The Story of Moscow

by Wirt Gerrare

The “little Tsar,” after the alliance between the Poles and Muscovites was accomplished, withdrew to Kaluga. Soon afterwards he was murdered; he left Marina and a son, but neither now were of importance to Russia.

Sigismund wanted Smolensk reunited to Poland; the delegates wanted Vladislas in Moscow at once. Sigismund delayed. He tried what he could do with Smolensk; when the secretary Tomila was asked if he would surrender the town, he answered, “If I were to do it, not only would God and Muscovites curse me, but the earth would open and swallow me.” Others were not so honest. The King was besieged by applicants for favours and rewards in return for services rendered, or to be rendered. In the Kremlin, the boyards denounced each other to the commandant, Galitzin and Vorontski were arrested; others lost what little prestige remained to them.

Hermogen succeeded in getting two letters circulated; both were calls to the faithful to rise against the Poles. They excited indignation, and at last Liapunov started out from Riazan with an army and arrived before Moscow. The Poles besought Hermogen to order this force to disperse. He refused and defied the Poles to do their worst.

In 1611 matters quickly became worse. As long as Jolkievski was in the Kremlin, Russians and Poles were at peace with each other, but Gonsievski was not so successful. Some Poles were so foolish as to mock the orthodox worshippers, and although severely punished, the circumstance roused the Muscovites to action. There were several riots, but these were quelled, and the measures the Poles took to ensure their own safety irritated the citizens still more. Hatred increased day by day; the position of the Poles became critical. As Holy Week approached, Gonsievski fearing trouble forbade the usual ceremonies. This so offended the people that he was forced to give way. The critical period passed with one or two unimportant risings, when suddenly a quarrel broke out with the carters, who had been asked to haul cannons into position and had refused. Soon the fighting became general in the town. Prince Pojarski, with the advance guard of the Russian army, had just arrived on the Sretenka when the Poles and Germans fell ruthlessly upon the citizens. The massacre lasted an hour or more, some seven thousand being killed. The alarm bells were ringing, and the crowd at last was chased from the Kitai Gorod when the Poles who followed further were driven back by the cannon of Pojarski. The Poles and foreigners had then to entrench themselves and, to clear the neighbourhood, the Poles fired the town. The conflagration spread rapidly and lasted three days. The Russians abandoned the burning town; the Bielo Gorod was destroyed, and much of the Kitai Gorod also; the dwellings and warehouses of the foreign merchants were consumed, and the “English factory” lost several of its members. Some went into the cellars and were suffocated, the survivors made a dash for the Kremlin, and were helped over the wall by the Poles, where their position was precarious, for they were amidst a town in flames in a foreign country, among a people in revolt against the garrison. Some vestiges of this fire are still found occasionally when excavating—old vaults full of charred wood and burned bricks—whilst the wall of the Kitia Gorod itself is said to bear evidence in several places of the fire that for days raged round it, and vitrified the bricks and tiles of its battlements and machecoules. When the news of the disaster in Moscow reached Sigismund he sent the delegates and hostages as prisoners to Marienburg. Shortly afterwards Smolensk capitulated: the brave Shein was tortured for holding out so long, then Sigismund returned to Warsaw and led the ex-Tsar Shooiski in triumph through the streets. He delayed in hastening needed reinforcements to the besieged garrison in the Kremlin of Moscow, counting those that reached it during the conflagration sufficient.

During Easter week Liapunov arrived; he was closely followed by Zarutski with Don-Cossacks and Prince Troubetskoi with the levies from Kaluga. The Russian forces camped on the ashes of the Bielo Gorod and, if the leaders had been united and vigilant, success might have been theirs. Day by day the situation became more dangerous for the beleaguered Poles—obliged to make frequent sorties for food, and losing men on each occasion. Zapieha made an attempt to relieve the garrison but failed; the 100,000 Russians round the Kremlin kept him away, but themselves were unable to carry the fortress by assault and too lax to starve the enemy out.

Gonsievski did well. Threats failing to move the stubborn Hermogen, a letter was written to the leader of the Cossacks to the effect that Liapunov intended to ruin them. They treacherously killed him; the cause of Russia seemed lost, for there was no longer a leader in whom all could trust, but impostors and intriguers beyond count. The Cossacks determined to fight for their own hand; the nobles and boyards held aloof, save those with the Poles in the Kremlin. Zapieha revictualled the garrison; Sweden threatened Novgorod, and called the heir-apparent Tsar of Russia; a fresh usurper found a following at Pskov; Cossacks, Poles and brigands of different nationalities overran the country, pillaged towns and burned villages, and during that winter of 1611-12 food was so scarce that “men devoured each other.” There was no Sovereign recognised, no chief authority, no law. From time to time the Archimandrite Denis, and his able seconder Abraham Palitizin, sent letters to the different towns urging the people to rise, retake Moscow, and save the holy relics. Hermogen was starving imprisoned in the Kremlin; the Poles allowed the ex-patriarch Ignatius to act in his stead. Moscow was powerless. The other towns commenced to govern themselves and to raise local forces for their own protection.

The high priest Sabbas made a stirring appeal to the people to unite and deliver their fatherland. His eloquence moved the citizens of Nijni-Novgorod to tears. He called on the faithful “to assert their unity, join together to defend the pure and true religion of Christ, free the holy cathedral of the Blessed Virgin, and recover the sainted remains of the miracle workers of Moscow.”

An elder of the province, one Cosma Minin, by trade a butcher, exhorted his neighbours to initiate the rising. His appeal was, “Orthodox! If we wish to save our country, do not fear to sacrifice our goods, to sell our possessions, aye, even to pledge our wives and children if need be, and find a commander faithful to our religion and capable of leading us, then will victory be ours!”

The most suitable leader seemed to Minin to be the Prince Pojarski who had fought at Moscow and been wounded in the fray. He lived near by on his estate in Suzdal, and to him Minin went and offered the command of the volunteering peasants. Pojarski had shown no strong partisanship, had sought favours of no one, and was willing to fight for the general good. These provincials were undoubtedly in earnest; a three days’ fast was enjoined and made obligatory for all, even suckling babes. When the troops began to gather together, in the spring of 1612, the Poles and boyards in the Kremlin became desperate, and once more ordered Hermogen to command the leaders to disperse their forces. He refused; and in the days of dire necessity that followed he died, starved to death, and was buried within the Chudov Monastery.

Prince Pojarski advanced very slowly towards Moscow: it appeared to be that he was waiting for an assembly general at Yaroslavl to elect a tsar, fearing without a sovereign the Russian provincial troops would not act together against so many enemies, native and foreign.