Years of the reign of Vasily Shuisky. Tsar Vasily Shuisky: politics during his reign and overthrow. Biography before accession
Shuisky entered the Kremlin as a winner. A fat man, bald, with a sparse beard, small furtive eyes, without pleasant courtesy and flattering, which fully corresponded to...
Klyuchevsky
Klyuchevsky is generally a strange historical figure, and he often described things that did not actually happen. For example, there is not a single portrait of Shuisky. Where Klyuchevsky got the idea about “thievish eyes” is unclear...
The people really did not like Shuisky. He really was an onion courtier, but any ruler should be like that, otherwise he would not retain power for a day. Especially in the midst of the Time of Troubles.
The beginning of Shuisky's reign
The circumstances of Shuisky's accession to the throne are unusual. The fact is that upon ascending the throne, Shuisky swore allegiance to his subjects for the first time in the history of Russia. He gave a “record” and sealed it with a kiss on the cross. It’s true that kissing the cross is a piece of cake for Shuisky, as he will prove more than once in the future. However, this was a new thing - the tsar gives a sign of the cross to the people in the person of the boyars, agreeing to limit his own power. Therefore, you need to clearly understand that Shuisky was a boyar king and the kissing of the cross is an attempt to turn personal autocracy into an oligarchic version of government. What is contained in the kissing cross record: promises to the boyars, nobles, merchants and all black people against extrajudicial disgraces and executions.
After the victory over Bolotnikov, it would seem that Vasily Shuisky could celebrate the victory, however, as they say, trouble came out of nowhere. A man appeared in Russia who called himself the saved Tsarevich Dmitry. This is how False Dmitry 2 appeared, who went to war against Moscow.
Tsar Vasily Shuisky against the Tushentsev
In fact, the country split into two parts. About 100 thousand people gathered in the Tushino camp. In essence, it was a bandit settlement. They brutally robbed the population, and they robbed not only around Moscow, but also went, for example, to Vologda, Yaroslavl and other cities. That is, there were gangs all over the country. And not only gangs of Poles and interventionists, as it is written in many textbooks, but also Cossacks and Russian people robbed and killed their own.
Shuisky could not do anything about it. He had no power or troops. The reign of Vasily Shuisky was very conditional. And then the cities began to take care of themselves. They began to create their own Zemstvo militias (something reminiscent of modern militias). These militias were especially strong in the north and northeast of the country. I have already told you more than once that parts of the North and North-East of Rus', which were very important in terms of trade and fishing, once went to Oprichnina. And even earlier, lip reform was successfully carried out there. What is lip reform? People began to organize themselves at their own expense. But only the rich could do this. These people have been accustomed to self-government for 50 years, for 2 generations. And naturally they began to organize to resist the bandits.
The rise of the Zemstvo movement began. But Shuisky was not happy about this. He didn’t like it, because in addition to the Tushinsky thief, the Zemstvo movement appeared, with which it was necessary to share power. And then Shuisky found nothing better than to turn to the Swedish King Charles 9.
A call to help the Swedes
In February 1609, an agreement was signed in the city of Vyborg, according to which Sweden sent a detachment of 5,000 soldiers to the Russian Tsar, but these were not Swedes. They were mainly French, Germans and Scots. They were the main striking force of all mercenaries in Europe in the 17th century. When they talk about the Swedish intervention, it should be understood that only the commander was a Swede, and the army was mercenaries. There were 2 quite strong commanders in the army: Jacob Delagardie and Ecob Horn. For this help, Shuisky, in addition to paying army salaries, agreed to cede part of the territory to the Swedes, and, most importantly, allowed Swedish coins to circulate in Russia. These were very serious concessions. You need to understand that Vasily Shuisky’s reign as a tsar was very limited. And so much so that he actually became a traitor to Russia.
In the spring of 1609, a united European-Russian army moved from Novgorod against Tushintsy. The Russian army was commanded by a talented commander, 24-year-old Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky. This was the nephew of the Tsar, who showed himself very well in battles with Bolotnikov’s army. They defeated the Tushins near Tver in 1609, after which the Swedes demanded immediate payment of money. Although, according to the terms of the agreement, they were supposed to receive the money only after the end of the war. Since there was no money, Shuisky tried to increase taxes, but did not collect the required amount. Then the Swedes abandoned Skopin-Shuisky and the army dispersed throughout Russia, starting to rob the population. Skopin-Shuisky continued on his way alone. Under these conditions, many began to wonder whether Skopin-Shuisky had been heralded to the Russian throne? But he rejected this idea. He did not want to sit on the throne, at least in that situation.
Polish interventions in events
Since the Swedes interfered with Russian events, and at that time Poland was fighting with them, Sigismund 3 took advantage of this to introduce Polish troops into Russian territory. On September 16, 1609, Sigismund besieged Smolensk. He planted the city for 21 months. The Smolyan residents stubbornly resisted and held the siege. The enemy was able to occupy the city only after 21 months. The city fell only when the Smolensk residents blew up the powder tower out of despair, in order to harm the enemy as much as possible before surrendering.
Filaret and the clergy, Saltykov and the Tushino Duma at first did not know what to do, and then they decided to make a very clever move (at least it seemed so to them). They sent ambassadors to Sigismund 3 and asked to give Sigismund's son, Prince Vladislav, as king to Moscow. Please note that Filaret and the Moscow boyars are asking for a Polish prince to take the Russian throne. Meanwhile, Skopin-Shuisky continues his military operations, beats the enemy and in March 1610 solemnly enters Moscow. Once again, Muscovites are starting to say that this is exactly what a Russian Tsar should be like. Naturally, Vasily Shuisky did not like his nephew, but his brother, Dmitry, did not like him even more. In April 1610, at the baptismal feast of Prince Vorotynsky, Skopin-Shuisky was poisoned. Apparently, he was poisoned on Dmitry’s order, and the pharmacologist at that time was the son of John Dee, who acted in Rus' under the name Diev.
Skopin-Shuisky died. He was dying for 2 weeks. Dmitry Shuisky, the king's brother, was appointed the new commander. In a row, Dmitry Shuisky went to fight with the Poles. And at this time, the Polish army under the command of Hetman Zholtkevsky was moving towards Moscow. And although Dmitry Shuisky had twice as many troops, he was shamefully defeated, because the governor was weak. And Zholkiewski, inspired by success, began a march on Moscow. Having learned about this, False Dmitry 2, who was sitting in Kaluga, and who also began to move towards Moscow, was very happy.
End of reign
By the summer of 1610, Moscow finds itself in pincers. False Dmitry is moving from the south with the Russian lower classes and ragamuffins, and Hetman Zholkiewski is moving from the west with the Poles. And then a conspiracy was drawn up against Shuisky.
On July 17, 1610, the nobles, led by one of the Lipunov brothers Zakhar, with the active support of the townspeople, overthrew Vasily Shuisky and tonsured him as a monk, and then handed him over to the Poles with his brothers Dmitry and Ivan. The reign of Vasily Shuisky ended here. In captivity among the Poles, the Shuiskys experienced the most severe humiliation. At a meeting of the Sejm they were forced to their knees and forced to publicly ask for mercy from the Polish king. Physical and moral hardships undermined the Shuiskys’ health. In October 1612, Brothers Vasily and Dmitry die.
Tsar and Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus' (1606-1610).
Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky was born in 1552 in the family of the boyar Prince Ivan Andreevich Shuisky (about 1533-1573). He was a descendant of the princes of Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod and descended from Andrei Yaroslavich, his younger brother.
In his youth, V.I. Shuisky served at court, and in 1580 he was the tsar’s groomsman at his last wedding. In 1581-1582 he stood as a governor with regiments on the Oka River, guarding the border from a possible attack by the Crimean Khan.
Boyar (since 1584) Prince V.I. Shuisky took an active part in the struggle of the court parties after his death. He acted as an opponent of the king's brother-in-law, who was gradually seizing into his hands the real levers of government. In 1587, the prince fell into disgrace, but was quickly forgiven and returned to court.
In May 1591, V.I. Shuisky was sent to conduct an investigation into the mysterious death of the prince. The investigation confirmed that the prince cut himself with a knife during an epileptic fit. However, both contemporaries and descendants suspected V.I. Shuisky of concealing the true causes of death. Rumors persisted that the prince was killed by the people of Boris Godunov, and the prince deliberately hid this in order to avoid persecution by the king. The people believed that V.I. Shuisky was the only one who knew the truth about the Coal tragedy.
In 1596, V.I. Shuisky was sent as a governor with a regiment of his right hand “according to the Crimean news” to.
In 1598, after the death of Tsar Fyodor I Ivanovich - the last Rurikovich on the Russian throne - V.I. Shuisky, due to the nobility of his family and proximity to the extinct dynasty, seemed the most faithful contender for the throne. After the election of Boris Godunov to the kingdom, the prince was constantly under suspicion of disloyalty, repeatedly removed himself from the court, but invariably returned.
At the beginning of 1605, V.I. Shuisky actively participated in military operations against. After the death of Boris Godunov, the prince was recalled to.
In June 1605, V.I. Shuisky went over to the side of False Dmitry I. Without waiting for the new sovereign to arrive in Moscow, the prince and his brothers went to meet him. The impostor accepted them in, at first he spoke to them dryly, but then forgave them.
Soon the prince led a conspiracy against False Dmitry I, was sentenced to death, then pardoned and exiled, but at the end of 1605 he was returned to court.
In May 1606, relying on the palace and church nobility, the top of the provincial nobility of the western and central counties and large merchants, V. I. Shuisky again led a conspiracy against False Dmitry I. During the uprising on May 17, 1606, False Dmitry I was killed by the conspirators, and 19 May a group of supporters of V.I. Shuisky “shouted out” him as king.
V.I. Shuisky gave a sign of the cross, which limited his power. On June 1 (10), 1606, Vasily IV Shuisky was crowned king in the Moscow Kremlin. Immediately after this, a new patriarch was enthroned - the former Metropolitan of Kazan, known for his resistance to the non-Orthodox actions of False Dmitry I.
The first public act of Tsar Vasily IV Shuisky was the transfer of the relics of Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich to Moscow. The Rostov Metropolitan was sent to Uglich. On June 3, 1606, the relics of Dmitry Ivanovich were brought and exhibited in the Moscow Kremlin. Boris Godunov was officially declared his killer. With this gesture, the tsar sought to emphasize that both False Dmitry I and those who hoped to follow his example were impostors. However, this measure could no longer stop the beginning of the turmoil.
The outbreak of the Troubles turned the short reign of Vasily IV Shuisky into constant wars with I. I. Bolotnikov, the noble militias of the Lyapunov brothers, and the boyar son I. Pashkov. Trying to win over the feudal elite, the tsar issued a Code on March 9, 1607, according to which the period for searching fugitive peasants was 15 years, and the peasants themselves belonged to those for whom they were registered in the 1590s. But this measure did not lead to the desired result.
In 1607, a new impostor - - began an attack on Moscow. He captured vast territories and settled in the village of Tushino near Moscow (now within the city of Moscow). To fight him, Vasily IV Shuisky decided to rely on the help of the Swedish king Charles IX. In 1609, the tsar renounced claims to the Baltic lands that previously belonged to the Livonian Order, ceded the city of Korelu to Sweden, gave permission for the circulation of Swedish money in the Moscow state, and also assumed obligations to maintain Swedish troops.
The nephew of Vasily IV Shuisky, a capable commander, at the head of the Russian-Swedish army managed to establish government control over the northern regions of the country. Many began to see in him the successor of the elderly and childless king. However, the sudden death of M.V. Skopin-Shuisky, for which Vasily IV Shuisky was immediately blamed, deprived the tsar of this support.
In September 1609, open Polish intervention began. The Polish king laid siege. On June 24, 1610, the Russian-Swedish troops of Vasily IV Shuisky were defeated by Hetman S. Zholkovsky in the battle near the village of.
The weakness of Vasily IV Shuisky and his inability to rectify the situation led to the fact that on July 17 (27), 1610, he was deposed by the boyars, forcibly tonsured as a monk and imprisoned in the Chudov Monastery. Since among the boyars there was no candidate for the throne who could satisfy everyone (at least the majority), a boyar government was formed, which went down in history under the name “Seven Boyars”. Its members agreed to the election of the Polish prince, son of Sigismund III, as Russian Tsar.
In September 1610, V.I. Shuisky (as a layman, and not as a monk) was extradited to the Polish Hetman S. Zholkiewsky, who in October took him along with his brothers under, and later to Poland. V.I. Shuisky died on September 12 (22), 1612, while imprisoned in Gostynsky Castle.
In 1635, at the request of the Tsar, the remains of V.I. Shuisky were returned to and buried in the tomb of the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.
The traditional characterization of Vasily Shuisky as a “cunning boyar” is gradually becoming a thing of the past. The years of his reign coincided with one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of Russia - the Time of Troubles. The shocks of the state were reflected in the personal tragedy of the last of the Rurikovichs.
Portrait
In the eyes of historians and playwrights, Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky often appears as a figure devoid of attractiveness. “More cunning than smart, utterly deceitful and intrigued,” is how the historian Vasily Klyuchevsky sees the tsar.
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, although he pays tribute to Shuisky’s courage and strength of character, admits that the courtier retains his best qualities not during his lifetime, but during his fall. Nikolai Karamzin echoes the poet: “he fell with greatness in the ruins of the State.”
Contemporaries also did not favor Vasily Shuisky with good epithets, calling the boyar either Shubnik or Shubin, hinting at the support he provided to the merchants and townspeople when they came into power.
Prince Ivan Katyrev-Rostovsky finds attractive features in Shuisky, noting that he “is pleased with book teaching and is very knowledgeable in the reasoning of the mind.” In his description of the young Shuisky, the English ambassador Giles Fletcher called him the most intelligent among other representatives of the family.
Shuisky’s resourcefulness and irrepressible thirst for power is rather a cliche that has become established in the historiography of the “Romanov era”. It was the caricature portrait of the last Tsar, Rurikovich, that best contrasted with the beginning of a new dynastic era. The image of the real Shuisky is much more complex and at the same time tragic - in tune with the turbulent times in which the king ruled.
Genus
In terms of nobility, the Shuisky family, whose patrimony was the Suzdal lands, was always inferior to the ancestors of Ivan Kalita, who established themselves in the Moscow reign. Nevertheless, in Austria and Poland it was the Shuiskys who were called “princes of the blood.” And for good reason. After all, the Shuiskys had the primary right to the Moscow table: their family, according to one version, originated from the third son of Alexander Nevsky, Andrei, while the Moscow princes descended from the fourth son, Daniel.
According to another version, the Shuisky family tree goes back to the younger brother of Alexander Nevsky, Andrei Yaroslavich, which also gave them the formal right to supremacy among the Rurikovichs. In 1249, it was Andrei, and not Alexander, who received the label for the great reign of Vladimir.
The immediate founder of the Shuisky family was Yuri Vasilyevich, who inherited part of the Suzdal principality - the town of Shuya with its surroundings. Since then, two branches of the Rurikovichs - the Shuiskys and the Danilovichs - have been waging a hidden war for leadership. The Shuiskys, of course, received the richest feedings and awards, but this was not enough for them.
During the time of the young Ivan IV, boyar Andrei Shuisky, the grandfather of Vasily Shuisky, managed to actually find himself at the pinnacle of power for a while, the temptations of which he could not withstand. For which he paid, becoming the first victim of Grozny.
Between disgrace and mercy
Vasily Shuisky also had to go through the costs of inter-clan rivalry. Not only with the Danilovichs, but also with other boyar families - the Belskys, Mstislavskys, Godunovs and Romanovs. Under Fyodor Ioanovich, Shuisky headed the Moscow Court Order, which added to his influence among the serving nobility. The Godunovs and Romanovs did everything to ensure that Shuisky lost such an important post. In the spring of 1585, the unwanted boyar was sent to the voivodeship in Smolensk.
The Smolensk exile turned out to be only a preamble to the Shuisky-Godunov confrontation. In 1586, the Shuiskys, accused of having relations with Lithuania, were persecuted. Vasily is exiled to Galich, and his older brother Andrei, one of the most prominent representatives of the dynasty, dies under mysterious circumstances. This could not have happened without Boris Godunov, historians are sure.
However, the still influential Vasily Shuisky turned out to be beneficial to Godunov: the exile was suddenly canceled and the disgraced boyar returned to Moscow to investigate the death of Tsarevich Dimitri. But there was probably another reason - the confrontation between the Godunovs and the Romanovs, who were gaining political weight. Vasily Shuisky was seen by the Tsar's brother-in-law as an advantageous ally.
During the reign of Boris Godunov, Shuisky remained in the shadow of the monarch, was forced to moderate his ambitions and bide his time. He waited for him at a not very opportune time, when many Russian cities were gripped by famine and a series of popular unrest. But the main shock for the state was the arrival of False Dmitry I.
When False Dmitry took the Moscow throne, he did not forget about Shuisky, who convinced the people that the “legal heir” was not true. It was Shuisky who at one time led the investigation into the death of Tsarevich Dmitry in Uglich, and he did not know that the last son of John IV died. The boyar was sentenced to death, which was commuted to exile. Again, months of uncertainty, forgiveness and a sudden return to court. But now Shuisky knew that he could act: the position of the “natural king” had by that time noticeably weakened.
Reign
As historian Vyacheslav Kozlyakov notes, Shuisky knew how to say in time what was expected of him. Say and do. The boyar could only push the masses to overthrow the impostor. But he did not let the process take its course and showed prudence: he protected Marina Mniszech and the ambassadors of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the angry crowd in order to avoid conflict with a dangerous neighbor.
Then the main conspirator takes another important step - he makes a proposal to canonize Tsarevich Dmitry and transfer his remains from Uglich to Moscow. By doing this, he solves three problems: he compromises the already deceased Godunov, he tries to put an end to rumors about the allegedly saved prince, but most importantly, he prepares the ground for his accession to the throne. Metropolitan Filaret first had to participate in the reburial of the remains of the prince, and then, after his elevation to the rank of patriarch, crown Shuisky as king.
Already at the very beginning of his reign, Shuisky took an oath that was not typical for previous monarchs. The “cross-kissing record” of the newly-crowned king clearly establishes the protection of a representative of any class from arbitrariness, and guarantees a legal trial. The tsar also promised to put an end to denunciations: for perjury, the death penalty now threatened the informers themselves.
The “Decree on Voluntary Slaves,” which appeared on March 7, 1607, was dictated by hungry and troubled times. Thus, slaves who for some reason fell into bondage were given the right to leave their master, getting rid of the townsman or peasant tax.
But the “Code”, which was published two days later, already forever assigned the peasants to their owners. The author of “Essays on the History of the Time of Troubles in the Moscow State,” S. F. Platonov noted that “Tsar Vasily wanted to strengthen in place and subject to registration and supervision the social stratum that was causing trouble and seeking change.”
The Tsar did not leave the Church unattended either. Many monasteries were given back their possessions and benefits that had been lost during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. But here, of course, one can see Shuisky’s desire to thank the “sacred rank” for supporting the current government.
End of the dynasty
Vasily Shuisky returned the Rurikovichs to the throne during one of the most crisis periods of Russian society. If Godunov accepted a generally stable and prosperous state, in which the beginnings of the great unrest were only ripening, then Shuisky inherited an inheritance that called into question the very concept of the “Russian state.” Famine, internal and external strife, and finally, the epidemic of imposture that swept Rus' at the dawn of the seventeenth century - in such conditions, few could maintain their common sense and political will.
Shuisky did everything he could. He tried to codify the law and consolidate the position of slaves and peasants. But his concessions in a difficult situation were akin to weakness.
The king looked into the past. His efforts to subjugate the Boyar Duma were doomed: everything had changed, and in the new conditions, not only it decided who to rule and who to overthrow. Attempts to reform the moribund system resulted in blows from popular uprisings and Polish-Lithuanian intervention.
Shuisky failed to cope with the historical challenge. His death far from his homeland symbolized the collapse of old Rus' - the state of the Rurikovichs. But what is noteworthy is that the revival of the Russian state came from the lands that served as the stronghold of Shuisky’s power - Ryazan and Nizhny Novgorod. It was here that the zemstvo movement began, which ultimately led to the liberation of Moscow from Sigismund III, who usurped the Russian throne.
The Romanovs who ascended the throne did not forget about the deposed tsar. In 1635, on the initiative of Mikhail Fedorovich, the remains of Vasily Shuisky were transported from Poland and reburied in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.
Taking a course on Russian history, the average Russian usually gets the impression in his head that our country was ruled by two dynasties - the Rurikovichs and the Romanovs. Well, Boris Godunov also “wedged in” somewhere between them. However, we also had another king, although he belonged to one of the branches of Rurik’s descendants, but he bore a separate and famous family surname, about whom few people remember. Why did it happen that Vasily Shuisky was forgotten by the people?
On October 29, 1611, the former Russian Tsar Vasily Shuisky was transported through the streets of Warsaw to a meeting of the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in an open carriage. He was not an honored guest: for the first and last time in the history of our country, its autocrat humiliatedly appeared before the elected king, senators and “zemstvo ambassadors” of a neighboring power as a prisoner. The sovereign bowed to his conqueror, holding his cap in his hands, and had to listen to a solemn speech in honor of Hetman Stanislav Zolkiewski, who, as the Poles believed, had forever broken the power of the Moscow state.
Sigismund III announced that Russia was defeated: “Now the capital is occupied, and there is no corner in the state where the Polish knighthood and the warrior of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania do not feed their horse and where their hands do not stain the blood of their hereditary enemy.” Then the king “mercifully forgave” the Shuiskys, and the former crown bearer bowed low again, touching the ground with his right hand, while his brothers “beat with their foreheads” nearby. The youngest of them, Ivan, could not stand the tension and burst into tears. After all this, the members of the defeated dynasty were given a new velvet dress and allowed to approach the royal hand - as contemporaries said, “this was a great, amazing and pitiful spectacle.” The captive “master of the Russian land” looked like an old man; he was gray-haired, short, round-faced, with a long, slightly hooked nose, a large mouth and a long beard. He looked from under his brows and sternly. He had no one or anything to rely on: the loyal troops were defeated, yesterday’s servants themselves gave him into the hands of foreigners and swore allegiance to the son of the enemy - Prince Vladislav. Could he have imagined this in a nightmare a year ago?..
From “fur coat makers” to the sovereign’s cronies
In the official genealogy of the Shuiskys, the third son of Alexander Nevsky, Andrei Alexandrovich, is named as their ancestor, but later historians believed that the Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal princes (this powerful clan included them) descended not from a son, but from the brother of the winner in the Battle of the Ice, Andrei Yaroslavich. In the chronicles, the two Andreevs were often confused, and perhaps the confusion was deliberately created precisely in the 30s of the 16th century, when the Shuiskys actually ruled the state under the young Ivan the Terrible. Be that as it may, these aristocrats considered themselves older than the Moscow dynasty, since it went back to Alexander’s youngest son, Daniel.
However, for decades the Danilovichs successfully collected lands around their capital, while the Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod residents split up their possessions, so that by the middle of the 15th century, the Principality of Suzdal generally lost its independence, and its former owners were forced to enter the service of their younger relatives. This is how the princes Hunchback, Glazaty, and Nogotkov ended up at the Moscow court. The eldest in the family, the Skopins and Shuiskys, were still invited to reign in Novgorod and Pskov until the end of the century, but after these cities also lost their sovereignty, they also found themselves in a hopeless situation. From the vast family estates, the Shuiskys retained only a few dozen villages in the district of the same name and the city of Shuyu itself (60 kilometers from Suzdal), from which their surname came. They say that the local population was then successfully engaged in soap making and icon painting, and also made good sleighs, carts and furrier's goods - hence, probably, the popular nickname of the future Tsar Vasily - “fur coat maker”.
The service of some Rurikovichs to others was “honest” - the same Shuiskys were usually listed as boyars and governors. But their ambitions and habit of independence still drew them into political intrigue. So, after the death of Elena Glinskaya, the mother of Ivan IV, the brothers Vasily and Ivan Vasilyevich Shuisky, and then their relatives Andrei and Ivan Mikhailovich, immediately moved to the court. The powerful grandfather of the future Tsar Vasily, Andrei Mikhailovich, however, soon suffered a fiasco: in December 1543, the young Grand Duke and the clan competitors standing behind him ordered their hounds to kill him. Until recently, the all-powerful minister “lay naked in the gate for two hours.”
However, oddly enough, this disgrace did not affect the position of the entire family: in the subsequent years of Ivan’s reign, he, unlike many noble families, did not suffer particularly. Vasily’s father, Prince Ivan Andreevich, regularly served as a governor in Velikiye Luki and Smolensk during the oprichnina years. In 1571, Ivan became a boyar and governor, at the same time the wedding of his son Dmitry with the daughter of the tsar’s closest henchman Malyuta Skuratov took place... Probably, his career would have continued to go uphill, but in January 1573, during the next campaign in Livonia, he died, and 20-year-old Vasily remained the eldest in the family.
From that time on, his long, changeable, risky, but marked by a persistent striving to the top, court service began. In 1574, the young prince was invited to the wedding of the Sovereign of All Rus' with Anna Vasilchikova, and on the campaign he henceforth performed the position of “rynda with a large saadak” - that is, he carried the royal bow and quiver. In 1575, he and his brother Andrei received rich Novgorod estates, taken from the relatives of the former queen Anna Koltovskaya, who was tonsured a nun. In addition, in their privileged service in the royal court, the Shuiskys must now “become the sovereign’s bed and be the night watchman in their heads.” At the Tsar's wedding to Maria Naga in September 1580, Vasily was the groom's main groomsman (Boris Godunov acted as the bride's groomsman). His wife Elena Mikhailovna, née Repnina, and other relatives also sat in places of honor at the banquet table.
"Respected as smart"
True, for a short time the influential prince nevertheless fell into disgrace, but quickly received forgiveness and in 1583 he officially led the permanent regiment of his right hand, that is, he became the second person in the army after the commander-in-chief. However, unlike the legendary warrior Shuisky, Prince Ivan Petrovich, who became famous for the unprecedented defense of Pskov from the troops of Stefan Batory, Vasily Ivanovich did not particularly show himself on the battlefield. But, let us repeat, he established himself so firmly at court that in local terms he was already superior to the famous commander.
This stable career growth was not hindered by the death of Ivan the Terrible in March 1584. Quite the contrary: in the same year Vasily became the head of the Moscow Court Order; his brothers - Andrei, Alexander and Dmitry - received boyars. The elders, Vasily and Andrey, expelled the oprichnina promoters of the late Ivan - Bogdan Belsky and his comrades - from the government. And then the inevitable squabble began for power and influence on Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, who almost demonstratively did not want to deal with the affairs of the state and divided his time between prayers, trips to monasteries and bear baiting.
The Shuiskys were not going to cede primacy to Fedorov's brother-in-law Boris Godunov and decided to take advantage of the fact that Tsarina Irina, his sister, could not bring her husband an heir. Vasily participated in this intrigue, but not openly (he was then in the voivodeship in Smolensk), but lost first place to Andrei Ivanovich and Ivan Petrovich. And, as practice has shown, he acted very far-sightedly.
At first, the “conspirators” managed to win over to their side not only the merchants and townspeople of Moscow, but also Metropolitan Dionysius himself. In the fall of 1586, a letter was drawn up in which Fyodor Ioannovich was asked “that he, the sovereign, for the sake of childbearing, accept a second marriage, and release his first queen to the monastic rank.” It was, of course, not only a matter of “childhood” and the desire to remove the Godunovs, but also of determining the strategic path of development of the country. Lithuanian Chancellor Lev Sapieha reported in messages from Moscow that some boyars did not hide their “inclination” towards Stefan Batory, and the translator of the Ambassadorial Prikaz, Zaborovsky, notified the same king in 1585 that this “party” was actually headed by the Shuiskys. We note that in their own eyes it was not about treason at all, but simply about the union of two related Eastern European states under the rule of a single dynasty. The elective throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth allowed such a possibility, and the Moscow nobility knew well the political orders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which limited individual power. Poland and Lithuania united under a single crown.
But (according to foreign reports again) in the fall of 1586, Godunov declared in the Duma that Andrei Shuisky allegedly went hunting to the border and met with Lithuanian lords there - a crime against kissing the cross to Tsar Feodor. The proceedings almost ended in a fight between both “ministers” right at the meeting. Boris immediately surrounded himself with guards, began to go everywhere with them - and not in vain: soon in the battle with the Shuisky people who attacked his estate, there were casualties.
Uglich epic
However, the organizers of the intrigue miscalculated. The rumor of betrayal compromised them in the eyes of many. And besides, the son of Ivan the Terrible sincerely loved his wife, appreciated her cunning brother and did not tolerate interference in the family affairs of the dynasty. Posad people who “took care of something other than their own” were executed; the metropolitan was “reduced” from the throne, and Ivan and Andrei Shuisky were sent into exile. There they died very suspiciously in the spring of 1589; most likely, watchmen-“bailiffs” were involved in their deaths - such “quiet” reprisals are considered the signature style of Godunov, who is not inclined to public bloody performances in the spirit of Grozny. The eldest of the Shuiskys, as we see, did not let down his political instincts. In general, he did not like open and risky actions, so he got off with a slight fright - he went into exile in Galich, but soon returned safely. It was important to wait for your chance to take off in your career.
In May 1591, Dmitry, the last son of Ivan the Terrible, died in Uglich. The incomprehensible death of a 7-year-old child gave rise to an uprising of the townspeople, led by the relatives of the Dowager Queen Maria Naga, who claimed that assassins had been sent to the prince. Fyodor Ioannovich (or rather, the official “ruler of the state” Boris Godunov - he received such a title while the sovereign was still alive!) ordered the creation of a commission to investigate the death of his brother - headed by Krutitsy Metropolitan Gelasius, as well as Vasily Shuisky, who had just returned to Moscow . Godunov's people were appointed to help them - okolnichy Andrei Kleshnin and clerk Elizar Vyluzgin.
Shuisky, four days after Dmitry’s death, arrived in Uglich and began interrogations to establish “how the prince died and what kind of illness he had.” In a few days, 150 people passed “through his hands,” and he came to the conclusion: Nagikh’s version of the murder of the prince by the people of the city clerk Mikhail Bityagovsky is false. The witnesses - the “mother”-boyar Volokhova, the nurse, and the boys with whom the prince played in the yard - showed the same thing (even though they had previously shouted the opposite to the people): the boy himself stabbed himself with a knife in a fit of epilepsy. Having collected all the questioning speeches and buried Dmitry in the local cathedral as a suicide, without honors, the commission left for Moscow, where the Duma, in the presence of the autocrat and Patriarch Job, heard the results of its work.
Prince Vasily Ivanovich completed the responsible assignment - the Nagi were accused of “negligence,” because of which a precious life was cut short, and of inciting the “Uglitsky men” to revolt. Queen Mary, naturally, was tonsured, and her brothers were sent to prison. The residents of Uglich, some were executed, others were exiled to Siberia, the city was almost deserted. An influential boyar declared authoritatively: there was no murder, it was an accident. And apparently, he did not bend his heart then - numerous researchers of the “Uglich case” did not find anything dubious in the documentation. True, in June 1605 Vasily already said that Dmitry was saved. And then he claimed that the supposedly “saved” prince was the “thief” and heretic Grishka Otrepiev, and the real one did not die, but was stabbed to death on the orders of the villain Godunov. These “confessions,” of course, damaged the posthumous assessment of the affairs of Tsar Boris, hardly adding historical points to Tsar Vasily. But it seems that for the first time he told the truth. Moreover, it seems that there was no need for Godunov to eliminate the boy in 1591 - his sister Irina was expecting a child... In any case, Shuisky again took an honorable place at court - he was present at royal exits, receptions and festive dinners, he commanded the troops in Novgorod and in the south.
 Tsar Boris Fedorovich Godun |
In February 1598, Godunov was elected tsar. The first families of the state, who had lost power, resisted, but the service people lost all doubts immediately after receiving three years’ salary “for the campaign against the Tatars” (it never took place).
The new sovereign turned out to be very talented and did a lot for his country, sometimes ahead of his era: he cut taxes by half, sought to eliminate “white” (non-tax-paying, privately owned) settlements and courtyards in cities, and founded the main port of pre-Petrine Russia - Arkhangelsk. Having concluded peace in the West with Sweden (1595) and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1600), he turned to affairs in the East and strengthened the southern border. A new chain of guard posts and forts, the most important of which was Tsaritsyn, extended far into the “wild field.” He was the first of the Russian tsars to marry his daughter to a Danish prince, and 100 years before the “eternal worker on the throne,” he invited foreign specialists to Russia: doctors, ore miners, and military personnel. He sent noble “children” to Vienna and Oxford to study foreign languages and other sciences.
The Shuiskys prospered in those years - especially since one of them, Dmitry, was married to the queen’s sister. They, apparently, had come to terms with the justice of the new situation in the country - and indeed, the sedate boyar Prince Vasily did not become famous as a commander, his political talents were clearly inferior to Godunov, and he was certainly not fit to be a reformer. His real place was “in the council” - in the Duma, in the retinue when receiving ambassadors, in long and difficult negotiations. It is no coincidence that the tsar constantly entrusted him with the consideration of complex local disputes among the Moscow nobility.
Godunov's grief
Another ten quiet years - and the new dynasty would have strengthened, and Boris’s young son, Fedor, would calmly continue his father’s work. But the “legacy” of Ivan the Terrible - a course towards serfdom - alas, laid the foundation for future upheavals: by the decrees of 1592 and 1593, St. George’s Day was universally abolished (the day when peasants, without fear of persecution, could leave their landowners for others), in 1597 They introduced a five-year period for searching for “missing” men. On the newly developed, previously “no man’s” outskirts of the state, Moscow governors appeared - and the fugitive “Cossacks” again fell into bondage.
This combustible mass was waiting in the wings. And it came when the streak of success was interrupted by the famine of 1601-1603. The catastrophic pestilence forced the tsar to restore St. George's Day, but only a new conflict naturally arose. The common people passionately rushed away from the owners, who, in turn, wanted to retain the workforce at any cost. Runaway slaves gathered in large detachments, against which troops had to be sent in 1603. In general, the consequences of famine and fluctuations in government policy destroyed the never-fulfilled dynasty. In the eyes of the nobility, Boris had previously been a “rootless upstart” - but now he turned out to be “bad” for both servicemen and plowmen.
Natural disasters and social hardships were experienced by the people of that time as punishment for serving the “untrue” king. And in such an atmosphere the “true”, the “natural” simply had to appear. The “promotion from the ranks” of impostors begins - long before Otrepyev. Well, in the fall of 1604, this last one, a former nobleman in the service of the Romanov boyars, under the name of Tsarevich Dmitry, crossed the Polish-Russian border.
To the credit of Vasily Shuisky, he did not betray his former rival and even rendered him one last favor: first, he publicly declared on Red Square that the son of Grozny who had appeared was an impostor, and he supposedly buried the real one with his own hands in Uglich; and then went to the army to help the wounded commander, Prince Mstislavsky. In January 1605, a large Moscow army defeated Otrepyev near Dobrynichi. But it was not possible to end the war victoriously - one after another, “Ukrainian” cities began to go over to the side of False Dmitry. The army got bogged down in the sieges of Rylsk and Krom, and in the meantime Boris suddenly died suddenly.
The heir Fyodor Borisovich and his relatives recalled both governors to Moscow. Here Prince Vasily had to decide what to do. He was ready to serve Godunov, but not his too young son and mediocre relatives.
Meanwhile, the commanders Vasily Golitsyn and Pyotr Basmanov, sent to the troops to replace him, without thinking twice, went over to the side of the “prince”; part of the army followed them, the rest fled.
In May, news of these events arrived in the capital.
On June 1, ambassadors from “Dimitri” Naum Pleshcheev and Gavrila Pushkin arrived and from Lobnoye Mesto read a letter about his miraculous salvation from the murderers sent by Godunov, about his rights to the throne and the need to overthrow the usurpers.
Here, as they say, boyar Vasily Shuisky finally “broke” - he declared that the prince had escaped, and that some priest was buried in his place. Of course, it was not these words that decided the fate of the unfortunate orphaned Godunovs: everything was already stacked against them. And yet - after all, the prince knew better than anyone that the applicant approaching Moscow had nothing in common with the Rurikovichs. However, he did not find the strength not only to tell the truth, but at least to remain silent... The reputation of the future king was formed from such steps - lies and betrayal later turned against him.
Last step upOf course, the Godunovs did not retain power: a crowd of Muscovites rushed to destroy their property. That’s why it turned out to be a holiday: “Many people got drunk in the courtyards and wine cellars and died...” The heir, his mother and sister were captured, and a few days later they were strangled by supporters of the impostor under the command of Prince Vasily Golitsyn. Meanwhile, the Duma sent an embassy to “Dmitry Ivanovich”, but did not include any of the three Shuisky brothers in it - they only came with the second “boyar commission”. In Tula, False Dmitry graciously received them; but again he did not invite him to be one of his closest advisers - the same places under his person were taken by the same Basmanov and Golitsyn, Prince Vladimir Koltsov-Mosalsky, “relatives” Nagy and the Poles, the Buchinsky brothers.
If the Shuiskys had been treated kindly, perhaps they would have served the impostor faithfully and a year later the uprising that cost him his throne and his life would not have happened. But remaining in second or third roles with the false tsar and his noble favorites was still unthinkable for the aristocrat Vasily Shuisky; he could not even hide his attitude towards such a situation. Already on June 23, three days after False Dmitry entered the Kremlin, the prince was captured. As if he announced to the trading people that the sovereign was “not a prince, but a rossriga and a traitor.”
The whole family was judged by a cathedral court - representatives of all classes, including the clergy. False Dmitry himself, in an accusatory speech, recalled the past betrayals of the Shuiskys, including the sins of their grandfather Andrei Mikhailovich, who was executed by the Terrible. The boyar was right about imposture; one can assume that other members of the cathedral also suspected the “prince,” but, according to the “New Chronicler” (compiled already under the Romanovs), “at the same cathedral there were no authorities, no boyars, no ordinary people, and neither did they (the defendants. - Ed.) complicitly, I keep screaming at them.” The outbreak of the Troubles was already turning the heads of contemporaries. The brothers were found guilty of conspiracy. The eldest, our hero, was sentenced to death - they took him out to the square, laid his head on the block, and the executioner already raised the ax. But only the accomplices' heads rolled. The Tsar pardoned the Shuiskys. To begin the reign with the execution of the “good and strong” would be short-sighted.
All three were sent into exile, but were quickly forgiven again: less than a few months later, they found themselves at court. The position of the new sovereign had become greatly shaken. Having promised everyone a “prosperous life,” he could not fulfill his promise. For example, abolish serfdom. Or hand over Novgorod and Pskov to the future father-in-law, Polish senator Yuri Mniszek - the people would not forgive such a thing. As a result, relations with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became complicated, and only the peasants of the Komaritsa volost and the Putivl townspeople, who were the first to recognize “Dmitry,” received benefits. Landowners were again allowed to return runaways starting in 1600.
False Dmitry was brave, young, energetic. But he did not fit into the image of the “natural” Moscow Tsar. He hurt the national and religious feelings of his subjects: he surrounded himself with foreigners, did not sleep after lunch, did not go to the bathhouse, and was planning to marry a Catholic on the eve of Lenten Friday. In such conditions, the boyars, led by Shuisky, organized a new conspiracy, and this time successful. Back on May 7, 1606, the crafty boyar at the royal wedding led the new Empress Marina Yuryevna by the arm and made a welcoming speech on behalf of the Moscow nobility - and a few days later Otrepyev was killed. Eyewitnesses said that while the townspeople were beating the Poles who had “come in large numbers” for the wedding (the conspirators raised the people with shouts: “The gentlemen are slaughtering the Duma boyars!”), Prince Shuisky, at the head of a detachment of loyal people, burst into the Kremlin and ordered the nobles to storm the monarch’s chambers. In a lengthy speech, he convinced them to quickly finish what they started, otherwise, if they did not kill this “thief Grishka,” he would order their heads to be taken off.
This time the old fox took the initiative, acted boldly and prudently - having destroyed the impostor, he took care of saving the lives of noble guests from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
And - I emerged victorious from the intrigue. On May 19, 1606, the boyar Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky was “shouted out” by the Tsar on Cathedral Square by a crowd of Muscovites.
"Constitutional" monarchUpon ascending the throne, Shuisky gave a “kissing record” - the first legal obligation of the sovereign to his subjects in Russian history. But the country remained split - dozens of cities and counties did not recognize the “boyar tsar”: for them, “Dmitry” remained the “true” sovereign. They pinned so many hopes on the name of the young sovereign, Ivan’s son. To turn the situation around, the new ruler had to prove himself, captivate the crowd or amaze them with truly royal greatness. The late Ivan the Terrible carried out large-scale demonstration executions - but he knew how to have mercy and elevate his faithful servants. Boris attracted service people by promising to give away his last shirt during the coronation. Vasily, alas, was devoid of charisma. And what is it like for a member of an ancient family who personified “old times” to act as a public agitator or to renounce the right to “lay opals”?
In calmer times, Shuisky might have sat on the throne and even - who knows? - would have received praise from historians, but in an era of severe crisis, not only resourcefulness and perseverance were required. In the struggle for power that immediately began, he could not even fulfill his own promises - he had to immediately, without any church court, remove Patriarch Ignatius, appointed by False Dmitry, from the pulpit...
A new stage of the Troubles has begun - civil war. The elderly owner of Monomakh's hat did everything he could: he replaced unreliable governors, sent out letters exposing the “slave thief and rostroga.” It seems that the old boyar really did not understand what was happening: how can people continue to believe in an impostor if there is irrefutable evidence of his origin and collusion with the Poles? If he is torn to pieces in Moscow in front of everyone? And the relics of the prince who died in Uglich were declared a miraculous shrine...
Shuisky managed to gather troops and find money - the church authorities, interested in maintaining order, gave him considerable monastic funds. On the advice of Patriarch Hermogenes, general repentance and mass prayer services were organized, which were supposed to rally the nation around the church and the sovereign of All Rus', Vasily Ivanovich. The latter approved a new law on peasants on March 9, 1607: the period for searching for fugitives was increased by 10 years. In this way he wanted to split the fragile alliance of men and nobles. Shuisky’s people even lured the detachments of Lyapunov and Pashkov to his side...
But the successes turned out to be ephemeral. Already in the summer of 1607, the second False Dmitry appeared - a mysterious person to this day. A completely motley company gathered in his camp: the local rebels expelled from Poland, hetmans Ruzhinsky and Sapega, who recognized the “resurrected” husband Marin Mnishek, the Bolotnikovsky atamans Bezzubtsev and Zarutsky, the boyars Saltykov, Cherkasy, Rostov Metropolitan Filaret Romanov (father of the future Tsar Michael), Zaporozhye Cossacks and Tatars. Pskov and Rostov, Yaroslavl and Kostroma, Vologda and Galich, Vladimir went over to their side, the siege of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery began...
It was at this time that Vasily decided to get married in order to quickly continue the family line and leave an heir. In January 1608, his wedding took place with the young princess Maria Buinosova-Rostovskaya - the Pskov chronicler claims that the old tsar was passionately in love with his young wife and for her sake began to neglect his affairs at such an inopportune moment. Already in May, government troops suffered a heavy defeat near Bolkhov, and Moscow was again under siege. Two full-fledged capitals were formed in the country - Moscow and the headquarters of False Dmitry II, the village of Tushino - two governments and two patriarchs - Moscow's Hermogenes and Tushino's Filaret.
The siege of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery by the Poles lasted from September 1609 to January 1611. (Painting by Vasily Vereshchagin “Defenders of the Trinity
In the ocean of turmoil
It is worth noting that in addition to the two False Dmitrys mentioned in textbooks, at least 15 more impostors appeared in different parts of the country in those years: False Dmitrys III and IV, other “children” and “grandsons” of Grozny - “princes” Osinovik, Ivan-August, Lavrenty... Such an abundance of “relatives” gave rise to competition: the “Tushino thief” alone hanged seven of his “nephews”, the “sons” of Tsar Fedor - Clementy, Savely, Simeon, Vasily, Eroshka, Gavrilka and Martynka.
Famine began in Moscow. People gathered in a crowd and “noisily” approached the Kremlin palace. The king patiently and humbly persuaded: be patient, do not surrender the city yet. But patience was running out. The next defectors who appeared in Tushino in September 1608 reported: “Shuisky has been given a deadline until the Intercession to come to an agreement with “Lithuania” or leave the state to them.” By the way, as can be seen from these testimonies, the Moscow boyars did not see Vasily as an autocrat, but as “the first among equals” and did not hesitate to set conditions for him. He sincerely tried to fulfill them - to come to an agreement with Poland as soon as possible and remove foreigners from the camp of False Dmitry II. He released the Polish ambassadors captured in Moscow home and begged them to sign a peace treaty, according to which Sigismund III was to recall his subjects from Russian territory. But, of course, no one was going to fulfill the agreement - neither the king nor the supporters of the impostor. Direct negotiations with the Tushins also ended fruitlessly.
Subjects had betrayed Tsar Vasily before; now they began to organize open riots. On February 17, 1609, rebels led by Grigory Sunbulov, Prince Roman Gagarin and Timofey Gryazny demanded that the boyars overthrow Shuisky and forcibly dragged Patriarch Hermogenes to the square. Accusations were poured against Vasily: that he was elected illegally by his “indulgents” without the consent of the “land”, that Christian blood was being shed for an unworthy and worthless person, a stupid, wicked, drunkard and fornicator. The nobility, as usual, fled to their homes, but the patriarch, contrary to expectations, did not lose his presence of mind and stood up for the king. Then the monarch himself came out to the crowd to ask menacingly: “Why did you, oathbreakers, burst into me with such impudence? If you want to kill me, then I’m ready, but you cannot remove me from the throne without the boyars and the whole land.” The faltering conspirators did a simple thing - they went to Tushino.
Camp of False Dmitry II in Tushino. (Painting by Sergei Ivanov “In Time of Troubles
Agony
Shuisky made new concessions and tricks. He allowed service people, as a reward for the “seat of siege,” to transfer a fifth of their estates to votchina, that is, to hereditary property. He skillfully waged a propaganda war - his letters accused the impostor and his “Lithuanian” army of fighting against Orthodoxy: “... they will deceive everyone and deceive our peasant faith to ruin, and beat all the people of our state and capture them completely, and the people they deserve in their Latin faith convert." He pledged to forgive those who “hurriedly,” “unwillingly,” or out of ignorance kissed the cross to someone who called himself by the name of Dmitry. He promised everyone who would support his fight “for the entire Orthodox peasant faith” and “will help the thieves” with a “great salary.”
Other cities, having experienced the atrocities of the false Dmitry’s fellows, followed the call, but this only exacerbated the split in the local noble communities and pitted the townspeople against each other. Even well-meaning people in these “submitted” points did not forget to remember the unfortunate sovereign: he took the throne with the help of his supporters and for this he suffered disaster. “Without the consent of the whole earth, he made himself king, and all the people were embarrassed by his quick anointing...” - clerk Ivan Timofeev later wrote in his reflections on the Troubles...
But, in desperate attempts to save itself, the government in February 1609 concluded the Treaty of Vyborg with Sweden: for the cession of the city of Korela and its suburbs, the Swedish king provided Moscow with a 10,000-strong detachment under the command of Colonel Delagardie. With the help of these troops and the last loyal Russian forces, the tsar’s nephew, the young governor Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky, successfully began to liberate the northern districts from the “Tushins”. This, however, served as a reason for direct intervention on the part of the Polish Sigismund: in the fall of the same year, his army invaded Russian borders and besieged the most important fortress on the western border - Smolensk. But still, on March 12, 1610, Skopin-Shuisky’s army solemnly entered Moscow. The impostor had to retreat from Tushin to the south. Residents joyfully greeted their liberator. The Shuisky family had a historic chance... But in April, at a feast at Prince Vorotynsky, the hero, 23-year-old Mikhail, felt unwell and died a few days later. According to the suspicion of contemporaries and historians, he was poisoned by the wife of his other uncle Dmitry Ivanovich, who saw him as an obstacle to the throne in the event of the death of the childless sovereign.
Of course, Skopin's death was a real blow for Vasily. On the eve of the decisive battles, he was left without a brave and successful commander. And it was not difficult to understand that it was impossible to put the mediocre and cowardly Dmitry at the head of the army, but... in essence, who else could the tsar rely on? After all, only the closest relatives were vitally interested in preserving the dynasty. So Shuisky made a fatal decision: the army under the command of his brother moved to Smolensk.
The commander fled, foreign mercenaries easily went into the service of the king. The winners received the entire convoy, artillery and the treasury collected to pay salaries. A few months later, Vasily’s last allies left the camp - the Crimean Tatars of Khan Bogadyr-Girey, whom he sent against the impostor to the south.
There was no strength left for resistance at all. Popular support has also dried up. In Moscow, at the Arbat Gate, a meeting of boyars, servicemen and townspeople took place, which finally decided “to the former sovereign... Vasily Ivanovich of All Rus', not to be in the sovereign’s court and not to sit in the state in the future.” A crowd of nobles and Duma officials headed to the Kremlin. Prince Vorotynsky announced a decision to Shuisky: “The whole earth beats you with its brow; leave your state for the sake of internecine warfare, because they don’t love you and don’t want to serve you.”
Posthumous wanderings
Boris Godunov died a king. False Dmitry I, oddly enough, too. Vasily Shuisky was not even overthrown, but “displaced” from the throne and sent first under house arrest to his own courtyard, and then - on July 19 - he was forcibly tonsured a monk in the Chudov Monastery. A letter from the Boyar Duma sent to the cities announced that he voluntarily agreed to leave the throne - as a resigning official who had been at fault and received guarantees of immunity: “... and against him, the sovereign, and over the empress, and over his brothers, no murder will be committed and no harm will be done.” "
And then - the scale of the Troubles and the threat of the collapse of the state forced the nobility to look for a way out. In February and August 1610, treaties were concluded with Sigismund III, according to which the prince Vladislav was invited to the Russian throne subject to the following conditions: not to build Catholic churches, not to appoint Poles to positions, to maintain the existing order (including serfdom) and to change laws only with the sanction of the Zemsky Sobor. In order to prevent False Dmitry from entering the capital, the boyars allowed the Polish garrison there in September. The prince himself was in no hurry to go to Russia (they never agreed on his conversion to Orthodoxy), but his father finally took Smolensk and, on behalf of “Tsar Vladislav Zhigimontovich,” began to distribute estates and provinces.
In the new political combination, the living, albeit former, Tsar Vasily turned out to be an extra figure. The involuntary monk was first sent to a more distant monastery, Joseph-Volokolamskaya, and in October, when the Moscow embassy left to negotiate with the king, Hetman Zholkiewski took him with him to the royal camp near Smolensk. From there he was transported “like a trophy” to Warsaw...
Well, after a humiliating performance at the Diet, the prisoner and his brothers were imprisoned in Gostyn Castle above the Vistula. There, on September 12, 1612, the former Tsar and Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich died. Two months later, Dmitry died. The surviving youngest of the Shuiskys, Ivan, began to serve Vladislav until he was released to Moscow. A few years later, he said that “instead of death, the most eminent king gave him life,” which can be understood as an acknowledgment of the violent death of his older brothers.
The former tsar was buried first in his prison, but then Sigismund ordered the remains of the Shuiskys to be transferred to a mausoleum specially built in the Krakow suburb, and on a marble slab at the entrance they carved the name... of the Polish king and a list of his victories over Russia: “how the Moscow army was defeated at Klushin, how the Moscow capital was taken and Smolensk returned... how Vasily Shuisky, the Grand Duke of Moscow, and his brother, the chief governor Dimitri, were taken prisoner by force of military law.” But the Romanovs remembered their predecessor and wanted to rebury him in his homeland. This was possible after the Smolensk War of 1632-1634. Vladislav finally officially renounced the title of Tsar of Moscow and allowed the ashes of the one who once held this title to be transferred to his homeland. In 1635, in all cities along the route of the funeral procession, honors were given to the remains of the former sovereign, and then they found rest - finally eternal - in the royal tomb of the Kremlin Archangel Cathedral.
Boyar, prince. Russian Tsar. He was on the throne from May 19 (29), 1606 to July 17 (27), 1610. The only Russian tsar died in captivity in a foreign land.
Pedigree
He belonged to an ancient princely family, which was a Suzdal branch, going back, according to most historians, to Andrei Yaroslavich, Grand Duke of Vladimir and younger brother. Vasily Shuisky himself considered Alexander Nevsky and his third son, Prince Andrei Alexandrovich Gorodetsky, who also occupied the Vladimir grand-ducal table, to be his direct ancestors.
Father - boyar Prince Ivan Andreevich Shuisky, a prominent statesman and governor during the reign. Mother - Anna Fedorovna (exact origin unknown). The brothers - Andrei, Dmitry, Ivan Pugovka - were boyars and held responsible administrative and military positions. He was married twice; the choice of brides Elena Mikhailovna, Princess Repnina-Obolenskaya and Maria Petrovna, Princess Buinosova-Rostovskaya, was most likely determined by dynastic considerations. He left no offspring; two daughters from his second marriage died in infancy.
Court service
The young prince's service at court, which began in the 1570s, was successful, despite the wary attitude of the formidable and suspicious tsar towards the nobility. In 1582/83, Prince Vasily was even arrested for a reason that remained unknown, but was soon released on bail to his brothers. However, in 1584 he already had the rank of boyar and conducted important court cases. Vasily Shuisky’s career was facilitated by the marriage of his younger brother Dmitry with Ekaterina, the daughter of the Duma nobleman Grigory Lukyanovich Malyuta Skuratov from the Belsky family. Another daughter of this most influential guardsman was married to. Family ties did not at all weaken the constant struggle between the two influential boyars and future kings. Their opposition, perhaps, remained the most remarkable feature of Vasily Shuisky in Russian historical consciousness and was enshrined by A.S. Pushkin in the beginning of the tragedy “Boris Godunov”, which begins with the prince’s impartial words about Boris shamelessly and criminally striving for royal power. The struggle for influence on the young and incapable of governing Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich (1584-1598) was completely lost by the Shuiskys to Godunov, and Prince Vasily, then the governor in Smolensk, ended up, like his relatives, in exile. In 1587, he was accused of treason, of secret trips under the guise of hunting abroad. Gradually, Godunov’s anger subsided, and in April 1591, Prince Vasily was returned to Moscow. Almost immediately, fateful events for the country and for him took place. On May 15, 1591, he died in Uglich; Shuisky was appointed head of the commission to investigate the case. Apparently, Godunov believed that the conclusions presented by a nobleman who had recently been in disgrace, and also an experienced judicial official, would be accepted as fair and unbiased. Already on May 30, the commission finished its work in Uglich, and on June 2, it reported to the Boyar Duma its findings about the accident with the sick royal child and the insidious relatives of Tsarevich Nagikh, who rebelled against the royal servants. The official results of the “Uglich case” allowed Shuisky to return to the judicial and administrative elite, for example, to the position of head of the Ryazan Court Order or governor in Veliky Novgorod, but they were unlikely to regain Godunov’s full trust. He even forbade the childless prince to marry a second time, so as not to create competitors for the throne.
Troubles
Distrust of Shuisky did not disappear even after the victory won over the impostor False Dmiriy I at Dobrynichi on January 21, 1605 by the royal army, where Prince Vasily was the second governor after Prince F.I. Mstislavsky. Godunov was right in his suspicions, although he himself no longer found out about it due to his death, which occurred on April 13, 1605. Recalled to Moscow to help the heir Fyodor Borisovich, Shuisky not only went over to the side of the impostor in June 1605, but “recognized” him as the true prince. He stated that the conclusions of the investigation in 1591 were a forgery to please Godunov, but in fact he remained alive and now rightfully returned his father’s throne. However, as a very informed and authoritative witness, he was dangerous and was sentenced to death, which was canceled at the last moment and replaced with imprisonment. A few months later, Prince Vasily was returned to the court and even brought closer to the impostor, on whom he took revenge even more cruelly than on Godunov, disseminating information about the death of the real prince among the Muscovites and the noble militia that was gathering for the war with the Crimea, inciting them to revolt and together with others representatives of the nobility are preparing a conspiracy. The rebellion and palace conspiracy ended with the murder of the impostor on May 17, 1606.
Governing body
On May 19, 1606, Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky was proclaimed tsar in front of the rebellious people at Lobnoye Mesto on Red Square. On June 1, he was crowned king in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. In his new capacity, Shuisky tried, if possible, to atone for his sins, intrigues, and perjuries, first of all, before the church. Often this was done publicly. To finally close the question of the Uglich tragedy, Shuisky radically changes the version of those events for the third time. The prince actually died, according to him, in 1591, but not as a result of an accident, but was stabbed to death. The final confirmation of Dmitry Ivanovich’s violent and martyr’s death was his canonization and the discovery of holy relics, which were solemnly transferred in a religious procession from Uglich to Moscow to the Archangel Cathedral to the grand ducal and royal tomb. Ceremonies and rituals within the framework of these celebrations were performed by Filaret, Metropolitan of Rostov and Yaroslavl, who was the boyar Fyodor Nikitich Romanov before his tonsure, and Metropolitan of Kazan, later glorified as a hieromartyr. It was Hermogen, with the support of the new tsar, who became the high priest of the Russian church on July 3, 1606, instead of Ignatius, a protege, who had been deposed from the patriarchal throne. In addition, Shuisky returned the former first Russian patriarch, deposed under the impostor, to Moscow to ask for forgiveness for violating the cross-kissing oath to Tsar Feodor Borisovich Godunov. As a sign of reconciliation with his unfortunate family, Shuisky, although he held his former rival responsible for the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry, ordered the ashes of the former tsar, his son and wife to be reburied with honors in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.
In an effort to weaken the accusations of illegitimately coming to power without election, Shuisky gave a “kissing record.” In it, he promised not to execute anyone without a court decision made by the tsar and the boyars; not to confiscate property from relatives of convicted persons if they were not accomplices in crimes; do not accept false denunciations and punish such informers; do not subject anyone to royal disgrace without guilt. This gave rise to a number of historians talking about one of the first attempts to legislatively limit royal power. He also tried to streamline, in the interests of the treasury, landowners and service people, their legal relations with dependent people and slaves. Among the laws adopted was the Code of March 9, 1607, which recognized peasants as serfs of those owners for whom they were recorded in the scribe books of the early 1590s, and established the period for searching fugitive peasants at 15 years.
Shuisky's attempts to change the political, moral and psychological situation in society in his favor were unsuccessful. In 1605-1606, two bloody coups followed one after another, which were accompanied by the murders of the holders of supreme power and thereby encouraged violent methods of achieving goals, freed the hands of supporters of the most radical actions, freed them from previous oaths and oaths, and undermined the state apparatus and the armed forces of the state. Russia was increasingly drawn into the Troubles - a civil war. Shuisky's opponents again and again used the rumor about another miraculous salvation, under the slogans of whose return to power all those dissatisfied or simply seeking to make a quick profit gathered. In 1606, the largest anti-government uprising was the uprising led by Ivan Bolotnikov, during which the rebels laid siege to Moscow. Tsar Vasily had to personally lead loyal troops into battle. After a successful battle on December 2, 1606, he managed to push the rebels away from the capital and force them to leave first to Kaluga and then to Tula. On May 21, 1607, the tsar again personally set out on a campaign, which ended on October 10 with the surrender of Tula, the main stronghold of the rebellion. Shuisky made a promise to save the lives of the leaders of the uprising - Bolotnikov and Ileika Muromets, but, as happened before, he did not consider it necessary to restrain him. The reprisal of the leaders of one uprising did not lead to the pacification of the country; another impostor stood at the head of a new uprising . Military detachments from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth joined the runaway serfs and peasants, the rebellious Cossacks and service people in the south of Russia. In the battle of Bolkhov on April 30 and May 1, 1608, the army under the command of the Tsar’s brother, Prince Dmitry Shuisky, was defeated, the troops approached Moscow and camped in the village of Tushino, where parallel authorities were created. Numerous cities and vast territories went from under Shuisky’s rule to the “Tushinsky thief”; a considerable number of boyars and service people fled. Moscow was again under siege. The tsar sent his nephew, the boyar prince, to Novgorod to ask for help from the Swedish king Charles IX in exchange for the cession of the city of Korela and its district to Sweden. In 1609, the violence and robberies of the Polish-Lithuanian and Cossack detachments serving the impostor caused the residents of Zamoskovnye cities and the Russian North to rebel against him. At the same time, the army of Prince Skopin-Shuisky began a march to Moscow, which defeated the impostor’s troops in a series of battles and entered Moscow on March 12, 1610, lifting the siege from the capital. A significant part of the country's cities and districts recognized the authority of Tsar Vasily. However, Prince Skopin-Shuisky died unexpectedly after a feast on April 23, 1610. There were rumors that he was poisoned by the Tsar's sister-in-law, Ekaterina Grigorievna, at the instigation of her son-in-law and husband, who feared the famous commander's claims to the throne, whose heir was officially considered her husband Dmitry Shuisky, as the brother of the childless Vasily. This event dealt a strong blow to the prestige of the tsar and the combat effectiveness of the army at the moment when the Polish-Lithuanian intervention began.
Back in September 1609, the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Sigismund III crossed the Russian border and besieged Smolensk, calling upon the Polish-Lithuanian gentry, who had until that time served False Dmitry II. In the Battle of Klushino on June 24, 1610, the Russian army under the command of Prince Dmitry Shuisky was defeated. Polish-Lithuanian troops approached Moscow, but were not yet in a hurry to occupy the city, where another coup d'etat took place. In the capital, on July 17, 1610, a kind of open-air meeting was held, reminiscent of either an ancient meeting or an impromptu cathedral. It took place with the participation of the clergy, the Boyar Duma, commanders of noble detachments and military people who were in the city, residents of the Moscow suburb. At it, a decision was made to depose the tsar, who was taken from the royal residence to his old boyar courtyard and taken into custody. On July 19, Vasily Shuisky was forcibly tonsured a monk and imprisoned in the Moscow Chudov Monastery. His wife was also tonsured and sent to Suzdal to the Intercession Monastery. Shuisky's opponents, united against him, could not divide power among themselves and decided to give it to foreigners. The new government, formed from representatives of the boyars and nicknamed the “Seven Boyars,” concluded an agreement in August 1610 on the election of the Polish prince Vladislav (the future king Vladislav IV Vasa) to the Russian throne. In September 1610, the boyars handed over Vasily Shuisky, along with his brothers Dmitry and Ivan, to the commander of the Polish-Lithuanian army, Hetman Stanislav Zholkiewsky, for their removal from Moscow and placement in one of the monasteries. He, in violation of the preliminary agreement with the Duma, took the prisoners with him to King Sigismund III near Smolensk. For his political and military mistakes, Vasily Shuisky had to pay with shame, which humiliated all of Russia and stroked the pride of its Western neighbors. He, along with his brothers and voivode Mikhail Borisovich Shein, the leader of the heroic defense of Smolensk in 1609-1611, which only ceased when the defenders ceased to receive any help from the rest of the country, were forced to participate as living trophies in the ceremony of Zholkiewski's triumphal entry on October 29, 1611 to Warsaw. Then, in the royal palace, in the presence of all the Polish nobility during a meeting of the Diet and in the presence of foreign ambassadors, he was forced to bow to Sigismund III and kiss his hand. Then the Shuiskys were placed in custody in a castle in the town of Gostynin in Mazovia, where Vasily died on September 12 (22), 1612, followed by Prince Dmitry five days later on September 17 (27). Only their brother Ivan was able to return to their homeland in 1620. The death of Vasily Shuisky itself was also used by the Polish authorities for propaganda purposes. The remains of him and his brother Dmitry were buried in Warsaw in a specially built tomb, called the “Moscow Chapel” (“Russian Chapel”), with inscriptions reporting on the Polish victories that led to the capture of the Moscow Tsar. The tsar's government perceived such a funeral as a humiliation for Russia. After the conclusion of a peace treaty between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1634), the remains of Vasily Shuisky were transferred to the Russian side and solemnly reburied in 1635 in the grand ducal and royal tomb - the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.
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