On December 14, 1610, two Tatars who had fled from Kaluga brought news to Moscow of tragic events that had erupted three days earlier: “a thief drove from Kaluga on Tuesday, December 11, walked outside the prison, and with him went Yurt Tatars ... and he killed a Yurt Tartar thief ... on a hill near the cross the killed one lies, his head cut off and his right arm cut from the sword.”
So ended the life of one of the main characters from Russia’s Time of Troubles – “Prince Dmitry Ivanovich,” who would go down in history as False Dmitry II or the Tushino Thief. His killer was the head of his own guards, a baptized Tatar by the name of Pyotr Urusov, who had sought vengeance for his brother – Prince of Kasimov Uraz Muhammad, who was executed shortly before that on the orders of the pretender.
Much less is known about the identity of the second “prince” than about that of his predecessor. Some called False Dmitry II “Popovich,” others – a “young thug” (servant), and still others a secret Jew. We know only one thing: unlike the first False Dmitry, the future Tushino Thief was decidedly not eager to become a prince and was involved in this adventure almost by force. However, had he declined, the organizers of this fraud would no doubt have found another to take his place. Too many people in both Russia and Poland at that time needed to have a living “Dmitry” under whose banner conflict could be waged with Tsar Vasily Ivanovich.
After coming to power, Shuisky did everything to stop any talk of a new Dmitry. The body of the first pretender had been publicly burned. A special commission headed by Filaret Romanov was sent to Uglich with the remains of the real Dmitry Ivanovich, who shortly thereafter was canonized. Nothing helped, however. Russia was full of too many people who were dissatisfied, and the banner with the name of Dmitry was all too convenient. Therefore, Shuisky was never able to truly ascend to the throne, as Moscow was full of rumors that the prince had not perished but had once again escaped. People believed these rumors, especially since on the day of the coup several supporters of the False Dmitry had managed to escape from the Kremlin, headed by Molchanov (incidentally, for some time in Poland there were plans to announce him as the escaped prince, although for some reason these plans were later rejected).
In 1606, a rebellion led by Ivan Bolotnikov broke out on the country’s southern outskirts. Soviet sources generally referred to the rebellion as a peasant war, but the striking blow was dealt by a rebel army made up of noble units led by Istoma Pashkov and Prokopy Lyapunov. Bolotnikov himself acted under the name of Dmitry Ivanovich (from whom he allegedly had received a handwritten letter with a seal stolen from the Kremlin) and bombarded Sambor where he found Molchanov in refuge with endless requests for the “tsar” to join his army.
At the cost of great tension, Shuisky succeeded in defeating Bolotnikov. The intrigue involving pretenders did not end there, however. In May 1607, three unknown men showed up in Starodub. The one who was dressed the richest referred to himself as Andrei Nagy, a relative of the Moscow sovereign. He was accompanied by two Russian men – Grigory Kashinets and Alyosha Rukin, a Moscow scribe. The travelers said that they had allegedly come from Dmitry himself and that the emperor should be expected any day. Time passed, however, and he did not come. Then the townspeople took to torturing Alyosha Rukin, who confessed to “deception” and declared that the true tsar for a long time had been located in Starodub and, fearing the intrigues of his enemies, called himself Nagy. The entire story was obviously a hoax, but the opponents of Shuisky who were gathered in Starodub were too greatly in need of “Dmitry” to question and make sense of what was going on. Starodub swore an oath to the “tsar” and soon there was an army under his leadership large enough to resist the voivodes.
The pretender’s army succeeded. In the two-day battle at Bolkhov (April 30 – May 1, 1608), he defeated the army of the king's brothers, Dmitry and Ivan Shuisky, and in early June approached Moscow. However, he was unable to take the capital, and the impostor was forced to retreat and set up camp near the village of Tushino. Nevertheless, he had every reason to believe in ultimate victory. The Tushino troops controlled much of the country, threatening at any moment to create a complete blockade around Moscow. False Dmitry II’s government was recognized by Pereslavl-Zaleski, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, and Vologda Balakhna. The Tushino troops took Rostov, Vladimir, Suzdal, Murom and Arzamas... A Boyar Duma emerged in Tushino, and even its own patriarch who turned out to be the once imprisoned Bishop Filaret of Rostov. It seemed that with a little more effort “Dmitry Ivanovich” would once again sit on the Moscow throne.
The Tushino Thief failed to repeat the success of his predecessor, however, primarily because the armies of the two impostors were fundamentally different in nature. Although initially False Dmitry I relied on Polish support, later on the movement assumed a purely Russian character. The second impostor was the exact opposite: the pretender’s plot was conceived by several supporters of Bolotnikov, but very quickly “Dmitry’s” main striking force became the Polish forces of Lisowski, Rozhinsky, and others. In the Tushino camp all real power was ultimately passed into the hands of the Poles led by the commander Hetman Rozhinsky.
Accordingly, the Tushino warriors acted in Russia as if they were in a conquered country, caring very little for anything except their own enrichment. The Polish parts divided the districts and villages, independently collecting taxes and food without, of course, taking into account the needs of local population. “Legitimate” fees regularly took the form of ordinary robbery, something from which even the monasteries and churches could not manage to escape.
As a result, the popularity of the “Tushino tsar” began to plummet. The story of Yaroslavl serves as a typical example. Initially, residents kissed the cross of “Dmitry” and sent a huge treasury to Tushino along with carts of food and even promised to equip thousands of riders. Tushino then levied additional fees in Yaroslavl, confiscated goods from the merchants, which brought about a rapid change in sympathies in the Volga city.
Shuisky’s government was able to resist and catch its breath. This was followed by the approach of Skopin-Shuisky and De la Gardie, whose troops pushed the Tushino soldiers to the Russian northeast, lifted the blockade on the Trinity-Sergius Monastery that Sapieha had unsuccessfully besieged, and, finally, triumphantly entered Moscow. Then Polish King Sigismund began to interfere in the Russian Time of Troubles, seeing himself on the throne of Moscow or, at the very least, his son... In general, the situation changed rapidly in the country, and there was no longer room for the “Tushino tsar” in the new order that had emerged. So his awkward death by the walls of Kaluga was a logical end to what had become a prolonged adventure.
The last point in this tragedy was set only four years later, however, when the Cossack Hetman Ivan Zarutsky and Marina Mnishek were delivered to Moscow with her three-year son. The child had been born of the False Dmitry II, whom the “proud Polish girl,” back in Tushino, had acknowledged as her husband – the Dmitry who had “escaped by a miracle.” The outcome was terrible. As the New Chronicler wrote, “Zarutsky was impaled on a stake, and the baby brigand ... hanged. The execution of the three-year old child was a remarkable event, even for those cruel times. However, the election of Tsar Mikhail and his entourage was not. Russia had paid too high a price for its impostors in order to allow the emergence of a new contender to the “throne, bequeathed by fate.”
