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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: DEM-DIO |
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DEMETRIUS , PSEUDO- (or FALSE), the name by which three Muscovite princes and pretenders, who claimed to be Demetrius, son of Ivan the Terrible, are known in history. The real Demetrius had been murdered, while still a child, in 1591, at Uglich, his widowed mother's appanage. 1. In the reign of Tsar Boris Godunov (15981605), the first of these pretenders, whose origin is still obscure, emigrated to Lithuania and persuaded many of the magnates there of his tsarish birth
to be and tried to enlist the sympathy of the Polish king, Sigismund III., in his favour. The king refused to support him officially, but his cause was taken up, as a speculation, by the Polish magnate Yury Mniszek, whose daughter Marina he after-wards wedded and crowned as his tsaritsa. The Jesuits also seem to have believed in the man, who was evidently an unconscious impostor brought up from his youth to believe that he was the real Demetrius; numerous fugitives from Moscow also acknowledged him, and finally he set out, at the head of an army of Polish and Lithuanian volunteers, Cossacks and Muscovite fugitives, to drive out the Godunovs, after being received into the Church of Rome. At the beginning of 1604 he was invited to Cracow, where Sigismund presented him to the papal nuncio Rangoni. His public conversion took place on the 17th of April. In October the false Demetrius crossed the Russian frontier, and shortly afterwards routed a large Muscovite army beneath the walls of Novgorod -Syeversk. The sudden death of Tsar Boris (April 13, 1605) removed the last barrier to the further progress of the pretender. The principal Russian army, under P. F. Basmanov, at once went over to him (May 7); on the 20th of June he made his triumphal entry into Moscow, and on the 21st of July he was crowned tsar by a new patriarch of his own choosing, the Greek Isidore. He at once proceeded to introduce a whole series of political and economical reforms. From all accounts, he must have been a man of original
opinion of his own authority (he lost no time in styling himself emperor), and his predilection for Western civilization, alarmed the ultra-conservative boyars (the people were always on his side), and a conspiracy was formed against him, headed by Basil Shuisky, whose life he had saved a few months previously. A favourable opportunity for the conspirators presented itself on the 8th of May 1606, when Demetrius was married to Marina Mniszek. Taking advantage of the hostility of the Muscovites towards the Polish regiments which had escorted Marina to Moscow and there committed some excesses, the boyars urged the citizens to rise against the Poles, while they themselves attacked and, slew Demetrius in the Kreml on the night of the 17th of May.See Sergyei Solovev, History of Russia (Rus.), vol. viii. (St Peters-burg, 1857,&c.); Nikolai Kostomarov, Historical Monographs (Rus.) vols. iv.-vi. (St Petersburg
Petersburg
Cambridge , 1907).2. The second pretender, called " the thief of Tushino," first appeared on the scene circa 1607 at Starodub. He is supposed to have been either a priest's son or a converted Jew, and was highly educated, relatively to the times he lived in, knowing as he did the Russian and Polish languages and being somewhat of an expert in liturgical matters. He pretended at first to be the Muscovite boyarin Nagi; but confessed, under torture, that he was Demetrius Ivanovich, whereupon he was taken at his word and joined by thousands of Cossacks, Poles and Muscovites. Hespeedily captured Karachev, Bryansk and other towns; was reinforced by the Poles; and in the spring of i6o8 advanced upon Moscow, routing the army of Tsar Basil Shuisky, at Bolkhov, on his way. Liberal promises of the wholesale confiscation of the estates of the boyars drew the common people to him, and he entrenched himself at the village
capital , which he converted into an armed camp, collecting therein 7000 Polish soldiers, 10,000 Cossacks and ro,000 of the rabble. In the course of the year he captured Marina Mniszek, who acknowledged him to he her husband (subsequently quieting her conscience by privately marrying this impostor, who in no way resembled her first husband), and brought him the support of the Lithuanian magnates Mniszek and Sapieha so that his forces soon exceeded 100,000 men. He raised to the rank of patriarch another illustrious captive, Philaret Romanov, and won over the towns of Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Vologda, Kashin and other places to his allegiance. But a series of subsequent disasters, and the arrival of King Sigismund III. at Sinolensk, induced him to fly his camp disguised as a peasant and go to Kostroma, where Marina joined him and he lived once more in regal state. He also made another but unsuccessful attack o; Moscow, and, supported by the Don Cossacks, recovered a hold over all south-eastern Russia. He was killed, while half drunk, on the rrth of December 161o, by a Tatar whom he had flogged.See Sergyei Solovev, History of Russia (Rus.) re_ viii. (St Peters-burg, 1657, &c.). 3. The third, a still more enigmatical person than his predecessors, supposed to have been a deacon called Siderka, appeared suddenly, " from. behind the river Yanza," in the Ingrian town of Ivangorod (Narva), proclaiming himself the tsarevich Demetrius Ivanovich, on the 28th of March 1611. The Cossacks, ravaging the environs of Moscow, acknowledged him as tsar on the and of March 1612, and under threat of vengeance in case of non-compliance, the gentry of Pskov also kissed the cross to "the thief of Pskov," as he was usually nick-named. On the 18th of May 1612 he fled from Pskov, was seized and delivered up to the authorities at Moscow, and there executed. See Sergyei Solovev, History of Russia (Rus.), vol. viii. (St Peters-burg, 1857, &c.). (R. N. B.) End of Article: DEMETRIUS If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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