Kolomenskoe (Коломенское) is on the Moskva River outside of Moscow. Later a summer palace of the tsars, it was at this site/village that Tsar Shuiskii's forces repelled the insurgent rebels of Ivan Bolotnikov on his advance towards Moscow in late 1606. Catherine the Great demolished the wooden palace and replaced it with a stone structure that was itself later demolished. This is the main gate which dates to the reign of Tsar Aleksei in the seventeenth century. This is not one of my better photographs!
Well, if there is one thing that is deep within the Russian psyche, if there is such a thing as a Russian psyche, that would be a fear of a repeat of the complete breakdown of the Russian state that occurred at the end of the sixteenth century, i.e., the Time of Troubles. You may often see that referenced to other times in Russian history, such as the Russian Revolution (Time of Troubles: The Diary of Iurii Vladimirovich Got'e) or even contemporary times (Russian Patriarch Fears Return to 'Time of Troubles').
Those fifteen years from 1598 to 1613 were certainly not great years in Moscow, but let's put that time in context of what was happening in England and France
- England: Jamestown settlement founded 1607, age of William Shakespeare
- France: Louis XIII (age 9 when he became king) and Cardinal Richelieu of "Three Musketeers" fame
- both French and English rulers faced opposition from the nobility to the growing central powers of the king
- succession to the throne could always be problematic; James I of England came to the throne of England through very distant dynastic connections--his great-grandmother Margaret Tudor was Henry VIII's oldest sister.
So, it was not unexpected that dynastic issues could lead to great unrest and turbulence in a country. As the end of the sixteenth century approached, Russians had a sense of foreboding doom, which only deepened after the death of Ivan IV in 1584. The "terrible" (Грозный) tsar had uprooted so much of Russian society during his long and tumultuous reign, and as it was clear that his dynastic line was going to be dying out in the immediate future, Russians were concerned about what would happen next.
Sergei Platonov (1860-1933), Russian historian, typically divided the Time of Troubles period into three phases: dynastic, social and national. This is the same approach that Nicholas Riasanovsky used in his textbook. The Platonov periodization has the advantage of simplicity, which is good considering that Chester Dunning's book on the Time of Troubles is over seven hundred pages long!
Dynastic stage
When Ivan IV died in 1584, the lingering question was who would eventually be tsar in the long run; there was a short term solution. Remember that the tsar had been married seven or eight times, depending on how you define a marriage, and that meant that not all possible relatives had a legal claim to the throne, because the Russian Orthodox church did not recognize all of the marriages as legal. The fact that the tsar was able to marry as much as he did might be considered a good indication of the relationship between the tsar and the church.
Let's look at the kids.
- Dmitrii Ivanovich (11 October 1552 – 26 June 1553) was the first heir to the throne, although he did not live very long. He was the first son of Ivan IV and Anastasia Romanovna, but he died in an accidental drowning. Bad omen #1.
- Ivan Ivanovich (28 March 1554 – 19 November 1581) was another son of Anastasia and long the presumed heir to the throne, but in a fit of anger the tsar struck him on the head and killed him. That was certainly not a good omen for the future of the dynasty.
- Fedor Ivanovich (31 May 1557 – 16/17 January 1598) was another son of Ivan IV and Anastasia. He was crowned tsar (as Fedor I) on 31 May 1584. He had no children (another bad omen).
- Dmitrii Ivanovich, aka Dmitrii of Uglich (19 October 1582 — 15 May 1591) was the son of Ivan IV and Maria Nagaia. On 15 May 1591, Dmitrii died from a knife wound, under mysterious circumstances. According to the investigation, he was playing with a knife and had some sort of fit and accidentally slit his own throat. That might also be seen as a bad omen.
- If you are interested, have a look at a genealogy of the House of Rurik. (Wikipedia has a more complicated version.)
Let's recap. In 1584, Fedor I succeeded Ivan IV. The sources do not speak highly of the intellectual abilities of the new tsar, and he had no children. The real power was his advisor Boris Godunov (1551-1605), brother of the tsar's wife. Since there were no kids, the heir to the throne was Dmitrii Ivanovich, but, as I just noted, he died in 1591 from an accidental slitting of the throat. So, when Fedor I died in 1598, Russia needed a new tsar as the Rurikid dynasty had ended. This signaled the start of the Time of Troubles.
Thus, in 1598, there was no longer a legal heir to the throne of Russia, and there was no law or procedure on succession to the throne. The ensuing succession of tsars is indicative of the complete breakdown of central, governmental authority in the country. Let's see if I can get the right order.
- Boris Godunov (reigned 1598-1605) was elected by a zemskii sobor, a gathering of representatives from across Russia and representing different classes of the population. His short reign was plagued by drought and famine, and the appearance of False Dmitrii no. 1. It was claimed that Godunov had killed Dmitrii of Uglich (that it was not an accidental slitting of the throat) and as conditions deteriorated in the country, some people rallied around False Dmitrii no. 1 who claimed that he had survived the assassination attempt (but Godunov was still blamed for the assassination). False Dmitrii no. 1 marched on Moscow with a growing army of supporters, but Boris Godunov suddenly died.
- Fedor II Borisovich (reigned 1605-1605) was proclaimed tsar on the death of his father, Boris Godunov, but his reign did not last long as False Dmitrii no. 1 had reached Moscow, and powerful nobles abandoned the new tsar who was strangled in the Kremlin.
- That meant that False Dmitrii no. 1 (reigned 1605-1606) became tsar of Russia. Most historians give his real name as Grigorii Otrepev. His retinue and followers, a lot of Poles, flooded Moscow. Now Russians and Poles have not historically had a good relationship as they have struggled for control of the territory between Moscow and Warsaw; there is also a difference in religions. Gradually Russians became more and more irritated with the behavior of the Polish contingent in Moscow. (Remember that I am simplifying this a bit.)
- Vasilii Shuiskii (reigned 1606-1610), a prominent Russian prince, led a revolt that overthrew False Dmitrii no. 1 who was shot trying to escape the Kremlin. Tradition has it that the ashes of False Dmitrii no. 1 were loaded into a canon and shot in the direction of Poland. Shuiskii had himself proclaimed tsar, but no one really recognized his legality to the throne, and he had little authority in Moscow itself, and virtually none anywhere in the country. By this time, any semblance of government authority had dissolved, but before I move on to the social phase of the Time of Troubles, let me do a bit more here.
- While Shuiskii was tsar, False Dmitrii no. 2 (we are not really sure who he was) appeared on the scene sometime in 1607. No one is really sure who he really was, because it is pretty clear that he was neither False Dmitrii no. 1, whose ashes had been shot from the canon in the direction of Poland, or Dmitrii of Uglich who had suffered the accidental throat-slitting. False Dmitrii no. 2 was able to raise a considerable army of people who were upset with things in Russia (more below), and again a sizable Polish contingent was involved. False Dmitrii no. 2 set up camp just a few miles from Moscow in the village of Tushino. (In Russian history, he has become known as the "Felon of Tushino.") As if things were not complicated enough, on the death of Shuiskii, Russian nobles in Moscow negotiated with the Sigisimund III, King of Poland, who was besieging the Russian city of Smolensk, and agreed to accept as the new tsar, Władysław, Sigisimund's son, but at the last minute, Sigisimund nixed the agreement (probably because he wanted to be tsar himself), and now THERE REALLY WAS NO TSAR OF RUSSIA.
Social stage
During the reign of Ivan IV, expansion in all directions, especially south towards Astrakhan and east into Siberia, and continuous war with Russia's neighbors in the north, west and south (Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, Turks) required an almost endless supply of service gentry to fight these wars and settle these areas. That meant that in return for their service to the tsar they needed to be rewarded with land (and peasants to work that land). As literally the supply of people began to dry up for the tsar, the demands upon peasants increased more and more. To escape their burdens, peasants escaped to the southern borderlands. Some became cossacks; some wandered with no fixed roots.; some settled in southern towns and cities.
As central authority broke down, outright rebellion sprang up everywhere. This was not simply a peasant rebellion, it was a rebellion of all dispossessed classes; serfs, slaves, petty nobles, cossacks of all types. The unrest was not always organized, but sometimes there was a leader, as with False Dmitrii no. 1, False Dmitrii no. 2--Note that I have not yet mentioned False Dmitrii no. 3 or even the False Petr.--or Ivan Bolotnikov who lead a rebellion between 1605 and 1607. (And there was a whole slew of other pretenders who appeared on the lower Volga River; there were pretenders everywhere!) Only with great effort and treachery was Shuiskii able to end Bolotnikov's rebellion in the vicinity of Moscow. Bolotnikov was captured and later drowned.
National stage
Just as Władysław of Poland was set to be king, Russians finally began to rally together against the threat of Poland, which had occupied much of Western Russia, including Smolensk, and Sweden, which was also present in northwestern Russia, including Novgorod. There seemed to be Poles everywhere in Russia.
The Russian Orthodox church, under the leadership of Patriarch Germogen (Гермоген, patriarch from 1606-1612), tried to rally the Russian people against the Poles and Swedes. In Nizhnii Novgorod, Kuzma Minin (Кузьма Минин , died 1616), by tradition a butcher, raised money and resources for a new army that was eventually lead by Prince Dmitrii Pozharskii (Дмитрий Пожарский, 1577-1642)--as if there weren't enough Dmitriis already in the Time of Troubles). The national army reached Moscow in early 1612 and eventually stormed the city, removing any remaining Poles.
In early 1613, a new zemskii sobor (the gathering of the land) met to elect a new tsar. For a variety of reasons, Mikhail Romanov, age 16, was chosen, and he was crowned 21 July 1613. Historians have long considered that one of the main factors leading to the Romanov selection was the fact that Anastasia Romanovna, the first wife of Ivan IV, was connected to the "good half" of the reign. Technically the Time of Troubles had ended, and the Romanov dynasty had begun.
Other considerations
Now of course there were dynastic, social and nationalistic processes going on through out the entire time frame of the troubles, and it is a little oversimplified to separate them out and say that dynastic came first, followed by social unrest. All of these factors overlapped; that's why there were so many troubles during the Time of Troubles. It was a simply a time of continuous, and terrible unrest and turmoil, and it took a long time to recover from what had happened during those fifteen years in Russia. The fact that so many different pretenders appeared over time, and the fact that so many revolts and conspiracies involved all classes of society and many fluctuating conspiracies of the highest nobility in the kingdom (the boiars) seems to indicate to me that there had not yet crystallized in Russia a distinct conception of a Russian state. That would come with Peter the Great.
Some results of the Time of troubles
- While it was not a complete destruction of the princely class and the old boiar families, many were completely wiped away, and many others suffered severe losses. Peter the Great at the start of the eighteenth century would complete the removal of the old princes as a political force.
- Peasant obligations increased, tightening the enserfment of the peasants. This had already gone far in the reign of Ivan IV who late in his reign decreed "zapovednye gody" (forbidden years) or years when peasants were forbidden to move from their current obligations. After the Time of Troubles peasants were increasingly restricted in their ability to move. They had become bound to the land.
- What had occurred showed to Russians what could happen if the country did not have a strong autocrat, a strong leader.
- Continuing tense relations with Poland ensued through the seventeenth century, especially since after 1613 Poland still desired to put Władysław on the Russian throne and since Poland still occupied Smolensk and other Russian cities.
- Sporadic appearances of pretenders continued through the early seventeenth century, but none were able to gather any real significant support from within Russia itself. Also it is good to remember that the pretenders needed more than dynastic crises to appear; there had to be also broader social and economic unrest.
If you want to do further reading, there is hardly anything online about the Time of Troubles (except for Wikipedia).
- Wikipedia entry (There are also many entries for the key figures and developments of the period.)
- lecture outline on the Time of Troubles by J. P. Sommerville
- brief sketch at Macrohistory
Here are some key books.
- S. F. Platonov, The Time of Troubles: A Historical Study of the Internal Crisis and Social Struggle in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Muscovy (1970, translated by John T. Alexander)
- Robert Crummey, Formation of Muscovy 1304-1613 (1987)
- Chester Dunning, Russia's First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty (2001)
- Maureen Perrie, Pretenders and Popular Monarchism in Early Modern Russia: The False Tsars of the Time and Troubles (2002)
- Ruslan Skrynnikov, Rossiia v nachale XVII v. "Smuta" (1988)
Here is a good book review.
Chester S. L. Dunning, Review of Ruslan G. Skrynnikov, Rossiia v nachale XVII v. "Smuta" (Moscow: Mysl', 1988), Samozvantsy v Rossii v nachale XVII veka. Grigorii Otrep'ev (Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1987), Smuta v Rossii v nachale XVII v. Ivan Bolotnikov (Leningrad: Nauka,1988), The Time of Troubles: Russia in Crisis, 1604-1618 (Translated by Hugh Graham, Gulf Breeze, Florida: Academic International Press, 1988) in Russian Review, 50 (January 1991), pp. 71-81.
The Minin and Pozharskii monument on Red Square in Moscow.
