Latest / The Romanov Dynasty: Rise, Power, and Bloody End — Fexingo History / The Romanovs and the Time of Troubles: From Boris Godunov to Michael Romanov
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've spent a lot of time on the later Romanovs — Nicholas and Alexandra, Rasputin, the revolutions. But the dynasty didn't just appear out of nowhere. To understand how the Romanovs came to power, you have to look at the catastrophe that preceded them — the Time of Troubles, or Smuta in Russian. Luna: The Time of Troubles — that's the period between the end of the Rurikid dynasty and the Romanovs, right? Lucas: Exactly. It starts in 1598 with the death of Tsar Feodor I, the last of the Rurikid line. Feodor was mentally and physically weak — contemporaries described him as almost simple-minded. His wife Irina was Boris Godunov's sister. And when Feodor died without a son, the seven-hundred-year-old Rurikid dynasty came to an end. Luna: So Boris Godunov just took the throne? Lucas: Not immediately, and not without controversy. Godunov had been the de facto ruler for years — he'd been regent under Feodor — but he wasn't a Rurikid. He was a boyar from a Tatar-origin family. The Zemsky Sobor — an assembly of nobles, clergy, and commoners — elected him tsar, but many boyars considered him a usurper. And then nature dealt him a terrible hand. Lucas: From 1601 to 1603, Russia was hit by a catastrophic famine caused by volcanic winter — a series of eruptions that cooled the climate worldwide. Crops failed year after year. People ate straw, bark, even human flesh. In Moscow alone, over a hundred thousand died. The price of rye skyrocketed. Godunov tried to help — he distributed grain and money — but it wasn't enough, and his popularity collapsed. Luna: And that's when the false Dmitrys start appearing? Lucas: That's right. In 1604, a man appeared in Poland-Lithuania claiming to be Dmitry Ivanovich, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, who had supposedly died in 1591 under mysterious circumstances. The real Dmitry was believed to have been killed in Uglich — probably on Godunov's orders. But this False Dmitry, or Lzhedmitry, had the backing of powerful Polish magnates and even the Pope. Lucas: He converted to Catholicism, promised the Polish king Sigismund III vast territories, and married Marina Mniszech, a Polish noblewoman. With a small army of Polish adventurers and Cossacks, he marched into Russia. Many towns and peasants, sick of Godunov, flocked to his banner. In 1605, Boris Godunov suddenly died — possibly poisoned, possibly from a stroke. His son Feodor II reigned only a few weeks before being assassinated, and the False Dmitry entered Moscow in triumph. Luna: And became tsar? That's incredible — a total impostor. Lucas: He did become tsar, crowned as Dmitry I. And for about ten months, he ruled. He was surprisingly liberal — he relaxed serfdom laws, allowed people to travel abroad, and surrounded himself with Poles, which infuriated the boyars. His marriage to Marina Mniszech was a huge scandal — she was Catholic, and the wedding ceremony violated Orthodox traditions. The boyars, led by Vasili Shuisky, plotted against him. Lucas: In May 1606, a popular uprising in Moscow turned into a massacre. The False Dmitry tried to escape but was caught and killed. His body was dragged through the streets, burned, and his ashes shot from a cannon aimed at Poland — a symbolic gesture. Vasili Shuisky then declared himself tsar, but his reign was even more troubled. Luna: So Shuisky was a legitimate tsar? Or another usurper? Lucas: He was a Rurikid, which gave him some legitimacy, but he was weak and unpopular. Almost immediately, a second False Dmitry appeared, this time backed by even larger Polish forces. He set up a rival court in the village of Tushino, just outside Moscow — hence he's known as the 'Thief of Tushino'. For a while, Russia had two tsars, two governments, two capitals. The country descended into civil war. Lucas: Meanwhile, the Polish king Sigismund III decided to intervene directly. He laid siege to Smolensk, a key fortress, and demanded the Russian throne for his son Władysław. Vasili Shuisky turned to Sweden for help, which gave Poland a pretext for open war. By 1610, Shuisky was deposed by the boyars, who formed a temporary government known as the Seven Boyars, or Semi-Boyarshchina. Luna: The Seven Boyars — that sounds like a recipe for chaos. Lucas: It was. They offered the throne to Władysław, the Polish prince, on condition he convert to Orthodoxy. But Sigismund refused to let his son convert, and instead intended to take Russia for himself. Polish troops occupied Moscow and began looting. The Kremlin itself was in Polish hands. It looked like Russia was about to become a Polish province. Lucas: But that occupation sparked a national resistance. The Orthodox Church played a huge role — Patriarch Hermogenes, imprisoned by the Poles, sent out calls for a holy war. In Nizhny Novgorod, a butcher named Kuzma Minin inspired townspeople to donate a third of their property to raise an army. He partnered with Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, a capable military commander, to lead a volunteer force. Luna: So that's the famous Minin and Pozharsky — I've seen the statue in Red Square. Lucas: That's them. In 1612, their army marched on Moscow. After a brutal battle, they forced the Polish garrison in the Kremlin to surrender. The Poles had been reduced to cannibalism — contemporary accounts mention soldiers eating prisoners. The city was liberated, but the country was still without a tsar. The boyars, clergy, and representatives from across Russia assembled for a new Zemsky Sobor in early 1613. Luna: And that's where the Romanovs come in. Lucas: Yes. The Sobor debated for weeks. Several candidates were proposed — including Polish and Swedish princes — but the assembly ultimately chose Michael Romanov, a sixteen-year-old boy who was the grandnephew of Ivan the Terrible's first wife, Anastasia Romanovna. His father, Filaret, was a powerful Orthodox bishop who was imprisoned by the Poles. The Romanov name was untainted by the chaos of the Troubles. Lucas: When they informed Michael, who was living in the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma, he apparently burst into tears and refused the throne. His mother begged the delegation to release him from the burden. But they insisted, and on July 22, 1613, Michael was crowned tsar. The Time of Troubles was over, and the Romanov dynasty had begun — a dynasty that would rule Russia for over three hundred years, until that awful night in Yekaterinburg in 1918. Luna: It's amazing and tragic — that the dynasty born out of such chaos would end in such violence. Lucas: Incidentally, this kind of deep dive into a specific period — it's exactly the sort of thing listeners tell us they appreciate. And here's the honest reality: a small number of listeners chip in each month through Buy Me a Coffee dot com slash Fexingo to keep the show ad-free and allow us to research these stories properly. It's what makes it possible to spend time on episodes like this rather than racing through the headlines. Luna: Yeah, absolutely. And for anyone who's been with us through the Romanov series, this is the origin story that everything else rests on. Lucas: So back to the Sobor — the choice of Michael Romanov was really about finding someone uncontroversial. He was young, inexperienced, and his family had no powerful enemies. But he was also a compromise candidate acceptable to the Cossacks, who had become a powerful force during the Troubles. The Cossacks had even threatened to kill boyars who opposed him. Luna: So the dynasty that would produce Peter the Great and Catherine the Great started as a compromise choice? Lucas: Exactly. And for the first few years, Michael ruled with a regency council led by his mother and later his father Filaret, once he was released from Polish captivity. Filaret became patriarch and effectively co-ruler. They worked to rebuild the shattered state — reestablishing order, expelling remaining Polish and Swedish forces, and slowly restoring the economy. Lucas: One of the enduring legacies of the Time of Troubles was that it cemented the idea of autocracy in Russia. The chaos of the Smuta convinced many Russians that only a strong, absolute tsar could prevent anarchy. And that notion — that the tsar's power must be unchecked — would persist through the Romanov dynasty, ultimately contributing to its downfall. Luna: So the Romanovs' rise and their fall are linked by this thread of absolute power. Lucas: That's a great way to put it. The Troubles showed what happens when central authority collapses, and the Romanovs spent the next three centuries trying to ensure it never happened again — sometimes with great success, sometimes with disastrous overreach. Luna: Next time, we should talk about Michael's successor, Alexei — the second Romanov — and his son Peter. Lucas: Absolutely. Peter the Great transformed Russia into an empire, but he also inherited a throne that barely existed fifty years earlier. The Romanov story is one of resilience, brutality, and ultimately, tragic inevitability. And it all began in a monastery in Kostroma with a boy who didn't want to be tsar.