Maria Nagaya

Maria Nagaya
Tsarina of Russia
Supposed portrait of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna from 1612.
Tsaritsa of all Russia
Tenure	1581–1584
Died	1608/1610/1612 Moscow
Spouse	Ivan the Terrible
Issue	Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich
Names Maria Feodorovna Nagaya
Dynasty	Rurik (by marriage)
Father	Feodor Feodorovich Nagoy
Religion	Eastern Orthodox

Maria Feodorovna Nagaya, known as Marfa as a nun (Russian: Мария Фёдоровна Нагая; died 1608/1610/1612) was a Russian tsarina as the last (sixth, possibly seventh or eighth) wife of Ivan the Terrible. She was mother of Tsarevich Dmitry of Uglich, and played a role in the reign and deposition of False Dmitry I.

Ancestry and early life

Maria Feodorovna was the daughter of the okolnichy Feodor Feodorovich Nagoy Feodor Feodorovich Nagoy. It has been suggested by historian-genealogists N.V. Myatlev and Anatoly Gryaznoy that Maria Feodorovna's mother was a daughter or sister of Prince Vasily Semenovich Funikov-Kemsky and brought the fiefdom of Zvenigorod to the family as her dowry.

Marriage to Tsar Ivan

Maria Feodorovna's uncle, Afanasy Nagoy was the Russian ambassador to the Crimean Khanate and a close confidant of Tsar Ivan IV, which probably contributed to Ivan's decision to marry Maria Feodorovna. They married in 1580.

Ivan had had five confirmed wifes before, as well as a possible sixth and seventh (at least one of which may have been a concubinage instead). The Russian Orthodox Church only recognised his first four marriages as legal. Men were permitted to take three wives, but Ivan had gained special permission to marry for a fourth time by claiming that he had not consummated his third marriage. Contemporary English diplomat Jerome Horsey claims that Ivan remarried for a sixth time in order to pacify his son Ivan Ivanovich and the boyars, who were worried by rumors that the Tsar’s would flee to England, but this is only speculation. The wedding was in an intimate setting. On 19 October 1582, Maria Feodorovna gave birth to her only child, Dmitry of Uglich, Ivan IV's third surviving son.

Later, the new tsar, Feodor Ivanovich, forbade the clergy from mentioning the name of his half-brother, Tsarevich Dmitry, during church services on the grounds that he was born in his seventh marriage and was therefore illegitimate.

During the reign of Feodor I

Exile to Uglich

After the death of Ivan IV in 1584 and the accession of Feodor I (now Ivan's only surviving son from his first marriage), Maria Feodorovna, her son, and her brothers were immediately removed from court by the regency council, even before Feodor's coronation. They were sent to live in Uglich, her son's principality. Jerome Horsey writes that she was supplied with a fitting number of attendants, dresses, jewellery, food, horses, and other necessary posessions.

A later account, the ‘New Chronicler’ alleges that the Nagoys were the victims of a conspiracy by Boris Godunov and his ‘advisers’, who arrested and exiled or imprisoned the late Tsar's favourites and confiscated their wealth. However, this rendering of the story was probably intended to smear Godunov. The decision to expel the Nagoys from Moscow was probably made by the entire Duma, which feared what they would do to support Tsarevich Dmitry, Feodor's heir apparent. It is nevertheless certain that numerous relatives of Maria Feodorovna were banished. According to some sources, Feodor also forbade priests to commemorate Tsarevich Dmitry in religious services due to his illegitimacy (his parents' marriage being invalid in the eyes of the church).

Miniature of Maria Feodorovna at the scene of her son's death.

Death of Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich

On 15 May 1591, Maria Feodorovna's son Dmitry died under mysterious circumstances. He was found on the ground of the courtyard with his throat slit. Maria Feodorovna ran to the scene, beat Dmitry's nanny Vasilisa Volokhova with a log, and accused Volokhova's son Osip Volokhov, Daniil Bityagovsky, and Nikita Kachalov of killing the Tsarevich. The bells of the town were rung to alert people, who gathered in confusion. The father of Daniil, Mikhail Bityagovsky, attempted to calm tensions, but was murdered. The crowd then lynched the rest of the accused. An investigation was ordered, which concluded that the Tsarevich had died in an accident and that the Nagoys falsified evidence to the contrary. There is no conclusion among historians on the death of Dmitry and the surrounding events. Maria Feodorovna and her brothers were convicted of neglecting the Tsarevich and the murder of those lynched by the mob on 15 May. The men were imprisoned, and Maria forced to become a nun under the name of Marfa. She was held either in the Sudin Monastery or the Nikolovyksinskaya Hermitage.

During the reign of Boris Godunov

Nikolay Ge's painting of Tsarina Maria's attack.

In 1598, Feodor I died. Rumors spread that Dmitry of Uglich had survived in secrecy. In 1604, Boris Godunov summoned Marfa to Moscow, but she did not provide useful information and was sent back. Based on an account by the contemporary Dutch merchant and diplomat Isaac Massa, Marfa was taken into Godunov's bedroom in secret at night. ‘Tell the truth, is your son alive or not?’, Boris is said to have asked. Marfa claimed not to know. Godunov's wife Maria Grigorievna, who was also present, took up a lighted candle, screaming at Marfa, ‘Oh, you w[hore]! You dare to say “I don't know”―when you know certainly!’, then threw the candle in her eyes. Godunov protected Marfa from his wife's attack. Massa further claims that after this episode, Marfa stated that she had been informed that her son was smuggled abroad, but that the people who told her this were no longer alive. Infuriated, Godunov ordered that she should be kept under stricter circumstances than before.

During the reign of False Dmitry I

On 18 July 1605, Marfa made a ceremonial entry into Moscow, where she recognized False Dmitry I as her son. She settled in the Kremlin's Ascension Convent, and her family members were freed and restored to their ranks and properties. She received his alleged son's bride, Marina Mniszech, as was customary for a tsar's mother.

At an unspecified time, a Swedish man appeared in Poland, claiming that he had been sent by Marfa from Moscow. He relayed to King Sigismund III of Poland, as well as to Marina Mciszech's father, that Marfa considered Dmitry I a ‘deceiver’. Marfa had allegedly complied with recognising him as her son ‘for her own reasons’, but now accused him of attempting to desecrate the grave of her real son. She, ‘being a mother, felt very sorry’ and ‘prevented this’. The historian Mykola Kostomarov believes that this message was sent by boyars conspiring to depose Dmitry. It is unknown whether Marfa was aware of what was said in her name. In the meantime, the Nagoy family played a prominent part at the wedding Dmitry I.

Murder of False Dmitry

When False Dmitry was murdered in 1606, Marfa refused to acknowledge him as her son. An assailant slapped Dmitry and demanded that he identify himself. Dmitry replied that he was the Tsar, son of Ivan IV, then called on them to ask his mother. At this, Prince Ivan Golitsyn shouted, ‘I have just been with the Tsarina Marfa; she says that this is not her son: she recognised him against her will, fearing murder, and now she renounces him! Vasili Shuysky also rode on horseback into the courtyard and confirmed that the only son of Tsarina Marfa was killed in Uglich. Then, False Dmitry was killed.

The mob dragging his body stopped at the Ascension Convent, calling out to Marfa, ‘Speak, Tsarina Marfa, is this your son?’ Different sources give her reaction differently. According to the Notes of Nemoevsky, Marfa simply answered ‘Not mine!’; according to others, she said, ‘You should have asked me when he was alive, but now, since you killed him, he is no longer mine!’ The Jesuit notes report that she first answered, ‘You know better’. When the crown began threatening her, she said confidently, ‘This is not my son at all’. On 3 June 1606, she solemnly received the relics of her son Tsarevich Dmitry as they arrived to Moscow from Uglich.

Later life and death

In 1607, Marfa's brother Mikhail was sent by Tsar Vasili IV Shuysky to Yelets with a letter from Tsarina Marfa and an image of Tsarevich Dmitry to admonish the rebellious people of Seversk and certify Dmitry's death. In 1609, along with other commanders, he defended Moscow from Polish attacks and the supporters of False Dmitry II.

Different sources give different dates for Marfa's death: 1608, 1610, or 1612. Her gravestone preserved in the Kremlin reads, ‘[i]n the year 7116 [1608], on the 28^th of June, the servant of God, nun Tsarina Maria Feodorovna of Tsar Ivan of All Russia, passed away’.

In popular culture

• Maria Nagaya is mentioned in Pyotr Kireevsky's Songs;
• She is featured in the epic poem Grishka Otrepyev (as ‘Marfa Matveyevna’);
• She is a character in Friedrich Schiller's unfinished drama Demetrius (as Marfa).
• In the 1909 film The Death of Ivan the Terrible, she is played by Elizaveta Uvarova;
• In the 2009 film Tsar, she is played by Maria Eshpai-Simonova;
• In the 2011 film Boris Godunov, she is played by Anna Churina;
• In the 2018 TV series Godunov, she is played by Irina Pegova.

Bibliography

• Зимин А. А. В канун грозных потрясений: Предпосылки первой Крестьянской войны в России. М., 1986