The aim of the article is to elucidate the role of Nizhni Novgorod in the initial process of forming the militias in January - February 1611. This is one of the key issues for understanding the nature of the origins of the Zemstvo movement during the interregnum in the Time of Troubles in the Muscovite state. We present a reconstruction of a non-surviving set of documents of the Nizhni Novgorod self-government bodies and refine the dating of the few extant letters and notes. Information is available about 16 documents: 6 of them have survived completely, while information about ten documents has been reconstructed based on references to them. Our analysis of the documents shows that the rise of the movement in defence of the Muscovite state unfolded in Nizhni Novgorod in parallel with Ryazan and initially regardless of P. Lyapunov's appeals and letters from Smolensk and from Moscow residents.
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