Dmitry. The dynasty of the main, Moscow branch of the Rurikovich is interrupted. Fyodor’s wife, Irina – Godunov’s sister, a week after her husband’s death, announces her desire to get a haircut in a monastery. Indeed, she leaves for the Novodevichy Convent, clearing the way for her brother to the throne. The beginning of Godunov’s reign is successful. However, the prayers of his predecessor are apparently lacking. In 1601—1603, after endless rains and early frosts that ruined the harvest, a severe famine began. The cost of grain rises a hundred times. Household gentlemen and abbots of monasteries keep it in barns, waiting for prices to rise. The tsar does not dare to order to put the bread on sale. Half a million people die.
Boris Godunov (1551—1605)
In 1604, with a detachment of Cossacks and Poles (14,000 soldiers), False Dmitry the First began a campaign from Poland to Moscow. The government army under the leadership of Vasily Shuisky, three hundred cannons with competent artillerymen, archers trained in alternate shooting, defeat the impostor. Everything would be fine, but next year, after a plentiful meal, having examined Moscow from the tower, Godunov feels «faint» and «having lost his tongue» dies. His sixteen-year-old son Fyodor (the Second) became the king, with the regency of his mother, Maria Godunova (Skuratova), daughter of Ivan the Terrible’s attorney Malyuta Skuratov. The king does not have time to marry the kingdom. A considerable part of the army takes the oath to False Dmitry.
«The Chosen Tsar», that is, Godunov, and his successors, in the opinion of the people, is not equal to the tsar «hereditary, the ruler of God by the will, and not by human will.» For this reason, as well as the fact that the tsarist troops unleashed on the ground brutal repressions against the supporters of the impostor, Muscovites are opposed to a new, albeit a good ruler. Does not improve the image of Godunov junior, his grandfather’s ancestry from the executioner Malyuta Skuratov. After reigning for a month and a half, Fyodor and Maria Godunova perish at the hands of traitors («the people are silent»). Patriarch Job, an ally of a failed dynasty, is defrocked. His place is taken by Archbishop Ignatius of Ryazan. Ksenia Godunova, the sister of the unlucky monarch, is exiled to the monastery by the winners.
False Dmitry the First and Marina Mnishek. Art painting
So, in June 1605, False Dmitry the First, having coordinated the details with the Duma, solemnly enters the Kremlin and meets with Dmitry’s mother, Maria Naga. She recognizes the new anointed as a son, believably, with sobs, perhaps in order to leave the walls of the monastery. Henceforth, Dmitry calls the Duma the Senate, and himself – the emperor («Caesar»). In general, his rule is good for the country. Many boyars are returning from exile. The enslavement of the peasants is suspended. Taxes are going down, the economy is picking up. Obstacles to movement within the state and outside it are removed. The Polish king does not receive the promised Russian lands. At the same time, plans for a war with Turkey, the still ardent Crimean Tatar Crimea, a personal guard recruited from the Germans, as well as frivolous European orders are not popular among the masses.
All this would be quite bearable, but in the middle of May 1606 two thousand Poles came to the wedding of Dmitry and his beloved, the daughter of the Polish governor Marina Mniszek. During the festival, drunken hussars bully passers-by, break into houses, and attack women. This is used by the ambitious boyar Vasily Shuisky. He summons the people, ostensibly to protect the king. In the course of events, however, the action spills over into its opposite. Fleeing from the crowd, the wounded Dmitry Pervy falls into the hands of a detachment of archers of the external guard. They are confused for a while, then join the winning side. The guards send for Maria Naga. From the mouth of the arriving messenger comes something like; «Martha answered, her son was killed in Uglich.» False Dmitry The first is he, or Dmitry, we do not know this – he is dying. The body of the recently so revered monarch, with a pipe inserted in his mouth, is carried for three days tied to a cart around the city. This is not good. Many grieve openly. At the tomb of the king, people mark ominous signs. In the end, the confidants of the new ruler dig up the body of the unlucky king, burn it, mix the ashes with gunpowder and shoot towards Poland.
The death of Dmitry the First (1582—1606)
A crowd of adherents «cries out» Vasily Shuisky (the Suzdal branch of the Rurikovichs) king, and he becomes them. The Patriarch is replaced, from Ignatius to Hermogenes. An even less legitimate ruler will face severe trials from the very beginning. In October 1606, Moscow was besieged by the 100-thousandth army of the authorized representative of the next False Dmitry, galley rower, now the great voivode, Ivan Bolotnikov. A split is brewing in the camp of the rebels. Boyars and fugitive peasants are unable to form an alliance. Muscovites are ready to surrender. They only demand to show a figure only somewhat similar to a real tsarevich. But «voivode Dmitry» Ivan Bolotnikov does not have one at the moment. Mikhail Molchanov, one of the murders of Tsarevich Fyodor, a once confidant of False Dmitry the First, and, finally, an impostor, refuses to take part in the risky struggle personally. The storming of the capital, undertaken hastily in October, Bolotnikov fails. The army of the peasant leader, suffering defeat, retreats to Tula. Manages to recruit new forces, 40 thousand fighters, and carry out a second campaign against Moscow. A hundred kilometers southeast of the capital, near Kashira, in June 1607, a battle with the army of Tsar Basil the Fourth (Shuisky) takes place. The peasant rebels are well organized. They have effective artillery, they are one step away from victory. But, one of the commanders with a 4,000-strong detachment is cheating on Bolotnikov, striking the rear of the militia, sowing panic. The rebels scatter. However, many of the surviving militias are involved in the struggle of the parties, for or against the impostors of Dmitry II and III.
…The idea of Mikhail Molchanov with False Dmitry was correct for the army of Ivan Bolotnikov, but the search for a real person for this role dragged on. For some time, in Poland and Ukraine (the protectorate of Poland), the role of the prince was played by Molchanov himself. But, in Moscow they knew him too well. Only at the beginning of 1607, in Belarus, which was then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the name of the Polish-Lithuanian state, tracing from Latin res publica – «Republic»), there is a person suitable for figure, age. In a halo of mystery, first as a relative of the tsar, Andrei Nagoy, False Dmitry II appears before the people at the end of the spring of 1607.
This False Dmitry does not have time for either the first or the second campaign of Bolotnikov against Moscow. He is late in Tula, where, on October 10, Shuisky’s troops, changing the direction of the river, forced the remnants of the peasant army to surrender. But, now 27 thousand people gather under his name. Poles, Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks, archers, nobles and fighting slaves wish to try their luck. False Dmitry wins several battles. Moscow, surrounded by stone walls (along the present Boulevard Ring), cannot be taken. Having camped in Tushino, False Dmitry blocks the capital. He manages to intercept Marina Mnishek, and, after some persuasion, marry her. Also, the «deputy tsar» manages to win over Metropolitan Filaret to his side. This priest becomes an understudy of the Moscow Patriarch. Dual power sets in. Shuisky and False Dmitry II (more precisely, Polish bodyguards who control their master) rule the country in parallel. Vasily the Fourth achieves some success with the help of the governor Skopin-Shuisky and the participation of Protestant Sweden, dissatisfied with the strengthening of Catholic Poland. Polish mercenaries openly show disdain for the Russian «tsarik». In the end, having climbed into the cart under the matting, False Dmitry goes to Kaluga.The spirit of the Bolotnikov uprising is still strong in this city. Only here the impostor begins to play an independent role, as if he is gaining a second wind. Remaining without a royal name, the Tushino camp loses its significance as the second Russian capital and is burned down. The Polish
