Boris Godunov's government was thus greatly concerned to satisfy the economic needs of the nobility. But at the same time, in trying to secure the support of the influential boyars and clergy, Godunov clearly did not intend to cause serious damage to their interests in order to please the rank-and-file nobility, and this explains the notorious inconsistency of his 'pro-noble' policy.
In the towns Godunov's government conducted a policy of so-called 'trading-quarter construction', which satisfied the economic interests of the townspeople, since the 'tax-paying (tiaglye) traders' (those townspeople who paid state taxes) included artisans and tradesmen who belonged to monasteries and to servicemen. But at the same time, 'trading-quarter construction' was implemented by coercive methods and it led to a greater binding of the townsmen to the trading quarters.[20]
The government's economic policy, together with the securing of peace on its borders, soon bore fruit, and in the 1590s the economy revived significantly. At the end of the 1580s and the beginning of the 1590s the tax burden was also reduced to some extent.[21] Contemporaries are unanimous that the reign of Fedor Ivanovich was a period of stability and prosperity. Boris Godunov deserves much of the credit for this. 'Boris is incomparable', the Russian envoys to Persia said, referring not only to the regent's remarkable intelligence, but also to his unique role in government. At the end of the 1580s Godunov acquired the right to deal independently with foreign powers. He buttressed his exceptional position with a number of high-sounding titles. In addition to the rank of equerry which he had obtained in 1584 he also called himself 'vicegerent and warden' of the khanates of Kazan' and Astrakhan' and 'court [privy] governor', and he adopted the title of 'servant'. Russian envoys to foreign courts explained this last title as follows: 'That title is higher than all the boyars and is granted by the sovereign for special services.'[22]
Slowly but surely, Godunov rose to the summit of power, which he reached by carefully calculated moves. He did not resort to disgrace and bloodshed on any significant scale. In the entire period of his rule, both as regent and as tsar, not a single boyar was executed in public. But Boris was by no means a meek and kindly person. He was both cunning and ruthless in his dealings with his most dangerous opponents. His reprisals against his enemies were clandestine and pre-emptive. The chancellor P. I. Golovin was secretly murdered en route to exile, evidently not without Godunov's knowledge.[23] Boris also disposed covertly of the Princes Ivan Petrovich and Andrei Ivanovich Shuiskii. He played a skilful political game, planning his moves well in advance and eliminating not only immediate but also potential rivals. For example, with the help of a trusted associate - the Englishman Jerome Horsey - Godunov persuaded the widow of the Livonian 'king' Magnus, Mariia Vladimirovna (the daughter of Vladimir Staritskii and Evdokiia Nagaia), to come back to Russia. But when she returned, Mariia and her young daughter ended up in a convent.
In May 1591 Tsarevich Dmitrii, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, died in mysterious circumstances at Uglich. The inhabitants of Uglich, incited by the tsarevich's kinsmen, the Nagois, staged a disturbance and killed the secretary Mikhail Bitiagovskii (who was the representative of the Moscow administration in Uglich), together with his son and some other men whom they held responsible for the tsarevich's death. Soon afterwards a commission of inquiry, headed by Prince V I. Shuiskii, came to the town from Moscow. It reached the conclusion that the tsarevich had stabbed himself with his knife in the course of an epileptic fit. But the version that Dmitrii had been killed on the orders of Boris Godunov enjoyed wide currency among the people. In the reign of
Tsar Vasilii Shuiskii this version received the official sanction of the Church when Dmitrii of Uglich was canonised as a saint. For a long time the view that Boris Godunov was responsible for the tsarevich's death was unchallenged in the historical literature. The situation changed after the publication of studies by S. F. Platonov and V K. Klein.[24] Platonov traced the literary history of the legend about Tsarevich Dmitrii's 'murder' and noted that contemporaries who wrote about it during the Time of Troubles refer in very circumspect terms to Boris's role in the killing of Dmitrii, and that dramatic details of the murder appear only in later seventeenth-century accounts. Klein carried out extensive and fruitful work examining and reconstructing the report of the Uglich investigation of 1591. He demonstrated that what has come down to us is the original version, in the form in which it was presented by Vasilii Shuiskii's commission of inquiry to a session of the Sacred Council on 2 June 1591 (only the first part of the report is missing). The version contained in the investigation report has received the support of I. A. Golubtsov, I. I. Polosin, R. G. Skrynnikov and other historians.[25] But doubts concerning the validity of the way the investigation report was compiled have still not been dispelled. A. A. Zimin made a number of serious criticisms of this source.[26] The investigation report is undoubtedly tendentious. But its critics have not managed to advance arguments which would decisively refute the conclusions of the commission of inquiry. The sources are such that the indictment against Boris remains unproven; but neither does the case for the defence give him a complete alibi.
Would the death of the tsarevich have been in Godunov's interests? It is difficult to give an unambiguous answer to this question. On the one hand, the existence of a centre of opposition at Uglich, with Tsarevich Dmitrii as its figurehead, could not have failed to arouse the regent's anxiety. But, on the other hand, Boris could have achieved 'supreme power' without killing the tsarevich. Dmitrii had been born from an uncanonical seventh marriage, which enabled Godunov to question his right to the throne. At the same time Boris took pains to enhance the status of his sister, Tsaritsa Irina, as a possible heir to the throne. In a situation where Boris Godunov was the de facto sole ruler of the state, Tsar Fedor's 'lawful wife in the eyes of God' could quite justifiably challenge the right to the throne of Tsar Ivan's son, born 'of an
| ..m. (7) Mariia Nagaia |
Fedor Ivanovich and Boris Godunov (1584-1605) Table 11.1. The end of the Riurikid dynasty
IVAN IV m. (1) Anastasiia Romanovna . 1530-84
| Dmitrii 1552-3 |
| Ivan 1554-81 |
FEDOR m. Irina Godunova 1557-98
Dmitrii (of Uglich) 1582-91
Fedos'ia 1592-4
then onwards there was strife and rivalry between the Godunovs and the Romanovs. This was not a conflict over different directions in policy, but a struggle for power and for the throne between two mighty boyar clans. Like the Godunovs, the Romanovs exercised an exceptional degree of influence at court, but the latter's role was primarily that of honoured courtiers, and it could not be compared with the Godunovs' role in governance. Boris Godunov possessed real power. He was able to count on the support of a significant number of members of the boyar duma and the sovereign's court, the secretarial apparatus, the influential clergy and the merchant elite, and this is what guaranteed his success in the contest for the throne.
20
P. P. Smirnov,
22
G.N. Anpilogov
23
Dzherom Gorsei,
24
S. F. Platonov,
25
I. A. Golubtsov ' "Izmena" Nagikh',