Today every schoolchild knows that there was such a folk hero Ivan Susanin, who led an enemy Polish detachment into the forest, where he disappeared. But there is much that is not clear in this story. How everything really happened, perhaps, no one knows …
No documents left
The classical version of this event, perhaps, first appeared in 1820 in Konstantinov's textbook. He described this event like this. Polish interventionists set out on a campaign to destroy the young Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. The peasant Ivan Susanin volunteered to take them by the shortest route and specially led them into the thicket. When the Poles realized that they were deceived, they killed the peasant. Further, this story migrated to Kaidanov's textbook (1834) and Bantysh-Kamensky's Dictionary of Memorable People of Russia. And the fact that Susanin hid the young tsar in a pit was first written by Prince Kozlovsky in his book "A Look at the History of Kostroma". And for this feat, the tsar allegedly later ordered that Susanin's body be transported to the Ipatiev Monastery in order to bury him with honor.
The only thing is that such an event as the salvation of the tsar by a simple peasant should have survived not only in human memory, but also in chronicles and chronicles. However, there is no information about any attempt on the life of the king in the period described, either in official papers or in private memoirs!
There is a famous speech by Metropolitan Filaret, where he lists in great detail all the troubles and devastations caused to Russia by the Polish-Lithuanian invaders. So, there is not a word in it about an attempt to capture the king in Kostroma. The name of Susanin is not mentioned in it either!
In the "Order to the Ambassadors", sent to Germany in 1613, all the godless acts of the Poles in Russia are listed in great detail, but there is nothing about Susanin and his feat! Further, in 1614, Fyodor Zhelyabuzhsky was sent to the Rzeczpospolita with the aim of concluding peace. But he, listing all the troubles caused by the Poles to Russia, did not mention the attempt on the Tsar. Well, there is not a single line about the burial of Susanin in the Ipatiev Monastery in the monastery chronicles themselves.
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Royal favor
All this raises doubts: was there a feat? In addition, it has been irrefutably established that in 1613 there were no "damn Poles" near Kostroma at all, and that year Tsar Mikhail was outside the walls of the very fortified Ipatiev Monastery. So where did this legend go for a walk and then universally established itself in literature and popular rumor?
The only source where the name of Susanin is mentioned is the letter of Tsar Mikhail from 1619. At the request of his mother, Marfa Ivanovna, he gave her over to a peasant in the Kostroma district, the village of Domnino, Bogdashka Sobinin. It says: “How we, the Great Tsar, Tsar and Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich of All Russia, were in Kostroma last year, and in those years Polish and Lithuanian people came to the Kostroma district, and his father-in-law Bogdashkov, Ivan Susanin, Lithuanian people seized, and they tortured him with great unmeasured tortures, and tortured him, where at that time we, the great sovereign, the tsar and the grand duke Mikhail Fedorovich of all Russia were, and he, Ivan, knowing about us, the great sovereign, where we were at that time were, suffering from those Polish and Lithuanian people immeasurable torture, about us, the great sovereign, to those Polish and Lithuanian people where we were at that time, did not say,and the Polish and Lithuanian people tortured him to death."
The royal mercy consisted in the fact that this very Bogdashka and his wife - Susanin's daughter Antonida - were granted the eternal possession of the village of Korobovo, and it was freed from all taxes, serfdom and military duties for ever.
In 1633, the archimandrite of the Novospassky monastery canceled this privilege, but Antonida, who had been widowed by that time, complained to the tsar, and he gave her a new "certificate of merit", but it also spoke of Susanin's feat in the same words: that is, Ivan was asked, but he was nothing did not tell the villains. And the tsar, it seems, knew nothing about the fact that they attempted to kill him, and that Susanin had taken the "thieves" into the woods.
The victim of the robbers
It should be noted that in these tsarist letters it was written that the tsar was "on Kostroma", that is, surrounded by a large army. Therefore, even if Susanin had told the "thieves" about this, the tsar would not have been, as they say, neither hot nor cold from this confession! Question: why then was Susanin tortured? Why only him alone? So it turns out that a man named Ivan Susanin existed, but had nothing to do with the tsar. And, apparently, they tortured him to find out something more prosaic. For example, find out where money or other valuables are hidden.
Chronicles have been preserved, for example, the notes of the archpriest of that very village Domnino, the place of the sacrificial feat of Ivan Susanin, that: “… death is beaten. " Most likely, Ivan Susanin became such a victim of the robbers. After all, the fact that he was tortured about the king became known from one single source - from Bogdashka Sobinin! In those years, the tsar issued many letters with the wording: "In consideration of the devastation suffered during the Time of Troubles." Here Bogdashka presented such a story … It is necessary to take into account that in those years the evasion of "tax", that is, all kinds of taxes, became almost a "national sport". Chroniclers left numerous memories of this. Let's add more,that in 1837 Nicholas I confirmed this privilege to the descendants of Bogdashka. But by that time, the version of Susanin's feat had already firmly established itself in school textbooks …
Real heroes
Note, however, that our famous historian * S. M. Soloviev believed that Susanin was tortured "not by the Poles or Lithuanians, but by the Cossacks or, in general, by their Russian robbers." He also pointed out that there were no regular interventionist troops near Kostroma at that time. N. I. wrote about this no less decisively. Kostomarov: “In the history of Susanin, it is only known for certain that this peasant was one of the countless victims who died from robbers who roamed Russia in the Time of Troubles. Whether he really died because he did not want to say where the newly elected Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich was, remains in doubt …”.
Since 1862, when this extensive work of Kostomarov was written, dedicated to the imaginary feat of Susanin, these doubts turned into confidence, for no new documents confirming the legend were found.
However, a certain prototype of Susanin existed! In 1648, the peasant Mikita Galagen volunteered to safely and take a short road to escort the retreating units of the troops of Pototsky and Kalinovsky, led them into the thickets, thus holding them until the troops of Bohdan Khmelnitsky arrived, for which he paid with his life.
And as often happens, everyone knows the imaginary hero of that war, the "savior of the tsar" Susanin, but no one has even heard of the real fighters against the Polish-Lithuanian invaders - Procopius and Zakhar Lyapunov, Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky …
Vlad MARLOV. Secrets of the 20th century magazine