Meanwhile still another pretender appeared, who called himself Feodor, son of the czar Feodor. He presented himself to the Don Cossacks, who brought him in chains to Dmitri, by whom he was promptly put to death. Soon afterwards Marina, wife of the first Dmitri, who had been released, with her father, by Shuiski, was brought into the camp of the pretender. And here an interesting bit of comedy was played. Marina, rather than go back to meet ridicule in Poland, was ready to become the wife of this vulgar impostor, though she saw at once that he was not the man he claimed to be.
She met him coldly at first, but at a second meeting she greeted him with a great show of tenderness before the whole army, being glad, it would appear, to regain her old position on any terms. The news that Marina had recognized the pretender brought over numbers to his side, and soon nearly all Russia had declared for him, the only cities holding out being Moscow, Novgorod, and Smolensk.
The false Dmitri had now reached the summit of his fortunes. A rapid decline followed. One of his generals, who laid siege to the monastery of the Trinity, near Moscow, was repulsed. His partisans were defeated in other quarters. Soon the whole aspect of the war changed. A new enemy to Russia came into the field, Sigismund, King of Poland, who laid siege to the strong city of Smolensk, while the army of the czar, which marched to its relief, suffered an annihilating defeat.
This result closed the reign of Shuiski. An insurrection broke out in Moscow, he was forced to become a monk, and in the end was delivered to Sigismund and died in prison. Thus was Dmitri avenged. The new condition of affairs proved as disastrous to the false Dmitri. His Poles deserted him, his power vanished, and he descended to the level of a mere Cossack robber. In December, 1610, murder ended his career.
Smolensk fell after a siege of eighteen months, but at the last moment a powder magazine exploded and set fire to the city, and Sigismund became master only of a heap of ruins. The Poles in Moscow, attacked by the Russians, took possession of the Kremlin, burned down most of the city, and massacred a hundred thousand of the people. Anarchy was rampant everywhere. New chiefs appeared in all quarters. Each town declared for itself. The Swedes took possession of Novgorod. A third Dmitri appeared, and dwelt in state for a while, but was soon taken and hanged. The whole great empire was in a state of frightful confusion, and seemed as if it was about to fall to pieces.
From this fate it was saved by one of the common people, a butcher of Nijni Novgorod, Kozma Minin by name. Brave, honest, patriotic, and sensible, this man aroused his fellow-citizens, who took up arms for the deliverance of their country. Other towns followed this example, an army was raised with Prince Pojarski at its head, and Minin, the patriotic butcher, seconded him in an administrative capacity, being hailed by the people as "the elect of the whole Russian empire."
Driving the Poles before him, Pojarski entered Moscow, and in October, 1612, became master of the Kremlin. The impostors all disappeared; Marina and her three-year-old son Ivan were captured, the child to be hanged and she to end her eventful life in prison; anarchy vanished, and peace returned to the realm.
The end came in 1613, when a national council was convened to choose a new czar. Pojarski refused the crown, and Michael Romanof, a boy of sixteen, scion of one of the noblest families of Russia, and allied to the Ruriks by the female line, was elected czar. His descendants still hold the throne.
CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION, MOSCOW, IN WHICH THE CZAR IS CROWNED.