Sovereign Feodor Ioannovich was called "Blessed" in Russia. It seemed that he did not yearn for power and retired from ruling the country.
The last of a kind
On March 19, 1584, the third son of Ivan the Terrible came to the throne. According to most historians, Fyodor Ioannovich, due to his mental abilities and poor health, was not ready to solve the pressing problems of the country. With his appearance and deeds, the tsar seemed to personify the "dying convulsions" of the oldest Moscow dynasty, Ivan Kalita. According to Klyuchevsky, the Kalitino tribe "suffered from an excess of care for the earthly"; Fyodor Ioannovich, on the contrary, "avoided worldly vanity and dokuka, thinking about heavenly things." Hence his detachment and the constant wandering smile, which many attributed to dementia; hence the earnest daily prayers. At the first stages, the tsar will be "helped" by a council of nobles, but from 1587 Boris Godunov will become the de facto ruler of the country. A similar state of affairs will suit both the reigning and the ruling.
Mysterious smile
According to the descriptions of many contemporaries, a strange smile never left the king's face. Fyodor Ioannovich used to get bored during ambassadorial receptions and "admire his scepter and orb." But was that smile a manifestation of the weakness of his mind? Perhaps it was a mask behind which it was convenient for the king to hide and strike when it was least expected. There is a version that the tsar "acquired" an unchanging smile in early childhood. Growing up in the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, Tsarevich Fyodor watched the horrors of the oprichnina and his fierce father from day to day. With his sad, ingratiating smile, Fyodor begged for mercy and self-pity, "defended himself from the capricious fatherly anger." "Automatic grimace" eventually became a habit with which the king came to the throne.
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Ponomary
Contemporaries paid attention to the fact that the tsar found pleasure in spiritual life, "he often ran through churches to ring the bells and listen to mass." He was more suited, as Karamzin later noted, a cell or a cave than a throne. Yes, and Ivan Vasilyevich himself often scolded the offspring, saying that he looked more like the son of the Ponomarsk than the tsar. In the course of time, Tsar Fyodor's "monarchy" undoubtedly acquired a considerable share of exaggeration and caricaturism. However, his "monasticism" was closely intertwined with the kingdom, "one served as an ornament to the other." Fyodor Ioannovich was called "the consecrated king" - holiness and a heavenly crown were destined for him from above. In Ivan Timofeev's "Vestnik" Fyodor Ioannovich is shown as a prayer book for the Russian land, destined to atone for the sins of the Russian people.
Foolishness for Christ's sake
The image of the devoid of reason, which the Tsar was sometimes "awarded" by foreign subjects, was, as is known, one of the most revered in Russia. The holy fools, God's people, were a worldly conscience, they were allowed what was inaccessible to the rest: boldly, without looking back, speak "inappropriate speeches", despise generally accepted norms and decency, scold anyone. The holy fool often became a model of renunciation of earthly goods and dirty thoughts. Everything was forgiven them, and boundless love and reverence for mere mortals were guaranteed. The tsar did not try to destroy the created image; on the contrary, he diligently “played along”. It is hardly possible to come up with a more comfortable position, and if something happens you can always say: what to take from him, from the holy fool ?!
Apple from apple tree
The king, it seemed, did not in any way resemble his formidable parent: an innocent face, a quiet, almost obsequious voice. He looked with outward indifference at the hot battle that flared up under the walls of Moscow, and expected: who will emerge victorious from it - Boris Godunov or the Crimean Khan Kazy-Girey? And on the occasion of the victory, he ordered the construction of the Donskoy Monastery on the site of the battle. The "inactive" tsar meanwhile "made friends" with the Persian shah Abbas and took the oath of oath from the Georgian tsar Alexander, who let him down during his campaign in Dagestan, laid the foundation of stone Smolensk and the White City. During his reign, the construction of Arkhangelsk began, and Siberia received the capital - the new city of Tobolsk. It is believed that Godunov forced Godunov to "sit on a war horse" in the war with the Swedes.helped to cope with the stubbornness of the noble princes who headed the Russian regiments. Could the "madman" inspire to victories and win, albeit partial, but revenge - to return Koporye, Yam, Ivangorod and Korela? The son was unable to defeat his father's passion for bloody "fun": he could watch fistfights for hours or watch the fights of hunters with bears, often ending tragically for two-legged "gladiators".
Welcome
While the peasants briefly got the opportunity to change the owner on St. George's Day, and the country - the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, St. Job, the British in 1587 were granted the right to universal trade without paying taxes and duties, which was a continuation of the policy begun by Ivan the Terrible. Interestingly, the Russians "turned down" Queen Elizabeth's "wish" to grant London merchants a monopoly. Certain rules were established: not to bring other people's goods, to trade only personally and sell goods only in bulk, not to send your people by dry route to England without the knowledge of the Tsar, and in litigation with the Russians “to depend on the Tsar's treasurers and Diak Posolsky”. As a result of the introduction of duty-free trade, the Russian treasury lost a significant annual "infusion".
Last help
On January 17, 1598, the blessed king died quietly, "as if asleep." In recent years, the still not old forty-year-old tsar, allegedly, gradually began to lose his hearing and sight. Before his death, he wrote a spiritual letter, in which he transferred the state into the hands of his wife Irina, appointing patriarch Job and his brother-in-law Boris Godunov as advisers to the throne. The life of the king, which was written by Job, conveys a sincere atmosphere of universal grief over the departed ruler. During the reign of Fyodor Ioannovich, the country received a small respite between the violence of the Terrible and the new turmoil. There is a version that Boris Godunov became an “assistant” in the tsar's last “case”: much later, arsenic was found in the bones of Fyodor Ioannovich, with which, quite likely, he could be methodically poisoned. Carried away by their own concerns, the boyars did not bother to correct the annoying mistake made:on the sarcophagus of the king, instead of "pious", the master carved "glorious".