Dmitry Ivanovich, also known as Dmitry of Uglich and Dmitry of Moscow (Дмитрий Иванович, Дмитрий Угличский, Дмитрий Московский in Russian) (October 19, 1582 — May 15, 1591) was a Russian tsarevich, son of Ivan the Terrible and Maria Nagaya.
After the death of Ivan IV, Dmitry's older brother - Feodor I - accended to power. However, the actual ruler of the Russian state was Feodor's brother-in-law , a boyar Boris Godunov, who had had a claim on the Russian throne. According to a widespread version, Godunov wanted to get rid of Dmitry, who had been a legal successor to the throne in light of Feodor's childlessness. In 1584, Godunov sent Dmitry, his mother and her brothers into exile to tsarevich's appanage city of Uglich. On May 15, 1591, Dmitry died from a stab wound under mysterious circumstances.
Russian historians offer two possible scenarios of what have happened to Dmitry:
- Dmitry was killed by the order of Boris Godunov; the assassins made it look like an accident (this version was supported by historians Nikolai Karamzin, Sergei Soloviev , Vasili Klyuchevsky and others).
- Dmitry stabbed himself in the throat during an epileptic seizure, while playing with a knife (this version was supported by historians Mikhail Pogodin , Sergei Platonov , V. K. Klein and others).
There is also a third version of Dmitry's fate, which found support with historians Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin , Ivan Belyaev and others. They considered it possible that Godunov's people had tried to assassinate Dmitry, but killed somebody else instead and he managed to escape. This scenario explains the appearance of impostors, sponsored by the Polish nobility (see False Dmitry I, False Dmitry II, False Dmitry III). Most modern Russian historians, however, consider the version of Dmitry's survival improbable.
Be as it may, Boris Godunov succeeded in convincing Feodor I of Dmitry's accidental death, but not the people of Uglich, who had lynched Dmitry's assassins on the same day. The official investigation (see the Uglich Case ) concluded that tsarevich had died from a self-inflicted stab wound to the throat.
In 1606, Dmitry's remains were transferred from Uglich to Moscow after reported sightings of inexplicable miracles.