Ivan IV is succeeded by his son Feodor, who is mentally deficient.

Actual power goes to Feodor's brother-in-law, the boyar Boris Godunov.

Perhaps the most important event of Fedor's reign is the proclamation of the patriarchate of Moscow in 1589.

The creation of the patriarchate climaxes the evolution of a separate and totally independent Russian Orthodox Church.

In 1598 Feodor dies without an heir, ending the Rurik Dynasty.

Boris Godunov then convenes a zemskiy sobor, a national assembly of boyars, church officials, and commoners, which proclaim him tsar, although various boyar factions refuse to recognize the decision.

Widespread crop failures cause a famine between 1601 and 1603, and during the ensuing discontent, a man emerges who claims to be Dmitriy, Ivan IV's son who had died in 1591.

This pretender to the throne, who comes to be known as the first False Dmitriy, gains support in Poland and marches to Moscow, gathering followers among the boyars and other elements as he goes.

Historians speculate that Godunov would have weathered this crisis, but he dies in 1605.

As a result, the first False Dmitriy enters Moscow and is crowned tsar that year, following the murder of Tsar Fyodor II, Godunov's son.

Following Gudonov’s unexpected death on April 13, son and successor assumes the throne as Fyodor II.

His mother Maria Grigorievna Skuratova-Belskaya is one of the daughters of Malyuta Skuratov, the infamous favorite of Ivan the Terrible.

Fyodor, physically robust and passionately beloved by his father, has received the best available education possible, and from childhood has been initiated into all the minutiae of government, besides sitting regularly in the council and receiving the foreign envoys.

He seems also to have been remarkably and precociously intelligent, creating a map of Russia, which is still preserved.

(It will be edited with some additions by Hessel Gerritsz in Amsterdam, in 1613, and reedited until 1665.)

Though his father had taken the precaution to surround him with powerful friends, he lives from the first moment of his reign in an atmosphere of treachery.

Russian troops began to defect to Dmitry's side.

The envoys of Pseudo-Demetrius I (or False Dmitry I) on June 11 (N. S.), 1605, arrive at Moscow to demand Fyodor’s removal, and the letters which they read publicly in what is today Red Square decide his fate.

A group of boyars, unwilling to swear allegiance to the new tsar, seizes control of the Kremlin and arrests him.

Fyodor is on June 20 strangled in his apartment, together with his mother.

Officially, he is declared to have been poisoned, but the Swedish diplomat Peter Petreius stated that the bodies, which had been on public display, showed traces of a violent struggle.

Although aged sixteen at most, Feodor was known to be physically strong and agile and apparently it took four men to overpower him.

Dmitriy makes his triumphal entry into Moscow.

Żółkiewski and the second False Dmitry, formerly reluctant allies, have begun to part ways.

The second False Dmitry has lost much of his influence over the Polish court, and Żółkiewski will eventually try to drive Dmitriy from the capital.

Żółkiewski soon begins maneuvering for a tsar of Polish origin, particularly the 15-year old Prince Władysław.

Previously during the Time of Troubles, the boyars had offered the throne to Władysław at least twice, in the hopes of having the liberal Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth end the despotic rule of their current tsars.

Through Żółkiewski's work, the pro-Polish factions among the boyars (composed of knyazes Fyodor Mstislavsky, Vasily Galitzine, Fyodor Sheremetev, Daniil Mezetsky and diaks Vasily Telepnyov and Tomiło Łagowski gain dominance and once again a majority of the boyars say that they will support Władysław for the throne, if he converts to Orthodoxy and if Poland–Lithuania returns the fortresses that they had captured in the war.

However, Sigismund, supported by some of the more devout szlachta, is completely opposed to the conversion of the prince.

From this point the planned Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovite union begins to fall apart.

Offended and angered by Sigismund, the boyars drag their feet on supporting Władysław–they are divided between electing Vasily Galitzine, Michael Romanov (also fifteen years old), or the second False Dmitriy.

Żółkiewski acts quickly, making promises without the consent of the still-absent king, and the boyars elects Władysław as the new tsar.

Żółkiewski has the most prominent of the opponents, Fyodor Romanov, Michael's father and the patriarch of Moscow, exiled from Russia in order to secure Polish support.

Vasli IV, the last male line Rurikid to rule Russia, is shaved as a monk and eventually transported to Warsaw by Zolkiewski.

He will die a prisoner in the castle of Gostynin, near Warsaw, in 1612.

The Russian boyars call a zemsky sobor (national council) in 1613 and on February 21 unanimously elect to offer the throne of the tsars to Ivan IV’s grandnephew, sixteen-year-old Michael Fyodorovich Romanov, a grandson of Ivan’s first wife’s brother Nikita.

Michael’s father, Fyodor Nikitich Romanov, is in Polish captivity.

The Russian Time of Troubles is far from over, and Russia has no strength to take advantage of the Commonwealth's weakness.

The Zemsky Sobor ("assembly of the land") had on February 21, 1613, named Michael Romanov, the seventeen-year old son of Fyodor Romanov, the new tsar.

Fyodor, now installed as Patriarch Filaret, is a popular boyar and patriarch of Moscow, one of several boyars who had vies to gain control of the Russian throne during the Time of Troubles.

The Romanovs are a powerful boyar family; Michael's great-aunt (the sister of his grandfather) was Anastasia Romanovna, the wife of Ivan the Terrible.

The new tsar has many opponents, however.

Marina Mniszech tries until her death in 1614 to install her child as Tsar of Russia; various boyar factions still vie for power, trying to unseat the young Tsar Michael; and Sweden intervenes in force, trying to gain the throne for Duke Carl Philip, even succeeding for a few months.

Philip receives even less support than Władysław, however, and the Swedes are soon forced to retreat from Russia.

Tsar Michael’s father Feodor Romanov, Patriarch Filaret, had since 1610 been a prisoner in the hands of the Polish king, Sigismund III Vasa, whom he had refused to acknowledge as tsar of Muscovy on being sent on an embassy to the Polish camp.

Released on the conclusion of the truce of Deulino (February 13, 1619), on June 2 of the same year he is canonically enthroned Patriarch of Moscow and all of Russia.

Henceforth, until his death, the established government of Muscovy is to be a diarchy.

There will from 1619 to 1633 be two actual sovereigns, Tsar Michael and his father, the most holy Patriarch Filaret.

Theoretically they are co-regents, but Filaret will frequently transact affairs of state without consulting the tsar.