False Dmitry I

On July 30, 1605, according to the Julian calendar (or at the beginning of August, according to the Gregorian calendar – the one we use now), one of the most unusual rulers to ever ascend the Russian throne was crowned tsar.

He was crowned Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich. The people – for whom barrels of medovukha [Russian mead or honey wine] had naturally been rolled out and for whom a celebratory feast had been laid – were happy that a true ruler had finally taken the throne, the son of Ivan the Terrible himself.

All the horrors and atrocities that had characterized the reign of Ivan had been forgotten during the 21 years since his death. Such is the people’s collective memory that they did not recall the blood-drenched city of Novgorod, the strangled Metropolitan Filipp, the looted villages, the unsuccessful wars. But they did remember the executions that befell the boyars, and the idea took hold that the son of the great and fearsome Tsar Ivan would also be terrible for the boyars, and therefore good for the people. That the fate of Tsar Dmitry was shrouded in mystery only made it easier for the people to believe he would prove a true, kind tsar.

However, the man crowned as Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich had as little in common with the people’s image of him as he did with Ivan the Terrible.

Most likely, the man who entered the annals of history as “Dmitry the Pretender” or “False Dmitry” was in fact Grigory Otrepyev, a member of the lower gentry from Kostroma. All evidence points to Grigory being an amazing man. His political career began in the service of the Romanovs – one of the most distinguished boyar families at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. We do not know exactly what Grigory Otrepyev did for his powerful patrons, however it seems he was no ordinary servant. In any event, in 1600, when the fate of the Romanov family took a turn, so did that of Otrepyev.

After the death of Ivan the Terrible, his heirs did not rule for long. Seven wives and countless lovers had given Tsar Ivan a multitude of children, although most had turned out to be weak and sickly and did not outlive their father. Ivan was also known to have suffocated his illegitimate offspring with his own hands, fearful of a power struggle after his death. As fate would have it, this struggle nonetheless ensued almost immediately after Ivan expired.

Fyodor, the oldest of the two sons who survived Ivan was, if not actually mentally retarded, at least poorly suited to rule a country. He nonetheless was crowned tsar in 1584. The younger of the two, Dmitry, born to Ivan of his seventh (or perhaps eighth, according to some calculations) wife, whom it would have been difficult to legitimate, was exiled along with his mother to Uglich, where he died at the age of ten during an epileptic seizure.

Tsar Fyodor died in 1598 without leaving an heir, and his wife’s brother – Boris Godunov – was named to the throne. The Romanovs, however, had an arguably more legitimate claim to the throne – Ivan’s first wife was a Romanov.

In the house of his patrons, Grigory Otrepyev would naturally have heard conversations questioning Godunov’s right to the throne, along with rumors that the Tsarevich Dmitry had been killed on Godunov’s orders. In 1600, Boris decided to deal with his rivals, arresting all the Romanov brothers and sending them out of Moscow – some to dungeons, others to monasteries.

Interestingly, Grigory Otrepyev, a mere vassal, felt compelled to flee Moscow and spend several years in the provinces. It would seem that he had something to hide. Yet he soon turned up again, in, of all places, Chudov Monastery, located within the Kremlin walls. Becoming a monk in Chudov Monastery was no simple matter. It is clear that somebody was helping him. Perhaps the exiled Romanovs? Not very likely.

Or maybe Grigory had other protectors? Who were they? We do not know.

Grigory obviously was able to win people over with his talents, his good nature and energy. We know that he remained in good standing while in the monastery, where he wrote poetry and soon was attending the Patriarch himself. Then, shortly after this, Otrepyev disappeared. He ran away, having set out to collect money for the monastery. No trace of him could be found. What connection he had to the man who soon thereafter turned up in Poland, proclaiming himself to be the miraculously saved Tsarevich Dmitry, we can only guess. Was this really Grishka Otrepyev, as pronounced by Boris Godunov, and as most historians now believe, or did a miracle truly take place, as almost all Russians believed (along with other historians, including a number of rather eminent ones)?

Even if the Dmitry’s “reappearance” was not the miracle some believed it to be, the Pretender did perform something of a miracle. After turning up in Russia with a handful of Polish adventurers, he managed to win over the inhabitants of numerous cities and villages and entered Moscow in triumph. The people were exultant – the true tsar had ascended to the throne and now all the misfortunes that had befallen the country would instantly vanish. But of course things were not so simple. False Dmitry, whoever he was, was an extraordinary person. That he was not afraid to marry a Polish Catholic, Marina Mnishek, was only the beginning. He boldly violated numerous Russian traditions and customs. This was clearly a man of a new age, one who thought for himself. As the great Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky wrote:

He was an unprecedented phenomenon on the throne of the Muscovite sovereigns. A young man of below average height, unattractive, clumsy, with reddish hair and a sad, thoughtful look on his face, his outward appearance did not at all reflect his spirit: he was richly endowed with talent and had a sharp mind, which easily dealt with the most difficult questions that came before the Boyar Council. He had a lively, even passionate temperament, which in moments of danger turned his courage into daring, and an easily provoked tendency toward enthusiasm. He was a masterful speaker who displayed rather broad knowledge. He completely changed the haughty order of the old Muscovite sovereigns, with their heavy, oppressive attitude toward the people; he disrupted the cherished customs of Moscow’s hallowed old order; he did not sleep after the midday meal, did not go to the banya, conducted himself with everyone simply and courteously – not at all like a tsar. He immediately proved himself to be an active ruler, shunned cruelty, delved into everything, made daily visits to the Boyar Council, conducted military training himself. The case of the Princes Shuisky, who had spread rumors about his false claim to the throne, the case against Dmitry himself, he handed over to be judged by the entire land, for which he created the Zemsky Sobor [Russia’s first representative assembly, whose membership came from several levels of society, including the nobility, the higher levels of civil servants, the church and the merchants]. He commuted the death sentence that was handed down by this body for exile, but soon he brought the exiles back and restored their boyarstvo [their standing as nobles]. He did not want to be a tool in the hands of the boyars and acted too independently, devised his own political plans – which were quite bold and sweeping in the area of foreign affairs. He endeavored to unite all the Catholic powers under the banner of Orthodox Russia against the Turks and Tatars. He would occasionally chide his advisors in the Duma, saying that they had seen nothing, that they had learned nothing, that they should go to study abroad, but he did so politely, without rancor.

False Dmitry was afraid of no one, and as a result, he made many enemies. The Poles became disappointed with him, as they did not receive the lands he had promised them. The boyars did not understand him, and therefore feared him. The peasants and Cossacks who brought him to power were far removed from the Kremlin and hopefully awaited the arrival of a better day. Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich did not live to see that day. Less than a year after his ascent to the throne, he fell victim to a boyar plot. The secret of his true identity has intrigued historians to this day.