Fyodor I Ioannovich (or Fyodor the Blessed) - (born on May 31, 1557 - death on January 7 (17), 1598) - Tsar of All Russia and Grand Duke of Moscow (1584 - elected to the kingdom by the Moscow Zemsky Sobor). From the clan of Moscow Grand Dukes, the son of Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible and Tsarina Anastasia Romanovna Yuryeva-Zakharova. The last of the Rurik family. 1584 - 1598 years of the reign of Fyodor Ioannovich. He was a candidate for the Polish throne in 1573, 1576 and 1577. He married Irina Fedorovna Godunova in 1580.
Early years. Characteristic
The future tsar was born in 1557 in the Sobilka tract, Pereslavl-Zalessky. At the age of three, he lost his mother, his childhood and adolescence fell on the darkest years of Ivan the Terrible's oprichnina. Soreness and features of degeneration were generally characteristic of the offspring of Vasily III. Katyrev-Rostovsky wrote that Fyodor was "good-natured from his mother's womb," and the bloody horrors and wild amusements of the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, no doubt, could disfigure the psyche of a healthy child.
None of the chroniclers and memoirists cites facts of obvious insanity and inappropriate behavior of the prince, although many of the foreigners reported his dementia as something generally known. Even in his throne speech, the Swedish king Johan said that the Russian tsar was half-witted and that "the Russians call him durak in their own language." The Roman envoy Possevino called the tsar "almost an idiot", the English ambassador Fletcher - "simple and feeble-minded", and the Polish ambassador Sapega reported to his monarch: “He has little reason, or, as others say and as I myself have noticed, does not. When he sat on the throne in all the royal decorations during my performance, then, looking at the scepter and the orb, he was laughing."
Possible causes of dementia
Perhaps the prince suffered from some form of autism, but, most likely, his personality simply did not receive development - it could be a kind of psychic self-defense against his father's despotism and the nightmares of the surrounding reality. Before Fyodor's eyes there was an example of an older brother: an active and strong-willed Ivan Ivanovich had to take part in the bloody games of his parent, sometimes he dared to contradict him - and we know what this firmness of character brought to. It was safer to give up character altogether.
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Appearance description
The prince was slow in his movements and speeches, there was nothing royal in his appearance and behavior. “The present tsar, in relation to his appearance, small stature, is squat and stout, with a weak constitution and inclined to the water,” Fletcher said. - His nose is hawkish, his step is unsteady from some relaxation in the limbs; he is heavy and inactive, but he constantly smiles, so he almost laughs."
The feeble body could not bear the weight of the royal royal vestments; for a disproportionately small head was the cap of Monomakh. During the coronation, Fyodor Ioannovich was forced, without waiting for the end of the long ceremony, to take off the crown and hand it over to the first boyar, Prince Mstislavsky, and thrust the golden state (the tsar's "apple") to Godunov, which, of course, was a shock for the superstitious public and was perceived by her as a symbolic rejection of real power.
Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich puts a gold chain on Boris Godunov.
Religiosity
From an early age, Fyodor Ioannovich found comfort and refuge only in religion. He was distinguished by deep and devout piety, he could stand for hours at church services, prayed for a long time, loved to ring the bells himself and showed interest only in spiritual conversations (proof that he was not an idiot after all). This excessive piousness irritated Ivan Vasilyevich, who called the young man "the Ponomar's son."
The board of Fyodor Ioannovich
During the reign of Fyodor Ioannovich, Moscow was decorated with new buildings. Kitay-Gorod has been updated. In 1586-1593, a still powerful defensive line - the White City - was built of brick and white stone in the capital.
I also remember the reign of Fyodor Ioannovich, the institution of the Moscow Patriarchate. After the baptism of Rus, the metropolitan was the main representative of the church in the state. It was appointed by the Byzantine Empire, which was considered the center of Orthodoxy. But in 1453 the Muslim Turks captured Constantinople and this state was destroyed. Since that time, disputes about the need to create its own patriarchy have continued in Moscow.
In the end, this issue was discussed between Boris Godunov and the tsar. Briefly and vividly, the adviser described to the sovereign the benefits of the emergence of his own patriarchy. He was also offered a candidate for a new rank. It was Metropolitan Job of Moscow, who was a faithful companion of Godunov for many years.
During the reign of Fyodor the Blessed, it was possible, not without profit, to end the Livonian War (by the way, the sovereign himself took part in the campaign) and to win back everything that was lost; to gain a foothold in Western Siberia and the Caucasus. Large-scale construction of cities (Samara, Saratov, Tsaritsyn, Ufa, Kursk, Belgorod, Yelets, etc.) and fortifications in Astrakhan and Smolensk was launched.
However, during his reign, the situation of the peasants changed dramatically for the worse. Around 1592 the peasants were deprived of the right to pass from one master to another (St. George's Day), and in 1597 the Tsar's decree was issued on a 5-year search for fugitive serfs. A decree was also issued, according to which it was forbidden for enslaved people to ransom themselves free.
Reconstruction of the appearance of Fyodor Ioannovich (M. Gerasimov).
Everyday life
Having become the sovereign and having got rid of his father's oppression, Fyodor I began to live as he liked.
The autocrat got up before dawn to pray to the saints who were commemorated that day. Then he sent to the queen to ask if she slept well. After some time, he himself appeared to her, and they went with her to stand Matins. Then he talked with the courtiers, whom he especially favored. By nine o'clock it was time for Mass, which lasted no less than two hours, and there it was already time for dinner, after which the tsar slept for a long time. After - if not fasting - it was time for entertainment. Having awakened far after noon, the sovereign slowly steamed in the bath or amused himself with the spectacle of a fist fight, which at that time was considered a fierce joy. After the vanity, one had to pray, and the emperor defended Vespers. Then he retired with the queen - until a leisurely dinner, at which he had fun with clownish performances and bear-baiting.
Every week the royal couple set off on tireless pilgrimages to nearby monasteries. Well, those who along the way tried to approach state affairs, the "autocrat" sent to the boyars (later - to Godunov alone).
Manifestation of character
But for all his lack of will, for all his gentleness and complaisance, the tsar at times showed intransigence, which led to serious state consequences. These bouts of stubbornness manifested themselves when someone tried to encroach on the private life of the sovereign, more precisely, on his relationship with his wife, whom Fedor loved very much.
Ivan the Terrible believed that he could arrange the matrimonial fate of children at his discretion. On a whim, he bred the eldest son twice, and he was forced to obey. But when Ivan IV decided to separate the seemingly weak-willed Fedor from Irina, who could not give offspring in any way, he faced staunch resistance - and he had to give up. The only harsh act of the monarch during his reign was disgrace, which he brought down on the boyars and the metropolitan, when they also tried to divorce the king from his wife.
Irina Fedorovna Godunova. Sculptural reconstruction of the skull (S. Nikitin).
Irina Fedorovna. The role of the Godunovs
Irina Fedorovna Godunova, Boris's sister, did not strive for power - on the contrary, she tried in every possible way to distance herself from her - but at the same time she had a chance to play an important role in Russian history. She was 5 or 6 years younger than Boris and was the same age as Fedor. Like her brother, she grew up at the court, in the care of her uncle Dmitry Ivanovich Godunov, who at the time of the greatest favor, in 1580, attached his niece to the bride to the younger prince. The marriage, however, was of dubious benefit, because the sickly Fedor had absolutely no meaning at court. Rather, this marriage promised big trouble in the future. When he ascended the throne, the new tsar (and Ivan Ivanovich was supposed to be), as a rule, ruthlessly dealt with the closest relatives, and dementia would hardly have saved his brother - just as it did not save the equally harmless Vladimir Staritsky.
But fate decreed that Irina became a queen - and not "terem", that is, doomed to be locked up, but the real one. Because Fyodor was unrepresentative and behaved strangely at official ceremonies or completely avoided them, Irina was forced to sit in the Boyar Duma and receive foreign ambassadors, and in 1589, during an unprecedented event, the visit of the Patriarch of Constantinople, she even addressed to the distinguished guest with a welcoming speech - this has not happened in Moscow since the time of Elena Glinskaya and will not be repeated for another century, right up to the ruler Sofia Alekseevna.
In the first, "non-royal" period of the reign, Boris Godunov kept up at the expense of friendship and kinship with the tsarina, who obeyed his advice in everything. At that time, the boyar could hardly have thought of taking the throne himself, and pinned hopes for the future with the regency under the heir, whose birth had been awaited for a long time and in vain.
The fact is that Fyodor Ioannovich was weak, but, as they said at the time, he was not “childless”. Irina was often pregnant, but the children were born dead. (A Soviet-era study of the queen's remains revealed a pathology in the pelvic structure that made childbearing difficult.)
1592 - Irina was still able to give birth to a living baby - however, a girl. In those days, the system of power did not provide for female autocracy, but there was hope for the salvation of the dynasty. For the little princess Theodosia, they immediately began to select a future groom, about which they started negotiations with the most authoritative court in Europe - the imperial court. The Vienna ambassador was asked to send some little prince to Moscow in order to teach him the Russian language and customs in advance. But the girl was born weak and died before she was one and a half years old.
Saint Job, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
Death of the king
At the end of 1597 Fyodor the Blessed fell seriously ill. He gradually lost his hearing and sight. Before his death, he wrote a spiritual letter, which indicated that the state should pass into the hands of Irina. The main advisers to the throne were two - Patriarch Job and the king's brother-in-law Boris Godunov.
1598, January 7 - at one in the afternoon, the emperor died, imperceptibly, as if asleep. Some of the sources claim that the monarch was poisoned by Boris Godunov, who wanted to take the throne himself. When examining the skeleton of the king, arsenic was found in his bones.
The fatal illness of the last tsar from the Moscow dynasty Rurikovich caused a commotion at the court. Everyone was not up to ceremonies - a fierce struggle for power began, because the tsar died almost alone. Before his death, he was not even tonsured into the schema. The opening of the sarcophagus showed that the tsar of all Russia was buried in some shabby caftan, with a simple, not at all tsar's, myrrh (vessel for myrrh) at the head. Fyodor carefully watched himself: nails, hair and beard are carefully trimmed. Judging by the remains, he was dumpy and strong, noticeably shorter than his father (about 160 cm), his face was very similar to him, the same Dinaric anthropological type.
With his death, the ruling dynasty of Rurikovich ceased to exist. In the popular mind, he left behind a good memory as a merciful and God-loving monarch.
After the death of her husband, Irina Feodorovna refused the offer of Patriarch Job to take the throne and went to the monastery.