One of the most mysterious episodes in Russian history is associated with the name of Tsarevich Dmitry. Tsarevich Dmitry is the youngest son of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible - after the death of his father and accession to the throne of Fyodor Ioannovich, he was sent along with his mother, Grand Duchess Maria Naga, to his inheritance, the city of Uglich. The Tsarevich was only 7 years old at the time. And then one day at noon on May 15, 1591, Tsarevich Dmitry died in the courtyard of the prince's house, playing with his comrades in "knives".
Immediately, a commission of inquiry was appointed, headed by Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky (the future Tsar of Russia), which left for Uglich to investigate this mysterious case. But why is it considered now and was considered mysterious then? The fact is that there were different versions about the death of Tsarevich Dmitry. Some said that the prince died by accident, because he suffered from epilepsy (epilepsy, as this disease was then called), while playing, he had a seizure, and he fell right on the knife with which he was playing. Others argued that Tsarevich Dmitry was killed, stabbed to death on the orders of the Tsar and his main adviser Boris Godunov. All the relatives of Tsarevich Dmitry adhered to this version.
If this is really so, then how did Tsarevich Dmitry interfere with Boris Godunov? The fact is that after the death of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, the Russian throne was to be occupied by Tsarevich Dmitry, the next legal heir of Ivan the Terrible.
Until now, the mystery of the death of Tsarevich Dmitry remains insoluble. And everyone adheres to the version that seems more convincing to them, as A. S. did in his time. Pushkin. In his drama "Boris Godunov" he made Tsar Boris suffer from remorse for the crime he had committed. And for 13 years in a row, the tsar has been dreaming of a child killed by his order, and the holy fool throws terrible words in his face: "… Tell them to be stabbed, as you stabbed the little prince …"
Who was hiding under the name False Dmitry? This was the first, but not the last impostor in Russia, who, under the name of Tsarevich Dmitry, decided to take the royal throne. Rumors that Tsarevich Dmitry was alive appeared immediately after the death of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. During the reign of Boris Godunov, these rumors intensified, and by the end of his reign in 1604, everyone started talking about the supposedly living prince. They told each other that the wrong child was allegedly killed in Uglich, and the real Tsarevich Dmitry is now coming as an army from Lithuania to take the royal throne due to him by right.
In Russia it was announced that under the name of Dmitry is hiding the fugitive monk of the Chudov Monastery Grishka Otrepiev. Perhaps the Moscow authorities have named the first name they come across? But this is not the case. At first, this impostor was really considered an unknown thief and a troublemaker. But then his name was established. In fact, this was a poor and ordinary Galician nobleman Yuri Bogdanovich Otrepiev, who took monastic vows in one of the Russian monasteries and took the name Gregory as a monk.
It was known that before accepting monasticism, he visited Moscow and served as a slave for the Romanov boyars and Prince Cherkassky, knew literacy, knew how to write well and well. And already being a monk, he once served as a book writer for Patriarch Job, visited with him in the royal chambers, and he liked it here so much that after that he began to often talk: "Do you know that I will be king in Moscow?" People perceived the monk's revelations in different ways. Some listened seriously, others laughed and spat in the face of this new king.
But Grigory Otrepiev kept his word. He visited many monasteries, did not stay for a long time, and then, together with other fugitive monks Varlaam and Misail, fled to Lithuania. Here, as it were, by the way, he hinted that he was a royal family, and sometimes directly called himself Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible. These rumors reached the local nobles. Grigory Otrepiev was given an army, and he returned to Russia already as Tsarevich Dmitry.
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Many dissatisfied with Tsar Boris, and then with his heir, the new Tsar Fyodor Borisovich, supported the impostor, and he really became Tsar. Everyone who saw him was amazed: such a tsar had not yet been on the Russian throne. The young man is below average height, ugly, reddish, awkward, with a sad, pensive expression on his face. "The chest is wide, the hair is reddish, the eyes are blue without shine, the face is round, white and completely ugly, the gaze is dull, the nose is wide, there are wart under the right eye and on the forehead, and one arm is shorter than the other." Such a portrait was painted by those who managed to see him. But an unprepossessing appearance, he was by no means a stupid person, had a lively mind, knew how to speak well, and in the Boyar Duma easily resolved the most difficult issues. But Grigory Otrepiev did not have to reign for a long time. Less than a year after he took the royal throne,as conspirators, headed by Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky, the one who was investigating the death of the real Tsarevich Dmitry, deprived him of power and killed him.