The turbulent events of the beginning of the 17th century, which were called “troubles” by contemporaries, were widely reflected in literature.
Literature acquires an exclusively topical journalistic character, promptly responding to the demands of the time, reflecting the interests of various social groups participating in the struggle.
Society, having inherited from the previous century an ardent faith in the power of the word, in the power of conviction, seeks to propagate certain ideas in literary works, achieving specific effective goals.
Among the stories that reflected the events of 1604-1613, one can single out works that express the interests of the ruling boyars. Such is the Tale of 1606, created by a monk of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.
The story actively supports the policy of the boyar tsar Vasily Shuisky, tries to present him as a popular choice, emphasizing the unity of Shuisky with the people. The people turn out to be a force that the ruling circles cannot but reckon with.
The story glorifies Shuisky's "courageous daring" in his fight against the "evil heretic", "defrocked" Grishka Otrepyev. To prove the legitimacy of Shuisky's rights to the royal throne, his family is elevated to Vladimir Svyatoslavich of Kyiv.
The author of the story sees the reasons for the “distemper” and “disorganization” in the Muscovite state in the pernicious rule of Boris Godunov, who, by the villainous murder of Tsarevich Dmitry, stopped the existence of the family of lawful tsars of Moscow and “took the royal throne in Moscow by falsehood.”
Subsequently, "The Tale of 1606" was revised into "Another Legend". Defending the positions of the boyars, the author portrays him as the savior of the Russian state from adversaries.
"The Tale of 1606" and "Another Legend" are written in the traditional bookish manner. They are built on the contrast of the pious champion of the Orthodox faith Vasily Shuisky and the "sly, sly" Godunov, the "evil heretic" Grigory Otrepyev. Their actions are explained from traditional providentialist positions.
This group of works is opposed by stories that reflect the interests of the nobility and the townspeople's trade and craft strata of the population. Here we should first of all mention those journalistic messages that Russian cities exchanged, rallying their forces to fight the enemy.
Such is the "New Tale of the Glorious, Russian Tsardom" - a journalistic propaganda appeal. Written in late 1610 - early 1611, at the most intense moment of the struggle, when Moscow was captured by Polish troops, and Novgorod - by Swedish feudal lords.
The New Tale, addressing "people of all ranks", called them to active actions against the invaders. She sharply denounced the treacherous policy of the boyar authorities, which, instead of being the "land holder" of their native land, turned into a domestic enemy, and the boyars themselves into "land-eaters", "crooks".
The story revealed the plans of the Polish magnates and their leader Sigismund III, who sought to lull the Russian vigilance with false promises.
The courageous feat of the Smolensk people was glorified, selflessly defending their city, preventing the enemy from seizing this important key position. “Tea, as if small children heard the wonder of their citizens of courage and strength and generosity and inflexible mind,” the author notes.
The New Tale depicts Patriarch Hermogenes as the ideal patriot, endowing him with the traits of a faithful Christian, martyr and fighter for the faith against apostates.
On the example of the behavior of "strong" Smolensk and Hermogenes, the "New Tale" brought to the fore steadfastness as a necessary quality of behavior of a true patriot.
A characteristic feature of the story is its democracy, a new interpretation of the image of the people - this "great ... waterless sea." The calls and messages of Hermogenes are addressed to the people, enemies and traitors are afraid of the people, the author of the story appeals to the people. However, the people in the story do not yet act as an effective force.
Unlike other works of that time, there are no historical excursuses in the New Tale; it is filled with topical material, calls Muscovites to armed struggle against the invaders.
This is what determines the peculiarities of the style of the New Story, in which business-like energetic speech is combined with an excited pathetic appeal.
For example: “And our landowners themselves, as before, are land-eaters, they have long since lagged behind him (Hermogenes. — V.K.), and gave up their minds to the last madness, and stuck to them as an enemy, and to others, they fell at their foot and changed their sovereign birth into a bad slavish service, and they submitted and worshiped who knows who, you yourself know.
The general pathetic tone of presentation is combined in the New Tale with numerous psychological characteristics. For the first time in literature, there is a desire to discover and show the contradictions between the thoughts and actions of a person.
In this growing attention to the disclosure of a person’s thoughts that determine his behavior, lies the literary significance of the New Tale.
Thematically close to the New Tale is Lament for the Captivity and Final Destruction of the Muscovite State, created, obviously, after the capture of Smolensk by the Poles and the burning of Moscow in 1612.
In a rhetorical form, the fall of the “pyrga (pillar) of piety”, the ruin of the “God-planted grapes” is lamented. The burning of Moscow is interpreted as the fall of the "multinational state". The author seeks to find out the reasons that led to the "fall of sublime Russia", using the form of an instructive short "conversation".
In an abstract generalized form, he speaks of the responsibility of the rulers for what happened "over the highest Russia." However, this work does not call for struggle, but only mourns, convinces to seek consolation in prayer and hope in God's help.
A direct response to the events was "The Tale of the Death of Prince Mikhail Vasilievich Skopin-Shuisky." With his victories over False Dmitry II, Skopin-Shuisky gained fame as a talented commander.
His sudden death at the age of twenty (April 1610) gave rise to various rumors that, allegedly out of envy, he was poisoned by the boyars. These rumors were reflected in folk songs and legends, the literary processing of which is the story.
It begins with a rhetorical book introduction, in which genealogical calculations are made, tracing the Skopin-Shuisky family to Alexander Nevsky and Augustus Caesar.
The central episode of the story is a description of the christening feast at Prince Vorotynsky. Including a number of everyday details, the author tells in detail about how the hero was poisoned by the wife of his uncle Dmitry Shuisky, the daughter of Malyuta Skuratov.
Preserving the speech and rhythmic structure of the folk epic song, the story conveys this episode as follows:
And what will be after a fair table a feast for fun,
And ... the villain is that princess Marya, godmother godmother,
She brought the drink of drink to the godfather
And she beat her forehead, greeted her godson Alexei Ivanovich.
And in that chalice in drink, a fierce drink of death is prepared.
And Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich drinks that drink to dryness,
But he does not know that evil drinking is fierce mortal.
In the above passage, it is not difficult to detect the characteristic elements of epic poetics. They also stand out clearly in the dialogue between a mother and her son, who has returned prematurely from a feast. This dialogue is reminiscent of the conversations of Vasily Buslaev with Mamelfa Timofeevna, Dobrynya with his mother.
The second part of the story, dedicated to the description of the death of the hero and the nationwide grief over his death, is made in the traditional book style.
The same techniques are used here as in The Life of Alexander Nevsky and The Tale of the Life of Dmitry Ivanovich. The author of the story conveys the attitude to the death of Skopin of various groups of society.
Muscovites express their grief, as well as their assessment of the activities of Skopin-Shuisky, the German governor Yakov Delagardie, Tsar Vasily Shuisky, mother, wife. The laments of mother and wife almost entirely go back to the tradition of oral folk tales.
The story has an anti-boyar orientation: Skopin-Shuisky was poisoned "on the advice of evil traitors" - the boyars, only they do not mourn for the commander.
The story glorifies Skopin-Shuisky as a national hero, defender of the motherland from adversary enemies.
In 1620, the “Tale of the Repose...” was supplemented by “The Tale of the Birth of the Governor M. V. Skopin-Shuisky”, written in the traditional hagiographic manner.
The historical events of those years are comprehended in their own way in the people's mind, as evidenced by the recordings of historical songs made in 1619 for the Englishman Richard James. These are the songs “About the dog-thief Grishka-haircut”, “About Marinka the evil heretic”, about Ksenia Godunova.
The songs denounce the interventionists and their accomplices, the "skinny-bellied boyars", exalt the folk heroes - the hero Ilya, Skopin-Shuisky, who stand guard over the interests of their native land.
"The Tale" Avraamy Palitsyn
An outstanding historical work that vividly reflected the events of the era is the "Tale" by the cellar of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery Avraamy Palitsyn, written in 1609-1620.
Clever, cunning and rather unscrupulous businessman Avraamy Palitsyn was in close relations with Vasily Shuisky, secretly communicated with Sigismund III, seeking benefits for the monastery from the Polish king.
Creating the Tale, he sought to rehabilitate himself and tried to emphasize his merits in the fight against foreign invaders and the election of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov to the throne.
"The Tale" consists of a number of independent works:
I. A small historical essay, reviewing the events from the death of Grozny to the accession of Shuisky. Palitsyn sees the reasons for the "distemper" in the illegal abduction of the tsar's throne by Godunov and in his policy (Ch. 1-6).
II. A detailed description of the 16-month siege of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery by the troops of Sapieha and Lisovsky. This central part of the "Tale" was created by Abraham by processing the notes of participants in the defense of the monastery fortress (ch. 7-52).
III. The story of the last months of Shuisky's reign, the ruin of Moscow by the Poles, its liberation, the election of Mikhail Romanov to the throne and the conclusion of a truce with Poland (ch. 53-76).
Thus, the "Tale" gives a summary of historical events from 1584 to 1618. They are covered from the traditional providentialist positions: the causes of troubles, "even if it happened in all of Russia - a righteous wrathful quick punishment from God for all that evil created from us": victories, won by the Russian people over foreign invaders - the result of the beneficence and mercy of the Mother of God and the intercession of Saints Sergius and Nikon.
Religious and didactic reasoning is given in the traditional rhetorical form of teachings, supported by references to the text of "scripture", as well as abundant religious-fiction pictures of all kinds of "miracles", "phenomena", "visions", which, according to the author, are indisputable evidence special patronage of the heavenly forces to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery and the Russian land.
The value of the "Tale" is its factual material, connected with the depiction of the heroic feats of arms of the peasants of the monastic villages, monastic servants, when "both the non-warriors are brave, and the ignorant, and never the custom of the military who saw and girded themselves with a gigantic fortress."
Abraham reports the names and exploits of many folk heroes. Such, for example, is the peasant of the village of Molokovo - Vanity, "great in age and strong in grandeur, we always make fun of incompetence for the sake of fighting."
He stops the fleeing warriors, fearlessly, with a reed in his hand, cuts "enemies in both countries" and holds Lisovsky's regiment, saying: "I will die today or I will receive glory from everyone." "Soon, galloping, like a lynx, The vanity of many then armed and armored."
Servant Piman Teneev "shot" "from the bow in the face" of the "ferocious" Alexander Lisovsky, who "fell off his horse." Servant Mikhailo Pavlov caught and killed the voivode Yuri Gorsky.
Abraham repeatedly emphasizes that the monastery was saved from adversaries by “young people”, and “multiplication in the city” (monastery. - V.K.) of “iniquity and unrighteousness” is associated with people of “warlike rank”.
The "Tale" sharply condemns the treachery of the monastery treasurer Joseph Devochkin and the patron of his "cunning" governor Alexei Golokhvastov, as well as the betrayal of the "sons of the boyars".
Abraham does not at all have sympathy for "slaves" and serfs, who "because the Lord wants to be, and unwavering to freedom jumps." He sharply condemns the rebellious peasants and the "commanders of the villain" serfs Petrushka and Ivan Bolotnikov.
However, a zealous defender of the inviolability of the foundations of the feudal system, Abraham is forced to recognize the decisive role of the people in the fight against the interventionists: “All Russia contributes to the reigning city, because the misfortune is common to everyone.”
One of the features of the “Tale” is the image of the life of the besieged monastery: terrible crowding, when people plunder “every tree and stone for the creation of a booth”, “and the wife of a child is born before all people”; due to crowding, lack of fuel, for the sake of “washing out the port”, people are forced to periodically leave the fortress; description of the outbreak of scurvy, etc.
“It is not fitting, then, to lie against the truth, but with great fear it is fitting to observe the truth,” writes Abraham. And this observance of the truth is a characteristic feature of the central part of the Tale.
And although Abraham's concept of truth also includes a description of religious-fiction pictures, they cannot obscure the main thing - folk heroism.
Outlining "everything in a row", Abraham tries to "document" his material: he accurately indicates the dates of events, the names of their participants, introduces "letters" and "replies", that is, purely business documents.
In general, The Tale is an epic work, but it uses dramatic and lyrical elements. In a number of cases, Abraham resorts to the manner of a rhythmic tale, including rhymed speech in the narrative. For example:
And we multiply our hands from warfare;
always about firewood fights are evil byvahu.
Outgoing for the abode of firewood for the sake of getting it,
and I return to the city without the demon of bloodshed.
And having bought with blood rash and sickness,
and the more building everyday food;
to a martyr's feat greener excitingly,
and sympathize with each other.
Much attention in the "Tale" is paid to the depiction of the deeds and thoughts of both the defenders of the monastery fortress, and enemies and traitors.
Based on the traditions of the "Kazan Chronicler", "The Tale of the Capture of Constantinople", Avraamy Palitsyn creates an original historical work, in which a significant step has been taken towards recognizing the people as an active participant in historical events.
Kuskov V.V. History of ancient Russian literature. - M., 1998
ANOTHER LEGEND
The first story is followed by the second.
legend, and where in the first story is the word
abbreviated, added here, and where in the first
history is written in full, here it is abbreviated.
This story was written by another author
By the will of God, and more so by his philanthropy, in the summer of 7092, the faithful and Christ-loving and brightly shining in piety, the sovereign tsar and grand duke Ivan Vasilyevich, autocrat of all Russia, passed away on the 18th day of March. And after him his royal root remained two brightest branches, his sons - Tsarevich Fedor Ivanovich of All Russia and his younger brother Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich of All Russia, children from different mothers. The pious and Christ-loving Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich, a sufferer, named after the great martyr Dmitry of Thessalonica, was born from the mother of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna Nagoya. And his elder brother, Tsarevich Fedor Ivanovich of All Russia, was born from the mother of the faithful and God-wise Empress Anastasia Romanovna Yuryeva.
In the summer of 7091, after the birth of the blessed Tsarevich Dmitry, the pious and Christ-loving Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilievich of All Russia, the father of noble princes, fell ill with a bodily illness. And when the tsar was already completely exhausted, he ordered his noble children, the faithful princes Fedor and Dmitry, his faithful friend, ruler and good-natured, well-behaved boyar Prince Ivan Petrovich Shuisky, and Prince Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavsky, and Nikita Romanovich Yuryev, to them, our sovereigns , brought up and guarded their royal health with every care. And soon the Tsar and Grand Duke of All Russia, Ivan Vasilyevich, gave up his soul into the hands of God, and, leaving the earthly kingdom, departed into the eternal bliss of the heavenly kingdom. And by the grace of God, in the trinity of the glorified God, after the father of his blessed memory, the tsar and the Grand Duke of All Russia Ivan Vasilyevich, by his blessing and command, Tsarevich Fedor reigned and sat on the highest throne of the God-preserved Russian kingdom in the Muscovite state in the same 92 - m year, the month of May on the 1st day, in memory of the holy prophet Jeremiah, and became king of the entire Russian state. And his younger brother, the pious Tsarevich Dmitry, after the death of his father, remained in infancy, two years or less. He did not stay long in the power of his fatherland in the reigning city, and then with his mother he was sent to the region of the Russian state in the city of Uglich, where he received many sorrows and persecution from a certain man named Boris Godunov.
After a short time, the malicious devil entered the heart of one of the nobles, Boris Godunov, mentioned above. This Boris was the brother-in-law of the Tsar and the Grand Duke of All Russia Fyodor Ivanovich. And Boris became like the Old Testament serpent that once seduced Eve and our great-grandfather Adam in paradise and deprived them of the enjoyment of heavenly food. In the same way, this Boris began to seduce many boyars and nobles from the royal chamber, subjugated many bosses and wealthy merchants, attracted some with gifts, and others with threats, like a hissing snake. And he saw himself among the tsarist synclite, revered above all, and began to hatch a diabolical plan, and rose up against his master, Prince Ivan Petrovich Shuisky and his half-begotten brothers. At all times, the deceitful hate the righteous, and the diabolical custom is this: as soon as passion seizes him, he becomes more ferocious than a fierce beast. Such a one, even if he does good, is still called evil, because a bitter fruit, even anointed with honey, does not become sweet. But, with God's help, he did not manage to do them any harm, and brought disgrace and curses upon himself.
And it became known to the national assembly 1 Moscow people that Boris is plotting evil against them, and they wanted to stone him with all their relatives without mercy. And Boris, seeing himself cursed and persecuted by all people, resorted to cunning and again began to seduce the great boyar Prince Ivan Petrovich and his relatives, Prince Vasily Ivanovich with his half-brothers, urging them to live with him in harmony and promised that no one else would be evil councils not to advise and not to plot, and together to protect the life and health of the royal majesty. And the God-loving Prince Ivan Petrovich and his relatives, Prince Vasily Ivanovich and his brothers, like their forefathers, fearing God and keeping in their hearts great faith in God and in people the unfeigned truth, believed that the crafty Boris was telling the truth. After all, every mild-mannered person believes every word, and the cunning one, on the contrary, begins to think. These were gentle and believed him and took an oath among themselves to have love and kindness, as before.
But Boris, even after this oath, did not extinguish his evil fire and wanted to gain fame beyond his measure, again began to plot in his malicious plans, in what way they could do dirty tricks, but even with that cunning he was not able to cause any harm to the noble boyar Prince Ivan Petrovich and his relatives: they were kept by the wing of the Lord. And again Boris began to open his cunning lips and, like a snake, exuding his deadly poison, said that this noble boyar, Prince Ivan Petrovich, preached to the people that he and his relatives had no anger and no suspicion of Boris, then, so that Boris would not be put to death by the Moscow people. And they thought that Boris was telling them the real truth without cunning, and they announced their decision to everyone. And having heard that, the people of Moscow ceased to be angry with Boris.
After some time, Prince Ivan Petrovich wished to inspect the royal grants and the patrimonies of his ancestors, went to his patrimony 2 , which is in the vicinity of the city of Suzdal. And that cunning Boris, forgetting his promise and departing from the faith, seeing that the time had come for the destruction of the prince, sent his accomplices after Prince Ivan Petrovich and ordered him to be seized, as if by order of the sovereign, from the chamber of his royal majesty, sent him to prison on Beloozero and there he killed him with a violent death. And then his relatives, Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky and his half-brothers, he sent to prison in different cities, and sent their brother Prince Andrei Ivanovich to Bui-gorod and there ordered him to be put to death by a violent death. He also ordered many rich merchants to be executed in the middle of the city, and gave their houses for plunder, and sent others to prison in different cities, and orphaned many wives and killed children. He did not fill his insatiable womb with a note of blood and tears, and again fell upon his masters, princes and boyars, and betrayed many of the nobles to various deaths, only God knows their number, and could not satisfy his womb, thirsty for glory, with any blood.
Oh, fierce hour! How not to shed tears about that? And how can my hand write about it? A traitor will rise, just like Judas Iscariot against his teacher Jesus Christ, the son of God, so that Boris is going to kill his sovereign, Prince Dmitry, which the accursed sanctuary did. And that crafty servant began to think how he could tear out the God-chosen royal root, in every possible way seeking the death of this namesake pious prince, not wanting to leave an heir to their paternal throne, wanting to receive the kingdom himself. Forgetting God, who saves his chosen ones, he insulted and oppressed this pious prince, sending him deadly poison more than once, hoping to kill him. The prince accepted all this with joy, knowing that the enemy's power is powerless against the power of God, and in everything he followed the humility of his master Christ, as he had to suffer from everyone, without any doubt, not forgetting what was said: “Trust in the Lord, for he - refuge from sorrow,” and endured all persecution with joy. And that crafty slave, seeing all this, could not do anything, could not cause any harm to the pious prince, and sent his advisers and servants to the city of Uglich - the clerk Mikhail Bityagovsky and his nephew Nikita Kachalov. And he ordered them to cut off that royal young and beautifully blossoming branch, the faithful Tsarevich Dmitry, to squeeze it like an unripe ear, to put to death a gentle baby, to slaughter it like a lamb ...
And they, sent by the envious Boris Godunov, came to Uglich, harboring evil intent and plotting another crime against the saint, daring to put their pious master to innocent death, and he was eight years old at that time. But they did not leave their malice, secretly acting and achieving what they were commanded, until they reached the goal, as the ancient Jews were about to kill the lord of Christ our God. And the envious slave named above, who raised his hand against his master, wanted to secretly kill this pious prince, but did not know what the scripture says: “Woe to the lawless, for evil will be rewarded to them for the deeds of their hands.” And the merciless youths, who were named above, began to wait for a convenient hour to put to death the holy and pious prince. And one day, as children usually do, the holy lad went out to play, and those wicked youths, like merciless wolves, attacked the saint. 3 , and one of them drew a knife, mercilessly struck the saint on the neck and cut his larynx. The lawless put him to death like a gentle lamb, and then the wicked murderers took vengeance for the blood of the righteous: they were beaten by the people of that city. The holy soul of the pious and victorious martyr Tsarevich Dmitry, flying to the heavenly villages and to the throne of the three-solar deity, saw and enjoyed the unspeakable and divine and unthinkable (...). And his honest and suffering body remained on the ground, stained with blood, shining like the sun. And it was laid in the same city of Uglich in the church of the divine Transfiguration of the Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ (...).
And again, that Boris began to desire in his heart with an unceasing desire and, as if with an unquenchable fire, burn, vigilantly all day and night thinking about the power of the Muscovite state and all of great Russia, how and how to seize the royal throne and fulfill his desire without shame. And before that, he began to extort from the sorcerers and astrologers, gathering them from many countries and peoples and bringing them to the Muscovite state in the royal name and asking if he could achieve the royal throne and be king. And they, seeing his great desire, and introducing him into greater anticipation and joy, telling him that he was born under a royal star and would be the king of great Russia. And, speaking thus, they received honor and a great salary from him for a short time, then he treacherously and secretly put them to death (...).
And the year of departure from this world to the heavenly dwellings of the holy and righteous Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Fyodor Ivanovich, Autocrat of All Russia, the seventh thousand 106 4 month of January on the 6th day, and his death was from an unjust murder committed by the same Boris. Oh, how can I keep silent about this? If we remain silent, the stones will cry out. And this tree, bearing a noble fruit and planted by the hand of the all-generous, eternal God, was cut down and uprooted by the same Boris, even until his death. And as before, having a crafty and crafty disposition, he seduced boyars and royal advisers and nobles, and rulers, and merchants, and all sorts of people, some with gifts, others with love, and others with an evil ban, and none of the boyars or ordinary people dared to contradict him . And so that Boris, after the departure to God of the Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Fyodor Ivanovich of All Russia, began to send his evil advisers and servants to the reigning city of Moscow and in all hundreds and in settlements and in all cities of the Russian region to all people, so that the whole world would ask for state of Boris. The boyars, and the rulers and nobles, and the entire tsarist synod, and the merchants, and the nationwide multitude of the Muscovite state, were afraid of Borisov’s evil persecution and execution and internecine strife, and his supporters and advisers tried and, according to God’s decree, no one dared against Boris and words to say. And the people taught by the evil advisers and servants of Boris, although they did not want him to reign, were afraid of his evil persecution and begged him before the boyars and rulers and nobles and before the tsarist synclite to accept the scepter of great Russia. And therefore, those who were worthy of this honor did not dare to seek it, thinking that the people turned to Boris out of true heartfelt love, and not involuntarily.
He, the wicked, crafty rogue, had been wanting and striving for this for many years, and then, as if not though and not soon succumbing to persuasion and refusing more than once, offered to elect more worthy ones. And he himself went to the great Lavra of the Mother of God, built in memory of the miracle of the Smolensk Icon of the Maiden Monastery, and there served his sister Tsarina Irina, already nun Alexandra, and many people every day asked him to accept the kingdom. He was ashamed and afraid of his sister, nun Alexandra, because she did not allow him to do so, for she knew how long he had desired this and how much innocent blood of great boyars, ruling in the Russian state and serving their sovereign truly and rightly, shed for this, he also killed merchants and people of all sorts of ranks. His advisers and supporters forced people to pray and beat the brow of the nun the great empress Alexandra and ask her brother Boris for the kingdom, and so they prayed to Alexandra with a multitude of people every day with great wailing and crying.
And the great boyars, descended from a scepter-powerful root, relatives of the great sovereign tsar and the great prince Fedor Ivanovich of all Russia and themselves worthy to accept the scepter, did not want to elect a tsar among themselves, but left the decision to the will of the people, for they were already great under the tsars, and honest, and glorious, not only in great Russia, but also in other countries. And even those who did not want Boris did not dare to speak against him because of his evil and crafty disposition. As in Tsargrad, by the will of God, Foka the Tormentor 5 killed the meek king of Mauritius and seized the Greek kingdom, so now Boris in Moscow is seizing the kingdom by deceit and untruth. collected same many people, to an honest laurel, were forced by Boris's supporters to pray to the great empress nun Alexandra to beat her forehead and ask her brother Boris for the state, they even more strongly prayed with a great cry to nun Alexandra to bless her brother Boris for the Moscow state. And so the people pestered her for many days. The boyars and nobles stood in front of her in the cell, and others on the porch outside the cell at the window, and many people stood in the square. Many were brought involuntarily, and order was laid - if someone does not come to ask Boris for the state, they will demand two rubles a day from him. Many bailiffs were assigned to them, forcing them to scream and shed tears with a great cry. But how can there be tears if there is no tenderness and zeal and love for him in the heart? And instead of tears, they moistened their eyes with saliva ... And with such cunning they turned it to mercy, that, seeing the zeal of the whole people for him and not being able to hear and see many cries and complaints among the people, he gives them free rein, but put Boris on the Muscovite state.
And people again began to beat with their foreheads and beg Boris Fyodorovich Godunov to take into his hand the scepter of great Russia (...). And the patriarch, seeing the people's zeal and zeal for Boris, most of all wanted Boris for the state, and Boris's supporters and well-wishers forced Patriarch Job to this. And the patriarch with all the consecrated cathedral takes the icon of the Most Pure Theotokos, painted by the Evangelist Luke 6 , and other holy icons and relics and carry them on foot to where the people prayed to Boris. He seemed to be ashamed of the coming of the image of the Mother of God, and accepts the scepter of the Russian state, and was crowned with a royal crown in the year 107, on September 3, and reigned for seven years. And during the reign of his great Russia, he began to strengthen and assert himself, so that he could stay for many days and years, holding the scepter of great Russia, and after him his family would hold the scepter, and then sending many boyars and nobles to distant and different cities and various evil deaths killing them and eradicating the royal family.
Oh, beloved brothers! Don't be surprised at the beginning, but look at the end. Seeing this all-seeing, unsleeping eye, Christ, as by unrighteousness, seized the scepter of the Russian region, and wanted to take revenge on him by the shedding of the innocent blood of his new passion-bearers, who shone in the miracles of Tsarevich Dmitry and the Tsar and Grand Duke Fedor Ivanovich of All Russia and others innocently killed by him, and his fury and to denounce unjust murders and set an example for other of his supporters so that they would not follow his crafty cruelty.
And let the enemy fall on him, the remaining brand from the burnt Sodom and Gomorrah 7 or an unburied dead man, a black man (according to the words of John of the Ladder: “Every black man will die before death, his cell will be his coffin”) - a lawbreaker I will cut off Grishka Otrepyev, also from the Russian region, from the city of Galich, from unborn people Yushka Yakovlev, son of Otrepyev, as well as that sanctuary Boris Godunov himself. And that Yushka remained after his father very small with his mother and was taught by her divine scripture. Having learned one Hourbook and the Psalms of David 8 , he left his mother and began to soar in the reigning city of Moscow. And after some time, he happened to talk with the abbot of the Assumption Monastery Tryphon, Vyatka region, the city of Khlynov, and that abbot Tryphon persuaded him to become a monk. And on the advice of that hegumen, he took the monastic vows, and he was given the name Gregory, and he was then 14 years old. And he went to the city of Suzdal and began to live in the monastery of the all-merciful Savior in the Euthymiev Monastery, and from that monastery he moved in the same district to the monastery to the Savior, called on Kuksa. And I don't want to talk too much about it. He lived, traveling, in many monasteries, and again returned to the reigning city of Moscow and began to live in the Chudov Monastery. And by the will of the rector of that honorable Lavra, Archimandrite Pafnutiy, he was ordained a deacon by the ordination of His Holiness Job, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
And wanting to seek and comprehend with zeal the wisdom of ungodly books, he fell into a fierce heresy. And when he lived in the reigning city of Moscow, he was known to many of the worldly people, also to rulers and many monks. And from Chudov he moved to the monastery of Nikola on Ugresh and began to ascend in his madness and fell into a fierce heresy, like the mad Arius fell from the height and with his wisdom descended to the bottom of hell. And a little later he left the Nikolsky Monastery on Ugresh and settled in Kostroma in a cenobitic monastery 9 John the Baptist on the Iron Bork. And from there they again came to Moscow and then, leaving the Orthodox Christian faith, fled to Lithuania, and he deceived two monks to go with him - the monk Misail Povadin and the monk Varlaam. And the flight of him and the elders was as follows:
The message of the elder Varlaam, filed after
assassination Unstring Tsar Vasily
Ivanovich of All Russia
The Tsar Sovereign and Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich of All Russia is beaten with his brow and the beggar pilgrim Varlaam informs your sovereigns. In the past, sir, in the 110th year of Great Lent, in the second week on Monday, I go, sir, I am the Barbarian sacrum 10 , and a young monk came up to me from behind, and he, having prayed and bowed to me, began to ask me: “Elder, from which honest monastery are you?” And I told him that I took the vows in old age, and the vows of the Nativity of the Most Pure Pafnotiev Monastery. “And what rank do you have, are you a wing-slayer, and what is your name?” And I told him my name - Varlaam. And I began to ask him: “What honest monastery are you from and what rank do you have and what is your name?” And he told me: “I lived in the Miracle Monastery, and I have the rank of deacon, and my name is Grigory, and my nickname is Otrepyev.” And I told him: “What do you mean Zamyatnya and Smirnaya Otrepyev?” And he told me that Zamyatnya was his grandfather, and Smirnoy was his uncle. And I said to him: “What do you care about me?” And he said: “I lived in the Chudov Monastery with Archimandrite Paphnotius in a cell and commended the Moscow wonderworkers Peter, Alexei and Jonah 11 . Yes, I lived with Patriarch Job, and the patriarch, seeing my abilities, began to take me to the royal thought with him, and I entered into great glory, but I don’t want to not only see the glory and wealth of the earth, but also hear, and I want to come from Moscow move to a distant monastery. And there is a monastery in Chernigov, and we will go to that monastery.” And I told him: “You lived in Chudovo with the patriarch, but you won’t get used to Chernigov, because, I heard, the Chernigov monastery is not a great place.” And he told me: “I want to go to Kyiv to the Pechersky Monastery, and in the Pechersky Monastery many elders saved their souls.” And I told him that the Paterik of the Caves 12 was reading. Yes, he told me: "Let's live in the Caves Monastery, let's go to the holy city of Jerusalem, to the Church of the Resurrection of the Lord and to the Holy Sepulcher." And I told him that the Pechersk Monastery is abroad in Lithuania, and you can’t go abroad. And he said to me: “The sovereign of Moscow with the king took the world for twenty-two years, and now it has become simple, and there are no outposts.” And I told him: "To save the soul and to see the Caves Monastery and the holy city of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulcher, let's go."
And in that, sovereign, we swore by the Christian faith that we should go, postponed until another day and appointed a time to converge in the Icon Row. And the next day they agreed in the Icon Row, and the black Mikhailo was also persuaded to go with him, and in the world they called him Mikhail Povadin, I knew him from Prince Ivan Ivanovich Shuisky. And we went across the Moskva River and hired carts to Volkhov, and from Volkhov to Karachev, and from Karachev to Novgorod Seversky. And in Novgorod, he agreed, and we were accepted into the Transfiguration Monastery, and the builder 13 Zakhary Likharev put us on the kliros 14 , and that deacon Grishka at the Annunciation with the priests served mass and went for the icon of the Most Pure. And on the third week after Easter, on Monday, we got ourselves an escort Ivashka Semyonov, a retired old man, and went to Starodub and the Starodub district, and the escort Ivashko led us abroad to the Lithuanian land, and the first Lithuanian city that we passed was Loev Castle, and the other - Lyubets, and the third - Kyiv. And in Kyiv, in the Pechersk Monastery, we were received by Archimandrite Elisey, and we lived in Kyiv for only three weeks, and Grishka wanted to go to the Kyiv governor, Prince Vasily Ostrozhsky, and asked for leave from the brethren and from Archimandrite Elisey Pletenetsky.
And I spoke to Archimandrite Elisha and the brethren about him and beat with my forehead that he was going to live in Kyiv in the Caves Monastery for the sake of spiritual salvation, and then go to the holy city of Jerusalem to the Lord's Sepulcher, and now he is going into the world to Prince Vasily Ostrozhsky and wants a monastic dress dump, and he will steal, and God and the Most Pure Mother of God lied. And Archimandrite Elisey and the brethren told me: “Here, the land in Lithuania is free: whoever wants in what faith, remains in that one.” And I beat the archimandrite and the brethren with my forehead so that they would let me live in my Pechersk monastery, but the archimandrite and the brethren would not let me: “Four of you have come, four of you and leave.” And they came to Ostrog, to Prince Vasily Ostrozhsky, this Prince Vasily abides in the true Christian faith. And we spent the summer with him, and in the fall, Prince Vasily sent me and Misail Povadin to his pilgrimage, to the Derman Monastery of the Life-Giving Trinity. And Grishka moved to the city of Goshchei to Pan Gosky, and in Goshchei he threw off his monastic dress and became a layman, and began to study in Goshchei in school in Latin and Polish, and Luthor reading, and became an apostate and violator of the laws of the existing Orthodox Christian faith. And I, sovereign, from the monastery went to Ostrog to Prince Vasily and Prince Vasily beat with my forehead, so that Prince Vasily ordered him to be returned from Goshcheya and made a monk and a deacon in the old way, and would order him to be sent to us in the Derman Monastery. And Prince Vasily and all his courtyard people told me: “Here such is the land - as whoever wants, he abides in that faith.” Yes, the prince told me: “My son, Prince Yanysh, was born in the Christian faith, but he holds the Lyash faith, and I can’t appease him. And now de Pan Krakowska in Goshchei”. And Grishka spent the winter in Goshcheya, and after Easter he disappeared from Goshcheya and found himself in the city of Brachin with Prince Adam Vishnevetsky and named himself Prince Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Uglitsky to Prince Adam.
And that Prince Adam, a hawker and a madman, believed Grishka and began to carry him in chariots and horses, accompanied by people. From Brashno, Prince Adam went to Vishnevets and took that Grishka with him and took him to the noble pans and called him Tsarevich Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Uglitsky. And in Vishnevets, Grishka Otrepyev spent the summer and wintered with him. And after Easter, Prince Adam sent Grishka to Krakow to King Sigismund, and Prince Adam told the king about him, as if he were Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich Uglitsky. And the king called him to his hand, and he began to seduce him, calling himself Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of the right-believing sovereign of the tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of all great Russia, autocrat.
And Grishka himself began to cry and say to the king: “Have you heard about the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia, the autocrat, how great and formidable he was, in many states he was glorious? And I am the son of his native Prince Dmitry Ivanovich. And how, by God’s judgment, our father died in the Russian state, but our brother Fyodor Ivanovich of all Russia remained king in the Moscow state, and our traitors exiled me to Uglich and sent many thieves more than once and ordered them to damage me and kill me. And by God's will and his strong right hand, which sheltered us from their villainous intentions, who want to betray us to an evil death, and the merciful God did not want to fulfill their evil intention, and covered me with invisible power and preserved me for many years, up to our present age. And now, having matured, with God's help I am thinking of going to the throne of my forefathers, to the Muscovite state. And saying this, sheds many tears. “And even that was for you, gracious king, you can understand: as soon as your serf kills you, or your brother, or your son, what will it be like for you at that time? Understand from this how it is for me now.” And many other things he said and told.
Yes, the same was said to the king and called Grishka Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich Uglitsky by the five Khripunov brothers, and Petrushka, the man of Istoma Mikhnev, and Ivashka Shvar, and Ivashka, who brought us abroad, and the people of Kiev, the townspeople. And that Grishka with Prince Adam Vishnevetsky asked the king to go to Sambir.
And I told the king about that Grishka that he was not Tsarevich Dmitry, he was a black man, his name was Grishka, but his nickname was Otrepiev, but he walked with me from Moscow together. Both the king and the gentlemen did not believe me and sent me to him, to Grishka, in Sambir, to the governor of Sandomierz, to Pan Yuri Mnishek, and they wrote a letter about me to them. And how they brought me to Sambir, and when Grishka was stripped, he took off my monastic dress and ordered me to be beaten and tortured. Yes, the defrocked Grishka began to talk and talk about us, about me and about the son of the boyar Yakov Pykhachev, as if we were sent from Tsar Boris in order to kill him. And that Yakov Pykhachev, that defrocked and the governor of Sandomierz, ordered to be executed by death, and he, Yakov, even before the execution called him defrocked Grishka Otrepiev. And after beating and torturing me, he ordered me to be shackled and thrown into prison.
And on the fifteenth day of August, that detachment went to war to Moscow, to the Assumption of the Most Pure Mother of God, and ordered me to be kept in prison in Sambir. And they kept me in Sambir for five months, and Pan Yuri's wife and his daughter Marina rescued me and gave me freedom, and I lived in Kyiv in the Pechersk Monastery. And in the 113th year, for our sins, by God's allowance, but by the devil's obsession, and his enemy of God, damned from the whole ecumenical council, the heretic Grishka was cut off with evil intent, taught from the devil how he, a heretic, came to Moscow, and I was in Kyiv in the Chernigov monastery. And about that, sovereign, ask Pan Yuri Mnishek and his daughter, how he ordered my comrade Yakov Pykhachev to be executed, and how, after chaining me, he left me in Sambir, and how Yuri Mnishek’s wife and daughter let me out - Pan knows everything about it. Yuri Mnishek and his daughter Marina and all his courtyard people.
This story ends here. Let us return to what was left and tell about the collection of Trishkin's army and about his campaign to Moscow.
Lithuanian people and Zaporozhye Cossacks learned about this in Kyiv, that the true Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of the right-believing sovereign of the tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich, autocrat of all great Russia, having hidden from his traitors and from their villainous intentions, because they wanted to put him to an evil death, disappeared , lived without being led by anyone to a man's age, and now he has already matured, and is thinking of going to the throne of his forefathers, to the Muscovite state, and the king himself has already been truly tested, and the king promised to support him and help him master the Muscovite state. And everyone, considering him a true prince, joined him. And then Russian Cossacks from the Don came to him in Lithuania and returned with him to the estate to Pan Adam Vishnevetsky.
And after some time the king wanted to see him, and finding him young and eloquent, he recognized him as a true prince and promised to help him. And he, malicious, promised to give the king of the Russian region the city of Smolensk and all other cities of the Seversk country, even up to Mozhaisk, and to be with him in the same faith. And the Lithuanian king for this ordered to convene free people to help him. And he, accursed, sent to the pope in Rome, and there he called himself Tsarevich Dmitry, and ordered the pope to ask for help in order to receive the Russian state, and promised the pope to accept their Roman faith, calling it the right faith, and to trample the Orthodox Christian faith and destroy the churches of God, and instead of churches put churches. And on these promises, the Pope gave him gold and silver and other valuables, and the Lithuanian king gathered as many troops as he needed.
And in the year 112 of August, on the 15th day, the malevolent one moved to the Russian borders by two roads: from Kyiv across the Dnieper River, while others walked along the Crimean road. And in the year 113, on November 26, having approached Moravsk, he began to send out scriptures and seduce with the enemy’s charm, we wise up and teach by Satan ourselves, in Mur, Chernigov and Kursk and other cities, governors and orders and all kinds of service people, and to all merchants and merchants and black people, calling themselves thus:
“From the Tsar and Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich of All Russia to each city to the governors by name. By the will of God and his strong right hand, who hid us from our traitor Boris Godunov, who wanted to betray us to an evil death, and the merciful God did not want to fulfill his malicious thought, and I, your born sovereign, God covered with invisible power and kept for many years. And I, the Tsar and Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, have now entered adulthood and, with God's help, I am going to the throne of our forefathers to the Muscovite state and to all the states of the Russian kingdom. And you, who belong to us by birth, would remember the Orthodox Christian true faith, the kiss of the cross, on which you kissed the cross to our father, the sovereign of blessed memory to the Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia and to us, his children, who wanted good for us in everything and except our royal family to the Muscovite state does not want and does not look for another sovereign. And as by God's judgment our father and brother did not become in the state, and by cunning and violence that Boris became king in the state, and you did not know about us, your born sovereign, and kissed his cross out of ignorance. And now you recognize us, your sovereign sovereign, and from our traitor Boris Godunov pass to us and henceforth already serve us, your born sovereign, without deceit and good desire, as well as our father, sovereign of blessed memory, the sovereign tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of all Russia. And I will begin to favor you according to my royal merciful custom and even more, and keep you in honor, and we want to keep all Orthodox Christianity in silence, in peace and in a prosperous life.
And people in those cities - in Murom, in Chernigov, in Kursk, and in the Komaritskaya volost, and in Putivl, and in Rylsk, and in Starodub, and in Roma (...) no one began to fight with him: wherever he came , everywhere they opened the fortress gates to him and rendered him proper worship and brought gifts that were due to royal majesty. And his other army, which marched along the Crimean road, the cities of Narev, Belgorod and many other cities and villages attached to him. And that Grishka went to the New Seversky city 15 , and in it sat the governors, Prince Nikita Romanovich Trubetskoy and Pyotr Fedorovich Basmanov, and they did not want to surrender to him, but prepared weapons. And he began to approach the city with an army and beat from cannons and squeakers around the city mercilessly, and they smashed the fortress to the very earthen rampart. And the governors and citizens sitting in the fortress, seeing the destruction of the fortress walls, came up with a tricky thing: they began to beat him with their foreheads and ask for mercy for the reason that out of ignorance they defended themselves against him, and now they recognized their born sovereign; stop toiling, breaking down the fortress, we lay before you all our shields and weapons, and now we are ready to open the fortress to you and with due honor we will meet you, like all others. And he, having heard this, was glad and ordered the shooters at the fortress to stop shooting. And the besieged secretly prepared their shields and pointed their cannons and squeaked and raised their sabers and prepared all weapons against them, and themselves, like wolves, lay down under the shields and hid in secret places, and opened the city gates. They, not knowing this, like wild hungry animals for prey, hastening in front of each other in order to be the first to enter the city, and walked closely, pushing each other. And having launched them enough into the fortress, the besieged began to beat on the whole army, as if on a wall, with all kinds of weapons, and as if a bridge under the walls of the city and at the gates were built of people, and the gates were closed, and of those who entered the fortress, some were beaten while others were taken alive and killed up to four thousand of them, while others, seeing this, fled.
And Grishka Rasstriga, seeing their diligence and a similar honor to himself from the townspeople: instead of crosses and images of spears and sabers, instead of censers - guns and squeaks, instead of fragrant incense - gunpowder smoke and stench, instead of sweet fruits, having tasted cannon and squeaky balls, anointed not with honey , but with a deadly poison - and so the filthy one was filled with shame and anger, and again ordered to proceed to the hail. And the townspeople became even more bold and, as if one heart was beating in everyone’s chest, they stood up to fight and fought hard with them. They, standing under the hail, laid down a lot of heads, but achieved nothing.
And Tsar Boris, having heard that Grishka Rasstriga calls himself Tsarevich Dmitry and many cities pass to him without a fight, but stands under the New Seversky city, - and sends a governor from Moscow to rescue the city, Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky, yes, Prince Vasily Ivanovich, yes Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Shuisky and with them many governors with many troops. When they approached the city and began to help the besieged, the army met with the army. Just as two clouds filled with water are dark before the rain falls on the earth, so those two armies, converging on the shedding of human blood, covered the earth, wishing to overcome one another. And just as there is thunder in the clouds of heaven, so the roar of squeakers sounded in the earthly clouds, and fire flashed like lightning in the dark darkness, and bullets and arrows whistled through the air, flying out of countless bows, and people fell like sheaves along ravines. And so the two armies came together, and there was a great slaughter, they were cut down, they grabbed each other by the hands, and there was a cry and noise from human voices and such a roar of weapons that the earth trembled, and it was impossible to hear what one was saying to the other. And the battle was terrible, just like on the Don at Grand Duke Dmitry and Mamai, this battle was full of horror and fear.
And Grishka cunningly prepared for battle: many of his people and horses were dressed in bearskins and sheepskins turned inside out, other horses had braids on both sides, and they cut people in crowded places and do a lot of evil. And the horses of the Moscow army recoiled from those horses and did not go to the enemy. And in that confusion they began to kill and overcome even more, and so the Moscow army mixed up, and in this confusion many people were beaten, and they reached the very voivodship banner, and they paved the earth with human bodies, as if with a bridge, and human blood flowed in streams along the earth, and seriously wounded the voivode himself, Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky 16 . And so Grishkin's army overcame him, and Boris's army fled (...).
About the Second Battle of Dobrynich 17
And again the bloodthirsty lion does not sleep, with his animals, as if at a wedding feast, he strives for bloodshed, to lap up Christian blood and eat human flesh, gathers regiments of military people. But even these Moscow governors of Borisov are not afraid of his teeth, but even more boldly oppose him and with brave hearts take up arms to avenge him for the previously shed Christian blood. Like bright falcons on gray ducklings, or like white gyrfalcons clean their beaks to peck, and sharp claws to pierce flesh, and spread their wings, and prepare their shoulders for bird killing, so the Christian champions of the Orthodox faith, put on the armor of the voivode with the Christ-loving with their army against the satanic saint and his army beloved by the demons, they take up arms and shields and call for help from God and the Most Pure Mother of God, the Christian intercessor and helper, and Moscow miracle workers and all the saints.
And they began to converge at Dobrynich near the Komaritskaya parish; a few days after the first battle, both armies lined up, and there was a second battle, more severe than the first. They strove to overcome each other, and a great multitude of people fell from both sides, as trees leaned over or like sheaves rolled along the ravines, and not one wanted to retreat from the other, but each wanted to hit the other, and they killed each other. It was terrible and terrible to see this, there was a great and cruel battle, and much blood was shed. And the Moscow governor, Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, could not see the spilled blood, his heart was furious, and smartly and bravely with his regiment of the right hand rushed at the army of the satan saint and, dividing it in two, slashed like grass, overturned the opposing ones, and those who were afraid of death , ran away from him and cleared the way for him. With the regiment of the left hand, Ivan Ivanovich Godunov also showed his courage: bravely and courageously attacks and beats the enemy, as he cuts through the streets, no one can stand up against him. Likewise, other governors and heads could not resist, strongly and unanimously stepped out and crushed all his army, and they, showing their backs, fled. And they persecuted them and cut them down without mercy from behind, and they killed many multitudes of them and took many alive, and few of them escaped. And Prince Ivan Tatev took the most damned to the city of Rylsk, and from there he fled to the city of Putivl. And if Prince Ivan Tatev had not saved him then, he himself would have been killed here. But for our sins, he survived to shed Christian blood again and defeat Tsar Boris.
And the damned Grishka Otrepiev was seized with even more fear and great trembling, and, having lost all hope, began to think about escaping to Lithuania. And Tsar Boris was filled with rage and anger at the inhabitants of the Komaritskaya volost 18 and commanded her to captivate and devastate her with great captivity to the end for having surrendered and serving Rastriga, and to cut all Orthodox Christians, young and old, with a sword, and torment others with various torments, which was done. And who, even having a stone instead of a heart, did not cry and groan about how the Orthodox Christians of the Komaritskaya volost were conquered by Tsar Boris? And the filthy foreign peoples cannot do what Tsar Boris did, pouring out his anger and fury, tortured and killed with many torments without mercy not only husbands, but also wives, and innocent babies sucking milk, and beat all the multitude - from man and to livestock. And their property was plundered, and their houses were ruined and burned by fire, everything turned to ashes, so that his unprecedented evil captivity cannot be described.
And when Grishka Rasstriga wanted to flee to Lithuania, all the townspeople and all the people who submitted to him began to pray to him with tears and ask him: “Oh, great sovereign! You are going to go back to Lithuania, but who are you leaving us to? Or are you betraying us into the hands of your traitor Boris, so that he will capture us as well as the Komarin inhabitants, and torture us with fierce and bitter torments? Better order them to cut off our heads yourself, but don't betray us alive into the hands of Boris. Oh, we are in great trouble! We sailed from one shore, but did not reach the other shore, and now we are standing in the middle of the deep sea. We are completely dying: they retreated from Boris, but they couldn’t hold on to you, we don’t know what to do. We have only one way to salvation: do not let you go, but beat Boris with your forehead and pay for our guilt with your head. And Grishka answered them: “Today I don’t have troops, you see, everything is broken, as soon as he himself escaped, and all my treasury was depleted. I don’t think at all about running away and leaving my homeland, but I want to go to Lithuania for the treasury and the army in order to fight with greater force for the Orthodox states of my homeland. And they said to him: “Take, sovereign, everything that we have, and after that we will all go with you, so that we all perish or receive life and honor from you.” And they brought him all the silver, who had how much: some a thousand rubles, and some a hundred, some more, and some less. And Grishka, with the help of that silver, barely managed to resist; appeared of his own free will, and now he was forced to stay, because his new subjects did not want to part with him alive. And again Grishka settled in Putivl and began to gather an army from where he could. And Tsar Boris rejoiced a lot about this.
And in the city of Kromy, the Cossack ataman Grishka Korela settled down in the same heretical army 19 with the Cossacks and with the Kromlyans. And Tsar Boris sends his governor, the boyar Fyodor Ivanovich Sheremetev, to Kromy with a large army. And they, approaching the city, besieged the fortress and began to storm the walls, but the defenders of the city beat many troops and shed a lot of Christian blood. And Tsar Boris also sent a governor - Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky and Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Shuisky with a large army, in order to take the city as soon as possible. And the governors gathered troops and bravely and courageously advanced on the fortress, fired cannons at the prison and around the city, and used all sorts of wall-beating tricks and the prison and the city were smashed to the ground. But those Cossacks, malicious and treacherous, not afraid of death and recalcitrant and patient with all sorts of hardships, sat out in the holes of the earth and fought with the besiegers from under the ground, and staged sorties from the city. And so, having failed to take the city, the Moscow governors stood near Kromy until spring. And then many people in the army died from the winter cold, as the time was very cold and there were terrible frosts.
And Tsar Boris in the Moscow state and in other states and cities of the Russian state ordered His Holiness Patriarch Job and the noble boyar and voivode Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky to convince people, for their blessed memory, the Tsar and Grand Duke Fedor Ivanovich of All Russia sent to inspect and bury the body of the murdered faithful Tsarevich Prince Dmitry Ivanovich, his brother. And he ordered them to preach at the top of their voices at the confluence of many people of the Muscovite state, saying this: “Oh, the multitude of the people! Do not doubt and do not believe the rumors, for truly Tsarevich Dmitry was killed, I saw him with my own eyes and even buried him in the city of Uglich in the Church of the Divine Transfiguration of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, and you will pray for him. And Grishka Otrepiev, the decapitated one, is coming at us, calling himself by his princely name, and you curse him. And letters were sent to states and cities. But people did not trust anyone - neither His Holiness the Patriarch, nor Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, and so they said to each other: “This is de by order of Boris and being afraid of him, they say so.”
And Tsar Boris ordered in the cathedral church to loudly read the eternal memory of the blessed Tsarevich and Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, and to curse Grishka Otrepyev, who was going to the Muscovite state, to be defrocked; he ordered the same to be done in the states of great Russia. But he did not achieve anything by this, and people throughout the Russian state were even more indignant and angry at him in their hearts, saying: “If not this, what else remains to be said to Boris? If he does not speak like that, then he will have to renounce the Russian kingdom, and even risk his life. And so they supported each other.
Others said something else, that truly Tsar Boris still considers the Tsarevich killed, but does not know that another was killed instead of him: having long known Boris’s evil intention against the Tsarevich, that he wants to secretly kill him, no one knows where and at what time, mother she fed another child instead of the prince, and the prince himself was sent to the faithful people for observance, and God so saved him from the murder and destruction of Borisov, and now he has matured and goes to his ancestral throne. And wishing him to come to Moscow, when they learn about his victory over the Moscow troops of Boris, they rejoice, but when they find out that the Moscow troops defeated the expected Dmitri going to Moscow, they go in sorrow, bowing their heads. And the slanderers whispered to Tsar Boris about those who said that Dmitry was coming, and not a defrock, but that he was taking a real defrock with him and showing him so that people would not doubt. And for such words of theirs, Tsar Boris ordered to cut out their tongues, and put others to death with many different torments, but he could not prevent the people from having these conversations and hoping.
And Boris heard that his governors did not return a single city to him, but even more cities fall away from him and Grishka swear allegiance, while Grishka himself is in Putivl, gathering a great army from Lithuania and from other states, filled with rage and breathing anger, like an insatiable viper, boasts and wants to come against Tsar Boris, but not as a king, but as a servant. And Tsar Boris, seeing the infidelity of all the people who are ready to serve the approaching self-proclaimed Tsarevich Dmitry and are waiting for him, was in great doubt, thinking about what to do if the impostor really turns out to be not a deprivation, but Tsarevich Dmitry. And he completely despaired of saving his life and intoxicated himself with a deadly potion 20 and was tonsured to the monastic rank and in the monks he was named Bogolep. And soon he died a bitter and violent death from a fierce poison, so that his appearance changed from convulsions, and his whole body turned black like coal, and it is impossible to describe what he became from a fierce potion. And he ordered to be buried in the cathedral church of the Archangel Michael with other kings buried here. He died in the year 113, the month of April on the 13th day, and after him his wife, Tsarina Maria, and his son Fedor, and his daughter, the maiden Xenia, remained the king, but he stayed as king for 7 years and five weeks.
After the death of Boris in the Moscow kingdom, his son Fyodor called himself sovereign, and he sent to the regiments for the governors Prince Fyodor Mstislavsky and Prince Vasily, and Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Shuisky and called them to Moscow. And instead of them, two half-brothers, Prince Vasily and Prince Ivan Vasilyevich Golitsyns, and Mikhail Saltykov, and Ivan Ivanovich Godunov, remained governors. And he sends to their regiments the voivode Prince Mikhail Katyrev-Rostovsky and Pyotr Fedorovich Basmanov, and the Metropolitan of Novgorod Isidor, to lead the army to kiss Fyodor Borisovich on the cross, and his mother Maria, and his sister Xenia. And they arrived at the regiments in Kromy, where the metropolitan began to lead the army to the kiss of the cross. Some in the regiments kissed the cross for them, while others did not want to kiss the cross and sent the metropolitan to Moscow.
The Moscow governors, Prince Vasily and Prince Ivan Vasilyevich Golitsyns, and Pyotr Basmanov, seeing doubt and confusion in the regiments, and from confusion and the city die, and they themselves doubted and believed that Rasstriga was the son of the Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia and remembered about the mercy of the blessed memory of the tsar to them: “But would an unborn and not glorious person from the villagers, Grishka Rastriga, dare to start such a business? And not without intent, the Polish and Lithuanian king helps him, and the Russian people with cities pass under his authority, and all the people of the Russian state do not want to stand up against him. Yes, it is better for us of our own free will than to obey him involuntarily, and we will be honored. And if not, then we will also be with him, but with dishonor, judging by the events of recent times. And so they reasoned and among themselves agreed to stick to Rasstriga, and change Borisov's son and move away from his army, and this agreement was firmly approved among themselves. And they were joined by many Novgorod and Ryazan boyar children.
So it all happened, and one day two troops lined up for battle, taking up shields and weapons. And Prince Vasily and Prince Ivan Vasilievich Golitsyns, and Mikhail Saltykov, and Pyotr Basmanov with all their regiments quickly went ahead of everyone, and with them the boyar children and the Lyapunov nobles with other boyar children went as if to battle. And all the others stood and looked at those who boldly crossed over to the enemy coast of Krom and peacefully united with the enemy troops, and they let them through their army. And when the named Moscow governors passed, and again the ataman Korela with his Cossacks and with the inhabitants of Krom, all in one spirit hit the remaining Moscow army and all plunged him into confusion, for his courage left him at the sight of the governor who drove away from them and the brave army, united with the enemy . And everyone despaired of their hopes, turned their backs and ran. And the enemy drove them, but did not flog the fugitives, knowing that they were unwittingly sent by Tsar Boris to fight, and robbed them, but instead of slashing and killing, they beat them with whips and drove them further with the words: “And henceforth, do not go to battle against us! ”
And they caught their voivode Ivan Godunov and sent to their chief Grishka in Putivl and sent joyful news to him about the transition to his side of the above-mentioned Moscow voivodes with many regiments. And the Ryazan children of the boyars with all the cities and with their villages along the Oka passed to him. He, having learned about this, rejoiced with great joy. And Ivan Godunov ordered to be put in prison, and the Moscow governor ordered to be brought to the kiss of the cross. Other governors of Tsar Boris - Prince Mikhail Katyrev-Rostovsky and Semyon Chemodanov ran to Moscow with this message.
And Rasstriga is filled with even greater impudence and feels the nearness of the fulfillment of his desire and writes to the reigning city, the mother of all cities, to Moscow, according to the teaching of the devil, the father of all lies and flattery, delighting everyone with sweet words, like honey. Just as in ancient times, at the beginning of the world, the devil seduced the ancestors of Adam and Eve to fall away from paradise life and brought death to the human race, so now he teaches his saint Rastrigu; by the glory of this fleeting world he deceived him to fall away from the rank of angels and from the kingdom of heaven and choose corruption and death and bring other people with him to perdition. And at first he attempted to seduce the people of the Muscovite state with such charm:
“From the Tsar and Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich of All Russia to our boyars, Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky and Prince Vasily, and Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Shuisky, and to all boyars, roundabouts and great nobles, and stewards, and lawyers, and tenants, and clerks, and clerks, and nobles from the cities, boyar children, and guests, and the best and average merchants, and all sorts of black people.
You kissed the cross of blessed memory to our father, the great sovereign tsar and grand duke Ivan Vasilyevich of all Russia, and to us, his children, so that outside our family we would not want and not look for any other sovereign in the Muscovite state. And how, by God's judgment, our father, the great sovereign tsar and grand duke Ivan Vasilievich of all Russia died, and our brother, the great sovereign tsar and grand duke Fyodor Ivanovich of all Russia, sat down on the Muscovite state, and the empress, my mother, the queen and grand duchess nun Martha Feodorovna of All Russia, and the traitors of the great sovereign sent us to Uglich, and so oppressed our majesty, which was unsuitable for subjects to do - they sent many thieves and ordered to damage us and kill us.
And the merciful God hid us, the great sovereign, from their villainous intentions and from then until our present years, by His will, has preserved. And to you, our boyars and okolnichi, and nobles, and clerks, and guests, merchants and all sorts of people, our traitors kept repeating that we, the great sovereign, were gone, and they buried us, the great sovereign, in Uglich, in the cathedral church at the all-merciful Savior. And as by the will of God our brother, the great Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Fyodor Ivanovich of All Russia, was gone, and you, not knowing about us, your born sovereign, kissed the cross of our traitor Boris Godunov, not knowing his insidious disposition and fearing that in blessed memory, our brother the tsar and Grand Duke Fyodor Ivanovich of All Russia, he owned the entire state of Moscow and favored and executed whomever he wanted. But they did not know about us, their born sovereign, but they thought that we were killed by our traitors.
And how about us, the great sovereign, a rumor spread throughout the Russian state that with God's help, we, the great sovereign, are going to the Orthodox throne of our forefathers, the great sovereigns of the Russian tsars, and we wanted to receive our state without blood, and you, our boyars and governors and all sorts of service people, against us, the great sovereign, became ignorant and afraid of the death penalty from our traitor, but they did not dare to talk about us, the great sovereign. And I, a Christian sovereign, according to my royal merciful custom, do not hold our anger and disgrace on you, because you did it out of ignorance and fear of execution.
And now we, great sovereign, will soon come to the throne of our forefathers, the great sovereigns of the tsars of Russia, with God's help, and with us many Russian, Lithuanian and Tatar rati. And the cities of our state, our royal majesty, were finished off with a brow and did not stand against us and kissed the cross, remembering their souls and the kiss of the cross to us, the great sovereign, they serve and bravely and courageously want to stand against our traitors, and you yourself know for sure. And the Volga cities were finished off to us, the great sovereign, and the governor was brought to us, and the Astrakhan governor Mikhail Saburov and his comrades were being led to our Tsar's Majesty, and now they are on the road to Voronezh. And Prince Ishcherek wrote to us from the Great Nogai Horde and Murza from Kaziev Ulus that they want to help our Tsar Majesty. And we, the Christian sovereign, not wanting Christian ruin, did not order the Nogai people to walk before our decree, pitying our state, and ordered the Nogai people to roam near the Tsar's city.
And our traitors Maria Borisova, Godunov’s wife and her son Fyodor, do not regret our land, and they had nothing to regret, because they owned our Seversk land and many other cities and counties ruined and beaten Orthodox Christians without guilt. But we, the Christian sovereign, did not blame you, our boyars and service people, because you did it out of ignorance and fearing the death penalty from our traitors. And even then it was useful for you to know what oppression from our traitor Boris Godunov was to you, our boyars and governors, and our relatives, reproach and reproach and dishonor, and inflicted on you, which it was impossible to endure from your own, and to you, nobles and children boyar, ruin and exile and unbearable torment were, which is unsuitable for prisoners to do; and you, guests and merchants, did not have your freedom in trade, and in duties, that a third of your property, but little and not everything was taken away, but they could not moderate his insidious temper.
And you still don’t admit your guilt and you can’t know us, your born sovereign, but you don’t remember God’s righteous judgment and want to shed the blood of innocent Orthodox Christians, which is not only not suitable for us to do, and foreigners mourn about your ruin and they get sick and, having recognized us, a Christian meek, merciful sovereign, they serve us and do not spare their blood for us. And we, the Christian sovereign, not wanting to see bloodshed in Christianity, are writing to you, pitying you and your souls, so that you, remembering God and the Orthodox faith and your souls, on which our father, the great sovereign tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of all Russia, and to us, his children, they kissed the cross, and to Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich of All Russia they finished off with a brow and to ask for mercy to our royal majesty they sent metropolitans and archbishops, and boyars, and okolniki, and great nobles, and duma clerks, and boyar children , and guests, and the best people.
And we, great sovereign, according to our royal merciful custom, will honor all of you, and to you, our boyars and governors, we will honor and raise you and honor you with your former fathers, and we will also add and keep you in honor. And we want to keep you, nobles and orderly people, in our royal mercy. And we welcome you, the guests and merchants of the entire Muscovite state, in duties and taxes, we command in favor and in relief, and we want to inflict all Orthodox Christianity in peace and quiet and in a prosperous life.
But if you don’t finish off our royal majesty with your brow and don’t send mercy, and you can judge what you will answer on the day of God’s righteous judgment, but you can’t be saved anywhere from righteous anger and from our royal high hand, you can’t hide in the mother’s womb . And with God's help, we, the great sovereign, will achieve our glorious states.
And Rastrigin's envoys - Gavrila Pushkin and Naum Pleshcheev - arrive with this letter on the first of June, and the letter was read at the Execution Ground in front of the entire multitude of the Moscow people. And when Moscow and all Russian people heard this message, they believed that all this was true, that the Lord, by His indescribable destinies, with His most generous right hand, saved the Tsarevich from Borisov’s destruction, and believed that he was a Tsarevich born of his Christian faith, and about Boris they truly knew that he had kidnapped the kingdom by falsehood and shed countless innocent Christian blood, treacherously seeking that great state. And they rejoiced at that with great joy, sending glory to God, and there was a great noise and a cry in them, and it was not possible to make out who was saying what. And calling on each other, they rushed at Tsar Fedor, Boris's son, and at his mother and at their whole family, and without mercy began to rob their yards and catch them themselves, and in the twinkling of an eye they robbed everyone, seized their property and seized them, like a strong storm dispelled them like dust.
And the Moscow boyars and governors, and the nobles, and other royal confidants, seeing the actions of all the people of the Muscovite state, and they shields and spears and, more simply, throw all their weapons and meet the prince near Tula; and all fall to the ground in front of him, calling him the son of the deceased king. And with the battle, he, ungodly, did not take a single weight 21 , not like an insignificant city.
And in those places there was no one who knew him, and an old man named Leonid, who walked with him from Putivl and called him Grishka Otrepiev and showed him to many in Lithuania and in the Seversk land, by order of the Pretender, was imprisoned in Putivl as if for some guilt. And again from Tula to the surrounding cities, which are in the Russian region, he sends messengers with letters, and in the letters he writes like this:
“From the Tsar and Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich of All Russia, to which the city to governors and clerks by name.
By the will of God and his strong right hand, who saved us from our traitor Boris Godunov, who wanted to betray us to an evil death, the merciful God did not want to fulfill his insidious intention, and he kept me, your born sovereign, in his destinies. And I, the Tsar and Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich of All Russia, have now matured and, with God's help, have sat on the throne of our forefathers in the Muscovite state and in all the states of the Russian kingdom. And in Moscow and in all cities, our boyars and okolnichi, and clerks, and clerks, and nobles, and boyar children, and all sorts of clerks of our entire state and foreigners, kissed the cross to us, our born sovereign, and we granted them wine they were forgiven. And how will this letter of ours come to you, and you, subjects given to us by birth, remembering the true Orthodox Christian faith and the kiss of the cross, on which we kissed the cross to our father, of blessed memory to the Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia, and to us children he, his born sovereign, was kissed on the cross.
And you would have led centurions, and archers, and gunners, and collars, and townspeople, and volosts, and black people to the kiss of the cross, and led all foreigners according to their faith. And why kiss the cross and lead all kinds of people to the cross, and we sent you a kissing note with this letter of ours together. And how can you bring all kinds of people to the kiss of the cross, and we will spare them and you with our great royal salary, which you cannot even think about. And who exactly will you bring to the oath, and you would write about it and send lists of names to us in Moscow, but indicate where it is written, in what quarter and to whom it is written.
And with such diabolical intent and lies, not with his mind and reason, but by acting on the flattering spirit that had inhabited him, he deceived not only the boyars and all the people of great Russia, but also the king of the Lithuanian land and all the pans and his courtiers. And so that heretic went to the reigning city with great audacity and without the slightest fear. And he sent his servants ahead of himself and ordered the executioners to put to an evil death Borisov's wife Maria and her son Fyodor, tear their souls from the body, and ordered his daughter to be left alive so that he could enjoy her beauty, which happened.
See, my love, what death awaits those who work unrighteous iniquities: with what measure they measure, it will be measured to them with the same measure, and what cup they fill with others, that cup they themselves drink. Oh, the depth of delusion, the descendant of the builders of the Babylonian pillar darkened by darkness 22 from them the whole world was divided. Oh, blindness, oh, his fury, oh, many curses, oh, great ignorance, oh, the delicacies of the hungry and the possessions of the vain and the thirst for high thrones, oh, insolence and unauthorized kissing of the cross and perjury! How did he forget and how was he not afraid of the end of his days in this fast-moving unfaithful world, how does he want for the short time allotted to him, what we will quickly find out, have time to enjoy? Where is the glory of arrogance now? Where is his wife and beloved children? Where are the golden-domed halls? Where are the bright meals and fattened calves? Where are the servants and slaves who serve him? Where are the precious clothes and shoes? Where are the other royal utensils? Who can take away his wife and children from the executioner? They raised their eyes here and there, and nowhere found a helper, they found themselves in extreme poverty and were strangled, met death fiercely and without mercy.
And that heretic Grishka admired the marvelous and glorious, shining in the skies as if shining, the great city of Moscow, and entered it in 113, the month of June on the 20th day, on Thursday, and no one stopped him. And then that heretic, not by his own mind and desire, but by God's will, for it is not befitting murderers and robbers to be with the righteous, ordered that the aforementioned sanctuary Boris from the Archangel Cathedral from the royal ancestors to be thrown into the square in disgrace. And everyone saw that here he was - the same Boris, who had previously cut down the great trees that flourished, like cypresses, and squeezed many other trees with his merciless sickle, like flowers or fig leaves, and where he now lies, like a beggar, cast down to shame. And the heretic Grishka ordered him and his son to be buried in a wretched convent called Varsonofiev. And then he entered the Kremlin, where the royal chambers are located.
And many Moscow people who knew him began to recognize him, and God helped the above-mentioned first-sufferer, boyar Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, to learn about Rasstrigi's crime and his bogomerz heresy. And he began to loudly denounce his transgression publicly to all people 23 , so saying: “I know you that you are not the son of kings, but a lawbreaker, a defrocked Grishka Bogdanov, the son of Otrepyev.” And the people, hearing these words, were astonished and horrified, and did no harm to him. And that accursed heretic, in order not to be convicted of his shameless transgression, conceived with his advisers to put him to death. And on Saturday, on the third day after his entry into the reigning city of Moscow, June 23, he planted that boyar and his brothers as bailiffs, and the next day, Sunday, June 24, he appointed Ignatius the Greek patriarch. And on Monday, June 25, he ordered that great boyar Shuisky be put to death in the middle of the city, cut off his head with a sword at the confluence of all the people, so that others were afraid to denounce him. And he had Mikhailo Saltykov and Pyotr Basmanov as bailiffs. When they brought him to the Fire (Red Square.- Comp.) and they set it up, and next to it they installed a chopping block and laid axes, and Pyotr Basmanov began to travel among the people, read the list compiled by Rastriga and instill in everyone's ears like this:
“This great boyar, Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, is cheating on me, your born sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich of All Russia, and speaks unkind speeches about me to everyone and dishonors me with all of you, with our boyars, princes and nobles, and with boyar children, and with the guests, and with all the people of great Russia, he calls me not Dmitry Tsarevich, but the heretic Grishka Otrepyev, and for that we condemned him: let him die a death.
All the people standing here were filled with fear and trembling, and tears flowed from their eyes.
And near the boyar Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, many archers with many weapons were placed, as well as many Lithuanian pans and Cherkasy with spears and sabers, and throughout the city all the archers were armed, as if for battle, and everyone who saw this was filled with fear and horror. . But our philanthropic creator and creator did not allow this to happen and took pity on his creation, wishing that the passion-bearer would save his bride, the church, from ruin, and glorify him and put him over everyone for the sufferings he accepted as truth, as the Lord himself said with his righteous lips: "Those who glorify me I will glorify." And he delivered that great boyar from the unrighteous sword raised against him by the lawbreaker, and saved him from innocent death, holding back the snake, ready to seize him with its open mouth. And he only ordered that the boyar named above, Prince Vasily Ivanovich, and his brothers, Prince Dmitry and Prince Ivan Vasilyevich Shuisky, be sent to various distant cities for imprisonment, and ordered to plunder their houses and property. And in that confinement the great boyars spent half a year, but they suffered for the love of Christ, for the true Orthodox Christian faith.
And on July 18, on Thursday, the queen nun Marfa Feodorovna arrived in Moscow, and the boyars of the Moscow state met her with honor, and that Grishka Otrepyev himself was with them. And after that, seeing that boyar Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, courageous boldness and bursting with spiritual fire and heartfelt desire and trying not to yield to him in courage, many of the Christ-named monks who wished to die for the true Christian faith and piety, by the action of the Holy Spirit with their heart eyes saw, that Grishka Otrepiev is a heretic and a lawbreaker, and they began, like trumpets, to shout loudly at the confluence of the people and denounce his accursed heresy, saying so: “Oh, men, Moscow people and the multitude of all Orthodox Christians! We tell you the real truth that the tsar, now reigning in Moscow, is not a tsar, not a son of a tsar, but a criminal and a defamationist, a damned heretic, whom everyone used to curse in the holy cathedral and apostolic church of the Most Pure Theotokos of her honorable and glorious Assumption as Grishka Otrepiev ” .
And he, hard-hearted, was inflamed with an evil fire of rage at the delusion of Satan and wanted to destroy them, and ordered them to be seized and to betray them to many different torments, and ordered many to be locked up in dungeons in the far sides of the Russian region and chained in iron, and others to be executed without mercy . And he filled the hearts of people with fear and trembling, so that those who had known him for a long time could not raise their eyes to him, let alone denounce him.
And soon, in the same year 113, on July 1, on Sunday, the cursed by everyone reigned and began to do much evil to Orthodox Christianity in the reigning city. And so he fell away from the Orthodox faith, the accursed criminal, satanic saint and forerunner, that he desecrated the very image of God and wanted to destroy the altars of God's churches, destroy monasteries and monastic dwellings, and equate the Orthodox Christian faith with the fallen faith, and instead of God's churches build churches . And he began to live, like other heretics of other peoples, and wanted to force Orthodox Christians to worship idols, and he desecrated many young nuns, corrupted many youths and maidens, and great weeping and sobbing began among the people, for there had never been such a misfortune.
And in this short life, he arranged for himself amusement, and for his future life - a sign of his eternal dwelling, which no one in the world has ever seen in the Russian state, or in any other, except for the underground: a huge hell with three heads 24 . And on both sides he attached copper bells to his jaws, and when he opens his jaws, from within him all those standing nearby bursts with flame and loud sounds are heard from his larynx, and has teeth and claws ready to grab, and flames also burst out of his ears . And he placed his accursed Rasstriga in front of his chambers on the Moscow River for his denunciation, so that he could look at him from his highest palace and be ready to move into him for endless centuries together with his like-minded people.
And he took as his wife from the great Lithuanian land a Lutheran of their infidel faith, just like him, taught evil and witchcraft wisdom, the daughter of a certain Sandomierz pan Yuri Mniszek, a girl named Marina. And with her, leaving his estates in the Luthor region, came to the Russian state and her father, pan Yuri, and with him many other great gentlemen. And that accursed criminal married in the year 114, the month of May on the 8th day, on Thursday, on the feast of the holy apostle and evangelist John the Theologian, on the eve of Friday and on the eve of the memory of the miracle worker Nicholas. And immediately after the wedding, Rasstriga raised a great storm and began persecuting Christians, and betrayed the Christian faith, and, according to Roman custom, began to observe the Sabbath fast. 25 , as promised to the Pope, and on Wednesday and Friday he began to eat beef and other unclean foods.
And that accursed persecutor with his evil advisers planned to kill the boyars and guests and all Orthodox Christians on May 18 on Sunday. Oh, it was bad for us in the year 114, the month of May on the 18th day, on Sunday, on the day of Christ's Ascension! He, the evil-minded wolf, cruel and unmerciful, like Phocas the Tormentor and Constantine the Motyl-named and Julian the Apostate, or like Pharaoh against the people of Israel, wanted to sharpen a sword to chop without a trace of us Orthodox Christians, and without any fault to shed our blood to turn that joyful day Resurrection of Christ on the day of sorrow.
And he wanted to desecrate holy places, and turn monasteries into dwellings of the wicked, and according to his evil plan, he wanted to marry young monks and nuns, accursed, and give nuns in marriage, and those monks and nuns who do not want to take off their angelic image and not wants the charms of the local fast-flowing life, to execute with a sword. And the accursed one planned to create all this evil on Sunday and flood the Muscovite state with filthy infidels - Lithuanians, Jews and Poles and other bad ones, so that Russian people among them will be little noticeable. And with those evil advisers, he was going to do all this evil on Sunday.
But from the beginning, the Lord, Creator and Creator of ours, who created us, his slaves, did not forget what he promised us, and wiped away our tears, and did not allow the evil beast to eat the sheep of his chosen flock, and did not allow the days of his three-day Resurrection to be turned into an insult to his faithful slaves, but he, the evil serpent, opening its mouth to swallow us, turned his beloved Sabbath day into a day of eternal perdition and into a day of inconsolable weeping and sobbing for endless ages. And the Lord God directed his sharp sword at his neck and at his advisers, the accursed wicked, according to the words of the scripture: "He who digs a hole himself will fall into it." And that accursed criminal, who wanted to live in ancient malice, in the abomination of desolation, in the bosom of the proud Satan, and even more - following his predecessor Judas, intending to surpass Satan himself in the hellish abyss, called himself not only the king, but also the invincible Caesar and soon He deprived himself of all the brief glory of this world, with all sorts of torments he cast out his evil-smelling soul from his evil-smelling body.
On the tenth day after his wedding, in the 114th year, the month of May on the 16th day, on the fourth week after Christ's Easter, on Saturday, he was killed with swords and other weapons, dragged out of his highest and brightest chambers on the ground by the hands of many people who had previously attacked him alive and it was impossible to look, let alone touch him. And so he was thrown out of the fortress and thrown into the marketplace, cursed and trampled by everyone and defiled by everyone in every way for his evil and cruel disposition. And with his invisible power, our Creator-deliverer suddenly defeated his advisers, a great many of the cunning wicked mentioned above. And the Russian people, desperate and unarmed, with God's help, their deadly weapons were taken away from them and they, armed, were defeated. And so many of them, the wicked, died on that Sabbath day that it was impossible to walk along all the streets of the great city of Moscow because of their corpses. And he delivered us, his sinful slaves, from that great, deadly ulcer that kills the soul.
And for three days the corpse of the accursed theomachist lay in the marketplace, and everyone looked at his unclean corpse, not covered by anyone, naked, with which he came out of his mother's womb. And the idols that he worshiped, but did not help him in any way, were placed on his chest. And after three days, the accursed one was thrown out of the city into the field. And it was not only disgusting for people to look at his corpse, thrown to shame, but the very earth from which he was taken abhorred them. And we saw all this, and everyone said to himself: “Oh, an evil deed: he was born, enlightened by holy baptism and called himself a son of light, and now he himself wanted to become a son of perdition!”
And when he lay in the field, many people heard at midnight and until the very cocks loud cries and tambourines and flutes and other demonic games over his body: so Satan rejoiced at the arrival of his servant. Oh, the curse is so heavy on you, accursed one, that even the earth abhors to accept your accursed heretical body, and the air began to breathe a stench, and the clouds did not give rain, not wanting to wash his accursed body, and the sun did not warm the earth, frost hit and deprived us of wheat ears while his stinking body lay on the ground.
By the will of God and the prayers of the Most Pure Mother of God to the one born by her and with the help of the great miracle workers Peter, Alexei and Jonah and all the saints, we, Orthodox Christians, by the whole Russian land have chosen for our kingdom from the royal chamber of advisers a righteous and pious husband, a relative of the former pious tsars, the Grand Duke Vladimir 26 , named in holy baptism Vasily, the right-believing Prince Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky, the boyar Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, who suffered first of all for the Orthodox Christian faith. And he was named to the kingdom in the same year 114, the month of May on the 19th day, on Monday. Our creator, the philanthropist God, who does not allow his creatures to deviate from their customs and doom to starvation all people living on earth, his slaves, pointed out to his faithful servant, who wears the cross and was named by the sovereign tsar and grand duke Vasily Ivanovich, autocrat of all great Russia and the owner of many states given to him by God for his faith, in order to plunge that evil heretic-defiant into his house named above, into the hell he built, and burn the filthy accursed body of the lawbreaker, which was done: he was burned at the place called the Cauldron, seven miles from the city.
And by the will of God, our sovereign, the tsar, wanted to see the revered relics of the faithful Tsarevich Dmitry Uglitsky in the God-saved city of Moscow. And the sovereign sent his pilgrims to Uglich for his honest relics: His Grace Filaret, Metropolitan of Rostov and Yaroslavl, Theodosius, Bishop of Astrakhan and Terek, archimandrites and his boyars - Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Vorotynsky and Peter Fedorovich Sheremetev 27 with comrades. And when his honorable relics were brought to the most honorable Lavra of the holy and life-giving Trinity and the miracle worker Sergius, and the archimandrite and priests and deacons of that honorable monastery, dressed in sacred clothes, with censers and other brethren with candles, met his most honorable and multi-healing relics outside the fence with joyful tears and sang before them worthy funeral psalms. And for some time the relics stayed in the monastery, in the cathedral church of the most holy and life-giving Trinity, and were again carried to the reigning city of Moscow. When the procession reached the God-saved city of Moscow, Moscow people, men, wives and children, also greeted the relics with joyful tears and each, falling to his cancer, asked for mercy. And they brought the relics into the inner city and placed them on a high place called the Execution Ground, and here many miracles were performed by those who asked in faith: the blind received their sight, the lame began to walk freely, the humpbacked straightened up and the deaf began to hear. And everyone, no matter what ailments he had, falls to his cancer with relics and receives healing. And then his honest and multi-healing relics were transferred to the church of God's Archangel Michael, where to this day we see them, and they give healing to everyone who comes to them with faith.
And two weeks after his nomination for the kingdom 28 Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich of All Russia, autocrat, was crowned with a royal crown and diadem of the month of June on the 1st day, Sunday, and sat on his royal throne, and from the hands of Almighty God in his right hand received the scepter of the Russian land. And the Lord God created a triple joy in the whole Russian land for Orthodox Christians: the first, having crushed his ungodly apostate, and our persecutor, the heretic Grishka Otrepiev, the second - granting rain and sunshine for fertility, the third, more than all joys - the transfer of the honest relics of the new martyr of the faithful Tsarevich Dmitry from the city of Uglich to the glorious great reigning city of Moscow, that criminal Grishka Otrepiev was named after him, and the Lord granted that martyr grace and the ability to give healing to those who come with faith to his cancer, the cure of all ailments, inexhaustible health. And from these days, the assembly of Russian Orthodox people, we rejoice and rejoice in God's visitation and deliverance, which God has given to all his people.
Oh, the great love of God! Oh, his unspeakable and unknown fates! Who knows the understanding of the Lord and who is his adviser? Truly, no one, neither angels, nor archangels, nor rulers, nor rulers, nor thrones, nor dominions, nor heavenly powers, nor cherubim, nor formidable seraphim, but only our glorified God, one in the Trinity, he himself watches over human destinies and all does what he wants. But we, the servants of Christ, from time immemorial worship the beginningless, glorified in the Trinity, Christ our God, for all this we glorify and praise the Lord Christ, who created us, thus saying: death and gave life. That cursed heretic and lawbreaker named above directed his sword to destroy all Orthodox Christianity to the end, and we could not prevent him in any way, but he himself perished and became the son of perdition; those who were with him perished, those who loved his evil custom more than the unsunseting light of eternal life, not forced by torment or order, but obeying him of their own free will. And we all know that the monks and laity, whom the accursed heretic tortured and put to death, died in the Orthodox Christian faith. And some of our monk brothers are still alive, and they are now spiritually working with us in the monastery of the most holy and life-giving Trinity, and others in the monastery of the Archangel Michael of God, at the miracle worker Alexei on Chudov. And they endured such misfortunes and oppressions and misfortunes, but the grace of God was not rejected, and everyone rejoices in their sufferings, glorifies and thanks God and the Most Pure Mother of God and the new passion-bearer who shone in the Russian region, the faithful Tsarevich Dmitry.
Now, all Orthodox people, we rejoice and rejoice, always praising and glorifying our beginningless eternal God, who, by His all-generous will, gave us such a pious sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich, autocrat of all Russia, a true intercessor and shepherd to his verbal sheep, and not mercenary: and so he lays down his life for the sheep during our sorrow and death, and not only his wealth, but he did not spare himself, and now he keeps the true Orthodox Christian faith as the apple of his eye, and guides everyone and instructs him on the path of salvation, so that even after death everyone inherits eternal life, and does not lead us to destruction, but I will say more - it leads us off the path of death. And for this we praise God who created us. Amen.
And I thought, sinful and disobedient to God and weak in mind, to write this story, not according to rumors, except for the stay of that heretic and lawbreaker Grishka in the Lithuanian land, but everything that happened in the Russian state, I saw everything with my own eyes. And he could not remain silent about such evil, he wrote for the benefit of those who read this today and for the memory of future people in future times. And to the rest who plot evil and indulge in its evil transgression, so that they humble their temper and abandon such crafty plans. The accursed Grishka reigned and seized many estates in the Russian kingdom and soon became very rich, and soon died, and not even a small shirt was left of his wealth to bury his shameless body.
And some ignoramuses secretly destroy their souls by following the books forbidden by the holy fathers of the seven ecumenical councils; they commanded us not to read these books, for those who read them do not gain any benefit, they only plunge the ship of their soul into the abyss of sins, as the scripture says: “He who throws a stone upwards will break his own head; kindling a fire - he himself will burn in it. Wonder, O man, how the teaching, about which it is said in the Divine Scripture, came true: “If a man masters the whole world, but loses his soul, and what will he receive in return for his soul?” Do you see how this evil and cunning sorcerer gained the whole world, but lost his soul - and what good praise and glory he received? For endless ages, he, with all his cunning sorcery, perished in body and soul, and shamefully deprived himself of this short fleeting life.
And you, shameless one, why are you doing all this, leaving hope in God's mercy and calling on Satan for help, not finding any help for yourself in this illness? First, understand what a person is and what is the end of your days, and think about how you will appear before a righteous judge who judges regardless of faces - Christ our God? And as you prepare your way to where there is pitch darkness and an insatiable worm, try, can you endure the heat of earthly fire in this life? And if you can, then you will not endure the future unquenchable fire, this flame is such that it rises from the earth to the very heavens. The worm awaits the sinning man and the son of man, his house is hell, and his bed is darkness, and his father is death, and his mother and sister are corruption. How can you even imagine this in your mind, let alone in life retreat from the graces of God to evil and stick to Satan and the devil, and grieve your mentor and guardian - the angel of God? And if, disobedient to God, you do not give up your evil life, indeed, I tell you, you will suffer in this and in the next century, like the accursed heretic Grishka Otrepyev.
May grace and peace be with your spirit, brethren, now and forever and forever and ever. Amen.
A TALE OF SOME BATTLE
This story was written about a certain war,
happened for our sins in a godly
Russia, and about the appearance of a certain sign
in this last generation of ours,
Let's talk about him first
(...) In the summer from the creation of the ancestor of all people, Adam, in the year 7116, in the reign of a pious power, crowned by God, and anointed by God, and a God-honored and Christ-loving champion of the holy Orthodox Christian faith, a valiant peacemaker, a sovereign autocrat and a meek scepter holder of a pious great Russia, Tsar and Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich, Autocrat of All Russia, holding the scepter of the great states lying in the east and north - Vladimir, Moscow, Novgorod, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Sovereign of Pskov and Grand Duke of Smolensk, Tver, Yugorsk, Perm, Vyatsky, Bulgarian and others, sovereign and grand prince of the Novgorod Nizovsky land, Chernigov, Ryazan, Rostov, Liflyandsky, Udorsky, Obdorsky, Kondinsky, and the entire Siberian land, and the Northern country of the ruler, and the sovereign of the Iberian land, Georgian kings and Kabardian land, Cherkasy and mountain princes and many other states of the sovereign and possess spruce, from the family of the holy noble grand duke miracle worker Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky; and the root of our Russian sovereigns of this pious family comes from the Roman and Greek Augusts Honorius and Arcadius, the sons of Tsar Theodosius the Great, who held the scepter of Constantinople saved by God - the new Rome, the reigning city of the Greek kingdom. But we will not talk about it, but return to what was left above.
In the third year of the reign of the aforementioned pious autocrat Vasily, who before his reign was under the Russian autocrats the great boyar of the royal synclite, named Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, from those Shuiskys who from ancient times were specific grand dukes 33 , the sovereigns of Suzdal, and under his royal majesty the father and pilgrim and the supreme hierarch of the holy kir 34 Hermogenes, third patriarch of Moscow 35 and all Russia, ruling the throne of the holy great cathedral and apostolic church of the Mother of God, the most holy and blessed mistress of our Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, her honest and glorious Assumption, shining throughout all great Russia - and then to his kingdom on the Russian kingdom by the actions of enemies and God's allowance for our sins came the great war from the damned apostates and enemies of the cross of Christ, from the Polish and Lithuanian people and from the Don Cossacks.
And the Cossacks named one of their people by the royal name - Russian Tsarevich Dmitry of All Russia, intending with their evil cunning, wanting the Russian state to plunder and acquire much earthly wealth, and were forever excommunicated from heaven. And having gathered a lot of soldiers - Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Zaporizhzhya Cherkasy and other peoples, they came to the reigning city of Moscow and stood 12 miles from Moscow along the Mozhaisk road, in a village called Tushino, because this place was well protected, and there with their cunning and deceitful Tsar Dmitry set up their Lithuanian camp. And they spilled like water and scattered like dust over the Russian kingdom, and rushed like an insatiable viper, and like fierce snakes, and like evil wolves and bloodsuckers, the destroyers of the Christian family, through the cities, through honest monasteries and villages. And then, from such accursed, from their fierce aspirations, our pious Orthodox Christian faith was trampled, the holy churches of God were defiled and set on fire, cities and villages were ruined and set on fire, and much Christian blood was shed, and wives, maidens and youths were taken into captivity. And the gospel word of Christ came true, as it is said: “Kingdom will rise against kingdom, nation against nation, and there will be earthquakes and deaths and horrors everywhere, and many will fall by the sword; and human blood will flow like fountains of water, and the earth will be covered with dead bodies, like leaves and trees, and heads will lie on the ground like ears of corn.” (...)
And at that time the Muscovite state was oppressed, and I, a sinner, was then in the reigning city of Moscow. And from the tsar’s pious state, from that Christ-loving tsar and autocrat Vasily from his bright chamber, called the Posolsky order, from his royal secret thought, a clerk named Vasily Telepnev, I was sent from his sovereign’s chamber by an interpreter of the German language named Grigory Krapolsky, to many cities with royal messages to the meetings of the military rank, ready to resist those accursed, named above enemies and destroyers of the Christian faith - to Pereslavl-Zalessky, to Rostov, to Yaroslavl of the Volga region, to Kostroma, to Galich.
And the reigning city of Moscow was then under siege, and those accursed enemies cut off many roads from Moscow, but the ever-memorable autocrat, the pious Tsar Vasily, endured this, like the righteous Job 36 , and accepted all adversity with thanksgiving, saying after the prophet David: “It is good for me that you humbled me, so that I can learn your justifications,” and accepted persecution from his subjects and non-believers, like King David 37 , for many of his pious powers, Moscow people went over to the Gentiles, for our sins. And he, the pious autocrat, recalling the apostolic word of the heavenly trumpet, Christ's disciple, the divine Paul, said: “If [the father] does not punish you, then you are accustomed in sin, and not true sons”; “Whom the Lord loves, he punishes,” and so on.
And we were sent from Moscow by roundabout roads - Vladimirskaya to Kirzhatsky Yam and by any possible route to the Annunciation Monastery on Kirzhach, to Alexander Sloboda and to Pereslavl-Zalessky. And when we were walking on foot at the tsar's command from Alexandrova Sloboda to Pereslavl-Zalessky, I saw some kind of miraculous sign, filled with horror, and I'll tell you about it now.
That named German interpreter Grigory Krapolsky told me on the way, at noon, during the fast of the chief apostles Peter and Paul 38 : "Do you see anything in the clouds of heaven directly above us?" And after his words I saw a great wonderful and terrible sign, and I said to him: “I see, my lord.” He asked me, “What do you see? Tell me". And I said to him: “Very terrible, sir, a sign! I see a lion, a huge and marvelous beast, standing on the right, and on the left, not far from it, a vicious and proud snake, and they stand motionless, but want to seize and tear one another. And around the lion there are many different animals, and around the serpent there are many small snakes. And after a little while that vision began to disappear, and the lion lay down on his stomach and began to decrease little by little, and soon the lion and the serpent became invisible, and other animals and snakes also became invisible, and the clouds again acquired their original appearance.
The aforementioned Gregory said to me: “Do you understand what this vision means?” And I answered: “No, my lord, I don’t understand at all, but I am only horrified.” And he began to talk to me and explain: “The huge lion is our pious champion of the Christian faith, Tsar and Grand Duke Vasily. The animals around him are his subjects, Orthodox peoples, Russian sons, standing with him for orthodoxy. And the wicked and proud snake is the insidious Tush tsar, the false prince Dmitry, and the multitude of snakes surrounding him are his supporters, cursed peoples who have renounced God. Both perished, the lion and the serpent, as well as the beasts and serpents that surrounded them. This means that death will soon come to both kings, and neither will prevail against the other.”
And according to him, shortly after this vision, it happened, as he said: the Tushino false and treacherous tsar, a prince named Peter Urusov, put to violent death in the city of Kaluga, cut off his head, and after his murder he fled to the Nogai Horde, for he himself - originally from the Nogai Horde.
And the ever-memorable autocrat of the pious Moscow Tsar Vasily was overthrown by his subjects from the throne 39 and forcibly tonsured blacks and, together with half-brothers, with Prince Dmitry and Prince Ivan, gave him to the Polish and Lithuanian king Sigismund, where he died a violent death (...).
The first attempts to explain the events of the Time of Troubles were made by the government of Shuisky (1606-1610). The elected tsar Vasily Ivanovich was to continue the policy of the former born Moscow sovereigns after the death of Fedor ended the dynasty of the legendary Rurik, the “worker tsar” Boris Godunov ingloriously departed to another world and the first Pretender was torn to pieces. The entire edifice of state history, carefully built to justify the boundless power of Ivan the Terrible, collapsed. Now the story was ordered by the former "serfs" of the Terrible Tsar. After the overthrow and death of the first False Dmitry, his archive fell into the hands of the Shuisky government, and Russian translations of “sheets found at Rozstriga in the mansions” were read to the people from the Execution Ground. Based on this trophy "bundle" of archival files and their own observations, Moscow clerks compiled a detailed official sketch of the reign of False Dmitry I, necessary for regulating Russian-Polish relations. It was presented to the Embassy of Gr. Volkonsky and A. Ivanov, sent to Poland in 1606.
In May - early June 1606, the first literary review of the events of the Time of Troubles was compiled in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery - “The Tale of How the All-Seeing Eye of Christ Christ Takes Revenge on Boris Godunov”. The Tale debunked the Pretender and glorified Shuisky. The fall of Shuisky and the Polish claims to the Russian throne gave rise to a whole wave of “flying” literature; the practical effect of these writings was such that the Polish king Sigismund in 1611 complained to the Moscow boyars about insulting leaflets written by Russians about him and widely circulated in Russia.
The prominent historian S.F. Platonov denied the authenticity and completeness of the “factual material” to the monuments of literary battles, the modern Troubles, and believed that “more objective and meaningful descriptions of the Troubles appeared in our writing later, in those legends that were compiled or accepted final literary form in the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich. IN. Klyuchevsky, objecting to Platonov, recalled: “Historical facts are not just incidents; ideas, views, feelings, impressions of people of a certain time - the same facts and very important ... "
With the accession of Mikhail Romanov, the need arose for a new understanding of the Time of Troubles. The first pages of the state history of the Romanovs were written in the 20s of the 17th century, surrounded by Patriarch Filaret - then a special edition of the Tale of Prince S.I. was created. Shakhovsky (the so-called "Filaret's manuscript") and the clerks worked on the official chronicle - "The New Chronicler" (completed in 1630). In the same years, the “Other Legend” was also compiled.
The name of this work was given by the historian I.D. Belyaev in 1853, meaning to distinguish the story he published from another work - "Tales" of the Trinity cellar Avraamy Palitsyn. The “Other Legend”, rewritten in the collections in the appendix to the “Tale” of Palitsyn, not only supplements Palitsyn’s testimony or shortens the story where the Trinity cellar is rather verbose, it refutes Palitsyn’s political position, tries to give a historical justification for the legitimacy of the elected tsar Vasily Shuisky.
“Another Tale” is a remarkable evidence of the historical self-awareness of the 20s of the 17th century, an essay composed of once independent literary works and documents of the Time of Troubles, that is, combining the advantages of the early reflections of the Time of Troubles (“ideas, views, feelings, impressions”) with the advantages later works (completeness of “factual material”). This included “The Tale of Kako Revenge”, which tells about the events of 1584 - 1606 and compiled in May - early June 1606; The "Tale" is supplemented by letters of False Dmitry in the autumn of 1604 and the end of May 1605, the life of Tsarevich Dmitry in 1607, the so-called "Izvet" Varlaam and government communications. The history of the Tale has been thoroughly studied by S.F. Platonov, E.N. Kusheva, N.P. Popov, V.I. Buganov, V.I. Koretsky and A.L. Stanislavsky. It is assumed that the author of the “Tale” is the book keeper of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery Stakhiy.
The compilers of the “Other Tale” added new information to the “Tale” and reworked individual episodes of “The Tale of Kako Revenge”. Thus, tendentious details were added in the scenes near the walls of the Novodevichy Convent in 1598, when the people prayed for Boris to accept the royal crown, and the description of the battles near Dobrynichy (1605) was edited. For example, contrary to the “Other Tale”, under Dobrynich, I. I. Godunov commanded not a regiment of the left hand, but a guard regiment, and at the head of the regiment of the right hand, it was not Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, extolled by the author, who distinguished himself, but his more brave brother Dmitry Ivanovich.
A feature of the “Other Tale” is the inclusion in the “Tale of Some Revenge” of the “Izvet” (petition, denunciation) of the monk Varlaam Yatsky to Tsar Vasily Shuisky. Varlaam was a companion of Grigory Otrepiev during his journey from Moscow to Lithuania and could tell a lot about the self-proclaimed monarch. Historian N.I. Kostomarov (1866) suspected Varlaam's "Izvet" of forgery, but E.N. Kushev (1926) and I.A. Golubtsov (1929) proved that the true petition of Varlaam lies at the basis of the "Izvet" included in the "Other Legend".
“The Tale of Kako Take Revenge” and its processing as part of “Another Tale” are examples of journalistic stories about the Time of Troubles. The story is being told by the author “in the interests and from the point of view of the Shuisky government” (S. F. Platonov). The author is looking for the reasons that “brought bloodshed to the Russian land”, and finds them in the damage to morals, which inevitably follows God's punishment. The author condemns the flattering child-killer Boris Godunov and prays to the intercessor of the Russian land - the passion-bearer youth-tsarevich Dmitry, and places all earthly hopes on the elected tsar Vasily Shuisky. “Today, all Orthodox people are rejoicing and having fun,” the author of “The Tale of Kako Revenge” tries to portray inspiration. “And his royal life,” the Piskarevsky chronicler impassively testifies, “was on the royal throne always with troubles and sorrows and with worldly excitement; often they came in peace and told him to come down from the kingdom, and they seized him by the staff, and dishonored him many times.
However, with the deduction of this short-sighted fascination with the personality of Shuisky, the set of notes of 1584-1606, undertaken by the anonymous authors of The Other Tale, refers to those works that S.F. Platonov considered "the most objective and meaningful descriptions of the Time of Troubles."
“The Tale of Kako Revenge” is published according to the text of “Another Tale” with minor reductions.
The translation was made according to the publication: Russian Historical Library. L., 1925. T. 13. Issue. 1. Stb. 1-66.
The text is given according to the publication: Troubles in the Muscovite state. Russia in the 17th century in the notes of contemporaries. M. Contemporary. 1989
© text - Pliguzov A. I. 1989
© online version - Thietmar. 2004
© OCR - Murdasov A. 2004
© design - Voitekhovich A. 2001
© Sovremennik. 1989
Page 1
The turbulent events of the beginning of the 17th century, which were called "distemper" by contemporaries (such a definition was kept for a long time in historical science, fixed by noble and bourgeois historiography), was widely reflected in literature. Literature acquires an exclusively topical journalistic character, promptly responding to the demands of the time, reflecting the interests of various social groups participating in the struggle.
Society, having inherited from the previous century an ardent faith in the power of the word, in the power of conviction, seeks to propagate certain ideas in literary works, achieving specific effective goals.
Among the stories that reflected the events of 1604-1613, one can single out works that express the interests of the ruling boyars. Such is the "Tale of 1606" - a journalistic work created by a monk of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. The story actively supports the policy of the boyar tsar Vasily Shuisky, tries to present him as a popular choice, emphasizing the unity of Shuisky with the people. The people turn out to be a force that the ruling circles cannot but reckon with. The story glorifies Shuisky's "courageous daring" in his struggle with the "evil heretic", "defrocked" Grishka Otrepiev. To prove the legitimacy of Shuisky's rights to the royal throne, his family is elevated to Vladimir Svyatoslavich of Kyiv.
The author of the story sees the causes of "distemper" and "disorganization" in the Muscovite state in the pernicious rule of Boris Godunov, who, by the villainous murder of Tsarevich Dmitry, stopped the existence of the family of lawful tsars of Moscow and "took the royal throne in Moscow by falsehood."
Subsequently, "The Tale of 1606" was revised into "Another Legend". Defending the positions of the boyars, the author portrays him as the savior of the Russian state from adversaries.
"The Tale of 1606" and "Another Legend" are written in the traditional book manner. They are built on the contrast of the pious champion of the Orthodox faith Vasily Shuisky and the "sly, sly" Godunov, "evil heretic" Grigory Otrepyev. Their actions are explained from traditional providentialist positions.
This group of works is opposed by stories that reflect the interests of the nobility and the townspeople's trade and craft strata of the population. Here we should first of all mention those journalistic messages that Russian cities exchanged, rallying their forces to fight the enemy.
"A NEW STORY ABOUT THE MOST GLORIOUS RUSSIAN KINGDOM…" The journalistic propaganda appeal - "A new story about the glorious Russian Tsardom and the great State of Moscow" draws attention to itself. Written in late 1610 - early 1611, at the most intense moment of the struggle, when Moscow was occupied by Polish troops, and Novgorod was captured by Swedish feudal lords, the New Tale, addressing "people of all ranks", called them to active actions against the invaders. She sharply denounced the treacherous policy of the boyar authorities, which, instead of being the "landowner" of their native land, turned into a domestic enemy, and the boyars themselves into "land-eaters", "crooks".
A characteristic feature of the story is its democracy, a new interpretation of the image of the people - this "great ... waterless sea." The calls and messages of Hermogenes are addressed to the people, enemies and traitors are afraid of the people, the author of the story appeals to the people. However, the people in the story do not yet act as an effective force.
