Maria Feodorovna Nagaya () (died 1608) was a Russian

tsaritsa Tsarina or tsaritsa (also spelled ''csarina'' or ''csaricsa'', ''tzarina'' or ''tzaritza'', or ''czarina'' or ''czaricza''; bg, царица, tsaritsa; sr, / ; russian: царица, tsaritsa) is the title of a female autocratic ruler (mona ...

and sixth (possibly eighth) uncanonical wife of

Ivan the Terrible Ivan IV Vasilyevich (russian: Ива́н Васи́льевич; 25 August 1530 – ), commonly known in English as Ivan the Terrible, was the grand prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and the first Tsar of all Russia from 1547 to 1584. Ivan ...

Life

Maria married Ivan in 1581 and a year later, she gave birth to their son

Dmitry Dmitri (russian: Дми́трий); Church Slavic form: Dimitry or Dimitri (); ancient Russian forms: D'mitriy or Dmitr ( or ) is a male given name common in Orthodoxy, Orthodox Christian culture, the Russian version of Greek language, Greek De ...

. In 1582, the tsar suggested to queen

Elizabeth I of England Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is ...

that he would marry her relative Mary Hastings and divorce his wife Maria Nagaya, but these plans never came to fruition. Maria was not favored by her husband, and only the birth of her son spared her banishment from court. After the

Tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...

's death in 1584, Nagaya was not granted any property in the will of the late tsar, but left to live on the income from the land of her son, who was granted

Uglich Uglich ( rus, У́глич, p=ˈuɡlʲɪtɕ) is a historic town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located on the Volga River. Population: History The city was first documented in 1148 as ''Ugliche Pole'' (''Corner Field''). The town's name is though ...

, and both she and her son was placed under the guardianship of the

boyars A boyar or bolyar was a member of the highest rank of the feudal nobility in many Eastern European states, including Kievan Rus', Bulgaria, Russia, Wallachia and Moldavia, and later Romania, Lithuania and among Baltic Germans. Boyars were sec ...

.Natalia Pushkareva,
Women in Russian History: From the Tenth to the Twentieth Century
', While the guardian regency of the new tsar, led by

Boris Godunov Borís Fyodorovich Godunóv (; russian: Борис Фёдорович Годунов; 1552 ) ruled the Tsardom of Russia as ''de facto'' regent from c. 1585 to 1598 and then as the first non-Rurikid tsar from 1598 to 1605. After the end of his ...

, granted Maria an allowance, she was nevertheless forced to leave the court and the capital and depart with her son and her brothers to her son's city of Uglich. In 1591, her son Dmitry died in Uglich of an epileptic seizure. A commission was instigated by Godunov to investigate the death of her son, and Maria and her brothers supported the rumour that her son had died due to a political murder committed by Godunov, and supported a riot that attacked Pro-Godunov boyars' houses in Uglich. They were however called to Moscow where Maria and her relatives were accused of "criminal negligence" and, as a result, her brothers were incarcerated, and she was made a

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

in the Beloozero

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

. In 1604, upon rumors that Maria had met the pretender the

False Dmitry I False Dmitry I ( rus, Лжедмитрий I, Lzhedmitriy I) (or Pseudo-Demetrius I) reigned as the Tsar of Russia from 10 June 1605 until his death on 17 May 1606 under the name of Dmitriy Ivanovich ( rus, Дмитрий Иванович). A ...

, who posed as her son, she was called by Godunov, who questioned her, but she denied having met Dmitry and was sent back to the convent. In 1605, after the accession of False Dmitriy in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, Nagaya famously legitimized him as pretender by identifying him as her son and returned to Moscow. All of her family members were freed, reinstated in their ranks, and given their

confiscate Confiscation (from the Latin ''confiscatio'' "to consign to the ''fiscus'', i.e. transfer to the treasury") is a legal form of seizure by a government or other public authority. The word is also used, popularly, of spoliation under legal forms, o ...

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...

. In 1606, the False Dimitry had the body of her son Dmitry exhumed in the hope to prove that it was the body of another. This act, however, offended Maria, who renounced the False Dmitry as her son with the support of the boyars, thus undermining his legitimacy as tsar. After the death of False Dmitry, Maria was allowed to remain to attend the reburial of her son before returning to the convent.

References

* Зимин А. А. В канун грозных потрясений: Предпосылки первой Крестьянской войны в России. М., 1986 , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Nagaya, Maria 16th-century births 1608 deaths 17th-century Russian women Wives of Ivan the Terrible Year of birth unknown Russian nuns