Mniszek, Marina

Mniszek, Marina 

Born circa 1588; died 1614. A political adventuress, daughter of the Polish wojewoda Jerzy Mniszek, one of the organizers of the Polish intervention in Russia in the early 17th century.

Marina Mniszek’s marriage to the First False Dmitrii, the pretender to the Russian throne, enabled the Polish and Lithuanian magnates and the Catholic clergy to control their protege. She was crowned in Moscow in May 1606. After the death of Dmitrii she renounced her royal title and was permitted to return to Poland in July 1608. Instead she went to Tushino, where she acknowledged the Second False Dmitrii as her “rescued” husband. After the latter’s death in December 1610, she was protected by the ataman I. M. Zarutskii, who tried to advance the candidacy of her son Ivan (born January 1611) to the Russian throne. She fled with Zarutskii and her son first to Astrakhan and later (May 1614) to the laik (Ural) River, where the cossacks turned them over to the Russian government. Zarutskii and Mniszek’s son were executed in Moscow, and Mniszek died in prison.