The figure of False Dmitry I still causes a lot of controversy. Rumors and speculation surrounded the liar during his lifetime, with the historical memory of him, everything is also far from unambiguous.
Fool
In the popular mind, False Dmitry is an unambiguously negative character, because it was he who brought the invaders to Russia. For this reason, its external and moral appearance is not presented in the most favorable light. But if the descriptions of his appearance are true: the imaginary Dmitry was not a handsome man: his nose is wide, there are warts on his face, his arms are one longer than the other - true, the addition is stately, - then his moral qualities are not only distorted, but often turned inside out.
So, for a common man in the street, False Dmitry is a kind of fool, a puppet in the hands of the Polish king, Marina Mnishek with her father and the Russian boyars led by Shuisky. But the king was not a stupid person in reality. Contemporaries note that his eyes were intelligent and expressive. He was an excellent psychologist and a bright artist: False Dmitry quickly managed to win over and even fall in love with the crowd and then skillfully manipulated public opinion. The moment of his meeting with his mother, nun Martha - genuine, as it seemed, sincerity - convinced his contemporaries that the tsar was real.
He was able to deceive not only ordinary Russian people, but also experienced in diplomacy Polish dignitaries, Jesuits and even the Pope, skillfully evading the promises made to them.
Ignorant
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Since he is stupid, he is also ignorant. A fugitive monk, defrocked, grabbing fragmentary knowledge. And everyone seemed to initially understand that he was no king and deceived him, using ignorance.
In reality, Dmitry surprised many of his contemporaries with his erudition: he often quoted the Bible to the point. I read it myself and in every possible way introduced people close to it. He turned the Boyar Duma into the Senate and actively participated in its meetings. The imaginary Dmitry even dreamed of universal education - at the beginning of the 17th century. Even on the way to Moscow, he said: “As soon as with God's help I become a king, now I will run schools so that all over the country they can learn to read and write; I will establish a university in Moscow, I will start sending Russians to foreign lands, and I will invite smart and knowledgeable foreigners to my place."
Cowardly
Usually False Dmitry is considered an adventurer and, although he is reckless (after all, he encroached on the kingdom), he is cowardly.
The facts indicate not only that the impostor sacredly believed his identity with the son of Ivan the Terrible, but also that he was a brave man. The first of the kings, he did not climb on a horse, first getting up on a substituted bench, but daringly jumped on it. He actively participated in the royal hunt. Himself hunted the most dangerous animals, even bears. Dreaming to deal with the enemy, disturbing the constant raids of the southern lands, with the Crimean Khanate, he was actively preparing for war. Apparently, Dimitri himself was going to lead the campaign. As he prepared, he arranged reviews of the troops, which at the same time became both teaching and entertainment.
Effeminate and lazy
False Dmitry loved balls, loved fun and dancing - it's true. But it is wrong to imagine that he, having achieved reign, indulged in debauchery and bliss. The new tsar not only fulfilled his duties: he, unlike his predecessors, for example, walked around the city after dinner and talked with merchants and townspeople. A hundred years before Peter I, False Dmitry won the hearts of artisans by the fact that he worked with them on an equal footing, and when he was pushed or even knocked down, he did not get angry and kept himself simple.
I wanted to give the country to the Poles
The next persistent myth is that False Dmitry is a traitor, a defector, and it was he who brought the Poles to Russia and thus began the cruel Time of Troubles.
Indeed, staying in Poland and preparing only for a campaign against Moscow, he promised the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Sigismund III to "return" the Seversk land and Smolensk. And he allegedly wanted to write off Novgorod and Pskov to his future wife. But, having become king, he began to behave independently of Sigismund, demanded that he call him the invincible Caesar. As for the lands, the tsar directly announced to the Polish ambassador: their transfer to the king is impossible.
Relations between Sigismund and False Dmitry after the accession of the latter became strained, if not hostile. At a time when the boyars, headed by Vasily Shuisky, were preparing a conspiracy against the tsar, in Krakow they thought about overthrowing the unwanted Sigismund and placing the young Russian sovereign on his throne.
Encroached on the Orthodox faith
And also - they say - False Dmitry hated the Orthodox faith and wanted to make Catholicism the state religion. And he himself was an apostate.
Dmitry, indeed, was baptized in Poland - he converted to Catholicism. Indeed, he did not have good feelings for the monks, taking away from the monasteries all their wealth, which they had so long and so stubbornly defended against non-possessors a century earlier. He considered monks to be idlers.
However, there was no question of changing the state religion. The answers of False Dmitry to the Pope of Rome, who reminded the Moscow sovereign of the promise made a year earlier, were vague. He did not refuse directly, but said that he would not build Catholic churches to the detriment of the Orthodox. He ignored the Pope's complaints about the abundance of Protestants in Muscovy.
Indifferent to religion, the tsar obviously understood that Orthodoxy was one of the pillars of Russian society, and it was dangerous to encroach on it. And at the same time, he was modernly tolerant of other faiths.
He is Grigory Otrepiev
Finally, the last well-established, well-established rumor that the fugitive monk of the aristocratic Chudov Monastery Grigory (in the world Yuri) Otrepiev appeared to be Tsar Dmitry. Of all the others, this hypothesis seems to be the most plausible, but it also has serious shortcomings that do not allow us to identify Tsar Dimitri with Grishka, who was anathematized even under Boris Godunov.
First, False Dmitry himself, in order to dispel doubts, showed the people the true Grigory Otrepiev. When he was no longer needed, he was exiled to Yaroslavl for drunkenness. Since Otrepiev was not a simple monk, but a clerk of the Chudov Monastery, the secretary of the patriarch, he could be easily distinguished from his double. And the deception would inevitably be exposed in Moscow or another city.
Secondly, he spoke Polish too well, rode horses, shot, danced, to be a monk, obedient from his youth.
Thus, the identification of Grishka Otrepiev and False Dmitry is most likely false.