Trouble as a historical phenomenon is characterized by the loss of the authority of power, or the weakness of state power and, as a result, the struggle of various groups for a place in the government of the country, disobedience of the periphery to the center, popular unrest and protests against local and central authorities, imposture, civil war and foreign intervention. Thus, turmoil can be called a deep split in society, affecting the economy, state power, domestic and foreign policy, ideology and morality. Trouble is a multifaceted phenomenon, its structure includes at least the following crises: economic, social, dynastic and political. The origin of the Time of Troubles is associated with the extinction of the Rurik dynasty. A brief chronology of the Troubles is as follows:

• 1598 - suppression of the Kalita dynasty. The beginning of the reign of Boris Godunov; turmoil economic intervention
• 1601-1603 - crop failures and mass famine in Russia. Growing social tension in the country;
• 1605 - death of Tsar Boris Godunov. Accession of False Dmitry I;
• 1606-1610 - the reign of Vasily Shuisky;
• 1006-1607 - a peasant uprising led by I. Bolotnikov, False Dmitry II;
• 1609 - involvement in the war of Poland and Sweden. Beginning of the Polish intervention;
• 1610-1612 - "seven boyars";
• 1611-1612 - the first and second militias, the liberation of Moscow from the Polish invaders;
• 1613 - the beginning of the Romanov dynasty.

In the historical literature, the events of the beginning of the 17th century. It is customary to call "disturbance." This crisis and the crisis of the 60-70s of the XVI century. (oprichnina) had similar reasons. Both were based on the contradiction between the desire of the autocracy for unlimited power and the desire of the leading social forces of society to participate in government. The main difference between the Time of Troubles and the oprichnina is that not only the tops of society, the aristocracy, the service nobility and the bureaucracy, but also other social groups became more active.

It should be noted that the comprehensive development of the concept of unrest belongs to V.O. Klyuchevsky, who saw its causes in the difficult socio-economic situation that had developed by the end of the 16th century. And aggravated in connection with the suppression of the Rurik dynasty (the death in 1598 of the childless Tsar Fedor Ivanovich), Klyuchevsky V.O. About Russian history. M .: Education, 1993. S. 325 ..

The turmoil became a war of all against all, dividing Russian society into hostile layers. So, the boyars, intimidated and ruined by the oprichnina, were dissatisfied with the fact that after the suppression of the Rurik dynasty, the throne went to Boris Godunov, who tried to rule autocratically. In addition, the crisis of the feudal estate as a whole was growing, as the number of service people increased, and the fund of manorial lands was sharply reduced.

The crisis also intensified within the feudal class, as the big feudal lords poached the peasants from the smaller ones; the latter, who were sitting on deserted estates, found themselves in a very difficult situation.

In an atmosphere of general dissatisfaction with the reign of B. Godunov, reinforced by the beginning of 1601. famine years, crop failures and a terrible famine. Hunger riots begin, popular unrest covers more and more territories. The tsar is losing his authority catastrophically, and a time of troubles is setting in.

There are rumors about the rescue of the son of Ivan the Terrible, Tsarevich Dmitry, who died under mysterious conditions. The impostor False Dmitry I comes to power, to which all those dissatisfied with the rule of B. Godunov joined. In order to enlist the support of the nobility, False Dmitry generously distributed land and money, which did not suit the boyars. Soon, money had to be borrowed from monasteries, which caused discontent among the clergy.

• On May 17, 1606, the boyars-conspirators killed the impostor and one of the organizers of the conspiracy, Prince Vasily Shuisky, ascended the throne. With the accession of V. Shuisky, the 1st period of unrest ended and the second began.
• On July 17, 1610, the nobles, led by Z. Lyapunov, overthrew Shuisky, forcing him to take the veil as a monk. After that, power temporarily passed into the hands of the Boyar Duma (“seven-byaorshchyna”), which agreed to let Polish troops into Moscow in order to avoid a riot in support of False Dmitry II, who was killed in December 1610. From that moment, the turmoil acquired the character of a national struggle, in which Russians sought to free themselves from the Polish interventionists. The resulting danger brought national and religious interests to the fore, temporarily uniting the warring classes. As a result of the campaign I (under the leadership of P.L. Lyapunov) and II (led by Prince D.M. Pozharsky and K.M. Minin) of the rebellion against Moscow in the autumn of 1612, the capital was liberated from the Polish garrison, which was housed in it after the signing of an agreement on the calling of the Polish prince.

We highlight the following consequences of confusion:

• 1. Weakening of the positions of the boyars, whose power was undermined during the period of the oprichnina;
• 2. The rise of the nobility, who received new estates and opportunities for the final enslavement of the peasants;
• 3. Economic upheavals and wars of the 17th century;
• 4. The Russian people developed and strengthened a sense of national and religious unity, they began to realize that the government of the state is not only a personal matter of the tsar and his advisers, there is the possibility of choosing a monarch.

1. Board of Boris Godunov 2

2. First signs of crisis 4

3. The appearance of False Dmitry I and the death of Boris Godunov 6

4. The death of Fyodor Godunov and the accession of False Dmitry I 11

5. The overthrow of False Dmitry I 14

6. Accession of Vasily Shuisky 17

7. The uprising of Bolotnikov and the appearance of False Dmitry II 20

8. Polish intervention 22

9. Deposition of Vasily Shuisky and "Seven Boyars" 24

10. The expulsion of the interventionists and the accession of the Romanovs 25

11. End of Troubles

References 27

1. Board of Boris Godunov.

The term "Time of Troubles" in Russian history the period from 1604 to 1613 is indicated, characterized by a severe political and social crisis of the Muscovite kingdom. The political prerequisites for this crisis, however, appeared long before the Time of Troubles began, namely, the tragic end of the reign of the Rurik dynasty, and the enthronement of the boyar Boris Godunov.

As you know, Boris Godunov was a close adviser to Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible in the last years of his life, and together with Bogdan Belsky had a great influence on the tsar. Godunov and Belsky were next to the tsar in the last minutes of his life, and from the porch they announced to the people about the death of the sovereign. After John IV, his son, Fedor Ioannovich, became king, weak and weak-willed, unable to rule the country without the help of advisers. To help the tsar, the Regency Council was created, which included: Belsky, Yuriev, Shuisky, Mstislavsky and Godunov. Through court intrigues, Godunov managed to neutralize his ill-wishers: Shuisky (sent into exile in 1586, where he was killed two years later) and Mstislavsky (expelled from the Regency Council in 1585, and died in disgrace), and take a leading position in the council. In fact, since 1587, Boris Godunov ruled the country alone.

Godunov could not fail to understand that his position in power was stable only as long as Tsar Fedor was alive. In the event of the death of Fedor, the throne was to be inherited by his younger brother, the son of John IV, Tsarevich Dimitri, and given the poor health of the king, this could not happen in the very distant future. In all likelihood, Godunov did not expect anything good for himself from the change of sovereign. One way or another, but in 1591, Tsarevich Dimitri died in an accident. The investigation into this case was conducted by the boyar Vasily Shuisky, who came to the conclusion that the prince was playing with his peers in knives when he had an epileptic seizure. Accidentally falling on a knife, the prince stabbed himself to death with this knife. He lived in the world for a little over eight years.

Godunov's contemporaries had no doubt that this accident was in fact a political assassination in disguise, as it cleared Godunov's path to the throne. In fact, Tsar Fedor had no sons, and even his only daughter died at the age of one. Given his poor health, it was highly likely that the king himself would not live long. As subsequent events showed, this is exactly what happened.

On the other hand, Godunov's guilt in Dimitri's death does not seem so obvious. Firstly, Demetrius was the son of the sixth wife of John IV, and the Orthodox Church, even today, recognizes only three consecutive marriages as legal (“Allowing remarriages of the laity, the Orthodox Church does not equate them with the first, “virgin” marriage. First of all , she limited the recurrence of marriage to only three cases, and when one emperor (Leo the Wise) married for the fourth time, the Church did not recognize the validity of his marriage for a long time, although he was needed in state and dynastic interests. for this marriage ended with an act categorically forbidding a fourth marriage for the future). For this reason, formally speaking, Demetrius could not be considered the legitimate son of John IV, and therefore could not inherit the throne. Secondly, even if Demetrius was eliminated, Godunov's own prospects for taking the throne were vague - he was neither the most noble nor the richest of possible contenders, and the fact that he eventually became king is largely a happy accident.

One way or another, in the eyes of contemporaries, this death was so beneficial to Godunov that few doubted his guilt. The death of Tsarevich Dimitry became a real mine laid under the regime of Boris Godunov, and this mine was destined to explode twelve years later, in 1603, not without the help of "friends of Russia" from outside.

In 1598, the nominal sovereign, Fyodor Ioannovich, died, and Godunov was left alone with the growing hostility of the nobility. Driven into a corner, he nevertheless managed to find an unexpected solution: he tried to secure the throne for the widow of Tsar Fedor - Irina Godunova, his sister. According to the text of the oath published in the churches, subjects were asked to take an oath of allegiance to Patriarch Job and the Orthodox faith, Tsarina Irina, ruler Boris and his children. In other words, under the guise of an oath to the church and the queen, Godunov actually demanded an oath for himself and his heir.

The matter, however, did not burn out - at the insistence of the boyars, Irina renounced power in favor of the Boyar Duma, and retired to the Novodevichy Convent, where she received tonsure. Nevertheless, Godunov did not give up. He apparently well understood that it was impossible for him to openly compete with the more noble contenders for the empty throne (primarily the Shuiskys), so he simply retired to the well-fortified Novodevichy Convent, from where he watched the split struggle for power by the Boyar Duma.

Thanks to the intrigues of Godunov, the Zemsky Sobor of 1598, at which his supporters were in the majority, officially called him to the throne. This decision was not approved by the Boyar Duma, but the counter proposal of the Boyar Duma - to establish a boyar government in the country - was not approved by the Zemsky Sobor. A stalemate developed in the country, and as a result, the issue of succession to the throne was moved from the duma and patriarchal chambers to the square. The opposing parties used all possible means - from agitation to bribery. Going out to the crowd, Godunov, with tears in his eyes, swore that he had not even thought of encroaching on "the highest royal rank." Godunov's motives for refusing the crown are not difficult to understand. First, he was embarrassed by the small size of the crowd. And secondly, he wanted to put an end to the accusations of regicide. In order to achieve this goal more accurately, Boris spread a rumor about his imminent monastic vows. Under the influence of skillful agitation, the mood in the capital began to change.

The patriarch and members of the council tried to use the emerging success. Urging Boris to accept the crown, the churchmen threatened to resign if their petition was denied. The boyars made similar statements.

The general cry created the appearance of a popular election, and Godunov, prudently choosing a convenient moment, generously announced to the crowd his consent to accept the crown. Wasting no time, the patriarch took the ruler to the nearest monastery cathedral and named him king.

Godunov, however, could not accept the crown without an oath in the Boyar Duma. But the elder boyars were in no hurry to express loyal feelings, which forced the ruler to retire to the Novodevichy Convent for the second time.

On March 19, 1598, Boris for the first time convened the Boyar Duma to resolve the accumulated cases that brooked no delay. Thus, Godunov actually began to perform the functions of an autocrat. Having received the support of the capital's population, Boris broke the resistance of the feudal nobility without bloodshed and became the first "elective" king. The first years of his reign did not bode well.

“The first two years of this reign seemed best time Russia from the 15th century or from its restoration: it was at the highest level of its new power, safe by its own strength and the happiness of external circumstances, but inside it was ruled with wise firmness and with unusual meekness. Boris fulfilled the vow of the royal wedding and rightly wanted to be called the father of the people, reducing their hardships; the father of the orphans and the poor, pouring out unparalleled bounties on them; a friend of mankind, without touching the lives of people, without staining the Russian land with a single drop of blood and punishing criminals only with exile. Merchants, less constrained in trade; an army showered with awards in peaceful silence; Nobles, orderly people, distinguished by signs of mercy for zealous service; Sinklit, respected by the active and council-loving Tsar; The clergy, honored by the pious Tsar - in a word, all state states could be satisfied for themselves and even more satisfied for the fatherland, seeing how Boris in Europe and Asia glorified the name of Russia without bloodshed and without the painful strain of her forces; how he cares about the common good, justice, order. And so it is not surprising that Russia, according to contemporaries, loved her crowned bearer, wanting to forget the murder of Demetrius or doubting him!

Nothing foreshadowed trouble, and only six years remained before the beginning of the Time of Troubles.

2. The first signs of a crisis.

The crisis was initiated by successive crop failures in 1601 and 1602. Throughout the summer of 1601, heavy cold rains fell across Eastern Europe, starting in July - mixed with sleet. The entire crop, of course, perished. According to contemporaries, at the end of August 1601, snowfalls and blizzards began, people rode sledges along the Dnieper, as if in winter.

“Among the natural abundance and wealth of a fruitful land inhabited by industrious cultivators; among the blessings of a long-term peace, and in an active, prudent reign, a terrible punishment fell on millions of people: in the spring, in 1601, the sky was overshadowed by thick darkness, and it rained unceasingly for ten weeks, so that the villagers were horrified: they could not do anything engage, neither mow nor reap; and on August 15, a severe frost damaged both green bread and all unripe fruits. Even in the granaries and in the threshing floors there was a lot of old bread; but the farmers, unfortunately, sowed the fields with new, rotten, lean ones, and did not see shoots, neither in autumn nor in spring: everything decayed and mixed with the earth. Meanwhile, the reserves ran out, and the fields were already left unsown.

The same, although on a smaller scale, was repeated in 1602. As a result, even the warm summer of 1603 did not help, since the peasants simply had nothing to sow - due to two past crop failures, there were no seeds.

To the credit of the Godunov government, it did its best to mitigate the consequences of crop failures by distributing seeds to farmers for planting and regulating the price of bread (even to the point of creating a kind of "food detachment" that reveals hidden stocks of bread and force them to sell them at a price set by the government). In order to give work to hungry refugees, Godunov began to rebuild the stone chambers of the Moscow Kremlin (“... he built in 1601 and 1602, on the site of the broken wooden palace of Ioannov, two large stone chambers to the Golden and Faceted, a dining room and a memorial service, in order to deliver work and food to people to the poor, combining benefit with mercy, and in the days of weeping thinking of splendor!”). He also issued a decree that all serfs left by their masters without means of subsistence automatically receive freedom. But these measures were clearly not enough. About a third of the country's population fell victim to the famine. Fleeing from hunger, people fled en masse "to the Cossacks" - to the Don and Zaporozhye. It must be said that the policy of “forcing out” criminal and potentially unreliable elements to the northwestern borders was practiced by John IV, and was continued by Godunov (“Even John IV, wanting to populate the Lithuanian Ukraine, the land of Seversk, with people fit for military affairs, did not interfere criminals who went there from execution could hide and live in peace: for he thought that in case of war they could be reliable defenders of the border.Boris, loving to follow many state thoughts of Ioannov, followed this one, very false and very unfortunate: for unknowingly made a large squad of villains in the service of the enemies of the fatherland and his own. Indeed, all this huge mass on the borders of Russia has become a dangerous combustible material, ready to flare up from the slightest spark.

These crop failures naturally ended in a peasant uprising in 1603 under the leadership of Ataman Khlopok. The peasant army was heading towards Moscow, and it was possible to defeat it only at the cost of heavy losses of government troops, and the voivode Ivan Basmanov himself died in battle. Ataman Khlopok was taken prisoner and, according to some sources, died of wounds, according to others he was executed in Moscow.

In addition to peasant unrest, Godunov's life was constantly poisoned by conspiracies of the nobility, both genuine and imaginary. One might have thought that Godunov had contracted paranoia from his first patron, Tsar John IV. In 1601, his old colleague and friend Bogdan Belsky was repressed - Godunov ordered to torture him, after which he was exiled to "one of the lower cities", where he remained until Godunov's death. The reason for the repressions was a trifling denunciation of Belsky from his servants - as if he, serving as governor in the city of Borisov, allowed himself to joke: "Boris is the tsar in Moscow, and I am the tsar in Borisov." A simple joke cost Belsky very dearly.

In the same year, 1601, a larger-scale trial was launched against the Romanov family, as well as their supporters (Sitsky, Repnin, Cherkassky, Shestunov, Karpov ...). “The nobleman Semyon Godunov, invented a way to convict the innocent of villainy, hoping for general gullibility and ignorance: he bribed the treasurer of the Romanovs, gave him sacks filled with roots, ordered him to hide in the pantry of Boyar Alexander Nikitich and report to their masters that they, secretly engaged in the composition poison, intend on the life of the Crowned. Suddenly there was an alarm in Moscow: Sinklit and all the noble officials rush to the Patriarch; the devious Mikhail Saltykov is sent to search the pantry of Boyar Alexander; they find sacks there, carry them to Job, and in the presence of the Romanovs they pour out roots, as if magical, made to poison the Tsar. The consequences of this provocation were the saddest for the Romanovs and their supporters - all of them were partly forcibly tonsured monks, partly exiled, their property was confiscated.

“Not only the Romanovs were a monster for Borisov's imagination. He forbade Princes Mstislavsky and Vasily Shuisky to marry, thinking that their children, according to the ancient nobility of their kind, could also compete with his son for the throne. Meanwhile, eliminating future imaginary dangers for young Theodore, the timid destroyer trembled with real ones: worried by suspicions, constantly afraid of secret villains and equally afraid of earning the people's hatred by torment, he persecuted and pardoned: he exiled the Governor, Prince Vladimir Bakhteyarov-Rostovsky, and forgave him; removed from the affairs of the famous Dyak Shchelkalov, but without obvious disgrace; several times removed the Shuiskys, and again brought them closer to him; caressed them, and at the same time threatened disgrace to anyone who had a relationship with them. There were no solemn executions, but the unfortunate were starved in dungeons, tortured on denunciations. Hosts of scribes, if not always rewarded, but always free from punishment for lying and slander, rushed to the Tsar's chambers from the houses of the Boyarskys and huts, from monasteries and churches: servants denounced gentlemen, monks, priests, deacons, mallows on people of all ranks - the very wives against husbands, the very children against fathers, to the horror of mankind! “And in the wild Hordes (adds the Chronicler) there is no such great evil: the masters did not dare to look at their slaves, nor the neighbors sincerely speak among themselves; and when they spoke, they mutually undertook a terrible oath not to change modesty. In a word, this sad time of the reign of Boris, yielding to Ioannov in blood drinking, was not inferior to him in lawlessness and debauchery.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that Godunov tried so diligently to eliminate, or at least remove those who could challenge the throne from him, that is, the more ancient or noble boyar families. Unsure of his own right to the throne, he did everything possible to ensure the transfer of the throne to his heir, and to create conditions when nothing would threaten the new dynasty he had founded. These motifs were colorfully described by A.K. Tolstoy in his poem "Tsar Boris", and Pushkin in the tragedy "Boris Godunov".

3. The appearance of False Dmitry I and the death of Boris Godunov

Godunov's popularity among the people fell sharply, and a series of disasters revived rumors, already circulating among the people, that Boris Godunov was not a legitimate tsar, but an impostor, and that is why all these troubles result. The real tsar, Demetrius, is actually alive and hiding somewhere from Godunov. Of course, the authorities tried to fight the spread of rumors, but had little success. There is also a hypothesis that some boyars who were dissatisfied with Godunov's rule, primarily the Romanovs, had a hand in spreading these rumors. In any case, the people were morally prepared for the appearance of the “miraculously resurrected” Demetrius, and he was not slow to appear. “As if by a supernatural action, the shadow of Dimitriev came out of the coffin in order to strike with horror, to madden the murderer and to confuse all of Russia.”

According to the generally accepted version, a certain “poor boyar son, Galician Yuri Otrepyev” tried to impersonate Dimitri, who “... in his youth, having lost his father, in the name of Bogdan-Yakov, a streltsy centurion, stabbed to death in Moscow by a drunken Litvin, served in the house of the Romanovs and Prince Boris Cherkassky; knew literacy; showed a lot of intelligence, but little prudence; he was bored with low fortune and decided to seek the pleasures of careless idleness in the rank of Monk, following the example of his grandfather, Zamyatni-Otrepyev, who had long been a monk in the Chudovskaya monastery. Shorn by Vyatka Abbot Tryphon and named Gregory, this young Chernets wandered from place to place; lived for some time in Suzdal, in the monastery of St. Euthymius, in the Galician John the Baptist and in others; finally, in the Chudov Monastery, in the cell of his grandfather, under his supervision. There, Patriarch Job recognized him, consecrated him a deacon, and took him to his book business, for Gregory was able not only to copy well, but even to compose canons of the Saints better than many old scribes of that time. Taking advantage of the mercy of Job, he often went with him to the palace: he saw the splendor of the Tsar and was captivated by it; expressed unusual curiosity; eagerly listened to reasonable people, especially when the name of Demetrius Tsarevich was mentioned in sincere, secret conversations; wherever he could, he found out the circumstances of his unfortunate fate and wrote it down on the charter. A wonderful thought had already settled and matured in the soul of the dreamer, inspired in him, as they say, by one evil Monk: the idea that a bold impostor could take advantage of the credulity of the Russians, touched by the memory of Demetrius, and in honor of Heavenly Justice, execute the sanctuary! The seed fell on a fruitful land: the young Deacon diligently read the Russian chronicles and immodestly, although jokingly, sometimes said to the Chudov Monks: “Do you know that I will be Tsar in Moscow?” Some laughed; others spat in his eyes, as if I were lying to an impudent one. These or similar speeches reached the Rostov Metropolitan Jonah, who announced to the Patriarch and the Tsar himself that "the unworthy Monk Gregory wants to be a vessel of the devil"; the good-natured Patriarch did not respect the Metropolitan's message, but the Tsar ordered his Dyak, Smirnov-Vasilyev, to send the mad Grigory to Solovki, or to the Belozersky deserts, as if for heresy, to eternal repentance. Smirnoi told about this to another Dyak, Evfimiev; Evfimiev, being a relative of the Otrepyevs, begged him not to hurry in the execution of the Tsar's decree and gave the disgraced Deacon a way to escape (in February 1602), along with two Monks of Chudovsky, Priest Varlaam and Kryloshanin Misail Povadin. ". Having sensibly judged what such statements might be fraught with for him within Russian borders, Otrepyev decided to flee to where he would be welcome - to Poland (more precisely, the Commonwealth - a powerful state that occupied the current territories of Poland, the Baltic States, Belarus, parts of Ukraine and the western regions of Russia ). “There, the ancient, natural hatred of Russia has always zealously favored our traitors, from Princes Shemyakin, Vereisky, Borovsky and Tversky to Kurbsky and Golovin.” Thus, the choice of Otrepyev was quite natural, and he expected to find help and support there. IN. Klyuchevsky writes about it this way:

“In the nest of the boyars most persecuted by Boris, with the Romanovs at the head, in all likelihood, the idea of ​​an impostor was hatched. They blamed the Poles for setting it up; but it was only baked in a Polish oven, and fermented in Moscow. No wonder Boris, as soon as he heard about the appearance of False Dmitry, directly told the boyars that it was their business, that they set up an impostor. This unknown someone who sat on the Moscow throne after Boris arouses great anecdotal interest. His personality still remains mysterious, despite the best efforts of scientists to unravel it. For a long time, the opinion, coming from Boris himself, dominated that he was the son of a Galician petty nobleman Yuri Otrepyev, monastic Grigory. I will not talk about the adventures of this man, you know enough. I will only mention that in Moscow he served as a serf for the boyars of the Romanovs and for Prince Cherkassky, then he became a monk, for his bookishness and compiling praise for the Moscow miracle workers he was taken to the patriarch as a book writer, and here suddenly from something he began to say that he, perhaps, would be and tsar in Moscow. He was to die for this in a distant monastery; but some strong people covered him, and he fled to Lithuania at the very time when disgrace fell on the Romanov circle.

The life path of Otrepiev from the moment of his flight to the moment he appeared in the Commonwealth at the court of Prince Vishnevetsky is covered in darkness. According to N.M. Karamzin, before declaring himself miraculously saved Tsarevich Dimitry, Otrepiev settled in Kyiv, in the Caves Monastery, where “... he led a seductive life, despising the charter of abstinence and chastity; boasted of freedom of opinion, liked to talk about the Law with the Gentiles, and was even in close contact with the Anabaptists. But even such a monastic life apparently bored him, since he left the Pechersky Monastery to the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, to Ataman Gerasim Evangelik, where he received military skills. However, he also did not stay with the Cossacks - he left, and showed up at the Volyn school, where he studied Polish and Latin grammar. There he was noticed, and accepted into the service of the wealthy Polish magnate, Prince Adam Vishnevetsky. He probably managed to achieve the location of Vishnevetsky, who appreciated his knowledge and military skills.

Despite Vishnevetsky's good attitude towards Otrepiev, it was unthinkable for him to simply show up to the magnate and tell about his "miraculous salvation" - it is clear that no one would believe in such nonsense. Otrepyev decided to act more subtly.

“Having earned the attention and good disposition of the master, the cunning deceiver pretended to be sick, demanded the Confessor, and said to him quietly: “I am dying. Commit my body to the earth with honor, as the children of the Tsar are buried. I will not announce my secret until the grave; when I close my eyes forever, you will find a scroll under my bed, and you will know everything; but don't tell others. God judged me to die in misfortune." The confessor was a Jesuit: he hurried to inform Prince Vishnevetsky about this secret, and the curious Prince hurried to find out about it: he searched the bed of the imaginary dying; found a paper prepared in advance, and read in it that his servant was Tsarevich Dimitri, saved from being killed by his faithful physician; that the villains sent to Uglich killed one son of the Priest, instead of Demetrius, who was sheltered by the good Grandees and Dyaki Shchelkalov, and then escorted to Lithuania, fulfilling the order of the Johns given to them for this occasion. Vishnevetsky was astonished: he still wanted to doubt, but could no longer, when the cunning man, blaming the indiscretion of the Confessor, opened his chest, showed a golden cross strewn with precious stones (probably stolen somewhere) and announced with tears that this shrine had been given to him by his godfather Prince Ivan Mstislavsky".

It is not entirely clear whether Vishnevetsky was really deceived, or whether he simply decided to take advantage of the opportunity for his own political purposes. In any case, Vishnevetsky informed the Polish king Sigismund III about his unusual guest, and he wished to see him personally. Prior to this, Vyshnevetsky also managed to prepare the ground by spreading information about the “miraculous salvation of John's son” throughout Poland, with the help of his brother Konstantin Vyshnevetsky, Konstantin's father-in-law, the Sandomierz governor Yuri Mniszek, and papal nuncio Rangoni.

There is a version, partly confirmed by documents, that the Vishnevetskys originally planned to use Otrepiev in their plans. palace coup, which had the goal of the deposition of Sigismund III, and the enthronement of "Demetrius". He, being a descendant of John IV, Rurikovich, and therefore a relative of the Polish Jagiellonian dynasty, was quite suitable for this throne. But for some reason, this plan was abandoned.

King Sigismund reacted to the "resurrected Demetrius" coolly, like many of his dignitaries. Hetman Jan Zamoyski, for example, spoke about this in the following way: “It happens that a dice falls happily in the game, but usually it is not advised to bet on expensive and important items. This is a matter of such a nature that it can harm our state and dishonor the king and all our people. However, the king nevertheless received Otrepiev, treated him politely (Karamzin says that he received him in his office standing, that is, recognizing him as his equal), and assigned him a financial allowance of 40,000 zlotys annually. Otrepiev did not wait for other help from the king, but given the political situation in the then Commonwealth, he could not provide it. The fact is that the king in the Commonwealth was mainly a nominal figure, while the real power belonged to the aristocracy (Vishnevetsky, Pototsky, Radziwills and other rich and noble houses). In the Commonwealth there was also no royal army, as such - only an infantry of 4,000 guards, maintained on the personal income of the king. Thus, the recognition of "Demetrius" by the king had only a moral and political significance.

Otrepiev also had other important meetings, including with representatives of the Catholic order of the Jesuits, which had great influence in the Commonwealth. He even wrote a letter to the then Pope, Clement VIII, in which he promised, in the event of his “return to the throne”, to join the Orthodox Church to the Catholic Church, and received a response with “certification of his readiness to help him with all the spiritual authority of the Apostolic Vicar.” To strengthen relations, Otrepiev made a solemn promise to Yuri Mnishek to marry his daughter Marina, and even officially turned to King Sigismund for permission to marry.

Encouraged by their success, the Vishnevetskys began to gather an army for a campaign against Moscow, with the aim of enthroning "Demetrius". Karamzin writes: “Indeed, it was not the army, but the bastard, who took up arms against Russia: very few noble nobles, to please the King, little respected, or tempted by the thought of bravery for the exiled Tsarevich, appeared in Sambir and Lvov: vagabonds, hungry and half-naked, rushed there, demanding weapons not for victory, but for robbery, or salaries, which Mniszek generously gave out in the hope of the future. In other words, the army consisted mainly of those same refugees, Zaporozhye and Don Cossacks, who at one time fled from Russia as a result of the policies of John IV and Boris Godunov, although some Polish gentry with their squads also joined the army being formed. Not everyone, however, was tempted by the opportunity to take revenge on the hated Godunov - as Karamzin writes, there were many who did not want to participate in the intervention, or even actively opposed it. “It is worth noting that some of the Moscow fugitives, the children of the Boyarskys, full of hatred for Godunov, hiding then in Lithuania, did not want to be participants in this enterprise, because they saw deceit and abhorred villainy: they write that one of them, Yakov Pykhachev, even publicly, and before the face of the King, he testified about this gross deceit, together with comrade rasstrigin, Monk Varlaam, alarmed by his conscience; that they did not believe them and sent both chained to Voevoda Mnishka in Sambir, where Varlaam was imprisoned, and Pykhachev, accused of intending to kill False Dmitry, was executed.

These preparations could not go unnoticed by Godunov. Of course, the first thing that came to his mind was an assumption about the next intrigues of his enemies from among the boyars. Judging by his further actions, he was greatly frightened by the "resurrection" of Tsarevich Dimitri. To begin with, he ordered that Dimitri's mother, Martha Naguya, who had long been tonsured a nun and placed in the Novodevichy Convent, be brought to him. He was interested in only one question - is her son alive or dead. Martha Nagaya, seeing what fear the shadow of her son inspires Godunov, undoubtedly not without pleasure, answered: "I don't know." Boris Godunov flew into a rage, and Marfa Nagaya, wanting to increase the effect of her answer, began to say that she had heard that her son was secretly taken out of the country, and so on. Realizing that there was no point in getting her, Godunov backed down from her. Soon, however, he managed to establish the identity of the impostor, and he ordered the publication of the story of Otrepiev, since further silence was dangerous, as it prompted the people to think that the impostor was indeed the surviving Tsarevich Dimitri. At the same time, an embassy was sent to the court of King Sigismund, led by the uncle of the impostor Smirnov-Otrepiev, the purpose of which was to expose the impostor; another embassy, ​​headed by the nobleman Khrushchev, was sent to the Don to the Cossacks to persuade them to retreat. Both embassies were unsuccessful. “The royal nobles did not want to show False Dmitry to Smirnov-Otrepyev and answered dryly that they did not care about the imaginary Tsarevich of Russia; and the Cossacks seized Khrushchev, chained him up and brought him to the Pretender. Moreover, in the face of imminent death, Khrushchev fell to his knees before the impostor, and recognized him as Tsarevich Dimitri. The third embassy with the nobleman Ogarev was sent by the Godunovs directly to King Sigismund. He received the ambassador, but answered his requests that he himself, Sigismund, was not behind the impostor and was not going to violate the peace between Russia and the Commonwealth, but he could not be responsible for the actions of individual gentry who supported Otrepyev. Ogarev had to return to Boris Godunov with nothing. In addition, Godunov demanded that Patriarch Job write a letter to the Polish clergy, in which the seals of the bishops made sure that Otrepyev was a fugitive monk. The same charter was sent to the Kyiv Governor Prince Vasily Ostrozhsky. The patriarch's messengers, who delivered these letters, were probably captured on the way by Otrepyev's people, and did not reach their goal. “But the messengers of the Patriarchs did not return: they were detained in Lithuania and neither the Clergy nor the Prince of Ostrozhsky answered Job, for the Pretender had already acted with brilliant success. »

The invading army was concentrated in the vicinity of Lvov and Sambir, in the possessions of the Mnisheks. Its core was made up of gentry with retinues, well trained and armed, but very small in number - about 1,500 people. The rest of the troops were refugees who joined him, as Karamzin writes, "without a device and almost without a weapon." At the head of the army were Otrepiev himself, Yuri Mnishek, the magnates Dvorzhitsky and Neborsky. Near Kyiv, they were joined by about 2,000 Don Cossacks and the militia gathered in the vicinity of Kyiv. On October 16, 1604, this army entered Russia. At first, this campaign was successful, several cities were taken (Moravsk, Chernigov), and on November 11 Novgorod-Seversky was besieged.

An experienced and courageous commander Pyotr Basmanov was sent to Novgorod-Seversky by the Godunovs, who managed to organize an effective defense of the city, as a result of which the assault on the city by Otrepyev's army was repulsed, with heavy losses for the attackers. “Otrepyev also sent Russian traitors to persuade Basmanov, but to no avail; wanted to take the fortress with a bold attack and was repulsed; I wanted to destroy its walls with fire, but I didn’t manage to do that either; he lost many people, and saw disaster before him: his camp was despondent; Basmanov gave Borisov’s army time to take up arms and an example of non-timidity to other city governors. The “example of non-shyness”, however, was not picked up by other “town governors” - on November 18, the governor of Putivl, Prince Rubets-Mosalsky, together with the deacon Sutupov, went over to the side of Otrepyev, arrested Godunov’s emissary, okolnichi Mikhail Saltykov, and surrendered Putivl to the enemy. The cities of Rylsk, Sevsk, Belgorod, Voronezh, Kromy, Livny, Yelets also surrendered. Besieged in Novgorod-Seversky, Basmanov, seeing the desperation of his situation, began negotiations with Otrepiev, and promised him to surrender the city in two weeks. In all likelihood, he was trying to play for time, waiting for reinforcements gathered in Bryansk by the governor Mstislavsky.

At this time, clouds continued to gather over Godunov. Neither the testimony of Vasily Shuisky at the Execution Ground in Moscow that Tsarevich Dimitri was dead for sure (Shuisky was the head of the commission investigating the death of Dimitri), nor the letters sent around the cities by Patriarch Job helped. “Until 1604, none of the Russians doubted the murder of Demetrius, who grew up before the eyes of his Uglich and whom all Uglich saw dead, irrigating his body with tears for five days; consequently, the Russians could not reasonably believe in the resurrection of the Tsarevich; but they - did not like Boris! ... Shuisky's shamelessness was still fresh in his memory; they also knew Job's blind devotion to Godunov; they heard only the name of the Tsaritsa-Inokini: no one saw her, no one spoke to her, again imprisoned in the Vyksa Hermitage. Having not yet had an example in the history of the Pretenders and not understanding such a daring deceit; Loving the ancient tribe of Tsars and eagerly listening to secret stories about the imaginary virtues of False Dmitry, the Russians secretly conveyed to each other the idea that God really, by some miracle worthy of His justice, could save John's son for the execution of the hated predator and tyrant. As a last resort, on the orders of Godunov, Patriarch Job ordered in all churches to read prayers for the dead for Tsarevich Dimitri, while Grigory Otrepyev was excommunicated and cursed. However, apparently not relying too much on the effectiveness of these means, Godunov ordered that something like mobilization be announced - from every two hundred quarters of cultivated land, a fully armed equestrian warrior should be put up - threatening to confiscate land and property for failure to comply with his order. “These measures, threats and punishments in six weeks connected up to fifty thousand horsemen in Bryansk, instead of half a million, in 1598 militia with the invocative word of the Tsar, whom Russia loved!” In other words, these measures were not successful either.

Interestingly, the king of Sweden, who was at enmity with the Commonwealth, offered Godunov military assistance. To this, Godunov replied that Russia did not need "the help of foreigners", and that under John Russia successfully fought with Sweden, Poland, and Turkey, and was not afraid of the "despicable rebel." He probably reasoned that a handful of Swedish warriors would not help in this war anyway.

On December 18, the Russian army reached from Bryansk to Novgorod-Seversky, where Otrepiev's army besieged the city, but did not dare to attack immediately, and camped nearby. For three days, neither Otrepiev nor the Russian governors dared to make the first move, and finally, on December 21, a battle took place. During the battle, the Polish cavalry managed to break through the line of Russian troops in the center, the governor Mstislavsky was seriously wounded, and only his personal squad saved him from being captured. The situation was rectified by the blow of the German cavalry mercenaries who attacked from the left flank, and finally saved the Russian army from defeat by the voivode Basmanov, who left the city with an army and hit the enemy in the rear. Otrepiev, seeing that this battle could no longer be won, ordered his troops to withdraw from the battle.

The next day, the Russian army retreated to Starodub-Seversky to regroup. The army of the impostor, also badly battered, withdrew to Sevsk, taking up defense in it. The situation again became a stalemate - no one could decide to be the first to resume fighting. For a long time, the Russian military leaders did not dare to tell Godunov about the results of the battle, and when he learned about its results from others, he sent his confidante Velyaminov to the wounded Mstislavsky to express personal gratitude to Mstislavsky. “When you, having performed the famous service, see the image of the Savior, the Mother of God, the Wonderworkers of Moscow and our Royal eyes: then we will welcome you beyond your aspirations. Now we are sending you a skilled doctor, may you be healthy and again on horseback. ”The tsar ordered the other governors to announce their displeasure with their criminal silence, while Basmanov summoned him to Moscow, organizing a solemn meeting for him and generously rewarded him (“a heavy golden dish poured with chervonets , and 2000 rubles, a lot of silver vessels from the Kremlin treasury, a profitable estate and the rank of Boyar Dumny”).

Removing Basmanov from the army may have been a serious mistake by Godunov. Instead of Basmanov, Prince Vasily Shuisky was appointed, who “had neither the mind nor the soul of a true, resolute and courageous leader; confident in the imposture of a vagabond, he did not think of betraying his fatherland to him, but, pleasing Boris as a flattering courtier, he remembered his disgrace and saw, perhaps not without secret pleasure, the anguish of his tyrannical heart, and wishing to save the honor of Russia, he maliciously wished the Tsar. On January 21, a new battle took place, after which Otrepyev's army retreated to Rylsk, and then to Putivl, taking up defense there.

The siege by the Russian troops of Putivl and other cities that had gone over to the side of the impostor, skirmishes and sluggish battles dragged on until the spring of 1605, when Boris Godunov died unexpectedly on April 13. The exact cause of death remained unknown. “On April 13, at one in the morning, Boris judged and arranged with the nobles in the Duma, received noble foreigners, dined with them in the golden chamber, and, as soon as he got up from the table, he felt dizzy: blood gushed from his nose, ears and mouth; flowed like a river. The doctors he loved so much could not stop her. He was losing his memory, but managed to bless his son for the Russian State, to perceive the Angelic Image with the name of Bogolep, and two hours later he expired in the same temple where he feasted with the Boyars and with foreigners. Unfortunately, posterity does not know anything more about this death. There are suggestions that Godunov could have been poisoned by conspirators from among personal enemies - such assumptions were made by V.O. Klyuchevsky and N.I. Kostomarov. It is curious that literally a few days after the death of Boris, according to the indestructible Russian tradition, rumors spread that instead of Godunov, a “forged iron angel” lay in the coffin, and the tsar himself was alive and somewhere either hiding or wandering. True, these rumors died out very quickly on their own.

4. The death of Fyodor Godunov and the accession of False Dmitry I

After the death of Boris Godunov, his son Fyodor took the throne. Since he was very young (16 years old), it was decided to recall experienced nobles from the army to help him - princes Mstislavsky, and Vasily and Dmitry Shuisky. Also, restoring justice, Bohdan Belsky was returned from exile. Pyotr Basmanov was appointed chief voivode "for there were no doubters either in his military talents or in loyalty, proven by brilliant deeds." This turned out to be the first serious mistake of Fedor and his advisers. It is still not clear what could push Basmanov, who was kindly treated by the Godunovs, onto the path of treason, but the facts are that, having returned to the troops, he entered into negotiations with Otrepiev, and, in the end, went over to his side.

“Surprising contemporaries, Basmanov's case surprises posterity. This man had a soul, as we shall see in the fateful hour of his life; did not believe the Pretender; so zealously denounced him and so courageously defeated him under the walls of Novgorod Seversky; was showered with the graces of Boris, honored with all the power of attorney of Theodore, elected as the savior of the Tsar and the Kingdom, with the right to their boundless gratitude, with the hope of leaving a brilliant name in the annals - and fell at the feet of the defamation in the form of a vile traitor? Can we explain such an incomprehensible action by the bad disposition of the troops? Shall we say that Basmanov, foreseeing the inevitable triumph of the Pretender, wanted to save himself from humiliation by accelerating treason: he wanted better to give both the army and the Kingdom to the deceiver than to be betrayed to him by the rebels? But the regiments still swore in the name of God in fidelity to Theodore: with what new zeal could the Voivode of the good ones inspire them, curbing evil-minded people with the power of his spirit and law? No, we believe the legend of the Chronicler that it was not a general betrayal that carried away Basmanov, but Basmanov carried out a general betrayal of the troops. This ambitious man without rules of honor, greedy for the pleasures of a temporary worker, probably thought that the proud, envious relatives of Feodorov would never give him the nearest place to the throne, and that the Rootless Pretender, elevated to the Kingdom by him (Basmanov), would naturally be bound by gratitude and his own benefit. to the main culprit of their happiness: their fate became inseparable and who could overshadow Basmanov with personal virtues? He knew other Boyars and himself: he only did not know that the strong in spirit fall like babies on the path of lawlessness! Basmanov probably would not have dared to betray Boris, who acted on the imagination with the long-term command and brilliance of the great mind of the statesman: Theodore, weak in his youth and the news of power, instilled courage in a traitor, armed with superstition to calm his heart: he could think that by betrayal he saves Russia from the hated oligarchy of the Godunovs, handing over the scepter to the Pretender, although a man of low birth, but brave, intelligent, a friend of the famous Crown-bearer of Poland, and, as it were, chosen by Fate to commit worthy revenge on the genus of the sanctuary; could think that he would direct False Dmitry on the path of goodness and mercy: he would deceive Russia, but he would make amends for this deception with happiness!

After Basmanov's betrayal, all hope of keeping Fyodor Godunov on the throne was lost. On June 1, 1604, the messengers sent from Otrepiev were received in Moscow, where they read from the Execution Ground the impostor's appeal "to the Synklit, to great nobles, dignitaries, people of order, military, commercial, middle and black":

“You swore to my father not to betray his children and offspring forever and ever, but you took Godunov as Tsar. I do not reproach you: you thought that Boris killed me in my infancy; they did not know his cunning and did not dare to oppose a man who already ruled self-rule even in the reign of Theodore Ioannovich - he complained and executed whomever he wanted. Enticed by him, you did not believe that I, saved by God, was coming to you with love and meekness. Precious blood was shed... But I regret it without anger: ignorance and fear forgive you. Fate has already been decided: the cities and my army. Do you dare to scold internecine pleasing Maria Godunova and her son? They do not feel sorry for Russia: they own not their own, but someone else's; they have soaked the land of Seversk with blood and want the ruin of Moscow. Remember what happened from Godunov to you, the Boyars, the Governors and all the famous people: how much disgrace and unbearable dishonor? And you, the Nobles and Children of the Boyars, what did you not endure in painful services and in exile? And you, merchants and guests, how many oppressions did you have in trade and what immoderate duties did you burden yourself with? We want to favor you unparalleled: Boyars and all men of rank with honor and new fathers, Nobles and people of order by grace, guests and merchants with benefits in the continuous course of peaceful and quiet days. Do you dare to be inflexible? But you will not get rid of our Royal hand: I will go and sit on the throne of my father; I am going with a strong army, my own and Lithuanian, for not only Russians, but also foreigners willingly sacrifice their lives to me. The most unfaithful Nogai wanted to follow me: I ordered them to stay in the steppes, sparing Russia. Fear death, temporal and eternal; be afraid of the answer on the day of God's judgment: humble yourself, and immediately send the Metropolitans, Archbishops, Duma husbands, Great Nobles and Dyakov, military and commercial people, to beat us with their foreheads, as your legitimate Tsar "

The appeal read out from the Execution Ground caused great embarrassment among the people, and a pogrom began in Moscow. The rebels seized the Kremlin and imprisoned Fyodor Godunov, his sister Xenia, and Boris Godunov's widow Maria. The palace was looted, like many rich houses in Moscow. It was possible to calm the rebellion only after the pogromists were threatened with the disfavor of "Tsar Dimitri". Supporters of the Godunovs were captured and sent to prisons in remote cities, including Patriarch Job, who was deposed and sent to the Staritsky Monastery. On June 10, Fedor and Maria Godunov were secretly killed, it was announced to the people that they had committed suicide. Their bodies were buried in the monastery of St. Prokofy on Sretenka. Further fate Ksenia Godunova is not exactly known, there are two versions. According to one, Xenia was killed along with her mother and brother; according to the second, she was imprisoned in the Vladimir Monastery, where she remained until her death.

On June 20, False Dmitry entered Moscow. All the way to Moscow, he was met by crowds of people who brought him bread and salt and rich gifts. Apparently, the people were quite sure that this was really Tsarevich Dimitri, their rightful king. After arriving in Moscow, False Dmitry defiantly visited the Church of the Archangel Michael, in which John IV was buried, where he “shed tears and said: “O dear parent! You left me in orphanage and persecution; but with your holy prayers I am whole and domineering! In an effort to ensure the support of the nobility, having taken the throne, he first of all reinstated and rewarded many of those who were repressed during the reign of Boris Godunov.

The further actions of False Dmitry, strangely enough, least of all resemble the actions of an adventurer, preoccupied only with stuffing his pockets. He began to carry out state reforms.

The reforms carried out by False Dmitry were very extensive, and as far as one can judge, they resembled the later reforms of Peter I. He declared freedom of trade, crafts and crafts, abolishing all past restrictions. Following this, he eliminated "all restraints" on those who wanted to leave Russia, enter it or move freely around the country. The testimonies of uninterested persons, the British, who wrote that "this was the first sovereign in Europe who made his state so free" have been preserved. Many were returned the estates selected by John IV. Other princes were allowed to marry, which was forbidden at one time by the Godunovs for fear that there would be too many of those in whom the blood of Rurikovich flows. Punishments for judges for taking bribes were toughened, legal proceedings were made free of charge. Many foreigners who knew crafts that could be useful for the state began to be invited to Russia. In some ways, False Dmitry went even further than his predecessors: under the previous tsars, the highest Orthodox clergy were invited to the Boyar Duma only in exceptional cases, but False Dmitry assigned permanent positions to the patriarch and bishops there. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the impostor presided over the Duma with visible interest and pleasure, where he solved complicated cases not without wit, and at the same time was not averse to reproaching the boyars for ignorance and offered to go to Europe to learn something useful there.

The new laws on servitude were very important. Under Godunov, a person who sold himself into serfs "by inheritance" along with other property passed to the heirs of his master, moreover, all his offspring automatically became serfs. According to the decree of False Dmitry, this practice was canceled - with the death of the master, the serf received freedom, and only he could sell himself into "bondage", his children remained free. In addition, it was decided that the landlords, who did not feed their peasants during the famine, no longer dare to keep them on their lands; and the landowner, who has not been able to catch his runaway serf within five years, loses all rights to him.

It was False Dmitry who first began to make plans for the conquest of the Crimea, which by that time had become a source of constant disasters for Russia. Accelerated production of weapons began, maneuvers were arranged - but with the death of False Dmitry, these plans were postponed for a long time.

Contrary to the assertions of pre-revolutionary official Russian historiography, it does not seem that False Dmitry was a puppet in the hands of Polish magnates. After False Dmitry took the throne, the Polish ambassador Gonsevsky arrived in Moscow, officially - to congratulate the new tsar on his accession to the throne. Unofficially - to remind him of the obligations given to Sigismund. However, False Dmitry refused the territorial concessions once promised to the king, assuring that “he is not yet firmly seated in the kingdom to make such decisions.” Moreover, the impostor showed his dissatisfaction with the fact that the king titled him "Grand Duke", and demanded that in further correspondence he be called "Caesar Emperor". In the then diplomacy, this was extremely important, and meant that Russia claims a higher hierarchical position than the Commonwealth. It is not surprising that this "trifle" has become the subject of heated debate. “Having learned about such a proud demand, Sigismund expressed annoyance, and the noble pans reproached the recent vagabond with ridiculous arrogance, evil ingratitude; and False Dmitry wrote to Warsaw that he had not forgotten the good offices of the Sigismunds, honoring him as a brother, as a father; wants to establish an alliance with him, but will not stop demanding the title of Caesar, although he does not think of threatening him with war for that. Prudent people, especially Mniszek and the Papal Nuncio, argued in vain to the Pretender that the King calls him as the Sovereigns of Poland always called the Sovereigns of Moscow, and that Sigismund cannot change this custom without the consent of the ranks of the Republic. Other, no less prudent people thought that the Republic should not quarrel over an empty name with a boastful friend, who could be her instrument for pacifying the Swedes; but the Pans did not want to hear about a new title ... "

The same disappointment befell the emissaries of Pope Paul V, whose predecessor False Dmitry had once promised the reunification of the Orthodox and Catholic churches. And in response to a letter from the Pope, in which he reminded the impostor of the promises made to his predecessor Clement VIII, he completely ignored questions of faith, and instead proposed to the Pope a joint campaign against the Turks. “... The impostor in a courteous answer, boasting of the miraculous goodness of God to Him, which exterminated the villain, his parricide, did not say a word about the unification of the Churches, spoke only of his magnanimous intention to live not in idleness, but together with the Emperor to go to the Sultan in order to erase the State infidels from the face of the earth, urging Paul V not to allow Rudolph to make peace with the Turks, for which he wanted to send his own Ambassador to Austria. False Dmitry also wrote to the Pope a second time, promising to deliver safety to the Missionaries on their way through Russia to Persia and to be faithful in fulfilling the word given to him, he himself sent the Jesuit Andrei Lavitsky to Rome, but, it seems, more for state than church affairs, for negotiations on the Turkish war, which he really planned, captivated in his imagination by its glory and benefit. It is clear that False Dmitry, in a manner completely uncharacteristic for an adventurous temporary worker, thinks about the good of his state, and is actively involved in international politics. He is completely pragmatic, and questions of faith for him are in second, if not tenth place. “The Pope ... however, had reason not to trust the zeal of the Pretender for the Latin Church, seeing how in his letters he avoids any clear word about the Law. It seems that the Pretender has cooled off in his zeal to make the Russians Papists, for, despite his characteristic recklessness, he saw the danger of this absurd plan and would hardly have dared to proceed with the execution of it, if he had reigned longer.

5. The overthrow of False Dmitry I.

The reign of False Dmitry lasted less than a year, namely 331 days. During his reign, a serious conspiracy was devised against him, headed by Prince Shuisky and his brothers Dmitry and Ivan. It is noteworthy that this plot was uncovered in a timely manner, and the conspirators were arrested, put on trial and sentenced, but then False Dmitry for some reason pardoned them, replacing the death penalty with exile and confiscation of property. The impostor's mercy cost him dearly in the future. “Here the whole square boiled in an indescribable movement of joy: they praised the Tsar, as on the first day of his solemn entry into Moscow; the faithful adherents of the Pretender also rejoiced, thinking that such mercy gives him a new right to common love; only the most far-sighted of them were indignant, and they were not mistaken: could Shuisky forget the torture and the scaffold? To complete his mistake, after six months from the date of the verdict, False Dmitry returned Shuisky and others from exile, taking from him "a written commitment of loyalty." Shuisky, of course, did not forgive him for the fear and humiliation he experienced, and embarked on conspiracies with renewed vigor. Pyotr Basmanov, who was faithful to the end to False Dmitry, repeatedly informed him of the signs of an impending rebellion, but he did nothing in response. “On Thursday, May 15, some Russians reported to Basmanov about the conspiracy. Basmanov reported to the tsar. “I don’t want to hear this,” Dimitri said, “I can’t stand scammers and I will punish them themselves.”

On May 17, 1606, a rebellion began in Moscow, led by Prince Vasily Shuisky. “May 17, at four o’clock in the afternoon, the most beautiful of spring, the rising sun illuminated the terrible anxiety of the capital: they first struck the bell at St. Elijah, near the courtyard of the living room, and at the same time the alarm rang in the whole of Moscow, and the inhabitants rushed from their houses to Krasnaya a square with spears, swords, self-propelled guns, Nobles, Children of the Boyars, archers, clerks and merchants, citizens and mob. There, near the place of execution, the Boyars sat on horseback, in helmets and armor, in full armor, and representing the fatherland in their face, they were waiting for the people. False Dmitry was blockaded in the Kremlin, Basmanov, with a small detachment of German mercenary bodyguards, tried to protect him. According to eyewitnesses, in despair he turned to False Dmitry with the words: “It's all over! Moscow rebels, they want your head, save yourself! You didn't believe me!"

“False Dmitry himself, expressing courage, snatched the reed from Schwarzhof’s bodyguard, opened the door to the entrance hall and, threatening the people, shouted: “I’m not Godunov!” Shots were answered and the Germans locked the door again; but there were only 50 of them, and also, in the inner rooms of the palace, 20 or 30 Poles, servants and musicians: other defenders, in this formidable hour, had no one who had been obeyed by millions the day before! But False Dimitri had another friend: not finding the opportunity to resist force with force, at the moment when the people beat off the doors, Basmanov went out to him for the second time - he saw the Boyars in the crowd, and between them the closest people were strangled: Princes Golitsyn, Mikhail Saltykov, old and new traitors; wanted to reassure them; spoke of the horror of rebellion, treachery, anarchy; urged them to change their minds; vouched for the mercy of the King. But he was not allowed to speak much: Mikhailo Tatishchev, whom he saved from exile, yelled: “Villain! go to hell with your King!” and stabbed him in the heart. Basmanov expired, and the dead man was thrown off the porch.

Trying to escape, False Dmitry jumped out the window, but broke his leg and was discovered by guard archers. Apparently, the archers and other people who happened to be at the same time were not so sure that he was really an impostor, since they helped him: ." However, False Dmitry did not lose his presence of mind, and demanded from the people who had gathered around him, among whom were the participants in the conspiracy, to bring the widow of John IV Marfa Naguya, who would testify that he really was Demetrius. He also demanded that he be taken to the Execution Ground, and there he was accused of imposture in public. “Noise and shouting drowned out speeches; they only heard how they assure that they were cut off to the question: “who are you, a villain?” answered: “you know: I am Demetrius” - and referred to the Tsaritsa-Nun; We heard that Prince Ivan Golitsyn objected to him: "We already know her testimony: she is putting you to death." They also heard that the Pretender said: "Take me to the place of execution: there I will declare the truth to all people." Impatient people pounded on the door, asking if the villain was guilty? He was told that he was guilty - and two shots stopped the interrogation along with the life of Otrepyev.

CM. Solovyov sets out the following version of what happened: “While waiting for an answer from Martha, the conspirators did not want to be left alone and with swearing and beatings asked False Dmitry: “Who are you? Who is your father? Where are you from?” He answered: "You all know that I am your king, the son of Ivan Vasilyevich. Ask my mother about me or take me to the Execution Ground and let me explain." Then Prince Ivan Vasilyevich Golitsyn appeared and said that he had been with Queen Martha, asking: she says that her son was killed in Uglich, and this is an impostor. These words told the people with the addition that Demetrius himself was guilty of his imposture and that the Nagy confirmed Martha's testimony. Then shouts were heard from everywhere: "Beat him! Cut him!" The son of the boyars, Grigory Valuev, jumped out of the crowd and fired at Dimitri, saying: "What can I say with a heretic: here I will bless the Polish whistler!" Others chopped the unfortunate man down and threw his corpse from the porch onto Basmanov's body, saying: "You loved him alive, do not part with the dead either." Then the mob took possession of the corpses and, having exposed them, dragged them through the Spassky Gates to Red Square; having come up with the Ascension Monastery, the crowd stopped and asked Martha: "Is this your son?" She answered: "You should have asked me about it when he was still alive, now he is, of course, not mine."

After the murder of False Dmitry, a pogrom of foreigners began in Moscow, primarily Poles. More than a thousand people were killed, not only Poles, but also Germans, Italians, and Russians who turned up at the wrong time. The pogrom ended only the next day, at 11 am.

“Then Basmanov was buried at the church of Nikola Mokry, and the impostor was buried in a wretched house outside the Serpukhov Gates, but various rumors went around: they said that severe frosts were due to the magic of debridement, that miracles were happening over his grave; then they dug up his corpse, burned it in the Cauldrons, and, mixing the ashes with gunpowder, shot him from a cannon in the direction from which he came. Thus ended the short reign of False Dmitry.

According to the testimony of the German pastor Ber, a certain elder, who was a servant in Uglich at the tsarevich’s court, when asked whether the murdered man was really Tsarevich Dimitri, answered this way: “The Muscovites swore allegiance to him and broke their oath: I don’t praise them. A sensible and brave man was killed, but not the son of Ioannov, really slaughtered in Uglich: I saw him dead, lying in the place where he always played. God is the judge of our Princes and Boyars: time will tell whether we will be happier. Happier, however, did not become, as further events showed.

Who was False Dmitry really? The generally accepted version, which is also the official one, is that the fugitive deacon Otrepyev pretended to be Tsarevich Dimitry. However, for example, N.I. Kostomarov objected to this as follows: “Firstly, if the named Demetrius had been a fugitive monk Otrepiev, who fled from Moscow in 1602, he could not have mastered the techniques of the then Polish gentry for some two years. We know that the one who reigned under the name of Demetrius rode excellently, danced gracefully, shot accurately, dexterously wielded a saber and knew the Polish language perfectly: even in Russian speech he could not hear a Moscow accent. Finally, on the day of his arrival in Moscow, applying himself to the images, he aroused attention by his inability to do this with such techniques as were customary among natural Muscovites. Secondly, the named Tsar Demetrius brought Grigory Otrepiev with him and showed him to the people. Subsequently, they said that this was not the real Gregory: some explained that it was the monk of the Krypetsky monastery, Leonid, others that it was the monk Pimen. But Grigory Otrepiev was by no means such a little-known person that one could substitute another in his place. Grigory Otrepiev was a cross clerk (secretary) of Patriarch Job, and together with him he went with papers to the royal duma. All the boyars knew him by sight. Gregory lived in the Miracle Monastery, in the Kremlin, where Pafnuty was archimandrite. It goes without saying that if the named tsar were Grigory Otrepiev, then he would most of all have to avoid this Paphnutius and, first of all, would try to get rid of him. But the Chudov Archimandrite Pafnuty, during the entire reign of the aforementioned Demetrius, was a member of the senate established by him and, consequently, saw the king almost every day. And finally, thirdly, in the Zagorovsky monastery (in Volhynia) there is a book with the handwritten signature of Grigory Otrepyev; This signature has not the slightest resemblance to the handwriting of the named Tsar Demetrius. And further: ““The very method of his deposition and death proves as clearly as possible that it was impossible to convict him not only of being Grigory Otrepiev, but even of imposture in general. Why was it necessary to kill him? Why didn’t they treat him exactly as he asked: why didn’t they take him out to the square, didn’t they call on the one he called his mother? Why didn't they state their accusations against him before the people? Why, finally, did they not call on Otrepiev's mother, brothers and uncle, didn't give them a confrontation with the tsar and didn't catch him? Why didn’t they call on Archimandrite Pafnuty, didn’t they gather the Chudov chernets and, in general, everyone who knew Otrepyev, and didn’t catch him? That's how many means, extremely powerful, were in the hands of his killers, and they did not use any of them! Instead, they distracted the people, incited them to attack the Poles, they themselves killed the tsar en masse, and then announced that he was Grishka Otrepyev, and explained everything obscure and incomprehensible in this matter as witchcraft and devilish seduction.

The captain of foreign mercenaries, Jacques Margeret, who personally knew False Dmitry, wrote about him in his memoirs: ““ A certain greatness shone in him that cannot be expressed in words, and never seen before among the Russian nobility and even less among people of low birth, to whom he inevitably had to belong if he were not the son of John Vasilyevich. This means that he also doubted that False Dmitry was Grigory Otrepyev.

Later, in the 19th century, a hypothesis appeared that False Dmitry was an unconscious tool in the hands of a certain boyar group (most likely the Romanovs), who, having found a young man of about the right age, assured him that he was the son of John who miraculously escaped from the killers IV, sent him to Poland, after which, with finely calculated maneuvers, she paralyzed the resistance of government troops, prepared the Muscovites, killed Godunov along with his wife and son, and later, when False Dmitry began to interfere with them, liquidated him. This hypothesis is supported by the actions taken by False Dmitry during his reign - decisively everything in them indicates that he was going to rule in earnest and for a long time, that he himself was confident in his rights to the throne. Even his phrase “I am not Godunov to you!”, shouted out by him in the heat of battle, may mean that, unlike Godunov, who appeared in the kingdom from nowhere, he himself has all the rights to the throne, and is not going to give them to anyone. And even having fallen into the hands of the rebels, he does not lose his presence of mind, does not beg for mercy, but firmly demands that he be given the opportunity to turn to the people, to his mother, and to other people who could confirm his rights.

But, probably, now no one will ever know exactly how it all happened in reality.

6. Accession of Vasily Shuisky

It can be assumed that Shuisky started a rebellion not only to reckon with False Dmitry, but also with a more far-reaching goal. “It was easy to foresee who would take this prey, by force and right. The most daring accuser of the Pretender, miraculously saved from execution and still fearless in a new effort to overthrow him: the culprit, the Hero, the head of the popular uprising, the Prince from the tribe of Rurik, St. Vladimir, Monomakh, Alexander Nevsky; the second Boyar in the Duma, the first in the love of Muscovites and personal merits, Vasily Shuisky could still remain a simple courtier and, after such courage, with such celebrity, begin a new service of flattery before some new Godunov? In other words, he foresaw in advance that he would be the most likely candidate for the empty throne (as the most noble, and generally glorified himself by ridding the country of an impostor). “Having the power, having the right, Shuisky also used all sorts of tricks: he instructed friends and adherents what to say in the Synclite and in the place of execution, how to act and rule the minds; he prepared himself, and the next morning, having gathered the Duma, he delivered, as they say, a very clever and crafty speech: he praised the mercy of God to Russia, exalted by the autocrats of the Varangian tribe; glorified especially the mind and conquests of John IV, although cruel; boasted of his brilliant service and important state experience acquired by him in this active reign; portrayed the weakness of John's heir, Godunov's evil lust for power, all the disasters of his time and the people's hatred for the sanctuary, which was the fault of the success of False Dmitry and forced the Boyars to follow general movement". The few voices that said that it would be necessary to assemble the Zemsky Sobor, and that it was impossible to choose a new tsar by the Boyar Duma alone, were quickly and effectively silenced. On May 19, Vasily Shuisky was elected tsar.

Vasily Shuisky, in which both Karamzin and Klyuchevsky agree, was, apparently, an unpleasant personality. “He was an elderly, 54-year-old boyar of small stature, nondescript, short-sighted, a man not stupid, but more cunning than smart, utterly lied to and intrigued, who went through fire and water, who had seen the chopping block and not tried it only by the grace of the impostor, against whom he acted on the sly, a great hunter for headphones and a great fear of sorcerers. He opened his reign with a series of letters published throughout the state, and in each of these manifestos there was at least one lie. ... Nevertheless, the accession of Prince. Basil constituted an epoch in our political history. Assuming the throne, he limited his power, and the conditions of this restriction were officially set out in a record sent to the regions, on which he kissed the cross during accession.

The last moment is very important - Vasily Shuisky limited the power of the autocrat with this "record", which had never happened before in Russian history. Among other things, in it the king took upon himself the obligation “not to lay down his disgrace without guilt.” As an expression of the master's will of the sovereign, disgrace did not need to be justified, and under the former kings it sometimes took the form of wild arbitrariness, turning from a disciplinary measure into a criminal punishment. Under John IV, only a doubt about devotion to duty could lead the disgraced to the chopping block. Thus, Vasily Shuisky made a bold vow (which he later, however, did not fulfill) to apply disciplinary punishments only for specific offenses, which, by the way, still had to be proven through the courts.

In addition, the "record" said that anonymous denunciations would no longer be accepted for consideration, that a deliberately false denunciation would be punished "depending on the guilt charged against the slandered" (that is, depending on the gravity of the false accusation), that cases on criminal offenses (punishable by death and confiscation of property) will be considered by the tsar's court together with the Boyar Duma. In other words, the "record" was aimed at protecting the personal and property security of subjects from arbitrariness from above.

“... Tsar Basil refused three prerogatives, in which this personal power of the tsar was most clearly expressed. They were: 1) "fell without guilt", royal disfavor without sufficient reason, at personal discretion; 2) confiscation of property from the family and relatives of the criminal not involved in the crime - the ancient institution of political responsibility of the clan for relatives was abolished by the waiver of this right; finally, 3) an emergency investigative police court on denunciations with torture and slander, but without confrontations, testimonies and other means of a normal process. These prerogatives constituted the essential content of the power of the Moscow sovereign, expressed in the words of Ivan III: whoever I want, I will give reign to him, and the words of Ivan IV: we are free to favor our lackeys and we are free to execute them. Shaking off these prerogatives with an oath, Vasily Shuisky turned from a sovereign of serfs into a legitimate king of subjects, ruling according to the laws.

The reason for such a progressive step was, apparently, still not the high personal qualities of Vasily Shuisky, but the simple fact that Shuisky's government did not even have the dubious legitimacy that the False Dmitry's government had, and certainly not the same that the authorities had. Boris Godunov, called to the kingdom by the Zemsky Sobor. Shuisky was nothing more than a creature of the Boyar Duma, a narrow circle of the aristocracy, and he perfectly understood that he could be removed from the throne as easily as he was appointed to it. For this reason, he was forced to seek support in the Zemstvo. “Having pledged to his comrades on the eve of the uprising against the impostor to rule on the general advice with them, thrown to the ground by a circle of noble boyars, he was the king of the boyars, the party, forced to watch from the wrong hands. Naturally, he was looking for Zemstvo support for his incorrect power and hoped to find a counterbalance to the Boyar Duma in the Zemsky Sobor. Taking an oath before the whole earth not to punish without a council, he hoped to get rid of boyar guardianship, become a zemstvo tsar and limit his power to an institution that was unusual for that, that is, to free it from any real restriction.

In an effort to convince the people of the illegitimacy of the previous reign, Shuisky sent letters to the regions on his own behalf, in which he announced the death of False Dmitry, with an exact statement of the reasons, in particular, he announced the papers found from the impostor. “Many exiled thieves with Poland and Lithuania about the ruin of the Muscovite state were taken in his mansions.” However, nothing was said about the content of these "letters" in Shuisky's messages. Shuisky also cites evidence of the impostor's promises given to Mniszek and King Sigismund about territorial concessions to Poland, and concludes: "Hearing and seeing that, we give praise to the almighty God that we saved us from such villainy." Also, on behalf of Martha Naga, a second letter was sent, which said: “He called himself the son of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich by witchcraft and witchcraft, he deceived many people in Poland and Lithuania with demonic darkness, and he frightened us and our relatives with death; I told the boyars, the nobles to all the people about this secretly before, but now it is clear to everyone that he is not our son, Tsarevich Dimitri, a thief, an apostate, a heretic. And as he came from Putivl to Moscow with his witchcraft and witchcraft, then, knowing his theft, he did not send us for a long time, but sent his advisers to us and ordered them to take care of us tightly so that no one would come to us and no one would tell us about him. didn't talk. And how he ordered us to be brought to Moscow, and he was alone with us at the meeting, but he didn’t order the boyars and others to let us in with him and told us with a great ban so that I wouldn’t denounce him, blaming us and all our kind of mortals murder, so that we would not bring an evil death on ourselves and on our whole family, and put me in a monastery, and also assigned his advisers to me, and ordered him to be strongly guarded so that his theft was not obvious, and I, for his threat, declare among the people, his theft obviously did not dare. It is noteworthy that the names of the "advisors" are not indicated, which may mean the following: either these advisers did not exist at all, or after the coup, these advisers became so powerful that it was impossible to reveal their names. It is known that False Dmitry sent Prince Skopin-Shuisky for Martha, who for some reason not only did not undergo any repression after the overthrow of False Dmitry, but also continued a successful career at court - for example, he was sent at the head of the embassy to the king of Sweden, and subsequently commanded the troops that fought with False Dmitry II. Probably, throughout the reign of False Dmitry, he remained a man of Prince Shuisky, and probably took an active part in the conspiracy directed against him.

Against expectations, these letters not only did not convince the people of anything, but also gave rise to new doubts. “It is easy to imagine what impression these announcements of Shuisky, Tsarina Martha and the boyars must have made on many residents of Moscow itself and mainly on residents of the regions! Inevitably, there were many who might have found it strange how the thief Grishka Otrepyev could seduce all the rulers of Moscow with his witchcraft and witchcraft? Recently the people were informed that the new tsar is the true Demetrius; now they assure otherwise, they assure that Demetrius threatened the death of the Orthodox faith, that he wanted to share Russian lands with Poland, they declare that he died for this, but how did he die? - it remains a secret; announce that a new king has been elected, but how and by whom? - it is not known: none of the regional residents was at this meeting, it was carried out without the knowledge of the land; advisers were not sent to Moscow, who, having arrived from there, could satisfy the curiosity of their fellow citizens, tell them the matter in detail, and resolve all perplexities. The strangeness, the darkness of the event being announced necessarily gave rise to bewilderment, doubt, distrust, especially since the new king sat on the throne secretly from the earth, with a violation of the already sanctified form, already become antiquity. Until now, the regions believed Moscow, recognized every word that came to them from Moscow as immutable, but now Moscow clearly admits that the sorcerer deceived her with demonic darkness; The question inevitably arose: are the Muscovites not overshadowed by Shuisky? Until now, Moscow has been the center to which all regions have been drawn; the connection between Moscow and the regions was trust in the authorities that resided in it; now this trust has been broken, and the connection has weakened, the state has become confused; faith, once shaken, necessarily led to superstition: having lost political faith in Moscow, they began to believe everyone and everything, especially when people began to arrive in the region dissatisfied with the coup and the person who carried it out, when they began to tell that the matter was different than how enshrined in the letters of Shuisky. Here, in fact, a demonic delusion set in for the entire state, a delusion produced by the spirit of lies, produced by a dark and impure deed, perfected secretly from the earth. In other words, the legitimacy of the established power was a big question for the people, which led to further events, exacerbating the impending turmoil.

7. The uprising of Bolotnikov and the appearance of False Dmitry II.

On the day of the death of False Dmitry, one of his close associates, Mikhail Molchanov, managed to escape from Moscow. On the way, he spread rumors that another person was actually killed in Moscow, but in fact Dimitri escaped, and intends to return to Moscow to punish the usurper Shuisky. These rumors, apparently received wide use, another close associate of False Dmitry took advantage - Prince Grigory Shakhovskoy, sent by Shuisky to an honorary exile as a governor in Putivl. Considering that Putivl served False Dmitry as the main base for a long time, he could not think of anything worse than this. Once in Putivl, Shakhovskoy immediately announced that Dimitry was alive, after which Putivl and many other Seversk cities rebelled against Vasily Shuisky. Unrest began in Moscow itself.

For the success of the rebellion, Shakhovsky absolutely needed a new "Tsarevich Dimitri", who would become a banner for the uprising. Mikhail Molchanov was offered to become the new Demetrius, but he refused, probably because he was too well known among the people. However, just Molchanov found right person- Ivan Bolotnikov, a man of difficult fate. In his youth, he was with Prince Telyatevsky a "combat serf", that is, a hired soldier in the retinue. Somehow he was captured by the Tatars, and was sold by them into slavery to the Turks. For several years he was a rower on a Turkish galley. In a skirmish with a Venetian warship, his galley was captured, and all the Christian rowers were freed. Having received his freedom, Bolotnikov was just making his way from Venice through Poland to Russia, and on the way he ended up in the camp of Molchanov.

Bolotnikov also did not fit into the "tsarevitch Dimitri", perhaps because of his age, so it was decided to make him "the royal attorney." “Bolotnikov ... was introduced to Molchanov, who saw in him a useful person for his business, robbed him and sent him with a letter to Putivl to Prince Shakhovsky, who accepted him as a royal attorney and gave command over a detachment of troops. Kholop Bolotnikov immediately found a way to increase his squad and strengthen the cause of the impostor in the previously lost Ukraine: he turned to his own, promising freedom, wealth and honors under the banner of Dimitry, and under these banners robbers, thieves who found refuge in Ukraine, runaway serfs and peasants, Cossacks, townspeople and archers stuck to them, began to seize governors in the cities and put them in prisons; peasants and serfs began to attack the houses of their masters, ruined them, plundered ... ".

An attempt by government troops to restore order was not successful. “Then the boyar Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Vorotynsky besieged Yelets, the steward Prince Yuri Trubetskoy - Kromy, but Bolotnikov came to the rescue of Krom: from 1300 people he attacked 5000 tsarist troops and completely struck Trubetskoy; the winners - the Cossacks taunted the vanquished, called their king Shuisky a fur coat. The Moscow army was already not zealous for Vasily, therefore, it was already weakened morally; Bolotnikov's victory took away his last breath; service people, seeing the general confusion, general hesitation, did not want to fight for Shuisky anymore and began to go home; the governors Vorotynsky and Trubetskoy, exhausted by this departure, could not do anything decisive and went back. In the state of minds that prevailed then in the Muscovite state, with general precariousness, uncertainty, lack of a foothold, in such a state, the first success, no matter which side it was on, had important consequences, for it attracted an indecisive crowd, eager to get carried away, stick to anything whatever it was, to rely on whatever it was, if only to get out of the indecisive state, which for every person and for society is a grave, unbearable state. As soon as they learned that the royal army had retreated, the uprising in the south became widespread.

The support of Bolotnikov's army was the Komaritskaya volost, where by that time many Cossacks had accumulated, supporting False Dmitry I. From Krom Bolotnikov, he set off on his campaign against Moscow in the summer of 1606. In his army, like the army of False Dmitry I, in addition to the Cossacks, peasants and townspeople, there were many nobles, led by Prokofy Lyapunov. The governors of Putivl (Shakhovskoy) and Chernigov (Telyatevsky) announced that they were subordinate to the “tsarist governor” Bolotnikov. Acting in this capacity, Bolotnikov defeated government troops near Yelets, occupied Kaluga, Tula, Serpukhov, and in October 1606 came close to Moscow, stopping at the village of Kolomenskoye.

Bolotnikov's position, however, was hampered by the fact that he was, as it were, a voivode with no one around. The phenomenon of "Tsarevich Dimitri", due to the lack of a suitable candidate, did not happen. “The position of Bolotnikov and his comrades was, however, very difficult: the long absence of the proclaimed Demetrius took away the spirit of his conscientious adherents; In vain, Shakhovskoy begged Molchanov to appear in Putivl under the name of Dimitri: he did not agree. Finally, after a battle with government troops, Bolotnikov suffered a heavy defeat and retreated to Kaluga. An important role in this was played by the betrayal of the noble detachments. “Fortunately for Shuisky, there was a split in the horde of Bolotnikov. The nobles and the children of the boyars, dissatisfied with the fact that the serfs and peasants want to be equal to them, without seeing Demetrius, who could resolve disputes between them, began to be convinced that Bolotnikov was deceiving them, and began to retreat from him. The Lyapunov brothers were the first to set an example for this retreat, they arrived in Moscow and bowed to Shuisky, although they did not tolerate him. Bolotnikov was recaptured by Skopin-Shuisky and went to Kaluga.

He managed to escape from the besieged Kaluga with the help of a new ally, "Tsarevich Peter" - another impostor who called himself the son of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, who never existed. He came to Bolotnikov's aid at the head of a detachment of Cossacks. “A new impostor appeared, a native of Murom, the illegitimate son of a “townsman’s wife,” Ileika, who used to walk in barge haulers along the Volga. He called himself Tsarevich Peter, the unprecedented son of Tsar Fyodor; with the Volga Cossacks he stuck to Bolotnikov.

Having broken through the blockade, Bolotnikov, together with "Prince Peter", retreated to Tula, but was besieged there too. After a three-month siege, Tula was taken. “Some Muromet Sack Kravkov made a ditch across the Upa River and flooded the whole of Tula: the besieged surrendered. Shuisky, promising Bolotnikov mercy, ordered him to gouge out his eyes and then drown him. The named Peter was hanged; hundreds of ordinary captives were thrown into the water, but the boyars, princes Telyatevsky and Shakhovsky, who were with Bolotnikov, were left alive.

"Prince Demetrius", however, continued to multiply. Most of them have disappeared, leaving no trace of themselves. But one of them, later called False Dmitry II or "Tushino thief", almost succeeded in repeating the success of his predecessor.

“... Instead of the hanged named Peter, several princes appeared. Tsarevich August appeared in Astrakhan, calling himself the unprecedented son of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich from his wife Anna Koltovskaya; then Tsarevich Lavrentiy, also an unprecedented son of Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich, who was killed by his father, appeared there. Eight princes appeared in Ukrainian cities, calling themselves various unprecedented sons of Tsar Fedor (Fedor, Erofey, Klementy, Savely, Semyon, Vasily, Gavrilo, Martyn). All these princes disappeared as quickly as they appeared. But the long-awaited Demetrius finally appeared in the Seversk land and, in the spring of 1608, with Polish freemen and Cossacks moved to Moscow. His business was successful. The military men betrayed Shuisky and fled from the battlefield. The new impostor, at the beginning of July 1608, laid his camp in Tushino, from which he received from his opponents the name of the Tushino thief, which remained behind him in history. Russian cities and lands one after another recognized him. His horde increased with every hour.

“The man, famous in our history under the name of the Tushinsky thief, or simply a thief, a thief par excellence, appeared for the first time in the Belarusian town of Propoisk, where he was captured as a spy and put in prison. Here he announced himself that he was Andrei Andreevich Nagoi, a relative of Tsar Dimitri killed in Moscow, hiding from Shuisky, and asked to be sent to Starodub. Ragoza, a Chechersk constable, with the consent of his pan Zenovich, the headman of Chechersk, sent him to Popova Gora, from where he made his way to Starodub. Having lived for a short time in Starodub, the imaginary Nagoi sent his comrade, who was called the Moscow clerk Alexander Rukin, to divulge to the northern cities that Tsar Dimitri was alive and was in Starodub. In Putivl, the inhabitants paid attention to Rukin's speeches and sent several boyar children with him to Starodub to show them Tsar Dimitri, and threatened him with torture if he told a lie. Rukin pointed to Nagogo; at first he began to lock himself up, that he did not know anything about Tsar Demetrius, but when the Starodubtsy threatened him with torture and already wanted to take him, he grabbed a stick and shouted: “Oh, you ... children, you still don’t know me: I am the sovereign !" The Starodubtsy fell at his feet and shouted: “They are guilty, sir, before you.”

Having recruited an army with Polish support, in January 1608, False Dmitry II undertook a campaign against Moscow, and in the summer of that year approached Moscow, stopping in the village of Tushino. Some time later, Marina Mnishek also arrived there, after much persuasion, she nevertheless recognized her husband in the “Tushino thief”. Apparently, unlike False Dmitry I, the "Tush thief" was an obedient puppet in the hands of the Polish gentry. "Standing" in Tushino lasted 21 months.

8. Polish intervention.

Vasily Shuisky, finally convinced that he could not cope with False Dmitry II on his own, in 1609 concluded an agreement with Sweden in Vyborg, according to which Russia renounced its claims on the Baltic coast, and Sweden sent its troops to Russia to fight the impostor.

“At the end of February 1609, the stolnik Golovin and the clerk Sydavny Zinoviev concluded an agreement with the attorneys of Charles IX of the following content: the king undertook to release two thousand cavalry and three thousand infantry of a mercenary army to help Shuisky, and in addition to these mercenaries, he undertook to send an indefinite number of troops as a sign friendship for the king. For this help, Shuisky renounced the rights to Livonia for himself and his children and heirs. Shuisky also pledged for himself and for his heirs to be in constant alliance with the king and his heirs against Sigismund of Poland and his heirs, and both sovereigns pledged not to conclude a separate peace with Sigismund, but if one of them makes peace with Poland, then he must immediately make peace with her and his ally, "but not to protect each other in a peaceful resolution," Shuisky undertook, in case of need, to send to the king for help as many military people, hired and without money, as in the present case the king sends to him, and the wages of hired workers should be exactly the same ."

In response, the Commonwealth, which was at war with Sweden, declared war on Russia. In the autumn of 1609, the Polish army besieged Smolensk, and the Polish troops stationed in Tushino were also ordered to withdraw there. The Tushino camp crumbled, False Dmitry II was no longer needed by the Polish gentry, who switched to open intervention. False Dmitry II fled to Kaluga.

So without taking Smolensk, which had been heroically defending for more than 20 months, the Polish army moved to Moscow. A united Russian-Swedish army under the command of Dmitry Shuisky (the tsar's brother) and Delagardie (commander of the Swedish mercenaries) came out against him. The morale of the troops was low, in addition, the experienced commander Skopin-Shuisky died shortly before this under unclear circumstances. Many blamed Vasily Shuisky for this death. “On April 23, Prince Skopin, at the christening of Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Vorotynsky, fell ill with a nosebleed and died after a two-week illness. There was a general rumor about the poison: they knew hatred for his late uncle, Prince Dmitry, and began to point to him as a poisoner; crowds of people moved to the house of the king's brother, but were driven away by the army. As for the accuracy of the rumor about the poison, Russian contemporaries are far from a decisive accusation; the chronicler says: "Many in Moscow said that his aunt Princess Catherine, the wife of Prince Dmitry Shuisky (daughter of Malyuta Skuratov, sister of Tsarina Marya Grigoryevna Godunova), spoiled it, but only God knows for sure." Palitsyn speaks in almost the same words: "We don't know how to say whether God's judgment befell him, or whether the intention of evil people was accomplished? Only the one who created us knows." Zholkevsky, who, while living in Moscow, had every means to find out the truth, denies the accusation, attributing Skopin's death to an illness. This important evidence refutes the testimony of another foreigner, Bussov, who was not disposed towards Tsar Vasily. The Pskov chronicler, who for reasons known to us also did not like Shuisky, speaks in the affirmative about the poison, tells in detail how the wife of Dmitry Shuisky at the feast herself brought Skopin a bowl that contained poison.

On June 23, 1610, a battle took place between the Polish and the combined Russian-Swedish armies, in which the Russian army suffered a terrible defeat.

“According to this news, Sigismund sent an army to Moscow under the command of the crown hetman Zolkiewski. Shuisky's army, thirty thousand, moved to Mozhaisk; Delagardie went with him with his army, consisting of people of different nations. There were many recruits in the Moscow army who were going to battle for the first time. No one had the desire to defend Tsar Vasily. Enemies met on June 23 between Moscow and Mozhaisk, near the village of Klushino. From the first pressure of the Poles, the Moscow cavalry ran, crushed the infantry: the foreigners, who were under the command of Delagardie, rebelled and began to be transferred to the enemy. Then the chiefs of the Moscow army, Dimitry Shuisky, Golitsyn, Mezetsky, fled into the forest, and after them everyone rushed in all directions. Zholkevsky got the carriage of Dmitry Shuisky, his saber, mace, banner, a lot of money and furs, which Dimitri intended to distribute to Delagardie's army, but did not have time. Delagardie, left by his subordinates, expressed a desire to talk with the hetman Zholkevsky, and when the hetman came to him, then Delagardie got him to agree to leave the Muscovite state without hindrance. “Our failure,” said Delagardie, “comes from the inability of the Russians and the treachery of my hired soldiers. It would not be the same with the same Russians if they were led by the valiant Skopin. But he was exhausted, and happiness betrayed the Moscow people.” The path to Moscow was open for the Polish invaders, Mozhaisk, Volokolamsk and other cities surrendered without resistance. Among the boyars, the opinion began to grow stronger that Vasily Shuisky was incapable of being king, and should be removed from the throne. Boyarin Zakhar Lyapunov said at a meeting of supporters: “Our state is reaching the final ruin. There are Poles and Lithuania, there is a Kaluga thief, but Tsar Vasily is not loved. He did not rightly sit on the throne and is unhappy in the kingdom. We will beat him with our foreheads so that he leaves the throne, and we will send to the people of Kaluga to say, let them betray their thief; and together we will choose another king with all the earth and stand with one mind against every enemy. The entourage of False Dmitry II, in response to the message of the conspirators, promised to extradite him on the condition that Vasily Shuisky be deposed. “The Russians who were with the thief said: “Bring Shuisky, and we will tie up our Dimitri and bring him to Moscow.”

9. The deposition of Vasily Shuisky and the Seven Boyars.

On July 17, 1610, a delegation of boyars came to the tsar, headed by Zakhar Lyapunov. Lyapunov addressed the tsar thus: “How long will Christian blood be shed for you? The earth is empty, nothing good is being done in your reign, take pity on our death, put down the royal staff, and we will somehow think of ourselves. Shuisky was already accustomed to such scenes, and seeing a crowd of insignificant people in front of him, he thought to frighten them with a shout, and therefore answered Lyapunov with swear words: “You dare say this to me when the boyars don’t tell me anything like that,” and he took out a knife, to further intimidate the rebels.

“... It was difficult to frighten Zakhar Lyapunov, scolding and threats could only excite him to the same. Lyapunov was a tall, strong man; Hearing the scolding, seeing Shuisky's formidable movement, he shouted to him: "Don't touch me: that's how I take you in my hands, and I will doubt everything!" But Lyapunov's comrades did not share his fever: seeing that Shuisky was not frightened and did not voluntarily give in to their demand, Khomutov and Ivan Nikitich Saltykov shouted: "Let's get out of here!" - and went straight to the Execution Ground. Moscow already knew that something was going on in the Kremlin, and crowds after crowds poured down to Lobny, so that when the patriarch arrived there and it was necessary to explain what was the matter, the people no longer fit in the square. Then Lyapunov, Khomutov and Saltykov shouted for everyone to go to a spacious place, across the Moscow River, to the Serpukhov Gates, and the patriarch was to go there with them. Here the boyars, nobles, guests and trading best people advised how the Muscovite state should not be ruined and plundered: Poles and Lithuania came under the Muscovy state, and on the other hand, the Kaluga thief with Russian people, and the Muscovite state on both sides became cramped . The boyars and all sorts of people were sentenced: to beat the sovereign, Tsar Vasily Ivanovich, with his forehead, so that he, sovereign, would leave the kingdom so that much blood was shed, and the people say that he, the sovereign, was unhappy and the Ukrainian cities that retreated to the thief, him, sovereign, they don’t want the kingdom. There was no resistance among the people, a few boyars resisted, but not for long, the patriarch resisted, but they did not listen to him. The royal brother-in-law, Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Vorotynsky, went to the palace to ask Vasily to leave the state and take Nizhny Novgorod as his inheritance. To this request, announced by the boyar on behalf of the entire Moscow people, Vasily had to agree and left with his wife for his former boyar house.

On July 19, Zakhar Lyapunov picked up his comrades, with whom he came to the house of Vasily Shuisky. He was separated from his wife, who was sent to the Ascension Monastery, and Shuisky himself was told that he should be tonsured a monk.

"People of Moscow, what have I done to you," said Shuisky. He was told that he needed to cut his hair. Shuisky flatly said that he did not want to. Then the hieromonks were ordered to perform the rite of tonsure, and when, according to the rite, they asked him: does he want to? Vasily shouted loudly: "I don't want to"; but Prince Tyufyakin, one of Lyapunov's accomplices, made a promise for him, and Lyapunov firmly held Vasily's hands so that he would not brush them off. He was dressed in a monastic dress and taken to the Chudov Monastery"

The supreme government passed to the boyar council under the chairmanship of Prince Fyodor Mstislavsky. This government, which consisted of seven boyars and princes (Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky, Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Vorotynsky, Prince Andrey Vasilyevich Trubetskoy, Prince Andrey Vasilyevich Golitsyn, Prince Boris Mikhailovich Lykov-Obolensky, Boyar Ivan Nikitich Romanov, Boyar Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev).

10. The expulsion of the interventionists and the accession of the Romanovs.

In August 1610, despite the protests of Patriarch Hermogenes, the government concluded an agreement on calling the Polish prince Vladislav to the Russian throne. The purpose of this vocation was the Polish intervention in Russia. Polish troops were let into the Kremlin without a fight. On August 27, 1610, Moscow swore allegiance to Vladislav. It was a direct threat to Russia's loss of independence, and its inclusion in a union with the Commonwealth. Patriarch Hermogenes called for a fight against the invaders, for which he was arrested. His appeals, however, were not in vain - at the beginning of 1611, the first militia was assembled in the Ryazan region, headed by Prokopiy Lyapunov. The militia moved to Moscow, where in the spring of 1611 a popular uprising broke out. However, the militia failed to develop success, and Prokopy Lyapunov himself was treacherously killed during the negotiations.

The first militia crumbled, by this time the Swedes captured Novgorod, and the Poles - Smolensk. But already in the autumn of 1611, the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, Kuzma Minin, appealed to the people to create a second militia. With the help of the population of other Russian cities, a material base was created for the liberation struggle. The militia was led by Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky.

In the spring of 1612, the militia occupied Yaroslavl, where they prepared for the last push to the capital. In the summer of 1612, the militia approached Moscow from the side of the Arbat Gate, uniting with the remnants of the first militia. The Polish army, marching along the Mozhaisk road to help the Poles who had settled in the Kremlin, was intercepted and defeated.

On October 22, 1612, Kitai-Gorod was taken. A month later, cut off from the outside world and exhausted by hunger, the Polish garrison of the Kremlin surrendered. “Driven to the extreme by hunger, the Poles finally entered into negotiations with the militia, demanding only one thing, that their lives be saved, which was promised. First, the boyars were released - Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky, Ivan Mikhailovich Vorotynsky, Ivan Nikitich Romanov with his nephew Mikhail Fedorovich and the mother of the latter Martha Ivanovna and all other Russian people. When the Cossacks saw that the boyars had gathered on the Stone Bridge leading from the Kremlin through Neglinnaya, they wanted to rush at them, but were held back by Pozharsky's militia and forced to return to the camps, after which the boyars were received with great honor. The next day, the Poles also surrendered: Strus with his regiment went to the Cossacks of Trubetskoy, who robbed and beat many prisoners; Budzilo with his regiment was assigned to the warriors of Pozharsky, who did not touch a single Pole. Strus was interrogated, Andronov was tortured, how much royal treasure was lost, how much was left? They also found ancient royal hats, which were given as a pawn to the Sapezhins who remained in the Kremlin. On November 27, Trubetskoy's militia converged on the Church of the Kazan Mother of God behind the Intercession Gates, Pozharsky's militia - on the Church of John the Merciful on the Arbat and, taking crosses and images, moved to Kitai-Gorod from two different directions, accompanied by all Moscow residents; the militia converged at the Execution Ground, where the Trinity Archimandrite Dionysius began to serve a prayer service, and from the Frolovsky (Spassky) gates, from the Kremlin, another religious procession appeared: the Galasunsky (Arkhangelsk) Archbishop Arseny was walking with the Kremlin clergy and carried Vladimirskaya: a cry and sobs were heard in the people who had already lost the hope of ever seeing this image dear to Muscovites and all Russians. After the prayer service, the army and the people moved to the Kremlin, and here sadness was replaced by joy when they saw the state in which the embittered Gentiles left the churches: everywhere uncleanness, images were cut, eyes turned out, thrones were peeled off; terrible food is cooked in the vats - human corpses! Mass and a prayer service in the Assumption Cathedral ended a great national celebration similar to which our fathers saw exactly two centuries later.

In 1613, the Zemsky Sobor was held in Moscow, at which a new Russian tsar was elected. On February 21, the cathedral chose Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, the 16-year-old great-nephew of the first wife of John IV, Anastasia Romanova. An embassy was sent to the Ipatiev Monastery, where Mikhail and his mother were at that time, and on May 2, 1613, Mikhail arrived in Moscow. On July 11, he officially ascended the throne.

11. End of Troubles.

The government of Mikhail Fedorovich faced a difficult task - the elimination of the consequences of the Time of Troubles. A great danger was represented by detachments of Cossacks, still wandering around the country, and not recognizing anyone's power. The most dangerous of them was the detachment of Ivan Zarutsky. In 1614, the Zarutsky detachment was destroyed, Zarutsky himself, and the son of Marina Mnishek and False Dmitry II, who was in his detachment, were executed. Marina Mnishek herself was imprisoned in Kolomna, where she soon died.

Another danger was represented by a detachment of Swedish mercenaries, invited to Russia by Tsar Vasily, and so they remained in it. After several battles, in 1617 in the village of Stolbovo (near Tikhvin) peace was concluded with Sweden. Sweden returned the Novgorod lands to Russia, but left the Baltic coast behind. Thus, the territorial unity of Russia was basically restored, although part of the Russian lands remained with Sweden and the Commonwealth.

During the Time of Troubles, in which all classes of Russian society took part, the question of the very existence of Russia as a state was decided. In the conditions of the beginning of the 17th century, a way out of the Time of Troubles was found in the awareness by the regions and the center of the need for a strong statehood. A path was found that determined the further development of Russia for a long time - autocracy as a form of government, serfdom as the basis of the economy, Orthodoxy as the state religion, and the estate system as a social structure.

List of used literature

1. S.V. Troitsky "Christian Philosophy of Marriage" YMCA-Press, 1935

2. N.M. Karamzin "History of the Russian State" Olma-Press, 2005

3. V.O. Klyuchevsky Russian History. Full course of lectures "Olma-Press, 2005

4. N.I. Kostomarov "Russian history in the biographies of its main figures" Astrel, 2006

5. S.M. Solovyov History of Russia since ancient times. Book IV. AST, 2001

History of public administration in Russia Shchepetev Vasily Ivanovich

State administration of Russia during the Time of Troubles

According to the assumption of a number of historians, Ivan the Terrible created something like a regency council under his feeble-minded heir Fyodor. The composition of its members is unclear. Perhaps it included the nephew of Malyuta Skuratov - B. Ya. Velsky, brother-in-law of Fyodor Ivanovich Boris Godunov, the head of the defense of Pskov from Stefan Batory - I.V. Shuisky, the tsar's maternal uncle N.R. Yuryev, the offspring of the Lithuanian princes M.F. Mstislavsky. After the accession of Fyodor Ivanovich, a struggle broke out between the members of this council for influence on power.

At first, the uncle of the tsar, Nikita Romanovich Yuryev, enjoyed the greatest influence, but his quick death cleared the way to power for another guardian. Former oprichnik, smart and diplomatic Boris Godunov quickly gets rid of his competitors and becomes the de facto ruler of the state. A big role in his rise was played not only by Godunov's personal abilities, but also by his family ties - his sister Irina was the wife of Tsar Fedor, which made Godunov very close to the royal family. This proximity helped him overcome the resistance of the old boyars, headed by the Shuisky clan. Since the 90s 17th century Godunov was already officially called the ruler.

After the death of Fedor in 1598, the dynasty of Moscow rulers ended. They began to swear allegiance to the widow of the deceased, Irina, but she took the veil as a nun. The Zemsky Sobor elected Godunov (1598–1605) to the kingdom. However, during his reign, the socio-economic crisis, with the instability of the new dynasty, led to the emergence imposture. In 1603, a man appeared in the Commonwealth, declaring himself a miraculously saved Tsarevich Dmitry. Historians suggest that this man was the former serf of F. N. Romanov, the former monk Grigory Otrepyev. Rumors that Tsarevich Dmitry was alive and that another child had been killed in Uglich had been circulating in Moscow for a long time. False Dmitry I secretly converted to Catholicism, became engaged to Marina Mnishek, the daughter of a Polish governor, giving out generous promises in the event of his accession to the throne. The impostor managed to collect a small detachment of Polish gentry, Russian emigre nobles and Cossacks and move to Russia, where, under the influence of general discontent, the centers of revolt were already smoldering. The time was chosen well - in order for the fire of Troubles to flare up, only a spark was missing.

This spark was the first impostor. Many in Russia saw in " good king» Dmitry his liberator. Peasants, townspeople, Cossacks, nobles of the southern counties poured into his small detachment, the movement quickly expanded and met with practically no resistance. In 1605 Tsar Boris Godunov died unexpectedly. The governors also began to go over to the side of False Dmitry. The impostor entered Moscow and was anointed to the kingdom.

False Dmitry did not fulfill a single promise from the Commonwealth before the start of the campaign, which is why a conflict with the Poles was brewing. It was also restless inside the country: the tsar, from whom the peasants expected the abolition of "lesson years" and peasant hardships, the permission of the peasant transition, generally confirmed serfdom legislation, allowing only those peasants who fled from the owners in the famine years to stay in new places. This alienated the peasantry from him.

The marriage to the Catholic Marina Mniszek, the robbery behavior of the Poles who arrived with Dmitry, aroused the indignation of the population. The tsar, whose virtue should be adherence to true Orthodoxy, clearly patronized the Catholics.

Doubts about the legitimacy of claims to the Russian throne, it is not known how the surviving prince pushed the boyars to a conspiracy. The Shuiskys stood at the head of the conspiracy. It was Shuisky, who used gossip about the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry in Uglich to fight against Godunov, who was well aware of who was really killed in Uglich.

A popular uprising against the Poles that broke out in Moscow ended with the murder of False Dmitry.

After the death of False Dmitry, Vasily Shuisky (1605–1610) was elected tsar. The Zemsky Sobor that elected him was not complete. It was attended mainly only by the boyars and service people who were in Moscow at that time. However, the very fact of the election of the tsar made changes in the nature of tsarist power in Russia. The tsar, who was placed on the throne by the Zemsky Sobor, was to some extent controlled by the boyars and service people and had to fulfill their requirements. Shuisky upon accession to the throne had to give crucifixion record- the first written restriction of royal power. It consisted of the following commitments:

- do not impose disgrace and do not execute without trial;

– not to take property from the relatives of convicts;

- do not listen to false denunciations, but carefully investigate cases.

A new upsurge of the popular movement began in the south, where anti-government forces were concentrated. A complex conglomerate of different classes (Cossacks, serfs, peasants, townspeople, small, medium and even large feudal lords) was headed by a former combat serf, that is, a serf who served in the military service of Prince Telyatevsky - I. I. Bolotnikov. He called himself "the great governor of Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich", so that the movement again went under the banner of restoring the rightful dynasty to the throne. Smaller pockets of people's militias had their own impostors, for example, "Prince Peter", the never-existing son of Fyodor Ivanovich.

However, after the defeat of Bolotnikov, imposture did not exhaust itself. Appeared in the south, False Dmitry II, "miraculously saved" now from Moscow, the king, was a protege of the Commonwealth. The bulk of his military forces were Poles. The army of False Dmitry II moved towards Moscow, gathering the remnants of the troops of False Dmitry I and Bolotnikov along the way, and camped near the village of Tushino near Moscow.

Under the rule of the “Tushino thief” (as they began to call False Dmitry II in Moscow), a significant part of the country was. In the Tushino camp, their own Boyar Duma and orders began to operate. Many Russian boyars, dissatisfied with Shuisky, joined the Tushinos. There was also the Rostov Metropolitan Filaret, whom the Tushino people called their patriarch. He himself, however, took a cautious stance.

On June 17, 1610, the boyars and nobles broke into Vasily Shuisky and demanded his abdication. By agreement with the Tushino people, after the overthrow of Vasily Shuisky from the throne, the latter, in turn, had to depose the “Tushino thief” and, together with the Muscovites, choose a new common tsar, thereby ending the confrontation. It was an attempt to reconcile the two warring camps, consisting of Russians, in the face of the already begun Polish intervention. Understanding this, Vasily Shuisky abdicated the throne "at the petition of all people." Before the election of the tsar, the participants in the conspiracy formed a government of seven boyars - the “seven boyars”. A way out of the Time of Troubles was outlined only by 1611. The salvation of the country began from below, with the creation of a nationwide militia.

Place of convocation of the militia: Ryazan

Militia Leaders: Ryazan Governor P. Lyapunov

Militia actions: The militia besieged Moscow, but failed to take the city. The supreme body of power was created - the Council of All the Earth and the "Sentence of All the Earth" was adopted, which stipulated the future structure of the state. As a result of disagreements between members of the militia, Lyapunov was killed. The militia broke up

Year of convocation of the militia: 1611 (autumn), second militia

Place of convocation of the militia: Nizhny Novgorod

Militia Leaders: Townsman Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky

Militia actions: Gathered in Nizhny Novgorod, the militia moved to Moscow not in a direct way, but through the cities, gathering forces from all over the world. Approaching Moscow, the second militia connected with the first, Moscow was liberated from the Poles. Sigismund was defeated near Volokolamsk and retreated