Ivan Susanin

Ivan Susanin (Ива́н Суса́нин) (died 1613) was a Russian national hero and martyr of the early 17th century's Time of Troubles.

In 1619, a certain Bogdan Sobinin from Domnino village near Kostroma received from Tsar Mikhail one half of Derevischi village. According to the extant royal charter, these lands were granted him in reward for his father-in-law's refusal to reveal to the Poles the location of the tsar's family. The latter's name was given as Ivan Susanin.

Subsequent charters (from 1641, 1691, and 1837) diligently repeated the 1619 charter's phrases about Ivan Susanin being "investigated by Polish and Lithuanian people and subjected to incredible and great tortures in order to learn the great tsar's whereabouts but, though aware about that and suffering incredible pains, saying nothing and in revenge for this being tortured by Polish and Lithuanian people to death".

In the early 19th century the charters attracted attention of nascent Russian historiography and Ivan Susanin was proclaimed a Russian national hero and a symbol of Russian peasants' devotion to the tsar. He was officially promoted as a national hero, and commemorated in poems and operas, such as Mikhail Glinka's A Life for the Tsar. Gradually, there evolved the following legend about Ivan's life and death.

The village of Domnino used to be owned by Xenia Shestova, wife of Fyodor Romanov and mother of Mikhail Romanov. Upon the latter's election to the Russian throne in 1613, the Zemsky Sobor sent Prince Vorotynsky and several other boyars to inform Mikhail, then living in Domnino, about his election.

There were many Polish detachments still roaming Russia, however. They supported Sigismund III Vasa, who refused to accept defeat and still laid claim to the Russian throne. One of these discovered the news and sent troops to Kostroma to find and kill the young tsar.

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