[1] Of the Don.
DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS (c. 345-283 B.C.), Attic orator, statesman and
philosopher, born at Phalerum, was a pupil of Theophrastus and an
adherent of the Peripatetic school. He governed the city of Athens as
representative of Cassander (q.v.) for ten years from 317. It is said
that he so won the hearts of the people that 360 statues were erected in
his honour; but opinions are divided as to the character of his rule. On
the restoration of the old democracy by Demetrius Poliorcetes, he was
condemned to death by the fickle Athenians and obliged to leave the
city. He escaped to Egypt, where he was protected by Ptolemy Lagus, to
whom he is said to have suggested the foundation of the Alexandrian
library. Having incurred the displeasure of Lagus's successor
Philadelphus, Demetrius was banished to Upper Egypt, where he died
(according to some, voluntarily) from the bite of an asp. Demetrius
composed a large number of works on poetry, history, politics, rhetoric
and accounts of embassies, all of which are lost.
The treatise [Greek: Peri Hermeneias] (on rhetorical expression),
which is often ascribed to him, is probably the work of a later
Alexandrian (1st century A.D.) of the same name; it has been edited by
L. Radermacher (1901) and W. Rhys Roberts (1902), the last-named
providing English translation, introduction, notes, glossary and
complete bibliography. Fragments in C. Muller, _Frag. Hist. Graec._
ii. p. 362. See A. Holm, _History of Greece_ (Eng. trans.), iv. 60.
DEMETRIUS, PSEUDO- (or FALSE), the name by which three Muscovite princes
and pretenders, who claimed to be Demetrius, son of Ivan the Terrible,
are known in history. The real Demetrius had been murdered, while still
a child, in 1591, at Uglich, his widowed mother's appanage.
1. In the reign of Tsar Boris Godunov (1598-1605), the first of these
pretenders, whose origin is still obscure, emigrated to Lithuania and
persuaded many of the magnates there of his tsarish birth, and
consequently of his right to the Muscovite throne. His real name seems
to have been Yury or Gregory, and he was the grandson of Bogdan Otrepev,
a Galician boyar, and a tool in the hands of Tsar Boris Godunov's
enemies. He first appears in history _circa_ 1600, when his learning and
assurance seem to have greatly impressed the Muscovite patriarch Job.
Tsar Boris, however, ordered him to be seized and examined, whereupon he
fled to Prince Constantine Ostrogsky at Ostrog, and subsequently entered
the service of another Lithuanian, Prince Wisniwiecki, who accepted him
for what he pretended to be and tried to enlist the sympathy of the
Polish king, Sigismund III., in his favour. The king refused to support
him officially, but his cause was taken up, as a speculation, by the
Polish magnate Yury Mniszek, whose daughter Marina he afterwards wedded
and crowned as his tsaritsa. The Jesuits also seem to have believed in
the man, who was evidently an unconscious impostor brought up from his
youth to believe that he was the real Demetrius; numerous fugitives from
Moscow also acknowledged him, and finally he set out, at the head of an
army of Polish and Lithuanian volunteers, Cossacks and Muscovite
fugitives, to drive out the Godunovs, after being received into the
Church of Rome. At the beginning of 1604 he was invited to Cracow, where
Sigismund presented him to the papal nuncio Rangoni. His public
conversion took place on the 17th of April. In October the false
Demetrius crossed the Russian frontier, and shortly afterwards routed a
large Muscovite army beneath the walls of Novgorod-Syeversk. The sudden
death of Tsar Boris (April 13, 1605) removed the last barrier to the
further progress of the pretender. The principal Russian army, under P.
F. Basmanov, at once went over to him (May 7); on the 20th of June he
made his triumphal entry into Moscow, and on the 21st of July he was
crowned tsar by a new patriarch of his own choosing, the Greek Isidore.
He at once proceeded to introduce a whole series of political and
economical reforms. From all accounts, he must have been a man of
original genius and extraordinary resource. He did his best to relieve
the burdens of the peasantry; he formed the project of a grand alliance
between the emperor, the pope, Venice, Poland and Muscovy against the
Turk; he displayed an amazing toleration in religious matters which made
people suspect that he was a crypto-Arian; and far from being, as was
expected, the tool of Poland and the pope, he maintained from the first
a dignified and independent attitude. But his extravagant opinion of his
own authority (he lost no time in styling himself emperor), and his
predilection for Western civilization, alarmed the ultra-conservative
boyars (the people were always on his side), and a conspiracy was formed
against him, headed by Basil Shuisky, whose life he had saved a few
months previously. A favourable opportunity for the conspirators
presented itself on the 8th of May 1606, when Demetrius was married to
Marina Mniszek. Taking advantage of the hostility of the Muscovites
towards the Polish regiments which had escorted Marina to Moscow and
there committed some excesses, the boyars urged the citizens to rise
against the Poles, while they themselves attacked and slew Demetrius in
the Kreml on the night of the 17th of May.
See Sergyei Solovev, _History of Russia_ (Rus.), vol. viii. (St
Petersburg, 1857, &c.); Nikolai Kostomarov, _Historical Monographs_
(Rus.) vols, iv.-vi. (St Petersburg, 1863, &c.); Orest Levitsky, _The
First False Demetrius as the Propagandist of Catholicism in Russia_
(Rus.) (St Petersburg, 1886); Paul Pierling, _Rome et Demetrius_
(Paris, 1878); R. N. Bain, _Poland and Russia_, cap. 10 (Cambridge,
1907).
2. The second pretender, called "the thief of Tushino," first appeared
on the scene _circa_ 1607 at Starodub. He is supposed to have been
either a priest's son or a converted Jew, and was highly educated,
relatively to the times he lived in, knowing as he did the Russian and
Polish languages and being somewhat of an expert in liturgical matters.
He pretended at first to be the Muscovite boyarin Nagi; but confessed,
under torture, that he was Demetrius Ivanovich, whereupon he was taken
at his word and joined by thousands of Cossacks, Poles and Muscovites.
He speedily captured Karachev, Bryansk and other towns; was reinforced
by the Poles; and in the spring of 1608 advanced upon Moscow, routing
the army of Tsar Basil Shuisky, at Bolkhov, on his way. Liberal promises
of the wholesale confiscation of the estates of the boyars drew the
common people to him, and he entrenched himself at the village of
Tushino, twelve versts from the capital, which he converted into an
armed camp, collecting therein 7000 Polish soldiers, 10,000 Cossacks and
10,000 of the rabble. In the course of the year he captured Marina
Mniszek, who acknowledged him to be her husband (subsequently quieting
her conscience by privately marrying this impostor, who in no way
resembled her first husband), and brought him the support of the
Lithuanian magnates Mniszek and Sapieha so that his forces soon exceeded
100,000 men. He raised to the rank of patriarch another illustrious
captive, Philaret Romanov, and won over the towns of Yaroslavl,
Kostroma, Vologda, Kashin and other places to his allegiance. But a
series of subsequent disasters, and the arrival of King Sigismund III.
at Sinolensk, induced him to fly his camp disguised as a peasant and go
to Kostroma, where Marina joined him and he lived once more in regal
state. He also made another but unsuccessful attack on Moscow, and,
supported by the Don Cossacks, recovered a hold over all south-eastern
Russia. He was killed, while half drunk, on the 11th of December 1610,
by a Tatar whom he had flogged.
See Sergyei Solovev, _History of Russia_ (Rus.) vol. viii. (St
Petersburg, 1657, &c.).
3. The third, a still more enigmatical person than his predecessors,
supposed to have been a deacon called Siderka, appeared suddenly, "from,
behind the river Yanza," in the Ingrian town of Ivangorod (Narva),
proclaiming himself the tsarevich Demetrius Ivanovich, on the 28th of
March 1611. The Cossacks, ravaging the environs of Moscow, acknowledged
him as tsar on the 2nd of March 1612, and under threat of vengeance in
case of non-compliance, the gentry of Pskov also kissed the cross to
"the thief of Pskov," as he was usually nicknamed. On the 18th of May
1612 he fled from Pskov, was seized and delivered up to the authorities
at Moscow, and there executed.
See Sergyei Solovev, _History of Russia_ (Rus.), vol. viii. (St
Petersburg, 1857, &c.). (R. N. B.)
DEMIDOV, the name of a famous Russian family, founded by Nikita Demidov
(b. c. 1665), who was originally a blacksmith serf. He made his fortune
by his skill in the manufacture of weapons, and established an iron
foundry for the government. Peter the Great, with whom he was a
favourite, ennobled him in 1720. His son, Akinfiy Demidov (d. c. 1740),
increased his inherited wealth by the discovery and working of gold,
silver and copper mines. The latter's nephew, Paul Grigoryevich Demidov
(1738-1821), was a great traveller who was a benefactor of Russian
scientific education; he founded an annual prize for Russian literature,
awarded by the Academy of Sciences. Paul's nephew, Nikolay Nikitich
Demidov (1774-1828), raised and commanded a regiment to oppose
Napoleon's invasion, and carried on the accumulation of the family
wealth from mining; he contributed liberally to the erection of four
bridges in St Petersburg, and to the propagation of scientific culture
in Moscow. Paul's son, Anatoli Demidov (1812-1870), was a well-known
traveller and patron of art; he married Princess Mathilde, daughter of
Jerome Bonaparte.