| Summary/Abstract |
THE 17TH CENTURY began as a time of trials for the Russian people. Contemporaries spoke of it as the Time of Troubles, or Smutnoe Vremya (smuta in Russian literally means "turmoil").1 This term went down in the history of Russia and Russian historiography as a definition of the time when, in the late 16th century, the ruling dynasty ended. For the first time in its history, Russia acquired elected czars and impostors. This was the prelude to foreign (Swedish and Polish) interventions, as a result of which the Russian state lost part of its territories.
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