A Third False Dmitrii was active in the north-west in 1611-12. The real identity of this pretender is unknown: the official chronicler describes him as Sidorka or Matiushka, a deacon from Moscow.[371] He first appeared in Novgorod at the beginning of 1611, before moving to Ivangorod, where he made an unsuccessful attempt to gain support from the Swedes. He was soon recognised by the neighbouring towns of Iam, Kopor'e and Gdov. Pskov at first resisted him, but after Novgorod had surrendered to de la Gardie the Pskovans invited the new Tsar Dmitrii to their town, in the hope that he would defend them against the Swedes. The pretender arrived in Pskov on 4 December 1611, and established his headquarters there. By this time, however, the name of Tsar Dmitrii had lost its broad social appeal, and only a handful of towns recognised his new incarnation. The cossacks remained susceptible to pretenders, however, and the Pskovan tsar soon established links with their encampments outside Moscow. In March 1612 they swore allegiance to the Third False Dmitrii.[372]
After the death of Liapunov some of the towns which had previously supported the liberation army expressed their distrust of its two remaining commanders, Trubetskoi and Zarutskii. They were particularly concerned that Zarutskii and his cossacks might plan to place Marina Mniszech's son on the throne. Patriarch Germogen sent a proclamation to Nizhnii Novgorod calling on the townspeople to reject the infant 'Tsarevich' Ivan Dmitrievich.[373] The receipt of the patriarch's letter in Nizhnii, in August 1611, served as the impulse for the organisation of a new liberation army. The collection of resources to fund its recruitment was undertaken by Koz'ma Minin, a local butcher and elected representative of the townspeople; the command of the troops was entrusted to Prince Dmitrii Pozharskii, one of Liapunov's generals, who had been wounded outside Moscow in March 1611 and was convalescing near Nizhnii Novgorod. Over the winter of 1611-12 Minin and Pozharskii mobilised their forces. The nucleus of the 'second national militia', as it is sometimes called, was provided by the garrison of Nizhnii Novgorod and neighbouring Volga towns, together with some refugee servicemen from the Smolensk region. At the beginning of March 1612 Minin and Pozharskii left Nizhnii and headed towards Moscow. At Iaroslavl' they learned that the cossack encampments outside the capital had taken an oath to the Third False Dmitrii. Pozharskii immediately sent proclamations to various towns, condemning Zarutskii and Trubetskoi for recognising the Pskov pretender and calling on all true Christians to renounce the new Tsar Dmitrii as well as Marina and her son.
The cossack encampments soon deserted the cause of the Third False Dmitrii, who had in any case made himself very unpopular in Pskov, by ruling through terror and intimidation. In May the townspeople overthrew him and sent him under escort to Moscow, where he was held prisoner by the cossacks. Trubetskoi and Zarutskii wrote to Pozharskii at Iaroslavl' to assure him that they had repudiated Dmitrii, and had also abandoned the claim of Marina's son to the throne. They were prepared to join forces with Pozharskii in liberating Moscow from the Poles and electing a new tsar by common agreement.[374] Pozharskii, however, reacted coldly to these conciliatory approaches. He had established his headquarters at Iaroslavl', where he headed a provisional government and continued to recruit servicemen into his army. In discussions about a future tsar, Pozharskii seemed to favour the Swedish prince Karl Filip (whose brother, Gustav Adolf, had succeeded their father Karl IX as king). Pozharskii's assurances to the Swedes about Karl Filip's prospects of obtaining the Russian throne helped to neutralise the military threat from Sweden, which was still occupying Novgorod and otherparts ofthe north-west.
After securing his rear as a result of the agreement with the Swedes, Pozharskii finally left Iaroslavl' on 27 July 1612. On the following day Zarut- skii fled from the encampment outside Moscow, apparently fearing that he would be deposed from his command by the leaders of the new national militia. Zarutskii was accompanied by about half of his army, probably around 2,500 men. At Kolomna he collected Marina and her son, and they then rode with their cossacks to the Riazan' district, where Zarutskii rallied support for Tsarevich Ivan's claim to the throne. Pozharskii's army arrived outside Moscow in mid-August, just in time to play a major part in the rout of Chod- kiewicz's Polish forces, which had advanced on the capital from the west. Zarutskii's flight removed a major obstacle to the creation of a single army of liberation, and at the end of September Pozharskii and Trubetskoi agreed to form a united command. A month later, the occupiers of the Kremlin surrendered, and Moscow was liberated at last. But the danger from the Poles was not yet over. After the defeat of Chodkiewicz, King Sigismund himself marched on Russia in the hope of obtaining the crown for his son Wladyslaw. The Polish army advanced rapidly and a detachment commanded by Adam Zolkiewski reached the outskirts of Moscow by mid-November. But military failures and the onset of winter forced the Poles to retreat.
At the end of 1612 the liberators of Moscow, headed by Minin, Pozharskii and Trubetskoi, summoned an Assembly of the Land to elect a new tsar. The delegates gathered in the capital at the beginning of January 1613. One of their first resolutions was to reject any foreign candidates for the throne, a decision which was directed not only against the Polish and Swedish princes, but also against Marina and her son. This left three main Russian contenders: Prince Ivan Golitsyn, Prince Dmitrii Trubetskoi and Michael Romanov, Filaret's sixteen- year-old son. Of these, the cossacks favoured the latter two, because of their connection with Tushino. The young Romanov also enjoyed broad support from other sections of the population, and he was the eventual choice of the electoral assembly in February 1613. The Romanovs' association by marriage with the old dynasty undoubtedly helped Michael's election (his father was the nephew of Anastasiia Romanovna, the first wife of Ivan IV); and the fact that the ambitious and energetic Filaret was in Polish captivity made his teenage son more acceptable to the boyars.
One of the first actions of Tsar Michael's government was to send troops in pursuit of Zarutskii. After a battle with government forces at Voronezh in June 1613 the cossack ataman headed for Astrakhan', where he was welcomed with great enthusiasm. Zarutskii spread the rumour that Tsar Dmitrii was still alive, and he and Marina acted as the guardians of the young 'tsarevich' Ivan Dmitrievich. In the winter of 1613-14 Zarutskii initiated a reign of terror in Astrakhan', killing the governor, Prince I. D. Khvorostinin, and many of the 'good' (wealthy) citizens, perhaps because they opposed his plans to seek assistance from the Persian Shah and the Turkish Sultan. At Easter I6I4 there was a popular uprising against Zarutskii's rule, and soon afterwards he fled the city with Marina and her son, accompanied by a small band of cossacks. A few days later, government troops commanded by Prince I. N. Odoevskii entered Astrakhan', and the city transferred its allegiance to Tsar Michael. Zarutskii and his followers were captured on the River Iaik; they were returned to Astrakhan' and then sent to Moscow. Zarutskii was impaled; the three-year-old Tsarevich Ivan was hanged; and Marina died in captivity soon afterwards.[375]
The execution of Zarutskii and Ivan Dmitrievich eliminated the last serious challenge to Tsar Michael's legitimacy within Russia. Unrest continued for some time, however, and in I6I4-I5 the government was preoccupied with mopping-up operations against various roving cossack bands whom they perceived as a major threat to social and political stability.[376] Foreign intervention continued for several more years. Peace was concluded with Sweden only in 1617, when Novgorod was returned to Russia as a result of the Treaty of Stolbovo. Hostilities with Poland lasted even longer. Chodkiewicz invaded Russia again in 1617 in a further attempt to place Prince Wladysiaw on the throne. The Poles were obliged to retreat, but in the Treaty of Deulino, signed in December 1618, Russia ceded Smolensk and other western borderlands to King Sigismund. In accordance with the terms of the treaty, Filaret Romanov was released from captivity, and he returned to Russia in I6I9 to become patriarch and de facto ruler of the country. Some have seen this event as the real end of the Time of Troubles.[377] But the Poles still refused to drop Wladysiaw's claim to the title of tsar. In 1632, on the death of King Sigismund, the Russians went on to the offensive against Poland, in an attempt to reconquer Smolensk. They failed to achieve this goal, but in the 'perpetual' Peace of Polianovka, of 1634, Wladyslaw - who had been elected King of Poland in succession to his father - formally renounced his claim to the Russian throne, thereby tying up that remaining loose end from the Time of Troubles.