Folklorists consider her to be the prototype of princesses from fairy tales. Historians are trying to figure out if she herself is fiction.
The classic plot of a Russian folk tale: Koschey the Immortal kidnaps a young aristocrat from his father's house, and sometimes right from under the aisle. Having met the virgin better, realizing that he would never be sweet to her, the insidious sorcerer lets her sleep like death. A number of folklorists believe that the victim of the villain has real historical prototypes, including Maria Dolgorukaya, the fifth wife of the sinister Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible.
Since childhood at the court
Born into the Dolgorukov family, the girl was destined for the fate of a pawn in the political games of the Russian court. In adolescence, when the engagement was concluded, she entered the time of the oprichnina, which did not promise her anything good. Masha was pretty, so it would be foolish to marry her off to a noble person. Firstly, the boyars, equal to the Dolgorukovs, could at any moment fall into disgrace and drag the bride's relatives to the chopping block, and secondly, the autocrat was a connoisseur of female beauty and was ready to raise a family that would give him a beautiful daughter.
In 1572, the girl was sent to the court of the fourth wife of the formidable Tsar Anna Koltovskaya. This relative of the exiled Andrei Kurbsky, with a love spell, forced John not only to spare her, but also to take her to the altar. Having tried on the crown, Anna surrounded herself with charms and began to weave intrigues. The nobility in opposition to the sovereign turned to her for help. Such negotiations were concealed by the messengers - young men dressed in girls' dresses. It was said that the Empress made them her lovers. In such a turbulent environment, it was not easy for a teenage girl to resist the temptations of adulthood.
Acquaintance with the autocrat
Soon the tsar became aware of the tricks of the faithful - too often he received denunciations of his faithful guardsmen, and distributed government posts, after consulting with Anna. Malyuta Skuratov invited the crowned friend to remember: who were the relatives of Koltovskaya before, and what places are they now, is it not the queen who is preparing a coup d'etat? The suspicious Ivan Vasilyevich immediately agreed with his comrade and, without hesitation, sent his wife to the Tikhvin monastery, and invited her court ladies to his bedchamber. Masha was taken out of the palace by her father on time.
After spending a whole year in revelry, the monarch fasted for a long time and repented, after which he decided to put things in order in his personal life. He needed an agreeable and God-fearing wife. He remembered the shy girl he had seen in the chambers of his ex. Upon learning that the person he noticed comes from the boyars, our hero was even more delighted - her relatives would be afraid to make a career through Masha, so as not to endanger her or their own prosperous life. The visit to the house of the Dolgorukov royal matchmakers was successful - the frightened owner agreed to send his daughter at the appointed hour to the indicated place.
Wedding
The young were preparing for the wedding. The only obstacle to happiness was the fact that the church refused to marry the sovereign for the fifth time. But when Ivan the Terrible was stopped by the prohibitions of the holy fathers! He turned to one of his guardsmen, who knew Holy Scripture well and could serve in the temple, with a request to conduct the ceremony. The murderer knew his job well, the triumph did not in any way resemble a farce.
In November 1573, the wedding of John IV and Maria Dolgoruka took place. After the ceremony in the church, the guests hurried to the palace, where the tables had already been laid. The famous libertine looked forward to the first wedding night with a fifteen-year-old beauty, but the hour of passion turned into a nightmare - the newlywed was not chaste.
Massacre of Maria Dolgoruka
It was decided not to disclose the shameful fact. In the morning the whole yard went to the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. The newly-made queen was notorious for the notoriety of these places, but a guard was assigned to her, who watched every step of the libertine. Arriving at the place, the sovereign was delighted that the pond was already hidden by ice, he ordered to cut down a wide wormwood. In the middle of the day, a sled with a tied Maria rode ashore. The king himself lashed the horse several times, and it carried it away. Under the hooting of the guardsmen, the creepy wagon flew into the middle of the lake and went under the ice.
The cruel execution of a girl who had lost her honor before marriage was in the spirit of a crowned tyrant. He did not forgive deception, he was afraid that a conspiracy would follow a lie in small things. Perhaps the tsar's good education also played a cruel joke. Interested in the latest discoveries, including in medicine, Ivan the Terrible was afraid to catch a venereal disease. A plentiful wedding feast after a long fast probably turned into bad health, and then there was a night with a person who was having fun with some unknown person.
Doubts of historians
Chronicle sources have not preserved any information about the wedding of Ivan the Terrible with Maria Dolgoruka. This can be attributed to the refusal of the church to recognize the next marriage of the autocrat. Only the English diplomat Jerome Horsey, who just in 1573 arrived in Moscow, mentioned the terrible reprisal of the sovereign over his bride. Having described this case, the ambassador says nothing about the further fate of the Dolgorukovs, and after all, vengeful John could not leave without punishment those who slipped the spoiled girl to him. There are suspicions that he composed this story, making his contribution to preventing the engagement of the English Queen Elizabeth I and the Moscow despot.
The biography of the formidable king was replenished with the details of this tragic wedding after his death. Folk art borrowed the plot of the legends that existed among the boyars dissatisfied with John Vasilyevich. Later, the writers turned to Gosei's notes and folklore in order to better describe the bad temper of the bloody autocrat.
