Dmitry Mikhaylovich Pozharsky was a Russian prince known for his military leadership during the Polish–Muscovite War from 1611 to 1612. Pozharsky formed the Second Volunteer Army with Kuzma Minin in Nizhny Novgorod against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's occupation of Russia during the Time of Troubles, resulting in Polish withdrawal after Russian victory at the Battle of Moscow in 1612. Pozharsky received the unprecedented title of Saviour of the Fatherland from Mikhail I of Russia, becoming a folk hero in Russian culture and honored in the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky in Moscow's Red Square.

The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Muscovy, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721.