March 4, 2025 • 29 mins
Tsar Dmitri I was murdered by assassins, but he wouledn't be the last to use the name of Ivan the Terrible's son claiming to be the rightful ruler of Russia.
Support Noble Blood:
— Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon
— Noble Blood merch
— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. Just before
midnight on May sixteenth, sixteen oh six, a courtier and
several of his accomplices nervously waded in the palace shadows,
(00:21):
with traders potentially lurking in every corner of the Kremlin.
Speed and stealth were vital, but also nearly impossible considering
the group's mission sneaking twenty five horses out of the
Tsar's private stable. This was no theft, however, no devious
horse heist. The courtier Mikhail Milkanov had been tasked with
(00:46):
securing this royal herd by their owner himself, Tsar Dmitri.
Milkanov was one of the Emperor's closest associates and had
helped hatch this escape plan after Dimiti learned of a
post wedding assassination plot against him that was set to
kick off in mere hours. Milkanov had tasked and experienced
(01:10):
stable hand with gathering the horses, But was that man trustworthy?
Could this risky getaway possibly work? The tense moments ticked past,
until at last the stable hand delivered the horses as
covertly as he could. Milkanov and his men met up
with a disguised Tsar Dmitri and successfully helped him flee
(01:34):
Moscow under cover of darkness, so that he could then
travel incognito and daringly test the true loyalty of his
subjects and purportedly devoted lords. Or so goes this alternate
version of events. After Vasili Shwisky initiated his murderous plan
(01:55):
and grotesquely paraded Czar Dmitri's supposed by through the streets,
Milkanov began to spread his dramatic tale. Within days, the Tsar,
he said actually escaped, and a few details did add
a sniff of plausibility. For example, twenty five horses did
(02:16):
go missing from Zar Dmitri's stables. Milkanov also had Dmitri's
favorite Turkish horse and state seal to back up his claim,
and vasily reportedly had that skillful stable hand tortured, hoping
to make him reveal that he had not actually helped
Dmitri survive, But that poor stable hand, apparently deeply loyal
(02:40):
to Dmitri after all, died without admitting a thing. Milkanov
gradually headed for Poland Lithuania, and has been credited by
some historians as having done more to keep the legend
of Zar Dmitri alive than any other individual. Vulkanov achieved
(03:01):
this by not only spinning his yarn that the Czar
and his horses had artfully escaped their enemies, but by
also pretending to be Dmitri himself. Milkanov did not bear
much resemblance to Dmitri, but he knew him so well
that he could defintely imitate him while traveling among less
(03:23):
familiar townsfolk. In spite of these efforts, Milkanov is typically
not even included by scholars as one of the main
quote false Dmitris because although he elicited considerable Dmitri loyalty
in certain localities, Milkanov was already too well known in
(03:44):
Moscow and other power circles to continue to play the role.
Since the original Czar Dmitri was seemingly never seen or
heard from again, Milkanov essentially served as a stand in
who stoke the fires of rebellion until eventually you guessed it.
(04:05):
The time came to debut a new Dmitri. I'm Danish
forts and this is noble blood, how was yet another
man and eventually more after that, able to somewhat successfully
(04:25):
assume the same Dmitri identity. Much like franchise movie sequels
or knockoff rollis'es. The market for them was clearly there,
and to fully understand how Russia's impersonator supply kept up
with the Dmitri demand, we must first look at the
unstable situation in Moscow. Following the death of the man
(04:50):
who had seized power under the name Zar Dmitri, Vasily
quickly finagled his way into becoming the new Czar. Vasily's
transition to the throne was rocky, though many accounts have
pegged Vasily as a cunning strategist, particularly accounts he commissioned
and or those that conveniently ignore his less cunning plans
(05:14):
that backfired in farcical ways, But compared to his predecessor,
Vasily was less respected in the capitol, where many nobles
reportedly saw him as a detestable trader, and he was
far less well liked than Dmitri. Within the larger realm,
Vasily has been unfavorably depicted as a stocky, balding, and
(05:38):
exceedingly near sighted man who apparently looked fairly ridiculous, yet
still intimidated his opponents through tireless scheming and betraying. This
is by no means to say that a ruler's overall
effectiveness hinges on their looks or benevolence or reluctant to fearmonger.
(06:00):
There are plenty of historical cases that prove otherwise. But
unfortunately for Vasily when it came to winning broad support,
he also did not have many other common image enhancing
factors to help his case among either the noble classes
or the wider population. Vasily was of a.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Royal background, but even putting aside the whole committing regicide issue,
any assertion of him being a proper heir was murky
at best. Vasily also did not naturally come off as
a battle tested hero or military mastermind, and unlike Czar
Dmitri with his Jesus esque resurrection, Vasily lacked a compelling
(06:46):
origin story that was anywhere near as interesting or easy
to sell to the masses. Throughout his time in power,
Vasily tried to boost his own legitimacy and combat wild
rooms us about his popular predecessor in numerous ways, ways
which often involved spreading wild rumors about his popular predecessor.
(07:09):
He eagerly picked up where czar Boris had left off
by launching a dramatic propaganda campaign to discredit Dmitri. Remember
grigory Otrepev, the defract Monk, the supposed alter ego of
the supposed Tzar. Vasily incessantly endorsed the idea that the
pretender Dmitri had undoubtedly been that dabbler in the dark
(07:33):
arts all along, and went to great lengths with his
related scare tactics. For example, Vasily allegedly staged a ghoulish
incident where Dmitri's corpse suddenly appeared at a churchyard far
from where it had been buried the weak prior, so
that spooky stories would spread. Then, claiming that the earth
(07:56):
was clearly refusing to accept the body of an evil sorcerer,
Vasily had Dmitri's remains burned in one of the forts
Dmitri had commissioned, and, according to an apocryphal sounding legend,
ordered his ashes to be fired from a cannon aimed
in the direction from which the so called Sarvich and
(08:18):
his army had marched into Moscow. Along the way, Vasily
continued to promote correlated notions that the heretic Dmitri was
a tool of the devil, had impregnated thirty nuns, was
maybe even the actual Antichrist, and so on. Sure, this
strategy hadn't worked the first time around, but doubling down
(08:42):
on thoroughly demonizing the formers are which surely release people
from their sacred obligation to support him as a monarch.
Right far from it, Vasily's macab displays and scary accusations
seemingly just confused or alienated sizable portions of Russian society.
(09:03):
Many citizens were stout in their Russian Orthodox beliefs, and
some presumably bought Vasili's stories, but many others were just
fatigued by Vasili's rumor mill and skeptical of his desperate
copying of Boris's talking points. Again, it's worth noting that
(09:23):
the whole painting your political adversary as a demon gambit
had been so frequently deployed by that point that an
average Russian on the street might have been hard pressed
to name a former ruler who hadn't maybe had a
chat or two with Satan. But a more important factor
(09:43):
is that Dmitri had made many promises to towns, soldiers,
and exiled families in order to gain their support during
his Civil war crusade back before he died, and he
had started to deliver on those debts once he became Czar. Vassal,
on the other hand, had not specifically promised these groups
(10:04):
nearly as many legal or financial rewards. So when Mikhail
Milkanov aka stand in Dmitri and his associates traveled throughout
the countryside building up the myth of Dmitri's miraculous escape,
many of Dmitri's ambitious supporters quickly backed the cause once
(10:24):
again and revived their civil war fighting. As this rebellion
neared critical mass in early sixteen o seven, an individual
emerged in dramatic fashion, claiming yet again to be the
true Czar Dmitri. Russia had not even had to wait
a full year to get there. Exciting, if somewhat slap
(10:48):
dash sequel. The origins of the man who would later
be referred to by many as False Dmitri, the second
or second False Dmitrie, are similarly foggy to those of
Czar Dmitri, who we will now refer to as False
Dmitrie number one, not because we're fully upholding the arguments
(11:10):
of various detractors, but for the sake of historians, naming
conventions and basic clarity, just to keep all of the
Dmitris straight. Apparently, False Dmitri number two was a similar
height to False Dmitri the First, but only vaguely resembled him.
Most accounts described False Dmitri the Second as well educated,
(11:34):
having been able to write in Russian as well as Polish, which,
similar to the prior Dmitri, would have helped him gain
support in both countries. His handwriting apparently even looked like
False Dmitri the firsts, although this could have been thanks
to help from stand in Dmitri, who could have closely
(11:55):
modeled the first Dmitri's penmanship for the second Dmitri. Regarding
the background of False Dmitri the Second, consistent facts are
hard to come by. Some sources pinpoint him as a
Jew named Bogden. This is largely based on the fact
that Hebrew writings and a copy of the p Tulmud
(12:15):
were reportedly posthumously found in his belongings. Many other accounts
also represent him as someone far less refined or from
a low socioeconomic class, possibly the son of a coach
driver or blacksmith. Maybe he was an apprentice himself, or
a cossack, or maybe a teacher. According to many contemporary sources,
(12:39):
False Dmitri the second also had some association with the church,
since he was knowledgeable when it came to certain Russian
Orthodox traditions. So he was probably, they say, the son
of a priest, or maybe a priest's servant. But he
was also seemingly a beggar when determined rebel agents were
(12:59):
out looking for lookalikes, or if you were sympathetic to
their spin, when they were out trying to locate the
true Czar, who was certainly alive and had in no
way been cremated and shot out of a cannon, So
that would make False Dmitri the second a priest's servant
turned beggar. Some accounts explained this progression through a salacious
(13:22):
story about how he was a priest's servant, but how
he had been turned out into the street when he
was caught in bed with the wife of the priest
he had been serving. Whatever this man's pre Dmitri identity,
the general consensus among many historians seems to be that
False Dmitri the Second did not want to be Czar
(13:45):
Dmitri at all, but after being found, jailed and threatened
with execution, he agreed that yes, he definitely was the
real Dmitri. That said, having only just remembered that he
was Dmitri te he needed training and then a big
unveiling in May sixteen o seven. The town of Stardob
(14:08):
was chosen by rebel leaders as a good place for
this because of the helpful fact that the people there
were not remotely familiar with what Zar Dmitri had been
like in person. In a carefully engineered event, surprisingly similar
to an episode of Undercover Boss, False Dmitri the Second
(14:29):
arrived to town under an alias and asks around as
to what people thought of Zar Dmitri and if they'd
want him back in power again, and then aha, in
a flashy public display, he revealed himself to be Zar Dmitri.
All along he had been hiding as a test to
judge their loyalty, and they'd passed. The whole spectacle supposedly
(14:52):
really stirred up the town and won over its occupants.
False Dmitri the Second then continued to gain support, but
his rise also came at a great cost. His military
forces slogged through bloody battles, sieges, and starvation as they
fought against Tsar Vassili's army, facing steep obstacles preventing them
(15:16):
from sweeping into Moscow. False Dmitri the Second and his
rebel group set up a rival capital in the village
of Tashino, which led to a messy, confusing, and wide
ranging conflict that split the country in a sense. For
over a year, Russia had two tsars, two capitals, and
(15:38):
two armies. Along the way, False Dmitri the second political
alliances became extremely fraught, since, for various reasons, he had
to accept into his circle several other impostors who were
also pretending to be the sons of powerful men, some
of whom themselves were impostors. It's difficult to avoid being
(16:02):
hyperbolic in parts of the story like this, but it
basically got to the point that had you been sitting
in a war planning meeting with False Dmitri the Second
and looked to the person on your left and then
to your right, at least one of them would have
been an impostor, if not all three of you. During
this time, zar vasily tried to speed up peace negotiations
(16:26):
by releasing key prisoners to appease False Dmitri the Second.
Polish supporters, including the wife and father in law of
False Dmitri the First, vasily strictly ordered False Dmitri the
First's widow, Marina and her father stick directly with their
convoy and after reaching Poland Lithuania that they were under
(16:49):
no circumstances to go join False Dmitri the Second where
they could declare him to be Marina's miraculously surviving husband.
So naturally, after getting captured by rubber, Marina and her
dad met up with False Dmitri the Second, and after
some negotiations about her future, she declared that he truly
(17:09):
was Tsar Dmitri, her husband. He had survived, after all,
what a miracle. This boosted the legitimacy of False Dmitri
the Second, and by sixteen eight more than half of
Russia recognized him as Tsar Dmitri. But this upswing also
brought many more Dmitris. Given how the story of Dmitri
(17:36):
surviving assassination attempts clearly captivated people, Russia became a hotbed
for pretenders hoping to use the same formula for themselves.
During the later stages of the Civil War, about ten
more copycats claimed to be Czar Dmitri. These fellows do
(17:56):
not typically even make it into the top tier of
scholars fall Dmitri lists, since many of them barely scratched
the surface of plausibility or garnered any traction at all. Still,
all this Dmitri duplication led many Russians to lose faith
in False Dmitri the Second. Desperate to curry favor with
(18:19):
certain lords and rejuvenate his public support, False Dmitri the
Second reportedly began offering rewards to those who found Pseudosavich's
roaming around and brought them to him. He even resorted
to executing other impostors in his own circle, some who
he'd previously claimed were his close relatives, to prove that
(18:41):
he was real and he would not tolerate fakes. However,
False Dmitri the Second's influence was unraveling too fast for
him to stop. Unlike the more open and forward thinking
ruling style of the first Dmitri, the Second Dmitri's court was,
by most accounts the opposite. It was guarded, paranoid, snobbish,
(19:06):
and cruel. False Dmitri the Second lost the support of
his advisers, and by letting his soldiers looting and pillaging
go unchecked, he lost the support of townsfolk. False Dmitri
the Second fled Tashino as his forces turned on him,
but soon mistreated those around him so egregiously that the
(19:28):
captain of his own bodyguard killed him on December eleventh,
sixteen ten, while they were out sleigh riding. In addition
to costing False Dmitri the Second his life, this bloody
chapter of Russian history also sealed Czar Vasili's fate. Plagued
by backlash over his handling of this civil war, Vasily
(19:52):
was ousted, forced to be a monk, and imprisoned. He
died a couple years later. What a rim and tragic
end to the time of troubles Huh, Nope, hold on
to your fur hats, because it's time for False Dmitri
number three. Don't worry. Within the hem czar studded cast
(20:17):
of False Dmitri's False Dmitri the Third's time in the
spotlight is the briefest and least complicated. Who was he?
Possibly a deacon or a trader. He purportedly ended up
as a beggar in Novgorod, when sometime in sixteen eleven
he or purportedly those who put him up to it,
(20:39):
revealed his identity to be Dmitri, and he attracted some
broader support. Like the first, false Dmitri, the third was
said to be a great speaker and gained popularity among
Cossack groups who had backed prior Dmitri iterations. The third's
popularity act actually grew to the point that several higher
(21:03):
up nobles in the agitated political scene in Moscow once
again had to publicly back him this time, though their
hearts just weren't that in it. In secret, several of
the men trying to seize power at the Kremlin saw
the Third as a nuisance and work together to have
him captured and hanged in sixteen twelve, but that only
(21:28):
paved the way for False Dmitri the fourth. Kidding mostly,
there were a few rumors over the years about Dmitri resurrections,
but some of these might have been due to erroneous
reporting or accounting, and we have now covered the most
influential branches of our dense Dmitri tree. After several more
(21:52):
years of fighting and fierce political jostling. The time of
the troubles essentially came to an end in sixteen thirteen,
when Russia started to accept the Romanov dynasty as legitimate
and citizens went about trying to rebuild their war torn country.
Although the odd and tragic period of the false Dmitries
(22:16):
was relatively brief, their collective story continues to fascinate why.
In addition to having served up numerous uniquely absurd details,
the procession of impostors brings up intriguing questions of identity
on an individual scale and for Russia as a whole.
(22:39):
It's important to remember that at this time, the Russian
population was extremely widespread and largely illiterate. Accurate salient news
was hard to come by, so two institutional constants that
citizens put their trust in were the sovereignty of Russia
and the Russian Orthodox Church. At various points, the figure
(23:03):
of Zar Dmitri offered them a chance to actively fight
for both. So to say Russian people were repeatedly embarrassingly
duped is perhaps not giving them enough credit. Given the
information and resources available, combined with the fact that so
many of them were in grave debt and or starving,
(23:25):
it's understandable for them to put their faith in a hopeful,
battle tested legend supposedly capable of near christlike miracles. Beyond
these loftier motivations, it's possible that some Russians support of
Zar Dmitri revealed a very practical desire for stability. Power
(23:46):
struggles meant bloodshed and steep taxes. Even for those skeptical
of the rumors of miraculous escapes, the regal and righteous
seeming Zar Dmitri, whoever he was, may have been significantly
preferable to lesser known usurpers, if only for the sake
of having a semblance of order, stability, and tradition. As
(24:12):
for Dmitri, he was both a person or series of people,
but also an enduring idea. As a symbol, Dmitri galvanized
the masses and for centuries to come inspired creative works
of fiction, theater, music, and poetry. In some ways, Dmitri
(24:33):
was also an aspirational fantasy. For a brief period in Russia,
there was basically an open casting call for an emperor.
You could be a peasant, a beggar and alleged demon,
accommodating former monk, and be plucked from obscurity and given
the keys to the Kremlin. It's basically Russian American idol Czar.
(24:55):
Dmitri's narrative was a classic rags to riches tale, so
intent icing that it begged to be repeated again and again.
And can we fully scoff at those involved, considering we've
all probably fantasized about sitting on a throne at some point,
maybe deep down we all have a little Dmitri in us.
(25:19):
That's the end of the second part of the deja
vu filled story of the False Dmitries. But stick around
after a brief sponsor break to hear about one more
supposed Dmitri who baffled Russia. In these False Dmitri chronicles,
(25:41):
the Dmitries are all intriguing, but just like in any
decent series of comic books or action movies, every legendary
hero needs a worthy foil, and in Vasily Shwisky, this
story has a fascinating antagonist and case study in contradiction.
In analyzing Vasily's battles against various Dmitri incarnations, it's hard
(26:06):
not to picture Vasily as everything from a cunning schemer
to a ridiculous arch villain shrieking at his underlings for
failing to dispatch his death defying rival. The time of
the Troubles may have been a pinnacle for pretenderism, but
it was also a heyday for hypocrites, perhaps none bigger
(26:27):
than Vasily. For instance, after spending years promoting falsehoods about
how Dmitri was a dark sorcerer in the League with Satan,
when Vasily feared that he was losing the war to
false Dmitri the Second, he allegedly looked into dark sorcery himself.
In an even wilder turn of events, There is actually
(26:49):
one more type of false Dmitri we have not yet discussed,
one whose inclusion is debatable, since he never sought to rule,
but whom Vasily had no one but himself to blame
for creating. After usurping the throne, Vasily sought to further
discredit false Dmitri the First by having the body of
(27:11):
the young boy Dmitri, the one who died when he
was eight years old, dug up under the guise of
honoring him as a martyr. He had the exhumed Tsarevich
paraded around while spreading propaganda that the amazingly well preserved
body of this true Dmitri could perform miracles and emitted
(27:32):
a sublime fragrance. The only problem with this plan, every
part of it accounts claim that the spectacle fooled no one.
Not only did the body smell like a dead body,
everyone was almost certain that Vasily had actually ordered a
boy of the same age to be killed and used
(27:55):
as a replacement. In other words, the man who had
spent an extraordinary, very amount of time playing a game
of Whack a Dmitri perplexingly created a retroactive false Dmitri himself,
although allegedly this one was already dead. And not only
did Vasily keep trying to pass off this false dead
(28:18):
Dmitri as legitimate, he made him a saint, which technically
also made him the first canonized but now mostly non
canonical Dmitri. As much as Vasily hated his zombie like nemesis,
having dealt with him at every stage from boy to
boy saint to man to czar to stand in czar
(28:42):
to reluctant tzar to quickly multiplying horde of cheap knockoff czars,
perhaps we should credit Dmitri's clearly obsessed opposite number as
having actually done more to immortalize the Dmitri persona than
any other person in history. Noble Blood is a production
(29:05):
of iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional
writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender, Amy Hit,
and Julia Melaney. The show is edited and produced by
Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima il Kaali and executive
(29:28):
producers Aaron Mankey, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. Just before
midnight on May sixteenth, sixteen oh six, a courtier and
several of his accomplices nervously waded in the palace shadows,
(00:21):
with traders potentially lurking in every corner of the Kremlin.
Speed and stealth were vital, but also nearly impossible considering
the group's mission sneaking twenty five horses out of the
Tsar's private stable. This was no theft, however, no devious
horse heist. The courtier Mikhail Milkanov had been tasked with
(00:46):
securing this royal herd by their owner himself, Tsar Dmitri.
Milkanov was one of the Emperor's closest associates and had
helped hatch this escape plan after Dimiti learned of a
post wedding assassination plot against him that was set to
kick off in mere hours. Milkanov had tasked and experienced
(01:10):
stable hand with gathering the horses, But was that man trustworthy?
Could this risky getaway possibly work? The tense moments ticked past,
until at last the stable hand delivered the horses as
covertly as he could. Milkanov and his men met up
with a disguised Tsar Dmitri and successfully helped him flee
(01:34):
Moscow under cover of darkness, so that he could then
travel incognito and daringly test the true loyalty of his
subjects and purportedly devoted lords. Or so goes this alternate
version of events. After Vasili Shwisky initiated his murderous plan
(01:55):
and grotesquely paraded Czar Dmitri's supposed by through the streets,
Milkanov began to spread his dramatic tale. Within days, the Tsar,
he said actually escaped, and a few details did add
a sniff of plausibility. For example, twenty five horses did
(02:16):
go missing from Zar Dmitri's stables. Milkanov also had Dmitri's
favorite Turkish horse and state seal to back up his claim,
and vasily reportedly had that skillful stable hand tortured, hoping
to make him reveal that he had not actually helped
Dmitri survive, But that poor stable hand, apparently deeply loyal
(02:40):
to Dmitri after all, died without admitting a thing. Milkanov
gradually headed for Poland Lithuania, and has been credited by
some historians as having done more to keep the legend
of Zar Dmitri alive than any other individual. Vulkanov achieved
(03:01):
this by not only spinning his yarn that the Czar
and his horses had artfully escaped their enemies, but by
also pretending to be Dmitri himself. Milkanov did not bear
much resemblance to Dmitri, but he knew him so well
that he could defintely imitate him while traveling among less
(03:23):
familiar townsfolk. In spite of these efforts, Milkanov is typically
not even included by scholars as one of the main
quote false Dmitris because although he elicited considerable Dmitri loyalty
in certain localities, Milkanov was already too well known in
(03:44):
Moscow and other power circles to continue to play the role.
Since the original Czar Dmitri was seemingly never seen or
heard from again, Milkanov essentially served as a stand in
who stoke the fires of rebellion until eventually you guessed it.
(04:05):
The time came to debut a new Dmitri. I'm Danish
forts and this is noble blood, how was yet another
man and eventually more after that, able to somewhat successfully
(04:25):
assume the same Dmitri identity. Much like franchise movie sequels
or knockoff rollis'es. The market for them was clearly there,
and to fully understand how Russia's impersonator supply kept up
with the Dmitri demand, we must first look at the
unstable situation in Moscow. Following the death of the man
(04:50):
who had seized power under the name Zar Dmitri, Vasily
quickly finagled his way into becoming the new Czar. Vasily's
transition to the throne was rocky, though many accounts have
pegged Vasily as a cunning strategist, particularly accounts he commissioned
and or those that conveniently ignore his less cunning plans
(05:14):
that backfired in farcical ways, But compared to his predecessor,
Vasily was less respected in the capitol, where many nobles
reportedly saw him as a detestable trader, and he was
far less well liked than Dmitri. Within the larger realm,
Vasily has been unfavorably depicted as a stocky, balding, and
(05:38):
exceedingly near sighted man who apparently looked fairly ridiculous, yet
still intimidated his opponents through tireless scheming and betraying. This
is by no means to say that a ruler's overall
effectiveness hinges on their looks or benevolence or reluctant to fearmonger.
(06:00):
There are plenty of historical cases that prove otherwise. But
unfortunately for Vasily when it came to winning broad support,
he also did not have many other common image enhancing
factors to help his case among either the noble classes
or the wider population. Vasily was of a.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Royal background, but even putting aside the whole committing regicide issue,
any assertion of him being a proper heir was murky
at best. Vasily also did not naturally come off as
a battle tested hero or military mastermind, and unlike Czar
Dmitri with his Jesus esque resurrection, Vasily lacked a compelling
(06:46):
origin story that was anywhere near as interesting or easy
to sell to the masses. Throughout his time in power,
Vasily tried to boost his own legitimacy and combat wild
rooms us about his popular predecessor in numerous ways, ways
which often involved spreading wild rumors about his popular predecessor.
(07:09):
He eagerly picked up where czar Boris had left off
by launching a dramatic propaganda campaign to discredit Dmitri. Remember
grigory Otrepev, the defract Monk, the supposed alter ego of
the supposed Tzar. Vasily incessantly endorsed the idea that the
pretender Dmitri had undoubtedly been that dabbler in the dark
(07:33):
arts all along, and went to great lengths with his
related scare tactics. For example, Vasily allegedly staged a ghoulish
incident where Dmitri's corpse suddenly appeared at a churchyard far
from where it had been buried the weak prior, so
that spooky stories would spread. Then, claiming that the earth
(07:56):
was clearly refusing to accept the body of an evil sorcerer,
Vasily had Dmitri's remains burned in one of the forts
Dmitri had commissioned, and, according to an apocryphal sounding legend,
ordered his ashes to be fired from a cannon aimed
in the direction from which the so called Sarvich and
(08:18):
his army had marched into Moscow. Along the way, Vasily
continued to promote correlated notions that the heretic Dmitri was
a tool of the devil, had impregnated thirty nuns, was
maybe even the actual Antichrist, and so on. Sure, this
strategy hadn't worked the first time around, but doubling down
(08:42):
on thoroughly demonizing the formers are which surely release people
from their sacred obligation to support him as a monarch.
Right far from it, Vasily's macab displays and scary accusations
seemingly just confused or alienated sizable portions of Russian society.
(09:03):
Many citizens were stout in their Russian Orthodox beliefs, and
some presumably bought Vasili's stories, but many others were just
fatigued by Vasili's rumor mill and skeptical of his desperate
copying of Boris's talking points. Again, it's worth noting that
(09:23):
the whole painting your political adversary as a demon gambit
had been so frequently deployed by that point that an
average Russian on the street might have been hard pressed
to name a former ruler who hadn't maybe had a
chat or two with Satan. But a more important factor
(09:43):
is that Dmitri had made many promises to towns, soldiers,
and exiled families in order to gain their support during
his Civil war crusade back before he died, and he
had started to deliver on those debts once he became Czar. Vassal,
on the other hand, had not specifically promised these groups
(10:04):
nearly as many legal or financial rewards. So when Mikhail
Milkanov aka stand in Dmitri and his associates traveled throughout
the countryside building up the myth of Dmitri's miraculous escape,
many of Dmitri's ambitious supporters quickly backed the cause once
(10:24):
again and revived their civil war fighting. As this rebellion
neared critical mass in early sixteen o seven, an individual
emerged in dramatic fashion, claiming yet again to be the
true Czar Dmitri. Russia had not even had to wait
a full year to get there. Exciting, if somewhat slap
(10:48):
dash sequel. The origins of the man who would later
be referred to by many as False Dmitri, the second
or second False Dmitrie, are similarly foggy to those of
Czar Dmitri, who we will now refer to as False
Dmitrie number one, not because we're fully upholding the arguments
(11:10):
of various detractors, but for the sake of historians, naming
conventions and basic clarity, just to keep all of the
Dmitris straight. Apparently, False Dmitri number two was a similar
height to False Dmitri the First, but only vaguely resembled him.
Most accounts described False Dmitri the Second as well educated,
(11:34):
having been able to write in Russian as well as Polish, which,
similar to the prior Dmitri, would have helped him gain
support in both countries. His handwriting apparently even looked like
False Dmitri the firsts, although this could have been thanks
to help from stand in Dmitri, who could have closely
(11:55):
modeled the first Dmitri's penmanship for the second Dmitri. Regarding
the background of False Dmitri the Second, consistent facts are
hard to come by. Some sources pinpoint him as a
Jew named Bogden. This is largely based on the fact
that Hebrew writings and a copy of the p Tulmud
(12:15):
were reportedly posthumously found in his belongings. Many other accounts
also represent him as someone far less refined or from
a low socioeconomic class, possibly the son of a coach
driver or blacksmith. Maybe he was an apprentice himself, or
a cossack, or maybe a teacher. According to many contemporary sources,
(12:39):
False Dmitri the second also had some association with the church,
since he was knowledgeable when it came to certain Russian
Orthodox traditions. So he was probably, they say, the son
of a priest, or maybe a priest's servant. But he
was also seemingly a beggar when determined rebel agents were
(12:59):
out looking for lookalikes, or if you were sympathetic to
their spin, when they were out trying to locate the
true Czar, who was certainly alive and had in no
way been cremated and shot out of a cannon, So
that would make False Dmitri the second a priest's servant
turned beggar. Some accounts explained this progression through a salacious
(13:22):
story about how he was a priest's servant, but how
he had been turned out into the street when he
was caught in bed with the wife of the priest
he had been serving. Whatever this man's pre Dmitri identity,
the general consensus among many historians seems to be that
False Dmitri the Second did not want to be Czar
(13:45):
Dmitri at all, but after being found, jailed and threatened
with execution, he agreed that yes, he definitely was the
real Dmitri. That said, having only just remembered that he
was Dmitri te he needed training and then a big
unveiling in May sixteen o seven. The town of Stardob
(14:08):
was chosen by rebel leaders as a good place for
this because of the helpful fact that the people there
were not remotely familiar with what Zar Dmitri had been
like in person. In a carefully engineered event, surprisingly similar
to an episode of Undercover Boss, False Dmitri the Second
(14:29):
arrived to town under an alias and asks around as
to what people thought of Zar Dmitri and if they'd
want him back in power again, and then aha, in
a flashy public display, he revealed himself to be Zar Dmitri.
All along he had been hiding as a test to
judge their loyalty, and they'd passed. The whole spectacle supposedly
(14:52):
really stirred up the town and won over its occupants.
False Dmitri the Second then continued to gain support, but
his rise also came at a great cost. His military
forces slogged through bloody battles, sieges, and starvation as they
fought against Tsar Vassili's army, facing steep obstacles preventing them
(15:16):
from sweeping into Moscow. False Dmitri the Second and his
rebel group set up a rival capital in the village
of Tashino, which led to a messy, confusing, and wide
ranging conflict that split the country in a sense. For
over a year, Russia had two tsars, two capitals, and
(15:38):
two armies. Along the way, False Dmitri the second political
alliances became extremely fraught, since, for various reasons, he had
to accept into his circle several other impostors who were
also pretending to be the sons of powerful men, some
of whom themselves were impostors. It's difficult to avoid being
(16:02):
hyperbolic in parts of the story like this, but it
basically got to the point that had you been sitting
in a war planning meeting with False Dmitri the Second
and looked to the person on your left and then
to your right, at least one of them would have
been an impostor, if not all three of you. During
this time, zar vasily tried to speed up peace negotiations
(16:26):
by releasing key prisoners to appease False Dmitri the Second.
Polish supporters, including the wife and father in law of
False Dmitri the First, vasily strictly ordered False Dmitri the
First's widow, Marina and her father stick directly with their
convoy and after reaching Poland Lithuania that they were under
(16:49):
no circumstances to go join False Dmitri the Second where
they could declare him to be Marina's miraculously surviving husband.
So naturally, after getting captured by rubber, Marina and her
dad met up with False Dmitri the Second, and after
some negotiations about her future, she declared that he truly
(17:09):
was Tsar Dmitri, her husband. He had survived, after all,
what a miracle. This boosted the legitimacy of False Dmitri
the Second, and by sixteen eight more than half of
Russia recognized him as Tsar Dmitri. But this upswing also
brought many more Dmitris. Given how the story of Dmitri
(17:36):
surviving assassination attempts clearly captivated people, Russia became a hotbed
for pretenders hoping to use the same formula for themselves.
During the later stages of the Civil War, about ten
more copycats claimed to be Czar Dmitri. These fellows do
(17:56):
not typically even make it into the top tier of
scholars fall Dmitri lists, since many of them barely scratched
the surface of plausibility or garnered any traction at all. Still,
all this Dmitri duplication led many Russians to lose faith
in False Dmitri the Second. Desperate to curry favor with
(18:19):
certain lords and rejuvenate his public support, False Dmitri the
Second reportedly began offering rewards to those who found Pseudosavich's
roaming around and brought them to him. He even resorted
to executing other impostors in his own circle, some who
he'd previously claimed were his close relatives, to prove that
(18:41):
he was real and he would not tolerate fakes. However,
False Dmitri the Second's influence was unraveling too fast for
him to stop. Unlike the more open and forward thinking
ruling style of the first Dmitri, the Second Dmitri's court was,
by most accounts the opposite. It was guarded, paranoid, snobbish,
(19:06):
and cruel. False Dmitri the Second lost the support of
his advisers, and by letting his soldiers looting and pillaging
go unchecked, he lost the support of townsfolk. False Dmitri
the Second fled Tashino as his forces turned on him,
but soon mistreated those around him so egregiously that the
(19:28):
captain of his own bodyguard killed him on December eleventh,
sixteen ten, while they were out sleigh riding. In addition
to costing False Dmitri the Second his life, this bloody
chapter of Russian history also sealed Czar Vasili's fate. Plagued
by backlash over his handling of this civil war, Vasily
(19:52):
was ousted, forced to be a monk, and imprisoned. He
died a couple years later. What a rim and tragic
end to the time of troubles Huh, Nope, hold on
to your fur hats, because it's time for False Dmitri
number three. Don't worry. Within the hem czar studded cast
(20:17):
of False Dmitri's False Dmitri the Third's time in the
spotlight is the briefest and least complicated. Who was he?
Possibly a deacon or a trader. He purportedly ended up
as a beggar in Novgorod, when sometime in sixteen eleven
he or purportedly those who put him up to it,
(20:39):
revealed his identity to be Dmitri, and he attracted some
broader support. Like the first, false Dmitri, the third was
said to be a great speaker and gained popularity among
Cossack groups who had backed prior Dmitri iterations. The third's
popularity act actually grew to the point that several higher
(21:03):
up nobles in the agitated political scene in Moscow once
again had to publicly back him this time, though their
hearts just weren't that in it. In secret, several of
the men trying to seize power at the Kremlin saw
the Third as a nuisance and work together to have
him captured and hanged in sixteen twelve, but that only
(21:28):
paved the way for False Dmitri the fourth. Kidding mostly,
there were a few rumors over the years about Dmitri resurrections,
but some of these might have been due to erroneous
reporting or accounting, and we have now covered the most
influential branches of our dense Dmitri tree. After several more
(21:52):
years of fighting and fierce political jostling. The time of
the troubles essentially came to an end in sixteen thirteen,
when Russia started to accept the Romanov dynasty as legitimate
and citizens went about trying to rebuild their war torn country.
Although the odd and tragic period of the false Dmitries
(22:16):
was relatively brief, their collective story continues to fascinate why.
In addition to having served up numerous uniquely absurd details,
the procession of impostors brings up intriguing questions of identity
on an individual scale and for Russia as a whole.
(22:39):
It's important to remember that at this time, the Russian
population was extremely widespread and largely illiterate. Accurate salient news
was hard to come by, so two institutional constants that
citizens put their trust in were the sovereignty of Russia
and the Russian Orthodox Church. At various points, the figure
(23:03):
of Zar Dmitri offered them a chance to actively fight
for both. So to say Russian people were repeatedly embarrassingly
duped is perhaps not giving them enough credit. Given the
information and resources available, combined with the fact that so
many of them were in grave debt and or starving,
(23:25):
it's understandable for them to put their faith in a hopeful,
battle tested legend supposedly capable of near christlike miracles. Beyond
these loftier motivations, it's possible that some Russians support of
Zar Dmitri revealed a very practical desire for stability. Power
(23:46):
struggles meant bloodshed and steep taxes. Even for those skeptical
of the rumors of miraculous escapes, the regal and righteous
seeming Zar Dmitri, whoever he was, may have been significantly
preferable to lesser known usurpers, if only for the sake
of having a semblance of order, stability, and tradition. As
(24:12):
for Dmitri, he was both a person or series of people,
but also an enduring idea. As a symbol, Dmitri galvanized
the masses and for centuries to come inspired creative works
of fiction, theater, music, and poetry. In some ways, Dmitri
(24:33):
was also an aspirational fantasy. For a brief period in Russia,
there was basically an open casting call for an emperor.
You could be a peasant, a beggar and alleged demon,
accommodating former monk, and be plucked from obscurity and given
the keys to the Kremlin. It's basically Russian American idol Czar.
(24:55):
Dmitri's narrative was a classic rags to riches tale, so
intent icing that it begged to be repeated again and again.
And can we fully scoff at those involved, considering we've
all probably fantasized about sitting on a throne at some point,
maybe deep down we all have a little Dmitri in us.
(25:19):
That's the end of the second part of the deja
vu filled story of the False Dmitries. But stick around
after a brief sponsor break to hear about one more
supposed Dmitri who baffled Russia. In these False Dmitri chronicles,
(25:41):
the Dmitries are all intriguing, but just like in any
decent series of comic books or action movies, every legendary
hero needs a worthy foil, and in Vasily Shwisky, this
story has a fascinating antagonist and case study in contradiction.
In analyzing Vasily's battles against various Dmitri incarnations, it's hard
(26:06):
not to picture Vasily as everything from a cunning schemer
to a ridiculous arch villain shrieking at his underlings for
failing to dispatch his death defying rival. The time of
the Troubles may have been a pinnacle for pretenderism, but
it was also a heyday for hypocrites, perhaps none bigger
(26:27):
than Vasily. For instance, after spending years promoting falsehoods about
how Dmitri was a dark sorcerer in the League with Satan,
when Vasily feared that he was losing the war to
false Dmitri the Second, he allegedly looked into dark sorcery himself.
In an even wilder turn of events, There is actually
(26:49):
one more type of false Dmitri we have not yet discussed,
one whose inclusion is debatable, since he never sought to rule,
but whom Vasily had no one but himself to blame
for creating. After usurping the throne, Vasily sought to further
discredit false Dmitri the First by having the body of
(27:11):
the young boy Dmitri, the one who died when he
was eight years old, dug up under the guise of
honoring him as a martyr. He had the exhumed Tsarevich
paraded around while spreading propaganda that the amazingly well preserved
body of this true Dmitri could perform miracles and emitted
(27:32):
a sublime fragrance. The only problem with this plan, every
part of it accounts claim that the spectacle fooled no one.
Not only did the body smell like a dead body,
everyone was almost certain that Vasily had actually ordered a
boy of the same age to be killed and used
(27:55):
as a replacement. In other words, the man who had
spent an extraordinary, very amount of time playing a game
of Whack a Dmitri perplexingly created a retroactive false Dmitri himself,
although allegedly this one was already dead. And not only
did Vasily keep trying to pass off this false dead
(28:18):
Dmitri as legitimate, he made him a saint, which technically
also made him the first canonized but now mostly non
canonical Dmitri. As much as Vasily hated his zombie like nemesis,
having dealt with him at every stage from boy to
boy saint to man to czar to stand in czar
(28:42):
to reluctant tzar to quickly multiplying horde of cheap knockoff czars,
perhaps we should credit Dmitri's clearly obsessed opposite number as
having actually done more to immortalize the Dmitri persona than
any other person in history. Noble Blood is a production
(29:05):
of iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional
writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender, Amy Hit,
and Julia Melaney. The show is edited and produced by
Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima il Kaali and executive
(29:28):
producers Aaron Mankey, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!