On the death of Feodor, son of Ivan the Terrible, the Russian throne
was occupied by Boris Godunoff, who had contrived to procure the
murder of Dimitri, or Demetrius, the younger brother of Feodor. For a
time he governed well; but the crafty nobles beginning to plot against
him, he had recourse to measures of extreme cruelty and severity, so
that even the affections of the common people were alienated from him,
and universal confusion ensued. Advantage was taken of this state of
affairs by a monk named Otrefief, who bore an almost miraculous
likeness to the murdered Dimitri, to assume the name of the royal
heir. At first he proceeded cautiously, and, retiring to Poland, by
degrees made public the marvellous tale of his wrongs and of his
escape from his assassins. Many of the leading nobles listened to his
recitals and believed them. In order to render his campaign more
certain, the pretender set himself to learn the Polish language, and
acquired it with remarkable rapidity. Nor did he rest here. He
represented to the Poles that he was disposed to embrace the Catholic
faith; and by assuring the Pope that if he regained the throne of his
ancestors, his first care should be to recall his subjects to their
obedience to Rome, he succeeded in securing the patronage and the
blessing of the Pontiff. Sendomir, a wealthy boyard, not only espoused
his cause, and gave him pecuniary help, but promised him his daughter
Marina in marriage whenever he became the Czar of Muscovy. Marina
herself was no less eager for the union, and through Sendomir's
influence the support of the King of Poland was obtained.
News of the imposture soon reached Moscow, and Boris instantly
denounced Dimitri as an impostor, and sent emissaries to endeavour to
secure his arrest. In this, however, they were unsuccessful; and the
false Dimitri not only succeeded in raising a considerable force in
Poland, but also in convincing the great mass of the Russian
population that he really was the son of Ivan. In 1604 he appeared on
the Russian frontier at the head of a small but efficient force, and
overthrew the army which Boris had sent against him. His success was
supposed by the ignorant peasantry to be entirely due to the
interposition of Providence, which was working on the side of the
injured prince, and Dimitri was careful to foster the delusion that
his cause was specially favoured by heaven. He treated his prisoners
with the greatest humanity, and ordered his followers to refrain from
excesses, and to cultivate the goodwill of the people. The result was
that his ranks rapidly increased, while those of the czar diminished.
Even foreign governments began to view the offender with favour; and
at last Boris, devoured by remorse for the crimes which he had
committed, and by chagrin at the evil fate which had fallen upon him,
lost his reason and poisoned himself.
The chief nobles assembled when the death of the czar was made known,
and proclaimed his son Feodor emperor in his stead; but the lad's
reign was very brief. The greater part of the army and the people
declared in favour of Dimitri, and the citizens of Moscow having
invited him to assume the reins of power, Dimitri made a triumphal
entry into the capital, and was crowned with great pomp. At first he
ruled prudently, and, had he continued as he began, might have
retained his strangely acquired throne. But after a time he gave
himself up to the gratification of his own wild passions, and lost the
popularity which he really had succeeded in gaining. He disgusted the
Russians by appointing numerous Poles, who had swelled his train, to
the highest posts in the empire, to the exclusion of meritorious
officers, who not only deserved well of their country, but also had
claims upon himself for services which they had rendered. These Polish
officers misconducted themselves sadly, and the people murmured sore.
The czar, too, made no secret of his attachment to the Catholic faith;
and while by so doing he irritated the clergy, he provoked the boyards
by his haughty patronage, and disgusted the common people by his
cruelty and lewdness. At last the murmurs grew so loud and
threatening, that some means had to be devised to quiet the popular
discontent, and Dimitri had recourse to a strange stratagem. The widow
of Ivan, who had long before been immured in a convent by the orders
of Boris, and had been kept there by his successor, was released from
her confinement, and was induced publicly to acknowledge Dimitri as
her son. The widowed empress knew full well that her life depended
upon her obedience; but notwithstanding her outward consent to the
fraud, the people were not satisfied, and demanded proofs of Dimitri's
birth, which were not forthcoming. Discontent continued to spread, and
at length the popular fury could no longer be restrained. According to
his promise, the sham czar married Marina, the daughter of the Polish
boyard. The very fact that she was a Pole made her distasteful to the
Russians; but that fact was rendered still more offensive by the
manner of her entrance into the capital, and the treatment which the
Muscovites received at the bridal ceremony. The bride was surrounded
by a large retinue of armed Poles, who marched through the streets of
Moscow with the mien of conquerors; the Russian nobles were excluded
from all participation in the festivities; and the common people were
treated by their emperor with haughty insolence, and held up to the
scorn of his foreign guests. A report also became rife that a timber
fort, which Dimitri had erected opposite the gates of the city, had
been constructed solely for the purpose of giving the bloodthirsty
Marina a martial spectacle, and that, sheltered behind its wooden
walls, the Polish troops and the czar's bodyguard would throw
firebrands and missiles among the crowds of spectators below. This
idle rumour was carefully circulated; the clergy, who had long been
disaffected, went from house to house denouncing the czar as a
heretic, and calling an their countrymen to rise against the insolent
traducer of their religion; and the secret of his birth and imposition
was everywhere proclaimed. The people burst into open revolt, and,
headed by the native prince Schnisky, rushed to storm the imperial
palace. The Polish troops broke their ranks and fled, and were
massacred in the streets. Dimitri himself sought to escape by a
private avenue in the confusion; but watchful enemies were lying in
wait for him. He was overtaken and killed, and his body was exposed
for three days in front of the palace, so that the mob might wreak
their vengeance upon his inanimate clay. Marina and her father were
captured, and after being detained for a little time were set at
liberty.
By the death of the impostor, the throne was left vacant, and the
privilege of electing a new czar reverted to the people. Schnisky, who
had headed the revolt, made good use of his opportunity and
popularity, and while the people were exulting over their success,
contrived to secure the empire for himself. But when the heat of
triumph died away, the nobles were chagrined because they had elevated
one of their own number to rule over them, and the reaction against
the new czar was as strong and as rapid as the extraordinary movement
in his favour had been. The Muscovite nobles were determined to oust
him from his newly-found dignities, and for this purpose adopted the
strange expedient of reviving the dead Dimitri. It mattered little to
them that the breathless carcase of the impostor had been seen by
thousands. They presumed upon the gullibility of their countrymen,
and, asserting that Dimitri had escaped and was prepared to come
forward to claim his throne, endeavoured to stir up an insurrection.
The cheat, however, was not popular, and the sham czar of the nobles
never appeared.
But although the nobles failed in their attempt to foist another
Dimitri upon their fellow-countrymen, the Poles, who were interested
for their countrywoman Marina, were not discouraged from trying the
same ruse. They produced a flesh-and-blood candidate for the Russian
sceptre. This person was a Polish schoolmaster, who bore a striking
likeness to the real Dimitri, and who was sufficiently intelligent to
play his part creditably. To give a greater semblance of truth to
their imposture, they succeeded in persuading Marina to abet them;
and not only did she openly assert that the new Dimitri was her
husband, but she embraced him publicly, and actually lived with him as
his wife.
At the time that this impostor appeared, Sigismund declared war
against Russia, and his marshal Tolkiewski succeeded in inflicting a
terrible defeat on Schnisky. Moscow yielded before the victorious
Poles; and in despair Schnisky renounced the crown and retired into a
monastery. But no sooner was the diadem vacant than a host of false
Dimitris appeared to claim it, and the chief power was tossed from one
party to another during a weary interregnum. At last, in 1609,
Sigismund, who had remained at Smolensko while his marshal advanced
upon Moscow, proclaimed his own son Vladislaf to the vacant
sovereignty, and the pretended Dimitri sank into obscurity. Others,
however, arose; and although some of them perished on the scaffold, it
was not until 1616 that Russia was freed from the last of the
disturbing impostors who attempted to personate princes of the race of
Ivan the Terrible.