Marina Mnishek changed men like gloves. She was the wife - official or de facto - of two impostors and ataman Zarutsky. However, it is difficult to understand where the political calculation ended and love began. And did it start at all?
Two weddings of one impostor
Marina Mnishek, the daughter of the Sandomierz governor, was not at all a beauty. Small in stature, frail - such women were not appreciated in those days. But Marina did not experience a shortage of men. Rather, there were too many of them in her short life.
And it all started like that. In May 1604, Marina's father, Yuri Mnishek, entered into a marriage contract with an impostor who will go down in history as False Dmitry I. The impostor promised, firstly, to marry Marina, but only when he ascends the Moscow throne. And secondly - to pay the father-in-law a million Polish zlotys and transfer to his wife Novgorod and Pskov.
In addition, the impostor promised to convert Russia to Catholicism. And if she fails, Marina can divorce him. Leaving themselves - as compensation - Novgorod with Pskov.
The agreement, frankly speaking, is beneficial for Yuri Mnishek. And for Marina too. But, of course, no one asked her. She was at that time either 15 or 16 years old. Marina's opinion was of no interest to anyone.
The impostor went on a hike. She and the bride parted for almost two years. It is unlikely that Marina was very sad. At least she didn't write a single letter to the groom.
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And Yuri Mnishek at the most difficult moment, in January 1605, abandoned the impostor and returned to Poland. False Dmitry became king without Mnishek's help. But he did not give up the intention to marry Marina.
However, there was a difficulty. The bride is Catholic. And the Moscow tsarina must be Orthodox. But Marina did not even think about converting to Orthodoxy. I had to get out.
The first wedding took place in Krakow. According to the Catholic rite. And instead of the groom there was his representative - the clerk Afanasy Vlasyev.
The second wedding took place in the Moscow Assumption Cathedral. Both the groom and the bride were present here. But Marina refused to take Orthodox communion. “Both of them did not want to partake of the Holy Mysteries,” recalled Archbishop Arseny of Elassonsky. "This greatly saddened everyone, not only the patriarch and bishops, but also everyone who saw and heard."
Moreover, immediately after the wedding, Marina, who became the queen, threw off her Russian dress and changed into Polish. The newlyweds did not go to the bathhouse as expected. While feasting, they ate "unclean" veal. Extremely defiant behavior.
Wedding celebrations and destroyed False Dmitry. He feasted in the Kremlin, the Poles made a row in Moscow, and as a result - the rebellion and death of the impostor.
Under the dress of the maid of honor
And here the question arises: why did False Dmitry even marry Marina? After all, the wedding created a lot of problems for him. And then it would be even worse: we must give up Pskov and Novgorod and introduce Catholicism.
Yes, the impostor promised to marry. But he promised a lot. And of all the promises, generally speaking, only one and fulfilled - got married.
Apparently, False Dmitry simply loved Marina. Pushkin was right. "Your love … What is my life without it, / And glory shine, and the Russian state?"
On May 17, 1606 False Dmitry died, but Marina survived. She was covered by the maid of honor under her lush dress.
She reigned for nine days. And then she spent almost two years in exile. After which she and her father were released to Poland.
Father and daughter Mnisheki promised not to come into contact with the new impostor - False Dmitry II, who is usually called the Tushino thief. However, from Moscow they went to him.
Yuri Mnishek immediately recognized his "son-in-law". Marina is more difficult. An eyewitness to the events wrote that "the tsarina and other persons who knew Dmitry in Moscow, having seen ours, did not want to recognize him, and it was impossible to hide it."
In principle, Marina could believe that the first impostor was Tsarevich Dmitry. But she could not believe that the “Shklobsky vagabond” False Dmitry II was her husband False Dmitry I. And yet, according to the same eyewitness, "after much persuasion" she agreed to "pretend with us."
Her father, of course, persuaded her. Who, slipping his daughter to another rogue, returned safely to Poland. And Marina lived in the Tushino camp for over a year.
Stole with many
False Dmitry I, whatever one may say, was a bright man. False Dmitry II is a pitiful puppet in the hands of his entourage. He failed to capture Moscow. And when the Polish king Sigismund III decided to sit on the Moscow throne himself, they completely stopped reckoning with False Dmitry II. And he, leaving Marina, fled from Tushino to Kaluga in a dung cart.
Brother Stanislav Mnishek called Marina home to Poland. But in her, still obedient and uncomplaining, ambition and ambition awakened. Marina remembered that she was not just anyone, but the Tsarina of Moscow. “I was deprived of everything by a perverse fortune, only the legal right to the Moscow throne remained with me,” she wrote to King Sigismund. And she fled from the Tushino camp to False Dmitry II. She ran proudly - not in a dung cart, but on a horse, with a gun and a saber, dressed in a hussar's dress.
This time no one forced her. She made the decision herself. And she chose her own destiny.
Marina has proven that she is a person. After leaving Tushino, she first ended up in the camp of Hetman Yan Sapega. And he was just defeated by the Russian army. In the midst of the battle, Marina rushed to the rampart, which was defended by the Poles, shouting: "What are you doing, villains, I am a woman - and that was not scared!" And she turned the tide of the battle.
She could not change the course of history. False Dmitry II left the stage. And in December 1610 he was killed by the Nogai prince Peter Urusov. A month later, Marina gave birth to a son, Ivan, and baptized him in Orthodoxy.
Her son was nicknamed Vorenk. At the same time, it was said that she gave birth to him not from the Tushinsky thief, but from the Cossack chieftain Ivan Zarutsky. Or maybe from someone else, because she "stole with many."
Everyone around accused Marina of debauchery. Say, she fornicated with the Cossacks, and lived unmarried with the Tushinsky thief (although, according to some sources, they were secretly married). However, it must be remembered that the same Cossacks seriously considered Vorenok as a contender for the throne. Therefore, it was advantageous for political opponents to portray her as a walking girl, and her son as a "shameful" baby.
To Moscow in chains
One way or another, after the death of False Dmitry II, Marina tied her fate with Zarutsky. It looks like she truly loved him.
And Ivan Zarutsky was an adventurer to the core. He, a participant in the campaign of False Dmitry I, a boyar of False Dmitry II, one of the leaders of the First Militia, set out to make the son of Marina Mnishek king.
Taking Marina and Vorenka, Zarutsky left the First Militia and went to the Ryazan region.
The alignment of forces was not in favor of the chieftain. And after the election to the throne of Mikhail Romanov, the whole company - Zarutsky, Marina, Vorenok - turned into the main enemies of the new dynasty.
They retreated south and ended up in Astrakhan. Here Marina was in for new surprises. She again became a pawn in someone else's game. Zarutsky tried to conclude an alliance with the Nogai and marry Marina off to the murza of Yashterek. In addition, he sent an embassy to the Persian Shah. The Shah asked for a long time "about the Lithuanian Marina": what is her face like, "how good is she, is she young or old?" The daughter of a Polish lord could have ended her life in the shah's harem. And that would be beautiful. But it turned out differently.
Zarutsky, Marina and his son fled from Astrakhan, but were captured by the Cossacks, who preferred to go into the service of Tsar Mikhail. All three were brought to Moscow in chains. Zarutsky was put on a stake, Vorenka was hanged, and Marina, as it was said in the order to the Russian messenger to Poland, "died of longing for her shed." Actually, she had something to yearn for. The child who was hanged was barely four years old.
Like any woman, Marina Mnishek wanted love. But even more, she strove for power. She did not find love and did not achieve power. But she lived a bright life. Too bright. And that's why it is too short.
Gleb STASHKOV