Boris Godunov

Tsar of Russia

c. 1552 – 1605 · 53 years · Moscow · Eastern Europe & Russia

Reign: 1598 – 1605 (Rus and Russia)

De facto regent under Tsar Feodor, then elected tsar himself. Established the Moscow Patriarchate; his death opened the Time of Troubles.

Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Miguel de Cervantes — Spanish novelist, 5 years older
Elizabeth I — Queen of England, 19 years older
William Shakespeare — English playwright and poet, 12 years younger
Galileo Galilei — Italian physicist and astronomer, 12 years younger
Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 77 years older
Rudolf II — patron emperor who gathered Kepler, Brahe and Arcimboldo in Prague, born the same year

Ivan the Terrible — first Tsar of Russia, 22 years older
Yermak Timofeyevich — Cossack conqueror of Siberia, 20 years older
False Dmitry I — pretender who claimed to be Tsarevich Dmitry, 29 years younger
Vasily Shuisky — boyar tsar of the Time of Troubles who died in Polish captivity, born the same year
Feodor I — last Rurikid tsar, under whom the Moscow Patriarchate was founded, 5 years younger
Dmitry Pozharsky — prince and militia leader, 26 years younger

Abbas the Great — Safavid Shah of Iran, 19 years younger
Selim II — sultan who took Cyprus and lost at Lepanto, 28 years older
Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 58 years older
Murad III — sultan who won the Caucasus from the Safavids, 6 years older
Mehmed III — sultan who executed 19 brothers and won at Keresztes, 14 years younger
Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf — Ottoman astronomer and engineer, 26 years older

Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 68 years older
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega — chronicler, son of a conquistador and an Inca princess, 13 years older
Samuel de Champlain — French explorer, 15 years younger