Time of Troubles: Difference between revisions

{{About||the 20th-century conflict in Northern Ireland|The Troubles|the books by Harry Turtledove|Videssos cycle|the Dungeons & Dragons plotline|Time of Troubles (Forgotten Realms)}}

[[File:Appeal of Minin.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|alt=Painting of Kuzma Minin addressing a large crowd|[[Konstantin Makovsky]]'s ''Appeal of Minin'' (1896) depicts [[Kuzma Minin]] against the background of the [[Church of St. John the Baptist (Nizhny Novgorod)|church of St. John the Baptist]] appealing to the people of [[Nizhny Novgorod]] to raise a militia against the Polish invaders and [[Sigismund III Vasa]].]]

 

 

The Time of Troubles ended with the election of Michael Romanov as tsar by the [[Zemsky Sobor]] in 1613, establishing the Romanov dynasty, which ruled Russia until the [[February Revolution]] in 1917.

[[File:Uglich Palace of Tsarevich Dmitry 2023-07-21 7251.jpg|thumb|left|Palace in [[Uglich]], where Tsarevich Dmitry lived and died]]

 

 

"Boris Godunov has been called one of Russia's greatest rulers," according to Dunning, "The man responsible for the expansion of Russia at the end of the sixteenth century was Boris Godunov." Yet in 1592, he had effectively enserfed millions, burdened the populace with heavy taxes, harassed the free cossacks, and in 1597, introduced a slave law converting contract slaves into slaves for life.<ref name=cd/>{{rp|45–47,58–65,73}}

According to Dunning, "Russia's first civil war came about as a direct result of the bold invasion of the country by a man claiming to be Tsarevich Dmitrii, somehow 'miraculously' rescued from the 'usurper' Boris Godunov's alleged assassination attempt in 1591 and now returning to claim the throne from the illegitimate 'false tsar' Boris."<ref name=cd/>{{rp|75–76}}

 

 

Dunning notes, "King [[Sigismund III Vasa|Sigismund]], Polish Catholic leaders, and the [[Jesuits]] soon took great interest in reports that Dmitrii was considering conversion to Catholicism. They dreamed, among other things, of converting all of Russia and then using the Russians against Sweden."<ref name=cd/>{{rp|88}}

 

By September 1604, Mniszech, as Dmitrii's commander-in-chief, had gathered about 2500 men. On October 1604, they crossed the Poland-Lithuania border into Russia. According to Dunning, "Dmitrii's invasion in October 1604 triggered the first phase of Russia's first civil war - a massive rebellion of southwestern and southern frontier provinces, towns, garrisons, and cossacks that grew into a much wider conflict that toppled the Godunov dynasty."<ref name=cd/>{{rp|90–91}}

 

 

==Vasili IV Shuisky==

[[File:Vasily shuysky.jpg|thumb|left|Portrait of Tsar Vasili IV Shuisky in the ''[[Tsarsky titulyarnik]]'' (1672)]]

 

False Dmitry I quickly became unpopular, since many in Russia saw him as a tool of the [[Polish people|Poles]]. On 17 May 1606, ten days after his marriage, Dmitry was killed by armed mobs during an uprising in Moscow after he was ousted from the [[Kremlin]]. Many of his Polish advisors were also killed or imprisoned during the rebellion.<ref name=Stone/><ref>M. S. Anderson. The Origins of the Modern European State System, 1494-1618. [[Routledge]], 2014. P. 274</ref>

 

According to Dunning, "Both before and during the [[Siege of Moscow (1606)|siege of Moscow]], [[Ivan Bolotnikov|Bolotnikov]] had written to Prince Shakhovskoi in Putvil urging him to find Tsar Dmitri and bring him to Moscow. Unable to comply, Shakhovskoi instead at some point made contact with the large group of cossacks on the southern frontier who were headed by the self-styled 'Tsarevich Petr,' the mythical son of Tsar [[Fedor I of Russia|Fedor Ivanovich]] who had supposedly been hidden from the evil Boris Godunov as a child and had grown up in obscurity. Shakhovskoi knew perfectly well that no such person existed, but he nevertheless invited Petr and his cossacks to hurry to Putivl to help restore Tsar Dmitrii to the throne." Shakhovskoi told Petr, that in the absence of Tsar Dmitri's arrival, "Petr could be tsar, since he was the true born son of Feodor Ivanovich and therefore the lawful heir to the realm." Tsarevich Petr was in reality Ilia Korovin, the illegitimate son of a Murom woman and the cobbler Ivan Korovin. In January 1607, Petr left Putivl for [[Tula, Russia|Tula]] with an army of 30,000. In May, Bolotnikov retreated to Tula following the siege of Kaluga. In June, Tsar Vasilii started the four-month siege of Tula.<ref name=cd/>{{rp|221–232,242}}

In July 1607, a new impostor, [[False Dmitry II]], came forward as the heir. According to Dunning, "At some point, the emissary from Tsarevich Petr and Bolotnikov, [[Ivan Zarutsky]], stepped forward, also 'recognized' the tsar, and presented him with letters from the Tula leadership." On 11 October, False Dmitrii's army occupied [[Kozelsk]]. Tula had surrendered the day before, after the Tsar's army dammed the [[Upa (river)|Upa]], flooding Tula. Amongst those captured were Bolotnikov and Tsarevich Petr. Shakhovskoi and Yury Bezzubtsev also were captured, but escaped, joining the "second false Dmitrii." However, Tsarevich Petr was tortured and publicly hanged outside Moscow, while Bolotnikov was executed in [[Kargopol]].<ref name=cd/>{{rp|246–249,256–257}}

 

On 29 October 1607, the "second false Dmitrii" was joined by a group of Polish lords, with 1800 mercenaries, followed by another group of Polish lords and mercenaries in November. According to Dunning, "Also joining him at about this time was another copy-cat pretender, 'Tsarevich Fedor Fedorovich,' who claimed to be Tsarevich Petr's younger brother. Foreign mercenaries, cossacks, and some of Bolotnikov's men from Tula, including his lieutenant Ivan Zarutsky, continued to join the army. Then in April 1608, the Ukrainian Prince Roman Rozynski joined with 4000 foreign mercenaries. In the spring, Dmitrii's army attacked Dmitrii Vasilii's men at [[Bolkhov]], defeating him after a four day battle. Advancing onward to Moscow, the second false Dmitrii set up court in [[Tushino]], and laid siege to Moscow over the next eighteen months. According to Dunning, "Members of the Romanov clan, in particular, flocked to Tushino." In September 1608, Rozynski's men covered the areas west and south of Moscow, while [[Jan Piotr Sapieha]]'s men covered the area north, defeating Prince Ivan Shuisky's men, and [[Siege of Troitsky monastery|besieging the Trinity-St. Sergius monastery]].<ref name=cd/>{{rp|246,257–263}}

 

According to Dunning, "Russia was virtually inundated by a wave of opportunistic copy-cat tsarist pretenders during the later stages of the civil war." This included up to ten more pretenders, but the Tushino imposter brooked no rivals, hanging "Tsarevich Fedor Fedorovich" and "Tsarevich Ivan-Avgust," who claimed to be the son of Ivan the Terrible and his fourth wife [[Anna Koltovskaya|Anna Koltsovskaia]].<ref name=cd/>{{rp|237,262}}

In November 1608, a popular movement against the false Dmitrii started in [[Galich, Russia|Galich]], and soon spread to [[Vologda]] and [[Kostroma]], one in which [[Aleksander Józef Lisowski]] was unable to stop in the early part of 1609. In February, Tsar Vasilii was the target of an unsuccessful coup attempt by Mikhail Tatishchev, followed by another by Ivan Kriuk-Kolychev in the spring, both of whom were put to death. Then [[Prokopy Petrovich Lyapunov|Prokofy Lyapunov]] declared himself the "white tsar", and led a revolt from the [[Riazan]] area. In the summer of 1609, the Crimean Tatars invaded Russia capturing slaves for their markets.<ref name=cd/>{{rp|266–268}}

 

On 4 February 1610, the Russian lords formally in the Tushino court signed a treaty with Sigismund III, hoping to end the civil war and restore order. According to Dunning, "Most Russian lords in the collapsing Tushino court came to believe that rebellion in the name of 'Tsar Dmitrii' was now a lost cause. Not surprisingly, they chose to negotiate with Sigismund III. Patriarch Filaret, other members of the Romanov clan, boyar Mikhail G. Saltykov, and Mikhail Molchanov were ready to support Sigismund's son, Wladyslaw, as tsar." Included in the Polish service were Rozynski, and Ivan Zarutsky's cossacks. However, Prince Shakhovskoi and Jan-Piotr Sapieha brought cossacks and foreign troops to the false Dmitrii's camp in Kaluga.<ref name=cd/>{{rp|271}}

 

The Ingrian War lasted until the [[Treaty of Stolbovo]] in 1617, and the Russo-Polish War continued until the 1619 [[Truce of Deulino]]. Although Russia gained peace through treaties and preserved its independence, it was forced by Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to make substantial territorial concessions; most, however, were recovered during the next сentury. [[Ingria]] was ceded to the Swedes (who established [[Swedish Ingria]]), and [[Severia]] and the city of Smolensk were retained by the Poles. The Time of Troubles united the Russian [[social class]]es around the Romanov tsars, laying the foundation for the later reforms of [[Peter the Great]].

 

 

==Cultural allusions==