Chapter V: Part 5

For a time his wisdom as a statesman promised to equal his skill and courage as a soldier, but his manifest preference for Poles to Russians soon created jealousy; and imagining that he could overcome prejudices by violent measures, as easily as he had conquered a throne, he spared no pains to insult the Russian national feeling. He appointed only Poles to high office, and lavished upon foreigners so much attention as to breed discontent in his own capital. His apostasy from the Greek to the Roman faith, also, was suspected, and the clergy became his implacable enemies. The disaffection grew daily, and the efforts Dmitri made to overawe his enemies only exasperated them. Finally, on the occasion of his marriage with Marina, the Polish princess--which was celebrated with great pomp by a throng of Polish soldiers and others, invited to Moscow for the purpose--a mob, headed by Shuiski, or Schnisky--for the name is spelled in both of these and half a dozen other ways--stormed the palace, butchered the Poles, and impaled Dmitri on a spear. To leave no doubt of his death this time, they kept his body transfixed with the spear, in front of the palace, for three days, that the people might wreak their vengeance upon the dead czar by insulting his corpse.

Schnisky profited by his victory, and while the blood of the populace was still hot was chosen czar, as successor of the impostor he had overthrown. His popularity was short-lived, however. His fellows among the nobles resented his elevation above themselves, and ere long the desire for his removal was as unanimous as his election had been. This seemed a good time for the doubly dead Dmitri to come to life again; and so it was presently rumored that after all he had not been killed; that the corpse the people had spat upon and insulted was not his; that he was alive, in Poland, and ready to claim his own. This report was industriously circulated by the nobles; but as the people had not yet forgotten their hatred for the usurper, he was permitted to lie down in his grave again.

To prevent his coming to life for a third time, the dead czar's remains were disinterred and burned. The ashes were collected and fired from a piece of artillery, and it was supposed that further resurrection on his part was impossible. But, as we have seen, Dmitri had a most astonishing genius for coming to life after being thoroughly killed; and presently he appeared again in Poland. This time, history says, he was either a Russian schoolmaster or a Polish Jew; but however that may be, certain it is that he so closely resembled the other two Dmitri's in personal appearance, even to the two warts and unequally long arms, that he imposed on everybody around him with his story. Even the Princess Marina accepted him, and actually lived with him as his wife.

He was able, without much difficulty, to interest the King of Poland in his behalf, and to secure a declaration of war by that potentate against Czar Schnisky. He invaded Russia, won battles, captured Smolensko, invested Moscow, and finally entered the city.

About this time Dmitri appeared in several other places, but only one of him was in Moscow at the head of a victorious army; and in behalf of this particular one Schnisky resigned his crown and retired to a monastery, whence he was soon removed to a dungeon.

At this juncture the King of Poland, having plans of his own for the union of Russia and his own kingdom, withdrew his countenance from Dmitri; and that prince retired from the business of governing, and devoted himself for the rest of his life to the less honorable, but perhaps equally lucrative, profession of highway robbery. He was again killed after awhile, this time by a Don Cossack. But even this public killing had small effect. A dozen or more new Dmitri's appeared, claiming the throne; and some of them, says the historian Bell, "actually touched the sceptre for a moment, but only to recoil in fear from the dangerous object of their insane ambition."

After awhile, having found the task an unprofitable one, perhaps, Dmitri seems to have made up his mind to stay dead; but in due course a race of his sons sprang up quite as mysteriously, if not quite as persistently, to pester the Russians, and peace came to them only through the elevation of the Romanoffs to the imperial throne. Connected as they were by ties of blood with the race of Rurik, they brought legitimacy to the rescue of a land long torn by faction. The loyalty of the people to sovereigns whose right to rule was derived from Rurik, gave the dynasty a strength sufficient to maintain itself; and after a little while Peter the Great taught his Russians civilization, and a new era in Russian history was begun.