Grigory Otrepyev
Tsar Ivan IV of Russia – more commonly known as Ivan the Terrible – ruled over Russia from 1533 to 1584. When he died, the throne was passed onto Fyodor I. He should have just held it until Ivan’s son, Dmitry, was old enough to take power. However, in 1591, Dmitry died in mysterious circumstances. So, when Fyodor’s brother-in-law, Boris Gudunov, came to power in 1594, a number of men came forward claiming to be Dmitry, the rightful heir to the throne. All of them tapped into the common belief that Ivan’s son didn’t actually died. And none was more successful than Grigory Otrepyev. Indeed, he was so successful that he did in fact claim the throne and rule Russia for almost a year.
The lack of a clear successor to Ivan the Terrible ushered in what historians of Russia call the ‘Time of Troubles.’ It was into such an atmosphere of political intrigue and uncertainty that the story of ‘the ‘False Dmitry’ began. Otrepyev was born in Russia but was forced to move to Poland as a young boy after the Patriarch of Moscow grew suspicious – and jealous – of his intelligence and obvious charisma. In Poland, he first worked as a teacher and then was employed by the rich Wisniowieckis family. It was here where he started to put forward his story: The Polish aristocrats learned that the man living with them was in fact Tsar Ivan the Terrible’s son, who had been smuggled out of Russia by his mother in order to save his life.
Before long, the tall tale was being believed by many. Some Polish nobles who had known Ivan the Terrible confirmed that the young man did indeed look like the great Tsar. What’s more, his regal demeanor and obvious intelligence and fine education added weight to the claims. Even if the young man claiming to be Dmitry was seen as a fraud, several powerful Poles moved to back him anyway. More specifically, they agreed to support his claim to the Russian throne in return for political favors further down the line. Within a few months, the pretender had a force of some 3,500 men under his command and, in the spring of 1605, he was ready to begin his march on Moscow.
Luckily for Otrepyev, the man sitting on the throne, Boris Gudunov, was far from popular. His many enemies joined the prospective usurper’s men as they marched towards Moscow. After two bloody battles, Gudonov ended up dying of natural causes. Dmitry was crowned Tsar of Russia in June of 1605. He immediately got to work trying to reform Russia. However, his close ties with Poland – he had his debts to repay, remember – soon led to rumors that the new Tsar wanted to impose Roman Catholicism onto Russia. His enemies used this against him and, in May 1606, they stormed the Kremlin. Tsar Dmitry was killed and his supporters massacred.
Interestingly, that was not the end of the ‘False Dmitry’ story. Soon afterwards, two more claimants came forward. They are known to historians as, quite simply, False Dmitry II and False Dmitry III. Only the passing of time made it impossible for men to claim that they were the long lost son of Ivan the Terrible.