Precious memory for Russians
NIKOLAY MIKHAILOVICH KARAMZIN
this work, inspired by his genius, devotes with reverence and gratitude
Alexander Pushkin
Kremlin chambers
Princes Shuisky and Vorotynsky.
Vorotynsky
We are dressed up together to know the city,
But we don't seem to have anyone to look after:
Moscow is empty; following the patriarch
All the people also went to the monastery.
How do you think the anxiety will end?Shuisky
How will it end? It's not surprising to find out:
The people will still cry and cry,
Boris will frown a little more,
Like a drunkard in front of a glass of wine,
And finally, by your grace
To accept the crown will humbly agree;
And there - and there he will rule us
As before.Vorotynsky
But the month has already passed
How, hiding in a monastery with my sister,
He seems to have abandoned everything worldly.
Neither the patriarch nor the Duma boyars
Hitherto they could not bend him;
He does not heed any tearful admonitions,
Neither their pleas, nor the cry of all Moscow,
Not the voice of the Great Council.
His sister was begged in vain
Bless Boris for Power;
Sad nun queen
How firm he is, how unforgiving he is.
Know, Boris himself instilled this spirit into her;
What if the ruler really
Bored with sovereign worries
And the powerless will not ascend to the throne?
What do you say?Shuisky
I will say that in vain
The blood of the baby prince was pouring;
What if so, Demetrius could live.Vorotynsky
Awful villainy! Full, as if
Boris ruined the Tsarevich?Shuisky
Then who?
Who bribed Chepchugov in vain?
Who sent both Bityagovskys
With Kachalov? I was sent to Uglich
Investigate this case on the spot:
I ran into fresh tracks;
The whole city was witness to the atrocity;
All citizens showed in agreement;
And, returning, I could with a single word
Expose the hidden villain.Vorotynsky
Why didn't you destroy it?Shuisky
I confess he confused me then
Calmness, unexpected shamelessness,
He looked into my eyes, as if right:
I asked, entered the details -
And before him I repeated the absurdity,
Which he himself whispered to me.Vorotynsky
Not clean, prince.Shuisky
What could I do?
To declare everything to Theodore? But the king
He looked at everything with the eyes of Godunov,
He listened to everything with Godunov's ears:
Let me assure him of everything
Boris would have disbelieved him at once,
And there they would send me to prison,
Yes in a good hour, like my uncle,
In a remote prison, they quietly crushed me.
I'm not bragging, but in the case, of course,
No execution will frighten me.
I am not a coward myself, but also not a fool
And I will not agree to climb into the noose for nothing.Vorotynsky
Terrible villainy! Listen right
Repentance worries the destroyer:
Surely the blood of an innocent baby
It prevents him to set foot on the throne.Shuisky
Will step over; Boris is not so timid!
What an honor for us, for all of Russia!
Yesterday's slave, Tatar, Malyuta's son-in-law,
The executioner's son-in-law and the executioner himself in his soul,
Will take the crown and the barmas of Monomakh ...Vorotynsky
So, by birth he is ignorant; we are more famous.Shuisky
Yes, it seems.Vorotynsky
After all, Shuisky, Vorotynsky ...
It is easy to say natural princes.Shuisky
Natural, and Rurik's blood.Vorotynsky
And listen, prince, because we would have had the right
Inherit Theodore.Shuisky
Yes, more,
Than Godunov.Vorotynsky
Indeed, indeed!Shuisky
Well?
When Boris does not stop cunning,
Let's skillfully excite the people,
Let them leave Godunov,
They have enough of their princes, let
They will choose anyone as their king.Vorotynsky
There are many of us, the heirs of the Varangian,
Yes, it is difficult for us to compete with Godunov:
The people have lost the habit of seeing the ancient industry in us
Their warlike rulers.
We lost our inheritance long ago,
For a long time we serve as assistants to the kings,
And he knew how with fear and love,
And to enchant the people with glory.Shuisky
(looks out the window)
He dared, that's all - and we ... But complete. See
The people go, scattered, back -
Let's go quickly and find out if it's decided.
the Red Square
People.
One
Relentless! He drove away from himself
Saints, boyars and patriarch.
They prostrated themselves in vain before him;
He is frightened by the radiance of the throne.Another
Oh my god, who will rule us?
Oh woe to us!Third
Yes, here is the supreme clerk
It turns out for us to tell the decision of the Duma.People
Be silent! be silent! the clerk dumny says;
Shh - listen!Shchelkalov
(from the Red Porch)
Cathedral put
Taste the Power of Request for the Last Time
Above the ruler's sorrowful soul.
In the morning, the most holy patriarch again,
A solemn prayer service in the Kremlin,
)
Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky
Boris Godunov
Tsar Boris Feodorovich Godunov
Regency. Dying, Tsar Ivan solemnly recognized his successor, "overlaid with humility", incapable of managing the state and appointed a government commission to help him, how to say, a regency of several of the closest nobles. At first, after the death of Grozny, the greatest power among the regents was enjoyed by the tsar's maternal uncle Nikita Romanovich Yuriev; but soon his illness and death cleared the way to power for another guardian, the king's brother-in-law Boris Godunov.
Using the character of the tsar and the support of his sister-queen, he gradually pushed other regents out of the affairs and himself began to rule the state in the name of his son-in-law. It is not enough to call him a prime minister; he was a kind of dictator, or, how to say, a co-ruler. The tsar, in the words of Kotoshikhin, made him a ruler over the state in all affairs, having himself indulged in "humility and prayer." So enormous was Boris' influence on the tsar and on affairs. According to Prince Katyrev-Rostovsky, he seized such power, "as if the tsar himself would obey him in everything." He was surrounded by royal honor, received foreign ambassadors in his chambers with the majesty and splendor of a real potentate, "with no less honor from the people before the king."
He ruled wisely and carefully, and the fourteen-year reign of Fedor was for the state a time of rest from the pogroms and fears of the oprichnina. “The Lord took pity on His people,” writes the same contemporary, “and gave them a prosperous time, allowed the tsar to reign quietly and serenely, and all Orthodox Christianity began to console itself and live quietly and serenely.” The successful war with Sweden did not disturb this general mood.
But in Moscow, the most disturbing rumors began to circulate. After Tsar Ivan, the youngest son Dimitri remained, to whom his father, according to the old custom of the Moscow sovereigns, gave a small inheritance, the city of Uglich with the district. At the very beginning of Fyodor's reign, to prevent court intrigues and unrest, this prince with his maternal relatives Nagimi was removed from Moscow. In Moscow, they said that this seven-year-old Demetrius, the son of the fifth married wife of Tsar Ivan (not counting the unmarried), therefore, the prince of dubious legality from the canonical point of view, would come out all as a priest of the times of the oprichnina, and that this prince was in great danger from those close to the throne of people who themselves mark the throne in a very likely case of the childless death of Tsar Fedor. And now, as if to justify these rumors, in 1591 the news spread throughout Moscow that the appanage prince Dimitri was stabbed to death in broad daylight in Uglich, and that the murderers were immediately killed by the ascended townspeople, so that there was no one to take testimony from during the investigation. ...
P. Svinin. Terem of Tsarevich Dimitri in Uglich
The commission of inquiry, sent to Uglich, headed by Prince V.I.Shuisky, Godunov's secret enemy and rival, conducted the case stupidly or in bad faith, carefully inquired about side trifles and forgot to investigate the most important circumstances, did not find out the contradictions in the testimony, and generally confused the case terribly. She tried, first of all, to assure herself and others that the prince was not stabbed, but stabbed himself in a fit of epilepsy, falling on a knife with which he was playing with children. Therefore, the Uglichs were severely punished for unauthorized reprisals against the alleged murderers. Having received such a report from the commission, Patriarch Job, a friend of Godunov, with his assistance and elevated to the patriarchal dignity two years ago, announced to the council that the death of the tsarevich had happened by the judgment of God. That was the end of the matter.
In January 1598, Tsar Fedor died. After him, there was no one left from the Kalitina dynasty who could take the empty throne. They swore allegiance to the widow of the deceased, Queen Irina; but she cut her hair. So, the dynasty died out not purely, not by its own death. The Zemsky Sobor, chaired by the same Patriarch Job, elected the ruler Boris Godunov to the throne.
On the throne. Boris ruled on the throne just as cleverly and cautiously as before, standing at the throne under Tsar Fyodor. By origin, he belonged to the great, although not paramount boyars. The Godunovs are a junior branch of an ancient and important Moscow boyar family, descended from the Murza Chet who left the Horde for Moscow under Kalita. An older branch of the same clan, the Saburovs, occupied a prominent place in the Moscow boyars. But the Godunovs rose only recently, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, and the oprichnina, it seems, helped a lot to their rise.
Boris was a planted father at one of the many weddings of Tsar Ivan during the oprichnina, moreover, he became the son-in-law of Malyuta Skuratov-Belsky, the chief of the oprichniki. The marriage of Tsarevich Fyodor to Boris's sister further strengthened his position at court. Until the establishment of the oprichnina in the Boyar Duma, we do not meet the Godunovs; they appear in it only since 1573; but since the death of Grozny, they have poured there, and all in the important ranks of boyars and okolnichy. But Boris himself was not included in the lists of guardsmen and thus did not drop himself in the eyes of society, which looked at them as outcast people, "outcasts" - so contemporaries joked at them, playing with synonyms "oprich" and "except."
V. Medvedev. Patriarch Job and the people of Moscow ask Boris Godunov to reign
Boris began his reign with great success, even with brilliance, and his first actions on the throne caused general approval. Modern twists wrote curiously about him that with his policy of internal and external, he was "extremely judicious of the peoples of the wisdom of showing." They found in him "a wise and far-reaching mind," they called him a very wonderful and sweet-tongued husband and a building velma, a lot of caring about his state. They spoke with enthusiasm about the appearance and personal qualities of the tsar, wrote that "no one from the royal synclites is like him in the beauty of his face and in the reasoning of his mind." Although they noticed with surprise that this was the first "bookless sovereign" in Russia, "he was not familiar with literate teaching from his youth, as if he was not accustomed to simple letters." But, recognizing that he surpassed all people in appearance and mind and did much praiseworthy in the state, he was light-hearted, merciful and loving of poverty, although inexperienced in military affairs, they found some shortcomings in him: he bloomed with virtues and could become like the ancient kings, if jealousy and malice had not darkened these virtues. He was reproached with an insatiable lust for power and a tendency to trustingly listen to headphones and persecute slandered people indiscriminately, for which he perceived retribution. Considering himself incapable of military affairs and not trusting his governors, Tsar Boris pursued an indecisive, ambiguous foreign policy, did not take advantage of the fierce enmity of Poland with Sweden, which gave him the opportunity to acquire Livonia from Poland by an alliance with the King of Sweden.
His main attention was paid to the internal order in the state, "the correction of all things necessary for the kingdom," as the cellarer A. Palitsyn put it, and in the first two years of his reign, the cellarer notes, "Russia flourished with all the blessings." The tsar cared deeply for the poor and the poor, wasted mercy on them, but he cruelly persecuted evil people and by such measures gained immense popularity, "was kind to everyone." In organizing the internal state order, he even showed unusual courage. Boris was ready for the measure that had to strengthen the freedom and well-being of the peasants: he, apparently, was preparing a decree that would precisely define the duties and dues of the peasants in favor of the landowners. This is a law that the Russian government did not dare to adopt until the liberation of the serfs.
Rumors and rumors about Boris. So Boris began to reign. However, despite many years of government experience, the favors that he generously lavished on the accession of all classes, the government abilities that were surprised in him, his popularity was fragile. Boris was one of those ill-fated people who both attracted and repelled from themselves - attracted by the visible qualities of mind and talent, repelled by invisible but sensed defects of heart and conscience. He knew how to evoke surprise and gratitude, but did not inspire confidence in anyone; he was always suspected of duplicity and deceit and was considered capable of anything. Undoubtedly, the terrible school of Grozny, which Godunov went through, left an indelible sad imprint on him.
Even during the reign of Tsar Fyodor, many had a view of Boris as an intelligent and businesslike man, but capable of everything, not stopping at any moral difficulty. Attentive and impartial observers, like the clerk Ivan Timofeev, the author of curious notes about the Time of Troubles, characterizing Boris, goes straight from harsh reproaches to enthusiastic praises. And he only wonders where he got everything that he did good, whether it was a gift of nature or the work of a strong will, which until time was able to skillfully wear any disguise. This "worker", the king of slaves, seemed like a mysterious mixture of good and evil, a gambler whose conscience was constantly fluctuating in the scales. With such a look, there was no suspicion and criticism, which popular rumor would not be ready to hang on his name. He also let the Khan of Crimea near Moscow, and killed the good Tsar Fyodor with his daughter, child Fedosya, his own niece, and even poisoned his own sister, Tsarina Alexandra; and the former zemstvo tsar, the half-forgotten protege of Grozny, Semyon Bekbulatovich, blinded by old age, is blinded by the same B. Godunov. By the way, he also burned Moscow, immediately after the murder of Tsarevich Dimitri, in order to divert the attention of the tsar and the capital's society from the Uglitsk atrocity. B. Godunov became a favorite victim of all kinds of political slander. Who, if not him, should kill Tsarevich Dimitri? So the rumor decided, and this time for a reason.
Invisible lips carried this rumor, fatal for Boris, all over the world. They said that he was not without sin in this dark affair, that he had sent assassins to the prince in order to pave his way to the throne. Modern chroniclers talked about Boris's participation in the case, of course, according to rumors and guesses. Of course, they did not have direct evidence and could not have it: powerful people in such cases can and are able to hide their ends in the water. But in the chronicle stories there is no confusion and contradictions, which the report of the Uglitsky investigative commission is full of. The chroniclers correctly understood the predicament of Boris and his supporters under Tsar Fyodor: it encouraged to beat so as not to be beaten. After all, the Naked would not have spared the Godunovs if the Uglitsky prince had reigned. Boris knew very well from himself that people who crawl to the steps of the throne do not like and do not know how to be generous. Only the chroniclers raise some doubt: this is the careless frankness with which Boris behaves among them. They charge the ruler not only with direct and active participation, but, as it were, even an initiative in business.
Unsuccessful attempts to poison the prince, meetings with relatives and friends about other means of lime Dimitri, an unsuccessful first choice of performers, Boris's sadness about failure, his consolation with Kleshnin, promising to fulfill his desire - all these details, without which, it would seem, people could do without, so accustomed to intrigue. With such a master of his craft as Kleshnin, who owes everything to Boris and is the leader of the Uglitsk crime, there was no need to be so frank: a transparent hint, a silent impressive gesture was enough to be understood. In any case, it is difficult to suppose that this deed would have taken place without Boris's knowledge. It was rigged by some overly helpful hand, which wanted to do what Boris liked, guessing his secret intentions, and even more - to secure the position of his party, held by Boris.
Seven years have passed - seven serene years of Boris's rule. Time was beginning to erase the Uglitsky stain from Borisov's face. But with the death of Tsar Fyodor, suspicious popular rumor revived. There were rumors that the election of Boris to the kingdom was unclean, that, having poisoned Tsar Fyodor, Godunov reached the throne with police tricks, which the rumor raised into an entire organization. Agents, even monks from different monasteries, were dispatched to all parts of Moscow and to all cities, inciting the people to ask Boris for the kingdom "with the whole world"; even the widow-queen assiduously helped her brother, secretly with money and flattering promises, seducing the rifle officers to act in favor of Boris. Under the threat of a heavy fine for resistance, the police in Moscow drove the people to the Novodevichy Convent to beat them with their brows and ask the queen who had tonsured her brother to reign. Numerous bailiffs watched that this popular petition was brought with great shrieks and tears, and many, having no tears at the ready, smeared their eyes with saliva in order to deflect the bailiffs' sticks away from them. When the queen approached the window of the cell to make sure of the nationwide prayer and weeping, according to the sign given from the cell, the whole people had to prostrate themselves to the ground. Those who did not have time or did not want to do this, the bailiffs were forced to bow to the ground with kicks in the necks from behind, and everyone, rising, howled like wolves. From a frantic scream, the wombs of those who screamed disintegrated, their faces turned purple from exertion, they had to plug their ears from the general scream. This was repeated many times. Touched by the spectacle of such devotion of the people, the queen finally blessed her brother for the kingdom. The bitterness of these stories, perhaps exaggerated, sharply expresses the degree of bitterness that Godunov and his supporters tried to settle in society.
Tsar Boris legally ascended to the throne by the legal means of the Zemsky council election and could become the founder of a new dynasty, both in his personal qualities and in his political merits. But the boyars, who had endured a lot under Grozny, now, under an elected tsar from among their brethren, did not want to be content with a simple custom on which their political significance under the previous dynasty was kept. They expected from Boris more firm assurance of this value, that is, the limitation of his power by a formal act, "so that he kisses the cross to the state in accordance with the prescribed charter," as the news that came from that time in the papers of a historian of the 18th century says. Tatishchev. Boris acted with his usual double-mindedness: he well understood the tacit expectation of the boyars, but he did not want to yield or refuse outright, and the whole comedy of stubborn refusal of the proposed power that he started was only a trick with the aim of evading the conditions on which this power was offered. The boyars were silent, expecting that Godunov himself would talk to them about these conditions, the kissing of the cross, and Boris was silent and refused power, hoping that the Zemsky Sobor would elect him without any conditions. Boris kept silent for the boyars and was chosen without any conditions.
N. Nekrasov. Boris Godunov examines the map on which his son studies
It was Godunov's mistake, for which he and his family paid dearly. He immediately gave this extremely false statement of his power. He should have held on more tightly to his role as a zemstvo elect, and he tried to join the old dynasty according to fictitious bequest orders. The conciliar definition boldly assures that the Terrible, entrusting Boris with his son Fyodor, said: "By his repose I command you this kingdom as well." As if the Terrible foresaw both the death of Tsarevich Dimitri and the childless death of Fyodor. And Tsar Fyodor, dying, as if “entrusted his kingdom” to the same Boris. All these inventions are the fruit of the friendly zeal of Patriarch Job, who edited the conciliar definition. Boris was not a hereditary patrimony of the Moscow state, but a people's choice, he began a special series of tsars with a new state significance. In order not to be funny or hateful, he should have behaved differently, and not parody the lost dynasty with its specific habits and prejudices.
The big boyars with the princes Shuisky at the head were against the election of Boris, fearing, in the words of the chronicler, that "there would be persecution from him and people." It was necessary to dispel this fear, and for some time the great boyars seemed to have been expecting this. One supporter of Tsar Vasily Shuisky, who wrote on his inspiration, notes that the great boyars, the princes of Rurikovich, relatives in the genealogy of the former tsars of Moscow and their worthy successors, did not want to elect a tsar from among their midst, but gave this matter to the will of the people, as well as without that they were great and glorious under the previous tsars not only in Russia, but also in distant countries. But this greatness and glory had to be secured from arbitrariness, which did not recognize either the great or the glorious, and the provision could only consist in limiting the power of the elected king, which was what the boyars expected. Boris should have taken the initiative in business, while transforming the Zemsky Sobor from a random official meeting into a permanent popular representation, the idea of which was already wandering in Moscow's minds under Grozny, and the convocation of which Boris himself demanded in order to be popularly elected. This would reconcile the opposition boyars with him and - who knows? - would avert the troubles that befell him with his family and Russia, making him the founder of a new dynasty. But the "crafty sly", with a lack of political consciousness, outsmarted himself.
When the boyars saw that their hopes were deceived, that the new tsar was disposed to rule as arbitrarily as Ivan the Terrible ruled, they decided to secretly act against him. Russian contemporaries directly explain Boris's misfortunes with the indignation of the officials of the entire Russian land, from which many mischievous anger rebelled against him. Sensing the muffled murmur of the boyars, Boris took measures to protect himself from their intrigues. A complex network of secret police surveillance was woven, in which the main role was played by boyar slaves who denounced their masters, and thieves released from prisons, who, prowling through Moscow streets, overheard what was said about the tsar, and seized everyone who said an incautious word.
Denunciation and slander quickly became terrible social ulcers: people of all classes, even spiritual ones, denounced each other; family members were afraid to talk to each other; it was scary to pronounce the name of the tsar - the detective grabbed and delivered to the dungeon. Denunciations were accompanied by disgrace, torture, executions and the destruction of houses. “There have never been such troubles under any sovereign,” as contemporaries remarked. Boris pounced on a significant boyar circle with the Romanovs at the head, in which, as in the cousins of Tsar Fyodor, he saw his ill-wishers and rivals with particular bitterness. Five Nikitichs, their relatives and friends with their wives, children, sisters, nephews were scattered in the distant corners of the state, and the elder Nikitich, the future Patriarch Filaret, was also tonsured, like his wife.
Finally, Boris was completely distraught, he wanted to know his domestic thoughts, read in his hearts and manage in someone else's conscience. He sent out everywhere a special prayer, which in all houses at a meal had to be said with a cup of health for the king and his family. Reading this hypocritical and boastful prayer, one is imbued with regret, to which a person can get lost, even a king. By all these measures Boris created a hated position for himself. The boyar nobility, with age-old legends, hid in farmsteads, estates and distant prisons. In its place, the unknown "Godunovs and Comrades" climbed out of the cracks and surrounded the throne with an envious gang and filled the courtyard. The dynasty was replaced by relatives, the head of which was the zemstvo elect, who turned into a petty police coward. He hid in the palace, rarely went out to the people and did not accept petitions himself, as the previous tsars did. Suspecting everyone, tormented by memories and fears, he showed that he was afraid of everyone, like a thief, every minute afraid of being caught, according to the apt expression of a foreigner who was then living in Moscow.
Finally, in 1604, the worst rumor spread. For three years already in Moscow they whispered about an unknown person who called himself Tsarevich Dimitri. Now the loud news spread that Godunov's agents missed in Uglich, stabbed a dummy child, and the real prince is alive and is coming from Lithuania to get the ancestral throne. The minds of the Russian people got confused by these rumors, and Troubles began. Tsar Boris died in the spring of 1605, shaken by the successes of the Pretender, who, having reigned in Moscow, was soon killed.
N. Shakhovsky. The Godunov family
