(Prince) Dmitry Mikhaylovich Pozharsky (Oct. 17, 1577 — Apr. 20, 1642) — commander of the Nizhny Novgorod Militia, national hero of Russia, political and military figure, a man, a frigate, and an icebreaker (1916–1920). By their family name, the Pozharsky princes are authentic princes of Nizhny Novgorod.
Personal qualities
According to the accounts of contemporaries and historical documents, the characteristic traits of Prince Pozharsky were: a complete absence of arrogance, haughtiness, or conceit; an absence of greed and pride. He was distinguished by fairness and magnanimity, generosity in his donations to individuals and to society at large; modesty and honesty in his dealings with people and in his actions; devotion to the Russian sovereigns and to his Fatherland; courage and a capacity for self-sacrifice; piety and exceptional devoutness, yet without fanaticism; and love for his fellow man.
When the occasion demanded, he was firm in spirit, resolute and steadfast, uncompromising toward enemies of the Fatherland and traitors to the Motherland, and possessed a strong sense of personal dignity. At the same time he was a very gentle and attentive man, which drew people of all ages and social standings to him — from serf to boyar — something quite remarkable for that era.
It was therefore no accident that when the Nizhny Novgorod residents began searching for a commander for the second people's militia, they unanimously settled on the candidacy of Prince Pozharsky.
The significance of D.M. Pozharsky
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As long as the name of Russia, saved by Prince Pozharsky, remains known upon the face of the Earth, so long shall he serve as an example of heroism, righteousness, and selfless love for the Fatherland. [A. F. Malinovsky, Biographical Notes. P. 110. 1817]
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Family history
Before Dmitry Mikhaylovich, there were no outstanding military or political figures in the Pozharsky family. Only his grandfather, Fyodor Ivanovich Pozharsky, took part as a regimental voivode in the conquest of Kazan — Russia's third capital by Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible.
As a result of the Terrible's establishment of the oprichnina, estate lands were seized from many princely families in the central part of Rus. Many families fell from favor and were exiled. This fate befell the family of Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Pozharsky as well, which in the 1560s was sent to the "lower lands" (at that time the lower lands referred to the territories of the Nizhny Novgorod district and the neighboring non-Orthodox peoples — the Mordva, the Cheremis, and later the Tatars), where the Pozharskys had an ancient ancestral estate in the Zharskaya volost in the village of Yurino.
For this reason, Pozharsky was often called a "fallen prince."
Family
Prince Dmitry Pozharsky was married twice. By his first wife, Praskovya Varfolomeevna, he had three sons and three daughters (dates given in Old Style):
- Pyotr (died 1647),
- Fyodor (died December 27, 1632),
- Ivan (died February 15, 1668),
- Ksenia (died August 22, 1625. Was married to Prince V. S. Kurakin)
- Anastasia (year of death unknown. Was married to Prince I. P. Pronsky)
- Elena (year of death unknown. Was married to Prince I. F. Lykov)
Praskovya Varfolomeevna died on August 28, 1635, and shortly thereafter the prince married Princess Fyodora, daughter of the stolnik Andrei Ivanovich Golitsyn. She outlived him by nine years and died in 1651 without issue.
Genealogy of the Pozharskys
Dmitry Pozharsky is a descendant of Vasily Andreyevich, the first of the Pozharsky princes, who came from the Starodub princes of the Suzdal land.
The Starodub princes, in turn, are descendants of the Grand Prince of Vladimir, Vsevolod Yuryevich, son of Yury Dolgoruky, the founder of Moscow.
According to the most recent and well-supported theory, Vasily Andreyevich, Prince of Starodub, acquired his appellation "Pozharsky" from the name of the Zharskaya volost in the Nizhny Novgorod district, which was granted to him as an appanage by the Grand Princes of Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod — Andrei and Dmitry Konstantinovich — in the second half of the 14th century.
Prince Pozharsky's childhood
Dmitry Mikhaylovich was born on October 17, 1577, into the family of Prince Mikhail Fyodorovich Pozharsky, who in 1571 married Maria (Yevfrosinia) Fyodorovna Beklemisheva, who came from an ancient noble family. At birth and baptism, Pozharsky was given the "true name" Kosma, and simultaneously received the "public" name Dmitry in honor of Demetrius of Thessaloniki.
Among Maria Fyodorovna's dowry was the village of Bersenevo in the Klin district, where Dmitry was most likely born, since the Suzdal lands of the Pozharsky princes, including the village of Mugreevo (Volosynino), had been confiscated by Tsar Ivan the Terrible in favor of the oprichniki.
Dmitry's father, Mikhail Fyodorovich, died on August 23, 1587, and was buried at the Spaso-Yevfimiev Monastery in Suzdal. His mother, Maria (Yevfrosinia) Beklemisheva, died on April 7, 1632, and was also buried at the Spaso-Yevfimiev Monastery.
In state service
Under Boris Godunov
After the death of Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Pozharsky family moved to Moscow, where his mother Maria Fyodorovna devoted herself to raising the children. In 1593, at the age of 15, Pozharsky entered court service, as was customary for the children of princes and noblemen of that time. Around the same time, Pozharsky and his mother repeatedly (until 1602) fell from favor with Tsar Boris. But in 1602 the disgrace was lifted. Pozharsky himself was granted the rank of stolnik by the tsar, and his mother became a lady-in-waiting to the tsar's daughter Ksenia Borisovna. Toward the end of Boris Godunov's reign, Pozharsky's mother was already the chief lady-in-waiting to Tsaritsa Maria Grigoryevna, having succeeded the mother of the boyar Boris Mikhaylovich Lykov — Maria Lykova — in that position. At the end of 1602, Dmitry Pozharsky was involved in a precedence dispute with Boris Lykov over the seniority of their mothers at court.
The dispute was not resolved, but in the end Dmitry Pozharsky's mother nevertheless became the chief lady-in-waiting of the Moscow court. His mother rendered Pozharsky great assistance throughout her life.
After the death of Tsar B. F. Godunov in April 1605, the False Dmitry I came to power — a protégé of the Polish king Sigismund III — to whom both Moscow and the Boyar Duma swore allegiance. Pozharsky continued to serve at court.
Under Vasily Shuisky
In May 1606, the pretender was killed and Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky became tsar, to whom D. M. Pozharsky also swore allegiance. In the spring of the following year, the False Dmitry II appeared, and with him hordes of Lithuanians and Poles invaded the Russian lands, who, supporting the False Dmitry II, engaged in plunder and devastated Russian towns, villages, hamlets, churches, and monasteries. To fight the new pretender and the uninvited guests, Tsar Shuisky mobilized all the resources at his disposal. Among other trusted men, in 1608 he sent Prince Pozharsky to fight the invaders as a regimental voivode.
For his zealous service in defending the Fatherland against the Poles, Pozharsky received from Tsar V. I. Shuisky in 1609, as a patrimonial grant from his old family estate (of his father and grandfather) in the Suzdal district, the village of Nizhny Landekh and the small posad of Kholuy with their villages, починки (settled clearings), and wastelands. The grant charter stated that he "showed great service and valor, endured hunger and all manner of deprivation and every hardship of siege for a long time, and was not tempted by any treacherous deceit or sedition, but stood firm in the steadfastness of his mind, strong and unwavering, without any wavering."
At the end of 1609, the Ryazan voivode Prokopy Lyapunov tried to persuade Pozharsky to proclaim the boyar Skopin-Shuisky as tsar, but the prince remained loyal to his oath to Shuisky and resisted the entreaties.
In February 1609, the tsar appointed Pozharsky as voivode of the town of Zaraysk in the Ryazan district.
After the death of Skopin-Shuisky in April 1610, P. Lyapunov approached Pozharsky with a proposal to take revenge on Tsar Shuisky for the prince's death, but Pozharsky again remained loyal to his oath. In July, Shuisky was deposed and power passed to the Boyar Duma.
Later, in January 1611, the inhabitants of Zaraysk, following the example of the inhabitants of Kolomna and Kashira, attempted to persuade Pozharsky to swear allegiance to the pretender, but the voivode firmly refused their proposal, saying that he recognized only one tsar, V. I. Shuisky, and would not break his oath. Pozharsky's conviction had a great influence on the minds of the townspeople and they remained loyal to Tsar Shuisky.
Upon learning of this, "Kolomna once again turned back to Tsar Vas. Iv."
During the Interregnum
By the beginning of 1609, a significant number of Russian towns had recognized "Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich." Only the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, and the towns of Kolomna, Smolensk, Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky, Nizhny Novgorod, and a number of Siberian towns remained loyal to Shuisky. Among them was Zaraysk, where Prince Pozharsky served as voivode. The tsar appealed to the Swedes for help, and Charles IX sent an army to Russia under the command of Jakob De la Gardie. The Russian-Swedish force of M. V. Skopin-Shuisky defeated the Tushinites near Dmitrov and approached Moscow. At the same time, the Polish king Sigismund III invaded Russia and besieged Smolensk, demanding that the Tushino Poles abandon the Pretender and go over to his side. In early 1610, the False Dmitry II was forced to flee from Tushino to Kaluga. Skopin-Shuisky entered Moscow, where he unexpectedly died; the Russian-Swedish force under the command of the tsar's brother Dmitry Shuisky set out to relieve Smolensk.
However, on June 24, 1610, it was utterly routed by Hetman Zholkevsky at the Battle of Klushino. Shuisky was overthrown, the Seven Boyars took control of Moscow, Zholkevsky approached Moscow and encamped at Khoroshevo, while the Pretender on his side encamped at Kolomenskoye. In this situation, the Seven Boyars, out of fear of the Pretender, swore allegiance to Sigismund's son, Tsarevich Vladislav, on the condition of his conversion to Orthodoxy, and then — on the night of September 21 — secretly admitted a Polish garrison into the Kremlin.
The First Militia
Prince Pozharsky, at that time the voivode of Zaraysk, did not recognize the decision of the Moscow boyars to invite Sigismund III's son, Tsarevich Vladislav, to the Russian throne. The Nizhny Novgorod residents likewise refused to recognize the decision of the Seven Boyars. In January 1611, having confirmed their pact by the kissing of the cross (an oath) with the people of Balakhna, they sent appeal letters to the towns of Ryazan, Kostroma, Vologda, Galich, and others, asking them to send fighting men to Nizhny Novgorod so as "to stand together for… the faith and for the Muscovite state as one." The Peoples of Nizhny Novgorod. Many Volga Region and Siberian towns responded.
At the same time as the Nizhny Novgorod residents were mustering, a militia was also being assembled in Ryazan under the command of the Ryazan military governor Prokopy Lyapunov. The Zaraysk military governor Prince D. M. Pozharsky joined Lyapunov's force with his own fighting men. The First Nizhny Novgorod Militia, under the command of the Nizhny Novgorod military governor Prince Repnin, marched on Moscow in February 1611, numbering approximately 1,200 men. Detachments of warriors from Kazan, Sviyazhsk, and Cheboksary joined the Nizhny Novgorod contingent. The Nizhny Novgorod militia reached the outskirts of Moscow in mid-March. Somewhat earlier, militia detachments from Ryazan and Vladimir had also approached Moscow. The inhabitants of Moscow, upon learning of the militia's arrival, began preparing to exterminate the Poles whom they so despised. On May 19 a general uprising broke out. Streets were barricaded with sledges loaded with firewood; the Poles were shot at from rooftops, from houses, and from behind fences. The Poles carried out a massacre in the streets, but in the end found themselves besieged on all sides. Their solution was to set the city ablaze. Moscow was burned almost to the ground. The militiamen hastened to the aid of the Muscovites. D. M. Pozharsky met the enemy on Sretanka Street, repulsed them, and drove them back into Kitay-gorod. The following day, a Wednesday, the Poles attacked Pozharsky again; he had established a strongpoint near his own courtyard on Lubyanka (in the area of the present-day monument to Vorovsky). Pozharsky fought the Poles the entire day, was gravely wounded, and was carried out of Moscow by his comrades to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. Later he moved to his ancestral estate at Mugreevo, and then to the family estate of Yurino in Nizhny Novgorod Uyezd. There Pozharsky continued his convalescence until October 1611, when he assumed command of the second people's militia, the organization of which had begun in Nizhny Novgorod on the initiative of the zemstvo elder Kuzma Minin.
The First Militia initially gained the upper hand, seizing the White City. However, the enmity between the nobles led by Prokopy Lyapunov and the Cossacks (former Tushino men) led by Ivan Zarutsky proved fatal to its fortunes. After the Cossacks murdered Lyapunov, the nobles began to scatter, and the militia effectively lost its fighting capacity and fell apart, although its remnants under Zarutsky and Prince Dmitry Trubetskoy continued to stand outside Moscow.
The Second Militia
It should be noted here that during this Time of Troubles for Russia, only the Trinity-Sergius Monastery under Archimandrite Dionisy and Nizhny Novgorod under the military governors Repnin and Alyabyev held out with the greatest steadfastness and consistency. And the uncompromising Patriarch Germogen was still alive — imprisoned by the Poles in a cell of the Chudov Monastery, where he would later die on February 17, 1612, of hunger and illness.
From July 1611 onward, Archimandrite Dionisy began dispatching letters to various cities of Russia to kindle hatred in the hearts of citizens toward the foreign invaders. On August 25, 1611, Nizhny Novgorod received a letter from Patriarch Germogen as well, in which the holy elder called upon the Nizhny Novgorod residents to stand firm for the sacred cause and for the Orthodox faith. Military governor Alyabyev forwarded a copy of the letter to Kazan, and the Kazan people forwarded it on to Perm. It was no accident that Nizhny Novgorod was the first to speak up loudly against the foreign invaders.
Zemstvo elder Kozma Minin called upon every citizen of Nizhny Novgorod to contribute a portion of their property toward equipping soldiers, and the people — representing all estates — responded to his appeal with great fervor. When choosing a military commander for the militia, the Nizhny Novgorod residents settled on Prince D. M. Pozharsky and sent a delegation to him at the village of Yurino, headed by Archimandrite Feodosiy, the prior of the Voznesenskiy Pecherskiy Muzhskoy Monastery. Pozharsky arrived in Nizhny Novgorod on October 28, 1611.
The Second People's Militia set out from Nizhny Novgorod at the end of February or early March 1612. Its route ran along the right bank of the Volga through Balakhna, Timonkino, Sitskoye, Katunki, Puchezh, Yuryevets, Reshma, Kineshma, Plyos, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, and Rostov Veliky. At the request of the inhabitants of Suzdal, Pozharsky sent to the city his kinsman, the table attendant Prince Roman Petrovich Pozharsky, who defeated the Poles and liberated the city. The militia arrived in Yaroslavl at the end of March or early April 1612 and was forced to remain there until the end of July in order to gather more troops and better prepare the militiamen for the battle for Moscow. Before arriving in Yaroslavl, Pozharsky received word of the treachery of the commanders of the Cossack detachment stationed outside Moscow — Prince D. T. Trubetskoy and Ataman Zarutsky — who had sworn allegiance to yet another Pretender, the fugitive deacon Isidor (in June 1612, Prince Trubetskoy sent Pozharsky a letter in which he renounced his oath to the new Pretender). While in Yaroslavl, Prince Pozharsky narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of hired killers sent by Ataman Zarutsky.
On July 28, 1612, the Second People's Militia set out from Yaroslavl for Moscow, and by August 14, 1612, it had already reached the walls of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, arriving outside Moscow on August 20. From August 21 to 24, fierce fighting took place between the militiamen and the Poles together with the forces of the Lithuanian hetman Chodkiewicz, who had come to the aid of the Poles on the orders of the Polish king Sigismund III. By the evening of August 24, the Poles and Chodkiewicz's forces had been utterly routed, and Chodkiewicz himself withdrew to Poland with the remnants of his army on the morning of August 25, 1612. But the struggle against the Poles entrenched in Moscow continued for another two months. Finally, on October 22 (November 1, New Style), the Poles were driven out of Kitay-gorod.
Under Mikhail Romanov
After lengthy deliberations at the Zemsky Sobor of 1612–1613 — at which Prince Pozharsky was the second most prominent figure after Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky, directing and presiding over the debates — Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov was elected sovereign of Russia on February 21, 1613. On the eve of that date, February 20, 1613, D. M. Pozharsky had proposed to the Sobor that the tsar be chosen from among candidates of royal descent, that is, from among relatives of the last Rurikid — Fyodor Ivanovich, son of Ivan the Terrible. Mikhail Fyodorovich was a first cousin once removed of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich and was of boyar origin.
At this Sobor, Pozharsky received the rank of boyar and estates with manors totaling 2,500 chetverts "for his service and the cleansing of Moscow." On the charter of the Zemsky Sobor concerning the election of M. F. Romanov to the Russian throne, his signature, as a boyar, appears tenth on the list. The custom of mestnichestvo (precedence by birth) still held considerable sway in the Russian state at that time, despite D. M. Pozharsky's immense services to the Fatherland. At his coronation on July 11, 1613, Mikhail Romanov again conferred upon Pozharsky the rank of boyar, confirmed the land grants made to Pozharsky by the Zemsky Sobor, and rewarded him with new lands in the Puretskaya Volost of Nizhny Novgorod Uyezd, amounting to 3,500 chetverts.
During the anointing of the sovereign, the royal crown on its golden dish was held by the tsar's paternal uncle Ivan Nikitich Romanov, the scepter by Prince D. T. Trubetskoy, and the orb by Prince Pozharsky. Bearing in mind that Prince Pozharsky ranked below many boyars by birth, it is particularly noteworthy that he occupied such a distinguished position at the coronation of Mikhail Fyodorovich. In this one should see an expression of gratitude from the young tsar and his contemporaries toward Prince Pozharsky for the fact that, during the general "wavering," he stood firmly and unwaveringly for righteousness and, having overcome the Time of Troubles, brought "all the realms of the Russian state" to unity in the struggle for its independence and in the election of a new Russian tsar.
After the election of Mikhail Fyodorovich to the Russian throne, D. M. Pozharsky played a leading role at the royal court as a talented military commander and statesman. Despite the victory of the people's militia and the election of a tsar, war in Russia was still ongoing. In 1615–1616, Pozharsky was dispatched by the tsar's command at the head of a large army to fight the forces of the Polish colonel Lisovsky, who had besieged the city of Bryansk and seized Karachev. After the campaign against Lisovsky, the tsar in spring 1616 entrusted Pozharsky with collecting the "fifth penny" tax from merchants for the treasury, as the wars had not ceased and the treasury was exhausted. In 1617, the tsar entrusted Pozharsky with conducting diplomatic negotiations with the English envoy John Merrick, appointing Pozharsky as governor of Kolomna. That same year the Polish prince Vladislav entered the borders of the Muscovite state. The inhabitants of Kaluga and neighboring cities appealed to the tsar to send them D. M. Pozharsky specifically to defend them against the Poles. The tsar granted the Kaluga people's request and issued Pozharsky an order on October 18, 1617, to defend Kaluga and the surrounding cities by all available means. Prince Pozharsky carried out the tsar's order with distinction. Having successfully defended Kaluga, Pozharsky received orders from the tsar to march to the relief of Mozhaisk — specifically to the town of Borovsk — and began harrying the forces of Prince Vladislav with flying detachments, inflicting significant losses on them. At this same time, however, Pozharsky fell gravely ill and, by the tsar's command, returned to Moscow.
Pozharsky, having barely recovered from his illness, took the most active part in the defense of the capital against Vladislav's forces, for which Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich rewarded him with new hereditary estates and manors. By the end of his life, Pozharsky held close to ten thousand chetverts of land with many selo (larger villages), villages, and waste lands, and was counted among the wealthiest noblemen of the Muscovite state.
In 1619, the tsar placed Pozharsky in charge of the Yamskoy Prikaz (postal and transport office). In 1620, Pozharsky served as military governor of Novgorod, holding that post until 1624. From 1624 to 1628, Pozharsky headed the Razboynyy Prikaz (banditry office). In 1624, during the tsar's pilgrimage to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, the tsar left Moscow in the care of F. I. Sheremetyev, with Pozharsky as his deputy. At both of the tsar's weddings, in 1624 and 1626, Pozharsky served as a groomsman to the tsar, while Pozharsky's wife, Praskovya Varfolomeevna, served as the tsar's matchmaker. When Pozharsky was on duty in Moscow, he was invited, alongside other eminent boyars, to the festive royal and patriarchal banquets and, as I. E. Zabelin observed, "in these invitations he was not placed below the senior boyars." In August 1628, Pozharsky was again appointed military governor of Novgorod the Great with the title of governor of Suzdal, but already in September 1630 he was summoned to Moscow by tsarist decree and appointed head of the Pomestnyy Prikaz (estates office).
In 1632, the armistice with Poland expired. Russian forces besieged Smolensk (see the Smolensk War). The Russian forces at Smolensk were commanded by M. B. Shein and A. V. Izmaylov. The tsar sent Pozharsky and Prince Cherkassky to reinforce Shein, but through no fault of their own the military preparations dragged on, and Shein was encircled and forced to accept surrender terms in February 1634. In early 1635, the Peace of Polyanovka was concluded with Poland. D. M. Pozharsky also participated in the negotiations with the Poles.
In 1636–1637, Prince Pozharsky served as head of the Moskovskiy Sudnyy Prikaz (Moscow judicial office). In 1637 he turned 60 — a very advanced age for that era.
But the tsar would not release Pozharsky from his service. He was needed as a man who could be relied upon in any matter of responsibility.
Against the possibility of war with the Crimean Tatars, the tsar in April 1638 appointed Pozharsky as regimental military governor in Pereyaslavl Ryazansky. However, that war never materialized. When Mikhail Romanov lost first one son, Ivan, and then another, Vasily, in 1639, Pozharsky "spent days and nights" — that is, he was assigned the position of honor guard — at the coffins of the tsareviches. In spring 1640, D. M. Pozharsky took part twice, together with I. P. Sheremetyev, in negotiations with Polish envoys, being listed at that time as governor of Kolomna. These negotiations represent the last services of Prince Pozharsky recorded in the Razryadnaya Kniga (the register of military and court appointments).
The Death of Prince Pozharsky
According to the testimony of the well-known nineteenth-century archivist A. F. Malinovsky, senator and Director of the Archive of the College of Foreign Affairs, Dmitry Pozharsky died on April 30 (April 20, Old Style) 1642, in the sixty-fifth year of his life.
In the Monastery of St. Nicholas of Zaraysk, a note was discovered recording the day of Pozharsky's death in the following words: "ZRN, April K, there passed away the boyar Prince Dmitry Mikhaylovich Pozharsky, on a Wednesday, in the second week after Easter." In his work "A Survey of Moscow," which Malinovsky completed in 1826 but which was first published only in 1992, the author writes that many believed Pozharsky to be buried in the Moscow Kazan Cathedral, of which he was the original founder. Modern research has shown that his remains rest in the ancestral vault of the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery in Suzdal.
The Pozharsky Mausoleum
In 1851, the noted Russian archaeologist Count A. S. Uvarov, during excavations at the site of Prince Pozharsky's grave, discovered brick crypts and white-stone tombs arranged in three rows, and in 1885 a marble mausoleum was erected over them, built with public funds to a design by A. M. Gornostaev.
The mausoleum was dismantled during the Soviet period in 1933. Archaeological investigations in the summer of 2008 showed that the tomb had remained undisturbed. On November 1, 2008, the anniversary of D. M. Pozharsky's birth, a slab and commemorative cross were installed over his place of burial.
The Legend of Pozharsky's Transformation into Kosma
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, historians held the view that before his death Prince Pozharsky had taken monastic vows under the name Kosma, as was customary among the princely class of that era.
However, the research of Academician M. P. Pogodin in the mid-nineteenth century, combined with the discovery of the Prince's spiritual testament in the early twenty-first century, provides grounds for concluding that he did not take monastic vows before his death.
Points of Interest
- Dmitry Pozharsky's mother was a senior noblewoman of the Moscow court. The nineteenth-century historian N. I. Kostomarov's view of the Pozharsky princely family as "impoverished" is therefore incorrect — at least with regard to the branch to which Dmitry Mikhaylovich Pozharsky belonged, including on his mother's side.
- At birth and baptism, Pozharsky was given the "true name" Kosma in honor of Kosma the Unmercenary, whose feast day falls on October 17 (Old Style). At the same time he received the "public name" Dimitry in honor of Dmitry of Thessaloniki, whose feast day falls on October 26 (Old Style).
- Pozharsky was distinguished by a remarkable aptitude for learning and a degree of literacy uncommon among the feudal lords of his time. Thus, after his father's death, Pozharsky — who was not yet ten years old — donated to the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery, as a memorial offering for his father, the village of Tri Dvorishcha, having composed and signed the deed of gift himself.
- The Pozharskys had a house in Moscow, on Sretanka Street, whose basement section has survived to the present day and forms part of the house of Count F. V. Rostopchin, who owned the property in the early nineteenth century (today Lubyanka, 14).
- At the beginning of Boris Godunov's reign (1598), Pozharsky held the court rank of "stryapchy s platiem" (a gentleman of the robes).
- The Pozharsky line died out in the male line in 1682 with the death of his grandson Yury Ivanovich Pozharsky, who died without heirs. After the extinction of the Pozharsky family, the ancestral vault fell into neglect and was demolished "due to dilapidation" in 1765–1766.