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The rumour that the Tsarevich had been murdered was first put about immediately after his death by his mother’s kinsmen, the Nagois. But the Nagois hated Boris. They had tried to displace Tsar Fedor, and Boris had thwarted them, sidelining the heir apparent and his entourage. After the death they sought revenge, spreading derogatory rumours about Boris and trying to organize opposition to him. They had little immediate effect, although, as we shall see, they were to gain ground later. The myth that Boris had had Dmitrii murdered was furthered fifteen years later by the young prince’s canonization (for cynical political reasons) as an innocent ‘sufferer for Christ’s sake’, like the popular boy saints Boris and Gleb. Later still, and for their own purposes, the Romanovs were also to exploit the myth. ⁹ The leading nineteenth-century historian Soloviev followed the Nagois’ line, giving an account of ‘the saint’s murder’ which was dramatic, sentimental and disgracefully tendentious, and the famous Vasilii Kliuchevskii followed him uncritically - although both historians wrote before essential evidence was published in 1913.

Meanwhile Russia’s greatest poet, Pushkin, and the composer Mussorgsky had used the myth to create a popular Shakespearian-type tragedy and a famous opera. Since then the lie about Boris’s implication in Dmitrii’s ‘murder’ has been perpetuated by the Church, which would find it embarrassing to de-canonize the saint, and by the financial interests of those who profit from the pilgrims and tourists attracted to Dmitrii’s shrine. Boris Godunov has been traduced. There is no evidence that he plotted to murder his way to the throne as Shakespeare pictures Richard of York doing; no evidence that he was more scheming than any other politician anxious to preserve his position near the top of the pile. But there is evidence that he was an able minister concerned to promote the country’s interests, treating its subjects no worse than necessary ¹⁰

In 1588 Terka, Russia’s stronghold in the north-eastern foothills of the towering Caucasus, was rebuilt on a new site. In the following year Prince Andrei Khvorostinin was appointed its governor. The region had been identified as particularly important, and the government sensed that its politics were complex, so Khvorostinin was instructed to follow the situation there particularly closely. In 1589 he reported that Shevkal, the shamkhal of Tarku, was being wooed by the Ottoman pasha of Derbent. The shamkhal was chief of the Kumukhs, who had originated in the mountains of Dagestan but had come to dominate the Kumyks of the coastal plain west of the Caspian. But if the Turks wanted the shamkhal to declare for them, the Russians wanted him on their side and the Turks out of the region. The motive was control of the profitable trade route between Moscow and Persia, the source of rich silks and other oriental luxuries. ¹¹Besides, the Tarku area was adjacent to the most convenient road south across the mountains to the exotic lands of Georgia and Armenia. Moscow was now particularly interested in the little successor states to the united Georgia that the Mongols had undermined, for their peoples were Orthodox Christians and natural allies. So in April 1589 an embassy left Moscow for the south, returning a mission from the King of Imretia which accompanied them. The importance of the mission can be gauged by the presents it took.

For King Alexander himself there were:

Forty sables worth 100 rubles,

A thousand ermine pelts worth 30 rubles,

Fifteen fish teeth [probably walrus tusks] worth 70 rubles,

A cuirass worth 20 rubles,

A helmet worth 20 rubles

as well as three falcons, which were not valued ¹² — perhaps priceless — one of which specialized in catching swans. Valuable gifts were also taken to present to princes and mirzas (to use the Persian term for prince) of the neighbouring Avars and Kabardinians. But the shamkhal of Tarku was to be given only a warning to send hostages for his future good behaviour if he did not want war.

This particular attempt to expand into the eastern Caucasus was to end in failure in 1594 when a Russian force, deserted by its Muslim allies, was routed. A joint attempt with Georgian forces was also to come to grief in 1605, though the attempts did not end there. In any case the 1594 mission had other aims, including cultural penetration. The mission, which was given an escort of nearly 300 soldiers and 50 Terek Cossacks, also included priests who were experts in liturgy and canon law and three icon painters. Clearly Moscow wanted the Georgians to conform to its version of the religiously correct. This had become all the more important now that the see of Moscow had been raised to patriarchal status, and the Catholic Church was campaigning not only against the Protestants, but against Orthodox Christians too.