140 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



his death the "False Demetrius" (Lzhedimitri) appeared. He 

 was said to have gone under the name of Gregory Otrepieff, 

 a monk of the Chudoff monastery (Monastery of the Mira- 

 cles) in the Kremlin, who fell into disgrace, escaped to Poland, 

 gave himself out as Demetrius, the son of Ivan the Terrible, 

 who had in some way escaped Boris Godunofif, another child 

 having been murdered. King Sigismund of Poland espoused 

 his claims, furnished him an army, with which and its Rus- 

 sian accessions the pretender fought his way back to Moscow, 

 proclaiming himself the rightful heir to the throne. All who 

 looked on Boris Godunoff as a usurper flocked to his standard, 

 the widow of Ivan, then a nun, recognized him as her son, 

 and he was crowned in the Kremlin as the Tsar of the Rus- 

 sias. For ten months he ruled, but, as he was too favorable 

 to the Poles and even allowed Catholics to come to Moscow 

 and worship, the tide then turned against him, and in 1606 he 

 was assassinated at his palace in the Kremlin by the Streitsi 

 or sharpshooters who formed the guard of the Tsars of 

 Russia. 



After seven years of civil war and anarchy Michael Ro- 

 manoff, the founder of the present dynasty, was elected Tsar 

 in 1 61 3. But Moscow never regained its earlier pre-eminence, 

 although it became a wealthy commercial city, until the first 

 part of the reign of Peter the Great (1689-1725). He sent 

 persons abroad, and, having observed the advancement and 

 progress of Western Europe, determined to improve his realm 

 radically by introducing the forms of western civilization. All 

 the earlier part of his life was spent in war with the Swedish 

 invaders and the Polish kings. In 1700 he abolished the 

 Patriarchate of Moscow, left the see vacant, and established 

 the Holy Synod. These acts set Moscow, the old Russians 

 and the clergy against him, so that in 171 2 he changed the im- 

 perial residence and capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg, 

 which he had caused to be constructed for the new capital on 

 the banks of the Neva. After the departure of the Tsars from 

 Moscow, it diminished in political importance, but was always 

 regarded as the seat and centre of Russian patriotism. In 

 1755 the University of Moscow was founded. In 1812 during 

 the invasion of Russia by Napoleon, the Russians determined 

 after the Battle of Borodino to evacuate Moscow before the 

 victorious French, and on September 14, 1812, the Russian 



