National duty and the condition of the longevity on the throne

The author reflects on the common traits in the characterisation of the Russian Troubles and the consequences for the state, the most critical of which was the loss of significant territories, which would then take years and decades to reverse. Using the consequences of the Great Troubles at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries as an example, the author analyses the attempts of the first Russian tsars of the Romanov dynasty to return the lost cities and lands. The losses were great, in fact, all the conquests of the XVI century were given up, the borders returned to where they were before Ivan III - ‘the gatherer of the Russian lands’. The return of the lost became not only the national duty, but also a condition for the preservation of the power for the representatives the new royal dynasty.