Times of Trouble

The Time of Troubles (Russian: Смутное время) was a period of Russian history comprising the years of interregnum between the death of the last Russian Tsar of the Rurik Dynasty, Feodor Ivanovich, in 1598, and the establishment of the Romanov Dynasty in 1613. In 1601–03, Russia suffered a famine that killed one-third of the population, about two million. At the time, during the Polish–Muscovite War (1605–18) (known as the Dimitriads), Russia was occupied by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and suffered from many civil uprisings, usurpers and impostors.

After Feodor's death, his brother-in-law and closest adviser, boyar Boris Godunov, who had already acted as regent for the mentally-challenged Feodor, was elected his successor by a Great National Assembly (Zemsky Sobor). Godunov's short reign (1598–1605) was not as successful as his administration under the weak Feodor.

Extremely poor harvests were encountered in 1601–03, with night time temperatures in all summer months often below freezing, wrecking crops; see Russian famine of 1601–03. The probable cause of climatic changes was the eruption of Huaynaputina volcano in Peru in 1600. Widespread hunger led to the mass starvation of about two million Russians, a third of the population; the government distributed money and food for poor people in Moscow, but that only led to refugees flocking to the capital and increasing the economic disorganization. The oligarchical faction, headed by the Romanovs, considered it a disgrace to obey a boyar; conspiracies were frequent; the rural districts were desolated by famine and plague; large bands of armed brigands roamed the country committing all manner of atrocities; the Don Cossacks on the frontier were restless; and the government demonstrated it could not keep order.

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