Mikhail Borisovich

Born 1453; died circa 1505. The last grand prince of Tver’ (from 1461); son of Grand Prince Boris Aleksandrovich.

In 1471 and 1477, regiments from Tver’ fought in the Novgorod campaigns on the side of Grand Prince Ivan III Vasil’evich of Moscow, and in 1480 they stood on the Ugra River facing Khan Ahmed. In the mid-1480’s, Mikhail Borisovich acknowledged his vassalage to Ivan III, but secretly he tried to reach an accommodation with the Polish king Casimir III. Ivan III laid siege to Tver’, from which Mikhail Borisovich fled to Lithuania on the night of Sept. 12, 1485. After its capital fell to the Muscovites, the Principality of Tver’ ceased to exist as an independent entity and became part of the centralized Russian state. Mikhail Borisovich spent the rest of his life in Lithuania.