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Curiously enough it was Poland’s new role as the arbiter of Russia’s fate that served as a catalyst for Russia’s political recovery Whatever Russians, including the rebels, thought of their rulers, the tsars were at least Orthodox Christians. People reacted strongly against Poland because it was Roman Catholic and predatory. As he made clear in a message to Pope Paul V, King Sigismund aimed to accomplish what his predecessor Stefan Bathory had failed to do: to gain dominion over Russia and return it ‘from error and schism to obedience to the Holy See’. Sigismund revived the idea ‘all the more ardently since in addition to all the other enormous benefits that would accrue to Christendom from the subjugation of Moscow’ it would help him regain control of Sweden. ²⁸ The old revulsion felt by Orthodox Russians at the prospect of ‘Latinization’ welled up again, and was given more force by the behaviour of Polish troops in Russia. These sentiments were exploited with energy by the Russian Church to form one plank of a springboard to recovery. Another came spontaneously from Russian servicemen and government functionaries.

Their movement had begun early in 1611 in efforts to depose Vasilii Shuiskii and eliminate the pretender Dmitrii. As a letter sent from Iaroslavl to Vologda in February of that year put it:

The Poles have inflicted much oppression and outrage on the people of Moscow, and so the most holy Hermogen, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, and the people of Moscow had written to Prokofii Liapunov, leader of the gentry of Riazan province, and to the towns from the upper Oka to the lower Volga urging them to join together to march against the Poles … before they take Moscow … [This he had done and many soldiers had set out for Moscow] and you, gentlemen, should all stand firm in the Orthodox Christian faith, and not betray it for the Latin faith lest you destroy your souls. ²⁹

Letters were also sent from Iaroslavl to Kazan, from Solvychegodsk to Perm, and between many other cities, urging that men be sent without delay, whether on horseback or on skis, and all sorts of people besides gentry were soon involved in the enterprise. Townsmen and peasants, local officials, humble servicemen, blacksmiths were all urged to raise soldiers, equip them, and march them to Moscow, where they were organized by a triumvirate consisting of Liapunov, Prince Dmitrii Trubetskoi and the Cossack leader Ivan Zarutskii. Russian patriots were soon on the march.

But even now the agony did not end. Swedish forces invaded, laid siege to Novgorod, and eventually took it. The Poles captured Smolensk, and Polish troops were still in Moscow. Hordes of predatory Russians were still battening on large areas and sucking them dry. And now other foreigners began to think that they could gain from Russia’s distress. The Pope wanted Russia for the access it would give his missionaries to reach all the heathens of Asia. King James I of England and Scotland wanted to gain control of Russia’s oriental trade. ³⁰ The Patriarch had been imprisoned by the Poles, yet a call to arms was issued in October 1611 by the abbot of the Trinity St Sergius Monastery at Zagorsk, and metropolitans, bishops and abbots across the land echoed his call. Even before that, scribes in towns throughout the realm wrote letters on behalf of the local governors and other notables, setting out the purpose of a mobilization, explaining the means, and trying to co-ordinate it: ‘We should take oaths ourselves, and get the Tatars and Ostiaks to swear their Muslim oath, so that … we make common cause with them for our true and incorruptible Orthodox faith … against the enemies and destroyers of our Christian faith, against the Poles and Lithuanians.’ They also made it clear that the next tsar must ‘be chosen by the entire land of the Russian realm’ rather than arbitrarily - in other words, that an Assembly of the Land must endorse the choice of sovereign. ³¹

The movements headquarters were in Iaroslavl on the Volga, and, though Prince Trubetskoi was still associated with it, Prince Dmitrii Pozharskii, commander of the local troops, now became its leading secular light, being elected by people of all ranks to command the army and the land. Also important was the elected representative of the great merchants {gosti) and other commercial interests, Kuzma Minin, a master butcher from Nizhnii-Novgorod. Pozharskii, in his appeals issued in the spring of 1612, blamed

the Devil … [for] creating disunity among Orthodox Christians, seducing many to join corrupt and sinful company, and [causing] rogues of every rank to band together and introduce internecine strife and bloodshed into Moscovy [so that] son rose against father, father against son, and brother against brother … and there was much shedding of Christian blood …