An Unlikely Tsar

Vasily Ivanovich Shuysky is generally treated as a minor figure in the history of the Time of Troubles. Historians have typically used words like “sly,” “crafty,” and “weak,” to describe the man who ruled Russia from 1606 to 1610, and he is often perceived and depicted as an aging intriguer who wound up ascending the throne more through luck than merit, before being swept away by the winds of history, leaving barely a footprint in its sands.

His story, however, is not so simple, and the twists and turns of Vasily Shuysky’s life are emblematic of the uneasy times in which he lived.

The future Tsar Vasily IV was born in 1552, during a relatively peaceful and prosperous period of Ivan the Terrible’s reign that was, however, far from tranquil for the Shuysky family: Vasily’s grandfather, Andrei Mikhailovich Shuysky, was the first known victim of the brutality that ultimately earned Ivan his epithet. When the young tsar (or rather Grand Prince at the time of Andrei Shuysky’s fall from grace) was all of 13, he decided that the Shuyskys were too politically meddlesome and ordered his huntsmen to kill Prince Andrei. For two hours nobody had the courage to move his corpse from the ground where it lay.

Legend has it that Ivan Shuysky (Andrei’s son and Vasily’s father) was taken by a family servant to Beloozero in the far North, where the two lived like ordinary peasants. Several years later, when the tsar was making a pilgrimage to the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, the servant managed to plead his ward’s case directly to Ivan. “The Terrible” let Ivan Shuysky return from exile and even gave him some land outside Moscow. Here he joined the ranks of the distinguished men comprising the realm’s “thousand finest” – a special royal guard that the tsar was organizing at the time. However, Tsar Ivan demonstratively assigned him a low rank, one hardly befitting his distinguished family name. Of course, this insult was born stoically, as raising objections or trying to defend the family honor was hardly advisable under Ivan’s stern rule.

Vasily Shuysky was 13 when the Terrible, who always had a penchant for playing dramatic and cruel tricks on his subjects, divided his realm into two parts: the zemshchina and the oprichnina. The zemshchina (based on the word for land, zemlya) was supposedly left in the hands of the boyars, while Ivan and a coterie of loyal followers retreated to the oprichnina – a term used for the meager portion of lands a noble widow had the right to inherit from her deceased husband.

Ivan, of course, was no poor, unfortunate widow. After retreating with his ruthless oprichnina troops to Alexandrova Sloboda, his royal hunting lodge in the village of Alexandrov, he proceeded to rule the entire country from there with an iron fist, striking terror into the hearts of the boyars he had supposedly left in charge of the country. Anyone who began to look too strong, too charismatic, too independent, or too smart, was immediately suspected of treason and in peril of arrest, torture, and a painful death.

It is interesting that the Shuysky family, which had fared so poorly during relatively placid times, came through this tumultuous period unscathed, unlike many of their fellow boyars. Evidently, experience had taught them a thing or two about survival, and Ivan Shuysky and his sons kept their heads down and adapted to circumstances. In 1572, Ivan Shuysky wed his son Dmitry to the daughter of the tsar’s infamous executioner, Malyuta Skuratov. The logic behind this marriage is obvious. Although the bride came from exceptionally humble stock compared with the groom, Shuysky apparently saw the match as an investment in his family’s safety. The timing, however, could have been better, since that very year the tsar disbanded the oprichnina and even forbade the word from being uttered. Had Skuratov not died during a military campaign, he probably would have been killed off by his sovereign. This, however, was not the case, and the Skuratov and Shuysky families remained relatively safe.

Fate dealt the Shuysky family another blow immediately after Ivan the Terrible’s death, again during a period of relative stability. While Ivan may not have been worried by the submissive Shuyskys, Boris Godunov, who followed him (first as regent to Ivan’s feebleminded son Feodor I from 1585 to 1598, and then as tsar in his own right from 1598 to 1605), was clearly wary of this wealthy and cunning clan. For reasons that are unclear, Vasily Shuysky was exiled in 1586, only to return to Moscow and then be again banished, now along with his entire family. Presumably, Godunov was trying to clear the field of competition in his struggle for power.

Four years later, the Shuyskys returned from exile. Around the same time, in 1591, Dmitry, Ivan the Terrible’s youngest child and the last scion of the Rurik dynasty, died in the town of Uglich under suspicious circumstances. Later, rumors began to circulate that the boy had been killed under Godunov’s orders, but a commission sent by the tsar to investigate the death reached the conclusion that the death had been accidental.

What was going on here? Did the investigation intentionally tamper with the truth to benefit Godunov? But if that was the case, why did he put Vasily Shuysky – who had no particular love for or loyalty to Tsar Boris – in charge of the commission? Does this choice attest to Boris’s innocence or is it merely a sign that Shuysky was prepared to serve the new tsar in any way he could, so long as he could avoid being exiled again? Historians have been trying to solve this puzzle for centuries.

What we do know is that, following this episode, Vasily Shuysky managed to live life unperturbed for the next fifteen years, until Boris Godunov’s death, when the throne was usurped by False Dmitry. This event thrust the now elderly Shuysky back into history’s limelight. At first he and his fellow boyars welcomed the pretender and recognized him as the rightful tsar. In Shuysky’s case, that meant retracting the conclusions drawn by his own investigation. After all, if the pretender was really Tsarevich Dmitry, he obviously did not die in Uglich, accidentally or otherwise.

But while False Dmitry was still trying to consolidate his power, Shuysky launched a plot to overthrow him. The plot was discovered, and one might have thought that Shuysky’s days were numbered. That certainly would have been the case under Ivan, and probably under Godunov as well. But False Dmitry was, but all accounts, a rather nice fellow. He forgave the conspirators and even let them remain at court. They repaid him by immediately hatching another scheme that this time succeeded, ending in False Dmitry’s very real death.

Who would ascend the throne now? Messengers fanned out from Moscow to announce that a Zemsky Sobor (an assembly of representatives from the tsardom’s three main “estates” – the nobility, the clergy, and townspeople) had been convened and elected a new tsar – Vasily Shuysky. There is no evidence that a Zemsky Sobor was actually convened. In any event, Shuysky’s detractors later wrote that his supporters just gathered in the Kremlin and acclaimed him tsar. Whatever the case may have been, Shuysky found himself on the throne and remained there for four years.

His reign was stormy and not particularly successful. Tsar Vasily IV spent most of it putting down rebellions and fending off pretenders to the throne and invading Poles. But over those four years this resourceful, unpopular, and rather obscure tsar did do one amazing thing: he was the first Russian ruler who pledged to limit his own power. After his coronation, Vasily Shuysky “kissed the cross” in a ceremonial oath to rule in accordance with all laws and in consultation with the boyars. Clearly he understood how weak his claim to the crown was, but this was nevertheless an impressive gesture.

Next, came another surprising move. In an effort to save Moscow from the Poles, Shuysky took the unusual step of concluding an alliance with the Swedes. This was not just an alliance on paper: led by the Swedish commander Jacob De la Gardie, Swedes fought side by side with the Russians and even made a triumphant entry into Moscow, whose populace must have been astounded by the appearance of so many foreigners.

None of this, however, was enough to keep the exceptionally unpopular Shuysky on the throne. When the military leader Mikhail Skopin-Shuysky, a young a relative of Vasily, died suddenly, rumors began to circulate that the tsar himself had poisoned him, jealous of his popularity.

In the end, people from Tsar Vasily’s inner circle toppled him and forced him into a monastery. To give Vasily his due, he put up a fight and refused to recite his vows during the monastic initiation rite.

Soon after being confined to the monastery, Shuysky fell into the hands of invading Poles. He and his brethren were taken to Poland, where Shuysky soon died. Several days later, his brother Dmitry (the one who had married Malyuta Skuratov’s daughter) also died in Polish captivity.

Such were the twists of fate in the life of Vasily Shuysky – exile, courtier, schemer, politician, and tsar turned monk who spent a lifetime struggling to survive. He finally reached the pinnacle of power only to fall from it rather precipitously.