home / Self-development/ Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. The first of a kind: how Mikhail Romanov ended up at the head of the Russian kingdom Mikhail Romanov was elected to the Russian

Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. The first of a kind: how Mikhail Romanov ended up at the head of the Russian kingdom Mikhail Romanov was elected to the Russian

The future tsar was born in 1596 into the family of boyar Fyodor Nikitich and his wife Ksenia Ivanovna. Mikhail Fedorovich's father was a relatively close relative of the last tsar from the Rurik dynasty, Fedor Ioannovich. However, the eldest Romanov, Fyodor Nikitich, was tonsured a monk and therefore could not lay claim to the royal throne.

With the elevation of Archimandrite Philaret (in the world Fyodor Nikitich Romanov) to the rank of Metropolitan of Rostov, his wife Ksenia was tonsured as a nun under the name Martha and, together with her son Mikhail, lived in the Kostroma Ipatiev Monastery, which belonged to the Rostov diocese.

With the arrival of the Poles in Moscow, Marfa and Mikhail found themselves in their hands and fully felt all the hardships of the siege of the city by the Nizhny Novgorod militia. With the end of the siege, they moved again to the Ipatiev Monastery.

Election to the kingdom

On February 21, 1613, the Great Zemsky Sobor met in Moscow to elect a tsar. The elections were very difficult, with a lot of disagreements, intrigues and proposals. In addition to the fact that representatives of the Russian nobility were proposed as candidates for the throne (for example, D. Pozharsky), there were also applicants from abroad. The Polish prince Vladislav and Prince Carl Philip of Sweden were especially eager for Russian power. After much debate, preference was given to Mikhail Fedorovich. There was an opinion among the people that the most correct decision would be if the choice fell on a person closely related by kinship to the defunct dynasty. But the Russian boyars liked Mikhail Fedorovich more. They were satisfied with his young age, meek and gentle character. On July 1, 1613, Mikhail Romanov’s crowning ceremony took place in Moscow.

The reign of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich

The young king was primarily concerned with the pacification of the state. Despite the fact that the Time of Troubles seemed to be over, the country was still tormented by gangs of Cossacks, fugitive peasants, Lithuanian and Polish troops, who acted more at their own peril and risk. Gradually it was possible to destroy most of them.

There were still problems with the “official” invaders. The Swedes still held Novgorod, and the Poles laid claim to the Moscow throne.

A new page in the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich was opened by his father, Metropolitan Philaret. He for a long time was held by the Poles and in 1619 finally returned to Moscow. The Tsar very quickly elevated him to the rank of Moscow Patriarch with the title “Great Sovereign.” His influence on his son was very significant. Many government decisions were made only with the approval of the patriarch. A similar dual power existed until the death of Filaret in October 1633.

In 1623, the young tsar married Princess Marya Vladimirovna Dolgorukaya, who soon died. In 1626, a wedding took place with Evdokia Lukyanovna Streshneva, who was the daughter of an ordinary nobleman.

Mikhail Fedorovich did not pursue a very active foreign policy. I tried not to get involved in large military campaigns. The Second ended in failure Polish War, and the Poles managed to retain all the previously captured Russian lands. The Cossack campaign also ended ingloriously. They captured the Turkish fortress of Azov, but the king, not wanting to quarrel with the Turks, did not defend it.

Domestic policy of Mikhail Fedorovich

The tsar was much more concerned about the internal problems of the state. His efforts were aimed at boosting the economy and streamlining finances. Elected people from Russian cities were convened, who informed the government about the state of the lands and proposed ways to improve their situation.

During the reign of Mikhail Romanov, 12 Zemsky Sobors were held, which greatly facilitated the work of the government.

The country's military service class was dismantled and a new cadastre began.

Under Mikhail Fedorovich, the country became more open to foreigners. The practice of inviting foreign scientists and correcting church books began. The first government school is being created in Moscow.

Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, the founder of the dynasty, died on July 13, 1645, leaving three daughters and a son, Alexei Mikhailovich, who succeeded him on the throne.

The Zemsky Sobor, convened in January 1613 (there were representatives from 50 cities and the clergy), immediately decided that a non-Christian should not be elected to the throne. There were many claimants to the throne worthy people. However, out of everyone, they chose 16-year-old Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, who was not even in Moscow at that moment. But the former Tush residents and Cossacks stood up for him especially zealously and even aggressively. The participants of the Zemsky Sobor were afraid of the latter - everyone knew the irrepressible power of the Cossack freemen. Another candidate for king, one of the leaders of the Militia, Prince D.T. Trubetskoy, tried to please the Cossacks and gain their support. He threw abundant feasts, but received nothing but ridicule from them in return. The Cossacks, who boldly walked around Moscow in armed crowds, looked at Mikhail as the son of the “Tushino patriarch” Filaret, who was close to them, believing that he would be obedient to their leaders. However, Mikhail suited many others - Russian society longed for peace, certainty and mercy. Everyone remembered that Mikhail came from the family of the first wife of Ivan the Terrible, Anastasia, “Golubitsa,” revered for her kindness.

The zemstvo people made the decision to elect Mikhail on February 7, and on February 21, 1613, after a solemn procession through the Kremlin and a prayer service in the Assumption Cathedral, Mikhail was officially elected to the throne. For Trubetskoy, the victory of Mikhail’s party turned out to be a terrible blow. As a contemporary writes, he turned black with grief and fell ill for 3 months. Of course, the crown for Trubetskoy was lost forever. The Council sent a deputation to Kostroma, to Mikhail. Those sent on behalf of the whole earth called the young man to the kingdom.

By the time the deputation arrived in Kostroma, Mikhail and his mother, nun Martha, lived in the Ipatiev Monastery. This ancient monastery was founded in 1330, when the noble Tatar Chet camped near Kostroma. At night he saw the Mother of God. Chet immediately converted to Orthodoxy, and on the site of the miraculous appearance of the Mother of God he founded a monastery called Ipatievsky Trinity. This Tatar Chet, who became Zakhar in Orthodoxy, was the ancestor of Boris Godunov. It was here, on April 14, 1613, that the Moscow delegation met with Martha and her son Mikhail.

Abrahamy Palitsyn, a participant in the embassy, said that the tsar’s mother did not agree for a long time to let her son become king, and she can be understood: although the country was in a terrible situation, Martha, knowing the fate of Mikhail’s predecessors, was very worried about the future of her foolish 16-year-old son. But the deputation begged Marfa Ivanovna so fervently that she finally gave her consent. And on May 2, 1613, Mikhail Fedorovich entered Moscow, and on July 11 he was crowned king.

At first, the young king did not rule independently. The Boyar Duma decided everything for him; behind him stood his relatives who received prominent positions at court; The role of the mother, the “Great Elder” Martha, a strong-willed and stern woman, was also great. She became the abbess of the Kremlin Ascension Monastery. Everyone was waiting for the return of the Tsar’s father, Patriarch Filaret, who was languishing in Polish captivity. But this did not happen soon.

In the winter of 1613, at the time of his election to the kingdom, Mikhail and his mother were in the Romanov family estate near Galich. The Poles, having learned about the election of Mikhail Romanov as king, decided to forestall the envoys of the Zemsky Sobor and capture the young man. The Romanov serf boyar Ivan Susanin, having become the guide of a detachment of Poles who were going to “break” Mikhail’s estate, led the enemies into the forest thicket and thereby destroyed them, but he himself died from their sabers. So Susanin, at the cost of his life, saved for Russia the future tsar, the founder of the dynasty.

Tsar Michael and Patriarch Filaret – father and son in power

In 1618, Prince Vladislav, still laying claim to the Russian throne, again approached Moscow and settled in Tushino. Then the Poles fought their way to Arbat, but were stopped there by Russian regiments. After this, in the village of Deulino near the Trinity-Sergius Monastery on December 1, 1618, Russian and Polish diplomats concluded a truce. And already on June 1, 1619, according to him, an exchange of prisoners took place near Vyazma. Among the people who returned from captivity was the tsar’s father, Patriarch Filaret. They gave him a ceremonial welcome. At Presnya, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, kneeling, greeted his father, who also knelt before his son, the Tsar.

Patriarch Filaret, a strong and strong-willed man, lived a difficult life full of contradictions. More than once he was in danger - at the court of the half-mad Ivan the Terrible, in the cell of the monastery, where Godunov imprisoned him in 1600, during the time of Shuisky. In 1606, Tsar Vasily, yielding to the opinion of the boyars, agreed to the election of Filaret as patriarch. Then, accusing him of spreading rumors about the rescue of “Tsar Dmitry” from Moscow, he refused to support him.

In October 1608, Filaret was in Rostov and during the capture of the Rostov Kremlin by the troops of the Tushino thief, he was with the city’s defenders in the main cathedral, inspiring them to resist. When the situation of the besieged became hopeless, Filaret came out to meet the besiegers of the cathedral with bread and salt, but the Tushins grabbed him, threw him into a simple cart and took him as a prisoner to their “thieves’ capital.” There he was received by False Dmitry II and made patriarch. Later, during the flight of the Tushins, Filaret was captured by people loyal to Shuisky. He was left in Moscow, but deprived of the patriarchate. Then Filaret actively intrigued against Shuisky, and then openly advocated his overthrow. During the Seven Boyars, Filaret went with a delegation to Sigismund’s camp near Smolensk, where the Poles declared him a prisoner and took him to Poland. The captivity dragged on for 8 years.

From the return of 70-year-old Filaret until his death in 1634, a dual power of father and son (“ruled inseparably”) was established in the country. Philaret was again elected patriarch, and he bore the royal title of “Great Sovereign.” Like a monarch, Filaret received foreign ambassadors and was in charge of the most important state affairs. He had plenty of experience in these matters. Patriarch Filaret ruled prudently, in all government endeavors he sought to achieve the support of Zemsky Councils, which met frequently.
With the help of the “watch,” or census, he carried out the first census of lands after the devastation (“Moscow devastation”) and sought to provide the nobles with estates. It is important that Filaret recognized as legitimate the possessions of those nobles who, during the Time of Troubles, “flying over”, received lands from Shuisky, and from False Dmitry, and from Vladislav, and from other rulers. This reasonable policy calmed society, as did the successful fight against Cossack freemen and robberies.

End of the Troubles, royal weddings

Gradually, life in Russia returned to normal. The Cossack detachments, which so annoyed the authorities, either dispersed after receiving land, or they were defeated in battle by government troops. After the death of False Dmitry II, Ivan Zarutsky became friends with Marina Mnishek. He sent letters throughout the country demanding that he swear allegiance to Marina’s young son, Tsarevich Ivan Dmitrievich. At the end of 1613, in a bloody battle near Voronezh, Zarutsky’s army was defeated, and the ataman, along with Marina and Ivan, fled to Astrakhan. Having captured the city and killed the governor, he wanted to rouse the Nogai Tatars and Volga Cossacks against Russia, and ask for help from the Persian Shah and the Turkish Sultan. Here the government acted immediately - the archers suddenly besieged Astrakhan. Taken by surprise by the arrival of the Moscow regiments, the Cossacks acted in accordance with their ancestral customs. In exchange for pardon, they captured and handed over Zarutsky, Marina and Ivan to the authorities. Zarutsky was impaled, and 4-year-old Ivan was hanged in Moscow. Marina died in prison from illness and melancholy.

Having become in power, Filaret wanted to strengthen the position of the new dynasty with the successful marriage of Mikhail. At first, he looked for a bride for his son abroad. Russian diplomats failed to woo the niece of the Danish king Christian, as well as the relative of the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf. The mandatory conversion of the bride to Orthodoxy did not suit the Lutheran kings.

Then they turned to Russian beauties. Marya Khlopova was a bride for a long time. Usually there was a struggle around the choice of a bride - after all, the queen’s relatives flew very high. Therefore, it is not surprising that Marya, who once overate sweets and suffered from stomach pain, was slandered before the king, saying that she was terminally ill. Mikhail immediately renounced his bride. Of the many girls, he chose Marya Dolgorukaya, but a year later the young queen died - someone poisoned her. Finally, in 1626, Mikhail had a magnificent wedding with Evdokia Lukyanovna Streshneva, a beautiful but humble noble daughter, who became the mother of 10 of his children.

Elected people gathered in Moscow in January 1613. From Moscow they asked the cities to send “the best, strongest and most reasonable” people for the royal election. The cities, by the way, had to think not only about electing a king, but also about how to “build” the state and how to conduct business before the election, and about this to give the elected “agreements”, that is, instructions that they had to follow . For a more complete coverage and understanding of the council of 1613, one should turn to an analysis of its composition, which can only be determined by the signatures on the electoral charter of Mikhail Fedorovich, written in the summer of 1613. On it we see only 277 signatures, but obviously there were participants in the council more, since not all conciliar people signed the conciliar charter. Proof of this is, for example, the following: for Nizhny Novgorod 4 people signed the letter (Archpriest Savva, 1 townsman, 2 archers), and it is reliably known that there were 19 Nizhny Novgorod elected people (3 priests, 13 townspeople, a deacon and 2 archers).

If each city were content with ten elected people, as the book determined their number. Dm. Mich. Pozharsky, then up to 500 elected people would have gathered in Moscow, since representatives of 50 cities (northern, eastern and southern) participated in the cathedral; and together with the Moscow people and clergy, the number of participants in the cathedral would have reached 700 people. The cathedral was really crowded. He often gathered in the Assumption Cathedral, perhaps precisely because none of the other Moscow buildings could accommodate him. Now the question is what classes of society were represented at the council and whether the council was complete in its class composition. Of the 277 signatures mentioned, 57 belong to the clergy (partly “elected” from the cities), 136 - to the highest service ranks (boyars - 17), 84 - to the city electors. It has already been said above that these digital data cannot be trusted. According to them, there were few provincial elected officials at the cathedral, but in fact these elected officials undoubtedly made up the majority, and although it is impossible to determine with accuracy either their number, or how many of them were tax workers and how many were service people, it can nevertheless be said that the service There were, it seems, more than the townspeople, but there was also a very large percentage of the townspeople, which rarely happened at councils. And, in addition, there are traces of the participation of “district” people (12 signatures). These were, firstly, peasants not from proprietary lands, but from black sovereign lands, representatives of free northern peasant communities, and secondly, small service people from the southern districts. Thus, representation at the council of 1613 was extremely complete. We don’t know anything exact about what happened at this cathedral, because in the acts and literary works of that time only revelations of legends, hints and legends remain, so the historian here is, as it were, among the incoherent ruins of an ancient building, the appearance of which he has to restore has no strength. Official documents say nothing about the proceedings of the meetings. True, the electoral charter has been preserved, but it can help us little, since it was not written independently and, moreover, does not contain information about the very process of the election. As for unofficial documents, they are either legends or meager, dark and rhetorical stories from which nothing definite can be extracted.

However, let us try to restore not the picture of the meetings - this is impossible - but the general course of the debate, the general sequence of selective thought, how it came to the personality of Mikhail Fedorovich. Election sessions of the cathedral began in January. From this month, the first document of the council reached us - namely, the charter given by Prince. Trubetskoy to the Vagu region. This region, an entire state in terms of space and wealth, in the 16th and 17th centuries was usually given into the possession of a person close to the king; under Fyodor Ivanovich it belonged to Godunov, under you. Iv. Shuisky - Dmitry Shuisky now passed to the noble Trubetskoy, who, according to his boyar rank, then occupied one of the first places in Moscow. Then they began to decide the issue of election, and the first resolution of the council was not to choose a king from among foreigners. Of course, such a decision was not reached immediately, and in general the meetings of the council were far from peaceful. The chronicler says about this that “for many days there was a gathering of people, but they could not establish things and were in vain agitated by this and that,” another chronicler also testifies that “there was a lot of excitement for all sorts of people, each of them wanting to act according to their thoughts.” A foreign king seemed possible to many at the time. Shortly before the council, Pozharsky communicated with the Swedes about the election of Philip, son of Charles IX; in the same way he began the matter of electing the son of the German Emperor Rudolf. But this was only a diplomatic maneuver, used by him in order to acquire the neutrality of some and the alliance of others. Nevertheless, the idea of a foreign king was in Moscow, and it was precisely among the boyars: the “bosses” wanted such a king, says the Pskov chronicler. “The peoples did not want him to be warriors,” he adds further. But the desire of the boyars, who hoped to settle better under a foreigner than under the Russian Tsar from their own boyar environment, was met with the opposite and the strongest desire of the people to elect a Tsar from among their own. Yes, this is understandable: how could the people sympathize with a foreigner when they so often had to see what kind of violence and robberies were accompanied by the appearance of foreign power in Rus'? According to the people, foreigners were to blame for the turmoil that was destroying the Moscow state.

Having resolved one difficult issue, they began to identify candidates from Moscow clans. “They talked at the councils about the princes who serve in the Moscow state, and about the great families, which of them God will give... to be sovereign.” But then the main turmoil came. “Those who choose many things” could not settle on anyone: some suggested this, others another, and everyone spoke differently, wanting to insist on their thoughts. “And so she spent many days,” according to the chronicler’s description.

Each participant in the council tried to point out the boyar family with which he himself was more sympathetic, whether due to its moral qualities, or high position, or simply driven by personal benefits. And many boyars themselves hoped to sit on the Moscow throne. And then came the election fever with all its attributes - campaigning and bribery. The candid chronicler shows us that the voters did not act entirely unselfishly. “Many of the nobles, who want to be king, bribe many people and give and promise many gifts.” We have no direct indications of who were the candidates then, who were proposed to be king; legend names V.I. Shuisky, Vorotynsky, Trubetskoy among the candidates. F.I. Sheremetev worked for his relatives M.F. Romanov. Contemporaries, hanging out with Pozharsky, accused him of spending 20 thousand rubles on bribes in order to reign. Needless to say, such an assumption of 20,000 is simply incredible because even the sovereign’s treasury at that time could not accumulate such a sum, not to mention a private individual.

Disputes about who to elect took place not only in Moscow: a tradition, however unlikely, has been preserved that F.I. Sheremetev was in correspondence with Filaret (Fedor) Nikitich Romanov and V.V. Golitsyn, that Filaret said in letters about the need for restrictive conditions for the new tsar, and that F.I. Sheremetev wrote to Golitsyn about the benefits for the boyars of electing Mikhail Fedorovich in the following expressions: “We will choose Misha Romanov, he is young and will be liked by us.” This correspondence was found by Undolsky in one of the Moscow monasteries, but has not yet been published and where it is is unknown. Personally, we do not believe in its existence. There is a legend, also unreliable, about Sheremetev’s correspondence with nun Martha (Ksenia Ivanovna Romanova), in which the latter declared her reluctance to see her son on the throne. If there really were relations between the Romanovs and Sheremetev, then Sheremetev would have known about the whereabouts of his correspondent, but he, as one might think, did not know this. Finally, on February 7, 1613 came to the decision to elect Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. According to one legend (from Zabelin), the first one to speak about Mikhail Fedorovich at the cathedral was a nobleman from Galich, who brought to the cathedral a written statement about Mikhail’s rights to the throne. Someone did the same thing Don Ataman. Further, Palitsyn in his “Legend” states in a humble tone that people from many cities came to him and asked him to convey to the royal council “their thoughts about the election of Romanov”; and according to the representation of this holy father, the “synclitus” allegedly elected Michael. In all these legends and messages, a particularly curious feature is that the initiative in the election of Michael belonged not to the highest, but to small people. The Cossacks, they say, also stood for Mikhail.

From the 7th, the final choice was postponed until the 21st, and people, it seems, participants in the council, were sent to the cities to find out in the cities the people's opinion about the matter. And the cities spoke out for Mikhail. The stories of A. Palitsyn about how some “guest Smirny” from Kaluga came to him with the news that all the Seversk cities desired Mikhail should be attributed to this time. Therefore, as far as one can think, there were voices against Mikhail only in the north, but the masses of the people were for him. She was for him back in 1610, when both Hermogenes, during the election of Vladislav, and the people spoke out specifically for Michael. Therefore, it is possible that the council was led to the election of Mikhail Fedorovich by pressure the masses. Kostomarov's (" Time of Troubles") this thought flickers, but very weakly and vaguely. Below we will have reason to dwell on it.

When the Mstislavsky and other boyars, as well as belated elected people and those sent to the regions, gathered in Moscow, a solemn meeting took place on February 21 in the Assumption Cathedral. Here the choice of Mikhail was decided unanimously, followed by prayers for the health of the king and an oath to him. Having been informed of the election of the tsar, the cities, even before receiving Michael’s consent, swore allegiance to him and signed records of the cross. According to the general idea, God himself chose the sovereign, and the whole Russian land rejoiced and rejoiced. Now all that remained was Mikhail’s consent, which took a lot of work to obtain. In Moscow they didn’t even know where he was: the embassy to him on March 2 was sent to “Yaroslavl or where he, sir, will be.” And after the Moscow siege, Mikhail Fedorovich left for his Kostroma estate, Domnino, where he was almost attacked by a Polish gang, from which he was saved, according to legend, by the peasant Ivan Susanin. That Susanin really existed is evidenced by the royal charter of Michael, which grants various benefits to Susanin’s family. However, there was a long debate between historians about this personality: thus, Kostomarov, having analyzed the legend of Susanin, reduced everything to the fact that the personality of Susanin is a myth created by the popular imagination. With this kind of statement, he aroused in the 60s an entire movement in defense of this personality: articles by Solovyov, Domninsky, and Pogodin appeared against Kostomarov. In 1882, Samaryanov’s study “In Memory of Ivan Susanin” was published. The author, attaching a map of the area, introduces us in detail to the path along which Susanin led the Poles. From his work we learn that Susanin was a confidant of the Romanovs, and in general this book presents rich material about Susanin. From Domnin, Mikhail Fedorovich and his mother moved to Kostroma, to the Ipatiev Monastery, built in the 14th century by Murza Chet, Godunov’s ancestor. This monastery was supported by the contributions of Boris and, under False Dmitry, was donated by the latter to the Romanovs, as they assume, for everything they suffered from Boris.

The embassy, consisting of Theodoret, Archbishop of Ryazan and Murom, Abraham Palitsyn, Sheremetev and others, arrived on the evening of March 13 in Kostroma. Martha appointed him to appear the next day. And so on March 14, the embassy, accompanied by a religious procession, with a huge crowd of people, set out to ask Michael for the kingdom. The source for getting acquainted with the actions of the embassy is its reports to Moscow. From them we learn that both Michael and the nun’s mother at first unconditionally rejected the ambassadors’ proposal. The latter said that the Moscow people were “exhausted”, that in such a great state even a child could not rule, etc. For a long time the ambassadors had to persuade both mother and son; they used all their eloquence, even threatened with heavenly punishment; Finally, their efforts were crowned with success - Mikhail gave his consent, and his mother blessed him. We know about all this, in addition to the embassy reports to Moscow, from Mikhail’s election letter, which, however, due to its low independence, as we said above, cannot be of particular value: it was drawn up on the model of Boris Godunov’s election letter; Thus, the scene of the people’s crying in the Ipatiev Monastery was copied from a similar scene that took place in the Novodevichy Monastery, described in Boris’s letter (from where Pushkin took it for his “Boris Godunov”).

As soon as Mikhail Fedorovich’s consent was received, the ambassadors began to rush him to go to Moscow; The king set off, but the journey was extremely slow, since the ruined roads could not serve as a convenient route. The meaning of the new dynasty. This is the external side of the accession of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. But there is also an internal meaning in the events of this important historical moment, hidden from us by walking tradition and restored by a detailed study of the era.

Let's look at this, so to speak, intimate side of Moscow relations, which led to the formation of a new and, moreover, lasting dynasty. At present, it can be considered completely clear that the leaders of the zemstvo militia of 1611 -1612. set as their task not only to “cleanse” Moscow from the Poles, but also to break the Cossacks, who had seized control of the central institutions in the “camps” near Moscow, and with them government power. No matter how weak this power was in reality, it stood in the way of any other attempt to create a center of national unity; she covered with her authority “the whole earth” the Cossack atrocities that tormented the zemshchina; she finally threatened with the danger of a social revolution and the establishment of “thieves’” order in the country, or, rather, disorder. For Prince Pozharsky, circumstances put the war with the Cossacks in the first place: the Cossacks themselves opened military operations against the people of Nizhny Novgorod. Civil War The Russian people marched without interference from the Poles and Lithuanians for almost the entire year 1612. First, Pozharsky knocked out the Cossacks from Pomerania and the Volga region and threw them back to Moscow. There, near Moscow, they were not only not harmful, but even useful for Pozharsky’s purposes in that they paralyzed the Polish garrison of the capital. Leaving both his enemies to exhaust themselves with mutual struggle, Pozharsky was in no hurry from Yaroslavl to Moscow. The Yaroslavl authorities even thought of electing a sovereign in Yaroslavl and gathered in this city a council of the entire land not only for the temporary administration of the state, but also for the sovereign’s “robbing.” However, the approach of an auxiliary Polish-Lithuanian detachment to Moscow forced Pozharsky to march towards Moscow, and there, after defeating this detachment, the last act of the internecine struggle of the Zemstvos and Cossacks took place. The approach of the zemstvo militia to Moscow forced the smaller half of the Cossacks to separate from the rest of the masses and, together with Zarutsky, its ataman and “boyar,” go south. The other, larger half of the Cossacks, feeling weaker than the Zemstvo people, for a long time did not dare to either fight them or submit to them. It took a whole month of unrest and hesitation for the founder of this part of the Cossacks, the Tushino boyar Prince. D.T. Trubetskoy could enter into an agreement with Pozharsky and Minin and united his “orders” with those of the zemstvo into one “government”. As a senior in his report and rank, Trubetskoy took first place in this government;

but the actual predominance belonged to the other side, and the Cossacks, in essence, capitulated to the zemstvo militia, entering, as it were, into the service and subordination of the zemstvo authorities. Of course, this subordination could not immediately become durable, and the chronicler more than once noted the Cossack willfulness, which brought the army almost “to blood,” but the matter became clear in the sense that the Cossacks abandoned their previous struggle with the foundations of the zemstvo order and primacy in power. The Cossacks disintegrated and despaired of their triumph over the zemshchina.

Such a defeat of the Cossacks was very important event in the internal history of Moscow society, no less important than the “cleansing” of Moscow. If with the captivity of the Polish garrison any shadow of Vladislav's power in Rus' fell, then with the defeat of the Cossacks any possibility of further impostor adventures disappeared. The Moscow boyars, who wanted a king “from the heterodox”, forever left the political arena, broken by the storms of the troubled times. At the same time, the Cossack freemen with their Tushino leaders, who were inventing impostors, lost their game. The “last” Moscow people who came with Kuzma Minin and Pozharsky were the city men and ordinary service people who got involved in business. They had a definite idea “not to plunder some other people’s lands for the Moscow state and not to want Marinka and her son,” but to want and rob one of their “great families.” This naturally outlined the main condition for the upcoming tsar’s election in Moscow; it flowed from the real situation of the given moment, as a consequence of the actual relationship of social forces.

Formed in the militia of 1611 - 1612. government power was created through the efforts of the middle strata of the Moscow population and was their faithful spokesman. She took possession of the state, cleared the capital, broke the Cossack camps and subjugated the majority of the organized Cossack masses. All that remained for her was to formalize her triumph and return the correct governmental order to the country through the royal election. Three weeks after the capture of Moscow, i.e. In mid-November 1612, the provisional government already sent invitations to the cities to send elected officials to Moscow and with them “council and a strong agreement” about the state election. This opened the electoral period, which ended in February with the election of Tsar Michael. Speculation about possible candidates for the throne should have begun immediately. Although we generally know very little about such views, we can, from what we know, extract several valuable observations on the relationships between the social groups that existed at that time.

Recently it became known (in the publication of A. Girshberg) one important testimony about what was happening in Moscow at the very end of November 1612. During these days, the Polish king sent his vanguard to Moscow itself, and in the vanguard were Russian “ambassadors” from Sigismund and Vladislav to the Moscow people, namely: Prince Danilo Mezetsky and clerk Ivan Gramotin. They had to “talk to Moscow to accept the prince as king.” However, all their sendings to Moscow did not lead to good, and Moscow began “enthusiasm and battle” with the Polish avant-garde. In the battle, the Poles captured the Smolensk son of the boyar Ivan Filosofov, who was in Moscow, and removed his interrogation. What Filosofov showed them had long been known from the Moscow chronicle. They asked him: “Do they want to take the prince as king? And is Moscow now crowded and is there any supplies in it?” In the words of the chronicler, Filosofov, “God give the word what to say,” he allegedly said to the Poles: “Moscow is crowded and grainy, and that’s why we all promised that we would all die for the Orthodox faith, and not make the prince king.” From Filosofov’s words, the chronicler thinks, the king concluded that there was a lot of strength and unanimity in Moscow, and therefore he left the Moscow state. A recently published document casts a different light on Filosofov’s testimony. In the materials published by A. Girshberg on the history of Moscow-Polish relations, we read an authentic report to the king and prince of Prince D. Mezetsky and Ivan. Gramotina about the interrogation of Filosofov. They, by the way, write: “And in questioning, Gospodars, the son of a boyar (namely Ivan Filosofov) told us and the colonel that in Moscow the boyars who served you, the great Gospodars, and the best people There is a desire to ask you, the great ruler, Prince Vladislav Zhigimontovich, to become the ruler, but they don’t dare talk about this, fearing the Cossacks, but they say it in order to take over the state of a foreigner; and the Cossacks, the rulers, are talking about taking one of the Russian boyars, but they are trying on Filaret’s son and Vorovsky of Koluzhsky. And in everything, the Cossacks, the boyars and the nobles, are strong, they do what they want; and the nobles and boyar children dispersed to their estates, and in Moscow there were only about two thousand nobles and boyar children left, and half a fifth of a thousand Cossacks (that is, 4500), and about a thousand Streltsy, and the mob. But the boyars, the hospodars, and Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky and his comrades, who sat in Moscow, are not allowed into the Duma, but wrote about them to all sorts of people in the cities: should they be allowed into the Duma or not? And Prince Dmitry Trubetskoy, Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, and Kuzemka Minin do all sorts of things. And whoever should be in the rulership has not yet been decided on the measure." Obviously, from these words of the report on Filosofov’s testimony, the Polish king did not draw exactly the conclusions that the Moscow chronicler suggested. That there was a large garrison in Moscow, the king had no doubt: seven with half a thousand military men, in addition to the mob, fit at that time for the defense of the walls, constituted an impressive force. There was no unanimity among the garrison, but Sigismund saw that in Moscow, elements hostile to him predominated, and, moreover, decisively predominated. , he decided to turn back.

This is the situation in which we know Filosofov’s testimony. Both sides at war gave him great importance. Moscow knew him not in business, but, so to speak, in epic edition; Sigismund's retreat, which was or seemed to be a consequence of Filosofov's speeches, gave them an aura of patriotic feat, and the speeches themselves were edited by the chronicler under the impression of this feat, too noble and beautiful. The king recognized Filosofov’s testimony in the business transfer of such a smart businessman as clerk Iv. Gramotin. It is concisely and aptly outlined in the book’s report. Mezetsky and Gramotin the situation in Moscow, and in the interests of scientific truth we can safely rely on this report.

It becomes clear that a month after the cleansing of Moscow, the main forces of the zemstvo militia were already demobilized. According to the usual Moscow procedure, with the end of the campaign, the service detachments received permission to return to their districts “home.” The capture of Moscow was then understood as the end of the campaign. It was difficult to maintain a large army in devastated Moscow; It was even more difficult for service people to feed themselves there. There was no reason to keep large masses of field troops in the capital - noble cavalry and Danish people. Having left the necessary garrison in Moscow, they considered it possible to send the rest home. This is what the chronicler means when he says about the end of November: “People have all left Moscow.” The garrison, again according to the usual order, included Moscow nobles, some groups of provincial, “city” nobles (Ivan Filosofov himself, for example, was not a Muscovite, but a “Smolensk”, i.e. from the Smolensk nobles), then Streltsy (whose number decreased during the Troubles) and, finally, Cossacks. Philosophers accurately determines the number of nobles at 2000, the number of Streltsy at 1000 and the number of Cossacks at 4500 people. The result was a situation that the Moscow authorities could hardly have liked. With the dissolution of the city squads of servicemen and taxation people, the Cossacks gained a numerical superiority in Moscow. There was nowhere to disband them due to their homelessness and they could not be sent to serve in the cities due to their unreliability. Beginning with the verdict on June 30, 1611, the zemstvo government, as soon as it gained dominance over the Cossacks, sought to remove the Cossacks from the cities and gather them at hand for the purpose of supervision, and Pozharsky at one time, in the first half of 1612, pulled together the servicemen the Cossacks who submitted to him to Yaroslavl and then led them with him to Moscow. That is why there were so many Cossacks in Moscow. As far as we have digital data for that time, we can say that the number of Cossacks indicated by Filosofov, “half a fifth of a thousand,” is very large, but quite probable. For some reasons, one has to think that in 1612, near Moscow, with Prince. About 5,000 Cossacks were imprisoned by Trubetskoy and Zarutskoi; Of these, Zarutsky took away about 2,000, and the rest succumbed to Pozharsky’s zemstvo militia. We don’t know exactly how many Cossacks came to Moscow with Pozharsky from Yaroslavl; but we know that a little later than the time we are now talking about, namely in March and April 1613, the Cossack mass in Moscow was so significant that Cossack detachments of 2323 and 1140 people are mentioned and they do not yet exhaust the entire presence of the Cossacks in Moscow. Thus, one must believe Filosofov’s figure and admit that in the outcome of 1612. Cossack troops in Moscow they were more than twice as numerous as the nobles, and one and a half times greater than the nobles and archers combined. This mass had to be provided with food and kept in obedience and order. Apparently, the Moscow government did not achieve this, and the Cossacks, defeated by the Zemstvo people, again raised their heads, trying to take control of the state of affairs in the capital. This is the mood of the Cossacks and was noted by Philosophers with the words: “And in everything the Cossacks are strong with the boyars and nobles, they do what they want.”

On the one hand, the Cossacks persistently and shamelessly demanded “feed” and any salary, and on the other hand, they “tried on” their candidates for the kingdom. The chronicler speaks briefly but powerfully about feed and salaries: he reports that after the capture of the Kremlin, the Cossacks “began to ask for their salaries incessantly,” they “took the entire Moscow treasury, and barely took away a little of the sovereign’s treasury”;

because of the treasury, they once came to the Kremlin and wanted to “beat” the bosses (i.e. Pozharsky and Trubetskoy), but the nobles did not allow this to happen and “there was hardly any bloodshed” between them. According to Filosofov, the Moscow authorities “whatever they found in anyone’s treasury, they gave it all to the Cossacks as wages; and whatever (at the surrender of Moscow) they took in Moscow from the Polish and Russian people, the Cossacks took it all.” Finally, Archbishop Arseny Elassonsky, in agreement with Filosofov, reports some details about the search for the royal treasury after the Moscow cleansing and about its distribution to “warriors and Cossacks,” after which “the whole people calmed down.” Obviously, the question of providing for the Cossacks was then a grave concern for the Moscow government and constantly threatened the authorities with violence on their part. Realizing their numerical superiority in Moscow, the Cossacks went beyond “salaries” and “feeds”: they obviously returned to the idea of the political dominance they had lost as a result of Pozharsky’s successes. After the Moscow cleansing, the Cossack chief, the boyar Prince Trubetskoy, was revered at the head of the provisional government; the main force of the Moscow garrison was the Cossacks: the idea is obvious that the Cossacks can and should also decide the question of who should be given the Moscow throne. Standing on this idea, the Cossacks “tried on” in advance the most worthy, in their opinion, persons for the throne. These turned out to be the son of the former Tushino and Kaluga king “Vora”, taken away by Zarutsky, and the son of the former Tushino patriarch Filaret Romanov. The Moscow authorities had to endure all the Cossack antics and claims for the time being, because the Cossacks could be brought into complete humility either by force, by gathering a new Zemstvo militia in Moscow, or by the authority of the entire land, by creating the Zemstvo Sobor. In its haste to convene the council, the government, of course, understood that it would be extremely difficult to mobilize the zemstvo militias after the just completed campaign near Moscow. The government had no other means of influencing the Cossacks. They had to endure it also because in the Cossacks the government saw a real support against the lusts of the royal followers. It was not without reason that Philosophers said that “the boyars and the best people” in Moscow concealed their desire to invite Vladislav, “fearing the Cossacks.” The Cossacks could provide significant assistance against the Poles and their Moscow friends, and Sigismund turned back from Moscow at the end of 1612, most likely precisely because of the “half a thousand” Cossacks and their anti-Polish sentiment. Settlements with Sigismund's agents and supporters in Moscow were not yet settled at that time, and relations with Tsar Vladislav Zhigimontovich had not yet been liquidated. Filosofov reported that in Moscow, “Russian people who were under siege were arrested for bailiffs: Ivan Bezobrazov, Ivan Chicherin, Fyodor Andronov, Stepan Solovetsky, Bazhen Zamochnikov; and Fyodor de and Bazhen were tortured in the treasury.” In agreement with this, Archbishop Arseny Elassonsky says that after the cleansing of Moscow, “enemies of the state and beloved friends of the great king, F. Andronov and Iv. Bezobrazov, were subjected to many tortures in order to find out about the royal treasury, vessels and treasures... During punishment (i.e., the king’s friends) and torture, three of them died: the great clerk of the royal court, Timofey Savinov, Stepan Solovetsky and Bazhen Zamochnikov, his most trusted treasurers sent by the great king to the royal treasury.” According to the custom of that era, “thin people, merchant men, young boyar children” who served the king were kept behind the bailiffs and tortured to death, and the great boyars, guilty of the same service to the king, were only “not allowed into the Duma” and, at most , were kept under house arrest until the zemstvo council in the cities decided the question: “should they be allowed into the Duma or not?” The letters that, according to Filosofov, were sent to the cities about whether the boyars of Prince Mstislavsky “and his comrades” could be allowed into the Duma have not reached us. But there is full reason consider that this question was ultimately answered in the negative in Moscow, since they sent Mstislavsky “and his comrades” from Moscow somewhere “to the cities” and carried out the sovereign election without them. All these measures against the Moscow boyars and the Moscow administration who served the king, the provisional Moscow government of Prince. D. T. Trubetskoy, book. D. M. Pozharsky and “Kuzemki” Minin could be received mainly with the sympathy of the Cossacks, because among the boyars and the best “people” there was still a strong tendency towards Vladislav.

These were the circumstances of Moscow political life at the end of 1612. From the data examined here, the conclusion is clear that the victory won by the zemstvo militia over the king and the Cossacks required further consolidation. The enemies were defeated, but not destroyed. They tried as best they could to regain their lost position, and if the name of Vladislav was pronounced quietly in Moscow, then the names of “Filaret’s son and the Thief of Kaluga” were heard loudly. The Zemshchina still had to worry about insisting at the Zemsky Sobor that neither foreigners nor impostors, about whom, as we see, the defeated elements still dared to dream, would not ascend to the throne. The success of the Zemstvo aspirations could be particularly hampered by the fact that the Zemsky Sobor had to operate in the capital, which was occupied for the most part by a Cossack garrison. The predominance of the Cossack masses in the city could have put some pressure on the representative assembly, directing it one way or another towards the Cossack desires. As far as we can judge, something similar happened at the electoral council of 1613. Foreigners, after the election of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich to the throne, received the impression that this election was the work of the Cossacks. In the official, therefore responsible, conversations of Lithuanian-Polish diplomats with Moscow diplomats in the first months after the election of Mikhail, the Russian people had to listen to “unseemly speeches”: Lev Sapega rudely told Filaret himself in the presence of the Moscow ambassador Zhelyabuzhsky that “they put his son in the Moscow state as sovereign only Don Cossacks"; Alexander Gonsevsky told Prince Vorotynsky that Mikhail “was chosen only by the Cossacks.” For their part, the Swedes expressed the opinion that at the time of the Tsar’s election in Moscow there were “the strongest Cossacks in the Moscow pillars.” These impressions of outsiders meet with some confirmation in Moscow historical memoirs. Of course, there is no need to look for such confirmation in official Moscow texts: they presented the matter in such a way that God himself gave Tsar Michael and took the whole land. All Russian literary tales of the 17th century adopted this same ideal point of view. The royal election, which pacified the turmoil and calmed the country, seemed to be a special blessing from God, and to attribute to the Cossacks the election of the one whom “God himself declared” was indecent nonsense in the eyes of the zemstvo people. But still, in Moscow society there remained some memory that even the Cossacks, prone to all kinds of lawlessness, took part in the happy election of the legitimate sovereign and showed initiative. Abraham Palitsyn says that during the Zemsky Sobor, the Cossacks, along with the nobles, came to him at the monastery courtyard in Moscow with the idea of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov in mind and asked him to bring their idea to the cathedral. The late and generally unreliable story about the royal election of 1613, published by I. E. Zabelin, contains one very interesting detail: that Michael’s rights to election were explained to the council, by the way, by the “glorious Don ataman.” These mentions of the merits of the Cossacks in announcing and strengthening the candidacy of M. F. Romanov are very valuable: they indicate that the role of the Cossacks in the tsar’s election was not hidden from the Moscow people, although they, of course, saw it differently than foreigners.

Guided by the above hints from the sources, we can clearly imagine what the meaning of M. F. Romanov’s candidacy was and what were the conditions for its success at the Zemsky Sobor of 1613.

Having gathered in Moscow at the end of 1612 or at the very beginning of 1613, the zemstvo electors well represented “the whole land.” The practice of elective representation, strengthened in the era of unrest, allowed the electoral council to actually represent not only Moscow, but the Moscow state in our sense of the term. Representatives of at least 50 cities and districts found themselves in Moscow;

both the service and tax classes of the population were represented;

There were also representatives of the Cossacks. For the most part, the cathedral turned out to be the organ of those layers of the Moscow population that participated in the cleansing of Moscow and the restoration of zemstvo order; he could not serve either the supporters of Sigismund or the Cossack politics. But he could and inevitably had to become the subject of influence from those who still hoped for the restoration of royal power or the Cossack regime. And so, taking away hope for both, the cathedral, before any other decision, solemnly strengthened the thought: “And the Lithuanian and Suvi king and their children, for their many untruths, and no other people’s lands, should not be plundered for the Moscow state, and I don’t want Marinka and my son.” This decision contained the final defeat of those who still thought of fighting the results of the Moscow cleansing and the triumph of the middle conservative strata of the Moscow population. The “will” of the boyars and the “best people” who “served” the king, as Filosofov put it, and would again like to “ask for the state” of Vladislav, disappeared forever. It was impossible to “try on” “Vorovsky Kaluzhsky” for the kingdom any longer, and therefore, dream of uniting with Zarutsky, who kept “Marinka” and her “Vorovsky Kaluzhsky” son.

The victory over the boyars who wanted Vladislav went to the cathedral, it seems, very easily: the entire party of the king in Moscow, as we saw, was crushed by the provisional government immediately after the capture of the capital, and even the noblest boyars “who were sitting in Moscow” were forced to leave The Moscow residents were not at the council until the time when the new tsar had already been elected: they were returned to Moscow only between February 7 and 21. If before the cathedral the supporters of Vladislav’s invitation “didn’t dare to talk about this, fearing the Cossacks,” then at the cathedral they had to be even more careful, fearing not only the Cossacks, but also “the whole land,” which equally with the Cossacks did not favor the king and the prince. It was another matter for the zemshchina to defeat the Cossacks: they were strong in their numbers and daring in the consciousness of their strength. The more decisively the zemshchina became against Marinka and her son, the more attentively it should have paid attention to another candidate put forward by the Cossacks - “to Filaret’s son.” He was no match for Vorenka. There is no doubt that the Cossacks nominated him based on Tushino memories, because the name of his father Filaret was associated with the Tushino camp. But the name of the Romanovs was also associated with another series of Moscow memories. The Romanovs were a popular boyar family, whose fame began from the first times of the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Shortly before the electoral council of 1613, precisely in 1610, completely independent of the Cossacks, M. F. Romanov in Moscow was considered a possible candidate for the kingdom, one of Vladislav’s rivals. When the council insisted on the destruction of the candidacy of foreigners and Marinkin’s son and “they spoke at the councils about the princes who serve in the Moscow state, but about the great clans, which of them God will give to be sovereign in the Moscow state,” then of all the great clans naturally prevailed the genus indicated by the opinion of the Cossacks. Both the Cossacks and the Zemshchina could agree on the Romanovs - and they did: the candidate proposed by the Cossacks was easily accepted by the Zemshchina. The candidacy of M. F. Romanov had the meaning that it reconciled two social forces that were not yet completely reconciled at the most sensitive point and gave them the opportunity for further joint work. The joy of both parties on the occasion of the agreement reached was probably sincere and great, and Michael was elected by a truly “unanimous and irrevocable council” of his future subjects.

MIKHAIL FEDOROVICH ROMANOV(1596–1645) – the first Russian Tsar of the Romanov dynasty (1613–1917).

Born on July 12, 1596 in Moscow. Son of boyar Fyodor Nikitich Romanov, metropolitan (later Patriarch Philaret) and Ksenia Ivanovna Shestova (later nun Martha). The first years he lived in Moscow, in 1601 he and his parents fell into disgrace Boris Godunov, being the king's nephew Fedor Ivanovich. He lived in exile and returned to Moscow in 1608, where he was captured by the Poles who captured the Kremlin. In November 1612, liberated by the militia of D. Pozharsky and K. Minin, he left for Kostroma.

On February 21, 1613, in Moscow, after the expulsion of the interventionists, the Great Zemsky and Local Council was held to elect a new tsar. Among the contenders were the Polish prince Vladislav, the Swedish prince Karl Philip and others. Mikhail's candidacy arose because of his relationship through the female line with the Rurik dynasty; it suited the serving nobility, which tried to prevent the aristocracy (boyars) from trying to establish a monarchy in Russia on the Polish model.

The Romanovs were one of the most noble families, Mikhail’s young age also suited the Moscow boyars: “Misha is young, he has not yet reached his intellect and he will be familiar to us,” they said in the Duma, hoping that at least at first, all issues would be resolved “by advice” with the Duma. The moral character of Michael as the son of a metropolitan corresponded to the interests of the church and popular ideas about the king-shepherd, an intercessor before God. He was supposed to become a symbol of a return to order, peace and antiquity (“loving and sweetening them all, giving them to them as if they were a rogue”).

On March 13, 1613, the ambassadors of the Council arrived in Kostroma. At the Ipatiev Monastery, where Mikhail was with his mother, he was informed of his election to the throne. Having learned about this, the Poles tried to prevent the new tsar from arriving in Moscow. A small detachment of them went to the Ipatiev Monastery to kill Michael, but on the way they got lost, because the peasant Ivan Susanin, having agreed to show the way, led him into a dense forest.

On June 11, 1613, Mikhail Fedorovich was crowned king in Moscow in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. The celebrations lasted three days. The Tsar gave, according to the testimony of a number of contemporaries, a sign of the cross that he undertakes not to rule without the Zemsky Sobor and the Boyar Duma (similarly Vasily Shuisky). According to other sources, Mikhail did not give such a record and in the future, he did not break any promises to begin to rule autocratically.

At first, the Tsar’s mother and the Saltykov boyars ruled on behalf of Mikhail. In 1619, the de facto ruler of the country became the tsar’s father, Metropolitan Philaret, who returned from Polish captivity and was elected patriarch. From 1619 to 1633 he officially bore the title of “Great Sovereign.” In the first years after the election of Michael as tsar, the main task was to end the war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden. In 1617, the Stolbovo Peace Treaty was signed with Sweden, which received the Korelu fortress and the coast Gulf of Finland. In 1618, the Deulin Truce was concluded with Poland: Russia ceded Smolensk, Chernigov and a number of other cities to it. However, the Nogai Horde left the subordination of Russia, and although Mikhail’s government annually sent expensive gifts to Bakhchisarai, the raids continued.

Russia at the end of the 1610s was in political isolation. To get out of it, an unsuccessful attempt was made to marry the young king, first to a Danish princess, then to a Swedish one. Having received refusals in both cases, the mother and the boyars married Mikhail to Maria Dolgorukova (?–1625), but the marriage turned out to be childless. The second marriage in 1625, with Evdokia Streshneva (1608–1645), brought Mikhail 7 daughters (Irina, Pelageya, Anna, Martha, Sophia, Tatyana, Evdokia) and 2 sons, the eldest Alexei Mikhailovich (1629–1676, reigned 1645–1676) and the younger, Vasily, who died in infancy.

The most important task foreign policy In Russia in the 1620–1630s there was a struggle for the reunification of Western Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian lands in a single Russian state. The first attempt to solve this problem during the war for Smolensk (1632–1634), which began after his death Polish king Sigismund in connection with the claims of his son Vladislav to the Russian throne ended unsuccessfully. After it, on the orders of Mikhail, the construction of the Great Zasechnaya Line and the fortresses of the Belgorod and Simbirsk Lines began in Russia. In the 1620–1640s, diplomatic relations were established with Holland, Austria, Denmark, Turkey, and Persia.

Mikhail introduced in 1637 the term for the capture of runaway peasants to 9 years, in 1641 he increased it by another year, but those taken out by other owners were allowed to be searched for up to 15 years. This indicated the growth of serfdom tendencies in the legislation on land and peasants. During his reign, the creation of regular military units(1630s), “regiments of the new system”, the rank and file of which were “willing free people” and homeless children of the boyars, the officers were foreign military specialists. At the end of Michael's reign, cavalry dragoon regiments arose to guard the borders.

Moscow under Mikhail Fedorovich was restored from the consequences of the intervention. In the Kremlin in 1624, the Filaretovskaya belfry appeared (master B. Ogurtsov), a stone tent was built over the Frolovskaya (Spasskaya) tower and a striking clock was installed (master Kh. Goloveev). Since 1633, machines for supplying water from the Moscow River (received the name Vodovzvodnaya) have been installed in the Sviblova Tower of the Kremlin. In 1635–1937, the Terem Palace was built on the site of the ceremonial chambers, and all the Kremlin cathedrals, including the Assumption Cathedral and the Church of the Deposition of the Robe, were re-painted. Enterprises for teaching velvet and damask crafts have appeared in Moscow - Velvet Dvor, the center textile production became Kadashevskaya Sloboda with the sovereign's Khamovny courtyard on the left bank of the Moscow River, behind the Novodevichy Convent. Folk legend has preserved the memory of Mikhail as a great lover of flowers: under him, garden roses were first brought to Russia.

In Zaryadye, on the territory of the court of the Romanov boyars, Mikhail ordered the founding of the Znamensky Monastery for men. By this time, he was already severely “grieving his legs” (he could not walk, he was carried in a cart). The tsar’s body weakened from “a lot of sitting,” and contemporaries noted in him “melancholy, that is, sadness.”

Lev Pushkarev, Natalya Pushkareva

Born in 1596 into the family of Moscow Romanov boyars: Fyodor Nikitich (later Patriarch Filaret) and his wife Ksenia Ivanovna. Mikhail Fedorovich was the great-nephew of Ivan the Terrible and the cousin of the last Russian Tsar from the Moscow branch of the Rurikovich dynasty - Fyodor Ivanovich.

During the Time of Troubles, Boris Godunov considered the Romanovs as his main rivals who wanted to take the Moscow throne. Therefore, very soon the entire family fell into disgrace. In 1600, Fyodor Nikitich and his wife forcibly took monastic vows and left worldly life under the names Filaret and Martha. This deprived them of the right to the crown.

In 1605, False Dmitry I came to power. In an effort to confirm his belonging to the royal family, the impostor ordered the Romanovs to be returned from exile. By coincidence, the released Filaret took the main church post under False Dmitry. When the impostor was overthrown by Vasily Shuisky, from 1608 Filaret took on the role of “nominated patriarch” of the new impostor False Dmitry II, who located his camp in Tushino. However, before the enemies of the “Tushino thief”, Filaret called himself his prisoner.

Unknown artist. Portrait of the nun Martha (Ksenia Ivanovna Shestova)

After some time, Filaret flatly refused to sign the agreement drawn up by the Poles on the transfer of the Russian throne to the Polish prince, the Catholic Vladislav. For disobedience, the Poles arrested Filaret and released him only in 1619, when a truce was concluded with Poland.

Meanwhile, Mikhail Romanov spent several years in Vladimir region at his uncle's estate. He found himself in Moscow at the height of the Polish-Lithuanian occupation, after Vasily Shuisky was overthrown and the Seven Boyars were established. In the winter of 1612, nun Martha and her son took refuge in their estate near Kostroma, and then fled from Polish-Lithuanian persecution in the Ipatiev Monastery.

Only with the liberation of the capital in 1613 did the revival of Russian statehood become possible. Therefore, at the beginning of the same year, the first all-class Zemsky Sobor was convened, in which both the townspeople and rural inhabitants took part. A new ruler had to be elected by voting.

"Consolidating figure"

“The accession of Mikhail Fedorovich to the throne became possible after the very difficult trials of the Time of Troubles, the self-organization of the zemstvo worlds, which formed the first and second militias for the liberation of Moscow in 1612. It was the Zemsky Council of the Whole Land that convened a council to elect a tsar, and after the election of Mikhail Romanov on March 3, 1613, he received power from all ranks of the Russian state. What was important was the initial general agreement with the candidacy of Mikhail Romanov as a relative of the last legitimate tsar before the Time of Troubles, Fyodor Ivanovich,” the doctor said in an interview with RT historical sciences, professor of Ryazansky state university named after Sergei Yesenin Vyacheslav Kozlyakov.

Ivanov S.V. "Zemsky Sobor" (1908)

More than ten candidates were nominated at the Zemsky Sobor, including princes Dmitry Trubetskoy and Dmitry Pozharsky. “Foreign princes” were no longer considered as contenders for the Russian throne.

“Mikhail Fedorovich turned out to be a consolidating figure for many. After the Time of Troubles, when militias liberated Moscow, Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich was perceived as the last legitimate tsar, after which chosen tsars appeared who had no direct relation to this tradition, impostors. Mikhail was the closest relative of the last legitimate Moscow Tsar from the Rurikovich dynasty,” said the head of the department of auxiliary and special education in an interview with RT. historical disciplines Historical and Archival Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities Evgeniy Pchelov.

The expert also emphasized that Mikhail Fedorovich was always outside the political struggle that unfolded during the Time of Troubles, he did not personally declare claims to the throne, and did not take part in the meetings of the Council. But it was his figure that symbolized the continuity of power.

Heavy "legacy"

“After the election of the tsar, the restoration of power immediately began, which was reduced to the “as before” order. No one took revenge on anyone; the boyars who were sitting in Moscow during its siege by the zemstvo militias remained in power and again entered the Boyar Duma. Nevertheless, the first years of the reign of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich turned out to be very difficult, but at this time priorities were correctly set: restoration of the state, pacification of the rebellious Cossacks, return of lost territories,” says Kozlyakov.

After concluding a truce with Poland, the Poles freed Filaret from captivity in 1619. It is widely believed that until the death of the patriarch in 1633, all power was actually in his hands.

"Despite big role Filaret, Mikhail Fedorovich was a completely independent sovereign, but he inevitably had to rely on someone’s support and help during several years of the first period of his reign. The Zemsky Sobor provided great support to Mikhail Fedorovich,” says Pchelov.

Experts say that the first years of the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich, when the new sovereign found himself surrounded by a family circle of the Romanov boyars, the princes of Cherkassy, Sheremetev and Saltykov (relatives of the tsar’s mother), seem to provide grounds for asserting that the tsar was a weak and weak-willed ruler.

“At the same time, the main problems of the kingdom related to war or the collection of emergency taxes were still resolved with the help of Zemsky Sobors. Given the predominance of the Tsar's relatives in the Duma, representatives of other families of the princely aristocracy also remained there. And no one in the “Romanov” party could strengthen itself enough to replace the tsar. Even with the return of the Tsar’s father, the future Moscow Patriarch Filaret, in 1619, the concept of the primacy of Tsarist power did not change,” Kozlyakov explained.

Patriarch Filaret
globallookpress.com

According to the expert, historians can talk for a long time about the peculiar “dual power of the great sovereigns” - the tsar and the patriarch. But the role of Mikhail Fedorovich and the Boyar Duma in all matters remained decisive. Patriarch Filaret also supported him in this, after whose return Zemsky Sobors stopped convening. Tsar Mikhail Romanov made compromises to take into account his father’s opinion, but this was not based on lack of will and fear, but on the warm relationship between father and son, as evidenced by the surviving correspondence between the tsar and the patriarch.

After the death of Filaret, Mikhail ruled independently for 12 years. And the people remembered him as a righteous and honest sovereign. Mikhail Fedorovich was not a supporter of strict rules. For example, to govern the cities, he introduced the institution of voivodes, but after petitions from the townspeople, it was not difficult for him to replace them with elected representatives of the zemstvo nobility. The young ruler regulated the collection of taxes. The unit of taxation became the share of land and special enterprises (bakeries, mills, craft shops). For reliable accounting, scribe books were drawn up, which restrained the arbitrariness of tax collectors.

Under Mikhail Fedorovich, work began to search for natural resources, iron smelting, weapons, brick and many other factories were built. It was he who founded the German Settlement in Moscow - a place of settlement for foreign engineers and military personnel, who would play a big role in the era of Peter I.

“If Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich had been such a weak ruler, the transformation would not have happened in the second part of his reign (after the passing of his parents) in the 1630s-1640s. I wouldn’t be able to establish myself,” emphasizes Kozlyakov.

But the most important thing that Mikhail Fedorovich managed to do was to lead the country out of the deepest crisis into which the Troubles plunged it.