Line UMK I. L. Andreeva, O. V. Volobueva. History (6-10)

Russian history

How did Mikhail Romanov end up on the Russian throne?

On July 21, 1613, in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, Michael’s crowning ceremony took place, marking the founding of the new ruling dynasty of the Romanovs. The ceremony, which took place in the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin, was carried out completely out of order. The reasons for this lay in the Time of Troubles, which disrupted all plans: Patriarch Filaret (by coincidence, the father of the future king), was captured by the Poles, the second head of the Church after him, Metropolitan Isidore, was in territory occupied by the Swedes. As a result, the wedding was performed by Metropolitan Ephraim, the third hierarch of the Russian Church, while the other heads gave their blessing.

So, how did it happen that Mikhail ended up on the Russian throne?

Events in the Tushino camp

On March 12, 1610, Russian troops solemnly entered Moscow under the leadership of the talented and young commander M. V. Skopin-Shuisky, the Tsar’s nephew. There was a chance of completely defeating the forces of the impostor, and then liberating the country from the troops of Sigismund III. However, on the eve of the Russian troops setting out on a campaign (April 1610), Skopin-Shuisky was poisoned at a feast and died two weeks later.

Alas, already on June 24, 1610, the Russians were completely defeated by Polish troops. At the beginning of July 1610, the troops of Zholkiewski approached Moscow from the west, and the troops of False Dmitry II again approached from the south. In this situation, on July 17, 1610, through the efforts of Zakhary Lyapunov (brother of the rebellious Ryazan nobleman P. P. Lyapunov) and his supporters, Shuisky was overthrown and on July 19, he was forcibly tonsured a monk (in order to prevent him from becoming king again in the future). Patriarch Hermogenes did not recognize this tonsure.

Seven Boyars

The balance of forces in the capital in July - August 1610 was as follows. Patriarch Hermogenes and his supporters opposed both the impostor and any foreigner on the Russian throne. Possible candidates were Prince V.V. Golitsyn or 14-year-old Mikhail Romanov, son of Metropolitan Philaret (former Patriarch of Tushino). This is how the name M.F. was heard for the first time. Romanova. Most of the boyars, led by Mstislavsky, nobles and merchants were in favor of inviting Prince Vladislav. They, firstly, did not want to have any of the boyars as king, remembering the unsuccessful experience of the reign of Godunov and Shuisky, secondly, they hoped to receive additional benefits and benefits from Vladislav, and thirdly, they feared ruin when the impostor ascended the throne. The lower classes of the city sought to place False Dmitry II on the throne.

On August 17, 1610, the Moscow government concluded an agreement with Hetman Zholkiewski on the terms of inviting the Polish prince Vladislav to the Russian throne. Sigismund III, under the pretext of unrest in Russia, did not let his son go to Moscow. In the capital, Hetman A. Gonsevsky gave orders on his behalf. The Polish king, possessing significant military strength, did not want to fulfill the conditions of the Russian side and decided to annex the Moscow state to his crown, depriving it of political independence. The boyar government was unable to prevent these plans, and a Polish garrison was brought into the capital.

Liberation from Polish-Lithuanian invaders

You can read more about this episode in the material: "".

In the second half of November, letters were sent to many cities with a request to send them to the capital by December 6 “ for state and zemstvo affairs"ten good people. Among them could be abbots of monasteries, archpriests, townspeople, and even black-growing peasants. They all had to be " reasonable and consistent", capable of " talk about state affairs freely and fearlessly, without any cunning».

Who did they want to choose as king?

It was proposed to place some foreign prince on the Moscow throne, but the majority of the council participants resolutely declared that they were categorically against the Gentiles “because of their untruth and crime on the cross.” They also objected to Marina Mnishek and the son of False Dmitry II Ivan - they called them “the thieves’ queen” and “the little crow.”

Why did the Romanovs have an advantage? Kinship issues

Voters expressed their decision as follows:

« We came to the general idea of ​​electing a relative of the righteous and great sovereign, the Tsar and Grand Duke, blessed in memory Fyodor Ivanovich of all Rus', so that it would be eternally and permanently the same as under him, the great sovereign, the Russian kingdom shone before all states like the sun and expanded on all sides, and many surrounding sovereigns became subject to him, the sovereign, in allegiance and obedience, and there was no blood or war under him, the sovereign - all of us under his royal power lived in peace and prosperity».

It can be assumed that most of the participants in the cathedral had never seen Michael, who was distinguished by his modesty and quiet disposition, and had not heard anything about him before. Since childhood, he had to experience many adversities. In 1601, at the age of four, he was separated from his parents and, together with his sister Tatyana, was sent to Belozersk prison. Only a year later, the emaciated and ragged prisoners were transferred to the village of Klin, Yuryevsky district, where they were allowed to live with their mother. Real liberation occurred only after the accession of False Dmitry I. In the summer of 1605, the Romanovs returned to the capital, to their boyar house on Varvarka. Filaret, by the will of the impostor, became the Metropolitan of Rostov, Ivan Nikitich received the rank of boyar, and Mikhail, due to his young age, was enlisted as a steward. The future tsar had to go through new tests during the Time of Troubles. In 1611 - 1612, towards the end of the siege of Kitai-Gorod and the Kremlin by militias, Mikhail and his mother had no food at all, so they even had to eat grass and tree bark. The elder sister Tatyana could not survive all this and died in 1611 at the age of 18. Mikhail miraculously survived, but his health was severely damaged. Due to scurvy, he gradually developed a disease in his legs.
Among the close relatives of the Romanovs were the princes Shuisky, Vorotynsky, Sitsky, Troekurov, Shestunov, Lykov, Cherkassky, Repnin, as well as the boyars Godunov, Morozov, Saltykov, Kolychev. All together they formed a powerful coalition at the sovereign’s court and were not averse to placing their protege on the throne.

Announcement of the election of Michael as Tsar: details

The representative embassy went to the chosen one only on March 2. It was headed by Archbishop Theodoret and boyar F.I. Sheremetev. They had to inform Mikhail and his mother of the decision of the Zemsky Sobor, obtain their consent to “sit on the kingdom” and bring the chosen ones to Moscow.

Sources:

1. Morozova L.E. Election to the kingdom // Russian history. - 2013. - No. 1. - P. 40-45.
2. Danilov A.G. New phenomena in the organization of power in Russia during the Time of Troubles // Questions of History. - 2013. - No. 11. - P. 78-96.

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: 4 people signed the charter for Nizhny Novgorod (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. Some Don ataman did the same. 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 from the masses. In Kostomarov ("Time of Troubles") this thought flashes, but very weakly and vaguely. Below we will have a 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. The internecine war of the Russian people went on without interference from the Poles and Lithuania 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 a 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 the 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 have a desire to ask for the rule of you, the great ruler Prince Vladislav Zhigimontovich, namely, they don’t dare talk about this, fearing the Cossacks, but they say in order to take over the state of a foreigner; and the Cossacks, the gospodars, say in order to take over one of the Russian boyars, but try on Filaret’s son and Vorovsky Koluzhsky. And in everything, the Cossacks, the boyars and the nobles, are strong, they do what they want; and the nobles and the boyars’ children dispersed to their estates, and in Moscow there were only about two thousand nobles and the boyars’ children left, and half a thousand Cossacks (i.e. - 4500), and the archers with a thousand people, and the peasants of the mob. But the boyars, the hospodars, and Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky and his comrades, who were sitting in Moscow, are not allowed into the Duma, but wrote about them in the cities to all sorts of people: let them to the Duma, or not? And Prince Dmitry Trubetskoy and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, and Kuzemka Minin are doing 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 attached great importance to it. 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 were more than twice as numerous as the nobles and one and a half times larger 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 every reason to believe 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 election of the sovereign 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.

In 1611, Patriarch Hermogenes, calling on the sons of the church to defend the fatherland, insisted on electing a Russian tsar, convincing him with examples from history; but he was starved to death for this call, his life expired on February 17, 1612, but he died with the name of Michael, indicating who should be king.
- By the end of 1612, Moscow and all of central Russia, notified by the leaders of the people's militia, celebrated their salvation and, triumphantly, remembered the dying testament of Patriarch Hermogenes - on February 21, 1613, the unanimous choice for king fell on Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, the son of the former Rostov Metropolitan Filaret Nikitich, who was still languishing in captivity among the Poles and returned from there only in 1619.
— The first act of the great Zemsky Sobor, which elected sixteen-year-old Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov to the Russian throne, was to send an embassy to the newly elected tsar. When sending the embassy, ​​the cathedral did not know where Mikhail was, and therefore the order given to the ambassadors said: “Go to Sovereign Mikhail Fedorovich, Tsar and Grand Duke of All Rus' in Yaroslavl.” Arriving in Yaroslavl, the embassy here only learned that Mikhail Fedorovich lives with his mother in Kostroma; without hesitation, it moved there, along with many Yaroslavl citizens who had already joined here.
— The embassy arrived in Kostroma on March 14; On the 19th, having convinced Mikhail to accept the royal crown, they left Kostroma with him, and on the 21st they all arrived in Yaroslavl. Here all the residents of Yaroslavl and the nobles who had come from everywhere, boyar children, guests, trading people with their wives and children met the new king with a procession of the cross, bringing him icons, bread and salt, and rich gifts. Mikhail Fedorovich chose the ancient Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery as his place of stay here. Here, in the archimandrite’s cells, he lived with his mother nun Martha and the temporary State Council, which was composed of Prince Ivan Borisovich Cherkassky with other nobles and clerk Ivan Bolotnikov with stewards and solicitors. From here, on March 23, the first letter from the tsar was sent to Moscow, informing the Zemsky Sobor of its consent to accept the royal crown. The warm weather that followed and the flooding of the rivers detained the young tsar in Yaroslavl “until it dried out.” Having received information here that the Swedes from Novgorod were going to Tikhvin, Mikhail Fedorovich from here sent Prince Prozorovsky and Velyaminov to defend this city, and sent an order to Moscow to detach troops against Zarutsky, who, having robbed Ukrainian cities, with a crowd of rebels and Marina Mnishek was going to Voronezh . Finally, on April 16, having prayed to the Yaroslavl Wonderworkers and accepting a blessing from Spassky Archimandrite Theophilus, accompanied by the good wishes of the people, with the bells of all churches ringing, Mikhail Fedorovich left the hospitable monastery in which he lived for 26 days. Soon after his arrival in Moscow, in the same year 1613, Mikhail Fedorovich sent three letters of grant to the Spassky Monastery, as a result of which the welfare of the monastery, which suffered a lot during the Polish defeat, improved. And throughout his reign, the sovereign constantly had affection for Yaroslavl and remembered the place of his temporary stay. Proof of this is 15 more letters of grant given to the same monastery.
- In the first years after the accession of Mikhail Fedorovich, before the final conclusion of peace with Poland, Yaroslavl with its environs and neighboring cities often had to endure great disturbances from the Poles, and in 1615 Yaroslavl again became a rallying point for troops equipping themselves against Lisovsky, who was then troubling Uglich, Kashin, Bezhetsk, Romanov, Poshekhonye and the surrounding area of ​​Yaroslavl. In 1617, Yaroslavl was in danger from the Zaporozhye Cossacks, sent here from near the Trinity Lavra by the Polish prince Vladislav, who again decided to seek the Russian throne. Boyar Ivan Vasilyevich Cherkassky drove them away from here “with great damage.”
- Filaret Nikitich, who returned from captivity in 1619, was installed as patriarch of the Russian church, and the following year the tsar undertook a “prayer journey” through the cities, and visited Yaroslavl.

K. D. Golovshchikov - "History of the city of Yaroslavl" - 1889.

Source:
Work of Professor D. V. Tsvetaev,
Manager of the Moscow Archive of the Ministry of Justice.
“ELECTION OF Mikhail Feodorovitch Romanov TO THE KINGDOM”
1913 edition
T. SKOROPECHATNI-A.A. LEVENSON
Moscow, Tverskaya, Trekhprudny lane, coll. D.

III.
The composition of the electoral zemsky council of 1613.

Having occupied and cleaned the Kremlin, the boyar Prince. Dmitry Timofeevich Trubetskoy and the steward, Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky, who headed the provisional government, began immediately preparing for the speedy convening of a plenipotentiary council. Now, it seemed, the most convenient time had come for the urgent implementation of the thought that had been brewing for everyone:

It is impossible to be without a sovereign for a short time, and the Moscow state has had enough of being ruined”; “It is not possible for us to remain without a king for a single hour, but let us choose a king for our kingdom.

The governors acted here in agreement with all the officials of the state who were with them, i.e. with the zemstvo council or cathedral, which was formed from the councils that consisted of the militias; at the head of the consecrated cathedral was, as before, as in Yaroslavl, Metropolitan Kirill of Rostov and Yaroslavl. If previously both leaders could only convene with those cities that were adjacent to each of them separately, now the practice of convening has changed. It was decided to “exile to all cities with all sorts of people, from small to large,” in order to “turn on the Vladimir and Moscow states and all the great states of the Russian kingdom of the Tsar and the Grand Duke, God willing.”

And so, through the messengers, letters of convocation rushed, as the official narrative puts it, “to the Moscow state, to Ponizovye, and to Pomerania, and to Seversk, and to all Ukrainian cities.” The certificates were addressed to all ranks: the consecrated cathedral, boyars, nobles, servants, guests, townspeople and district. The highest spiritual authorities were called upon to “come to Moscow”, as those who were part of the consecrated cathedral, according to their position; cities were invited, “having given advice and a strong verdict,” to send “for the Zemstvo Great Council and the State’s robbing” “ten of the best and most intelligent and stable people,” or “as appropriate,” choosing them from all ranks: “from nobles, and from the children of boyars, and from guests, and from merchants, and from Posatsky, and from district people "). The city's elected officials had to give a “complete and strong sufficient order” so that on behalf of their city and district they could “speak freely and fearlessly about state affairs,” and warn them that at the council they should be “straightforward without any cunning.”

Elections were to be carried out immediately, “ignoring all other matters.” The date for the congress in Moscow was set at Nikolin's autumn day (December 6). “Otherwise it was written to you at the end of the letters, we give you information, and you yourself know that, only we will soon not have a sovereign in the Moscow state, and it is not at all possible for us to be without a sovereign; and in no states does the state exist anywhere without a sovereign.” The Novgorod Metropolitan, whose letter was to become known to the Swedish government, was diplomatically notified (November 15) that when the council meets in Moscow and he knows about the arrival of the prince Prince Karl-Philipp Karlusovich in Novgorod, then ambassadors will be sent to the latter with a full agreement on state and about zemstvo affairs. There was no mention of the date of the convocation, but instead they reported that “they wrote to Siberia and Astrakhan about fleecing the state and about advice on who should be in the Moscow state.” This mention shows that the leaders here were the same people who were in Yaroslavl: it was not the custom to call representatives of remote and unsettled Siberia, into the depths of which they were gradually moving aggressively, to the council; and there was no way that deputies from such remote places would arrive at the actual convening date. The warning skillfully made it clear to the Swedes that the council would not begin soon, and thus tried to gain time for them.

The elected officials arrived in Moscow little by little, much behind the deadline indicated in the letters; Due to the difficulty of getting ready and the inconvenience and danger of communication routes, many could not keep up with him. After the first draft letters, the second ones were sent, with the requirement that they not delay in sending the authorized representatives; it was prescribed to equip and not be embarrassed by the number, “as many people as fit.” The first traces of the cathedral's activities were preserved from the following January 1613, when it was still far from being at full strength).

Speaking about the composition of the cathedral, it should be noted that in the 17th century the zemstvo cathedrals included: the consecrated cathedral, the boyar duma and representatives of different classes or social groups and strata, service and taxation. Members of the consecrated cathedral and the boyar duma (due to the position of these two government institutions) were present at the councils in one composition. However, the events of the Troubles could not help but affect many of these members: some were in captivity or captivity, some fell under suspicion. The latter fate befell the most prominent members of the Duma. If the government of the leaders who liberated Moscow came to the council unhindered, then those members of the Duma who allowed the Polish garrison into Moscow and wrote and acted against Trubetskoy and Pozharsky had different prospects. Those less noble and more compromised by their service to the Poles were imprisoned and punished. “The most noble boyars, as they say about them, left Moscow and went to different places under the pretext that they wanted to go on a pilgrimage, but more for the reason that all the ordinary people of the country were hostile to them because of the Poles with whom they were at the same time, therefore they need to not show themselves for a while, but hide from view.” They even say that they “were declared rebels” and that inquiries were made around the cities as to whether they would be allowed into the Duma. Far-sighted rulers, having arranged an honorable meeting for these noble persons upon leaving the Kremlin and providing protection from the robbery of the Cossacks, tried and then to support them in public opinion, pointing out that they endured all sorts of oppression from the Poles: “they were all in captivity, and some were for bailiffs.” ", Prince Mstislavsky, "Lithuanian people beat the coins, and his head was beaten in many places." No matter how to explain the departure of the prince. F.I. Mstislavsky with his comrades from Moscow, whether due to a personal desire for rest or external motives, there is no doubt that they were not present at the first meetings of the council and were called to it later, in fact, to participate in the solemn proclamation of the already elected sovereign.

However, not all boyars left Moscow. For example, the boyar Feodor Ivanovich Sheremetev remained. He also signed the letters with which the Kremlin Duma boyars exhorted (January 26, 1612) the “Orthodox peasants” to leave “the thieves’ troubles”, not to follow Pozharsky, but “to our great sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Vladislav Zhigimontovich of All Russia for the wine bring your own and cover it with your current service.” His cousin, Ivan Petrovich Sheremetev, a supporter of Vladislav, did not allow the Nizhny Novgorod militia into Kostroma, for which the Kostroma residents removed him from the voivodeship and almost killed him. Saved from death by the prince. Pozharsky, he joined the ranks of the Nizhny Novgorod army; book Pozharsky was so convinced of his trustworthiness that upon leaving Yaroslavl he left him there as commander. Another nephew of Feodor Ivanovich came to Moscow with the Nizhny Novgorod militia. Both were supposed to bring Feodor Ivanovich Sheremetev closer to the prince. Pozharsky. During the siege, he was in charge of the State Household in the Kremlin, a report on the state of which he was now supposed to submit; With his comrades, he then did what he could to preserve the regalia and some other royal treasures, as well as to protect his loved ones, by wife, relatives of the old woman Marfa Ivanovna Romanova with her young son Mikhail (Sheremetev was married to the cousin of Mikhail Fedorovich). Before they had time to send out all the letters calling for the council, he received (November 25, 1612) from Trubetskoy and Pozharsky a large courtyard space in the Kremlin, “to build a courtyard on that place.” Sheremetev thus began construction where the cathedral met and met; he could conveniently keep abreast of the whole matter, and then began to participate in the council itself. When discussing the candidacy of Mikhail Fedorovich, this circumstance could have its significance).

Thus, at the beginning of the electoral council, mainly militia dignitaries led by princes Trubetskoy and Pozharsky sat and acted as members of the Duma, who, of course, opened the cathedral and supervised its proceedings. The boyars, members of the previous government, who, due to their nobility, occupied the leading places in most cases, came to the final, ceremonial meetings. Prince Feodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky signed the approved document on the election of Mikhail Fedorovich to the kingdom as the first of the secular dignitaries), immediately after the non-elected members of the consecrated council (33rd), the boyars princes Ivan Golitsyn, Andr. Sitskaya and Iv. Vorotynsky. The liberating princes occupied only 4 and 10 places in the signatures on one copy of the letter, and even 7 and 31 places on the other. Duma ranks, highest ranks of courtiers and clerks are named on the charter in total up to 84 persons). The rest of the secular non-elected members of the cathedral also belonged to the upper strata of the service class. Among the non-elected members there were quite a few people who had family ties with the Romanovs: in addition to F.I., Sheremetev, the Saltykovs, the princes of Sitsky, the princes of Cherkassy, ​​Prince. Iv, Katyrev-Rostovsky, book. Alexey Lvov and others.

The events of the Time of Troubles brought forward the moral significance of the consecrated cathedral: its Russian members steadily advocated for Orthodox Russian principles. After the martyrdom of Hermogenes, the patriarchal throne remained vacant; Metropolitan of Rostov Filaret and Archbishop of Smolensk Sergius languished with Prince. You. You. Golitsyn, Shein and comrades in Polish captivity, the Novgorod metropolitan was bound by the Swedish authorities. At the head of the consecrated cathedral was its former chairman, Metropolitan Kirill, who held primacy for a long time and was the only metropolitan both in the elective cathedral meetings and during the embassy to Mikhail Fedorovich with an invitation to the kingdom. Metropolitan Ephraim of Kazan, successor of Hermogenes, who was considered one of the voices of the spiritual hierarchy, came to the meeting and coronation; he took first place in the consecrated cathedral and was the first to sign the Approved Charter. Upon his arrival in Moscow, he ordained Gon as Metropolitan of Sara and Pond, who then ruled the Russian Church until the return of Filaret Nikitich. All three metropolitans signed the Approved Charter). They were followed by three archbishops, including Theodoret of Ryazan, two bishops, archimandrites, abbots, and cellars. The abbots of five monasteries were present from the Moscow monasteries, and from the Kremlin Miracle Monastery, where Hermogenes died, there was, in addition to the archimandrite, a cellarer. The Trinity-Sergius Lavra was first represented by both of its famous figures, Archimandrite Dionysius and cellarer Abraham Palitsyn, who later replaced Dionysius and signed the charter alone; Archimandrite Kirill was present from the Kostroma Ipatiev Monastery. The total number of members of the consecrated cathedral according to hierarchical position was 32. Many cities, among their elected representatives, sent clergy, archpriests and priests of local churches and abbots of monasteries.

From the non-elected, official part of the Zemsky Sobor, a total of 171 persons were named in the assault. This number is probably quite close to reality: there is no reason to think that a significant part of the non-elected members did not give their signatures.

87 elected secular members of the cathedral were named in assault. Undoubtedly, there were significantly more of them). Among them, people belonging to the middle strata of the service class and townspeople predominated; there were also palace and black peasants, instrumental people and even representatives of eastern foreigners 2). As for the territorial distribution of the electors, as can be seen from the letter, they came from no less than 46 cities. Zamoskovye, in particular its main, northeastern part, was especially fully represented. This circumstance is easily explained by the size of the Zamoskovye territory, the abundance of cities on it, the immediate participation of cities, namely its northeastern part, in previous measures to restore state order and, finally, by the fact that there was a cathedral within the Zamoskovye region).

The active participation taken in the events by the cities of the Pomeranian region suggests that this region was well represented at the council; The absence of signatures of electors on the conciliar charter, except for one, from the cities of this region must be entirely attributed to the incompleteness with which elective representation was generally reflected in the assault. But from the lands stretching towards Pomerania, representatives of Vyatka are known by name among four.

In second place in terms of the number of names mentioned in assaults is the region of Ukrainian cities, from which Kaluga was sent, by the way, by Smirna-Sudovshchikov, whose activities we will have to meet. Then come the rest of the regions adjacent to Zamoskovye from the south: Zaotsky cities, Ryazan region, as well as the southeast-Niz, with its former Tatar capital Kazan; sent his electors and the far south: the North and the Field, in particular, from another source, we learn about the energetic representative of the “glorious Don”. In an extremely unfavorable position regarding the opportunity to take part in the council at that time, of course, were the cities from the German and Lithuanian Ukraine, which, judging by the assaults, were really the weakest represented; nevertheless, they also participated in the conciliar election of the sovereign).

In general, at the council of 1613, all major groups of the population of the Moscow state were represented by its non-elected and elected participants, except for the privately owned peasantry) and serfs.

In territorial terms, the representation at it appears to us even more complete, if we take into account from which cities the clergy came to the council, who were present here by virtue of their official position, and not by choice: then the above number of cities (46), undoubtedly presented at the council, at least 13 more should be added, not counting the capital. If the cities generally followed the norm regarding the number of electives indicated in the invitation letters, and even if only about 46 cities sent electives, then the number of all members of the council exceeded 600.

Thus, despite the haste with which elections had to be carried out, and the difficulties during the congress of members in the capital, the council of 1613 was complete in its composition. At the same time, it clearly outlines the middle classes of the population, far from the oligarchic or foreign tendencies of the upper layer and from the aspirations of the willful Cossacks; it clearly reflects the broad movement of the zemshchina to protect and restore Russian statehood.

NOTE:

1) In view of the uneven composition of the population in cities, letters (for example, addressed to Beloozero) ordered that a choice be made “from abbots, and from archpriests, and from townspeople, and from district people, and from palace villages, and from black volosts,” “and district peasants” (added another); or they demanded (for example, in Ostashkov) that “ten reasonable and reliable people” be sent “from priests, nobles, townspeople and peasants” living in such and such a city and its district. Acts of Moscow region militias, No. 82, 89; Arsenyev Tver Papers, 19-20.

2) Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles, V, 63; Palace Classes, I, 9-12, 34, 183; Collection of state charters and agreements, I, 612; III, 1-2, 6; Additions to Historical Acts, I, No. 166; Acts of the Moscow Region militias, No. 82. - As for the message from the authorities to the Novgorod Metropolitan about writing “to Siberia,” it should be noted that in the surviving district charter through Perm to the Siberian cities, princes Pozharsky and Trubetskoy only notified these cities about the liberation of Moscow that had taken place and punished they should sing prayers with ringing bells on the occasion of such a joyful event, but they say nothing about sending delegates to the council and about the council itself (Collection of state charters and agreements, I, no. 205); there is no mention of an invitation from Siberia in the official Palace Discharges (I, 10).
Distribution of letters of summons began earlier on November 15, 1612: Additions to the Historical Acts, I, 294. The letter to Beloozero was sent on November 19, delivered quickly, on December 4; but by the deadline, the Beloozersky residents, who still needed time to conduct elections, could not get to the council. The second letter, received on December 27, ordered the electors to be sent immediately, “not to give them any time.” They could get to Moscow no earlier than the second half or even the end of January (Acts of the Moscow Region militias, 99, 107, and preface, XII; Collection of state charters and agreements, I, 637). Members of the cathedral from more distant points and more dangerous along the way could arrive even later. The first document from the activities of the cathedral was the letter of complaint from Prince. Trubetskoy on Vaga, in January 1613, there are 25 signatures under it. Appendix No. 2 to the work of I. E. Zabelin “Minin and Pozharsky”. M., 1896, 278-283,

4) Approved letter of election to the Moscow state of Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov. Publication of the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities, first (1904) and second (1906). Previously published in the Ancient Russian Vivlioik, vol. V of the first edition and vol. VII of the second, and in the Collection of state charters and agreements, vol. I, No. 203. In the absence of a list of members of the council and news of their number, the signatures on it are the most important, albeit very imperfect, source of information about the composition of the cathedral.
This charter was made in two copies." The earlier one apparently (see “Approved Charter,” ed. 2, preface, p. 11) is now kept in the Armory Chamber; the second is in the Moscow Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In both signatures are separated by blank spaces into 4 departments: 1) the ranks of the consecrated cathedral and the Duma; 2) courtiers; 3) the rest of the non-elected; 4) elected members. The sequence in the distribution of signatures between departments is not always maintained. Due to the fact that the applicator often signed not only for himself, but also for other persons, on behalf of the number of persons named in assaults is greater than the number of assaults: according to our calculation, 238 signatures of the first copy give 256 names; 235 of the second - 272 names. Names appearing equally in both - 265. Total names on both copies - 283, with the seal of the Duma clerk P. Tretyakov - 284. This figure does not coincide with the calculations of previous researchers (Prof. Platonov, Avaliani, etc.). The charter was drawn up two months after the fact, signatures took even longer to collect; in addition, not all participants in the election could give their signatures, and on the other hand, signatures were given by persons who were not at the council during the election period.

5) Namely: 11 boyars, 7 okolnichikhs, 54 highest court ranks, at least 11 clerks, 1 of them Duma. In this calculation, we mean the title that the signatories wore during the period of the royal election, and not at the time of signing the charter. From okolnichy books. Grigor. Petrov. Romodanovsky and Bor. Mich. Saltykov signed the charter after receiving the boyars, Mich. Mich. Saltykov - after receiving the title of kraychago. Among the highest court ranks who signed the charter there are 1 cup maker, 34 stewards, 19 solicitors. From the book's stolniks. Dm. Mikh, Pozharsky and Prince. Iv. Bor. Cherkassky signed after receiving the noble status. Prince Yves also signed up as a boyar. Andr. Khovansky, and the number of higher court ranks during the Tsar’s election increases with him by another 1. Stepan Milyukov, who signed himself as a solicitor, did not yet hold this title at the time of the Tsar’s election. Some of the attackers signed without indicating their rank; e.g., stolniks of the book. Iv. Katyrev-Rostovsky and Prince. Iv. Buynosov, solicitor Dementy Pogozhev, clerks, except Pyotr Tretyakov and Sydavnoy Vasiliev. At the time of the election of the tsar, only the latter of these two was the Duma clerk. See A v a p i a n i, Zemsky Sobors, part II, pp. 81 and 82.

6) On the charter of the Zemsky Sobor, Prince. Trubetskoy on Vaga in January 1613, Metropolitan Kirill was the first to sign, and there are no other metropolitan signatures on it (3 abelina, No. II, p. 282). The charter of the cathedral, sent to the elected Mikhail Feodorovich in March, begins: “To the Tsar and Grand Duke Mikhail Feodorovich of all Russia, your sovereign pilgrims: Metropolitan Kirill of Rostov, and archbishops, and bishops, and the entire consecrated cathedral, and your slaves: boyars, and okolnichy ..." He was one of the metropolitans indicated both in the correspondence between the cathedral and the ambassadors and in the royal letter notifying him of the day of his arrival in Moscow. Collection of state charters and agreements, III, No. 2-6; Palace Classes, I, 18, 24, 32, 35, 1185, 1191, P95, 1209, 1214, etc. Metropolitan Ephraim was in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra when the sovereign stopped there on his way to Moscow, April 27. Palace Discharges, I, 1199. Jonah was made metropolitan shortly after May 24, 1613. His Eminence Macarius, History of the Russian Church, vol. X, St. Petersburg, 1881, 169.

7) The discrepancy between the number of names and the actual number of members of the cathedral is explained mainly by the substitution practiced when signing the charter: when signing for other elected representatives from the same city and district, the appellant usually did not name them, but limited himself to the general indication that he was signing “and for his comrades, elected people , place,” sometimes he signed for representatives from another city. Let us add that even among the elected officials named in the assaults, the social and official status of many remains unknown.

8) Among the elected officials (secular and clergy) known to us by their social status, representatives of the middle strata of the service class make up 50% (42 out of 84), clergy - more than 30% (26); In an incomparably smaller number, elected members of the townspeople (7) and instrumentalities (5) are known by name. But regarding the townspeople, in the assaults themselves there are indications that they were present as electors from many cities. None of the representatives of the peasantry are named.

9) Named in the assault are: 38 elected from 15 cities in Moscow, 16 elected from 7 Ukrainian cities, 13 elected from 5 cities in Zaotsk, 10 elected from 3 cities in the Ryazan region, 12 elected from 5 cities in Niza, “9 elected from 2 cities in Severg, 4 elected from 4 cities of the Field. Among the elected from the cities of Niza we include 4 Tatar “princes”, they gave assault in the Tatar language. One of them is Vasily Mirza, obviously a Christian.
Who this “Vasily Mirza” is can be seen from his petition, stored in the Moscow Archives of the Ministry of Justice: “To the Tsar, Sovereign and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich of all Russia, your slave, the sovereign of the Kadomsky district, Tatar Vaska Murza Chermenteev beats with his forehead. Merciful Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich of all Russia, please grant me, your serf, for my service and for the joy that I, your serf, have been sent to Moscow for the Tsar’s plunder; and I, your servant, beat you, the sovereign, with my brow, about the letters, and you, the sovereign, granted me, your servant, the order to give your royal letters. Merciful sir, let me be your slave, do not impose a stamp duty on me, your slave, to assume that I, your servant, sir, am ruined to the ground. Tsar Sovereign and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich of All Russia, have mercy, perhaps.” Note: “The Sovereign granted it, did not order duties on documents, therefore it sits with the Sovereign’s affairs in the Ambassadorial Prikaz in the Tatar translation. Duma deacon Peter Tretyakov" (Preobrazhensky order, column No. 1, l. 56, no date on the document). We meet this Murza Chermenteev, according to Archive documents, also as a Kadom landowner looking for runaway serfs. “In the summer of March 7133 (1625), on the 11th day, the sovereign’s letter was sent to Kadom to the governor on the petition of Kadomsko Vasily Murza Chermonteyev against fugitive people on Ivashka Ivanov and on the zhonok on Okulka and on Nenilka, a trial was ordered. Duties of half a half were taken” (Printing Office Duty Book, No. 8, l. 675). His first petition shows that foreigners participated in the electoral council, which rejects the widespread position in science that they only gave signatures on the document, but were not at the council.

On the Approved Certificate of Election, this Mirza signed, on one copy of it (as we read in the translation, at our request, again made now, with the participation of Prof. F.E. Korsh, by teachers of the Tatar language at the Moscow Lazarev Institute): “For the elected comrades from the fortress (city) of Tyumen and from the fortress (city) of Nadym, I, Vasily Mirza, put my hand”; or on another copy: “For the Kadom (?)... Simbirsk (? translators’ questions) people (I), Vasily Mirza, put his hand.” By Tyumen, obviously, one should mean one of the fortified cities, on the lower defensive line, to which Kadom belonged. Therefore, although the above-mentioned letter of notification to the Novgorod Metropolitan spoke of writing “to Siberia,” Mirza Vasily’s assault was “for the city of Tyumen” and “for the Simbirsk (Tyumen?) people” ( according to the previous translation, in the notes to the Approved Charter published by the Society, 88, 90) cannot, contrary to the opinion we previously expressed, serve as evidence of representation at the council of Siberia, in particular Tyumen.

Of the electives from Pomerania, only one “elected abbot Jonah from the Dvina Antonyev Monastery of Siisk” left his name on the charter, who, however, attested in his assault the presence of other electives from Pomerania. Of the lands stretching towards Pomerania, the representation of Vyatka (4) was relatively well reflected and the representation of Perm was not reflected at all. Of the cities from German Ukraine, only two cities were represented, lying in the southwestern corner of that region, Torzhok and Ostashkov. Of the cities from Lithuanian Ukraine, the presence of elected representatives from Vyazma and Toropets was certified; We learn about those elected from the latter not from the letter, but from another source - from reports about the ambassadors captured by Gonsevsky from Toropets (Archaeographic collection. Vilna, 1870, VII, No. 48, p. 73). - In the list made by P.G. Vasenko (note 27 to Chapter VI, “The Romanov Boyars and the Accession of Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov.” St. Petersburg, 1913), cities, the presence of elected officials from which is certified by signatures on the charter, includes 43 cities; Staritsa, Kadom and Tyumen are not yet mentioned.

10) Among the elected representatives of 12 cities, the presence of “district people” was witnessed in assaults. Unfortunately, none of the latter are named. “District people” came to the council from almost all regions of the state; There are only no indications of their arrival from the German and Lithuanian Ukraine and from the Bottom. The “county people” from Pomerania included, of course, the peasants of the palace villages and black volosts, the elected representatives of whom were directly called to the council by a boyar charter to the Belozersk governor (Acts of the Moscow Region Militia, 99). However, in our opinion, the basis for the provision on calling peasants to the council in general cannot, in our opinion, be the second letter to Beloozero (ibid., 107), which refers to the previously named peasants, and the letter to Ostashkov (Arsenyev Swedish Papers, 19), as a translation , where there is no precision in the expressions, for example, instead of “county” there is “okrug”, etc. (See above, 14, note.) It is known that some researchers (for example, V. O. Klyuchevsky, Course of Russian History. M., 1908, III, p. 246): by “district people” they mean privately owned peasants who came from areas where there was no black peasantry. But it must be admitted that the presence at the council of 1613 of representatives of the privately owned peasantry would have little corresponded with the general situation of this peasantry at that time and would have been a sharp difference between the council of 1613 and subsequent zemstvo councils, at which there were undoubtedly no representatives of the privately owned peasantry.

The end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries became a period of socio-political, economic and dynastic crisis in Russian history, which was called the Time of Troubles. The Time of Troubles began with the catastrophic famine of 1601-1603. A sharp deterioration in the situation of all segments of the population led to mass unrest under the slogan of overthrowing Tsar Boris Godunov and transferring the throne to the “legitimate” sovereign, as well as to the emergence of impostors False Dmitry I and False Dmitry II as a result of the dynastic crisis.

"Seven Boyars" - the government formed in Moscow after the overthrow of Tsar Vasily Shuisky in July 1610, concluded an agreement on the election of the Polish prince Vladislav to the Russian throne and in September 1610 allowed the Polish army into the capital.

Since 1611, patriotic sentiments began to grow in Russia. The First Militia, formed against the Poles, never managed to drive the foreigners out of Moscow. And a new impostor, False Dmitry III, appeared in Pskov. In the fall of 1611, on the initiative of Kuzma Minin, the formation of the Second Militia began in Nizhny Novgorod, led by Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. In August 1612, it approached Moscow and liberated it in the fall. The leadership of the Zemsky militia began preparing for the electoral Zemsky Sobor.

At the beginning of 1613, elected officials from “the whole earth” began to gather in Moscow. This was the first indisputably all-class Zemsky Sobor with the participation of townspeople and even rural representatives. The number of “council people” gathered in Moscow exceeded 800 people, representing at least 58 cities.

The Zemsky Sobor began its work on January 16 (January 6, old style) 1613. Representatives of “the whole earth” annulled the decision of the previous council on the election of Prince Vladislav to the Russian throne and decided: “Foreign princes and Tatar princes should not be invited to the Russian throne.”

The conciliar meetings took place in an atmosphere of fierce rivalry between various political groups that took shape in Russian society during the years of the Troubles and sought to strengthen their position by electing their contender to the royal throne. The council participants nominated more than ten candidates for the throne. Various sources name Fyodor Mstislavsky, Ivan Vorotynsky, Fyodor Sheremetev, Dmitry Trubetskoy, Dmitry Mamstrukovich and Ivan Borisovich Cherkassky, Ivan Golitsyn, Ivan Nikitich and Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, Pyotr Pronsky and Dmitry Pozharsky among the candidates.

Data from the “Report on Patrimonies and Estates of 1613,” which records land grants made immediately after the election of the Tsar, make it possible to identify the most active members of the “Romanov” circle. The candidacy of Mikhail Fedorovich in 1613 was supported not by the influential clan of Romanov boyars, but by a circle that spontaneously formed during the work of the Zemsky Sobor, composed of minor figures from the previously defeated boyar groups.

According to a number of historians, the decisive role in the election of Mikhail Romanov to the kingdom was played by the Cossacks, who during this period became an influential social force. A movement arose among service people and Cossacks, the center of which was the Moscow courtyard of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, and its active inspirer was the cellarer of this monastery, Abraham Palitsyn, a very influential person among both the militias and Muscovites. At meetings with the participation of cellarer Abraham, it was decided to proclaim 16-year-old Mikhail Fedorovich, the son of Rostov Metropolitan Philaret captured by the Poles, as tsar.

The main argument of Mikhail Romanov’s supporters was that, unlike elected tsars, he was elected not by people, but by God, since he comes from a noble royal root. Not kinship with Rurik, but closeness and kinship with the dynasty of Ivan IV gave the right to occupy his throne.

Many boyars joined the Romanov party, and he was also supported by the highest Orthodox clergy - the Consecrated Cathedral.

The election took place on February 17 (February 7, old style) 1613, but the official announcement was postponed until March 3 (February 21, old style), so that during this time it would become clear how the people would accept the new king.

Letters were sent to the cities and districts of the country with the news of the election of a king and the oath of allegiance to the new dynasty.

On March 23 (13, according to other sources, March 14, old style), 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.