Everybody talks about Anastasia, which is a shame, because it’s a far less interesting example of Russian fake heir drama than that whole business with the False Dmitries.
Okay, so Ivan the Terrible’s youngest son,
Dmitry, was assassinated in 1591 at the age of 8. Fast-forward nine years, and there’s a guy going about Eastern Europe claiming that he is Dmitry, having secretly escaped the assassination attempt and lived in hiding under a false identity ever since. This sort of business isn’t too unusual, but this guy actually pulls it off, managing to gain the Russian throne and rule for nearly eleven months before being dragged from the palace and publicly executed in early 1606. He’d subsequently go down in history as False Dmitry I.
Here’s where it gets interesting. In mid 1607, a second impostor declares himself. Bizarrely, this one doesn’t dispute the first impostor’s legitimacy; instead, he claims to be the same guy, having miraculously survived his apparent execution the year before. He somehow wins the political support of False Dmitry I’s widow, and with her vouching for his identity, he gains the allegiance of the Cossacks, rallies an army over 100 000 strong, and tries to “take back” the throne. Though his march on Moscow ultimately failed, he successfully conquered most of Southeastern Russia, which he would rule until his untimely death in December of 1610, when he was beheaded in a drunken altercation with a Tartar prince. The history books know him as False Dmitry II.
Now jump ahead three months to March of 1611, when a third fucking impostor pops up. Dude apparently just magically appeared from behind a waterfall in goddamn Ivangorod and declared himself Tsar. Following the lead of False Dmitry II, he doesn’t dispute either of the two previous impostors, instead claiming some sort of spiritual reincarnation and/or magical resurrection – it’s not entirely clear which – to establish himself as the same guy. He must have talked a good game, because he managed to win the support of the same fucking Cossacks who supported False Dmitry II’s claim. Unfortunately, he was a far less able commander, being forced to flee his stronghold only a year later, whereupon he was spirited away to Moscow and secretly executed. Though he never managed to actually rule anything, historians decided to stick to the theme and dubbed him False Dmitry III.
At this point the historical record becomes confused, with some sources asserting there was a fourth False Dmitry, though others insist that the third False Dmitry was simply counted twice due to poor record-keeping. Still, whether we’re talking about three False Dmitries or four, imagine the whole mess from the Tsar’s perspective. Dude just wouldn’t stay dead!
ohh you missed one of my favorite bits.
False Dmitry I not only was executed, it was KNOWN he was fake. Powers that be used him until he was trouble, and THEN executed him.
Then quartered him.
Then cremated what was left.
Stuffed the ashes in a can.
And shot him out of a cannon back towards Poland, where he actually came from.
He pissed off a few people, yeah.
It was a very miraculous survival.
My favorite memory from Russian Studies class was when the professor got through introducing the idea of the first False Dmitri. He paused and said, “Now, the problem here is that he was the FIRST False Dmitri. Yeah. It’s all downhill from here.”
AO3 is an excellent website and I encourage everyone who can afford it to donate
Do people remember what AO3 stands for?
Archive of Our Own. <b>Our Own.</b> That means we thought of it, designed it, built it, and run it. And yes, pay for it. If you can’t or don’t want to contribute, you can still read everything on the site. If you want a say in how things are run, you can contribute as little as $10, and you can vote in elections. That amount hasn’t gone up since the archive was created, by the way.
I hate pulling this “young whippersnapper” crap, because I hated when it was done to me, but if you’ve never known fandom without AO3, you have no idea what it was like. Nothing is free. Before AO3, either individual authors paid for their websites, or a webmaster did, or you used a free host. Readers were always at the mercy of whoever was paying.
This has the same energy of the dash cam video of the Russian dude just lowering his sun visor to block the light of the exploding meteor thing a couple years back.
why does every father have the emotional intelligence of a flea
toxic masculinity
Not my dad, shut it
Okay it’s great that your father doesn’t fall into this category – my father doesn’t, either – but I don’t think that’s a very good reason for telling others to shut it.
Because it says “every father”, and I’m not here for that. I’m not here for making that an expectation, or making it normal. Some fathers, maybe. Not every father.
if your father was so great why’d he raise such a dipshit
Borne Ceaseless 