What happened in 1613. Time of Troubles: chronology of events

The Zemsky Sobor of 1613 marked the end of the Time of Troubles and was supposed to bring order to the government of Russia. Let me remind you that after the death of Ivan 4 (the Terrible), the place on the throne was free, since the tsar did not leave behind heirs. That is why the Troubles occurred, when both internal forces and external representatives carried out endless attempts to seize power.

Reasons for convening the Zemsky Sobor

After foreign invaders were expelled not only from Moscow, but also from Russia, Minin, Pozharsky and Trubetskoy sent invitation letters to all parts of the country, calling on all representatives of the nobility to appear at the Council, where a new tsar would be elected.

The Zemsky Sobor of 1613 opened in January, and the following took part in it:

• Clergy
• Boyars
• Nobles
• City elders
• Peasant representatives
• Cossacks

In total, 700 people took part in the Zemsky Sobor.

Progress of the Council and its decisions

The first decision approved by the Zemsky Sobor was that the Tsar must be Russian. He should not relate to the Nostrians in any way.

Marina Mnishek intended to crown her son Ivan (whom historians often call “the little crow”), but after the Council’s decision that the tsar should not be a foreigner, she fled to Ryazan.

Historical background

The events of those days must be considered from the point of view of the fact that there were a huge number of people wishing to take a place on the throne. Therefore, groups began to form that united, promoting their representative. There were several such groups:

• Noble boyars. This included representatives of the boyar family. One part of them believed that Fyodor Mstislavsky or Vasily Golitsyn would be the ideal tsar for Russia. Others leaned towards the young Mikhail Romanov. The number of boyars was divided approximately equally by interests.
• Nobles. These were also noble people with great authority. They promoted their “tsar” - Dmitry Trubetskoy. The difficulty was that Trubetskoy had the rank of “boyar,” which he had recently received in the Tushensky courtyard.
• Cossacks. According to tradition, the Cossacks sided with the one who had the money. In particular, they actively served the Tushensky court, and after the latter was dispersed, they began to support the king, who was related to Tushin.

Mikhail Romanov's father, Filaret, was a patriarch in the Tushensky courtyard and was highly respected there. Largely due to this fact, Mikhail was supported by the Cossacks and the clergy.

Karamzin

Romanov did not have many rights to the throne. The more serious claim against him was that his father was on friendly terms with both False Dmitrys. The first False Dmitry made Philaret a metropolitan and his protege, and the second False Dmitry appointed him patriarch and his protege. That is, Mikhail’s father had very friendly relations with foreigners, whom they had just gotten rid of by decision of the Council of 1613 and decided not to call him to power again.

Results

The Zemsky Sobor of 1613 ended on February 21 - Mikhail Romanov was elected tsar. Now it is difficult to talk reliably about all the subtleties of the events of those days, since not many documents have survived. Nevertheless, it is known for certain that the Council was surrounded by complex intrigues. This is not surprising - the stakes were too high. The fate of the country and entire ruling dynasties was being decided.

The result of the Council was that Mikhail Romanov, who at that time was only 16 years old, was elected to the throne. A clear answer: “Why exactly?” no one will give it. Historians say that this was the figure most convenient for all dynasties. Allegedly, young Mikhail was an extremely suggestible person and could be “controlled as needed by the majority.” In fact, all power (especially in the first years of Romanov’s reign) was not with the tsar himself, but with his father, Patriarch Filaret. It was he who actually ruled Russia on behalf of his son.

Feature and contradiction

The main feature of the Zemsky Sobor of 1613 was its mass character. Representatives of all classes and estates took part in deciding the future of the country, with the exception of slaves and rootless peasants. Actually we're talking about about an all-class Council, which had no analogues in the history of Russia.

The second feature is the importance of the decision and its complexity. There is no clear answer why Romanov was chosen. After all, this was not the most obvious candidate. The entire Council was commemorated a large number intrigues, attempts at bribery and other manipulations of people.

To summarize, we can say that the Zemsky Sobor of 1613 was important for the history of Russia. He concentrated power in the hands of the Russian Tsar, laid the foundation of a new dynasty (the Romanovs) and saved the country from constant problems and claims to the throne from the Germans, Poles, Swedes and others.

400 years ago a great historical event took place in Rus', which determined the fate of the Fatherland and our people for centuries. By the will of God and the patriotic zeal of the Orthodox people, a long ruinous period ended, which went down in history as Time of Troubles. This event was the agreement of 16-year-old Mikhail Romanov with the decision of the Zemsky Sobor, which elected him Tsar of All Rus' in March 1613. It became the boundary between 15 years of devastation “in business and minds” and the revival of Russia with its gradual transformation into a great European and world power. A new reigning dynasty was born, which was destined to build and strengthen the Russian state for more than 300 years, to expand its borders from the Carpathians to Pacific Ocean, from the icy Arctic to the Pamirs.

The Time of Troubles began in 1598 with the death of Ivan the Terrible's childless son Fyodor Ioannovich. The Rurik dynasty ended. The usual and God-sanctified order of succession to the throne was disrupted. The boyars of that time had to resort to a hitherto unheard of procedure - the election of a new king. There was no legal provision for elections, the result was determined by the behind-the-scenes intrigues of the clans, using what is now called “administrative resources.” So Boris Godunov ascended the throne, who, under the late Fyodor Ioannovich, essentially managed all the affairs of the state. His election was not recognized by popular rumor as “legitimate”; Tsar Boris was accused of being the murderer of the young son of Ivan the Terrible - the legal heir to the throne of Tsarevich Dmitry, who lived with his disgraced mother in Uglich.

The terrible cold snap in Rus' that occurred in 1601-1603, when there were frosts even in the summer and the grain was not ripe to become seeds, caused an unprecedented famine. This was already regarded as the Lord's punishment. Popular unrest began and grew into an uprising. In such a situation, the adventurer False Dmitry I appeared, who, with the help of the Poles and the angry mob, captured Moscow and was crowned Russian Tsar. In this “evil time” everything was built on lies, corruption, and betrayal. Driven to white heat, Muscovites rebelled in 1606, overthrew and killed False Dmitry I. The boyars elected another king from among them - Vasily Shuisky, but the people did not have much faith in him either. A new contender for the continuation of the legitimate Rurik dynasty, False Dmitry II, the Tushinsky thief, has appeared again, at the suggestion of Poland. Two governments were created in Russia: in Moscow - the rule of Tsar Vasily Shuisky, and in the village of Tushino near Moscow, the government of False Dmitry II was established, in which the Poles ruled. The bedlam was universal. Each city and each province decided for itself “where to go, in which camp to fight.” Due to disagreements in the Tushino camp, False Dmitry II went to Kaluga, where he was killed during a hunt.

In the same 1610, Vasily Shuisky was overthrown, forcibly tonsured as a monk, and then taken to Poland, where he died ingloriously in captivity two years later. Russian state completely degraded. In Moscow, the reign of the Seven Boyars came under Polish protectorate. It seemed that everything was over. All holders of secular power have lost all trust in the eyes of the people. However, the heart of the Russian people in the form of the Russian Orthodox Church continued to fight, which gave hope for the salvation of the Fatherland. Like back in the day Venerable Sergius Radonezh inspired the Moscow prince Dmitry to perform a feat of arms on the Kulikovo field, and now the role of spiritual leaders fell to Orthodox clergy. Patriarch Hermogenes became an unwavering defender of Orthodoxy, and faith was then perceived as synonymous with sovereignty and national unity.

The boyars, having lost faith in themselves and in Russia, were ready to recognize the Polish prince Vladislav as the Russian Tsar for the sake of preserving their estates and privileges. The Patriarch was inclined to do the same in the interests of establishing peace in the Russian land, but he strictly raised the question of faith. “Let Vladislav accept Orthodox faith, and all Poles will be withdrawn from Moscow!” - this was his final verdict. One of the boyars, Mikhailo Saltykov, even swung his knife at the unyielding Hermogenes, but he replied: “I am not afraid of your knife, I will arm myself against the knife with the power of the holy cross.” He did not hesitate to declare that if the invaders did not leave the Moscow borders, and the royal throne was occupied by a non-religious, he would begin to send letters to all cities, calling for resistance to the invaders and the salvation of the faith. This position of the Orthodox first hierarch prompted the Ryazan nobleman Prokopiy Lyapunov to begin forming the first people's militia with the aim of liberating Moscow from the Poles. It approached Moscow, but was not successful due to internal disagreements, which ended in the death of P. Lyapunov himself.

Undaunted, Hermogenes again sent letters from his prison in the Chudov Monastery calling for the creation of a new militia. It was the reading of his document at the gathering in Nizhny Novgorod that served as the starting point for the creation of a people's army under the leadership of Minin and Pozharsky. Our great historian V.O. Klyuchevsky notes: “Strong national and religious ties saved society.”

In those years, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra turned into the informal capital of Russia as a counterbalance to the lascivious Moscow. Archimandrite Dionysius (rector of the Lavra) and cellarer Avraamy Palitsyn became influential creators of Russian liberation movement. They compiled and sent their “conscription letters” and appeals from Patriarch Hermogenes to Russian cities, rousing the people to resistance. A whole underground network of couriers (“fearless people”) was created, who, at the risk of their lives, maintained contact between Russian cities and the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Thousands and thousands of refugees from all over the tormented Russian land flocked to the monastery. The Lavra itself was turned into a powerful fortress.

The Poles, realizing the danger, sent an army of almost 15 thousand under the command of Jan Sapieha to capture the Lavra. The famous siege began, which lasted 16 months - from October 1608 to January 1610. The Russian garrison consisted of 2.5 thousand military men and thousands of monks and townspeople. But there were over 100 cannons on the walls and towers. The Poles made dozens of attacks, but all of them were repulsed. The besieged themselves suffered huge losses from the fighting and hardships. By the end of the siege, only 200 fighters remained in the ranks, but their fighting spirit was not broken. The Poles wavered and lifted the siege, especially since detachments of Russian militia began to approach the Lavra. Now it is difficult for us to imagine the huge explosion of enthusiasm and joy, faith in the final victory of a just cause, which the news of the victory under the walls of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra caused among the people.

Finally, the people's militia under the command of Minin and Pozharsky approached Moscow in the fall of 1612, where it (again, at the insistence of A. Palitsyn) was joined by detachments of Cossacks from the remnants of the first militia under the command of Trubetskoy. The Poles surrendered and, by the grace of the victors, went home. The most important thing has begun: the creation new government. All the previous 15 years, the country was ruled by people who were illegitimate in the eyes of the people: either impostors, or persons who received the throne as a result of incorrect elections - conspiracies of boyar clans. Fair popular elections were needed so that the new government would not raise any doubts about its legitimacy. It was decided to convene a Zemsky Sobor. From each city, 7 delegates came to Moscow; classes were widely represented separately: boyars, clergy, nobles, service people, townspeople and even peasants. In total, about 800 people gathered. On the eve of the opening of the Council, a three-day strict fast was declared in order to cleanse oneself of all the filth that had accumulated in souls during the years of the Troubles. Even infants had to observe this fast.

The meetings began in December 1612 and continued until the end of the following February, 1613. The first question, who should be placed on the throne - a foreigner or a Russian - was resolved quickly and unanimously: “Only our own Russian, Orthodox.” The second question: “Which Russian exactly?” - took almost two months of debate. The list of initially named candidates was extensive: from Prince D. Pozharsky to the son of Marina Mnishek and False Dmitry II, but as the discussion progressed, it shrank every day. The candidacies of princes Golitsyn, Mstislavsky, Vorotynsky, Trubetskoy and others disappeared. In other words, we were talking about real democratic elections. Little by little, the name of Mikhail Romanov appeared in the center of the narrowed circle of candidates, who suited many people. Some liked that a 16-year-old boy could easily become an obedient tool in the hands of the boyars, others were flattered by the fact that he was the cousin of the last Rurik Tsar - Fedor - and was, as it were, the legal successor of the legitimate dynasty. Some considered him a “patriot”, since his father Fyodor ( tonsured Filaret) had been in Polish captivity since 1610, others, knowing that Filaret received an appointment to the post of Metropolitan of Rostov from False Dmitry I, and in 1609 was installed as Patriarch False Dmitry II, They believed that the new tsar would be gentle towards those who collaborated with Polish proteges.

Soon messages began to arrive from cities in support of M. Romanov’s candidacy. All the Cossacks spoke out for him, and they were the only organized military force, because the zemstvo militia was disbanded immediately after the capture of Moscow. In the end, on March 3, 1613, the Zemsky Council of the Russian Land unanimously supported the candidacy of M. Romanov. But even this then political elite It seemed to Russia that it was not enough for the full legitimacy of the choice. Messengers were sent to all cities with a request to obtain local opinion on the acceptability of Mikhail Romanov's candidacy. The support was unanimous.

Then they sent a deputation to the Ipatiev Monastery (near Kostroma), where the future tsar was with his mother. The parent did not want to give her son up for such a difficult feat. She reproached the messengers for betraying all the sovereigns elected over 15 years from B. Godunov to V. Shuisky. But the ambassadors answered: “The previous sovereigns did not receive the throne in the same way as Michael receives it now. Boris sat in the state of his own free will, having killed Demetrius, he took revenge on his deeds, Vasily was chosen by a few people for the state, and Mikhail was chosen not according to his desire, but unanimously, by the whole earth, by the will of God...” After oaths of assurance loyalty of all subjects, Mikhail Romanov accepted the royal staff as a sign royal power. This happened on March 14, 1613, and Mikhail Fedorovich was crowned king in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin on July 11, 1613.

The reign of the first Romanov was not easy. It took a whole year to catch the Cossack ringleader Ivan Zarutsky, who with Marina Mnishek still flattered himself with the hope of returning the Time of Troubles to Russia, but was caught, taken to Moscow and impaled. M. Mniszech died in prison in 1614, and her 4-year-old son was hanged. Poland did not recognize Mikhail Romanov as tsar for a long time; in 1618, its troops approached Moscow, but were repulsed. Under the terms of the Deulin Truce (1619), prisoners were exchanged, and the tsar’s father, Patriarch Filaret, returned to Russia, becoming Michael’s de facto regent. Things went well.

Until now, the Russian kingdom had been considered a kind of fiefdom of the Rurik dynasty; the dissatisfied did not think about riots, but preferred to flee to the outlying lands. This is how Cossack settlements were formed. Now the state, saved by the common efforts of the entire people, has become its joint property. The Troubles made the people feel both their weakness and their strength. That is why the entire 17th century was called the “rebellious century.” Trusting and submitting to the royal will, the Russian people acquired the courage to have own opinion. Just look at the list of rebel names: Patriarch Nikon, Archpriest Avvakum, Boyarina Morozova, Stenka Razin, etc. And this was under Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, whom the Polish historian K. Waliszewski called “one of the most highly moral monarchs of all times and peoples.”

The legitimacy of the new Tsar Mikhail Romanov was so accepted by the popular consciousness that at the very first test of loyalty, people went to the feat of self-sacrifice. This is what Ivan Susanin did. Later, in 1866, another peasant averted the hand of the terrorist Karakozov, who was trying to kill Emperor Alexander II. Until the revolution of 1917, the ideological foundation of the empire was the triad “Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality.”

The Romanov dynasty turned out to be one of the most stable in Europe and was the most successful until the twentieth century. The English Windsors or the German Hohenzollerns cannot compare with it; only the Habsburgs and the Bourbons were older than the Romanovs, but they ruled in smaller states, and even then with varying success. For Russia, the time of the Romanovs included periods of the highest flourishing of national culture, art, the establishment of interethnic and interfaith peace in the vast expanses of the empire, great military victories and scientific achievements. The fall of the empire plunged Russia into a new Time of Troubles, which continues to this day. If the Russian people, together with others, can repeat the feat of our ancestors in 1612-1613, then a bright and endless distance will open before them.

Reasons for the beginning and results of the Time of Troubles

- indignation, rebellion, rebellion, general disobedience, discord between the authorities and the people.

Time of Troubles– an era of socio-political dynastic crisis. Accompanied by popular uprisings, rule by impostors, destruction state power, Polish-Swedish-Lithuanian intervention, ruin of the country.

Causes of the Troubles

Consequences of the ruin of the state during the oprichnina period.
Aggravation of the social situation as a consequence of the processes of state enslavement of the peasantry.
Dynasty crisis: suppression of the male branch of the ruling princely-royal Moscow house.
Crisis of power: intensifying struggle for supreme power between noble boyar families. The appearance of impostors.
Poland's claims to Russian lands and the throne.
Famine of 1601-1603. Death of people and surge in migration within the state.

Reign during the Time of Troubles

Boris Godunov (1598-1605)
Fyodor Godunov (1605)
False Dmitry I (1605-1606)
Vasily Shuisky (1606-1610)
Seven Boyars (1610-1613)

Time of Troubles (1598 – 1613) Chronicle of events

1598 – 1605 - Board of Boris Godunov.
1603 – Cotton's Rebellion.
1604 – The appearance of the troops of False Dmitry I in the southwestern Russian lands.
1605 – Overthrow of the Godunov dynasty.
1605 – 1606 – Reign of False Dmitry I.
1606 – 1607 – Bolotnikov’s Rebellion.
1606 – 1610 – Reign of Vasily Shuisky.
1607 - Publication of a decree on a fifteen-year search for runaway peasants.
1607 – 1610 – Attempts by False Dmitry II to seize power in Russia.
1610 – 1613 – “Seven Boyars”.
March 1611 - Uprising in Moscow against the Poles.
1611, September - October - Formation of the second militia in Nizhny Novgorod under the leadership.
1612, October 26 – Liberation of Moscow from the invaders by the second militia.
1613 – Accession to the throne.

1) Portrait of Boris Godunov; 2) False Dmitry I; 3) Tsar Vasily IV Shuisky

The beginning of the Time of Troubles. Godunov

When Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich died and the Rurik dynasty ended, Boris Godunov ascended the throne on February 21, 1598. The formal act of limiting the power of the new sovereign, expected by the boyars, did not follow. The dull murmur of this class prompted secret police surveillance of the boyars on the part of the new tsar, in which the main weapon was the slaves who denounced their masters. Torture and execution followed. The general instability of the sovereign order could not be corrected by Godunov, despite all the energy he showed. The famine years that began in 1601 increased general discontent with the king. The struggle for the royal throne at the top of the boyars, gradually complemented by ferment from below, marked the beginning of the Time of Troubles - the Time of Troubles. In this connection, everything can be considered its first period.

False Dmitry I

Soon rumors spread about the rescue of the man who was previously considered killed in Uglich and about his finding in Poland. The first news about it began to reach the capital at the very beginning of 1604. It was created by the Moscow boyars with the help of the Poles. His imposture was no secret to the boyars, and Godunov directly said that it was they who framed the impostor.

1604, autumn - False Dmitry, with a detachment assembled in Poland and Ukraine, entered the boundaries of the Moscow state through Severshchina - the southwestern border region, which was quickly engulfed in popular unrest. 1605, April 13 - Boris Godunov died, and the impostor was freely able to approach the capital, where he entered on June 20.

During the 11-month reign of False Dmitry, boyar conspiracies against him did not stop. He did not suit either the boyars (because of his independence and independence of character) or the people (because he pursued a “Westernizing” policy that was unusual for Muscovites). 1606, May 17 - conspirators, led by princes V.I. Shuisky, V.V. Golitsyn and others overthrew the impostor and killed him.

Vasily Shuisky

Then he was elected tsar, but without the participation of the Zemsky Sobor, but only by the boyar party and a crowd of Muscovites devoted to him, who “shouted out” Shuisky after the death of False Dmitry. His reign was limited by the boyar oligarchy, which took an oath from the sovereign limiting his power. This reign covers four years and two months; During all this time, the Troubles continued and grew.

Seversk Ukraine was the first to rebel, led by the Putivl governor, Prince Shakhovsky, under the name of the supposedly escaped False Dmitry I. The leader of the uprising was the fugitive slave Bolotnikov (), who appeared as if an agent sent by an impostor from Poland. The initial successes of the rebels forced many to join the rebellion. Ryazan land Sunbulov and the Lyapunov brothers were outraged, Tula and the surrounding cities were raised by Istoma Pashkov.

The Troubles were able to penetrate into other places: Nizhny Novgorod was besieged by a crowd of slaves and foreigners, led by two Mordvins; in Perm and Vyatka, instability and confusion were noticed. Astrakhan was outraged by the governor himself, Prince Khvorostinin; A gang was rampant along the Volga, which put up its impostor, a certain Murom resident Ileika, who was called Peter - the unprecedented son of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich.

1606, October 12 - Bolotnikov approached Moscow and was able to defeat the Moscow army near the village of Troitsky, Kolomensky district, but was soon defeated by M.V. Skopin-Shuisky near Kolomenskoye and left for Kaluga, which the king’s brother, Dmitry, was trying to besiege. An impostor Peter appeared in the Seversk land, who in Tula united with Bolotnikov, who had left the Moscow troops from Kaluga. Tsar Vasily himself advanced to Tula, which he besieged from June 30 to October 1, 1607. During the siege of the city, a new formidable impostor False Dmitry II appeared in Starodub.

Minin's appeal on Nizhny Novgorod Square

False Dmitry II

The death of Bolotnikov, who surrendered in Tula, could not end the Time of Troubles. , with the support of the Poles and Cossacks, approached Moscow and settled in the so-called Tushino camp. A significant part of the cities (up to 22) in the northeast submitted to the impostor. Only the Trinity-Sergius Lavra was able to withstand a long siege by his troops from September 1608 to January 1610.

In difficult circumstances, Shuisky turned to the Swedes for help. Then Poland in September 1609 declared war on Moscow under the pretext that Moscow had concluded an agreement with Sweden, hostile to the Poles. Thus, the internal Troubles were supplemented by the intervention of foreigners. King of Poland Sigismund III headed towards Smolensk. Sent to negotiate with the Swedes in Novgorod in the spring of 1609, Skopin-Shuisky, together with the Swedish auxiliary detachment of Delagardi, moved towards the capital. Moscow was liberated from the Tushino thief, who fled to Kaluga in February 1610. The Tushino camp dispersed. The Poles in it went to their king near Smolensk.

Russian supporters of False Dmitry II from the boyars and nobles, led by Mikhail Saltykov, being left alone, also decided to send commissioners to the Polish camp near Smolensk and recognize Sigismund’s son Vladislav as king. But they recognized him on certain conditions, which were set out in an agreement with the king dated February 4, 1610. However, while negotiations were underway with Sigismund, 2 things happened important events, which had a strong influence on the course of the Time of Troubles: in April 1610, the Tsar’s nephew, the popular liberator of Moscow M.V., died. Skopin-Shuisky, and in June Hetman Zholkiewsky inflicted a heavy defeat on the Moscow troops near Klushyn. These events decided the fate of Tsar Vasily: Muscovites under the leadership of Zakhar Lyapunov overthrew Shuisky on July 17, 1610 and forced him to cut his hair.

Last period Troubles

The last period of the Time of Troubles has arrived. Near Moscow, the Polish hetman Zholkiewski stationed himself with an army, demanding the election of Vladislav, and False Dmitry II, who came there again, to whom the Moscow mob was disposed. The board was headed by the Boyar Duma, headed by F.I. Mstislavsky, V.V. Golitsyn and others (the so-called Seven Boyars). She began to negotiate with Zholkiewski about recognition of Vladislav as the Russian Tsar. Zholkiewski brought into Moscow on September 19 Polish troops and drove False Dmitry II away from the capital. At the same time, an embassy was sent from the capital, which had sworn allegiance to Prince Vladislav, to Sigismund III, which consisted of the noblest Moscow boyars, but the king detained them and announced that he himself personally intended to be king in Moscow.

The year 1611 was marked by a rapid rise in the midst of the Troubles of Russian national feeling. Led by patriotic movement At first, Patriarch Hermogenes and Prokopiy Lyapunov were against the Poles. Sigismund's claims to unite Russia with Poland as a subordinate state and the murder of the leader of the mob False Dmitry II, whose danger forced many to involuntarily rely on Vladislav, favored the growth of the movement.

The uprising quickly spread to Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Suzdal, Kostroma, Vologda, Ustyug, Novgorod and other cities. Militia gathered everywhere and converged on the capital. Lyapunov's servicemen were joined by Cossacks under the command of the Don Ataman Zarutsky and Prince Trubetskoy. At the beginning of March 1611, the militia approached Moscow, where, at the news of this, an uprising arose against the Poles. The Poles burned the entire Moscow settlement (March 19), but with the approach of the troops of Lyapunov and other leaders, they were forced, together with their Muscovite supporters, to lock themselves in the Kremlin and Kitay-Gorod.

The case of the first patriotic militia of the Time of Troubles ended in failure due to complete disunity of interests separate groups, included in its composition. On July 25, the Cossacks killed Lyapunov. Even earlier, on June 3, King Sigismund finally captured Smolensk, and on July 8, 1611, Delagardie took Novgorod by storm and forced the Swedish prince Philip to be recognized as king there. A new leader of the tramps, False Dmitry III, appeared in Pskov.

Expulsion of Poles from the Kremlin

Minin and Pozharsky

Then Archimandrite Dionysius of the Trinity Monastery and his cellarer Avraamy Palitsyn preached national self-defense. Their messages found a response in Nizhny Novgorod and the northern Volga region. 1611, October - the Nizhny Novgorod butcher Kuzma Minin Sukhoruky took the initiative to raise militia and funds, and already in early February 1612 organized units under the command of Prince Dmitry Pozharsky they moved up the Volga. At that time (February 17), Patriarch Hermogenes, who stubbornly blessed the militias, died, whom the Poles imprisoned in the Kremlin.

At the beginning of April, the second patriotic militia of the Time of Troubles arrived in Yaroslavl and, slowly advancing, gradually strengthening its troops, approached Moscow on August 20. Zarutsky and his gangs went to the south-eastern regions, and Trubetskoy joined Pozharsky. On August 24-28, Pozharsky’s soldiers and Trubetskoy’s Cossacks repulsed Hetman Khodkevich from Moscow, who arrived with a convoy of supplies to help the Poles besieged in the Kremlin. On October 22, they occupied Kitay-Gorod, and on October 26, they cleared the Kremlin of Poles. Sigismund III's attempt to move towards Moscow was unsuccessful: the king turned back from near Volokolamsk.

Results of the Time of Troubles

In December, letters were sent everywhere sending the best and reasonable people to elect a king. They got together early next year. 1613, February 21 - The Zemsky Sobor elected him a Russian Tsar, who was married in Moscow on July 11 of the same year and founded a new, 300-year dynasty. The main events of the Time of Troubles ended with this, but it took a long time to establish firm order.

Letters were sent to cities with an invitation to send authorities and elected officials to Moscow for a great cause; they wrote that Moscow had been cleared of Polish and Lithuanian people, the churches of God had returned to their former glory and God’s name was still glorified in them; but without a sovereign the Moscow state cannot stand, there is no one to take care of it and there is no one to provide for the people of God, without a sovereign there is enough Moscow state they will ruin everyone: without the sovereign the state is not built by anything and thieves' factories are divided into many parts and theft multiplies a lot, and therefore the boyars and governors invited all the spiritual authorities to come to them in Moscow, and from the nobles, the children of the boyars, guests, merchants, townspeople and district people, having chosen the best, strong and reasonable people, according to how many people are suitable for the zemstvo council and state election, all the cities would be sent to Moscow, and so that these authorities and elected best people They agreed firmly in their cities and took full agreements from all people about the election of the state. When quite a lot of authorities and elected representatives had gathered, a three-day fast was appointed, after which the councils began. First of all, they began to talk about whether to choose from foreign royal houses or their natural Russian, and decided “the Lithuanian and Swedish kings and their children and other German faiths and no foreign-language states of the Christian faith of the Greek law should be elected to the Vladimir and Moscow state, and Marinka and her son should not be wanted for the state, because the Polish and German kings saw in themselves a lie and a crime on the cross and a peaceful violation: the Lithuanian king ruined the Moscow state, and the Swedish king took Veliky Novgorod by deception.” They began to choose their own: then intrigues, unrest and unrest began; everyone wanted to do according to their own thoughts, everyone wanted their own, some even wanted the throne themselves, they bribed and sent; sides formed, but none of them gained the upper hand. Once, the chronograph says, some nobleman from Galich brought a written opinion to the council, which said that Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was the closest in relationship to the previous tsars, and he should be elected tsar. The voices of dissatisfied people were heard: “Who brought such a letter, who, where from?” At that time, the Don Ataman comes out and also submits a written opinion: “What did you submit, Ataman?” - Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky asked him. “About the natural Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich,” answered the ataman. The same opinion submitted by the nobleman and the Don ataman decided the matter: Mikhail Fedorovich was proclaimed tsar. But not all the elected officials were in Moscow yet; there were no noble boyars; Prince Mstislavsky and his comrades immediately after their liberation left Moscow: it was awkward for them to remain in it near the liberating commanders; now they sent to invite them to Moscow for a common cause, they also sent reliable people to cities and districts to find out the people’s thoughts about the new chosen one and final decision postponed for two weeks, from 8 to 21 February 1613.

COMPOSITION OF THE CATHEDRAL

Elected people gathered in Moscow in January 1613. From Moscow they asked the cities to send “the best, strongest and most reasonable” people for the royal election. The cities, by the way, had to think not only about electing a king, but also about how to “build” the state and how to conduct business before the election, and about this to give the elected “agreements”, i.e. instructions that they had to be guided. For a more complete coverage and understanding of the council of 1613, one should turn to an analysis of its composition, which can only be determined by the signatures on the electoral charter of Mikhail Fedorovich, written in the summer of 1613. On it we see only 277 signatures, but obviously there were participants in the council more, since not all conciliar people signed the conciliar charter. Proof of this is, for example, the following: 4 people signed the charter for Nizhny Novgorod (Archpriest Savva, 1 townsman, 2 archers), and it is reliably known that there were 19 people elected from Nizhny Novgorod (3 priests, 13 townspeople, a deacon and 2 archers). If each city were content with ten elected people, as the book determined their number. Dm. Mich. Pozharsky, then up to 500 elected people would have gathered in Moscow, since representatives of 50 cities (northern, eastern and southern) participated in the cathedral; and together with the Moscow people and clergy, the number of participants in the cathedral would have reached 700 people. The cathedral was really crowded. He often gathered in the Assumption Cathedral, perhaps precisely because none of the other Moscow buildings could accommodate him. Now the question is what classes of society were represented at the council and whether the council was complete in its class composition. Of the 277 signatures mentioned, 57 belong to the clergy (partly “elected” from the cities), 136 - to the highest service ranks (boyars - 17), 84 - to the city electors. It has already been said above that these digital data cannot be trusted. According to them, there were few provincial electors at the cathedral, but in fact these electors undoubtedly made up the majority, and although it is impossible to determine with accuracy either their number, or how many of them were tax workers and how many were service people, it can nevertheless be said that the service There were, it seems, more than the townspeople, but there was also a very large percentage of the townspeople, which rarely happened at councils. And, in addition, there are traces of the participation of “district” people (12 signatures). These were, firstly, peasants not from proprietary lands, but from black sovereign lands, representatives of free northern peasant communities, and secondly, small service people from the southern districts. Thus, representation at the council of 1613 was extremely complete.

We don’t know anything exact about what happened at this council, because in the acts and literary works of that time only fragments of legends, hints and legends remain, so the historian here is, as it were, among the incoherent ruins of an ancient building, the appearance of which he has to restore has no strength. Official documents They say nothing about the progress of the meetings. True, the electoral charter has been preserved, but it can help us little, since it was not written independently and, moreover, does not contain information about the very process of the election. As for unofficial documents, they are either legends or meager, dark and rhetorical stories from which nothing definite can be extracted.

THE ROMANOVS UNDER BORIS GODUNOV

This family was the closest to the previous dynasty; they were cousins ​​of the late Tsar Fedor. The Romanovs were not disposed towards Boris. Boris could suspect the Romanovs when he had to look for secret enemies. According to the news of the chronicles, Boris found fault with the Romanovs about the denunciation of one of their slaves, as if they wanted to use the roots to destroy the king and gain the kingdom by “witchcraft” (witchcraft). The four Romanov brothers - Alexander, Vasily, Ivan and Mikhail - were sent away remote places into heavy imprisonment, and the fifth Fedor, who, it seems, was smarter than all of them, was forcibly tonsured under the name of Philaret in the monastery of Anthony of Siysk. Then their relatives and friends were exiled - Cherkassky, Sitsky, Repnins, Karpovs, Shestunovs, Pushkins and others.

ROMANOVS

Thus, the conciliar election of Michael was prepared and supported at the council and among the people by a number of aids: election campaigning with the participation of numerous relatives of the Romanovs, pressure from the Cossack force, secret inquiry among the people, shouting from the capital’s crowd on Red Square. But all these selective methods were successful because they found support in society’s attitude towards the surname. Mikhail was carried away not by personal or propaganda, but by family popularity. He belonged to a boyar family, perhaps the most beloved one in Moscow society at that time. The Romanovs are a recently separated branch of the ancient boyar family of the Koshkins. It’s been a long time since I brought it. book Ivan Danilovich Kalita, left for Moscow from the “Prussian lands”, as the genealogy says, a noble man, who in Moscow was nicknamed Andrei Ivanovich Kobyla. He became a prominent boyar at the Moscow court. From his fifth son, Fyodor Koshka, came the “Cat Family,” as it is called in our chronicles. The Koshkins shone at the Moscow court in the 14th and 15th centuries. This was the only untitled boyar family that did not drown in the stream of new titled servants who poured into the Moscow court from the middle of the 15th century. Among the princes Shuisky, Vorotynsky, Mstislavsky, the Koshkins knew how to stay in the first rank of the boyars. At the beginning of the 16th century. A prominent place at the court was occupied by the boyar Roman Yuryevich Zakharyin, who descended from Koshkin’s grandson Zakhary. He became the founder of a new branch of this family - the Romanovs. Roman Nikita's son, brother Queen Anastasia, is the only Moscow boyar of the 16th century who left a good memory among the people: his name was remembered by folk epics, depicting him in their songs about Ivan the Terrible as a complacent mediator between the people and the angry tsar. Of Nikita’s six sons, the eldest, Fyodor, was especially outstanding. He was a very kind and affectionate boyar, a dandy and a very inquisitive person. The Englishman Horsey, who then lived in Moscow, says in his notes that this boyar certainly wanted to learn Latin, and at his request, Horsey compiled a Latin grammar for him, writing in it latin words Russian letters. The popularity of the Romanovs, acquired by their personal qualities, undoubtedly increased from the persecution to which the Nikitichs were subjected under the suspicious Godunov; A. Palitsyn even puts this persecution among those sins for which God punished the Russian land with the Troubles. Enmity with Tsar Vasily and connections with Tushin brought the Romanovs the patronage of the second False Dmitry and popularity in the Cossack camps. So the ambiguous behavior of the surname in troubled years prepared for Mikhail bilateral support, both in the zemstvo and in the Cossacks. But most of all she helped Mikhail in the cathedral elections family connection Romanovs with the former dynasty. During the Time of Troubles, the Russian people unsuccessfully elected new tsars so many times, and now only that election seemed to them secure, which fell on their face, although somehow connected with the former royal house. Tsar Mikhail was seen not as a council elect, but as the nephew of Tsar Feodor, a natural, hereditary tsar. A modern chronograph directly says that Michael was asked to take over the kingdom “of his kindred for the sake of the union of royal sparks.” It is not for nothing that Abraham Palitsyn calls Mikhail “chosen by God before his birth,” and clerk I. Timofeev in the unbroken chain of hereditary kings placed Mikhail right after Fyodor Ivanovich, ignoring Godunov, Shuisky, and all the impostors. And Tsar Mikhail himself in his letters usually called Grozny his grandfather. It is difficult to say how much the rumor then circulating that Tsar Fyodor, dying, orally bequeathed the throne to his cousin Fyodor, Mikhail’s father, helped the election of Mikhail. But the boyars who led the elections should have been swayed in favor of Mikhail by another convenience, to which they could not be indifferent. There is news that F.I. Sheremetev wrote to Poland as a book. Golitsyn: “Misha de Romanov is young, his mind has not yet reached him and he will be familiar to us.” Sheremetev, of course, knew that the throne would not deprive Mikhail of the ability to mature and his youth would not be permanent. But they promised to show other qualities. That the nephew will be a second uncle, resembling him in mental and physical frailty, he will emerge as a kind, meek king, under whom the trials experienced by the boyars during the reign of the Terrible and Boris will not be repeated. They wanted to choose not the most capable, but the most convenient. Thus appeared the founder of a new dynasty, putting an end to the Troubles.

On July 21, 1613, the crowning of Mikhail Romanov took place in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. This event became a turning point in the history of the country - it marked the foundation of a new ruling dynasty Romanovs and put an end to the Great Troubles.

After the expulsion of the Poles from Moscow in August 1612, the opportunity arose to elect a new tsar in a calmer environment. Among the contenders were the Polish prince Vladislav, the Swedish prince Karl Philip and others. However, the Zemsky Sobor, convened at the beginning of 1613, elected 16-year-old Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov to the kingdom.

He was closest in relationship to the former Russian tsars: the great-nephew of Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina, the first wife of Ivan the Terrible. Ambassadors Zemsky Sobor They found him and his mother in Kostroma, in the Ipatiev Monastery. Mikhail's mother, Nun Martha, was in despair; she tearfully begged her son not to accept such a heavy burden. Mikhail himself hesitated for a long time. Only after the Ryazan Archbishop Theodorit appealed to his mother and Mikhail, Martha gave her consent to the elevation of her son to the throne. A few days later, Mikhail left for Moscow.

It is worth saying that Martha’s experiences were not in vain. Having learned about the election of her son as king, the Poles tried to prevent him from taking the throne. A small Polish detachment went to the Ipatiev Monastery with the goal of killing Michael. The crime was prevented by the feat of Ivan Susanin, the peasant elder. Having given “consent” to show the way, he sent his son-in-law to warn Martha and her son, and led the enemies into a dense forest. After torture, the Poles executed Susanin, but they themselves died, getting stuck in the swamps.

The Russian throne at that moment was a heavy burden, so it is not surprising that Mikhail did not immediately agree to occupy it. The new tsar was still very young, and his state lay in ruins after the turmoil and endless foreign interventions. His father, the future Russian Patriarch Filaret, who himself aimed to become king, was at that time in Polish captivity. But in the end, the young man nevertheless went to Moscow and on July 21, 1613, in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was crowned king. This also helped his father - soon Filaret was released from captivity, returned to Moscow and became a patriarch.

From that moment on, there were actually two sovereigns in Rus': Mikhail - the son, Filaret - the father. State affairs were decided by both; relations between them, according to the chronicles, were friendly, although the patriarch had a large share in the board. With the arrival of Filaret, the troubled and powerless time ended. The era of the Romanov dynasty began, which lasted more than three centuries.