Shuisky (princely family). Princes Shuisky Board of Vasily Shuisky

The direct descendants (no further than the grandchildren) of the eldest son of Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich of Nizhny Novgorod - Vasily Dmitrievich, who reigned in Suzdal, nicknamed Kirdyapa and died in 1403, were called Princes Kirdyapins. He had three sons:

1) Ivan Vasilyevich, who died in 1417, leaving a son, Alexander Gorbaty, who died in 1418, and a grandson, Semyon Alexandrovich, who died in childhood;

2) Yuri Vasilyevich, who received Shuya, is the father of Vasily Yuryevich (died in 1446) and Fyodor Yuryevich (1472), who inherited the Shuya inheritance from their father. According to this inheritance, both their father themselves and all the offspring of the children of Vasily and Fyodor Yuryevich were nicknamed the Shuya princes instead of the Kirdyapins. In addition to the eldest sons of Kirdyapa, of course, the childless princes were called Kirdyapins: Fyodor Vasilyevich and Danilo Vasilyevich (died in 1412) - their younger brothers.

In those years, the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod princes did not want to go under the high hand of Moscow and even tried to take away the title of Grand Duke from her.

Suzdal princes

The ancestor of the princes of Suzdal was the third son of Grand Duke Yaroslav - Fyodor Vsedolovich, placed in birth order above Alexander Nevsky, because after the death of his father the Tatar Khan established seniority, and not after Alexander, who was superior to Andrei in all respects. Grand Duke Andrei Yaroslavovich was born between 1217 and 1219. And in 1245, before his father was sent to the Horde - upon his return from which he died - he received Suzdal as an inheritance. Having received the news of the death of his parent, he called himself the Grand Duke and his brother - his Alexander Nevsky - and undertook a journey to the court of the Tatar Khan to receive confirmation of this dignity and primacy among the Russian princes. He achieved this, but his reign in 1252 ended with an unexpected flight from Vladimir, when he heard a campaign against him by Mongol troops led by three leaders, who devastated, beat and captured everything along the way.

The prince's flight ended with his removal completely first to the city of Revel (Kolyvan), which belonged to the Danes, and then to Sweden. Andrei was followed by his wife, the daughter of Daniil Romanovich. In 1257, Andrei was already in Russia again, went to the Horde and was not received there with hostility, and after Nevsky’s death he would have received the Grand Duke’s throne again, if not for his quick death at the beginning of 1264. Andrei Yaroslavovich owned Suzdal, Gorodets and Nizhny Novgorod, and his 3 sons received these inheritances separately: Yuri was in Suzdal and died without issue in 1279; Vasily (died in 1309) received Nizhny Novgorod, where his descendants ruled hereditarily, and Mikhail Andreevich (died in 1305) received Gorodets-Volzhsky, where Alexander Nevsky died in November 1263. From Prince Vasily Andreevich of Nizhny Novgorod and Suzdal, the descendants actually continue, divided into separate clans.

The angry Prince of Moscow Vasily Dmitrievich in 1393 went to Nizhny Novgorod against Kirdyapa and his brother Semyon and, “bringing them out, gave them the city of Shuya.” Five generations of princes from the family of Vasily Kirdyapa owned the city, from the name of which their new surname came (first mentioned in 1402). Two miles from Shuya, on the Motovilovka and Seika rivers, was the village of Melnichnoe. The Shuisky princes had their country house here. In the village of Vasilyevskoye, the Shuiskys maintained a special hunting yard. Until the 17th century, Vasilyevskoye, located on the river. Matne, was called the Matni camp. They say that the village received a new name since Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky began to come here for falcon hunting.

The patrimonial fate of the villages of Dunilova, Brits, Pupki is interesting. All of them in the 17th century, right up to the intersection of the family, belonged to a side branch of the Shuisky princes - the Gorbatys.

Eyed (extinct genus)

The branch of these Suzdal princes actually includes 5 persons with their educator - Prince Alexandrov Vasilyevich of Suzdal, nicknamed Glazaty, a contemporary of Vasily the Dark (1451). He had 3 sons (princes of the 18th tribe): Boris Alexandrovich, Dmitry Alexandrovich (who had a childless son, Fyodor Dmitrievich, nicknamed Chervlyony) and Ivan Alexandrovich Barbasha, who formed a special branch of the Barbashins (VII).

Humpbacks (extinct genus)

The younger (second of five) brother of Alexander Vasilyevich Glazaty, Ivan Vasilyevich, known under the nickname Gorbaty, gave this family nickname to his offspring, who continued with the preservation of the princely title for four generations, and almost continued, under the name of the Suslov nobles (?) and beyond.

Prince Ivan Vasilyevich Gorbaty's eldest son was Ivan Ivanovich, not noted in any way in the legends of his contemporaries, and the second, Andrei Ivanovich, was in Kolomna, when gathering troops to repel the Crimeans in 1493, as a commander of the right hand. The third brother of the previous two - Prince Boris Ivanovich in 1489, during the campaign against Vyatka, was the head of the ship’s army along the Kama and Novgorod campaigns of 1492 - 1495. was in the retinue of Ivan III. Their younger brother (fourth) Vasily Ivanovich - like Boris, childless - was the governor in Novgorod just before the indignation (1471). The citizens of the free state sent the Moscow governor under supervision to Zavolochye, from where he managed to return happily.

The offspring of the Gorbatys came from the eldest and from the second son of Ivan Vasilyevich Gorbaty, forming, so to speak, two lines.

The eldest line - from Ivan Ivanovich - began with his four sons (XIX generation):

1) Mikhail Ivanovich, nicknamed Lapa, childless, commander in the campaigns of Grozny’s youth;

2) Boris, boyar of Vasily (1503), who died in Mstislav, as governor of a large regiment (1547);

3) Vladimir, a boyar in 1550;

4) Ivan, the okolnichy, last mentioned in the Polotsk campaign (1550), when the beginning of his exploits dates back to 1502.

Prince Boris Ivanovich Gorbaty had a son, Alexander Borisovich, who began his official career with the campaign of 1538, and was distinguished by his zeal until 1566, but in 1566 his name was accompanied by the word: “dropped out,” meaning execution, not natural death. He left his son Peter, who in 1573 was listed as sixth in Grozny’s retinue in Polotsk. When he died is unknown, but his descendants are not shown.

Ivan Ivanovich had only 2 childless sons - Dmitry and Vasily Ivanovich.

The younger line of the Gorbaty princes from Boris Ivanovich began with his six sons, of whom only one (second) Andrei Suchek had a son, Ivan, a grandson, Mikhail Ivanovich, and a great-grandson, Fyodor Mikhailovich Suslo, with whom, according to genealogy, the branch of the Gorbaty-Suzdal princes ends.

The sons of Boris Ivanovich were: Ivan Bolshoy Borisovich, Andrei Borisovich, Vasily Borisovich, Fyodor Borisovich, nicknamed Kuznets, killed near Kazan (1552), Danilo Borisovich and Ivan Menshoy Borisovich.

Andrei Borisovich Suchek under Vasily Ivanovich (1513) was the governor of Nizhny Novgorod, from 1514 to 1520. served as regimental commander on all campaigns, in 1520 he was governor in Vyazma, in 1521 he was promoted to boyar and served under Grozny, participating in campaigns with him - until Polotsk (1550)

Ivan Borisovich was a governor in Mozhaisk in 1520, and in 1521 he was a governor in Dorogobuzh.

Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich, nicknamed Kisla, acted near Dolgobuzh against the Lithuanians back in 1492, in 1513 he was a boyar - he participated in the capture of Velikiye Luki and Smolensk, in 1520 he was governor in Pskov and was then with the troops every year until 1550. , after which it no longer appears. His son Fyodor Mikhailovich, nicknamed Suslo, began serving in the campaigns of 1549-50, being considered an esaul with large regiments. His grandson (?) must have been Evgeniy Fedorovich, an Aleksin city nobleman under Mikhail Fedorovich; the son of boyar Alexander Borisovich, Pyotr Alexandrovich, was with Grozny on the Polotsk campaign in 1573.

It is known that in 1535, Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich Gorbaty-Shuisky bequeathed the village of Dunilovo to his wife Anna. In Goritsy, the Gorbaty-Shuisky princes had a palace in which they lived. At the Nikolo-Shartomsky monastery (village of Pupki) there was a family cemetery for the descendants of the Suzdal princes Gorbaty-Shuisky.

According to documents, from the end of the 15th century, the Shuisky family and its parallel branch Skopin-Shuisky also belonged to the Shuisky district (and, most likely, were returned along with the city after a long disgrace) the villages of Kokhma and Ivanovo.

Sponge

According to Polish legends, the family of Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Gubka, who fled to Lithuania under Grozny, continued in Lithuania and Volyn until recently.

Firstly, it is difficult to accept the Polish testimony as an undoubted truth, that it is impossible to believe the continuation of the family from generation to generation and reach the person from whom the offspring begins. Secondly, princes, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries, were not called princes by Polish genealogical storytellers, and as for the nobles, there were several Shuisky surnames in Lithuania and Poland of local, not Russian origin; There were even Jews.

In Poland, supposedly, the descendants of Sponge - the Shuisky princes - became famous in the second half of the 17th century, i.e. more than a century after the removal of Prince Ivan Dmitrievich to Lithuania. Obviously, neither the son nor the grandson of even this person can be considered the first of those mentioned in Polish legends? The princes (?) turn out to be the brothers Konstantin and Jan-Alexander, the cornet of Brzeshchansky, from his marriage with Jadwiga Krzhevitskaya, who had a daughter Anna for the castellan of Minsk, Stanislav Rusetsky, and sons: Vladislav-Alexander (died in 1671), Konstantin-Jan, clerk the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Princes Francis and Vasily. The first of these four brothers, the cornet of Brezheschansky, from his marriage with Justina Kolenzyanskaya, had two sons: Alexander (died in 1714) and Francis, the capital of Brezheschansky. The second - Prince Konstantin was married 4 times (to Brzozovskaya, Konopatskaya, Ludovika Sopega, who died in 1687, and to the widow of Karl Luzhetsky - Anna Kopchey).

Konstantin had children from his first and fourth marriages. From his first marriage he had a son, Dominic, and 3 daughters (the first for Patz, the second for Ossolinsky, and the third for Alexander Oginsky) and from his fourth marriage, one son Anthony, the headman of Zagalsky. Dominik Yanovich had two sons: Nikolai and an unknown name, and 2 daughters (the first for Peplovsky, the other for Vyzhitsky). Jan-Alexander's brother, Konstantin, had three sons: Nicholas, who was killed in the war, Stefan and two sons, and two daughters of his father (Yuri-Konstantin, who died in 1692): one behind Trizna, the other behind Tours. His sons were: from his first marriage (with Petronila Menchinskaya) - Onuphry and from the second (with Zardetskaya) - Francis.

Skopins-Shuiskys (extinct clan)

The Skopin-Shuisky princes had only three males - boyars - and all were married: Skopa's son Fyodor Ivanovich (died in 1557), his son Vasily Fedorovich (died in 1595), and his son, Skopa's great-grandson - Mikhail Vasilyevich, born in 1587 and died, as they thought, from poisoning on April 23, 1610.

Skopa himself, governor of Ivan III, boyar (1519) of Vasily, commanded the Large Regiments in the Kazan and Lithuanian campaigns. Fyodor Ivanovich Skopin is the first governor in Vyazma in 1534 and then for 24 years he dresses up for all expeditions and campaigns, in 1549 he was promoted to boyar. His son acted more at court, in 1577 he was promoted to boyar at a very young age compared to his peers. He was sent several times to rule Pskov, and at the end of his career - from 1593 - he was entrusted with the management of the Vladimir Court Order. His son, a famous strategist, in his youth was elevated to the rank of great swordsman by False Dmitry at the age of 18, and at the age of 16 he became a boyar (1603). In 1609, his uncle entrusted him with the defense of the fatherland, and he negotiated with the Swedes about an auxiliary army, and when it arrived, he cleared the Volga region with him and Russian forces and reached Moscow, defeating enemies, where he met an untimely death, leaving his young wife childless .

In Kokhma, the nephew of Tsar Vasily Ivanovich, Prince M.V. Skopin-Shuisky, had “dogs and hounds with his servant” and “hunting horns.” In Ivanovo, the Skopins-Shuiskys sought the services of millers.

However, for the most part, the Shuiskys tried to stay close to Moscow, where they had a vast estate, to the grand ducal court, to palace intrigues, and to power. Even under Dmitry Donskoy, the highest positions were occupied by appanage princes. Characteristic in this sense is the battle description of the governors before the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380: the leading regiment was Prince Dolgoruky, the right regiment was Prince Belozersky, the guard regiment was Prince Polotsk, the ambush regiment was Prince Serpukhovsky, but the large regiment was commanded by the young boyar Timofey Vilyaminov. And at the beginning of the 15th century, only service to the Moscow Grand Duke was valued. Localism (the procedure for filling higher positions depending on the nobility of the family) gave an advantage to non-appanage princes, and to those who, at the will of the Grand Duke, occupied higher places in the army or the boyar duma.

The Shuiskys did not immediately advance to first place in the army in the Moscow state. In the last internecine feudal wars, the Shuiskys were by no means on the side of Vasily the Dark, and this could not but affect their position. Only under Ivan III in rank paintings in the war with Lithuania of 1492-94. Vasily Shuisky appears, commanding the right-hand regiment in the army of Prince Daniil Dmitrievich Khoimsky. The war was successful, and Vyazma went to Moscow around the world. It was this Vasily Vasilyevich, nicknamed Mute, who was the first of the Shuiskys to occupy a prominent place in the boyar Duma.

In 1500, a new war between Moscow and Lithuania began, and in 1501, another war with Livonia. Vasily Vasilyevich Shuisky with Prince Daniil Shchenyatev acted against the Livonians, but on August 27, 1501, near Seritsa (near Izborsk), the Moscow army was defeated and put to flight. The chronicler wrote: “The Germans turned on the Moscow force with cannons and arquebuses, and there was a great cloud, menacing and terrible from the sound of cannon and arquebuses.” Shuisky and Shchetyanev relied on the strength of the noble cavalry and underestimated the increased strength of the noble cavalry and the increased strength of firearms. But on November 24, 1501, near Helmet (near Derpep), the Moscow army under the command of Prince Daniil Vasilyevich Shchenyatev and Vasily Vasilyevich Shuisky (commanded the advanced regiment and was Shchenyatev’s deputy) completely defeated the knightly regiments of the Grand Master Walter von Plettenberg. Muscovites drove the knights 10 miles. It is curious that the Livonians themselves attacked the Russians at night, but were repulsed and then defeated. In peace with Lithuania, Muscovite Rus' received 19 cities (Gomel, Chernigov, Bryansk, Putivl, etc.).

In 1512, already under Vasily III, a new war with Lithuania began (the fifth in a row). The army was commanded by Grand Duke Vasily himself, and in fact the chief commander of the large regiment, Prince Daniil Vasilyevich Shchenyatev, and V.V. Shuisky turned out to be the second commander in the advanced regiment. Why second? This was a consequence of the Shuiskys’ first clash with the autocracy. To the displeasure of the Grand Duke, Vasily Vasilyevich was among those who spoke about the right of free departure to Lithuania.

In the mid-20s, V.V. Shuisky again aroused anger at himself. Vasily III was married to Solomonida Yuryevna Saburova. Although Vasily chose his bride from 1,500 noble maidens presented to the court for this purpose, the marriage was unsuccessful due to the “barrenness” of the Grand Duchess. With the approval of Metropolitan Daniil, Vasily III decided to divorce. Solomonia desperately resisted lawlessness and accused her husband himself of male weakness. She was forcibly tonsured and taken to Suzdal, “threatening not only with words, but also with beatings,” and Vasily soon married the young beauty Princess Elena Vasilievna Glinskaya (from the Lithuanian princely family of Gedemidovichs). Naturally, the first place at court was taken by the uncle of the Grand Duchess M. L. Glinsky. This caused protests from the Moscow princes and boyars. Vasily Shuisky was among the dissatisfied. But Vasily III quickly crushed the opposition, and noblewoman Bersenya-Beklemisheva was beheaded for saying: “Which land represents its customs, and that land is inexpensive.” The Grand Duke did not dare to touch the Shuiskys.

Only 4 years after the new marriage, Vasily III had a son, Ivan, the future Ivan the Terrible and the main persecutor of the Shuiskys. In 1533, the Grand Duke became dangerously ill. Feeling his death approaching, he called his close people to a meeting, and among them were Vasily Shuisky and his brother Ivan. Princes M.L. Glinsky and D.F. Belsky were appointed guardians of the three-year-old Tsar Ivan. But Vasily Shuisky entered the council of 7 boyars, to whom Vasily III entrusted to rule the state until Tsarevich Ivan came of age. However, it turned out that after the death of the autocrat, power in the country was seized by his young wife Elena Vasilievna Glinskaya - the first woman to rule in Rus'. The brothers of the deceased king were treacherously captured, chained and thrown into prison, where they died. The same fate befell the ruler’s uncle, M. L. Glinsky. The first boyar was the ruler’s lover, the young prince Ivan Fedorovich Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky. It was during this period of repression that Prince Semyon Belsky and V.V. Shuisky’s nephew Ivan Dmitrievich Shuisky-Gubka fled to Lithuania.

From him came the Shuisky branch in Lithuania and Volyn (maybe there are still descendants of the Shuisky princes in the West).

For five years, Elena Glinskaya ruled harshly, using terror. Ivan IV apparently learned hatred of the boyars from her. As soon as Elena Glinskaya died (there was a rumor that she was poisoned), Prince Ivan Ovchina-Obolensky was thrown into prison, where he died of starvation. The struggle of boyar groups for power began. V.V. Shuisky became the ruler of the state. Finally, the Shuiskys became the first in the state. But in the same year, the elderly V.V. Shuisky died. Brother Ivan, who replaced him in the role of chief nobleman, did not have the resourcefulness of mind and such authority that were inherent in V.V. Shuisky.

Shuisky Ivan released from prison all those imprisoned there under Elena (including the contender for the throne - Ivan IV’s cousin, Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky). And then the Shuisky clan made a fatal mistake, not deciding to elevate Vladimir Staritsky to the throne instead of Ivan IV. Under Vladimir Staritsky, autocracy was impossible, because he and his mother were ardent supporters of the old order. What got in the way was that the boyars could not divide power: some stood for the Shuiskys, others for the Belsky-Gedeminovichs. In 1540, Ivan Fedorovich Belsky (younger brother of Dmitry Fedorovich) became the ruler of the state, but a year later Ivan Vasilyevich Shuisky rebelled and, with the support of the townspeople, captured the Kremlin and returned seniority in the state to his “party”. Of course, these coups did not contribute in any way to stabilizing the situation in the fatherland.

Soon Ivan Vasilyevich died, having previously transferred power to his close relatives, the three Shuiskys: princes Ivan and Andrei Mikhailovich and Fyodor Ivanovich Skopin. But not for long. The future Ivan IV fiercely hated his main advisers: and because they lived in his father’s chambers, without hesitation to “lounge” on the bed of the Grand Duke, they quite harshly demanded that he study, in a word, for a lot, for every little thing. When Ivan had a favorite, Fyodor Semyonovich Vorontsov, the Shuiskys rushed at the favorite with their fists right in front of him, “beating him on the cheeks, tore his dress, took him out of the hut and wanted to kill him.” Vorontsov was exiled to Kostroma. This happened on September 9, 1543, and on December 29, 1543, 13-year-old Ivan ordered the hounds of the royal hunt to seize Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Shuisky and throw him to be torn to pieces by wild animals. The chronicler wrote: “from those places the boyars began to have fear and obedience from the sovereign.” The Shuiskys spoke among themselves about Ivan: “The wolf cub shows his teeth.” The first boyar was Fyodor Vorontsov, returned from exile. During these years, young Ivan tries to indulge in wild fun and desperately misbehaves (“jumping and running everywhere indecently”). And the boyars indulged in wild fun. They, according to Kurbsky, “began to crush him and take revenge on them for their unfriendliness, one against the other.” The Shuiskys were unable to unite the boyars.

It was not easy for the Shuiskys at this time. The sovereign's disgrace affected Fyodor Skopin, Pyotr Ivanovich (son of Ivan Vasilyevich Shuisky), Prince Gorbaty... Where the others were at that time is unclear... apparently, they were sent to their estates. The latter also suffered. It is a known fact that in 1548 Ivan the Terrible granted Shuya to the nobleman Ignatius Vasilyevich Golokhvastov. At the same time, the Shuiskys, they assume (the documents have not survived), lost the villages of Kokhma and Ivanovo from their control.

Things were done in Moscow without them. The Glinskys managed to accuse Vorontsov of having connections with Novgorod traitors (Ivan the Terrible imagined all his life that Novgorod was cheating on him...), and in 1546 Vorontsov’s head was cut off. For two years, Mikhail and Yuri Glinsky, Ivan’s relatives on his mother’s side, were in power. But after the uprising of 1547, Ivan declared himself of age (at the age of 17) and accepted the king (at that time no power recognized him in this title). Marriage to Anastasia Romanovna Romanova brought the Romanov boyars closer to the throne. The tsar's advisors are Alexei Fedorovich Ardashev (an ordinary nobleman who served in the palace guard, who later became a sleeping man, a bed and okolnik, the head of the petition order - the first judge), the priest of the Annunciation (home) Cathedral Sylvester, Metropolitan Macarius and the young warrior Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky.

Although the Shuiskys were in opposition, in the unsuccessful campaign against Kazan in 1547, a large regiment was commanded by Prince Alexander Borisovich Shuisky-Gorbaty, and the leading regiment was commanded by a very capable governor... Pyotr Ivanovich Shuisky. In the capture of Kazan in 1552 (October 2), the decisive role was played by the detachment of A. B. Gorbaty-Shuisky, and P. I. Shuisky commanded the regiment of his right hand (he broke into Kazan through the Kazanka River from the north). The Shuiskys are honored. Behind them is the Boyar Duma and the Moscow Posad, but the Tsar harbors a grudge against them and suspects them of all mortal sins.

In March 1553, Ivan IV suddenly fell ill. They expected his death. The Tsar's son Dmitry was not yet a year old. And then arose in the Duma “the rebellion is great and there is a lot of noise and speech among all the boyars, but they don’t want to serve the diaper maker.” Ivan Andreevich Shuisky (the son of A.M. Shuisky, who was hated by the tsar and killed by him) shouted: “Why should we take over Romanov, and let us serve the old one - Prince Volodimir Ondreevich (Staritsky).” Oh, how the Shuyas waited for the death of the tyrant prince.

But Ivan recovered, but his little son soon died absurdly: the nanny dropped him into the water. The Shuiskys have survived so far, but in the war that began in 1554 with Sweden, the Shuiskys were not on the list of governors: a clear sign of the tsar’s distrust of this family.

Soon the great Livonian War of 1558-83 began, which dragged on for 25 years. The Tsar started this “war for the sea” contrary to the advice of the Boyar Duma to wage a war for the Crimea. The need for capable military leaders forced the king to turn to the Shuiskys. During the campaign against Riga in 1560, we see P. I. Shuisky at the head of the regiment of his right hand (the large regiment was commanded by I. F. Mstislavsky, the leading one was Prince A. M. Kurbsky). Marienburg, Odenpe, Tarvast, Wolmar, Wenden were taken, Grand Marshal von Bahl was defeated, the Muscovites took Fellin by storm, and Grand Master von Furstenberg himself was captured and died in prison. The result was the collapse of Livonia, which had held Muscovite Rus' at gunpoint for so many years. It was a huge success.

But Poland declared war on Muscovy. In 1563, the Moscow army under the command of P.I. Shuisky carried out an unexpected raid from Velikiye Luki and captured Polotsk - this was the biggest success of the entire war. Prince P.I. Shuisky received a gold hryvnia and a gilded pole - a very rare award. Then the Moscow governors conceived a complex maneuver: from Vyazma to Origa the army of Prince Serebryany went, and from Polotsk to Origa - the army of P.I. Shuisky; having united in Orig, they were supposed to take Minsk. But Shuisky’s army moved without security; weapons and armor were carried on sleighs in a convoy - an unforgivable negligence for an experienced commander. As a result, the Russian army was attacked by detachments of the Lithuanian hetman Radzivil-Ryzhy. The Moscow army suffered a terrible defeat, there were many prisoners. And the chief governor, Prince P.I. Shuisky, was killed, trying in vain to organize at least some resistance.

Ivan IV is furious. And then Prince Kurbsky, fearing the tsar’s wrath, under the cover of darkness, descended from the fortress wall of Dorpat by rope and fled to Lithuania. As a result - 7 terrible years of oprichnina, fierce terror with the aim of exterminating the traitorous boyars and establishing their sovereignty. One of the first victims was the valiant governor, Prince A. B. Gorbaty-Shuisky - for his friendship with Kurbsky, his head was cut off on the Moscow River. His 15-year-old son Ivan was also executed. It is difficult to describe all the brutal, truly sadistic executions: one was given a cup of poison at a feast, another was personally pierced by the king with a dagger in the chest, a third was fried alive in a large iron frying pan, a fourth was thrown alive into a cauldron of boiling water, a fifth was chopped into pieces. Novgorod, Tver, Klin, Torzhok were subjected to terrible pogroms.

By the end of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, there were 3 senior Shuiskys. Andrei Ivanovich is the grandson of Andrei Shuisky, executed during Ioan’s youth, and the eldest of five brothers, one of whom is Vasily, will later become king; Ivan Petrovich is the son of a famous commander and has already become famous in military affairs; and Vasily Fedorovich Skopin-Shuisky. For the exploits and valor shown by Ivan Petrovich during the 5-month defense of Pskov from the troops of Stefan Batory, in 1582 Ivan the Terrible granted him the patrimony of Kineshma. Before that, it, together with Lukh and Vichuga, belonged to the Belsky princes for several decades (Ivan III gave it as a gift for leaving Lithuania for Moscow citizenship). With the fall of the famous Ivan Fedorovich Belsky, these villages came into the royal possession. The new owner didn’t have to use Kineshma for long...

Before his death, Ivan IV included I.P. Shuisky in the regency council. But the main role under Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich was played by the Tsar’s brother-in-law B.F. Godunov. A desperate struggle for power ensued between him and Shuisky. And again the townspeople of Moscow were on the side of the Shuiskys. They suspected Boris Godunov of malicious intent against God's anointed one. Since Queen Irina was barren for many years, the Shuiskys and their friends asked Tsar Fedor to “release her to the monastic rank” and marry someone else. The “noble” Fedor categorically refused. Soon, based on a false denunciation, the Shuiskys were declared treasonous. Andrei Ivanovich, “excellent in mind,” was exiled to Kareopol as the main criminal, and there he was secretly strangled. The Savior of Pskov, Ivan Petrovich, was first exiled to the village of Lopatnitsy, which is on the road from Suzdal to Shuya, and then transported to the monastery on Beloozero and also strangled. In vain did Metropolitan Dionysius, “with magnanimous courage and solemnly, in the face of Fyodor,” try to prove that “the Shuiskys and their friends are dying solely for the good intention of saving Russia from Borisov’s greedy lust for power.”

The young Shuiskys also suffered from fear. Vasily Ivanovich and his brother Alexander were imprisoned in Buigorodok. Ivan and Dmitry were sent to Shuya. In the “Morozov Chronicler” for a sad year for the family it is said: “... and raising his anger, Boris Godunov, against the great and glorious boyars, sent them around the cities to prison, Prince Dmitry for Prince Ivan in Shuya, and ordered Prince Ivan Ivanovich to Shuya “Kill the city of Smirny Mamontov in prison.” But Ivan was not killed, and the brothers were not detained in prison for a long time.

It was Dmitry who “distinguished himself” by marrying Ekaterina Malyutina-Skuratova, the sister-in-law of Boris Godunov and the daughter of the chief executioner Ivan the Terrible. In a dynastic sense, marriage for the Shuiskys was a shameful dishonor, but perhaps only it allowed them to survive. Vasily Shuisky also saved the situation. A cautious and cunning politician, he pretended to be an admirer of Boris Godunov, while at the same time inciting the boyars and ordinary people of Moscow against him. When Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible from his seventh wife and the only heir after the childless Tsar Fyodor, died in Uglich on May 15, 1591, under rather vague circumstances, Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky was put at the head of the investigative commission. It was supposed to symbolize the impartiality of the court. But the okolnichy A.P. Klegin and clerk E. Vyluzin, devoted to Godunov, went with him to Uglich.

This story is very dark; historians still fiercely argue about the death of Tsarevich Dmitry. What was it - an accidental suicide during an attack of epilepsy or a villainous murder?

Who benefited from this death? Boris Godunov, who ahead of time tried on the crown of a crown bearer after a childless, weak-willed and sickly king? Shuisky's commission, however, found that there was no murder, and the prince, in a fit of illness, himself “pounced on the knife.” There are many ambiguities in this case: for some reason, the disgraced Queen Maria Nagaya herself and some other witnesses were not interrogated, in particular, the sexton, who saw everything that happened from the bell tower; they did not find the knife with which the prince amused himself, or the knife with which he may have been killed ... Vasily Shuisky himself changed his testimony seven times: where he lied and where he didn’t is now impossible to establish.

Popular rumor, and then prominent historians Karamzin, Pushkin, Shcherbatov, Solovyov and others will talk a lot and convincingly about Boris Godunov’s involvement in the death of Tsarevich Dmitry. But, perhaps, Vasily Shuisky, the first and only one who thought that the main character behind the “crime” in Uglich was not Boris, but Fyodor Ioanovich. Who, who, and Shuisky knew well what it meant to go against the wishes of the usually weak-willed Fyodor - without the approval of the tsar, who would have gone to touch even a hair from his relatives? Here Shuisky remembered Fyodor’s love for fun on holidays, which frightened all the boyars - a fight between men and a hungry bear; how once the king, in a fit of anger, broke a stick on his kind brother-in-law...

And why would Godunov risk his head if he knew for sure that the hitherto childless tsar would soon have an heir (and on June 14, or less than a month after the usual incident, Tsarina Irina gave birth to her daughter Theodosia, to everyone’s joy). But it is true that Fedor was in poor health. Everyone saw it. The illness could not force Fyodor to take the sin upon himself (he often cried later) in order to ensure a calm succession to the throne for his baby. However, the baby lived only a few months. In 1598, Feodor also passed away.

During the interregnum, the Shuiskys remained aloof from the struggle for power; apparently, Vasily Shuisky understood that real power was in the hands of Boris Godunov, but Fyodor Romanov even rushed at Godunov with a knife, and Bogdan Belsky tried to seize the Kremlin. The result was this: Boris Godunov was elected tsar at the Zemsky Sobor, Fyodor Romanov was forcibly tonsured as a monk, Boris Belsky was exiled, and three of Fyodor’s (Romanov) brothers died in prison. Vasily Shuisky received the boyar rank from Godunov.

Soon a rumor arose that Tsarevich Dmitry was alive, that someone else had been stabbed to death in Uglich. An impostor has appeared in Poland. At the place of execution, Vasily Shuisky publicly swore that he personally saw the dead prince in Uglich, but secretly he said something completely different: they showed him a murdered boy in Uglich, but whether it was Dmitry, he does not know.

Meanwhile, False Dmitry gathered an army and moved towards Moscow. Near Novgorod Seversky, he defeated the detachment of F.I. Mstislavsky and D.I. Shuisky. The main battle took place on January 21, 1605 at Dobrynichi - here F.I. Mstislavsky and the second governor V.I. Shuisky inflicted a complete defeat on the impostor’s army, but... they pursued him for only 8 miles. The state was shaken by the peasant war. And yet, it is unlikely that the impostor would have won, but on April 13, 1605, Tsar Boris Godunov suddenly died of an apolexic stroke. His son Fedor II lasted only 47 days. Muscovites hated his mother Maria Skuratova. To calm the people, Vasily Shuisky again swore on the execution site that he himself put Tsarevich Dmitry in a coffin. One after another, the cities surrendered to the impostor without a fight. The same crafty Vasily Shuisky organized a conspiracy against the 16-year-old Tsar and said: “Are we really going to obey Godunov’s brat?!” Finally, the chief governor P. Basmanov and his army went over to the side of the impostor. An uprising broke out in Moscow; on July 7, 1605, the young tsar was “taken” to Godunov’s old house, where three days later the tsar and his mother were satisfied.

A successful young rootless tramp found himself on the Moscow throne. Vasily Shuisky was arrested, but due to protests from the boyars he was soon released. The atrocities of the Poles in Moscow, the marriage of False Dmitry to the Polish Catholic Marina Mniszech caused violent indignation among Muscovites. Vasily Shuisky decided that his time had come. He said everywhere that there was a “thief and a thief on the throne”, that “he swore under threat.” Shuisky was handed over, flayed, but did not refuse a single word under torture, he was brought to the place of execution, and already his head was on the block and the executioner’s ax was raised... and at that moment a messenger galloped from the palace: the tsar pardoned Shuisky, replaced the execution with exile to the Galician borders, and six months later he completely forgave him. As soon as he returned to Moscow, Vasily Shuisky became the head of a new conspiracy against False Dmitry. Shuisky's actions do not fit well with the usual image that playwrights have created in his person on the sly. Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky looks not cowardly, malicious, biting on the sly, but a brave military fighter - in many actions. Even the scaffold did not break him.

And then on May 17, 1606, a long-awaited uprising broke out in Moscow. False Dmitry was overthrown and killed. Vasily Shuisky and Vasily Golitsin led the assault on the palace. Shuisky kissed the cross again, swearing that there was an impostor on the throne. He stated that Tsarevich Dmitry in Uglich did not kill himself with epilepsy, but was killed by agents of Boris Godunov. Maybe he was right here? Martha Nagaya, the seventh wife of Ivan the Terrible, the mother of the murdered prince, who falsely recognized his son as a tramp, also had to repent. And after 8 days on Red Square, Vasily Ivanovich was “shouted out” from the crowd by the tsar, and even 6 days later he was crowned.

The Shuiskys' long-cherished dream has come true: to sit on the Moscow throne. The new king had to maneuver and please everyone. As a result, he pleased no one. Ivan Bolotnikov, “the governor of the saved Tsarevich Dmitry,” moved to Moscow. Ryazan nobles, led by Istoma Pashkov, joined him. False Peter appeared in Putivl - the imaginary son of Tsar Fyodor Ioanovich, but in reality the ataman Ilya Gorchakov.

Many cities did not recognize the authority of Vasily Shuisky. Bolotnikov, defeated near Moscow, went to Kaluga, then to Tula, when False Peter came with the Cossacks, Vasily Shuisky personally led the army to the siege of Tula. After 3 months, Tula surrendered. False Peter was hanged, and Bolotnikov was exiled to Kargopol, where he was blinded and drowned.

But there was no calm. In October 1607, Tula surrendered, and in July False Dmitry II appeared in Starodub. He went with Polish troops to help Bolotnikov, but was 7 days late. At Bolkhov, an incompetent governor was defeated - the tsar's brother Dmitry Shuisky. The second impostor camped in the village of Tushino and received the nickname of the Tushino thief. Polish detachments of Lisovsky, Sanega, Khmelevsky and other lords scattered throughout Rus', burning, looting and killing everywhere. A time of troubles has come in Rus'. Under these conditions, Vasily Shuisky made a fatal mistake - he turned to Sweden for help. The Swedes sent a detachment of mercenaries of the governor Depagardi. Having learned about this, Poland, which was at war with Sweden, began an open intervention against Russia. King Sigismund III besieged Smolensk. The young, capable commander M. B. Skopin-Shuisky liberated Moscow from the siege (March 12, 1610), but soon (April 23 of the same year) suddenly died. The Tsar made peace with his nephew, and they said that the young man, out of envy, was poisoned by the wife of Dmitry Shuisky.

The troops against were led by Dmitry Shuisky, who was unloved by the people, and was defeated near the village of Klushino (06/24/1610). The would-be commander, the king’s brother, did not win a single battle...

Vasily Shuisky's position became hopeless. He did not dare to call for a people's war against the interventionists. As a result, on July 17, 1610, a group of traitor boyars removed the loser, but more than ever before, “worthy of the rank of monarch” from the throne for his patriotism. Vasily Shuisky and his young wife Maria, nee Buinosova-Rostovskaya, had their hair cut by force. Vasily, under the name of the monk Varlaam, was placed in the Chudovsky Monastery, and the unfortunate Queen Maria was sent after Solomonia - to the Suzdal Intercession Monastery. Before the convening of the Zemsky Sobor, the Sovereign began to be governed by the “Seven Boyars”. Not wanting the victory of False Dmitry II, the boyars summoned the Polish prince Vladislav to the kingdom and allowed the Polish army of the crown hetman Stanislav Zholkiewski into Moscow. An embassy was sent to the King of Poland from Moscow to ask that he release Vladislav to the kingdom and end the war. The king demanded the surrender of Smolensk.

Vasily Shuisky was brought here, under the walls of the besieged ancient Russian city. It was Zholkovsky, leaving for Poland, who decided to take the former tsar and his brothers with him - as an unprecedented military trophy, which later “His Majesty... could use... depending on the circumstances.” But it was not possible to play out the humiliation of the Moscow Tsar. Standing in front of the king, he answered all the demands to bow to the “winner”: “It is not enough for the Moscow Tsar to bow to the king. It was the fate of the righteous fathers that I was brought into captivity. It was not your hands that the bull was taken, but the bull was given from the Moscow traitors, from their slaves.” An expert in laws and diplomacy, Shuisky understood perfectly well that his capture by the Poles was an illegal act.

In Poland, Vasily Shuisky sat in a stone bag, endured poverty and bullying, but stubbornly considered himself the Tsar of Moscow and denied this right to the king. The physical and even more moral torment of imprisonment led to the rapid death of the older brothers. On September 12, 1612, Vasily Shuisky died, and 5 days later, also in captivity, Dmitry died.

Vasily IV Ioannovich Shuisky
Years of life: 1552–1612
Years of reign: 1606-1610 (7th Tsar of Russia)

From the Shuisky dynasty , branches of the Grand Dukes of Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod, descendants of the prince. Prince, boyar and governor.

Son of Prince Ivan Andreevich Shuisky.

He spent his youth near Grozny: in 1580 he was the tsar's groomsman at his last wedding, and in 1581 - 1582. stood as a governor with regiments on the Oka, guarding the border.

Brief biography of Vasily Shuisky

Since 1584, he headed the Court of Justice, being a boyar.

He is also known to historians as a great commander. Voivode of the Great Regiment on the campaign to Serpukhov in the summer of 1581, on the campaign to Novgorod in July 1582, on the campaign to Serpukhov in April 1583. Voivode of Smolensk in 1585-1587.

For unknown reasons Vasily Shuisky in 1586 he was in exile. During the persecution of the Shuiskys by Godunov in 1587, he was exiled to Galich. And in 1591, Godunov, deciding that they would not harm him, returned them to the capital.

In 1591, Shuisky led the investigation into the case of Tsarevich Dmitry. Under pressure from Godunov, he recognized the cause of the Tsarevich’s death as an accident, suicide. From the same year, Vasily again entered the Boyar Duma and soon became the Novgorod governor. In 1598, he was the first commander of the regiment in Mstislavsky’s army in the Crimean campaign to Serpukhov.

From January 1605, he was appointed commander of the regiment of the right hand in the campaign against False Dmitry. However, not really wanting Godunov to win, he went over to the side of the impostor.

After he took the throne, Vasily Ivanovich announced that the conclusions of his commission regarding the death of Tsarevich Dmitry were incorrect, and the new tsar was the true son of Ivan the Terrible. But in June 1605, Vasily tried to carry out a coup against the impostor, was captured and condemned to death by False Dmitry I, but was soon pardoned and sent into exile with his brothers.

Needing boyar support, False Dmitry at the end of 1605 returned the Shuiskys to Moscow.

In 1606, Vasily organized a conspiracy against False Dmitry I, which ended with the Moscow popular uprising on May 17, 1606 and the death of the impostor.

Board of Vasily Shuisky

On May 19, 1606, a group of adherents “called out” Vasily Shuisky as king. He was crowned on June 1 by Metropolitan Isidore of Novgorod.

At the very beginning of his reign, confrontations between the capital's nobility and the boyars intensified (an uprising led by Bolotnikov). In 1607, with the support of large cities, he managed to stop the uprising, but in the summer of that year, Polish intervention in the Russian state began.

The defeat of the troops of Dmitry Shuisky near Klushino on June 24, 1610 from the army of Sigismund III and the uprising in Moscow led to the fall Tsar Vasily Shuisky. On July 17 (27), 1610, part of the boyars Vasily IV Ioannovich Shuisky was overthrown from the throne and forcibly tonsured a monk.

In September 1610, he was handed over to the Polish hetman Zolkiewski, who took him and his brothers Dmitry and Ivan as prisoners to Poland to King Sigismund.

Vasily Ivanovich died in custody in Gostyninsky Castle in Poland. In 1635, his remains were reburied in the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin.

He was married twice:

on Princess Elena Mikhailovna Repnina, daughter of the boyar Prince Mikhail Petrovich Repnin;
since 1608

on Princess Maria Petrovna Buinosova-Rostovskaya, daughter of Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Buinosov-Rostovsky, tonsured a nun in 1610;

• Princess Anna Vasilievna (1609 - died in infancy)
• Princess Anastasia Vasilievna (1610 - died in infancy)

Contemporaries and descendants accused Shuisky of many sins and offenses. He was stingy, stubborn, and resorted to magic. But meanwhile, one cannot help but admit that in the life of Vasily Ivanovich there were many moments when he showed true wisdom, courage and greatness of soul.

SHUISKIES-a branch of Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal princes, descendants of Prince. Andrei Alexandrovich, son of V. book Alexander Nevsky. An extinct princely and boyar family, placed in the Velvet Book of Russian Genealogy. Shuisky until the end of the 15th century. were serving princes, including in the Moscow Grand Duchy and other lands of northeastern Rus'.

From the beginning of the 16th century. played a significant role in the history of the Russian state. There are two Shuisky family lines - the elder and the younger. The ancestor of the senior line, Yuri Vasilyevich, was the son of Prince Vasily Dmitrievich Kirdyapa. Had three sons:

Vasily Yuryevich (?–1446),

Fyodor Yuryevich, former Pskov governor (?–1472) and

Ivan Yurievich (?).

The most famous of the sons of Vasily Yuryevich Shuisky, Vasily Vasilyevich Bledny, served Tsar Ivan III, was the Nizhny Novgorod governor (1478–1480), participated in the Kazan campaign of 1487. His grandson Ivan Mikhailovich Pleten became famous during the reign of Tsarina Elena Glinskaya and Ivan IV the Terrible as a boyar and governor of large regiments, a participant in the wars with Livonia, and in 1542 - the defense of Moscow from the Crimean Tatars. In 1553 he participated in negotiations with Poland, died in 1559 at the height of the Livonian War (1558–1583).

From the descendants of the second son of Prince. Vasily Yuryevich, Prince. Mikhail Vasilyevich Shuisky, known as Prince. Andrei Mikhailovich (?–1543), boyar (from 1538), participant in the conspiracy against Elena Glinskaya, member of the Shuisky boyar government in May 1542, executed a year later.

His grandson, Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, was Russian Tsar in 1606–1610. The brother of this king, Prince. Dmitry Ivanovich (?–1612), also a boyar (from 1586), a member of the Zemsky Sobor (1598), received the highest military and government posts with the accession of Vasily; he was the chief commander of the tsar, although he could not win almost a single battle. Rumor claimed that he was very jealous of his successful young brother, the governor who successfully crushed the Poles, M.V. Skopin-Shuisky. In 1610, after a feast in the house of Dmitry Ivanovich, M.V. Skopin-Shuisky fell ill and died; his death was attributed to Dmitry Shuisky and his wife Ekaterina Grigorievna Skopina-Shuiskaya, daughter of Malyuta Skuratov. “Strong displeasure” arose in the Russian army against Dmitry Ivanovich, which may have been the reason for his defeat on June 24, 1610 in the battle of Klushino. In the fall of 1610 books. Dmitry Ivanovich was taken along with the tsar to Poland, where he died.

Finally, another brother of Tsar Vasily Shuisky - Prince. Ivan Ivanovich Shuisky (?–1638), nicknamed Button, was also taken to Poland in 1610 along with his brothers Vasily and Dmitry, but survived and returned in 1620 to Moscow, where under Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich was in charge of the Moscow court order. He died without male heirs. And with him the senior line of the Shuiskys in Russia was cut short.

The younger line of the Shuisky princes came from Yuri’s cousin, Prince Vasily Semenovich Shuisky. One of his six sons, Prince. Alexander Glazaty-Shuisky, who gave rise to the Glazaty-Shuisky family (whose family branch was cut short already at the beginning of the 16th century) and the Barbashin-Shuisky family (his family was cut short with the death of Vasily Ivanovich Barbashin-Shuisky, a famous governor, participant in the Livonian War, guardsman of Ivan IV the Terrible ).

Another of the six sons, Prince. Ivan Gorbaty-Shuisky, who served with Grand Duke Vasily II the Dark, became the founder of the Gorbaty-Shuisky family. Son of Prince Boris Ivanovich Gorbaty-Shuisky (? – ca. 1539), Prince. Alexander Borisovich (?–1565), was a military leader, statesman, participant in the palace struggle of the 1540s, from 1544 - a boyar who was among the members of the Chosen Rada of Ivan the Terrible. He is considered the de facto head of the Russian army during the capture of Kazan in 1552. He was removed from business in 1560 and executed along with his only son Peter during the introduction of the oprichnina. With their death, the Gorbaty-Shuisky surname came to an end.

Another branch of the Shuisky family came from the brothers Vasily Yuryevich and Fyodor Yuryevich Shuisky. Fyodor Yuryevich was a serving prince of Grand Duke Ivan III. His grandson, Prince. Vasily Vasilyevich, nicknamed “Mute” for his silence (?–1538), was a boyar (from 1512) and a participant in the campaigns against Smolensk, in 1512–1514 he was appointed governor in Moscow (1538). As a member of the Middle Duma, he was present at the drawing up of the will of Grand Duke Vasily III, who gave the kingdom to his young son during the regency, Elena Glinskaya. He declared himself the de facto ruler of the country after the death of Glinskaya in 1538, ordered the execution of her favorite I. Telepnev-Obolensky, and his main rival, Ivan Belsky, “to be put in prison.” His marriage to the young cousin of Ivan IV was supposed to further strengthen the position of Shuisky-Mute, but in 1538 he unexpectedly died.

The younger brother of the Mute, Prince. Ivan Vasilyevich (?–1542), served as governor in Ryazan from 1512, and in Pskov from 1514–1519. In 1523 he received the rank of boyar. He was also among the conspirators striving for power after the death of Glinskaya; he was the de facto co-ruler of the Russian state during the years of boyar rule (1538–1542), a rival of the Belsky family, who also laid claim to the throne.

His grandson Prince. Ivan Petrovich Shuisky (?–1588) was elected to the Zemsky Sobor in 1566, was a brave warrior in the campaign against the Crimean Khan in 1572. He received the rank of boyar in 1574, then became governor in Pskov. From 1584 he led a group of conspirators who opposed Boris Godunov . During the life of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich in 1586, he fell into disgrace and was killed in exile. With his death, the central branch of the Shuisky family died out.

The eldest son of Vasily Vasilyevich Bledny, Ivan Vasilyevich Bolshoi, nicknamed Shuisky-Skopa, became the founder of the Skopin-Shuisky branch. He served as a governor for the Grand Duke. Ivan III, a boyar from 1519. His son Fyodor Ivanovich Skopin-Shuisky was a governor on the Klyazma, was drafted into the army of Ivan IV and won his due years in the Kazan campaigns. His son, Vasily Fedorovich Skopin-Shuisky (?–1595), also fought during the Livonian War (1558–1583), and then with the Swedes (1590–1593).

The family name was glorified by another son of Bledny, Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky, (1587–1610), a boyar and famous commander during the Time of Troubles. In 1610 he managed to defeat the troops of False Dmitry II and liberate Moscow from the siege. Died at the age of 23. With his death, the Skopin-Shuisky surname ceased to exist.

Natalia Pushkareva

The Shuisky princes are the second oldest line of the Rurik family after the Moscow princes. This noble family throughout the 16th century. was at the foot of the throne, and at the beginning of the 17th century his representative reached the royal throne, but failed to stay on it. In the 16th century The Shuiskys were the most influential and noble family of the Moscow state, but the events of the Time of Troubles broke them.

The Shuiskys' ancestor was Alexander Nevsky's brother, Andrei Yaroslavich. He was among the first in Rus' to oppose the rule of the Horde, but was defeated and was forced to come to terms with the fact that the great reign passed to his famous brother, who adhered to a policy of non-resistance to the Horde.

The descendants of Andrei Yaroslavich reigned in Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod. In the XIV century. The Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod princes, Konstantin Vasilyevich and his son Dmitry Konstantinovich, were dangerous rivals of the Moscow princes in the struggle for the great reign. In 1360, Dmitry Konstantinovich Nizhny Novgorod, taking advantage of the fact that the Moscow prince Dmitry Ivanovich (the future famous winner of Mamai on the Kulikovo Field) was still a child, received a label from the Horde for the great reign and took the throne in Vladimir. However, a few years later, the Moscow boyars expelled the prince from the capital city and obtained a grand ducal label for Dmitry of Moscow. Dmitry Konstantinovich came to terms with the loss, married his daughter to the Moscow prince and for many years became his ally in the fight against the Horde. The retaliatory military campaigns of the Horde devastated the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod principality, and Dmitry Konstantinovich abandoned the policy of confronting the Horde. In 1382 he openly betrayed the previous alliance. The sons of Dmitry Konstantinovich, princes Vasily and Semyon, accompanied the army of Khan Tokhtamysh, who was advancing on Moscow, and persuaded the Muscovites to open the gates of the fortress (Dmitry Donskoy himself was not in the city at that time). The princes swore that Tokhtamysh would not harm the townspeople, and even kissed the cross as a sign of the sincerity of their oath. Muscovites believed the relatives of their princess and opened the gates. The Tatars burst into Moscow, subjected it to terrible defeat and burned it.

The betrayal of Dmitry Nizhny Novgorod did not entail a war between Nizhny Novgorod and Muscovites; apparently, Dmitry Donskoy did not have enough strength to fight against his father-in-law. However, Donskoy’s successor, Vasily I, got even with Nizhny Novgorod for the ruin of Moscow. In 1391, he received a label from the Horde for the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod principality and annexed it to his possessions. The sons and grandsons of Dmitry Konstantinovich until the first quarter of the 15th century. tried to fight for the return of their inheritance, relying on the troops of the Horde, but were defeated.

At this time, the small Shuya inheritance (center in the city of Shuya, now part of the Ivanovo region) was still preserved. The ancestor of the appanage princes Shuisky was Yuri Vasilyevich, the grandson of Dmitry Konstantinovich. However, in the middle of the 15th century. life in a tiny estate ceased to satisfy its rulers. Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Shuisky, nicknamed Comb, served Veliky Novgorod. His relatives, Princes Vasily and Fyodor Yuryevich (sons of the first Prince Shuisky), entered into an alliance with the worst enemy of Grand Duke Vasily II Vasilyevich - Dmitry Shemyaka and signed an agreement with him, according to which if Shemyaka takes the Moscow throne, then Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod the principality will be restored and will pass to the Shuisky brothers. However, this agreement remained only on paper. In 1450, Shemyaka suffered a crushing defeat from Vasily II and left Galich, Prince Vasily Yuryevich soon died, and Prince Fedor brought his “guilts” to Vasily II. The opposition to Moscow by Prince Vasily Grebenka Shuisky was not successful either. In 1456, he led the Novgorod army in the battle with the Muscovites. The Novgorodians were defeated, and the wounded Prince Shuisky, barely alive, was taken from the battlefield.

Under Ivan III, the Shuiskys entered the government service and took one of the first places. In the Russian-Lithuanian war at the beginning of the 16th century. Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Shuisky, nicknamed Mute, became famous. He took part in many campaigns against Lithuania, and after the capture of Smolensk in 1514 he was left there as a governor. Prince Vasily the Nemoy uncovered a conspiracy aimed at transferring Smolensk to Lithuania, and, having captured the conspirators, ordered them to be hanged in full view of the Lithuanian army approaching the city.

During the early childhood of Ivan IV, Prince Vasily Vasilyevich was the head of an active boyar party that fought for power. He managed to eliminate his rivals and become the ruler of the state. To top it off, the prince married Ivan IV’s cousin, Anastasia, the daughter of the baptized Tatar “prince” Peter and the sister of Vasily III, Princess Evdokia Ivanovna. He received the title of Moscow governor and occupied the Kremlin court of Prince Andrei Staritsky, the late brother of Vasily III. But in 1538, death struck the elderly Prince Vasily Vasilyevich.

The Mute's brother, Prince Ivan Vasilyevich, took his place, but in the fight against the Belsky princes he could not resist and was expelled from Moscow to the voivodeship in Vladimir. Meanwhile, in Moscow, supporters of the Shuiskys prepared a conspiracy against the Belskys. Prince Ivan Vasilyevich rode to Moscow at night (January 3, 1542) and took power into his own hands. The head of government, Prince I.F. Belsky, went to prison, where he was killed, his supporters were also sent to prison. Metropolitan Joasaph, who supported the Belskys, was almost killed by the conspirators and exiled to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, and the Novgorod Archbishop Macarius was installed in his place. The Novgorodians generally supported the Shuiskys, remembering that one of them was the last governor of free Novgorod.

Subsequently, Ivan the Terrible recalled with bitterness the time of his orphanhood. The boyars, according to the tsar’s recollections, while showing him outward honor and respect, in fact did not care about him and his brother. Ivan’s younger brother, the deaf and dumb Yuri, could not be a good friend to him. The boy felt abandoned.

Ivan Shuisky aroused particular hatred of Grozny. In his first letter to Andrei Kurbsky, Ivan IV recalled a picture from his childhood: “It used to be that we were playing, and Prince Ivan Vasilyevich Shuisky was sitting on a bench, leaning his elbow on our father’s bed and putting his foot on a chair, but he wouldn’t even look at us - not at all.” a parent, neither as a guardian, nor certainly as a slave to the masters...” Crowned children, Ivan the Terrible recalled, were kept “like wretched servants.” According to the tsar, the children of the Grand Duke even went hungry.

The triumph of Prince Ivan Shuisky was short-lived: in May 1542 he died, and the government was headed by his relatives, Princes Ivan and Andrei Mikhailovich Shuisky, and Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Skopin-Shuisky. Prince Andrei Mikhailovich, who bore the nickname Palisade, took precedence among them. Previously, he became famous for his cruelty and greed when he was governor of Pskov (1539–1540). The Pskov chronicler reports that “the craftsmen did everything for him for nothing, and the great people gave him gifts...” Residents of the Pskov suburbs were afraid to travel to Pskov, so as not to catch the eye of the governor, and the abbots from the monasteries “fled to Novgorod.” “The governors in Pskov were,” the chronicler concludes, “fierce, like lions, and their people, like marvelous animals, like peasants.”

While the boyars were at enmity with each other and plundering the state treasury, young Ivan IV was growing up. The boy began to take out his resentment and anger on the dumb creatures. According to a former friend and then ideological opponent of the Tsar, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, young Ivan IV threw cats and dogs from the roofs of high towers. When he grew up, he began to throw people off too. With a company of peers, the young Grand Duke rode through squares and markets on horses and began beating the townspeople he met along the way. The boyars approved of the little sovereign’s cruel amusements, saying: “Oh, this king will be brave and courageous!”

The palace struggle was accompanied by violence, which was also observed by the young Grand Duke. Ivan Vasilyevich was smart and sharp-witted, violence was deeply absorbed into his consciousness from childhood. At the age of 13, he pronounced his first death sentence, ordering the death of the head of the Shuisky boyar party, Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Shuisky (1543). From then on, as the chronicle writes, “the boyars began to fear, to have fear and obedience from the sovereign.”

Having killed Prince Andrei Shuisky at the beginning of his reign, Ivan the Terrible seemed to have exhausted his hatred of this family. Subsequently, even during the years of the oprichnina, not a single representative of the Shuisky family was executed. True, in February 1565, among the first victims of oprichnina terror, the boyar Prince Alexander Borisovich Gorbaty-Suzdal, the famous governor who distinguished himself during the capture of Kazan, and his son Peter, relatives of the Shuisky princes, were beheaded. However, the Shuiskys themselves were in the confidence of the tsar.

The son of the ruler Prince Ivan Vasilyevich - Prince Peter Ivanovich - took part in the Kazan capture of 1552, conquered the Mari and Udmurt lands, and took Dorpat, Marienburg and other cities in the Livonian War. In 1564, military luck changed Prince Peter Ivanovich - in a battle with Hetman Radziwill, he was defeated, lost his horse and came on foot to a neighboring village. Lithuanian peasants, recognizing the Russian governor, robbed him and drowned him in a well. Shuisky's body was buried by Hetman Radziwill in the Vilna Church, next to the ashes of the Grand Duchess of Lithuania Elena Ivanovna, daughter of Ivan III.

At the end of the 1560s. Shuisky's remains became the subject of diplomatic correspondence between the government of Ivan the Terrible and the Polish-Lithuanian "lords". At the beginning of 1569, the tsar was “beaten with his brow” by princes Ivan and Nikita Petrovich Shuisky so that the tsar would allow the body of their father to be exchanged for the body of the wife of the Lithuanian governor Stanislav Dovoina, who died in Russian captivity and was buried in Moscow. An agreement on this was almost reached, but the Vilna governor, an enemy of the Pre-War, opposed it, and the ashes of Prince Shuisky remained in a foreign land.

The son of Prince P.I. Shuisky, Prince Nikita, died in 1571. During Devlet-Girey’s raid on Moscow, the Tatars set the city on fire. A terrible fire started in Moscow. The population was gripped by panic and rushed from the Kremlin and Kitay-Gorod along the Zhivoy (floating bridge) across the Moscow River. In this crush, Prince Nikita tried to break through, but one of Prince Tatev’s slaves stuck a knife into him, and the prince died from his wound.

The elder brother of Prince N.P. Shuisky, Prince Ivan Petrovich, became famous for the heroic defense of Pskov from the troops of the Polish king Stefan Batory. Together with his relative Prince Vasily Fedorovich Skopin-Shuisky, Prince Ivan Petrovich was sent to Pskov, which was approached by the army of the Polish king in August 1580. The heroic defense of Pskov lasted five months. The defenders of the city withstood the brutal fire of enemy artillery and themselves actively fired at the royal camp from cannons, repelled attacks and destroyed tunnels. The besiegers captured one of the city’s towers, Svinaya, but the Pskov gunners hit it with the famous huge cannon, called Bars, and blew it up. The bodies of Poles and Lithuanians, mixed with the remains of the tower and walls, filled the moat of the Pskov fortress to the top. Having lost five thousand people killed, the king was forced to abandon the capture of Pskov. On December 1, he left the camp, entrusting Hetman Jan Zamoyski to continue the siege, but the fighting was sluggish. The failure at Pskov had a heavy impact on the military and material resources of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and peace was soon concluded.

At the beginning of the reign of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, Prince Ivan Petrovich Shuisky joined the regency council under the sovereign. He became the head of the party opposing Boris Godunov. The Shuiskys were going to strike a blow at the main support of Godunov’s influence: in 1586, the Shuiskys, having enlisted the support of Metropolitan Dionysius and Bishop Varlaam of Krutitsy, turned to the tsar so that, “for the sake of childbearing,” he tonsured his wife Irina Godunova as a nun, and he himself became a nun. for a second marriage. Prominent Moscow merchants also took the side of the Shuiskys. But Boris managed to defeat his opponents. Soon, Metropolitan Dionysius was removed from the throne, Prince Ivan Petrovich Shuisky and his relatives - brothers Princes Andrei, Vasily, Alexander, Dmitry and Ivan Ivanovich Shuisky - were exiled, and Moscow merchants Nagai and Golub “and their comrades” were executed. In exile, I. P. Shuisky and A. I. Shuisky were killed by their bailiffs, the first in 1588, and the second in 1589.

After the death of Prince Ivan Petrovich, Prince Vasily Ivanovich, the grandson of the executed Andrei Chastokola, became the head of the family. He was first mentioned in sources in 1574, when he was among the heads in the sovereign’s regiment in Ivan the Terrible’s campaign against the Crimeans. In 1580, Prince Vasily was the Tsar's groomsman at his wedding to Maria Naga. According to some news, Vasily Shuisky, even under Ivan the Terrible, discovered ambitious aspirations for the throne. However, this news may well be inspired by subsequent events. In 1584, the prince received the boyars, then, together with the other Shuiskys, fell into disgrace, having been defeated in the court struggle with Godunov.

Boris Godunov was afraid of Shuisky; he and the head of the Boyar Duma, Prince F.I. Mstislavsky, were forbidden to marry so that their family would be extinguished. But in 1591, Prince Vasily was appointed head of the investigative commission sent to Uglich to investigate the death of Tsarevich Dmitry, and he returned with a decision favorable to Godunov: the Tsarevich “self-sacrifice” due to the neglect of Nagikh. The marriage of Prince Dmitry Shuisky, brother of Vasily and Ekaterina Grigorievna Skuratova-Belskaya, sister-in-law of Tsar Boris and daughter of Malyuta Skuratov, strengthened Godunov’s alliance with Shuisky.

When the first rumors appeared about an impostor who had taken the name of “Tsarevich Dmitry of Uglich,” Prince Vasily Shuisky had to go to Lobnoe Mesto to calm the Muscovites and solemnly assure and swear that the prince had died as a result of an accident. This did not prevent him, along with other boyars, from recognizing the royal origin of False Dmitry I. Soon after this, he became the soul of a conspiracy against the impostor and said that the new tsar was an impostor, and Tsarevich Dmitry was killed on the orders of Godunov. Thus, Prince Vasily had to, in accordance with the circumstances, change his point of view on the fate and death of Tsarevich Dmitry three times. It is unlikely that he should be blamed for this; Vasily Shuisky acted in the same way as other boyars, who did not at all strive for exploits in the name of truth.

Two days after the murder of the impostor, the boyars - participants in the coup - proclaimed Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky tsar. Undoubtedly, Vasily Shuisky had much more rights to the throne than Boris Godunov, and even more so the rootless impostor Grishka Otrepiev. If we consider the dynastic situation at the end of the 16th century. from the point of view of the traditional princely law of Ancient Rus', then, following the suppression of the line of Moscow princes, the throne already in 1598 should have passed to the next senior line of the Shuisky princes. However, during the Time of Troubles other factors were at work.

Contemporaries note that the election of a new king was not the work of the entire people, but the result of a conspiracy of a narrow group of people. Trinity cellarer Abraham Palitsyn writes that after the proclamation of Vasily Shuisky as tsar, all of Russia “settled down... in doublethink; some loved him, others hated him.”

Vasily Shuisky began his reign with the promulgation of a unique document - the Kissing Record, which guaranteed the tsar's subjects the observance of their rights - a fair trial and the prevention of unfair exiles and executions. “Vasily Shuisky turned from a sovereign of slaves into a legitimate king of his subjects, ruling according to the laws,” - this is how the great Russian historian V. O. Klyuchevsky assessed the significance of this document. The Kissing Record could have changed the entire political appearance of the state, but these promises were only a declaration. Vasily Shuisky created an atmosphere of suspicion and denunciation at his court, often violating the Kissing Record, exiling, sending to prison and executing without a fair trial. The king was firmly established as a dishonest man prone to intrigue and deception.

The denunciation against supporters of Vasily Shuisky, submitted to the prince Vladislav, reveals the atmosphere of denunciation and unfair trials that flourished under Shuisky. According to the denunciation, the Duma nobleman V.B. Sukin “sat in the Petition hut and secretly put people in the water (i.e., drowned) at Shuisky’s behest and plotted it himself”; steward V.I. Buturlin - “and brought it to his own father”; the captains, princes G.F. Khvorostinin, A.P. Lvov, I.M. Odoevsky and others, were called “whisperers.” This document also confirms the news of Shuisky’s predilection for sorcerers: sleeping bag I.V. Izmailov, the person closest to the tsar, “was at Shuisky’s sorcerers and root workers,” that is, he kept an eye on the sorcerers and experts on magical and poisonous herbs and roots.

It seemed to contemporaries that it was in Shuisky’s violation of his oath that the reason for the disasters that befell the Russian state under this sovereign was hidden. Others thought that the cause of the unrest was the hasty installation of Shuisky on the throne by a narrow circle of supporters, without the participation of “the whole earth,” that is, the entire population of the country. Be that as it may, in the first months after the death of False Dmitry I, his ghost gained strength and significance and again became a banner for the dissatisfied and rebels. Tsar Vasily Shuisky took all measures to prevent the development of the impostor adventure: the disfigured corpse of False Dmitry, which had lain in the square for three days, was thrown into the poor house, and then burned and the ashes were hammered into a cannon and fired from it towards Poland. At the same time, Tsarevich Dmitry was recognized as a holy martyr, killed on the orders of the villain - Boris Godunov. But it didn't help.

On the outskirts of the state, uprisings against the king began. The name of “Tsar Dmitry,” who miraculously rose again from the dead, became a banner that united all those dissatisfied with the accession of the boyar sovereign. Soon a leader appeared - the former military slave Ivan Bolotnikov, who took the name of the governor “Tsar Dmitry”.

Bolotnikov's successes are impressive. A few months later he was already standing under the walls of Moscow and threatening the tsarist army, weakened by desertion and poor command. But luck was on Shuisky’s side. A split occurred in the rebel army, and the leaders of the Ryazan noble militia, which made up a significant part of the rebels, Istoma Pashkov and Prokofy Lyapunov, went over to the side of the tsar during the decisive battles near Moscow. Bolotnikov was defeated and retreated to Kaluga, from where he moved to Tula. Tsar Vasily showed wisdom and a desire for reconciliation - Bolotnikov’s Cossacks, who laid down their arms, were accepted into the sovereign’s service and received a salary. But the “thieves” captured in battle were drowned. The siege of Bolotnikov in Tula was led by the tsar himself. The rebels desperately defended themselves, inflicting significant damage on the enemy army, but after several months of the siege, a lack of food supplies began to affect the city, and then famine set in. “Residents ate dogs, cats, carrion in the streets, bull and cow skins,” writes K. Bussov, a participant in the Tula defense. On the advice of the Murom nobleman Foma Kravkov, the besiegers blocked the flow of the Upa River, and Tula began to flood.

The situation of the Bolotnikovites became desperate, the water flooded the remains of food supplies, desertion and indignation began against the leaders of the defense - Bolotnikov and his allies. The defenders of the fortress forced Bolotnikov to enter into negotiations with Shuisky and capitulate. The king promised immunity to the leaders of the rebels, but did not keep his word - they were all executed.

As soon as the source of unrest that was blazing in Tula was extinguished with great difficulty, the flames of rebellion flared up on the outskirts of the state. The Terek Cossacks, who created False Peter, put forward a new impostor - “Tsarevich Ivan August,” the “son” of Ivan the Terrible from his marriage to Anna Koltovskaya. Astrakhan and the entire Lower Volga region submitted to this impostor. Following him appeared the “grandson” of Grozny, the “son” of Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich “Tsarevich Lavrenty”. In the Cossack villages, impostors grew like mushrooms: the “children” of Tsar Fedor appeared - the “princes” Simeon, Savely, Vasily, Clementy, Eroshka, Gavrilka, Martynka. But the main danger was represented by the new “Tsar Demetrius” who appeared in Lithuania in the winter of 1607, who went down in history as False Dmitry II, or the Tushino Thief.

The impostor set out on a campaign in September 1607 and moved to the aid of besieged Tula. On the day of its surrender, he was already in Kozelsk, but managed to provide assistance to the besieged and, in fear of the tsarist army, fled to Severshchina. In the spring of 1608, the impostor set out on a campaign against Moscow. The commander-in-chief of the army of Cossacks, Poles and surviving Bolotnikovites became the Lithuanian magnate Prince Roman Rozhinsky. The Cossacks were commanded by Colonel Alexander Lisovsky and Ataman Ivan Zarutsky. Having defeated the army near Bolkhov, commanded by the tsar's brother, boyar Dmitry Shuisky, the impostor approached Moscow and set up camp in Tushino, from which he received the nickname Tushino Thief from his contemporaries.

A long confrontation began between False Dmitry II and Vasily Shuisky. Moscow found itself in a siege ring, although not a closed one. Fierce battles took place between the warring camps, but not all Muscovites showed a desire to die for Tsar Vasily. Princes, stewards, servicemen, and clerks began to run from Moscow to Tushino.

Tsar Vasily tried to stop the betrayal. He suggested that the service people either stay in Moscow and kiss the cross as a sign of their loyalty, or honestly leave the besieged city and go to Tushino, but not flee by deception. Many expressed a desire to die for the Tsar, but the next day some of those who swore to be faithful to Shuisky left for Tushino. The attempt to unite the service class was unsuccessful. At the same time, Patriarch Hermogenes actively supported Shuisky, sending letters to the cities with calls to serve the true king and not succumb to enemy deceit. While Tushinsky the Thief stood near Moscow, his troops plundered the country, making long trips to the northeast. The cities of Pereslavl, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Vologda, Vladimir, Suzdal, Murom, Kasimov, Arzamas and others went over to the side of the impostor or were taken.

Vasily Shuisky turned to the Swedish king Charles IX for help. A relative of the tsar, the young Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky (son of Prince Vasily Fedorovich, who led the Pskov defense along with Prince I.P. Shuisky), who by that time had managed to prove himself as a talented governor, was sent to Novgorod to negotiate with the Swedes. He managed to attract a mercenary army of 15 thousand Swedes, Germans, Scots and other immigrants from Western Europe into Russian service and assemble a Russian militia of 3 thousand people in the northern regions.

On May 10, 1609, he moved from Novgorod “to cleanse the Moscow state.” But before this, the governors sent by Skopin-Shuisky managed to recapture Vologda, Yaroslavl and some other northern cities from the Tushins. In several battles, Skopin-Shuisky defeated the main forces of the Tushinsky Thief. Along Skopin-Shuisky's route to Moscow, his army was replenished with detachments from liberated cities. Tushino Hetman Jan Peter Sapieha, fearing the advancing Russian army, lifted the siege of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, which lasted almost four months in fierce battles and assaults.

On March 12, 1610, Prince M.V. Skopin-Shuisky entered Moscow and was greeted by jubilant people. But among the triumphant crowd, one man’s heart was filled with anger and hatred. This was Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Shuisky - the king’s brother and a mediocre commander who lost many battles. He was justifiably afraid of the young governor - in the event of the death of the childless Tsar Vasily, Prince Dmitry was supposed to take the throne, but the enormous popularity of Skopin-Shuisky instilled in the Tsar's brother the fear that the people would proclaim him the heir, and then the Tsar. Some sources indicate that Tsar Vasily himself was afraid of Skopin-Shuisky.

He sets out in detail the further tragic events of the “Scripture on the death and burial of Prince Skopin-Shuisky”, according to which, at the christening of Prince Alexei Vorotynsky, the godmother - the “villainous” Princess Ekaterina Shuiskaya (as mentioned above, she was the daughter of Malyuta Skuratov) - offered her godmother - Prince M.V. Skopin-Shuisky - a cup of poison. The young commander was ill for several days and died on April 23, 1610. With cries and screams, crowds of people carried the prince’s body for burial in the royal tomb - the Archangel Cathedral. The Tsar, who had not previously enjoyed much love, with the death of Skopin-Shuisky began to be hated as the culprit of his death.

With the death of Skopin-Shuisky, the Tushino camp became emboldened. But False Dmitry II, like Vasily Shuisky, felt uncomfortable in his “capital”. In September 1609, King Sigismund III declared war on Russia, which had entered into an alliance with his worst enemy and nephew, the Swedish king Charles IX, who deprived Sigismund of the Swedish throne. On October 1, the king appeared under the walls of Smolensk, and the heroic defense of this city began, led by boyar Mikhail Borisovich Shein.

Gradually, a plan arose among the Poles surrounding the impostor: to transfer him into the hands of the king, and themselves to take the side of Sigismund III and get him or his son Vladislav the Moscow crown. The Poles and some Russian Tushins entered into negotiations with the king. The impostor was subjected to house arrest, but managed to escape from Tushin to Kaluga, where he again attracted many supporters - Cossacks, Russians and some Poles - and waged war with two sovereigns: Tsar Vasily and King Sigismund. The Tushino camp was deserted, the king’s supporters went to him near Smolensk, and the impostor’s supporters went to Kaluga.

Vasily Shuisky sent Prince D.I. Shuisky and foreign mercenaries led by the Swedish commander Count J. Delagardie against the Poles. On June 24, Dmitry Shuisky was defeated in a battle with the Polish hetman S. Zholkevsky near the village of Klushina near Mozhaisk. The reason for the defeat was the betrayal of foreign mercenaries, to whom Dmitry Shuisky did not want to pay their salaries, making the excuse of a lack of money. The Klushino defeat decided the fate of Vasily Shuisky. On July 17, unrest began in Moscow. According to the chronicle, the Moscow “thieves” agreed with supporters of the Kaluga impostor that they would abandon False Dmitry II: “and we will all leave behind the Moscow Tsar Vasily,” and together we will choose a king. A crowd of conspirators led by Zakhary Lyapunov came to the palace, and Lyapunov began to reprimand the Tsar: “How long will Christian blood be shed for you? The earth is desolate, nothing good is being done during your reign, take pity on our death, lay down the royal staff, and we will somehow think about ourselves.”

This is not the first time Shuisky has experienced something like this. In February 1609, Prince R. Gagarin, T.V. Gryaznoy, M.A. Molchanov and others also tried to “displace” him from the throne, the tsar courageously came out to meet them, and the rebels fled. But this time everything was different. The Tsar answered Lyapunov with abuse and grabbed his knife. Zachary, a tall and strong man, shouted back: “Don’t touch me, otherwise I’ll take you in my hands and crush everything!” The conspirators poured out of the palace, but not to retreat. Beyond the Moscow River, at the Serpukhov Gate, crowds of people gathered, and here it was decided to beat the king with his forehead so that he would leave the throne, because Christian blood was being shed because of him. Shuisky's brother-in-law, Prince I.M. Vorotynsky, was sent as a parliamentarian and obtained from Shuisky consent to leave the throne and be content with the inheritance consisting of Nizhny Novgorod.

Delighted Muscovites rushed to the Tushino residents to demand that they overthrow False Dmitry II. But they only laughed at them: “Why don’t you remember the sovereign’s kiss on the cross, you drove your king from his kingdom, and we are ready to die for ours.” Patriarch Hermogenes tried to take advantage of this and demanded that Tsar Vasily return the throne, but the instigators of the rebellion could not come to terms with this. On the morning of July 19, they came to the court of Tsar Vasily and forcibly tonsured the former Tsar and his wife, Tsarina Maria Petrovna, into monks. Shuisky did not want to cut his hair and did not say the words of renunciation from the world, as required according to the ritual. This did not bother the conspirators; instead of the Tsar, Prince Vasily Tyufyakin uttered words of renunciation. Patriarch Hermogenes did not recognize this tonsure, but argued that Tyufyakin should be a monk, but no one took into account the opinion of the bishop. The Seven Boyars - boyar rule - was established in Moscow. The “seven-numbered boyars,” fearing the attack of False Dmitry II, hastened to conclude an agreement with S. Zholkiewski about calling the Polish prince Vladislav to the Russian throne. Zholkiewski's army entered Moscow, and the former Tsar Vasily, his wife and brothers, Dmitry and Ivan, were taken to Poland.

Polish sources describe in detail the royal audience given to Shuisky in Warsaw on October 29, 1611. After Zolkiewsky's speech praising the happiness and courage of the king, Shuisky bowed low and kissed the royal hand, and his brothers beat him to the ground with their foreheads.

However, Russian chronicles describe the matter quite differently. According to one of them, when asked to bow to the king, Tsar Vasily replied: “It is not appropriate for the Moscow Tsar to bow to the king; then by the Divine will I was brought into captivity; “It was not taken by your hands, but by Moscow traitors, by his own slaves.”

Even in distant Siberia they remembered the captivity of Tsar Vasily and attributed to him unusual courage and a feat that did not exist. Tsar Vasily, according to the Siberian Chronicle, answered the king: “... You yourself, the king, bow to me, the Tsar of Moscow, since I am your head.” The king became enraged, sent him to Poland and killed him there as a martyr.

Tsar Vasily spent the last years of his life in Polish captivity and died in 1612. Over his grave, the Poles erected a magnificent tomb, decorated with inscriptions praising the triumph of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth over Muscovy. The body of Vasily Shuisky was given to the Russian ambassador - Prince A. M. Lvov - at the urgent request of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich in 1635. The royal order ordered that a ransom for the body of Tsar Vasily be given in a huge amount - up to 10,000 rubles, but the ambassadors only managed to limit themselves to rich offerings Polish nobles, and the matter was settled. On June 10, the coffin with the body of Shuisky, his brother Dmitry and his wife Ekaterina was solemnly greeted at the entrance to Moscow, in Dorogomilov. The Emperor met the body at the Assumption Cathedral, and the next day the burial took place.

Only the youngest of the Shuiskys, boyar Prince Ivan Ivanovich, returned alive from Polish captivity (1620). At the Electoral Council, his name was mentioned among the possible candidates for king, but the candidacy of Prince Ivan Shuisky was not seriously considered by the council participants. After the reign of Tsar Vasily Shuisky, which was accompanied by numerous disasters, the tsar had no supporters from this family. True, already under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, impostors appeared in Poland, calling themselves “princes” and the children of Vasily Shuisky - Semyon and Ivan. Both were demanded by the Moscow government - the first was caught in Moldova, the second, after long wanderings, ended up in Germany - and executed. The man who took the name of Ivan Shuisky, the fugitive clerk Timofey Ankudinov, was unusually talented and educated for his time. During his wanderings abroad, he learned several languages, knew astrology and astronomy, and wrote poetry. However, this did not save him from painful execution in December 1653.

Prince Ivan Ivanovich Shuisky did not live to see the appearance of his imaginary nephews. Under Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich he

headed the Vladimir Court Order and died in 1638, leaving no offspring. But the Shuisky family did not end. According to Polish genealogical directories, in Poland there was a family of princes Shuisky, Catholics, descended from Prince Ivan Dmitrievich, who fled from Russia to Lithuania in 1566. Perhaps this line continues to this day.