Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas

Ausgabe: 59 (2011) H. 2

Verfasst von: Chester S. L. Dunning

Igor’ O. Tjumencev Smutnoe vremja v Rossii načala XVII stoletija. Dviženie Lžedmitrija II. Moskva: Izdat. Nauka, 2008. 686 S. ISBN: 978-5-02-035267-4.

The assassination of Tsar Dmitrii (also known as False Dmitrii) in 1606 rekindled Russia’s first civil war. The usurper Vasilii Shuiskii denounced Dmitrii as an impostor, but the dead tsar’s supporters successfully put forward the story that Dmitrii had escaped death and would soon return to punish the traitors. So energetic was the response to the call to arms against Shuiskii that civil war raged for many years and produced about a dozen pretenders claiming to be Tsar Dmitrii or other members of the old ruling dynasty. The most successful of these pretenders was the “second false Dmitrii” (also known as the Brigand of Tushino) who managed to occupy much Russian territory, set up a rival court in Tushino (complete with a rival Patriarch – Filaret Romanov), and successfully harassed Moscow and Tsar Vasilii Shuiskii for about two years. The second false Dmitrii has traditionally been identified as an itinerant Jewish schoolteacher who became a puppet of Polish intervention or as the reluctant leader of social revolutionary Cossacks in Russia’s “first peasant war” against serfdom. The odious Brigand of Tushino did not receive much serious scholarly attention until the late Ruslan Skrynnikov’s student, Igor Tiumentsev, began to carefully investigate the final years of Russia’s horrific Time of Troubles (1598–1613).

In 2008 Tiumentsev published a revised edition of his fascinating book about the second false Dmitrii (originally published in 1999 by Volgograd State University). Tiumentsev’s revised book is a welcome addition to the literature. Most important, it significantly expands his study of sources related to the second false Dmitrii and adds new material drawn primarily from Polish archives. Some chapters have been thoroughly revised; others contain only minor changes. Tiumentsev reviews the relevant historiography, including relatively recent work by Ruslan Skrynnikov, Aleksandr Stanislavskii, V. I. Ul’ianovskii, Maureen Perrie, and the author of this review. Tiumentsev wisely rejects the Marxist “peasant war” interpretation of the Time of Troubles and recognizes that Russian society was divided vertically, not horizontally, during the civil war fought in Tsar Dmitrii’s name. There is much to recommend in Tiumentsev’s revised book which is the best study of the second false Dmitrii in print. Tiumentsev’s painstaking scholarship will significantly help twenty-first century scholars make better sense out of the chaotic final years of Russia’s Time of Troubles.

Tiumentsev’s book does have some weaknesses. Not all readers will agree with his conclusion that the second false Dmitrii was solely the product of internal Russian forces and a manifestation of Cossack activism. While it is true that the Cossacks produced several tsarist pretenders, links between the appearance of the Brigand of Tushino and Polish interventionists are too quickly brushed aside by Tiumentsev. He also fails to carefully explore the origins of the phenomenon of Russian royal pretenderism itself, which was born in the Time of Troubles. Most significantly, Tiumentsev seriously underestimates the extent to which the second false Dmitrii’s Russian supporters (including Cossacks) were motivated by genuine affection for Tsar Dmitrii, who was regarded by most of his subjects as the legitimate, “God-chosen” ruler of Russia. Many Tushinites really did think they were fighting to restore God’s grace to Russia by returning Ivan the Terrible’s brave and clement youngest son to the throne of his ancestors.

Chester S. L. Dunning, College Station, TX, USA

Zitierweise: Chester S. L. Dunning über: Igor’ O. Tjumencev Smutnoe vremja v Rossii načala XVII stoletija. Dviženie Lžedmitrija II. Izdat. Nauka Moskva 2008. ISBN: 978-5-02-035267-4, http://www.dokumente.ios-regensburg.de/JGO/Rez/Dunning_Tjumencev_Smutnoe_vremja.html (Datum des Seitenbesuchs)

© 2011 by Osteuropa-Institut Regensburg and Chester S. L. Dunning. All rights reserved. This work may be copied and redistributed for non-commercial educational purposes, if permission is granted by the author and usage right holders. For permission please contact redaktion@osteuropa-institut.de