Vasili IV Ivanovich Shuisky (Russian: Василий IV Иванович Шуйский, romanized: Vasiliy IV Ivanovich Shuyskiy, c. 1552 – 12 September 1612) was Tsar of all Russia from 1606 to 1610, after the murder of False Dmitri I. His rule coincided with the Time of Troubles. He was the only member of House of Shuisky to become tsar and the last member of the Rurikid dynasty (Yurievichi branch) to rule as tsar.
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Life
He was a son of Ivan Andreyevich Shuisky. Born Prince Vasili Ivanovich Shuisky, he descended from the Yurievichi sovereign princes of Nizhny Novgorod, and was allegedly a 20th-generation male-line descendant of the 9th-century Varangian prince Rurik. Vasili Ivanovich was one of the leading boyars of the Tsardom of Russia during the reigns of Feodor I (r. 1584–1598) and Boris Godunov (r. 1598–1605). In the court intrigues of the Time of Troubles (1598–1613), Vasily and his younger brother Dmitry Shuisky usually acted together and fought as one.
It was Shuisky who, in obedience to the secret orders of tsar-to-be Boris, went to Uglich to inquire into the cause of the death of the Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich (the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible (r. 1533–1584)), who had perished there in mysterious circumstances in May 1591. Shuisky reported that it was a case of suicide, though rumors abounded that the Tsarevich had been assassinated on the orders of the regent Boris Godunov. Some suspected that Dmitry escaped the assassination and that another boy was killed in his place – this story provided impetus for the repeated emergence of impostors such as False Dmitry I, False Dmitry II, and False Dmitry III. On the death of Boris, who had become tsar, and the accession of Boris's son Feodor II in 1605, Shuisky went back upon his own words in order to gain favour with the pretender False Dmitriy I, who was attempting to gain the throne by impersonating the dead Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich. Shuisky recognized the pretender as the "real" Dmitry, despite having earlier determined that the boy had committed suicide. Soon afterwards the young Tsar Feodor fell victim to an assassination.