Ivan IV of Russia
"Ivan the Terrible" redirects here. For other uses, see Ivan the Terrible (disambiguation). Ivan IV Vasilyevich (
Russian:
Иван IV 'асильевич) (
August 25,
1530 –
March 18,
1584) was the Grand Duke of
Muscovy from
1533 to
1547 and was the first ruler of
Russia to assume the title of
tsar. His long reign saw the conquest of
Tartary and
Siberia and subsequent transformation of Russia into a multiethnic and multiconfessional state. This tsar retains his place in the Russian tradition simply as Ivan Grozny ( which translates into English as Ivan the Fearsome, ). He is commonly referred to in English as
Ivan the Terrible.
Ivan (or Ioann, as his name is rendered in
Church Slavonic) was a long-awaited son of
Vasili III. Upon his father's death, he formally came to the throne at the age of three, but his minority was dominated by regents. Initially his mother
Elena Glinskaya acted as regent, but she died when Ivan was only eight. She was replaced as regent by
boyars from the
Shuisky family until Ivan assumed power in
1544. According to his own letters, Ivan customarily felt neglected and offended by the mighty boyars from the Shuisky and
Belsky families. In one letter, he painfully recalls an episode when one drunken boyar put his dirty boots on Ivan's bed. These traumatic experiences doubtlessly contributed to his hatred of the boyars and to his mental instability. He was known to throw cats and dogs out of the
Kremlin windows, among other cruel acts.
Ivan was crowned tsar with
Monomakh's Cap at the
Cathedral of the Dormition at age sixteen on
January 16 1547. The early part of his reign was one of peaceful reforms and modernization. Ivan revised the law code (known as the sudebnik), created a
standing army (the
streltsy), established the
Zemsky Sobor, the council of the nobles (known as the Chosen Council), and confirmed the position of the Church with the
Council of the Hundred Chapters, which unified the rituals and ecclesiastical regulations of the entire country. During his reign the first
printing press was introduced to Russia (although the first Russian printers
Ivan Fedorov and
Pyotr Mstislavets had to flee from
Moscow to
Grand Duchy of Lithuania).
In 1547
Hans Schlitte, the
agent of tsar Ivan, employed handicraftsmen in Germany for work in Russia. However all these handicraftsmen were arrested in
Lübeck at the request of Poland and Livonia. The German merchant companies ignored the new port built by tsar Ivan on the river Narva in 1550 and delivered the goods still in the Baltic ports owned by Livonia. Russia remained isolated from sea trade.
Ivan formed new trading connections, opening up the
White Sea and the port of
Arkhangelsk to the
Muscovy Company of
English merchants. He also annexed the
Kazan and
Astrakhan Khanates to the east, thus transforming Russia into a multinational and multiconfessional state. He had
St. Basil's Cathedral constructed in
Moscow to commemorate the seizure of Kazan. Legend has it that he was so impressed with the structure that he had the architects blinded, so that they could never design anything as beautiful again.
 |
Ivan married 7 times, sometimes divorcing his wife a week after the marriage. |
|
Ivory throne of Ivan the Terrible. |
Other less positive aspects of this period include the introduction of the first laws restricting the mobility of the
peasants, which would eventually lead to
serfdom. The dramatic change in Ivan's personality is traditionally linked to his near-fatal illness in
1553 and the death of his first wife,
Anastasia Romanovna. Ivan suspected boyars of poisoning his wife and of plotting to replace him on the throne with his cousin,
Vladimir of Staritsa. In addition, during that illness Ivan had asked the boyars to swear an oath of allegiance to his eldest son, an infant at the time. Many boyars refused, deeming the tsar's health too hopeless to survive. This angered Ivan and added to his distrust of the boyars. There followed brutal reprisals and mass murders of innocent people, including
Metropolitan Philip and Prince
Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky.
Also problematic was the
1565 formation of the
Oprichnina. The
Oprichnina was the section of Russia directly ruled by Ivan and policed by his personal servicemen, the
Oprichniks. This whole system of
Oprichnina has been viewed by some historians as a tool against the omnipotent hereditary nobility of Russia (
boyars) who opposed the absolutist drive of the tsar, while others have interpreted it as a sign of the
paranoia and mental deterioration of the tsar.
The latter half of Ivan's reign was far less successful. He supported
Yermak's conquest of
Siberia and he had adopted a policy of
empire-building, which led him to launch a victorious war of seaward expansion to the west, only to find himself fighting the
Swedes,
Lithuanians,
Poles, and the
Livonian Teutonic Knights. For twenty-four years the
Livonian War dragged on, damaging the Russian economy and military but winning it no territory. Ivan's best friend and closest advisor, Prince
Andrei Kurbsky, defected to the Poles, deeply hurting Ivan. As the Oprichnina continued, Ivan became mentally unstable and physically disabled. In one week, he could easily pass from the most depraved orgies to prayers and fasting in a remote northern monastery.
Because he gradually grew unbalanced and violent, the Oprichniks under
Malyuta Skuratov soon got out of hand and became murderous thugs. They murdered nobles and peasants, and conscripted men to fight the war in Livonia. Depopulation and famine ensued. What had been by far the richest area of Russia became the poorest. In a dispute with
Novgorod Republic, Ivan ordered the Oprichniks to murder the inhabitants of this city. Between thirty and forty thousand were killed. Yet the official death toll named 1,500 of
Novgorod big people (nobility) and only mentioned about the same number of
smaller people.
Khan Devlet I Giray of
Crimea repeatedly devastated Moscow region and burnt down Moscow in 1571.
In
1581, Ivan beat his pregnant
daughter-in-law for wearing immodest clothing, causing a
miscarriage. His son, also named Ivan, upon learning of this, engaged in a heated argument with his father which resulted in the son's (accidental) death. This event is depicted in the famous painting by
Ilya Repin,
Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on Friday, November 16, 1581 better known as
Ivan the Terrible killing his son.
Ivan died while playing
chess with
Bogdan Belsky on
March 18 1584, a date which had previously been prophesied for his death. When Ivan's tomb was opened during renovations in the
1960s, his remains were examined and discovered to contain very high amounts of
mercury, indicating a high probability that he was poisoned. Modern suspicion falls on his advisors Belsky and
Boris Godunov (who became tsar in
1598). Three days earlier, Ivan had allegedly attempted to rape Irina, Godunov's sister and Fyodor's wife. Her cries attracted Godunov and Belsky to the noise, whereupon Ivan let Irina go, but Belski and Godunov considered themselves marked for death. The tradition says that they either poisoned or strangled Ivan in fear for their own lives. The mercury found in Ivan's remains may also be related to treatment for
syphilis, which it is speculated that Ivan had. Upon Ivan's death, the ravaged kingdom was left to his unfit and childless son
Feodor.
The
English word
terrible is usually used to translate the
Russian word
grozny in Ivan's nickname, but the modern English usage of terrible, with a pejorative connotation of bad or evil, does not precisely represent the intended meaning. Grozny's meaning is closer to the original usage of terrible—
inspiring fear or terror,
dangerous (as in
Old English in one's danger),
formidable,
threatening, or
awesome. Perhaps a translation closer to the intended sense would be
Ivan the Fearsome. (Compare the city name
Grozny.) The Russian people gave Ivan this nickname after he seized Kazan.
*
Ivan the Terrible - the film by
Sergei Eisenstein.
*
Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future - the film by
Leonid Gaidai*
Troyat, H. Ivan the Terrible, Weidenfeld & Nicholson history, 2001. ISBN 1842124196
*Bobrick, B.
Ivan the Terrible, Canongate Books Ltd, 1990. ISBN 0862412889
*Payne, R. and Romanoff, N.
Ivan the Terrible, Cooper Square Press, 2002. ISBN 0815412290
*De Madariaga, Isabel.
Ivan the Terrible. First Tsar of Russia, 2005. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300097573
Ivan IV, World Book Inc, 2000. World Book Encyclopedia
*
BBC History page - Ivan the Terrible*
"Mad Monarchs" - Ivan IV*
The ancestors tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible (in the Russian languages)
*
British Film Institute - About Eisenstein's films
