Russia. A History

Muscovy responded to the extinction of its ruling dynasty by electing a new sovereign. Interestingly, no one as yet proposed to emulate other countries by electing someone from a foreign ruling house—a remarkable testament to the insularity of Muscovite society. Such a proposal, undoubtedly faced an insuperable religious obstacle—obligatory conversion to Orthodoxy. In the end the choice fell on Boris Godunov—a Russian nobleman, though not from an élite family (i.e. descending from another Riurikid line or the Lithuanian grand princes). Nonetheless, Boris had single-mindedly prepared his advancement under Tsars Ivan the Terrible (1533–84) and Fedor Ivanovich (1584–98): he himself married the daughter of a favourite in Ivan’s court; his sister Irina married Ivan’s successor, Fedor. Because the latter was personally incapable of exercising power, Godunov became regent and excluded all other competitors. After Fedor’s death, on 17 February 1598 Boris was formally ‘elected’ as Tsar Boris by a council (sobor

) of approximately 600 deputies drawn from the upper clergy, the boyar duma, and representatives of the service nobility who had gathered in Moscow. Although transparently stage-managed by Boris, the council seemed to confirm that the realm had ‘found’ the candidate chosen by God Himself.

The Church, which Boris had earlier helped to establish its own Patriarchate, supported his election. The new tsar could also count on the sympathy of the lower nobility. But Boris also had to use coercion to eliminate rivals among the boyars—such as Fedor Nikitich Romanov, the head of a family with marital ties to the Riurikids, who was banished in late 1600 and forced to take monastic vows in 1601 (with the name Filaret). That tonsure effectively eliminated him from contention for worldly offices.

Nevertheless, Boris’s position was anything but secure. Apart from the fact that his government was beset with enormous burdens and problems, Boris himself failed to evoke veneration from his subjects. In part, that was because he had married the daughter of Grigorii (Maliuta) Skuratov—the oprichnik

blamed for murdering Metropolitan Filipp of Novgorod in 1569. Moreover, his blatant efforts to ascend the throne lent credence to rumours that he had arranged the murder of Tsarevich Dmitrii, Ivan’s last son, in 1591. Although an investigatory commission under Vasilii Shuiskii (a rival whom Boris had deftly appointed to lead the investigation) confirmed that the death was accidental, the death of the 9-year-old Tsarevich remains a mystery to this day. Indeed, it made no sense for Boris to kill the boy: at the time of Dmitrii’s death, it was still conceivable that Fedor would father a son and avert the extinction of the Riurikid line. Nevertheless, Boris’s adversaries exploited suspicions of regicide—a view which, because of Alexander Pushkin’s play Boris Godunov

(which Modest Mussorgsky later made into an opera), has persisted to the present.

Nor was Boris able to consolidate power after accession to the throne. His attempt to tighten control over administration failed—largely because of the traditional ‘Muscovite procrastination’ and corruption. His plan to reconstruct the towns also went awry, chiefly for want of a middle estate. Nor was he able to train better state servants: when, for the first time, Muscovy dispatched a contingent (eighteen men) to study in England, France, and Germany, not a single one returned. He recruited large numbers of European specialists (military officers, doctors, and artisans), but met with remonstrations from the Orthodox Church. Clearly, Boris had an open mind about the West: he not only solicited the support of ruling houses in the West, but also sought to consolidate his dynastic claims through attempts to marry his daughter Ksenia to Swedish (later Danish) princes, although such plans ultimately came to nought.