Time of Troubles in Russia. Events after the death of False Dmitry I

The impostor's body was so disfigured that it was difficult to recognize him. According to eyewitness Konrad Bussov, “on the very first day of the rebellion, the Poles spread a rumor that the murdered man was not Tsar Dmitry.”

The Poles' agitation had little chance of success. The population did not forgive the Poles who came to the royal wedding for their arrogance and outrages. During the unrest in Moscow, Mniszek’s secretary wrote in his Diary, the people demanded that the Poles who talked about saving “Dmitry” be handed over for execution.

Gradually, the authorities managed to cope with the crisis. As Marzharet noted, before his departure from the capital in July, rebels from Ryazan, Putivl, Chernigov “sent to Moscow to ask for forgiveness, which they received, excusing themselves by the fact that they were informed that Emperor Dmitry was alive.”

The impostor used the “middle seal” for foreign relations, which was at the disposal of the head of the Ambassadorial Prikaz, Afanasy Vlasyev. There was also a small seal. Letters of various kinds were sealed with it, and carried “on the collar” - in a bag around the neck. This seal, obviously, was in charge of the printer Sutupov. The seal replaced the royal signature.

When messengers began to deliver letters from the resurrected “Dmitry” to the cities, the governors did not have the slightest reason to doubt their authenticity. This circumstance contributed to the success of the conspiracy. The owner of Sambir hoped for support from the Polish authorities. The massacre of the Poles in Moscow served as a pretext for an immediate war with Russia. According to the royal instructions to the sejmiks, the authorities intended to open military operations against Russia at the end of 1606. The Tsar's ambassador Volkonsky, sent by Tsar Vasily to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was detained on the way. The Mnisheks hoped to use the war to free themselves from captivity and regain lost wealth.

At the beginning of August 1606, the Lithuanian bailiff announced to Volkonsky that he had previously known from rumors, and now he had learned for certain from Efstafy Volovich, that “your sovereign Dmitry, whom you say was killed, is alive and now in Sendomir near the voivode (Mnishek. - R. S.) wife: she gave him both clothes and people.” The information came from the “good gentlemen”, relatives and friends of the Mnisheks.

They started talking about the Sambir “king” in Russia. The rebellious northern cities sent envoys to Kyiv to invite the “tsar” to Putivl. The ambassadors were sure that “Dmitry” was in one of the Polish castles.

The Mnishek possessions were located in Western Ukraine. An Italian merchant who visited these places reported in August 1606 that the Moscow “tsar” fled from Russia with two companions and now lives healthy and unharmed in the Bernardine monastery in Sambir; even former enemies admit that Dmitry escaped death.

In the first days of August, Lithuanian bailiffs told the tsar’s ambassadors that his old comrades-in-arms began to come to Sambir to the sovereign: “and those many people who were with him in Moscow recognized him that he was the direct Tsar Dmitry, and many Russian people pestered him and Polish and Lithuanian people make their way to him; Yes, Prince Vasily Mosalskaya, who was with him in Moscow as a neighbor boyar and butler, came to him.”

The bailiffs clearly wanted to impress the Russian ambassadors. Their information about the appearance of the butler Vasily Rubets-Mosalsky in Sambir did not correspond to the truth. The scar was in exile. The words that many people recognized the king were an exaggeration. The escaped “tsar” occasionally appeared in the state rooms of the Sambir castle in magnificent attire. But only carefully selected people who had never seen Otrepiev in person were allowed to attend such receptions.

At the beginning of September, the Russian ambassador learned from the words of the bailiff that Molchanov began to appear to people no longer in royal robes, but in “senile dress.” He followed in the footsteps of the first impostor who came to Lithuania in monastic attire.

In October 1606, Chancellor Lev Sapieha sent his servant Gridich to Sambir to “examine” the well-known “Dmitry”, “is he really the one or not?” Gridich went to Sambir, but did not see the “thief”, and he was told that “Dmitry” “lives in a monastery, he doesn’t seem to be with anyone.” In October, the former confessor of False Dmitry I visited Sambir. He also returned empty-handed. Then the Catholic Bernardine Order sent one of its representatives to the Mnisheks. Throughout Poland it was interpreted that “Dmitry” was “in Sambir in the monastery in a black dress for the sins of the Kaets.” In this regard, an emissary of the order inspected the monastery. During the inspection, he received assurances from the Sambir Bernardines that “Dmitry” was not in their monastery and that they had not seen the tsar since his departure to Russia. The Catholic Church remained aloof from the dubious adventure.

The impostor intrigue was dying before our eyes. The reason for the failure was that King Sigismund III abandoned plans for war with Russia. A rebellion was brewing in Poland. Having gathered for the congress, the Rokoshans expected that “Dmitry,” who had shown up in Sambir, would appear at the congress any day now and that he would be able to quickly form an army.

The leader of Rokoš Zebrzydowski was a relative of the Mniszeks. Among the Rokoshans, not all were adherents of the Moscow Tsar. The veterans were indignant at the sovereign for not giving them the promised wealth. Others lost relatives during the massacre of Poles in Moscow. The dissatisfied would not remain silent when they saw a new deceiver in front of them.

If the owner of Sambor had managed to borrow money and gather a mercenary army, Molchanov might have risked appearing among the Rokoshans. But after the May events in Moscow, few people wanted to give money for a new adventure. In the end, a small handful of armed men gathered in the Mniszek castle. The imaginary mother-in-law of the “king” “received about 200 people to him.” The most notable of the new impostor’s servants was a certain Moscow nobleman Zabolotsky, whose name cannot be found out.

The rebel gentry decided to postpone the start of hostilities against Sigismund III until next year. The threat of the Rokoshans did not disappear, and the king radically changed his foreign policy course. To deal with the opposition, he needed peace on his eastern borders. The Polish authorities already in mid-July allowed the Tsar's ambassador Volkonsky to enter Poland. The commandants of the border fortresses were forbidden to allow Polish mercenary soldiers into Russia.

The Sambir “thief” appointed Zabolotsky as his chief governor and sent him with military men to Seversk Ukraine. Chancellor Lev Sapega detained the detachment and prevented Zabolotsky from invading Russia.

Yuri Mnishek's wife did not dare show the new impostor either to the Catholic clergy who patronized Otrepiev, or to the king, or to the Rokoshans. The appearance of a “king” among the Rokoshans would have been a direct challenge to Sigismund III, which the Mnisheks could not do. Marina Mniszek and her father were in captivity, and only the intervention of the official authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth could free them.

The king's officials resorted to a simple diplomatic game. They refused to negotiate with Ambassador Volkonsky about the impostor under the pretext that they knew nothing about him: “What, you told us about the one who calls Dmitry, that he lives in Sambir and Sendomir with the voivode’s wife, and we haven’t heard of that.”

The tone of the statements changed when officials started talking about the immediate release of Senator Mniszek and other Poles detained in Russia. Their statements sounded a direct threat: “Only your sovereign will not soon let all the people go, otherwise Dmitry will be, and Peter will be straight, and ours will stand together with them for their own.” Diplomats threatened that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would provide military assistance to any impostors opposing Tsar Vasily Shuisky.

The first impostor, according to V.O. Klyuchevsky, was baked in a Polish oven, but fermented in Moscow. The new “thief” also did not escape the Polish stove, but his fate was different. It was not finished cooking and was not taken out of the oven. When Otrepyev became convinced that his patron Adam Vishnevetsky was not going to fight with Moscow because of him, he fled from his castle. Molchanov was cut from a different cloth, and the bloody corpse of the first “thief” loomed before his eyes.

The impostor hid in the dark corners of the Sambir palace for a year, not daring to show his face not only to the Poles, but also to the Russian people, who had risen to restore the “legitimate sovereign” to the throne. Twenty-four-year-old Otrepiev did not have to worry about whether he looked like the eight-year-old prince, forgotten even by the few people who saw him in Uglich. For the new impostor, the difficulty was that he was not a double of the murdered man, whose characteristic appearance had not been forgotten in a few months. The role of the resurrected tsar was beyond Molchanov's capabilities. The result was a new and very peculiar historical phenomenon - “impostor without an impostor.”

At the end of 1606, there was a rumor in Moscow that Molchanov was preparing to march with a large army to help the Russian rebels. This time the adventurer had to take on the role of the governor of “Tsar Dmitry”, and not “Dmitry” himself. However, he did not even get to play this role.

The Sambir conspirators did not abandon their attempts to subjugate the Severn cities. Initially, they intended to send one of the nobles to Putivl, and then opted for the Cossack ataman Ivan Bolotnikov.

May 2006 (17th century) marks the 400th anniversary of the nationwide uprising in Moscow, as a result of which False Dmitry 1 was overthrown and killed. The pan-European intrigue aimed at the complete enslavement and Catholicization of Russia was thwarted.

If the 11-month reign of the Jesuit agent False Dmitry 1 had lasted even a little longer, the consequences for Russia could have become irreparable.

However, the history of the Time of Troubles has long been presented to us not in tragic and heroic, but in ambiguous tones. For example, the “Februaryist” A. Kartashev in his “History of the Russian Church,” published by the American Lodge in Paris in 1959 (M., 1991), paints an almost positive portrait of the impostor. False Dmitry allegedly decided to use Rome for good purposes: “...Instead of hopeless Latinization, carry out educational “Occidentalization” (Westernization - N.S.), i.e., as if to anticipate the reform of Peter the Great, under the pretext of the necessary preparation for the unification of churches" (vol. 2, p. 58).

Kartashev even accuses our ancestors of refusing the proposals of the Polish Chancellor Sapieha at the very beginning of the Time of Troubles. He proposed to allow the free entry of Poles and Lithuanians into Russia, to accept them into our public service, to give the right to build churches in Russian cities: “Moscow remained deaf to the idea of ​​a federal merger. It understood its state body as monolithically one of the same faith, with a unique Orthodox soul” (p. 54).

Our historian D.I. Ilovaisky wrote: “The idea of ​​imposture flowed almost by itself from the circumstances in which Muscovite Rus' was then. This idea had already been in the air since tragic death Tsarevich Dimitri, who no doubt continued to serve as the subject of various rumors and gossip among the people. It was not far from them before the appearance of the legend of a miraculous salvation, which every crowd of people is so inclined to believe, especially dissatisfied with the present, thirsting for change and, above all, of course, a change in government officials. We know that Boris Godunov, both by his character and due to various other circumstances, did not manage to gain popular favor, nor to reconcile the old boyar families with the unusual rise of his family."

Ilovaisky clearly said about the causes of the Troubles: “The infernal plan against the Moscow state - the plan, the fruit of which was imposture - arose and was realized among the hostile Polish and polarized Western Russian aristocracy.”

But did imposture give rise to the Troubles, or did the Troubles give rise to imposture? Our Byzantinist F.I. Uspensky reveals the plan for the conquest of Russia back in 1585-1586, i.e. immediately after the death of Ivan the Terrible and during the life of St. Tsarevich Demetrius of Uglich. At work" Eastern Question“Uspensky writes about the plan of the Polish king Stefan Batory (1576-1586) “... to establish a base from Muscovy for resolving the Eastern Question, which included the conquest of the Caucasus and Armenia, the annexation of Persia and the movement to Constantinople” (F. I. Uspensky. History of the Byzantine Empire, Eastern Question, Moscow, 1997, p. 677).

This plan, presented by Batory to two popes - Gregory 13 and Sixtus 5, received the full approval of both, and the latter even sent money to the Poles to conquer Russia. Uspensky did not make calculations, but having done the calculations, we can conclude that Rome, for all its passionate lust for power, did not have a huge amount for the war with Russia. Uspensky’s conclusion is important: “...Batory’s plan did not die along with its culprit. It is enough to refer to the history of the Time of Troubles... with the first impostor, Poland implemented the famous project of Stefan Batory in the part that envisaged a Catholic sovereign on the Moscow throne” (p. 681, 695).

The famous Greek elder Athos Archimandrite George (Kapsanis) in his voluminous work “The Struggle of the Monks for Orthodoxy” (Athos, 2003) notes that Meletius Pigas, later the Patriarch of Alexandria, wrote an essay against the pope in 1582 and sent his work to the king as a “fighter and defender of Orthodoxy." In 1584, “at the request of the autocrat of all Rus',” Meletius Pigas arrived in Moscow to translate a book about the Council of Florence sent from Rome to Moscow (pp. 318, 321).

And no matter how hard Rome tried, Moscow did not give up, and the Orthodox Greeks helped it in this. Is this not the reason for the Troubles, prepared by Rome much later? The beginning of the Time of Troubles in Rus' - 1603. In Europe at that time - after long wars - a rare calm was established, which completely disappeared later, during the years of the fierce pan-European Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). In other words, although tsarist Russia on the eve of the Time of Troubles did not find itself in complete isolation, we were somehow imperceptibly left alone with the events carefully prepared in the depths of Europe.

The luminaries of our historical science - N. M. Karamzin (followed by A. S. Pushkin, who dedicated the drama "Boris Godunov" to Karamzin) and S. M. Solovyov - believed that the first impostor was Otrepiev. V. O. Klyuchevsky was more careful in determining the identity of False Dmitry: “This unknown someone, who sat on the Moscow throne after Boris, arouses great anecdotal interest. His identity still remains mysterious, despite all the efforts of scientists to unravel it...” ( V. O. Klyuchevsky, Course of Russian History, Part 3, Moscow, 1988, p. 30).

Metropolitan of Moscow Platon (Levshin) (1812) and one of his successors in the department - Bishop Macarius (Bulgakov) (1882) - believed that the Troubles were more cunning than is commonly thought. Bishop Macarius admitted that False Dmitry could be either Grishka Otrepiev or “someone else,” but that in any case, the impostor resorted to the help of the Jesuits (“History of the Russian Church.” Book 6, M., 1996, p. 75).

Church historian of the ROCOR N.D. Talberg (1967) in his “History of the Russian Church” wrote: “The impostor was supported by the Polish lords and, in particular, the Jesuits. Who he really was still remains unclear... An impostor for greater success in his enterprise, he accepted the Latin faith, which he promised to introduce throughout Russia" (Part 1, p. 309).

Historian N. M. Kostomarov provided convincing evidence that Grishka Otrepiev and False Dmitry 1 are two different people: "1) If the named Demetrius (i.e. False Dmitry 1. - N.S.) was a fugitive monk Otrepiev, who fled from Moscow in 1602, then in no way could he have mastered the techniques of the then Polish nobleman. We know that the one who reigned under the name of Demetrius rode excellently, danced gracefully, shot accurately, deftly wielded a saber and knew the Polish language perfectly; even in his Russian speech one could hear a non-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.

2) The said Tsar Dimitri brought Grigory Otrepiev with him and showed him to the people... 3) In the Zagorovsky monastery (in Volyn) there is a book with the handwritten signature of Grigory Otrepiev; this signature does not have the slightest resemblance to the handwriting of the named Tsar Demetrius" (N. M. Kostomarov. Russian history in the biographies of its main figures. Book 1., M., 1995, p. 506).

Here is Ilovaisky’s conclusion: “Who was the first impostor who took on the name of Tsarevich Dimitri, perhaps over time will be explained by some lucky find, or perhaps will forever remain a mystery to history. There is old news that calls him the bastard son of Stefan Batory , - the news in itself is worthy of attention; but we can neither accept it nor reject it for lack of more positive data. We can only conclude that, according to various signs, it was a native Western Rus' and, moreover, of noble origin" (much later than Ilovaisky, the English writer R. Sabatini returned to the explanation - the impostor is the illegitimate son of Stefan Batory - in a series of his historical clues. By the way, the words of the impostor are known to the Poles, who warned him about the conspiracy in May 1606: " How cowardly you Poles are!” They can be understood in different ways. If the impostor was Otrepiev, then they are understandable. But if he was not Otrepiev and not a Pole, then who?).

Ilovaisky’s words are very important that False Dmitry is not Grishka Otrepiev: “This identity, after a thorough reconsideration of the issue, turns out to be false. Nevertheless, Otrepiev’s flight from Moscow and his direct participation in the impostor’s case can hardly be doubted; although not yet opportunity is enough to find out his true role in this matter."

Ilovaisky's conclusions are convincing. Moreover, if we remember Uspensky’s data about the plan of the Troubles in 1585 (the project of Batory, the Jesuits and the pope), the statements of Metropolitan Macarius and Talberg. The researcher of antiquity N.M. Pavlov believed that “it was not Russian, but some kind of mixed Slavic nationality that was visible in the Pretender. Some directly called him a Pole, others a Transylvanian, and a Volokh, and an Italian, or more correctly, an Illyrian.”

The impostor could not necessarily be a Polish nobleman, he could be a native of Transylvania (where there is still a mixed Hungarian, Romanian and German population), and an Italian, and an “Illyrian”, that is, a native of the Balkans, from the Adriatic coast, which belonged to Venice.

Pavlov does not explain this. Something else is important to him - “it becomes impossible to merge Otrepiev’s biography into one with the biography of this mysterious person. Both, without contradicting themselves separately, mutually destroy each other.” Referring to the famous denouncer of the Jesuits, Yu. F. Samarin, Pavlov writes that the Jesuit Anthony Possevin, having failed in his attempts to persuade Ivan the Terrible to the papal faith, even then expressed the idea of ​​​​the possibility of introducing a union in Russia, setting up an impostor for this. Samarin himself found direct evidence of the existence of such a plan in the Jesuit literature that was well known to him.

It is known that False Dmitry was crowned king in Moscow on July 21, 1605, and the Jesuit Chernikovsky in the Assumption Cathedral delivered a welcoming speech to the impostor in Latin! The historian Nechvolodov adds that the impostor boasted to the Jesuits that he chose the day of his royal wedding to be the day of memory of Ignatius of Loyola.

Let us add that this is not boasting, but the pure truth. The founder of the Jesuit order, Ignatius (Iñigo) Loyola, as assumed in the West, was a Jew from Spain who converted to papism, died on July 31, 1556. It was this day, July 31, that the Jesuits celebrated and celebrate as “the day of St. Ignatius.” In the 17th century our July 21st is their July 31st! But in 1605, Loyola was a “saint” only among the Jesuits - Pope Paul 5 declared him “blessed” only on September 27, 1609 (at the height of the Time of Troubles in Russia), and Pope Gregory 15 declared him a “saint” on March 12, 1622.

The famous Greek historian Archimandrite Basil (Stephanidis) (1958) in his “Church History from the Beginning to the Present” (Athens, 6th ed., 1998, pp. 702-703) wrote: “The Jesuits tried to take possession of Great Russia,” and False Dmitry was only “their organ.” Then “a period of internal unrest followed until Mikhail Romanov was elected as the legitimate king (1613) and a limit was set to the success of the Catholics.” Stefanidis's opinion only confirms the fact of the Jesuit conspiracy.

All the more carefully we must treat the voluminous and extremely cynical book of the German Jesuit Pierling “Dimitri the Pretender” (Russian translation of the Sphinx publishing house, M., 1911). On the Internet, Pearling is a “Russian Jesuit.” It's a lie. He was a German, born in St. Petersburg and quickly left Tsarist Russia, where since the time of Emperor Alexander 1 both the Jesuits and their fellow Freemasons were banned. Pierling wrote in French and published in Paris. Without any criticism, he became an indisputable authority for Kartashev, for G. Florovsky, a native of Odessa, an American ecumenist (“priest” at Princeton and Harvard), and finally, for modern “Russians” who are “rethinking” the Time of Troubles.

The impression from Pearling's book is that two layers are cleverly intertwined here. The first is intended for our deception (such as statements about the “gullibility” of the popes, about the “social” causes of the Troubles). The second is for dedicated specialists in the fight against Russia. It is not without reason that in the preface, Pearling thanked the Secretary of State (in 1887-1903) of the Vatican, the Sicilian Cardinal Rampolla, a diplomat known for his secularism and sophisticated cunning, for his assistance.

Pierling writes that Dimitri (this is what he always calls the impostor) arrived in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, met with the Krakow governor Zebrzydowski and the papal nuncio (ambassador) Rangoni, wanted to understand the “misconceptions” of the Orthodox Church and entered into a dispute with the Jesuits Savitsky and Grodzicki. Savitsky was “a famous theologian, a fashionable confessor, and a secular man.”

Isn't it too grand a reception for a fugitive monk from Moscow? After the meeting, both Jesuits left the impostor “two books - a treatise on the Pope and a guide to the debate about the Eastern faith. Demetrius himself asked for the resumption of this debate” (pp. 105-106).

It’s strange - everything in papism revolves around the pope, but Pearling did not mention either the name or the author of the treatise about the pope. What “guide to the debate about the Eastern faith” did the Jesuits use? A mysterious inaccuracy, or is the whole “debate about faith” a fiction? Pearling admitted that “no one thought to write down the details of this dispute.” So that the Jesuits, with their general informing, surveillance of everyone, including each other, with the collection of everything that could be used to incriminate a person, would not write anything down?

The conclusion suggests itself - there was no “transition” of Grishka Otrepiev to papism. Grishka Otrepyev was there. But from the very beginning, the Jesuit Order chose someone else to play the role of False Dmitry, which is why they left no trace of his alleged “conversion” to Latinism.

And then the most mysterious thing. Nuncio Rangoni sends Pope Clement 8 a report on the appearance of the “escaped” prince “Dimitri.” Clement 8 writes on the nuncio’s report: “This is like the resurrected King of Portugal.” Ilovaisky considers such a mark a sign of the pope’s distrust. Pearling, on the contrary, is ridicule. It seems to me that Ilovaisky is closer to the truth.

Clement 8 (Aldobrandini), although he imposed the Union of Brest “with fire and sword,” did not trust the Jesuits. Moreover, in 1602 he ordered the Inquisition to take up a Jesuit innovation - their requirement that penitents bring a written description of their sins to confession. Clement 8 maneuvered all his life between the Spanish and anti-Spanish parties. In 1580, shortly after the mysterious death in North Africa After the Portuguese king Sebastian, a student of the Jesuits, Spain took over Portugal by force. The false “Portuguese” Sebastians, who arose one after another, alarmed Spain.

Clement 8 married his beloved niece in 1600 to the Duke of Parma, Rainuccio 1 Farnese, great-great-grandson of Pope Paul 3 Farnese (his portrait with his grandchildren by Titian, see "RV", v 20, 2005) and (on his mother's side) great-grandson of the Portuguese king Emmanuel 1 great. Both geopolitical and family interests forced Pope Clement 8 to suspect some kind of Jesuit intrigue in the “Demetrius” impostor, possibly connected with the Portuguese. Clement 8 (1592-1605) began to help the impostor, but not as zealously and assertively as his successor Paul 5 (1605-1621).

Pirling has evidence of the impostor’s rare knowledge of oceanic and trade affairs: “If necessary, he made references to Herodotus. Even during the march, flat balls were laid out on his table. He knew how to use them. Bending over the map, he showed the chaplains the way to India through the Muscovite kingdom. He compared it with the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope, and gave preference to the first" (p. 177).

These are the arguments of a Portuguese, a Spaniard, an Italian, a Dutchman, but not the fugitive monk Otrepiev! There is another testimony, later, belonging to a member of the Dutch embassy in Russia, Nicholas Witsen: “They (the royal bailiffs - N.S.) really liked the spices, but when we said that they were brought from [East] India, someone asked what country it was, how far from Russia and how to get there, they were surprised when they were told that on a ship" (N. Witsen. Travel to Muscovy 1664-1665. St. Petersburg, 1995, p. 90). If under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich our embassy employees did not know where India was and how to get there, then how, 60 years earlier, did the “fugitive monk Otrepiev” discuss with Jesuit chaplains about the profitability of the land route to India through Russia, and not around the whole Africa - through the Cape of Good Hope - and further across the Indian Ocean?

According to the French historian F. Braudel "Time of the World" (M., 1992, pp. 509-510), a journey through the Cape of Good Hope required, at best, a year and a half there and back. Braudel writes that by the end of the 16th century. Portuguese power was strongest in India. The Dutch tried to bypass India by penetrating Indonesia (1599), but then “Jews of Portuguese origin” spread “tales” in Amsterdam that the Dutch acquired a rich cargo with 400% of the profit through violence and fraud (p. 211). The Dutch reached Ceylon in 1603, India in 1605-1606. (p. 214).

By the first years of the 17th century. includes the founding of the huge Dutch East India Company, the much more modest English, and the French Company Eastern Indies. Of course, trade routes to India could not interest the Poles; with the help of False Dmitry, they wanted what was before their eyes - Smolensk, Seversk land, Novgorod, Pskov, Moscow.

So, False Dmitry 1 could be a Portuguese or a native of Portugal, and this was associated with the strange note of Pope Clement 8 on the first report of Nuncio Rangoni about the “escaped” imaginary prince. It is also known from Russian sources that False Dmitry was dark-skinned. Pierling writes that Anthony Possevinus believed that “Demetrius may appear as a new Solomon. He will erect a temple better than the Jerusalem sanctuary” (p. 231).

But he could also be from Italy. Pierling lists the agents who followed the impostor according to reports from his persistent companions - the Polish Jesuit chaplains. The main agent here turns out to be the same seasoned Jesuit Anthony Possevin (a long-time leader of anti-Russian intrigues since the time of Ivan the Terrible). Possevin sat in Venice and “maintained constant relations with Italian princes and French diplomats. Henry IV’s transition to Catholicism contributed to the rapprochement of the two sides” (p. 230). Jesuit chaplains wrote to the General of the Jesuit Order, Acquaviva, in Rome. The head (“provincial”) of the Polish Jesuits, Striveri, wrote to Possevin, and Savitsky, the impostor’s “confessor,” also wrote to him.

The ambassador of the French king Henry IV, F. Canet-de-Fresne, was also in Venice, who became a friend of the Jesuit Possevin and wrote directly to the adviser to the French king in Paris. Also acting in conjunction with them was La Blanc, an informant for France in the “northern countries,” whose profession, as Pierling evasively writes, was “international correspondence.” The reports of the Polish Jesuits about False Dmitry were read by both the Duke of Parma's agent F. Roncaroni and the Venetian ambassador in Prague F. Soranzo. Possevin tried to involve both the Duke of Urbino Francesco Maria 2 and the Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand in the matter (pp. 230-236).

Let's sort out this tangle of intrigue. If the Duke of Parma Rainuccio 1, a relative of Pope Clement 8 and a descendant of Pope Paul 3, got involved in our Troubles, this is understandable. The interest of Venice, always a predatory and cosmopolitan trading power, is also clear. But what does the Dukes of Urbino and Tuscany have to do with it? The first was a neighbor of the papal state and the head of the mercenary troops of the same Venice, and the second was a former cardinal, who later resigned his rank and got married. He was also the uncle of the then French queen Marie de' Medici. Everything was logical in its own way and against us.

The assassination of Tsar Boris Godunov, whose sudden and mysterious death(stroke or poison?) shocked contemporaries and remained a mystery for historians, it seems certain from the book of the same Pierling. Marshal of the Krakow Court Myszkowski corresponded with Cardinal Aldobrandini (a relative of Pope Clement 8) and the Duke of Mantua (i.e. Vincenzo 1 Gonzaga). In a letter dated January 6, 1604, Myshkovsky described in detail the murder of Tsar Boris Godunov, who, as is known, died only on April 13, 1605 (pp. 192-193). Pierling found Myshkovsky's letter in Italian archives (Gonzaga and Borghese).

The sudden death of Tsar Boris Godunov caused the betrayal of the governors, who defected to the recently defeated impostor, and the quick overthrow of the young Tsar Fyodor Godunov. In an effort to justify the impostor, Pearling falsely claims that Tsar Fedor and his mother Maria allegedly took the poison themselves. But it is common knowledge that they were killed by scoundrels sent by the impostor. Pearling writes about Boris’s daughter, Ksenia Godunova, in extremely cheeky and cynical terms, denying another terrible fact - she was made the impostor’s concubine. Pierling repeats the lies from the laudatory Jesuit pamphlet about False Dmitry, published in Venice, Florence, Prague, Graz, Madrid and Paris in 1605-1609.

Ilovaisky gives details of the negotiations of the already enthroned impostor with the ambassador of Pope Paul 5: “Then he (the impostor - N.S.) expressed a desire for the pope to send him experienced secular persons who could take the place of secretaries and advisers in government affairs, in addition, several skilled engineers, military technicians and instructors."

If False Dmitry was a Pole, then why did he ask the Italian pope to send him Italians to replace the Russians in matters of administration and in the troops? Ilovaisky further writes: “Moreover, False Dmitry asked the pope to facilitate his diplomatic relations not only with the Roman Emperor (i.e. Rudolf II of Habsburg - N.S.), but also with the kings of Spain and France. In general, in negotiations with the papal ambassador he has discovered some diplomatic skill."

Pierling, citing the Venetian ambassador in Prague Soranzo, claims that the Habsburgs treated Boris Godunov coolly, but they began to offer the impostor brides, the daughters of Archduke Charles of Styria (i.e., the uncle of Emperor Rudolf). This was a family raised by Jesuits, and the son of Charles of Styria - the future Emperor Ferdinand 2 - later showed himself to be a Catholic fanatic. If False Dmitry was Otrepyev, a fugitive monk, then would the Austrian Emperor Rudolf 2 offer him one of his cousins ​​as a wife?

And if False Dmitry was a Pole, then why did he need relations with the Spanish king and with the Austrian ("Roman") emperor, with the French king? For an Italian, this is natural - let us remember the many years of bloody Franco-Spanish wars over Italy in the 16th century, the fights between France and Spain for the votes of cardinals when electing each pope.

The behavior of False Dmitry 1 in Moscow, which he captured, amazed Muscovites. If his passion for carousing and dancing revealed that he was a Pole, then his palace with underground passages and the built educational fortress resembled castles of the Italian Renaissance. On the training fortress, protrusions were made in the form of devils’ heads, from which squeaks protruded, and the impostor’s built palace was “decorated” by a copper statue of the infernal Cerberus with movable jaws. False Dmitry's depravity even reached the point of sodomy - he seduced the young prince I. A. Khvorostinin, later an ardent heretic.

But French roots are also possible here. The French king Henry III of Valois (previously, in 1573-1574, he was the elected king of Poland) had young, beautiful noblemen as his favorites, they were called “minions”; a “feast of travesties” was held in the gardens - none of the invitees wore clothes, corresponding to his gender." At another feast, “the guests were served by one hundred of the most beautiful young women of the court. Brantome (a contemporary of the events - N.S.) writes that they were “half-naked and with flowing hair, like brides.” The feast ended with bacchanalia in the groves: contemporaries saw in them revival of orgies from the times of the decline of the Roman Empire" (I. Klula. Catherine de Medici. Rostov-on-Don (Russian translation), 1997, pp. 287-288, 297).

False Dmitry 1 was closely associated with France. He amazed the Russian people by the fact that he composed a personal guard of French and Germans (not even Poles!). The Frenchman Margeret commanded a hundred mounted riflemen, and the Dane and Scots (?!) commanded two hundred foot soldiers armed with halberds. They never left the impostor.

The murder of False Dmitry on May 17, 1606 became possible thanks to the cunning of V. Shuisky, who, secretly from the impostor, removed most of the German halberdiers from the palace. At the same time, our armed nobles entered Moscow, blocking all the gates of the city. The houses where the Poles lived with their retinues were marked in advance, and the streets were blocked with slingshots. Of course, such a perfectly organized conspiracy was possible only with the then homogeneous Moscow population - Russian and Orthodox.

The impostor's friend Captain Margeret is a political agent of France. In 1606 he returned to France and compiled a report for King Henry IV of Bourbon. Margeret calls the impostor only Dimitri Ivanovich, the son of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. Margeret writes that the impostor “decided to send his secretary to France on an English ship to greet the most Christian king (Henry IV. - N.S.) and make acquaintance with him: Demetrius often talked to me about the king with great respect. Christianity ( i.e., the papal world. - N.S.) lost a lot with the death of Demetrius, if only he died, although his death seems quite plausible. But I say this because I did not see him dead with my own eyes, being sick then "(Margeret. The state of the Russian State and the Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1606. M., 1913, p. 87).

It is curious that the first edition of Margeret’s report was published in Paris in 1607, the year of the appearance of False Dmitry 2, who allegedly “saved” during the uprising in Moscow on May 17, 1606. Margeret’s doubts about the murder of False Dmitry 1 turned out to be very timely for the Jesuits.

The confessor of Henry IV from 1603 was the Jesuit Coton. Was it not he who dictated to Margeret this florid ambiguity that distinguishes the Jesuits - either the impostor was killed in 1606 or not? Margeret's entire report is written in clear language, with detailed description Russian weapons, troops, worship, attitudes towards non-believers, our holidays and customs. All Russian money was carefully converted into the then French livres, sous and deniers. And suddenly - a shadow on a clear day, when we are talking about May 1606. It is not surprising that Margeret again found himself in Russia, served both False Dmitry 2 and the Poles, helped them burn Moscow in 1611, tried to impose himself on Prince D.M. Pozharsky, but received a categorical refusal. Margeret is a spy-agent, as Prince Pozharsky considered him to be.

Could False Dmitry 1 be an English (Scottish) Jesuit (Mason)? Quite. There were Jesuits in England already at the end of the 16th century. It was the impostor who allowed the British to trade completely freely and duty-free in Russia, immediately entering into close relations with the English merchant diplomat J. Merrick. The Russian historian S. F. Platonov in his work “Russia and the West” (Berlin, 1925) writes that by 1612 the English invasion should have been added to the Polish and Swedish invasion. England wanted to capture the Russian north, then the Volga with access to the Caspian Sea. The author of this project was the same Merrick: “There is news that King James 1 of England “was carried away by the plan to send an army to Russia to rule it through his authorized representative” (p. 56). This plan was thwarted by the election of Tsar Mikhail Romanov.

Could False Dmitry be German? I could too. The confession of his accomplice Basmanov (killed on May 17, 1606) to the German pastor Baer is known: “You Germans have a father and a brother in him; he favors you above all previous sovereigns.” For the sake of placing German halberdiers near the Kremlin, the impostor even evicted all Russian priests from Arbat and Prechistenka. Pierling mentions: “In Poland, a whole caravan of merchants joined the convoy of the queen (i.e. Marina Mniszech - N.S.). Another company of them quickly formed in Augsburg. Its head bore the Jewish name Nathan" (p. 334).

Let's open "Capital" by K. Marx to find out what he knows well secret history finance. Marx writes: “... Closer partnerships were founded with specific goals, like... the German society of Augsburg merchants - Fugger, Welser, Fehlin, Hoechstetter and others... which, with a capital of 66,000 ducats and three ships, took part in Portuguese expedition of 1505-1506 to India, receiving 150%, and according to other sources - 175% of net profit" ("Capital". M., 1978. T. 3, book 3, part 2, p. 982-983).

Marx is complemented by Braudel. He believes that the Fuggers from Augsburg, being in “conspiracy” with the Portuguese king, sent him silver in exchange for goods from India. They also lent money to the Spanish king in 1558. But even later, until 1641, the agents of the Fuggers and Welsers, sitting in the Portuguese colonial capital of India, in Goa, knew in advance about any attempts by the British or Dutch to penetrate India (Braudel, pp. 146, 148, 151, 215).

So, Augsburg, which immediately sent a large delegation to the impostor, was at that time the center of money, formally an “imperial city,” i.e., a city-state. Therefore, the impostor’s special connections with Augsburg could also have a still little-known background.

Was False Dmitry 1 a Dutch agent? Hardly. When False Dmitry captured Moscow in June 1605, the Dutch merchant-infiltrator Isaac Massa was already operating there. He later sent his report on events in Russia to Prince Moritz of Orange, ruler of the Netherlands. With all his hostility towards the Russians, Massa hated False Dmitry and rejoiced at the murder of the impostor: “There is no doubt that if [False Dmitry], on the advice of the Jesuits, had carried out his plans, he would have done a lot of evil and would have caused it with the help of the Roman [curia] - the culprit of all his actions - great misfortunes for the whole world" (Tales of Massa and Herkman about the Time of Troubles in Russia. St. Petersburg, 1874, p. 207).

Massa writes about the enormous expenses of the impostor: “All the ancient treasures, preserved for a hundred years or more, were transferred and distributed at the discretion of [the king]. He bought many valuable things from the British, Dutch and other foreigners. Many Jews came from Poland to trade expensive things.” (p. 171). Massa provides a list of jewelry and cash sent by the impostor to Poland. According to his calculations, this was equal to 784,568 florins (i.e., large Dutch silver coins) or 130 thousand Russian rubles. “In addition, many valuable things were secretly sent to Poland..., and dad was not forgotten” (p. 216-217).

Ilovaisky cites Polish news that False Dmitry, when he seized the throne, managed to waste up to 7.5 million rubles. At an exchange rate of 6 livres 12 sous for 1 ruble (Margeret’s data), it turns out that the impostor spent 49.5 million French livres in a matter of weeks. While, according to the French historians E. Lavisse and A. Rambaud, King Henry 4 managed, by strictly cutting down all expenses, to save by the end of his reign (1610) only 12 million livres! It is not surprising that the Jesuit adventure completely ruined the Russian state.

Rubens, a Dutch diplomat and painter in the service of the Spanish king, wrote in 1627 to the French nobleman Dupuis: “... I find it very strange that all the Christian kings simultaneously found themselves in such a hopeless situation. Not only are they all in debt, and their incomes are pledged, but, in addition, it is extremely difficult for them to find new ways to take a break and maintain their credit... Returning to the poverty of monarchs, I will say that I cannot explain it with anything other than the transfer of the treasures of the world into the hands of the great number of individuals" (Peter Paul Rubens. Letters. Documents. Judgments of contemporaries. M., 1977, pp. 195-196).

Who made up this circle of secret money changers? And didn’t they also warm their hand to our Time of Troubles?

Everything cannot be reduced only to Polish intervention, although the constant Polish violence against our women and the desecration of our churches clearly showed, according to the correct remark of S. F. Platonov, that “the population of Moscow has ceased to feel like the master of their city.”

This also explains the mercilessness of the extermination of the Poles on May 17, 1606. They killed not only the Poles, but also anyone who wore Western (“Polish”) dress. According to various sources, from 1,500 to 2,135 Poles and other foreigners were killed then.

But new king Vasily Shuisky made a fatal mistake. He wanted to delay the war with Poland, not realizing that she had already launched an invasion of Russia. If he had not then ordered to spare Marina Mniszech and a number of Polish magnates who were “staying” in Moscow, there would not have been many tragic events for us in 1607-1612.

If False Dmitry had managed to uncover the Shuisky conspiracy and had survived in May 1606, drowning the Russian resistance in blood, what would have awaited Russia then?

The same as the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic was defeated in 1620-1648. during the Thirty Years' War by the Austrian emperors Ferdinand 2, then Ferdinand 3 of Habsburg, pupils of the Jesuits. Of the 2 million Czechs by 1648, only 800 thousand remained. The Czech lands passed into the hands of the Germans, Italians, and Spaniards. Religion and education are in the hands of the Jesuits.

The bitter fate of the Czech Republic, immured for three centuries in a foreign Catholic monarchy, is not an example of what the papacy and the Jesuits were preparing for Russia?

N. SELISHCHEV, member of the Russian Historical Society

Http://www.rv.ru/content.php3?id=6322

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

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

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

Kobrin V. Tomb in the Moscow Kremlin

THE ROLE OF THE IMPOSTER IN RUSSIAN HISTORY

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

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

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

THE APPEARANCE OF AN IMPOSTER

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

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

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

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

CHARACTER OF MARINA MNISHEK

Brought up from childhood in the consciousness of her noble origin, she is still very in my youth was distinguished by extraordinary arrogance. Nemoevsky gives a very characteristic detail in this regard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

False Dmitry I (officially Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich)
Coronation:
Predecessor:	Fedor II Godunov
Successor:	Vasily Shuisky
Religion:	Orthodoxy, converted to Catholicism
Birth:
Dynasty:	Claimed to belong to the Rurikovichs
	Marina Mnishek
Autograph:

Death of Tsarevich Dmitry

Grigory Otrepiev

Genuine Dmitry

Other versions

Appearance and character

First mentions

Life in Poland

"Recognition"

False Dmitry at the Polish court

Trek to Russia

Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich

Entry into Moscow

Domestic policy

Foreign policy

Conspiracy and murder of Dmitry

Murder

Posthumous desecration

The image of False Dmitry I in culture

False Dmitry I, who officially called himself prince(then tsar) Dmitry Ivanovich, in relations with foreign countries - Emperor Demetrius(lat. Demetreus Imperator) (d. May 17, 1606) - Tsar of Russia from June 1, 1605, according to the established opinion in historiography - an impostor who posed as the miraculously escaped youngest son of Ivan IV the Terrible - Tsarevich Dmitry.

Death of Tsarevich Dmitry

Tsarevich Dmitry died under circumstances that have not yet been clarified - from a knife wound to the throat. His mother accused “Boris’s people” Danila Bityagovsky and Nikita Kachalov, who were in Uglich, of killing Dmitry, who were immediately torn to pieces by the crowd that rang the alarm.

Soon after the death of the Tsarevich, a government commission headed by Prince Vasily Shuisky came to Uglich, which, after interrogating many dozens of witnesses (the investigative file has been preserved), came to the conclusion that it was an accident: the Tsarevich allegedly pierced his throat with a knife while playing “poke” (throwing a knife at earth) when he suffered an epileptic seizure. Despite this, persistent rumors continued to circulate among the people about the involvement in the murder of Boris Godunov and his envoys, as well as that the prince miraculously escaped, which served as the basis for the appearance of the first False Dmitry soon.

Economic and socio-psychological prerequisites for the emergence

The success or failure of any impostor claiming the highest role in a monarchical state is based on several factors. This is the readiness of the upper class to accept him (for example, by opposing a ruler who has compromised himself), the faith of the oppressed in the “good king”, the “savior”, for some reason associated with the applicant, and the ability to gather and subjugate an armed force ready to support the stated claims. False Dmitry I - at least at the first stage of his activity - all these factors were undoubtedly present.

The struggle for power at the top of the Kremlin begins with the accession to the throne of Tsar Fedor, weak in body and spirit. Neither the boyars nor the people had any respect for him - there is, among other things, evidence of this from the Swedish king - in his words, “the Russians in their language call him ‘durak’.” It is known that the winner in this struggle was Boris Godunov, who became the de facto ruler of the state. This entailed a diminution of the power of the Boyar Duma, and, accordingly, hidden hostility towards the “upstart”.

The death of Dmitry in Uglich and the subsequent death of the childless Tsar Fedor led to a dynastic crisis. Undoubtedly, the chosen king enjoyed the support of the serving nobility, and was perhaps the best candidate for the highest role in the state as an intelligent and far-sighted ruler. From the point of view of legitimacy, they remembered that through his sister, who was married to Tsar Fedor, he was related to the Rurik dynasty.

But at the same time, from the point of view of the people of that time, the elected king was not equal to the heir apparent, who became the ruler “by God’s will, and not by human will.” They also persistently blamed him for the death of Tsarevich Dmitry, and Boris turned out to be doubly guilty - as “ destroyer of the royal root" And " autocratic admirer of the throne". The real state of affairs did not correspond to the desired one, and the boyar elite did not fail to take advantage of this.

The silent opposition that accompanied Boris's reign from beginning to end was no secret to him. There is evidence that the tsar directly accused the close boyars of the fact that the appearance of the impostor could not have happened without their assistance.

In the last years of his reign, Boris stopped leaving the palace, did not accept petitions and behaved “like a thief afraid of being caught.”

Trying to reign not only over property and life, but also over the minds of his subjects, he sent throughout the country special prayer, which was to be read in every home at the moment when the cup of health was raised for the king and his family. It is clear that hatred of Godunov was universal at the time of his death.

The severe economic crisis that broke out in Russia in the 60-70s of the 16th century gave way to a temporary revival in the early 90s. The gradual loss of personal freedom by the peasant, the introduction of “reserved years”, when the serf was forbidden to change owner, led to a huge increase in the number of fugitives who flocked to the southern parts of the country, joining the ranks of the Cossacks. The decrease in the number of taxpayers and the comparative low capacity of peasant farms led to an increase in the tax burden, in particular, the “royal tax.” The urban population was also in opposition to the authorities, dissatisfied with heavy exactions, the arbitrariness of local officials and the inconsistency of the government in urban policy. Conflict of interests feudal state and the nobility, on the one hand, enslaved peasants, tax-paying townspeople, serfs and other groups of dependent people, on the other, was the source of the social crisis that gave rise to the Troubles.

The terrible famine of 1601-1603, which struck the entire country with the exception of its southern regions, caused by three lean years in a row, led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people; grain prices rose tenfold. In the popular consciousness, this was also perceived as “God’s punishment” for the sins of the king. In such conditions, rumors about the “good prince”, killed or perhaps hiding from the executioners sent by Boris, could not help but revive. The stage was ready for the appearance of an impostor.

Versions of true name and origin

Italian or Wallachian monk

The version was put forward by an eyewitness to the events of the Time of Troubles, the court historiographer of King Charles IX of Sweden, Johan Widekind, the author of a book of memoirs known as “History of the Ten Year Swedish-Muscovite War.”

According to him, the unknown person who claimed the Moscow throne was a protege of the Poles, who initially tried with his help to either seize or subjugate the Muscovite kingdom.

At the same time, Widekind confirms that this unknown person was a monk, then, having fled from the monastery, he ended up in Rus', and, having changed several more monasteries in Kiev and Volyn, introduced himself to Konstantin Vishnevetsky.

Widekind does not provide confirmation of his version; but his book contains a lot of erroneous information and retold rumors, in particular, that Grozny intended the throne youngest son, and Fedor captured it with the help of Godunov, removing the rightful heir, and Dmitry was subsequently imprisoned in the Uglich monastery, where he was killed by people specially sent for this.

Also speaking about Jewry, Widekind apparently confuses False Dmitry I with the second impostor, who was indeed often called in documents of that time “the baptized Jew Bogdanka.”

Currently the version has no followers.

Illegitimate son of Stefan Batory

The version was put forward by Konrad Bussow, a German mercenary in Russian service, another eyewitness to the Time of Troubles. According to him, the intrigue began in Moscow, among the nobility dissatisfied with Boris’s rule. At her instigation, a certain Grigory Otrepiev, a monk of the Chudov Monastery, fled to the Dnieper with the task of finding and introducing to the Polish court a suitable impostor who could play the role of the deceased prince.

The same Otrepiev, according to Bussov, gave the impostor he trained a pectoral cross with the name of Dimitri and subsequently recruited people for him in the Wild Field.

Modern followers of the theory about the Polish origin of the impostor draw attention to his “too easy” entry into the country, where even one of the most dexterous tsarist diplomats, clerk Afanasy Vlasyev, seemed a clumsy and uneducated “Muscovite”; his ability to deftly dance and ride a horse, shoot and wield a saber, as well as his supposedly “non-Moscow” dialect, despite the fact that, according to surviving information, he spoke Polish completely fluently. Opponents, in turn, point out that False Dmitry I, whoever he was, wrote with horrific errors in Polish and Latin, which was at that time a mandatory subject for any educated Pole (in particular, the word “emperor” in his the letter turned into “inparatur”, and he had to translate Rangoni’s Latin speech), as well as a visible commitment to Orthodoxy. They also point out the distrust of the Poles and the pope himself, who directly compared the “escaped prince” with the false Sebastian of Portugal.

Grigory Otrepiev

The identification of False Dmitry I with the fugitive monk of the Chudov Monastery Grigory Otrepyev was first put forward as an official version by the government of Boris Godunov in his correspondence with King Sigismund. Currently, this version has the most supporters.

Despite the fact that the “letters” sent to Poland bear traces of tendentious falsification (in particular, they stated that as he was in the world, and due to his villainy, he did not listen to his father, fell into heresy, and stole, stole, played with grain, and was a drunkard, and ran away from his father many times, and, having stolen, took tonsure from a blueberry... and further, as if Otrepiev retreated from God, fell into heresy and into the black book, and the calling of unclean spirits and renunciation of God were taken away from him) - the reason for these frauds is completely clear. They tried to convince the Polish government that there was and could not be any truth behind the impostor. real power, and therefore you should not support a plan that is doomed to failure in advance.

The real Yuri (monastically Grigory) Otrepiev belonged to the noble but impoverished Nelidov family, immigrants from Lithuania, one of whose representatives, David Fariseev, received the unflattering nickname “Otrepiev” from Ivan III. It is believed that Yuri was a year or two older than the prince. Born in Galich (Kostroma volost). Yuri's father, Bogdan, was forced to rent land from Nikita Romanovich Zakharyin (grandfather of the future Tsar Mikhail), whose estate was located right next door. He died in a drunken brawl when both sons, Yuri and his younger brother Vasily, were still small, so his widow was in charge of raising his sons. The child turned out to be very capable, he easily learned to read and write, and his success was such that it was decided to send him to Moscow, where he later entered the service of Mikhail Nikitich Romanov. Fleeing from the “death penalty” during the reprisal against the Romanov circle, he took monastic vows at the Zheleznoborkovsky Monastery, located not far from his parents’ estate. However, the simple and unpretentious life of a provincial monk did not attract him: after wandering around monasteries, he eventually returned to the capital, where, under the patronage of his grandfather Elizary Zamyatny, he entered the aristocratic Chudov Monastery. There, a literate monk is quickly noticed, and he becomes a “deacon of the cross”: he is engaged in copying books and is present as a scribe in the “sovereign Duma”.

It is there, according to the official version put forward by Godunov's government, that the future applicant begins preparations for his role; Evidence from the Chudov monks has been preserved that he asked them about the details of the murder of the prince, as well as about the rules and etiquette of court life. Later, if you believe the official version, the “monk Grishka” begins to very imprudently boast that he will one day take the royal throne. The Rostov Metropolitan Jonah brings this boast to the royal ears, and Boris orders the monk to be exiled to the remote Cyril Monastery, but the clerk Smirna-Vasiliev, who was entrusted with this, at the request of another clerk Semyon Efimiev, postponed the execution of the order, and then completely forgot about it, it is still unknown by whom, warned, Gregory flees to Galich, then to Murom, to the Boris and Gleb Monastery and further - on a horse received from the abbot, through Moscow to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where he declares himself a “miraculously saved prince.”

It is noted that this flight suspiciously coincides with the time of the defeat of the “Romanov circle”; it is also noted that Otrepyev was patronized by someone strong enough to save him from arrest and give him time to escape. False Dmitry himself, while in Poland, once made a slip that he was helped by clerk V. Shchelkalov, who was also persecuted by Tsar Boris.

A serious argument in favor of the identity of False Dmitry I with Otrepyev is considered to be a watercolor portrait of the impostor, discovered in 1966 in Darmstadt by the American researcher F. Babur. The portrait bears the Latin inscription “Demetrius Iwanowice Magnus Dux Moschoviae 1604. Aetatis swem 23”, that is, “Dmitry Ivanovich Grand Duke Muscovy 1604. At the age of 23.” The inscription was made with characteristic errors - the same ones that were noticed by S. P. Ptaszycki - confusion between the letters “z” and “e” when writing Polish words. The portrait is important if only because the real prince, had he remained alive, would have turned 22 years old in 1602, while Otrepiev was a year or two older than him.

They also pay attention to the letter of False Dmitry to Patriarch Job, abundantly equipped with Church Slavonicisms (which indicates the church education of its author) and observations that, it is believed, could only have been made by a person personally acquainted with the patriarch.

For their part, opponents of such an identification draw attention to the “European education” of the first impostor, which would be difficult to expect from a simple monk, his ability to ride a horse and easily wield a horse and saber.

It is also known that the future Tsar of Moscow took with him a certain monk, whom he passed off as Grigory Otrepyev, thus proving that the letters of Tsar Boris lie. The objection that this monk was a completely different person - “Elder Leonid” - is dismissed on the grounds that the “named Otrepiev” ultimately showed himself to be a drunkard and a thief, for which he was exiled as an impostor to Yaroslavl - that is, in the neighborhood of the city, where the real Otrepyev began his monastic career - a place more than unsuitable for his “double”.

They also note that Otrepiev was quite famous in Moscow, personally acquainted with the patriarch and many of the Duma boyars. In addition, during the reign of the impostor, Archimandrite Paphnutius of the Chudov Monastery entered the Kremlin Palace, and it would have cost him nothing to expose Otrepyev. In addition, the specific appearance of the first impostor (large warts on his face, different arm lengths) also made deception more difficult.

Genuine Dmitry

The version that the man referred to in historical works as “False Dmitry” was in fact a prince, hidden and secretly transported to Poland, also exists, although it is not popular. Supporters of salvation were, among others, historians of the 19th and early 20th centuries A.S. Suvorin, K.N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a similar version was considered acceptable by Kazimir Valishevsky and others. The idea that “ it was easier to save than to fake Dimitri" was expressed by such a prominent historian as N. Kostomarov. Currently, there are also researchers who share a similar point of view.

The basis of this hypothesis should be considered, apparently, rumors that began to circulate shortly after the death of the prince that a certain boy Istomin was killed, and the real Dimitri was saved and was hiding. Its supporters also consider extremely important the message of the English merchant Jerome Horsey, who was at that time exiled to Yaroslavl for a quarrel with the influential clerk Andrei Shchelkalov, about the arrival of the queen’s brother, Afanasy Nagogo, to him, who told him the following:

Proponents of this point of view consider especially important the assertions of contemporaries that Dmitry apparently never “played” a certain role, but sincerely considered himself a prince. In particular, he was not afraid of revelations from Poland and after his accession boldly went to aggravate relations with Sigismund, he also very boldly and imprudently pardoned Vasily Shuisky, who was convicted of plotting against him, although he had an excellent opportunity to get rid of an unwanted witness who had information about that what happened in Uglich first hand. A serious argument is also considered that the former queen publicly recognized her son in the impostor, and finally, that the mother did not, apparently, make funeral contributions for the soul of her murdered son (that is, she knew that he was alive - to serve a funeral service for a living considered a grave sin in humans).

From the point of view of supporters of the “salvation” hypothesis, the events could look like this - Dmitry was replaced and taken away by Afanasy Nagiy to Yaroslavl (perhaps the already mentioned Jerome Horsey took part in this). Subsequently, he took monastic vows under the name Leonid at the Iron Bork monastery or was taken to Poland, where he was raised by the Jesuits. A certain boy was brought in his place, who was hastily taught to depict an epileptic seizure, and Volokhov’s “mother”, lifting him in her arms, completed the rest.

In order to dispute the fact that the real Dmitry suffered from an “epileptic illness,” which was by no means observed in his deputy, two possible versions are put forward. The first is that the whole story about epilepsy was invented in advance by the queen and her brothers in order to cover up their tracks - as a basis it is indicated that information about this disease is contained only in the materials of the investigative case. The second refers to the fact known in medicine that epileptic seizures can subside on their own for several years, despite the fact that the patient develops a very specific character pattern “ a combination of generosity and cruelty, sadness and gaiety, mistrust and excessive gullibility“- K. Valishevsky discovers all this from the first impostor.

For their part, opponents of the stated hypothesis note that it is based on pure guesswork. The courage of the first impostor can be explained by the fact that he himself sincerely believed in his “royal origin,” meanwhile being a simple tool in the hands of the boyars, who, having overthrown the Godunovs, ultimately got rid of him. At the beginning of the 20th century, contributions were found about the soul of the “murdered Tsarevich Dimitri” made by his mother. The nun Martha, the former Queen Maria, having recognized False Dmitry as her son, later just as easily renounced him - explaining her actions by the fact that the impostor threatened her with death. It is assumed that she was also driven by hatred of the Godunovs and the desire to return from the impoverished monastery to the royal palace. As for the “epileptic character”, characterized by “ "viscosity of thoughts, stuckness, slowness, stickiness, sweetness in relations with other persons, malice, special petty neatness - pedantry, callousness, reduced adaptability to changing conditions, cruelty, a tendency to sharp affects, explosiveness, etc."- then modern researchers do not find anything similar in the descriptions relating to the first impostor.

As for the investigation, it was conducted openly, and witnesses were interrogated in front of a large crowd of people. It can hardly be assumed that under such conditions the invention would have gone unnoticed.

It is also noted that in the event of rescue, the direct reason was to immediately send the child to Poland, and not leave him in monasteries, where killers could find him at any moment.

Blaming the Jesuits for supposedly “saved Dmitry” with the far-reaching goal of converting Muscovy to Catholicism is also difficult, since it is known from the letter of Pope Paul V that Dmitry was converted to Catholicism by Franciscan monks, and he came to the Jesuits much later .

Also given is the testimony of Konrad Bussov, a mercenary in the Russian service, who, once talking with the former guard of the Uglitsky palace, allegedly heard the following words from him:

The same was allegedly confirmed by Pyotr Basmanov, one of the people most loyal to the impostor, who was killed along with him during the uprising:

Other versions

N. Kostomarov assumed that the impostor could come from Western Rus', being the son of some minor Moscow nobleman or the son of a boyar, a fugitive from Moscow, but no facts were found to support such a theory. He believed that the story of Dmitry’s rescue was conveyed to this man in a highly distorted form; in fact, it was difficult to believe that the impostor, whoever he was, would not remember himself at the age of nine. In addition, successful performance of the “role” does not at all mean faith in it - so False Dmitry easily pretended to regret the Godunovs, while keeping their murderer Mikhail Molchanov with him and outfitting him with women for pleasure.

Even more original idea put forward by N. M. Pavlov, who wrote under the pseudonym “Bitsyn”. According to his assumption, there were two impostors, one - Grigory Otrepiev, sent from Moscow, the other - an unknown Pole, prepared for his role by the Jesuits. It was the second one who played the role of False Dmitry. This version was considered too artificial and did not receive further circulation.

Sometimes a version is put forward that “Grishka” was in fact one of the illegitimate sons of Grozny, given to be raised by the Otrepyev family. Again, no documentary evidence exists for this version. Lyudmila Taimasova, in her book “Tragedy in Uglich” (2006), dedicated to the death of Tsarevich Dmitry and the appearance of the Pretender, sets out the following theory: according to it, the Pretender was the allegedly existing illegitimate son of the Livonian queen and niece of Ivan the Terrible Maria Staritskaya and the Polish king Stefan Batory, born in 1576.

We can say that there is no final answer to the question of the identity of the first impostor.

Appearance and character

Judging by the surviving portraits and descriptions of contemporaries, the applicant was short, rather clumsy, had a round and ugly face (he was especially disfigured by two large warts on his forehead and cheek), red hair and dark blue eyes.

Although of small stature, he was disproportionately broad in the shoulders, had a short “bull” neck, and arms of different lengths. Contrary to the Russian custom of wearing a beard and mustache, he had neither one nor the other.

By nature, he was gloomy and thoughtful, quite awkward, although he was distinguished by remarkable physical strength, for example, he could easily bend a horseshoe.

First mentions

If you believe the so-called “I know Varlaam,” the future applicant persuaded two more monks to leave with him - Varlaam himself and Misail Povadin, inviting them to go on a pilgrimage to Kiev, to the Pechersky Monastery and further to Jerusalem, to worship holy places. According to Varlaam’s memoirs, future fellow travelers met in the Moscow Icon Row “on Tuesday in the second week of Lent” (1602).

Having crossed the Moscow River, the monks hired carts to Volkhov, from there they reached Karachev, then got to Novgorod-Seversky. They lived in the Novgorod Transfiguration Monastery for some time, then took as their guide a certain “ Ivashka Semenov, a retired elder"We went to Starodub. Then the three monks and their guide crossed the Polish border, and through Loev and Lyubets they finally reached Kyiv.

Whether this is true or not is unknown, since Shuisky’s people forged the final version of Varlaam’s story, historians have long regarded it as a hoax.

To some extent, Varlaam’s version received unexpected confirmation when, in 1851, priest Ambrose Dobrotvorsky discovered the so-called Zagorovsky Monastery in Volyn. The Lenten Book of Basil the Great, printed in Ostrog in 1594. The book bore a dedicatory inscription from Prince K.K. Ostrozhsky stating that on August 14, 1602, he gave it “ us, Gregory, Tsarevich of Moscow, and our brothers with Varlam and Misail”, and the words “to the prince of Moscow” are believed to have been attributed later.

In any case, it is documented that for the first time traces of the future impostor were discovered in 1601, in Kyiv, where he appeared in the form of a young monk who came to worship shrines. There is an opinion that it was here that the future applicant made his first attempt to declare himself “Tsarevich of Moscow” - according to Karamzin, leaving a note for the abbot, which he hastened to destroy as too dangerous, according to Skrynnikov - by performing the same performance that will be repeated at the court of Adam Vishnevetsky. The applicant pretended to be terminally ill and in confession “discovered” his royal origin. Whether this is true or not, there is no reliable information, but according to Varlaam, the Kiev abbot quite clearly showed the guests the door - “ four of you come, four of you go».

Then he allegedly lived for quite a long time in the Derman monastery, in Ostrog, which was then the possession of Prince Ostrog, where a motley society of haters of the “Latin heresy” gathered - Orthodox, Calvinists, Trinitarians and Arians. Later, in a letter to the Polish king dated March 3, 1604, Konstantin Ostrozhsky denied acquaintance with the future applicant, from which one can draw mutually exclusive conclusions that he either tried to “open up” to the prince and was simply thrown out, or, on the contrary, tried to behave as inconspicuously as possible and stay out of sight. The second seems more likely, since the next stop for the applicant was the city of Goshcha, which belonged to the Gaevsky castellan Gabriel Goysky, who was at the same time the marshal at the court of the Ostrog prince. There is an assumption that the future Demetrius labored as a kitchen servant, however, it is more correct that, having thrown off his monastic robe, he studied Latin and Polish here for two years at a local Arian school. According to Izvet, his companion Varlaam complained that Gregory was behaving unworthy of a monk and asked to call him to order, but received the answer that “ Here the land is free, whoever wants to believe in what he wants.»

Subsequently, traces of the pretender to the throne were lost until 1603. It is believed that during this period he could visit the Zaporozhye Sich, establish a relationship with ataman Gerasim Evangelik and, under his leadership, take a military training course. The impostor was unable to achieve active military support in the Sich, but there are assumptions that by establishing contact with the Don Cossacks, he received the first firm promises of support and assistance.

Life in Poland

"Recognition"

In 1603, the young man showed up in the city of Bragin and entered the service of Prince Adam Vishnevetsky, where he showed himself to be a courteous, secretive and reserved person. There are several contradictory versions about how he managed to convey to the prince the version that he was Tsarevich Dmitry, saved by the loyal boyars.

According to one of them, Vishnevetsky’s servant became dangerously ill (“ sick to death") or simply pretended to be sick - and demanded a confessor. He allegedly revealed his “royal name” to the visiting priest during confession and bequeathed, after his death, to give to Prince Vishnevetsky the papers under the pillow, which were supposed to confirm his words. But the priest, without waiting for this, hurried to Vishnevetsky and told him what he had heard, and he immediately demanded the paper. Having studied them, and allegedly verifying their authenticity, Adam Vishnevetsky hurried to the dying servant and directly asked about his true name and origin. This time the young man did not deny it and showed Vishnevetsky a gold pectoral cross, allegedly given to him by his mother. In addition, according to him, “special features” served as a guarantee - a large wart on the cheek, a birthmark above the hand and different lengths of the arms.

It is interesting that regarding this cross, there is an entry in the so-called. Piskarevsky chronicler, indicating that Otrepyev managed to penetrate into the monastery where the disgraced queen lived before fleeing to Poland and beyond

Vishnevetsky, still not knowing what to think about this story, paid the best doctors, and Dmitry was eventually able to get to his feet. To check the applicant, he was taken to Bragin, where a Moscow defector, a certain Petrushka, who in Poland bore the surname Piotrovsky, served under the command of Lev Sapega. Petrushka assured that he once served in Uglich under the person of the prince. The legend claims that the applicant immediately recognized Petrushka in the crowd of servants and turned to him - after which, casting aside all doubts, Adam Vishnevetsky surrounded the prince with luxury appropriate to his position.

The second version says that Vishnevetsky did not at all distinguish the Muscovite from the crowd of servants, and he more than once had to feel the heavy and hot-tempered princely character. So, one day, while in the bathhouse, Vishnevetsky became angry with a servant who was too slow in his opinion, hit him in the face and cursed him with vulgar words. He could not stand such treatment and bitterly reproached the prince for not knowing who he had raised his hand against. Subsequently, the legend unfolds similarly to the first.

The last, third, version was put forward by the Italian Bisaccioni; according to his story, False Dmitry revealed himself not to Adam, but to Konstantin Vishnevetsky, when, during a visit to Sambir, being in his retinue, he saw the beautiful and proud Panna Marina Mnishek. Inflamed with love for her and seeing no other way to achieve his goal, he allegedly placed a confession of his “royal origin” on the windowsill. Marina immediately reported this to her father, who informed Konstantin Vishnevetsky, and ultimately the news that the rescued prince had appeared in Poland became public knowledge.

The real background to the intrigue, apparently, should be considered that in 1600 a truce was concluded between Poland and Muscovy for 20 years, which directly contradicted the wishes of the king and the military plans of Adam Vishnevetsky, who saw in the appearance of False Dmitry an opportunity to break the resistance of the Senate (first of all, Crown Hetman Zamoyski) and begin expansion to the East. It should also not be forgotten that Adam and his brother were active defenders of Orthodoxy and represented the most senior branch of the house of Rurik.

Which of these versions is correct is not thoroughly known. It is only documented that at the end of 1603, Konstantin Vishnevetsky - and with him the applicant - actually visited Vishnevetsky’s father-in-law, Yuri Mnishek, in Sambir. At the same time, Dmitry allowed the Franciscan monks to convert himself to Catholicism - perhaps under the influence of love for Yuri's daughter Marina, a devout Catholic, or, as is sometimes believed, in attempts to achieve an alliance with the Latin clergy, and especially with the powerful Jesuit order.

On the part of Yuri Mnishek and his daughter, participation in the intrigue was determined rather by mercantile and ambitious calculations - Yuri Mnishek was mired in debts, which he hoped to pay off at the expense of the Moscow and royal Polish treasuries (in many ways his calculation was justified, since the king secretly sided with the impostor , forgave his future father-in-law for the arrears. As for Marina, all documents of that time, including her own diaries, testify to extreme arrogance and lust for power, so the hope of the Moscow throne seemed very tempting to her. Dmitry probably loved Marina - since marrying it did not promise any mercantile or political dividends, the Mnischkov family was not noble enough, was mired in debt, and Moscow’s reaction to the Tsar’s attempt to marry a “Catholic wench” was quite predictable.

One way or another, the news of the “miraculous salvation” finally reached Moscow and, apparently, greatly alarmed Tsar Boris. It is known that he tried to persuade Vishnevetsky to hand over the applicant, promising to make territorial concessions in exchange. But the deal did not take place. In 1604, Gregory’s uncle, Smirnoy-Otrepyev, was sent to Krakow with a secret mission to achieve a confrontation and incriminate his nephew. The meeting, of course, did not take place, but having become the Tsar of Moscow, Dmitry hastened to send Smirny into Siberian exile.

The applicant’s own version of the “miraculous salvation”

Naturally, the question arose of how Tsarevich Dmitry was able to survive, and who exactly took part in his rescue and escape to Poland. Surviving sources talk about this extremely sparingly, which forced I. S. Belyaev to assume that documents containing information on this matter were destroyed under Vasily Shuisky. Kazimir Waliszewski also held a similar point of view.

It is worth noting, however, that False Dmitry’s own charters and letters were preserved, in particular, in the Vatican archives. In a letter addressed to Pope Clement VIII dated April 24, 1604, he writes rather vaguely that “... fleeing from the tyrant and escaping from death, from which the Lord God delivered me in childhood by his wondrous providence, I first lived in the Moscow state itself until a certain time between the Chernets" He repeats the same thing, without giving any details, in letters addressed to the Russian people and written in Moscow.

A more detailed version is given in her diary by Marina Mnishek. It is believed that this version is closest to how the impostor described his “miraculous salvation” at the Polish royal court and at Yuri Mniszek in Sambir. Marina writes:

There was a certain doctor there under the prince, a Vlach by birth. He, having learned about this betrayal, prevented it immediately in this way. He found a child who looked like the prince, took him to his chambers and told him to always talk to the prince and even sleep in the same bed. When that child fell asleep, the doctor, without telling anyone, transferred the prince to another bed. And so he did all this with them for a long time. As a result, when the traitors set out to fulfill their plan and burst into the chambers, finding the prince’s bedroom there, they strangled another child who was in the bed and carried away the body. After which the news of the murder of the prince spread, and a great rebellion began. As soon as this became known, they immediately sent for the traitors in pursuit, several dozen of them were killed and their bodies were taken away. Meanwhile, that Vlach, seeing how careless Fyodor, the elder brother, was in his affairs, and the fact that he, the equerry Boris, owned all the land, decided that at least not now, but someday this child would face death at the hands of a traitor. He took him secretly and went with him to the Arctic Sea itself and hid him there, passing him off as an ordinary child, without announcing anything to him until his death. Then, before his death, he advised the child not to open up to anyone until he reaches adulthood, and to become a black man. Which, on his advice, the prince did and lived in monasteries.

Yuri Mnishek retold the same story after his arrest, adding only that the “doctor” gave the rescued prince to be raised by a certain unnamed son of a boyar, and he, having already revealed his true origin to the young man, advised him to hide in a monastery.

The Zhmuda nobleman Tovyanovsky already names the doctor's name - Simon, and adds to the story that it was he who Boris ordered to deal with the prince, but he replaced the boy in bed with a servant.

Godunov, having undertaken to kill Dimitri, announced his intention as a secret to the prince’s physician, an old German named Simon, who, feigning his word to participate in the crime, asked nine-year-old Dimitri if he had enough mental strength to endure exile, disaster and poverty, if Will God be willing to tempt his firmness? The prince answered: “I have!” and the doctor said: “They want to kill you this night. When you go to bed, exchange linen with a young servant your age; put him on your bed and hide behind the stove: no matter what happens in the room, sit silently and wait for me.” Dimitri carried out the order. At midnight the door opened; two people entered, stabbed a servant instead of the prince, and fled. At dawn they saw blood and a dead man: they thought that the prince had been killed, and told his mother about it. There was an alarm. The queen rushed at the corpse and in despair did not recognize that the dead youth was not her son. The palace was filled with people: they were looking for murderers; they slaughtered the guilty and the innocent; They took the body to the church, and everyone left. The palace was empty, and at dusk the doctor took Dimitri out of there to flee to Ukraine, to Prince Ivan Mstislavsky, who had lived there in exile since the time of John. A few years later, the doctor and Mstislavsky died, giving advice to Dimitri to seek safety in Lithuania. The young man accosted the wandering monks, was with them in Moscow, in the land of Voloshskaya, and finally appeared in the house of Prince Vishnevetsky.

In the story of the German merchant Georg Paerle, the doctor turns into a teacher, with the same name Simon, and also saves the prince from the hands of murderers and hides him in a monastery.

In the anonymous document “A Brief Tale of the Misfortune and Happiness of Demetrius, the Current Prince of Moscow,” written in Latin by an unknown, but apparently close to False Dmitry person, the foreign doctor already receives the name Augustine (Augustinus) and the name of the “servant” put to bed instead of the prince is called - “boy Istomin”. In this version of the story, the killers, leaving a knife at the crime scene, assure the Uglich residents that “the prince stabbed himself to death in an attack of epilepsy.” The doctor, together with the rescued boy, hides in a monastery “near the Arctic Ocean”, where he takes monastic vows, and the matured Dimitri hides there until he escapes to Poland.

The version of the secret substitution, carried out with the consent of the queen and her brothers, was adhered to by the Frenchman Margeret, captain of the bodyguard company under the person of Tsar Demetrius.

It is worth noting that neither a doctor nor a foreign teacher named Augustine or Simon ever existed; moreover, the description of the death of the child who “replaced” the prince sharply diverges from what actually happened in Uglich. This is considered additional evidence that whoever the first impostor was, he had nothing in common with the son of Ivan the Terrible. At the time of his death, the prince was nine years old, and he could hardly forget what really happened.

Also, none of the Mstislavskys ever lived in Ukraine, and also fugitives from Russian lands usually went not to Catholic Poland, but to Orthodox Lithuania.

It is curious that in some respects the story of salvation told by False Dmitry is close to the life story of a real prince, his contemporary, who lived for some time at the Polish court - Prince Gustav of Sweden. The adventurous fate of Gustav, the truth of whose origin is undoubted, could serve as one of the components of both the formation of the history of False Dmitry and its success at the Polish court. (By the way, then Gustav will be invited to Moscow to marry Ksenia Godunova, but the wedding will not take place and as a result Ksenia will become a concubine of the same False Dmitry).

False Dmitry at the Polish court

At the beginning of 1604, the Wisniewiecki brothers, who continued to patronize the applicant, brought him to the court of Sigismund in Krakow. The king gave him a private audience in the presence of the papal nuncio Rangoni, during which he “privately” recognized him as the heir of Ivan IV, assigned an annual allowance of 40 thousand zlotys and allowed him to recruit volunteers on Polish territory. In response, promises were received from False Dmitry after ascending the throne to return half of the Smolensk land to the Polish crown along with the city of Smolensk and the Chernigov-Seversk land, to support the Catholic faith in Russia - in particular, to open churches and allow Jesuits into Muscovy, to support Sigismund in his claims to the Swedish crown and promote the rapprochement - and ultimately the merger - of Russia with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

However, influential magnates spoke out against the applicant, in particular, Crown Hetman Zamoyski, who directly called Dmitry an impostor.

At the same time, the applicant turns to the Pope with a letter promising favor and help, but its style was so ambiguous that the promise could be interpreted in the direction of a direct decision to convert Rus' to Catholicism, or simply tolerate granting him freedom on an equal basis with other Christians. talk.

Subsequently, Konstantin Vishnevetsky and Yuri Mnishek, accompanied by the applicant, triumphantly returned to Sambir, where the latter made an official proposal to Marina. It was accepted, but it was decided to postpone the wedding until Dmitry’s accession to the Moscow throne.

Dmitry undertook, among other things, to pay Yuri Mniszko 1 million zlotys, not to embarrass Marina in matters of faith and to give her “veno” - Pskov and Novgorod, and these cities were to remain with her even in the event of her “barrenness”, with the right to distribute these snakes to her We serve people and build churches there. and the second half of Smolensk land.

Yuri Mnishek managed to gather 1,600 people in the Polish possessions for his future son-in-law, in addition, he was joined by 2,000 volunteers from the Zaporozhye Sich and a small detachment of Donets, with these forces a campaign against Moscow was launched.

Trek to Russia

The campaign of False Dmitry I against Moscow began under the most unfavorable circumstances. Firstly, the best time for military operations was missed - summer: after delays in collecting troops, it was possible to set out only on August 15, 1604, and only in October to cross the border of the Moscow state, when the autumn rains had already begun and there was impassable mud on the roads. Secondly, it was known from the Polish ambassadors at the royal court that the Crimean Khan was preparing to attack the Moscow borders. In this case, Russian troops would be completely constrained in repelling the threat from the South. But the alarm turned out to be false, or Khan Kazy-Girey, realizing that it would not be possible to take advantage of the surprise of the attack, chose to abandon his plan. Thirdly, the impostor’s troops had practically no artillery, without which there was no point in even thinking about storming such powerful fortresses as Smolensk or the capital itself. Also, the ambassadors of False Dmitry failed to obtain help from either the Crimeans or the Nogais.

Perhaps, taking the latter circumstance into account, False Dmitry I chose to attack Moscow in a roundabout way - through Chernigov and the Seversk land. For his part, Tsar Boris, who did not fully take False Dmitry’s claims to the crown seriously, was essentially taken by surprise by the invasion. Anticipating the offensive, the applicant, not without a hint from his future father-in-law, launched a campaign in his favor, the center of which was the castle of Oster. From here, to the first city on his way - Moravsk, "Litvin" T. Dementyev brought a personalized letter for the local Streltsy centurion, then "Dimitriev's spies" I. Lyakh and I. Bilin sailed up by boat, scattered letters along the shore with an exhortation to go over to the side " legitimate prince." Among other things, the charters read:

And you, our birth, would remember the Orthodox Christian true faith and the kissing of the cross, on which we naturally kissed the cross to our father, of blessed memory to the Tsar Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia, and to us, his children, who wanted good in everything: and you now, our traitor Boris Godunov, resign himself to us and from now on, serve us, your born sovereign, and serve straight and want good, like our father, blessed in memory to the Tsar Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia; and I will begin to reward you, according to my royal merciful custom, and especially to hold you in honor from above, and that’s all Orthodox Christianity We want to live in peace and quiet and in a prosperous life.

To begin the offensive, the impostor’s troops were divided into two parts, one under the command of the Cossack ataman Beleshko, which advanced openly, the second, under the command of Yuri Mnishka and the false prince himself, walked through forests and swamps, and the beginning of the offensive was remembered by the Poles for what happened along the way "Lots of delicious berries."

Perhaps the inhabitants of Moravsk refused resistance more out of fear than faith that the Polish army was led by a genuine prince; one way or another, the governors B. Lodygin and M. Tolochanov, who tried to organize resistance, were tied up and handed over to the pretender. On October 21, False Dmitry entered the city in triumph.

The Chernigovites, who initially met the Cossack-Polish army with gunfire, heard that Moravsk had surrendered and also swore allegiance to the challenger, the governor, Prince I. A. Tatev, tried to organize resistance, locked himself in the castle with the remaining loyal archers, but made a gross mistake , leaving the settlement in the hands of the rebels, as a result the Chernigovites, together with Beleshko’s detachment, stormed the castle, and the governor of Tatev and with him the princes P. M. Shakhovskaya and N. S. Vorontsov-Velyaminov were taken prisoner. Dmitry forced them to partially return the booty that the Cossacks managed to capture by plundering the settlement, but with great difficulty and far from completely.

Novgorod Seversky turned out to be a serious obstacle on his way, where Godunov’s favorite boyar Pyotr Basmanov was locked up with his army, having received serious reinforcements from Bryansk, Krom and other neighboring cities - about 1,500 people in total. Basmanov prudently burned the settlement so that the besiegers would have nowhere to hide from the November cold. The siege of the city began on November 11, 1604, three days later the first assault was launched, but the Poles retreated, losing 50 people. On the night of November 18, a general assault followed, but Basmanov, who had received advance warning of this from his scouts in the enemy camp, managed to prepare and did not allow the wooden walls to be set on fire. The battle in the open field also did not lead to anything, since the Russian troops retreated “to the forest to the carts,” from where the Poles, despite all efforts, could not knock them out and Dmitry for the first time seriously quarreled with his army, reproaching the Poles for that they cannot boast of superiority in military skills over the Muscovites. The Polish army was indignant, putting the entire enterprise on the brink of failure, but the applicant was saved by the fact that at that time Putivl, the only stone fortress in these parts, the key to the Seversk land, surrendered. Sources contradict each other as to which of the Moscow governors surrendered the city to the impostor, putting Prince Vasily Rubets-Mosalsky or clerk Sutupov in this role. One way or another, the city swore allegiance to the applicant as the “true prince of Moscow”; not only the “black people”, but almost the entire local nobility went over to his side, and - which was especially important at this stage of the war - the city treasury passed into the hands of the applicant.

On December 18, 1604, the first major clash took place near Novgorod Seversky between Dmitry and the army of Prince F.I. Mstislavsky, in which, despite the superiority in numbers (15 thousand people for Dmitry and 50 thousand for the prince), the impostor won. Perhaps the defeat of the Russian troops was caused not so much by a military factor, but by a psychological one - ordinary warriors were reluctant to fight against someone who, in their opinion, could be the “true” prince, some governors even said out loud that it was “not right” to fight against the true sovereign. According to an eyewitness, Dmitry shed tears when he saw his compatriots killed on the battlefield.

But even after this victory, the position of the contender was still far from being determined. The treasury captured in Putivl was almost completely spent. The mercenary army grumbled, dissatisfied with the fact that the promised salary was paid to them only for the first three months. as well as the prohibition of robberies and extortions from the population. On January 1, 1605, an open rebellion broke out, and mercenary troops rushed to plunder the convoy. Dmitry personally circled the knights, fell on his knees in front of them and persuaded them to stay with him, but received insults in response, and among others, a wish to be impaled. According to the recollections of contemporaries, the challenger, unable to bear it, hit the Pole who had insulted him in the face, but the others stole his sable fur coat, which they later had to buy back. On January 2, most of the mercenaries left towards the border. On the same day, the impostor burned the camp near Novgorod-Seversky and retreated to Putivl. On January 4, Yuri Mnishek, worsening the already difficult situation of his “son-in-law,” announced his departure to Poland for the Diet. It is believed that Mniszech hoped for a noble uprising against Boris, and felt uncomfortable in the camp, where the Cossacks and the “Moscow black people” were gaining more and more power, in addition, the Moscow “initial boyars” sent him a letter full of blatant threats. As the chronicles testify “ The governor of Sendomir left that thief by himself after he had a fight with the boyars, and he left to help that thief, and not for the royal command, and the headman of Ostrina, Mikhail Ratomskoy, and Tyshkevich, and the captains remained" Mniszech nevertheless assured the impostor that he would defend his cause at the royal diet and would send new reinforcements from Poland. About 800 more Poles went with him, Colonel Adam Zhulicki, captains Stanislav Mniszek and Fredra. Ultimately, 1,500 Polish knights remained with him, choosing Dvorzhetsky as their leader instead of Mniszko; the impostor was largely helped by the Jesuits, who at this critical moment took his side. At the same time, other cities and settlements followed the example of Putivl - among them Rylsk, Kursk, Sevsk, Kromy. At the same time, Dmitry ordered the miraculous icon of the Mother of God to be delivered to him from Kursk, arranged a solemn meeting for it, and placed it in his tent, where he later prayed to it every evening. The governors of the cities that surrendered either swore allegiance to Dmitry themselves, or were taken bound to his camp, but were immediately released and took the oath. Dmitry's army was constantly growing. The loss in manpower was immediately made up for by 12 thousand Don Cossacks, under whose protection Dmitry fortified himself in Sevsk.

The Moscow army, sent against the impostor, overtook him at the end of January near the village of Dobrynichi. On the night of January 21, 1605, the scouts sent by False Dmitry intended to set fire to the village from different sides, however, this maneuver failed, and early in the morning next day, leaving the city, he gave battle to the royal army at Dobrynichi, but was defeated due to the numerous artillery of the enemy. As a result of the battle, the impostor lost almost all of his infantry and most of his cavalry; the victors captured all of his artillery - 30 cannons and 15 banners and standards. The horse under the impostor was wounded; he himself miraculously escaped capture. For their part, government troops unleashed brutal terror, killing everyone indiscriminately - men, women, old people and even children as sympathizers of the impostor. The result was general bitterness and a split among the Moscow nobility, previously for the most part devoted to the Godunov dynasty. Time was also lost - the impostor was allowed to leave and strengthen himself for the entire winter and spring of 1605 in Putivl under the protection of the Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks. It is believed that at this time the applicant lost heart and tried to flee to Poland, but the army managed to hold him, and indeed, soon his ranks were replenished with another 4 thousand Cossacks. The applicant sent this reinforcement to defend Kromy, hoping in this way to distract the tsarist army - and until spring this small detachment was pinned down by those sent against Dmitry, who, instead of besieging the impostor in his temporary “capital,” wasted time storming Kromy and Rylsk, whose inhabitants, being witnessed the bloody terror that the tsarist troops unleashed, stood to the last,

During the “Putivl sitting”, Dmitry was actually preparing for his future reign - he received Polish and Russian priests, addressed the people with promises to build a university in Moscow, invite educated people from Europe to Russia, etc. It was noted that his dinners were equally attended by Orthodox and Catholic clergy, and Dmitry did everything in his power to bring them closer together. By order of Boris, several monks were sent to Putivl with poison for the impostor, but they managed to be exposed and arrested. Later, the impostor, with his power, forgave them.

Here in Putivl, in order to weaken the propaganda of his opponents, who declared him “the defrocked and thief Grishka Otrepyev,” he showed the monk he had brought with him, passing him off as the desired “Grishka.” It was also to his advantage that Tsar Boris died in May; the Chudov monks, sent to Putivl to expose the impostor, sent a letter in which they called him “the true son of Ivan Vasilyevich.” Completely confused, Tsarina Marya Grigorievna and her advisers considered it best to stop mentioning the name of Grigory Otrepiev and include in the oath to Tsar Feodor a promise not to support anyone who calls himself a prince. This only intensified the ferment of minds in the capital - it is also worth remembering that Godunov’s widow and Malyuta Skuratov’s daughter, Maria Grigorievna, was extremely unpopular among the people. Rumors about the extreme cruelty of the queen spread throughout the capital, for example, they said that when Godunov summoned Maria to Moscow Naked and trying to get the truth from her about what happened to Dmitry, Maria Grigorievna, infuriated by the silence of the former queen, tried to burn out her eyes with a candle.

In May, after the death of Boris Godunov, the army stationed near Kromy swore allegiance to Dmitry; Voivode Pyotr Fedorovich Basmanov went over to his side and later became one of his closest associates. The impostor sent an army to Moscow led by Prince Vasily Golitsin, and he himself went to Orel, where elected officials “from the entire Ryazan land” were waiting for him, and then to Tula.

Gavrila Pushkin and Naum Pleshcheev were sent to Moscow with a letter from “Tsarevich Dimitri,” probably under the protection of the Cossack detachment of Ivan Korela. On June 1, 1603, Gavrila Pushkin, standing on the Execution Ground, read the impostor’s letter addressed to both the boyars and the Moscow people. The elderly Patriarch Job tried to resist the envoys of False Dmitry, but “I didn’t have time to do anything.” The rebel Muscovites plundered the palace and, according to some sources, did not find the Tsar and Tsarina in it, who managed to hide (only Maria Grigorievna’s pearl necklace was torn off during her flight), according to another, they sent the Godunovs to their former home; the wine cellars were empty, a drunken crowd plundered and destroyed the farmsteads of many boyars related by ties of kinship to the Godunov dynasty.

Two days later, under pressure from Bogdan Belsky and his supporters, the Boyar Duma decided to send its representatives to the impostor. On June 3, the old prince I. M. Vorotynsky, and several minor boyars and okolnichi - Prince Trubetskoy, Prince A. A. Telyatevsky, F. I. Sheremetev, Duma clerk A. Vlasyev, several nobles, clerks and guests went to Tula. The impostor, angry that those sent essentially had no power, the “tsar” allowed them to reach his hand later than the Cossacks who arrived on the same day, and further “ punish and bark, like a direct royal son».

In Tula, Dmitry studied state affairs like a king: he sent out letters announcing his arrival, drew up an oath formula in which the first place was occupied by the name of Maria Nagoy, his called “mother,” invited the English ambassador Smith, who was returning from Moscow with letters, to his place, talked to him graciously and even promised the same liberties that his “father” once granted, he accepted “elected from the whole earth” and finally the second boyar embassy, ​​led by the three Shuisky brothers and Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky. At first, the applicant treated them rather coldly, reproaching that the common people were ahead of the courtiers, but ultimately changed his anger to mercy and brought them to the oath, which was taken by the Archbishop of Ryazan and Murom Ignatius, whom he predicted to take the place of Patriarch Job.

At the end of spring, he slowly moved towards the capital. Meanwhile, in Moscow, on June 5, 1605, the body of the former Tsar Boris Godunov was taken out of the Archangel Cathedral “for the sake of desecration.” Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn and Prince Rubets-Masalsky were sent from the “thieves’ camp” to Moscow with orders that the enemies of the “prince” be eliminated from Moscow. Perhaps it was this letter that provoked the Moscow people to murder Fyodor Godunov and his mother, Tsarina Maria Grigorievna (10 June). The property of the Godunovs and their relatives - the Saburovs and Velyaminovs - was taken into the treasury, Stepan Vasilyevich Godunov was killed in prison, the rest of the Godunovs were sent into exile in the Lower Volga region and Siberia, S. M. Godunov - to Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, where, according to rumors, he was starved to death. Dmitry was informed that the Godunovs committed suicide by taking poison. Publicly, Dmitry regretted his death and promised to have mercy on all survivors of their relatives.

Convinced of the support of the nobles and people, he moved to the capital and on June 20, 1605, solemnly entered the Kremlin.

It is believed that along the way, Dmitry often stopped to talk with local residents and promise them benefits. In Serpukhov, the future tsar was already waiting for a magnificent tent that could accommodate several hundred people, the royal kitchen and servants. In this tent, Dmitry gave his first feast to the boyars, okolnichy and Duma clerks.

Then he moved towards the capital in a rich carriage, accompanied by a magnificent retinue. In the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow, a new tent was erected on a wide meadow and a feast was again given to the aristocrats accompanying it. They say that Dmitry also kindly received delegations of local peasants and townspeople, who greeted him with bread and salt, and promised to “be their father.”

Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich

Entry into Moscow

Waiting for an opportune moment and coordinating all the details with the Boyar Duma, the impostor spent three days at the gates of the capital. Finally, on June 20, 1605, to the festive ringing of bells and the welcoming cries of crowds crowded on both sides of the road, the applicant entered Moscow. According to the recollections of contemporaries, he appeared on horseback, wearing gold-decorated clothes, a rich necklace, a luxuriously decorated horse, accompanied by a retinue of boyars and okolnichy. The clergy with images and banners were waiting for him in the Kremlin. However, strict adherents of Orthodoxy immediately did not like the fact that the new tsar was accompanied by Poles who played trumpets and beat kettledrums during church singing. Having first prayed in the Kremlin Assumption and Archangel Cathedrals, he shed tears at the tomb of his alleged father, Ivan the Terrible. But again, it did not go unnoticed that foreigners entered the cathedral with him, and the tsar himself did not venerate the images in a Muscovite manner. However, these minor inconsistencies were attributed to the fact that Dmitry had lived in a foreign land for too long and could have forgotten Russian customs.

Bogdan Belsky, who accompanied him, went up to the Place of Execution, took off the cross and the image of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and said short speech:

Those close to him hurried him to be crowned king, but the applicant insisted on first meeting with the “mother” - Queen Mary Nagaya, who in monasticism bore the name of Martha. Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky was sent after her, to whom the new tsar bestowed the Polish title of swordsman.

On July 18, Marfa arrived from exile, and her meeting with her “son” took place in the village of Taininsky near Moscow in front of a huge number of people. According to the recollections of contemporaries, Dmitry jumped off his horse and rushed to the carriage, and Martha, throwing back the side curtain, took him into her arms. Both sobbed, and Dmitry walked the entire further journey to Moscow, walking next to the carriage.

The queen was placed in the Kremlin Ascension Monastery, the tsar visited her there every day and asked for blessings after every serious decision.

Soon after this, Dmitry was crowned with the “crown” of Godunov, accepting it from the hands of the new Patriarch Ignatius, the boyars presented the scepter and orb. The royal palace was decorated according to the event, the path from the Assumption Cathedral was covered with gold-woven velvet, when the king appeared on the threshold, the boyars showered him with rain of gold coins.

There are vague hints in the documents that soon after entering Moscow, the tsar ordered the capture and death of several monks of the Chudov Monastery, as they might recognize him. However, the documents reporting this were drawn up after the overthrow of the “defrocked” and therefore do not inspire complete confidence. Also, allegedly, Otrepiev was recognized by the nobleman I.R. Bezobrazov, who was once a neighbor of the Otrepievs. But Bezobrazov was smart enough to keep his mouth shut, and he made a brilliant career during the short reign of False Dmitry.

A few days later, a conspiracy aimed at overthrowing and killing Dmitry was uncovered in Moscow. According to the denunciation of a merchant named Fyodor Konev “and his comrades,” it was discovered that Prince Vasily Shuisky was plotting against the new tsar, spreading rumors throughout Moscow that the applicant was actually the defrocked Otrepyev and was plotting the destruction of churches and the eradication of the Orthodox faith.

Shuisky was captured, but Tsar Dmitry transferred the decision of his fate into the hands of the Zemsky Sobor. According to surviving documents, the tsar was so eloquent and so skillfully convicted Shuisky “of his theft” that the council unanimously sentenced the traitor to death.

On July 25, Shuisky was put on the block, but by order of “Tsar Dimitry Ivanovich” he was pardoned and sent into exile in Vyatka. But the nobleman Pyotr Turgenev and the merchant Fyodor Kalachnik were executed - the latter, allegedly, even on the scaffold called the tsar an impostor and a defrocked man.

The day before, on July 24, Ryazan Archbishop Ignatius was elevated to the rank of Patriarch of Moscow.

Domestic policy

On July 30, 1605, the newly appointed Patriarch Ignatius crowned Dmitry as king. The king's first actions were numerous favors. The boyars and princes who had been in disgrace under Boris and Fyodor Godunov were returned from exile, and the confiscated estates were returned to them. They also returned Vasily Shuisky and his brothers, who did not have time to get to Vyatka, and the relatives of the former tsar were also returned. All relatives of Filaret Romanov received forgiveness, and he himself was elevated to Rostov metropolitan. The service people had their allowance doubled, the landowners were given land allotments - all at the expense of land and money confiscations from the monasteries. In the south of the country, taxes were abolished for 10 years, and the practice of cultivating “tithe arable land” was also stopped. However, the new tsar needed money, in particular for wedding payments and gifts, to reward the “faithful” - so after the coup, many boyars and okolnichy were paid double salaries, as well as for the upcoming campaign against the Turks. Therefore, in other regions of the country, tax collections increased significantly, which led to the outbreak of unrest. The new tsar, unable or unwilling to act by force, made concessions to the rebels - the peasants were allowed to leave the landowner if he did not feed them during the famine, hereditary registration as a slave was prohibited, moreover, the slave had to serve only those to whom voluntarily “sold himself out”, thereby moving more quickly to the position of a mercenary. The economic situation of the country improved, but was still unstable - realizing this, False Dmitry tried to correct the situation by imposing yasak on the Siberian Ostyaks and Tatars.

Bribery was prohibited by law, and the period for prosecution of fugitives was set at five years. All peasants who fled a year before the start of the “hunger years” or after them, or those who fled during the famine, seizing their property, that is, not for the purpose of saving their lives, were subject to return. Those who fled during the famine were assigned to a new landowner, who fed them in difficult times. The law did not include those who managed to move more than 200 miles from their previous place of residence. Putivl, which provided enormous services to the future king, was exempt from all taxes for 10 years, but the Consolidated Code of Law, which was supposed to include new laws, however, was not completed.

Dmitry allegedly once remarked that There are two ways to reign, by mercy and generosity or by severity and executions; I chose the first method; I made a vow to God not to shed the blood of my subjects and I will fulfill it. It was also noted that he cut off anyone who wanted to flatter him by speaking ill of Boris’s rule. In this case, Dmitry noticed to the flatterer that he, like everyone else, “put Boris on the throne,” but now he is blaspheming.

To reduce abuses in the collection of taxes, Dmitry obliged the “lands” themselves to send the corresponding amounts to the capital with elected people. The bribe-takers were ordered to be led around the city with a purse of money, furs, pearls - or even salted fish - what the bribe was taken with - hung around their necks, and beaten with sticks. The nobles were spared corporal punishment, but were forced to pay large fines for the same crimes.

The new tsar changed the composition of the Duma, introducing representatives of the highest clergy as permanent members, and from now on ordered the Duma to be called the “Senate”. During his short reign, the king attended meetings almost every day and participated in disputes and decisions on state affairs. On Wednesdays and Saturdays he gave audiences, received petitions and often walked around the city, communicating with artisans, merchants, and ordinary people.

He introduced the Polish ranks of swordsman, podchashy, and podskarbiya into the kingdom of Moscow, and he himself accepted the title of emperor or Caesar. Dmitry's "secret office" consisted exclusively of Poles - these were captains Maciej Domaracki, Mikhail Sklinsky, Stanislav Borsha and the tsar's personal secretaries Jan Buchinsky, Stanislav Slonsky and Lipnitsky. The department of the “secret chancellery” included issues of the king’s personal expenses and his whims, as well as religious issues. According to the mercenary Jacob Margeret, False Dmitry tried to introduce absolute autocracy in Russia. The introduction of foreigners and people of other faiths into the royal palace, as well as the fact that the king established a foreign guard in his person, which was supposed to ensure his personal safety, removing the Russian royal guard from between him, outraged many.

He also provided patronage to the printer “Andronov, son of Nevezhin,” who on July 5, 1605 began printing the “Apostle” in “His Majesty’s royal drukarna.” The work was successfully completed on March 18, 1606.

Foreign policy

Dmitry removed obstacles to leaving the state and moving within it; the British, who were in Moscow at that time, noticed that no European state had ever known such freedom. In most of his actions, some modern historians recognize False Dmitry as an innovator who sought to Europeanize the state. This was reflected even in his title (he himself signed as emperor, albeit with errors - “in perator”, although his official title was different: “ We, the most illustrious and invincible Monarch Dmitry Ivanovich, by the grace of God, Caesar and Grand Duke of all Russia, and all the Tatar kingdoms and many other regions conquered by the Moscow monarchy, Sovereign and Tsar»).

At the same time, Dmitry began planning a war with the Turks, planning to strike Azov and annex the mouth of the Don to Muscovy, and ordered new mortars, cannons, and rifles to be cast at the Cannon Yard. He himself trained the archers in cannon work and storming earthen fortresses, and, according to the recollections of his contemporaries, he climbed the ramparts, despite the fact that he was unceremoniously pushed, knocked down and crushed.

That same winter, having enlisted the help of the Don Army, he sent nobleman G. Akinfov to Yelets with orders to strengthen the Yelets Kremlin. Siege and field artillery were also sent there, and warehouses for equipment and food were created. It was ordered to build ships on the Vorona River, a tributary of the Don. An embassy was sent to Crimea with a declaration of war. Dmitry himself was planning to go to Yelets in the spring and spend the whole summer with the army.

Governors were sent to the counties to conduct noble reviews. Part of the Novgorod militia, which consisted of nobles and boyar children, was summoned to Moscow for a campaign against Azov. They were also ordered to take with them the petitions of the landowners of their volost.

That same winter, in the village of Vyazemy near Moscow, a snow fortress was built, which “their” princes and boyars were assigned to defend, and foreigners under the leadership of the tsar himself were supposed to storm. The weapons for both sides were snowballs. The game, however, unfolded somewhat differently from what Dmitry wanted - the boyars were outraged that the tsar took foreigners under his command, and they allegedly hid small stones inside the snowballs and thus “gave black eyes to the Russians.” Despite the fact that the fortress was safely taken and the governor was captured by the Tsar personally, one of the boyars warned Dmitry that it was not worth continuing - the Russians were angry, and many had long knives hidden under their dresses. The fun could end in bloodshed.

At the same time, he began to look for allies in the West, especially the Pope and the Polish king; the proposed alliance was also supposed to include the German emperor, the French king and the Venetians. The diplomatic activity of the impostor was aimed at this and at recognizing him as the “Emperor of Moscow.” But he never received serious support due to his refusal to fulfill earlier promises to cede lands and support the Catholic faith.

He told the Polish ambassador Korwin-Gonsiewski that he could not, as previously promised, make territorial concessions to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - instead, he offered to repay the help with money. Jesuits were also denied entry, and while Catholics were indeed granted freedom of religion, this was also done for Christians of other persuasions - particularly Protestants. Plans for war against Sweden also did not come true - perhaps due to the resistance of the Duma boyars.

In December 1605, according to the memoirs of the Polish hetman Zolkiewski, the Swede Peter Petrey was sent to Poland with a secret order to inform Sigismund about Dmitry's imposture, and thus finally leave him without the help of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. There is an opinion that Petrei verbally conveyed to the king the confession of the nun Martha, who had lost interest in the impostor after he ordered the secret destruction of Dmitry’s grave in Uglich. But this is just an assumption, it is thoroughly known that Petreius fulfilled his instructions, but the king, maintaining his composure, forbade him, under pain of death, to disclose such information.

Soon after Petrei, the son of the boyar Ivan Bezobrazov arrived in Warsaw with the same order. His mission was also facilitated by the fact that the impostor once maintained relations with magnates who were dissatisfied with Sigismund III himself, among others, with the Krakow governor Nikolai Zebrzydovsky, the Stadnitskys, who were related to Mniszek’s relatives, and others who offered the Polish crown to False Dmitry himself. Undoubtedly, this factor also played a role.

Dmitry's personal life, his attitude towards religion

According to surviving documents and memoirs, Dmitry did not like monks, directly calling them “parasites” and “hypocrites.” Moreover, he ordered an inventory of the monastery’s possessions to be made and threatened to take away all the “superfluous” and use it to defend the Orthodox faith, not in words, but in deeds. He also did not show fanaticism in religious matters, giving freedom of conscience to his subjects, he explained this by the fact that Catholics and Protestants and Orthodox believe in the same God, the only difference is in the rituals. The latter, in his opinion, are the work of human hands and what one council decided, another can just as easily cancel; moreover, Dmitry’s own secretary, Buchinsky, professed Protestantism.

He reproached those who tried to argue that the essence of faith and its external manifestations are different things. However, taking into account the habits of his subjects, he, in particular, insisted that Marina Mnishek, who arrived in Moscow, perform Orthodox rites outwardly.

They recalled that the new king loved to talk, surprised with his erudition and knowledge, and in disputes often cited facts from the lives of other peoples or stories from his own past as evidence.

He loved to eat, but after dinner he did not sleep, which was not the custom of previous tsars, he did not go to the bathhouse, did not allow himself to be constantly sprinkled with holy water, shocked Muscovites, who were accustomed to the fact that the tsar had to look sedate and walk, led by the arm of his neighbors boyars, because he walked freely around the rooms, so that the bodyguards sometimes could not find him. He loved to walk around the city, look into workshops and start conversations with the first person he met.

He knew how to handle horses very well, went on bear hunts, loved a cheerful life and entertainment. He did not like the gloomy Kremlin Palace, and Dmitry ordered two wooden palaces to be built for himself and his future wife. His personal palace was tall, but small in size and consisted of a huge entrance hall lined with cabinets with silver utensils and four rooms, the floors of which were covered with Persian carpets, the ceilings were covered with carvings, and the stoves were decorated with tiles and silver gratings. Another innovation was music played during dinners. He loved to organize holidays and feasts for the courtiers.

Unlike the previous kings, he abandoned the persecution of buffoons; neither cards, nor chess, nor dancing, nor songs were prohibited.

Near the palace, it was ordered to install a copper statue of Cerberus with a movable jaw, which could open and close with a clicking sound.

One of Dmitry’s weaknesses was women, including the wives and daughters of boyars, who actually became the tsar’s free or involuntary concubines. Among them was even Boris Godunov’s daughter Ksenia, whom, because of her beauty, the Pretender spared during the extermination of the Godunov family, and then kept with him for several months. Later, on the eve of Marina Mnishek’s arrival in Moscow, Dmitry exiled Ksenia to the Vladimir Monastery, where she was tonsured under the name of Olga. In the monastery, according to unreliable rumors, she gave birth to a son.

The diary of the Polish mercenary S. Nemoevsky contains funny anecdotes about situations in which the tsar was caught in petty lies or boasting, and the boyars did not hesitate to say “Sovereign, you lied.” While waiting for the arrival of the Mnishkovs, False Dmitry allegedly forbade them to do this, and the Duma inquired what to do if he lied again. After a short thought, the king, according to Nemoevsky, promised not to do this again.

Conspiracy and murder of Dmitry

The attitude of the people towards the tsar and the second boyar conspiracy

At the same time, a dual situation arose: on the one hand, the people loved him, and on the other, they suspected him of being an impostor. In the winter of 1605, the Chudov monk was captured, publicly declaring that Grishka Otrepyev was sitting on the throne, whom “he himself taught to read and write.” The monk was tortured, but without achieving anything, he was drowned in the Moscow River along with several of his comrades. Perhaps Polish sources tell the same story differently - if you believe them, one of the priests or servants of the family was bribed royal temple. This man had to poison the cup of church wine before serving it to the king.

In the spring of 1606, it became known that an army of rebellious Cossacks, led by Ileika Muromets, was coming to Moscow from the Don, posing as the never-existent Tsarevich Pyotr Fedorovich, the “grandson” of Tsar Ivan. The nobleman Tretyak Yurlov was sent from Moscow to the rebels with a letter. Sources differ in what this letter contained - according to the Poles, Dmitry invited the false prince to himself, promising possessions (perhaps he considered the Donets as a force that would help him retain the throne), according to the “interrogation speeches” of Ileika himself - the letter was written in very evasive terms, and invited the impostor “if he is a true prince” to come to Moscow and provide evidence of this, if not, not to bother anyone else with his harassment. One way or another, the false Peter was late - he appeared in Moscow the day after the death of Tsar Dmitry.

Almost from the first day, a wave of discontent swept through the capital due to the tsar’s failure to observe church fasts and violation of Russian customs in clothing and life, his disposition towards foreigners, his promise to marry a Polish woman and the planned war with Turkey and Sweden. At the head of the dissatisfied were Vasily Shuisky, Vasily Golitsyn, Prince Kurakin and the most conservative representatives of the clergy - Kazan Metropolitan Hermogenes and Kolomna Bishop Joseph. What irritated the people was that the tsar, the more clearly he mocked Muscovite prejudices, dressed in foreign clothes and seemed to deliberately tease the boyars, ordering them to serve veal, which the Russians did not eat. In connection with this, he made himself another enemy - Mikhail Tatishchev, said some kind of impudence to him about this, the tsar flared up and ordered him to be exiled to Vyatka and there “kept in stocks, hiding his name” - however, he immediately came to his senses, and (perhaps under pressure from nearby boyars) canceled his order. But this could not change anything - from that day Tatishchev joined Shuisky and his people.

The great boyars were disadvantaged by the number of “artistic” people exalted by the new tsar, including the queen’s relatives, Nagiye, and several clerks who received the rank of okolnichy. It is believed that Vasily Shuisky did not hide his true thoughts, directly expressing himself in the circle of conspirators that Dmitry was “placed on the throne” for the sole purpose of overthrowing the Godunovs, and now the time has come to overthrow him himself.

To kill the tsar, the archers and the killer of Fyodor Godunov, Sherefedinov, were hired. On January 8, 1606, breaking into the palace, an unorganized detachment of conspirators prematurely gave themselves away, causing noise and commotion, the attempt failed, and if Sherefedinov managed to escape, seven of his henchmen were captured.

Dmitry from the Red Porch reproached the Moscow people for being “innocently” reproached with imposture - while his guarantee was the recognition of his mother and the supreme boyars. He said that during his short life, he “didn’t spare his belly” for the happiness of his subjects. Those present fell to their knees and tearfully swore their innocence. The seven conspirators, brought out onto the porch by Pyotr Basmanov, were torn to pieces by the crowd immediately after the tsar left for the inner chambers.

Wedding

Fulfilling his promise to marry Marina Mnishek, Dmitry sent clerk Afanasy Vlasyev to Poland, and on November 12, in the presence of King Sigismund, he performed a betrothal ceremony with her, at which he represented the royal groom. The Tsar’s personal secretary, Buchinsky, went with him to Poland with a secret order to obtain special permission from the papal nuncio for Marina.” so that her grace Panna Marina receives communion at our patriarch’s mass, because without that there will be no wedding“as well as permission to eat meat on Wednesday and baked meat on Saturday - as follows from Orthodox customs. Marina herself was ordered to “not dress up her hair” and allow herself to be served at the table by the crooks.

It is sometimes believed that additional factor What determined the impatience of the royal groom was the Polish army, on whose devotion he hastened to rely, feeling the fragility of his position. Dmitry persistently invited Marina and her father to Moscow, but Yuri Mnishek chose to wait, probably not being absolutely sure that the future son-in-law was firmly on the throne.

He finally decided to go on a trip in the spring of 1606, alarmed by rumors that the flighty Dmitry had not let Ksenia Godunova go from him for several months. " Because, - wrote Yuri Mnishek, - the famous princess, Boris’s daughter, is close to you, please, heeding the advice of prudent people, move her away from you." The condition was fulfilled, in addition, about 200 thousand zlotys and 6 thousand gold doubloons were sent to Sambir as wedding gifts.

On April 24, 1606, together with Yuri Mnisch and his daughter, the Poles arrived in Moscow - about 2 thousand people - noble nobles, lords, princes and their retinue for which Dmitry additionally allocated huge sums for gifts, in particular, only one jewelry box received by Marina in as a wedding gift it cost about 500 thousand gold rubles, and another 100 thousand were sent to Poland to pay off debts. The ambassadors were presented with purebred horses, golden washstands, a forged gold chain, 13 glasses, 40 sable skins and 100 gold coins. Two tents were pitched for Marina and her retinue near Moscow; for entry, the tsar gave his bride a carriage decorated with silver and images of the royal coats of arms. The carriage was harnessed to 12 dapple-gray horses, and each was led by the tsar’s henchmen. The future queen was greeted by the governors, princes and crowds of Moscow people, as well as an orchestra of tambourines and trumpets. Before the wedding, Marina was supposed to remain in the Resurrection Monastery with Queen Martha. Complaining that she couldn’t bear the “Moscow food,” Marina got the Tsar to send Polish cooks and kitchen servants to her. Dinners, balls and celebrations followed one after another.

The wedding was initially scheduled for May 4, 1606, but then postponed, since it was necessary to develop a ritual for Marina to at least externally accept Orthodoxy. Patriarch Ignatius, obedient to the tsar, rejected Metropolitan Hermogenes’ demand for the baptism of a Catholic woman; moreover, Hermogenes was punished. False Dmitry asked the Pope for special permission to give communion and anointing of the bride according to the Greek rite, but received a categorical refusal. Confirmation - as a rite replacing Marina's conversion to Orthodoxy - was decided to be carried out after all.

On May 8, 1606, Marina Mniszech was crowned queen and the marriage took place. According to her own recollections, Marina went to the coronation in a sleigh donated by the groom with a silver harness, upholstered in velvet, decorated with pearls, and completely lined with sables. A red brocade carpet led into the church, the Tsar and Tsarina, dressed “in Moscow style” in cherry velvet decorated with pearls, kissed the crown and cross three times, after which Marina received confirmation “according to the Greek rite” and was crowned. She was also given symbols of power - a scepter and a cross. When leaving the church, as was customary, money was thrown into the crowd, which ended in an inevitable crush and fight. The words of False Dmitry, spoken by him to his secretary Buchinsky, have been preserved: “ I had great fear at that time, because according to Orthodox law, the bride must first be baptized, and then lead her to church, but an unbaptized heterodox woman cannot even enter the church, and most of all I was afraid that the bishops would become stubborn and would not bless her with peace won't anoint».

On May 9, Nikola’s day, a wedding feast was scheduled against all traditions, which continued the next day, with the tsar treating the boyars to Polish dishes and again to veal, which was considered “filthy food” in Moscow. This caused a dull murmur, to which the impostor did not pay attention. On the same day, to the indignation of Muscovites, a Lutheran pastor gave a sermon in front of the foreign guards (which was previously only allowed in the German Settlement).

During the multi-day celebration, during which up to 68 musicians played in the chambers, Dmitry retired from state affairs, and at this time the arriving Poles broke into Moscow houses in a drunken revelry, rushed at women, robbed passers-by, the master's haiduks were especially distinguished, in a drunken stupor shooting into the air and yelling that the king was no guide to them, since they themselves had put him on the throne. The conspirators decided to take advantage of this.

Murder

On May 14, 1606, Vasily Shuisky gathered merchants and servicemen loyal to him, together with whom he drew up a plan of response to the Poles - they marked the houses in which they lived, and decided on Saturday to sound the alarm and call on the people, under the pretext of protecting the tsar, to revolt.

On May 15, Dmitry was informed about this, but he frivolously brushed aside the warning, threatening to punish the informers themselves. It was decided to continue the wedding celebrations, despite the fact that alarming rumors were received from all sides about the muted unrest that had begun. A complaint was filed with Dmitry against one of the Poles who allegedly raped a boyar’s daughter. The investigation yielded nothing.

The next day, a ball was given in the new royal palace, during which an orchestra of forty musicians played, and the king and his courtiers danced and had fun. After the end of the holiday, Dmitry went to his wife in her unfinished palace, and several servants and musicians settled down in the entryway. The Germans again tried to warn the tsar about the impending conspiracy, but he again waved it off, saying, “This is nonsense, I don’t want to hear it.”

That same night, Shuisky, in the name of the tsar, reduced the German guards in the palace from 100 to 30 people, ordered the prisons to be opened and issued weapons to the crowd.

On May 17, 1606, at dawn, by order of Shuisky, the alarm bell sounded on Ilyinka, other sextons also began to ring, not yet knowing what was going on. Shuisky, Golitsyn, Tatishchev entered Red Square, accompanied by about 200 people armed with sabers, reeds and spears. Shuisky shouted that “Lithuania” was trying to kill the Tsar, and demanded that the townspeople rise up in his defense. The trick did its job, excited Muscovites rushed to beat and rob the Poles.

Shuisky entered the Kremlin through the Spassky Gate, with a sword in one hand and a cross in the other. Having dismounted near the Assumption Cathedral, he venerated the image of Vladimir Mother of God, and then ordered the crowd to “go after the evil heretic.”

Awakened by the ringing of bells, Dmitry rushed to his palace, where Dmitry Shuisky told him that Moscow was burning. Dmitry tried to return to his wife to calm her down and then go to the fire, but the crowd was already breaking down the doors, sweeping away the German halberdiers. Basmanov, the last one left with the tsar, opened the window, demanded an answer, and heard: “ Give us your thief, then talk to us».

The episode with clerk Timofey Osipov, who was entrusted with the responsibility of bringing the Moscow people to the new queen, dates back to this time. The clerk, preparing for the inevitable, imposed a fast on himself and received Holy Communion twice, after which, entering the royal bedchamber, he allegedly declared to the king: You order yourself to be written in titles and charters as the invincible Caesar, otherwise that word, according to our Christian law, is rude and disgusting to our Lord Jesus Christ: and you are a true thief and a heretic, defrocked Grishka Otrepiev, and not Tsarevich Dimitri. However, there is an opinion that this whole story is nothing more than a patriotic legend, and Osipov entered the palace to stab Dmitry in his sleep; he did not have time to make speeches. One way or another, it is thoroughly known that Timofey was killed by Pyotr Basmanov, his corpse was thrown out of the window.

Further, as eyewitnesses said, in the confusion, not finding his sword, Dmitry snatched the halberd from one of the guards and approached the doors shouting: “Get out! I’m not Boris!” Basmanov went down to the porch and tried to persuade the crowd to disperse, but Tatishchev stabbed him in the heart.

Dmitry locked the door when the conspirators began to break it, rushed to run along the corridor and climbed out the window, trying to go down the scaffolding to hide in the crowd, but he stumbled and fell from a height of 15 fathoms into the living yard, where he was picked up by the archers who were on guard. The king was unconscious, with a sprained leg and a broken chest. The archers doused him with water, and when he came to his senses, he asked for protection from the conspirators, promising them the estates and property of the rebel boyars, as well as the families of the rebels - into servitude. The archers carried him in their arms into the devastated and robbed palace, where they tried to protect him from the conspirators who were eager to complete what they had started. In response, the henchmen of Tatishchev and Shuisky began to threaten the archers to kill their wives and children if they did not hand over the “thief.”

Some German tried to give the Tsar alcohol to maintain his consciousness, but was killed for this. The Sagittarius hesitated and demanded that Queen Martha once again confirm that Dmitry was her son, otherwise, “God is willing to have him.” The conspirators were forced to agree, but while the messenger went to Marfa for an answer, they, with abuse and threats, demanded that Dmitry tell him his real name, rank and the name of his father - but Dmitry, until the last moment, insisted that he was the son of Grozny, and his guarantee his mother's word to that. They tore off his royal dress and dressed him in some rags, poked his fingers in his eyes and pulled his ears.

The returning messenger, Prince Ivan Vasilyevich Golitsyn, shouted that Martha replied that her son had been killed in Uglich, after which shouts and threats were heard from the crowd, the boyar’s son Grigory Valuev jumped forward and shot point-blank, saying: “What to talk about with a heretic: here I bless the Polish whistler! Dmitry was finished off with swords and halberds.

Posthumous desecration

The bodies of the murdered Tsar and Basmanov were dragged through the Frolovsky (Spassky) Gate to Red Square and their clothes were removed. Having reached the Ascension Monastery, the crowd again demanded an answer from the nun Martha - whether this was her son. According to contemporaries, she gave an ambiguous answer - You would have asked me when he was alive, but now that you killed him, he is no longer mine, according to other sources, she answered briefly - Not mine.

It was decided to subject the bodies to the so-called. "trade execution". During the first day, they lay in the mud in the middle of the market, where the chopping block had once been placed for Shuisky. On the second day, a table or counter was brought from the market, and Dmitry’s body was placed on it. A mask, one of those that the Tsar himself prepared for the court carnival, was thrown onto his chest (or, according to other sources, onto his torn stomach); a pipe was stuck in his mouth; Basmanov's corpse was thrown under the table. The Muscovites’ abuse of the body lasted for three days - they sprinkled it with sand, smeared it with tar and “all sorts of abominations.” Jacques Margeret, a mercenary in Russian service, recalled these events as follows:

Among Muscovites, the regicide caused a mixed reaction; many cried at the desecration. In order to stop any pity for the “defrocking”, it was announced that the mask on his chest was an idol, “muzzle,” which he worshiped during his lifetime. Here they read aloud a “letter” about the life of Grigory Otrepiev in the monastery and his escape; According to rumors, Otrepyev’s younger brother, who looked very much like the former tsar, was also brought to the square. Then Basmanov was buried near the Church of St. Nicholas the Mokroy, and Dmitry was buried in the so-called. “a wretched house”, a cemetery for those who were drunk or frozen, outside the Serpukhov Gate.

Immediately after the funeral, unusually severe frosts struck, destroying the grass in the fields and the already sown grain. Rumors spread throughout the city that the magic of the former monk was to blame; they also said that “the dead man walks.” and lights flash and move above the grave by themselves, and singing and the sounds of tambourines are heard. Rumors began to circulate around Moscow that something had happened here. evil spirits And " the demons praise me for taking off my hair." They also whispered that the next day after the burial, the body of its own accord ended up at the almshouse, and two pigeons sat next to it, unwilling to fly away. The “undressed” corpse, as legends say, tried to bury it deeper, but a week later it again found itself in another cemetery, that is, “the earth did not accept it,” however, just as fire did not accept it, according to rumors, it was impossible to burn the corpse. Nevertheless, Dmitry’s body was dug up, burned and, after mixing ashes with gunpowder, they fired from a cannon in the direction from which he came - towards Poland. According to the memoirs of Marina Mnishek, at this time the “last miracle” happened - when the corpse of the “undressed” was dragged through the Kremlin gates, the wind tore off the shields from the gates, and installed them unharmed in the same order in the middle of the road.

The image of False Dmitry I in culture

In folklore

In the people's memory, the image of “Grishka-Strikrizhka” is preserved in several ballads and fairy tales, where he invariably appears in the role of a sorcerer, a warlock, who, with the help of evil spirits, seized power over Moscow. In particular, in the folk tale about “Grishka” recorded by S. M. Arbelev, the impostor “teaches” Marina not to accept Orthodoxy and to despise the Moscow boyars, and during the service he goes with her to the “soaphouse”, for which he is punished.

There is also a well-known song about Grishka the blasphemer:

And he lays down local icons for himself,
And he puts wonderful crosses under his heels.
And the option where he tries to make “demonic wings” for himself in order to fly away from the inevitable and well-deserved punishment.
And I’ll do the devilish porch,
I'll fly away like a devil!
Popular rumor also makes Grishka the murderer of the young prince - of course, with the goal of freeing the throne for himself.
It was not the fierce snake that was extolled,
Great wickedness was exalted.
Cunning fell on Tsar Dmitry's white chest.
They killed Tsar Dmitry in festivities, at games,
Grishka the Undressed killed him,
Having killed him, he sat on the kingdom himself.

in one more folk story Grishka the monk, disillusioned with life, goes to drown himself on the Moscow River, where Satan stops him and promises any earthly blessings for the soul of the future impostor. He agrees and chooses the “Kingdom of Moscow” for himself.

A more complete version of the same story is given by E. Arsenyev in the novel “Lady Tsarina.” According to this version, the unclean one, having received from the impostor a document signed in blood, on which the date of execution was accidentally or deliberately not put, uses sorcery to force the King of Poland to believe the applicant, and with the same sorcery “averts the eyes” of the Muscovites, forcing them to see the long-dead prince in the impostor. However, False Dmitry makes a mistake by trying to introduce the “Lithuanian heresy” instead of Orthodoxy in Moscow. In response to the prayers of frightened Muscovites, the demonic fog dissipates, and everyone sees who is really in front of them.

The song “Grishka Rastrigin” recorded by P. N. Rybakov explains that for the sake of visible resemblance to the royal son, who had a “sign” on his chest:

And this is Grishka - Rostrizhka Otrepiev’s son,
I was in prison for exactly thirty years,
The cross has grown into his white chest,
That's what the dog was called, the direct king,
Direct Tsar, Tsar Mitrius,
Tsarevich Mitri of Moscow.
And then the familiar motif of magic appears again:
Grishka stands with his hair cut, son Otrepiev
Against the crystal mirror,
He holds a magic book in his hands,
Grishka's haircut, Otrepiev's son, is magical...

In one of the later epics recorded in the Russian North, “Grishka the bobbed-haired spirit,” who acquired power as a result of the “demonic wedding with Marinka,” takes the place of Koshchei, and Ivan Godinovich fights with him.

In the author's work

• In books dedicated to the reign of Boris Godunov or the beginning of the Time of Troubles, the image of the first impostor always appears.

• The image of False Dmitry I appears in Lope de Vega’s play “The Grand Duke of Moscow or the Persecuted Emperor,” however, the Spanish playwright treated it very freely with Russian history- supported by Jesuits and Catholic Poles, False Dmitry is portrayed as a true prince who suffered from intrigues, the reason for which is the Catholic position of the writer.

• False Dmitry I appears as main character in the poetic tragedies of A. P. Sumarokov (1771) and A. S. Khomyakov (1832), bearing the same name (“Dimitri the Pretender”), one of the last, considered unsuccessful in the work of A. N. Ostrovsky, is also dedicated to him , play “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky” (1886).

• In A. S. Pushkin’s play “Boris Godunov,” False Dmitry appears as an adventurer who knows the value of his “royal name,” but at the same time risks for the sake of the Russian throne out of love for Marina Mnishek.

• The same plot was reflected in M. P. Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov,” written based on Pushkin’s drama, and in two films with the same name (directed by Vera Stroeva, 1954, and Sergei Bondarchuk, 1986).

• He is also the main character of Antonin Dvořák’s opera “Dimitri” (1881-1882) and Schiller’s unfinished drama of the same name.

• The American historian and novelist Harold Lamb dedicated one of his novels of the “Cossack cycle” entitled “The Master of the Wolves” (1933) to False Dmitry. In this novel, written in the genre of “alternative history,” the demonic False Dmitry manages to escape death on Red Square and disappear into the Ukrainian steppes, pursued by the Cossack he once deceived.

• The death of the impostor is described by Rainer Maria Rilke in her only novel, “The Notes of Malthe Laurids Brigge” (1910).

• In the work of Marina Tsvetaeva (the “Marina” cycle), the theme of the impostor’s love for Marina Mnishek is heard.

• Boris Akunin's work "Children's Book", the plot of which is based on time travel, describes fantastic events where the active and pragmatic False Dmitry I is a pioneer of the 60s of the 20th century, who fell into the past through a mysterious chronohole.

Mikhail Goldenkov

"Analytical newspaper "Secret Research"

The historiography of any state is always more or less subjective. She always reflects a view of her own country in the prism of the existing government. This is, in principle, a normal process that affects absolutely all states in one way or another. But with the growth and strengthening of democratic principles European countries they get rid of an overly nationalistic and subjective view of their own history, trying to be more objective on the one hand, and not to forget about patriotism on the other. Naturally, historical stories written in the old days of kings, wars and empires for regimes that have long since collapsed are either thrown into the historical dustbin or radically changed.

NEEDED MYTH?

But here’s an amazing thing - the myth of False Dmitry, or rather its essence, composed to please the Romanov tsars alone, justifying their seizure of power, has long been needed by neither Russia, nor Poland, nor Belarus and Ukraine, for there are neither the Romanovs nor the “hated Poles” " But this myth about the so-called Pretender strangely still exists, it has even been restored recently, going against both world history and the history of Poland, where they do not know any Polish invaders, about whom Russian historians continue to write and film films by Russian directors... Moreover, the murky history of the 1612 struggle for power of various groups of Muscovy and the expulsion of the prince Vladislav, legally chosen by the Seven Boyars, who united Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians and Poles, was decided to be celebrated annually in the Kremlin as a kind of holiday of unity (!?) of the Russian nation...

As for the personality of False Dmitry, there is a complete anomaly here: firstly, he was not a Pole and had nothing to do with Poland, just as no Poland provided him with any help, and secondly, historians are still not sure Who exactly was this man who pretended to be the allegedly murdered Tsarevich Dmitry? Many historians agree that False Dmitry was the real saved prince, for he was recognized by many, even his mother. But the version of... Boris Godunov was selected for textbooks! But Godunov is an enemy of False Dmitry, who could not say anything good about his rival. And until complete clarity has arrived, it is more than incorrect to write “False Dmitry” in textbooks, as if the compilers of the textbook know more than others. The authoritative Russian historian of the 19th century, Kostomarov, simply called him Dimitri, believing that he could in fact be a prince.

Why do such strange anomalies continue to occur in a seemingly democratic new Russia? Who still needs this myth about Polish intervention, which is clearly outdated for Russia? Why tease the neighboring Slavic countries with a red rag and blame something they didn’t do on their heads?

VERSIONS

Now, using a simple sports method, we will try to figure out who the so-called “False Dmitry” was. This is actually not difficult to do. You just need to reconsider all the real versions of the origin of Tsar Dmitry and gradually discard the least provable and most tendentious versions. First, let’s deal with Dmitry’s supposed “Polish roots” and purely Polish support for his campaign. This version, let’s make a reservation right away, is the weakest, but let’s start with it nonetheless.

Even the official version states that the man who pretended to be the surviving son of Tsar Ivan IV Dmitry was called Grigory (Yuri) Otrepyev, i.e. he was clearly not a Pole, but an Orthodox Russian, who wrote in Polish and Latin with terrible errors, just like The Polish king refused to support his mission, and the lords of Poland generally refused to recognize him. But for some reason, the Polishness of this entire campaign seemed to be an undeniable matter for most of the historical literature of Russia. And False Dmitry-Otrepiev, and especially his army, are still called Pole, Poles. Otrepiev in Russian culture - literature, opera, paintings - has become an openly negative figure.

Historians have always sought to emphasize the supposedly ugly appearance of False Dmitry: “Judging by the surviving portraits and descriptions of contemporaries, the applicant was short, rather clumsy, had a round and ugly face (he was especially disfigured by two large warts on his forehead and cheek), red hair and dark hair. Blue eyes. Although of small stature, he was disproportionately broad in the shoulders, had a short “bull” neck, and arms of different lengths. Contrary to the Russian custom of wearing a beard and mustache, he had neither.”

It’s strange, what did historians see so ugly in the quite attractive features of the portraits of False Dmitry during his lifetime? As a rule, they show a fairly handsome young man, with a neat haircut and clean shaven. He is absolutely European in appearance. And why is not having a beard suddenly bad? It’s probably “very beautiful” when an unkempt, stinking beard sticks out like a shovel (according to contemporaries’ notes, the remains of week-old sauerkraut were often found in it), and the person looks like a robber from a dense forest.

On the other hand, even serious Russian historians believed that Grigory Otrepyev was in fact the surviving Tsarevich Dmitry, hiding in monasteries and in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (in Belarus).

The real Tsarevich Dmitry, whom Otrepyev pretended to be, is considered to have died in Uglich in 1591 under circumstances that have not yet been clarified - from a knife wound to the throat. His mother accused “Boris’s people” Danila Bityagovsky and Nikita Kachalov, who were in Uglich, of murdering nine-year-old Dmitry, who were immediately torn to pieces by the crowd that rang the alarm.

Soon after the death of the Tsarevich, a government commission headed by Prince Vasily Shuisky came to Uglich, which, after interrogating many dozens of witnesses (the investigative file was preserved), came to the conclusion that it was an accident: the Tsarevich allegedly pierced his throat with a knife, playing “poke” when with him an epileptic seizure occurred. There is no information that the prince previously had epileptic seizures, except in the case. This gave rise to rumors that the seizure was made up, just as the whole accident was made up. They composed it in order to protect and hide the prince from Godunov, who wanted to kill him.

Even the Russian historian Kostomarov wrote that it was easier to hide Dmitry than to kill him, believing that False Dmitry could well have been saved by the prince.

And then in 1602 Dmitry appeared! A certain guy named Grigory, or Yuri for short, and with the last name Otrepiev “opened up” to the Ukrainian tycoon Adam Vishnevetsky, admitting that he was the surviving Tsarevich Dmitry.

The government of Boris Godunov, having received news of the appearance in Poland (and the entire Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was indiscriminately called Poland, although Poland itself did not constitute even a quarter of the territory) of a person called Tsarevich Dimitri, sent letters to the Polish king Sigismund about who exactly this person was.

It was written that Yuri was a year or two older than Tsarevich Dmitry. He was born in Galich (Kostroma volost). Yuri's father, Bogdan, was forced to rent land from Nikita Romanovich Zakharyin (grandfather of the future Tsar Mikhail), whose estate was located right next door. The father died in a drunken brawl when both sons, Yuri and his younger brother Vasily, were still small, so his widow was in charge of raising his sons. The child turned out to be very capable, he easily learned to read and write, and his success was such that it was decided to send him to Moscow, where he later entered the service of Mikhail Nikitich Romanov.

Fleeing from the “death penalty” during the reprisal against the Romanov circle, Otrepiev took monastic vows at the Zheleznoborkovsky Monastery, located not far from his parents’ estate. However, the simple and unpretentious life of a provincial monk did not attract him: after wandering around monasteries, he eventually returned to the capital, where, under the patronage of his grandfather Elizary Zamyatny, he entered the aristocratic Chudov Monastery. There, a competent monk is quickly noticed, and he becomes a “deacon of the cross”: he is engaged in copying books and is present as a scribe in the sovereign Duma.

It is there, according to the official version put forward by Godunov, that the future applicant begins preparations for his role. Later, if you believe the official version, the “monk Grishka” begins to very imprudently boast that he will one day take the royal throne. The Rostov Metropolitan Jonah brings this boast to the royal ears, and Boris orders the monk to be exiled to the remote Cyril Monastery, but the clerk Smirna-Vasiliev, who was entrusted with this, at the request of another clerk Semyon Efimiev, postponed the execution of the order, and then completely forgot about it. And no one knows who, warned by Gregory, flees to Galich, then to Murom, to the Boris and Gleb Monastery and further - on a horse received from the abbot, through Moscow to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where he declares himself a “miraculously saved prince.”

It is noted that this flight suspiciously coincides with the time of the defeat of the “Romanov circle”; it is also noted that Otrepyev was patronized by someone strong enough to save him from arrest and give him time to escape. Otrepyev himself, while in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, once made a slip that he was helped by clerk Vasily Shchelkalov, who was also persecuted by Tsar Boris.

This royal story about Otrepievo, repeated later by the government of Tsar Vasily Shuisky, included in most of the Russian chronicles and legends and based mainly on the testimony or “Izveta” of Varlaam, was at first completely accepted by historians. Miller, Shcherbatov, Karamzin, Artsybashev identified False Dmitry I with Grigory Otrepiev completely, without any questions. Among the new historians, such an identification was defended by S. M. Solovyov (a pro-tsarist historian) and P. S. Kazansky, and the latter is no longer without some doubts.

THE KING IS REAL!

However, suspicions about the correctness of such statements - that False Dmitry and Otrepiev are the same person - arose quite early. For the first time such a doubt was expressed by Metropolitan Plato (“Brief Church History”). Then they more definitely denied the identity of False Dmitry and A.F. Otrepyev. Malinovsky, M.P. Pogodin and Ya.I. Berednikov.

The version of the illegitimate son of the former Polish king of Hungarian blood, Stefan Batory, was put forward by Konrad Bussov, a German mercenary in the Moscow service, another eyewitness of the Time of Troubles. According to him, the intrigue began in Moscow, among the nobility dissatisfied with Boris’s rule. The same Otrepiev, according to Bussov, gave the impostor he trained a pectoral cross with the name of Dimitri and subsequently recruited people for him in the Wild Field.

Modern followers of the theory about Dmitry’s Polish origins pay attention to his “too easy” entry into the country, as well as his supposedly “non-Moscow” dialect, despite the fact that, according to surviving information, he did not speak Polish fluently at all, but wrote at all with terrible mistakes.

The Polish line crumbles like ashes. The Moscow dialect is not an indicator of Russianness, just as the Moscow dialect is not an indicator of Polishness. The classical Russian language of the 17th century remains Kyiv, followed by dialects: Lithuanian or Litvinian, also known as Lithuanian-Russian (Old Belarusian), Great Russian (Novgorod), Rusyn Carpathian, and only then Muscovite. We should not forget who “easily” introduced Dmitry-Grigory Otrepiev into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: the tycoon Vishnevetsky, who himself was able to enter any door of the “republic of both peoples.”

Opponents of Otrepyev’s Polishness, in turn, rightly point out that False Dmitry I, whoever he was, wrote with horrific errors in Polish and Latin, which at that time was a mandatory subject for any educated Pole. In particular, the word “emperor” in Dmitry’s letter turned into “inparatur”, and the Latin speech of Nuncio Rangoni in Krakow, when meeting with the king and the nuncio himself, he had to translate. But the fact is that any citizen of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, monk, merchant, just a city dweller and especially a nobleman could easily speak Polish and Latin, be he a Ruthenian (Ukrainian) or a Litvinian (Belarusian) or a Samogitian (Lietuvis).

But the main argument for the fact that Dmitry was not a Pole and not at all the son of Batory is the distrust of him by both the Poles themselves and King Sigismund, and the Pope, who directly compared the “escaped prince” with the false Sebastian of Portugal.

On the other hand, even though Dmitry showed himself on the throne of Moscow as a typical European tolerant leader, his letter to Patriarch Job also attracts attention, richly equipped with Church Slavonicisms (which indicates the church education of its author) and observations that, it is believed, could be made only by a person personally acquainted with the patriarch. That is, Dmitry was still a Muscovite, most likely having received a good education in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - which is why he did not speak the Moscow dialect - but still a Muscovite.

Critics of identifying False Dmitry with Otrepiev draw attention to Dmitry’s “European education,” which would be difficult to expect from a simple monk, to his ability to ride a horse and easily wield a horse and saber. But this could have happened, again, if Otrepyev had spent some time in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where any nobleman knew how to handle a saber and a horse. And he, Dmitry-Otrepiev, spent his time studying in Goshcha (Belarus) at the Arian school. Arianism is a branch of the Protestant faith, recognized in Lithuania itself and especially in Poland as radical. The fact that Dmitry wrote poorly in Polish and Latin is again proof of his either Orthodox or Protestant essence. Lithuanian Protestants did not need to know Latin and Polish well. They prayed in the Old Belarusian language.

And one more version. According to the assumption of N.M. Pavlov, there were two impostors: one (Grigory Otrepiev) was sent by the boyars from Moscow to “Poland”, the other was trained in Poland by the Jesuits, and the latter played the role of Demetrius. This opinion coincides with the opinion of Bussov. But to this, almost all Russian historians say: “This overly artificial assumption is not justified by reliable facts of the history of False Dmitry I and has not been accepted by other historians.” But what did Russian historians themselves accept? Which version? Yes, the most engaged one! Invented by Godunov.

They also note that Otrepiev was quite famous in Moscow, personally acquainted with the patriarch and many of the Duma boyars. In addition, during the reign of the “impostor,” Archimandrite Paphnutius of the Chudov Monastery entered the Kremlin Palace, and it would have cost him nothing to expose Otrepyev. In addition, False Dmitry’s specific appearance (large warts on his face, different lengths of his arms) also made deception more difficult.

Thus, the identification of False Dmitry I with the fugitive monk of the Chudov Monastery Grigory Otrepiev was first put forward as an official version only by the government of Boris Godunov in his correspondence with King Sigismund. Even taking into account Godunov’s partial truth, his version must be treated with extreme caution. But strangely, it was Godunov’s version that ended up in textbooks.

TSAREVICH DMITRY!

The version that the man referred to in historical works as “False Dmitry” was in fact Tsarevich Dmitry, hidden and secretly transported to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, is not only Otrepyev’s version, it also exists, although for some reason it is not popular from the Russians. Although it is quite clear why. Supporters of saving the prince were, among others, historians of the 19th and early 20th centuries A.S. Suvorin, K.N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a similar version was considered acceptable by Kazimir Valishevsky and others. The idea that “it was easier to save than to fake Dimitri” was expressed by Kostomarov.

The fact that Otrepyev is in fact a prince was also confirmed by rumors that began to circulate shortly after the death of Tsarevich Dmitry: a certain boy Istomin was allegedly killed, and the real Dmitry was saved and in hiding. And the words - some strange, ambiguous - of Dmitry's mother after Otrepiev's death in May 1606 suggest that it could really be Tsarevich Dmitry.

From the point of view of supporters of the hypothesis of Dmitry’s rescue, events could look like this: Dmitry was replaced and taken by Afanasy Nagiy to Yaroslavl. Subsequently, he took monastic vows under the name Leonid at the Iron Bork monastery or was taken to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where he was raised by the Jesuits. A certain boy was brought in his place, who was hastily taught to portray an epileptic seizure, and Volokhov’s “mother”, lifting him in her arms, completed the rest.

In order to dispute the fact that the real Dmitry suffered from an “epileptic illness,” which was by no means observed in his deputy, two possible versions are put forward. The first is that the whole story about epilepsy was invented in advance by the queen and her brothers in order to cover up their tracks - as a basis it is indicated that information about this disease is contained only in the materials of the investigative case. The second refers to the fact known in medicine that epileptic seizures can subside on their own for several years, despite the fact that the patient develops a very specific character pattern: a combination of generosity and cruelty, sadness and gaiety, mistrust and excessive gullibility. All this is what Kazimir Waliszewski discovers in the first impostor.

Dmitry's own charters and letters have been preserved, in particular, in the Vatican archives. In a letter addressed to Pope Clement VIII dated April 24, 1604, Dmitry writes that “... fleeing from the tyrant and escaping death, from which the Lord God delivered me in childhood by his wondrous providence, I first lived in the Moscow state itself until a certain time between the Chernets."

A more detailed version is given in his diary by his wife Marina Mnishek. It is believed that this version is closest to how Dmitry described his “miraculous salvation” at the Polish royal court and Yuri Mniszek in Sambir. Marina writes:

“There was a certain doctor there with the Tsarevich, a Vlach (German) by birth. He, having learned about this betrayal, prevented it immediately in this way. He found a child who looked like the prince, took him to his chambers and told him to always talk to the prince and even sleep in the same bed. When that child fell asleep, the doctor, without telling anyone, transferred the prince to another bed. And so he did all this with them for a long time. As a result, when the traitors set out to fulfill their plan and burst into the chambers, finding the prince’s bedroom there, they strangled another child who was in the bed and carried away the body. After which the news of the murder of the prince spread, and a great rebellion began. As soon as this became known, they immediately sent for the traitors in pursuit, several dozen of them were killed and their bodies were taken away.

Meanwhile, that Vlach, seeing how careless Fyodor, the elder brother, was in his affairs, and the fact that he, the equerry Boris, owned all the land, decided that at least not now, but someday this child would face death at the hands of a traitor. He took him secretly and went with him to the Arctic Sea itself and hid him there, passing him off as an ordinary child, without announcing anything to him until his death. Then, before his death, he advised the child not to open up to anyone until he reaches adulthood, and to become a black man. Which, on his advice, the prince did and lived in monasteries.”

Yuri Mnishek retold the same story after his arrest, adding only that the “doctor” gave the rescued prince to be raised by a certain unnamed son of a boyar, and he, having already revealed his true origin to the young man, advised him to hide in a monastery.

The Litvinian nobleman from Samogitia Tovyanovsky already names the doctor - Simon - and adds to the story that it was he who Boris ordered to deal with the prince, but he replaced the boy in bed with a servant:

“Godunov, having undertaken to kill Demetrius, announced his intention as a secret to the prince’s physician, an old German named Simon, who, feigning his word to participate in the crime, asked the nine-year-old Demetrius whether he had enough mental strength to endure exile, disaster and poverty, what if God wants to tempt his strength? The prince answered: “I have!”, and the doctor said: “They want to kill you this night. When you go to bed, exchange linen with a young servant your age; put him on your bed and hide behind the stove: no matter what happens in the room, sit silently and wait for me.”

Dimitri carried out the order. At midnight the door opened; two people entered, stabbed the servant instead of the prince and fled. At dawn they saw blood and a dead man: they thought that the prince had been killed, and told his mother about it. There was an alarm. The queen rushed at the corpse and in despair did not recognize that the dead youth was not her son. The palace was filled with people: they were looking for murderers; they slaughtered the guilty and the innocent; They took the body to the church, and everyone left. The palace was empty, and at dusk the doctor took Dimitri out of there to flee to Ukraine, to Prince Ivan Mstislavsky, who had lived there in exile since the time of John.

A few years later, the doctor and Mstislavsky died, giving advice to Dimitri to seek safety in Lithuania. The young man accosted the traveling monks, was with them in Moscow, in the land of Voloshskaya, and finally appeared in the house of Prince Vishnevetsky.”

This is the story of the not-so-miraculous rescue of the prince. And this story, confused in the details, is also told by other eyewitnesses.

In the anonymous document “A Brief Tale of the Misfortune and Happiness of Demetrius, the Current Prince of Moscow,” written in Latin by an unknown but apparently close person to Dmitry, the foreign doctor already receives the name Augustine (Augustinus) and the name of the “servant” who was put to bed is called instead of the prince, - “boy Istomin”. In this version of the story, the killers, leaving a knife at the crime scene, assure the Uglich residents that “the prince stabbed himself to death in an attack of epilepsy.” The doctor, together with the rescued boy, hides in a monastery “near the Arctic Ocean,” where he takes monastic vows, and the mature Dmitry hides there until he escapes to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The version of the secret substitution, carried out with the consent of the queen and her brothers, was adhered to by the Frenchman Margeret, captain of the bodyguard company under the person of Tsar Demetrius. It’s hard not to believe Margeret, because on the one hand, he is an eyewitness, on the other, he is an uninterested person.

And now the conclusion suggests itself, as Konrad Bussov also spoke about: there were two Otrepyevs: one was the real Grigory Otrepyev, Dmitry’s confidant, his friend, bodyguard, and the second was Tsarevich Dmitry himself, who pretended to be Otrepyev for the sake of conspiracy.

The courage of the first impostor can be explained by the fact that he himself knew and sincerely believed in his royal origin, and therefore was so. Although, by and large, Dmitry was a simple tool in the hands of the boyars, who, having overthrown the Godunovs, eventually got rid of him.

And also, if not proof, then an argument in favor of the reality of Tsarevich Dmitry: only at the beginning of the 20th century were contributions about the soul of the “murdered Tsarevich Dmitry” made by his mother, but made only somewhere in the beginning of the 17th century, found. That is, after the announced murder of her son, the mother did not make such funeral contributions for more than ten years! Why? Yes, because he was alive, she knew that, and making a contribution for a living person, even for the sake of conspiracy, is a sin! But from 1606 it was already possible to make a contribution - Dmitry was killed for real.

The nun Martha, the former Queen Maria, publicly recognized Otrepiev-Dmitry as her son. Later she made vague statements making one think that Otrepiev and Dmitry were the same person, but even later she renounced him, explaining her actions by the fact that the impostor had threatened her with death. Although how could he threaten her, having already been killed? Of course, it’s difficult to believe her here, because the woman was most likely simply forced to say so. But the church contribution for the murdered person is a fact!

Godunov’s letters sent to Poland, taken by historians as a basis, bore typical traces of tendentious falsification. The reason for these manipulations is completely clear - so that the Poles do not help Otrepiev. But the Poles did not accept Otrepyev anyway. The letters may have had an influence, but neither Sigismund nor the other Polish lords found any political interest in him, just as they did not see any benefit for themselves in the distant and wild Muscovy for them...

Once, Russian President Putin, during a teleconference with residents of the country, was asked by a history teacher about the planned history textbook for the CIS countries: from what point of view should such a textbook be written. Putin responded that such a textbook should not focus on any one point of view, but list all versions of a historical event, but also give the official point of view. In principle, everything seems to be correct, although it is difficult to understand how to write the history of the Northern War, for example, or the history of the war with Napoleon for Belarus, Ukraine and Russia at the same time? In these wars, Russians and Belarusians fought with Ukrainians on opposite sides...

Anyway. What is not clear is more: how to now cover the history of the Troubles, in particular? If we adhere to the seemingly good advice of the president and list the versions, then we have listed them, but they again contradict the official point of view on “False Dmitry”, because most of all they prove that he was more likely the son of Ivan IV than an impostor from the Chudov Monastery.

Thus, a normal school history textbook, if Russia still needs such, should at a minimum simply list the versions of who False Dmitry could be, and then call his official name on the throne, as he was called - Dmitry. The historian Kostomarov also called him Dimitri. And he did the right thing. Well, the myth of the impostor was beneficial only to the Romanovs. But they are no longer there. But the myth remains.