Ivan Susanin's deed is known from one royal charter of 1619, which says nothing about swamps or leading enemies astray — only that 'Polish and Lithuanian people' tortured him. The rest came from 19th-century writers and Glinka.

1613 · 1619 · 1836 · apart: 223 years

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The event

• Premiere of A Life for the Tsar1836 · Saint Petersburg. Glinka's opera, staged in St Petersburg in 1836, turned the Kostroma peasant Ivan Susanin into a national hero. The tale of him leading Poles into the wilderness took shape in 19th-century literature; a 1619 charter says only that enemies tortured him to death.

17th century · 19th century

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