Ivan Zarutskii and the national liberation movement

After the death of the Second False Dimitry at Kaluga, the cossack ataman Ivan Zarutskii became the protector of Marina and her infant son. The Russian boyars in Moscow sent an envoy to Kaluga to persuade the inhabitants to swear allegiance to Władysław, and Zarutskii fled from the town with Marina and her child. At this time Prokopii Lyapunov, the governor of Ryazan', was attempting to organise an army to liberate Moscow from the Poles, and Zarutskii offered his services to Lyapunov. It must be assumed that even at this early stage Zarutskii hoped that the Russians might accept Marina's son as tsar; and there is some evidence that he was encouraged in this belief by Lyapunov, although the official programme of the liberation army was to serve ‘whomever the Lord God grants to us in the Muscovite state’. In March 1611 the various detachments marched on Moscow from the towns where they had mustered. Lyapunov brought servicemen from Ryazan', and Zarutskii led his Don cossacks from Tula, having installed Marina and her son in the town of Kolomna. Kaluga too sent troops. After Zarutskii's departure the townspeople had refused to acknowledge Władysław, and the boyars' representative had to flee back to Moscow. The contingent of men from Kaluga was headed by Prince Dimitry Trubetskoi, the most senior of the Second False Dimitry's boyars.