History of Russia
Heads of the stateTsar Fedor Godunov (1589 - 1605)
Reign 1605
Parents:Tsar Boris Godunov (1552-1605) and Tsarina Maria Grigoryevna Skuratova-Belskaya (?-1605).
Important events:
- Fedor Godunov was too young to overcome circumstances and take the control of the state into own hands. No inportant events took place during the reign of Fedor Godunov, which only lasted fifty days, until he was overthrown by the supporters of False Dmitry I.
Fedor Godunov received a first-class education. His father wanted to marry him to a foreign princess and held ultimately unsuccessful negotiations with Queen Elizabeth I of England. When agreeing the Russo-Norwegian border with Denmark, the tsar proposed that his daughter should marry the crown prince. Prince John, the brother of King Christian IV, came to Moscow, but fell ill and died in October 1602. In 1605, proposals for a marriage between Xenia and the duke of Schleswig were interrupted by the death of Boris Godunov.
He ruled the country for a total of fifty days. When Muscovites were kissing the cross and talking their oath to the new tsar, Grishka Otrepiev was already moving towards the capital with his army.
The False Dmitry I - as Grishka Otrepiev was known, to distinguish him from a second pretender, False Dmitry II - sent a proclamation to his supporters in Moscow, promising to reward throne who recognised him as the rightful tsar and to kill those who did not. The people of Moscow were thrown into confusion, with many believing that he was indeed the son of Ivan the Terrible. A mob broke into and Kremlin, ransacked the palace and arrested Boris Godunov's widow and children.
On 3 June 1605, the royal family was overthrown by a group of boyars led by Basil Shuisky and Basil Mosalsky. Hired assassins overthrew Patriarch Job and strangled Fedor Godunov and his mother. Their bodies were shown to the people, who were told that they had taken poison.
Several days later, Boris Godunov's coffin was removed from the Archangel Cathedral and reburied at the more humble Barsonofiev Monastery near the Lubyanka. The people were told that he too had taken poison. The bodies of his widow and son, who were said to have committed suicide, were buried alongside him without a funeral service.
Although Boris Godunov's daughter Xenia survived, she was forced to become the concubine of False Dmitry I. When he tired of her, she entered a nunnery under the mane of Olga. The seven-year reign of the Godunov dynasty had come to an end.
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