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preface
In his later years, Ivan the Terrible's temper became more violent. Once, when he saw the crown princess sitting in the room wearing only one shirt, violating the rule that women should not wear less than three clothes, he became angry and stretched out his hand to slap him a few times. The pregnant daughter-in-law could not stand the shock and miscarried. Seeing his beloved wife humiliated and losing his beloved son, Crown Prince Ivan couldn't help but look for his father to theorize. Embarrassed, Ivan the Terrible threw the scepter at his son, just hitting his temple, and his son immediately fainted and died soon after.
Put down the butcher knife
This unfortunate event left Ivan the Terrible in grief and suffered a great blow to his spirit. He ordered the nation to mourn and mourn the crown prince, and he himself made a special trip to the monastery to repent. He ordered all the lords and nobles executed on his orders to compile a list of all those killed by the special army and send it to some of the great churches in the country along with large amounts of money. He also issued an edict stipulating that anyone who falsely accuses him will be severely punished, and that anyone who accuses the lord of conspiring against the superior will be killed. It seems that Ivan the Terrible finally found out in his conscience, lost his way, and decided to put down the butcher knife.
On March 18, 1584, Ivan the Terrible died due to excessive grief and anxiety. He left two sons behind him: one named Fyodor, born to his first wife, Anastasia, who was 27 years old; The other, Dmitry, was born to his last wife (the seventh), just one and a half years old. According to the edict, Fyodor succeeded to the throne, and his uncle Zakhari-Yuryev, his brother-in-law Boris Godunov, the chairman of the Duma, Ivan Mstislavsky, Ivan Shuysky and Grand Duke Belitsky were regents.
Although this Fyodor was already an adult, he was not in the slightest as strong and heroic as his father had been in his youth, but a mediocre man with a weak will and low intelligence, who was worried all day long, lest he be secretly calculated, and only went to the monastery to pray, praying for God's blessing, and did not think about how to govern the country, and as a result, the Regency Council took power. The five members of the Council of Regency were all ministers of the Emperor's family or Ivan the Terrible, but they did not share the same mind, but each had its own ghostly child, each with its own needs, and each representing the interests of the group.
Shuysky and Mstislavsky represented the interests of the grand nobility, and Zakharain-Yuryev and Godunov represented the interests of the fief nobility. The incompetence of the tsar led to a fierce struggle for power within the feudal ruling clique, and the first to jump out was Ivan the Terrible's favored courtier, the great nobleman Belitsky. He led armed domestic slaves to occupy the Kremlin in an attempt to install Prince Dmitry as tsar. This move was strongly opposed by the citizens of Moscow, who spontaneously stormed the Kremlin. The Council of Regents took the opportunity to strike at Belisky, exiled him to Nizhny Novgorod, and sent Prince Dmitry and his mother to Uglich.
After the end of this struggle, power fell to the tsar's uncle Godunov. In this regard, Mstislavsky and others, who represented the interests of the great nobility, naturally refused to give up, and they devised various conspiracies in an attempt to kill Godunov and regain the power held by Godunov. But these plots were crushed one by one, Mstislavsky was imprisoned in a monastery, Shuysky was executed, the capitalists involved in the conspiracy were removed, and the rest of the conspiracy was either executed or imprisoned. From then on, Godunov firmly held the power of the DPRK. Godunov was a visionary and talented politician.
During his administration, he adopted many policy measures conducive to national development in both domestic and foreign affairs. For example, he followed the policy of Ivan IV to support the fief nobility, distributed the confiscated political enemy land to the fief nobility, and stipulated that the landlord cultivated the wasteland from 2 to 10 years tax-free; All landlords who themselves perform military service and live on their estates are exempt from taxation, which stimulates the enthusiasm of landlords to expand their cultivated land. He continued Ivan IV's policy of limiting the privileges of the Church, prohibiting the Church's unauthorized acquisition of land and making the monastery liable for taxes. He liberated businessmen who had become servants of landlords because of their debts in order to develop the city's economy.
At the same time, he further strengthened serfdom, carried out the work of registering serfs throughout the country, and forbade the change of serfs during the registration process. In terms of diplomacy, he signed a 15-year armistice agreement with Poland and a permanent peace treaty with Sweden, striving for a relatively peaceful international environment. In 1588, he took advantage of the opportunity of the Patriarch of Constantinople Ilemia to Moscow to "collect" money and mink skins, forcing Illemia to agree to establish an independent patriarchate in Russia. In 1589, the Moscow Metropolitan Quarter was elevated to a Patriarchate, the Russian Church freed itself from its attachment to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the prestige of the Russian Orthodox Church and the tsarist regime it supported was further enhanced.
Complete one's misery
On January 7, 1598, Tsar Fyodor, who had been in the position of a vegetarian for 14 years, died of illness. Fyodor had no heirs , and his brother Dmitry died before 1591 , leaving the Rurik family with no heir to the throne. Thus, the Rurik dynasty, which began in 862, ended in 736 years. The death of Fyodor marked the beginning of a new struggle for the throne. At that time, it was mainly the Godunov and Romanov brothers who competed for the throne. The great allure of the Monomak crown made both sides determined to win it. In desperation, Shōvasily Serkalov suggested that the Tsar be elected by the All-Russian Gentry Council.
On February 17, 1598, the All-Russian Gentry Conference was opened, and Godunov was elected Tsar on the proposal of the Patriarch Joev of Moscow and All Russia. On September 1, Godunov received the blessing of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia at the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Kremlin, put on the Monomakh crown and shawl, and officially ascended the throne as emperor. After Godunov came to power, in order to eliminate the hidden danger, he exiled all his political enemies Romanov brothers and their family relatives and friends to remote areas on the charge of deliberately murdering the tsar. Fyodor Nikitžić Romanov was imprisoned in a monastery and renamed Metropolitan Filaret.
He then continued to pursue policies that promoted the country's development. For a time, Guotai Minan, Godunov also seemed to be sitting steady. However, there were unforeseen circumstances, and just two years after Godunov ascended the throne as emperor, natural and man-made disasters followed. In the summer of 1601, Russia experienced severe flooding. In mid-August, frost struck early, leaving almost no grain harvested. A great famine ensued. When people have eaten the few surplus grains, they start digging wild vegetables and peeling the bark of trees to feed themselves. Later, some hungry people who could not survive ate ate the dead bodies of their compatriots.
At that time, Russia was starvated and sparsely populated. One person estimated that 1/3 of people starved to death in Russia during three years of famine. Faced with such a severe famine, Godunov took some countermeasures to prevent the starving people from rebelling. For example, he ordered the distribution of relief grain in Moscow and other places, restricted landlords and wealthy businessmen from raising grain prices, and relaxed restrictions on peasants' right to leave, but none of them worked, and the fire of peasant uprisings was still ignited in many parts of Russia. An insurrectionary peasant leader named Hlopko united the rebel armies and marched on Moscow.
Prince resurrected? Pseudo-Dmitry
The rebels fought fiercely with government forces on the outskirts of Moscow, killing the commander of the government forces Basmanov, and the city of Moscow was in danger. Later, the tsarist government mobilized a large number of reinforcements to suppress the uprising. However, one wave has just flattened, and another wave has risen. In 1603, Dmitry, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, who had died for many years, was suddenly "resurrected". In the large estate of the Polish nobleman Adam Vishnewicky, a 22-year-old young man claiming to be Dmitry the son of Ivan IV said that he had received help from heaven in Uglich and escaped death. This posed a threat to Godunov's throne.
The tsarist government hurriedly announced that Dmitry had long died, and this young man was not Dmitry, but the friar Gregory, son of the Galich nobleman Otrev. The origin of this pseudo-Dmitry remains a mystery. Despite repeated denials by the Moscow government, there are always people who believe that Godunov's political enemies are looking for an opportunity to overthrow Godunov's throne, and Russia's old enemy Poland also wants to regain the lands annexed by Russia. Thus, the pseudo-Dmitry quickly gathered a group of supporters, especially the Polish feudal lords.
In order to prop up the pseudo-Dmitry, the Polish nobleman Vishniewitzki introduced him to his relative, the Polish ruler Jerzy Mnišk. Pseudo-Dmitry, who was in his youth and had not yet started a family, fell in love with Jerzy's young and beautiful daughter Marina at first sight, promising that if Jerzy could marry Marina to him, once he seized the throne, he would give Novgorod and Pskov to the bride as a fiefdom, and would give his father-in-law a large amount of gold and silver treasures as a dowry. The two quickly struck a deal. Vishniewitzky also recommended the pseudo-Dmitry to King Sigismund III of Poland.
Sigismund III summoned the pseudo-Dmitry, praised him, and publicly supported his regain of the Russian throne. The pseudo-Dmitry was grateful and promised to cede the Smolensk and Seversk-Chernikov regions to Poland after the fact. Thus, after more than a year of careful planning, in October 1604, Pseudo-Dmitry led an army of about 4,000 Poles and Cossacks across the Russian border towards Moscow.
Along the way, the pseudo-Dmitry, who promised freedom to the peasants, opposed Godunov's rule, and longed for a "good tsar", the townspeople, and even the petty nobility, joined the pseudo-Dmitry's team, which grew rapidly. Godunov sent government troops to suppress it, and the pseudo-Dmitry suffered a crushing defeat, but soon returned. At the same time, peasant uprisings in support of the "good tsar" pseudo-Dmitry broke out throughout Russia, and Godunov fell into embattled.
Resources:
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Department of History, Peking University, "History of Tsarist Russia's Invasion and Expansion". The History of Aggression and Expansion in Tsarist Russia: Up and Down[M].Beijing:People's Publishing House,1979.
CHEN Lemin. History of Western Diplomatic Thought[M].Beijing:China Social Sciences Press,1995.