Vasilii Ivanovich Shuiskii

Born 1552; died Sept. 12, 1612. Russian tsar from 1606 to 1610. Descended from a family of Suzdal princes. A boyar from 1584.

In 1587, Shuiskii took part in the palace struggle against Boris Godunov and fell into disfavor. Artful and obsequious, he was soon pardoned. In May 1591 he headed a government commission investigating the death of Tsarevich Dmitrii in Uglich; the commission declared illness to be the cause of the tsarevich’s death. Early in 1605 he participated actively in the military operations against the first False Dmitrii. After the death of Boris Godunov, he was recalled to Moscow. In June 1605 he transferred to the side of the False Dmitrii. Shortly thereafter, however, he headed a conspiracy against him and was sentenced to death. Shuiskii was subsequently pardoned and banished. At the end of 1605 he was returned to court. In May 1606 he once more led a conspiracy against the first False Dmitrii, drawing on the support of the palace and church aristocracy, the leadership of the provincial dvorianstvo (nobility or gentry) of the western and central districts, and the great merchants. On May 17, during the course of the popular uprising, the first False Dmitrii was killed by the conspirators. On May 19 a group of Shuiskii’s adherents “shouted” him tsar. For the ceremony of the kissing of the cross, Shuiskii provided a text that restricted his power. In early June his government declared Boris Godunov the murderer of Tsarevich Dmitrii.

The accession to power of Vasilii IV intensified the struggle among the boyars and between the dvorianstvo of the capital and of the south. This led to an exacerbation of the peasant war of the beginning of the 17th century—the uprising led by I. Bolotnikov. In the struggle against Bolotnikov, Vasilii put forward a program for the consolidation of all strata of the class of feudal lords, with consideration of their interests in policies concerning the problems of the peasant (the Code of March 9, 1607), the serf (ukases of 1607-08), land, and financial questions. Various concessions in legislation concerning the serfs were aimed at splitting the camp of the insurgents. The unity achieved by the class of feudal lords around the spring of 1607 and the support of the major cities of the Volga region and the north made it possible for Vasilii to crush the uprising in October 1607. However, by August 1607, a new stage of Polish intervention in Russia had begun (the adventurist attempt of the second False Dmitrii). After Vasilii’s defeat near Volkhov (May 1, 1608), his government was besieged in Moscow. By the end of 1608, many regions of the country were under the power of the second False Dmitrii—owing in part to the new upsurge in the class struggle and the growth of contradictions among the Russian feudal lords. The attempt to achieve the withdrawal of the Polish detachments of the second False Dmitrii by diplomatic means was unsuccessful. In February 1609, Vasilii’s government concluded an agreement with Sweden: a portion of Russian territory was ceded in payment for the use of Swedish troops.

A spontaneous popular national liberation movement against the Polish interventionists began at the end of 1608. Vasilii’s government was able to assume leadership of the movement (through the person of Prince M. V. Skopin-Shuiskii, the commander of the Russian-Swedish army) only during the winter of 1609. By March 1610, Moscow and a large portion of the country had been liberated. But as early as September 1609 open Polish intervention had begun. The defeat of Vasilii’s army on June 24, 1610, near Klushino by the army of Sigismund III and the actions of the urban lower classes of Moscow against Vasilii’s government brought his downfall. On July 17, 1610, Vasilii was overthrown—in part by the boyars and the capital and provincial dvorianstvo —and forcibly made a monk. In September 1610 he was handed over to the Polish hetmen S. Zóíkiewski, who brought him to Smolensk in October and later to Poland. Vasilii died in prison in the Gostyń castle.