The death of Tsarevich Dmitry in the coal. The legend of the murdered Tsarevich Dmitry Biography of Tsarevich Dmitry

After the death of Ivan the Terrible, only two representatives of the main branch of the Rurikovich remained - Fedor, who was in poor health, and the baby Dmitry, moreover, born in marriage, which, according to church canons, was considered illegal.

On the mother of Tsarevich Dmitry - Maria Feodorovna Nagoy - Ivan IV married four years before his death. Dmitry was born in 1582, and at the time of his father's death he was only one and a half years old. The young prince was brought up by his mother, numerous relatives and an extensive court staff.

Dmitry could be considered illegitimate and excluded from the number of contenders for the throne. However, out of fear that Dmitry could become a center around which all those dissatisfied with the rule of Fyodor Ioannovich would gather, he was sent to Uglich with his mother. Formally, Dmitry received this city as an inheritance, but in reality he could only dispose of the income received from it and, in fact, ended up in exile. The real power in the city was in the hands of the Moscow "service people", and, first of all, the clerk Mikhail Bityagovsky.

According to the official version, on May 15, 1591, the tsarevich with the children of the yard played "poke" with a "pile" - a penknife or a pointed tetrahedral nail. During the game, he had an epileptic attack, he accidentally hit himself with a "pile" in the throat and died in the arms of a wet nurse. However, the tsarevich's mother and her brother Mikhail Nagoi began to spread rumors that Dmitry was killed by "servicemen" on direct orders from Moscow. An uprising immediately broke out in Uglich. "Service people" Osip Volokhov, Nikita Kachalov and Danila Bityagovsky, accused of murder, were torn to pieces by the crowd.

Four days later, an investigative commission was sent from Moscow, consisting of Metropolitan Gelasy of Sarsky and Podonsk, boyar Prince Vasily Shuisky, okolnichi Andrei Kleshnin and clerk Elizary Vyluzgin.

From the investigation file, the following picture emerges of what happened in Uglich in the May days of 1591. Tsarevich Dmitry suffered from epilepsy for a long time. On May 12, shortly before the tragic event, the seizure recurred. On May 14, Dmitry felt better and his mother took him to church with her, and when she returned, she told him to take a walk in the yard. On Saturday, May 15, the queen again went with her son to mass, and then let him go for a walk in the courtyard of the palace. With the prince were mother Vasilisa Volokhova, nurse Arina Tuchkova, bed keeper Marya Kolobova and four of Dmitry's peers, the sons of the nurse and bed keeper Petrusha Kolobov, Ivan Krasensky and Grisha Kozlovsky. The children were playing with sticks. During the game, the prince began another seizure of epilepsy.

Many Uglichans testified about the tragedy that followed. Judging by the protocols of interrogations, the entire investigation was conducted in public.

After questioning the witnesses, the commission came to an unequivocal conclusion - death came from an accident. But rumors about the violent death of Dmitry did not subside. The direct heir of Ivan the Terrible, albeit illegitimate, was a competitor to the usurper Boris Godunov. Indeed, after the death of Fyodor Ioannovich, he de jure took power into his own hands. The Time of Troubles began in Rus', during which the name of Tsarevich Dmitry became a cover for many impostors.

In 1606, Vasily Shuisky, who was investigating the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry, took the throne after the murder of the first impostor, False Dmitry I. He changed his mind about the Uglitskaya tragedy, bluntly stating that Dmitry was killed on the orders of Boris Godunov. This version remained official during the Romanov dynasty. The coffin with the body of the prince was removed from the crypt in Uglich. His relics were found incorrupt and placed in the Archangel Cathedral in a special shrine near the grave of Ivan the Terrible. At the crayfish, numerous miraculous healings of the sick immediately began to occur, and in the same year Dmitry was canonized as a saint. The veneration of Dmitry as a saint is preserved to this day.

Sergei Sheremetev, a prominent specialist in genealogy and history of writing, Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a professor at St. Petersburg University, and a prominent historian Ivan Belyaev, believed in the salvation of Dmitry (or at least allowed this possibility). A well-known journalist Alexei Suvorin published a book specifically dedicated to substantiating this version.

The authors, who believed that in 1605-1606 the real Dmitry sat on the Russian throne, drew attention to the fact that the young tsar behaved amazingly confidently for an impostor adventurer. He seemed to believe in his royal lineage.

Supporters of the imposture of False Dmitry emphasize that, according to the investigation file, Tsarevich Dmitry suffered from epilepsy. In False Dmitry, for a long time (from his appearance in Poland in 1601 to his death in 1606), no symptoms of this disease were observed. Epilepsy cannot be cured by modern medicine either. However, even without any treatment, patients with epilepsy may experience temporary improvements, sometimes lasting for years and not accompanied by seizures. Thus, the absence of epileptic seizures does not contradict the possibility of the identity of False Dmitry and Dmitry.

Supporters of the version that it was not the prince, but an outsider, who was killed in Uglich, pay attention to the ease with which the mother of the prince, nun Marfa, recognized her son in False Dmitry. By the way, even before the arrival of the impostor in Moscow, summoned by Godunov, she is rumored to have stated that faithful people had informed her about the salvation of her son. It is also known that False Dmitry, announcing his royal origin to Prince Adam Vishnevetsky, presented a precious cross studded with diamonds as evidence. According to the same cross, the mother allegedly recognized her son in him.

Those letters of the impostor have come down to us, in which he announced to the Russian people about his salvation. In the clearest form, these explanations are preserved in the diary of the impostor's wife, Marina Mnishek. “There was a doctor under the prince,” writes Marina, “an Italian by birth. Knowing about the evil intent, he ... found a boy who looked like Dmitry, and ordered him to be inseparably with the prince, even to sleep on the same bed. When the boy fell asleep, the cautious doctor carried Dmitry to another bed. As a result, another boy was killed, not Dmitry, but the doctor took Dmitry out of Uglich and fled with him to the Arctic Ocean. However, Russian sources do not know of any foreign doctor who lived in Uglich.

Important considerations in favor of the imposture of False Dmitry are given by the German landsknecht Konrad Bussov. Not far from Uglich, Bussov and the German merchant Bernd Khoper got into a conversation with the former watchman of the Uglich palace. The watchman said about False Dmitry: “He was a reasonable sovereign, but he was not the son of Ivan the Terrible, for he was really killed 17 years ago and decayed long ago. I saw him lying dead in the play area."

All these circumstances completely destroy the legend about the identity of False Dmitry and Tsarevich Dmitry. Two versions remain: he stabbed himself and was killed at the instigation of Boris Godunov. Both versions now have supporters in historical science.

Material prepared on the basis of open sources

The first period of unrest: the struggle for the Moscow throne

End of the dynasty

The initial fact and the immediate cause of the turmoil was the end of the royal dynasty. This termination was accomplished by the death of the three sons of Ivan the Terrible: Ivan, Fedor and Dmitry. The eldest of them, Ivan, was already an adult and married when he was killed by his father. In character, he was quite like his father, participated in all his affairs and amusements, and, they say, showed the same cruelty that distinguished Ivan the Terrible. Ivan was engaged in literature and was a well-read person. There is his literary work "The Life of Anthony of Siya". (However, it should be noted that this "Life" is simply a revision of its original edition, belonging to a certain monk Jonah. It was written according to the then existing rhetorical template and has no special literary merit.) It is not known why he had a quarrel with his father, in which the son received from his father a blow with a rod so strong that he died from it (in 1582). After the death of Grozny himself, two sons remained alive: Fedor and, a child, Tsarevich Dmitry, born in the seventh marriage of Grozny with Maria Naga.

At first, after the death of Ivan the Terrible, some riots, unknown to us for sure, took place, which ended in the exile of the boyar Belsky and the removal of Maria Naga with Tsarevich Dmitry to Uglich. Fedor became king. The foreign ambassadors Fletcher and Sapega paint Fyodor for us with rather definite features. The king was short in stature, with a swollen face and unsteady gait, and, moreover, constantly smiling. Sapega, seeing the king during the audience, says that he received from him the impression of complete dementia. They say that Fedor loved to ring the bell tower, for which he received the nickname of the bell-ringer from his father, but at the same time he loved to amuse himself with jesters and bear-baiting. His mood of spirit was always religious, and this religiosity was manifested in the strict observance of external rituals. He removed himself from the concerns of the state and handed them over to his fellow boyars. At the beginning of his reign, Boris Godunov and Nikita Romanovich Zakharyin-Yuriev were especially prominent among the boyars. This went on until 1585, when Nikita Romanovich was suddenly stricken with paralysis and died. Power was concentrated in the hands of Boris Godunov, but he had to fight strong opponents - the princes Mstislavsky and Shuisky. This struggle sometimes assumed a very sharp character and ended in the complete triumph of Godunov. Mstislavsky was tonsured, and the Shuiskys with many relatives were exiled.

While all this was happening in Moscow, Maria Nagaya with her son and her relatives continued to live in Uglich in an honorable exile. It is clear how she and all the Nagy should have treated the boyars who were in power, and Godunov, as the most influential of them. Nagaya was the wife of Ivan the Terrible, enjoyed his sympathy and general honor, and suddenly she, the queen, was sent to a distant inheritance - Uglich and kept under constant supervision.

Palace in Uglich, where Tsarevich Dmitry and his mother Maria Nagaya lived

Bityagovsky was such an overseer from the government in Uglich. Nagy could not treat Bityagovsky well, seeing in him an agent from those who sent them into exile. We know very little about the mood of the Nagikhs, but if you think about some of the testimonies about Dmitry, you can see what a strong hatred this family had for the boyars, ruling and close to Fedor; Of course, there were many rumors about Dmitry in Moscow. By the way, according to these rumors, foreigners (Fletcher, Bussov) report that Dmitry is similar in character to his father: he is cruel and loves to watch animals suffer. Next to this characterization, Bussov tells the story that Dmitry once made stuffed animals out of snow, called them by the names of the most noble Moscow nobles, then knocked their heads off with a saber, saying that he would do this with his enemies - the boyars. And the Russian writer Avraamiy Palitsyn writes that Dmitry was often reported to Moscow, as if he was hostile and absurd towards the boyars close to his brother, and especially to Boris Godunov. Palitsyn explains this mood of the prince by the fact that he was "embarrassed by his neighbors." And indeed, if the boy expressed such thoughts, then it is obvious that he himself could not invent them, but they were inspired by those around him. It is also clear that Nagikh's anger should have turned not to Fedor, but to Boris Godunov, as the main ruler. It is also clear that the boyars, hearing about the mood of Dmitry, who was considered the heir to the throne, could be afraid that the adult Dmitry would remind them of his father's times, and could wish for his death, as foreigners say. Thus, few testimonies of contemporaries clearly reveal to us the mutual relations between Uglich and Moscow. In Uglich they hate the Moscow boyars, but in Moscow they receive denunciations from Uglich and fear the Nagy. Remembering this hidden enmity and the existence of rumors about Dmitry, we can explain to ourselves, as a very possible gossip, that rumor that circulated long before Dmitry's murder - about the poison given to Dmitry by Godunov's supporters; This poison, as if miraculously, did not work.

On May 15, 1591, Tsarevich Dmitry was found in the courtyard of his Uglich choir with his throat cut. The people, called by the church alarm, found Tsarina Maria and her Nagy brothers over the body of their son. The tsarina beat the tsarevich's mother Vasilisa Volokhova and shouted that the murder was the work of the clerk Bityagovsky. He was not in the yard at that time; Hearing the alarm, he also ran here, but he barely had time to come when they rushed at him and killed him. Immediately killed his son Danila and nephew Nikita Kachalov. Together with them they beat some townspeople and Volokhova's son Osip. Two days later, another "holy fool" was killed, as if spoiling the prince. On May 17, they learned about this event in Moscow and sent an investigative commission to Uglich, consisting of the following persons: Prince V. Shuisky, roundabout Andrei Kleshnin, clerk Vyluzgin and Krutitsy Metropolitan Gelasy. Their investigative file (it was published in the Collection. State. Gram. and Dog., vol. II) found out: 1) that the prince stabbed himself in a fit of epilepsy at the time when he played with a knife in a "poke" (like the current pile) together with their peers, small tenants, and 2) that the Nagy, without any reason, prompted the people to needlessly kill innocent people. According to the report of the commission of inquiry, the case was submitted to the judgment of the patriarch and other clergy. They accused the Nagy and the "Uglich peasants", but the final judgment was handed over to the hands of the secular authorities. Tsarina Maria was exiled to a distant monastery on Vyksa (near Cherepovets) and tonsured there. The Nagi brothers were sent to different cities. The Uglichians guilty of disorder were executed and exiled to Pelym, where an entire settlement was supposedly made up of the Uglichians; Uglich, according to legend, is completely deserted.

Despite the fact that the government denied the murder and recognized the death of the tsarevich as an accidental suicide, a rumor spread in society that tsarevich Dmitry was killed by the adherents of Boris (Godunov) on Borisov's order. This rumor, first recorded by some foreigners, is then transmitted in the form of an already indisputable fact, and in our writing there are special legends about the murder of Dmitry; they began to be compiled during the time of Vasily Shuisky, not earlier than the moment when Dmitry was canonized and his relics were transferred in 1606 from Uglich to Moscow. There are several types of these tales, and they all have the same features: they tell about the murder very plausibly and at the same time contain historical inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Then each edition of these legends differs from the others not only in the way of presentation, but also in various details, often excluding each other. The most common type is a separate legend included in the general chronicle. This legend tells that at first Boris tried to poison Dmitry, but seeing that God did not allow the poison to work, he began to look through his friend Kleshnin for people who would agree to kill the prince. At first it was proposed to Chepchugov and Zagryazhsky, but they refused. Only Bityagovsky agreed. The murder itself, according to this legend, happened in this way: when Bityagovsky's accomplice, Volokhov's mother, treacherously took the prince for a walk on the porch, the murderer Volokhov approached him and asked him: "Do you have a new necklace, sir?" "No, old," answered the child, and to show the necklace he raised his head. At this time, Volokhov hit the prince with a knife in the throat, but "did not capture his larynx", hit unsuccessfully. The nurse (Zhdanova), who was here, rushed to defend the child, but Bityagovsky and Kachalov beat her, and then finally stabbed the child to death. Compiled 15 or 20 years after Dmitry's death, this legend and other stories conveyed, in an extremely confused and inconsistent manner, the rumors about the murder that were then circulating in Moscow society. Therefore, it is necessary to look at them as if they were recorded by hearsay. These are not the testimonies of eyewitnesses, but rumors, and they undeniably testify to one thing only, that Moscow society firmly believed in the violent death of the prince.

Such a conviction of society or a certain part of it runs counter to the official document about the suicide of the prince. It is impossible for the historian to reconcile the official data in this case with the unanimous testimony of the legends of the murder, and he must take the side of either one or the other. For a long time, our historians (still Shcherbatov) took the side of legends. Karamzin especially tried to make Boris Godunov a very picturesque "villain". But in science there have long been voices for the fact that the investigative case is fair, and not legends (Artsybashev, Pogodin, E. Belov). A detailed presentation of all the data and controversy on the issue of the prince can be found in A. I. Tyumenev's detailed article "Revision of the news about the death of Tsar Dmitry" (in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, 1908, May and June).

Tsarevich Dmitry. Painting by M. Nesterov, 1899

In our presentation, we dwelled in such detail on the question of Dmitry's death in order to form a definite opinion about this fact, since the view of Boris's personality depends on the view of this event; here is the key to understanding Boris. If Boris is a murderer, then he is a villain, as Karamzin paints him; if not, then he is one of the most handsome Muscovite tsars. Let's see how far we have reason to blame Boris for the death of the prince and suspect the reliability of the official investigation. The official investigation is, of course, far from accusing Boris. In this case, the foreigners accusing Boris should be in the background, as a secondary source, because they only repeat Russian rumors about Dmitry's case. There remains one kind of sources - the legends and stories of the 17th century that we have considered. It is on them that historians hostile to Boris rely. Let's take a look at this material. Most of the chroniclers who are opposed to Boris, when speaking about him, either admit that they write by ear, or they praise Boris as a person. Condemning Boris as a murderer, they, firstly, do not know how to convey the circumstances of Dmitry's murder in a consistent way, as we have seen, and, moreover, allow for internal contradictions. Their legends were compiled long after the event, when Dmitry had already been canonized and when Tsar Vasily, having renounced his own investigation into the case of Dmitry, publicly brought to Boris's memory the guilt in the murder of the prince, and it became an officially recognized fact. It was then impossible to contradict this fact. Secondly, all the tales of turmoil in general are reduced to a very small number of independent editions, which were reworked a lot by later compilers. One of these independent editions (the so-called "Other Legend"), which greatly influenced various compilations, came out entirely from the camp of Godunov's enemies - the Shuiskys. If we do not take into account and do not take into account compilations, then it will turn out that not all independent authors of legends are against Boris; most of them speak very sympathetically about him, and Dmitry's death is often simply silent. Further, the legends hostile to Boris are so biased in their responses to him that they are clearly slandering him, and their slandering of Boris is by no means always accepted even by his opponents scientists; for example, the following are attributed to Boris: the burning of Moscow in 1591, the poisoning of Tsar Fedor and his daughter Theodosia.

These legends reflect the mood of the society that created them; their slander is worldly slander, which could come directly from worldly relations: Boris had to act under Fedor among boyars hostile to him (Shuisky and others), who hated him and at the same time feared him as an unborn force. At first they tried to destroy Boris by open struggle, but they could not; it is quite natural that they began to undermine his moral credit for the same purpose, and they succeeded better in this. It was easy to glorify Boris as a murderer. In that troubled time, even before Dmitri's death, it was possible to smell this death, as Fletcher felt it. He says that Dmitry is threatened with death "from the assassination attempt of those who extend their views on the possession of the throne in the event of the tsar's childless death." But Fletcher does not name Boris here, and his testimony can be extended to all the more well-born boyars, since they too could be pretenders to the throne. Bussov says that "many boyars" wanted Dmitri's death, and most of all Boris. The naked could take the same view. Hating all the then boyar government, they hated Boris only as its head, and Tsarina Maria, Dmitry's mother, due to a very natural connection of ideas, in a moment of deep grief could give her son's suicide the character of a murder by the government, in other words, Boris, but this accidentally abandoned the boyar environment, which was contrary to Boris, could take advantage of this idea, develop this idea and put it into use in Moscow society for their own purposes. Once in literature, this political slander became the common property not only of the people of the 17th century, but also of later generations, even of science.

Bearing in mind the possibility of the origin of the accusations against Boris and considering all the inconsistent details of the case, it must be said as a result that it is difficult and still risky to insist on the fact of Dmitry's suicide, but at the same time it is impossible to accept the prevailing opinion about the murder of Dmitry by Boris. If we recognize this last opinion as requiring new justifications, and it should be considered as such, then we must explain the choice of Boris as king without connection with his “villainy”. As for this prevailing opinion about Boris's guilt, then, strictly speaking, three studies are needed for its proper confirmation: 1) it is necessary to prove in Dmitry's case the impossibility of suicide and, therefore, the falsification of the investigative file. Belov, proving the authenticity of this case, investigated from a medical point of view the possibility of suicide in epilepsy: doctors told him that such a suicide was possible. As for the investigative case itself, it presents us with details that are so naive that it would be simply impossible to fake them at that time, since it would already require too much psychological instinct, inaccessible to people of the 17th century. Further: 2) if the impossibility of suicide were proved, then it should also be proved that the murder was timely, that in 1591 it was possible to foresee the childless death of Fyodor and to connect any calculations with it. This issue is very controversial. Yes, finally, 3) if such calculations were possible, could Godunov alone have had them then? Didn't anyone, except Godunov, have an interest in Dmitry's death and could not risk murder?

That's how many dark and insoluble questions lie in the circumstances of the death of Tsarevich Dmitry. Until all of them are resolved, until then the accusation of Boris will stand on very shaky ground, and before our court he will not be an accused, but only a suspect; there is very little evidence against him, and at the same time there are circumstances that convincingly speak in favor of this smart and likeable person.

Many Uglichans testified about the tragedy that followed. Judging by the protocols of interrogations, the entire investigation was conducted in public.

Material prepared on the basis of open sources

DID TSAREVICH DMITRY DIE IN UGLICH?

On May 15, 1591, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible Dmitry died in Uglich under mysterious circumstances. This tragedy is widely known, several versions have been expressed over 400 years: from death from an accident to murder on the orders of Boris Godunov and the substitution of the prince in order to save him from murder on the orders of the same Boris. Let's try to look at what happened in Uglich the way Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Father Brown would have done it. They began the investigation by asking themselves the first and main question: who benefits from this?

Indeed, who benefited from the death of the nine-year-old Tsarevich Dmitry Ioannovich? Strange as it may seem, this was to Boris Godunov's advantage, but having studied the circumstances of the Uglich case, Holmes, Poirot and Brown might well have come to the conclusion that Godunov was innocent!

Boris Godunov's career began under Ivan the Terrible. First, Boris became the son-in-law of the all-powerful chief of guardsmen Malyuta Skuratov, and then his second cousin Irina married one of the sons of Grozny, Fedor, who became king after the death of Ivan IV. The tsar's brother-in-law Godunov became co-ruler of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, the son of Grozny from his first wife Anastasia Romanova. Godunov came from the "thin" (ignorant) boyars and, having become the second person in the state, he acquired many enemies among the boyars, who considered themselves "great", and Boris - "upstart".

In those days, it was almost impossible for a "thin" boyar to stay at the pinnacle of power without cruelty, but Godunov held on. His support was his brother-in-law (sister's husband) Tsar Fyodor, and therefore Boris had to take care of him like the apple of his eye, because with the death of Fyodor not only Godunov's career would end, but also his life - the co-ruler had enough enemies in abundance!

Godunov really took care of Fedor as best he could, but he could not touch Dmitry, the son of the Terrible and Maria Nagoya, for two reasons:

a) in the event of the death of the prince, Godunov’s enemies, even without finding clear evidence, would be able, if not to overthrow him, then to shake his influence in the country;

b) Boris Godunov, who went through the "school" of the oprichnina and being the son-in-law of Malyuta, nevertheless did not differ in cruelty. Historians noticed this - Boris, at worst, forcibly tonsured monks or exiled his worst enemies. There were practically no executions for "political" reasons when he was co-ruler.

In order to successfully resist the intrigues of numerous enemies, Godunov had to have a remarkable mind, which he clearly had. But mind alone is not enough - accurate information is needed about the moods that prevailed among the boyars - the Shuiskys, Mstislavskys and many others, in order to “neutralize” them in time by tonsure or exile, without bringing the matter to a possible bloodshed. Such information could be supplied by well-paid informants from the boyar entourage, which allowed Boris to be aware of the plans of his opponents and stop them in time.

Ivan the Terrible, dying, handed over the throne to Fedor, and the younger Dmitry allocated a specific principality with its capital in Uglich. It cannot be ruled out that there was a “hint” from the cunning Boris here, but we will not touch on this issue.

Maria Nagaya with her son Dmitry and numerous relatives left for an honorable exile. She was not even allowed to attend Fedor's coronation as the next of kin, which was a huge humiliation. This alone could make the Nagih hold a grudge against Boris and others like him.

Godunov, knowing and understanding this, was also aware that the family of the now former tsarina posed a real threat to him. To supervise the Nagimi, he sent to Uglich the clerk Mikhail Bityagovsky, endowed with the widest powers. His presence deprived the Nagi of almost all the prerogatives they had as appanage princes, including control over the income that went into the appanage treasury. This could further increase their hatred for the royal co-ruler, for a blow to the pocket is always very painful!

Now let's examine the place and circumstances of the incident, but first through the eyes of contemporaries.

Noon May 15, 1591, Saturday. The day is hot. Maria Nagaya returned with her son from the church from Mass. She went to the palace, and let her son go for a walk in the courtyard. With the prince were: mother (nanny) Vasilisa Volokhova, nurse Arina Tuchkova, bed keeper Marya Kolobova and four boys, including the sons of the nurse and bed keeper. The eldest of the children was the son of Kolobova - Petrushka (Peter). Children played "knives", but not with a knife with a flat blade, but with a "pile" - a thin stylet with a four-sided blade, intended for stabbing. Tsarevich Dmitry suffered from an "epilepsy" disease (epilepsy), and the attack began when he had a stylet pile in his hand. Falling, Dmitry ran into the point with his throat. Arina Tuchkova, who ran up, grabbed the prince in her arms and, in her words, "he was gone in her arms." The boys were frightened, and Petrushka Kolobov, as the elder, rushed to the palace to inform Mary about the tragedy. But then a strange thing happened. Maria, who jumped out into the courtyard from the dining table, instead of rushing to her son like any normal mother, grabbed a log and brought it down on Volokhova’s mother’s head, hitting her several times with force! Volokhova fell with a broken head, while Maria shouted that “Osip Volokhov, the mother’s son, stabbed the prince.

Nagaya ordered to sound the alarm. The Uglichians rushed to the palace, and the clerk Bityagovsky rushed in. He tried to stop ringing the bells, but the ringer locked himself in the bell tower and did not let the deacon into the belfry. Osip Volokhov appeared near the palace along with the residents who came running - he was clearly somewhere nearby, perhaps with his brother-in-law (sister's husband) Nikita Kachalov. Maria Nagaya continued to shout that Osip was Dmitry's killer. The bloodied Volokhova begged Naguya to "spare her son." Kachalov also stood up for his brother-in-law, but in vain - the excited crowd began lynching. Kachalov, clerk Bityagovsky, his son and several other people who tried to calm the crowd were killed. Osip Volokhov first tried to hide in Bityagovsky's house, and then in the church, where the prince's body was taken, but he was pulled out and also killed. He became the last, fifteenth, killed from among those who died as a result of lynching.

The commission of inquiry from Moscow arrived in Uglich on May 19. Considering the speed of information transfer and movement at that time, we can assume that Moscow reacted to the tragedy almost instantly. But the main thing: the head of the commission of inquiry was Vasily Shuisky, who shortly before that had returned from exile, where he ended up at the behest of Boris Godunov.

According to historians, the appointment of Shuisky as head of the commission was sanctioned by the Boyar Duma, but the proposal for this could come from Godunov - Boris understood that Dmitry's death would be attributed to him. Therefore, he could nominate Shuisky, not at all doubting that he would “dig the ground” in order to find even the slightest clue for blaming Godunov for the death of Dmitry - it was a brilliant move by a person who was innocent of the murder of the prince!

The commission consisted of several dozen people. In addition to Shuisky and various minor ranks, it included the devious Kleshnin, the duma clerk Vyluzgin, the church, for its part, sent Metropolitan Gelvasy to oversee the investigation. The investigation was carried out as carefully as possible, hundreds of people were interviewed. Interrogations were conducted in public, in the courtyard of the Kremlin, in the presence of dozens and (perhaps) hundreds of curious people. With such a conduct of the case, falsification of testimony and pressure on witnesses were completely excluded - the members of the commission adhered to various political orientations, and each vigilantly watched his colleagues in the investigation, preparing to take advantage of any oversight.

The main witnesses to the death of the tsarevich were four boys, Volokhov's mother, Tuchkova's nurse, Kolobov's bed keeper. Their testimony formed the basis for the conclusion of the commission on the death of Dmitry as a result of an accident, and then, in 1591, all of Russia recognized it!

For 400 years, historians have studied the “Uglich case”, and no one paid attention to the fact that when the investigators asked the boys: “Who were behind the prince in those days?” (Who was there at the time of the incident?), The boys answered in unison that there were only four of them, “Yes, the nurse, and the bed!”. So - they did not mention Vasilisa Volokhov, and, therefore, she was not around at the time of Dmitry's death! Where was she?

Maria Nagaya was not interrogated - the investigators did not dare to interrogate the former, but still the queen, however, it is known that Maria and her brother Andrei were sitting at the dinner table at the time of the death of the prince. They were served by three prominent servants of the court of the ex-tsaritsa - the attendants Larionov, Gnidin and Ivanov, as well as the lawyer Yudin. This lawyer (something like a waiter) turned out to be the eighth witness who saw the tragedy that happened in the yard. The other three learned about everything only when Petrushka Kolobov ran in.

Solicitors and stolniks served at the royal table, but by no means podklyuchniks. They are business executives, so to speak, "deputies" of the key keeper (supply manager, administrator, manager). Even though Maria was in honorary exile under the strict supervision of Bityagovsky, she was still the queen, and something is not said anywhere that the clerk "controlled" the Nagy's income to such an extent that the royal table was served by subcontractors instead of solicitors and stewards due to a shortage money to pay the servants!

The lawyer was lower in rank than the clerk, and Yudin had to look after Maria and Andrei at dinner in order to serve them in time. He also stared out the window at the children playing, although servants of a higher rank served next to him - even Shuisky's commission did not pay attention to this.

Yudin said during the investigation that he saw how the boys played and how the tsarevich "stabbed himself with a knife", but the investigators could not determine exactly the moment when the tsarevich inflicted a wound in his throat. None of those present saw this.

Holmes and Poirot would very likely have confirmed the conclusions of the commission (or maybe not), but Father Brown would definitely not have agreed with them. He would remember "The Broken Sword" and say: "Where does a smart person hide a leaf?" - "In the forest. And the one who was killed? - “On the battlefield. What if there was no battle? - "He will do everything to have her!"

There was no battle in Uglich, but there was lynching with fifteen corpses as a result. The main goal of this massacre was Osip Volokhov - he had to be silenced forever!

In those days, they did not know timekeeping, they did not conduct investigative experiments to restore the full picture of the crime, and later historians also did not try to reproduce the sequence of events by the minute. Let's try to make up for this omission, taking into account other information.

So: Maria returns from church with her son and goes to dinner with her brother. There is no mention of the prince's dinner anywhere, and, therefore, Dmitry did not go to dinner - he was released to play immediately after returning home. It can be assumed that not so much time passed between the return from the church and the death of the child - half an hour, no more. The epileptic prince could, during a sudden attack, inflict a wound in his throat, but in this case, the cramped fingers would hold the pile by the handle, covering it completely. The tip (blade) was supposed to stick out of the fist up (between the index and thumb). Only in this case, the prince could hit himself in the throat, but during the game of "knives" the knife is never taken in the palm, tightly embracing the handle (whoever has ever played this game should remember this). The knife is taken by the end of the blade or the handle, but, of course, in Uglich it could be different - the prince took the stylet extended to him by the handle, and then an attack occurred.

And now an interesting question: how do we know that Tsarevich Dmitry suffered from epilepsy? Surprisingly, all historians take data on the prince's illness only from the "Uglich case"! All witnesses unanimously stated that Dmitry suffered from an "epileal" disease, but it is not known whether the disease was congenital, and if not, it is still not clear at what age it manifested itself. Did Tsarevich Dmitry suffer from epilepsy at all? Was this "falling" simulation carried out at the instigation of the mother and other persons interested in creating the image of the "sick prince"?

In that era, they grew up earlier, and the son of Ivan the Terrible could be smarter than his peers now, but it was about the throne - in such cases, the princes (princes) of any countries, brought up from early childhood in an appropriate way, behaved in accordance with the circumstances.

All these reflections lead to the assumption, which has already been expressed by some historians earlier: Tsarevich Dmitry did not die in Uglich, but was replaced with the aim of the future seizure of power by the Nagikh family! To substantiate this version, let's look at what happened in Uglich from a modern "detective" point of view.

So: the real Dimitri was switched on the way to the church or on the way back. The boy who was to be sacrificed had to have a resemblance to the prince in height, hair color, physique and facial features. Suppose such a child is found. It is unlikely that he was from a family of even average income, rather from the poorest or even an orphan. It follows that the false prince had to be taught at least a little that would help him play the "role" of Dmitry for a maximum of 30 minutes - and learning takes time!

They could seduce the unfortunate child with anything, even promising "golden mountains" - and he agreed to play the role of a prince and ... play (of course, after "training") an epileptic attack. It is not known how long it took to search for and “prepare an understudy”, but the witnesses recalled an attack of “falling fever” in March, when the prince “beat his mother with a pile.” It can be assumed that the “understudy” has already been found! On May 12, the prince had an attack, and until the 15th he was not allowed out of the house, therefore, four boys could not see him for three days. If the prince did not go out for two or three days before May 12, then it turns out to be almost a week, and during these days the illness can change facial features - such an explanation “in which case” could come in handy!

Let's continue. The substitution took place: Dmitry left for the church, the false Dmitry returned in the clothes of the real one. They were already waiting for him, including one of the three women under whose supervision the prince was. This woman enjoyed the full confidence of Queen Maria Nagoya and was undoubtedly devoted to her.

Let's look carefully, "in a modern way", at some persons of the "Uglich case".

Kolobova Marya, bed-maker. It was her responsibility to take care of the linen (sheets, pillowcases, etc.) and, if necessary, sew it up, because. all this is in the habit of breaking even in the royal palace. Marya, on the other hand, was “part-time” and a nanny, so during the day she could not have enough time to sew and darn. Evening and night remained, there was no electricity, only candles and torches - and therefore Marya Kolobova's bed could be short-sighted! Kolobova saw the tsarina return with a boy dressed in familiar clothes, who immediately went to play with the children, among whom was her son Petrushka.

Vasilisa Volokhova, mother (nanny) of Tsarevich Dmitry. She was the oldest of the three women - her daughter was married to Nikita Kachalov, and her son Osip was no longer a boy. But the main thing is different: when Osip Volokhov tried to escape from death, he first rushed to Bityagovsky's house - and not because the house was nearby, but because the clerk was not only a fairly high official, but also a friend of him and his mother! Moreover, Osip rushed to good acquaintances, and it can be assumed that Bityagovsky, sent to Uglich by Godunov’s personal order, favored the Volokhovs because Vasilisa was an informer of the deacon at the tsarina’s court, but the Nagy knew about this!

Then it becomes clear why during the investigation the boys did not mention the presence of the “mother” in the yard - Volokhova was distracted under some pretext from the playing children, and then she could not be allowed near the body - Vasilisa could immediately identify the substitution! For this, the queen herself had to use a log!

Osip Volokhov, son of Vasilisa Volokhova. All his fault was that he could accidentally be near the place where the substitution of the prince took place, and be noticed by Mary. Did Osip see the substitution or did not pay attention to what was happening - it is not known, but Maria was frightened - what if he noticed? So I had to remove the witness, having killed 14 more people before that!

And now the “moment of truth” is a picture of the death of the false prince: the false Dmitry, taking the pile in his hand, falls “as taught” and beats, depicting a seizure. Nurse Arina Tuchkova, who enjoyed the full confidence of Tsarina Maria Nagoya, rushes to the “understudy”, grabs him in her arms and ... by the hand in which the stiletto pile is clamped with the point up. The hand is twisted, which means that the point is not far from the neck. The unfortunate changeling did not expect that “Aunt Arina” would press his hand with one sharp movement so that the blade of the pile would hit him in the throat!

Only Arina Tuchkova could do this, for a second shielding with her body from the guys the child-victim struggling in "epilepsy"! Therefore, no one saw when exactly the "prince" "ran" on the stiletto. The short-sighted Kolobova, who ran up, saw a face distorted by death pain, but Volokhova could not come up!

The four boys were frightened when the “prince” had just fallen and, perhaps, even jumped back two or three steps, out of fright and not noticing anything. Let's not be surprised that the nurse could kill an unfamiliar child - Tuchkova was a man of the era of Ivan the Terrible and the oprichnina, when life, especially someone else's, was valued at a penny (half a penny).

Strider Yudin. Even his name is unknown, and who then was interested in the names of the servants, but it was he who could be the “chief director” of the events in Uglich!

Yudin deftly “set himself up” as a witness through the clerk Protopopov and the housekeeper Tulubeev. He explained his evasion from testifying by the fact that Empress Maria screamed about the murder and he (most likely) was afraid to argue with her. The commission considered this explanation convincing and further traces of the "solicitor" disappeared in the darkness of time. Who could he really be and who could have organized the Uglich murder in that era, taking into account the slightest nuances, so that everything looked like a modern-day special services operation?

Such an organization was established in Paris in 1534. Its motto was "To the greater glory of God", and its members called themselves "dogs of the Lord" - the order of the Jesuits!

It is quite famous in history, but mostly only by name. Almost all the activities of the Jesuit order are shrouded in deep secrecy, and although it was officially abolished by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, it is believed that the structures of the order have survived to our time under other names.

Any religious organization of a large scale - Christian, Islamic, Buddhist - is a spiritual state in political states. In order to effectively influence not only the minds of its flock, but also often the policy of governments, such an organization must always be aware of all events, not only collecting information, but also directing events in the right direction for itself, resorting to forceful methods if necessary - for example , physical elimination of objectionable persons.

The Jesuit Order was created to fight Luther's Reformation, but it cannot be guaranteed that the father of the order, Ignatius Loyola, had not previously served in such an organization, and the "Paris department" was not formed on the basis of a pre-existing similar "special department"!

Information for thought. An indirect confirmation of this assumption can be the data of the French historian Max Blon, who at the beginning of the 20th century established that already in 1367 the order of the Jesuits existed! The difference in the names of organizations is only one letter, but if something is known about the Jesuits, then there is no information about the Jesuits, except for their name. The official name of the special services can and does change (VChK-GPU-NKVD-MGB-KGB-FSB), so it cannot be ruled out that there were some Jesuits before the Jesuits (the name Jesus can be transcribed in different ways).

The Christian church had already existed (by that time) for one and a half thousand years, and without an extensive special service with a variety of functions, it would hardly have reached its power. Jesuit cunning and cunning became proverbs, but they would not have been possible without a subtle knowledge of human psychology, and who, apart from the ministers of religion, could and should have understood it better than anyone in those days?

The experience of psychological influence on the masses has been accumulated and systematized for centuries, so that the Jesuit order clearly (judging by the Jesuit order) did not arise from scratch - the “dogs of the Lord” had predecessors and teachers, and talented ones!

All smart rulers (including the popes) have always tried to recruit smart and talented performers, such as, for example, Yudin. He even managed to replace the attendants at the table, because. I knew that the attendants Larionov, Ivanov and Gnidin, who had not served at the table before, would closely follow the dinner schedule and would not pay attention to the unnatural tension of Maria and her brother! Yudin (and others like him) managed to take everything into account, including quickly reacting to the “overlay” with Osip Volokhov, but Boris Godunov still got ahead of the Jesuits!

It was not possible to completely hide the preparations for the “murder of Dmitry”. Most likely, Volokhova noticed that something was being started at the court of Mary. Godunov, having received news of some suspicious "fuss" in Uglich, could well have figured out that a coup was being prepared. He did not know the details, but, on reflection, he realized that the Nagy were hoping for the death of Fedor - in this case, Dmitry had real chances for the throne.

Tsar Fyodor was "sickly and frail" and, perhaps, in the spring of 1591 he was seriously ill. The Nagy were expecting his imminent death, and it is possible that the smart and cunning Boris, having understood the intention of Mary and her family, shortly before May 15, brought to the Nagy through figureheads the news that Tsar Fyodor was “quite bad and not today or tomorrow I will die” .

This information could have prompted Nagih and Yudin to take immediate action - and if so, Godunov forced the Uglich conspirators to come out about a month earlier!

On July 2, in the Moscow Kremlin, the highest officials of the state heard the full text of the Uglich “search”. The meeting expressed full agreement with the conclusion of the commission about the accidental death of the prince, but much more attention was paid to the "treason" of the Nagy, who, together with the Uglichs, beat the sovereign's people. It was decided to seize the Nagikhs and the Uglichs, "who showed up in the case," and deliver them to Moscow.

This meeting in the Kremlin was held in the conditions of a front-line city - on the morning of July 4, 1591, a hundred thousandth army of the Crimean Khan Kazy-Girey occupied Kotly. Russian troops were located in positions near the Danilov Monastery in a mobile fortification - the "walk-city". But there was no general battle. All day on July 4, there was an intense skirmish with the advanced Tatar hundreds, and at night the enemy suddenly left Moscow.

Historians believe that the flight of the Tatars from Moscow was caused by the Russians imitating the approach of large reinforcements, the nightly false attack of the Tatar camp in Kolomenskoye and the memory of the Tatars about their terrible defeat near Moscow in 1572, even under Ivan the Terrible. All this is true, but the question is: when did the Crimean army set out on a campaign against Moscow?

From Perekop to Moscow, 1100 km (with a ruler on the map), in fact, with horse movement more. The Krymchaks could go on a campaign not earlier than the ground dries up after the snows and there is sufficient grass cover to feed the horses. In addition, Kazy-Girey was not going on a fast cavalry raid - he had Turkish artillery and detachments of Janissaries with convoys with him. Presumably, it took 25 days for Kazy-Girey to cross Perekop-Kolomenskoye, and therefore, the Tatars could go on a campaign in early June, when they finally received a secret message from Uglich.

The official order to deliver the Nagy and others to Moscow came from the tsar, but he only “had a hand in this” - it was the order of Godunov, who was the first to understand that the Nagy had committed real treason, inviting Russia’s worst enemies, the Crimean Tatars, to help seize power .

The calculation of the Jesuits, namely theirs, was something like this: Tsarevich Dmitry "died" as a result of an accident, Tsar Fedor died. Godunov, as co-ruler and brother of the current Queen Irina, continues to be at the head of state, the army of Kazy-Girey is approaching Moscow, and at this moment Dmitry “comes to life”, and Nagiye accuse Godunov of trying to seize power by killing the legitimate heir to the throne, whom “God saved from of death".

Fedor had no children, so Dmitry was the most legitimate heir to the throne. The Time of Troubles would have begun in the country 15 years earlier, but with the participation not of the Poles, but of the Crimean Tatars, and it remains to be seen how and how it would end.

But the living Tsar Fyodor "confused the cards" for both the conspirators in Uglich and Kazy Giray. Khan did not count on the stubborn resistance of the Russian troops, reinforced by field artillery, but when approaching Moscow, he received information that Tsar Fyodor was on the throne and that reinforcements had approached Moscow, alarmed by the attack on the camp on the very first night near Moscow and remembering the cruel lesson of 1572 , Kazy-Girey, perhaps the first to run back to the Crimea ...

After the flight of the Tatars, an investigation was carried out about the betrayal of the Nagy. By order of Fyodor (actually - Godunov), Maria was tonsured a nun and exiled to Beloozero, her brothers were imprisoned, many of their servants were executed, hundreds of Uglichians went into exile in Siberia, but it is unlikely that “solicitor Yudin” was among those executed or exiled - the Jesuits knew how to “make their feet” in time.

Who could be the "solicitor Yudin" by nationality? It is very possible that he came from the eastern regions of what was then Poland and was at least half Russian, and the Russian parent must have been of Moscow origin, because the investigators of the Shuisky commission, and indeed the inhabitants of the central regions of Russia, could notice the pronunciation - in those days "by ear "quite accurately determined the area of birth, distinguishing freely a Muscovite from, for example, a Nizhny Novgorod or Yaroslavl.

Why did the Jesuits need to brew this "uglich porridge"?

The sight was distant - the transformation of Russia into a Catholic country. But it failed - Boris Godunov managed to neutralize the conspiracy, without knowing practically anything about him, because Yudin disappeared, and everyone else was silent, knowing that if Boris finds out the truth, then it will not be limited to tonsure, prison and exile - only block.

So False Dmitry I could very well be Dmitry I, but the events of 1605 were already the third (!) Attempt of the Vatican to turn Russia into a Catholic country, and only in 1612, Prince Pozharsky and citizen Minin finally put an end to this by no means the last attempt of foreign expansion against Russia - the Jesuits made their first attempt almost 60 years before the end of the Time of Troubles.

Literature

Skrynnikov R.G. Hard times. M., 1988.

From the book 100 great mysteries of history author

From the book 100 great mysteries of Russian history author Nepomniachtchi Nikolai Nikolaevich

Drama in Uglich On May 15, 1591, Tsarevich Dmitry died under mysterious circumstances in Uglich. This happened seven years after the death of his father Ivan IV. Tsar Fedor Ivanovich, who ascended the throne, was a narrow-minded, almost feeble-minded man, and therefore, dying, Ivan the Terrible

From the book Who's Who in the History of Russia author Sitnikov Vitaly Pavlovich

From the book The Great Trouble. End of Empire author

3. "False Dmitry" - the real Tsarevich Dmitry, son of Tsar Ivan Brought up on the Romanov course of Russian history, we are usually deeply convinced that "False Dmitry" was really an impostor, some obscure Grishka Otrepyev. Historians of the Romanov era so often and

From the book Reconstruction of True History author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

From the book Book 1. New Chronology of Rus' [Russian Chronicles. "Mongol-Tatar" conquest. Kulikovo battle. Ivan groznyj. Razin. Pugachev. Defeat of Tobolsk and author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

3.3. "False Dmitry" - the real Tsarevich Dmitry, son of Tsar Ivan Brought up on the Romanov course of Russian history, we are usually deeply convinced that "False Dmitry" is really an impostor, some obscure Grishka Otrepyev. Historians of the Romanov era so often and stubbornly

From the book New Chronology and the Concept of the Ancient History of Rus', England and Rome author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

"False Dmitry" - the real Tsarevich Dmitry, son of Tsar Ivan Brought up on the standard "Romanov" course in Russian history, we are usually deeply convinced that "False Dmitry" was really an impostor, a kind of Grishka Otrepyev. Historians of the Romanov era so often

From the book Reconstruction of True History author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

16. Tutankhamun and Tsarevich Dmitry Calling the young pharaoh Tutankhamun, we rely on the reading of the hieroglyphs that he is called in his tomb and, possibly, in some texts. In real life, it was most likely called differently. After all, in Egypt there was a royal cemetery

From the book Expulsion of Kings author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

2.2. “False Dmitry” is the real Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of Tsar Ivan Ivanovich. He did not die in childhood, but he was slyly credited with the death of his namesake, the holy boy-tsar Dmitry Ivanovich, who died in 1563 or 1564. Above, we recalled the main points of the beginning of the famous story

From the book Under the Hat of Monomakh author Platonov Sergey Fyodorovich

1. Death of Tsarevich Dimitry in Uglich. - Various news about her. - Naked in Uglich. - Illness of the prince. - Day May 15, 1591. “Search” and trial “But the time was approaching,” says Karamzin about the end of Boris’s reign, “when this wise ruler, worthy of fame then

From the book The Split of the Empire: from the Terrible-Nero to Mikhail Romanov-Domitian. [The famous "ancient" works of Suetonius, Tacitus and Flavius, it turns out, describe Great author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

3. The “ancient” Galba was from the family of Tsar Minos, that is, Ivan the Terrible Tsarevich Dmitry really was the son of Ivan the Terrible Suetonius reports that Galba was, “undoubtedly, a man of great nobility, from a prominent and ancient family ... having become emperor, put up in his atria

From the book I know the world. History of Russian tsars author Istomin Sergey Vitalievich

Tragedy in Uglich Tsarevich Dmitry was born two years before the death of his father, Ivan the Terrible. In Uglich, Boris Godunov assigned his scammer, Mikhailo Bityagovsky, to watch over the prince and his mother. Tsarevich Dmitry suffered from epilepsy from birth, which

From the book Alphabetical-reference list of Russian sovereigns and the most remarkable persons of their blood author Khmyrov Mikhail Dmitrievich

74. DMITRY-UAR IVANOVICH, Tsarevich, son of Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible from his seventh marriage with Marya Feodorovna (monastic Martha), daughter of the okolnichi Fedor Fedorovich Nagogo. Born in Moscow on October 19, 1583; according to his father's will, he received Uglich, where he was sent with

From Godunov's book. Disappeared kind author Levkina Ekaterina

Tsar Boris and Tsarevich Dmitry Despite the vivid images created by literary creators and painters, as well as excerpts from the journalism of the Time of Troubles and historiography of the 19th–20th centuries, Yemelyanov-Lukyanchikov believes that the version of the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry by the power-hungry

From the book History of Russia. Time of Troubles author Morozova Lyudmila Evgenievna

Drama in Uglich Since the spring of 1584, the last son of Ivan the Terrible, Tsarevich Dmitry, with his mother and relatives Nagimi, quietly lived in Uglich. At the royal court, few people remembered him, since Tsar Fedor deleted him from among his relatives. It can be assumed, that

From the book Rus' and its autocrats author Anishkin Valery Georgievich

DMITRY TSAREVICH (b. 1582 - d. 1591) Son of Tsar Ivan IV. After the death of his father (1584), Dmitry, together with his mother Maria Naga and her relatives, was sent by the boyar council from Moscow to Uglich under special supervision for fear of political intrigues from the Nagy in favor of the minor

In the autumn of 1580, at the height of the Livonian War, the formidable Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich noisily celebrated his eighth wedding in Alexander Sloboda. This time his wife was Maria, the daughter of the boyar Fyodor Fedorovich Nagogoy. There was no metropolitan or bishops in the church where the wedding took place. The liturgy was served by priest Nikita, the sovereign's favorite of the guardsmen, ordained priest of the Transfiguration Cathedral at the request of Ivan Vasilyevich; he also married the young.

The tacit connivance of the church for such a blatant violation of its statutes has long been commonplace. When, after the sudden death of his third wife, Marfa Vasilievna Sobakina, the tsar decided to commit lawlessness hitherto unheard of in Rus' by taking a fourth wife, Anna Alekseevna Koltovskaya, he still took care to receive the hierarch's blessing of this marriage. At the church council, Ivan Vasilyevich complained to the clergy that evil people had sorcerously plagued his first wife Anastasia, poisoned the second, the Cherkassy princess Maria Temryukovna, and killed the third; that in despair, in sorrow, he wanted to devote himself to a monastic life, but seeing the miserable youth of his sons and the state in distress, he dared to marry for the fourth time, since it is tempting to live in the world without a wife, and now, falling down with tenderness, asks the saints for permission and blessing . The cathedral, headed by the Novgorod archbishop Leonid, made a frank deal with the tsar. For the sake of warm, touching repentance, the sovereign decided to approve the marriage, imposing penance on the king, and so that the king’s iniquity would not be a temptation for the people, they threatened with anathema to anyone who, like the sovereign, dares to take a fourth wife. A year later, Ivan Vasilievich sent his bored wife to a monastery; His main accomplice in this marriage, Archbishop Leonid, soon ordered to be sewn up in a bearskin and hunted down by dogs, after which, without consulting the clergy, he allowed himself several more marriages. The fifth wife, Maria Dolgorukova, did not keep her virginity for the tsar and was drowned; the sixth and seventh - Anna Vasilchikova and Vasilisa Melentyeva - disappeared to no one knows where.

Everything at this wedding was the same as it had happened at the previous weddings of the tsar - horns squealed, horns bleated nasally, tambourines tinkled dully, guests ate outlandish dishes - fried swans, sugar kremlin, meat in all forms, deer baked from dough , ducks, unicorns, drunk on expensive wines, cheekily joked, yelled drunken songs. Unusual was only the distribution of wedding ranks. At the same table with Ivan Vasilyevich and Maria Feodorovna sat down: the appointed father of the tsar, his youngest son Fedor, the royal friend Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, the appointed mother of the bride Irina Fedorovna, the wife of Tsarevich Fedor, and the tsaritsyn's friend - the courtier boyar and kravchiy Boris Fedorovich Godunov, Irina's brother .

On that day, none of those present at the wedding could even imagine that next to the royal couple were those who in the future were destined, contrary to their origin and position, to inherit the Moscow throne. Fate has imperceptibly linked their destinies, and the countdown of the Time of Troubles began from this inconspicuous knot.

The wedding only briefly distracted the king from black thoughts. Ivan Vasilievich was in a daze caused by the military successes of the Poles and Swedes. The Livonian War was nearing its inglorious end. The Swedish general Delagardi took Narva, slaughtered several thousand inhabitants in it, took possession of Korela, the banks of the Izhora, the cities of Yam and Koporye. The troops of Stefan Batory took city after city in Livonia and in Russia itself; Radziwill, the son of the Vilna governor, raided the banks of the Volga and reached Rzhev. The successes of the governor Ivan Petrovich Shuisky, who defended Pskov and disturbed Batory's army with bold sorties, could not return the formidable king to his former courage and faith in the invincibility of his weapons. “You quite felt our strength; God willing, you will feel more!” - Batory proudly wrote to him and mocked: “A hen protects her chicks from an eagle and a hawk, and you, a two-headed eagle, are hiding from us ... Do you regret Christian blood? Set a time and place; appear on a horse and fight with me one on one, may God crown the right one with victory! Kurbsky echoed him: “Here you lost Polotsk with the bishop, the clergy, the army, the people, and you yourself, having gathered with the military forces, are hiding behind the forest, you are a khoronyak and a runner! No one is chasing you yet, and you are already trembling and disappearing. Apparently your conscience is crying out inside you, denouncing you for vile deeds and countless bloodshed!” So it was. Ivan Vasilyevich was afraid of treason and was afraid to send an army towards the enemies; was sure that the governors would seize him and give Batory.

Soon after the wedding, orgies resumed in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, with buffoons, girls and executions. Ivan Vasilyevich poured heavily with wine, trying to drown out the fear and shame in himself for his humiliation. He completely lost interest in his new wife. The beauty of Mary could not long seduce the jaded king, who boasted that he had corrupted a thousand virgins in his life. The news has been preserved that he married her only in order to calm Tsarevich Ivan and the close boyars, irritated by his intention to seek the hand of the English Queen Elizabeth. Growing old, Ivan Vasilyevich began to be afraid of his eldest son and sometimes hated him, perhaps because he saw himself in him. A participant - at first involuntary - of all his father's orgies and executions, Tsarevich Ivan paid the tsar the same, increasingly drowning out the fear of his parent with self-will and insolence.

In November 1581, the confrontation between father and son was resolved by the death of the prince, who died under unclear circumstances. The tsar sat motionless at the body of his son for those three days, while preparations for the burial were going on ... Relatives, spiritual, devious, who approached him with exhortations and consolations, could not get a word from him. In the Archangel Cathedral, where the coffin with the body of the tsarevich was brought in his arms from the Alexander Sloboda, the tsar, in one black robe, leaning against the coffin, sobbed the entire service and funeral, and then, after the burial, with a dreary bestial howl, he beat on the ground for a long time ...

Returning to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, Ivan Vasilyevich retired from everyone for some time. But then one day he appeared in the boyar duma - melting, yellow, screwing up his inflamed eyes. In dead silence he solemnly announced that he was laying down the crown of Monomakh and taking the veil as a monk in order to end his days in repentance and prayer, in the hope of the Lord's mercy alone; the boyars must choose among themselves a worthy sovereign, to whom he will immediately hand over the power and surrender the kingdom.

There were those who were ready to believe in the sincerity of the king. However, most of the boyars, prudently fearing that if they agreed, the tsar's attraction to the schema might suddenly disappear, began to beg him not to go to the monastery, at least until the end of the war. Ivan Vasilievich, with visible displeasure, agreed to extend the care of the state and the people handed to him by God. But as a token of his grief, he sent the crown, scepter and magnificent royal vestments to the Kremlin treasury. The court, along with the king, dressed in mourning and grew their hair as a sign of repentance. Ivan Vasilyevich served memorial services daily. Repented. He sent rich gifts to the East, to the patriarchs - to Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem - to pray for the repose of the soul of his son. He intensely recalled all the people executed and tortured by him, entered their names in the synodics. About those whom he could not remember, he simply wrote: “They are known to you, Lord!”

Probably, under the influence of a repentant mood, he reconciled with Mary. In February 1582, in the second year of her marriage, she felt pregnant.

S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky. Veil embroidered by Maria Naked. Photo from 1910.

But soon Maria was completely disgusted with him. Ivan Vasilyevich resumed projects of a marriage union with the English royal house. In August 1582, he sent the nobleman Fyodor Pisemsky to London to negotiate the terms of his marriage to Mary Hastings, Queen Elizabeth's niece. It was ordered to say about Mary of Pisemsky that although the king had a wife, she was not some kind of queen, but a simple subject, not pleasing to him, and for the sake of the queen's niece, she could be driven away.

In autumn the court moved to Moscow. Here, on October 19, on the feast day of the holy martyr Huar, Mary gave birth to a boy, who was named Dmitry at baptism. (Perhaps, the name for her son was chosen by her in honor of one of her ancestors. Nagy came from Denmark. Their ancestor Olgerd Prega, baptized Dmitry, left Denmark in 1294 to the Grand Duke Mikhail Yaroslavovich of Tver, and was with him in the boyars. ) Prince Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavsky, a descendant of the ancient princes of Lithuania, who became related to the royal house, was chosen as the successor of the prince.

In the winter of 1584, it became clear that the king's ninth marriage would not take place. Pisemsky wrote from London that the queen's niece was ill with smallpox and, moreover, did not want to change her faith. Mary, who every minute expected separation from her son and tonsure in a monastery, was relieved from her heart. But her future still seemed unclear.

In January, Ivan Vasilyevich fell ill: his genitals were swollen, the insides were rotten, the body of the king emitted a disgusting stench. Two months of a terrible illness, which the doctors found it difficult to determine, although they saw its cause in the former depraved life and unbridled passions of the king, turned him into a decrepit old man. However, he had never wanted to live so badly. Desperate in the art of foreign doctors, he distributed generous alms to monasteries, sought salvation in the witchcraft of healers and healers, who, on his orders, were brought to Moscow from the far north ...

Godunov and Belsky clashed near the dying tsar. At their instigation, Ivan Vasilyevich drew up and changed wills every day. Belsky set him up to hand over the administration of the state into the hands of the Austrian Archduke Ernest, whom the tsar once wanted to make the Polish king. Kravchiy turned out to be more agile: he achieved the transfer of the throne to Fedor and the appointment of a board of trustees under him, which included himself, Belsky, boyar Nikita Romanovich Zakharyin and princes Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavsky and Ivan Petrovich Shuisky. The tsar assigned Dmitry and his mother to Uglich; he entrusted the upbringing of the prince to Belsky.

This last will was signed on 15 March. Only three days remained before the death of the king. During this time, Belsky, forgetting about the Austrian Archduke, knocked out the Nagis - the father, brothers and uncles of the queen - to jointly seek the throne for Dmitry. The fact that the one and a half year old prince, according to the canons of the church, was considered illegitimate, did not bother them - after all, he was a natural sovereign, flesh from the flesh of a formidable king. It is not known whether Mary approved of the conspirators' plans; Most likely she was not asked for consent. It is possible that Belsky had more distant views on the future. It is possible that, using the name of Dmitry, he hoped to remove the Monomakh crown from the head of Fyodor, so that he could later put it on himself by marrying Maria.

On March 18, Ivan Vasilyevich felt better. He cheered up, resumed his studies of state affairs. At about three o'clock I went to the bathhouse, bathed with pleasure, and enjoyed my favorite songs. Refreshed, he put on a wide robe and ordered chess to be served. They brought a board and two caskets with figures. Ivan Vasilyevich lowered his hand into his casket, took out the first figure that came across. But there were suddenly too many squares on the board, they floated, blinked, changed colors... Unbearable pain in the chest and an instant suffocation plunged everything into darkness..

Even the servants ran headlong around the palace, sent some for vodka, some for rose water, still the doctors rubbed the lifeless body of the tsar with their drugs, even Metropolitan Dionysius hastily performed the rite of tonsure over him, and Belsky already ordered his faithful archers to close the gates of the Kremlin and began to convince the guardians to hand over the scepter and orb to Dmitry.

Departure of the family of Ivan the Terrible.
Miniature from the 16th century Facial Vault .

Meanwhile, the bell was struck for the exodus of the soul. Muscovites rushed to the Kremlin. When they found the gate closed, they became worried. Cries were heard that Belsky had exhausted the great sovereign and now wants to kill Tsarevich Fedor. Here and there, reeds, muskets, dracoliers were already swaying over people's heads. The whole world demanded the people's favorite Nikita Romanovich from the Kremlin and took him home under guard. Then guns appeared from somewhere. They were placed in front of the Frolovsky (Spassky) gates and began to shoot.

Belsky went to the world. After some time, archers from the walls shouted for a cease fire. The gates opened, Godunov, Mstislavsky, Shuisky and the clerks Shchelkalov went out to the people. They assured the townspeople that the prince and the boyars were safe, and Belsky confessed to treason and would be exiled as governor to Nizhny Novgorod. The excitement subsided little by little.

That same night, Maria and her son, her father, brothers and uncle were sent to Uglich. For decency, they gave servants, stewards, solicitors, boyar children and an honorary escort - two hundred archers. Horsemen, wagons, carts, carriages set off into the darkness. Whips cracked, horses neighed; torches threw a crimson glow on the loose snow that fell apart under the skids. They say that Fyodor went up to the carriage in which Maria and Dmitry were sitting.

Go, my brother with God, - he whispered, bending over the baby. - When you grow up, then I will give you my father's throne, and I myself will remain in silence ...

Prince of Uglich

Uglich stands on the Volga, on both banks. In the 16th century, the places here were deserted, wild. Around - impassable wilds, swamps, backwaters in alder and reeds, century-old pines and spruces, boulders grown into moss. An invisible gnat sings in a thin voice, moose and wild boars can hardly make their way through the tangles of spruce branches. There is no better place for robbery. For the salvation of the soul, too. Previously, until the Kazanians were pacified, there was no life from the Tatars. The Cossacks, ascending the Volga in boats, also did not miss their own, for nothing that the Orthodox. After the annexation of Kazan, the river became calm, the laity grew rich in trade, quiet monasteries multiplied outside the city.

The Uglichs themselves were not averse to compete with antiquity with Rostov the Great: their own Uglich chronicle preserved a legend about a certain Yan who lived here, who was Princess Olga either as a brother, or as a more distant relative. For a long time, the city was called Yanovo Pole after his name, and then it became known as Ugliche Pole - supposedly from the angle that the Volga forms here, turning sharply from north to west.

Uglich is an independent city. Everything here is its own - its own chronicle, its own saint, its own princes. The last specific city in the Muscovite state. The people of Uglich are accustomed to being owned by the Grand Dukes, brothers of the Muscovite sovereigns. They stood firm for their master, not sparing their lives. Not so long ago, they tried to rescue Ivan and Dmitry Andreevich from captivity, the nephews of Ivan III Vasilyevich, whom he imprisoned in the monastery. Then the sovereign, in anger, scattered many of the Uglichans to other cities. Since then, Uglich lived peacefully. The last Uglich prince was Yuri Vasilyevich, brother of the formidable king, so the oprichnina defeat and disgrace of the city happily passed.

The new prince was received with joy by the Uglichians. Already from a distance, Maria saw a smart crowd of townspeople, clergy, crosses, and banners coming out of the city towards the train. The clergy gave welcoming speeches. The people rejoiced and fell on their faces before the royal carriage.

In the Transfiguration Cathedral, she prayed for a long time at the coffin with the relics of the Holy Prince Roman of Uglich. Then she went to the palace. She wandered through the cold, empty stone chambers, looking for which room to stay in. Finally, she chose the most distant chambers and retired to them with Dmitry.

S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky. Palace in Uglich

How to forget the Kremlin chambers, honor, power, your involvement in state affairs and those who run them? Perhaps the Nagy would have come to terms with life in Uglich if they had not been reminded every day in the most humiliating way that they were in exile. True, the deportees remained on excellent terms with Fedor himself: Nagy sent him pies on holidays, the tsar presented them with furs. But the clerk Mikhail Bityagovsky, assigned by guardians to look after the rebellious family, was in complete control of the palace economy and all income. He did not allow the Nagim to spend a single extra penny in excess of the content he had determined. Maria's brothers Mikhail and Grigory were furious, had terrible squabbles with a grumpy deacon, but only spoiled their blood in vain.

Of course, memories of Moscow, regrets about the lost throne, slander about Godunov made up the main part of the conversations in the palace. Dmitry sensitively listened to these conversations, absorbing the mood of adults. In Moscow, they said that once playing on the ice with other children, he ordered a dozen figures to be fashioned from the snow and, giving them the names of the noblest boyars, began to chop them with his saber; to the snowman, who portrayed Boris Godunov, he seemed to cut off his head, saying: “So it will be for you when I reign!”

They also assured that the prince loved flour and blood and willingly watched how bulls and rams were slaughtered, and sometimes he himself made his way to the kitchen in order to turn the heads of chickens with his own hands. The real son of Grozny! However, many called these stories slander, spread by Boris himself, and, on the contrary, argued that the young prince had the mind and soul of a true Christian sovereign, pious and just.

According to the unanimous testimony of foreign and Russian writers, someone tried to poison Dmitry two or three times. It is impossible to say why these attempts failed. The chroniclers know one explanation: "God did not allow it." Perhaps the cause of these rumors was the prince's vomiting attacks - due to poor-quality food or for some other reason. One thing is certain: Empress Maria was in constant fear for the life of her son. And could she remain careless if by 1590 Mstislavsky and Shuisky died in the monasteries, Evdokia, the daughter of Maria Vladimirovna, died under suspicious circumstances, and the former Livonian queen herself was tonsured a nun? Rumor attributed these deaths to Boris's lust for power, and this opinion was undoubtedly shared in the Uglich palace. The very course of events made, if not yet Dmitry himself, then his name the banner around which all the secret (there were no more obvious) opponents of Godunov could rally. The alignment of forces seemed obvious to everyone. And not only Nagy, but also many other people in Rus' asked themselves: will Boris decide on the last, terrible step?

In Russia, only the worst expectations come true. On May 17, 1591, the news spread like lightning in Moscow: Tsarevich Dmitry was gone! Different things were passed on: the baby turned out to be the victim of either an accident, or the villainous clerks, whom the Uglichites tore to pieces at the crime scene; the name of the royal brother-in-law did not leave the tongues.

Godunov felt the ground slip from under his feet. Unfavorable rumors had to be dispelled at all costs and as soon as possible.

The next day, an investigative commission left for Uglich. Godunov tried, as far as he could, to give her, at least outwardly, an air of complete impartiality. Of its four members, three, it would seem, had no reason to please Boris: Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky belonged to a disgraced family; clerk Elizar Vyluzgin performed his direct duties; Metropolitan Gelasy of Krutitsa represented the moral authority of the church as his own. Only one investigator, the devious Andrei Kleshnin, was directly connected with Boris - his wife, Princess Volkhonskaya, was an inseparable friend of Tsarina Irina, and Kleshnin himself enjoyed Fyodor's exclusive trust and was devoted to Godunov with all his heart.

One can only guess whether the investigators received any instructions from Godunov. In any case, their actions show that they perfectly understood in what direction the investigation should move in such a delicate case for Boris.

On the evening of May 19, the commission of inquiry arrived in Uglich and immediately began interrogations. The investigation went on for almost two weeks. Having buried the body of the tsarevich in the Church of the Savior in Uglich, the investigators returned to Moscow on June 2. Clerk Vasily Shchelkalov read out the materials of the case in front of the sovereign and the cathedral, headed by Patriarch Job. From the testimonies of the interrogated, a fairly clear picture of what happened took shape.

Tsarevich Dmitry suffered from epilepsy. The attacks of the disease occurred violently: during one of them, he bit the hands of the daughter of Andrei Alexandrovich Nagogoy, the uncle of Tsaritsa Maria, and on another occasion, he wounded the queen herself with a pile - a long, finger-thick nail with which the prince liked to poke. To heal the child, he was taken to the Kirillov elders to partake of the Mother of God bread; they also turned to healers, but instead of treatment, they brought damage to the prince. Three days before the misfortune, Dmitry again had a seizure. On Saturday, May 15, he felt better, and the tsarina took him to mass, and upon returning to the palace allowed him to play in the backyard, entrusting him to the care of his mother Vasilisa Volokhova, the nurse Arina Zhdanova (after her husband Tuchkova) and the bed-keeper Maria Kolobova (after her husband Samoilova ). The prince was joined by four more "tenants" - yard children of the same age: Petrushka Kolobov, Bazhenka Tuchkov, Ivashka Krasensky and Grishka Kozlovsky. Again they played poke, hitting an iron ring laid on the ground with a knife. Suddenly, the prince had a new seizure and, falling, he deeply wounded himself with a knife in the neck.

“... Again, a black disease came to the prince and threw him to the ground, and then the prince stabbed himself in the throat and beat him for a long time, but then he was gone” (testimony of Vasilisa Volokhova).

“... he attacked the knife himself in epilepticus and was still alive” (testimony of Grigory Fedorovich Nagogoy).

Arina Tuchkova picked up Dmitry in her arms. At the shout, the queen ran out of the palace. In anger, she began to beat her mother, who had not saved the tsarevich, with a log, saying that her son Osip Volokhov, together with Bityagovsky's son Danila and his nephew Nikita Kachalov, had stabbed Dmitry; and Volokhova began to beat her with her brow, so that the tsaritsa ordered to give a righteous investigation, because her son Osip had not even been in the yard.

Maximka Kuznetsov, who happened to be at that time on the belfry of the Church of the Savior, located next to the palace, noticed something was wrong and sounded the alarm. The sexton of the Cathedral Church, widowed priest Fedot Afanasiev, nicknamed Cucumber, having heard the ringing, ran from the yard to the city; he was met by the Palace Solicitor of the Feed Yard Saturday Protopopov, who, referring to the order of the queen, ordered the bell to ring, "and hit him in the neck."

The city decided that a fire had started in the palace. The people poured into the palace courtyard. The first to come running were the queen's brothers, Michael and Gregory. Maria, tired of beating Volokhova, but not yet satisfied her anger, handed the log to Grigory, who continued to walk around the negligent mother on the sides. Then the tsarina's uncle Andrei Alexandrovich Nagoi appeared. When a crowd began to accumulate in the courtyard, he took the body of the prince, took it to the Church of the Savior and was with him "relentlessly", "so that no one would steal the body of the prince." At this time, Maria and Mikhail began to excite the fleeing people, shouting that the Tsarevich had been slaughtered by the Bityagovskys, father and son, Osip Volokhov, Nikita Kachalov and the clerk Danila Tretyakov. Another uncle of the tsarina, Grigory Alexandrovich Nagoi, who was one of the last to arrive at the palace, had already heard that “the prince, they say, was stabbed to death, but he did not see who killed him.”

The clerk Mikhail Bityagovsky at that time dined at his home with the priest Bogdan, the spiritual father of Grigory Fedorovich Nagogoy. When the bells rang, the clerk sent people to see if there was a fire. They returned, saying that sytnik Kirill Mokhovikov, having identified himself as an eyewitness to the accident, “broke news” that the prince had stabbed himself.

Bityagovsky rushed to the palace. The gates were closed, but Kirill Mokhovikov opened them to him, confirming that the prince was gone. Posad people rushed around the yard with spears, axes, sabers. Bityagovsky ran to the tsarina's chambers - "he looked forward to the fact that the tsarevich was upstairs", but, not finding anyone, went downstairs. Here he was noticed by yard and townspeople and surrounded. He asked them: why are they with axes and horns? Instead of answering, they began to chase him and Danila Tretyakov, who also ended up in the yard. The fugitives thought of escaping by locking themselves in the Brusyanaya hut, but the crowd “knocked out the doors”, dragged the clerks out of the hut and killed them both. They also killed a man who showed sympathy for Volokhova.

Avdotya Bityagovskaya testified that the tsarina’s brothers, Mikhail and Grigory, annoyed by constant quarrels with him, ordered her husband to be killed: Bityagovsky scolded Mikhail Nagy for “continuously obtaining sorcerers and sorcerers to Tsarevich Dmitry” and that he and his brother sheltered the sorcerer Andryushka Mochalov, who tells them how long the sovereign and empress are.

After the murder of Mikhail Bityagovsky, Danila Tretyakov dealt with Danila Bityagovsky and Nikita Kachalov, who had taken refuge in the Dyachnaya hut: they were also “dragged out” and “beaten to death.” Then they began to rob the yards of the dead.

“... And all the people went to Mikhailov’s yard of Bityagovsky in peace, and they plundered Mikhailov’s yard, and drinking from the cellar in barrels, and stabbed the barrels” (testimony of Danilko Grigoriev, the palace groom).

Bityagovsky's widow was severely beaten, and the farmstead was plundered "without a trace." In Dyachnaya's hut, the "boxes" were broken and 20 rubles of state money were stolen. At the same time, three more people of Mikhail Bityagovsky and two more - Nikita Kachalov were killed; and the townsman Savva, a carpenter with six comrades, Mikhail Nagoi ordered to take his life because they interpreted that the clerks were killed “for laughing” (that is, in vain). Clerks Tretyatko Tenth, Vasyuk Mikhailov, Tereshka Larivonov, scribes Marko Babkin and Ivashka Yezhov, who reproached the townspeople for killing the clerks in vain, heard in response: “The same will happen to you from us!” - they got scared and ran out of the city into the forest, to wait for the arrival of the sovereign's people. Many townspeople, fearing for their lives, were drawn there as well.

Osip Volokhov was one of the last to be killed. Abbot of the Alekseevsky Monastery Savvaty, who arrived in the city on alarm, still found him alive at about six o'clock in the evening. The crowd brought Osip to the Church of the Savior, where Savvaty went to see the queen. Mary stood at the tomb of her son; Osip was hiding behind one of the pillars of the temple. Maria pointed Savvatia to him as an accomplice in the murder of the prince. When the abbot came out, the crowd attacked Osip; his yard man Vaska rushed to the body of the master, covering him with himself, - so they killed him.

The last victim of the enraged mob was the "holy fool woman", who lived in the courtyard of Mikhail Bityagovsky and often went to the palace "for the fun of the prince." The queen ordered her to be killed two days later because "that wife of the prince spoiled."

For three days Uglich was in the hands of the Nagy. Around the city, their yard people rode carts, along the roads leading to Moscow, horsemen were sent out so that no one could tell the sovereign about their atrocities. Before the arrival of the investigators, Nagiye decided to hide the traces of their betrayal and direct the investigation along the wrong path. The city clerk Rusin Rakov voluntarily admitted that he was involved in this plot by Mikhail Nagim, who on the evening of May 18 summoned him six times and, having a crowd of domestics behind him, forced him to kiss the cross: “be you ours” - and asked him to “stand with us together." Rakov willingly agreed. Michael ordered him to "collect knives" and "put them on those beaten people" - as proof of their evil intentions. Rakov took several knives from the trade row and from the townspeople, from the Bityagovsky court - an iron club, and Grigory Nagoi gave him his saber. The weapons were smeared in chicken blood and placed next to the corpses of Mikhail Bityagovsky, his son, Nikita Kachalov, Osip Volokhov and Danila Tretyakov. Even a self-propelled gun was placed next to one of Bityagovsky's murdered men. Despite this revelation, Mikhail Nagoi stubbornly insisted that the tsarevich had been killed by Bityagovsky and his comrades, and that he himself was not guilty of anything.

Thus, the treachery of the Nagi was evident. The murders of the sovereign's people took place on their orders, with the help of their servants, who were in charge of the townspeople. Metropolitan Gelasy added to what he had read that before the departure of the commission to Moscow, Tsarina Marya called him to her and spoke with a “great petition” that a sinful, guilty deed had been committed, and prayed that the sovereign would show mercy to her brothers in their fault.

The council unanimously passed a decision: in front of the sovereign, Tsar Fedor, Michael and Grigory Nagy and the Uglich townspeople were open treason, and the death of the prince happened by God's judgment; however, this is a zemstvo affair, in the royal hand and execution, and disgrace, and mercy, but the cathedral should pray to the Lord God, the Most Pure Mother of God, the great Russian miracle workers and all the saints for the king and queen, for their state long-term health and silence from internecine warfare.

S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky. Uglich bell

The tsar ordered the boyars to sort out the case and execute those responsible. Godunov these days was not visible either at the cathedral or in the Duma - he wanted to exclude any suspicion of any kind of pressure on their decisions on his part. The naked were brought to Moscow, tortured severely, and then exiled to distant cities. Queen Mary was forcibly tonsured a nun under the name of Martha and sent to the monastery of St. Nicholas on Vyksa, near Cherepovets. 200 Englishmen were executed; others had their tongues cut out, many were imprisoned, and 60 families were sent to Siberia and populated the city of Pelym with them. The Uglich alarm bell was not spared either: by royal order, they deprived it of the sign of the cross, cut off its ear, pulled out its tongue, beat it with whips and took it to Tobolsk. (Tobolsk voivode Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky ordered the bell to be handed over without an ear to the command hut, where it was recorded as “the first exiled inanimate from Uglich.”) The bodies of Bityagovsky and other dead, thrown into a common pit, were dug, buried and buried with honor . Widows and mother Volokhova were granted estates.

This ends the story of Dmitry, Prince of Uglich.

Portal for the student. Self-training

RELATED ARTICLES