• Tsar of Russia 1605 – 1606
• first, and most successful, of three "pretenders" who claimed to be the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible
• reign was marked by his openness to Catholicism and allowing foreigners into Russian borders

During the Time of Troubles he claimed escaped the 1591 assassination ordered by Boris Godunov when he was 8 years old due to his mother's anticipation of the attempt. He said she helped him escape to a monastery in the Russian Empire, and the assassins killed somebody else instead, and then he fled to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after he came to the attention of Boris Godunov who ordered him to be seized.

It is generally believed that the real Dmitry Ivanovich died in Uglich in 1591. Many Polish nobles did not believe the story of False Dmitry I but they nonetheless supported him.

Several of those who had known Ivan IV claimed later that Dmitry did indeed resemble the young tsarevich; further, the young man also displayed aristocratic tendencies, such as horsemanship and literacy, and was fluent in Russian, Polish, and French.

There were also rumors that Dmitry was an illegitimate son of the Polish king, Stefan Batory, who had reigned from 1575 to 1586; according to a later tale, Dmitry blurted out that identity when once slapped by a violent master.