The paper examines the political biography of Prince V.M. Rubets Mosalsky, who is unanimously viewed as an antihero of the Time of Troubles. The author organizes and critically reviews the evidence from a wealth of sources on V.M. Rubets Mosalsky’s life on the eve of the Time of Troubles (from the late 1580s), mainly during his service in Mangazeya, as well as in the timespan of 1604-11. During the Time of Troubles the prince, eager to belong to the ruling class and strengthen his position there, became one of the key favourites of Dmitry the False I to serve him as a court boyar and the palace-steward. Following his exile to Korela, ordered by the new Tsar Vassily, he turned into a courtier of the Second Impostor and then a follower of the Polish claimants of the Russian throne - Prince Vladislav and Sigismund III.
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