Noble Blood - Will the Real Tsar Dmitri Please Stand Up? (Part 1)

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

In 1605, Dmitri — the son of Ivan the Terrible — became the Tsar of Russia. Less than a year leader, he was brutally deposed. But one question remained: was he actually even the real Dmitri?  Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon— Noble Blood merch— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. As legend has it, shortly after dawn on May 17, 1606, Tsar Dimitri 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, Tsar Dimitri gazed down from

his window perch. The drop was substantial, but over in the direction of Red Square, loyal citizens were streaming onto the Kremlin grounds. If Dimitri 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 Tsar Dimitri'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 Dimitri, like so many aspects of the period of political turmoil that would become known as the time of troubles, Dimitri's plan took an almost common.

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 pleas, the back and forth that Zar 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, embrace him as Tsar Dimitri, 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 Tsar Ivan. Why not even pray? Surely those of ardent faith would receive confirmation from God that he, Dimitri, had been divinely chosen to rule. With the larger crowd fast approaching, however, the assassins chose not to be to waste time preying and to avoid any further delay by shooting, hacking, and bludgeoning their target, who may or may not have been the rightful Tsar 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 Dmitri's would eventually come forward, all claiming to be the one, the only, the original, Tsar Dmitri. I'm Dana Schwartz, 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 In the tale, there was a real person named Dmitri Ivanovich who had a hereditary link to the Russian

monarchy. In 1582, Tsarevich, or son of the Tsar Dmitri, was born to Tsar Ivan Vasselovich, 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 early. 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 Zarvich. 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 Tsar. 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 Godinov soon relished his newfound influence so much that he didn't see why he should stop at being mere regent. With a sidelined ineffectual czar, 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 Uglick. 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 Dimitri 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 1591, young Dimitri reportedly died in Uglick. 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 Demetri's death were dubious. Boris sent an official delegation led by a zealous prince

named Vasily Shisky, who will become integral later on to remember that name, to investigate the death. But given the conflicts of interest 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 Dimitri'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, Tsar 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 Dimitri's passing was likely met with fairly mild reactions ranging from, who to, well, these things happen.

Flash forward to 1602, Boris had successfully become Tsar by Outer, by outmaneuvering 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 Ivanovich had miraculously survived the attempt to kill him as a boy. After a few months, a man finally came forth in Poland, Lithuania in 1603 and declared that he was, 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, imposter, was originally a monk named Gregory Otrepiv, who had been defrocked for dabbling in dark sorcery. Tsar 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 Zarevich Dmitri imposter could not have been Otrepiv.

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 Dimitri who so wholeheartedly bought into his backstory would have meant indoctrinating him at a very young age. Considering the contentious rift between Demetri's family and Boris Godinow, it's not unthinkable that after the murder of actual Dimitri as a child, his calculating relatives had the four. to immediately start training a replacement Dimitri to have ready to go when the opportunity arose. There's a third main theory as to who the pretender or false Dimitri was. The real Dimitri. 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. Dimitri's godfather at one point even apparently swore on a cross

that the man claiming to be Dimitri was his true godson, who he'd been hiding from Boris since the assassination ordeal. But again, in terms of conflicts of interest, Dimitri'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 Saravich 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, holy new ruler. Naturally, at this point, you might be wondering how this adult Dimitri was able to so 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 Dimitri 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 22-year-old man, this Dimitri 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 1602, and it was so devastating

that contemporary reports estimate that it ultimately killed roughly one-third of the total population. To Tsar 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 Zarevich Dmitri emerged, many disgruntled Cossacks, soldiers, merchants, and townsfolk quickly backed him. Religion was another crucial factor that helped Dmitri.

Throughout the 16th century, the major players at the Kremlin had strived to fortify their standing by sacralizing the monarchy. Essentially, the goal was to assure the Russian Orthodox masses that it was not worth bothering to question a czar's right to rule since God handed down that right. This effectively laid the groundwork for Dimitri 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 reappearance and Christ himself rising from the grave. Plenty of Lord's influential families and exiled Boyers, members of the highest-ranking nobility, also harbored ample animosity toward Tsar Boris.

And so they joined the Tsarevich Dimitri'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 Sarvich 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 inciting the first civil war in early modern Russian history. Harsh punishments awaited anyone deemed to be a supporter of the impostered Dimitri. Boris tried to counter his rival. popularity by continuing to espouse the idea that this imposter was the disgraced monk Otrepiv, 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 Zarboris's cause. Far less helpful to his cause was an illness that killed him

before Zarvich Dimitri even reached Moscow. So, faced with a magnetic young warrior prince leading a sizable army toward them, the noble classes at the Kremlin were suddenly also offered a relatively easy choice over whether to acknowledge this Dimitri's legitimacy or call him out as a sacrilegious poser. To loosely paraphrase their job,

general response, Hi, the long-lost Dimitri, welcome back. We are your loyal supporters, and we always thought so. Dimitri, air quotes, was crowned on July 21st, 1605. Historians would later refer to him by names such as false Dimitri the first, the pretender Dmitri, and the, quote, first false Dmitri. But for now, since he did undeniably attain the title, of Tsar, I think we can simply call him Tsar Dimitri. But after riding Russia's 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 Tsar Dimitri'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 imposter or evil runaway monk, perhaps the biggest shock of all is that, Gasp, this Dimitri 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 statecraft, and highly resourceful and wise. Zar 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, Demetri enjoyed immense popularity with his soldiers because he actually trained with them. Fun fact, he was also the first Russian Tsar 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 Dimitri 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 17th century Russia. Former czars were extremely reliant on their private police forces to terror, 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 flummoxed 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 Dimitri sometimes seemed to want to hear them talk without first threatening them or commanding them to do so. Perhaps far more consequentially, Dimitri 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 church 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 Zerner, Tsar Dmitri and some members of the aristocracy, all came to a head with his planned marriage.

Marina Manishik 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 as are Dimitri's goal, his plan to marry Marina gave his usurpers the ammunition and opportunity they needed.

His primary usurper would be Vasily Swiskie, 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 Dimitri the child back when he was eight years old. In an ironic turn of fate, all these years later, Vasili's ascension to the throne hinged on him covertly gaining enough allies to oversee a deadly coup of Dimitri, the grown man. Despite some of the initial wariness regarding Tsar Dimitri marrying a Polish Catholic woman, Russians living in the capital were still clearly suckers for a big, glamorous royal wedding. Marina was reportedly given a warm public welcome in Moscow on May 2, 1606, 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 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 Dimitri and his security forces were on highest alert, Prince Vasily waited. Finally,

cunningly, Vasily struck at a time when Dimitri was most vulnerable, the direct aftermath of all the wedding celebrations. By then, Dimitri 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 17, 16, 1606, Vasily snuck his amassed group of over 200 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 Tsar Dimitri's aid. Dimitri 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 Tsar 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 Tsar Dimitri's legal reforms to his incentives that improved many citizens' livelihoods to his military innovations, Zard Dimitri demonstrably backed up his purported goal of governing as a fair-minded emperor, rather than a ruthless tyrant. Historian Richard Helly went so far as to call Tsar Dimitri, quote, one of the few really enlightened rulers Russia has ever had.

Several scholars have even argued that Tsar Dimitri'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 Zerlibert, Zars, Dmitri also served as an excellent proof of concept for subsequent royal pretenders. Following Zar 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 Vasili 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 of Vasili. 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, had accidentally slit his own throat as an unsupervised knife-wielding seizure-prone child, it took over a decade for rumors to start spreading that Dmitri had miraculously survived. This time, though, whispers that Dmitri Ivanovich had somehow, yet again she did death, would begin circulating within a matter of days. That's the first part of the wild and duplicitous story of the false Dmitri's, but stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear about a short. Another key slip-up that helped to seal Tsar Dimitri's fate.

What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo-woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent.

He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there.

Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big

Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so

much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks Dad on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The intriguing duality of Zard Dimitri 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 Tsar's life. The assassination attempt was easily sniffed out right after Zard Dimitri took over in Moscow, and guess who was behind it? One Vasily Shusky.

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, Zarr Dimitri himself acted as prosecutor. He reportedly wowed the crowd with his eloquent argument against Vasili's family history of traitor's behavior, and Vasily was sentenced to death. Several days later, in Red Square, however, Dimitri allegedly halted Vasili's execution at the last second.

In a dramatic reversal likely intended to foster unity, Dimitri mercifully exiled Vasili 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 into a, ahem, sarring role. Noble Blood is a production of I-Heart Radio and Grimmon Mild

from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Milani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Rima Il Kali, 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 to your favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell.

Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there.

Yeah, it would not be. be right it wouldn't be that there's a lot of luck yeah listen to thanks dad on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts this is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human