of Russia, and then united with the governor of “Tsar Dmitry” Ivan Bolotnikov in Tula. The second operated in the Lower Volga region, where Astrakhan submitted to him. Following them, another “grandson” of Grozny appeared, the “son” of Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich - “Tsarevich Lavrenty”. In the Cossack villages, impostors grew like mushrooms: the “children” of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich appeared - the “princes” Simeon, Savely, Vasily, Clementy, Eroshka, Gavrilka, Martynka.

In May 1607, False Dmitry II crossed the Russian-Polish border, showed up in Starodub and was recognized by local residents. His army was replenished so slowly that only in September he was able, at the head of detachments of Polish mercenaries, Cossacks and Russian thieves (thieves at that time were called various criminals, including political rebels), to move to the aid of False Peter and Bolotnikov. On October 8, the impostor defeated the tsar's governor, Prince Vasily Fedorovich Mosalsky, near Kozelsk, and on the 16th he captured Belev, but, having learned that Tsar Vasily Shuisky had taken Tula, which was in turmoil, and captured Bolotnikov and False Peter, he fled from near Belev to Karachev.

However, instead of sending his army against the new thief, Tsar Vasily disbanded him, and the commanders of the rebel army, meanwhile, forced False Dmitry II to turn to Bryansk. The city was besieged, but Voivode Mosalsky, sent to the rescue of Bryansk, inspired his detachment: on December 15, 1607, the soldiers crossed the icy Desna River by swimming and united with the garrison. Through joint efforts, Bryansk was defended. The rebels did not disappear anywhere: they gathered at Orel and Krom - then, apparently, the proverb “Eagle and Krom are the first thieves” was born. The surviving defenders of Tula, professional warriors - nobles and Cossacks, and new troops from all over the “Ukraines” flocked to the impostor.

In the spring of 1608, the army of False Dmitry II moved towards Moscow. The Lithuanian hetman, Prince Roman Ruzhinsky, stood at the head of the impostor’s troops. On April 30 - May 1 (the battle lasted two days), the regiments commanded by the Tsar's brother, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Shuisky, were defeated near Belev. Already in June, False Dmitry appeared near Moscow and encamped in the village of Tushino. Based on the name of his residence, he received the memorable name of the Tushino thief.

Second False Dmitry

Its origin is shrouded in legend. There were several versions among contemporaries. The governor of False Dmitry II, Prince Dmitry Mosalsky Gorbaty, “said from torture” that the impostor “is from Moscow from the Arbatu from Zakonyushev priests’ son Mitka.” Another of his former supporters, the boyar’s son Afanasy Tsyplatev, said during interrogation that “Tsarevich Dmitry is called Litvin, Ondrei Kurbsky’s son.” The “Moscow chronicler” and the cellarer of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery Abraham (in the world Averky Palitsyn) considered him to come from a family of Starodub children of the boyar Verevkins (the Verevkins were one of the first who, back in Starodub, recognized the impostor as the sovereign and confused the townspeople).

The Jesuits also conducted their investigation into the personality of False Dmitry II. They believed that the name of the king killed in 1606 was adopted by the baptized Jew Bogdanko. He was a teacher in Shklov, then moved to Mogilev, where he served the priest: “but he had on him a bad robe, a bad casing, a barman’s shlyk [lamb’s cap], and he wore it in the summer.” For certain offenses, the Shklov teacher was threatened with prison. At that moment, he was noticed by a participant in the campaign of False Dmitry I against Moscow, Pole M. Mekhovsky. The latter most likely appeared in Belarus not by chance. On the instructions of the leaders of the rebellion against Vasily Shuisky - Bolotnikov, Prince Grigory Petrovich Shakhovsky and False Peter - he was looking for a suitable person to play the role of the resurrected Tsar Dmitry. The ragged teacher, in his opinion, looked like False Dmitry I. But the tramp was frightened by the offer made to him and fled to Propoisk, where he was caught. Here, faced with a choice - to suffer punishment or declare himself the Tsar of Moscow, he agreed to the latter.

Polish army

After Hetman Stanislaw Zolkiewski defeated the noble rokosh (rebellion) of Zebrzydowski, the army of the Tushino thief was replenished with a large number of Polish mercenaries. One of the most successful governors of the new impostor was Colonel Alexander Lisovsky. Everyone was recruited into his Lisovchik detachments, without distinction of rank or nationality; only the fighting qualities of the warriors were of interest.

False Dmitry II also had those who fought with the highest permission of King Sigismund III, seeking revenge on the Muscovites for the death and captivity of Polish knights during the uprising against False Dmitry I. Thus, Colonel Jan Peter Sapieha came to Vor with an 8,000-strong detachment. Among the immigrants from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth there were many not only Poles and Lithuanians, but also residents of the Belarusian lands who professed Orthodoxy.

The Tushino camp was a collection of people of different nationalities (Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Don, Zaporozhye and Volga Cossacks, Tatars), united under the banner of the new impostor by hatred of Shuisky and the desire for profit. The camp of False Dmitry II, which included wooden buildings and tents, was well fortified and protected on the western side by a ditch and rampart, and on the other sides by the Moscow and Skhodnya rivers.

Approaching Moscow, the impostor tried to take it on the move, but ran into stubborn resistance from the tsarist army. The fighting took place in a western direction from the capital, on the Khodynka River near Tushin. Then the governors of False Dmitry II decided to blockade the city, blocking all the roads along which it was supplied and communicated with the outskirts. From that moment on, the Tushins undertook regular campaigns to the north and northeast, to the cities outside Moscow, trying to cut off Vasily Shuisky from Pomerania, the Middle Volga region, Perm and Siberia, which traditionally supported him.

"Migratory birds"

With the appearance of False Dmitry II at the walls of the capital, a long period of brutal civil strife began. The country found itself split into two hostile camps. Both in Moscow and in Tushino sat the Tsar and Tsarina (his comrades brought Marina Mnishek and her father to the Thief’s camp, and the widow of the first impostor agreed to play the role of the wife of the second) and the Patriarch (they brought here Metropolitan Filaret (Romanov), captured in Rostov, who named Patriarch of Moscow). Both kings had a Boyar Duma, orders, troops, both granted estates to their supporters and mobilized military men.

The “thieves’” Boyar Duma was quite representative and consisted of various kinds of oppositionists. Its head was the “boyar” (he received this rank from False Dmitry II) Prince Dmitry Timofeevich Trubetskoy. At the Moscow court, he was just a steward and was one of the first to run over to the impostor, right during the battle (“out of business”). A significant force in this Duma was represented by the relatives of “patriarch” Filaret - boyar Mikhail Glebovich Saltykov, princes Roman Fedorovich Troekurov, Alexey Yuryevich Sitsky, Dmitry Mamstrukovich Cherkassky; Served False Dmitry II and the favorites of his predecessor - Prince Vasily Mikhailovich Rubets Mosalsky and other Mosalskys, Prince Grigory Petrovich Shakhovskoy, nobleman Mikhail Andreevich Molchanov, as well as clerks Ivan Tarasevich Gramotin and Pyotr Alekseevich Tretyakov.

Many ran from the impostor to Vasily Shuisky and back, receiving more and more awards for new betrayals. The author of an essay on the Time of Troubles, Abrahamy (Palitsyn), aptly called them “flights.” According to him, it also happened that during the day the nobles feasted in the “reigning city,” and “out of joy,” some went to the royal chambers, while others “hopped to the Tushino camps.” The level of moral decline of his contemporaries, who “played the king’s game like a child,” committing numerous perjuries, horrified Palitsyn.

At the same time, the greatest power in the impostor’s camp was not enjoyed by himself or the Boyar Duma, but by the commander-in-chief Roman Ruzhinsky and other commanders from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Since the spring of 1608, Poles and Lithuanians were appointed governors under the control of False Dmitry II; Usually there were two governors - a Russian and a foreigner.

The turning point in relations between the Tushino regime and the regions of Zamoskovye and Pomerania under its control occurred with the appearance in the thieves' camp of the Lithuanian magnate Jan Peter Sapieha with the mercenaries of the Infland army (these soldiers fought for King Sigismund III in the Baltic states, but, dissatisfied with the delays in paying salaries, they went looking for happiness in the east). After heated disputes between Ruzhinsky and Sapieha, a division was carried out. Ruzhinsky remained in Tushino and controlled the southern and western lands, and Sapieha set up camp near the Trinity-Sergius Monastery and undertook to spread the power of the impostor in Zamoskovye, Pomorie and Novgorod land.

In the north of Russia, the Tushins acted even more brazenly than in the west and south: they shamelessly robbed the population; Polish and Lithuanian regiments and companies, dividing the palace volosts and villages into “bailiffs”, under the guise of collecting taxes and feed, were engaged in robbery. In normal times, collectors received 20 rubles from each plow (a unit of taxation); Tushino residents extorted 80 rubles from a plow. Numerous petitions addressed to False Dmitry II and Jan Sapieha from peasants, townspeople and landowners with complaints about the atrocities of the troops have been preserved. “Lithuanian military men, and Tatars, and Russian people come to us, beat us and torture us and rob our bellies. Please tell us, your orphans, to give us bailiffs!” - the peasants cried desperately.

Of particular interest to the robbers were ancient Russian cities and diocesan centers where the bishop's treasury and treasury were located. So, in October 1608, the Sapezhinites plundered Rostov, capturing there, as already mentioned, Metropolitan Philaret. The inhabitants were “cut down,” the city was burned out, and the metropolitan, after being mocked and desecrated, was brought to Tushino. Suzdal, Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, Yaroslavl, Yuryev-Polskoy, Uglich, Vladimir, Vologda, Kostroma, Galich, Murom, Kasimov, Shatsk, Alatyr, Arzamas, Ryazan, Pskov were captured or voluntarily “kissed the cross to the Thief”... In Nizhny Novgorod they fought off Tushins and the rebel peoples of the Volga region, a militia led by Prince Alexander Andreevich Repnin and Andrei Semenovich Alyabyev. Shuisky held on to Pereyaslavl-Ryazan (Ryazan), where the leader of the Ryazan nobility Prokopiy Petrovich Lyapunov sat, Smolensk, where the boyar Mikhail Borisovich Shein was in command, Kazan and Veliky Novgorod.

In the Lower Volga region, he fought with the “thieves’ people” - the Russian Tushins, as well as the Tatars, Chuvash, and Mari - boyar Fyodor Ivanovich Sheremetev. In the fall of 1608, he moved up the Volga, gathering forces loyal to Tsar Vasily along the way, including attracting to his side the descendants of the Livonian Germans exiled by Ivan the Terrible.

Swedish help

Tsar Vasily Shuisky sent separate detachments from Moscow against the Tushins. Their most important task was to ensure the supply of food to the capital. When rebels appeared near Kolomna - one of the few cities that remained loyal to Shuisky, the tsar sent the steward of Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky against them. He defeated them in the village of Vysotskoye, which is 30 versts from Kolomna, and “captured many tongues, and took away much of their treasury and supplies.”

However, such successes were infrequent. And Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, realizing that he was unable to cope with the impostor alone, decided to resort to foreign military assistance - to Sweden. The choice of King Charles IX as an ally was not accidental. Charles IX was the uncle and enemy of the Polish king Sigismund III - at one time he even took the Swedish throne from his nephew. In conditions when Sigismund III interfered more and more actively in Russian affairs every year, secretly supporting both False Dmitrievs and the Polish-Lithuanian detachments roaming around Russia, the inevitability of war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became obvious. Vasily Shuisky sought, ahead of events, to enlist the help of his northern neighbor.

Another Shuisky

Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky was sent to Veliky Novgorod to negotiate with the Swedes. The young (he was only 22 years old) relative of the tsar had by that time already become famous for his victories over Bolotnikov’s troops. Unlike most aristocrats of that time, Skopin-Shuisky truly earned his boyar rank, having proven himself to be a talented and courageous military leader. In a situation where the royal commanders suffered one defeat after another and retreated helplessly, the prince's victories had enormous moral significance.

He conducted successful negotiations. He managed to attract a mercenary army of 12 thousand Swedes, Germans, Scots and other immigrants from Western Europe to the service of the tsar, and assemble a Russian militia of 3 thousand people in the northern regions. The foreign part of Skopin-Shuisky's army was commanded by the Swedish Count Jacob Pontus Delagardie. On May 10, 1609, Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich moved from Novgorod “to cleanse the Moscow state.”

In the spring of that year, the north of Russia was engulfed in an uprising against the Tushino thief. Zemstvo detachments attacked the Tushins, killed and expelled them. The governors of Skopin-Shuisky also acted together with them, but the liberation of the northern lands dragged on for several months. But the prince’s army was replenished with local militia units. In the atmosphere of chaos and devastation that reigned under Vasily Shuisky, local communities (“zemsky worlds”) themselves began to organize defense and defend themselves from the predatory robbers who were plundering Russian lands under the banners of Tsar Dmitry. Gradually, these detachments merged into large formations, until, finally, the northern militia joined the army of Skopin-Shuisky.

In the summer, the prince defeated the main forces of False Dmitry II in several battles, but further advance towards Moscow was delayed due to friction with the Swedish mercenaries, who demanded fulfillment of the terms of the concluded agreement, and in particular the transfer of the Russian fortress of Korela to Sweden. Only in October 1609, after new victories over the Tushins Jan Sapieha and Alexander Zborovsky, Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky settled in Alexandrova Sloboda, where a kind of headquarters of the liberation movement arose. In November, the boyar Sheremetev joined the prince, moving from near Astrakhan with an army from the “lower cities” (that is, the cities of the Lower and Middle Volga) and along the way he defeated the uprising of the peoples of the Volga region and took by storm the desperately resisting city of Kasimov (in early August 1609) . It was then that Sapega, fearing the advancing Russian army of Skopin-Shuisky, lifted the siege from the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.

While Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich was establishing order in the north of the country and fighting the Tushins in the Upper Volga region, Moscow was restless. Betrayal and rebellion had already penetrated into the reigning city itself; faith in the government and loyalty to the king weakened. The incessant bloodshed prompted many to think about replacing the unfortunate Vasily IV.

In February 1609, Prince Roman Gagarin, the son of the famous guardsman Timofey Gryaznoy, the Ryazan nobleman Grigory Sunbulov “and many others” opposed the sovereign and began to convince the boyars to depose Vasily Shuisky. However, their calls were supported only by Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn. “Noise” arose at Lobnoye Place, where the rebels brought the patriarch, but Hermogenes firmly stood on Shuisky’s side. The king himself was not afraid to appear before the rebels, and they retreated. Participants in the unsuccessful coup attempt and those who sympathized with them - 300 people - fled to Tushino.

Soon a new conspiracy was discovered. One of the boyars closest to Vasily IV, Ivan Fedorovich Kryuk Kolychev, received a denunciation that he was plotting to kill the Tsar on Palm Sunday, April 9. The enraged Vasily Shuisky ordered Kolychev and his accomplices to be tortured and then executed on Pozhar (Red Square). But even after this, indignation arose more than once against the sovereign.

“Here comes my rival!”

On March 12, 1610, Skopin-Shuisky at the head of the army entered Moscow and was greeted by jubilant people. But among the triumphant crowd there was one man whose heart was filled with anger and hatred. “Prince Dmitry Shuisky, standing on the rampart and seeing Skopin from a distance, exclaimed: “Here comes my rival!”,” says Dutchman Elias Gerkman, a contemporary of these events. The Tsar's brother Dmitry Ivanovich Shuisky had reason to fear the young governor: in the event of the death of the childless sovereign, he was supposed to take the throne, but the enormous popularity of Skopin-Shuisky instilled in him the fear that the people would proclaim Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich as heir and then as tsar. Some sources indicate that Vasily IV himself was afraid of Skopin-Shuisky, who was rapidly gaining fame and political weight.

The most detailed description of further tragic events is the “Scripture on the death and burial of Prince Skopin-Shuisky”, according to which at the christening of Prince Alexei Vorotynsky, the godmother - the “villainous” Princess Ekaterina Shuyskaya (the wife of Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Shuisky and the daughter of the guardsman Malyuta Skuratov) - offered to her godfather To Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky a cup of poison. The young commander was ill for several days and died on April 23, 1610. With cries and screams, crowds of people carried the prince's body for burial in the royal tomb - the Archangel Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin. The Tsar, who had not previously enjoyed much love, with the death of Skopin-Shuisky began to be hated as the culprit of his death.

Meanwhile, False Dmitry II, like Vasily IV in Moscow, had long felt uncomfortable in his “capital” - Tushino. Back in September 1609, Sigismund III declared war on Russia and besieged Smolensk. Among the Poles surrounding the impostor, a plan arose to hand over the Tushino thief into the hands of the king, and themselves to act on his side and get him or his son Vladislav the Moscow crown. The Poles and some Russian Tushino residents began negotiations with Sigismund III, which resulted in an agreement between the Tushino boyars and the king (February 4, 1610) on the calling of Prince Vladislav to the Moscow throne.

Kaluga courtyard

In December 1609, the impostor was put under house arrest, but managed to escape from Tushin to Kaluga, where he again attracted many supporters (Cossacks, Russians and some Poles) and from where he waged war with two sovereigns: the Moscow Tsar Vasily Shuisky and the Polish king Sigismund. The Tushinsky camp was empty: the king’s supporters - boyar Saltykov, Prince Rubets Mosalsky, Prince Yuri Dmitrievich Khvorostinin, nobleman Molchanov, clerk Gramotin and others - went to him near Smolensk, and the supporters of the impostor went to Kaluga.

During the Kaluga period of his adventure, False Dmitry II was the most independent in the actions he took. Convinced of the treachery of the Polish mercenaries, he appealed to the Russian people, frightening them with the desire of Sigismund III to seize Russia and establish Catholicism here. This call resonated with many. Kaluga residents happily accepted the impostor. A little later, Marina Mnishek also made her way to Kaluga, and after Vor’s escape from Tushin, she ended up in Dmitrov with Hetman Jan Sapieha.

The Tushino camp collapsed, but by 1610 a new abscess had formed in Kaluga. Now the impostor was campaigning against the king and the Poles, but his patriotism was dictated primarily by selfish considerations. In fact, he was not confident in his abilities and sought help from Sapieha, he was afraid of assassination attempts and therefore surrounded himself with guards from Germans and Tatars. An atmosphere of suspicion and cruelty reigned in the Kaluga camp. Based on a false denunciation, False Dmitry II ordered the execution of Albert Skotnitsky, who had previously been the captain of the guard of False Dmitry I and the Kaluga governor of Bolotnikov, and brought down his anger on all Germans. In the end, immeasurable cruelty destroyed him.

In the fall of 1610, the Kasimov Khan Uraz-Muhammad arrived from the royal camp near Smolensk in Kaluga. Kasimov was a loyal supporter initially of Bolotnikov, and then of False Dmitry II, so the impostor received him with honor. However, having received a denunciation of the khan’s evil intentions, the Tushinsky thief lured him to a hunt, where he was killed. According to the epitaph of Uraz-Muhammad, this happened on November 22.

But the impostor did not survive Kasimov Khan for long. The head of the guard of False Dmitry II, the Nogai prince Peter Urusov, decided to take revenge on him for the death of the khan. Urusov also had another reason for revenge: earlier the Tushinsky thief ordered the execution of the devious Ivan Ivanovich Godunov, who was related to the prince. On December 11, 1610, the impostor went for a walk in a sleigh. A mile from Kaluga, Pyotr Urusov approached the sleigh and shot him with a gun, and then cut off his head with a saber. Having committed the murder, the Tatars who formed the guard of False Dmitry II rode off to the Crimea. The news of the impostor's death was brought to the camp by the jester Pyotr Koshelev, who accompanied him on the trip. Kaluga residents buried “Tsar Dmitry” in the Trinity Church. A few days later, Marina Mnishek gave birth to a son, who was baptized according to the Orthodox rite and named Ivan in honor of his imaginary grandfather. The remnants of the army of False Dmitry II took the oath to the newborn “prince”.

The death of False Dmitry II was of great importance, predetermining the further development of events. The movement, directed against the Poles and Russian traitors, was able to free itself from the adventuristic element associated with the personality of the self-proclaimed pretender to the throne. Now the main slogans of opponents of Polish rule were the expulsion of foreigners and the convening of the Zemsky Sobor to elect a new legitimate king (by that time Vasily Shuisky had been deposed - on July 17, 1610). People who had previously supported the Poles out of fear of the impostor began to go over to the side of their opponents. At the same time, the anarchist elements lost their main support: having lost the idea of ​​serving the “legitimate king,” they turned into ordinary robbers. The son of Marina Mnishek and False Dmitry II, Ivan, who received the nickname Vorenok in Moscow, was too young to become the leader of the movement. According to the New Chronicler, supporters of the impostor in Kaluga refused to swear allegiance to Prince Vladislav and announced that they would take the oath to the king who “will be in the Muscovite state.”

For Rus', the beginning of the 17th century was one of the most difficult periods in history. Crop failures for several years in a row provoked dissatisfaction with the rule of Boris Godunov not only in the circles of the boyar nobility, but also among the common people.

The man who later became known as False Dmitry 1 (and, of course, serious political forces in Poland), took advantage of the most convenient moment and in 1601 declared himself a miraculously saved prince.

It must be said that the origin of False Dmitry 1 has still not been reliably established. However, a short biography of False Dmitry 1 reports that he was the son of Bogdan Otrepyev, a nobleman from Galich. Having taken monastic vows, Grigory Otrepiev became a monk of the Chudov Monastery, from which he presumably fled in 1601.

After 1601, having received serious support from the aristocracy and clergy of Poland, False Dmitry was preparing the return of the “legitimate” ruler to the throne of Russia. During this period, False Dmitry himself generously gives out promises of rewards (to give Poland the Seversk and Smolensk lands) and assistance (in particular to Sigismund 3 against Sweden), and secretly accepts Catholicism.

Only in the fall of 1604 did he, with a Polish-Lithuanian detachment, enter Russian lands near Chernigov. This move was apparently well calculated. Peasant uprisings in the southern lands greatly contributed to the successful outcome of the campaign. False Dmitry 1 was able to gain a strong foothold in Putivl.

Soon after this, Boris Godunov dies. Power passes to his son Fedor. But he was overthrown on June 1, 1605 during the uprising. And the bulk of the army went over to the side of the impostor. Having entered the capital of Russia on June 30, 1605 according to the new style, False Dmitry 1 was crowned king the very next day. The ceremony took place in the Assumption Cathedral.

The reign of False Dmitry 1 began with attempts to pursue an independent policy. He established cash and land salaries in order to gain the support of the nobility. Considerable funds were required for this and they were found by revising the land rights of the monasteries. The peasants also received certain relief. For example, the southern regions were exempt from paying taxes for 10 years. However, these measures did not bring success to False Dmitry. To pay the money, Poland had to significantly increase taxes. And this attracted the Krkstyan-Cossack uprising in the next 1606. To stop it, the impostor had to make great concessions, but military force was not used.

However, False Dmitry 1 was in no hurry to fully fulfill the promises made to Sigismund 3, which noticeably spoiled their relationship. The situation inside the country was also close to a crisis. As a result of the conspiracy that arose, headed by Shuisky, False Dmitry 1 was killed. This happened during a riot that broke out in the capital. The townspeople were extremely negatively opposed to the many Poles who had gathered for the wedding of the impostor and Maria Mniszech. The body was initially buried, but then burned. Ashes were thrown from the cannon towards Poland.

But, already in 167, another impostor appeared in Poland - False Dmitry 2. He is known under the nickname Tushinsky Thief. Very little is known about the biography of this “miraculously saved False Dmitry 1”. Perhaps the only reliably established fact is his incredible similarity to the first impostor. He supported the Bolotnikov uprising that began during that period. However, the two armies failed to unite near Tula, as originally planned.

In 1608, Shuisky’s army was completely defeated, and False Dmitry 2 himself settled in Tushino. He failed to take Moscow, and therefore the army took up robberies and pogroms. It was because of this episode in the biography that False Dmitry received his nickname. This “rule of False Dmitry 2” lasted for 2 years. Unable to change the situation on his own, Shuisky entered into an agreement with the ruler of Sweden, promising to give up Karelians in exchange for help. Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky, the Tsar's nephew, was appointed commander. He turned out to be talented in military affairs and Shuisky’s victories gave Poland a reason to intervene and begin an intervention. However, the path through Russian lands was not easy. Smolensk was able to defend itself for 20 months.

False Dmitry 2, after the appearance of Shuisky’s army, fled and settled in Kaluga. Sigismund Vladislav was crowned king. The hopes placed on Skopin-Shuisky were not justified. In 1610 he died under unclear circumstances. Hoping to retake the throne, False Dmitry 2 and his army moved towards the capital. But soon he again had to flee to Kaluga, where he was killed in August 1610. In 1613, the Time of Troubles for Rus' ended and the first ruler of the Romanov family was crowned king.

Murder of False Dmitry I

However, soon the Moscow boyars were very surprised that the “legitimate Tsar Dmitry” did not observe Russian customs and rituals. Imitating the Polish king, False Dmitry I renamed the boyar Duma into the Senate, made changes to the palace ceremonies and very soon emptied the treasury with expenses for the maintenance of the Polish and German guards, for entertainment and for gifts to the Polish king.

Fulfilling his promise to marry Marina Mnishek, on November 12, 1605, False Dmitry I invited her and his retinue to Moscow.

Soon a dual situation arose in Moscow: on the one hand, the people loved him, and on the other, they began to suspect him of impostor. Almost from the first day, a wave of discontent swept through the capital due to the tsar’s failure to observe church fasts and violation of Russian customs in clothing and life, his disposition towards foreigners, and his promise to marry a Polish woman.

The group of dissatisfied people was headed by Vasily Shuisky, Vasily Golitsyn, Prince Kurakin, Mikhail Tatishchev, and the Kazan and Kolomna metropolitans. To kill the tsar, archers and the killer of Fyodor Godunov, Sherefedinov, were hired. But the assassination attempt planned on January 8, 1606 failed, and its perpetrators were torn to pieces by the crowd.

On April 24, 1606, the Poles arrived at the wedding of False Dmitry I with Marina Mnishek - about 2 thousand people - noble nobles, lords, princes and their retinue, to whom False Dmitry allocated huge sums for gifts and presents.

On May 8, 1606, Marina Mniszech was crowned queen, and their wedding took place. During the multi-day celebration, False Dmitry I retired from government affairs. At this time, the Poles in Moscow, in a drunken revelry, broke into Moscow houses, rushed at women, and robbed passers-by. The conspirators decided to take advantage of this.

On May 14, 1606, Vasily Shuisky gathered merchants and servicemen loyal to him, together with whom he drew up a plan of action against the insolent Poles. The houses in which they live were marked. The conspirators decided to sound the alarm on Saturday and call on the people, under the pretext of protecting the king, to revolt. Shuisky, on behalf of the tsar, changed the guards in the palace, ordered the prisons to be opened and issued weapons to the crowd.

Marina Mnishek

On May 17, 1606, the conspirators entered Red Square with an armed crowd. False Dmitry tried to escape, jumped out of the window onto the pavement, where the archers picked him up alive and hacked him to death.

The body of False Dmitry I was dragged to Red Square, his clothes were taken off, a mask was placed on his chest, and a pipe was stuck in his mouth. For two days, Muscovites cursed at the body, and then buried it in the old cemetery behind the Serpukhov Gate.

But soon rumors spread that “miracles were being done” over the grave thanks to the magic of the dead False Dmitry I. His body was dug up, burned and, after mixing ashes with gunpowder, they fired from a cannon in the direction from which he came - to the West.

From the book History of Russia. XVII–XVIII centuries. 7th grade author Chernikova Tatyana Vasilievna

§ 3. The reign of False Dmitry I 1. THE END OF THE GODUNOV DYNASTY Failures in the fight against False Dmitry broke Tsar Boris. The once energetic and decisive king began to withdraw from business. It was shown to people only on major holidays. If earlier he generously showered favors on the poor,

From the book The Great Troubles. End of the Empire author

5. Boyar conspiracy and the murder of Tsar Dmitry = “False Dmitry I” Above, when presenting our reconstruction, we focused on the fact that Tsarevich Dmitry was elevated to the throne as a result of a boyar conspiracy that overthrew Tsar Boris. However, the boyars considered the prince only

From the book Book 1. New chronology of Rus' [Russian Chronicles. "Mongol-Tatar" conquest. Battle of Kulikovo. Ivan groznyj. Razin. Pugachev. The defeat of Tobolsk and author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

3.5. Boyar conspiracy and the murder of Tsar Dmitry = “False Dmitry I” Above, when presenting our reconstruction, we focused on the fact that Tsarevich Dmitry was enthroned as a result of a boyar conspiracy that overthrew Tsar Boris. However, the boyars viewed the prince only as

From the book New Chronology and the Concept of the Ancient History of Rus', England and Rome author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

Boyar conspiracy and the murder of Tsar Dmitry, “False Dmitry I” Above, when presenting our reconstruction, we focused on the fact that Tsarevich Dmitry was elevated to the throne as a result of a boyar conspiracy (which overthrew Tsar Boris). However, the boyars viewed the prince only as

From the book Kingdom of Moscow author Vernadsky Georgy Vladimirovich

2. The reign of False Dmitry I The strength of Dmitry consisted not so much in his army, but in the authority of his name. People in the areas he entered were confused: some believed that he was a real prince, others joined him to oppose Boris.

From the book 1612 author

Three False Dmitrys Introduction At the beginning of the 17th century. The Russian state experienced an unheard of bloody civil war. Contemporaries called it the Troubles. The war began after the invasion of the country by an impostor who took the name of Tsarevich Dmitry, the youngest son of Tsar Ivan the Terrible.

From the book The Conquest of America by Ermak-Cortez and the Rebellion of the Reformation through the eyes of the “ancient” Greeks author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

6.3. The murder of Persian ambassadors by the “ancient” Egyptians and the murder of Russian boyar children who arrived in Kazan The revenge of the Persian-Russians According to Herodotus, when the Persian army approached Egyptian Memphis, Cambyses sent to the Memphians along the river on a MYTYLENEAN ship

From the book 50 famous riddles of the Middle Ages author Zgurskaya Maria Pavlovna

The Secret of False Dmitry I There are a considerable number of well-established stereotypes regarding impostors during the Time of Troubles. They claim that False Dmitry I, aka the fugitive monk Grishka Otrepiev, intended to sell Rus' to the “Poles” and Catholics, whose political instrument he and

From the book The Split of the Empire: from Ivan the Terrible-Nero to Mikhail Romanov-Domitian. [The famous “ancient” works of Suetonius, Tacitus and Flavius, it turns out, describe Great author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

6. The murder of Galba is the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry in Uglich Information about Otho’s conspiracy against Galba spread. Suetonius continues: “Many urged him (Galba - Auth.) to hurry there as quickly as possible... BUT HE PREFERRED NOT TO LEAVE THE PALACE and only surrounded himself with guards from

author Istomin Sergey Vitalievich

From the book I Explore the World. History of Russian Tsars author Istomin Sergey Vitalievich

Murder of False Dmitry I However, soon the Moscow boyars were very surprised that the “legitimate Tsar Dmitry” did not observe Russian customs and rituals. Imitating the Polish king, False Dmitry I renamed the boyar Duma into the Senate, made changes to the palace ceremonies and very soon

From the book Favorites of the Rulers of Russia author Matyukhina Yulia Alekseevna

Favorites of False Dmitry II The favorites of False Dmitry II consisted of adventurers of all stripes, former favorites of the former rulers, dissatisfied with their position. He used their services, but did not value them, since he himself had no authority, and his power was extremely fragile and

From the book Muscovite Rus': from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age author Belyaev Leonid Andreevich

The Fall of False Dmitry I On June 20, 1605, False Dmitry I entered Moscow, surrounded by Cossacks and Poles, amid the welcoming cries of the townspeople who had long been waiting for him and the wary silence of the Boyar Duma. Having bowed to the tombs of his “relatives” in the Archangel Cathedral, he sat on the throne in

From the book Three False Dmitrys author Skrynnikov Ruslan Grigorievich

Laws of False Dmitry I It is very difficult to form any accurate idea of ​​the reign of False Dmitry. After his death, the authorities ordered all his letters and other documents to be burned. All the more valuable are those few copies that were accidentally preserved in

From the book I Explore the World. History of Russian Tsars author Istomin Sergey Vitalievich

The Approach of False Dmitry At that time, many rich people set their servants (slaves) free so as not to feed them, which is why crowds of homeless and hungry people appeared everywhere. Robber gangs began to be created from slaves who were released or who fled without permission. Most of all

From the book Laws of Free Societies of Dagestan XVII–XIX centuries. author Khashaev H.-M.

The beginning of the seventeenth century was difficult for the Russian state. Prolonged crop failure due to heavy rainfall caused famine. Rus' was plunged into turmoil more than ever.

In an atmosphere of popular dissatisfaction with the rule of Boris Godunov, rumors spread throughout the country that Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible, was miraculously saved from death. Such gossip simply could not help but be taken advantage of by swindlers and rogues who, even in such a hard time, wanted to seize the Russian throne and profit from the misfortune of the Russian people.

During this period, in 1601, a man appears in Poland posing as the surviving Tsarevich Dmitry. It was this person who is known in history as False Dmitry the First, who mainly tried to gain Western support and accept Catholicism as a unified Russian religion, in exchange for the throne.

False Dmitry the First turns to Sigismund the Polish king for support, promising him many Russian lands and excessive gratitude. At the same time, the Polish monarch did not openly support the impostor, but allowed his nobility to join the army of False Dmitry of their own free will.

Already in August 1604, False Dmitry’s detachments, totaling four thousand people, landed near the Dnieper, recruiting even more soldiers from the fleeing runaway slaves, townspeople and peasants. After this, he advances to Moscow.

In May 1605, after the sudden death of Boris Godunov, the royal troops also went over to the side of the impostor. At the beginning of summer, False Dmitry solemnly entered Moscow, where he assumed rule under the name of Dmitry Ivanovich and calling himself emperor.

Having taken the Russian throne, the new ruler was in no hurry to fulfill the promises he made to the West and various segments of the population of Rus'. He never returned Yuriev’s day to the peasants, however, he flirted with the nobility and only extended the school year by a year. In addition, the emperor was also in no hurry to introduce the Catholic faith in Rus'.

At the same time, the impostor distributed wealth to the Poles. But soon the Russian treasury was empty and False Dmitry the First had to introduce new levies and taxes in order to fill it again. Naturally, such an innovation caused popular discontent, which intensified after the Tsar’s marriage to Marina Mniszech.

On May 17, 1606, an uprising broke out, led by the Shuisky boyars. As a result of this conspiracy, False Dmitry was killed.

Video lecture: Brief biography and reign of False Dmitry I