Ivan Vasilyevich, the penultimate of the Rurik dynasty and the first king of his kind, was an extraordinary personality. Character traits that were opposite to human nature coexisted in him in an amazing way. Early deaths father and mother, the lawlessness of boyar clans in the struggle for power and other important reasons left their indelible mark on the formation of the person of the future Tsar Ivan IV, later nicknamed the Terrible.
Birth of an heir
Twenty whole years of Vasily III’s married life with Solomonia Saburova were in vain. The long-term marriage did not lead to the birth of the coveted heir to the throne. In this situation, power would have passed to either Yuri Ivanovich Dmitrovsky or Andrei Ivanovich Staritsky - the brothers of the Grand Duke. Vasily III turned to whomever he turned to: doctors, healers, healers... All in vain. Then the Grand Duke decided to listen to the advice of Metropolitan Daniel, who recommended divorcing Solomonia Saburova. The current situation required this. The twenty-year marriage was dissolved in the fall of 1525, and the ex-wife was forcibly tonsured and sent to a monastery. The new life partner of the Grand Duke was Elena Glinskaya, the niece of the prince, a native of Lithuania. The wedding took place in January 1526. The choice of a new wife was not accidental. Having heeded the advice of Metropolitan Daniel, Vasily III yearned for more than just an heir. In the future, the Grand Duke could lay claim to the Lithuanian throne, as well as establish ties with Western European powers. We had to wait another 4 years for the desired son. In August 1530, the long-awaited boy was born, who was given the name Ivan. By that time, Vasily III was 51 years old. A couple of years later, their second son, Yuri, was born. Unfortunately, my father's joy lasted 3 years. In December 1533, the Grand Duke died.
Childhood and regency period
The Grand Duke's title passed to 3-year-old Ivan Vasilyevich. Naturally, he could not rule on his own. Nominally, Elena Glinskaya had power, and the country was officially led by her uncle Mikhail. But the latter was then displaced (died of starvation in prison) by the princess’s favorite Ivan Fedorovich Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky. First of all, the mother of the young Grand Duke decided to rid her son of his competitors, who were his own uncles, the brothers of Vasily III. Yuri Ivanovich Dmitrovsky was sent to prison in December 1533, where he soon died. Andrei Ivanovich Staritsky organized a riot in 1537, which was suppressed, and its organizer was arrested, and soon died of starvation in prison. Having gotten rid of the main contenders for power, Elena Glinskaya and her supporters began reform activities. Cities and fortresses were rebuilt. In 1538, a monetary reform was carried out, effectively bringing the country to a unified monetary system. This transformation had many opponents among the boyar stratum. In 1538, Princess Elena Glinskaya died. Some sources claim that she was poisoned by the Shuiskys. Soon her favorite Ivan Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky was captured and imprisoned (he died of starvation). Other opponents of the coup were also eliminated. A fierce struggle began between the Shuiskys, Belskys and Glinskys for the right of guardianship. And the young Grand Duke witnessed lawlessness, intrigue, humiliation, violence and lies for many years. All this was deeply imprinted in the memory of the inquisitive orphan and his younger brother. The Shuiskys were especially distinguished, who, after the death of Elena Glinskaya, actually usurped power and did not deny themselves any pleasures, wasting the state treasury and imposing exorbitant taxes on the people. The growing Grand Duke became more and more imbued with hatred of the boyar stratum. At the same time, it was then that cruelty began to appear in him for the first time. At the age of 13, Ivan Vasilyevich decided to show the arrogant guardians their place. Grand Duke ordered the hounds to kill the eldest of the Shuiskys, Andrei. After this incident, some boyars began to be afraid of the growing ruler. However, his uncles Glinsky took advantage of the situation. They began to get rid of competitors through exile.
The first Tsar of All Rus'
Observing all the arbitrariness that was happening before his eyes, the growing Grand Duke became increasingly convinced that unlimited absolute monarchy was the ideal form of government in the fight against boyar lawlessness. One of the supporters of this idea was Metropolitan Macarius. It was to him that the young prince turned with a double request. At the age of 16, he felt independent enough to lead the country alone and asked the Metropolitan to crown him Tsar. In addition, Ivan Vasilyevich also intended to get married as quickly as possible. On January 16, 1547, the official crowning ceremony took place in the Assumption Cathedral. The Grand Duke became the first king of the Rurik family. In addition, in terms of title, he now stood on a par with other European monarchs. On February 3, Ivan Vasilyevich married Anastasia Romanova Zakharyina-Yuryeva. This woman managed to bring harmony into the life of her husband, significantly taming his violent temper. None of the following wives had as much influence on the king as his first life partner. The beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible (well, not quite the Terrible yet) would have been ideal if not for the events that happened in the summer of that year.
The first tests for the king
The beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, in short, turned out to be blurred by the summer of 1547. On June 21, a fire of unprecedented proportions began in Moscow, lasting about 10 hours and engulfing most of the city. Most of the buildings burned down, and many people died. But the disasters did not end there. The enraged people blamed the Glinskys, close relatives of the tsar, for all the disasters. On June 26, Moscow residents began an open protest. The Tsar's uncle Yuri Glinsky became a victim of the maddened crowd. The rest of the Glinskys hastily left the city. On June 29, the rebels went to the village of Vorobyovo in the Moscow region, where the sovereign was, intending to find out from him the whereabouts of his relatives. It took the newly-crowned monarch great efforts to persuade the people to calm down and disperse. After the last spark of the uprising died out, the young king ordered the organizers of the uprising to be found and executed. Thus, 1547, the year of the beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, further convinced the young tsar of the need for reforms.
Elected Rada
It was no coincidence that the reforms of the Elected Rada and the beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible started in the same time period. The young tsar was far from the only person who believed that the country needed transformation. One of his first supporters was Metropolitan Macarius. By 1549, the number of like-minded people included the royal confessor Sylvester, the not-so-noble nobleman A. Adashev, the clerk I. Viskovaty, the clerk I. Peresvetov, the princes D. I. Kurlyatev, A. M. Kurbsky, N. I. Odoevsky, M. . I. Vorotynsky and other lesser-known personalities. Later, the prince called this circle the Elected Rada, which was a non-state advisory and executive body.
Domestic policy and reforms
The main reason for the reforms were... the boyars, or rather the elimination of the consequences of their management of the country in previous years. committed by them in lately lawlessness, an almost empty treasury, complete turmoil in the cities - this is the result of the short-lived boyar leadership of the state.
Beginning in February 1549, the reforms of the beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible began with the convening of Zemsky Sobors in the country - this is an estate-representative council that replaced the People's Assembly. The first such council was assembled personally by the king on February 27. Then Ivan IV ordered the complete abolition of rule by governors in some regions of the country. This process was finally completed in 1555-56. by the sovereign's decree on "feeding", which was replaced by local self-government. In more developed agricultural regions, provincial elders were appointed.
At the beginning of 1550 the importance and number of orders (of the ministry of that time) increased. The petition order was responsible for receiving complaints and requests to the king and considering them. A. Adashev was appointed head of this inspection body. was in charge of agriculture and land distribution. The robber sought out and punished criminals and defectors. IN military structure There have also been significant changes. The striking force of the tsarist army becomes the cavalry, assembled from upper strata society. The recruitment of the noble cavalry militia and the appointment of a commander (voivode) was carried out by the Rank Order, which at first was led by I. Vyrodkov. Localism was abolished when appointing a chief. worked to create a streltsy army, which received salaries directly from the royal treasury, like the gunners (artillerymen). The people's militia also survived. And finally, the Grand Parish dealt with financial issues.
To legitimize the ongoing reforms and decrees of the tsar, it was required new collection laws. It became the new Code of Laws of 1550. It differed from the previous one (1497) in the orderliness of the articles, more stringent measures for violations for both peasants and landowners, as well as for robbery and corruption. Also in this collection of laws there were new chapters concerning the centralization of power: careful monitoring of the regions, the introduction of a general state tax and much more.
In 1551, with the direct participation of the Tsar and the Metropolitan, the Stoglavy Council of the Church was convened, which positively assessed the new Code of Law and the reforms carried out by Ivan IV.
Foreign policy
During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, foreign policy set itself 3 goals:
- Capture of the khanates formed after the collapse of the Golden Horde (primarily Kazan and Astrakhan).
- Provisions for the country of origin Baltic Sea.
- Ensuring security from attacks from the south by the Crimean Khanate.
It was decided to begin completing the assigned tasks immediately. Kazan was captured on October 1, 1552 on the 3rd attempt. Astrakhan was taken in 1556. Chuvashia and almost all of Bashkiria joined Russia without a fight, and the Nogai Horde recognized its dependence on the Russian Tsar. The Volga trade route came into use by Russia. Things were more complicated with the Siberian Khanate. Khan Ediger in the mid-1550s recognized dependence on Ivan IV, but Kuchum Khan, who replaced him in 1563, refused to submit. The Stroganov merchants, who received the go-ahead from the tsar, equipped the Cossacks, led by Ermak, on a campaign in 1581. In 1582, the capital of the Khanate fell. However, due to strong resistance, it was not possible to completely occupy the Khanate, and in 1585 Ermak died in battle. The final annexation of the Siberian Khanate occurred in 1598, after
IN westward things didn't work out, although everything started well. The Livonian Order stood on the way to the cherished dream of Ivan IV - access to the Baltic Sea. Poland, the Principality of Lithuania, Sweden and Denmark took their side. In 1558, the Livonian War began, which lasted 25 years. Until 1560, military operations took place in favor of the Russian army. The Livonian Order collapsed, the army, having captured a number of cities, approached Riga and Revel (Tallinn). Failures began after the order's allies entered the war. Under the Union of Lublin, Poland and Lithuania united to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Sweden captured Narva and moved to Pskov. The Danes also joined the Swedes. The war dragged on for years. The attacks on Pskov were repulsed. The army was exhausted, the treasury was also empty. I had to accept defeat. The Yam-Zapolsky Peace Treaty was concluded with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. I had to give up Livonia. The Treaty of Plus was concluded with the Swedes in 1583. Russia gave up all its conquests in the Baltic. I had to give up my dream of access to the sea.
As for the southern neighbor - the Crimean Khanate, here in the late 1550s. The Zasechnaya Line was built - a protective complex of fortresses and obstacles.
The end of the Chosen Rada
The young tsar's relations with his supporters from the Elected Rada began to deteriorate already in 1553, when Ivan IV suddenly became seriously ill. All close associates and relatives were gathered around the sovereign. They began to think about a successor. The Tsar demanded to swear allegiance to his son Dmitry Ivanovich (he died in an accident a year later). However, the nobility and comrades of Ivan IV in the Elected Rada considered it wrong to kiss the cross infant, preferring Tsar Vladimir Staritsky’s cousin to the baby. Also, those close to the sovereign did not get along with the Zakharyins, relatives of Tsarina Anastasia Romanova. Soon the king recovered. Trust in those close to him completely disappeared. Ivan IV began to lean more and more towards an absolute monarchy. Reform activities were also curtailed, ending in 1559. In 1560 the queen died. The king took the death of his beloved seriously. He had suspicions that his wife had been poisoned. The fate of those close to him was predetermined. Sylvester was sent into exile in a monastery in 1560. A. Adashev and his brother were sent to the war in Livonia, but then were taken into custody. In prison he died of fever. A. Kurbsky, realizing that his turn would come, fled to the Principality of Lithuania in 1565, where he subsequently corresponded with the tsar for a long time. The remaining members of the Rada were either exiled or executed. And the sovereign’s cousin was executed along with his family in 1569. The era of Ivan the Terrible has begun.
Oprichnina
At the beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, only 2 reasons restrained his fits of madness and rage: a loving wife and faithful like-minded people on the issue of reforms. Having lost his faithful life partner and being disappointed in his subjects, the king lost control of himself, became unpredictable, and felt betrayal everywhere. The Emperor no longer needed advisers; he needed faithful dogs to carry out his orders and the slightest whims. Such for him were the brothers Alexey and Fyodor Basmanov, Afanasy Vyazemsky, Vasily Gryaznoy, Malyuta Skuratov and others.
At the beginning of 1565, the tsar headed from the village of Kolomenskoye in the Moscow region, to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. From here he sent 2 letters to the capital. The content of the first message stated that Ivan the Terrible, due to the betrayal of the boyars, was renouncing power and insisted on transferring to him a certain area (oprichnina) for governance. The second message was intended for citizens of Moscow. In it, the king said that he did not hold a grudge against the people and was ready to return if asked. His expectations were justified. Ivan IV returned to the capital, but dictating own terms management of the oprichnina - a number of strategically important and wealthy cities in Russia, where he appointed nobles loyal to him. An oprichnina army was also created. In appearance they resembled monks. Dog heads and brooms were attached to the saddle. Less developed territories went to the boyars and were called zemshchina. In fact, the country was divided into 2 parts that were at war with each other. Oprichnina came - 7 years of terror, violence, numerous executions and destruction. Not only the boyars, but also the common people, and sometimes even the guardsmen who defied the will of the tsar became victims. In the fall of 1569, Ivan the Terrible led a 15,000-strong army against rebellious Novgorod. For more than a month, the tsar’s faithful dogs killed and robbed Novgorodians and destroyed villages on their way. In the end, Novgorod was burned.
The oprichnina eradicated political disunity, but noticeably shook the already fragile economy of the state. In addition, hunger and disease were rapidly spreading throughout the country. The Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey took advantage of the weakness of his northern neighbor, who in 1571 invaded Russia, reached the capital and carried out a pogrom there. The guardsmen could not do anything to stop them. Seeing the consequences of the decision, the tsar liquidated the oprichnina in 1572. Even the slightest mention of it was punishable by death. The country became one again. But this did not mean that the king no longer gave vent to his madness. Nobody canceled the execution. And because of the escape of the peasants, Ivan the Terrible issued a decree on serfdom, putting the former in a completely dependent position on their owners.
Personal life of the king
As mentioned above, Ivan the Terrible was an unpredictable person. He could execute a couple of dozen people, then go to church to repent, and then return to his bloody craft. During the beginning of the reign of Ivan 4 the Terrible, only his first wife managed to restrain his outbursts of anger and madness. One of these attacks cost his life to a loved one. In November 1581, in a rage, he accidentally struck the heir to the throne, Ivan Ivanovich, in the temple with his staff. The prince died 4 days later. The tsar’s grief and despair knew no bounds, because his youngest son Fedor did not have the character of a ruler (according to other sources, he was weak-minded). Ivan the Terrible was married 7 times, although the legality of some of the marriages is questioned. There were no children from his second marriage with the Kabardian princess, so the tsar married for the third time - to Marfa Sobakina. However, the new wife died less than a month later. The fourth marriage, with Anna Koltovskaya, in 1572, also did not last long. A year later, the sovereign's wife was tonsured and sent to a monastery. The fifth queen, Anna Vasilchikova (1575), died 4 years later, and there is little information about the sixth, Vasilisa Melentyeva. Only the seventh wife, Maria Nagaya (1580), 2 years later gave birth to a boy to the Tsar, who, like the very first child, was named Dmitry. However, as with his namesake, the boy died in an accident. This happened in Uglich in 1591.
Illness and death of the king
Anthropological studies conducted by Mikhail Gerasimov confirmed that Ivan the Terrible, towards the end of his life, had osteophytes (salt deposits) on his spine, which made the sovereign’s slightest step full of hellish pain. A year before his death, it got to the point that he could not move independently. In 1584, very shortly before his death, it turned out that he was also undergoing a process of internal decomposition, and a stench emanated from him. Some historians believe that Boris Godunov and Bogdan Belyevoy, close associates of Ivan IV, mixed a poisonous substance into the king’s medicine. In addition, the body was covered with bleeding calluses. On March 17, 1584, while playing chess, the king suddenly fell. He didn't get up again. Ivan the Terrible died at the age of 53, but due to illness he looked 90. The Tsar of All Rus' passed away.
Results of the reign of Ivan the Terrible
The situation in the state at the beginning and end of the reign of Ivan the Terrible looked completely different. Considering the oddities of the king's character, this is not surprising. He changed his decisions more than once, forgave, then executed, then repented of his sins, and further in a circle. If we talk about the pros and cons of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, then there is a clear advantage in the negative direction. Yes, Ivan IV managed to somewhat expand the borders of the state. But the dangerous and hopeless Livonian War largely predetermined the further decline. The oprichnina finally finished off the country. Even the cessation of executions in 1578 and the tsar’s frequent visits to the church could change little. And finally, the peasantry of Russia achieved the introduction of reserved years (a veto on the transfer of peasants to another landowner on St. George’s Day). The beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, in short, turned out to be much better than its end. After all, the reforms carried out were producing results. Only certain reasons forced him to erase all previous successes and take the path of chaos and madness, which after his death some time led to the Time of Troubles. The young years of Ivan the Terrible and the beginning of his reign, until 1560, were the best in the history of Russia in the 16th century. Perhaps, if his reign had been interrupted this year, he would have gone down in history as a reformer king, and not as a tyrant king.
Ivan IV Vasilievich (Grozny) – the first king of the Moscow Rurik dynasty, known for tough measures to strengthen his power and fight against the opposition boyars (oprichnina).
Also known as the “annexer” of the Astrakhan, Kazan and Siberian khanates to Moscow, as a ruler who tried to get for his state access to the Baltic. The article describes the biography of Ivan the Terrible: briefly, concisely and with maximum number historical facts.
Biography and years of reign
The biography of Ivan Vasilyevich (the story of his life and even death) both as a king and as a person (husband and father) is full of various events. All these events had influence on the development of the state, some of them became the root cause of events called in historiography Time of Troubles.
Origin
Ivan IV Vasilyevich descended in a direct line from Moscow Rurikovich(by father, Vasily III) and from the Tatar Khan Mamai (by mother, Elena Glinskaya). He was also close relative of the Byzantine dynasty Paleologov (after grandmother Sophia Paleolog).
He was eldest son in the family(This was Vasily III’s second marriage, the first was childless). Born 08/25/1530 ( years of life: 1530-1584). Named after St. John the Baptist. The parents of Ivan the Terrible were very happy about the birth of their son.
Attention! It was in honor of the birth of his first son that Vasily III ordered the foundation of the famous Church of the Ascension near Moscow.
Early years
Formally, Ivan became king at three years old. In 1533 his father fell ill and died.
Realizing that a young son might have problems with succession to the throne (at that time his uncles, the sons of Ivan III, were alive), Ivan the Terrible’s parents formed a regency council, the so-called Seven Boyars(not to be confused with the Seven Boyars of the Time of Troubles!).
It included the little king's closest relatives and the most influential boyars.
But the power of the council did not last long, soon many of its members either fled abroad, were killed (like Prince Yuri Dmitrovsky), or imprisoned (in 1537 Andrei Staritsky, who tried to seize power in Moscow, was imprisoned there).
Ivan's mother came to power, Elena Glinskaya, which managed to carry out a number of domestic and foreign policy reforms. But in 1538 she died(possibly poisoned; who poisoned is unknown, presumably the Shuiskys), and power was seized boyars Shuisky(Vasily and Ivan).
Ivan Vasilyevich himself recalled the reign of the Shuisky brothers with a shudder. In his memoirs, he wrote that he and his younger brother Yuri were often left hungry and were not given clean clothes. Naturally, education the young king also no one was doing.
Beginning of independent rule
In 1546, the young ruler married Anastasia Romanova. It was at this time that Metropolitan Macarius, faithful to him, suggested royal wedding. Ivan agreed. After marriage and official crowning ( 1547) the need for the Shuisky regency disappeared ( official years board: 1547-1584 ).
Attention! The crowning of the kingdom and the adoption of the official title of Tsar by Ivan IV was officially recognized by many countries: the Patriarchate of Constantinople, England, Spain, Florence, Denmark.
Family. Wives
There are a lot of rumors about Ivan the Terrible and his personal life. The king was officially married 6 times(although this figure is still not considered accurate):
- Anastasia Romanova (wedding date - 1547) - first wife.
- Maria Temryukovna (Cherkasy princess; wedding date - 1561) - second wife.
- Marfa Sobakina (wedding date - 1571) - third wife.
- Anna Koltovskaya (wedding date – 1572) is the fourth wife (a divorce was forcibly filed, the woman was tonsured into a monastery).
- Anna Grigorievna Vasilchikova (wedding date - 1575) - fifth wife (divorced, tonsured a nun).
- Maria Nagaya (wedding date - 1580) - sixth wife (survived her husband).
Historians know the names of at least 3 women, who could have been married to the tsar, but the fact is that in the Moscow state only first four marriages, all subsequent marriages of the king were rejected by the church (each time special permission was taken).
Ivan the Terrible with his wife.
Family. Children
From all the marriages the king had 5 sons and 3 daughters. Moreover, all the female children of Ivan the Terrible died in infancy. Two sons - the eldest Dmitry (from Anastasia) and the youngest Vasily (from Maria) also died before reaching the age of one year. Moreover, the eldest, Dmitry, did not die from illness. He drowned due to the carelessness (and possibly malice) of the nanny.
The second eldest son of Ivan IV - Ivan Ivanovich, according to historians, was killed by his father during a quarrel. He was married 3 times, but left no male heirs.
Two sons, the third Fedor (from Anastasia) and the youngest Dmitry (from Maria Nagoya) survived their father. But Dmitry died(or was killed) in Uglich in 1591, and Fedor was so weak in health that although he succeeded his father, he himself left no male heir.
Important! Thus, the Moscow dynasty was interrupted. This was the main reason for the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 18th century.
Reforms of the Chosen Rada
In 1547, an uprising occurred in Moscow, which led to the fact that the Glinsky boyars, the tsar's closest relatives, were removed from power (many were killed). This uprising not only frightened Ivan IV, but also forced the young ruler to take a fresh look at the state of affairs in the state.
Ivan IV formed a small circle of close associates, called in historiography the Chosen Rada. Its members, under the leadership of the tsar, carried out a number of quite timely reforms in the state aimed at building state institutions.
Reforms of the elected council (table).
| Chronology (years) | Name of reform (action) | Bottom line |
| 1549 | Convening of the first Zemsky Sobor | Establishment of an estate-representative monarchy |
| 1550 | Edition of the Code of Laws | Streamlining the tax system, the beginning of the formalization of serfdom |
| 1550 | Local government reform | Streamlining the local government system |
| 1550 | Army reform | Design of the “chosen thousand” - regular noble army |
| 1551 | Creation of an order system | Registration of a system of centralized government management |
| 1551 | Stoglav Cathedral and Stoglav publication | Regulation of church governance issues, church land ownership, worship |
| 1560-1562 | The appearance of a new state emblem | Strengthening the power of the Moscow ruling house in the eyes of European rulers |
Oprichnina (1565-1572)
The reasons that Ivan IV took the path of tightening the regime of individual power in 1560:
- completion of the reform program of the 50s;
- differences of opinion with some members The chosen one is pleased;
- failures in foreign policy;
- the growth of boyar separatism.
The king was forced to resort to harsh measures immediately after boyar uprising of 1564. In 1565, through blackmail (flight to the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda), Ivan IV forced the Boyar Duma and the clergy to recognize the legitimacy division of the country into(royal possession) and zemshchina.
At the same time they began mass repression against the most prominent boyar families and the confiscation of their lands and property in favor of the oprichniki nobles, who formed the tsar’s personal army.
By the end of 1569, almost the entire boyar opposition in the country (including Metropolitan Philip and the Staritsky house) was completely destroyed.
The end of the oprichnina came only in 1572.
Foreign policy
The entire foreign policy of Ivan the Terrible can be briefly presented in the form of the following table:
| War | Chronology (years) | Target | Results |
| Kazan campaigns | 1547 — 1552 | Expand the borders of the Moscow state, eliminate the constant danger of military invasion to the southeastern lands | Capture of the Kazan Khanate and its complete subordination to the Moscow Tsar (liquidation as a political unit) |
| Astrakhan campaigns | 1554 — 1557 | Control over the Lower Volga region, liquidation of the ally of the Crimean Khanate | Capture of the Astrakhan Khanate, complete control over the Volga route |
| Russo-Swedish War | 1554 — 1557 | Attempt to reach the Baltic Sea | Failures on both sides signing a 10-year truce in 1557 |
| Livonian War (Russian-Polish War 1577-1582) | 1558 — 1583 | Another attempt to expand the borders of the Moscow state to the Baltic Sea | Complete defeat of the Moscow state, deprivation of access to the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland, devastation of the northwest territories |
The foreign policy of the first half of the reign was successful, but with the introduction of the oprichnina, the state no longer had enough strength and resources to conduct full-scale military operations. In the second half of the reign, only the annexation of the Siberian Khanate (1583) by Ermak’s forces can be considered a relative geopolitical success, such as the military campaign against Kazan and Astrakhan was at one time.
Death
The king died in March 1584 after a long illness.
Attention! Some researchers believe that the tsar could have been poisoned by the Belsky boyars close to him or Boris Godunov. For the latter, the death of Ivan IV was especially beneficial, since the weak and weak-willed Fedor, who was his brother-in-law and was under his influence, “sat” on the throne.
Assessment of personality and activity
Cultural activities
It is known for certain that Ivan IV, possessing an explosive character, was one of the most educated people of their time. He was in constant correspondence with all the rulers of Europe, was author of numerous theological works and secular treatises on government.
It is also known that he favored the cause of education in every possible way (for which Ivan the Terrible became famous, except for the oprichnina):
- tried to open the first printing house in Moscow;
- established the Printing Yard;
- kept a whole unique library inherited from his grandmother Sofia Paleolog (currently considered lost).
About Ivan the Terrible responded with respect many of his contemporaries. Naturally, they accused him of excessive cruelty, but at the same time they said that he managed to create a strong state and strengthen your power.
Tsar Ivan the Terrible had an explosive character.
Relations with the Church
Tsar was very pious, but this absolutely did not stop him from giving orders for executions and torturing people with his own hands. His relations with the church hierarchs (with the exception of Metropolitan Macarius) were very difficult.
Who is Ivan the Terrible (briefly)
Foreign policy of Ivan the Terrible. Russia in the XVI-XVII centuries.
Political results of the reign
Almost all historians of the 19th and 20th centuries admit that the greatest number of positive achievements occurred in the first half of the reign. The second half, directly related to the oprichnina, was extremely unsuccessful, although in this way the tsar managed to completely destroy the boyar opposition and create conditions for the promotion of a new, service class, on which the monarch could rely - the nobility.
There are a lot of rumors about Ivan the Terrible. It is they who do not make it possible to give an objective assessment of many of the king’s activities, or to correctly understand his actions or decisions. Perhaps his cruelty is a product of difficult childhood spent without parents, it is also possible that the death of his first wife Anastasia, who, according to some information, was poisoned by the boyars, led to his embitterment.
Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible (1530─1584) - Grand Duke of Moscow, first Tsar of Rus'. During his reign, a number of reforms were carried out in the judicial system, military service, and public administration, and the territory of Rus' almost doubled due to the conquest of the Astrakhan and Kazan Khanates, the annexation of Western Siberia, Bashkiria and the Don Army Region.
Childhood
Ivan Vasilyevich was born on August 25, 1530, this happened in the village of Kolomenskoye (in the Moscow region). His father, Vasily III, belonged to the Rurik dynasty (Moscow branch), his mother, Elena Glinskaya, was from the Lithuanian princes. Vasily III Elena was the second wife; for a long time she could not get pregnant. Many already considered the marriage barren, when the first son, Ivan, was born, named after John the Baptist. In honor of his birth, the Church of the Ascension of the Lord was founded in the village of Kolomenskoye. Later, Ivan the Terrible had a younger brother, Yuri.
According to the rules established in Rus', Ivan was the first heir to the throne: having reached adulthood, he could replace his father, but it so happened that he actually ascended the throne at the age of three.
Vasily III was overtaken by illness, followed by sudden death. Anticipating an imminent death, so that the state would not be left without governance, Vasily formed a boyar commission of 7 people. They were obliged to protect Ivan until he was 15 years old. In addition to his son, the next contenders for the throne were considered the younger brothers of Vasily III - princes Yuri Dmitrovsky and Andrei Staritsky.
The childhood of Ivan the Terrible passed in an endless series palace coups, intrigues were constantly woven around, there was a struggle for power. It all started after the death of Vasily III. Ivan’s father died on December 3, 1533, and after 8 days, through the actions of the boyars, the throne was relieved of such a contender as Yuri Dmitrovsky.
When Ivan was 8 years old, his mother died; there is a version that she was also poisoned by the boyars. The heir's trustees believed that he was still just a child, did not understand anything, and did what they wanted: he and his brother were deprived of clothes and food, kept in poverty, and their friends were killed. This could not but affect the character of the future king. The boy grew up angry, aggressive and cruel, at an early age this manifested itself in bullying of animals, and later he would treat people the same way. He hated the whole world, and his main dream was power - complete and unrestricted by anyone, any moral laws became nothing for him compared to power.
At the same time, Ivan the Terrible spent a lot of time educating himself; he read a huge number of books, which made him one of the most literate rulers of that time.
Beginning of government and reform
In 1545, Ivan turned 15 years old, and he became the rightful ruler of all Rus'. The first days of his reign were marked by a number of reforms and changes. Although the Rada was elected, Rus' entered a period of complete autocracy.
In 1549, the first meeting of the Zemsky Sobor took place, in which all classes were represented, except peasants, and the result was the formation of an estate-representative monarchy.
In 1550, the tsar adopted a new code of law, which outlined the unit for levying taxes and limited the rights of peasants and slaves.
In 1551, the provincial reform began to take effect, which implied the redistribution of powers of volost governors in favor of the nobles. Selected nobles were given lands within 70 km of the Russian capital. At the same time, a foot rifle army with firearms was formed.
In the mid-1550s, Ivan the Terrible banned Jewish merchants from entering Russia.
In the early 1560s, a stable state seal appeared in Russia.
Wars and campaigns
Ivan the Terrible led three Kazan campaigns.
The first took place in the winter from 1547 to 1548. But then the thaw came too early, and a whole siege artillery ended up under the ice on the Volga near Nizhny Novgorod. The army that reached Kazan lasted only a week.
The second campaign lasted from the autumn of 1549 to the spring of 1550; during this period, Russian troops built the Sviyazhsk fortress, which they used as a stronghold during the next campaign.
The third time Ivan the Terrible led an army to Kazan in 1552, 150 thousand people and 150 cannons took part in this campaign. Russian governors captured Khan Ediger-Magmet and took Kazan by storm. This was a brilliant victory for Ivan the Terrible; it strengthened his power in his homeland and meant the greatest success of the Russian state on the world stage.
In 1554 and 1556, two campaigns were made against Astrakhan, as a result of which the Khanate of Astrakhan annexed Russia and Russian influence began to extend all the way to the Caucasus.
Through the waters of the Arctic Ocean and the White Sea, Rus' began to establish trade with England, which Sweden did not like very much, since its economy suffered significantly as a result. The Swedish king Gustav I Vasa tried to create an alliance against Russia, but without receiving support from anyone, he began to act independently.
It all started with the capture of Russian merchants in Swedish Stockholm. And in the early autumn of 1555, the Swedish army besieged the city of Oreshek and attempted to take Novgorod. But the Swedes were defeated by the Russian army, and then Gustav made a proposal for a truce, Ivan the Terrible accepted this proposal.
In 1558, Ivan the Terrible started the Livonian War to capture the Baltic coast. By 1560, the Livonian Order ceased to exist due to the complete defeat of its army.
But at that moment, disagreements began within Russia; many in the Elected Rada were dissatisfied with the actions of the tsar and demanded an end to the Livonian War. But the tsar did not want to listen, he was inspired by success; in 1563, Russian troops took Polotsk, the largest Lithuanian fortress. However, 1564 brought defeat to the Russian army and disappointment to Ivan the Terrible; he tried in vain to find those responsible, and a period of executions and disgrace began.
Oprichnina
In 1565, the beginning of the oprichnina was announced in Russia. The country was divided into two territories, the one that was not included in the oprichnina began to be called the zemshchina.
The guardsmen swore allegiance to the sovereign and promised not to communicate in any way with the zemstvo. They walked in black robes, like monks; those who had horses attached distinctive signs to their saddles - brooms and dog heads.
The tsar released the army of the guardsmen from responsibility; they were allowed to rob and kill those who did not agree with the ruler.
However, in 1571, when the Crimean Khan invaded Russian lands, the guardsmen turned out to be completely incapacitated and could not defend the state. The king spoiled them, and they simply did not go to war.
Then the sovereign decided to abolish the oprichnina, they stopped killing people. He even gave the order to compile lists of those killed so that their souls would be buried in monasteries.
The country's economy collapsed, Russia suffered a major loss in the Livonian War, and the tsar realized that he had made many unforgivable mistakes. He was overcome by fits of rage, and in one of them he accidentally became the killer of his own son, hitting the young man’s temple with the pointed end of his staff.
Having come to his senses, the tsar fell into despair, the eldest son Ivan Ivanovich was the only heir to the throne, the second child Fyodor turned out to be incompetent. Ivan the Terrible even wanted to go to a monastery.
Personal life
Sovereign Ivan Vasilyevich was married 7 times.
Almost immediately after ascending the throne, he informed Metropolitan Macarius that he intended to get married. All over Rus' they began to look for a royal bride and, as was customary at that time, they organized a bridesmaid ceremony. He liked the daughter of the widow Zakharyina, Anastasia, who became his first wife. In February 1547, Ivan and Anastasia were married in the Church of Our Lady.
The marriage lasted 13 years, in 1560 Anastasia Romanovna died. The sovereign was extremely shocked by the death of his wife, and even, as noted by historians, the nature of his reign changed.
During the marriage, 6 children were born. The first girls, Anna and Maria, died in infancy. The third was the son Dmitry, who drowned while the royal family was descending from the plow (the gangplank overturned), and did not even live to see a year. Of the subsequent children, two sons, Ivan and Fyodor, survived; another girl, Evdokia, died at the age of about three years.
A year passed after the death of Anastasia and Ivan the Terrible married a second time. His chosen one was Princess Kuchenei Maria Temryukovna, who belonged to the family of Kabardian and Cherkasy princes. In the first year of marriage, Maria gave birth to a son, Vasily, but the baby died at the age of a month. The king’s interest in his wife quickly cooled; he was more attracted to “prodigal” girls, because marital relations He did not support Maria, and no more children were born in the marriage. Maria died in 1569 at the age of 24.
A couple of years after the death of his second wife, Ivan the Terrible married for the third time the beautiful Marfa Vasilyevna Sobakina, whom he chose at a brideshow. However wedding feast ended with a funeral: two weeks after the wedding, the young wife died. Martha is considered the most famous royal bride, and not only due to her indescribable beauty and quick death. There is a version that the girl was poisoned with a poison of plant origin.
Church canons forbade marrying more than three times; in order for the tsar to marry for the fourth time, a special church council was convened, at which he explained that he did not even have time to touch his third wife, who suddenly died. The Church made a decision to allow Ivan the Terrible subsequent marriages.
A year later, the tsar was legally married to Anna Alekseevna Koltovskaya, they lived for one year, there were no children. By his decision, Ivan the Terrible forcibly doomed his wife to monastic vows and assigned her to the Tikhvin Vvedensky Monastery, where she then lived for almost half a century.
The fifth wife, Maria Dolgorukaya, turned out to be non-virgin, and the sovereign drowned her in a pond immediately after their first wedding night.
The sixth wife, Anna Vasilchikova, was with Ivan the Terrible for just under a year; she also suffered the fate of monastic tonsure. The Tsar allegedly convicted her of treason and sent her to the Intercession Monastery in the city of Suzdal, where she soon died.
The last seventh legal marriage of Ivan Vasilyevich was with Maria Naga in 1580, she gave birth to his son Dmitry. The prince died at the age of 9; according to one version, he stabbed himself to death during an epileptic fit, according to another, he was poisoned. After the death of Ivan the Terrible, he last wife Maria was exiled to Uglich and forcibly tonsured a nun.
Death of a ruler
Over the last six years of his life, the king’s osteophytes progressed; because of them, he practically stopped moving independently; he was carried on a stretcher. After studying the remains of Ivan the Terrible, it was noted that such deposits are mainly observed in very old people, and the ruler was only 54 years old at the time of his death.
According to preserved documents and according to studies of Ivan Vasilyevich’s skull, after 50 years he already looked like a decrepit old man.
In the early spring of 1584, the king was still engaged in state affairs, but by mid-March things worsened, and he at times fell into unconsciousness.
On March 17, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, he went to the bathhouse prepared for him, where he washed himself with great pleasure. There they entertained him with songs, and after the bath he felt much better; they put a wide robe on him over his underwear and sat him down on the bed. He ordered chess to be served, Ivan Vasilyevich adored this game. He began to place the pieces, but at some point he could not put the chess king in its place. Ivan Vasilyevich fell.
Everyone was running around, some started serving vodka, some rose water. They urgently sent for the metropolitan, he soon appeared and performed the rite of tonsure. Doctors tried to rub the almost lifeless body. On March 18, 1584, Ivan the Terrible died in Moscow. He was buried next to the grave of the son he killed in the Archangel Cathedral.
Ivan IV the Terrible |
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1st Tsar of All Rus' |
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Coronation: |
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Predecessor: |
Vasily III |
Successor: |
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Heir: |
Dmitry (1552-1553), Ivan (1554-1582), after Fedor |
Religion: |
Orthodoxy |
Birth: |
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Buried: |
Archangel Cathedral in Moscow |
Dynasty: |
Rurikovich |
Vasily III |
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Elena Glinskaya |
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1) Anastasia Romanovna |
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Sons: Dmitry, Ivan, Fedor, Dmitry Uglitsky daughters: Anna, Maria |
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Origin
Biography
Childhood of the Grand Duke
Royal wedding
Domestic policy
Reforms of Ivan IV
Oprichnina
Reasons for introducing the oprichnina
Establishment of the oprichnina
Foreign policy
Kazan campaigns
Astrakhan campaigns
Wars with the Crimean Khanate
War with Sweden 1554-1557
Livonian War
Causes of the war
Khan on the Moscow throne
Appearance
Family and personal life
Contemporaries
Historiography of the 19th century.
Historiography of the 20th century.
Tsar Ivan and the church
The question of canonization
Cinema
Computer games
Ioann Vasilievich(nickname Ivan (John) the Great, in later historiography Ivan IV the Terrible; August 25, 1530, the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow - March 18, 1584, Moscow) - Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus' (from 1533), Tsar of All Rus' (from 1547) (except 1575-1576, when Simeon Bekbulatovich was nominally king).
Origin
Son of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya. On his father's side he came from the dynasty of Ivan Kalita, on his mother's side - from Mamai, who was considered the ancestor of the Lithuanian princes Glinsky.
Grandmother, Sophia Paleologus - from the family of Byzantine emperors. He traced himself back to the Roman Emperor Augustus, who was allegedly the ancestor of Rurik, according to the genealogical legend invented by that time.
Brief description of the board
Came to power at a very early age. After the uprising in Moscow in 1547, he ruled with the participation of a circle of close associates, which Prince Kurbsky called the “Chosen Rada”. Under him, the convening of Zemsky Councils began, and the Code of Laws of 1550 was compiled. Reforms of the military service, judicial system and public administration were carried out, including the introduction of elements of self-government at the local level (Gubnaya, Zemskaya and other reforms). In 1560, the Elected Rada fell, its main figures fell into disgrace, and the Tsar’s completely independent reign began.
In 1565, after Prince Kurbsky fled to Lithuania, the oprichnina was introduced.
Under Ivan IV, the increase in the territory of Rus' was almost 100%, from 2.8 million km? up to 5.4 million km?, the Kazan (1552) and Astrakhan (1556) khanates were conquered and annexed, thus, by the end of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the area of the Russian State became larger than the rest of Europe.
In 1558-1583 the Livonian War was fought for access to the Baltic Sea. In 1572, as a result of persistent long-term struggle, the invasions of the Crimean Khanate were put to an end (see Russian-Crimean Wars), and the annexation of Siberia began (1581).
Trade relations were established with England (1553) as well as Persia and Central Asia, the first printing house was created in Moscow.
The internal policy of Ivan IV, after a streak of failures during the Livonian War and as a result of the desire of the tsar himself to establish despotic power, acquired a terrorist character and in the second half of his reign was marked by the establishment of the oprichnina, mass executions and murders, the defeat of Novgorod and a number of other cities (Tver, Klin, Torzhok). The oprichnina was accompanied by thousands of victims, and, according to many historians, its results, combined with the results of long and unsuccessful wars, led the state to ruin and a socio-political crisis, as well as to an increased tax burden and the formation of serfdom.
Biography
Childhood of the Grand Duke
According to the law of succession to the throne that existed in Rus', the Grand Duke's throne passed to the eldest son of the monarch, but Ivan (“direct name” by birthday - Titus) was only three years old when his father, Grand Duke Vasily, became seriously ill. The closest contenders to the throne, besides the young Ivan, were Vasily’s younger brothers. Of the six sons of Ivan III, two remained - Prince Andrei of Staritsky and Prince of Dmitrov Yuri.
Anticipating imminent death, Vasily III formed a “seven-strong” boyar commission to govern the state. The guardians were supposed to take care of Ivan until he reached the age of 15. The guardianship council included Prince Andrei Staritsky - the younger brother of Ivan's father, M. L. Glinsky - the uncle of Grand Duchess Elena and advisers: the Shuisky brothers (Vasily and Ivan), M. Yu. Zakharyin, Mikhail Tuchkov, Mikhail Vorontsov. According to the Grand Duke’s plan, this should have preserved the order of government of the country by trusted people and reduced discord in the aristocratic Boyar Duma. The existence of the regency council is not recognized by all historians, so according to the historian A. A. Zimin, Vasily transferred the management of state affairs to the Boyar Duma, and appointed M. L. Glinsky and D. F. Belsky as guardians of the heir.
Vasily III died on December 3, 1533, and after 8 days the boyars got rid of the main contender for the throne - Prince Yuri of Dmitrov.
The Guardian Council ruled the country for less than a year, after which its power began to crumble. In August 1534, a number of changes took place in the ruling circles. On August 3, Prince Semyon Belsky and the experienced military commander Ivan Lyatsky left Serpukhov and went to serve the Lithuanian prince. On August 5, one of the guardians of young Ivan, Mikhail Glinsky, was arrested and died in prison at the same time. Semyon Belsky's brother Ivan and Prince Ivan Vorotynsky and their children were captured for complicity with the defectors. In the same month, another member of the guardianship council, Mikhail Vorontsov, was also arrested. Analyzing the events of August 1534, the historian S. M. Solovyov concludes that “all this was a consequence of the general indignation of the nobles against Elena and her favorite Obolensky.”
Andrei Staritsky's attempt to seize power in 1537 ended in failure: locked in Novgorod from the front and rear, he was forced to surrender and ended his life in prison.
In April 1538, 30-year-old Elena Glinskaya died, and six days later the boyars (princes I.V. Shuisky and V.V. Shuisky with advisers) got rid of Obolensky. Metropolitan Daniil and clerk Fyodor Mischurin, staunch supporters of a centralized state and active figures in the government of Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya, were immediately removed from government. Metropolitan Daniel was sent to the Joseph-Volotsk Monastery, and Mischurin “the boyars executed... not loving the fact that he stood for the Grand Duke of the cause.”
« Many among the boyars had enmity about self-interest and about the tribes, everyone cares about their own, and not about the sovereign's", this is how the chronicler describes the years of boyar rule, in which " Each one desires different and the highest ranks for himself... and self-love, and untruth, and the desire to steal other people's property began to exist in them. And they raised great sedition among themselves, and lust for power for the sake of each other, deceitful... rising up against their friends, and their houses and villages for themselves, and filling their treasures with unrighteous wealth».
In 1545, at the age of 15, Ivan came of age, thus becoming a full-fledged ruler.
Royal wedding
On December 13, 1546, Ivan Vasilyevich for the first time expressed to Macarius his intention to marry (see below for more details), and before that to be crowned king “following the example of his ancestors.”
A number of historians (N.I. Kostomarov, R.G. Skrynnikov, V.V. Kobrin) believe that the initiative to accept the royal title could not have come from a 16-year-old boy. Most likely, Metropolitan Macarius played an important role in this. The consolidation of the king's power was also beneficial to his maternal relatives. V. O. Klyuchevsky adheres to the opposite point of view, emphasizing the sovereign’s early desire for power. In his opinion, “the tsar’s political thoughts were developed in secret from those around him,” and the idea of a wedding came as a complete surprise to the boyars.
The ancient Byzantine kingdom with its divinely crowned emperors has always been an image for Orthodox countries, but it fell under the blows of the infidels. Moscow, in the eyes of Russian Orthodox people, was to become the heir of Constantinople - Constantinople. The triumph of autocracy also personified for Metropolitan Macarius the triumph of the Orthodox faith. This is how the interests of the royal and spiritual authorities intertwined (Philofey). At the beginning of the 16th century, the idea of the divine origin of the sovereign's power became increasingly recognized. Joseph Volotsky was one of the first to talk about this. A different understanding of the power of the sovereign by Archpriest Sylvester later led to the latter’s exile. The idea that the autocrat is obliged to obey God and his regulations in everything runs through the entire “Message to the Tsar.”
On January 16, 1547, a solemn wedding ceremony took place in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, the order of which was drawn up by the Metropolitan himself. The Metropolitan placed on him the signs of royal dignity - the cross of the Life-Giving Tree, the barma and the cap of Monomakh; Ivan Vasilyevich was anointed with myrrh, and then the Metropolitan blessed the Tsar.
Later, in 1558, the Patriarch of Constantinople informed Ivan the Terrible that “his royal name is commemorated in the Cathedral Church on all Sundays, like the names of former Byzantine Kings; this is commanded to be done in all dioceses where there are metropolitans and bishops,” “and about your blessed wedding to the kingdom from St. Metropolitan of All Rus', our brother and colleague, has been accepted by us for the good and worthy of your kingdom.” " Show us, - wrote Joachim, Patriarch of Alexandria, - in these times, a new nourisher and provider for us, a good champion, chosen and instructed by God as the Ktitor of this holy monastery, as was once the divinely crowned and equal-to-the-apostles Constantine... Your memory will remain with us unceasingly, not only in the church rule, but also at meals with the ancient, former formerly Kings».
The royal title allowed him to take a significantly different position in diplomatic relations with Western Europe. The grand ducal title was translated as “prince” or even “grand duke.” The title “king” in the hierarchy stood on a par with the title emperor.
Unconditionally, the title had been granted to Ivan by England since 1554. The question of the title was more difficult in Catholic countries, in which the theory of a single “sacred empire” was firmly held. In 1576, Emperor Maximilian II, wanting to attract Ivan the Terrible to an alliance against Turkey, offered him the throne and the title of “emerging [Eastern] Caesar” in the future. John IV was completely indifferent to the “Greek Tsarship”, but demanded immediate recognition of himself as the Tsar of “All Rus'”, and the Emperor conceded on this important fundamental issue, especially since Maximilian I recognized the royal title for Vasily III, calling the Sovereign “by God’s grace” Tsar and the owner of the All-Russian and Grand Duke." The papal throne turned out to be much more stubborn, which defended the exclusive right of popes to grant royal and other titles to sovereigns, and on the other hand, did not allow the principle of a “single empire” to be violated. In this irreconcilable position, the papal throne found support from the Polish king, who perfectly understood the significance of the claims of the Moscow Sovereign. Sigismund II Augustus presented a note to the papal throne in which he warned that the papacy’s recognition of Ivan IV’s title of “Tsar of All Rus'” would lead to the separation from Poland and Lithuania of lands inhabited by “Rusyns” related to the Muscovites, and would attract Moldovans and Wallachians to his side. For his part, John IV attached particular importance to the recognition of his royal title by the Polish-Lithuanian state, but Poland throughout the 16th century never agreed to his demand. Of the successors of Ivan IV, his imaginary son False Dmitry I used the title of “emperor,” but Sigismund III, who placed him on the Moscow throne, officially called him simply prince, not even “great.”
As a result of the coronation, the tsar's relatives strengthened their position, achieving significant benefits, but after the Moscow uprising of 1547, the Glinsky family lost all their influence, and the young ruler became convinced of the striking discrepancy between his ideas about power and the real state of affairs.
Domestic policy
Reforms of Ivan IV
Since 1549, together with the Elected Rada (A.F. Adashev, Metropolitan Macarius, A.M. Kurbsky, Archpriest Sylvester), Ivan IV carried out a number of reforms aimed at centralizing the state: Zemstvo reform, Guba reform, carried out reforms in the army. In 1550, a new code of law was adopted, which tightened the rules for the transfer of peasants (the size of the elderly was increased). In 1549, the first Zemsky Sobor was convened. In 1555-1556, Ivan IV abolished feeding and adopted the Code of Service.
The code of laws and royal charters granted peasant communities the right of self-government, distribution of taxes and supervision of order.
As A.V. Chernov wrote, the archers were all armed with firearms, which placed them above the infantry of Western states, where some of the infantrymen (pikemen) had only edged weapons. From the author’s point of view, all this indicates that in the formation of infantry, Muscovy, in the person of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, was far ahead of Europe. At the same time, it is known that already at the beginning of the 17th century in Russia they began to form the so-called “Foreign Order” regiments based on the model of the Swedish and Dutch infantry, which impressed Russian military leaders with their effectiveness. The regiments of the “Foreign System” also had at their disposal pikemen (spearmen), who covered the musketeers from the cavalry, as A.V. Chernov himself mentions.
The “verdict on localism” contributed to a significant strengthening of discipline in the army, increasing the authority of governors, especially those of non-noble origin, and improving the combat effectiveness of the Russian army, although it met with great resistance from the clan nobility.
Under Ivan the Terrible, Jewish merchants were prohibited from entering Russia. When in 1550 the Polish king Sigismund Augustus demanded that they be allowed free entry into Russia, John refused the following words: “ There is no way for the Jew to go to his states, we don’t want to see any dashing in our states, but we want God willing that in my states my people will be in silence without any embarrassment. And you, our brother, would not write to us about Zhidekh in advance"because they are Russian people" They took away from Christianity, and they brought poisonous potions to our lands and many dirty tricks were done to our people».
In order to set up a printing house in Moscow, the tsar turned to Christian II with a request to send book printers, and he sent to Moscow in 1552 through Hans Missingheim the Bible in Luther's translation and two Lutheran catechisms, but at the insistence of the Russian hierarchs the king's plan was to distribute the translations in several thousand copies was rejected.
In the early 1560s, Ivan Vasilyevich carried out a landmark reform of state sphragistics. From this moment on, a stable type of state press appeared in Russia. For the first time, a rider appears on the chest of the ancient double-headed eagle - the coat of arms of the princes of Rurik’s house, which was previously depicted separately, and always on the front side of the state seal, while the image of the eagle was placed on the back: “ On the third day of February 1562, the Tsar and Grand Duke changed the old smaller seal that had been under his father, Grand Duke Vasily Ioannovich, and made a new folding seal: a double-headed eagle, and among it a man on a horse, and on the other side the eagle is two-headed, and among it is an eagle" The new seal sealed the treaty with the Kingdom of Denmark dated April 7, 1562.
According to Soviet historians A. A. Zimin and A. L. Khoroshkevich, the reason for Ivan the Terrible’s break with the “Chosen Rada” was that the latter’s program was exhausted. In particular, an “imprudent respite” was given to Livonia, as a result of which several European states were drawn into the war. In addition, the tsar did not agree with the ideas of the leaders of the “Chosen Rada” (especially Adashev) about the priority of the conquest of Crimea in comparison with military operations in the West. Finally, “Adashev showed excessive independence in foreign policy relations with Lithuanian representatives in 1559.” and was eventually dismissed. It should be noted that such opinions about the reasons for Ivan’s break with the “Chosen Rada” are not shared by all historians. Thus, N.I. Kostomarov sees the true background of the conflict in the negative characteristics of the character of Ivan the Terrible, and, on the contrary, evaluates the activities of the “Chosen Rada” very highly. V. B. Kobrin also believes that the personality of the tsar played a decisive role here, but at the same time he links Ivan’s behavior with his commitment to the program of accelerated centralization of the country, opposed to the ideology of gradual changes of the “Chosen Rada”.
Oprichnina
Reasons for introducing the oprichnina
The fall of the Elected Rada is assessed by historians differently. According to V.B. Kobrin, this was a manifestation of the conflict between two programs for the centralization of Russia: through slow structural reforms or rapidly, by force. Historians believe that the choice of the second path was due to the personal character of Ivan the Terrible, who did not want to listen to people who did not agree with his policies. Thus, after 1560, Ivan took the path of tightening power, which led him to repressive measures.
According to R. G. Skrynnikov, the nobility would easily forgive Grozny for the resignation of his advisers Adashev and Sylvester, but she did not want to put up with the attack on the prerogatives of the boyar Duma. The ideologist of the boyars, Kurbsky, protested most strongly against the infringement of the privileges of the nobility and the transfer of management functions into the hands of clerks (deacons): “ The Great Prince has great faith in Russian clerks, and he chooses them neither from the gentry nor from the nobles, but especially from the priests or from the common people, otherwise he makes his nobles hateful».
New discontent of the princes, Skrynnikov believes, was caused by the royal decree of January 15, 1562 on the limitation of their patrimonial rights, which equated them even more than before with local nobility. As a result, in the early 1560s. Among the nobility there is a desire to flee from Tsar Ivan abroad. Thus, I. D. Belsky tried to escape abroad twice and was twice forgiven; Prince V. M. Glinsky and Prince I. V. Sheremetev were caught trying to escape and were forgiven. Tension was growing among those around Grozny: in the winter of 1563, boyars Kolychev, T. Pukhov-Teterin, and M. Sarokhozin defected to the Poles. He was accused of treason and conspiracy with the Poles, but later the governor of Starodub, Prince V. Funikov, was pardoned. For attempting to leave for Lithuania, the Smolensk voivode, Prince Dmitry Kurlyatev, was recalled from Smolensk and exiled to a remote monastery on Lake Ladoga. In April 1564, Andrei Kurbsky fled to Poland in fear of disgrace, as Grozny himself later indicated in his writings, sending from there an accusatory letter to Ivan.
In 1563, the clerk of Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, Savluk Ivanov, who was imprisoned by the prince for something, filed a denunciation of the latter’s “great treasonous deeds,” which immediately found a lively response from Ivan. The clerk claimed, in particular, that Staritsky warned the Polotsk governors about the tsar’s intention to besiege the fortress. The tsar forgave his brother, but deprived him of part of his inheritance, and on August 5, 1563, Princess Efrosinya Staritskaya ordered to be tonsured a nun at the Resurrection Monastery on the river. Sheksne. At the same time, the latter was allowed to keep with her the servants, who received several thousand quarters of land in the vicinity of the monastery, and nearby boyar advisors, and were also allowed to travel to Bogomolye to neighboring monasteries and embroidery. Veselovsky and Khoroshkevich put forward a version of the princess’s voluntary tonsure as a nun.
In 1564, the Russian army was defeated on the river. Ole. There is a version that this was the impetus for the start of the executions of those whom Ivan the Terrible considered to be the culprits of the defeat: cousins were executed - Princes Obolensky, Mikhailo Petrovich Repnin and Yuri Ivanovich Kashin. It is believed that Kashin was executed for refusing to dance at a feast in a buffoon mask, and Dmitry Fedorovich Obolensky-Ovchina - for reproaching Fedor Basmanov for his homosexual relationship with the tsar; the famous governor Nikita Vasilyevich Sheremetev was also executed for a quarrel with Basmanov.
At the beginning of December 1564, according to Shokarev’s research, an armed rebellion was attempted against the king, in which Western forces took part: “ Many noble nobles gathered a considerable party in Lithuania and Poland and wanted to go against their king with arms».
Establishment of the oprichnina
In 1565, Grozny announced the introduction of the Oprichnina in the country. The country was divided into two parts: “To the Sovereign's Grace Oprichnin” and the zemstvo. Oprichnina included mainly northeastern Russian lands, where there were few patrimonial boyars. The center of Oprichnina became the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda - the new residence of Ivan the Terrible, from where on January 3, 1565, messenger Konstantin Polivanov delivered a letter to the clergy, the Boyar Duma and the people about the Tsar’s abdication of the throne. Although Veselovsky believes that Ivan the Terrible did not declare his renunciation of power, the prospect of the departure of the sovereign and the onset of a “sovereign time”, when nobles could again force city merchants and artisans to do everything for them for nothing, could not help but excite Moscow townspeople.
The decree on the introduction of Oprichnina was approved higher authorities spiritual and temporal power - the Consecrated Cathedral and the Boyar Duma. There is also an opinion that this decree was confirmed by the decision of the Zemsky Sobor. However, according to other sources, members of the Council of 1566 sharply protested against the oprichnina, submitting a petition for the abolition of the oprichnina for 300 signatures; all the petitioners were immediately put in prison, but quickly released (as R. G. Skrynnikov believes, thanks to the intervention of Metropolitan Philip); 50 were subjected to trade execution, several had their tongues cut out, and three were beheaded.
The beginning of the formation of the oprichnina army can be considered the same year 1565, when a detachment of 1000 people selected from the “oprichnina” districts was formed. Each oprichnik swore an oath of allegiance to the tsar and pledged not to communicate with the zemstvo. Subsequently, the number of “oprichniks” reached 6,000 people. The Oprichnina Army also included detachments of archers from the oprichnina territories. From that time on, service people began to be divided into two categories: boyar children, from the zemshchina, and boyar children, “courtyard and policemen,” that is, those who received the sovereign’s salary directly from the “royal court.” Consequently, the Oprichnina army should be considered not only the Sovereign’s regiment, but also service people recruited from the oprichnina territories and who served under the command of the oprichnina (“yard”) governors and heads.
Schlichting, Taube and Kruse mention 500-800 people of the “special oprichnina”. These people, if necessary, served as trusted royal agents, carrying out security, intelligence, investigative and punitive functions. The remaining 1,200 guardsmen are divided into four orders, namely: Bed, in charge of maintaining the palace premises and household items of the royal family; Bronny - weapons; Stables, which was in charge of the huge horse farm of the palace and the royal guard; and Nourishing - food.
The chronicler, according to Froyanov, places the blame for the troubles that befell the state on the “Russian land itself, mired in sins, internecine warfare and betrayals”: “ And then, due to the sin of the Russians of the whole earth, there was a great rebellion and hatred in all people, and the internecine strife and misfortune were great, and they provoked the sovereign to anger, and for the great betrayal the tsar committed oprichnina».
As the oprichnina “abbot,” the tsar performed a number of monastic duties. So, at midnight everyone got up for the midnight office, at four in the morning for matins, and at eight the mass began. The Tsar set an example of piety: he himself rang for matins, sang in the choir, prayed fervently, and during the common meal read the Holy Scriptures aloud. In general, worship took about 9 hours a day.
At the same time, there is evidence that orders for executions and torture were often given in the church. Historian G.P. Fedotov believes that “ Without denying the repentant sentiments of the tsar, one cannot help but see that he knew how to combine atrocity with church piety in established everyday forms, desecrating the very idea of the Orthodox kingdom».
With the help of the guardsmen, who were exempt from judicial responsibility, John IV forcibly confiscated the boyar and princely estates, transferring them to the noble guardsmen. The boyars and princes themselves were given estates in other regions of the country, for example, in the Volga region.
For the ordination of Metropolitan Philip, which took place on July 25, 1566, he prepared and signed a letter, according to which Philip promised “not to interfere in the oprichnina and royal life and, upon appointment, because of the oprichnina ... not to leave the metropolis.”
The introduction of the oprichnina was marked by mass repressions: executions, confiscations, disgraces. In 1566, some of the disgraced were returned, but after the Council of 1566 and demands for the abolition of the oprichnina, the terror resumed. Opposite the Kremlin on Neglinnaya (on the site of the current Russian State Library) a stone Oprichnina courtyard was built, where the Tsar moved from the Kremlin.
At the beginning of September 1567, Ivan the Terrible summoned the English envoy Jenkinson and through him conveyed to Queen Elizabeth I a request for asylum in England. This was due to the news of a conspiracy in the zemshchina, which aimed to overthrow him from the throne in favor of Vladimir Andreevich. The basis was the denunciation of Vladimir Andreevich himself; R. G. Skrynnikov recognizes the fundamentally insoluble question as to whether the “Zemshchina”, outraged by the oprichnina, actually formed a conspiracy, or whether it all came down to just careless conversations of an oppositional nature. A series of executions followed in this case, and the equestrian boyar Ivan Fedorov-Chelyadnin, extremely popular among the people for his incorruptibility and judicial integrity, was also exiled to Kolomna (not long before he proved his loyalty to the tsar by handing over a Polish agent sent to him with letters from the king).
Metropolitan Philip's public speech against the tsar is connected with these events: on March 22, 1568, in the Assumption Cathedral, he refused to bless the tsar and demanded that the oprichnina be abolished. In response, the guardsmen beat the metropolitan's servants to death with iron sticks, then a trial was initiated against the metropolitan in a church court. Philip was defrocked and exiled to the Tver Otroch Monastery.
In the summer of the same year, Chelyadnin-Fedorov was accused of allegedly planning to overthrow the tsar with the help of his servants. Fedorov and 30 people recognized as his accomplices were executed. In the Tsar's Synodikon disgraced it is written on this occasion: Finished by: Ivan Petrovich Fedorov; Mikhail Kolychev and his three sons were executed in Moscow; by city - Prince Andrei Katyrev, Prince Fyodor Troekurov, Mikhail Lykov and his nephew". Their estates were destroyed, all the servants were killed: “369 people were finished and the total was finished on July 6th (1568)”. According to R. G. Skrynnikov, “The repressions were generally chaotic. They indiscriminately grabbed Chelyadnin’s friends and acquaintances, surviving supporters of Adashev, relatives of exiled nobles, etc. They beat everyone who dared to protest against the oprichnina.” The overwhelming majority of them were executed without even the appearance of a trial, based on denunciations and slander under torture. The Tsar personally stabbed Fedorov with a knife, after which the guardsmen cut him up with their knives.
In 1569, the tsar committed suicide with his cousin: he was accused of intending to poison the tsar and executed along with his servants; his mother Euphrosyne Staritskaya was drowned with 12 nuns in the Sheksna River.
March on Novgorod and the “search” for Novgorod treason
In December 1569, suspecting the Novgorod nobility of complicity in the “conspiracy” of Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, who had recently been killed on his orders, and at the same time of the intention to surrender to the Polish king, Ivan, accompanied by a large army of guardsmen, set out on a campaign against Novgorod.
Moving towards Novgorod in the fall of 1569, the oprichniki carried out massacres and robberies in Tver, Klin, Torzhok and other cities they encountered. In the Tver Otrochy Monastery in December 1569, Malyuta Skuratov personally strangled Metropolitan Philip, who refused to bless the campaign against Novgorod. In Novgorod, many citizens, including women and children, were executed using various tortures.
After the campaign, a “search” began for the Novgorod treason, which was carried out throughout 1570, and many prominent guardsmen were also involved in the case. From this case, only a description has been preserved in the Census Book of the Ambassadorial Prikaz: “ pillar, and in it is an article list from the investigation of the treason case of 1570 on the Novgorod Bishop Pimen and on the Novgorod clerks and clerks, as they with the (Moscow) boyars... wanted to give Novgorod and Pskov to the Lithuanian king. ... and Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich ... with evil intent they wanted to kill Prince Volodimer Ondreevich and put Prince Volodimer Ondreevich in charge of the state ... in that case, from torture, many spoke about that treason against the Novgorod Archbishop Pimen and on his advisers and on themselves, and in that case many were executed by death, various executions , and others were sent to prisons... Yes, here is a list of what it is to be executed by death, and what kind of execution, and what it is to release... ».
In 1571, the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey invaded Rus'. According to V.B. Kobrin, the decayed oprichnina demonstrated complete incapacity for combat: the oprichnina, accustomed to robbing civilians, simply did not show up for the war, so there were only one regiment of them (against five zemstvo regiments). Moscow was burned. As a result, during the new invasion in 1572, the oprichnina army was already united with the zemstvo army; in the same year, the tsar completely abolished the oprichnina and banned its very name, although in fact, under the name of the “sovereign court,” the oprichnina existed until his death.
Foreign policy
Part of the aristocracy and the Pope insistently demanded to enter into a fight with the Turkish Sultan Suleiman the First, who had 30 kingdoms and 8 thousand miles of coastline under his control.
The king's artillery was varied and numerous. " Russian artillerymen always have at least two thousand guns ready for battle...“- his ambassador John Cobenzl reported to Emperor Maximilian II. What was most impressive was the heavy artillery. The Moscow Chronicle writes, without exaggeration: “... large cannons have twenty pounds of cannonballs, while other cannons have a little lighter.” The largest howitzer in Europe, the Kashpirova Cannon, weighing 1,200 pounds and caliber 20 pounds, brought terror and took part in the siege of Polotsk in 1563. Also, “one more feature of Russian artillery of the 16th century should be noted, namely its durability,” writes modern researcher Alexey Lobin. " The guns, cast by order of Ivan the Terrible, were in service for several decades and took part in almost all the battles of the 17th century.».
Kazan campaigns
In the first half of the 16th century, mainly during the reign of khans from the Crimean Girey family, the Kazan Khanate waged constant wars with Muscovite Russia. In total, the Kazan khans made about forty campaigns against Russian lands, mainly in the outlying regions of Nizhny Novgorod, Vyatka, Vladimir, Kostroma, Galich, Murom, Vologda. “From the Crimea and from Kazan to half the earth it was empty,” the tsar wrote, describing the consequences of the invasions.
Trying to find peaceful means of settlement, Moscow supported the Kasimov ruler Shah Ali, loyal to Rus', who, having become the Kazan Khan, approved the project of a union with Moscow. But in 1546, Shah Ali was expelled by the Kazan nobility, who elevated Khan Safa-Girey from a dynasty hostile to Rus' to the throne. After this, it was decided to take active action and eliminate the threat posed by Kazan. " From now on, - the historian points out, - Moscow has put forward a plan for the final destruction of the Kazan Khanate».
In total, Ivan IV led three campaigns against Kazan.
First trip(winter 1547/1548). The Tsar left Moscow on December 20; due to an early thaw, 15 versts from Nizhny Novgorod, siege artillery and part of the army went under the ice on the Volga. It was decided to return the king from the crossing back to Nizhny Novgorod, while the main commanders with part of the army that managed to cross reached Kazan, where they entered into battle with the Kazan army. As a result, the Kazan army retreated behind the walls of the wooden Kremlin, which the Russian army did not dare to storm without siege artillery and, after standing under the walls for seven days, retreated. On March 7, 1548, the tsar returned to Moscow.
Second trip(autumn 1549 - spring 1550). In March 1549, Safa-Girey suddenly died. Having received a Kazan messenger asking for peace, Ivan IV refused him and began to gather an army. On November 24, he left Moscow to lead the army. Having united in Nizhny Novgorod, the army moved towards Kazan and on February 14 was at its walls. Kazan was not taken; however, when the Russian army retreated near Kazan, at the confluence of the Sviyaga River into the Volga, it was decided to build a fortress. On March 25, the Tsar returned to Moscow. In 1551, in just 4 weeks, a fortress was assembled from carefully numbered components, which received the name Sviyazhsk; it served as a stronghold for the Russian army during the next campaign.
Third trip(June-October 1552) - ended with the capture of Kazan. A Russian army of 150,000 took part in the campaign; the armament included 150 cannons. The Kazan Kremlin was taken by storm. Khan Ediger-Magmet was handed over to the Russian governors. The chronicler recorded: “ The sovereign did not order for himself to take even a single coin (that is, not a single penny), nor captivity, only the single king Ediger-Magmet and the royal banners and city cannons" I. I. Smirnov believes that “ The Kazan campaign of 1552 and the brilliant victory of Ivan IV over Kazan not only meant a major foreign policy success for the Russian state, but also contributed to the strengthening of the tsar’s foreign policy positions».
In defeated Kazan, the tsar appointed Prince Alexander Gorbaty-Shuisky as Kazan governor, and Prince Vasily Serebryany as his comrade.
After the establishment of the episcopal see in Kazan, the tsar and the church council by lot elected Abbot Gury to it in the rank of archbishop. Gury received instructions from the tsar to convert Kazan residents to Orthodoxy solely at the own request of each person, but “unfortunately, such prudent measures were not followed everywhere: the intolerance of the century took its toll...”
From the first steps towards the conquest and development of the Volga region, the tsar began to invite into his service all the Kazan nobility who agreed to swear allegiance to him, sending “ in all the uluses, black people received dangerous yasak letters so that they would go to the sovereign without fear of anything; and whoever did it recklessly, God took revenge on him; and their sovereign would grant them, and they would pay tribute, just like the former Kazan king" This nature of the policy not only did not require the preservation of the main military forces of the Russian state in Kazan, but, on the contrary, made Ivan’s solemn return to the capital natural and expedient.
Immediately after the capture of Kazan, in January 1555, the ambassadors of the Siberian Khan Ediger asked the king to “ He took the entire Siberian land under his own name and stood up (defended) from all sides and laid his tribute on them and sent his man to whom to collect the tribute».
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The conquest of Kazan was of enormous importance for people's life. The Kazan Tatar horde united under its rule a complex foreign world into one strong whole: the Mordovians, Cheremis, Chuvash, Votyaks, Bashkirs. Cheremisy beyond the Volga, on the river. Unzhe and Vetluga, and the Mordovians beyond the Oka delayed the colonization movement of Rus' to the east; and the raids of the Tatars and other “languages” on Russian settlements terribly harmed them, ruining farms and taking many Russian people to the “full”. Kazan was a chronic sore of Moscow life, and therefore its capture became a national triumph, sung in folk song. After the capture of Kazan, within just 20 years, it was turned into a large Russian city; in different points of the foreign Volga region, fortified cities were erected as a support for Russian power and Russian settlement. The masses of people immediately reached out to the rich lands of the Volga region and to the forest areas of the middle Urals. Vast expanses of valuable land were pacified by the Moscow authorities and developed by people's labor. This was the meaning of the “Capture of Kazan”, sensitively guessed by the people's mind. The occupation of the lower Volga and Western Siberia was a natural consequence of the destruction of the barrier that the Kazan kingdom was for Russian colonization. Platonov S.F. Complete course of lectures on Russian history. Part 2 |
It should be noted that the history of the Kazan campaigns is often counted from the campaign that took place in 1545, which “had the character of a military demonstration and strengthened the positions of the “Moscow party” and other opponents of Khan Safa-Girey.”
Astrakhan campaigns
In the early 1550s, the Astrakhan Khanate was an ally of the Crimean Khan, controlling the lower reaches of the Volga.
Before the final subjugation of the Astrakhan Khanate under Ivan IV, two campaigns were carried out:
Campaign of 1554 was committed under the command of governor Yu. I. Pronsky-Shemyakin. In the battle of the Black Island, the Russian army defeated the lead Astrakhan detachment. Astrakhan was taken without a fight. As a result, Khan Dervish-Ali was brought to power, promising support to Moscow.
Campaign of 1556 was associated with the fact that Khan Dervish-Ali went over to the side of the Crimean Khanate and Ottoman Empire. The campaign was led by governor N. Cheremisinov. First, the Don Cossacks of Ataman L. Filimonov’s detachment defeated the Khan’s army near Astrakhan, after which in July Astrakhan was retaken without a fight. As a result of this campaign, the Astrakhan Khanate was subordinated to Muscovite Rus'.
Later, the Crimean Khan Devlet I Giray made attempts to recapture Astrakhan.
After the conquest of Astrakhan, Russian influence began to extend to the Caucasus. In 1559, the princes of Pyatigorsk and Cherkassy asked Ivan IV to send them a detachment to protect against the raids of the Crimean Tatars and priests to maintain the faith; the tsar sent them two governors and priests, who renovated the fallen ancient churches, and in Kabarda they showed extensive missionary activity, baptizing many into Orthodoxy.
In the 1550s, the Siberian Khan Ediger and Bolshiye Nogai became dependent on the king.
Wars with the Crimean Khanate
The troops of the Crimean Khanate staged regular raids on the southern territories of Muscovite Rus' from the beginning of the 16th century (raids of 1507, 1517, 1521). Their goal was to plunder Russian cities and capture the population. During the reign of Ivan IV, the raids continued.
It is known about the campaigns of the Crimean Khanate in 1536, 1537, undertaken jointly with the Kazan Khanate, with the military support of Turkey and Lithuania.
- In 1541, the Crimean Khan Sahib I Giray made a campaign that ended in an unsuccessful siege of Zaraysk. His army was stopped at the Oka River by Russian regiments under the command of Prince Dmitry Belsky.
- In June 1552, Khan Devlet I Giray made a campaign to Tula.
- In 1555, Devlet I Giray repeated the campaign against Muscovite Rus', but, before reaching Tula, he hastily turned back, abandoning all the booty. During the retreat, he entered into battle near the village of Sudbischi with a Russian detachment that was inferior in number to him. This battle did not affect the result of his campaign.
The Tsar gave in to the demands of the opposition aristocracy to march on the Crimea: “ brave and courageous men advised and advised, so that Ivan himself, with his head, with great troops, would move against the Perekop Khan».
In 1558, the army of Prince Dmitry Vishnevetsky defeated the Crimean army near Azov, and in 1559 the army under the command of Daniil Adashev made a campaign against the Crimea, destroying the large Crimean port of Gezlev (now Yevpatoria) and freeing many Russian captives.
After Ivan the Terrible captured the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, Devlet I Giray vowed to return them. In 1563 and 1569, together with Turkish troops, he made two unsuccessful campaigns against Astrakhan.
The campaign of 1569 was much more serious than the previous ones - together with the Turkish land army and Tatar cavalry, the Turkish fleet rose along the Don River, and between the Volga and Don the Turks began construction of a shipping canal - their goal was to lead the Turkish fleet into the Caspian Sea for the war against their traditional enemy - Persia. The ten-day siege of Astrakhan without artillery and under the autumn rains ended in nothing; the garrison under the command of Prince P.S. Serebryany repulsed all attacks. The attempt to dig a canal also ended unsuccessfully - Turkish engineers did not yet know the lock system. Devlet I Giray, not happy with the strengthening of Turkey in this region, also secretly interfered with the campaign.
After this, three more campaigns are made to the Moscow lands:
- 1570 - devastating raid on Ryazan;
- 1571 - the campaign against Moscow ended with the burning of Moscow. As a result of the April Crimean Tatar raid, agreed with the Polish king, the southern Russian lands were devastated, tens of thousands of people died, more than 150 thousand Russians were taken into slavery; with the exception of the stone Kremlin, all of Moscow was burned. A week before the khan crossed the Oka, due to conflicting intelligence data, John left the army and went into the interior of the country to gather additional forces; upon news of the invasion, he moved from Serpukhov to Bronnitsy, from there to the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, and from the settlement to Rostov, as they did in similar cases his predecessors Dmitry Donskoy and Vasily I Dmitrievich. The winner sent him an arrogant letter:
Tsar Ivan answered the humble petition:
He went out to the Tatar ambassadors in a homespun, telling them: “Do you see me, what am I wearing? This is how the king (khan) made me! Still, he captured my kingdom and burned the treasury, and I have nothing to do with the king.” Karamzin writes that the tsar handed over to Devlet-Girey, at his request, a certain noble Crimean captive who converted to Orthodoxy in Russian captivity. However, Devlet-Girey was not satisfied with Astrakhan, demanding Kazan and 2000 rubles, and the next summer the invasion was repeated.
- 1572 - the last big campaign of the Crimean Khan during the reign of Ivan IV ended with the destruction of the Crimean-Turkish army. A 120,000-strong Crimean-Turkish horde moved to decisively defeat the Russian state. However, in the Battle of Molodi, the enemy was destroyed by a 60,000-strong Russian army under the leadership of governors M. Vorotynsky and D. Khvorostinin - 5-10 thousand returned to Crimea (see Russian-Crimean War 1571-1572). The death of a selected Turkish army near Astrakhan in 1569 and the defeat of the Crimean horde near Moscow in 1572 put a limit to Turkish-Tatar expansion in Eastern Europe.
The winner at Molodi, Vorotynsky, the very next year, following a denunciation from a slave, was accused of intending to bewitch the Tsar and died from torture, and during the torture the Tsar himself raked up the coals with his staff.
War with Sweden 1554-1557
The war was caused by the establishment of trade relations between Russia and Britain through the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean, which greatly affected the economic interests of Sweden, which received considerable income from transit Russian-European trade (G. Forsten).
In April 1555, the Swedish flotilla of Admiral Jacob Bagge passed the Neva and landed an army in the area of the Oreshek fortress. The siege of the fortress did not bring results; the Swedish army retreated.
In response, Russian troops invaded Swedish territory and on January 20, 1556 defeated a Swedish detachment near the Swedish city of Kivinebb. Then there was a clash at Vyborg, after which this fortress was besieged. The siege lasted 3 days, Vyborg held out.
As a result, in March 1557, a truce was signed in Novgorod for a period of 40 years (came into force on January 1, 1558). The Russian-Swedish border was restored along the old line, defined by the Orekhovsky Peace Treaty of 1323. According to the treaty, Sweden returned all Russian prisoners along with seized property, while Rus' returned Swedish prisoners for ransom.
Livonian War
Causes of the war
In 1547, the king instructed the Saxon Schlitte to bring artisans, artists, doctors, pharmacists, typographers, people skilled in ancient and modern languages, even theologians. However, after protests from Livonia, the Senate of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck arrested Schlitte and his men (see Schlitte Affair).
In the spring of 1557, on the shores of Narva, Tsar Ivan established a port: “That same year, July, a city was established from the German Ust-Narova River Rozsene by the sea for a shelter for sea ships,” “The same year, April, the Tsar and the Grand Duke sent the Okolnichny prince Dmitry Semenovich Shastunov and Pyotr Petrovich Golovin and Ivan Vyrodkov to Ivangorod, and ordered a city to be built on Narova below Ivangorod at the mouth of the sea for a ship shelter...” However, the Hanseatic League and Livonia do not allow European merchants to enter the new Russian port, and they continue to go, as before, to Revel, Narva and Riga.
The Posvolsky Treaty of September 15, 1557 between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Order, which created a threat to the establishment of Lithuanian power in Livonia, played a significant role in Ivan IV’s choice of direction of military action.
The agreed position of the Hansa and Livonia to prevent Moscow from engaging in independent maritime trade leads Tsar Ivan to the decision to begin the fight for wide access to the Baltic.
During the war, the Muslim regions of the Volga region began to supply the Russian army with “many three hundred thousand battles,” well prepared for the offensive.
The situation of Russian spies on the territory of Lithuania and the Livonian Order in 1548-1551. described the Lithuanian publicist Michalon Litvin:
The beginning of hostilities. Defeat of the Livonian Order
In January 1558, Ivan IV began the Livonian War for the capture of the Baltic Sea coast. Initially, military operations developed successfully. Despite the raid on the southern Russian lands by a hundred-thousand-strong Crimean horde in the winter of 1558, the Russian army carried out active offensive operations in the Baltic states, took Narva, Dorpat, Neuschloss, Neuhaus, and defeated the order’s troops at Tiersen near Riga. In the spring and summer of 1558, the Russians captured the entire eastern part of Estonia, and by the spring of 1559, the army of the Livonian Order was completely defeated, and the Order itself virtually ceased to exist. At the direction of Alexei Adashev, Russian governors accepted the truce proposal coming from Denmark, which lasted from March to November 1559, and began separate negotiations with Livonian urban circles on the pacification of Livonia in exchange for some concessions in trade from German cities. At this time, the lands of the Order came under the protection of Poland, Lithuania, Sweden and Denmark.
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The Tsar understood that without a navy it was impossible to return the Russian Baltic lands, waging a war with Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Hanseatic cities, which had armed forces at sea and dominated the Baltic. In the very first months of the Livonian War, the Tsar tried to create a privateer fleet, attracting Danes to Moscow service, turning sea and river vessels into warships. At the end of the 70s, Ivan Vasilyevich began building his own navy in Vologda and tried to transfer it to the Baltic. Alas, the great plan was not destined to come true. But even this attempt caused real hysteria among the maritime powers. N. Parfenyev. Voivode of the Russian land. Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible and his military activities. |
Entry of Poland and Lithuania into the war
On August 31, 1559, Master of the Livonian Order Gotthard Ketteler and King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland and Lithuania concluded an agreement in Vilna on the entry of Livonia under the protectorate of Poland, which was supplemented on September 15 by an agreement on military assistance to Livonia by Poland and Lithuania. This diplomatic action served as an important milestone in the course and development of the Livonian War: Russia’s war with Livonia turned into a struggle between the states of Eastern Europe for the Livonian inheritance.
In 1560, at the Congress of Imperial Deputies of Germany, Albert of Mecklenburg reported: “ The Moscow tyrant begins to build a fleet on the Baltic Sea: in Narva he turns merchant ships belonging to the city of Lübeck into warships and transfers control of them to Spanish, English and German commanders" The congress decided to address Moscow with a ceremonial embassy, to which Spain, Denmark and England were to be invited, to offer the eastern power eternal peace and stop her conquests.
About the reaction of European countries, professor of St. Petersburg University, historian S. F. Platonov writes:
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Grozny's performance in the fight for the Baltic Sea... was amazing central Europe. In Germany, the “Muscovites” seemed to be a terrible enemy; the danger of their invasion was outlined not only in the official communications of the authorities, but also in the extensive flying literature of leaflets and brochures. Measures were taken to prevent Muscovites from accessing the sea or Europeans from entering Moscow and, by dividing Moscow from the centers European culture, to prevent its political strengthening. In this agitation against Moscow and Grozny, many false things were invented about Moscow morals and the despotism of Grozny... Platonov S. F. Lectures on Russian history... |
In January 1560, Grozny ordered the troops to go on the offensive again. The army under the command of princes Shuisky, Serebryany and Mstislavsky took the fortress of Marienburg (Aluksne). On August 30, the Russian army under the command of Kurbsky took Fellin. An eyewitness wrote: “ An oppressed Estonian would rather submit to a Russian than to a German" Throughout Estonia, peasants rebelled against the German barons. The possibility of a quick end to the war arose. However, the king's commanders did not go to capture Revel and failed in the siege of Weissenstein. Alexei Adashev (voivode of a large regiment) was appointed to Fellin, but he, being a thin-born man, was mired in parochial disputes with the voivodes above him, fell into disgrace, was soon taken into custody in Dorpat and died there of fever (there were rumors that he poisoned himself, Ivan the Terrible even sent one of his nearby nobles to Dorpat to investigate the circumstances of Adashev’s death). Due to this, Sylvester left the court and took monastic vows at the monastery, and with that their smaller associates also fell - the end of the Chosen Rada came.
During the siege of Tarvast in 1561, Radziwill convinced the governors Kropotkin, Putyatin and Trusov to surrender the city. When they returned from captivity, they spent about a year in prison, and Grozny forgave them.
In 1562, due to the lack of infantry, Prince Kurbsky was defeated by Lithuanian troops near Nevel. On August 7, a peace treaty was signed between Russia and Denmark, according to which the tsar agreed with the annexation of the island of Ezel by the Danes.
On February 15, 1563, the Polish-Lithuanian garrison of Polotsk surrendered. Here, on the orders of Ivan the Terrible, Thomas, a preacher of reformation ideas and an associate of Theodosius Kosy, was drowned in an ice hole. Skrynnikov believes that the massacre of the Polotsk Jews was supported by the abbot of the Joseph-Volokolamsk monastery, Leonid, who accompanied the tsar. Also, by order of the tsar, the Tatars who took part in the hostilities killed the Bernardine monks who were in Polotsk. The religious element in the conquest of Polotsk by Ivan the Terrible is also noted by Khoroshkevich.
« The prophecy of the Russian saint, the wonderworker Peter Metropolitan, about the city of Moscow, that his hands would rise up against the shoulders of his enemies, was fulfilled: God poured out unspeakable mercy on us unworthy, our patrimony, the city of Polotsk, was given to us into our hands"- wrote the tsar, pleased that “all the wheels, levers and drives of the power mechanism he had debugged acted accurately and clearly and justified the intentions of the organizers.”
In response to the proposal of the German Emperor Ferdinand to conclude an alliance and join forces in the fight against the Turks, the Tsar declared that he was fighting in Livonia practically for his own interests, against the Lutherans. The Tsar knew what place the idea of the Catholic Counter-Reformation occupied in Habsburg policy. By speaking out against “Luther’s teaching,” Ivan the Terrible touched a very sensitive chord in Habsburg politics.
As soon as Lithuanian diplomats left Rus', hostilities resumed. On January 28, 1564, the Polotsk army of P.I. Shuisky, moving towards Minsk and Novogrudok, was unexpectedly ambushed and was completely defeated by the troops of N. Radziwill. Grozny immediately accused the governors M. Repnin and Yu. Kashin (heroes of the capture of Polots) of treason and ordered them to be killed. In this regard, Kurbsky reproached the tsar for shedding the victorious, holy blood of the governor “in the churches of God.” A few months later, in response to Kurbsky’s accusations, Grozny directly wrote about the crime committed by the boyars.
In 1565, Augustus of Saxony stated: “ The Russians are quickly building a fleet, recruiting skippers from everywhere; when the Muscovites improve in maritime affairs, it will no longer be possible to cope with them...».
In September 1568, the king's ally Eric XIV was overthrown from the throne. Ivan the Terrible could only vent his anger at this diplomatic failure by arresting the ambassadors sent by the new Swedish king Johan III by announcing the termination of the 1567 treaty, but this did not help change the anti-Russian nature of Swedish foreign policy. The Great Eastern Program aimed to capture and incorporate into the Kingdom of Sweden not only those lands in the Baltic states that were occupied by Russia, but also Karelia and the Kola Peninsula.
In May 1570, the king signed a truce with King Sigismund for a period of three years, despite the huge number of mutual claims. The proclamation of the Livonian kingdom by the king delighted both the Livonian nobility, who received freedom of religion and a number of other privileges, and the Livonian merchants, who received the right to free duty-free trade in Russia, and in return allowed foreign merchants, artists and technicians to enter Moscow. On December 13, the Danish king Frederick entered into an alliance with the Swedes, as a result of which the Russian-Danish alliance did not take place.
The main condition for consent to his election as the Polish king was the concession of Poland to Livonia in favor of Russia, and as compensation he offered to return “Polotsk and its suburbs” to the Poles. But on November 20, 1572, Maximilian II concluded an agreement with Grozny, according to which all ethnic Polish lands (Greater Poland, Mazovia, Kuyavia, Silesia) went to the empire, and Moscow received Livonia and the Principality of Lithuania with all its possessions - that is, Belarus, Podlasie, Ukraine , so the noble nobility hastened to elect a king and elected Henry of Valois.
On January 1, 1573, Russian troops under the command of Grozny took the Weisenstein fortress, Skuratov died in this battle.
On January 23, 1577, a 50,000-strong Russian army again besieged Revel, but failed to take the fortress. In February 1578, Nuncio Vincent Laureo reported with alarm to Rome: “The Muscovite divided his army into two parts: one is expected near Riga, the other near Vitebsk.” In the same year, having lost cannons during the siege of Wenden, the king immediately ordered the release of others, with the same names and signs, in even greater numbers than before. As a result, all of Livonia along the Dvina, with the exception of only two cities - Revel and Riga, was in Russian hands.
The king did not know that already at the beginning of the summer offensive of 1577, Duke Magnus betrayed his overlord, secretly contacting his enemy, Stefan Batory, and negotiated with him on a separate peace. This betrayal became obvious only six months later, when Magnus, having escaped from Livonia, finally went over to the side of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Batory's army gathered many European mercenaries; Batory himself hoped that the Russians would take his side against their tyrant, and for this he started a traveling printing house in which he printed leaflets. Despite this numerical advantage, Magmet Pasha reminded Bathory: “ The king takes on a difficult task; the strength of the Muscovites is great, and, with the exception of my master, there is no more powerful Sovereign on earth».
In 1578, the Russian army under the command of Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin took the city of Oberpalen, which was occupied by a strong Swedish garrison after the flight of King Magnus.
In 1579, the royal messenger Wenceslaus Lopatinsky brought the king a letter from Batory declaring war. Already in August, the Polish army surrounded Polotsk. The garrison defended itself for three weeks, and its bravery was noted by Batory himself. In the end, the fortress surrendered (August 30) and the garrison was released. Stephen's secretary Bathory Heidenstein writes about the prisoners:
However, “many archers and other Moscow people” went over to Batory’s side and were settled by him in the Grodno region. Following Batory, he moved to Velikie Luki and took them.
At the same time, direct peace negotiations were underway with Poland. Ivan the Terrible proposed giving Poland all of Livonia, with the exception of four cities. Batory did not agree to this and demanded all the Livonian cities, in addition Sebezh, and payment of 400,000 Hungarian gold for military costs. This infuriated Grozny, and he responded with a sharp letter.
After this, in the summer of 1581, Stefan Batory invaded deep into Russia and besieged Pskov, which, however, he was never able to take. At the same time, the Swedes took Narva, where 7,000 Russians fell, then Ivangorod and Koporye. Ivan was forced to negotiate with Poland, hoping to then conclude an alliance with her against Sweden. In the end, the tsar was forced to agree to the conditions under which “the Livonian cities that belong to the sovereign should be ceded to the king, and Luke the Great and other cities that the king took, let him cede to the sovereign” - that is, the war that lasted almost a quarter of a century ended in restoration status quo ante bellum, thus becoming sterile. A 10-year truce on these terms was signed on January 15, 1582 in Yam Zapolsky.
Even before the completion of the negotiations in Yama-Zapolsky, the Russian government began preparations for a military campaign against the Swedes. The gathering of troops continued throughout the second half of December and at the turn of 1581-82, when the main controversial issues between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had already been resolved, and the final decision was made to organize a campaign “against the Svei Germans.” The offensive began on February 7, 1582 under the command of Voivode M.P. Katyrev-Rostovsky, and after the victory near the village of Lyalitsy, the situation in the Baltic States began to change noticeably in favor of Russia.
The prospect of Russia regaining its lost access to the Baltic Sea caused great concern among the king and his entourage. Batory sent his representatives to Baron Delagardie and King Johan with an ultimatum to hand over Narva and the rest of the lands of Northern Estonia to the Poles, and in return promised significant monetary compensation and assistance in the war with Russia.
Negotiations between official representatives of Russia and Sweden began in 1582 and ended in August 1583 with the signing of a two-year truce at the Grange with the concession of the Novgorod fortresses of Yama, Koporye and Ivangorod to the Swedes. By signing a truce for such a period, Russian politicians hoped that with the outbreak of the Polish-Swedish War they would be able to return the Novgorod suburbs captured by the Swedes and did not want to tie their hands.
England
During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, trade relations were established with England.
In 1553, the expedition of the English navigator Richard Chancellor rounded the Kola Peninsula, entered the White Sea and dropped anchor west of the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery opposite the village of Nenoksa, where they established that this area was not India, but Muscovy; The next stop of the expedition was near the walls of the monastery. Having received news of the appearance of the British within his country, Ivan IV wished to meet with Chancellor, who, having covered about 1000 km, arrived in Moscow with honors. Soon after this expedition, the Moscow Company was founded in London, which subsequently received monopoly trading rights from Tsar Ivan. In the spring of 1556, the first Russian embassy was sent to England, headed by Osip Nepeya.
In 1567, through the plenipotentiary English ambassador Anthony Jenkinson, Ivan the Terrible negotiated a marriage with the English Queen Elizabeth I, and in 1583, through the nobleman Fyodor Pisemsky, he wooed a relative of the queen, Mary Hastings.
In 1569, through her ambassador Thomas Randolph, Elizabeth I made it clear to the tsar that she was not going to intervene in the Baltic conflict. In response, the tsar wrote to her that her trade representatives “do not think about our sovereign heads and the honor and profit of the land, but are looking only for their own trade profits,” and canceled all the privileges previously granted to the Moscow Trading Company created by the British. The next day (September 5, 1569) Maria Temryukovna died. The Council verdict of 1572 records that she was “poisoned by the enemy’s malice.”
Cultural activities
Ivan IV went down in history not only as a conqueror. He was one of the most educated people of his time, had a phenomenal memory and theological erudition. He is the author of numerous letters (including to Kurbsky, Elizabeth I, Stefan Batory, Johan III, Vasily Gryazny, Jan Chodkiewicz, Jan Rokite, Prince Polubensky, to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery), the stichera for the Presentation of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, the canon to the Archangel Michael (under the pseudonym Parfeniy the Ugly). Ivan IV was a good speaker.
By order of the tsar, a unique literary monument was created - the Facial Chronicle.
The Tsar contributed to the organization of book printing in Moscow and the construction of St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square. According to contemporaries, Ivan IV was “ a man of wonderful reasoning, in the science of book teaching he is content and very talkative" He loved to travel to monasteries and was interested in describing the lives of the great kings of the past. It is assumed that Ivan inherited from his grandmother Sophia Paleologus the most valuable library of the Morean despots, which included ancient Greek manuscripts; what he did with it is unknown: according to some versions, the library of Ivan the Terrible was lost in one of the Moscow fires, according to others, it was hidden by the tsar. In the 20th century, the search undertaken by individual enthusiasts for the allegedly hidden library of Ivan the Terrible in the dungeons of Moscow became a story that constantly attracted the attention of journalists.
Khan on the Moscow throne
In 1575, at the request of Ivan the Terrible, the baptized Tatar and Khan of Kasimov, Simeon Bekbulatovich, was crowned king as the Tsar “Grand Duke of All Rus',” and Ivan the Terrible himself called himself Ivan of Moscow, left the Kremlin and began to live on Petrovka. After 11 months, Simeon, retaining the title of Grand Duke, went to Tver, where he was given an inheritance, and Ivan Vasilyevich again began to be called the Grand Duke of All Rus'.
In 1576, Staden proposed to Emperor Rudolf: “ Your Roman-Caesarian Majesty should appoint one of Your Majesty's brothers as a sovereign who would take over this country and rule it... Monasteries and churches should be closed, cities and villages should become the prey of military people»
At the same time, with the direct support of the Nogai Murzas of Prince Urus, unrest of the Volga Cheremis broke out: cavalry numbering up to 25,000 people, attacking from Astrakhan, devastated the Belevsky, Kolomna and Alatyr lands. In conditions of insufficient numbers of three tsarist regiments to suppress the rebellion, a breakthrough of the Crimean Horde could lead to very dangerous consequences for Russia. Obviously, wanting to avoid such a danger, the Russian government decided to transfer troops, temporarily abandoning the attack on Sweden.
On January 15, 1580, a church council was convened in Moscow. Addressing the highest hierarchs, the tsar directly said how difficult his situation was: “countless enemies have risen up against the Russian state,” which is why he asks for help from the Church.
In 1580, the tsar defeated the German settlement. Frenchman Jacques Margeret, who lived in Russia for many years, writes: “ The Livonians, who were captured and taken to Moscow, professing the Lutheran faith, having received two churches inside the city of Moscow, held public services there; but in the end, because of their pride and vanity, the said temples... were destroyed and all their houses were ruined. And, although in winter they were expelled naked, and with what their mother gave birth to, they could not blame anyone but themselves for this, for ... they behaved so arrogantly, their manners were so arrogant, and their clothes were so luxurious that they could all be mistaken for princes and princesses... Their main profit was the right to sell vodka, honey and other drinks, from which they make not 10%, but a hundred, which may seem incredible, but it’s true».
In 1581, the Jesuit A. Possevin went to Russia, acting as a mediator between Ivan and Poland, and at the same time hoping to persuade the Russian Church into a union with the Catholic Church. His failure was predicted by the Polish Hetman Zamolsky: “ He is ready to swear that the Grand Duke is disposed towards him and will accept the Latin faith to please him, and I am sure that these negotiations will end with the prince hitting him with a crutch and driving him away" M.V. Tolstoy writes in “History of the Russian Church”: “ But the pope’s hopes and Possevin’s efforts were not crowned with success. John showed all the natural flexibility of his mind, dexterity and prudence, to which the Jesuit himself had to give justice, rejected the requests for permission to build Latin churches in Rus', rejected disputes about faith and the union of Churches on the basis of the rules of the Florence Council and was not carried away by the dreamy promise of acquiring all the Byzantine Empire, lost by the Greeks allegedly for retreating from Rome" The ambassador himself notes that “the Russian Sovereign stubbornly avoided and avoided discussing this topic.” Thus, the papal throne did not receive any privileges; the possibility of Moscow joining the Catholic Church remained as vague as before, and meanwhile the papal ambassador had to begin his mediating role.
The conquest of Siberia by Ermak Timofeevich and his Cossacks in 1583 and his capture of the capital of Siberia - Iskera - marked the beginning of the conversion of local foreigners to Orthodoxy: Ermak’s troops were accompanied by two priests and a hieromonk.
Death
A study of the remains of Ivan the Terrible showed that in the last six years of his life he developed osteophytes (salt deposits on the spine) to such an extent that he could no longer walk - he was carried on a stretcher. M. M. Gerasimov, who examined the remains, noted that he had not seen such thick deposits even in the very elderly. Forced immobility, combined with a general unhealthy lifestyle, nervous shocks, etc., led to the fact that at just over 50 years old, the tsar already looked like a decrepit old man.
In August 1582, A. Possevin, in a report to the Venetian Signoria, stated that “ The Moscow sovereign will not live long" In February and early March 1584, the king was still engaged in state affairs. The first mention of the disease dates back to March 10 (when the Lithuanian ambassador was stopped on his way to Moscow “due to the sovereign’s illness”). On March 16, things got worse, the king fell into unconsciousness, however, on March 17 and 18 he felt relief from hot baths. But on the afternoon of March 18, the king died. The sovereign's body was swollen and smelled foul "due to decomposition of the blood"
Bethliofika preserved the dying order of the Tsar to Boris Godunov: “ When the Great Sovereign was honored with the last instructions, the most pure body and blood of the Lord, then presenting his confessor Archimandrite Theodosius as a testimony, filling his eyes with tears, saying to Boris Feodorovich: I command you with my soul and my son Feodor Ivanovich and my daughter Irina..." Also, before his death, according to the chronicles, the tsar bequeathed Uglich with all the counties to his youngest son Dmitry.
It is difficult to reliably determine whether the king’s death was caused by natural causes or was violent.
There were persistent rumors about the violent death of Ivan the Terrible. A 17th-century chronicler reported that “ the king was given poison by his neighbors" According to the testimony of clerk Ivan Timofeev, Boris Godunov and Bogdan Belsky " the king's life ended prematurely" Crown Hetman Zholkiewski also accused Godunov: “ He took the life of Tsar Ivan by bribing the doctor who treated Ivan, because the matter was such that if he had not warned him (had not forestalled him), he himself would have been executed along with many other noble nobles" The Dutchman Isaac Massa wrote that Belsky put poison in the royal medicine. Horsey also wrote about the Godunovs’ secret plans against the tsar and put forward a version of the strangulation of the tsar, with which V.I. Koretsky agrees: “ Apparently, the king was first given poison, and then, just to be sure, in the confusion that arose after he suddenly fell, they also strangled him" The historian Waliszewski wrote: “ Bogdan Belsky (with) his advisers harassed Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, and now he wants to beat the boyars and wants to find the kingdom of Moscow under Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich for his adviser (Godunov)».
The version of the poisoning of Grozny was tested during the opening of the royal tombs in 1963: studies showed normal levels of arsenic in the remains and increased levels of mercury, which, however, was present in many medicines XVI century and which was used to treat syphilis, which the king was supposedly ill with. The version of the murder was considered not confirmed, but not refuted either.
The character of the king according to contemporaries
Ivan grew up in an environment of palace coups and a struggle for power among the warring boyar families of the Shuisky and Belsky families. Therefore, it was believed that the murders, intrigues and violence that surrounded him contributed to the development of suspicion, vindictiveness and cruelty in him. S. Solovyov, analyzing the influence of the morals of the era on the character of Ivan IV, notes that he “did not recognize the moral, spiritual means for establishing truth and order, or, even worse, having realized it, he forgot about them; instead of healing, he intensified the disease, accustoming him even more to torture, bonfires and the chopping block.”
However, in the era of the Elected Rada, the tsar was described enthusiastically. One of his contemporaries writes about 30-year-old Grozny: “The custom of John is to keep himself pure before God. And in the temple, and in solitary prayer, and in the boyar council, and among the people, he has one feeling: “Let me rule, as the Almighty ordered his true Anointed to rule!” impartial judgment, the safety of each and everyone, the integrity of the states entrusted to him, the triumph of faith , the freedom of Christians is his constant thought. Burdened with affairs, he knows no other joys except a peaceful conscience, except the pleasure of fulfilling his duty; does not want the usual royal coolness... Affectionate towards the nobles and the people - loving, rewarding everyone according to their dignity - eradicating poverty with generosity, and evil - with an example of goodness, this God-born King wishes on the day of the Last Judgment to hear the voice of mercy: “You are the King of righteousness!”
“He is so prone to anger that when he is in it, he emits foam like a horse and goes as if into madness; in this state, he also gets angry at people he meets. - Ambassador Daniil Prince writes from Bukhov. - The cruelty that he often commits on his own, whether it originates in his nature, or in the baseness (malitia) of his subjects, I cannot say. When he is at the table, the eldest son sits on his right hand. He himself is of rude morals; for he rests his elbows on the table, and since he does not use any plates, he eats food by taking it with his hands, and sometimes he puts what he has not eaten back into the cup (in patinam). Before drinking or eating anything offered, he usually marks himself with a large cross and looks at the hanging images of the Virgin Mary and St. Nicholas.”
Prince Katyrev-Rostovsky gives Grozny the following famous description:
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Tsar Ivan looks ridiculous, with gray eyes, a long nose and a gag; He is tall in age, has a lean body, has high shoulders, wide chests, thick muscles, a man of wonderful reasoning, content in the science of book teaching and highly eloquent, daring in the militia and standing up for his fatherland. For his servants, given to him by God, he is cruel-hearted, and for shedding blood for murder he is impudent and implacable; Destroy many people from small to great in your kingdom, and captivate many of your own cities, and imprison many holy ranks and destroy them with unmerciful death, and desecrate many other things against your servants, wives and maidens through fornication. The same Tsar Ivan did many good things, loving the army of the great ones and demanding them from their treasures generously. Such is Tsar Ivan. N.V. Vodovozov. History of Old Russian Literature |
The historian Solovyov believes that it is necessary to consider the personality and character of the tsar in the context of his environment in his youth:
Appearance
Evidence from contemporaries about the appearance of Ivan the Terrible is very scarce. All available portraits of him, according to K. Waliszewski, are of dubious authenticity. According to contemporaries, he was lean, tall and had a good physique. Ivan's eyes were blue with a penetrating gaze, although in the second half of his reign a gloomy and gloomy face was already noted. The king shaved his head, wore a large mustache and a thick reddish beard, which turned gray towards the end of his reign.
The Venetian ambassador Marco Foscarino writes about the appearance of 27-year-old Ivan Vasilyevich: “handsome.”
The German ambassador Daniil Prince, who visited Ivan the Terrible in Moscow twice, described the 46-year-old Tsar: “He is very tall. The body is full of strength and quite thick, with large eyes that constantly run around and watch everything most carefully. His beard is red (rufa), with a slight tint of black, quite long and thick, but, like most Russians, he shaves the hair on his head with a razor.”
In 1963, the tomb of Ivan the Terrible was opened in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The king was buried in the vestments of a schemamonk. Based on the remains, it was established that Ivan the Terrible’s height was about 179-180 centimeters. In the last years of his life, his weight was 85-90 kg. Soviet scientist M. M. Gerasimov used the technique he developed to restore the appearance of Ivan the Terrible from the preserved skull and skeleton. Based on the results of the study, we can say that “by the age of 54, the king was already an old man, his face was covered with deep wrinkles, and there were huge bags under his eyes. Clearly expressed asymmetry (the left eye, collarbone and shoulder blade were much larger than the right ones), the heavy nose of the descendant of the Paleologians, and the disgustingly sensual mouth gave him an unattractive appearance.”
Family and personal life
On December 13, 1546, 16-year-old Ivan consulted with Metropolitan Macarius about his desire to get married. Immediately after the crowning of the kingdom in January, noble dignitaries, okolnichy and clerks began to travel around the country, looking for a bride for the king. A brideshow was held. The king's choice fell on Anastasia, the daughter of the widow Zakharyina. At the same time, Karamzin says that the tsar was guided not by the nobility of the family, but by the personal merits of Anastasia. The wedding took place on February 13, 1547 in the Church of Our Lady.
The Tsar's marriage lasted 13 years, until Anastasia's sudden death in the summer of 1560. The death of his wife greatly influenced the 30-year-old king; after this event, historians note a turning point in the nature of his reign.
A year after the death of his wife, the tsar entered into a second marriage, marrying Maria, who came from a family of Kabardian princes.
The number of wives of Ivan the Terrible has not been precisely established; historians mention the names of seven women who were considered the wives of Ivan IV. Of these, only the first four are “married,” that is, legal from the point of view of church law (for the fourth marriage, prohibited by the canons, Ivan received a conciliar decision on its admissibility). Moreover, according to the 50th rule of Basil the Great, even a third marriage is already a violation of the canons: “ there is no law against trigamy; therefore the third marriage is not consummated by law. We look at such deeds as uncleanness in the Church, but we do not subject them to public condemnation, as being better than lascivious fornication." The justification for the need for a fourth marriage was the sudden death of the king's third wife. Ivan IV swore to the clergy that she did not have time to become his wife. The king's 3rd and 4th wives were also chosen based on the results of the bride review.
A possible explanation for the large number of marriages, which was not typical for that time, is the assumption of K. Waliszewski that John was a great lover of women, but at the same time he was also a great pedant in observing religious rituals and sought to possess a woman only as a legal husband.
In addition, the country needed an adequate heir.
On the other hand, according to John Horsey, who knew him personally, “he himself boasted that he had corrupted a thousand virgins and that thousands of his children were deprived of their lives.” According to V. B. Kobrin, this statement, although it contains an explicit exaggeration, clearly characterizes the depravity of the king The Terrible himself in his spiritual letter recognized both “fornication” simply and “supernatural fornication” in particular:
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From Adam to this day, all have failed in the iniquities of those who have sinned, for this reason I am hated by everyone, I have passed through the murder of Cain, I have become like Lamech, the first murderer, I have followed Esau with nasty intemperance, I have become like Reuben, who desecrated my father’s bed, gluttony, and many others with the rage and anger of intemperance. And since the mind of God and the king was in vain with passions, I was corrupted by reason, and bestial by mind and understanding, because I had desecrated the very head with the desire and thought of inappropriate deeds, the mouth with thoughts of murder, and fornication, and every evil deed, the tongue of obscene language, and foul language, and anger, and rage, and intemperance of any inappropriate deed, the neck and chest of pride and the aspirations of a high-voiced mind, the hand of an incomparable touch, and insatiable robbery, and insolence, and internal murder, her thoughts with all sorts of nasty and inappropriate defilements, gluttony and drunkenness, loins supernatural fornication, and inappropriate abstinence and adoration for every evil deed, but with the swiftest flow to every evil deed, and desecration, and murder, and the plunder of insatiable wealth, and other inappropriate mockery. (Spiritual letter of Ivan the Terrible, June-August 1572) |
The burials of the four wives of Ivan the Terrible, legal for the church, were until 1929 in the Ascension Monastery, the traditional burial place of grand duchesses and Russian queens: „ Next to Grozny’s mother are his four wives“.
Sequence |
Years of life |
Wedding date |
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Anastasia Romanovna, died during her husband’s lifetime |
Anna (died at 11 months of age), Maria, Evdokia, Dmitry (died in infancy), Ivan and Fedor |
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Maria Temryukovna ( Kuchenyi) |
Son Vasily (b. 2 /old style/ March - † 6 /old style/ May 1563. Buried in the royal tomb of the Archangel Cathedral. |
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Marfa Sobakina (died (poisoned) two weeks after the wedding) |
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Anna Koltovskaya (forced to become a nun under the name Daria) |
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Maria Dolgorukaya (died for unknown reasons, according to some sources she was killed (drowned) after her wedding night by Ivan) |
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Anna Vasilchikova (forced to become a nun, died a violent death) |
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Vasilisa Melentyevna (mentioned in sources as “ wife“; forcibly tonsured a nun in 1577, according to legendary sources - killed by Ivan) |
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Maria Nagaya |
Dmitry Ivanovich (died in 1591 in Uglich) |
Children
sons
- Dmitry Ivanovich (1552-1553), heir to his father during a fatal illness in 1553; that same year, the baby was accidentally dropped by a nurse while being loaded onto a ship; he fell into the river and drowned.
- Ivan Ivanovich (1554-1581), according to one version, died during a quarrel with his father, according to another version, died as a result of illness on November 19. Married three times, left no offspring.
- Feodor I Ioannovich, no male children. Upon the birth of his son, Ivan the Terrible ordered the construction of a church in the Feodorovsky Monastery in the city of Pereslavl-Zalessky. This temple in honor of Theodore Stratilates became the main cathedral of the monastery and has survived to this day.
- Tsarevich Dmitry, died in childhood
The results of the activities of Ivan the Terrible through the eyes of contemporaries and historians
The dispute about the results of the reign of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich has been going on for five centuries. It began during the life of Ivan the Terrible. It should be noted that in Soviet era The prevailing ideas about the reign of Ivan the Terrible in official historiography were directly dependent on the current “general line of the party.”
Contemporaries
Assessing the results of the tsar’s activities in creating Russian artillery, J. Fletcher wrote in 1588:
The same J. Fletcher pointed out the increasing lack of rights of commoners, which negatively affected their motivation to work:
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I often saw how, having laid out their goods (such as furs, etc.), they all looked around and looked at the doors, like people who are afraid that some enemy will overtake them and capture them. When I asked them why they were doing this, I found out that they doubted whether one of the royal nobles or some son of a boyar was among the visitors, and that they would not come with their accomplices and take from them by force all product. That is why the people (although generally capable of enduring all kinds of labor) indulge in laziness and drunkenness, not caring about anything more than daily food. From the same thing, it happens that products characteristic of Russia (as mentioned above, such as: wax, lard, leather, flax, hemp, etc.) are mined and exported abroad in quantities much smaller than before, for the people, being cramped and deprived of everything he gains, he loses all desire to work. |
Assessing the results of the tsar’s activities to strengthen the autocracy and eradicate heresies, the German guardsman Staden wrote:
Historiography of the 19th century.
Karamzin describes Ivan the Terrible as a great and wise sovereign in the first half of his reign, a merciless tyrant in the second:
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Between other difficult experiences of Fate, in addition to the disasters of the Appanage system, in addition to the yoke of the Mongols, Russia had to experience the threat of a tormenting autocrat: it resisted with love for autocracy, because it believed that God sends plagues and earthquakes and tyrants; did not break the iron scepter in the hands of John and endured the destroyer for twenty-four years, armed only with prayer and patience (...) In magnanimous humility, the sufferers died on the execution site, like the Greeks at Thermopylae for the fatherland, for Faith and Fidelity, without even a thought of rebellion. In vain, some foreign historians, excusing Ioannova’s cruelty, wrote about conspiracies that were supposedly destroyed by her: these conspiracies existed solely in the vague mind of the Tsar, according to all the evidence of our chronicles and state papers. The clergy, Boyars, famous citizens would not have summoned the beast from the den of Sloboda Aleksandrovskaya if they had been plotting treason, which was brought against them as absurdly as sorcery. No, the tiger reveled in the blood of lambs - and the victims, dying in innocence, with their last glance at the disastrous land demanded justice, a touching memory from their contemporaries and posterity! |
From the point of view of N.I. Kostomarov, almost all the achievements during the reign of Ivan the Terrible occurred in the initial period of his reign, when the young tsar was not yet an independent figure and was under the close tutelage of the leaders of the Elected Rada. The subsequent period of Ivan’s reign was marked by numerous foreign and domestic political failures. N.I. Kostomarov also draws the reader’s attention to the contents of the “Spiritual Testament” drawn up by Ivan the Terrible around 1572, according to which the country was supposed to be divided between the sons of the tsar into semi-independent fiefs. The historian argues that this path would lead to the actual collapse of a single state according to a scheme well known in Rus'.
S. M. Solovyov saw the main pattern of Grozny’s activity in the transition from “tribal” relations to “state” ones.
V. O. Klyuchevsky considered Ivan’s internal policy aimless: “The question of state order turned for him into a question of personal safety, and he, like an overly frightened person, began to strike right and left, without distinguishing between friends and enemies”; the oprichnina, from his point of view, prepared “real sedition” - the Time of Troubles.
Historiography of the 20th century.
S. F. Platonov saw the strengthening of Russian statehood in the activities of Ivan the Terrible, but condemned him for the fact that “a complex political matter was further complicated by unnecessary torture and gross debauchery,” and that the reforms “took on the character of general terror.”
R. Yu. Vipper considered Ivan the Terrible in the early 1920s as a brilliant organizer and creator of a major power, in particular, he wrote about him: “Ivan the Terrible, a contemporary of Elizabeth of England, Philip II of Spain and William of Orange, the leader of the Dutch Revolution, had solve military, administrative and international problems similar to the goals of the creators of the new European powers, but in a much more difficult situation. His talents as a diplomat and organizer perhaps surpass them all.” Vipper justified tough measures in domestic politics by the seriousness of the international situation in which Russia was: “In the division of the reign of Ivan the Terrible into two different eras At the same time, it contained an assessment of the personality and activities of Ivan the Terrible: it served as the main basis for belittling his historical role, for listing him among the greatest tyrants. Unfortunately, when analyzing this issue, most historians focused their attention on changes in the internal life of the Moscow state and paid little attention to the international situation in which (it) found itself during... the reign of Ivan IV. Severe critics seemed to have forgotten that the entire second half of the reign of Ivan the Terrible took place under the sign of continuous war, and, moreover, the most difficult war that the Great Russian state had ever waged.”
At that time, Vipper’s views were rejected by Soviet science (in the 1920-1930s, which saw Grozny as an oppressor of the people who prepared serfdom), but were subsequently supported during the period when the personality and activities of Ivan the Terrible received official approval from Stalin. During this period, Grozny’s terror was justified by the fact that the oprichnina “finally and forever broke the boyars, made it impossible to restore the order of feudal fragmentation and consolidated the foundations of the political system of the Russian national state”; This approach continued the concept of Solovyov-Platonov, but was complemented by the idealization of the image of Ivan.
In the 1940s-1950s, Academician S.B. Veselovsky studied a lot about Ivan the Terrible, who did not have the opportunity, due to the prevailing position at that time, to publish his main works during his lifetime; he abandoned the idealization of Ivan the Terrible and the oprichnina and introduced a large number of new materials into scientific circulation. Veselovsky saw the roots of terror in the conflict between the monarch and the administration (the Sovereign's court as a whole), and not specifically with the large feudal boyars; he believed that in practice Ivan did not change the status of the boyars and the general order of governing the country, but limited himself to the destruction of specific real and imaginary opponents (Klyuchevsky already pointed out that Ivan “beat not only the boyars and not even the boyars primarily”).
At first, the concept of Ivan’s “statist” domestic policy was also supported by A. A. Zimin, speaking of justified terror against feudal lords who betrayed national interests. Subsequently, Zimin accepted Veselovsky’s concept of the absence of a systematic fight against the boyars; in his opinion, the oprichnina terror had the most destructive effect on the Russian peasantry. Zimin recognized both the crimes and state services of Grozny:
V. B. Kobrin assesses the results of the oprichnina extremely negatively:
Tsar Ivan and the church
The rapprochement with the West under John IV could not remain without the foreigners who came to Russia talking with Russians and introducing the spirit of religious speculation and debate that was then dominant in the West.
In the fall of 1553, a council opened on the case of Matvey Bashkin and his accomplices. A number of charges were brought against the heretics: denial of the holy cathedral apostolic church, rejection of the worship of icons, denial of the power of repentance, disdain for the decisions of ecumenical councils, etc. The chronicle reports: “ Both the Tsar and the Metropolitan ordered him to be taken away and tortured for these reasons; he is a Christian confessing himself, hiding in himself the enemy’s charm, satanic heresy, because he thinks he’s crazy to hide from the All-Seeing Eye».
The most significant relations of the tsar with Metropolitan Macarius and his reforms, Metropolitan Philip, Archpriest Sylvester, as well as the councils that took place at that time - they were reflected in the activities of the Stoglavy Cathedral.
One of the manifestations of Ivan IV’s deep religiosity was his significant contributions to various monasteries. Numerous donations for the commemoration of the souls of people killed by order of the sovereign himself have no analogues not only in Russian, but also in European history.
The question of canonization
At the end of the 20th century, part of the church and parachurch circles discussed the issue of canonization of Grozny. This idea met with categorical condemnation by the church hierarchy and the patriarch, who pointed out the historical failure of the rehabilitation of Grozny, its crimes before the church (the murder of saints), as well as those who rejected claims about his popular veneration.
Ivan the Terrible in popular culture
Cinema
- Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible (1915) - Fyodor Chaliapin
- The Wax Cabinet (1924) - Conrad Veidt
- Wings of a Serf (1924) - Leonid Leonidov
- First printer Ivan Fedorov (1941) - Pavel Springfeld
- Ivan the Terrible (1944) - Nikolay Cherkasov
- The Tsar's Bride (1965) - Petr Glebov
- Ivan Vasilievich changes profession (1973) - Yuri Yakovlev
- Tsar Ivan the Terrible (1991) - Kakhi Kavsadze
- Kremlin secrets of the sixteenth century (1991) - Alexey Zharkov
- Revelation of John the Prime Printer (1991) - Innokenty Smoktunovsky
- Thunderstorm over Russia (1992) - Oleg Borisov
- Ermak (1996) - Evgeniy Evstigneev
- Tsar (2009) - Peter Mamonov.
- Ivan the Terrible (2009 television series) - Alexander Demidov.
- Night at the Museum 2 (2009) - Christopher Guest
Computer games
- In Age of Empires III, Ivan the Terrible is introduced as the leader of the playable Russian civilization
- In Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare, Imran Zakhaev was created from the skull of Ivan the Terrible
The reign of Ivan IV Vasilyevich is a series of great deeds, for the benefit of Rus', and wild, bestial ones, which ultimately led to
“The Tsar did or planned a lot of good, smart, even great things, and along with this he did even more actions that made him an object of horror and disgust for his contemporaries and subsequent generations” (V. Klyuchevsky “Course of Russian History”)
The reign of Ivan the Terrible over the Russian state 1547 - 1584
Biography of Ivan the Terrible. Briefly
Ivan Vasilyevich (Grozny) was the eldest son of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya (daughter of Prince Vasily Lvovich from the Lithuanian Glinsky family and his wife Anna, originally from Serbia)
- 1530, August 25 - Ivan the Terrible was born
“By nature, Ivan received a lively and flexible mind, thoughtful and a little mocking. But the circumstances in which Ivan’s childhood passed spoiled this mind early and gave it an unnatural, painful development. Since childhood, he saw himself among strangers. A feeling of orphanhood, abandonment, and loneliness was etched in his soul early and deeply and remained throughout his life, about which he repeated at every opportunity: “My relatives did not care about me.” Hence his timidity, which became the main feature of his character. Like all people who grew up among strangers, without a father's gaze or a mother's greeting, Ivan early acquired the habit of walking around looking around and listening. This developed suspicion in him, which over the years turned into a deep distrust of people. As a child, he often experienced indifference or neglect from others. He himself later recalled in a letter to Prince Kurbsky how he and his younger brother Yuri were constrained in everything in childhood, kept like wretched people, poorly fed and clothed, not given any will in anything, forced to do everything by force and beyond their age. On solemn, ceremonial occasions - when leaving or receiving ambassadors - they surrounded him with royal pomp, stood around him with servile humility, and on weekdays the same people did not stand on ceremony with him, sometimes pampered him, sometimes teased him. They used to play with their brother Yuri in the bedroom of their late father, and the leading boyar, Prince I.V. Shuisky, would lie down on a bench in front of them, lean his elbow on the bed of the late sovereign, their father, and put his foot on it, not paying any attention to the children , neither paternal, nor even sovereign"
- 1533, December 3 - Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III, father of Ivan the Terrible, died
- 1533, December - Elena Glinskaya, Ivan’s mother, removed from power the seven guardians appointed by her husband’s last will, including her brother-in-law and her uncle, and became the ruler of the Russian state. She was assisted by her favorite Prince Ivan Fedorovich Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky, Prince Mikhail Lvovich Glinsky, former adviser to Vasily the Third Ivan Yuryevich Podzhogin
Elena Glinskaya ruled Muscovy for five years. It was a time of numerous boyar intrigues against her, arrests and deaths of the conspirators. Under Helena in 1537, a peace beneficial for Russia was concluded with the Polish king Sigismund I, which ended the Russian-Lithuanian war of 1534-1537, Sweden pledged not to help the Livonian Order and Lithuania, a monetary reform was carried out (a single currency was introduced - silver money weighing 0. 34 gr.), the Kitai-Gorod wall was built
- 1538, April 4 - Elena Glinskaya died, rumored to have been poisoned by the boyars
- 1538-1543 - the childhood of Ivan IV, which took place in continuous bloody feuds of the boyar clans of the Shuisky and Belsky
- 1542, January 3 - supporters of Prince I. Shuisky at night by surprise attacked Metropolitan Joasaph, who stood for the princes of Belsky. The ruler hid in the palace of the Grand Duke. The rebels broke the metropolitan's windows, rushed after him into the palace and, at dawn, noisily broke into the bedroom of the little sovereign Ivan the Fourth, awakened and frightened him
- 1543, September - Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Shuisky, his like-minded people, in front of the eyes of Metropolitan Macarius and 13-year-old Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich, beat the boyar Fyodor Vorontsov, who had won the love of the growing Ivan IV
- 1543, December 29 - Ivan Vasilyevich (the future Grozny), accusing the Shuiskys of “committing lawlessness and arbitrariness,” ordered the hounds to kill Shuisky
- 1546, December 13 - Ivan Vasilyevich expressed his intention to marry Metropolitan Macarius
- 1547, January 7 - on the advice of Metropolitan Macarius, Ivan Vasilyevich was married to the kingdom and for the first time in Russian history received the title of tsar
Crowning - the coronation ceremony of Russian monarchs, which had a pronounced sacred connotation and included the sacrament of anointing
- 1547, February 2 - marriage of Ivan the Terrible with Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina-Yuryeva
- 1547, April 12-June - fires in Moscow. A third of the city was destroyed, including Arbat and the Kremlin, large parts of Kitai-Gorod, Tverskaya, Dmitrovka, Myasnitskaya. Ivan IV and his close boyars waited out the fires in the village of Vorobyovo. Then the first thing he did was order the restoration of the Kremlin
- 1547, June 21 - uprising of Muscovites, confident that Moscow burned down from the witchcraft of the Glinskys.
- 1547, June 29 - the rebels came to the village of Vorobyovo, where Ivan IV had taken refuge, and demanded the extradition of the Glinskys. With great difficulty, they managed to persuade the crowd to disperse, convincing them that there were no Glinskys in Vorobyov. As soon as the danger had passed, the king ordered the arrest of the main conspirators and their execution
- 1547-1548, December 20-March 7 - the first unsuccessful campaign of the army of Ivan the Terrible to conquer Kazan
- 1548, late autumn - a group of several progressive-minded nobles and priests (the so-called “elected council”) formed around the young tsar, whose advice Ivan listened to in pursuing his domestic and foreign policy.
The “Chosen Rada” included princes D. Kurlyatev, M. Vorotynsky, A. Kurbsky, okolnichy A. Adashev, Moscow Metropolitan Macarius, priest of the home church of the Moscow kings Sylvester, clerk of the Ambassadorial Prikaz I. Viskovaty
- 1549-1550, November 24-March 25 - the second unsuccessful campaign of Ivan the Terrible to conquer Kazan
- 1549, August 10 - the daughter of Ivan and Anastasia Anna was born, died July 20, 1550
- 1551, March 17 - daughter Maria was born, died December 8, 1552
- 1552, June 16-October 11 - the third successful campaign of Ivan Vasilyevich to conquer Kazan
- 1552, October 2 - conquest of Kazan
- 1552, October - son Dmitry was born, died June 4, 1553
- 1553, autumn - Ivan the Terrible's serious illness. The political crisis associated with it: a manifestation of the opposition of the boyars
- 1554, March 28 - son Ivan was born
- 1555-1561 - construction of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow
- 1556, February 25 - daughter Evdokia was born, died in June 1558
- 1556, August 26 - the Astrakhan kingdom was annexed to Russia
- 1557, May 31 - son Fedor was born, died January 7, 1558
- 1560, spring - Ivan IV’s advisers Sylvester and A. Adashev fall out of favor
- 1560, September - death of Tsarina Anastasia Romanovna
- 1560, August 21 - wedding of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich and the daughter of the Kabardian prince Temryuk Maria
- 1563, March - son Vasily was born, died on May 3
- 1564, March - Ivan Fedorov completed work on the first Russian printed book, “The Acts of the Apostles...” in the first Russian printing yard, located in Moscow on Nikolskaya Street
Eternally anxious and suspicious, Ivan early got used to thinking that he was surrounded only by enemies, and cultivated in himself a sad inclination to look out for how an endless network of intrigues was being woven around him, with which, it seemed to him, they were trying to entangle him from all sides. This made him constantly on guard; the thought that an enemy was about to rush at him from around the corner became his habitual, every-minute expectation. With a suspicious and painfully excited sense of power, he considered good direct advice an encroachment on his sovereign rights, disagreement with his plans - a sign of sedition, conspiracy and treason. Having removed good advisers from himself, he surrendered to the one-sided direction of his suspicious political thought, which everywhere suspected intrigues and sedition, and inadvertently raised the old question about the attitude of the sovereign to the boyars - a question that he was not able to resolve and which therefore should not have been raised. This question was insoluble for the Moscow people of the 16th century. Therefore, it was necessary to hush it up for the time being, smoothing out the contradiction that caused it through the means of prudent policy, but Ivan wanted to cut the issue down at once, exacerbating the contradiction itself
- 1564, December 25 (January 3 according to the present day) - two letters from Ivan Vasilyevich, one to the people with assurance of good feelings, the second to the Metropolitan - accusing the boyars of treason and announcing their intention to abdicate the throne. The people's delegation begged him not to do this. As a condition for his return, Ivan the Terrible demanded that he be given his own inheritance, where he could rule at his own discretion
- 1565, January 5 - Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible established the oprichnina
As a result, the whole country was divided into two parts - zemshchina and oprichnina, that is, into state and personal lands of the kings. The oprichnina included the northern and northwestern regions, rich in fertile lands, some central destinies, the Kama region, and even individual streets of Moscow. The capital of the oprichnina became Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, the capital of the state still remained Moscow. The oprichnina lands were ruled personally by the tsar, and the zemstvo lands by the Boyar Duma; the oprichnina also had a separate treasury, its own. However, the Grand Parish, that is, the analogue of the modern Tax Administration, which was responsible for the receipt and distribution of taxes, was uniform for the entire state; The Ambassadorial Order also remained common. This seemed to symbolize that, despite the division of the lands into two parts, the state is still united and indestructible
- 1565-1569 - Oprichnina. These years went down in history with many stories about persecution, injustice, cruel executions of boyars, servicemen and their servants
- 1566, June 28 - the Zemsky Cathedral opened. Its members protested the establishment of the oprichnina, filing a petition for its abolition for 300 signatures; Of the petitioners, 50 were beaten with a whip, several had their tongues cut out, and three were beheaded (Wikipedia).
- 1568, March 22 - in the Assumption Cathedral, Metropolitan Philip refused to bless the Tsar and demanded the abolition of the oprichnina. In response, the guardsmen beat the metropolitan's servants to death with iron sticks, then a trial was initiated against the metropolitan in church court
- 1569, September 6 - the second wife of Ivan the Terrible, Maria Temryukovna, died
- 1569, December 23 - Metropolitan Philip (in the world boyar Fyodor Kolychev) was strangled by Malyuta Skuratov
- 1569, December - 1570, February - campaign of the oprichnina army to Novgorod, whose nobles Ivan the Terrible suspected of intending to surrender to the Polish king Sigismund. As a result, in Novgorod, with a population of approximately 30,000, about 5,000 were killed (during the campaign against Novgorod, the oprichnina army defeated Pskov, Tver, Klin, Torzhok)
The theme of the Novgorod veche is illustrated by a painting by a proletarian artist, where a group of fashionable boyars argue almost to the point of a fight with ragged workers. Meanwhile, the greatest expert on Ancient Novgorod, Anatoly Kirpichnikov, assures that there were no crowds at the meeting, but sat on benches. Kirpichnikov lined the entire Sofia Square with benches, and it turned out that no more than 300 people could attend the meeting. This means that Novgorod democracy was representative, parliamentary. In Novgorod during the so-called “Mongol-Tatar yoke,” the literacy of the population was universal, children were taught in schools. Instead of bast shoes, people wore morocco here, since there was little dirt on the streets: city services lined the sidewalks with wood. The scribe books mention about 30 trades that the Novgorodians were engaged in in addition to their agricultural work. By the 15th century in Vodskaya Pyatina alone (northwest Novgorod possessions) there were 215 blast furnaces, each smelting 1.5 tons of iron. Even then, firearms were produced in the city. Along with London, Bruges, Cologne, Bergen, Hamburg, our northern city was a member of the Hanseatic League - the then prototype of the WTO. If in the 15th century. Novgorod defeated Moscow, we probably would have had a completely different story. But it turned out the other way around. Later, under Ivan the Terrible, the guardsmen carried out genocide in Novgorod on such a scale that 150 years later, Peter I was thinking about how to teach at least noble children to write their name and where to get guns for the war with the Swede (“Arguments of the Week,” No. 34 (576) from 08/31/2017)
- 1570, July 25 - on suspicion of high treason, the head of the embassy order, the outstanding diplomat I. Viskovaty, was executed, who was crucified on a cross and dismembered alive in front of the king and the crowd. Together with Viskovaty, about a hundred more people were executed, and state treasurer N. Funikov was boiled alive
- 1571, May - Crimean Khan Devlet-Gerey burned Moscow
- 1571, October 28 - Ivan Vasilyevich married Marfa Vasilievna Sobakina
- 1571, mid-November - the third wife of Ivan the Terrible died
- 1572, June 30 - in the battle of the village of Molodi, 45 km. south of Moscow, near Podolsk, the Russian army defeated the army of Devlet-Gerey
- 1572 - Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible abolished the oprichnina, but executions and lawlessness did not stop. In 1573, the governor, Prince M.I., died from torture. Vorotynsky, who defeated Devlet-Girey in the Battle of Molodin. So some scientists (including S.M. Solovyov) defined the oprichnina within the chronological framework of 1565-1584
- 1581, September 1 - Ermak’s campaign to Siberia began, marking the beginning of its annexation to Russia
- 1581, November 19 - Ivan the Terrible's son died, beaten by his father in a fit of anger
- 1582, October 19 - a son, Dmitry, was born to Ivan the Terrible from Maria Feodorovna Nagoy. Died May 15, 1591
- 1584, March 18 - Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible, the last, died
Reforms of Ivan the Terrible
The internal policy of Ivan the Terrible was subordinated to the goal of strengthening and centralizing government, strengthening royal power, weakening the influence of feudal boyars on affairs in the country, and establishing the supremacy of the state over the church.
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Convening of the Zemsky Sobor (1549, February 27)
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Organization of the royal service. Around Moscow, 1070 nobles received land, which formed a new Streltsy army for Rus' (1549, October)
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The adoption of the new “Tsar’s Code of Law”, which introduced a common unit for collecting taxes, confirmed the right of peasants to move on St. George’s Day, and for the first time punishment for bribery was introduced (1550, June)
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The Stoglavy Sobor (Church and Zemsky Sobor) limited the further growth of church properties in cities and the financial privileges of the clergy; the unification of the all-Russian pantheon of saints took place, the regulation of services and rituals, the establishment of schools for the population (1551, early January)
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Zemstvo reform: “the abolition of feeding, replacing governors and volostels with elected public authorities, entrusting not only the criminal police to the zemstvo worlds themselves, but also the entire local zemstvo administration together with the civil court” (1552)
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Reorganization of public administration - formation of a system of orders (future ministries): Petition, Ambassadorial, Local, Streletsky, Pushkarsky, Bronny, Robbery, Printed, Sokolnichiy, Zemsky orders
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Abolition of some boyar privileges, in particular the right to a portion of tax revenues (1555)
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The “Code of Service” (on the military service of nobles) was adopted (1556)
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Change in entry into inheritance rights: in the absence of immediate heirs, the estates are transferred to the state (1562)