Various conspiracy theories name certain boyar clans as the pretender's patrons, who aimed to use him as a lever to unseat Godunov. The families most frequently mentioned in this connection are the Romanovs, the Cherkasskiis, the Shuiskiis and the Nagois. But, as A. P. Pavlov has noted, there is little convincing evidence of boyar involvement in a plot to set up a pretender.[339] It is more likely that Otrep'ev acted on his own initiative, perhaps motivated by a desire for revenge against Godunov for the tsar's persecution of his patrons, the Romanovs, in 1600.[340]
In the autumn of 1604 the pretender crossed the Russian frontier near Kiev with a small army of Polish troops and cossacks. The first Russian border fortress, Moravsk(Monastyrevskii Ostrog) surrendered without a struggle, and it was followed by other towns in the Seversk (south-west) region: Chernigov, Putivl', Ryl'sk and Kursk. Dmitrii also gained the support of the peasants of the prosperous Komaritskaia district. The fortress of Novgorod Severskii, however, was well defended by Godunov's general P. F. Basmanov, and at the beginning of January 1605 the pretender's Polish mercenaries mutinied, angered by his failure to pay them. But by this time Dmitrii had been joined by several thousand Don and Zaporozhian cossacks. He pressed on towards the Russian heartland, occupying Sevsk without opposition, but on 21 January he encountered an army commanded by Prince F. I. Mstislavskii, and suffered a severe defeat at Dobrynichi. In spite of this military setback, the rising in Dmitrii's favour continued to spread through the towns of the southern steppe, where his support came primarily from the petty military servitors who were dissatisfied with Godunov's policies towards them. The governors of these frontier fortresses who remained loyal to Godunov were overthrown by the townspeople and the garrison troops as traitors to the 'true tsar' Dmitrii. Apart from the Komaritskaia district, the region contained few peasants, and the 'peasant war' formula of Soviet historiography has little relevance to this stage ofthe pretender's campaign. Although he obtained support primarily from the lower classes, including the minor servicemen, Dmitrii based his appeal on his claim to be the 'true tsar', and did not make a specific bid for the backing ofthe poor. His only proclamation to survive from this period, datedNovember 1604, is addressed to all social groups in the conventional descending hierarchical order.[341] The function of pretence, as Dmitrii's success clearly demonstrated, was to unite all those with grievances against the reigning tsar under the banner of a candidate for the throne who could claim an alternative - and superior - basis for his political legitimacy.
Boris Godunov died suddenly in Moscow on 13 April 1605, when the pretender was encamped at Putivl', where he had retreated after his defeat at Dobrynichi in January. At the time of his death, Boris's army was besieging the small fortress of Kromy, to the north-east of Putivl', which was held forthe pretender by the Don cossack ataman Korela. The boyars in Moscow swore allegiance to Boris's young son, Fedor, but uncertainty about the stability of support for Fedor Borisovich undermined the morale of the government troops at Kromy On 7 May the army mutinied, and many of its commanders, including Peter Basmanov, went over to Dmitrii. A deputation led by Prince Ivan Golitsyn was sent to Putivl' from Kromy to report that the troops had defected to 'Tsar Dmitrii', and the pretender marched unopposed towards Moscow.
From Krapivna, near Tula, Dmitrii sent two envoys to Moscow with a proclamation calling on the inhabitants of the capital to recognise him as their tsar. They were escorted into the centre of the city by insurgents from the outskirts. On the morning of 1 June, Dmitrii's proclamation was read out to the people of Moscow who had assembled on Red Square. Many ofthe boyars, most of whom had by now abandoned the cause of Fedor Godunov, were present to hear the pretender's fulsome promises of rewards for the transfer of their loyalty.[342] The proclamation triggered a popular uprising in the capital which was directed primarily against the Godunovs and their supporters. The administration of the city in Dmitrii's name was taken over by Bogdan Bel'skii, who had been disgraced in 1600 and had returned to Moscow only as a result of a political amnesty declared on Boris's death. Before the pretender entered the capital his agents murdered Fedor Borisovich and his mother; and Patriarch Iov, who had been attacked during the popular uprising for his continued loyalty to the Godunovs, was stripped of his office.
On 20 June 1605 the pretender made a triumphal entry into Moscow, where he was greeted as the 'true sun' shining on Russia.[343] Accordingto some contemporary sources, many of those who continued to oppose him, and to express scepticism about his identity, were secretly arrested, imprisoned and put to death; but only two public executions took place. The brothers Shuiskii were brought to trial, accused of plotting to kill the new tsar. All three were found guilty. Prince Vasilii Shuiskii was sentenced to death, but he was reprieved at the last moment and sent into exile with his brothers. Soon after this, the pretender's credibility received an important boost when the former Tsaritsa Mariia Nagaia (now the nun Marfa), the mother of Dmitrii of Uglich, publicly recognised him as her son. On 2i July, three days after Marfa's arrival in the capital, Dmitrii was crowned in the Dormition cathedral in the Kremlin.
Historians have offered conflicting assessments of Dmitrii's achievements as tsar. The problem of reaching a balanced evaluation is complicated not only by the brevity of his reign, but also by the lack of official sources, since many documents were destroyed after his overthrow in May 1606. Some scholars have presented him as an enlightened reformer, who brought a refreshing element of Westernising modernisation into the traditional world of Muscovite politics, before being swept from power by a backlash of conservative boyar opposition to his innovations; others have seen him as an opportunist who was unable to cope with the complexities of power, and paid the price for his failures. A recent Russian study suggests that Dmitrii relied on a boyar duma whose aristocratic composition was not too dissimilar from that of Boris Godunov, and that his domestic policy was fairly traditional. In the end he was overthrown as a result of the machinations of the most powerful faction in the duma, which no longer found him to be a useful figurehead.[344] Chester Dunning, too, stresses continuity in policy between Tsar Dmitrii and his immediate predecessors; and he argues that the pretender's opponents were only a small and unrepresentative group of boyars.[345]
There has been particular controversy among historians about Dmitrii's social legislation which affected the position of slaves and peasants. A law of 7 January 1606 forbade the joint assignment of a bondsman to more than one owner, thereby ensuring that slaves would be freed on the deaths of their master. A decree of 1 February 1606 stated that those peasants who had fled during the famine years of 1601-2 because their masters were unable to feed them were not to be returned to their old lords, but were to remain as slaves or serfs of their new masters.[346] There is a general scholarly consensus that these two pieces of legislation represented minor concessions to the slaves and peasants respectively.[347] There is no convincing evidence, however, to support V I. Koretskii's assertion that Dmitrii was planning to issue a new law code which would have restored the peasants' right of departure on St George's Day from the autumn of 1606.[348] In general, Dmitrii preserved the institutions of slavery and serfdom, and was more concerned to protect the interests of the slave- and serf-owning nobles than those of their bondsmen. He also rewarded the petty servicemen of the southern and south-western towns who had provided the main base of his support in the course of his march on Moscow. They were granted lands and money; their obligation to till the land for the state was abolished; and they were exempted from the payment of taxes for ten years. The gentry of other regions, however, did not benefit significantly, in terms of land and money payments, from Dmitrii's rule.[349]
339
A. P. Pavlov,
(St Petersburg: Nauka, 1992), pp. 78-9.
341
AAE, vol. II (St Petersburg: Tipografiia II Otdeleniia Sobstvennoi E. I. V Kantseliarii, 1836), no. 26, p. 76.
343
Conrad Bussow,
344
V I. Ul'ianovskii,
346
348
VI. Koretskii,