The public retractations of the dowager czaritza obtained no more credit than the miracles imputed to her son. In a letter signed by her, and immediately published by Vasili, she declared that the impostor Grishka Otrepiev had threatened her with death to herself and all her family if she did not recognise him as her son. But who could believe in her sincerity after so many contradictory avowals and disavowals? Her declaration that she had been compelled by fear to yield to the threats of a man whose aversion to cruelty was notorious, suggested to everybody the idea that she acted at that moment under the coercion of threats and fear.
Civil war began. Prince Shakhovskoi had raised the inhabitants of Putivle, and in a few days assembled a great number of Cossacks and peasants, who routed the forces sent against them. The insurrection spread rapidly; but still the prince, twice miraculously saved, did not make his expected appearance. Instead of him there came from Poland a general with a commission bearing the imperial seal of Dmitri. This was an adventurer named Ivan Bolotnikov, originally a serf to Prince Teliatevski. He had been a prisoner among the Turks, and having escaped to Venice had probably acquired some military experience in the service of the republic. His commission was recognised at Putivle; he took the command of the insurgents, defeated Shuiski’s forces in two engagements, and pursued them to within seven versts of the capital. But the inexplicable absence of the prince for whom they fought damped the ardour of Bolotnikov’s men; for they could not believe that if Dmitri was alive he would delay to put himself at their head. The ataman of the Cossacks, too, was mortified at being supplanted in the command by an adventurer, and suffered himself to be corrupted by Shuiski. Deserted by a part of his army, Bolotnikov was defeated by Skopin Shuiski, the czar’s nephew, and forced to shelter himself in the fortress of Kaluga.
[1607 A.D.]
It is probable that all this while Shakhovskoi and the Poles were looking about for a fit person to play the part of Dmitri; but it required time to find him, and to put him through training. In this conjuncture the false Peter Feodorovitch, who had made a brief appearance in the former reign, repaired to Putivle, and offered himself to Shakhovskoi and the people as regent in the absence of his uncle. The rebel cause stood in need of the prestige of a royal name, and the czarevitch Peter was eagerly welcomed. Presently, the czar having marched against him in person, the impostor and Shakhovskoi shut themselves up in the strongly fortified town of Tula, where they were joined by Bolotnikov. Vasili laid siege to the town with an army of a hundred thousand men; but the besieged, who had no mercy to expect if taken, fought more earnestly for their own lives than did Shuiski’s soldiers for the rights of a master to whom they were but little attached. Seeing the light progress he made, the czar began to doubt the success of an enterprise to fail in which would be ruin.
While he was in this anxious state, an obscure ecclesiastic, named Kravkov, presented himself before the czar and his council, and undertook, if his directions were followed, to drown all the people of Tula. They laughed at him at first as an idle braggart, but he reiterated his assertion with such confidence that the czar at last desired him to explain his plan. Tula is situated in a valley, and the little river Upa flows through the town. Kravkov proposed to dam the stream below the town, and engaged to answer for it with his head if in a few hours after the execution of that work the whole town was not laid under water. All the millers in the army, men accustomed to such operations, were immediately put under his orders, and the rest of the soldiers were employed in carrying sacks of earth to the spot chosen for the dam. The water soon rose in the town, inundated the streets, and destroyed a great number of houses; but the garrison still fought for several months with unabated courage, though decimated by famine, and afterwards by a terrible epidemic. All the efforts both of the besiegers and the besieged were concentrated about the dam, the former labouring to raise and maintain it, the latter to break it down. The inhabitants of Tula were persuaded that magic must have had some share in raising so prodigious a work with such rapidity, and magic was not neglected among the means by which they sought to destroy it. A monk, who boasted his proficiency in that art, offered to effect the desired object for a reward of a hundred roubles. His terms being accepted by Bolotnikov, he stripped, plunged into the river, and disappeared. An hour afterwards, when everyone had given him up for dead, he rose to the surface, with his body covered with scratches. “I have just had to do,” he said, “with the twelve thousand devils at work on Shuiski’s dam. I have settled six thousand of them, but the other six thousand are the worst of all, and will not give in.”
For a long time the inhabitants of Tula continued to fight against men and devils, encouraged by letters they received in Dmitri’s name, with promises of succour which never came. Shakhovskoi, the chief instigator of the rebellion, was the first to propose a capitulation, and was thrust into a dungeon by the Cossacks. At last, when the besieged had eaten their horses, dogs, and all other carrion, and had not so much as an oxhide left to gnaw, Bolotnikov and Peter offered to capitulate on condition of amnesty for their heroic garrison. They asked nothing for themselves, but declared that unless their soldiers obtained honourable conditions they were resolved to die with arms in their hands, and even to eat each other, rather than surrender at discretion. Vasili accepted these terms, and the gates were opened to him (October, 1607). Bolotnikov advanced before the czar with undaunted mien, and presenting his sword, with the edge laid against his neck, offered himself as a victim, saying, “I have kept the oath I swore to him who, rightfully or wrongfully, calls himself Dmitri. Deserted by him, I am in thy power. Cut off my head if thou wilt; or if thou wilt spare my life, I will serve thee as I served him.” Shuiski, who did not pique himself on generosity, sent Bolotnikov to Kargopol, where he soon after had him drowned. The false Peter Feodorovitch was hanged; but Shakhovskoi, the most guilty of the three, was more fortunate. The victor found him in chains when he entered Tula, and Shakhovskoi made a merit of his sufferings at the hands of the obstinate rebels whom he had urged to submit to their sovereign. He obtained his liberty; but the first use he made of it was to rekindle the flames of insurrection.
Before Shuiski had terminated the siege of Tula, and whilst the issue of his conflict with one pretender was still dubious, another, assuming the name of Dmitri, appeared in the frontier town of Starodub, where he was hailed with enthusiasm. Bolotnikov sent an officer to him from Tula, to acquaint him with the desperate condition of the town. This envoy was a Polish adventurer, named Zarucki, who had become one of the atamans of the Don Cossacks, had fought bravely for the first Demetrius, and been distinguished by his favour. Although the first glance must have satisfied Zarucki that the new pretender was an imposter, he affected without the least hesitation to recognise him as his former master. Another false witness of this identity was the Pane Miechaviecki, a Pole, who was well known for the eminent position he had held at the court of the first Demetrius, and who was now the secret instructor of his successor in what we may call the histrionic details belonging to his assumed character.
The pupil profited but badly by the lessons he received; for in everything but profusion he was the reverse of his prototype, and the least attentive observer could see that he was a coarse, ignorant, vulgar knave, qualified only by his impudence for the part he had undertaken. The Cossacks were not such fastidious critics as to be shocked by his uncourtly manners; but the Poles, whilst treating him as a sovereign for their own ends, were by no means the dupes of his gross imposture. Baer states that he was originally a schoolmaster of Sokol, in White Russia; but, according to the Polish writers, who had better opportunities of learning the truth, he was a Lithuanian Jew, named Michael Moltchanov.
[1608 A.D.]
The adherents of Dmitri, as we may continue to call him, increased so rapidly in numbers that he was able to defeat a detachment of Vasili’s army sent against him from Tula, and to make himself master of the town of Kozelsk on the road to the capital. When the fall of Tula had left the czar at liberty to act against him with all his forces, Dmitri retreated to Novgorod Seversk. There he was joined by unexpected reinforcements led by Rozynckil Sapieha, Tiszkievicz, Lissovski, and others, the flower of the Polish and Lithuanian chivalry. Prince Adam Viszinoviecki, the patron of the first false Dmitri, came in person to the aid of his successor at the head of two thousand horse. The Don Cossacks brought in chains to him another schemer, who had tried to put himself at their head. All that is known of the man is that he called himself Feodor Feodorovitch, and pretended to be the son of the czar Feodor. His more prosperous rival in imposture condemned him to death.