Scientists have solved the mystery of the death of Tsarevich Dmitry
In the public consciousness, there is a popular version that the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, the young Dmitry, was killed by order of Boris Godunov. This historical myth was supported in Russian literature: remember Pushkin’s “and the boys blood in his eyes.”
However, modern research methods applied by the researcher from the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences Lyubov Stolyarova, and psychiatrist Petr Belousov have led to unexpected results.
Murder or “self-infliction”?
It is known for certain that eight-year-old Tsarevich Dmitry (Dmitriy), the youngest son of Tsar Ivan the Terrible by Tsaritsa Maria Nagaya and the blood brother of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, died on May 15, 1591, in the city of Uglich while playing “tag.” According to the official version, the boy stumbled onto a knife, which pierced his throat.
Immediately, it was assumed to be deliberate murder, staged by Boris Godunov, the blood brother of the “acting” Tsaritsa Irina Fedorovna, seeking power. Although Dmitry’s claims to the throne could be disputed: his mother was Ivan the Terrible’s seventh spouse, and this marriage was not considered canonical.
Dmitry’s maternal relatives, the Nagi boyars, embarked on a quest to find the presumed murderers. As a result of accusations related to the prince’s death, 14 people were executed through self-judgment.
Four days after the tragedy in Uglich, an Investigative Commission led by Boyar Vasily Shuisky arrived. Based on witness interrogations, the commission concluded that the death occurred due to “self-infliction”: during the game, the child experienced an “epileptic” seizure and fell on the knife. The Nagi family was blamed for neglecting the Tsarevich, as well as for arbitrary actions and executing innocent people.
The results of the investigation were reported to Tsar Fyodor and the Holy Synod. The “guilty” were imprisoned and exiled to Siberia, and Maria Nagaya was forcibly tonsured as a nun.
“The resurrected” Tsarevich
The death of Dmitry and the passing of his brother, Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, in 1598 paved the way for the Time of Troubles in Russia. The issue was that Tsar Fyodor had no blood heirs. Therefore, after his death, Boris Godunov, who had become his “co-ruler” during Fyodor’s lifetime, ascended to the throne. The dynasty of the Moscow Rurikoviches through the male line was broken.
At the beginning of the 17th century, several pretenders claimed their rights to the Russian throne, the most famous being False Dmitry I and False Dmitry II. They claimed to be miraculously saved younger sons of Ivan IV. Allegedly, the Tsarevich survived, and another boy, whom the Nagis kept under Dmitry’s care, was deliberately substituted for the killers by an Italian doctor.
Then, at the initiative of Vasily Shuisky, who became the Tsar by that time, the “young Dmitry” was canonized and declared “innocently killed.” This time, it was officially claimed that Boris Godunov sent assassins to the Tsarevich. Allegedly, he got rid of a competitor in the struggle for power. By the way, some researchers also accuse Godunov of the deaths of Tsars Ivan the Terrible and Fyodor Ioannovich, with whom he was closely associated.
I. S. Glazunov, “Tsarevich Dmitry”, 1967
Source: vk.com/glazunovgallery
Was it all about status?
If we consider the surviving materials of the Uglich investigation, it turns out that there were numerous witnesses to the prince’s death.
Direct witnesses to the tragedy included the nanny (the child’s caretaker) Vasilisa Volokhova, wet nurse Arina Tuchkova, and chambermaid Maria Kolobova, who accompanied the prince for a walk, the boys ‘tenants’ assigned to play with him – Petrusha Kolobov, Vanya Krasensky, and Grisha Kozlovsky, and finally, the cook Semeyka Yudin, who observed events from the window. They all testified that during the game with the prince, he experienced a fit, and he ‘fell onto’ the knife himself.
Those who arrived at the scene later claimed that the child was ‘stabbed.’ Or rather, they stated: ‘It is said that he was stabbed.’ In other words, they referred to those who might have heard how Maria Nagaya shouted names of supposed ‘killers’ over her dead son. These people turned out to be relatives and individuals from the closest circle of the tsar’s deacon Mikhail Bityagovsky, sent from Moscow to Uglich to supervise the Nagis – Osip Volokhov, Daniil Bityagovsky, and Nikita Kachalov. Despite the fact that at the time of the tragedy, the queen was having lunch and arrived only when the child was already having a fit.
Why were researchers interested once more in the mystery of the young prince’s death?
“It was a personal initiative,” historian Lyubov Stolyarova told ‘Gazeta o Rossii’. “I wanted to write a popular science book for children about the Time of Troubles. I realized I stumbled upon the question of the death of Tsarevich Dmitry. During my institute years in the department of auxiliary historical disciplines, we studied the materials of the Investigation Case from photocopies made in 1913 by Professor Vladimir Karlovich Kley. Later, I reviewed the Investigation Case in the Archive of Ancient Acts and understood that a new study was needed, a joint one – by a historian and a physician, a specialist in epileptology, a psychiatrist or neurologist. I was recommended to contact Petr Belousov. That’s how our joint work began.”
According to Stolyarova, it was important for her that the physician not only answered the question of whether or not the prince could have inflicted a fatal wound on himself during an epileptic seizure but also systematically studied the medical aspect of the evidence contained in the sources.
Sources (materials of the Investigation Case, literary ‘Povesti’, notes of foreigners, and others) indicate that Dmitry suffered from epilepsy from an early age. Presumably, he inherited the disease from his ancestors – the Byzantine Palaeologus.
In addition to frequent seizures, the boy periodically experienced ‘clouding’ of consciousness during which he physically harmed those around him – in particular, he bit their hands, and once even injured his own mother with a nail.
So, during the game with the boy, another fit occurred. Witnesses testified that ‘it hit him for a long time.’ However, a typical epileptic seizure lasts only a few moments. According to psychiatrist P.V. Belousov, it is more likely that it was what is called an epileptic status, which lasts for about half an hour, during which seizures follow one another, leading to disruptions in consciousness and vital organ systems.
“Even in modern emergency conditions, status epilepticus leads to the death of every fourth patient,” comments the doctor. “In the 16th century, it was absolutely a fatal condition.”
Holy relics of Tsarevich Dimitri in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin
Photo: patriarchia.ru
But what about falling onto the knife?
Since in the testimony of one of the immediate witnesses to the child’s death, Vasilisa Volokhova, it is directly stated that the knife (according to other information, it could have been a so-called stake – a sharpened four-sided nail) injured the child’s throat, there is no doubt about it. However, if the carotid artery, jugular vein, or the neurovascular bundle are injured, death occurs instantly or within minutes. And such a wound is accompanied by massive blood loss. Nevertheless, there is no description in any official source of blood gushing from the child’s throat wound.
Belousov suggested for the first time that Tsarevich Dmitry did not die as a result of a knife wound, which was by no means fatal, but as a result of an epileptic status, as mentioned earlier.
So, the tragedy of Uglich takes on somewhat different colors.
It turns out that the commonly accepted opinion sometimes turns out to be erroneous, and some historical events, dissected by modern scientists, can appear in a completely different light than we are used to.
By Irina Shlionskaya