Killed in 1610. Imposter tsars in Russia: how many were there?

On December 21, 1610, in the vicinity of Kaluga, the pretender to the Russian throne, the impostor False Dmitry II, also known as the “Tushinsky thief,” was killed. His death was an act of revenge on the part of Prince Peter Urusov, who hacked the “tsar” to death with a saber.

Even less is known about the personality of False Dmitry II than about his predecessor False Dmitry I. According to some sources, this self-proclaimed pretender to the Russian throne appeared on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth approximately a year after the death of False Dmitry I.

The example of a successful adventurer who was able to take the Russian throne could not but give rise to new impostors who wanted to repeat his success. All of them pretended to be the son of Ivan the Terrible, Tsarevich Dimitri, who supposedly miraculously escaped death back in 1591.

Most likely, new impostors would appear even if “Tsar Dmitry I” sat on the throne and became the founder of a new dynasty. However, he did not stay in the Kremlin for even a year and was killed during the Moscow Uprising on May 27, 1606. The throne was again free for the encroachments of new adventurers. At this moment, False Dmitry II appears on the historical stage.

In 1607, 3,000 supporters united around the new impostor, who soon defeated the army of Tsar Vasily Shuisky near Kozelsk. Among them were: Polish adventurers, South Russian nobles, Ukrainian Cossacks, as well as the remnants of the army of the rebellious peasant-Cossack chieftain Ivan Bolotnikov, defeated near Moscow.

In May 1608, having strengthened significantly after another 7,000 Poles and Cossacks from Lithuania joined his detachment, the impostor won a second victory over Shuisky’s army in the battle of Bolkhov. Among the new allies of False Dmitry II were also the detachments of the Tatar Khan Uraz-Magomet and the baptized Tatar aristocrat Prince Peter Urusov.

In the summer of 1608, False Dmitry II settled near Moscow, in a fortified camp in the village of Tushino. This became the reason to call the impostor “Tushinsky Tsar” or “Tushinsky Thief”. However, all attempts of False Dmitry II to take Moscow were unsuccessful.

In 1609, the Polish king Sigismund III himself led a new campaign against Russia. He was also joined by the impostor's Polish allies, whose army was significantly thinned by this. This completely deprived him of his chances of taking the Moscow throne.

Left out of work, in 1610 False Dmitry II fled to Kaluga. There he quarreled with Uraz-Magomet and ordered the Kasimov Khan to be drowned. In response to this, on December 21, 1610, a friend of the executed man, Prince Urusov and his younger brother, hacked the impostor to death with sabers during a country walk.

According to the New Chronicler, the murder caused great outrage in the city, and False Dmitry was buried in Kaluga in the wooden Trinity Church. However, the grave, like the church itself, has not been preserved. Currently, the burial place of False Dmitry is unknown.

The fate of Tsarevich Ivan Dmitrievich (years of life 1611 - 1614), who in Moscow was called nothing more than “little crow” and “bastard,” turned out to be tragic. His father, who proclaimed himself for the second time the miraculously saved Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich, the son of Ivan the Terrible, is usually called False Dmitry II in historical literature, as well as the “Tushinsky thief.” He showed up in the city of Starodub in the spring of 1607, a year after the overthrow and death of the first impostor, and began to pose as the surviving king.

The new adventurer was a man of unknown origin, although there are many theories about this. Some claim that this is the priest’s son Matvey Verevkin, others that he is the son of the Starodub archer. There is also a version that the impostor was the son of a Jew from the city of Shklov in present-day Belarus.

Marina Mniszek’s meeting with the “resurrected” Tsar brought disappointment. He was a rude and ill-mannered man, but she recognized him as her husband. Despite her youth (she was 19 years old at the time), she decisively chose the dangerous path of fighting for the return of the Moscow throne. However, in December 1610, the second impostor was killed by one of his confidants, Prince Peter Urusov. A month later, Marina gave birth to a son, who was baptized according to the Orthodox rite and named Ivan, and the Cossack-noble army and its leaders declared the baby the legal heir to the Moscow throne.

Marina now had a loyal and devoted person to her - Ivan Martynovich Zarutsky, ataman of the Cossack army, a determined opponent of the Polish interventionists, one of the leaders of the first people's militia.

After the establishment of Mikhail Romanov on the throne, the new dynasty was most afraid of Ataman Zarutsky, Marina Mnishek and her son, a potential contender for the Muscovite kingdom.

At the beginning of 1613, Marina Mnishek declared the rights of her son as the heir to the throne to the Zemsky Council, which considered her among others (the council decided to call Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov to the kingdom).

The last act of the tragedy took place in 1614. The Cossack ataman fled from Astrakhan, which was approached by tsarist troops superior in numbers and weapons, but above all in organization. Among the fugitives, his long-time associate Trenia Us began to lead. They leave for Yaik, but, saving his own life, the ataman’s best friend betrays Zarutsky, Marina and her son to the royal governors. He himself managed to escape.

After interrogations and torture, I.M. Zarutsky was subjected to a terrible execution - impaled. Marina Mnishek’s young son was also executed. This, for example, can be read in the notes of the Dutch traveler Elias Herkman, who used eyewitness accounts that he collected during his stay in Moscow during the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich. The quote is a bit long, but it's worth reading.

“Then they publicly hanged Dimitri’s son... Many trustworthy people saw this child being carried with his head uncovered [to the place of execution]. Since there was a snowstorm at that time and the snow was hitting the boy in the face, he asked several times in a crying voice: “Where are you taking me?”...

But the people carrying the child, who had not harmed anyone, calmed him down with words until they brought him to the place where there was a gallows, on which they hanged the unfortunate boy, like a thief, on a thick rope woven from sponges. Since the child was small and light, it was impossible to properly tighten the knot with this rope due to its thickness, and the half-dead child was left to die on the gallows.” E. Gerkman. "Tales of Massa and Herkman about the Time of Troubles in Russia." St. Petersburg, 1874, p. 331.

The killing of people, including children, who could interfere with the strengthening of power, especially a new government forced to prove the legality, or as they like to say now, the legitimacy of its claims, was a common occurrence in the Middle Ages. This happens, although not often, in our time. But even for those cruel years of the Troubles, it was not entirely unusual for the execution of a four-year-old child to take place in public. And Mikhail Romanov’s entourage did not stop the fact that the Tsar’s father Filaret was proclaimed patriarch by False Dmitry II, the father of the unfortunate child. Obviously, in this case it was important to suppress possible versions of the “miraculous salvation” (nevertheless, historians know of at least one False Ivan). In addition, by killing Vorenok, the Romanovs hoped to retroactively disavow the false Dmitrys: after all, the natural grandson of Ivan the Terrible could not end his life in such a “thieves’” way!

The muse of history, Clio, is undoubtedly the darkest and most vindictive of all muses: the bloody knots she tied are sometimes untied through the centuries no less bloodily. The death of the children in the prologue and epilogue of the Troubles did not end the matter: the reign of the Romanovs began with the extrajudicial execution of one innocent boy, and it ended three centuries later with the extrajudicial execution of another. The bullet and bayonet that killed Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich were direct descendants of the rope that strangled Ivan “Vorenok” three hundred years ago.

I feel humanly sorry for both the murdered Tsarevich Alexei and the hanged Ivan “Vorenok” - they are just children. They were simply unlucky to find themselves at the very forefront of the Russian political crisis.

False Dmitry

All False Dmitrys pretended to be Tsarevich Dmitry Uglitsky, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, who died in 1591, and laid claim to the Moscow throne under the name Dmitry Ivanovich. False Dmitry II and III, in addition, claimed identity with False Dmitry I, who was killed in 1606.

False Dmitry I

False Dmitry I is the only one of the impostors of the Time of Troubles who reigned in Moscow (1605-1606). With the help of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he defeated the Godunov dynasty. Killed as a result of a conspiracy and uprising of Muscovites on May 17, 1606.

The most common point of view identifies the impostor tsar with Grigory Otrepyev.

"Intermediate" False Dmitry

This impostor played an important role in the development of the Bolotnikov uprising.

According to the materials of the embassy to Poland of Prince G.K. Volkonsky (summer 1606), at that time a certain Moscow fugitive was hiding with the wife of Yuri Mnishka, who was recognized as Tsar Dmitry, who had miraculously escaped from the machinations of the boyars. Volkonsky told the Polish bailiff that the man who declared himself Tsar Dmitry was an impostor, and most likely “Mikhalko Molchanov” (a henchman of False Dmitry I who fled from Moscow). At the request of the Russian ambassadors, the Polish bailiff gave a verbal portrait of the candidate for the role of Tsar Dmitry; The Russian ambassadors announced that Molchanov had exactly that face, and the “former thief with his defrock” looked different.

False Tsarevich Lavrenty

Real name unknown. He was probably a peasant by origin. He pretended to be the grandson of Ivan the Terrible, the son of Tsar Fyodor. Under his leadership, during the Astrakhan riot, a motley crowd smashed trading shops. Together with “Tsarevich Ivan August” he led the Cossack troops during the campaign to Tula. Together with Ivan Augustus he was taken or arrived of his own free will to the Tushino camp, and together with him he was hanged on the Moscow road in April 1608.

Aspen

The origin is unknown, however, apparently, he belonged to the Cossacks or “disguised” peasants. Appeared in Astrakhan in 1607 or 1608, impersonating the never-existent Tsarevich Ivan from the eldest son of the Terrible. Together with Augustus and Lawrence, he took part in the battle of Saratov, apparently was accused of defeat (“one denounced the other as a thief and an impostor”) and was hanged by the Cossacks.

False Tsarevichs Martyn, Clementy, Semyon, Savely, Vasily, Eroshka, Gavrilka

Almost nothing is known about them except their names. Everyone pretended to be the “sons” of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. The chronicler wrote indignantly about the “peasant princes”:

Literature

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See what “Impostors of the Time of Troubles” are in other dictionaries:

The appropriation of someone else's name, title, etc. for any purpose, or imposture, occurs in different centuries and among different peoples. The goals pursued by S. are different; So, at present, the appropriation of someone else’s name or title (see) for the most part... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

This term has other meanings, see False Dmitry. False Dmitry I (officially Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich) ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see False Dmitry. False Dmitry II ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see False Dmitry. False Dmitry III Pretender to the Russian throne ... Wikipedia

Took place in 1605. Unlike all other coronation ceremonies in the Moscow Kingdom, the order of the coronation of False Dmitry I was threefold: the traditional Monomakh cap and barma in the Assumption Cathedral were laid by Patriarch Ignatius, then he laid... ... Wikipedia

Four dozen “Petrov III”, seven “Tsarevich Alekseev Petrovichs”, five False Dmitrievs, four False Dmitrievs... The phenomenon of imposture, which flourished during the Time of Troubles, continued in the era of palace coups and echoed lightly in our days, is a red thread running through Russian history.

Peasant princes

The most famous of the “discoverers” was Osinovik, who called himself the grandson of Ivan the Terrible. Nothing is known about the origins of the impostor, however, there is evidence that he belonged to the Cossacks or was a “disguised” peasant. The “Tsarevich” first appeared in 1607 in Astrakhan. Osinovik’s idea was supported by the “brothers” - the false princes Ivan Augustin and Lavrenty. The trio managed to convince the Volga and Don Cossacks to “seek the truth” in Moscow (or did the Cossacks manage to convince the trio?). According to one version, during the campaign, a dispute arose between the “princes” in the category of “do you respect me?” or “which of us is the most real and real?” During the showdown, Osinovik was killed. According to another version, the Cossacks could not forgive the “voivode” for their defeat in the Battle of Saratov and hanged the “thief and impostor.” All three impostors were given the chronicle nickname “peasant princes.”

Otrepiev and other False Dmitrys

The Time of Troubles in Rus' began with the death of Tsarevich Dmitry, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible. Was he stabbed by Godunov’s men or did he run into a knife himself during the game? - not known for certain. However, his death led to the fact that impostors began to appear in the country like mushrooms after rain. False Dmitry I became the fugitive monk Grigory Otrepiev, who, with the support of the Polish army, ascended the Russian throne in 1605, and was recognized even by his “mother” - Maria Nagaya and the “chairman of the investigative commission,” another future Tsar, Vasily Shuisky.

Grishka managed to “rule” the country for a year, after which he was killed by the boyars. Almost immediately, a second “pretender to the throne” appeared, now posing as False Dmitry I, who managed to escape from the massacre of the boyars.

False Dmitry II went down in history under the nickname “Tushinsky thief.” After 6 years, Russian history also recognized False Dmitry III or the “Pskov Thief”. True, neither one nor the other made it to Moscow.

Lzheyashki

In Russian history, a huge number of “offspring” of False Dmitry and the Polish aristocrat Maria Mniszech, who was the wife of both the first and second “Tsarevich Dmitry,” are called “false vashkas.”

According to one version, Maria Mnishek’s real son Ivashka “Vorenok” was hanged at the Serpukhov Gate in Moscow. The noose on the boy’s neck might indeed not have tightened due to his low weight, but most likely the child died from the cold.

Later, the Polish nobleman Jan Luba announced his “miraculous salvation”; after long negotiations, he was extradited to Moscow in 1645, where he admitted to being an impostor and was pardoned. Another False Vashka appeared in Istanbul in 1646 - this is how the Ukrainian Cossack Ivan Vergunenok decided to call himself.

"Son" of Tsar Vasily Shuisky

An official from Vologda, Timofey Ankudinov, became an impostor, rather, by coincidence. Having become entangled in business and, according to one version, having managed to grab a decent amount of money, he burned down his house (together, by the way, with his wife, who wanted to extradite him) and fled abroad. And there Timosha suffered... For 9 years he traveled around Europe under the name of “Prince of Great Perm” and pretended to be the never-existent son of Tsar Vasily IV Shuisky.

Thanks to his ingenuity and artistry, he enlisted the support of very influential people, including Bohdan Khmelnitsky, Queen Christina of Sweden, and Pope Innocent X.

False Peters

Many of Peter the Great’s actions caused, to put it mildly, misunderstanding among the people. Every now and then rumors spread throughout the country that a “replacement German” was ruling the country. “Real kings” began to appear here and there.

The first False Peter was Terenty Chumakov, who began his journey from Smolensk. The obviously half-crazed man was called Pyotr Alekseich and “secretly studied his lands, and also monitored who was saying what about the tsar.”

He completed his “audit” there, in Smolensk - he died, unable to withstand the torture. Moscow merchant Timofey Kobylkin is another “Peter the Great”. On the way to Pskov, the merchant was robbed by robbers. I had to get home on foot, and rest, of course, in roadside taverns. Having not come up with anything smarter than introducing himself as the first captain of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, Pyotr Alekseev, the merchant, of course, received honor and respect, and with them dinners with drinks “for the appetite.” The intoxicating drink so permeated the poor man’s mind that he began sending threatening dispatches to the local governors. One could laugh at the story if it weren't for the sad ending. Upon returning home, Kobylkin was arrested and beheaded after torture.

The people did not believe in the death of the “poor” tsar, perhaps that is why the people saw off the first impostor - the fugitive soldier Gavrilo Kremnev and his one and a half thousand army marching on Moscow with icons and the ringing of bells.

True, as soon as they saw the regular army, the “king’s” army fled. Catherine treated the “contender” mercifully: she ordered him to have “BS” (fugitive and impostor) burned on his forehead, to be taken around the villages where the “tsar” “made speeches,” and to be whipped in public, and then sent to eternal hard labor. The queen, with her characteristic irony, advised her subjects to fast not only in food, but also in drink. A little later, she will have no time for jokes, when the country is in a fever from Pugachevism.