f Ivan
the Terrible, who had been murdered there by the agents of Boris. Shuisky
obsequiously reported that it was a case of suicide; yet, on the death of
Boris and the accession of his son Theodore II., the false boyar, in order
to gain favour with the first false Demetrius, went back upon his own words
and recognized the pretender as the real Demetrius, thus bringing about the
assassination of the young Theodore. Shuisky then plotted against the false
Demetrius and procured his death (May 1606) also by publicly confessing
that the real Demetrius had been indeed slain and that the reigning tsar
was an impostor. This was the viler in him as the pseudo-Demetrius had
already forgiven him one conspiracy. Shuisky's adherents thereupon
proclaimed him tsar (19th of May 1606). He reigned till the 19th of July
1610, but was never generally recognized. Even in Moscow itself he had
little or no authority, and was only not deposed by the dominant boyars
because they had none to put in his place. Only the popularity of his
heroic cousin, Prince Michael Skopin-Shuisky, who led his armies and fought
his battles for him, and soldiers from Sweden, whose assistance he
purchased by a disgraceful cession of Russian territory, kept him for a
time on his unstable throne. In 1610 he was deposed, made a monk, and
finally carried off as a trophy by the Polish grand hetman, Stanislaus
Zolkiewski. He died at Warsaw in 1612.

See D. I. Ilovaisky, _The Troubled Period of the Muscovite Realm_ (Russ.),
(Moscow, 1894); S. I. Platonov, _Sketches of the Great Anarchy in the Realm
of Moscow_ (Petersburg, 1899); D. V. Tsvyeltev, _Tsar Vasily Shuisky_
(Russ.), (Warsaw, 1901-1903); R. Nisbet Bain, _Slavonic Europe_, ch. viii.
(Cambridge, 1907).

(R. N. B.)

BASILIAN MONKS, those who follow the rule of Basil the Great. The chief
importance of the monastic rule and institute of St Basil lies in the fact
that to this day his reconstruction of the monastic life is the basis of
the monasticism of the Greek and Slavonic Churches, though the monks do not
call themselves Basilians. St Basil's claim to the authorship of the Rules
and other ascetical writings that go under his name, has been questioned;
but the tendency now is to recognize as his at any rate the two sets of
Rules. Probably the truest idea of his monastic system may be derived from
a correspondence between him and St Gregory Nazianzen at the beginning of
his monastic life, the chief portions whereo