Time of Troubles

Alex Rover | January 10, 2023

Summary

Vague times, or Distemper – a period in Russian history from 1598 to 1613 (according to some points of view to 1618), marked by natural disasters, accompanied by numerous cases of impostures and foreign intervention, civil, Russian-Polish and Russian-Swedish wars, the heaviest state and political and socio-economic crises.

The Time of Troubles was caused by a number of reasons and factors. Historians distinguish the following among them:

Ivan Terrible”s heir Feodor Ivanovich (since 1584) corrected till 1598, and the younger son, tsarevitch Dmitry, was lost under mysterious circumstances in Uglich in 1591. With their death ruling dynasty was cut short, boyar families – Zakharyn (Romanov) and Godunov came to the scene. In 1598 Boris Godunov was enthroned.

There were three years, from 1601 to 1603, of poor harvests, with frosts even in summer and snowfall in September, caused by the eruption of the Huinaputina volcano in Peru on February 19 (29), 1600, and the ensuing volcanic winter. A terrible famine broke out, with as many as half a million victims. Masses of people flocked to Moscow, where the government distributed bread and money to the needy. However, these measures only intensified the economic disorganization. Landlords could not feed their serfs and servants and drove them out of their estates. Left without means of subsistence, people turned to robbery and plunder, exacerbating the general chaos. Individual gangs grew to several hundred men. Ataman Cotton”s detachment numbered up to 600 men.

With the outbreak of the Troubles rumors spread that the rightful tsarevich Dmitry was alive. This implied that Boris Godunov”s reign was illegitimate. False Dmitry, an impostor who announced to the Western Russian prince Adam Vishnevetsky of his royal origin, entered into close relations with the Polish magnate, the governor of Sandomierz Jerzy Mniszek and the papal nuncio Rangoni. At the beginning of 1604 the impostor was granted an audience with the Polish king and soon embraced Catholicism. King Sigismund III recognized False Dmitry”s rights to the Russian throne and allowed anyone who wished to help the “Tsarevich”. In return, False Dmitry promised to give Poland Smolensk and Seversk lands. In exchange for the consent of voivode Mnishek to the marriage of his daughter to False Dmitriy, he also promised to give his bride the possession of Novgorod and Pskov. Mnishek equipped the impostor army, consisting of Zaporozhye Cossacks and Polish mercenaries (“adventurers”). In 1604 an army of the impostor crossed the border of Russia, many cities (Moravsk, Chernigov, Putivl) surrendered to False Dmitry, the army of the Moscow governor Fedor Mstislavsky was defeated in a battle near Novgorod-Seversky. However, another army, sent by Godunov against the impostor, has won a convincing victory at the battle of Dobrynichy, 21 (31) January 1605. The army of Moscow was commanded by the most noble boyar – Vasily Shuysky. The king summoned Shuisky to reward generously. At the head of the army was placed a new voivode – Peter Basmanov. This was Godunov”s mistake, because it soon turned out that the impostor was alive and Basmanov was an unreliable servant. In the midst of the war Boris Godunov died (Godunov”s army, besieging Kroma, almost immediately betrayed his successor, the 16-year-old Fyodor Borisovich, who was overthrown on June 1 and killed with his mother on June 10.

June 20 (30), 1605 under the general rejoicing of the impostor solemnly entered Moscow. The Moscow boyars, led by Bogdan Belsky, publicly recognized him as the rightful heir and prince of Moscow. On June 24 Archbishop Ignatius of Ryazan, who had already affirmed Dimitry”s right to the throne in Tula, was elevated to the rank of patriarch. Lawful Patriarch Job was removed from the Patriarchal cathedra-seat and imprisoned in a monastery. July 18 in the capital was delivered to the queen Martha recognized the impostor in his son, and soon, on July 30, was the wedding of Falsdmitry I to the throne.

False Dmitry”s reign was marked by an orientation toward Poland and some attempts at reform. Not all of Moscow”s nobility recognized False Dmitri as a legitimate ruler. Almost immediately after his arrival in Moscow, Prince Vasily Shuisky, through intermediaries, began to spread rumors of imposture. Military governor Peter Basmanov has opened plot, and on June 23 (on July 3), 1605 Shujsky has been seized and condemned on death, having pardoned only directly at a scaffold.

Shuisky attracted to his side Princes Vasily Vasilievich Golitsyn and Ivan Semenovich Kurakin. Having secured the support of the Novgorod-Pskov detachment standing near Moscow, which was preparing to march on the Crimea, Shuisky organized a coup.

On the night of 16 to 17 (27) May 1606 the boyar opposition, taking advantage of the exasperation of Muscovites against the Polish adventurers, who came to Moscow for the wedding of False Dmitry, revolted, during which the impostor was brutally murdered. The coming to power of a representative of the Suzdal branch of the Rurikovich boyar Vasily Shuisky did not bring calm. In the south, the revolt of Ivan Bolotnikov (1606-1607) broke out, which, in turn, gave rise to the movement of “thieves.

After the murder of the impostor, rumors spread throughout Moscow that someone other than Dmitry was killed in the palace. They made Vassily Shuisky”s position very precarious. There were many dissatisfied boyar tsar, and they clung to the name of Dmitry. Some – because they sincerely believed in his salvation; others – because only this name could give the struggle against Shuisky a “legitimate” character. The movement was led by Ivan Bolotnikov. He had been in his youth the war serf of Prince Andrei Telyatevsky. During the campaign he was captured by the Crimean Tatars. Then he was sold to Turkey, where he became a galley slave. During the sea battle Bolotnikov managed to free himself. He fled to Venice. On his way from Italy to his homeland, Bolotnikov visited the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Here, from the hands of an associate of False Dmitri I, he received a letter appointing him chief voevoda in the “Tsar”s” army.

Believing in the “true tsar,” Bolotnikov moved from Putivl to Moscow. In the fall of 1606, having defeated several tsarist detachments, the rebels approached Moscow and camped in the village of Kolomenskoye. People displeased by Tsar Vasily Shuisky flocked in droves to Bolotnikov”s camp.

The siege of Moscow lasted five weeks. Unsuccessful attempts to take the city ended with several noble detachments, including a large detachment of Prokopy Lyapunov, defecting to the side of Vasily Shuisky. In the decisive battle of Kolomenskoye in December 1606 the weakened forces of Bolotnikov were defeated and withdrew to Kaluga and Tula.

In Kaluga Bolotnikov quickly put the city”s fortifications in order. The approaching army, led by the voivods of Vasily Shuisky, laid siege to Kaluga, but suffered a severe defeat at the hands of the rebels, led by Prince Telyatevsky in the battle of Pchelna, after which the demoralized royal army fled from under Kaluga. Another center of the rebellion was Tula. To the aid of Bolotnikov came a detachment from the Volga region, headed by another impostor – “Tsarevich Peter”, allegedly the son of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich.

Vasily Shuisky again managed to assemble a large army. He was able to do so thanks to serious concessions to the nobility. In the battle of Vosma in June 1607 Bolotnikov”s detachments were defeated. Their remnants took refuge behind the fortress walls of Tula. The siege of Tula lasted about four months. Convinced that it was impossible to take Tula by force of arms, Vasily Shuisky ordered the construction of a dam on the river Upa. The rising water flooded part of the city. Famine began in Tula. October 10 (20), 1607 Ivan Bolotnikov laid down his arms, believing the promise of the king to save his life. But Vasily Shuisky dealt harshly with the leaders of the movement. Bolotnikov was exiled to a monastery, where he was soon blinded and drowned. “Tsarevich Peter” was hanged. However, most of the rebels were released. Many of them later joined False Dmitry II.

Rumors of the miraculous rescue of Tsarevich Dmitry did not subside. In the summer of 1607 in Starodub was announced a new impostor, who went down in history as False Dmitry II or “Tushino thief” (named after the village of Tushino, where the impostor camped, when approached Moscow) (1607-1610). By the end of 1608 the power of False Dmitry II spread to Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Uglich, Kostroma, Galich and Vologda. Of the major centers loyal to Moscow remained Kolomna, Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky, Smolensk, Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan. As a result of degradation of frontier service 100-thousand Nogay Horde ruined “Ukrainians” and Seversky lands in 1607-1608.

In 1607 the Crimean Tatars crossed the Oka for the first time in a long time and ravaged the central Russian regions. Polish-Lithuanian troops defeated Shuya and Kineshma, captured Tver, the troops of Lithuanian hetman Yan Sapiega besieged the Trinity-Sergius monastery, the troops of Lisovsky captured Suzdal. Even cities, which voluntarily recognized the power of False Dmitri II, were plundered by interventionist units. The Poles levied taxes on land and trade, received “kormeniya” in Russian cities. All this caused by the end of 1608 a broad national liberation movement. In December 1608 Kineshma, Kostroma, Galich, Totma, Vologda, Beloozero, Ustyuzhna Zheleznopolsky, in support of the rebels came from Tushinsky “thief”, Veliky Ustyug, Vyatka, Perm Velikaya. In January 1609, Prince Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky, who commanded the Russian troops from Tikhvin and Onega pogosts, repulsed the 4 thousandth Polish detachment of Kernozitsky, attacking Novgorod. In early 1609 the militia of Ustyuzhna knocked out the Poles and “Cherkases” (Cossacks) from surrounding villages, and in February repulsed all attacks by the Polish cavalry and mercenary German infantry. In February 17 the Russian militia lost to the Poles in a battle near Suzdal. At the end of February the Siberian and Arkhangelsk shooting squads of voivode Davyd Zherebtsov released Kostroma from the interventionists. 3 (13) March the militia of northern and north Russian cities took Romanov, and from there moved to Yaroslavl and took it in early April. The Nizhny Novgorod voivode Alyabyev 15 (25) March took Murom, and March 27 (April 6) freed Vladimir.

Vasily Shuisky”s government concludes the Treaty of Vyborg with Sweden, under which in exchange for military aid to the Swedish crown the fortress of Korela with the county was transferred to it. The Russian government was also required to pay for the mercenaries, who comprised a large part of the Swedish army. Charles IX provided 5 thousand mercenaries as well as 10 thousand men from “all kinds of miscellaneous rabble” under the command of J. Balagardi. Delagardi. In spring the prince Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky gathered 5 thousandth Russian army in Novgorod. On May 10 (20) the Russian-Swedish forces occupied Staraya Russa and on May 11 defeated the Polish-Lithuanian forces approaching the city. On May 15 the Russian-Swedish forces under the command of Chulkov and Horn defeated the Polish cavalry under the command of Kernozitsky near Toropets.

By the end of spring most of the northwestern Russian towns had fallen away from the impostor. By summer the number of Russian troops reached 20 thousand people. 17 (27) June in a heavy battle near Torzhok the Russian-Swedish forces forced the Polish-Lithuanian army of Zborowski to retreat. July 11-13 Russian-Swedish forces under the command of Skopin-Shuisky and Delagardi, defeated the Poles near Tver. In the further actions of Skopin-Shuisky the Swedish troops (with the exception of a detachment of Christier Zomme numbering 1 thousand men) did not take part. July 24 (August 3) Russian troops crossed to the right bank of the Volga and entered the Makariev Monastery, located in the town of Kalyazin. In the battle of Kalyazin on 19 (29) August the Poles, commanded by Yan Sapieha, were defeated by Skopin-Shuisky. On 10 (20) September the Russian troops together with the detachment of Somme occupied Pereyaslavl, and on 9 (19) October the governor Golovin took Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. 16 (26) October the Russian detachment broke through to the Trinity-Sergius monastery, besieged by the Poles. On October 28 (November 7) Skopin-Shuisky defeated hetman Sapieha in the battle on the Karin field near the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda.

At the same time, using the Russian-Swedish treaty, Polish King Sigismund III declared war on Russia and besieged Smolensk. Most of the Tushinites abandoned False Dmitri II and went to serve the king. Under these circumstances, the impostor decided to flee and fled from Tushino to Kaluga, where he fortified himself again and by the spring of 1610 recaptured several cities from Shuisky.

On January 12 (22), 1610 Poles have receded from the Trinity-Sergiev Monastery, and on February 27 (on March 9), 1610 have left under blow Russian armies Dmitrov. On March 12 (22), 1610 Skopin-Shuisky”s regiments have solemnly entered capital, however on April 23 (on May 3) the successful young commander after short illness has died. Most historians assume that he was poisoned by Tsar Vasily Shuisky and his militarily untalented brother Dmitry Shuisky, who envied the immense popularity of his distant relative and were afraid to lose power in his favor. The army was led by Dmitri Shuisky.

The Russian army at this time was preparing to come to the aid of Smolensk, which since September 1609 had been besieged by the troops of the Polish king Sigismund III.

On July 4 (14), 1610 has taken place Battle of Klushino which resulted in the Polish army (during fight the German mercenaries who served at Russians, have passed on the party of Poles. Thus, the Poles opened the way to Moscow from the west.

Upon learning of the Klushin disaster, the troops of False Dmitry II moved to Moscow from the south, capturing on the way Serpukhov, Borovsk, Paphnutyev Monastery, and set up camp in the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow.

The defeat of Dmitry Shuisky”s troops by the Poles at Klushino, as well as the reappearance of False Dmitry II near Moscow, finally undermined the shaky authority of the “Boyar Tsar,” and in these circumstances there was a revolution in Moscow. As a result of a boyar conspiracy, Vasily Shuisky was deposed. A council of seven boyars – Semiboyarshchina, who recognized Polish Prince Wladyslaw as the Russian king, came to power.

However, many towns and villages did not recognize the Catholic prince as tsar and swore allegiance to False Dmitry II, including those previously stubbornly opposed to him: Kolomna, Kashira, Suzdal, Galich and Vladimir.

The real threat from the impostor forced Semiboyarshchina on the night of September 20-21 to let the Polish-Lithuanian troops into the capital in order to repel the “thief”. But the impostor, warned by well-wishers, left the Kolomna camp and returned to Kaluga.

Looting and violence committed by Polish-Lithuanian detachments in Russian cities, as well as inter-religious contradictions between Catholicism and Orthodoxy caused the rejection of Polish rule – in the northwest and east a number of Russian cities “sat under siege” and refused to recognize Vladislav as the Russian Tsar, swearing allegiance to False Dmitry II. In September 1610 cohorts of the impostor freed Kozelsk, Meshchovsk, Pochep and Starodub from the Polish rule. In early December, False Dmitry II defeated the troops of Hetman Sapieha. But on December 11 (21), 1610 as a result of a quarrel the impostor was killed by the Tatar guards.

A national liberation movement began in the country, which contributed to the formation of the First and Second Militia.

At the head of the first militia became Ryazan nobleman Prokopy Lyapunov, who was joined by supporters of False Dmitry II: Princes Dmitry Trubetskoy, Grigory Shakhovsky, Masalsky, Cherkassky and others. Also went over to the side of the militia Cossack freemen, led by the ataman Ivan Zarutsky.

Before the approach of 17 (27) March 1611, the Polish garrison, taking a dispute in the marketplace as the beginning of an uprising, carried out a massacre in Moscow, in Kitay-gorod alone 7 thousand Muscovites were killed.

On March 24 (on April 3) 1611 to walls of Moscow the basic forces of the First home guard Lyapunov have approached. In April and May the militia liberated the White city, the Zemlyanoy city and part of Kitay-gorod. At the Council of All the Land a provisional government, the Council of All the Land, headed by Lyapunov, Trubetskoy and Zarutsky, was elected. The Council collected taxes and settled quarrels among the nobility. However, as a result of discord at the military council of the rebel Cossacks Lyapunov was killed, and the remaining troops led by Dmitry Trubetskoy and Zarutsky kept the Kremlin siege until the arrival of the second militia.

In the same year, the Crimean Tatars, meeting no resistance, ravaged the Ryazan region. Smolensk, after a long siege, was seized by the Poles, and the Swedes, coming out as “allies,” ravaged the northern Russian cities and captured Novgorod. And in December 1611, Pskov swore an oath to the new impostor False Dmitry III. The new impostor was also recognized by many northwestern towns and a few small eastern towns.

Poles and Zaporozhye captured cities of Seversk land, the population of Starodub and Pochep were completely killed during the enemy assault. In 1610-1611 Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversky were besieged. These cities have undergone to ruin. Then Poles and Cossacks have transferred military operations to the Kursk region. The siege of Kursk and Rylsk were unsuccessful for the Polish side, but they managed to take and ruin Putivl and Belgorod.

The second home guard of 1612 was headed by Kuzma Minin, the merchant from Nizhny Novgorod who has invited prince Pozharsky for leadership of military operations. In February, the Second Militia marched to the capital.

However, in March, the camp near Moscow, which remained of the First Militia, swore allegiance to False Dmitry III. The Second Militia of Minin and Pozharsky could not march to the capital while supporters of the impostor were in charge there.

Under these conditions, the leaders of the second militia made Yaroslavl their capital, where the same provisional government was established as that of the first militia, the “Council of All the Land. The militia stood here for four months, because it was necessary to “build” not only the army, but also the “land. Transcaucasian, Volga and Pomeranian towns sent to Yaroslavl their military forces and the collected treasury. Kuzma Minin reorganized the system of administration of the territory, which refused to recognize the authority of False Dmitry III. The impostor himself did not last long in Pskov. The Pskov “thief” levied huge taxes on the territory under their control. Besides, unlike his predecessors, he turned out to be an untalented military leader and could not even drive Polish raiders of Lisovsky away from Pskov. A conspiracy arose against False Dimitri III, the impostor was captured and escorted to Moscow, where he was killed on the way by Polish “thieves”.

Pozharsky wanted to assemble “a general zemsky council” to discuss plans to fight the Polish-Lithuanian intervention and “how we in this evil time should not be stateless and how we should elect a sovereign by all the land”. For discussion was suggested the candidacy of Swedish prince Karl Philip, who “wants to be baptized into our Orthodox faith of Greek law”. However, the zemstvo council did not take place.

In the beginning of August 1612 the home guard has left Yaroslavl, and on August 18 (28) 1612 from Trinity Sergiev monastery has moved to Moscow where on August 22 (on September 1) in the morning has entered into battle with armies of hetman Hodkevich trying to incorporate to the Polish garrison controlling the Moscow Kremlin; on August 23 the Polish army has receded from Moscow. An important role in the victory of the Second Militia was played by the Polish defector Pawel Chmielewski, who attacked the exhausted Polish troops with his squadron and a detachment of Russian nobles.

The entire cart with food for the “Kremlin sitters” was seized by the militia. The surrender of the garrison of the Kremlin and Kitay-gorod was only a matter of time. “The sit-in in Moscow was so brutal that not only dogs and cats were eaten, but also Russian people were killed. And not only Russian people were killed and eaten, but they themselves killed and ate each other. And not only did they kill people alive, but they also dug out the dead from the ground: when they took China, they saw with their own eyes that in many vats there was salted human flesh.”

On October 22 (November 1) the home guard under leadership of Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky storm has taken Kitay-town; the garrison of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth has receded to the Kremlin, on October 26 (November 5) the contract on capitulation of the Polish-Lithuanian garrison of the Kremlin has been made. On October 27 (November 6), 1612 last remains of the Polish garrison have left the Kremlin. Prince Pozharsky came out of Yaroslavl with a copy of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God, delivered earlier from Kazan. After the capture of the Kremlin he ordered to raise up a “temple to the Most Holy Mother of God of Her Integrity in the church of her Entrance and the icon was taken and put in the church in his parish. Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich heard about the miracles and… on the 22nd day of October, when the royal city was cleansed”, and the icon was transferred from the Church of the Presentation on Lubyanka to the Church of Kazan on Nikolskaya Street.

After capture of Moscow, by the letter on November 15 co-councilmen of Russian state Pozharsky and Trubetskoy have called representatives from cities, on 7 person, for a choice of tsar. Sigismund has thought to go to Moscow, but he did not have enough forces to take Volok, and he has left back.

In January 1613 elected representatives of all estates, including peasants, came together. Sobor (i.e., the all-village assembly) was one of the most crowded and most complete: it had representatives even of the black volosts, which had never happened before. According to historian Kluchevsky, the Zemsky Sobor of 1613 was the first all-village sobor. When the elected representatives arrived in the capital, a three-day fast was appointed, by which the representatives of the estates all over the country wanted to purify themselves from sins before the election of the new sovereign. At the end of the fast, meetings began. The question of the choice of the sovereign from among the foreign rulers, such as the Polish Prince Vladislav and the Swedish Karl Philip, was resolved negatively; the candidacy of Ivan Dmitrievich, “the thief”, the younger son of False Dmitri II and Marina Mnishek, was also rejected. However, none of the Russian candidates immediately met with unanimous support. “The Tale of the Assembly of the Land of 1613” reports eight candidates from among the Boyars, including Dmitry Timofeyevich Trubetskoy, Ivan Mikhailovich Vorotynsky and Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky.

The election was very tumultuous. A legend has survived that Patriarch Filaret demanded restrictive conditions for the new tsar and pointed to his son as the most suitable candidate. Mikhail Fyodorovich was indeed chosen, and he was offered the restrictive conditions which Philaret wrote: “To give a full run to justice under the old laws of the country; to judge and condemn no one by the highest authority; without a council to introduce any new laws, not to burden subjects with new taxes and not to take the smallest decisions in military and zemstvo affairs.

The election took place on February 7 (17), 1613, but the official announcement was postponed until the 21st to find out how the people would accept the new Tsar. With the election of the tsar, the turmoil ended, because now there was a power that was recognized by all and on which it could be relied.

However, even after the election of the tsar in Russia was not calmer. On May 25 (June 4), 1613 begins a rebellion against the Swedish garrison in Tikhvin, organized by Leonty Artsybashev. Rebellious posadtsy people recaptured from the Swedes the fortifications of the Tikhvin monastery and withstood the siege until mid-September, forcing Delagardi troops to retreat. With the successful Tikhvin rebellion begins the struggle for the liberation of Northwestern Russia and Veliky Novgorod from the Swedes, an important milestone in which was the successful defense of Pskov in 1615.

Until the summer of 1614, the ataman Ivan Zarutsky was active in the south of Russia. Disagreeing with the decision of the Assembly of the Land, he retreated from Moscow to what is now the Tula region. After the appearance of the king”s troops he withdrew to Astrakhan, where he tried to organize resistance to the new government. In the north, the Cossacks, mobilized to fight the Swedes, revolted and began to ravage the territory of the upper Volga region. Quite a large 5 thousand of their detachment under the command of Balovnya ataman in 1615 suddenly approached Moscow, but was repulsed by the Yaroslavl army of voivode Lykov.

In 1615 in the heart of Russia was invaded by a large detachment of Mr. Lisovsky, who managed to defeat the very Prince Pozharsky – the hero of the 2nd Militia, taking advantage of the fact that part of Pozharsky”s forces had not yet approached the city. Then foxmen (2 thousand people) made a deep raid, describing a giant loop around Moscow (through Torzhok, Uglich, Kostroma, Murom), and returned to Poland. Last unsuccessful blow to Moscow in 1618 have brought Poles together with Hetman Sagajdachny Cossacks (20 thousand people).

The war with Sweden ended in 1617 with the signing of the Stolbovsky peace treaty, under which Russia lost access to the Baltic Sea, but the cities of Novgorod, Porkhov, Staraya Russa, Ladoga and Gdov were returned to her.

The Time of Troubles ended with great territorial losses for Russia. Smolensk was lost for many decades; western and much of eastern Karelia were seized by the Swedes. Not resigned to national and religious oppression, almost the entire Orthodox population, both Russians and Karelians, left these territories. Russia lost access to the Gulf of Finland. The Swedes left Novgorod only in 1617, in a completely ruined city, only a few hundred people remained. The ravages of Novgorod affected the fact that the Swedes, for a century, were able to freely take over the coast of the Gulf of Finland, the so-called Ingermanland, which only the first emperor of Russia, Peter I, was able to regain, also establishing the city of St. Petersburg on these lands in 1703.

The Time of Troubles led to a deep economic decline. In many counties of the historical center of the state, the amount of arable land decreased by a factor of 20, and the number of peasants by a factor of 4. In western counties (Rzhevsky, Mozhaisky, etc.) the cultivated land was from 0.05 to 4.8%. Lands in possessions of Joseph-Volokolamsk monastery were “all ravaged to the ground and peasants with their wives and children killed, and the rest were taken as prisoners… and five or six dozen peasants, who after the Lithuanian ravage were brought up and they are still unable to make their own bread”. In some areas by 1620-1640 years the population was still below the level of the XVI century. And in the middle of the XVII century “living arable land” in the Trans-Moscow region amounted to no more than half of all the lands accounted by the scribe books.

Historians” views on the years of the beginning and end of the Troubles differ.

The Beginning. The date of the beginning of the Troubles is defined in different ways:

Ending. The dates of the end of the Time of Troubles also differ. Some historians believe that the Troubles ends in 1613 with the Assembly of the Land and the election of Mikhail Romanov. Others believe that Distemper ends with Deulinsky an armistice with Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1618. Others estimate that the Time of Troubles ends with the conclusion of the Peace of Polanova in 1634.

There are different views on the periodization of the Time of Troubles. The different periodizations stem from the principle underlying them.

By rulers:

According to the nature of the external intervention

By the nature of power

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Documents of contemporaries and participants of the events

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Multimedia resources

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