The Russian ‘Time of Troubles’ in paintings

1. Sergey Gribkov. ‘Boris Godunov Shows His Daughter Ksenia a Portrait of Her Suitor, the Danish Prince Johann’, 1876

With the death of Feodor Ioannovich in 1598, the Rurikid dynasty came to an end. The throne was taken by the tsar’s brother-in-law, Boris Godunov, a move that sparked discontent among members of older, more illustrious boyar (noble) families. Between 1601 and 1603, a devastating famine gripped the nation, further destabilizing the ruler’s already precarious position. Popular unrest erupted and forces led by an imposter – who claimed to be Tsarevich Dmitry, the long-dead son of Ivan the Terrible – invaded from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

2. Nikolai Nevrev. ‘False Dmitry I Swearing an Oath to the Polish King Sigismund III to Introduce Catholicism in Russia’, 1874

False Dmitry I was a fugitive monk named Grigory Otrepyev. He found support among Polish-Lithuanian magnates, who decided to take advantage of the chaos unfolding in the neighboring state. Following the mysterious death of Godunov in 1605, the impostor seized Moscow and was crowned tsar.

3. Konstantin Makovsky. ‘The Murder of False Dmitry’, 1906

The new ruler implemented a series of reforms that were beneficial to the peasantry and the military; however, his disregard for Russian traditions and Orthodox rituals, his introduction of Western customs and his marriage to a Polish magnate’s daughter – the Catholic Marina Mniszech – caused an uproar in society. On May 27, 1606, he was assassinated in a conspiracy.

4. Nikolai Nevrev. ‘Zakhar Lyapunov and Vasily Shuisky’, 1886

Under new Tsar Vasily Shuisky, the country remained in a state of turmoil; the peasant-Cossack uprising led by Ivan Bolotnikov was suppressed only with great difficulty. Following this, a new threat emerged in the form of another pretender – False Dmitry II – whom Marina Mnishek identified as her husband, claiming he had “miraculously survived”. In 1610, Shuisky sought assistance from the Swedes, promising them a portion of Russian territory. This immediately triggered open conflict with the Poles, who, on July 4, defeated the Russo-Swedish forces at the ‘Battle of Klushino’. A few weeks later, a group of boyars led by Zakhar Lyapunov overthrew the ill-fated tsar and confined him to a monastery. He was later taken to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where he eventually died.

5. Jan Matejko. ‘The Tsars Shuisky, Accompanied by Hetman Żółkiewski, Before Sigismund III at the Warsaw Sejm’, 1853

The state came under the control of a group of boyars known as the ‘Semiboyarshchina’ (the ‘Rule of the Seven Boyars’). They offered the Russian crown to Władysław, son of Polish King Sigismund III. To defend against False Dmitry II, a Polish-Lithuanian garrison occupied Moscow, where it soon began to behave as if it were in a conquered city. It became clear that the prince would not convert to Orthodoxy and would not come to be crowned tsar, while his father himself was plotting to seize the Russian throne. Dissatisfaction with the alliance with the western neighbor grew rapidly among the public.

6. Pavel Chistyakov. ‘Patriarch Hermogenes Refuses to Sign a Document for the Poles’, 1860

Patriarch Hermogenes openly called for a struggle against the invaders. This led to the formation of the First People’s Militia in 1611. Militia detachments even managed to infiltrate the city, but internal discord prevented them from achieving success. Hermogenes was stripped of his rank and thrown into a dungeon at the Chudov Monastery in the Moscow Kremlin. He refused to cooperate with the Poles and died in captivity on February 27, 1612.

7. Vasily Demidov. ‘The Liberation of Moscow by Prince Pozharsky and Citizen Minin’, 1836

The Second People’s Militia, led by the Nizhny Novgorod town elder Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, achieved far greater success. It managed to defeat the Polish-Lithuanian forces under Hetman Jan Chodkiewicz, who were marching toward Moscow, and in blockading the enemy garrison within the Moscow Kremlin. On November 6, 1612, the starving and desperate enemy surrendered.

8. Mikhail Nesterov. ‘The Calling of Mikhail Fyodorovich to the Tsardom’, 1885

Exhausted by years of the ‘Time of Troubles’, the country was in need of a tsar whose candidacy would satisfy all the competing political factions and bring long-awaited peace and stability. That man was 16-year-old Mikhail Romanov. On March 3, 1613, the ‘Zemsky Sobor’ – an assembly of representatives from the state’s various regions and social estates – elected him to the throne.

9. Leon Wyczółkowski. ‘The Flight of Marina Mniszech’, 1882

Among the candidates for the throne considered by the ‘Zemsky Sobor’ was two-year-old Ivan – son of Marina Mniszech and False Dmitry II, who had been killed in 1610. Marina and her child had fled the area near Moscow, as the forces of the Second People’s Militia approached. In the summer of 1614, their supporters were defeated; the boy was brought to the capital and hanged, while Marina passed away a few months later, “from illness and grief”.