Ivan IV, after the accidental death of the heir, left Theodore (Fedor) as tsar of all the Russias. Fedor, far from “feeble” as the commentators claim, was a holy and saintly man who had not nearly the personality of his father. Contrary to public myth, and the universal sneers of “Russian specialists” in the universities, Fedor was likely the most respected ruler of that era. Patriarch St. Job says of him, “For this cross-bearing tsar was very pious and truly compassionate, he loved the humble and accepting suffering, and moreover was generous to widows and orphans; he had mercy on all who grieved or suffered misfortunes. He conquered all, all the impious on our Russian borders, not by violence or troops, but by his all-night vigils and ceaseless prayers." When the holy Patriarch Jeremiah returned to Constantinople, he told his people about the “miracles” performed by Tsar Fedor, and the constant prayers of this misunderstood monarch. The reality is not the “feeble-mindedness” of Fedor, but the fact that Fedor viewed the monarchy in the most sacerdotal way possible. According to this most-pious tsar, the monarchy was not to act as merely a fount of force or taxation, but was to be, foremost, an icon of the truly pious Russian. The tsardom, more than anything else, was to be primarily a pastoral office.

Again, the oligarchy, under the control of the Shuskii, Mstislavskii and Belskii clans, threatened and berated the Tsar, and eventually broke him, bringing him under their control. Boris Gudenov was Fedor’s brother in law, and his role is to attempt to create some order out of the oligarchy and its agenda. Ivan IV’s destruction of the nobility was not absolute. They were exiled in large numbers, and merely waited in Russia’s hinterlands for their chance. However, they were crippled, and their activity prior to the reign of Boris was rather weak, but still present and a threat to the unity of the Russian nation.

Dimitri, just a small boy at the time, was the son of Ivan’s 7th wife. Because the Orthodox church does not accept that many marriages (the normal limit is three, and that under extreme circumstances), many thought that Dimitri could never be heir. However, many worried about the health of the young Tsar Fedor under boyar control, and, regardless of Dimitri’s unorthodox lineage, he was feared by the boyar clans. Boris was instrumental in sending the boy to the appanage of Uglich on the Volga.

Boris Gudenov quickly was forced into the role of “monarch” once Fedor came under boyar control. He realized two things: firstly, the population loathed the oligarchy; and second, that he had little time to act, as this group were quickly regaining their strength now that Ivan IV was dead. It was a new time; a new generation of oligarchs had reached adulthood and new agendas were being hatched.

Once the population of Moscow rose in violent rebellion against the Belskii clan, accusing them of controlling the Tsar, Boris was forced to step in, and exiled the Belskii clan yet again. This meant, in practice that this clan was forced to live in its distant, though lush, estates rather than in Moscow proper. At the same time, around 1597, Boris implicated the Mstislavskii’s in a plot to overthrow Fedor. Once Fedor’s small daughter died, he fell into severe depression that made him useless as a ruler. Of course, the wonderfully honest Russia history establishment has taken his grief, as well as his religiosity, as a sign of “retardation.” Fedor would have made an excellent tsar had circumstances been different, and he remains a tragic figure.

Ivan the Terrible had, near the end of his life, authorized that a council of nobles be put in place after his death, so as to protect Fedor, who was always in bad health. Boris was included, as was the Romanov’s and the only really traditional noble family of any strength that Ivan sought to place as tutor to Fedor was the Shuskii group.

Regardless, Gudenov, now the true regent of the sick tsar, and the head of the council of five that was empowered to deal with the tsar, Gudenov, firmly royalist in his political point of view (and, incidentally, a member fo the Oprichnina), sought to create a power base in order to take the throne if necessary. He did this by using his court connections to slowly and methodically build an economic empire in southern Russia. It was this sort of wealth that was employed to remove many of his rivals from the council. In reality, the major clans were regularly plotting against him, as he was one of Ivan’s favorites, as well as having a clean record of anti-oligarch activity. There even might be an argument out there that Ivan deliberately chose Gudenov to head the council, realizing that he alone had the ability to run the country, and would eventually outplay his rivals. Sixty years of political experience does wonders for one’s appreciation of people.

The Shushkii’s began to conspire with the Moscow merchants to build a counter empire to that of Gudenov’s, and Gudenov, getting wind of this, became the main cause of their exile. Other treasonous, yet predictable actions led to Gudenov creating a one-man regency for himself in Moscow.

However, the other issue was the fate of Dimitri, son of Ivan IV. At Uglich, Dimitri died at the age of 10, having lived from 1581 to 1591. Regardless of what theory one accepts concerning his death, it was tragic. The young boy was playing a game with a knife, something akin to precision knife throwing (which, itself, says something about the boy), and somehow, some say it was because he was epileptic, slit his own throat during a seizure. Some began to blame Boris.

My personal opinion was that Boris was innocent of the crime. Many have thought that Boris was devious and bent on taking the throne at any price. Therefore, Dimitri was a threat and was murdered by Boris’ agents. However, an investigation by the hostile Shuskii clan cleared Boris of any wrongdoing. The anti-Gudenov Shuskii group had every reason to attempt to implicate Boris, and did not. The Shuskii’s could have even taken advantage of the civil unrest in that part of Russia after the death of Dimitri in the construction of a power base, but even here, he/they did not. It remains the case that Shuskii did change his opinion about Boris, and fabricated the murder plot once he was locked in deadly political combat with the regent. However one slices it (so to speak), Boris was left ruler of Russia. The poor dead boy will still have a long career ahead of him, as all careful students of medieval Russian history know.

Boris proved himself an abler tactician than either the Mstislavskiis or the Shuskiis. Boris had developed a strongly Orthodox and royalist political ideology, and found many followers within the country (as will be discussed below). Far from a vulgar intriguer, Boris was a principled ruler and true Russian patriot. On the other hand, the Shuskii or Belskii scion thought merely about personal gain and the (re)creation of appanage Russia. Had they been victorious, it is likely that they would have made deals with the Poles or Swedes for the sake of their own personal protection and overseas trade. Boris was very much a Volga-man, one whose political genesis is based on that of Andrew of Suzdal rather than the appanage ideologists. Volga-ideologies (to coin a phrase) are based on strong land empires with basically centralized royal structures.

But not only did Boris develop a strong sense of his mission, he, in addition to his properties in the southern Volga region (in the former, now royalist, Tartar regions), he also built a strong coalition against the oligarchs. He, with a few exceptions (such as the Metropolitan Denis or Dionysus), made friends with the church, as well as the lower strata of the boyar classes. This became his coalition, and, most certainly, was a coalition most commonly seen throughout Europe building centralized royal institutions.

Under Boris’ rule, the Russian Church became a patriarchate. Boris was a strong supporter of theocracy, while the clans wanted commercial republic based vaguely on Venice, the police state of eastern Italy. The Patriarch Jeremiah of Constantinople, now a prisoner of the Turk infidel, wanted to see a strong, independent Russian patriarchate, and Boris exploited this rather reasonable goal. Jeremiah was popular among the Greeks in the Holy City, and was elected even over Turk objections. Jeremiah was an expert in dogmatics, but sought, for his own protection, to take the throne of Moscow himself. With Boris’ objections, Jeremiah acquiesced in the consecrating of Metropolitan Job as the first patriarch, a man of extraordinary abilities (especially his memory), whose sanctity was rewarded with canonization.

But even more significantly, Boris met a powerfully pressing need, a need that goes a long way to expressing Boris’ popularity and the hatred he earned from the clans. Small landowners were suffering from the arrogance of the clans. Under Ivan (and maybe even sooner), large landowners were deliberately enticing labor away from smaller landholders, using various promises as pretexts. Therefore, good labor was being drawn away from small-holders, the backbone of local Russia, to that of the oligarchy, the dilutant of Russia. Boris, realizing this crisis, as well as realizing the political capital that could come of it, revoked the St. George Day rule and decreed that peasants must remain in the place of their birth. This was to have a greater impact after the time of troubles (see below). Therefore, one might conclude that Boris created a national-patriotic coalition of clergy, small landowners and many peasants in opposition to the rapacious oligarchy.

Under Boris, a Swede, Sigmund, became king of Poland. He only became the king of Sweden in 1592, however. He was known as Zygmunt III Wasya among the Poles. This was a nightmare for Russia for it unified the two strongest central European powers under one head, and they had a dagger pointed at Russia and Boris. Here again, there is a providential aspect to this, for it is precisely in this arena where, under the older appanage system, a divided Russia was militarily useless. Assuming the oligarchy had any interest in fighting the Poles, they would have failed to do so. Only through Boris’ struggles was Russia saved, and, in reality, this huge Swedish/Polish coalition was defeated.

More to the point, as Sweden had recently gone over to the heresy of Luther, Boris brilliantly played one religious faction off against another, leading to divisions within the coalition. The Swedes had deposed the arrogant king, and he spent quite a bit of time attempting to regain the Swedish throne. Though in theory capable of organizing a large coalition of Lithuanians, Poles Swedes, Germans and others, he could not deal with the reality of the “reformation” and its political effects.

Now, as tsar, officially, Boris ruled from 1598 (the death of Fedor) to his own death in 1605. Unfortunately, the people remained suspicious of Boris, and many viewed him as a usurper and as a man of ambition. It is also clear that the clans had launched a propaganda campaign against him throughout Moscow. After the death of Fedor, it was the Patriarch himself, St. Job, who asked him to take the crown. Upon doing this, Boris called a General Assembly of the people of Russia, made up of lower order landowners and clergy. Boris, in short, was determined to rule with the consent of the church and lower boyars; he refused to suffer the coronation ceremony unless the estates of the realm accepted him as Tsar. Much of his reign was dedicated to alleviating the condition of the poor, including the sale of some of the crown jewels and the use of his own personal fortune, to assist during times of hardship.

Boris sought, wisely, an alliance with England, both for military and for financial purposes, and opened up trading relations with Sweden, northern Europe and Livonia. Russia had regularly used the rivalry of England against the continental trading powers to Russia’s advantage. Boris was dedicated to lifting the educational level of Russians, and was the first to systematically send promising Russian boys to study abroad, as well as to import foreign teachers into Russia. Few doubt the successes of this aspect of his rule.

Unfortunately, the famine(s) of 1601 to 1604 ended Boris’ honeymoon. The famine was met head on by an energetic Boris, and much state money was spent on stopping the spread of disease and starvation. Many people began to whisper that Boris was bringing down divine disfavor upon Russia, and the Belskii clan in particular was stoking these fires, especially in urban Russia. In this three years of famine, robber gangs began to spring up throughout Russia, making law enforcement difficult. And making matters more complicated, the rumors of a “false Dimitri” began to circulate.

Many began to believe that Boris had ordered the murder of the 10 year old son of Ivan. Shuskii, while at one time rejecting Boris’ guilt over this, changed his tune when he realized the political fallout over Boris would benefit him. Soon, many were saying that Dimitri had not been killed, that the Nagoi clan (based in Uglich) had protected him and another small boy was killed in his place.

Gregor Otripeev was a wanderer, appearing first during the famine year of 1601. He impressed everyone with his rather pronounced erudition, not the least of whom was the Patriarch. He claimed to be the real Dimitri, and his clear grasp of boyar etiquette allowed many to believe him. It does not take a scholar to see why both the Polish and Lithuanian nobility, as well as the pope of Rome himself, convinced themselves that this was the real Dimitri, and now Boris could be removed. On moving to Poland (largely to escape Boris), the Polish aristocracy lent him thousands of troops in hopes that a) Boris will be removed, and b) Russia will be converted to the Roman Church. The pope of the time gave his full blessing for an invasion of Russia. Nevertheless, questions remain about whether Dimitri was truly Otripeev.

Russian boyars (to no one’s surprise) also tried to support the False Dimitri, for it permitted them to avoid paying any homage to Boris, who they despised. The invasion of the Poles against Russia proved initially favorable to the impostor (who was clearly brilliant in political and military matters), but more regular Russian troops eventually drove him back. In 1605 Boris died, permitting many Russian troops to begin defecting to Gregor.

Gregor began his triumphal march on Moscow, and firstly, created his own patriarch, Ignatii, who crowned him “Emperor.” Though many believe he passed excellent laws, for example, lowering taxes on peasants, many believed that these were merely means of buying support. The False Dimitri was accused of promoting Roman Catholicism because of his marriage to the execrable Marina, a Roman Catholic of Polish extraction, and this wedding was on a Friday. It was made clear very soon that the False Dimitri hated Orthodoxy, and his personality made that very clear. It was not long before even Shuskii, his initial supporter, turned against him. This arrest led to the Time of Troubles, which will be the subject of our next lecture.

Was Boris a legitimate tsar?

My personal opinion is yes. He was accepted by the population as a whole, the church and the lower nobility, the very backbone of the nation. He ruled only in consultation with a boyar duma. Boris is one of many tsars who were elected to their posts. Boris was a talented and selfless ruler. Under Boris, Russia had a functioning separation of powers. Power was shared among the duma, small-holders, the church, the towns and, yes, even the upper boyarin.

Do you like the recent work of Chester Dunning?

In fact, yes, I do. His book, Russia’s First Civil War, is the best offering in its field. He clearly proves that Boris was innocent of Dimitri’s murder, and that the clans were masters of political propaganda. I recommend this work. He really likes the impostor-Dimitri. He would have been an effective ruler in some respects had he not trampled on Orthodox customs. “Dimitri” was supported by the pope of Rome and the Poles solely as a cheap “crusade” against the “schismatic” Russians, yet again. And, yet again, it failed.

It is also worth noting that his work debunking the Dimitri=Otrepev story is extremely convincing.

What of the poor Tsarevitch?

Dimitri was canonized a saint in the Orthodox church. But it remains clear that Tsar Boris did not order the killing of the tsar. First of all, one would not send a sworn enemy such as Basil to perform an inquest. If anything, that is a serious proof that Boris is innocent. Secondly, many personages loyal to Boris were present at the time of death, making Boris one clumsy assassin. Thirdly and more importantly, Dimitri had no claim to the throne, as he was a son of Ivan’s seventh wife, hence canonically not eligible for royal power.

What then to make of the canonization? Was this mere politics? To an extent. It does not mean that Dimitri is not a saint. Some sources commented on his piety for a young boy, and his relative neglect. Miracles were reported at his grave. None of this means, however, that Boris ordered the killing, or that one must loathe Boris in order to venerate St. Dimitri. I strongly recommend the article, “Boris Godunov and the Ouglich Tragedy,” published in the Russian Review years ago, written by A.M. Nikolaieff. Interestingly, Professor Nikolaieff has this to say about the reign of Tsar Boris:

To him, as a statesman, fell the difficult task of reestablishing normal conditions and improving the international relations of a country in which the social structure was shaken and the economy disrupted by Ivan IV’s regime of terror [sic] and unsuccessful wars. . . .He conceived a comprehensive plan of public building works in Moscow and in other cities. . . . He ordered free distribution of grain from state store houses. . . In Platonov’s opinion, it is very likely that at the bottom of Godunov’s search for popularity lay his aim to shift the support of the regime from the old aristocratic foundations to the middle class and taxed peasantry–that is, to democratize the government.

One of the chronicles of the era writes this: “Boris had a true soul, and he was generous and good to the poor. . . he roused against himself the indignation of the aristocracy; and this was the source of all the violence which was able to make for his destruction.” (Quoted from S. Solovyev).