Grigory Otrepiev (in the world - Yuri Bogdanovich) - comes from a noble Lithuanian family of the Nelidovs. According to numerous sources, it was he who was the first person who successfully impersonated the murdered Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich, the son of Ivan the Terrible. He went down in history as False Dmitry the First.
Biography
Yuri was born in Galicia. His father died early, so he and his brother were raised by a widowed mother. The child turned out to be very capable and quickly learned to read and write, so he was sent to Moscow to serve Mikhail Romanov.
Here he rose to a high position, which almost killed the ambitious young man during the repressions associated with the "Romanov circle". To save himself from execution, he was forced to take the veil as a monk and received the name Gregory. Passing from one monastery to another, he eventually returned to the capital again.
Appearance of False Dmitry
Here, according to the official version, he began to prepare for his future role, inquiring about the details of the murder of the prince, studying the rules and etiquette of court life. Throughfor some time, the future False Dmitry made an unforgivable mistake - he mentioned that someday he would sit on the royal throne. This reached the king, and Gregory was forced to flee to Galich, Murom, and then to the Commonwe alth. It was there that he first impersonated the miraculously saved Tsarevich Dmitry.
Becoming
In 1604, Grigory Otrepiev crossed the Russian border and began a military campaign against Boris Godunov, who took the throne after the death of Ivan the Terrible. Tsar Boris publicly declared that he was not the rightful heir to the throne, but a runaway monk. Gregory was anathema.
Then he began to show people another person, saying that this is Otrepyev, and the one who says that he is Dmitry is really him. Because of this, many people began to lean towards the idea that the prince is real. Shortly after that, False Dmitry nevertheless officially sat on the throne and was recognized as the son of Ivan the Terrible.
A lot of contemporaries considered Otrepiev and Tsarevich Dmitry to be the same person, but still there were those who noticed that the behavior of the tsar was more like a Polish gentry than a Russian nobleman.
In 1605, Tsar Boris died, the throne was vacated. Grigory Otrepyev, taking advantage of the situation, gave the order to deal with Fyodor Godunov. In addition, the mother of Tsarevich Dmitry, Maria, staged recognized her son in Otrepyev. And then in July 19605, False Dmitry was crowned king.
Internal policy of False Dmitry 1
The first actions of the new king were to return from exile numerous princes andboyars who were exiled by Boris and Fyodor Godunov. The salaries of civil servants were raised, and land plots were increased for landlords. This was done by confiscating land and money from monasteries.
In the south, taxes have been abolished, while in the rest of the country they have been increased. The composition of the Duma was changed: now representatives of the higher clergy were present in it as mandatory members, and the body itself was henceforth called the Senate. New positions were also established, taken from Poland: a swordsman, a chalice, a treasurer.
Foreign policy
False Dmitry made free entry and exit from the country, free internal movement. Visiting foreigners noted that there was no such freedom in any European state. Most historians agree that Grigory Otrepyev tried to Europeanize the country.
He tried to win the support of neighboring countries and recognize himself as emperor by making alliances with Poland, Italy, Germany and France, but everywhere he got a negative result due to the refusal to cede some lands and because of the negative attitude towards the Catholic faith.
Death
Gradually, dissatisfaction with the new tsar grew among the people, because he began to build Catholic churches in Moscow, introduced "foreign clownish amusements", canceled the afternoon nap. In addition, he arranged a wedding with Marina Mnishek according to the Catholic rite. The Poles, who arrived in the capital for a long ceremony, began to break into the houses of we althy citizens in a drunken state and rob them. This ispushed the people to a revolt, which was led by Vasily Shuisky. The event took place on May 17, 1606.
First, Shuisky called on the people to save the tsar from the Poles, and then sent the crowd to the "evil heretic" who violates Russian customs. Taking advantage of the general turmoil, the conspirators stormed the palace in which False Dmitry was located and killed him. After his death, he was laid in the middle of the market, where sand was poured over his body and smeared with tar.
The king was buried in a "wretched house" intended for those who were frozen or drunk. But after a few days, his body itself was in a different place. False Dmitry was considered a sorcerer, so several times his corpse was buried deeper and deeper, but the earth did not accept the impostor. Then the body was burned, the ashes were mixed with gunpowder and fired from a handgun towards Poland.
Shuisky and the conspirators did not hide the fact that False Dmitry was put on the throne with only one purpose - to remove the Godunovs from the throne. And then they got rid of the new king with the same ease with which they gave him a short-lived power.
