RUSSIA: On this day: 21 February

On February 21, 1613, Michael Romanov, the first Russian tsar from the Romanov dynasty was, and the Time of Troubles, the long period of revolts, was over.

Ivan the Terrible died in 1584. His eldest son and successor, Feodor, was ailing and was not able to manage the state affairs, and his youngest son Dmitry was still a child and died in 1591 in suspicious circumstances. In 1598, Fyodor died too, and the Rurik dynasty, founded by the first ruler of Russia, Prince Rurik, was over. One of the nobles, Boris Godunov, headed the country.

The years 1601 – 1603 were lean, and famine spread across the country. People came to Moscow in flocks, because there the government, trying to manage the situation, handed out money and food to the needy. The landowners could not maintain their servants and turned them out of the houses. The poor gathered in gangs, trying to live out on robbery, and the chaos increased by the day.

In 1603 in Poland appeared the impostor, calling himself Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible. His real name and linage are still unknown, but the most popular version is that he was a Russian monk named Grigory Otrepiev. With the support of the Polish King, he recruited the army, and in 1605 invaded Russia. Russian people did not resist the intervention, because most of them believed Grigory to be a real son of Ivan. In June 1605, Grigory enthroned and became the ruler of Russia. According to some documents, one of his first orders was to execute some monks from the Chudov monastery – maybe, because they could recognize him.

Grigory had been a tsar for one year, time to carry out some reforms, and on May 18, 1606, a group of nobles, headed by Vasily Shuisky, assassinated him. Shuisky replaced his victim as the head of the country.

In 1606 the peasant uprising, headed by Ivan Bolotnikov, threw the southern regions of Russia into chaos. Bolotnikov called himself “Prince Dmitry’s general,” and spread rumors that Dmitry survived. In 1607, the new Prince Dmitry impersonator appeared, and in 1608, his army already controlled half of the big Russian cities. The Polish forces, which helped this impersonator too, sacked the occupied territories. In addition, in 1608, the Crimean Tatars attacked Russia and ravaged several central regions.

Shuisky tried to oust the Poles from Russia, but did not succeed. On July 4, 1610, the Russian army lost the decisive battle, and in September Shuisky was dethroned by treason. Moscow swore allegiance to the Polish prince Vladislav. The next year, on March 17, the Poles mistook the fight at the city market for the beginning of rebellion, and slaughtered about 10 thousand Muscovites.

Two big uprisings took place during Vladislav’s governing, but both of them were inconclusive. The third uprising, headed by Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, took place in 1612, and was successful. On October 26, 1612, the Polish garrison gave up Moscow and Vladislav abdicated. When the Polish forces left the country, time to choose the new tsar came. Michael Romanov was one of the four aspirants to throne. He came from an old and noble family, members of which had always been serving to the Russian tsars.

He was only sixteen years old when he became a tsar. His mother, Ksenia, did not want him to take such a great responsibility, and when he was enthroned, she actually ruled the country instead of him until 1819. Michael stopped the wars with Poland and Sweden, restored diplomatic relations with Europe and reorganized the Russian army.

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