Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky (born November 8 (18), 1586 - death April 23 (May 3) 1610) Prince-voivode, statesman and military leader of the Time of Troubles, called in history "Russian Hector", who broke the blockade ring Tushins around Moscow. Participant in the suppression of the uprising of I. I. Bolotnikov. He was a contender for the royal throne, according to some sources he was poisoned at a feast. He was very popular in Moscow.
Origin. early years
There is little information about Mikhail's early years. Descended from a noble family of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod princes. He was the son of a prominent military and administrative figure of the time of Ivan the Terrible, boyar Prince Vasily Fedorovich Skopin-Shuisky and Princess Elena Petrovna. Having lost his father early, Mikhail began to be patronized by his fourth uncle, the future Tsar Vasily Shuisky.
He was educated at home and was enrolled in the court service. He began his royal service as a steward. The impostor Dmitry 1 who came to power (he is also False Dmitry 1, "thief Grishka", Grigory Otrepiev) brought a young man from a noble family closer to him, gave him the rank of boyar and the honorary title of "great swordsman". Mikhail did not take part in the boyar conspiracy against False Dmitry 1.
The uprising of Ivan Bolotnikov
The nephew of Tsar Vasily Shuisky became voivode when the Peasant War began, which is also known as the Bolotnikov uprising. He received his baptism of fire on September 23, 1606, when the troops of the tsar's brothers, princes Dmitry and Ivan Shuisky, fought with the rebels near Kaluga. That battle could not stop Bolotnikov, who was going to Moscow, where the tsarist army retreated.
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When the insurgents approached Moscow, Prince Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky was appointed governor "on a sortie". At the head of the local noble cavalry, from the Danilov Monastery, he dealt a strong blow to the rebels near the village of Kotly and forced them to retreat.
Then there was a battle near the village of Kolomenskoye, where the rebels built the "Kolomensky prison". Boyarin Skopin-Shuisky ordered to set it on fire with hot cannonballs: the rebels fled from the burning fortification right under the sabers of the noble cavalry. The insurgent peasants and slaves were not spared in that battle. The defeated rebel army partly retreated to Tula, hiding behind its walls, and partly to Kaluga.
Near Kaluga, in which Ivan Bolotnikov himself took refuge, the tsarist "special regiment", that is, an entire army, was sent. One of its governors was Prince Skopin-Shuisky, who commanded the detachment (artillery). But Bolotnikov was able to "outplay" the tsarist governors, and with a strong sortie on their siege camp, he put the enemy to flight. The tsar's army did not suffer a complete defeat only because its retreat was covered by the warriors of the prince-governor Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky and the Cossacks of the ataman Istoma Pavlov.
Realizing the danger of the current situation, the sovereign appointed his nephew, who was only 21 years old, as the commander of the Great Regiment. So, Mikhail became the de facto commander-in-chief of the tsarist army, which advanced to Tula. 1607, June 12 - her siege began. Siege work was in progress. The tsarist army went to attack 22 times during the month.
The fortress city was taken only when, at the suggestion of the "Murom petty nobleman Ivan Krovkov," a dam was built on the Upa River. The work was supervised by Prince Skopin-Shuisky himself. The city was flooded with water. October 10 Ivan Bolotnikov appeared in the camp of the tsarist troops and "surrendered his head." He was chained "in iron" and sent to the north, to Kargopol, where they gouged out his eyes and drowned him.
1) Vasily IV Ivanovich Shuisky; 2) False Dmitry 2; 3) Jacob De la Gardie.
False Dmitry 2. Battles with the Commonwealth
When the “second impostor” appeared on the scene of the Time of Troubles - False Dmitry 2 (aka Bogdanka), Skopin-Shuisky found himself in Moscow, besieged by the Tushino people (the village of Tushino near Moscow is the “imperial” rate of the impostor). He was one of those voivods who were involved in the defense of the capital.
Sovereign Vasily Shuisky sent him to Novgorod to negotiate with the Swedes about military assistance (such assistance was offered by King Charles IX against the Poles three years ago) and to collect the Zemstvo troops in the Russian North.
Having established ties with the zemstvo authorities from Perm to the Solovetsky Monastery, Mikhail was able to collect up to 5 thousand Russian soldiers from serving nobles, townspeople, peasants liable for military service, archers. Even "free Cossacks" ordered by Dmitry Sharov, who had previously fought in the army of Ivan Bolotnikov, came to his service.
The Union Treaty of Vyborg with Sweden was signed on February 28, 1609. Foreign military aid cost Shuisky a "big treasury" and a concession to the "Sveisk" king of the town of Korela and the county.
King Charles IX of Sweden sent to Muscovy not regiments of natural "svei" (as the tsar had hoped for), but his foreign mercenaries, among whom the Swedes and Finns were not the largest. The number of mercenaries (Germans, French, Scots, British and others), according to some sources, was 7,000, according to others - even 15,000. They were commanded by the Swedish Count Jacob De la Gardie.
The siege of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Artist V. Vereshchagin.
1609, May - Skopin-Shuisky's militia, together with the Swedish mercenary army, set out from Novgorod to the capital. Having occupied the city of Staraya Russa on the way, the Russian-Swedish army on June 17 near Torzhok in a stubborn battle was able to defeat large detachments of the Poles of Pan Zborovsky and the Cossacks of Kerzonitsky. The Tushin people fled, throwing their "burdens".
From Torzhok, a campaign began to liberate Tver. On July 11, in the pouring rain, the allied troops attacked on the outskirts of the city Polish detachments of Zborovsky and Shakhovsky's Tushinites. On the first day of the battle, taking advantage of the fact that the Russian and Swedish mercenaries were acting separately, the Poles overturned the cavalry of Count De la Gardie. The allies withdrew across the Volga.
Prince Skopin-Shuisky, regrouping his forces, on July 13, under cover of night, struck an unexpected blow at the enemy. The fierce battle ended with the Tushins fled, and the victors occupied the fortress walls of Tver, with the exception of the Kremlin.
From Tver, the prince intended to start a campaign against the headquarters of False Dmitry 2 - Tushino. However, the mercenaries of De la Gardie rebelled here, demanding a salary. Having received no money, they left for Novgorod. In the army of Skopin-Shuisky, the thousandth detachment remained under the command of Christier Zomme.
Mikhail happened to withdraw his army along the left bank of the Volga to Kalyazin. A marching camp was set up near the walls of the local monastery, where detachments of militia began to flock from different places. The camp had a triangular shape, being covered by the Volga, the Zhbana river with swampy banks and a rampart with a prison on the side of the field.
In the Kalyazinsky town, the militia was replenished with detachments of warriors from Yaroslavl, Kostroma, other cities beyond the Volga, Nizhny Novgorod. The army of the noble warlord Baklanovsky came from neighboring Kashin, and the troops of the leader of the Siberian archers Davyd Zherebtsov approached from below along the Volga. From Moscow, a detachment of the governor Valuev broke through to Kalyazin.
The enemy - the troops of Hetman Jan Pyotr Sapieha, Pan Zborovsky and Colonel Alexander Lisovsky - approached the Kalyazin camp on August 18. Lithuanian hussars famously attacked him from the side of the field, but were stopped by slingshots and fired from the rampart. The attacks of other detachments of the Tushino cavalry were also unsuccessful.
After the failure, Sapega at 2 am on August 19 sent his infantry across the Zhbanka River. Mikhail waited until the Tushins were in the meadow, and then attacked them with cavalry. After that, Russian horsemen broke into the Tushino camp in the village of Pirogovo and crushed it. The defeated hetman Sapega fled from Kalyazin.
The victory won opened the way for the prince's militia to the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda and the expulsion of the enemy from Pereyaslavl-Zalessky. Count De la Gardie returned to the prince-governor with most of his people. The conflict with the mercenaries was settled by the fact that their salaries were paid not in hard currency, but by the "Siberian treasury", that is, Siberian yasak furs.
Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky was very popular among the people. It is no coincidence that those sent from Prokopy Lyapunov (organizer and leader of the first zemstvo militia) came to him with an offer from the tsar's crown, which he rejected. This was also known in the capital.
The residents of Tushin were forced to lift a months-long siege from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, whose defenders were extremely courageous. Hetman Jan Sapega pulled his troops to the city of Dmitrov, but, unable to withstand the intensity of the fighting around it, on February 27, 1610, with the remnants of the army, he fled from the city to Smolensk, which was besieged by the army of King Sigismund III. Before that, the Poles riveted the guns that they had to abandon and set Dmitrov on fire. The Tushino camp disintegrated and became empty.
From Malyuta Skuratova Ekaterina gives a glass of poison to Skopin-Shuisky.
Return to Moscow
1610, March 12 - the capital met the militia of the prince-governor Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky under the bell ringing. He entered Moscow in the prime of his military talent, having an indisputable authority among the warriors. The people looked at the young prince as their "savior", "father of the fatherland." All this aroused strong envy towards him in his own relatives, and especially in his uncle Dimitri Ivanovich Shuisky, who was supposed to give him the main command over the Moscow army, equipped for Smolensk. Not without the knowledge, it seems, and the sovereign himself, it was decided to get rid of Skopin-Shuisky.
During the feast at the Vorotynskys, one of the bowls with honey was presented to the boyar by the wife of Dmitry Shuisky, Princess Catherine, daughter of Malyuta Skuratov. The voivode fell into a fatal illness right during the feast. “And there was a disease of his evil,” the chronicler notes, “the nose was bleeding incessantly.” Popular rumor directly pointed to the poisoners - Tsar Vasily Shuisky and his brothers.
He passed away on April 23rd after 2 weeks of suffering. The sovereign ordered to bury him in the Archangel Cathedral, but not next to the royal tombs, but in a special, new chapel. Almost all of his contemporaries talk about him as a great man and testify to his "mind, mature beyond his years", "strength of mind", "affability", "martial art and ability to deal with foreigners." The people of the prince-governor have preserved the best memory for a long time, which was expressed in several very common songs.
After the death of the popular voivode, unrest began in the capital. The people blamed Skuratova for his death. Crowds of people moved to the house of Prince Dmitry Shuisky and Catherine. However, a military unit that arrived in time was able to prevent the massacre.
Osprey trampling on the Polish-Lithuanian banners - monument to Skopin-Shuisky in Kalyazin.
After the death of Skopin-Shuisky
After the death of Mikhail, a black time came for the Shuisky families. 1610, April - the Russian troops were led by Dmitry Shuisky. However, he turned out to be a mediocre commander. 1610, June 24 - Russian-Swedish troops under the command of Dmitry and the Swedish commander Jacob Delagardie were utterly defeated by the Polish troops under the command of Hetman Zholkiewski in the Battle of Klushino.
Less than a month later, Vasily Shuisky was overthrown. The coup was led by the brother of Procopius Lyapunov Zakhary. Boyar rule began in the state. It went down in history as the Seven Boyars. 1610, August - the newly minted government signed a shameful agreement with the Poles for Muscovy, and the Polish lords entered Moscow.
The overthrown autocrat Vasily and his brothers were captured by the Poles and taken to Warsaw. The former tsar was imprisoned in the Gostynsky castle, where he died. And Procopius Lyapunov was hacked to death by a Cossack. His brother Zakhariy was sheltered by Ekaterina Shuiskaya. She hid it in the basement of her palace.
But Catherine herself was able to outlive her relatives for a short time. She soon died, and rumors spread throughout Moscow that she had been poisoned with the same poison with which she had poisoned her nephew. As for Zacharias, they found him strangled with a strap on one of the capital's streets.
When examining the jewelry that remained after the death of Ekaterina Shuiskaya, a gray powder was found in one of the boxes. He was thrown into the water and given to the dog to drink. He immediately began to bleed from his nose, and soon the poor animal died. So the version that it was Catherine who poisoned the relative looks quite plausible.