At the beginning of the 17th century, due to the internal struggles of the Russian ruling class and the infiltration of foreign forces in Poland, there was a rare phenomenon in Russian history in which someone pretended to be a royal prince to seize the Tsar's throne.
Of course, this category of well-intentioned fraudsters do not have a good end, and the organs often end up in disgrace.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > (i) foreign relative Godunov</h1>
After ivan IV's death, his youngest son Fyodor became the new Tsar.
Fyodor was weak by nature, dumbfounded, and hid in the church in the palace all day to pray.
He especially liked the big bell in the church, and he was tireless in reading the words and pictures on the clock, and when it was the hour, he had to ring the bell himself, returned to the dormitory at night, and often called the palace maids and slaves to perform some funny sketches for fun.
In this way, the Tsar, who only knew how to ring the bell and play, could not govern the state affairs of Russia gradually fell into the hands of his brother-in-law Boris Godunov, Godunov was born into an ordinary aristocratic family, was an ambitious and scheming man, and when he was young, he seduced the leader of the "special army" at that time, and became his son-in-law, and was able to enter the center of Russian political power and become a popular courtier at that time.
Later, he tried to persuade his sister Yelena to marry Fyodor.
After Fyodor ascended the throne, he exercised his power, dissolved the regency council, and appointed himself regent, monopolizing power.
Godunov was a shrewd and capable auxiliary who, after coming to power, sought to change the subordinate status of the Russian Church to Constantinople.
In 1588, Archbishop Ereemia of Constantinople went to Moscow to "raise" money and Marten Godonov took the opportunity to force him to agree to the establishment of an independent archdiocese in Russia Subsequently, Godunov's confidant, Archbishop Joseph, was elected the first archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, and from then on, the Russian Church was freed from dependence on the Archbishop of Constantinople.
Fyodor also had a younger brother, Dmitry, who was born to Mary, the 7th queen consort of Ivan IV, who was still in infancy when ivan IV died, and soon after he and his birth mother were exiled by Godunov to the northern city of Uglich.
On May 15, 1591, 9-year-old Dmitry played a game of "flying knives" with several children after dinner.
It wasn't long before his mother, Maria, heard someone shouting, "Something has happened to the Crown Prince." ”
She hurried over to see that Dmitry's throat had been severed by a sharp weapon, and she was killed on the spot, and the children around her could not tell what was going on.
Queen Mary insisted that Godunov had sent someone to kill her son, and for a time there was a lot of discussion in the country.
Finally, Godunov sent a commission of inquiry headed by Prince Vasily Schysky to investigate the cause of the matter.
The investigation is that Dmitry fell to the ground due to a seizure while playing with a knife, and died when the knife on the ground cut his throat.
Queen Mary was sent to the monastery for false accusations and imprisoned.
In January 1598, Fyodor died, and the Rurik dynasty, which had lasted for more than seven hundred years, came to an end because there were no heirs to succeed to the throne.
On 17 February, Godunov was elected Tsar by the Council of Gentry, and Russian history entered a brief period of the Godunov dynasty.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > (ii) counterfeit tsar</h1>
Godunov succeeded her as Tsar, and the regime has not been very stable.
At this time, Russia encountered a once-in-a-century flood, with torrential rains in the summer and frost at the end of the summer, and many crops were frozen to death before they were harvested.
Famine spread rapidly throughout Russia from 1601 onwards, and by 1603 hundreds of thousands of people had been starved to death, and 1.27 million starving people had been buried in the Moscow Cemetery alone.
Godunov was ineffective in providing relief to the disaster, and most of the relief grain he distributed was embezzled by officials, and the hungry people took risks and robbed the state granaries and the estates of the great nobles.
At this time, a small nobleman who had been a monk, Otrebiyev, came to Poland, claimed to be the Prince of Dmitry, who had been cut through the throat and did not die, and had been living in anonymity abroad to avoid being hunted down.
He soon gained the favor of the Polish nobleman Mönigszych and became the fiancé of his daughter Marina.
Soon he was introduced to the Polish king, who reached an agreement with which Poland fully supported Otrebiyev's return to Russia to seize the throne, and if Otrebiyev became tsar, Russia wanted to rely on Catholicism and cede Smolensk and Chernigov to Poland.
In 1604, Pseudo-Dmitry united with the Russian nobles in exile in Poland, gathered hundreds of Cossacks and organized an army of 3,000 men.
They crossed the Dnieper River from Kiev, promising the hungry peasants along the way that if he became Tsar, they would ensure that the peasants would no longer suffer from hunger.
The peasants were gullible enough to believe that he was the real Prince of Dmitry to join his ranks, and for a time, the army of pseudo-Dmitry reached tens of thousands.
The armies sent by Godunov also defected, and pseudo-Dmitry's army soon advanced into Moscow.
Godunov was cornered by this impostor prince and died in April 1605 in chagrin and resentment.
His son Fyodor ascended the throne, but without the support of the army, he staged a coup d'état against Godunov's disgruntled nobles, and Fyodor was forced to abdicate and was killed.
On 30 June, pseudo-Dmitry's army entered the city of Moscow without bloodshed.
At this time, Prince Schysky changed his mouth to say that he had been forced to testify under false prejudgment, and that the new Tsar in front of him was the real Prince Dmitry.
Queen Maria also returned to Moscow shortly afterwards to publicly declare Pseudo-Dmitry the true Prince of Dmitry.
Pseudo-Dmitry ascended the throne as the new Tsar in July, known historically as Pseudo-Dmitry I.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > (iii) The fall of pseudo-Dmitry</h1>
When the distraught pseudo-Dmitry came to power, he quickly forgot his promises and only knew how to eat, drink and have fun all day, and the miserable situation of the peasants did not change much. At the court, he reused polish nobles, awarded them official titles, and declared catholicism to enjoy the same status as the Orthodox Church, which caused great dissatisfaction among the Russian nobility.
In terms of foreign relations, he failed to cede Smolensk and Chernigov to Poland as agreed, resulting in very tense Russian-Polish relations.
In 1605, Pseudo-Dmitry's fiancée Marina and her party came to Moscow for a grand Catholic wedding, and the Poles who sent their relatives to the city committed crimes, harassed the citizens, and regarded themselves as conquerors.
Disillusioned citizens, led by Prince Shojski, rebelled on May 17, and people gathered in the Kremlin square and stormed the palace with slogans "Kill the Poles."
The soldiers guarding the gate had long been unaccustomed to the actions of the pseudo-Dmitry, and retreated one after another, and the pseudo-Dmitry felt that the catastrophe was coming, fled from the rear window in a hurry, broke his leg, was found and caught by the nobles in the bushes, and was hacked to death on the spot.
His body was burned and his ashes were loaded into gun barrels by angry citizens and fired in the direction of Poland to warn poles that there would be no more ambitions to annex Russia.
More than two thousand Polish nobles and soldiers were killed in the incident, and Pseudo-Dmitry's fiancée Marina fled back to Poland with her father.
Prince Schyski was immediately elected by the Council of Gentry in the same month as the new Tsar, known as Vasily IV.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > (iv) Pseudo-Dmitry II</h1>
Schyski succeeded him as Tsar, and the political situation in Russia remained unstable, and soon after he ascended the throne, there was a peasant revolt led by Polotnikov, a Cossack leader in the Don region.
In October 1607, the rebel army besieged Moscow for three months before being defeated by the Tsarist army.
In October 1607, the rebel base of Tula was captured by government forces, and Polotnikov was captured and brutally killed.
While the Tsarist army was busy suppressing the peasant uprising, the Polish king and nobles took advantage of the looting and sent troops to the western part of Russia.
In June 1607, a man in southern Russia appeared who claimed to be Crown Prince Dmitry, known as Pseudo-Dmitry II.
King Sigismon III of Poland arranged for him to marry Marina, the "Empress" of Pseudo-Dmitry I, and gave him a large amount of army and equipment, and Queen Maria of the monastery also recognized this Dmitry as his son.
In the spring of 1608, Pseudo-Dmitry II led his troops to Moscow.
Along the way, many peasants and Cossacks who expected a "good tsar" joined the ranks of the pseudo-tsar.
Since the city of Moscow could not be conquered for a long time, the pseudo-Tsar decided to camp in the village of Tusino, 17 kilometers away from the city of Moscow.
The pseudo-tsar set up Dumas, Yamen and Archbishops here, knighted officials, and rewarded territories.
The opportunistic nobles of Moscow also sneaked out of the city to curry favor with the pseudo-tsar, seeking some territory after a half-time official position.
In order to relieve the siege, Schwesky quickly sent his cronies to the Swedish king Charles IX for help, and the two sides agreed that Moscow would abandon its territorial claim to Vonnia and cede Correra to Sweden.
The Swedish army defeated the pseudo-Tsarist army at the city of Tver and thus captured Kalyanzin.
Pseudo-Dmitry II heard that Swedish reinforcements had arrived and abandoned Tusino for Caluga.
Seeing that the puppet Tsar was invincible to the Russian-Swedish army, the Polish king immediately sent polish troops across the border to Moscow.
In June 1610, the Polish army defeated the Russian-Swedish army at the village of Klusino, and the city of Moscow was in danger.
The nobles, believing that Schyski was no longer suitable to serve as Tsar, staged a coup d'état to force him to abdicate and imprisoned him in a monastery, with seven great nobles in Duma jointly exercising power.
In August of the same year, the great nobles and the Polish king reached an agreement agreeing that Władyskov, the prince of the Polish king, would be appointed Tsar.
On the night of September 20, they opened the city gates and secretly introduced Polish troops into Moscow. The Polish army looted the city and stole a large number of treasures from the Kremlin.
The nobles of Moscow sent a delegation to the Polish king's residence in Smolensk to welcome the Polish prince to Moscow to succeed him as Tsar.
The Polish king did not want to repent at this time, wanted to be his own tsar, and detained the delegation.
At this time, Pseudo-Dmitry II took the opportunity to lead an army to counterattack, but was soon defeated by the Russian government forces.
In the end, Pseudo-Dmitry II was killed by his Mongols.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > (v) the Great Patriotic War against the Poles</h1>
The brutality and barbaric plundering of the Poles aroused strong resentment among the Russian populace, who organized civil armies against polish occupation, of which the influence of the nationalist army organized by the rich Novgorod merchant Minin in October 1611 was the most influential.
The army was under the specific command of Pozarsky, and in March 1612 the army began to march toward Moscow, which was enthusiastically supported by the Russian people along the way, and the ranks were expanded to more than 10,000 people.
In April, the NFL established the Provisional Government, the National Council, in Yaroslavl.
In August of the same year, the Nationalist army arrived in Moscow, and two months later, the Polish army in the city could not resist and had to surrender.
The 15-year period of chaos, marked by the constant appearance of the pseudo-tsar, came to an end.
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