While the sovereigns of the old dynasty, direct descendants of Rurik, were on the Moscow throne, the majority of the population obeyed their rulers. But when the dynasties ceased and the state turned out to be a no-man's land, there was a ferment in the population, both in the lower classes and in the upper ones.
The upper layer of the Moscow population, the boyars, economically weakened and morally belittled by the policies of Grozny, began a struggle for power.
There are three periods in the Time of Troubles.
The first is dynastic,
the second is social
the third is national.
The first includes the time of the struggle for the Moscow throne between various pretenders up to and including Tsar Vasily Shuisky.
First period
The first period of the Time of Troubles (1598-1605) began with a dynastic crisis caused by the murder of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible of his eldest son Ivan, the coming to power of his brother Fyodor Ivanovich and the death of their younger half-brother Dmitry (according to many, stabbed to death by henchmen of the de facto ruler of the country Boris Godunov). After the death of Ivan the Terrible and his sons, the struggle for power intensified even more. As a result, Boris Godunov, the brother of Tsar Fyodor's wife, became the de facto ruler of the state. In 1598, the childless Tsar Fedor also died, with his death the dynasty of the princes of Rurik, which ruled Russia for 700 years, ended.
It was necessary to elect a new king to rule the country, with the advent of which a new reigning house would be erected on the throne. This is the Romanov dynasty. However, before the Romanov dynasty gained power, they had to go through difficult trials, these were the years of the Time of Troubles. After the death of Tsar Fyodor, the Zemsky Sobor elected Boris Godunov (1598-1605) as Tsar. In Russia, for the first time, a tsar appeared who received the throne not by inheritance.
Boris Godunov was a talented political figure, he strove to unite the entire ruling class and did a lot to stabilize the situation in the country, but he was unable to stop the intrigues of disgruntled boyars. Boris Godunov did not resort to mass terror, but dealt with only his real enemies. Under Godunov, new cities of Samara, Saratov, Tsaritsyn, Ufa, Voronezh arose.
The famine of 1601-1603, caused by protracted crop failures, caused enormous damage to the country's economy. This undermined the Russian economy, people were dying of hunger, and cannibalism began in Moscow. Boris Godunov is trying to suppress the social explosion. He began distributing bread for free from state stocks and set fixed prices for bread. But these measures were not successful, because. bread distributors began to speculate on it, moreover, the stocks could not be enough for all the hungry, and the restriction of the price of bread led to the fact that they simply stopped selling it. In Moscow, during the famine, about 127 thousand people died, not everyone had time to bury them, and the bodies of the dead remained on the streets for a long time.
The people decide that hunger is the curse of the Lord, and Boris is Satan. Gradually, rumors spread that Boris Godunov ordered the assassination of Tsarevich Dmitry, then they remembered that the Tsar was a Tatar.
The famine also led to an outflow of the population from the central regions to the outskirts, where self-governing communities of the so-called free Cossacks began to emerge. Famine led to revolts. In 1603, a major uprising of serfs (the Cotton Rebellion) began, engulfing large area and became the prologue of the peasant war.
External reasons were added to internal ones: Poland and Lithuania, united in the Commonwealth, were in a hurry to take advantage of Russia's weakness. The aggravation of the internal political situation led, in turn, to a sharp drop in Godunov's prestige not only among the masses, but also among the feudal lords.
In these difficult conditions, a young Galich nobleman Grigory Otrepyev appeared in Russia, who declared himself to be Tsarevich Dmitry, who had long been considered dead in Uglich. He showed up in Poland, and this was a gift to King Sigismund III, who supported the impostor. The agents of the impostor intensively disseminated in Russia a version of his miraculous rescue from the hands of the murderers sent by Godunov, and proved the legitimacy of his right to his father's throne. This news led to confusion and confusion in all sectors of society, in each of which there were many dissatisfied with the reign of Tsar Boris. Some help in organizing the adventure was provided by the Polish magnates who had risen under the banner of False Dmitry. As a result, by the autumn of 1604, a sufficiently powerful army was formed to march on Moscow. At the end of 1604, having converted to Catholicism, False Dmitry I entered Russia with an army. Many cities of southern Russia, Cossacks, disgruntled peasants, went over to his side.
The forces of False Dmitry grew rapidly, cities opened their gates to him, peasants and townspeople joined his troops. False Dmitry moved in the wake of the outbreak of the peasant war. After the death of Boris Godunov, the governors also began to go over to the side of False Dmitry, Moscow also went over, where he solemnly entered on June 20, 1605 and on June 30, 1605 was married to the kingdom.
It turned out to be easier to achieve placement on the throne than to stay on it. The support of the people, it seemed, should have strengthened his position on the throne. However, the situation in the country turned out to be so complicated that, with all his abilities and good intentions, the new king could not resolve the tangle of contradictions.
By refusing to fulfill the promises made to the Polish king and catholic church he lost his support external forces. The clergy and boyars were alarmed by his simplicity and elements of "Westernism" in his views and behavior. As a result, the impostor did not find support in the political elite of Russian society.
In addition, in the spring of 1606, he announced a call for service and began to prepare for a campaign in the Crimea, which caused discontent among many servicemen. The position of the lower classes of society did not improve: serfdom and heavy taxes remained. Soon everyone was dissatisfied with the rule of False Dmitry: peasants, feudal lords and the Orthodox clergy.
The Boyar conspiracy and the uprising of Muscovites on May 17, 1606, dissatisfied with the direction of his policy, swept him from the throne. False Dmitry and some of his associates were killed. Two days later, the boyar Vasily Shuisky was “shouted out” by the tsar, who gave a sign of the cross to rule with the Boyar Duma, not to impose disgrace and not to execute without trial. Shuisky's accession to the throne was a signal of general unrest.
Second period
The second period (1606-1610) is characterized by the internecine struggle of social classes and the intervention of foreign governments in this struggle. In 1606-1607. there is an uprising led by Ivan Bolotnikov.
In the meantime, in Starodub (in the Bryansk region) in the summer of 1607, a new impostor appeared, declaring himself "Tsar Dmitry" who had escaped. His personality is even more mysterious than his predecessor. Some consider False Dmitry II to be Russian by origin, a native of the church environment, others - a baptized Jew, a teacher from Shklov.
According to many historians, False Dmitry II was a protege of the Polish king Sigismund III, although not everyone supports this version. The bulk of the armed forces of False Dmitry II were Polish gentry and Cossacks - the remnants of P. Bolotnikov's army.
In January 1608 he moved to Moscow. Having defeated Shuisky's troops in several battles, by the beginning of June, False Dmitry II reached the village of Tushina near Moscow, where he settled in a camp. In fact, dual power set in in the country: Vasily Shuisky sent his decrees from Moscow, False Dmitry from Tushin. As for the boyars and nobles, many of them served both sovereigns: either they went to Tushino for ranks and lands, or they returned to Moscow, expecting awards from Shuisky.
The growing popularity of the Tushinsky Thief was facilitated by the recognition of her husband by the wife of False Dmitry I, Marina Mniszek, who, obviously, not without the influence of the Poles, took part in the adventure and arrived in Tushino.
In the camp of False Dmitry, as already noted, very big role originally played by Poles-mercenaries. The impostor asked the Polish king for open help, but in the Commonwealth itself there were then internal troubles, and the king was afraid to start a frank big war with Russia. Covert interference in Russian affairs Sigismund III continued. In general, in the summer - autumn of 1608, the successes of the Tushino people were growing rapidly. Almost half of the country - from Vologda to Astrakhan, from Vladimir, Suzdal, Yaroslavl to Pskov - supported "Tsar Dmitry". But the atrocities of the Poles and the collection of "taxes" (it was necessary to support the army and, in general, the entire Tushino "court"), which were more like robberies, led to the enlightenment of the population and the beginning of a spontaneous struggle against the Tushino thief. At the end of 1608 - beginning of 1609. protests began against the impostor, initially in the northern lands, and then in almost all cities on the middle Volga. Shuisky, however, was afraid to rely on this patriotic movement. He sought help abroad. The second period of the Time of Troubles is associated with the split of the country in 1609: two tsars, two Boyar Dumas, two patriarchs, territories recognizing the authority of False Dmitry II, and territories remaining faithful to Shuisky were formed in Muscovy.
In February 1609, Shuisky's government concluded an agreement with Sweden, counting on help in the war against the "Tushino thief" and his Polish detachments. According to this agreement, Russia gave Sweden the Karelian volost in the North, which was a serious political mistake. The Swedish-Russian troops under the command of the tsar's nephew, Prince M.V. Skopin-Shuisky, inflicted a number of defeats on the Tushino people.
This gave Sigismund III an excuse to move to open intervention. The Commonwealth began hostilities against Russia. Taking advantage of the fact that central authority actually absent in Russia, the army did not exist, in September 1609, Polish troops besieged Smolensk. By order of the king, the Poles who fought under the banner of "Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich" were to arrive at the Smolensk camp, which accelerated the collapse of the Tushino camp. False Dmitry II fled to Kaluga, where in December 1610 he was killed by his bodyguard.
Sigismund III, continuing the siege of Smolensk, moved part of his troops under the leadership of Hetman Zolkiewski to Moscow. Near Mozhaisk near the village. Klushino in June 1610, the Poles inflicted a crushing defeat on the tsarist troops, which completely undermined the prestige of Shuisky and led to his overthrow.
Meanwhile, the peasant war continued in the country, which was now being waged by numerous Cossack detachments. The Moscow boyars decided to turn to the Polish king Sigismund for help. An agreement was signed on calling Prince Vladislav to the Russian throne. At the same time, the conditions of the "cross-kissing record" of V. Shuisky were confirmed and the preservation of the Russian order was guaranteed. Only the question of Vladislav's acceptance of Orthodoxy remained unresolved. In September 1610, Polish detachments led by the "viceroy of Tsar Vladislav" Gonsevsky entered Moscow.
Sweden also launched aggressive actions. Swedish troops occupied a significant part of the north of Russia and were preparing to capture Novgorod. In mid-July 1611, Swedish troops captured Novgorod, then laid siege to Pskov, where the power of their emissaries was established.
During the second period, the struggle for power continued, while external forces (Poland, Sweden) were included in it. In fact, the Russian state was divided into two camps, which were ruled by Vasily Shuisky and False Dmitry II. This period was marked by fairly large-scale military operations, as well as the loss of a large amount of land. All this took place against the backdrop of internal peasant wars, which further weakened the country and intensified the crisis.
Third period
The third period of the Troubles (1610-1613) is, first of all, the time of the struggle of Moscow people with foreign domination before the creation of a national government headed by M.F. Romanov. On July 17, 1610, Vasily Shuisky was deposed from the throne, and on July 19 he was forcibly tonsured a monk. Prior to the election of a new tsar, a government of "Prince F.I. Mstislavsky and his comrades" was established in Moscow from 7 boyars (the so-called "Seven Boyars"). The boyars, led by Fedor Mstislavsky, began to rule Russia, but they did not have the people's trust and could not decide which of them would rule. As a result, the Polish prince Vladislav, the son of Sigismund III, was called to the throne. Vladislav needed to convert to Orthodoxy, but he was a Catholic and was not going to change his faith. The boyars begged him to come "look", but he was accompanied by the Polish army, which captured Moscow. It was possible to preserve the independence of the Russian state only by relying on the people. In the autumn of 1611, the first civil uprising headed by Prokopy Lyapunov. But he failed to negotiate with the Cossacks and he was killed in the Cossack circle. Tushino Cossacks again laid siege to Moscow. Anarchy frightened all the boyars. On August 17, 1610, the Russian boyars concluded an agreement on calling Prince Vladislav to the Russian throne. A great embassy was sent to King Sigismund III near Smolensk, headed by Metropolitan Filaret and Prince Vasily Golitsyn. During the period of the so-called interregnum (1610-1613), the position of the Muscovite state seemed completely hopeless.
From October 1610 Moscow was under martial law. The Russian embassy near Smolensk was taken into custody. On November 30, 1610, Patriarch Hermogenes called for a fight against the interventionists. The idea of convening a national militia for the liberation of Moscow and Russia is maturing in the country.
Russia faced a direct threat of loss of independence. The catastrophic situation that developed at the end of 1610 stirred up patriotic sentiments and religious feelings, forced many Russian people to rise above social contradictions, political differences and personal ambitions. The weariness of all sectors of society from the civil war, the thirst for order, which they perceived as the restoration of traditional foundations, also affected. As a result, this predetermined the revival of tsarist power in its autocratic and Orthodox form, the rejection of all innovations aimed at transforming it, and the victory of conservative traditionalist forces. But only on this basis, it was possible to rally society, get out of the crisis and achieve the expulsion of the occupiers.
In these tragic days huge role the church played, calling for the defense of Orthodoxy and the restoration sovereign state. The national liberation idea consolidated healthy forces society - the population of cities, service people and led to the formation of a popular militia.
At the beginning of 1611, the northern cities began to rise again to fight, Ryazan joined them, Nizhny Novgorod, Volga cities. The Ryazan nobleman Prokopy Lyapunov stood at the head of the movement. He moved his detachments to Moscow, and Ivan Zarutsky and Prince Dmitry Trubetskoy brought the Cossacks there from the Kaluga camp that collapsed after the death of False Dmitry II. An anti-Polish uprising broke out in the capital itself.
The interventionists, on the advice of the traitorous boyars, set fire to the city. The main forces of the militia entered the city after the fire, fighting began on the outskirts of the Kremlin. However, the Russian army failed to achieve success. Internal conflicts began in the militia camp. The leaders of the Cossack detachments, Zarutsky and Trubetskoy, opposed Lyapunov's attempts to establish military organization militia. The so-called Zemsky sentence, which formulated the political program of the militia, provided for the strengthening of noble land ownership, the return of fugitive peasants to the nobles, among whom there were many Cossacks who had joined the ranks.
The indignation of the Cossacks was skillfully fanned by the Poles. Lyapunov was killed. Many nobles and other people left the militia. Only detachments of Cossacks remained near Moscow, the leaders of which took a wait-and-see attitude.
With the collapse of the first militia and the fall of Smolensk, the country came to the edge of the abyss. The Swedes, taking advantage of the weakness of the country, captured Novgorod, laid siege to Pskov and began to forcefully impose the candidacy of the Swedish prince Carl-Philip for the Russian throne. Sigismund III announced that he himself would become the Russian Tsar, and Russia would enter the Commonwealth. There was virtually no central authority. Different cities independently decided who they recognized as the ruler. A new impostor appeared in the northwestern lands - False Dmitry III. The people of Pskov recognized him as a true prince and let him into the city (only in 1612 he was exposed and arrested). Detachments of Polish gentry, who were mainly engaged in robbery, wandered around the country and besieged cities and monasteries. The turmoil has reached its apogee. The real danger of enslavement hung over the country.
Nizhny Novgorod became the center of consolidation of patriotic forces. The initiators of the formation of a new militia were the townspeople, led by the township headman, merchant Kuzma Minin. The city council decided to raise funds "for the construction of military people." Fundraising began with voluntary donations.
Sources say that Minin himself donated a significant part of his property to the treasury. The taxation of all townspeople with an emergency military levy was introduced, depending on the state of each. All this made it possible to arm the townspeople and stock up the necessary food.
Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, who was being treated for wounds received in battle as part of the Lyapunov militia, in the Suzdal estate, was invited as the chief governor. In addition to the townspeople of Nizhny Novgorod, the new militia included nobles and townspeople of other cities of the Middle Volga region, Smolensk nobles who fled to the Nizhny Novgorod lands after the capture of Smolensk by the Poles.
Kolomna and Ryazan landowners, archers and Cossacks from outlying fortresses began to gather in the army to Pozharsky. The program put forward: the liberation of the capital and the refusal to recognize a sovereign of foreign origin on the Russian throne, managed to rally representatives of all estates who rejected narrow-group claims for the sake of saving the Fatherland.
On February 23, 1612, the second militia set out from Nizhny Novgorod to Balakhna, and then moved along the route Yuryevets - Kostroma - Yaroslavl. All cities and counties along the way joined the militias. Several months of stay in Yaroslavl finally formalized the second militia. A “Council of the Whole Land” (a kind of Zemsky Sobor) was created, which included representatives of all classes, although representatives of the townspeople and the nobility still played a leading role.
At the head of the Council were the leaders of the militia Pozharsky, who was in charge of military issues, and Minin, who was involved in finance and supply. In Yaroslavl, the main orders were restored: experienced clerks flocked here from near Moscow, from the provinces, who knew how to put the management business on a sound basis. The military operations of the militias also expanded. The entire Volga north of the country was cleared of interventionists.
Finally, the long-awaited campaign against Moscow began. On July 24, 1612, Pozharsky's advance detachments entered the capital, and in August the main forces approached, uniting with the remnants of the troops of the first militia led by D. Trubetskoy. Under the walls of the Novodevichy Convent, a battle took place with the troops of Hetman Khotkevich, who was going to help the Poles besieged in Kitai-Gorod. The hetman's army suffered great losses and retreated, and on October 22, Kitay-gorod was also taken.
The Poles signed a surrender agreement. By the end of 1612, Moscow and its environs were completely cleared of the invaders. Sigismund's attempts to change the situation did not lead to anything. His troops were defeated near Volokolamsk.
For some time, the "Council of the whole earth" continued to rule, and then at the beginning of 1613, the Zemsky Sobor was held, at which the question of choosing a new Russian tsar was raised. As candidates for the Russian throne, the Polish prince Vladislav, the son of the Swedish king Karl-Philip, the son of False Dmitry II and Marina Mnishek Ivan, as well as representatives of some of the largest boyar families were proposed. On February 21, the cathedral chose Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, the 16-year-old great-nephew of Ivan the Terrible's first wife, Anastasia Romanova. Why did the choice fall on him? The researchers argue that, apparently, three circumstances played a decisive role in the choice of Mikhail. He was not involved in any adventure of the Time of Troubles, his reputation was pure. Therefore, his candidacy suited everyone. In addition, Mikhail was young, inexperienced, quiet and modest. Many of the boyars and nobles close to the court hoped that the tsar would be obedient to their will. Finally, we took into account family ties Romanovs with the Rurikovichs: Mikhail was a cousin-nephew of the last tsar from the Rurik dynasty, Fyodor Ivanovich. In the eyes of contemporaries, these family ties meant a lot. They emphasized the “piety of the sovereign”, the legitimacy of his accession to the throne. This, although indirectly, preserved the principle of the transfer of the Russian throne by inheritance. Thus, the election of the Romanovs to the kingdom promised universal consent and reassurance, this happened on February 21, 1613.
The Polish detachments remaining on Russian soil, having learned about the election of Mikhail Romanov to the kingdom, tried to seize him in the ancestral Kostroma possessions in order to vacate the Russian throne for their king.
Making their way to Kostroma, the Poles asked Ivan Susanin, a peasant from the village of Domnino, to show them the way. According to the official version, he refused and was tortured by them, and according to folk legend, Susanin agreed, but sent a warning to the king about the impending danger. And he himself led the Poles into a swamp, from which they could not get out.
The feat of Susanin, as it were, crowned the general patriotic impulse of the people. The act of electing the tsar, and then crowning him king, first in Kostroma, and then in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, meant the end of the Troubles. Thus, the Romanov dynasty, which ruled the country for more than 300 years, was established in Russia. When electing Michael to the throne, the council did not accompany its act with any treaty. Power acquired an autocratic-legitimate character. The confusion is over. A heavy, slow re-creation has begun Russian state, shocked by a deep dynastic crisis, the most severe social strife, a complete economic collapse, famine, political collapse country, external aggression.
Thus, the third period of troubled times was marked as the final, turning point of the crisis. It was during this period of time that the accumulated fatigue of the people from the anarchic order in the country, as well as the threat from foreign conquerors, reached its climax, which forced all classes to unite in the struggle for their homeland. The Russian state was on the verge of death, in connection with the plans of the Polish king Sigismund III, it was to become part of the Commonwealth. However, the Swedes also had views of the Russian throne. All this led to the creation people's militias, thus began the war of liberation from foreign invaders, which ended in the end with the expulsion of foreigners from the Russian lands. Russia could no longer remain without a head of state, as a result of which it was necessary to make a decision on the choice of a king, in the end, M.F. Romanov ascended the throne, who is a distant relative of the last Russian Tsar from the Rurik dynasty, Fyodor Ivanovich. Thus, preserving the principle of the transfer of the Russian throne by inheritance. The turmoil was over, but all the years that it lasted brought the country to a very difficult state of affairs in all spheres of the state. In this chapter, we examined the main periods identified by scientists during the Time of Troubles, from its beginning to the accession of the Romanov dynasty to the Russian throne. In the next paragraph, we will analyze the consequences of the turmoil for the further development of the Russian state.
The Time of Troubles is usually called the historical period in Russia, from 1598 to 1613. This was crucial moment when the country faced serious internal problems and an external threat from the Polish invaders.
Consider the main causes of Troubles.
Causes and stages of Troubles
There are several main stages of the Time of Troubles. Let's briefly review the main ones.
The first stage is associated with the accession of Godunov (1598), crop failure and famine in Russia due to a sharp cooling of the climate. The campaign against Moscow of the impostor Dmitry and his accession (1605).
The second stage is determined by the short-term reign of an impostor in Moscow, who was killed as a result of a palace conspiracy in 1606.
The third stage includes the arrival of several more impostors, the accession of Shusky and his fall, the intervention of the Poles in Moscow, the meeting of the first and second militia, and, finally, the election in 1613 of the young boyar Mikhail from the Romanov family to the royal throne.
Among the main causes of the Troubles, historians name the following:
1. The crisis of succession due to the suppression of the dynasty.
2. Economic disasters.
3. Military defeats.
4. Social gap between the noble and the poor.
Let's explore these reasons in more detail.
Reason One: Succession Crisis
After the death of Ivan Vasilievich IV, his son Fyodor ascended the throne of Moscow, who, due to the illness of his wife, was childless. Under the young tsar, his brother-in-law, the dexterous and intelligent boyar Boris from the Godunov family, received great authority. At this time, the last son of the formidable Tsar Ivan, Dmitry, was killed in Uglich. Evil tongues blamed Godunov for the death of this royal youth.
After the death of Fedor, it was Godunov (who was not a direct descendant of the Rurikovichs) who entered the Russian throne, which caused discontent among the noble boyars.
Reason Two: Economic Disasters
Several years at the beginning of the new century were lean for our country. Snow fell already in September, and the winter was fierce. All food supplies are depleted. People died in whole villages and fled to the cities in order to somehow feed themselves.
Scientists see at this moment climate change on the entire planet due to the onset of a volcanic winter after a volcanic eruption in South America, however, our ancestors associated these disasters with the punishment of heaven. Some people believed that God punished Russia because of the murder of the young Tsarevich Dmitry.
Reason three: military defeats
Our country then suffered a difficult Livonian war, in which it was unable to recapture the western regions. After the Poles sent False Dmitry to Russia, they settled in the Kremlin and began to consider Russia as their conquest. After the death of the impostor, the Polish troops made an attempt to conquer our country by military means. The tragic siege of Smolensk and the siege of the Trinity-Sergei Lavra began.
The fourth reason: the social gap between the noble and the poor.
Hunger, lack of a clear central authority and military confusion exacerbated social stratification between different Russian estates. People went into the forests to rob. This time was infamous for its peasant uprisings. Only under the command of one of the rebels - the chieftain nicknamed Cotton - there were about 600 people. Also during this period, the Bolotnikov uprising is known. It would seem that the entire former social order has collapsed, and it can no longer be restored.
Thus, we see that the main causes of the Troubles were serious enough to plunge our country into the abyss of troubles, from which it got out with great difficulty, having suffered huge human losses.
A summary of the events of the Russian Time of Troubles in the 17th century may look like this. After the death of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich and the end of the Rurik dynasty, Boris Godunov was elected to the throne on February 21, 1598. The formal act of limiting the power of the new tsar, expected by the boyars, did not follow. The muffled murmur of this class caused Godunov to secretly police surveillance of the boyars, in which the serfs who denounced their masters served as the main tool. This was followed by torture and executions. General shaking public order could not be set up by the king, despite all the energy he showed. The famine years that began in 1601 increased the general dissatisfaction with the Godunovs. The struggle for the throne at the top of the boyars, gradually supplemented by ferment from below, marked the beginning of the Time of Troubles. In this regard, the entire reign of Boris Godunov can be considered his first period.
Soon there were rumors about the rescue of Tsarevich Dmitry, who was previously considered killed in Uglich, and about his stay in Poland. The first news about him began to penetrate Moscow at the very beginning of 1604. The first False Dmitry was created by the Moscow boyars with the help of the Poles. His imposture was no secret to the boyars, and Boris directly said that it was they who framed the impostor. In the autumn of 1604, False Dmitry, with a detachment assembled in Poland and Ukraine, entered the borders of the Muscovite state through the Severshchina, the southwestern border region, which was quickly seized by popular unrest. On April 13, 1605, Boris Godunov died, and the impostor approached Moscow without hindrance, where he entered on June 20. During the 11-month reign of False Dmitry, the boyars' conspiracies against him did not stop. He did not satisfy either the boyars (due to the independence and independence of his character), or the people (due to his “Westernizing” policy, which was unusual for Muscovites). On May 17, 1606, the conspirators, headed by princes V. I. Shuisky, V. V. Golitsyn and others, overthrew the impostor and killed him.
Time of Troubles. False Dmitry. (The body of False Dmitry on Red Square) Sketch for the painting by S. Kirillov, 2013
After that, Vasily Shuisky was elected Tsar, but without the participation of the Zemsky Sobor, but only by the boyar party and the crowd of Muscovites devoted to him, who “shouted out” Shuisky after the death of False Dmitry. His reign was limited by the boyar oligarchy, which took from the tsar an oath limiting his power. This reign covers 4 years and 2 months; all the while the Troubles continued and grew. Seversk Ukraine, led by the Putivl governor Prince Shakhovsky, was the first to revolt in the name of the supposedly saved False Dmitry I. The head of the rebels was the fugitive serf Bolotnikov, who was, as it were, an agent sent by an impostor from Poland. The initial successes of the rebels forced many to stick to the rebellion. Ryazan land was outraged by Sunbulov and brothers Lyapunovs, Tula and surrounding cities raised Istoma Pashkov. Troubles also penetrated other places: Nizhny Novgorod was besieged by a crowd of serfs and foreigners, led by two Mordvins; in Perm and Vyatka, unsteadiness and confusion were noticed. Astrakhan was outraged by the governor himself, Prince Khvorostinin; a gang raged along the Volga, putting up their impostor, a certain Muromet Ileyka, who was called Peter - the unprecedented son of Tsar Fedor Ioannovich. Bolotnikov approached Moscow and on October 12, 1606, defeated the Moscow army near the village of Troitskoye, Kolomna district, but was soon defeated by M.V. The impostor Peter appeared in the Seversk land, who in Tula joined with Bolotnikov, who had left the Moscow troops from Kaluga. Tsar Vasily himself moved to Tula, which he besieged from June 30 to October 1, 1607. During the siege of the city, a new formidable impostor, False Dmitry II, appeared in Starodub.
Battle of Bolotnikov's troops tsarist army. Painting by E. Lissner
The death of Bolotnikov, who surrendered in Tula, did not stop the Time of Troubles. False Dmitry II, supported by the Poles and Cossacks, found himself near Moscow and settled in the so-called Tushino camp. A significant part of the cities (up to 22) in the northeast submitted to the impostor. Only the Trinity-Sergius Lavra withstood a long siege by its detachments from September 1608 to January 1610. In difficult circumstances, Shuisky turned to the Swedes for help. Then Poland in September 1609 declared war on Moscow under the pretext that Moscow had concluded an agreement with Sweden, which was hostile to the Poles. Thus, internal Troubles were supplemented by the intervention of foreigners. The Polish king Sigismund III went to Smolensk. Skopin-Shuisky, sent to Novgorod for negotiations with the Swedes in the spring of 1609, together with Delagardie's Swedish auxiliary detachment, moved to Moscow. Moscow was liberated from the Tushinsky thief, who fled to Kaluga in February 1610. The Tushino camp dispersed. The Poles who were in it went to their king near Smolensk.
S. Ivanov. Camp of False Dmitry II in Tushino
Russian adherents of False Dmitry II from the boyars and nobles, led by Mikhail Saltykov, left alone, also decided to send representatives to the Polish camp near Smolensk and recognize Sigismund's son Vladislav as king. But they recognized it under certain conditions, which were set out in an agreement with the king dated February 4, 1610. This agreement expressed the political aspirations of the middle boyars and the highest metropolitan nobility. First of all, it affirmed the inviolability of the Orthodox faith; everyone had to be judged according to the law and punished only by the court, rise according to their merits, everyone has the right to travel to other states for education. The sovereign shares government power with two institutions: the Zemsky Sobor and the Boyar Duma. The Zemsky Sobor, consisting of elected representatives from all the ranks of the state, has founding authority; the sovereign only together with him establishes the basic laws and changes the old ones. The Boyar Duma has legislative authority; she, together with the sovereign, resolves issues of current legislation, for example, questions about taxes, about local and patrimonial land ownership, etc. Boyar Duma there is also a higher judicial institution, which, together with the sovereign, decides the most important judicial cases. The sovereign does nothing without the thought and verdict of the boyars. But while negotiations were going on with Sigismund, two important events, which greatly influenced the course of the Time of Troubles: in April 1610, the tsar's nephew, the popular liberator of Moscow, M.V. These events decided the fate of Tsar Vasily: Muscovites, led by Zakhar Lyapunov, overthrew Shuisky on July 17, 1610 and forced him to have his hair cut.
The last period of the Time of Troubles has come. Near Moscow, the Polish hetman Zholkevsky, who demanded the election of Vladislav, was stationed with an army, and False Dmitry II, who again came there, to whom the Moscow mob was located. At the head of the board was the Boyar Duma, headed by F. I. Mstislavsky, V. V. Golitsyn and others (the so-called Seven Boyars). She started negotiations with Zholkiewski on the recognition of Vladislav as the Russian Tsar. On September 19, Zholkievsky brought Polish troops to Moscow and drove False Dmitry II from the capital. At the same time, an embassy was sent to Sigismund III from the capital that had sworn allegiance to Prince Vladislav, consisting of the most noble Moscow boyars, but the king detained them and announced that he personally intended to be king in Moscow.
The year 1611 was marked by a rapid rise in the midst of the Troubles of Russian national feeling. Patriarch Hermogenes and Prokopy Lyapunov were at the head of the patriotic movement against the Poles. Sigismund's claims to unite Russia with Poland as a subordinate state and the murder of the leader of the mob, False Dmitry II, whose danger made many involuntarily rely on Vladislav, favored the growth of the movement. The uprising quickly swept Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Suzdal, Kostroma, Vologda, Ustyug, Novgorod and other cities. Militias gathered everywhere and were drawn to Moscow. The Cossacks under the command of the Don Ataman Zarutsky and Prince Trubetskoy joined the service people of Lyapunov. At the beginning of March 1611, the militia approached Moscow, where an uprising against the Poles broke out with the news. The Poles burned the entire Moscow Posad (March 19), but with the approach of the detachments of Lyapunov and other leaders, they were forced, together with their supporters from Muscovites, to lock themselves in the Kremlin and Kitai-Gorod. The case of the first patriotic militia of the Time of Troubles ended in failure, thanks to the complete disunity of interests individual groups included in its composition. On July 25 Lyapunov was killed by the Cossacks. Even earlier, on June 3, King Sigismund finally captured Smolensk, and on July 8, 1611, Delagardie took Novgorod by storm and forced the Swedish prince Philip to be recognized there as sovereign. A new leader of the tramps, False Dmitry III, appeared in Pskov.
K. Makovsky. Minin's Appeal on Nizhny Novgorod Square
In early April, the second patriotic militia of the Time of Troubles arrived in Yaroslavl and, moving slowly, gradually strengthening their detachments, approached Moscow on August 20. Zarutsky with his gangs left for the southeastern regions, and Trubetskoy joined Pozharsky. On August 24-28, Pozharsky's soldiers and Trubetskoy's Cossacks repulsed Hetman Khodkevich from Moscow, who arrived with a convoy of supplies to help the Poles besieged in the Kremlin. On October 22, Kitay-gorod was occupied, and on October 26, the Kremlin was also cleared of the Poles. The attempt of Sigismund III to move towards Moscow was unsuccessful: the king turned back from Volokolamsk.
E. Lissner. Knowing Poles from the Kremlin
In December, letters were sent everywhere about sending to Moscow the best and reasonable people for the election of the Sovereign. They gathered at the beginning next year. On February 21, 1613, the Zemsky Sobor elected Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov to the Russian tsars, who married in Moscow on July 11 of the same year and founded a new, 300-year-old dynasty. The main events of the Time of Troubles ended with this, however
Time of Troubles- designation of the period in the history of Russia from 1598 to 1613, marked by natural disasters, the Polish-Swedish intervention, the most severe political, economic, state and social crisis.
Start
After the death of Ivan the Terrible (1584), his heir, Fyodor Ioannovich, was incapable of governing, and the youngest son, Tsarevich Dmitry, was in infancy. With the death of Dmitry (1591) and Fedor (1598) ruling dynasty stopped, secondary boyar families - the Yuryevs, the Godunovs - came to the stage.
Three years, from 1601 to 1603, were lean, even in the summer months frosts did not stop, and in September snow fell. According to some assumptions, the reason for this was the eruption of the Huaynaputina volcano in Peru on February 19, 1600 and the volcanic winter that followed. A terrible famine broke out, the victims of which were up to half a million people. Masses of people flocked to Moscow, where the government distributed money and bread to the needy. However, these measures only increased the economic disorganization. The landowners could not feed their serfs and servants and drove them out of the estates. Left without a livelihood, people turned to robbery and robbery, intensifying the general chaos. Individual gangs grew to several hundred people. Ataman Khlopko's detachment numbered up to 500 people.
The beginning of the Time of Troubles refers to the intensification of rumors that the legitimate Tsarevich Dmitry is alive, from which it followed that the reign of Boris Godunov was illegal. The impostor False Dmitry, who announced to the Polish prince A. A. Vishnevetsky about his royal origin, entered into close relations with the Polish magnate, governor of Sandomierz Jerzy Mnishek and papal nuncio Rangoni. At the beginning of 1604, the impostor received an audience with the Polish king, and on April 17 he converted to Catholicism. King Sigismund recognized the rights of False Dmitry to the Russian throne and allowed everyone to help the "tsarevich". For this, False Dmitry promised to transfer Smolensk and Seversky lands to Poland. For the consent of the governor Mnishek to the marriage of his daughter with False Dmitry, he also promised to transfer Novgorod and Pskov to his bride. Mnishek equipped the impostor with an army consisting of Zaporozhye Cossacks and Polish mercenaries (“adventurers”). In 1604, the army of the impostor crossed the border of Russia, many cities (Moravsk, Chernigov, Putivl) surrendered to False Dmitry, the army of the Moscow governor F. I. Mstislavsky was defeated near Novgorod-Seversky. At the height of the war, Boris Godunov died (April 13, 1605); Godunov's army almost immediately betrayed his successor, 16-year-old Fyodor Borisovich, who was overthrown on June 1 and killed along with his mother on June 10.
Accession of False Dmitry I
On June 20, 1605, under general rejoicing, the impostor solemnly entered Moscow. The Moscow boyars, headed by Bogdan Belsky, publicly recognized him as the rightful heir. On June 24, Archbishop Ignatius of Ryazan, who back in Tula confirmed Dmitry's rights to the kingdom, was elevated to patriarch. Thus, the impostor received the official support of the clergy. On July 18, Queen Martha, who recognized her son as an impostor, was brought to the capital, and soon, on July 30, Dmitry was crowned king.
The reign of False Dmitry was marked by an orientation towards Poland and some attempts at reform.
Shuisky's conspiracy
Not all of the Moscow boyars recognized False Dmitry as the legitimate ruler. Immediately upon his arrival in Moscow, Prince Vasily Shuisky, through intermediaries, began to spread rumors of imposture. Governor Pyotr Basmanov uncovered the plot, and on June 23, 1605, Shuisky was captured and condemned to death, pardoned only directly at the block.
Shuisky attracted princes V.V. Golitsyn and I.S. Kurakin to his side. Enlisting the support of the Novgorod-Pskov detachment standing near Moscow, which was preparing for a campaign in the Crimea, Shuisky organized a coup.
On the night of May 16-17, 1606, the boyar opposition, taking advantage of the anger of the Muscovites against the Polish adventurers who came to Moscow for the wedding of False Dmitry, raised an uprising, during which the impostor was killed.
Military actions
The coming to power of the representative of the Suzdal branch of the Rurikovich boyar Vasily Shuisky did not bring peace. In the south, the uprising of Ivan Bolotnikov (1606-1607) broke out, which gave rise to the beginning of the movement of "thieves". Rumors about the miraculous deliverance of Tsarevich Dmitry did not subside. A new impostor appeared, who went down in history as the Tushinsky Thief (1607-1610). By the end of 1608, the power of the Tushinsky Thief extended to Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Uglich, Kostroma, Galich, Vologda. Kolomna, Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky, Smolensk, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, the Ural and Siberian cities remained loyal to Moscow. As a result of the degradation of the border service, the 100,000-strong Nogai horde devastates the "ukraine" and Seversky lands in 1607-1608.
In 1608 Crimean Tatars for the first time in for a long time crossed the Oka and ravaged the central Russian regions. Shuya and Kineshma were defeated by the Polish-Lithuanian troops, Tver was taken, the troops of the Lithuanian hetman Jan Sapega besieged the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, the troops of Pan Lisovsky captured Suzdal. Even cities that voluntarily recognized the power of the impostor were mercilessly plundered by detachments of interventionists. The Poles levied taxes on land and trade, received "feeding" in Russian cities. All this caused by the end of 1608 a broad national liberation movement. In December 1608, Kineshma, Kostroma, Galich, Totma, Vologda, Beloozero, Ustyuzhna Zheleznopolskaya "departed" from the impostor, Veliky Ustyug, Vyatka, Perm came out in support of the rebels. In January 1609, Prince Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky, who commanded Russian warriors from Tikhvin and the Onega churchyards, repelled the 4,000-strong Polish detachment of Kernozitsky advancing on Novgorod. At the beginning of 1609, the militia of the city of Ustyuzhna drove out the Poles and "Cherkasy" (Cossacks) from the surrounding villages, and in February repulsed all the attacks of the Polish cavalry and hired German infantry. On February 17, the Russian militias lost the battle of Suzdal to the Poles. At the end of February, "Vologda and Pomeranian peasants" liberated Kostroma from the interventionists. On March 3, the militia of the northern and north Russian cities took Romanov, from there moved to Yaroslavl and took it in early April. Nizhny Novgorod governor Alyabyev took Murom on March 15, and Vladimir was released on March 27.
The government of Vasily Shuisky concludes the Vyborg Treaty with Sweden, according to which, in exchange for military aid Korelsky county was transferred to the Swedish crown. The Russian government also had to pay for the mercenaries who made up most Swedish army. Fulfilling his obligations, Charles IX provided a 5,000-strong detachment of mercenaries, as well as a 10,000-strong detachment of "all sorts of mixed rabble" under the command of J. Delagardie. In the spring, Prince Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky gathered a 5,000-strong Russian army in Novgorod. On May 10, Russian-Swedish forces occupied Staraya Rusa, and on May 11 they defeated the Polish-Lithuanian detachments approaching the city. On May 15, Russian-Swedish forces under the command of Chulkov and Gorn defeated the Polish cavalry under the command of Kernozitsky near Toropets.
By the end of spring, most of the northwestern Russian cities had abandoned the impostor. By the summer, the number of Russian troops reached 20 thousand people. On June 17, in a heavy battle near Torzhok, the Russian-Swedish forces forced the Polish-Lithuanian army of Zborovsky to retreat. On July 11-13, Russian-Swedish forces, under the command of Skopin-Shuisky and Delagardie, defeated the Poles near Tver. In the further actions of Skopin-Shuisky, the Swedish troops (with the exception of the detachment of Christier Somme, numbering 1 thousand people) did not take part. On July 24, Russian detachments crossed to the right bank of the Volga and entered the Makariev Kalyazin Monastery. On August 19, the Poles under the command of Jan Sapieha were defeated by Skopin-Shuisky at Kalyazin. On September 10, the Russians, together with the Zomme detachment, occupied Pereyaslavl, and on October 9, voivode Golovin occupied Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. On October 16, a Russian detachment broke through into the Trinity-Sergius Monastery besieged by the Poles. On October 28, Skopin-Shuisky defeated Hetman Sapega near Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda.
On January 12, 1610, the Poles retreated from the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, and on February 27, they left Dmitrov under the blows of the Russian troops. On March 12, 1610, the regiments of Skopin-Shuisky entered the capital, and on April 29 he died after a short illness. The Russian army at that time was preparing to go to the aid of Smolensk, which since September 1609 was besieged by the troops of the Polish king Sigismund III. The Poles and Cossacks also took possession of the cities of the Seversk land; the population of Starodub and Pochep completely perished during the enemy assault, Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky surrendered.
On July 4, 1610, the Battle of Klushino took place, as a result of which the Polish army (Zholkevsky) defeated the Russian-Swedish army under the command of Dmitry Shuisky and Jacob Delagardi; during the battle, German mercenaries who served with the Russians went over to the side of the Poles. The Poles opened the way to Moscow.
Seven Boyars
The defeat of the troops of Vasily Shuisky from the Poles near Klushin (June 24/July 4, 1610) finally undermined the shaky authority of the "boyar tsar", and a coup took place in Moscow upon news of this event. As a result of the boyar conspiracy, Vasily Shuisky was removed, Moscow swore allegiance to the Polish prince Vladislav, and on September 20-21, Polish troops entered the capital. However, the robberies and violence committed by the Polish-Lithuanian detachments in Russian cities, as well as interreligious contradictions between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, caused rejection of Polish domination - in the northwest and east, a number of Russian cities "besieged" and refused to swear allegiance to Vladislav.
1610-1613 - Seven Boyars (Mstislavsky, Trubetskoy, Golitsyn, Obolensky, Romanov, Lykov, Sheremetev).
On March 17, 1611, the Poles, who took a dispute in the market for the beginning of an uprising, massacre in Moscow, 7 thousand Muscovites die in Kitai-Gorod alone.
In 1611, the 1st Lyapunov Militia approached the walls of Moscow. However, as a result of a feud at the military council of the rebels, Lyapunov was killed, and the militia dispersed. In the same year, the Crimean Tatars, without meeting resistance, ravaged the Ryazan Territory. Smolensk, after a long siege, was captured by the Poles, and the Swedes, leaving the role of "allies", ravaged the northern Russian cities.
The Second Militia of 1612 was headed by the Nizhny Novgorod zemstvo elder Kuzma Minin, who invited Prince Pozharsky to lead the military operations. In February 1612, the militia moved to Yaroslavl to take this important point, where many roads crossed. Yaroslavl was busy; the militia stood here for four months, because it was necessary to "build" not only the army, but also the "land". Pozharsky wanted to convene a “general zemstvo council” to discuss plans to combat the Polish-Lithuanian intervention and “how we should not be stateless in these evil times and choose a sovereign for us with all the earth.” The candidacy of the Swedish prince Karl-Philip was also proposed for discussion, who "wants to be baptized into our Orthodox faith of the Greek law." However, the Zemstvo Council did not take place.
September 22, 1612 one of the most bloody events Troubles - the city of Vologda was taken by the Poles and Cherkasy (Cossacks), who destroyed almost all of its population, including the monks of the Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery.
The overthrow of the government of Prince Vladislav
Around August 20 (30), 1612, the militia moved from Yaroslavl to Moscow. In September, the second militia defeated the troops of Hetman Khodkevich, who was trying to connect with the Polish garrison that controlled the Moscow Kremlin.
On October 22 (November 1), 1612, the militia led by Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky stormed Kitay-gorod; The garrison of the Commonwealth retreated to the Kremlin. Prince Pozharsky entered Kitai-Gorod with Kazan icon Mother of God and vowed to build a temple in memory of this victory. On October 26, the command of the Polish garrison signed a surrender, releasing the Moscow boyars and other nobles from the Kremlin at the same time; the next day the garrison surrendered.
S. M. Solovyov, "History of Russia since ancient times":
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“As early as mid-September, Pozharsky sent a letter to the Kremlin: “Prince Dmitry Pozharsky beats the colonels and all the chivalry, Germans, Cherkasy and haiduks who are sitting in the Kremlin. We know that you, being in a city under siege, endure immeasurable hunger and great need, waiting from day to day for your death .... and you wouldn’t have to destroy your souls in that injustice, there’s nothing to endure such need and hunger for an injustice, send to us without delay, save your heads and your stomachs intact, and I’ll take it on my soul and I’ll ask all military people: which of If they want you in their land, we will let them go without any clue, and those who want to serve the Moscow sovereign, we will welcome them at their true worth. The answer was a proud and rude refusal, despite the fact that the famine was terrible: the fathers ate their children, one haiduk ate his son, another his mother, one comrade ate his servant; the captain, who was put to judge the guilty, ran away from the court, fearing that the accused would not eat the judge. Finally, on October 22, the Cossacks went on the attack and took Kitai-Gorod. The Poles held out in the Kremlin for another month; to get rid of extra mouths, they ordered the boyars and all Russian people to send their wives out of the Kremlin. The boyars strongly entered and sent to Pozharsky Minin and all military people with a request to come, accept their wives without shame. Pozharsky ordered them to be told to let their wives out without fear, and he himself went to receive them, received everyone honestly and took each one to his friend, ordering everyone to please them. The Cossacks got excited, and again the usual threats were heard among them: to kill Prince Dmitry, why didn’t he let the boyars rob? Driven to extremes by starvation, the Poles finally entered into negotiations with the militia, demanding only one thing, that their lives be saved, which was promised. First, the boyars were released - Fedor Ivanovich Mstislavsky, Ivan Mikhailovich Vorotynsky, Ivan Nikitich Romanov with his nephew Mikhail Fedorovich and the mother of the latter Martha Ivanovna and all other Russian people. When the Cossacks saw that the boyars had gathered on the Stone Bridge leading from the Kremlin through Neglinnaya, they wanted to rush at them, but were held back by Pozharsky's militia and forced to return to the camps, after which the boyars were received with great honor. The next day, the Poles also surrendered: Strus with his regiment went to the Cossacks of Trubetskoy, who robbed and beat many prisoners; Budzilo with his regiment was taken to the warriors of Pozharsky, who did not touch a single Pole. Strus was interrogated, Andronov was tortured, how much royal treasure was lost, how much was left? They also found ancient royal hats, which were given as a pawn to the Sapezhins who remained in the Kremlin. On November 27, Trubetskoy's militia converged on the Church of the Kazan Mother of God outside the Pokrovsky Gates, Pozharsky's militia - to the Church of St. John the Merciful on the Arbat and, taking crosses and images, moved to Kitai-Gorod from two different parties, accompanied by all Moscow residents; the militias converged at the Execution Ground, where the Trinity Archimandrite Dionysius began to serve a prayer service, and now from the Frolovsky (Spassky) Gate, from the Kremlin, another procession: Archbishop Arseny of Galasun (Arkhangelsk) walked with the Kremlin clergy and carried Vladimirskaya: a cry and sobs were heard among the people, who had already lost hope of ever seeing this dear image for Muscovites and all Russians. After the prayer service, the army and the people moved to the Kremlin, and here joy changed to sadness when they saw the state in which the embittered Gentiles left the churches: everywhere uncleanness, images were cut, eyes turned out, thrones were stripped; terrible food is cooked in the vats - human corpses! Mass and a prayer service in the Assumption Cathedral ended a great national celebration similar to which our fathers saw exactly two centuries later. |
The election of the king
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Upon the capture of Moscow, by a letter of November 15, Pozharsky convened representatives from the cities, 10 people each, to select a king. Sigismund took it into his head to go to Moscow, but he did not have the strength to take Volok, and he went back. In January 1613, elected representatives from all classes, including peasants, gathered. The cathedral (that is, the all-class assembly) was one of the most populous and most complete: there were representatives of even black volosts, which had not happened before. Four candidates were nominated: V. I. Shuisky, Vorotynsky, Trubetskoy and Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. Contemporaries accused Pozharsky of agitating strongly in his favor, but this can hardly be allowed. In any case, the elections were very stormy. There is a legend that Filaret demanded restrictive conditions for the new tsar and pointed to M.F. Romanov as the most suitable candidate. Mikhail Fedorovich was indeed chosen, and undoubtedly, he was offered those restrictive conditions that Filaret wrote about: “Give full play to justice according to the old laws of the country; do not judge or condemn anyone supreme authority; without a council, do not introduce any new laws, do not burden the subjects with new taxes, and do not make the slightest decisions in military and zemstvo affairs. The election took place on February 7, but the official announcement was postponed until the 21st, in order to find out in the meantime how the people would accept the new king. With the election of the king, the troubles ended, since now there was a power that everyone recognized and on which one could rely. encyclopedic Dictionary Brockhaus and Efron |
Consequences of the Time of Troubles
The Time of Troubles ended with great territorial losses for Russia. Smolensk was lost for many decades; western and a significant part of eastern Karelia captured by the Swedes. Not reconciled to national and religious oppression, almost the entire Orthodox population, both Russians and Karelians, will leave these territories. Russia lost access to the Gulf of Finland. The Swedes left Novgorod only in 1617, only a few hundred inhabitants remained in the completely devastated city.
The time of troubles led to a deep economic decline. In many districts of the historical center of the state, the size of arable land has decreased by 20 times, and the number of peasants by 4 times. In the western counties (Rzhevsky, Mozhaysky, etc.), cultivated land ranged from 0.05 to 4.8%. The lands in the possessions of the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery were “everything ruined to the ground and the peasant woman with their wives and children was cut down, and the worthy ones were brought to full capacity ... and five or six dozen peasant women after the Lithuanian devastation were shed, and they still do not know how to make bread from ruin and bread.” In a number of areas, and by the 20-40s of the 17th century, the population was still below the level of the 16th century. And in the middle of the 17th century, the "living arable land" in the Zamoskovskiy Territory accounted for no more than half of all lands recorded in cadastral books.
The beginning of the 17th century was marked by a series of difficult trials for Russia.
How did the turmoil start?
After Tsar Ivan the Terrible died in 1584, his son Fyodor Ivanovich, who was very weak and sickly, inherited the throne. Due to his state of health, he ruled for a short time - from 1584 to 1598. Fedor Ivanovich died early, leaving no heirs. The younger son of Ivan the Terrible was allegedly stabbed to death by minions of Boris Godunov. There were many who wanted to take the reins of government into their own hands. As a result, a struggle for power within the country unfolded. A similar situation served as an impetus for the development of such a phenomenon as the Time of Troubles. Causes and the beginning of this period in different time interpreted in their own way. Despite this, it is possible to single out the main events and aspects that influenced the development of these events.
Main reasons
Of course, first of all, this is the interruption of the Rurik dynasty. From this moment on, the central power, which has passed into the hands of third parties, loses its authority in the eyes of the people. The constant increase in taxes also served as a catalyst for the discontent of the townspeople and peasants. For such a protracted phenomenon as the Time of Troubles, the reasons have been accumulating for more than one year. This includes the consequences of the oprichnina, the economic devastation after the Livonian War. The last straw there was a sharp deterioration in living conditions associated with the drought of 1601-1603. The Time of Troubles became for external forces the most successful moment for the liquidation of the state independence of Russia.
Background from the point of view of historians
Not only the weakening of the monarchy regime contributed to the emergence of such a phenomenon as the Time of Troubles. The reasons for it are connected with the interweaving of aspirations and actions of various political forces and social masses, which were complicated by the intervention of external forces. Due to the fact that at the same time many unfavorable factors were formed, the country plunged into a deep crisis.
For the occurrence of such a phenomenon as Troubles, the reasons can be identified as follows:
1. The crisis of the economy, which falls on late XVI century. It was caused by the decline of peasants in the cities, the increase in tax and feudal oppression. The famine of 1601-1603 aggravated the situation, as a result of which about half a million people died.
2. The crisis of the dynasty. After the death of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, the struggle of various boyar clans for the right to stand in power intensified. During this period, Boris Godunov (from 1598 to 1605), Fyodor Godunov (April 1605 - June 1605), False Dmitry I (from June 1605 to May 1606), Vasily Shuisky (from 1606 to 1610), False Dmitry II (from 1607 to 1610) and the Seven Boyars (from 1610 to 1611).
3. Spiritual crisis. Pursuit catholic religion to impose their will ended in a split in the Russian Orthodox Church.
Internal turmoil laid the foundation for peasant wars and urban uprisings.
Godunov's board
The difficult struggle for power between representatives of the highest nobility ended in the victory of Boris Godunov, the tsar's brother-in-law. This was the first time in Russian history when the throne was not inherited, but as a result of victory in elections in the Zemsky Sobor. In general, over the seven years of his reign, Godunov managed to resolve disputes and disagreements with Poland and Sweden, and also established cultural and economic relations with the countries of Western Europe.
His domestic politics also brought its results in the form of Russia's advance into Siberia. However, soon the situation in the country deteriorated. This was caused by crop failures in the period from 1601 to 1603.
Godunov took all possible measures to alleviate such a difficult situation. He organized public works, gave permission to the serfs to leave their masters, organized the distribution of bread to the starving. Despite this, as a result of the abolition in 1603 of the law on the temporary restoration of St. George's Day, an uprising of serfs broke out, which marked the beginning of the peasant war.
Exacerbation of the internal situation
The most dangerous stage Peasants' War was an uprising led by Ivan Bolotnikov. The war spread to the southwest and south of Russia. The rebels defeated the troops of the new tsar - Vasily Shuisky - proceeding to the siege of Moscow in October-December 1606. Stopped them internal divisions, as a result of which the rebels were forced to retreat to Kaluga.
An opportune moment for an attack on Moscow for Polish princes was the Troubles of the early 17th century. The reasons for the intervention attempts lay in the impressive support provided to the princes False Dmitry I and False Dmitry II, who were subordinate to foreign accomplices in everything. The ruling circles of the Commonwealth and the Catholic Church made attempts to dismember Russia and eliminate its state independence.
The next stage in the split of the country was the formation of territories that recognized the power of False Dmitry II, and those that remained faithful to Vasily Shuisky.
According to some historians, the main reasons for such a phenomenon as the Time of Troubles lay in lack of rights, imposture, internal split of the country and intervention. This time was the first civil war in Russian history. Before the Time of Troubles appeared in Russia, its causes were formed for more than one year. The prerequisites were associated with the oprichnina and the consequences of the Livonian War. The country's economy was already ruined by that time, and tension was growing in the social strata.
Final stage
Beginning in 1611, there was an increase in patriotic sentiment, accompanied by calls for an end to strife and greater unity. The militia was organized. However, only on the second attempt under the leadership of K. Minin and K. Pozharsky in the fall of 1611, Moscow was liberated. 16-year-old Mikhail Romanov was elected the new tsar.
The Troubles brought colossal territorial losses in the 17th century. The reasons for it were mainly in the weakening of the authority of the centralized government in the eyes of the people, the formation of the opposition. Despite this, having gone through years of losses and hardships, internal disunity and civil strife under the leadership of False Dmitry impostors and adventurers, nobles, townspeople and peasants came to the conclusion that strength can only be in unity. The consequences of the Time of Troubles influenced the country for a long time. Only a century later they were finally eliminated.
