Susanin, Ivan

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Susanin, Ivan

 

Died 1613. Hero of the Russian liberation struggle against Polish invaders in the early 17th century.

Susanin was a peasant from the village of Dereven’ki, near the village of Domnino, Kostroma District. In the winter of 1612–13, he was forced by a detachment of Polish noblemen to lead them to Domnino, a Romanov estate, where the newly elected tsar Mikhail Fedorovich was residing at the time. Susanin deliberately led the Poles astray in a dense, swampy forest, an act for which he was later tortured to death.

Susanin’s heroic deed has been preserved in folklore and fiction and is the subject of M. I. Glinka’s opera Ivan Susanin. A monument to Susanin was erected in the city of Kostroma.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Susanin, Ivan

leads Poles astray to safeguard tsar; executed. [Russ. Opera: Glinka, A Life for the Tsar, Westerman, 379]

See: Self-Sacrifice

Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.