440 Years Ago in Russia

The Fall of the House of Rurik: Russia's "Time of Troubles," 1584-1613

by Benson Bobrick

-EXCERPT-

In 1582, Ivan the Terrible, Russia’s first tsar, doomed his venerable dynastic line when, in a rage, he killed his eldest son. Two years later, upon his own demise, he was succeeded by his younger son, Fyodor, a simpleton, “somewhat lowe and grosse,” in one contemporary English description, “of a sallow complexion, and inclining to the dropsie, unsteady in his pase, yet commonly smiling almost to laughter.”

Fyodor’s incapacities were a clear temptation to plots, and a power struggle ensued among his ambitious advisors. The dominant figure to emerge behind the throne was Boris Godunov, a noble of Tartar origin on whom Ivan had often relied in his last years and whose sister was Fyodor’s wife. Before long, he was universally recognized as Lord Protector and de facto head of state.

Contemporaries describe Godunov as gracious, eloquent, good and true, somewhat cunning and suspicious, but “exceeding wise and able to judge in all things.” He faced a number of inherited miseries – chiefly the bitter legacy of Ivan’s reign, with its catastrophic wars, experiment in government terror, depopulation of the interior due to peasant flight to the borderlands, and other woes. All these had spread such “grudge and mortall hatred” through the realm that civil strife seemed inevitable.

Godunov’s skillful and comparatively enlightened administration somewhat delayed the day. A talented statesman, political strategist and leader, he thwarted a Tartar attack on Moscow, recovered territory lost to Sweden during the Livonian War, ensured the final conquest of Siberia by laying the foundations for its colonization and defense, reduced taxation, fostered social justice, steered Russia toward a favorable balance of trade, built many churches and other monuments, and intrigued to obtain the status of patriarch for the primate of the Russian Church.

Godunov’s career indeed seemed destined for national adulation, and upon Fyodor’s death without heir in 1598 he was offered the crown. Like Shakespeare’s Caesar, he declined it thrice, to demonstrate the inevitability of his elevation, and likewise looked to the masses for his support. At his coronation, he ostentatiously declared: “As God is my witness, there will not be a poor man in my tsardom!” and tore the jeweled collar from his gown. Envious nobles called him “Rabotsar” or the “tsar of slaves.”

Though a legitimate sovereign, properly elected, he could claim no dynastic link with Russia’s “sacred” past, and failed in several attempts to ennoble his own line by matrimonial union with the royalty of Denmark, England, and Sweden. Moreover, scarcely had he consolidated his position than Russia was beset by protracted crop failures that led to mass starvation. True to his coronation pledge, he distributed money and grain from the public treasury to the destitute, but hoarding and profiteering by landlords and merchants went largely unchecked. Whole villages were wiped out, and countless laborers, cast adrift by masters unable to feed them, roamed the countryside or fled into the wilds.

As the tribulations of the nation grew, Godunov’s standing fell, and he was cast into the role of the ruthless usurper who had ascended the throne through violence, deceit and crime. Rumor retroactively charged him with the murder of the Tsarevich Dmitry (Ivan the Terrible’s son by his seventh wife) in 1591, and with poisoning Tsar Fyodor, Fyodor’s wife (his own sister), and his daughter’s fiancé. His network of spies uncovered plots among every class, but arrest, torture, and execution failed to quell them. In 1603, a brigand, by the name of Khlopko, collected a band of slaves and peasants and marched on the capital.

The people, who had begun to romanticize even the worst days of their past, longed for the protection of a “born tsar,” and in the following year Godunov was confronted by the messianic rumor that the Tsarevich Dmitry had miraculously survived his assassination and was about to reclaim the throne. The Poles, in fact, had schooled such a pretender – the first of many imposters – who crossed into Muscovy (as Russia was then known) at the head of an army of volunteers.

Though a strange and ungainly figure, with facial warts and arms of unequal length, the Pretender (whose precise identity remains a mystery) proved a charismatic leader and many malcontents flocked to his cause. Godunov, helpless to oppose the gathering momentum of revolt, turned to sorcery and divination for his redemption, but was felled by poison on April 13, 1605. Subsequently, his wife and son were murdered, and Russia was shaken to its foundations by a massive peasant war. The “False Dmitry” was toppled by Vasily Shuisky, a noble whose ancient and illustrious lineage could be traced to Rurik, the Varangian founder of the Russian state; but he in turn was deposed in 1610. Polish and Swedish intervention culminated in the occupation of Novgorod and Moscow and the installation of a Polish tsar. The partition of Muscovy appeared imminent. Three men – a prince, the patriarch, and a Volga butcher – so it has been said, “led Russia out of these dark days of peril. Together they raised an army, instilled it with patriotic fervor, and took it to victory against the Polish conquerors.” On February 21, 1613, order was finally restored with the enthronement of Mikhail Romanov, the grandnephew of Ivan the Terrible, linked to the original dynasty by lateral descent.

Such, in brief, was the fall of the House of Rurik; its bloody aftermath (known in Russian history as “The Time of Troubles”); and the rise of the House of Romanov, which would rule the empire until the Revolution of 1917.

Bobrick's Fearful Majesty is available from Russian Life books: visit russianlife.com

Benson Bobrick is the author of Fearful Majesty: The Life and Reign of Ivan the Terrible, published by Russian Life books. His newest book, Voice from the Back of the Room, has just been published by Stillwater books and contains some of his most interesting essays and talks on history from 1985-2023.