| Ivan IV | |
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| Ivan IV, parsuna, 16th-century (National Museum of Denmark) | |
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| Reign | 3 December 1533 – 28 March [O.S. 18 March] 1584 |
| Coronation | 16 January 1547 |
| Predecessor | Vasili III (as Grand Prince of Moscow) |
| Successor | Feodor I |
| Consort | Anastasia Romanovna Maria Temryukovna Marfa Sobakina Anna Koltovskaya Anna Vasilchikova Vasilisa Melentyeva Maria Dolgorukaya Maria Nagaya |
| Issue | |
| Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich Feodor I of Russia Tsarevich Dmitri Ivanovich |
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| Full name | |
| Ivan Vasilyevich | |
| Dynasty | Rurik |
| Father | Vasili III |
| Mother | Elena Glinskaya |
| Born | 25 August 1530 Kolomenskoye, near Moscow |
| Died | 28 March [O.S. 18 March] 1584 (aged 53) Moscow |
| Burial | Kelmisvi Chapel, Moscow |
| Religion | Russian Orthodox |
Ivan IV Vasilyevich (, Ivan Chetvyorty, Vasilyevich; 25 August 1530 – 28 March [O.S. 18 March] 1584),[1] known in English as Ivan the Terrible (, Ivan Grozny; lit. Fearsome), was Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 until his death. His long reign saw the conquest of the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia, transforming Russia into a multiethnic and multiconfessional state spanning almost one billion acres, approximately 4,046,856 km2 (1,562,500 sq mi).[2] Ivan managed countless changes in the progression from a medieval state to an empire and emerging regional power, and became the first ruler to be crowned as Tsar of All Russia.
Historic sources present disparate accounts of Ivan's complex personality: he was described as intelligent and devout, yet given to rages and prone to episodic outbreaks of mental illness. One notable outburst resulted in the death of his groomed and chosen heir Ivan Ivanovich, which led to the passing of the Tsardom to the younger son: the weak and intellectually disabled[3] Feodor I of Russia. Although his name is usually written in English as Ivan the Terrible, its original meaning is closer to 'fearful' or 'severe' and carries connotations of might, power and strictness rather than of horror or cruelty.[4][5][6]
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Ivan was the son of Vasili III and his second wife, Elena Glinskaya. When Ivan was just three years old his father died from a boil and inflammation on his leg which developed into blood poisoning. Ivan was proclaimed the Grand Prince of Moscow at his father's request. At first his mother Elena Glinskaya acted as a regent, but she died of what many believe to be assassination by poison[7][8] when Ivan was only eight years old. According to his own letters, Ivan and his younger brother Yuri often felt neglected and offended by the mighty boyars from the Shuisky and Belsky families.
Ivan was crowned tsar with Monomakh's Cap at the Cathedral of the Dormition at age 16 on 16 January 1547. Despite calamities triggered by the Great Fire of 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),[9] established the Zemsky Sobor or assembly of the land, a public, consensus-building assembly, 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. He introduced local self-government to rural regions, mainly in the northeast of Russia, populated by the state peasantry.
By tsar's order, in 1553 Moscow Print Yard was established and the first printing press was introduced to Russia. 1550's and 1560's saw printing of several religious books in Russian langage. New technology provoked disconsent with traditional scribes, which led Print Yard to be arsoned, and the first Russian printers Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets had to flee from Moscow to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Nevertheless, printing of the books resumed from 1568 onwards, with Timofey Nevezha and his son Andronik now heading the Print Yard.
In 1547 Hans Schlitte, the agent of Ivan, recruited craftsmen in Germany for work in Russia. However all these craftsmen were arrested in Lübeck at the request of Poland and Livonia. The German merchant companies ignored the new port built by Ivan on the river Narva in 1550 and continued to deliver goods 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. In 1552 his army defeated the Kazan Khanate, whose armies had repeatedly devastated the northeast of Russia,[10] and annexed its territory. In 1556 he annexed the Astrakhan Khanate and destroyed the largest slave market on the river Volga. These conquests complicated the migration of the aggressive nomadic hordes from Asia to Europe through Volga and transformed Russia into a multinational and multiconfessional state.
Ivan IV corresponded with Orthodox leaders overseas as well. In response to a letter of Patriarch Joachim of Alexandria asking the Tsar for financial assistance for the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, which had suffered from the Turks, Ivan IV sent in 1558 a delegation to Egypt led by archdeacon Gennady, who, however, died in Constantinople before he could reach Egypt. From then on the embassy was headed by Smolensk merchant Vasily Poznyakov. Poznyakov's delegation visited Alexandria, Cairo and Sinai, brought the patriarch a fur coat and an icon sent by the Tsar and left an interesting account of its 2.5 years of travels.[11]
Ivan 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 he had the architect, Postnik Yakovlev, blinded so that he could never design anything as beautiful again. In reality, Postnik Yakovlev went on to design more churches for Ivan and Kazan's Kremlin walls in the early 1560s, as well as the chapel over St. Basil's grave that was added to St. Basil's Cathedral in 1588, several years after Ivan's death. Although more than one architect was associated with this name and constructions, it is believed that the principal architect is one and the same person.[12][13][14]
Other events of this period include the introduction of the first laws restricting the mobility of the peasants, which would eventually lead to serfdom, and change in Ivan's personality, traditionally linked to his near-fatal illness in 1553 and the death of his first wife, Anastasia Romanovna, in 1560. 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 for him to survive. This angered Ivan and added to his distrust of the boyars. There followed brutal reprisals and assassinations, including those of Metropolitan Philip and Prince Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky.
The 1565 formation of the Oprichnina was also significant. The Oprichnina was the section of Russia (mainly the Northeast) directly ruled by Ivan and policed by his personal servicemen, the Oprichniki. This system of Oprichnina has been viewed by historians as a tool against the powerful hereditary nobility of Russia (boyars) who opposed the absolutist drive of the Tsar, while some have also interpreted it as a sign of the paranoia and mental deterioration of the Tsar.
The latter half of Ivan's reign was less successful. Although Khan Devlet I Giray of Crimea repeatedly devastated the Moscow region and even set Moscow on fire in 1571, the Tsar supported Yermak's conquest of Tatar Siberia, adopting a policy of empire-building, which led him to launch an ultimately unsuccessful war of seaward expansion to the west and finding himself fighting the Swedes, Lithuanians, Poles and the Livonian Teutonic Knights.
For 24 years the Livonian War dragged on, damaging the Russian economy and military and failing to gain any territory for Russia. In the 1560s Russia was devastated by a combination of drought and famine, Polish-Lithuanian raids, Tatar invasions and the sea-trading blockade carried out by the Swedes, Poles and the Hanseatic League. The price of grain increased by a factor of ten. Epidemics of plague killed 10,000 people in Novgorod. In 1570 the plague killed 600–1000 in Moscow daily.[15] One of Ivan's advisors, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, defected to the Lithuanians, took command of the Lithuanian troops and devastated the Russian region of Velikiye Luki. This treachery deeply hurt Ivan. As the Oprichnina continued, Ivan's mental and physical conditions deteriorated. In one week he could go from indulging in the most depraved orgies to anguished prayers and fasting in a remote northern monastery.
Because he gradually grew unbalanced and violent, the Oprichniki under Malyuta Skuratov soon got out of hand and turned into a band of murderous thugs. They massacred 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 the wealthy city of Novgorod, Ivan ordered the Oprichniki to murder inhabitants of the city, and it was never to regain its former prosperity. His followers burned and pillaged Novgorod and the surrounding villages.[16] As many as 60,000 may have been killed during the infamous Massacre of Novgorod in 1570;[16][17][18] many others were deported elsewhere.[18] Yet the official death toll named 1,500 of Novgorod's big people (nobility) and mentioned only about the same number of smaller people. Many modern researchers estimate the number of victims to range from 2000–3000 (after the famine and epidemics of 1560s the population of Novgorod most likely didn't exceed 10,000–20,000).[19]
Having rejected peace proposals from his enemies, Ivan IV found himself in a difficult position by 1579, when Crimean Khanate devastated Muscovite territories and even burned down Moscow (see Russo-Crimean Wars). The displaced refugees fleeing the war compounded the effects of the simultaneous drought, and exacerbated war engendered epidemics, causing much loss of life.
Altogether the prolonged war had nearly destroyed the economy, Oprichnina had thoroughly disrupted the government, while The Grand Principality of Lithuania had united with The Kingdom of Poland and acquired an energetic leader, Stefan Batory, who was supported by Russia's southern enemy, the Ottoman Empire (1576). Ivan's realm was now being squeezed by two of the great powers of the day.
After negotiations with Ivan failed, Batory launched a series of offensives against Muscovy in the campaign seasons of 1579–1581, trying to cut The Kingdom of Livonia from Muscovite territories. During his first offensive in 1579, he retook Polotsk with 22,000 men. During the second, in 1580, he took Velikie Luki with a 29,000-strong force. Finally, he began the Siege of Pskov in 1581 with a 100,000-strong army. Narva in Estonia was reconquered by Sweden in 1581.
Unlike Sweden and Poland, Frederick II had trouble continuing the fight against Muscovy. He came to an agreement with John III in 1580, giving him the titles in Livonia. That war would last from 1577 to 1582. Muscovy recognized Polish-Lithuanian control of Ducatus Ultradunensis only in 1582. After Magnus von Lyffland died in 1583, Poland invaded his territories in The Duchy of Courland and Frederick II decided to sell his rights of inheritance. Except for the island of Saaremaa, Denmark was out of the Baltic by 1585. As of 1598, Polish Livonia was divided into:
In 1581 Ivan beat his pregnant daughter-in-law for wearing immodest clothing, and this may have caused a miscarriage. His son, also named Ivan, upon learning of this, engaged in a heated argument with his father, resulting in Ivan striking his son in the head with his pointed staff, causing his son's death. This event is depicted in the famous painting by Ilya Repin, Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on Friday, 16 November 1581 better known as Ivan the Terrible killing his son.
In the centuries following Ivan's death, historians developed different theories to better understand his reign, but independent of the perspective through which one chooses to approach this, it cannot be denied that Ivan the Terrible changed Russian history and continues to live on in popular imagination. His political legacy completely altered the Russian governmental structure; his economic policies ultimately contributed to the end of the Rurik Dynasty, and his social legacy lives on in unexpected places.
Arguably Ivan's most important legacy can be found in the political changes he enacted in Russia. In the words of historian Alexander Yanov, "Ivan the Terrible and the origins of the modern Russian political structure [are]... indissolubly connected." [20] At the core of this political revolution stands the newly adopted title of Tsar. By being crowned Tsar, Ivan was sending a message to the world and to Russia: he was now the one and only supreme ruler, and his will was not to be questioned. "The new title symbolized an assumption of powers equivalent and parallel to those held by former Byzantine caesar and the Tatar khan, both known in Russian sources as Tsar. The political effect was to elevate Ivan's position."[21] The new title not only secured the throne, but it also granted Ivan a new dimension of power, one intimately tied to religion. He was now a "divine" leader appointed to enact God's will, "church texts described Old Testament kings as 'Tsars' and Christ as the Heavenly Tsar."[22] The newly appointed title was then passed on from generation to generation, "succeeding Muscovite rulers...benefited from the divine nature of the power of the Russian monarch...crystallized during Ivan's reign."[23]
A title alone may hold symbolic power, but Ivan's political revolution went further, in the process significantly altering Russia's political structure. The creation of the Oprichnina marked something completely new, a break from the past that served to diminish the power of the boyars and create a more centralized government. "...the revolution of Tsar Ivan was an attempt to transform an absolutist political structure into a despotism... the Oprichnina proved to be not only the starting point, but also the nucleus of autocracy which determined... the entire subsequent historical process in Russia."[24] Ivan created a way to bypass the Mestnichestvo system and elevate the men among the gentry to positions of power, thus suppressing the aristocracy that failed to support him.[25] Part of this revolution included altering the structure of local governments to include, "a combination of centrally appointed and locally elected officials. Despite later modifications, this form of local administration proved to be functional and durable." [23] Ivan successfully cemented autocracy and a centralized government in Russia, in the process also establishing "a centralized apparatus of political control in the form of his own guard."[26] The idea of a guard as a means of political control became so ingrained in Russian history that it can be traced to Peter the Great, Vladimir Lenin, who "... [provided] Russian autocracy with its Communist incarnation", and Joseph Stalin, who "[placed] the political police over the party." Yanov concludes that "Czar Ivan's monstrous invention [i.e. the guard] has thus dominated the entire course of Russian history."[27]
By expanding into Poland (although a failed campaign), the Caspian and Siberia, Ivan established a sphere of influence that lasted until the 20th century. Ivan's conquests also ignited a conflict with Turkey that would lead to successive wars. "Russia's victories confined the Turkish conquests to the Balkans and the Black sea region, although Turkish expansionism continued to cast a shadow over the whole of Eastern Europe."[28]
The acquisition of new territory brought about another of Ivan's lasting legacies: a relationship with Europe, especially through trade. "In 1555, Ivan IV granted the English the privilege of trading throughout his reign without paying the standard customs fees."[29] Although the contact between Russia and Europe remained small at this time, it would later grow, facilitating the permeation of European ideals across the border. Peter the Great would later push Russia to become a European power, and Catherine II would manipulate that power to make Russia a leader within the region.
Contrary to his political legacy, Ivan IV's economic legacy was disastrous and became one of the factors that led to the decline of the Rurik Dynasty and the Time of Troubles. Ivan inherited a government in debt, and in an effort to raise more revenue instituted a series of taxes. "It was the military campaigns themselves... that were responsible for the increasing government expenses."[30] Under the new political system, the Oprichniki were given large estates, but unlike the previous landlords, could not be held accountable for their actions. These men, "took virtually all the peasants possessed, forcing them to pay 'in one year as much as [they] used to pay in ten.'"[31] This degree of oppression resulted in increasing cases of peasants fleeing which in turn led to a drop in the overall production. To make matters worse, successive wars drained the country both of men and resources. "Muscovy from its core, where its centralized political structures depended upon a dying dynasty, to its frontiers, where its villages stood depopulated and its fields lay fallow, was on the brink of ruin."[32]
Another interesting and unexpected aspect of Ivan's social legacy emerged within Communist Russia. In an effort to revive Russia nationalist pride, Ivan the Terrible's image became closely associated with Joseph Stalin.[33]
Ivan's political revolution not only consolidated the position of Tsar, but also created a centralized government structure with ramifications extending to local government. "The assumption and active propaganda of the title of Czar, transgressions and sudden changes in policy during the Oprichnina contributed to the image of the Muscovite prince as a ruler accountable only to God."[23] Subsequent Russian rulers inherited a system put in place by Ivan.
Ivan died from a stroke while playing chess with Bogdan Belsky[34] on 28 March [O.S. 18 March] 1584.[34] Upon Ivan's death, the ravaged kingdom was left to his unfit and childless son Feodor. This period of time was known as "Times of Trouble".
Ivan was a patron of the arts and himself a poet and composer of considerable talent. His Orthodox liturgical hymn, "Stichiron No. 1 in Honor of St. Peter", and fragments of his letters were put into music by Soviet composer Rodion Shchedrin. The recording was released in 1988, marking the millennium of Christianity in Russia, and was the first Soviet-produced CD.[35][36][37]
Today, there exists a controversial movement in Russia campaigning in favor of granting sainthood to Ivan IV.[38] The Russian Orthodox Church has stated its opposition to the idea.[39]
D.S. Mirsky called Ivan "a pamphleteer of genius". The epistles attributed to him are the masterpieces of old Russian (perhaps all Russian) political journalism. They may be too full of texts from the Scriptures and the Fathers, and their Church Slavonic is not always correct. But they are full of cruel irony, expressed in pointedly forcible terms.
The shameless bully and the great polemicist are seen together in a flash when he taunts the runaway prince Kurbsky with the question: "If you are so sure of your righteousness, why did you run away and not prefer martyrdom at my hands?" Such strokes were well calculated to drive his correspondent into a rage. "The part of the cruel tyrant elaborately upbraiding an escaped victim while he continues torturing those in his reach may be detestable, but Ivan plays it with truly Shakespearian breadth of imagination".[40] These letters are often the only existing source on Ivan's personality and provide crucial information on his reign, but Harvard professor Edward Keenan has argued that these letters are 17th century forgeries. This contention, however, has not been widely accepted, and other scholars, such as John Fennell and Ruslan Skrynnikov continued to argue for their authenticity. Recent archival discoveries of 16th century copies of the letters strengthen the argument for their authenticity.[41][42]
Besides his letters to Kurbsky he wrote other satirical invectives to men in his power. The best is his letter to the abbot of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, where he pours out all the poison of his grim irony on the unascetic life of the boyars, shorn monks, and those exiled by his order. His picture of their luxurious life in the citadel of ascetism is a masterpiece of trenchant sarcasm.
The English word terrible is usually used to translate the Russian word groznyi 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. The meaning of groznyi is closer to the original usage of terrible—inspiring fear or terror, dangerous (as in Old English in one's danger), formidable or threatening. Perhaps a translation closer to the intended sense would be Ivan the Fearsome, or Ivan the Formidable.
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Historians faced great difficulties when trying to gather information about Ivan IV in his early years because "Early Soviet historiography, especially in the 1920s, paid little attention to Ivan IV as a statesman." This, however, was not surprising because "Marxist intellectual tradition attached greater significance to socio-economic forces than to political history and the role of individuals." By the second half of the 1930s, the method used by Soviet historians changed. They placed a greater emphasis on the individual and history became more "comprehensible and accessible". The way was clear for an emphasis on 'great men', such as Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, who made a major contribution to the strengthening and expansion of the Russian state. From this time on, the Soviet Union's focus on great leaders would be greatly exaggerated, leading historians to gather more and more information on the great Ivan the Terrible.[43]
| Regnal titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Vasili III |
Grand Prince of Moscow 1533–1547 |
Became Tsar |
| New title Become Tsar
|
Tsar of Russia 1547–1584 |
Succeeded by Feodor I |
| Russian royalty | ||
| Preceded by Yury |
Heir to the Russian Throne 1530–1533 |
Succeeded by Yuri Vasilyevich |