Russia has never been in such a dire situation as at the beginning of the 17th century: external enemies, civil strife, unrest of the boyars threatened the death of Russian land.
Moscow is dominated by the Polish king Sigismund, whose troops oppress and rob the unfortunate inhabitants. Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, devastating Russian cities, are not inferior to the will and cruelty of the Poles. Near Moscow there are troops of an impostor, a Tushino thief, the Swedes host in Novgorod and Pskov.
The beginning of April 1612. Two horsemen - a young boyar Yuri Miloslavsky with his servant Alexei - slowly make their way along the banks of the Volga. For the seventh day, Yuri, with a letter from Mr. Gonsevsky, the head of the Polish garrison in Moscow, has been on his way to the homeland of Kruchiny-Shalonsky. A blizzard led them astray, and trying to find a way, they stumbled upon a half-frozen man. The rescued turned out to be Zaporizhzhya Cossack Kirsha. He tried to get to Nizhny Novgorod in order to try his luck and stick to the army, according to rumors, there are recruiting soldiers to march on the Poles. Unnoticed by the conversation, the travelers went to the village. At the inn, where they hastened to shelter from the weather, several riders had already gathered. The appearance of a young boyar aroused their interest. Yuri goes from Moscow, and therefore the first question: "Is it true that they kissed the cross there on Prince Vladislav?" “True,” Yuri answers. - <...> All of Moscow swore allegiance to the prince; he alone can end the calamity of our unfortunate homeland. ” Vladislav promised to be baptized in the Orthodox faith and, ascending the Moscow throne, "save the Russian land in its former glory and power." “And if he keeps his promise,” the young man continues, “then I am the first to put my head for him.”
The next morning, a thick Pole appears in the inn, accompanied by two Cossacks. Portraying an arrogant nobleman, the Pole began to drive the Muscovites out of the hut in a formidable voice. Kirsha recognizes in him Mr. Kopychinsky, who was familiar to him from his service in the army of the hetman Sapega and known for his cowardice. After rummaging around in the oven, Kopychinsky discovers a roast goose there and, despite the hostess's warning that this goose is a stranger (Alex put him in the oven for his master), he is accepted to eat it. Yuri decides to teach the impudent Pole a lesson and, pointing a gun at him, makes him eat the goose completely.
After teaching Kopychinsky, Yuri and his servant leave the inn. Soon Kirsha catches up with them and reports that they are being chased - two horse-drawn companies of Poles approached the village, and pan Kopychinsky assured them that Yuri was taking the treasury to Nizhny Novgorod. A horse is killed near Yuri, and Kirsha, having given the boyar to his stallion, is carried away by a pursuit.
Fleeing from the Poles, the Cossack hides in a hut, which he stumbles into in the thicket of the forest. This is the hut of the famous sorcerer Kudimych. So now the old woman Grigoryevna came to him from the village with gifts from the nanny of the young hawthorn. Buried in the closet, Kirsha overhears the old woman’s conversation with the sorcerer and learns that the boyar’s daughter, as she visited Moscow, where she was caught for the Polish lord, began to languish. Just like a young fellow jinxed her, whom the servant called Yuri Dmitrievich. This fellow did not take his eyes off her every day, as she listened to the mass at Spas on Bor. And the old woman asks the sorcerer to teach her his "pre-leisure". Kudimych teaches Grigoryevna how to charm on the boyars' canvases that disappeared on the third day, and persuades the old woman to publicly point to Fedka Khomyak, in the barn of which Kudimych hid them.
After the hut was empty, Kirsha went out and went down the path to the homeland of Shalonsky, where, according to Alexei, he hoped to see Yuri. Behind the outskirts of the village, having heard a noise, he hides in a barn hole in which he finds canvases. Remembering the overheard conversation, he decides to teach a lesson to the “fake” sorcerer and hides the canvases at the chapel.
Coming out onto the wide street of the village, Kirsha gets on a wedding train. Ahead of all is Kudimych surrounded by honor. In the hut, where the guests entered, an ugly old woman sits, muttering "barbaric words." This Grigoryevna wants to compete in a fortune-telling game with Kudimych. They both guess in turn and “see” the canvases in the barn of Fedka the Hamster. But Kirsha is a stronger sorcerer - he claims that the canvases are buried in the snow behind the chapel, where amazed peasants discover them.
Meanwhile, Yuri and his servant had already reached the homeland of Shalonsky. Entering the boyar’s chambers, Yuri saw a man of about fifty with a pale face, “bearing the imprint of strong, unbridled passions.” Shalonsky was amazed to see the boyar Dimitry Miloslavsky as a messenger from Pan Gonsevsky’s son, the “inveterate hatred of the Poles”. From the letter of Gonsevsky, Shalonsky learns that the Nizhny Novgorod people are gathering troops, intending to oppose the Poles, and that he, Kruchina, must send Yuri to Nizhny in order to “bow down the chief instigators to humility, promising them royal favor.” An example of the son of a former Nizhny Novgorod governor kissing the cross to Vladislav should reason them.
Yuri is happy to fulfill Gonsevsky’s order, for he is sure that “the election of Vladislav will save our fatherland from final destruction”. But, according to Shalonsky, rebels should not be pacified by an affectionate word, but by fire and sword. Yuri’s bold speeches infuriate him, and he decides to put a secret spy on him - his impetuous Omlyash. Shalonsky is worried about his daughter's health - after all, she is the future wife of Pan Gonsevsky, a favorite of the Polish king. Hearing about the sorcerer, plugging Kudimych himself into the belt, he demands that he be treated at the boyar’s court by Anastasia. Kirsha, knowing from Alexei about Yuri’s heart-shaped grunt, reveals to Anastasia the name of a fair-haired young man, whose blue eyes jinxed her — this is Yuri Miloslavsky, and only he needs to be narrowed down by a young lady.
The wonderful recovery of her daughter delighted and surprised Shalonsky. The sorcerer is suspicious of him, and therefore, just in case, he puts a guard to him.
Supporting with honor the glory of the skilled sorcerer, Kirsha decides to find Yuri, but discovers that he is being guarded. And then there was a conversation he had overheard at night between Omlyash and his friend: on the orders of the boyar, an ambush awaited Yuri on the way to the forest ravine. Kirsha decides to run: under the pretext of examining the argamak, which the boyar gave him for curing his daughter, he mounts his horse - and he was like that.
In the forest, a Cossack catches up with Yuri with Alexei. He tells Yuri Miloslavsky how he treated Anastasia, the daughter of Shalonsky, the same black-eyed lady who crushed Yuri’s heart, and says that she also loves him. The story of the Cossack leads the young man into despair: after all, Anastasia is the daughter of a man deeply despised by him, a traitor to the fatherland. Meanwhile, Kirsha, driven by the desire to unite lovers at all costs, did not even hint to Yuri about a conspiracy against him.
Soon, a fellow kid was imposed on them in fellow travelers, in which the Cossack recognized Omlyash by voice. Shortly before the expected ambush, Kirsha stuns Omlyash and points to him as a robber. Having woken up, Omlyash admits that ahead of Yuri an ambush of six people awaits. Having tied the robber to a tree, the travelers set off further and soon left for the walls of Nizhny Novgorod,
In Lower Yuri with a servant they stop at the boyar Istomy-Turenin, a friend of Shalonsky. Turenin, like Shalonsky, fiercely hates the “seditious town” and dreams of outweighing all the Nizhny Novgorod instigators, but, unlike his friend, knows how to hide his feelings and is known as a respected person in Novgorod. He must bring Yuri with the local honorary citizens, so that he persuaded them to be submissive to the "Russian Tsar" Vladislav.
But Yuri’s soul is vague. No matter how hard he tries to assure himself that his mission is to save the fatherland from the "misfortunes of the interregnum", he feels that he would give half his life if only to appear before the Novgorodians as a simple warrior, ready to die in their ranks for the freedom and independence of Russia.
His mental anguish is aggravated when he witnesses the greatest patriotic upsurge of the Novgorodians, at the call of the “immortal” Kozma Minin, who donate their property “for the maintenance of military men”, ready to come to the rescue of “orphaned Moscow”. On the square where this significant event takes place, Dimitry Pozharsky was popularly elected the head of the Zemsky militia, and Minin was elected the guardian of the Nizhny Novgorod treasury. Having fulfilled the duty of the envoy of Gonsevsky at the boyar council, Yuri can no longer restrain his feelings: if he were a Novgorod citizen, and did not kiss the cross to Vladislav, he says to the boyars, then he would consider it fortunate to lay his head on holy Russia.
Four months have passed. Near the homeland of Shalonsky, from which there is only one ashes, Aleksey and Kirsha, who heads the detachment of Cossacks, meet by chance. Alexei, thin and pale, tells the Cossack how robbers attacked his master when they returned from the boyar council. He, Alexei, was stabbed - for four weeks he was between life and death, but Yuri’s bodies were never found. But Kirsha does not believe in the death of Miloslavsky. Recalling an eavesdropping conversation with Kruchina, he is sure that Yuri is captured by Shalonsky. Kirsha and Alexei decide to find him.
At Kudimich, Kirsch finds out that Shalonsky and Turenin are hiding in the Murom forest on the Tyeply Stan farm, but immediately fall into the hands of Omlyash and his associates. And again ingenuity comes to his aid: taking advantage of his fame as a sorcerer, he searches for robbers buried in the forest treasure until his Cossacks come to his aid.
Now Kirsha and Alexei have a guide to the Warm Camp in their hands. They arrive at the farm on time - the next day Turenin and Shalonsky were going to leave the farm, and Yuri, who was being held in chains in the dungeon, was expected to die.
Barely alive, exhausted by hunger, Yuri was released. He intends to go to Sergius Lavra: bound by an oath that he cannot break, Yuri is going to get a monk's haircut.
In the monastery, meeting with his father, cellar Avraamy Palitsyn, Yuri in confession lightens his soul and makes a vow to devote his life to "repentance, fasting and prayer." Now he, the novice of the elder Abraham, fulfilling the will of his shepherd, must go to the camp of Pozharsky and take up arms with “earthly weapons against the common enemy” of the Russian land.
On the way to the camp of Pozharsky, Yuri and Alexei fall to the robbers. Their leader, father Yeremey, who knew and loved Dimitry Miloslavsky well, was going to respectfully release his son, and one of the Cossacks came with the news that the daughter of the traitor Shalonsky had been captured, she was the bride of Pan Gonsevsky. The robbers crave immediate reprisals against the heretic bride. Yuri is in despair. And here father Eremei comes to his aid: supposedly for confession, he leads the young to church and crowns them there. Now Anastasia is the legal wife of Yuri Miloslavsky, and no one dares to raise a hand on her.
Yuri drove Anastasia to the Khotkovsky monastery. Their farewell is full of grief and tears - Yuri told Anastasia about his vow to take monastic rank, which means that he cannot be her husband.
The only thing that remains for Yuri is to drown his painful anguish in the blood of enemies or in his own. He takes part in the decisive battle with the hetman Khotchevich on August 22, 1612, helping Novgorodians, together with their squad, turn the tide of the battle in favor of the Russians. Together with him, Alexei and Kirsha fight side by side
Yuri is wounded. His recovery coincides with the end of the siege of the Kremlin, where the Polish garrison sat for two months. Like all Russians, he hurries to the Kremlin. With sadness and longing, Yuri crosses the threshold of the Church of the Savior on Bor - sad memories torment him. But Abraham Palitsyn, with whom the young man meets in the church, frees him from a monastic vow - the act of Yuri, who married Anastasia, is not an oath-crime, but the salvation of his neighbor from death.
Thirty years have passed. Near the walls of the Trinity Monastery met Cossack foreman Kirsha and Alexei - he is now the servant of the young boyar Vladimir Miloslavsky, son of Yuri and Anastasia. And Yuri and Anastasia are buried here, within the walls of the monastery, they died in 1622 on the same day.
