False Dmitriy I - False Dmitriy's Policies As Tsar

False Dmitriy's Policies As Tsar

At first the new tsar tried to consolidate his power by visiting the sepulchre of Tsar Ivan and the convent of his widow Maria Nagaya, who accepted him as her son. The Godunov family was executed with the exception of Princess Xenia Godunova, whom he raped and imprisoned as his concubine. In contrast, many of the noble families exiled by Godunov - such as the Shuiskys, Golitsins and Romanovs - were granted his grace and allowed to return to Moscow. Filaret (Feodor Romanov) he appointed as metropolitan of Rostov. Patriarch Job of Moscow, who did not recognize him as the new tsar, was sent to exile.

Dmitriy planned to introduce a series of political and economical reforms. He restored Yuri's Day, the day when serfs were allowed to move to another lord, to ease the conditions of peasantry.

In foreign policies, Dmitriy sought for an alliance with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and with the Pope. He planned a war against the Ottoman Empire and had ordered the mass production of firearms. In his correspondence, he referred to himself as the "Emperor of Russia," a century before Tsar Peter I, though this title was not recognized at the time.

On 8 May 1606, Dmitriy married Marina Mniszech in Moscow. It was the usual practice that when a Russian Tsar married a woman of another faith, she would convert to Russian Orthodoxy. It was believed that Dmitriy had made a prior agreement with his Polish supporters to convert Russia to the Roman Catholic Faith after gaining the throne. For this reason, Marina did not convert to the Orthodox faith.

This angered the Russian Orthodox Church, the boyars, and the population alike and increased the support of his enemies. The boyars, headed by Prince Vasily Shuisky, began to plot against him, accusing him of spreading Roman Catholicism and sodomy. They gained popular support, especially as Dmitriy was guarded by Commonwealth forces, who still garrisoned Moscow and often engaged in various criminal acts and angered the local population.

In the morning of 17 May 1606, about two weeks after the marriage, conspirators stormed the Kremlin. Dmitriy tried to flee through a window but broke his leg in the fall. One of the plotters shot him dead on the spot. The body was put on display and then cremated, the ashes reportedly shot from a cannon towards Poland. Dmitriy's reign had lasted a mere ten months. Vasili Shuisky took his place as Tsar Vasili IV.

However, two further impostors later appeared, False Dmitriy II and False Dmitriy III.