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Fyodor II Borisovich Godunov of Russia (Russian: Фёдор II Борисович) was a tsar of Russia in 1605, during the Time of Troubles. He was born in Moscow, the son and successor to Boris Godunov. His mother Maria Grigorievna Skuratova-Belskaya was one of the daughters of Malyuta Skuratov, the infamous favourite of Ivan the Terrible.
On the sudden death of Boris the sixteen-year-old was proclaimed tsar (13 April 1605). Though his father had taken the precaution to surround him with powerful friends, he lived from the first moment of his reign in an atmosphere of treachery. On 11 June (N.S.) 1605 the envoys of False Dmitriy I arrived at Moscow to demand his removal, and the letters that they read publicly in Red Square decided his fate. A group of boyars, unwilling to swear allegiance to the new tsar, seized control of the Kremlin and arrested him.
On 10 or 20 June Feodor was strangled in his apartment, together with his mother. Officially, he was declared to have been poisoned, but the Swedish diplomat Peter Petreius stated that the bodies, which had been on public display, showed traces of a violent struggle. |
