Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised, as legend has it, Shortly after dawn on May seventeenth, sixteen o six, Sar Dmitri crouched on a window ledge outside his palace in Moscow. This was not part of the Russian Emperor's typical morning routine and was definitely not an activity that he and his new bride, who was hiding inside in an adjacent room, would have had on their ideal post
wedding itinerary. But times were desperate. There were assassins closing in, so Sar Dmitri gazed down from his window perch. The drop was substantial, but over in the direction of Red Square. Loyal citizens were street onto the Kremlin grounds. If Dmitri could leap to the next building, his supportive subjects would surely be able to arrive in time to protect him from the horde of coordinated assassins who had surrounded his bedchambers and were about to break in at any moment.
The next few seconds would prove vital for Czar Dmitri's life and reign, as well as for the entire course of early modern Russian history. He prepared to make his daring leap, But unfortunately for Dmitri, like so many aspects of the period of political turmoil that would become known as the Time of Troubles, Dmitri's plan took an almost comically dire turn. Dmitri slipped and plummeted to the ground,
breaking his leg in the process. He was soon at the mercy of his enemies, and that's where things got even more peculiar. In the heat of a violent coup, plenty of rulers find themselves in the tense and awkward position of needing to beg for their lives. But even within that pantheon of impassioned please, the back and forth that Czar Dmitri had with his particular group of would be assassins stands out because a good portion of his pleading supposedly focused on him trying to convince them that
he was in fact who he claimed to be. He begged his captors to bring him to his people. They'd embrace him as Czar Dmitri, their rightful leader, or they could go ask his mother. She'd certainly vouch for him that he was her son. And the heir of former Zar Ivan, why not even pray those of ardent faith would receive confirmation from God that he Dmitri, had been
divinely chosen to rule. With the larger crowd fast approaching, however, the assassins chose not to waste time praying and to avoid any further delay by shooting, hacking, and bludgeoning their target, who may or may not have been the rightful Czar Dmitri, to death. But Dmitri's story was far from over. Whoever he truly was, that young emperor who literally fell from power kicked off quite a trend. Many more so called false Dmitries would eventually come forward, all claiming to be
the one, the only, the original Czar Dmitri. I'm Danish forts and this is noble blood. Unlike other famous characters who probably never existed, such as your King Arthur's or Odysseus's, there is evidence that at least at the start of this heightened tale, there was a real person named Dmitri Ivanovitch who had a hereditary link to the Russian monarchy.
In fifteen eighty two, Tsarevich, or son of the Tsar Dmitri, was born to Tsar Ivan Vassilovitch, commonly known to the modern world as Ivan the Terrible, and his sixth wife, Maria. Relatively few details seem to be known about Dmitri's earliest years, especially since many accounts of this period focused more on the royal succession plan, of which the young Tsarevich was not initially a featured contender. According to some, Dmitri was
not even a fully legitimate Tsarvich. His parentage was not necessarily in doubt, but per Russian Orthodox law, the offspring of a man's fourth marriage was typically deemed to be illegitimate, so the child of a sixth marriage pretty far down the potential inheritance standings. After Ivan died, his oldest living son became czar. The new power dynamic was complicated, however, because Ivan's heir purportedly possessed what might be classified today
as significant neurodivergence or learning disabilities. Ivan had foreseen his oldest son struggling to rule on his own, and he appointed a council of regents to help run Russia behind the scenes. What could go wrong right? An ambitious member of that council named Boris Godunov soon relished his newfound influence so much that he didn't see why he should stop at being mere regent with a sidelined, ineffectual tsar
Boris envisioned taking the throne for himself. This path meant weeding out all likely future challengers, so Boris pushed the illegitimate Tsarevich narrative while also exiling Dmitri, along with his mother and numerous members of their family, to the far off principality of Uglik. Unfortunately, few memorable personal details about Dmitri's upbringing appear to have survived. Sources recount that his grandfather and several relatives, having not taken their banishment very amicably,
plotted to topple Boris. It is highly unlikely that young Dmitri meaningfully participated in any of that planning, given that he would have been under the age of eight, but it is probable that on some level, his family's desired retribution triggered his tragic demise. In May of fifteen ninety one,
young Dmitri reportedly died in Uglik. His family members were incensed, certain that the event was a covert murder orchestrated by Boris as retaliation for their opposition to his governmental control, and their argument may very well have been valid. As the circumstances of young Dmitri's death were dubious. Boris sent an official delegation led by a zealous prince named Vasily Schiski who will become integral later on, so remember that name,
to investigate the death. But given the conflicts of an interests involved, it seemed like less an act of proper due diligence and more like let's say, an oil company sending a team to check if they were at fault for an oil spill. Sure enough, the commission ruled that Dmitri's death was accidental, reporting he had suffered a seizure at the exact time that he had been playing with a knife, which had led him to inadvertently cut his
own throat. A possible explanation, sure plausible, you be the judge. Nevertheless, despite being sad and a little suspicious, more than a little suspicious, the death of a debatably legitimate tsarvich did not initially seem to cause that much of a stir in larger Russian society. After all, in those days, individuals in line for the throne frequently died in odd accidental
ways years before. Zar Ivan himself had even been said to have accidentally killed his own eldest son at the time, which we actually covered in the fittingly titled Ivan the Terrible and his Oldest Son episode. In general, to many Russians outside of Moscow, news of Dmitri's passing was likely met with fairly mild reactions, ranging from who to well
these things happen. Flash forward to sixteen o two. Boris had successfully become Tzar by out maneuvering and dispatching all of Ivan the Terrible's remaining descendants, or at least he thought he was rid of the lineage. Rumblings began that young Dmitri Ivanovitch had miraculously survived the attempt to kill him as a boy. After a few months, a man finally came forth in Poland Lithuania in sixteen o three and declared that he was, in fact Dmitri, the rightful
claimant to the throne. It was quite the assertion then and even now. Historians continue to debate the origins of this mysterious figure. The most widespread theory at the time was that this Dmitri impostor was originally a monk named Gregory Otrepev, who had been defrocked for dabbling in dark sorcery.
Sar Boris tried to push that idea to undermine his challenger, and for centuries that presumption prevailed, largely due to how the political climate under subsequent regimes dissuaded historians from questioning that theory. However, modern scholars, less fearful of Russian Tsars threatening their lives and freedoms, have pretty persuasively shown that this adult Tsarevich Dmitri impostor could not have been Otripev. Another key theory is that the pretender was someone raised
to believe he truly was Dmitri. Contemporary witnesses marveled at how convincing he was, believing that not even a talented actor could so seamlessly inhabit the role. The proposed timeline is critical here, since producing a Dmitri who so wholeheartedly bought into his backstory would have meant in doctrinating him
at a very young age. Considering the contentious rift between Dmitri's family and Boris Godunov, it's not unthinkable that after the murder of actual Dmitri as a child, his calculating relatives had the foresight to immediately start training a replacement Dmitri to have ready to go when the opportunity arose. There's a third main theory as to who the pretender or false Dmitri was the real Dmitri. This notion was laughed off by many historians over the years, but there
is actually a bit of evidence to possibly bolster that argument. Specifically, there were many suspicious details involved in the aftermath of Dmitri's young death. For example, there was a highly irregular four day delay in bearing his body. The investigative commission apparently could not confirm that the body was Dmitri, and a few sources at the time declared outright that the real Dmitri had been swapped for a different boy before
the alleged murder took place. Dmitri's godfather, at one point even apparently swore on a cross that the man claiming to be Dmitri was his true godson, who he'd been hiding from Boris since the assassination ordeal. But again in terms of conflicts of interest, Dmitri's close relative insisting that he had outwitted the man he'd been trying to overthrow for a quarter of a century is not exactly the
most reliable testimony. Whatever his true identity, this adult Tsarevich Dmitri was soon making waves, and he amassed an impressive army to take the throne as Russia's reputedly rightful and if overlooking the Church's debatable fine print on sons of sixth marriages, wholly knew ruler naturally, at this point you might be wondering how this adult Dmitri was able to sow effectively hoodwink people, or if he was the real deal,
how he managed to convince everyone of that. Looks mattered little, since few knew or remembered what Dmitri looked like as a boy. This adult version was apparently not the most striking or handsome. He was of middling height and had a distinctive wart by his nose, but he won people over with his demeanor. As a supposedly twenty two year old man, this Dmitri was a skilled horse rider, a
brave warrior, smart, and very eloquent. In short, he was popular. Still, launching a full scale rebellion was not as simple as trotting around on horseback and making charismatic speeches. Many elements were involved in winning support from both the Russian people and the nobility. One massive tragic factor that greatly aided
this Dimitri's case among the people was starvation. One of the worst famines in Russian history arrived in sixteen o two, and it was so devastating that contemporary reports estimate that it ultimately killed roughly one third of the total population.
To czar Boris's credit, he desperately tried to help his subjects by distributing food and money, but the situation was so extreme and corruption so rampant that the crisis snowballed, and with unceasing hunger, disease, and death being overwhelming obstacles to nuanced reflections on macroeconomics, many surviving citizens predominantly blamed their leader for the horrific state of things. Thus, when this new Tsarevich Dmitri emerged, many disgruntled Cossacks, soldiers, merchants,
and townsfolks quickly backed him. Religion was another crucial factor that helped Dmitri. Throughout the sixteenth century, the major players at the Kremlin had strived to fortify their standing by sacrilizing the monarchy. Essentially, the goal was to assure the Russian Orthodox masses that it was not worth bothering to question Azar's right to rule, since God handed down that right.
This effectively laid the groundwork for Dmitri in the sense that his apparent evasion of the assassination attempt against him when he was a child fit with a story that he was divinely selected. It was easy enough to even promote parallels between his grand reas appearance and Christ himself
rising from the grave. Plenty of Lord's influential families and exiled boyars, members of the highest ranking nobility, also harbored ample animosity toward tsar Boris, and so they joined the Tsarevich Dmitri's cause, hoping to sway the political scene back in their favor. Dmitri's own mother, Maria, had been stripped of her privileges and forced to go live in cramped
confinement as a nun. So when the plucky supposed Tsavich arrived with his growing army and promised to bring his mother back to Moscow and restore her to status if she confirmed that he was in fact her son, it likely didn't take her long to declare something along the lines of yep, definitely this guy is my son everyone. Meanwhile, in Moscow, Tsar Boris grew increasingly paranoid about the man
leading a military campaign through the country against him. Thus, in citing the first civil war in early modern Russian history, harsh punishments awaited anyone deemed to be a supporter of the impostor Dmitri. Boris tried to counter his rival's popularity by continuing to espouse the idea that this impostor was the disgraced monk Otrapev, who was disgraced since he was
clearly debauched and evil. However, it should be noted that accusing a political foe of being a wicked heretic was pretty standard practice in those days, and in this case it does not appear to have significantly helped zar Boris's cause. Far less helpful to his cause was an illness that
killed him before Tsarevich Dmitri even reached Moscow. So faced with a magnetic young warrior prince leading a sizeable army toward them, the noble classes at the Kremlin were suddenly also offered a relatively easy choice over whether to acknowledge this Dmitri's legitimacy or call him out as a sacrilegious poser, to loosely paraphrase their general response, Hi, the long lost Dmitri, welcome back. We are your loyal supporters and we always
thought so. Dmitri air Quotes was crowned on July twenty first, sixteen oh five. Historians would later refer to him by names such as false Dmitri, the first, the pretender Dmitri, and the quote first false Dmitri. But for now, since he did undeniably attain the title of Czar, I think we can simply call him Czar Dmitri. But after riding Russia's f first Civil War to the highest seat of power,
did he actually have a plan for ruling. It's tricky to get a complete sense of Czar Dmitri's short reign, since his successor ordered numerous court documents be destroyed, and he vigorously tried to discredit his predecessor through an intense propaganda campaign. Nonetheless, in spite of being frequently labeled a conniving impostor or evil runaway monk, perhaps the biggest shock of all is that, gasp, this Dmitri may have been
a deserving and effective monarch. Many of his contemporaries, including some avowed enemies agreed that he possessed many outstanding qualities. He was apparently well educated, adept at state craft, and highly resourced and wise. Czar Dmitri was also an ambitious
military leader who sought to greatly improve Russia's army. Unlike countless other rulers who eschewed the nitty gritty of battle preparation in favor of lounging around and bragging about the size of their conquered territories, Dmitri enjoyed immense popularity with his soldiers because he actually trained with them. Fun fact, he was also the first Russian czar to use the title of emperor, so yeah, he was feeling himself a little.
But still, many biographers point out how, rather than fully descending into egomania once he gained power, Zar Dmitri actually apparently tried to use his platform to improve Russia's government. For example, he ushered in more progressive laws, promoted plans to further education and scientific research, and even tried to cut down on bribery of public officials. That last one may sound basic to the point of obvious, but it
was a decidedly rare stance for seventeenth century Russia. Former czars were extremely reliant on their private police forces to terrorize enemies and extort peasants, so the idea of even proclaiming that someone would want to limit corruption, much less taking any relevant action, would have been likely laughable to them. Dmitri was no old school czar, and he went a step further to try to ensure timely justice for average citizens. He allowed them to come and petition him in person
twice a week. Imposter or not, you have to give the guy credit for his dedication. Dmitri's different ruling style started to rub a few at court the wrong way. However. He reportedly cut back on traditional ceremonies and dressed in informal, quote Western ways. He supposedly scorned certain entitled or uneducated, high born lords. Dmitri also flummixed many of his nobles
by essentially being a bit too chummy. Many nobles were used to living in fear of provoking vitriol and retribution, and they were apparently confused as to why Dmitri sometimes seemed to want to hear them talk without first threatening them or commanding them to do so. Perhaps far more consequentially, Dmitri was unusually welcoming of foreign intellectuals, and he did
not follow many of the same religious rights as former czars. Supposedly, he was reluctant to spend hours in every day he ate food seen as unclean by the Russian Orthodox Church, and he was relatively tolerant of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews.
The friction between Czar Dmitri and some members of the aristocracy all came to a head with his planned marriage Marina Mnishek, was a Polish Catholic princess, daughter of the commander who had led Dmitri's forces during his rebellious military campaign. Many higher ups in the Russian Church eventually signed off on the marriage agreement, but there were fanatical holdouts who saw this as proof of a plan to secretly convert
Russia to Catholicism. While there is essentially no convincing evidence that a religious overhaul was ever Zar Dmitri's goal, his plan to marry Marina gave his usurper the ammunition and opportunity they needed. His primary usurper would be Vasily Shuisky, who, if you'll recall, was the power hungry prince who happened to be the man who once oversaw the dodgy investigation into the death of Dmitri the child back when he
was eight years old. In an ironic turn of fate, all these years later, Vasily's ascension to the throne hinged on him covertly gaining enough allies to oversee a deadly coup of Dmitri the grown man. Despite some of the initial wariness regarding Czar Dmitri marrying a Polish Catholic woman, Russians living in the capitol were still clearly suckers for
a big, glamorous royal wedding. Marina was reportedly given a warm public welcome in Moscow on May second, sixteen o six, and over the course of two celebratory weeks there there were grand processions, Lavish festivities, and on the wedding day itself, huge crowds who gave the bride enthusiastic ovations. However, cross cultural tensions also ratcheted up between certain resident Russian factions
and incoming Polish wedding guests. Behind the scenes, Vasily sought to maximize this chaos by fanning the flames of xenophobia. While it is again difficult to separate the truth from rumors that he perpetuated. There were multiple reports of thefts, vandalism, and even the alleged murder of a Russian by a Polish visitor. But rather than put his assassination plan into action as fights spilled onto the streets when Ri and
his security forces were on highest alert, Prince Vasily waited. Finally, cunningly, Vasly struck at a time when Dmitri was most vulnerable, the direct aftermath of all the wedding celebrations. By then, Dmitri was feeling confident that most of the discord and danger had passed, so seemingly, ever, striving to be a thoughtful boss, he told half his guard to stand down
to rest. In the wee hours of May seventeenth, sixteen six, Vasily snuck his amassed group of over two hundred armed horsemen, merchants, clerics, and relatives into the Kremlin. At the same time, he played up the idea around Moscow that the Polish were attacking, so that angered crowds would storm the gates and inadvertently block reinforcements from coming to Czar Dmitri's aid. Dmitri still had enough time to retreat through his chambers and try to leap out the window to safety. But we now
know how that turned out. Even for an athletic guy who loved military training exercises, he likely never practiced specific window escapes. After he fell and unsuccessfully tried to reason with his attackers, who clearly did not buy into his
identity and overall hype, he was murdered. Thus ended the life of an enigmatic figure who had ruled for a little under a year, been married for a little over a week, had played a starring role in Russia's first Civil War, and ostensibly became the only czar to take over the throne thanks to popular uprisings and a military campaign. It's worth taking a moment here to recognize just how influential this young man's unprecedented reign potentially was, even though
it was so brief. From Zar Dmitri's legal reforms to his incentives that improved many citizens' livelihoods, to his military innovations, Zar Dmitri demonstrably backed up his purported goal of governing as a fair minded emperor rather than a ruthless tyrant. Historian Richard Helley went so far as to call Zar Dmitri quote one of the few really enlightened rulers Russia has ever had. Several scholars have even argued that Czar Dmitri's short but productive rule made him a clear forerunner
to Peter the Great. The flip side of his legacy is that while he was a potential role model for future czars, Dmitri also served as a an excellent proof of concept for subsequent royal pretenders. Following Czar Dmitri's assassination, Vasily immediately began fretting over his victim's legendary popularity and hold on Russia's collective imagination. He ordered that Dmitri's body be dragged through the street in a horrific manner to show everyone that he was not some divinely selected monarch
and that he was very clearly dead. But if there was one thing that Vasily had not prepared for in all of his scheming, it was having to deal with a czar who would not remain dead, a czar whose ghost would insist on haunting him throughout the rest of his life. Really, this oversight was silly, a Vasily, having led the investigation of Dmitri's murder back when Dmitri was a child, Vasily knew as well as anyone that this wasn't the first time that Dmitri had quote unquote died
and returned from beyond the grave. The last time Dmitri had been murdered, Ham had accidentally slit his own throat as an unsupervised knife wielding caeizure prone child. It took over a decade for rumors to start spreading that Dmitri had miraculously survived this time, though whispers that Dmitri Ivanovitch had somehow, yet again cheated death would begin circulating within a matter of days. That's the first part of the
wild and duplicitous story of the false Dmitris. But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear about another key slip up that helped to seal Csar Dmitri's fate. The intriguing duality of Zar Dmitri was such that some of the same traits that won him favor, like his thoughtful approach to doling out justice, also directly contributed to his own downfall. Specifically, this was the case with an
early assassination attempt on the Czar's life. The assassination attempt was easily sniffed out right after Zar Dmitri took over in Moscow, and guess who was behind it? One Vasily Schwisky. That's right, good old Vasily tried to pull off a murderous plan with his two brothers, but this time early on, he was caught and put on trial in what basically played out like a riveting Time of Troubles era episode of Law and Order. Zar Dmitri himself acted as prosecutor.
He reportedly wowed the crowd with his eloquent argument against Vasily's family history of traitorous behavior, and Vasily was sentenced to death several days later in Red Square. However, Dmitri allegedly halted Vasily's execution at the last second, in a dramatic reversal likely intended to foster unity. Dmitri mercifully exiled Vasily to a far off town where we know now. Vasily spent time strategizing about how to return for his
next assassination attempt. So as strategic as his eventual successful usurping was, Vasily perhaps does not deserve too much credit, considering it was his second try. He bungled his first attempt and was still granted a second chance to go, perfect his plan and return once he was ready to fully step in to ahem starring role. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio 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 KLi and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.