Marina Mnishek. The inglorious death of the Russian Tsarina
Leon Vychulkovsky. “The flight of Marina Mniszech with her son”
В previous article we have already said that after the death of False Dmitry I, Marina Mniszech had the opportunity to freely leave for Poland, even to receive Grodno or Sambir from King Sigismund III. However, she chose to fight for the throne - even after killing the second impostor. She failed to become the new Basilisa Theodora, nor to die on the throne - “power did not become her shroud" The proud Pole died powerless and a prisoner abandoned by everyone - either from grief over her executed son, or from the hands of assassins sent: being crowned king, even in prison she seemed dangerous to the Romanovs who had recently come to power. Previous article we ended with the news that just a few days after the murder of False Dmitry II, Marina gave birth to a son, who was named Ivan. Today we will continue and finish the story about this woman.
Tsarevich Ivan Dmitrievich
After the death of False Dmitry II, who was killed while hunting by the Tatar prince Araslan (Peter) Urusov, the Kaluga residents, the remnants of the impostor’s army and the Don Cossacks of Ataman Ivan Martynovich Zarutsky took the oath to the newborn “prince”. And, it must be admitted that he had much more rights to the throne than all the other contenders - after all, although his father was an impostor of impostors, his mother was a legitimate queen - crowned, officially crowned king. And in many cities the widowed Marina Mnishek continued to be given royal honors. In addition to Zarutsky, another leader of the Cossack detachments, Prince Dmitry Trubetskoy, and the leader of the Ryazan militia, Prokopiy Lyapunov, were ready to recognize the rights of Ivan Dmitrievich. And Ivan Zarutsky later became the third and last husband of Marina Mnishek (by the way, it is he, and not False Dmitry II, who is considered by some to be the father of her son Ivan).
Ataman Zarutsky
This is how viewers of the series “Godunov” saw Marina Mnishek and Ataman Ivan Zarutsky
Ivan Martynovich Zarutsky was a native of the western Ukrainian city of Tarnopol (named after a local tycoon, now Ternopil). They say that as a child he was taken by the Tatars to the Crimea, from where he later fled to the Don. Over time, he became one of the authoritative chieftains there. He arrived in Moscow with the first False Dmitry, but did not play a particularly important role in the events of those years, and soon returned to the Don. After the murder of the impostor, he joined Ivan Bolotnikov and False Peter, who was with him, who pretended to be the son of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. But, having learned about the next “miraculous rescue of Dmitry,” in the fall of 1607 he left Tula, which was soon besieged and captured by the troops of Vasily Shuisky. Zarutsky found the second False Dmitry in Starodub. In the spring of 1608, Zarutsky led about 5 thousand Cossacks to Orel, where this impostor was then located. During the campaign of False Dmitry II to Moscow, the ataman commanded the right flank of the army. In the Tushino camp, Zarutsky received the rank of boyar. By decisive and timely actions, he prevented the complete defeat of the army of False Dmitry on Trinity Day 1608. After the impostor fled to Kaluga, he went to the Polish king Sigismund III, whose troops were besieging Smolensk, but soon left him and returned to serve the False Dmitry. In 1611, Zarutsky turned out to be one of the three leaders of the Council of the Whole Land - the others were Prince D. Trubetskoy and the Duma nobleman P. Lyapunov, the leader of the first (Ryazan) militia. It was because of Zarutsky’s intrigues that Lyapunov was killed by the Cossacks on July 22, 1611, and the militias he brought with him left Moscow.
The murder of P. Lyapunov on the Cossack circle (XNUMXth century engraving)
Having pushed Trubetskoy aside, Zarutsky now actually led the remaining units and tried to proclaim the young Ivan Dmitrievich king, but he was not supported by Patriarch Hermogenes and the leaders of the new militia - Minin and Pozharsky. At this time, a new False Dmitry appeared in Pskov - the third in a row, and in Astrakhan - the fourth, both pretended to be the second, who allegedly survived the assassination attempt in Kaluga. Astrakhansky was supported by the murderer of False Dmitry II, the Tatar prince Pyotr Urusov. This impostor then disappeared somewhere, and nothing is known about his fate. And the “Pskov Thief,” who, as it later turned out, was the son of a deacon of one of the Moscow churches, Matyushka, was captured in Gdov at the end of May 1612. After the accession of Mikhail Romanov, he was kept in chains for some time “for public viewing”, and then executed. But for now, Zarutsky first swore allegiance to the third False Dmitry, and then tried to organize an assassination attempt on Prince Pozharsky in Yaroslavl. After failure, in August 1612, with half the army (about two and a half thousand people) he went to Kolomna, where Marina Mnishek and her son were at that time. Kolomna was traditionally loyal to the False Dmitrys, and even blocked the path to Moscow for the capital of Dmitry Pozharsky’s army. With Zarutsky, Cossack detachments of atamans Ivan Chika, Panteleimon Materoy (both took part in the siege of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra) and Tikhon Chulkov came to Kolomna.
In Moscow, a Zemsky Sobor was assembled, at which on February 7, 1613, young Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was elected tsar. The delegates took an oath
“Don’t rob other sovereigns and Marinka and her son of the Moscow state, and don’t be kind to them in anything, and don’t agree with them in anything.”
But at the same time, all the awards of False Dmitry II were legitimized.
Zarutsky did not recognize the decision of the Council. In March 1613, about 400 Cherkasy, Zaporozhye Cossacks, who were plundering Russian cities and villages at that time, joined him. Historian A.L. Stanislavsky, by the way, believed that it was precisely with the actions of this detachment that the story the death of Ivan Susanin, who in fact, according to the request of his son-in-law Bogdashka Sobinin, did not bring “Poles” anywhere, but simply “didn't say anything to the villains", when those "asked about the king».
Flight to the South
In the end, Zarutsky plundered the hospitable Kolomna and, taking Marina and her son with him, headed to the city of Mikhailov (modern Ryazan region). Of course, a legend arose that on the way he hid the loot in some hole, which was covered with the gates of the Pyatnitskaya tower of the Kolomna Kremlin, and “witch Marinka" she cursed this treasure, and therefore no one can find it to this day.
Zarutsky wanted to capture Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky (since 1778, by decree of Catherine II, this city began to be called Ryazan), but was defeated by Vladimir Lyapunov, the son of Procopius, who was killed at his instigation. And near Venev, the detachment of Ataman Chika was defeated, who was captured and taken to Tula. Zarutsky moved to Epifan, and in Mikhailov on April 2, 1613, the townspeople killed and captured the Cossacks who remained there. More than two hundred Zarutsky Cossacks deserted from Epifani, many later received forgiveness. Zarutsky ravaged a number of cities (Epifan, Dedilov, Krapivna), and then retreated to Voronezh, where his army was defeated in a two-day battle by the troops of Prince Ivan Odoevsky. After that, he and the remnants of the troops (about 500 people and a number of Nogais of Prince Ishterik) retreated to Astrakhan. Here Zarutsky and Mnishek initially found support from the townspeople and settled in the well-fortified Trinity Monastery, where the fugitive queen opened a house Catholic church, and also forbade ringing the bell for early matins - since the murder of False Dmitry I, she was afraid of the ringing of bells, but declared that it The young son is scared. They say that it was then that her wedding with the Don ataman took place.
Zarutsky wanted to assemble an army, which, in addition to his Cossacks and the Cossacks of the Treni Usa gang, was supposed to include detachments of Astrakhan, Nogai Tatars, Persians of Shah Abbas and even Turks. But soon a letter came to Astrakhan from the new authorities with an order not to provide support “Marinka the luthorka, heretics" and "thief Ivashka Zarutsky"and
“Fight against the Sovereign traitors Ivashka Zaruttskovo and others to the death.”
As you can see, the devout Catholic Marina Mnishek is called a Lutheran here: probably the person who wrote this paper had no idea about the irreconcilable enmity of Catholics and Protestants, and for him all non-Orthodox people were “alike.”
“Along the Volga, Caspian - to Yaik”
In the spring of 1614, the residents of Astrakhan, having learned that the army of the Streltsy head Vasily Khokhlov was marching on the city, rebelled. Zarutsky and Marina Mnishek were besieged in the Kremlin, from where they managed to escape on three plows on the night of May 12. It is curious that then the Polish woman Varvara Kazanovskaya, the only one of Marina Mnishek’s ladies-in-waiting who had remained with her until then, was captured by Khokhlov. And Zarutsky and Marina went through the Caspian Sea to Yaik (Ural), where they tried to take refuge on Bear Island.
On June 26, 1605, Ataman Trenya Us handed over Zarutsky, Marina, her son and Catholic priest Nicholas to a detachment of government troops commanded by Gordey Palchikov and Sevastyan Onuchin.
M. Voloshin wrote about this:
And we rushed by a pair of blue-gray gulls
Along the Volga, Caspian - to Yaik, -
This is where the royal arrows took
Baby Swan with Swan in a snare.
Along the Volga, Caspian - to Yaik, -
This is where the royal arrows took
Baby Swan with Swan in a snare.
Sad final
The prisoners were transported to Kazan on two separate convoys of ships: Marina Mnishek and her son were guarded by 600 archers, Zarutsky by 350. They already traveled from Kazan to Moscow by land. In the capital, Zarutsky was impaled, and Marina Mnishek was sent to prison. Later, a legend appeared in Kolomna that the failed queen lived out her last days in their city - in the Round or Naugolnaya tower of the local Kremlin, which they even began to call Marinkina. The urban legend also tells about the ghost of Marina Mnishek living in the Kolomna Kremlin. Moreover, they claim that the spirit of Marina helps in unhappy love - if you ask it by touching the wall of “her” tower with your hand.
“Marinka Tower” of the Kolomna Kremlin
A popular folk legend says that Marina was a witch and warlock, and at night, in the guise of either a crow or a magpie, she flew out of the tower through the window. And then the local bishop allegedly consecrated the tower - and Marina, who flew out, was unable to return back and turn into a woman again. Because, they say, since then there have always been many crows flying over this tower. And for some reason no one asked a simple question: why did Marina even return to her prison? Another version of the legend is more logical: that she turned into a magpie and flew to Poland. However, in fact, this legend was invented by B. Pilnyak and included in his novel “The Volga Flows into the Caspian Sea.” And the real folk legend said that, having turned into a crow, Marina flew out not from the tower, but from the Polish camp, which was located not far from the city - in the town of Tabory. There was even a holiday in honor of the deliverance from the Poles, which Kolomsk residents went to Tabory to celebrate. And the New Chronicler directly says about the death of Marina Mnishek:
“In Moscow, that Zarutsky was impaled, and Vorenok and the traitor Fedka Andronov were hanged, and Marinka died in Moscow.”
The child was taken away from Marina Mnishek in Moscow, with a solemn promise that nothing bad would happen to him. And they deceived me. Velimir Khlebnikov wrote about this:
Her eyes are raised in prayer,
And laughter, and a mad cry,
And someone is on the cold floor
Lies in fruitless despair...
Then suddenly he gets up and runs
In the light-winged mazurka,
With someone he will laugh, smile,
He whispers to someone: “Darling.”
Then suddenly he gets up, trembling all over,
White as morning powder,
And she whispers, looking around: “Am I not good?”
................................................... ..
So she died slowly in prison
Marina, Russian queen.
And laughter, and a mad cry,
And someone is on the cold floor
Lies in fruitless despair...
Then suddenly he gets up and runs
In the light-winged mazurka,
With someone he will laugh, smile,
He whispers to someone: “Darling.”
Then suddenly he gets up, trembling all over,
White as morning powder,
And she whispers, looking around: “Am I not good?”
................................................... ..
So she died slowly in prison
Marina, Russian queen.
This is how the execution of Marina Mnishek’s son is presented in a drawing by I. Sakurov:
The Polish ambassador Fyodor Zhelyabuzhsky reported in 1615:
“Ivashka and Marinka’s son were executed for his evil deeds, and Marinka died of illness and melancholy in Moscow of her own free will.”
It’s very interesting, what “evil deeds” were recorded for the minor “Ivashka”?
Let us turn again to the poem by M. Voloshin:
All Moscow has gathered for mass,
Like a baby - I was in my third year -
Yes, the last execution was executed
Near the Serpukhov Gate.
Like a baby - I was in my third year -
Yes, the last execution was executed
Near the Serpukhov Gate.
Marina Mnishek’s son, who was slightly younger than four years old, was actually hanged at the Serpukhov Gate - in Zamoskvorechye. According to updated data, this happened in November 1614.
The Romanovs staged the public hanging of Marina Mnishek’s young son out of fear that new impostors would appear. And thus they violated the ancient tradition of not executing children: of course, they were killed just like that at that cruel time, but such a public hanging simply shocked Muscovites. Moreover, the child’s body weight was too small, and the rope did not tighten around the child’s neck: the boy died for several hours. The Dutchman Elias Hercman wrote in 1625:
“Many trustworthy people saw how this child was carried with his head uncovered (to the place of execution). Since there was a snowstorm at that time and the snow was hitting the boy in the face, he asked several times in a crying voice: “Where are you taking me?” But the people who were carrying the child, who had not harmed anyone, calmed him down with words until they brought him (like a lamb to the slaughter) to the place where there was a gallows, on which they hanged the unfortunate boy, like a thief, on a thick rope woven from sponges. . Since the child was small and light, it was impossible to properly tighten the knot with this rope due to its thickness, and the half-dead child was left to die on the gallows.”
He reports about the death of Marina Mniszek:
“They say that the child’s mother, Marina Sandomirskaya, was then strangled between two beds. Many people tell different stories about her death. Some say she died a natural death. But be that as it may, it is true that she died suddenly, so that no one knew anything about her illness, and this happened very soon after her child was hanged. Even if she was not strangled, her death was nonetheless violent. She died as a result of grief and suffering from the insults inflicted on her.”
Despite the public execution of “Vorenok”, due to the inertia of the Troubles, “False Vashki” still appeared. The first was the Polish nobleman Jan Faustin Luba, who, according to the scheme that justified itself with False Dmitry I, was taught from childhood that he was really the saved son of Marina Mniszech. And already around 1640, Ivan Vergunenok, a Cossack from Poltava, tried to impersonate Ivan Dmitrievich, who turned to the Crimean Khan and the Turkish Sultan for help. In 1641, a certain Manuil Seferov, nicknamed Derbinsky, was captured by the Don Cossacks, who hinted that he was a surviving prince, but did not have time to openly announce this. And finally, already under Alexei Mikhailovich, the fourth impostor was hanged in Moscow, who was called a “nameless tramp” in the documents.
But that was later. Then, in 1614, the execution of an innocent child made a very difficult impression on Muscovites. And a legend appeared that Marina Mnishek cursed the Romanovs, predicting that wives would kill their husbands, and sons would kill their fathers, and it would all end in the death of this family:
“You began your reign with the death of a child, end it with the death of innocent children.”
People have always remembered this prediction of Marina Mnishek. Maybe that’s why no one in Russia was especially surprised, shocked or shocked by the news of the execution of the family of the last emperor in Yekaterinburg?
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