Ivan Susanin

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Ivan Susanin (Russian: Иван Сусанин, IPA:

hired Susanin as a guide. Susanin persuaded them to take a secret path through the Russian forests, and neither they nor Susanin were ever heard from again.

Evidence

In 1619, Bogdan Sobinin from the village of Domnino, near Kostroma, received from Tsar Mikhail half of the village of Derevischi (Lith. Derevičiai). According to the extant royal charter, the lands were granted him to reward his father-in-law, Ivan Susanin, who supposedly refused to reveal to the Poles the location of the Tsar's family according to a newly created legend meant to increase the peasants hatred toward Lithuania whose lands the new Tsar had recently annexed.

Subsequent charters (from 1641, 1691 and 1837) diligently repeat the 1619 charter's phrases about Ivan Susanin being "investigated by Polish and Lithuanian people and subjected to incredible and great tortures in order to learn the great tsar's whereabouts but, though aware of that and suffering incredible pains, saying nothing and in revenge for this being tortured to death by the Poles and Lithuanians".

The legend of Susanin's life and death evolved over time.^{[citation needed]} In the early-19th century, the charters attracted the attention of nascent Russian historiography, and Susanin was proclaimed a Russian national hero and a symbol of the Russian peasants' devotion to the tsar. Susanin was officially promoted^{[by whom?]} as a national hero and commemorated in poems and operas, such as Mikhail Glinka's 1836 opera A Life for the Tsar.^[1]

Legend

The village of Domnino was owned by

to inform Mikhail, who lived in Domnino, about his election.

Many Polish detachments still roamed Russia, however. They supported

and still claimed the Russian throne. One of them discovered the news and sent troops to Kostroma to find and to kill the young tsar.

It is said that they were unsure of the road to Domnino and so they started to ask locals for directions. In woods near the village, they met a logger, Ivan Susanin, who promised to take them via a "shortcut" through a forest directly to the

, where Mikhail was apparently hiding. His enemies followed Susanin and were never heard from again. It is presumed that Susanin led them so deep into the forest that they could not find a way out and so they perished in the bitter cold February night.

Susanin's son-in-law, whom Susanin had secretly sent ahead via a different route, warned Mikhail, and the monks concealed him from further Polish raids. Mikhail was crowned as tsar, ruled Russia for 32 years and founded the

dynasty.

Legacy

Stories and images of Ivan Susanin as an iconic Russian

In 1838, Nicholas I ordered a monument built to Susanin in Kostroma, but it was destroyed by the Bolsheviks, who were offended by statue of the tsar that the monument incorporated. Later, they erected another monument to the hero.

.

The name "Susanin" has become an ironic cliché in the Russian language for a person who leads somewhere claiming to know the way but eventually proves not to. A famous folk limerick is quoted to invoke the cliche in such situations, which can be translated roughly as: "Ivan Susanin, in what godforsaken trap did we land? / Screw you! I thought I knew the forest like the back of my hand!"

Glinka's opera

See also

• Matvey Kuzmin (1858–1942): the World War II Russian hero who led a German battalion into an ambush, sacrificing himself.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Figes, p. 10.
2. ^ Russian national anthem "God Save the Tsar" in Tchaikovsky's music Archived 2012-08-03 at archive.today
3. ^ Figes, p. 4–5
4. ^ Figes, p. 10–11

Sources

• Figes, Orlando (2014). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924. London: The Bodley Head.
  ISBN 9781847922915
  .

External links

• Ivan Susanin - Legendary hero of Russia
• IVAN SUSANIN: LIFE FOR THE CZAR
• The book "Ivan Susanin: legends and reality" written by N.A. Zontikov is dedicated to a Russian hero Ivan Susanin.