Everything about Vasili Shuisky totally explained
Vasili IV of Russia (
Russian:
Василий IV Иванович Шуйский) (
September 22 1552 –
September 12,
1612) was Tsar of Russia between
1606 and
1610 after the murder of false Dmitrii I. His reign fell during the
Time of Troubles.
Born
Prince Vasily Ivanovich
Shuisky and descended from sovereign princes of
Nizhny Novgorod, he was one of the leading
boyars of
Tsardom of Russia during the reigns of
Feodor I and
Boris Godunov. In all the court intrigues of the
Time of Troubles, Vasily and his younger brother
Dmitry Shuisky usually acted together and fought as one.
It was he who, in obedience to the secret orders of Tsar Boris, went to
Uglich to inquire into the cause of the death of the
Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich, the infant son of
Ivan the Terrible, who had perished there in mysterious circumstances. Shuisky reported that it was a case of
suicide, though rumors abounded that the Tsarevich had been assassinated on the orders of the regent
Boris Godunov. Some suspected that Dmitry escaped the assassination and that another boy was killed in his place, providing impetus for the repeated appearance of
impostors (See
False Dmitry I,
False Dmitry II, and
False Dmitry III). On the death of
Boris, who had become tsar, and the accession of his son
Feodor II, Shuisky went back upon his own words in order to gain favour with the pretender
False Dmitriy I, who was attempting to gain the throne by impersonating the dead Tsarevich. Shuisky recognized the pretender as the "real" Dmitry despite having earlier determined the boy had committed suicide, thus bringing about the assassination of the young Feodor.
Shuisky then plotted against the false Dmitriy and procured his death (May 1606), in addition to confessing publicly that the real Dmitriy had been indeed slain and that the reigning tsar was an
impostor. Shuisky's adherents thereupon proclaimed him
tsar on
May 19,
1606. He reigned till
July 19,
1610, but he was never generally recognized. Even in
Moscow itself he'd little or no authority, and he only avoided deposition by the dominant boyars because they'd no-one to put in his place.
Only the popularity of his heroic cousin, Prince
Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky, who led his armies, and soldiers from
Sweden, whose assistance he purchased by the cession of Russian territory, kept him for a time on his unstable throne. In 1610 he was deposed by his former adherents Princes
Vorotynsky and
Mstislavsky, made a monk, and finally transported to
Warsaw by the Polish
hetman Stanislaus Zolkiewski . He died as a prisoner in the castle of
Gostynin, near
Warsaw, in
1612.
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