False Dmitry I (19 October 1582-17 May 1606) was Tsar of Russia from 10 June 1605 to 17 May 1606, succeeding Feodor II and preceding Vasili.
Biography[]
Yuri Otrepyev was born in Russia, and he became an Orthodox monk under the name "Grigory." In 1600, he ran away from the monastery and claimed to be Tsarevich Dmitry of Uglich, the murdered son of Ivan the Terrible. He claimed that he had fled to Poland-Lithuania after coming to the attention of Boris Godunov, who ordered him seized. In 1600, he made a positive impression on Patriarch Job of Moscow, but Boris Godunov ordered the young man seized and questioned. Instead, Otrepyev fled to Prince Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski in Poland-Lithuania and entered the service of the Wisniowiecki family. He acquired Polish backing due to Poland's desire to capitalize on the political rancor in Warsaw, and, in 1604, he publicly converted to Catholicism to attract the support of the Jesuits and King Sigismund III Vasa. He also married Marina Mniszech, the daughter of Polish nobleman Jerzy Mniszech, in exchange for handing over Pskov, Novgorod, Smolensk, and Novhorod-Siverskyi upon his ascension. Dmitry formed a private army of 3,500 soldiers and invaded Russia in March 1605, attracting Cossack support. Boris Godunov died during the invasion, and the demise of the unpopular tsar persuaded the Russian army to defect to False Dmitry. Dmitry entered Moscow on 20 June and had Feodor II of Russia and his mother Maria Skuratova-Belskaya strangled, while he took Princess Xenia Borisovna of Russia as a concubine. Ivan the Terrible's widow Maria Nagaya "confirmed" Dmitry's story and accepted him as her son. He allowed many of Godunov's enemies to return to Moscow, and he allowed the serfs to change their allegiances to other lords. He later planned for war against the Ottoman Turks, but the Orthodox Church, boyars, and the population rejected their new ruler for his wife's refusal to convert to Orthodoxy and his allowance of Catholic and Protestant soldiers to pray in Orthodox churches. Prince Vasily Shuisky and the boyars plotted against the tsar and his court of foreigners, and, on 17 May 1606, Dmitry attempted to flee a riot at the Kremlin by jumping out a window. He was captured in a bathhouse and was murdered by the boyars; his supporters were massacred by a street mob.