Mikhail Romanov: "Moscow Prince and the great landowner became a representative of All-Russia, a bearer of higher people's priorities"

July 22, 2017, marks the 421th anniversary of the birth of the founder of the Russian royal dynasty, Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. There is a large number of rare books and documents that tell about the accomplishments and personality of this popular monarch featured in the Presidential Library stock and on its website.

The House of Rurik, whose family line was interrupted with the death in 1598 of Tsar Fedor Ioannovich, son of Ivan the Terrible, who did not leave any heir, was at the foundation of the first state in Russia. Since this year, in the country a difficult time, known as the "Troubled" one, began and lasted for a decade and a half.

Emptied throne gave no peace to neighboring countries and to some of the noble Moscow boyars - the vicissitudes of the Time of Troubles are well described into "The book of the election of the great sovereign, the Tsar and the Grand Duke Mikhail Fedorovich" of 1856, "The election of Mikhail Romanov to the Kingdom" of 1913 and many other editions , available on the Presidential Library website.

At first, the False Dmitry number 1 has taken over the Russian throne and with the help of the Poles reigned in Moscow for several months. When the deception was revealed, the boyars chose a man from their own environment, Vasily Shuisky, obliging him to share with them the royal power, but he was convicted of gross abuses and exiled to a monastery with monastic vows. Then the Poles led to Moscow their army and put on the throne their False Dmitriy-2... Marauding, hunger, deadly diseases hit Russia. No less looser the young state was getting because of betrayals of those for whom the people hoped.

As V. Berkh writes in the book of 1832 "The reign of Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich and the view of the interregnum", an electronic copy of which is presented on the Presidential Library website: "Metropolitan, Prince Golitsyn and other strong like them men were extremely saddened to hear that the Duma Nobleman Sukin, Duma Dyak Vasiliev, Spassk Archimandrite, Troitsk Kelar Avraamiy and many of the Nobles and other classes of people among their surrenders, flopped over to insidious Poles, and received from the Polish King one ownership certificates on the estates, and others different benefits, but all at the expense of Russia..."

All these troubles that were brought to the country "were considered by the then Russian people a punishment of God. Everyone was waiting for even worse disasters, and these did not hesitate to break out over the Russian land. The impostors began to appear one by one, and the Russian people "became malicious", following one impostor after another," - Belkovsky testifies in the book of 1913 "The first tsar from the house of the Romanovs. Mikhail Feodorovich."

It was necessary to bring the tormented state together, and the first step along the way was the expulsion of Poles from Moscow under the leadership of Nizhny Novgorod merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, who managed to assemble a huge national militia. The second most difficult priority was to search and to collectively elect a new Russian tsar.

And what a contrast to those, who cowed and betrayed during the cruel Trouble times, the personality of the first ruler of the Romanov dynasty - Mikhail Fedorovich, elected to the reign on the Zemsky Sobor of February 7, 1613, became!

The son of the boyar Fedor Nikitich Romanov, Metropolitan (later - Patriarch Filaret) and Xenia Ivanovna Shestova (later - the nun Martha), Mikhail was a cousin to the last Russian tsar from the Moscow branch of the Rurikovich dynasty Fedor Ioannovich l. Belonging to the Rurikovich family and the deep religiosity of the Romanov family became the most convincing arguments in the selection of a candidate for the Russian throne.

There were many candidates for the throne, among them, in particular, the Polish prince Vladislav and the Swedish prince Karl Philip, Russian commanders and representatives of famous families, and even Voronok, the son of False Dmitry II and Marina Mnishek. The events of that time are described in detail in the digitized by the Presidential Library book of Mikhail Diakonov of 1913 entitled "The election of Mikhail Fedorovich to the Throne": the vote was held "after careful consideration and reflection, after a three-day collective fasting and a zealous prayer for God: an accomplishment was such a big deal! It was clear to everyone now that Russia's salvation was in the tsar. And the tsar was elected unanimously."

The delegation led by Archbishop Theodoret and boyar Sheremetev arrived at the suburban Ipatievsky Monastery, where Mikhail and his mother Martha lived at the time. Michael, hearing "this to himself immutable prayer, denied a request with many tears and sobs and anger." And his mother, "filled with many tears, with great mourning and sobbing," refused to bless her son in the kingdom too. Martha alluded to Mikhail's youth, which made the burden of government service unbearable for him, and even more tan this, on the fact that "all sorts of people became so fainthearted in their sins, giving their souls to former sovereigns, did not directly serve," - Professor D. Tsvetaev writes in the book of 1913 "The election of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov to the Throne."

After six hours of persuasion, the Romanovs mother and son surrendered. The Russian state received the Tsar, who successfully ruled the country for 32 years and laid the foundation for the Romanov dynasty.

"The tsarist power was endured by the Russian historical life, - the author of the detailed study of the Old Russian electoral system, mentioned above, sums up. - From the field of narrow economic interests, it gradually rose to the interests of the people in whole. The Moscow prince-patrimony became the representative of all Rus, the spokesman of the highest national aspirations, the organic embodiment of the ideal of external security and independence, internal unification and prosperity. From here, according to popular conscience, the tsar's closeness to everyone and the closeness of all to him were formed. A kind or an individual, who does not enjoy a broad national sympathy and trust, could not put a lasting start to a new dynasty."

There is the digital collection "The House of Romanov. Zemsky Sobor of 1613" on the Presidential Library website, which included about 900 entries: the official documents, memoirs, diaries, business and personal correspondence, fragments of newsreels, photographs and much more. It proves that the main lesson of the Time of Troubles was the realized need for a "strong hand of the sovereign" in Russia and the high moral and business qualities of the tsar, full of responsibility for his nation.