The life of wonderful people - Minin and Pozharsky.

03.11.2019

Publisher: M.: Young Guard
Year: 2011
Pages: 330
Format: DJVu
Size: 26.7 MB
Quality: excellent
Russian language

The book series ZhZL ("The Life of Remarkable People") was founded in 1890 by a retired officer Florenty Pavlenkov as a cheap mass popular publication.

After the Revolution, the release of the series was resumed in 1933. And the cover we are used to appeared in the early 60s of the 20th century.

Minin and Pozharsky R. Skrynnikova

Written by Ruslan Grigorievich Skrynnikov, a scientific and artistic biography of two outstanding historical figures Russia - Nizhny Novgorod merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky has long been a classic. On the basis of extensive documentary material, the author recreates not only life path its heroes, but also the entire grandiose panorama of the Russian Troubles - the civil war of the early 17th century.

The book was republished in 2011 in the Life of Remarkable People series (ZhZL)

R. Skrynnikov - famous Soviet and Russian historian, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of Leningrad, then St. Petersburg University.

Introduction from the book "Minin and Pozharsky"

In the brilliant galaxy of fighters for the independence of the Russian national state, Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky own their own special place. Their names are forever associated with the feat that the Russian people accomplished in the name of the liberation of the Motherland.
Russia experienced a tragic time at the beginning of the 17th century. Pestilence and famine, bloody civil strife, enemy invasions ravaged the country to the ground.
A significant part of its population perished. Time of Troubles Russian people called the dashing hour. The origins of the Troubles were rooted in a deep crisis that corroded society.
The long-term civil war undermined the strength of the state from within and made it an easy prey for enemies. Russian state experienced a real disaster. For two long years, its capital remained under the heel of foreign conquerors.
The main border strongholds of the country fell - Smolensk and Veliky Novgorod. V Western Europe believed that Russia would not be able to rise from its knees and would never regain its former power. But that was a mistake. Deadly danger united all the patriotic forces of the country. The popular movement saved the Russian statehood. Overcoming the Time of Troubles showed firsthand what inexhaustible forces lurk in the bowels of the people defending their homeland. A native of the people, Kuzma Minin became the most prominent of the leaders of the zemstvo liberation movement at the beginning of the 17th century.
All his thoughts and energy were directed towards one goal - the liberation of the motherland. Voivode Prince Dmitry Pozharsky acted as Minin's closest associate. How much complete biography the elected man Minin, like the biography of Pozharsky, has not yet been written. The difficulty lies in the fact that the sources have preserved very little information about their lives. …

Ruslan Skrynnikov

Minin and Pozharsky

INTRODUCTION

In the brilliant galaxy of fighters for the independence of the Russian national state, Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky have their own special place. Their names are forever associated with the feat that the Russian people accomplished in the name of the liberation of their homeland in 1612.

Russia experienced a tragic time at the beginning of the 17th century. Pestilence and famine, bloody civil strife, enemy invasions ravaged the country to the ground. A significant part of its population perished. The time of troubles was called by the Russian people a dashing time. The origins of the Troubles were rooted in a deep crisis that corroded society. The long-term civil war undermined the strength of the state from within and made it an easy prey for enemies. The Russian state has experienced a real catastrophe. For two long years, its capital remained under the heel of foreign conquerors. The main border strongholds of the country fell - Smolensk and Veliky Novgorod. In Western Europe, it was believed that Russia would not be able to rise from its knees and would never regain its former power. But that was a mistake.

A native of the people, Kuzma Minin became the most prominent of the leaders of the zemstvo liberation movement at the beginning of the 17th century. All his thoughts and energy were directed towards one goal - the liberation of the motherland. Voivode Prince Dmitry Pozharsky acted as Minin's closest associate.

Any complete biography of the elected person Minin, like the biography of Pozharsky, has not yet been written. The difficulty lies in the fact that the sources have preserved very little information about their lives.

For any biography, notes and letters are truly invaluable. From the diaries, the historian draws information about the motives behind certain acts. Personal correspondence serves as another bridge leading to the innermost world of man. Memoirs supplement diaries and letters. Without these sources, the researcher will not be able to reveal the hidden thoughts and feelings of people.

Minin and Pozharsky left no diaries, no letters, no memoirs. Their signatures are known from only a few examples. Even the reconstruction of the external events of their lives runs into insurmountable obstacles. No one can say when Kuzma Minin was born. No one can describe his features and signs. Documents mention the Nizhny Novgorod headman for the first time at the moment when he began to collect the treasury for the people's militia. But before that, he lived a whole life. Kuzma stood on the lowest rungs of the social ladder. Pozharsky came from a princely family. We know his biography better. But there are still too many gaps in it. Rare references to Pozharsky's military successes are all that a historian has at his disposal when he undertakes to describe the first half of his life. The researcher is completely deprived of the right to fiction. He is forced to be content with the crumbs that the archives have kept for him.

Time and heroes - such is the age-old problem of the genre of historical biography. Where the author has little information about the main characters, the biographical narrative gives way to the study of time. In the early years of the Troubles, Minin and Pozharsky remained either silent witnesses or ordinary participants in the unfolding historical drama. But at a turning point, the mind and will of these wonderful people left a deep imprint on everything that happened.

PART ONE

TIME TO TEST

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAY

Minin and Pozharsky. For only a few years, these people had a chance to fight side by side. Since then, their names have become inseparable in the minds of Russian people.

The ancestors of Kuzma Minin came from Balakhna, a small Volga town in the vicinity of Nizhny Novgorod. In Russia at that time, surnames barely entered into use and still remained the lot of the elite, who belonged to the top of society. The middle name served as a substitute for the surname for the common people. Kuzma's grandfather's name was Ankudin, and his father's name was Mina Ankudinov. Kuzma himself was called Minin all his life, and in the end respectfully - Kuzma Minich.

Balakhna was located in a lowland near the banks of the Volga, in places inconvenient for life. In the spring the great river overflowed and flooded part of the city. Spring waters often demolished huts and sheds. But the townspeople invariably returned to their habitable places and rebuilt. The town grew and expanded. In the lowland underground lay aquifers with abundant saline. Salt served as a magnet that invariably attracted the surrounding population to the settlements. The inhabitants of Balakhna have long been fed by salt mining. The eminent people of the Stroganovs became exorbitantly rich in the salt trade. They owned dozens of salt pans, river boats, trading posts in different parts of the country. At the end of the reign of the Terrible Ming, Ankudinov was listed as one of the co-owners of the Kamenka salt mine (pipe). Fishing in Balakhna required a lot of money and labor. Wielding with a spade and a shovel, the townspeople dug a well fifteen to twenty meters deep. The well could collapse at any moment, so its walls were fixed with a log cabin. The place for the mine was chosen by eye, and it happened that the well passed by a salt spring. Then the work went to waste. The pipe was abandoned. Necessity forced small salt producers to build salt wells in a pool, and then jointly exploit them in accordance with the labor and capital expended.

Mina's family had to work hard. There was enough work for everyone on the Kamenka pipe. Growing up, the sons went with their father to the forest for firewood, helped to raise tubs of brine from the depths of the well to the surface, transferred them to the varnica and kept the fire in its fireboxes. Finally, boiled white salt was raked into coolies and taken to the market in Nizhny Novgorod. Days, months and years passed in labors and worries.

By the end of his life, Mina had a share in several pipes. But his share was not too much brine, and in order not to undermine the enterprise, he refused his entire share of the fishery to his eldest sons Fedor and Ivan Minin. Over time, the heirs managed to expand the business. Together with their father's Kamenka, they now owned the Novik brewery, and they drew brine from several more pipes. One of the wells was owned by Fyodor Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. But that was after the Troubles.

Kuzma Minin did not receive a share in the salt mines, and he had to find his own way in life. In his youth, he often accompanied his father on his trips to Nizhny Novgorod, where he became closely acquainted with the trading business. After the division of property with the brothers, Kuzma received his share of the inheritance and moved to the county center. Here he bought himself a yard, started a shop and engaged in the meat trade.

Kuzma Minin had to make a lot of efforts before he acquired strong connections in the Nizhny Novgorod district. I had to go around the villages, buy cattle, drive it to the city, slaughter it there. In the summer, the meat spoiled instantly, and it had to be sold in time. Meat dealers could not exist without a certain circle of customers who belonged to the wealthy circles of the settlement. There were enough shops in the meat aisle of Nizhny Novgorod, and Minin tried to maintain good relations with his customers in order to keep them. Wealthy buyers got the best pieces, which went on the most high prices. Bones and tendons were sold to the poor for next to nothing.

Kuzma Minin married, apparently, after moving to Nizhny Novgorod. His betrothed was Tatyana Semenova from a townsman family. Nobody knows how many children his wife gave birth to Kuzma. Only one son, Nefed, survived. The Minin family lived like hundreds of other Nizhny Novgorod residents. The yard was surrounded by a high fence. Near the residential hut there is an apple orchard. In the far corner in the garden stood a small bathhouse.

Minin's colleague Dmitry Pozharsky had a princely title and a long pedigree, but did not belong to the aristocratic strata of society. “The decrepit clans of a fragment” - these words were the best suited to the history of the Pozharsky family.

Time and heroes - such is the age-old problem of the genre of historical biography. Where the author has little information about the main characters, the biographical narrative gives way to the study of time. In the early years of the Time of Troubles, Minin and Pozharsky remained either silent witnesses or ordinary participants in the unfolding historical drama. But at a turning point, the mind and will of these wonderful people left a deep imprint on everything that happened.

PART ONE

TIME TO TEST

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAY

Minin and Pozharsky. For only a few years, these people had a chance to fight side by side. Since then, their names have become inseparable in the minds of Russian people.

Kuzma Minin had to make a lot of efforts before he acquired strong connections in the Nizhny Novgorod district. I had to go around the villages, buy cattle, drive it to the city, slaughter it there. In the summer, the meat spoiled instantly, and it had to be sold in time. Meat dealers could not exist without a certain circle of customers who belonged to the wealthy circles of the settlement. There were enough shops in the meat aisle of Nizhny Novgorod, and Minin tried to maintain good relations with his customers in order to keep them. Wealthy buyers got the best pieces, which came at the highest prices. Bones and tendons were sold to the poor for next to nothing.

Ruslan Grigorievich Skrynnikov

Minin and Pozharsky: Chronicle of the Time of Troubles

Introduction

Russia experienced a tragic time at the beginning of the 17th century. Pestilence and famine, bloody civil strife, enemy invasions ravaged the country to the ground. A significant part of its population perished. The time of troubles was called by the Russian people a dashing time. The origins of the Troubles were rooted in a deep social crisis that corroded society. The peasants, driven to despair by the feudal landowners, rose up in an armed struggle to put an end to the feudal regime. The long-term civil war undermined the strength of the state from within and made it an easy prey for enemies. The Russian state has experienced a real catastrophe. For two long years, its capital remained under the heel of foreign conquerors. The main border strongholds of the country fell - Smolensk and Veliky Novgorod. In Western Europe, it was believed that Russia would not be able to rise from its knees and would never regain its former power. But that was a mistake.

Mortal danger united all the patriotic forces of the country. The popular movement saved the Russian statehood. Overcoming the Time of Troubles showed firsthand what inexhaustible forces lurk in the bowels of the people defending their homeland. At the time of stagnation appeared best features of the Russian people - its steadfastness, courage, selfless devotion to the motherland, readiness to sacrifice life for its sake.

A native of the people, Kuzma Minin became the most prominent of the leaders of the zemstvo liberation movement of the early 18th century. All his thoughts, fortitude, great energy were directed towards one goal - the liberation of the motherland. Voivode Prince Dmitry Pozharsky acted as Minin's closest associate.

For any biography, notes and letters have a truly neo-social meaning. From the diaries, the historian draws information about the motives behind certain acts. Personal correspondence serves as another bridge leading to the innermost world of man. Memoirs supplement diaries and letters. Without these sources, the researcher will not be able to reveal the hidden thoughts and feelings of people.

Mppip and Pozharsky left no diaries, no letters, no memoirs. Their signatures are known from only a few samples. Even the reconstruction of the external events of their lives encounters insurmountable obstacles. No one can say when Kuzma Minin was born. No one can describe his features and signs. Documents mention the Nizhny Novgorod headman for the first time at the moment when he began to collect the treasury for the people's militia. But before that, he lived a whole life. Kuzma stood on the lowest rungs of the social ladder. Pozharsky came from the nobility. We got a better biography of him. But there are still too many gaps. Rare references to Pozharsky's military successes are all that a historian has when he undertakes to describe the first half of his life. The researcher is completely deprived of the right to fiction. He is forced to be content with the crumbs that the archives have kept for him.

Time and heroes - such is the age-old problem of the genre of historical biography. Where the author has little information about the main ge-; swarms, biographical narrative gives way to the study of time. The foregoing explains the subtitle of this book - "a chronicle of troubled times." Folk memory and historiographical tradition, having glorified Minin and Pozharsky, paid tribute to the merits of many other participants in the national liberation struggle of the Russian people at the beginning of the 17th century. The names of the governor Skopin-Shuisky and Shein, the patriarch Germogep, the nobleman Lyapunov, the peasant Ivan Susanin are all YAZ-ESSENTIAL. Behind them stood hundreds and thousands of representatives of "the whole Earth."

In the first years of the Time of Troubles, Mipip and Pozharsky remained either silent witnesses or ordinary participants in the unfolding historical drama. But at a turning point, the mind and will of these wonderful people left a deep imprint on everything that happened. In the hour of greatest danger, they acted like true patriots of their fatherland.

PART ONE. TIME TO TEST

Chapter 1

Minin and Pozharsky. Just a few years had a chance for these people to fight side by side. Since then, their names have become inseparable in the minds of Russian people.

The ancestors of Kuzma Milan came from Balakhna, a small Volga town in the vicinity of Nizhny Novgorod. In Russia at that time, surnames barely came into use and still remained the lot of the elite, who belonged to the top of society. The middle name served as a substitute for the surname for the common people. Kuzma's grandfather's name was Ankudkn, and his father's name was Mina Ankudinov. Kuzma himself was called Minin all his life, and in the end respectfully - Kuzma Minich.

Balakhna was located in a lowland near the banks of the Volga, in places inconvenient for life. In the spring the great river overflowed and flooded part of the city. Spring waters often served as huts and sheds. But the townspeople invariably returned to their habitable places and rebuilt themselves. The town grew and expanded. In the lowland underground lay aquifers with abundant saline. Salt served as a magnet that invariably attracted the surrounding population to the settlements. The inhabitants of Balakhpa have long been fed by the salt industry. The eminent people of the Stroganovs became excessively rich in salt trade. They owned dozens of salt pans, river boats, and trading posts in different parts of the country. At the end of the reign of the Terrible Ming, Ankudinov was listed as one of the co-owners of the Kamenka salt mine (pipe). Fishing in Balakhna required a lot of money and labor. Wielding with a spade and a shovel, the townspeople dug a well fifteen to twenty meters deep. The well could collapse at any moment, so its walls were fixed with a log cabin. The place for the mine was chosen by eye, and it happened that the well passed by a salt spring. Then the work went to waste. The pipe was abandoned. Necessity forced small salt producers to build salt wells in a pool, and then jointly exploit them in accordance with the labor and capital expended.

Mina's family had to work hard. There was enough work for everyone on the Kamenka pipe. Growing up, the sons went with their father to the forest for firewood, helped to raise tubs of brine from the depths of the well to the surface, transferred them to the brewhouse and kept the fire going. her furnaces. Finally, boiled white salt was raked into coolies and taken to the market in Nizhny Novgorod. Days, months and years passed in labors and worries.

Current page: 1 (total book has 27 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 15 pages]

Ruslan Grigorievich Skrynnikov
Minin and Pozharsky: Chronicle of the Time of Troubles

Introduction

Russia experienced a tragic time at the beginning of the 17th century. Pestilence and famine, bloody civil strife, enemy invasions ravaged the country to the ground. A significant part of its population perished. The time of troubles was called by the Russian people a dashing time. The origins of the Troubles were rooted in a deep social crisis that corroded society. The peasants, driven to despair by the feudal landowners, rose up in an armed struggle to put an end to the feudal regime. The long-term civil war undermined the strength of the state from within and made it an easy prey for enemies. The Russian state has experienced a real catastrophe. For two long years, its capital remained under the heel of foreign conquerors. The main border strongholds of the country fell - Smolensk and Veliky Novgorod. In Western Europe, it was believed that Russia would not be able to rise from its knees and would never regain its former power. But that was a mistake.

Mortal danger united all the patriotic forces of the country. The popular movement saved the Russian statehood. Overcoming the Time of Troubles showed firsthand what inexhaustible forces lurk in the bowels of the people defending their homeland. In a time of stagnation, the best features of the Russian people appeared - their steadfastness, courage, selfless devotion to the motherland, readiness to sacrifice their lives for its sake.

Mppip and Pozharsky left no diaries, no letters, no memoirs. Their signatures are known from only a few examples. Even the reconstruction of the external events of their lives encounters insurmountable obstacles. No one can say when Kuzma Minin was born. No one can describe his features and signs. Documents mention the Nizhny Novgorod headman for the first time at the moment when he began to collect the treasury for the people's militia. But before that, he lived a whole life. Kuzma stood on the lowest rungs of the social ladder. Pozharsky came from the nobility. We got a better biography of him. But there are still too many gaps. Rare references to Pozharsky's military successes are all that a historian has when he undertakes to describe the first half of his life. The researcher is completely deprived of the right to fiction. He is forced to be content with the crumbs that the archives have kept for him.

Time and heroes - such is the age-old problem of the genre of historical biography. Where the author has little information about the main ge-; swarms, biographical narrative gives way to the study of time. The foregoing explains the subtitle of this book - "Chronicle of the Time of Troubles." Folk memory and historiographical tradition, having glorified Minin and Pozharsky, paid tribute to the merits of many other participants in the national liberation struggle of the Russian people at the beginning of the 17th century. The names of the governor Skopin-Shuisky and Shein, the patriarch Germogep, the nobleman Lyapunov, the peasant Ivan Susanin are all YAZ-ESSENTIAL. Behind them stood hundreds and thousands of representatives of "the whole Earth."

PART ONE. TIME TO TEST

Chapter 1

Minin and Pozharsky. Just a few years had a chance for these people to fight side by side. Since then, their names have become inseparable in the minds of Russian people.

The ancestors of Kuzma Milan came from Balakhna, a small Volga town in the vicinity of Nizhny Novgorod. In Russia at that time, surnames barely came into use and - still - remained the lot of the elite, who belonged to the top of society. The middle name served as a substitute for the surname for the common people. Kuzma's grandfather's name was Ankudkn, and his father's name was Mina Ankudinov. Kuzma himself was called Minin all his life, and in the end respectfully - Kuzma Minich.

Balakhna was located in a lowland near the banks of the Volga, in places inconvenient for life. In the spring the great river overflowed and flooded part of the city. Spring waters often served as huts and sheds. But the townspeople invariably returned to their habitable places and rebuilt themselves. The town grew and expanded. In the lowland underground lay aquifers with abundant saline. Salt served as a magnet that invariably attracted the surrounding population to the settlements. The inhabitants of Balakhpa have long been fed by the salt industry. The eminent people of the Stroganovs became excessively rich in salt trade. They owned dozens of salt pans, river boats, and trading posts in different parts of the country. At the end of the reign of the Terrible Ming, Ankudinov was listed as one of the co-owners of the Kamenka salt mine (pipe). Fishing in Balakhna required a lot of money and labor. Wielding with a spade and a shovel, the townspeople dug a well fifteen to twenty meters deep. The well could collapse at any moment, so its walls were fixed with a log cabin. The place for the mine was chosen by eye, and it happened that the well passed by a salt spring. Then the work went to waste. The pipe was abandoned. Necessity forced small salt producers to build salt wells in a pool, and then jointly exploit them in accordance with the labor and capital expended.

Mina's family had to work hard. There was enough work for everyone on the Kamenka pipe. Growing up, the sons went with their father to the forest for firewood, helped to raise tubs of brine from the depths of the well to the surface, transferred them to the brewhouse and kept the fire going. her furnaces. Finally, boiled white salt was raked into coolies and taken to the market in Nizhny Novgorod. Days, months and years passed in labors and worries.

By the end of his life, Mina had a share in several pipes. But not too much brine fell on his share, and in order not to undermine the enterprise, he refused all his share of the fishery to his older sons Fedor and Ivan Minin. Over time, the heirs managed to expand the business. Together with their father's Kamenka, they now owned the Novik brewery, and they drew brine from several more pipes. One of the wells was owned by Fyodor Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. But this was already after the expulsion of the interventionists from the Russian land.

Kuzma Minin did not receive a share in the salt mines, and he had to find his own way in life. In his youth, he often accompanied his father on his trips to Nizhny Novgorod, where he became closely acquainted with the trading business. After the division of property with the brothers, Kuzma received his share of the inheritance and moved to the district center. Here he bought himself a yard, started a shop and engaged in the meat trade.

Kuzma Minin had to make a lot of efforts before he acquired strong connections in the Nizhny Novgorod district. I had to go around the villages, buy cattle, drive it to the city, slaughter it there. In the summer, the meat spoiled instantly, and it had to be sold in time. Meat dealers could not exist without a certain circle of customers who belonged to the wealthy circles of the settlement. There were enough shops in the meat aisle of Nizhny Novgorod, and Minin tried to maintain good relations with his customers in order to keep them. Wealthy buyers got the best pieces, which came at the highest prices. Bones and tendons went to the poor at no cost.

Kuzma Minin married, apparently, after moving to Nizhny Novgorod. His betrothed was Tatyana Semenova from a townsman family. Nobody knows how many children his wife gave birth to Kuzma. Only one son, Nefed, survived. The Minin family sewed like hundreds of other Nizhny Novgorod residents. The yard was surrounded by a high fence. Near the residential hut there is an apple orchard. In the far corner in the garden stood a small bathhouse.

The Nizhny Novgorod Posad "world" led a closed existence. Together with the property, the citizen inherited his father's profession, his social status, business and friendly ties. As a stranger, Kuzma Mi-nil had to achieve everything himself. When the township elected him as its headman, it was a huge success for him. In the famine years, many merchants embarked on frenzied speculation. They literally robbed the village-skph people. Kuzma, even in the most difficult times, conducted business as an honest and respectable merchant was supposed to.

Mipip's colleague Dmitry Pozharsky had a princely title and a long pedigree, but did not belong to the aristocratic strata of society. “The decrepit clans of a fragment” - these words were the best suited to the history of the Pozharsky family.

The ancestors of Dmitry Pozharsky were the owners of the Starodub specific principality, located on the Klyazma and Lukha.

Under Dmitry Donskoy, the prince of the Andes sat in Starodub. Ray Fedorovich, who had four sons. The eldest son, Vasily Pozharsky, received from his father most lands. But by the 16th century, the heirs literally pulled apart the ancient tribal principality.

The grandfather of Dmitry Pozharsky, Fedor Ivapovich Nemoy, came from a younger branch of a specific clan. On his share got canine fiefdoms. He owned the land together with three brothers. In the middle of the 16th century, Prince Fedor served at the court of Ivan the Terrible and even ended up in a thousand "best servants", but then everything changed dramatically.

During the years of the oprichnina, fighting the princely-boyar opposition, Ivan the Terrible exiled a hundred princely families to a settlement in the Kazan Territory. Yaroslavekmo were subjected to disgrace. Rostov and Starodub princes.

Five Pozharsky princes with their families visited the Katsap exile. Among them was Fedor Ivanovich with his wife and children. The family lost everything at once. In return for the confiscated lands and property, Prince Fedor received a pa. feeding in exile several peasant households in the Busurman settlement near Sviyazhsk. The time will come, and Dmitry. Pozharsky will justify the unsuccessful service of his father and grandfather with reference to the oprichnina thunderstorm. “My parents,” he notes, “were many years in the sovereign’s disgrace.” In fact, the disgrace to the Pozharskys was short-lived.

Soon, Daryu Ivan had to admit the failure of his oprichnina venture and return the exiled settlers to Moscow. By his order, the treasury began to return the estates to the pits or endowed them with approximately equivalent lands.

Upon returning from Kazan to Moscow, Fedor Pozharsky was again in the service and participated in the last campaigns - Livonian War in the modest rank of a noble head. He never reached the rank of voivodship. Before the death, Fedor received tonsure at the Tropts-Sergius Monastery. His wife, Princess Mavra, survived her husband for thirty-three years.

Fyodor Pozharsky married his eldest son Mikhail to Maria Berseneva-Beklemisheva. In November. In 1578, the son Dmitry, the future famous governor, was born in the family of Mikhail and Maria. In the face of Prince Dmitry, two disgraced families united. The Pozharskys suffered from Grozny, the Bersenevs from his father Basil III.

The great-grandfather of Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky, Ivan Berset, was a well-educated man. He got close with famous writer and humanist Maxim Grek. All those who expressed dissatisfaction with the policy of Vasily III gathered around these two people. In frank conversations. with the Greek, Ivan Bersen was indignant at the autocratic habits of the Moscow sovereign, demanded a return to the old order and an end to endless wars. Possessing a sharp caustic mind, Bersen was not afraid to argue with the Grand Duke. The fanatical clergy insisted on reprisals against the freethinkers. Bersengo was beheaded on the ice of the Moskva River. Makeim the Greek was sentenced to eternal imprisonment in a monastery prison.

The Beklemishev family carefully kept the memory of the famous grandfather. Maria Pozharskaya inherited some of his lands.

The Kazan exile successfully undermined the Pozharskys. The treasury returned to them the village of Mugreeevo (Volosgaino) and some other ancestral lands in Starodub. But during the absence of the owners, these estates fell into decay. The family had to rebuild their lives.

Immediately after the wedding, Mikhail Pozharsky sold the village village Kalman, which he received with a dowry from the family of Maria Berseneva-Beklemisheva.

The sale of the patrimony allowed the young to improve their material affairs.

Mikhail Pozharsky bore the nickname Deaf. His military career failed. Unlike his father, he did not even rise to the rank of noble head. Mikhail died when his son Dmitry was barely nine years old.

Knyazhich Dmitry grew up and was brought up with his older sister Daria and brother Vasily, who was six years younger than him. He spent his childhood years in the family nest in Mugreev. The Pozharsky courtyard, surrounded by a log palisade, was filled with low wooden buildings. In the center of the courtyard stood chopped mansions with a carved porch. Close to them crowded flat human huts and a mansion. Around there were a kitchen, cellars, barns, a stable, a barnyard, senniks. The usual property of the estate was a garden with cherry trees and apple trees, ponds with crucian carp. At a distance lay fields, in which bonded serfs worked and peasants served their corvee.

Dmitry Pozharsky was twelve years old when the eight-year-old prince Dmitry Uglichsky, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, died in Uglich. The royal baby was born at a bad time. Ivan IV thought about imprisoning his mother Maria Naguya in a monastery and entering into a happier marriage with an English princess. Death prevented the king from carrying out his plans.

After the kopchpny of Grozny, many said that Tsarevich Dmitry, born in his seventh marriage, was illegitimate. On this basis, the ruler Boris Godunov forbade churchmen to mention the name of Tsarevich Dmitry as a member royal family at ceremonial services.

To top it off, Dmitry Uglichsky was injured incurable disease- epilepsy. May 15, 1591 Tsarevich

tsogib in the capital of his specific principality, fatally

injuring himself during an epileptic seizure. About doom

the youngest son of Grozny was also spoken in the family of Shzhegorod townsman Kuzma Minin and in the family of Prince Pozharsky. The Uglich drama was forgotten very soon.

Dmitry Pozharsky could not foresee what he

still have to face the double of the Uglich prince on the battlefield.

The Pozharsky family had a chance to live in Moscow in the first years of the reign of Fyodor Ivanovich, when there were major popular unrest. The performances of the grassroots have not yet led to civil war. But deaf underground shocks already foreshadowed a close earthquake.

In an effort to overcome the consequences of the military defeat during the 25-year Livonian War and the devastation that reigned everywhere, the government of Fyodor canceled St. George's Day and introduced a serf regime in the form of reserved and fixed years. Neither the landlords nor the peasants could foresee what fatal consequences Godunov's innovations could lead to. It was believed that the reserved years that forbade peasant transitions were a temporary and transient measure. The peasants were comforted by the hope that they would have to wait a very short time - until the "sovereign's days off" - and their life would flow along the old channel. But as the years passed, they became convinced that they had been cruelly deceived. It was then that in the Russian villages a proverb full of bitterness was born: “Here you are, grandmother, St. George’s day!”

The bitterness and anger of the enslaved peasants had not yet made an impression on the inhabitants of the noble nests. But in the countryside people were talking more and more often about the appearance of robbers in the forests and about the beating of masters by their servants and serfs. With the onset of darkness, the yard watchmen vapiralized the gates of the estates with all the bolts and carried guards with lit lanterns all night long.

The country was on the verge of an unheard-of bloody civil war.

The Pozharsky family knew how to value education. As soon as the children grew up, they were taught to read and write. The owners of noble nests usually invited a familiar deacon to the house, and he passed the psalter and horology with the students.

Immediately after the death of her husband, Maria Pozharskaya transferred the village to the monastery for the sake of “arranging” his soul. The letter of grant for the village was drawn up on behalf of the heir, and the boy sealed the document with his own signature. Over time, the prince's handwriting acquired firmness and some elegance. Having entered the service, Dmitry willingly signed for his peers, not owning a pen. Once he had to sign the statement immediately for four illiterate princes and two nobles.

The mother had the greatest influence on the formation of the personality of Dmitry Mikhailovich. Throughout her long life, she shared with her son his cares and joys. In character and mind, Maria, apparently, went to her grandfather, Ivan Bersen. After much trouble, she achieved that the Local Order secured part of her father's estate for the heir Dmitry. The prince was the eldest in the male tribe, and the hopes of the family were concentrated on him.

At the age of nine, Prince Dmitry took possession of the Meshchev and Serney estates beyond the Ugra. His co-owners were his mother, sister and younger brother. The estate was not very large: there were four hundred quarters of arable land in it, but only a part of it was cultivated.

When the time was dry, Maria Pozharskaya married her son. In Russia, marriages were concluded at a young age. “Every parent,” the church taught, “befits to marry his son when he is fifteen years old, and his daughter is twelve.”

The groom's parents chose the bride. After a successful matchmaking, the relatives brought him to the bride's house and there they agreed on a dowry. After signing the entry, they went into the next room to congratulate the mother of the bride, who was waiting there. During the bride show, the bride was shown not to her future husband, but to his mother. The bride sat at the dinner table, dressed in a "kind" dress. Sometimes the groom insisted that he be shown his betrothed. But after the agreement, he had almost no opportunity to refuse the bride.

“Do not look for a bride more noble and richer than you, to be the master in your house” - this rule was guided by Maria Pozharskaya, choosing a bride for her son Dmitry.

The wedding ceremony in Russia was notable for its complexity. Preparation for the wedding began with the arrangement of the bed for the newlyweds. The bedchamber was arranged in a sennik.

The bed was made on forty sheaves. A caddy with a shield and wedding candles were placed at the head of the bed. Depending on the wealth, the wedding was played either in the bride's house - "of a lower rank", or in two houses - "but of a higher rank". In the morning, the wedding train - the groom with the "boyars" went to the bride's yard. Dressed in a red sundress, she was waiting for him in the upper room. The matchmakers combed the curls first for the groom, then for the bride. The girlfriends sang the song, mourning the parting with the girl's life. Druzhki cut a loaf and brought it to all those invited. Then the parents handed the daughter to the groom from hand to hand, and the newlyweds went down the aisle. In the church, the bride, barely leaving the crown, fell at the feet of the groom and touched his boot as a sign of eternal humility. The groom from above threw a caftan on the young floor, promising her protection and refuge for life.

The wife of Prince Dmitry was the maiden Praskovya Varfolomeevna. Her family nickname was not reflected in the documents. A young ass got into a house where her husband's mother and grandmother were in charge of everything. All this was in order. Praskovya meekly obeyed her mother-in-law all her life. She gave birth to many children to her husband.

The family grew. Maria Pozharskaya had to travel to the capital more and more often. There she stayed with her daughter's family or busied herself at her farmstead in the White City. There was always enough to do: it was necessary to look after the house and the servants, repair the roof in time, replenish stocks in the cellars, purchase goods in the capital's market, visit the confessor, relatives and neighbors. Dmitry willingly accompanied his mother on her trips. When he entered the service, the roles changed. Maria Pozharskaya tried not to leave the Moscow court while her son was there on business.