Vasili IV of Russia (1552 – September 12, 1612) was the last Rurikid tsar of Russia between 1606 and 1610.

Born knyaz Vasily Vasilievich Shuisky and descended from sovereign princes of Nizhny Novgorod, he was one of the leading boyars of Muscovy during the reigns of Feodor I and Boris Godunov.

It was he who, in obedience to the secret orders of Tsar Boris, went to Uglich to inquire into the cause of the death of Dmitry Ivanovich, the infant son of Ivan the Terrible, who had been murdered there, perchance by the agents of Boris. Shuisky obsequiously reported that it was a case of suicide; yet, on the death of Boris and the accession of his son Feodor II, the false boyar, in order to gain favour with the first False Dmitriy I, went back upon his own words and recognized the pretender as the real Dmitriy, thus bringing about the assassination of the young Feodor.

Shuisky then plotted against the false Dmitriy and procured his death (May 1606), also by publicly confessing that the real Dmitriy had been indeed slain and that the reigning tsar was an impostor. This was the viler in him as the pseudo-Dmitriy had already forgiven him one conspiracy. Shuisky's adherents thereupon proclaimed him tsar (May 19, 1606). He reigned till July 19, 1610, but was never generally recognized. Even in Moscow itself he had little or no authority, and was only not deposed by the dominant boyars because they had none to put in his place.

Only the popularity of his heroic cousin, Prince Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky, who led his armies and fought his battles for him, and soldiers from Sweden, whose assistance he purchased by a disgraceful cession of Russian territory, kept him for a time on his unstable throne. In 1610 he was deposed, made a monk, and finally carried off as a trophy by the Polish grand hetman, Stanislaus Zolkiewski. He died at Warsaw in 1612.

References

See D. I. Ilovaisky, The Troubled Period of the Muscovite Realm (Russ.), (Moscow, 1894) ; S. I. Platonov, Sketches of the Great Anarchy in the Realm of Moscow (Petersburg, 1899); D. V. Tsvyeltev, Tsar Vasily Shuisky (Russ.), (Warsaw, 1901-1903).