You’d think the death of the first false Dmitri would be the end of it, but just one year later another man would rise up claiming to be the very same son of Ivan the Terrible
You’d think the death of the first false Dmitri would be the end of it, but just one year later another man would rise up claiming to be the very same son of Ivan the Terrible! But not only did he claim to be the young boy that died, but also to be the pretender that came before him (yes, the one they cremated and fired out of a cannon)!
His first appearance was in 1607 at the town of Starodub. At first it seemed that he was claiming to be the Muscovite boyar Nagoy. But after failing to be recognised as Nagoy, mixed in with just a little bit of torture, he suddenly claimed to be Tsar Dmitri.
So did people believe this man that just swapped identities under torture? Well surprisingly they did! Poles, Cossacks and Muscovites flocked to his side and soon he had an army of about 27,000 soldiers on his side. Even the widow of False Dmitri I recognised him as her husband, which gave him all the legitimacy he needed to get the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth back on his side. He rallied his army at the village of Tushino until it grew to over 100,000 men.
He also awarded high ranking positions in society to Russian families. He gave the rank of patriarch to Philaret Romanov, which means that the rise of the Romanov family started with this false pretender.
Although he defeated Tsar Shuisky several times, Dmitri would never be able to march on Moscow. His polish soldiers deserted and joined up with the main Polish army led by King Sigismund III Vasa. In the end, Dmitri’s army was confined to south-eastern Russia. And on the 11th December 1610, Dmitri was killed whilst he was drunk. Żółkiewski wrote about this death:
“Prince Peter Urusov, together with those several score horsemen with whom he was in league, was riding after him, apparently escorting him. And when the imposter had drunk very well with the boyars, Urusov drew from his holster a pistol which he had ready, and galloping up to the sleigh first shot him with the pistol, then cutting off his head and hand with his saved, took to the road.”
The death of Dmitri marked the end of his rebellion. But the success of the Polish army would pave the way for one last instalment in the saga of Tsar Dmitri!
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