Years of life - (08/25/1530 - 03/18/1584+) Parents:Vasily III(1479-1533+), Elena Glinskaya; Children: 1. Anastasia(?-08/07/1560+), daughter of Roman Yuryevich Zakharyin, one of the ancestors of the Romanov dynasty, wife from 02/13/1547 => Anna (1549-1550+); Maria (born 1551, died in infancy); Dmitry (1552-1553x); died tragically in an accident; Ivan (03/28/1554-11/19/1581x); On November 9, 1581, Ivan the Terrible, having met his daughter-in-law, who was already expecting a child, in one of the inner chambers, attacked her with abuse for some omission in the decoration, and hit his son Ivan, who tried to stand up for his wife, in the temple with the sharp tip of a staff. As a result, the frightened woman lost the fetus, and Ivan Ivanovich died ten days later; Evdokia (1556-1558+); Fedor (1557-1598+); 2. Maria(?-1.09.1569+), daughter of Temryuk Idarov, prince. Kabardian; wife from 08/21/1561 => Vasily (03/2/1563-05/6/1563); 3. Marfa Vasilievna Sobakina(?-11/13/1571+), wife from 10/28/1571; 4. Anna Alekseevna Koltovskaya(?); Wife since April 1572, divorced 1575; 5.Anna Vasilchikova(1579+), wife from 1575, divorced 1576; 6.Vasilisa Melentyeva (?); 7.Maria Fedorovna Nagaya(?-1612+); Wife since autumn 1580. In 1584 she was exiled with her son Dmitry to the city of Uglich. after his death, she was tonsured a nun under the name of nun Martha. In 1605 she recognized her son False Dmitry I, later renounced him => Dmitry (1582-1591x); Died under unclear circumstances on May 15, 1591 in Uglich as a result of an accident or murder. Contemporaries accused him of murder Boris Godunov , because Dmitry was the direct heir to the throne and prevented Boris from advancing to him. Recent studies provide evidence that Godunov still had nothing to do with this case.
Life highlights
Vel. Prince of Moscow (1533-1547), from 1547 - the first Russian Tsar; Since the late 40s, it has ruled with the participation of the Chosen Rada. Under him, the convening of Zemsky Sobors began, the Code of Law of 1550 was compiled. Reforms of administration and the court were carried out (Gubnaya, Zemskaya and other reforms). In 1565, the oprichnina was introduced. Under Ivan IV, trade ties were established with England (1553), and the first printing house was created in Moscow. The Kazan (1552) and Astrakhan (1556) khanates were conquered. In 1558-1583. was carried out Livonian War for access to the Baltic Sea, the annexation of Siberia began (1581). The domestic policy of Ivan IV was accompanied by mass disgraces and executions, and increased enslavement of the peasants.
Childhood
After the death of his father, 3-year-old Ivan remained in the care of his mother, who died in 1538, when he was 8 years old. Ivan grew up in an environment of palace coups, the struggle for power between the boyar families of the Shuisky and Belsky, warring among themselves. The murders, intrigues and violence that surrounded him contributed to the development of suspicion, vindictiveness and cruelty in him. Ivan’s tendency to torment living beings manifested itself already in childhood, and those close to him approved of it. One of the strong impressions of the tsar in his youth was the “great fire” and the Moscow uprising of 1547. After the murder of one of the Glinskys, a relative of the tsar, the rebels came to the village of Vorobyovo, where the Grand Duke had taken refuge, and demanded the extradition of the rest of the Glinskys. With great difficulty, they managed to persuade the crowd to disperse, convincing them that they were not in Vorobyovo. As soon as the danger had passed, the king ordered the arrest of the main conspirators and their execution.
Beginning of reign
The king’s favorite idea, realized already in his youth, was the idea of unlimited autocratic power. On January 16, 1547, the solemn crowning of Grand Duke Ivan IV took place in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Signs of royal dignity were placed on him: the cross of the Life-Giving Tree, barmas and the cap of Monomakh. After receiving the Holy Mysteries, Ivan Vasilyevich was anointed with myrrh. 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” was either not translated at all, or translated as “emperor”. The Russian autocrat thereby stood on a par with the only Holy Roman Emperor in Europe. Since 1549, together with the Elected Rada (A.F. Adashev, Metropolitan Macarius, A.M. Kurbsky, priest Sylvester), Ivan IV carried out a number of reforms aimed at centralizing the state: Zemstvo reform of Ivan IV, Guba reform, reforms were carried out in the army, in 1550 a new code of law of Ivan IV was adopted. In 1549 The first Zemsky Sobor was convened in 1551. The Stoglav Sobor adopted a collection of decisions on church life "Stoglav". In 1555-1556, Ivan IV abolished feeding and adopted the Code of Service. In 1550-1551, Ivan the Terrible personally took part in the Kazan campaigns. In 1552 Kazan was conquered, then the Astrakhan Khanate (1556), the Siberian Khan Ediger and Nogai the Great became dependent on the Russian Tsar. In 1553, trade relations with England were established. In 1558, Ivan IV began the Livonian War for the capture of the Baltic Sea coast. Initially, military operations developed successfully. By 1560, the army of the Livonian Order was completely defeated, and the Order itself ceased to exist. Meanwhile, serious changes took place in the internal situation of the country. Around 1560, the tsar broke with the leaders of the Chosen Rada and placed various disgraces on them. According to some historians, Sylvester and Adashev, realizing that the Livonian War did not promise success for Russia, unsuccessfully advised the tsar to come to an agreement with the enemy. In 1563, Russian troops captured Polotsk, at that time a large Lithuanian fortress. The Tsar was especially proud of this victory, won after the break with the Chosen Rada. However, already in 1564 Russia suffered serious defeats. The king began to look for those “to blame”, disgraces and executions began.
Oprichnina
The Tsar became increasingly imbued with the idea of establishing a personal dictatorship. In 1565 he announced introduction of oprichnina in the country. The country was divided into two parts: the territories that were not included in the oprichnina began to be called zemshchina, each oprichnik swore an oath of allegiance to the tsar and pledged not to communicate with the zemstvo. The guardsmen dressed in black clothes, similar to monastic clothes. Horse guardsmen had special insignia; gloomy symbols of the era were attached to their saddles: a broom - to sweep out treason, and dog heads - to gnaw out treason. With the help of the guardsmen, who were exempt from judicial responsibility, Ivan IV forcibly confiscated the boyar estates, transferring them to the guardsman nobles. Executions and disgraces were accompanied by terror and robbery among the population. A major event of the oprichnina was the Novgorod pogrom in January-February 1570, the reason for which was the suspicion of Novgorod’s desire to go over to Lithuania. The king personally led the campaign. All the cities along the road from Moscow to Novgorod were plundered. During this campaign in December 1569, Malyuta Skuratov strangled Metropolitan Philip (Kolychev Fedor Stepanovich) (1507-69x), who publicly opposed the oprichnina and executions of Ivan IV, in the Tver Adolescent Monastery. It is believed that the number of victims in Novgorod, where no more than 30 thousand people lived at that time, reached 10-15 thousand. Most historians believe that in 1572 the tsar abolished the oprichnina. The invasion of Moscow in 1571 by the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey, whom the oprichnina army could not stop, played a role; Posads were burned, the fire spread to Kitay-Gorod and the Kremlin.
Results of the reign
The division of the country had a detrimental effect on the state's economy. A huge number of lands were ravaged and devastated. In 1581 In order to prevent the desolation of estates, the tsar introduced reserved summers - a temporary ban on peasants leaving their owners on St. George's Day, which contributed to the establishment of serfdom in Russia. The Livonian War ended in complete failure and the loss of the original Russian lands. Ivan the Terrible could see the objective results of his reign already during his lifetime: it was the failure of all domestic and foreign policy endeavors. Since 1578 the king stopped executing. Almost at the same time, he ordered that synodics (memorial lists) be compiled for those executed and contributions sent to the monasteries for the commemoration of their souls; in his will of 1579 he repented of his deeds.
Sons and wives of Ivan the Terrible
Periods of repentance and prayer were followed by terrible fits of rage. During one of these attacks on November 9, 1582, in the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, a country residence, the tsar accidentally killed his son Ivan Ivanovich, hitting him in the temple with a staff with an iron tip. The death of the heir plunged the tsar into despair, since his other son, Fyodor Ivanovich, was unable to rule the country. Ivan the Terrible sent a large contribution to the monastery to commemorate the soul of his son; he even thought about leaving for the monastery. The exact number of wives of Ivan the Terrible is unknown, but he was probably married seven times. Not counting the children who died in infancy, he had three sons. From his first marriage to Anastasia Zakharyina-Yuryeva, who was his beloved wife, three sons were born, Dmitry, Ivan and Fedor. Tsarevich Dmitry Sr. was born immediately after the capture of Kazan (1552). Ivan the Terrible, who vowed to make a pilgrimage to the Cyril Monastery on Beloozero in the event of victory, took a newborn baby on the trip. Relatives of Tsarevich Dmitry on his mother’s side, the Romanov boyars, accompanied Grozny and during the days of the journey they vigilantly monitored the strict observance of the ceremonial, which emphasized their high position at court. Wherever the nanny appeared with the prince in her arms, she was invariably supported by the arms of two Romanov boyars. The royal family traveled on pilgrimage in plows. The boyars once happened to step together with their nurse onto the shaky gangplank of a plow. Everyone immediately fell into the water. For adults, swimming in the river did not cause any harm. The baby Dmitry choked and it was not possible to pump him out. The second wife was the daughter of the Kabardian prince Maria Temryukovna. The third is Marfa Sobakina, who died unexpectedly three weeks after the wedding. According to church rules, it was forbidden to marry more than three times. In May 1572, a church council was convened to permit a fourth marriage - with Anna Koltovskaya. But that same year she was tonsured a nun. The fifth wife was Anna Vasilchikova in 1575, who died in 1579, the sixth was probably Vasilisa Melentyeva. The last marriage took place in the fall of 1580 with Maria Naga. On November 19, 1582, the tsar’s third son, Dmitry Ivanovich, was born, who died in 1591 in Uglich.
The legacy of Ivan the Terrible
Ivan IV went down in history not only as a tyrant. He was one of the most educated people of his time, had a phenomenal memory and theological erudition. He is the author of numerous messages (including to Andrey Kurbsky), music and text of the service for the feast of Our Lady of Vladimir, canon to Archangel Michael. The Tsar contributed to the organization of book printing in Moscow and the construction of St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square to commemorate the conquest of the Kazan kingdom.
Material from the site
FROM ANCIENT Rus' TO THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
IVAN IV VASILIEVICH the Terrible (number 20) From the family of Moscow Grand Dukes. Son of Vasily III Ivanovich and Prince. Elena Vasilievna Glinskaya. Genus. Aug 25 1530 Vel. book Moscow in 1534 - 1547 it. from 16 Liv. 1547 to March 18, 1584 Tsar of All Rus'. J.: 1) from February 3. 1547 Anastasia Romanovna Yuryeva-Zakharyina (+ August 7, 1560); 2) from August 21 1561 Maria Temryukovna, prince. Cherkasy (+ 1 Sep. 1569); 3) from 28 Oct. 1571 Marfa Vasilievna Sobakina (+ November 14, 1571); 4) from 29 anr. 1572 Anna Alekseevna Kolotovskaya (+ April 5, 1626); 5) from Sept. 1580 Maria Fedorovna Nagaya (+ after Oct. 20, 1610). + March 18, 1584 *** Ivan IV, later nicknamed the Terrible, was born when his father, Grand Duke Vasily III, was already over fifty. He was an ardently desired child, whose birth was eagerly awaited by his parents and the whole country. Four years earlier, Vasily, who had gone through the disappointment of his first fruitless marriage, married the young Lithuanian princess Elena Vasilievna Glinskaya. It seemed that now the birth of an heir was guaranteed, but for more than three years Elena, contrary to the hopes of her husband and the people, had no children. She traveled with the Grand Duke to Pereyaslavl, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Vologda, and Beloozero; I went on foot to holy monasteries and deserts, gave out rich alms, prayed with tears for childbearing, but all without success. Some regretted it, others, condemning Vasily’s second marriage, gloated and said that God would never bless him with the desired fruit. And finally Elena found herself pregnant. Some holy fool, named Domitian, announced to her that she would be the mother of Titus, a broad-minded man, and on August 25, 1530, at 7 o’clock in the morning, a son, Ivan, was actually born. They write that at that very moment the earth and sky shook from unheard-of thunderclaps, which followed one after another with terrible continuous lightning. But this was perceived by parents and contemporaries as a good omen. All cities, even the most remote ones, sent ambassadors to Moscow with congratulations. Vasily III, not knowing how to express his joy, distributed huge sums to the monasteries and people, ordered all the dungeons to be opened, removed disgrace from many noble people and finally allowed his younger brother, Prince Andrei, to marry. *** Much to the misfortune of Russia and Ivan himself, Vasily did not live long after this joyful event. He died in 1534, and power passed to Princess Elena Glinskaya. In 1538, she died suddenly, poisoned, as is commonly believed, by seditious boyars. Thus, at the age of seven, Ivan was left an orphan, in the hands of the boyars, who cared about anything but the upbringing of the future sovereign. Ivan himself later, in a letter to Kurbsky, spoke about the impressions of his childhood: “After the death of my mother, Elena, my brother George and I were left orphans; our subjects got their wish, found a kingdom without a ruler: they did not care about us, their sovereigns. , they began to worry only about acquiring wealth and glory, they began to quarrel with each other. And how much evil they did! They carried it to a large treasury, and furiously kicked it and stabbed it with knitting needles, and took some of it for themselves.” The Shuiskys became the leaders of the boyars. Little Ivan retained the most painful memories of this time. In a letter to Kurbsky, he wrote: “My brother Georgy and I began to be raised as foreigners or as beggars. We suffered no shortage of clothing and food. We had no will for anything, nothing was done to us as we should be treated.” with the children. I remember one thing: it used to be that we were playing, and Prince Ivan Vasilyevich Shuisky was sitting on the bench, leaning his elbow on our father’s bed, putting his foot on it. What can we say about the parents’ treasury? meanwhile they took everything for themselves; from the treasury of our father and grandfather they forged gold and silver vessels for themselves, wrote the names of their parents on them, as if it were inherited property... Then they attacked the cities and villages and plundered the inhabitants without mercy, and which ones. They did dirty tricks on their neighbors, and it was impossible to count; they made all their subordinates their slaves, and they made their slaves nobles; they thought that they were ruling and building, but instead there were only lies and disorder everywhere, they took immeasurable bribes from everywhere, everyone said and did according to them. bribe." However, Ivan Shuisky himself soon had to leave the court due to illness. His relative Andrei Mikhailovich Shuisky came to power, under whom licentiousness and anarchy reached their greatest strength. A man of little intelligence and completely short-sighted, he seemed to be doing everything on purpose to tease the growing Ivan. At the same time, they indulged all his base passions. According to Kurbsky, Ivan was raised by great and proud boyars to their own and their children’s misfortune, trying to please each other in all pleasure and voluptuousness. When he was about twelve years old, he began first of all to shed the blood of dumb animals, throwing them to the ground from high towers, and the nurturers allowed him to do this and even praised him, teaching the boy to spend their food. On December 29, 1543, Ivan ordered Andrei Shuisky himself to be captured and given to the hounds; The hounds killed the hated boyar on the way to prison. Ivan showed his character for the first time and received the nickname Grozny. From then on, the chronicler says, the boyars began to have fear and obedience to the sovereign. Ivan’s closest advisers were his uncles, Mikhail and Yuri Glinsky. Together with them, Ivan indulged in all sorts of riotous entertainment: for example, he gathered a crowd of noble youth around him and rode on horseback through the streets and squares, beat, robbed the men and women he met, and truly, according to Kurbsky, practiced the most criminal deeds. And the caresses only said to this: “Oh! This king will be brave and courageous.” The same violence and impatience are visible in the decisions of the young sovereign. First of all, disgrace overtook the Shuisky supporters. Prince Fyodor Shuisky-Skopin, Prince Yuri Temkin and Foma Golovin were exiled, the noble boyar Ivan Kubensky was sent to prison, Afanasy Buturlina, accused of impudent words, had his tongue cut out. Then Ivan fell into disgrace with Prince Pyotr Shuisky-Gorbaty, Dmitry Paletsky and his former favorite Fyodor Vorontsov. They were forgiven at the request of the Metropolitan, but not for long. In May. In 1546, having received news of the invasion of the Crimean Khan, Ivan went with his army to Kolomna. One day, having gone for a walk in the countryside, Ivan was stopped by Novgorod squeakers, who began to hit him with their foreheads about something. He was not in the mood to listen to them and ordered them to be driven away. A fight broke out between the pishchalniks and the royal boyars; the Grand Duke had to make his way to the camp by a roundabout road. Now he was overcome by suspicion: he ordered to find out at whose orders the squeakers dared to do this. The boy Vasily Zakharov informed him that the pishchalniks were trained by the boyars, Prince Kubensky and two Vorontsovs, Fyodor and Vasily Mikhailovich. Ivan, in great rage, ordered their execution. All three had their heads cut off. Kurbsky dates other executions to the same times. In the seventeenth year of his life, on December 13, 1546, Ivan announced to the Metropolitan that he wanted to get married. The next day, the Metropolitan served a prayer service in the Assumption Cathedral, invited all the boyars, even the disgraced ones, and went with everyone to the Grand Duke. Ivan said to Macarius: “At first I thought of marrying in foreign states with some king or tsar; But then I abandoned this thought, I don’t want to marry in foreign states, because after my father and mother I remained small; if I bring myself a wife from foreign land and we will not agree on morals, then there will be a bad life between us; therefore, I want to marry in my state, with whom God will bless with your blessing.” Metropolitan and boyars, says the chronicler; They cried with joy, seeing that the sovereign was so young, and yet did not consult with anyone. But young Ivan immediately surprised them with another speech. “With the blessing of the Metropolitan’s father and with your boyar council, I want, before my marriage, to look for the ancestral ranks, as our ancestors, kings and great princes, and our relative Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh sat down for the kingdom and the great reign; and I also want to fulfill this rank for kingdom, to sit down on a great reign." The boyars were delighted, although - as can be seen from Kurbsky's letters - some were not very happy that the sixteen-year-old Grand Duke wished to accept the title that neither his father nor his grandfather dared to accept - the title of Tsar. On January 16, 1547, the royal wedding took place , similar to the wedding of Dmitry the grandson under Ivan III. Anastasia, the daughter of the deceased okolnik Roman Yuryevich Zakharyin-Koshkin, was chosen as the bride for the Tsar. Contemporaries, depicting the properties of Anastasia, attribute to her all the feminine virtues for which they only found names in the Russian language: chastity, humility. , piety, sensitivity, kindness, not to mention beauty, combined with a solid mind. If the union with such a woman did not immediately soften the king’s violent character, it prepared for his further transformation. On February 3, a wedding was celebrated. And on June 21, an unprecedentedly strong fire broke out. , which had never happened in Moscow. A rumor spread that Moscow burned down thanks to magic. Sorcerers, at the direction of the Glinskys, allegedly took out human hearts, soaked them in water, and sprinkled this water along the streets. Yuri Glinsky was killed by the mob right in the Assumption Cathedral. A crowd of rabble came to the Tsar's palace in the village of Vorobyovo, shouting for the Tsar to hand over to them his grandmother Anna Glinskaya and his uncle, Prince Mikhail, who allegedly hid in his chambers. Ivan ordered the screamers to be seized and executed; The rest were overcome with fear and fled. But from that time on, Glinsky completely lost his influence on the tsar. They were replaced by the priest of the Annunciation Cathedral, Sylvester, and the royal lieutenant, Alexey Fedorovich Adashev. Contemporaries attributed this change to the shock experienced by the king during the uprising. Kurbsky wrote that at that moment Ivan was completely at a loss and that Sylvester suddenly appeared before him and in a passionate speech vividly outlined to Ivan the sad state of Moscow life, pointed out the reason for it - the vices of the tsar himself, threatened future Divine punishments and thus produced a strong moral in Ivan coup. Perhaps Kurbsky's testimony is an exaggeration, but there is no doubt that Sylvester and Adashev appeared next to the tsar immediately after the rebellion. Grozny had a nervous and impressionable character. In love and hate, he knew no restraint, often fell under the strong influence of those close to him and began to look at life through their eyes. Sylvester's influence was generally beneficial. Gradually, an enlightened circle formed around the young tsar, which Kurbsky called the “Chosen Rada.” In addition to Sylvester, Adashev, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, it included princes Vorotynsky, Odoevsky, Serebryany, Gorbaty, Sheremetyev and others. The first big undertaking of Ivan’s independent kingdom was the Kazan campaigns. At the end of 1547, Ivan set out on a campaign against Kazan for the first time: in December he went to Vladimir, ordering guns to be led there. In February 1548, the army left Nizhny, but was forced to return due to the early onset of spring. Ivan returned to Moscow, as the chronicler says, in great tears, saddened by the fact that God did not vouchsafe him to complete the campaign. In November 1549, Ivan set out on a second campaign and this time, in February 1550, he reached Kazan itself. But the attack failed. Many people on both sides were beaten, and then a thaw came, strong winds blew, and rain began to pour. After standing for two days near the city, Ivan was forced to return, but preliminary success was still achieved; By order of the tsar, the city of Sviyazhsk was founded at the mouth of the Sviyaga River. After this, the entire mountainous side fell away from Kazan: the Cheremis, Chuvash, and Mordovians beat the sovereign with their foreheads, and Ivan accepted them into Russian citizenship. This was the first step towards the complete conquest of the Volga region, but for the final triumph of Moscow some more time had to pass. Ivan turned to internal affairs for now. *** Under the influence of his surroundings, in 1550 he decided to take a new step in Russian history - the convening of the first Zemsky Sobor. “In the twentieth year of his age,” says the Degree Book, “seeing the state in great melancholy and sadness from the violence of the strong and from untruths, the king intended to bring everyone into love. After consulting with the Metropolitan on how to destroy sedition, ruin untruths, satisfy enmity, he called to assemble his state from cities of all ranks." When the elected officials gathered, Ivan went out on Sunday with a cross to the Place of Execution and... after the prayer service he began to say to the metropolitan: “I pray to you, holy master! Be my helper and champion of love. I know that you desire good deeds and love. You yourself know that I remained four years after my father, and eight years after my mother; my relatives did not care about me, and my strong boyars and nobles did not care about me and were autocratic, they stole dignity and honors for themselves in my name and practiced themselves in many selfish thefts and troubles. It was as if I was deaf and did not hear, and did not have reproach in my mouth due to my youth and helplessness, but they ruled." And, turning to the boyars present in the square, Ivan threw at them passionate words: "O unrighteous covetous and predators and Unrighteous judges! What answer will you give us now that many have brought tears upon themselves? I am pure from this blood, expect your reward." Then, bowing on all sides, the king continued: "People of God and given to us by God! I pray for your faith in God and love for us. Now we cannot correct your previous troubles, ruins and taxes due to my long minority, the emptiness and lies of my boyars and authorities, the recklessness of the unrighteous, covetousness and love of money. I beg you, leave each other enmity and burdens, except perhaps for very big matters: in these matters and in new ones, I myself will be your judge and defense, as much as possible, I will ruin untruths and return what was stolen." On the same day, Ivan granted Adashev in okolnichy and at the same time said to him: “Alexey! I instruct you to accept petitions from the poor and offended and analyze them carefully. Do not be afraid of the strong and glorious, who steal honors and brutalize the poor and weak with their violence; do not look at the false tears of the poor, who slander the rich, who want to be right with false tears, but consider everything carefully and bring the truth to us, fearing the judgment of God; elect righteous judges from the boyars and nobles." There is no other news about the first Zemsky Sobor, but from a number of indirect signs one can see that the matter was not limited to one speech of the tsar, but many practical issues were raised. The tsar ordered the boyars to make peace with all Christians kingdom. And indeed, soon after this, an order was given to all feeding governors to quickly put an end to all disputes with zemstvo societies regarding feeding. At the Council of the Stoglavy in 1551, Ivan said that the previous council had given him the blessing to correct the old Code of Law of 1497. and to establish elders and tselovalenki throughout all the lands of their state. This means that the Zemsky Sobor in 1550 discussed a whole series of legislative measures aimed at restructuring local government. This plan began with the urgent elimination of all litigation between the zemstvo and the feeding officers, continued with the revision of the Code of Law with the mandatory universal introduction of elected elders and kissers into the court, and ended with the granting of statutory charters that generally abolished feeding. As a result of these measures, local communities were supposed to free themselves from the petty tutelage of boyar-governors, collect taxes themselves and administer justice themselves. It is known that feeding, unjust trials and uncontrolled collection of taxes became the real scourge of Russian life by the middle of the 16th century. I inform all sources of this time about the numerous abuses of boyar-governors in the performance of their duties. By abolishing feeding and creating independent communal courts, Ivan tried to destroy the evil that had taken deep roots in Russian society. All these measures were fully consistent with the tsar’s new state of mind and stemmed from his speech delivered to all the people in 1550. However, the charters, which gave the volosts the right to be governed by both elected authorities, were paid off. The volost paid off the governors with a certain sum, which we contributed to the treasury; the government gave her the right to pay off as a result of her request; if she did not strike with her brow and considered the new order of things unprofitable for herself, then she remained with the old one. The following year, 1551, a large church council, usually called Stoglav, was convened to organize church administration and the religious and moral life of the people. Here the new Code of Laws was presented, which was a corrected and distributed edition of the old grandfather’s Code of Laws of 1497. *** While the Tsar was busy with internal problems, the need for the Kazan War finally became ripe. Previously, there was a fairly strong Russian party in Kazan, with the help of which the Moscow princes more than once installed kings they liked here. But the fall of the mountain side and the construction of Sviyazhsk united all the dissatisfied. The final break followed in March 1552. The Kazan people began to be sent with the mountain people, and they, having tasted Russian power, became agitated and went over to the side of Kazan. Ten thousand Nogais and the Astrakhan prince Ediger Magmet, whom the Kazan people installed as king, came to the aid of the Tatars there. On June 16, 1552, Ivan set out on his third Kazan campaign, not yet knowing for sure who he would have to fight with first - everyone was waiting for the arrival of the Crimeans. Indeed, on June 22, the Crimean Khan approached Tula, approached it all day, but, having learned that Ivan with the entire Russian army was standing on the Oka, he hastily left for the steppe. Having happily got rid of this enemy, Ivan continued his campaign and on August 13 came to Sviyazhsk. The voivode, Prince Mikulinsky, had already defeated the inhabitants of the mountainous side by this time and brought them back under the rule of Moscow. On August 18, the army crossed the Volga, and on the 23rd they approached Kazan. Ivan had 150 thousand troops and 150 guns with him. Kazan, protected only by wooden walls, was defended by 30,000 Tatars. Both of them were very determined. Ivan declared his firm intention to spend the winter near Kazan; I traveled around the city day and night, looking at places where it would be more convenient to make fortifications. The siege work went on non-stop: they set up tours and supplied them with cannons; Where it was impossible to place tours, they placed tyn there, so that Kazan was surrounded on all sides by Russian fortifications. The Kazan people constantly made forays, fought desperately, but each time the Russians drove them back into the city. Many people died in the city from the continuous firing throughout the city; The archers and Cossacks, dug in in ditches in front of the tours, with well-aimed shots prevented the Kazan people from climbing the walls. On August 31, Ivan called a German engineer, skilled in destroying cities, and ordered him to dig under the wall. Another tunnel was led under the hiding place, along which the besieged went for water. On September 4, the second tunnel was completed. Ivan ordered 11 barrels of gunpowder to be placed under the cache and exploded. Part of the wall flew into the air, many Kazan residents in the city were beaten by stones and logs falling from a great height. The Russians took advantage of this, broke into the city and beat and captured many Tatars. Meanwhile, another part of the Russian army moved the tours close to the ditch. Skirmishes and attacks continued continuously day and night. The besieged took refuge under tarasami (earthen fortifications), and their fire caused great damage to the Russian army. Ivan ordered to dig under the Taras, blow them up and then move the tours to the very gates. On September 30, the Taras flew into the air together with the people; the logs killed many people in the city, the rest remained inactive for a long time. Taking advantage of this, the Russians established tours against all the gates, and the regiment of Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky took the Arched Tower in battle. But the other regiments were not ready for the assault, and by order of the king, the soldiers were forcibly taken out of the city. On October 1, the cannons incessantly hit the walls and in many places destroyed them to the ground. The remains of the wall were demolished by a powerful explosion that occurred on the morning of October 2. After this, the Russians launched an assault. A terrible battle began at the gates and on the walls. The Tatars offered desperate resistance; For several hours the Russians could not take a single step forward, despite the fact that the Tsar rode up to the very walls of the city and encouraged them. Finally, the Russians burst into the city over the roofs of houses. The hottest battle broke out near the mosque. Seeing their defeat, 6,000 Tatars tried to break out of the city, but were almost completely exterminated. Only a few managed to reach the forest. In Kazan, not a single one of the defenders remained alive, because Ivan ordered all the armed men to be beaten, and only women and children to be taken prisoner. The tsar gave all the treasures taken in Kazan, as well as all the captives, to the army, and took for himself only Tsar Ediger, banners and city cannons. The news of the Kazan victory made an indelible impression on his contemporaries. Since the time of Dmitry Donskoy, Russian weapons have not achieved a more glorious victory. The very thought that after so many years of yoke, the Tatar kingdom had finally fallen, filled all hearts with stormy jubilation. Along the entire return route from Nizhny to Moscow, the Tsar was greeted by crowds of people shouting. For three days after returning to Moscow, from November 8 to 10, there was a feast in the royal palace; During this time, Ivan distributed gifts worth 48,000 rubles. *** There is no doubt that 1552 was the finest hour of Ivan’s entire reign. If he had died this year, after a brilliant victory, in the midst of important reforms, posterity would have had a completely different memory of this complex and controversial man. But he ruled for another thirty years and with many dark deeds almost eclipsed all the bright memories of the first years of his reign. The discord between Ivan and his entourage first emerged in 1553. This year, Ivan fell ill with a fever and, having recovered from his delirium, ordered a will to be written, in which he declared his son Dmitry, born the previous year, as heir. But when the boyars were gathered in the royal dining room to take the oath, many refused to take the oath. Alexei Adashev’s father boldly told the sick sovereign: “We are glad to obey you and your son, but we don’t want to serve the Zakharyins, who will rule the state in the name of the baby, and we have already experienced what boyar rule means.” The dispute between the boyars was heated. Among those “who did not want to take the oath was the sovereign’s cousin, Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky. And this subsequently gave the tsar a reason to interpret that the boyars’ refusal to take the oath was due to the secret intention of elevating Vladimir Andreevich to the throne after his death. The dispute about the oath lasted the whole day and was not resolved. Finally, all the boyars, one after another, swore allegiance, Vladimir Andreevich too. It is difficult to decide: whether some really had the intention of elevating Vladimir to the throne in the event of the death of the Tsar, or whether the stubbornness of the boyars came from dislike for the Zakharyins, from fear of falling under their power, and the boyars were only looking for a means in the event of Ivan’s death to arrange things in such a way as to prevent domination to his suryas. It seemed very suspicious to everyone that while the tsar lay dying, Vladimir Andreevich was distributing salaries to his boyar children and delayed until the last minute in taking the oath. The boyars who did not like him began to suspect him and did not even allow him to see the sick sovereign. Sylvester stood up for Vladimir, and Ivan really didn’t like it. He did not clearly show his displeasure, but there is no doubt that after this Sylvester lost much of his influence. In general, from everything that is known about this man, we can conclude that Sylvester was a well-intentioned and strictly pious husband, but prone to trifles and obsessive. Having undertaken to control the conscience and moral behavior of the young king, he, apparently, often took the wrong tone, went into unnecessary details, allowed himself to insist, and more than once forced the king to change his decision. Yielding to him at first, Ivan. Over time, he began to get irritated and burdened by this guardianship. Later, Grozny wrote to Kurbsky about Sylvester and Adashev: “They took away from us the power given to us from our ancestors to elevate you, boyars, according to our will, but they put everything under their and your power; as you liked, so it was done; you established friendship with each other in order to keep everything in their own will; they did not ask us about anything, as if we were not in the world; every arrangement and approval was carried out according to the will of them and their advisers. They consider it useless, but they themselves will at least invent something inconvenient and depraved, so everything is better than them! In all small and insignificant things, before putting on shoes and before sleeping, I had no will, but everything was done according to their will. What is unreasonable here if we did not want to remain in infancy, being in perfect reason? Having freed himself from a fatal illness, Ivan decided to make a pilgrimage to the Kirillov Belozersky Monastery. Many important events are also associated with this trip. Ivan’s first son, baby Dmitry, died dearly. In the Trinity Monastery, Ivan met with Maxim the Greek, and in Dmitrov, in the Pesnoshsky Monastery, with another prisoner, Vassian Toporkov, the former bishop of Kolomna. Ivan, remembering that Toporkov was his father’s favorite, went to his cell and asked: “How should I reign in order to keep my nobles in obedience?” Vassian, according to Kurbsky, whispered the following answer in his ear: “If you want to be an autocrat, do not keep with you a single adviser who would be smarter than you, because you are better than everyone; if you do this, you will be strong in the kingdom and You will have everything in your hands. If you have people smarter than you with you, then of necessity you will obey them.” Ivan kissed his hand and said: “If my father were alive, then he would not have given me such last advice!” Kurbsky says that all the trouble came from Toporkov’s satanic syllogism, that is, a change in Ivan’s behavior, but this is hardly true. The chronicler indicates the beginning of troubles in the events that occurred during Ivan’s illness, and it is unlikely that Ivan found anything new for himself in Toporkov’s words. Reading his late correspondence with Kurbsky, one can see that from childhood Ivan reaffirmed his favorite biblical texts and historical examples, and they all boiled down to one thing - they all talked about royal power and its Divine origin, about state order, about relations with advisers and subjects , about the disastrous consequences of discord and anarchy. Ivan the Terrible was the first of the Moscow sovereigns to see and vividly feel the king in himself in the true biblical sense, as God’s anointed. But this idea did not appear to him right away: he doubted his abilities, suffered from self-abasement, gave himself up to voluntary submission to advisers, as if sacrificing, and at the same time saw that they were taking on a more and more authoritative tone over him, using him , and at the same time they are ready to sell it. He did not become autocratic until he was completely disillusioned with people, and in this sense, Toporkov’s words, which coincided with his own innermost thoughts, should have been of great importance. The destructive struggle of passions in Ivan’s soul had already begun, but its consequences appeared later. In 1556, the Moscow army captured Astrakhan. The entire territory of the Astrakhan Khanate and the Volga steppes right up to the Caspian Sea were annexed to Russia. The Kazan and Astrakhan wars inevitably led to a war with the Crimea, and meanwhile new war in the west, which gradually attracted all the forces of Russia. In 1553, the 50-year truce with Livonia ended, one of the conditions of which was the payment of tribute from Dorpat (Yuryev). Under Vasily III and during Ivan’s childhood, this tribute was not paid by the knights, and so, in 1554, the Livonian ambassadors came to Moscow to extend the treaty. Ivan the Terrible ordered to remember her and collect arrears for 50 years. The ambassadors promised to repay the debt within three years. In 1557, the arrears were never paid, and from that year the Livonian War began. The success that accompanied the Russians at its beginning exceeded all expectations. In May 1558, Narva was taken. Next month - Neuhaus. In July Dorpat capitulated, seduced by the favorable conditions offered to him by the Russian governors. By the fall, more than 20 cities had transferred to Russian citizenship. Some Revel residents continued to defend themselves and in 1559 turned to the Danish king with a request to accept them as his citizenship. The Livonian master Ketler followed their example and in the fall of 1559 entered into an alliance with the Polish king Sigismund Augustus. The Livonians gave 9 volosts to Poland on the condition that the king would assist them against Russia. By 1560, it became clear that instead of weak Livonia, Russia would face a war with Denmark, Poland, and possibly Sweden. The tsar's break with Sylvester and Adashev dates back to this time. Already before, Ivan had acted autocratically on many occasions, contrary to Sylvester’s advice. He convinced the tsar to continue the war in the east and crown his actions with the conquest of Crimea. Ivan turned instead to the Baltic states. Throughout the Livonian War, Sylvester was its fierce opponent and, in his quest to stop the Tsar, could not restrain himself. “Whether I, or the queen, or the children get sick,” Grozny later wrote to Kurbsky, “all this, according to you, was God’s punishment for our disobedience to you.” For Ivan, whose age was already approaching 30 years, Sylvester’s reproaches became completely unbearable, and it was not difficult for the enemies to completely quarrel between them. The break took place in the fall of 1559 during the return of the Tsar with the sick Tsarina Anastasia from Mozhaisk to Moscow. His circumstances are dark and unclear. Ivan, in a letter to Kurbsky, talks about them in passing. It is only obvious that this time Sylvester and Adashev had a clash with Anastasia herself. “For one small word of hers, she appeared displeasing to them,” wrote Grozny, “for one small word of hers they became angry.” What is hidden behind this phrase is unknown, but in the spring of 1560 we already see Adashev in honorable exile with the army leaving for Livonia. At the same time, Sylvester voluntarily retired to the Kirillov Belozersky Monastery. Reconciliation with them was still possible, if not for a fatal circumstance: in August 1560, Ivan’s beloved wife Anastasia Romanovna died, and with her death those who did not love her during her lifetime became completely hated. The enemies, among whom the Shurya of Tsar Zakharya played a prominent role, hastened to finally destroy their former favorites. In the same year, a trial took place over Adashev and Sylvester, who were accused indiscriminately, without even being summoned to Moscow for justification. Kurbsky says that they were accused of poisoning Anastasia, but this is hardly true. Grozny himself does not mention a word about this, but only says: “Having discovered the treason of the dog Alexei Adashev and all his advisers, we punished them mercifully: we did not execute anyone with the death penalty, but sent them to different places. Pop Sylvester, seeing his advisers in disgrace, He left of his own free will, and we let him go, not because we were ashamed of him, but because we did not want to judge him here: I want to judge him in eternal life, before the lamb of God; He doesn’t see our faces.” Sylvester went to a monastery in Solovki, and nothing is known about his further fate. Adashev was imprisoned in Dorpat, where he died two months later from fever. Ivan dealt much more harshly with Adashev’s relatives and friends. In 1561, Alexei Adashev's brother, Danilo, with his 12-year-old son, his father-in-law Turov, three brothers of Alexei's wife, Satin, Adashev's relative, Ivan Shishkin, with his wife and children, and some noble widow Maria, a friend of Adashev, with five were executed. sons. *** The “chosen council” has come to an end. The tsar's favorites were boyar Alexei Basmanov, his son Fyodor, Prince Afanasy Vyazemsky, Vasily Gryaznoy and Chudov Archimandrite Levkiy. Ivan's lifestyle also changed dramatically. Just eight days after Anastasia’s death, the tsar announced that he intended to marry a second time and began to woo the sister of the Polish king. Ivan suddenly discovered a love for feasts and fun, which at first was of a completely decent nature. But gradually the new favorites took on their tone more and more, the fun turned into riotousness, the antics became obscene. An indispensable condition was to get drunk to the point of insensibility; those who drank little had wine poured on their heads. The most unbridled debauchery soon became commonplace. They even suspected that Ivan was indulging in sodomy with Fyodor Basmanov. One of the boyars, Dmitry Ovchina-Obolensky, reproached his favorite: “I and my ancestors have always served the sovereign with benefit,” he said, “and you serve with vile sodomy.” Basmanov complained to the tsar. Ivan affectionately invited Ovchina to the table and handed him a large cup of wine with the order to drink it in one gulp. Sheepskin couldn't drink even half of it. “That’s it,” said Ivan, “you wish well for your sovereign! If you don’t want to drink, go to the cellar, there are various drinks there, and you’ll drink to my health there.” Ovchina was taken to the cellar and strangled there, and the king, as if knowing nothing, sent the next day to Ovchina’s house to invite him to his place and was amused by the answer of his wife, who, not knowing what had happened to her husband, answered that he was still Yesterday I went to see the Emperor. This is Guagnini's story. Kurbsky writes that Ovchina was stabbed to death. Another boyar, Mikhail Repnin, a sedate man, did not allow the tsar to put on a jester's mask while the drunken Ivan was having fun with his favorites. The Tsar ordered him to be thrown out, and some time later he was killed (according to Kurbsky, right in the church). That same night, boyar Yuri Kashin, who was going to church for matins, was killed. (Kurbsky writes that he was also stabbed to death on the church porch.) Exiles and executions gradually befell all the boyars from the former Adashev circle. Dmitry Kurlyatev, along with his wife and children, was exiled to the Kargopol Chelm Monastery (in 1563). After some time, the king remembered him and ordered to kill him and his entire family. The hero of the Kazan campaign, Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky, with his wife, son and daughter, was exiled to Beloozero. But Ivan was more merciful to him, ordered him to be kept well and subsequently released him. Since the marriage with Sigismund's sister failed, Ivan began to look for a bride in other places. He was informed that one of the most noble Circassian princes, Temryuk, had a beautiful daughter. Ivan ordered to bring her to Moscow. He liked the girl, she was baptized, named Maria, and on August 21, 1561, Ivan married her. According to contemporaries, just like Anastasia, Maria had a great influence on the king, but in a completely different way. By nature, endowed with a wild disposition and a cruel soul, she further incited hatred and suspicion in the heart of the king. Her brother Mikhail, unbridled and depraved, became Ivan’s new favorite. *** Meanwhile, the Livonian War continued. In 1560 Fellin was taken. In the same year, the Bishop of Ezel sold his possessions to Denmark. In 1561, the Revelians ceded themselves to Sweden, and Livonian Master Ketler swore allegiance to Poland. According to the terms of the agreement, the Order was liquidated, Ketler married and received the title of Duke of Courland. Sigismund-August began to demand from Ivan that he withdraw his troops from Livonia, to which he, of course, could not agree. In September 1561, the Russians defeated the Lithuanians in front of Pernau and ravaged Tarvast. At the beginning of 1563, Ivan himself, with a large army and artillery, moved to the Lithuanian border. The goal of the campaign was Polotsk. On January 31, the city was besieged, on February 7, the fort was taken, and on February 15, after 300 fathoms of the wall were burned, the city surrendered. Ivan entered the fortress, proclaimed himself Prince of Polotsk and mercifully released the Poles, numbering five hundred people with their wives and children, presenting them with sable fur coats, but robbed the Polotsk governor and bishop and sent them to Moscow as prisoners along with other Lithuanians. The king ordered all the Jews and their families to be drowned in the river, and the Bernardine monks to be killed. All Latin churches were destroyed. The Tsar returned to Moscow as solemnly as from near Kazan. The war continued, but now it was going slowly. Internal affairs began to occupy Ivan much more. The tsar's suspicion of his boyars increased every year and eventually turned into some kind of manic illness. Records were taken from many boyars in which they promised not to move to Lithuania or other states. Others had to vouch for doubtful persons, and third parties had to vouch for the guarantors themselves. Each escape resulted in execution and disgrace for the traitor’s loved ones. Despite such measures, escapes continued. But most of all, the flight of Prince Kurbsky affected Ivan. This boyar, one of the most talented and influential members of the Adashev circle, commanding an army in Livonia at the end of 1563, fled from Dorpat to Volmar, then occupied by the Lithuanians, and went over to the side of King Sigismund, who received him kindly, gave him the estate of Kovel and other estates. Kurbsky was one of the most educated, well-read people of his time, not inferior in this regard to Ivan himself. Having fled, Kurbsky entered into a verbal duel with Ivan, sending him his Message. Ivan, by nature, could not resist answering. Correspondence began. It is precious for history because it reveals the connection between many historical phenomena. It is difficult to say unequivocally whether the introduction of the oprichnina was a consequence of Kurbsky’s betrayal. Rather, it became the result of the tsar’s long and painful thoughts about the same old subjects: about the exclusive, Divine nature of his power and about the corruption of the crafty boyars. In everything that Ivan did after 1564, it is difficult to see a definite meaning, but the sophisticated work of a sick thought and a sick soul is visible. Perhaps Grozny thought through his actions for a long time, but he did it alone, without consulting anyone, so that for everyone around them they were a complete surprise . This continued like this - everyone saw what the king was doing, but few understood what his goal was. It seems that he took this secret with him. Outwardly, everything looked like this. At the end of 1564, the tsar ordered the gathering of nobles, children of boyars and clerks from the cities to Moscow, choosing them by name; was supposed to arrive with their wives and children. A rumor spread that the king was going to go to an unknown destination. Ivan announced to those around him: he became aware that many do not tolerate him, do not want him and his heirs to reign, and are plotting against his life; therefore he intends to abdicate the throne and transfer the government of the whole earth. They say that with these words Ivan laid down his crown, staff and royal clothes. The next day, icons were brought to Ivan from all the churches and monasteries. Ivan the Terrible bowed before them, kissed them, took a blessing from the spiritual, and then spent several days and nights visiting churches. Finally, on December 3, many sleighs arrived in the Kremlin; They began to take out all sorts of valuables from the palace and put them away: icons, crosses, clothes, and loaded the entire treasury. All nobles and boyar children who arrived from the cities were ordered to get ready for the journey with the Tsar. Some of the Moscow boyars and nobles were chosen to accompany the Tsar, also with their wives and children. Mass was ordered to be celebrated for Metropolitan Athanasius in the Assumption Cathedral. Having served the liturgy in the presence of all the boyars, the tsar accepted the blessing of the metropolitan and allowed the boyars to kiss his hand; then he sat down in the sleigh with the queen and two sons. His favorites went with him: Alexey Basmanov, Mikhaile Saltykov, Prince Afanasy Vyazemsky, Ivan Chobotov, selected clerks and courtiers. An armed crowd of elected nobles and boyar children accompanied them. Everyone in Moscow was perplexed. Neither the metropolitan nor the saints, who then gathered in the capital, dared to ask the tsar for an explanation. Due to the thaw, the tsar stayed for two weeks in the village of Kolomenskoye, then moved with the entire baggage train to the village of Taininskoye, and from there, through the Trinity Monastery, he arrived in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. On January 3, Konstantin Polivanov came from him to the capital with a letter to the metropolitan. Ivan declared that he had laid his wrath on his pilgrims, archbishops, bishops and all the clergy, on the boyars, okolnichy, butler, treasurer, equerry, clerks, boyar children, clerks; he recalled what abuses, embezzlement of the treasury and losses they caused to the state during his childhood; he complained that the boyars and the governor took away the sovereign’s lands for themselves, their relatives and friends, accumulated great wealth for themselves, estates, estates, did not care about the sovereign and the state, oppressed Christians , run away from service, and when the tsar, it was said in the letter, wants to punish his boyars, nobles, servants and clerks, archbishops and bishops stand up for the guilty; they, together with the boyars, nobles and officials, cover them before the sovereign. Therefore, the sovereign, out of great pity, no longer wants to tolerate their treacherous deeds and went to settle where the Lord God would instruct him. The messenger brought another letter from the tsar to the guests, merchants and all the Moscow people. In it, the sovereign wrote so that the Moscow people would not doubt at all: the tsar had neither anger nor disgrace against them. When these letters were read, sobs and cries were heard between the boyars and the people. Everyone began to beg the metropolitan and bishops to go to the settlement and beat the sovereign so that he would not leave the state. At the same time, ordinary people shouted for the sovereign to return to the kingdom to defend them from wolves and predatory people, but they did not stand for the state traitors and scoundrels and would destroy them themselves. The clergy and boyars appeared in the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda and announced to Ivan a general decision, a common plea: let him rule as he pleases, if only he would return the rule to his own hands again. Ivan accepted their petition with the idea that he should put disgrace on all traitors and disobedient people, take their property into the treasury and establish an oprichnina for himself in his state: make the courtyard and all his daily life special; boyars, okolnichi, butlers, treasurers, clerks, all sorts of clerks, nobles, boyar children, stewards, solicitors and tenants to appoint special ones; in the courtyards - Sytny, Kormovy and Khlebny - appoint special key keepers; Finally, appoint special archers for yourself. Cities and volosts were designated, from which the income went to the sovereign's use; from these same incomes came the salaries of the boyars, nobles and all kinds of courtyard people who would be in the oprichnina. Ivan announced his desire to gather 1000 princes, nobles and children of boyars, courtyards and policemen and distribute to them estates in those cities that were taken into the oprichnina, and patrimonial landowners and landowners who were not in the oprichnina were to be removed from these cities and given land to them in other cities. Also in “Moscow itself” some streets and settlements were taken into the oprichnina, and only those boyars, nobles and clerks who were selected for the oprichnina were allowed to live in them, and the former inhabitants were assigned to move to Other streets. The Moscow State, the army, the court, the council and all kinds of zemstvo affairs were ordered by Grozny to be in charge of his boyars, Prince Ivan Volsky and Prince Ivan Mstislavsky, as well as the rest, whom he ordered to be in the zemshchina. He ordered the clerks to follow their orders and conduct business the old way. For his rise, Ivan sentenced him to take 100,000 rubles from the zemstvo order; and which boyars, governors and officials deserve the death penalty or disgrace for great treason, their property will be confiscated to the treasury. On February 2, the Tsar arrived in Moscow and appeared before the clergy, boyars, nobles and officials. They barely recognized him: he had grown old, his gaze became restless and darting, almost all the hair on his head and beard had come out; Obviously, the king spent two months of absence in a terrible state of mind, not knowing how his undertaking would end. The next day, Prince Alexander Gorbaty and his son Peter, two Khovrins, Prince Sukhoi-Kashin, Prince Dmitry Shevyrev and Prince Peter Gorensky were captured and executed for their previous crimes. The establishment of the oprichnina began. First of all, Ivan himself, as the first oprichnik, hastened to leave the ceremonial, decorous order of the sovereign's life established by his father and grandfather, left his hereditary Kremlin "door, moved to a new fortified courtyard, which he ordered to build for himself somewhere among, his oprichnina between Arbat and Nikitskaya, at the same time ordered his oprichnina boyars and nobles to set up courtyards for themselves in the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, where they were to live, and also to build government buildings intended to govern the oprichnina. Soon he himself settled there, and began to move to Moscow. to come "not for a great time." favorites. The favorites recruited nobles and boyar children into the oprichnina, and instead of 1,000 people, there were soon up to 6,000 of them. They were given estates and estates taken away from the previous owners, who had to suffer ruin and move from their ashes. Not only their lands were taken from them, but even their houses and all movable property; It happened that in winter they were sent on foot to empty lands. There were more than 12,000 families of such unfortunates; many died along the way. The new landowners, relying on the special mercy of the king, carried out arbitrariness over the peasants living on their land, and soon brought them into such a beggarly situation that it seemed as if the enemy had visited these lands. The oprichniki gave the tsar a special oath, by which they obliged not only to report everything that they heard bad about the tsar, but not to have any friendly communication, not to eat or drink with the zemstvo people. They were even charged, as the chroniclers say, to rape, put to death zemstvo people and plunder their houses. Foreign contemporaries write that the symbol of the guardsmen was the image of a dog's head and a broom as a sign that they bite like dogs, protecting the royal health, and sweeping out all the bad guys. Ivan started a kind of monastery in his Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, selected 300 guardsmen, put black robes on them over caftans embroidered with gold, and tafyas, or hats, on their heads; he called himself abbot, appointed Vyazemsky as a cellarer, Malyuta Skuratov as a sexton, he himself composed a monastic charter for the brethren, and he and his sons personally went to ring the bell tower. At twelve o'clock at night everyone had to get up and go to a long midnight owl. At four o'clock in the morning every day, at the royal bell, all the brethren gathered for matins for the divine service. It lasted from four to seven o'clock in the morning. Ivan the Terrible himself bowed so diligently that bumps formed on his forehead. At eight o'clock they went to mass. All the brethren dined in the refectory. Ivan, as abbot, did not sit at the table with them, read in front of everyone the life of the saint, whose memory was celebrated on that day, and dined alone afterwards. Everyone ate and drank to their fill. Often after dinner, Ivan went to torture and torment the disgraced. Contemporaries say that he constantly laughed wildly, looking at the torment of his victims. At the appointed time they served Vespers, then the brethren gathered for the evening meal, Compline was served, and the king went to bed. Guagnini conveys the dark rumors that circulated about the king’s debauchery; they said that the guardsmen kidnapped girls for him and married women , and the husband still had to rejoice if his wife was returned alive. They said that, having taken the wife of one clerk and learning that he took it as an insult, Ivan the Terrible ordered the raped woman to be hanged over the threshold of his house. Another clerk had his wife hanged right above his table. The ways in which Ivan dealt with unwanted boyars speak of his sick and perverted mind. The Terrible accused his old equerry Chelyadin of wanting to overthrow him from the throne and become king himself. Ivan called the groom to himself, ordered him to dress in royal attire, seated him on the throne, he himself began to bow to him on the ground and say: “Hello, sovereign of all Rus'! Now you have received what you wanted; I myself made you sovereign, but I I have the power to overthrow you from the throne." With these words, he plunged a knife into the boyar’s heart and ordered his body to be thrown to the dogs. Then his elderly wife was killed. Without stopping there, Ivan ordered the torture of many noble persons accused of complicity with the equerry. Then Prince Ivan Kurakin and Prince Dmitry Ryapolovsky were executed. Prince Semyon of Rostov, who was a governor in Nizhny Novgorod, was beheaded by guardsmen on the banks of the Volga, and his corpse was drowned in the river. At the same time, two more princes of Rostov were executed - Vasily and Andrei. The famous commander Prince Pyotr Shchenyatev thought of taking refuge from death in a monastery. The guardsmen took him to his cell - they set him on fire in a frying pan, drove needles under his nails and eventually killed him. The guardsmen cut the sovereign's treasurer Tyutin into pieces along with his wife, two infant sons and two daughters. This execution was carried out by the queen's brother, Mikhail Cherkassky. Many were killed without any trial in broad daylight. Every day, five or six corpses were found on the streets of Moscow. By order of the tsar, the guardsmen also grabbed the wives of disgraced people, raped them, broke into estates, burned houses, tortured and killed peasants, stripped girls naked and, in mockery, forced them to catch chickens, and then shot at them. Many women took their own lives out of shame. Zemshchina was like a foreign conquered country, given over to the tyranny of the conquerors. At this time, Ivan the Terrible had to come into conflict with the spiritual authorities. In 1566, Metropolitan Afanasy retired to the Chudov Monastery. A new one had to be elected. Then the tsar proposed Abbot Philip to be the metropolitan of Solovetsky. The clergy and boyars unanimously said that there was no more worthy person. Having become a metropolitan, Philip was not afraid to raise his voice against the oprichnina and began to reproach the tsar for his crimes every now and then. This drove Ivan into a frantic rage. In 1568, Philip was deposed, accused of many sins, among other things, magic, and imprisoned in the monastery of St. Nicholas the Old. To further annoy the prisoner, Ivan ordered his nephew’s head to be cut off, sewed into a leather bag and brought to Philip. At the beginning of 1569, after the trial of Filipp, Ivan committed suicide with his cousin Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky. The tsar lured him and his wife to the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda and killed both of them. Following this, Vladimir’s mother, nun Evdokia, was drowned in Sheksna near the Goritsky Monastery. The same fate befell the nun Juliania, the widow of Ivanov’s brother, Yuri, some nun Maria, also of noble family, and with them twelve people. In September 1569, the tsar's second wife, Maria Temryukovna, suddenly died. A rumor was immediately spread that she had been poisoned. Ivan was the first, it seems, to believe in him, and from that time on he began to seriously fear for his life. He wrote to Queen Elizabeth of England that traitors were conspiring against him, conspiring with neighbors hostile to him, and wanting to exterminate him and his entire family. Ivan asked to be given asylum in England. Elizabeth replied that the Moscow Tsar could come to England and live there as long as he wanted on his own support, observing the rituals of the Orthodox Church. But Grozny had something completely different on his mind. In the summer of 1569, a certain Peter, a native of Volyn, came to the king and reported that the Novgorodians wanted to surrender to the Polish king, that they had already written a letter about this and placed it in the St. Sophia Cathedral behind the image of the Mother of God. Ivan sent a trusted man to Novgorod together with the Volynian, who actually found the document behind the image and brought it to the king. The signatures - of Archbishop Pimen and other leading citizens - turned out to be genuine. They say that this Peter, a tramp, punished by the Novgorodians, out of a desire to take revenge on them, himself composed a letter and signed with unusual skill for the archbishop and other townspeople. In Novgorod they waited with fear for punishment; everyone knew how terrible the king was in anger, but what happened exceeded the darkest expectations. In December 1569, Ivan set out on a campaign to the north. With him were all the guardsmen and many boyar children. The pogrom began from the border of the Tver possessions. The guardsmen burst into Klin and killed many people here indiscriminately. On the way to Tver, the tsar sent Malyuta Skuratov to the Tver Otroch monastery, where the deposed Metropolitan Philip was imprisoned; Malyuta strangled the old man with his own hands. Approaching Tver, the king ordered it to be surrounded on all sides and himself settled in one of the nearest monasteries. On the first day, the guardsmen robbed all the clergy, starting with the bishop. Then, two days later, they broke into the city again, began breaking into houses, breaking all kinds of household utensils, cutting down gates, doors, windows, taking all kinds of household supplies and merchant goods - wax, flax, leather, etc., putting them in heaps and burning them. On the fifth day it reached the residents themselves. The guardsmen began to beat everyone: men, women, babies; they burned some with fire, tore others with pincers, and threw the corpses of the dead into the Volga. The Polotsk prisoners and Germans taken out of Livonia were dragged ashore, in the presence of the Tsar, they were cut into pieces and thrown onto the ice. The same thing happened in Torzhok. Ivan’s memorial records 1,490 Orthodox Christians killed there. In addition to them, they killed all the captured Germans and Crimean Tatars held in the towers. From Torzhok Ivan went to Vyshny Volochek, Valdai, Yazhelbitsy. On both sides of the road, the guardsmen scattered to the villages, killing people and destroying their houses. Even before Ivan arrived in Novgorod, his advanced regiment arrived there. By order of the king, they immediately surrounded the city on all sides so that no one could escape from it. Then they seized the clergy from the surrounding monasteries and churches, shackled them in irons and put them in Gorodishche for justice; Every day they beat them on the right, demanding 20 Novgorod rubles from each, as if for a ransom, which lasted for five days. The nobles and children of the boyars, belonging to the oprichnina, called the most notable residents and merchants, as well as officials, to Detinets, chained them and handed them over to the bailiffs, and sealed their houses and property. This was done in early January 1570. On January 6, Friday, in the evening, Grozny arrived in Gorodishche with the rest of the army and 150 () Moscow archers. The next day, the order was given to kill, with clubs to death, all the abbots and monks who stood on the right, and to take their bodies to cemeteries, each to his own monastery. On January 8, Sunday, the king made it known that he would come to St. Sophia for mass. Archbishop Pimen with the entire cathedral, with crosses and icons, met him on the Volkhov Bridge. But the king did not kiss the cross, but said: “You, evildoer, are holding in your hand not a life-giving cross, but a weapon, and with this weapon you want to wound our heart.” And without approaching the cross, he ordered mass to be served to the archbishop. After serving mass, Gryazny and all his people went to the dining room, but had barely sat down at the table and tasted the food when he suddenly screamed. It was a conventional sign. The guardsmen grabbed Archbishop Pimen and rushed to plunder his lord's treasury. The butler Saltykov and the royal confessor Eustathius with the royal boyars took possession of the sacristy of the Church of St. Sophia, and from here they went to all the monasteries and churches to take away the church treasury and utensils for the benefit of the king. Ivan himself went to Gorodishche and there began a trial of those Novgorodians who had been taken into custody before his arrival. These were the lordly boyars, Novgorod boyar children, elected city officials and clerks, and the most distinguished merchants. Their wives and children were brought with them. Having gathered this entire crowd in front of him, Ivan ordered his boyar children to undress them and torment them with “inscrutable”, as a contemporary says, torments, among other things, to set them on fire with some composition he invented, which he called “fire.” Then he ordered the exhausted, scorched people to be tied to the back of the sleigh, quickly led to Novgorod, dragged along the frozen ground, and thrown into Volkhov from the bridge. Their wives and children were carried behind them; women had their arms and legs tied back, babies were tied to them and thrown into the Volkhov in this form; The king's servants rode along the river with hooks and axes and finished off those who surfaced. This was done every day for five weeks. After the trial and reprisal ended, Ivan began traveling around Novgorod to monasteries and... there he ordered the plunder of cells and service houses, the burning of bread in granaries and stacks, and the slaughter of cattle. Returning from the monasteries, he ordered to rob goods and destroy barns and shops throughout Novgorod, in shopping arcades and streets. Then he began to travel through the suburbs, ordered to rob all the houses, all residents without exception, men and women, break courtyards and mansions, cut out windows and gates. At the same time, armed crowds were sent in all four directions, to the Novgorod Pyatina, to the camps and volosts, 200 and 250 miles away, with orders to devastate and plunder everywhere. This whole debacle lasted six weeks. Finally, on the morning of February 13, Grozny ordered to select from each street to the best person and put it in front of you. They stood before him in awe, exhausted, sad, like the dead. But the king looked at them with a merciful and meek eye and said: “Residents of Veliky Novgorod who are still alive! Pray to the Lord God, His Most Pure Mother and all the saints for our pious royal state, for my faithful children, princes Ivan and Fyodor... and God judges my common traitor and yours, Vladyka Pimen, his evil advisers and like-minded people: all this blood will be exacted from them.” On the same day, Ivan left Novgorod on the road to Pskov; Bishop Pimen and noble Novgorodians, whose case had not yet been decided, were sent to Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. The number of exterminated inhabitants was given different names by contemporaries. In Ivan’s memorial, 1,505 people from Novgorod are silently recorded. Guagnini shows the number 2770, except for women and common people. But the Novgorod “story” says that the tsar drowned 1000 people a day and on rare occasions 500. Taube and Kruse put the total number of victims up to 15,000 people, Kurbsky even more. The consequences of the pogrom affected Novgorod for a long time. The destruction of grain reserves and livestock caused terrible famine and disease not only in the city, but also in its environs; it got to the point where people were eating each other and tearing the dead out of their graves. Throughout the summer of 1570, they brought the dead in heaps to the Church of the Nativity in Pole and buried them along with the bodies of those who had drowned and those who had floated to the surface. The Pskov Chronicle brings the total number of deaths to 60,000. From Novgorod, Ivan went to Pskov. Pskovites confessed, took communion and prepared for death. When Ivan the Terrible entered the city, all the residents greeted him with bread and salt and, seeing the king, fell on their faces. But they say that the holy fool Nikola had the greatest effect on the Tsar. Instead of bread and salt, he brought Ivan a piece raw meat. “I’m a Christian and I don’t eat meat during Lent,” said Ivan. “You’re doing worse,” Nikola answered him, “you eat human flesh.” According to other news, the holy fool predicted trouble for him if he began to rage in Pskov, and after that Ivan’s favorite horse died. This had such an effect on the king that he did not execute anyone, but only plundered the townspeople and churches. Upon returning to Moscow, the search for the Novgorod case continued. A certain Fyodor Lovchikov reported on the royal favorite, Prince Afanasy Vyazemsky, that he was in a secret relationship with Archbishop Pimen. Previously, Ivan trusted Vyazemsky so much that he only agreed to take medicine from his hands. Now Ivan summoned him to his place, spoke to him very kindly, and at this time the royal people killed all the servants in Vyazemsky’s house. Vyazemsky returned home, not knowing anything, but, seeing the corpses of his servants, he realized that his fall from grace was inevitable. A few days later he was captured and subjected to painful torture, from which he died. Vyazemsky’s sister, who was behind the treasurer Funikov, was stripped naked in front of her daughter, put astride a rope stretched between two walls, and dragged several times from one end to the other. After this she was sent to a monastery. but she could not bear the torture and died. Many people were involved in the investigation, including the Tsar’s former favorites. They captured both Basmanovs, father and son, Duma clerk Viskovaty, treasurer Funikov, Prince Serebryany, Pleshcheev, Prince Ivan Vorontsov and others of lower rank - about 300 people in total, tortured them all and sentenced them to death. On the day of execution, July 25, Grozny pardoned 180 of them, and executed the rest in a painful manner. Guagnini says that for each condemned person the king came up with his own special execution. For example, Viskovaty was hung up by his legs and cut into pieces like a meat carcass; Funikov was doused alternately with boiling water and then ice water , from which the skin came off like an eel. The next day, the wives of those executed were drowned, many of whom were raped before death. They said about the Basmanovs that, on the tsar’s order, Fyodor himself killed his father. Meanwhile, the success that accompanied Ivan in external enterprises gradually began to betray him. The spring of 1571 passed in anxiety - they were waiting for the arrival of the Crimeans. Zemstvo governors with 50 thousand troops stood on the Oka. The Tsar himself marched to Serpukhov with an army of guardsmen. But the khan bypassed all the outposts and unexpectedly appeared behind the Oka with an army of 120,000. Ivan fled from Serpukhov to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, from there to Rostov, leaving Moscow to the mercy of fate. On May 24, the Tatars approached the capital and set fire to the suburbs. A strong wind quickly spread the fire. In one day, the entire city burned down with the exception of the Kremlin. The number of dead residents is impossible to determine, but it reached several hundred thousand, since many people from the surrounding area fled to Moscow. Up to 150,000 Tatars were taken into captivity. The terrible disaster did not prevent the king from fulfilling his long-standing desire - to acquire a third wife. The search for the bride was carried out in the same way as the first time. From all the cities, brides were brought to the settlement, both noble and ignorant, numbering more than two thousand: each was presented to him especially. First he chose 24, and then 12, which were to be examined by the doctor and grandmothers. Ivan the Terrible compared them for a long time, and finally chose Marfa Vasilyevna Sobakina, the daughter of a Novgorod merchant, whom he immediately made a boyar. But the royal bride suddenly fell ill, began to lose weight and dry out. It was immediately announced that she had been spoiled by villains, haters of Ivanov’s family well-being. Suspicion fell primarily on the relatives of the first two queens. They grabbed me and put me on. the count of the brother of the second queen Mikhail Temryukovich, one of the most bloodthirsty guardsmen, Yakovlev and Saburov were whipped to death. Ivan exterminated some suspicious ones with the help of poisons that Elisha Bomelius prepared for him. Then the former favorite of Grozny, Vasily Gryaznoy, Prince Ivan Gvozdev-Rostovsky and some others were poisoned. On October 28, 1571, the king married Martha, and on November 13 she died. At the beginning of 1572, Ivan convened a church council and began to seek the right to marry for the fourth time, since his third wife had died before her virginity was resolved. Novgorod Archbishop Leonid, who presided over the council, found it possible to respect the king’s request, although the fourth marriage was prohibited by church statutes. In April, Grozny married Anna Alekseevna Koltovskaya. In the summer, the Crimean Khan appeared within Russian borders for the second time, but was repulsed with great damage by Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky on the bank of Lopasnya. In general, they began to pay more attention to the southern borders, they formed a guard and stanitsa service here from the children of boyars, Cossacks and archers, and founded the towns of Venev, Epifan, Chern, Dankov, Ryazhsk, Volkhov, Orel, which were supposed to restrain the movement of the Tatars. During the Khan's campaign, Ivan was in Novgorod. Having returned, he, according to Fletcher, abolished the very word oprichnina, which from that time on is no longer used. Zemstvo began to be called state, guardsmen began to be called simply courtyards, as well as lands, regions and cities assigned to the court. The hated symbols of the oprichnina and the black suits of the oprichnina themselves have disappeared. Since this year, we can also see some weakening of the terror, although it was still far from ending. At the end of 1572, Ivan went on a campaign to Estonia and besieged Wittenstein. During the assault, the tsar's favorite Malyuta Skuratov, the only one of the former guardsmen who was still alive, died. Ivan, in revenge, burned all the Swedes and German prisoners at the stake, and Skuratov was buried with great pomp in the Volotsk Monastery. Grozny's family life with his new wife did not work out. Already in 1573, he began to clearly neglect her, and three years later he sent her to a monastery. In November, the Tsar brought Princess Marya Dolgorukaya closer to him, but she turned out to be not a girl. The next day, the king ordered her to be put in a rattletrap, harnessed to wild horses and sent to the pond in which the unfortunate woman died. “This pond,” notes Horsey, “was a real Gehenna, a vale of death, similar to the one in which human sacrifices were made; many victims were drowned in this pond; the fish in it ate human flesh in abundance and turned out to be extremely tasty and suitable for the royal table ". In subsequent years, Ivan had two more mistresses - Anna Vasilchikova, who was eventually executed, and Vasilisa Melentyeva, whom he imprisoned in a monastery out of jealousy. In internal management another innovation appeared. In 1574, Ivan fell into disgrace with Prince Miloslavsky. The chronicle reports that this year “the tsar executed many boyars, Archimandrite Chudovsky, archpriest and all sorts of ranks of people in Moscow, at the Most Pure Church, on the square in the Kremlin, and threw their heads into Mstislavsky’s courtyard. In the same year, Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich put the tsar on Moscow Simeon Bekbulatovich (baptized Tatar, Kasimov Khan. - K.R.) and crowned him with the royal crown, and he called himself Ivan of Moscow and left the city, lived on Petrovka, gave all his royal rank to Simeon, and he rode simply like a boyar; , in shafts, and when he comes to Tsar Simeon, he sits down from the royal place in the distance, together with the boyars." Some historians are trying to find some meaning in this “antics of Ivan the Terrible. For example, they say that it was at this time that he actively proposed his candidacy for the Polish king in place of the deceased Sigismund-Augustus and, for the sake of appearance, abdicated the Russian throne. But it is obvious that this self-denial could not deceive anyone. Foreign contemporaries treated Simeon’s coronation as another quirk of Ivan or simple buffoonery. For two years, the Terrible himself diligently pretended that he was an ordinary private person, and wrote petitions to Simeon with deliberate self-deprecation: “To the great Sovereign. Prince Simeon Bekbulatovich Ivanets Vasiliev with his children beats his forehead." In 1576, the performance ended: Ivan returned to the throne, and Simeon was sent to reign in Tver. Meanwhile, the Livonian War began to take an increasingly menacing turn for Russia. In 1572, Sigismund-August died The Jagiellon family ended with him, and the lords had to choose a new king. As already mentioned, Ivan the Terrible tried to take the Polish throne into his own hands. The Lithuanians, most of whom were Orthodox, were not averse to receiving the king from Moscow, but they did not want Ivan, but his son Fedor. Ivan the Terrible hesitated for a long time, and the matter ended in nothing. In 1574, Henry of Valois ruled Poland for some time. But when the French throne became vacant, he immediately left for Paris. After this, the anti-Russian party gained the upper hand in Krakow, and Prince Stefan Batory was elected king in April 1576. Having received the crown, he promised that he would take away from Russia all the lands captured in the last war. Active hostilities resumed. In January 1577, the Russians retreated from Revel with damage. In the summer, the tsar himself set out on a campaign from Novgorod, but instead of going to Revel, as they thought, he headed for Polish Livonia. One after another, several cities were taken, and in Wenden, which offered stubborn resistance, Russian military men, on the orders of the tsar, raped all the women and girls. Upon returning to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, Grozny executed some of the governors. The reason for a new series of executions was a denunciation of the old prince Mikhail Vorotynsky, the hero of the Kazan campaign and the winner of the Crimean Khan. He was accused of witchcraft and connections with sorcerers. After severe torture, Vorotynsky was sent into exile to Beloozero, but he died on the way. At the same time, Prince Nikita Odoevsky, Prince Pyotr Kurakin, boyar Ivan Buturlin, several okolnichy and others were executed. Among the dead were the uncle and brother of one of the former queens, Marfa Sobakina. Prince Boris Tulupov was impaled, and his mother was tortured before his eyes. Somewhat later, Ivan the Terrible’s former favorite, the adventurer Elisha Bomelius, was tortured. After the tsar left, the Swedes attacked Narva, and the Poles appeared in southern Livonia and took one city after another here. In 1578, the Russians suffered a serious defeat at Wenden. In August 1579, Batory himself came with a mercenary army near Polotsk and, after a short siege, took it. At the same time, the Swedes captured Karelia and Izhora land. In September 1580, Batory took Velikiye Luki. Velizh, Nevel, Ozerishche, Zavolosye, Toropets were captured. The Swedes took Wesenberg. Moscow did not immediately learn about the defeat. Just in October there were two weddings here at once. The Terrible married for the fifth time the daughter of Fyodor the Nagoy, Maria, and his son. Fedora married Irina Godunova. (Her brother, Boris Godunov, was made a boyar and from that time became a person close to the tsar.) When news of heavy defeats arrived Russian army , Ivan was seriously alarmed and sent ambassadors to Poland with peace proposals. Batory did not agree to peace. In 1581 he approached Pskov. The Swedes, in turn, took Narva, Yam and Koporye. Almost all Livonian cities were taken from the Russians. But there weren’t enough enemies for more. The long-term war, which had exhausted the strength of all three states, was finally about to end. Peace negotiations began. *** Failing in foreign affairs, Grozny experienced a strong personal shock in November 1581 - the death of his eldest son Ivan. The unbridled rage of the king was to blame for everything. According to the testimony of Anthony Possevin, Ivan found his daughter-in-law Elena lying on a bench in only her underwear. In anger, he hit her on the cheek and then began to beat her with the staff. The princess, who was expecting a child, became sick from the beatings, and the next day she had a miscarriage. The offended prince came to his father with a reproach. In character, he was like his parent in everything: he was tough and unyielding. The conversation, apparently, resulted in a violent, ugly quarrel. “You,” said the prince, “have already taken away two wives from me, tonsured them into a monastery, you want to take away the third and have already killed my son in her womb.” Ivan the Terrible rushed at his son with his staff. Boris Godunov tried to hold him back, but was beaten himself. In a blinding rage, Ivan hit the prince in the head with a staff, and he fell unconscious, bleeding profusely. At that very second the king came to his senses, began to tear out his hair and call for help. Doctors were called, but it was all in vain - the prince died on the fifth day and was buried on November 19 in the Archangel Cathedral. The king, despondent, said that he did not want to reign anymore, but would go to a monastery. He gathered the boyars, announced to them that his second son, Fedor, was not capable of ruling, and allowed the boyars to choose a king from among them. It is possible that this time he was sincere, but the boyars were afraid: the tsar might be testing them and whether he would then kill both the one they chose and those who would choose the new sovereign. The boyars begged Ivan not to go to the monastery, at least until the end of the war. Since then, the king suffered terribly for many days, did not sleep at night, tossed about as if in a fever. Finally, little by little, he began to calm down and began sending rich alms to the monasteries. Perhaps at this time some regret about what he had done awoke in him. At the very least, he vigorously recalls all those killed and tortured by him and writes their names in the synodnik. Three months after the murder, at the beginning of 1582, a truce was concluded with Poland. According to his condition. Grozny abandoned Livonia, returned Polotsk and Velizh, and Batory agreed to cede the Pskov suburbs he had taken and retreat from Pskov itself, which he never managed to capture. In May 1583, a truce was concluded with Sweden. In addition to Estonia, the Swedes retained the Russian cities of Yam and Koporye. Partly, the failures of the aggressive policy in the west were compensated by successes in the east, in the Urals and Siberia, where at that time Ermak inflicted a heavy defeat on the Siberian Khanate. A year before his death, despite the fact that Ivan already had a pregnant wife, he began wooing a relative of Elizabeth of England, Countess Maria Hastings. The nobleman Pisemsky, who was negotiating marriage in London, was ordered to say that although the king had a wife, she was not some kind of princess, but a simple subject, and for the sake of the royal niece she could be driven away. But it didn't work out. Meanwhile, at the beginning of 1584, the king developed an illness - some kind of internal rotting. His health was rapidly deteriorating. Not yet an old man, he soon began to look like a decrepit old man. His legs refused to serve him. The body was covered with fetid sores. He was carried in chairs. On March 17, he sat down to play chess with his last favorite, Prince Bogdan Belsky, but before he could start the games, he fell and died. He was buried in Moscow, in the Archangel Cathedral. All the monarchs of the world. Russia. 600 short biographies. Konstantin Ryzhov. Moscow, 1999
IVAN IV VASILIEVICH THE GROZNY (1530, Kolomenskoye village, near Moscow - 1584, Moscow) - leader. prince from 1533; Tsar since 1547. Son of Vasily III Ivanovich Elena Glinskaya. If the genealogical legend of the Glinskys is true, then I. IV was simultaneously a descendant of Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy and Khan Mamai. After the death of his father in 1533, three-year-old I. IV sat on the throne and all his life he was proud of the fact that he did not remember a time when he was not a monarch. In 1538, I. IV’s mother died. The boyar groups fighting for power made the young sovereign a witness to bloody beatings, arrests, and murders, while at the same time indulging his whims. The early awakening cruelty of I. IV manifested itself in the torture of animals, in the first death sentence, which he handed down at the age of 13, to the boyar A.M. Shuisky and many others. Since the late 40s. I. IV began to rule independently; in 1547 he took the royal title. Terrible car washes. fires, popular uprisings and increased robberies required urgent measures. A circle of assistants was formed around I. IV, later called the “Elected Rada” (i.e., the Council of the Elected), the leaders of which were A.F. Adashev, Sylvester, Makariy, I.M. Bukovamy et al. took an active part in reform activities aimed at strengthening the autocracy. The following orders were created: Ambassadorial, Petition, Local, Robber, etc., which made it possible to better manage certain sectors of the state. life. In 1550, a new set of laws appeared - the Code of Laws. Localism was limited. The adopted “Code of Service” regulated the order of military service of feudal lords and others. The Council of the Hundred Heads unified church rituals and raised the authority of the clergy. Reform activity was accompanied by a cultural upsurge: work began on the creation of the “Great Chetiya-Menya” (a collection of orthodox ancient Russian literature), printing appeared, chronicle collections were compiled, St. Basil's Cathedral was built, and much more. The successes of domestic policy made it possible to intensify foreign policy: in In 1552 the Kazan Khanate was captured, and in 1556 the Astrakhan Khanate was bloodlessly annexed. Around 1560 the "Elected Rada" was dissolved. The power-hungry I. IV, dissatisfied with the relatively slow results of structural reforms, began to rule autocratically. The successful start of the Livonian War (1558 - 1583) and the destruction of the Livonian Order could not be completed. I. IV, having lost enormous funds and a lot of people, not only did not gain access to the Baltic Sea, but also lost part of the original Russian. lands. In 1565 there was a sharp turn in his policy. Having gone on a pilgrimage to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, I. IV informed the Muscovites in letters that he “placed his anger” on the boyars, governors and clerks and, no longer wanting to “endure their many treasonous deeds, left his state” and left wherever he could see them. they look. At the same time, the sovereign assured the townspeople of Moscow that “there is no anger at them and no disgrace.” The people begged I. IV to return, agreeing to terror against the “sovereign villains and traitors.” Thus, the introduction of the “oprichnina” was announced. Having taken the richest lands as his inheritance and created an oprichnina army, he received 100 thousand rubles from the zemshchina for expenses (“for his rise”). (a village with several villages then cost 100 - 200 rubles) and began mass repressions and confiscations. Commander A.B. was executed. Gorbaty-Shuisky with his 17-year-old son, treasurer N. Funikov, chancellor I. Viskovaty and hundreds of innocent people. I. IV forced his potential rival Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, his wife and daughter to take poison. Metropolitan Philip was deposed and killed. As a result of the six-week pogrom in Novgorod and Pskov, probably between 10 and 15 thousand people died. Oprichnina killings also took place in other cities. After the burning of Moscow by the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey and under the threat of a new attack, I. IV abandoned the oprichnina. Nicknamed the Terrible for his monstrous cruelty, I. IV achieved the strengthening of autocratic power through the destruction of many people and the terrible devastation of the central regions of Russia (“The Tsar perpetrated the oprichnina... And from this came the desolation of the great Russian land”). And this, in turn, played a decisive role in the establishment of serfdom. In order to keep the peasants looking for a way out of their desperate situation, St. George's Day was cancelled. Morbidly suspicious, superstitious, constantly afraid for his life, I. IV sometimes committed acts that were difficult to explain. So, in 1575 he transferred the royal title to Simeon Bekbulatovich, and called himself appanage Mosk. prince, a year later he again took the voluntarily abandoned throne. I. IV - a talented, bright, literary and deeply educated man - was unhappy in his personal life. He was married six times, which was incredible for medieval Rus'. Of the 5 sons and 3 daughters, only three survived: Fyodor, incapable of governing the country, young Dmitry and Ivan, similar in intelligence and cruelty to his father. I. IV, in anger, brutally beat his son Ivan, and after 10 days the prince died. Seriously ill (“the body is exhausted, the spirit is sick”), I. IV died before reaching the age of 54. There were rumors about his violent death. The personality of I. IV and his era have been studied by major Russian historians, and there is a huge literature about him. Book materials used: Shikman A.P. Figures of Russian history. Biographical reference book. Moscow, 1997
Works of Ivan IV:
Russian Historical Library. St. Petersburg, 1914. T. 31. Messages of Ivan the Terrible. M.; L., 1951. Correspondence of Ivan the Terrible with Andrei Kurbsky. L., 1979; Same. M., 1981.
Literature:
Zimin A. A. Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible. M., 1964. Kobrin V. B. Ivan groznyj. M., 1989. Skrynnikov R. G. Reign of Terror. St. Petersburg, 1992. Skrynnikov R. G. The beginning of the oprichnina. L., 1966. Skrynnikov R. G. Correspondence between Grozny and Kurbsky. The paradoxes of Edward Keenan. L. 1973 READ HERE: Message from Ivan the Terrible to Vasily Gryazny(document). Soloviev S.M. "Training book on Russian history" chapter 27 Skrynnikov R.G. Kurbsky's escape.(article) Establishment of the oprichnina(according to the Nikon Chronicle). Andrey Kurbsky
The reign of Ivan the Terrible is the embodiment of Russia in the 16th century. This is the time when one centralized state is formed from disparate territories. Ivan the Terrible personally had a hand in the formation of a new form of autocratic rule in Muscovite Rus'; he considered it the only true one for the Russian state. He managed to do this. But on the other hand, it is controversial in historical science.
Many historians of pre-revolutionary, Soviet and modern historiography argued how useful the activities of Ivan the Terrible were for Russia. What were more positive or negative aspects on the board? And what is the role of Ivan IV in the further development of Russia. Some consider him a saint, others say that Ivan the Terrible became disastrous for Muscovite Rus'.
The reign of Elena Glinskaya under Ivan the Terrible
Ivan was his father's desired son. For the sake of his birth, he divorced his first wife. Divorce was generally unacceptable at that time; religion denied it. Soon Vasily married Elena Glinskaya, she was the daughter of a Lithuanian prince. They say that the sovereign even removed his beard to please his future wife, which also does not fit into the morals of that time. It was in this marriage that the heir to the throne appeared; he was born in August 1530. After the death of Vasily III, Elena found the right moment to take power. The boyars, who were supposed to rule under the young king, were removed. Thus, Elena became in fact the second female ruler, the first being Princess Olga.
Her popularity in Moscow and the state as a whole was not high. Rather, many people disliked her. An arrogant and cruel woman with a Lithuanian upbringing did not evoke pleasant feelings in anyone. In addition, she sometimes behaved recklessly, not hiding her relationship with one of the boyars. But still, her reign was remembered by many. The main thing is because a monetary reform was carried out. After its expiration, there was only one coin in Russia - the penny, and it was also backed by silver. This was a big step in the development of the economy of Moscow Rus'. But in 1538 the princess died unexpectedly.
Scientists examined Elena's remains, they showed that there was a lot of mercury in her hair, most likely she was poisoned. At the age of three, the little one became the formal ruler of the state. But near his throne, the interests of many boyar families constantly clashed, who tried to take power into their own hands.
Ivan the Terrible and the beginning of his reign
Ivan the Terrible was a descendant of several glorious dynasties at once - both the Paleologians on his father’s side and the Crimean khans on his mother’s side. He was very proud of his family's past. And almost always at receptions with international ambassadors he said that he was not a purebred Russian.
The king's childhood was difficult. First, in 1533, his father died. Then in 1538 his mother Elena Glinskaya. The boyars did not hesitate to behave boorishly in front of the youngest Ivan. The already adult Terrible Tsar still remembered with childish resentment that this was unpleasant for the sovereign. For example, he was very offended by the behavior of Prince Ivan Shuisky, when he sat leaning on the bed of Vasily III and did not show respect to Ivan himself. He also saw the showdown with Fedor Vorontsov. Before his eyes, the boyar was beaten, then taken out into the street, and there he was killed. Thus, his character was strongly influenced by his difficult childhood.
It is believed that the boy was naturally impressionable. Left an orphan at a very young age, he saw all the reprisals of the boyars against each other. Constant fights in the Duma, when even the Metropolitan was not spared, the clergy’s clothes were torn, and then he was sent into exile. And this is only a small part of the atrocities that the young king had to observe. Of course, this left an imprint on his entire subsequent reign.
So the Grand Duke, one might say, received his first lessons in court politics. But he had no restrictions on entertainment. In the company of their teenage friends, they could race on horses, knocking down everyone who was on the road. At the same time, without experiencing any remorse. And at receptions in the Kremlin he loved to joke; he once set fire to one boyar’s beard while he was reading his petition.
Rule within the state of Ivan the Terrible
In February 1547, the Glinsky maternal relatives organized. It took place in the Kremlin, and was conducted by Metropolitan Macarius. But even after this action, the king’s reign was not independent. Many historians say that even after reaching adulthood, the boyars had a strong influence on decision-making.
In the summer of the same 1547, an uprising broke out in Moscow. It happened after a terrible fire. As a result, Ivan's uncle Yuri Glinsky was killed. He himself found himself face to face for the first time in front of his people, who were raging in front of the Kremlin. The rebels demanded that the tsar give them traitor boyars to deal with. This was a great challenge for Ivan.
After the uprising, other boyars came to power.
- Alexey Adashev;
- Andrey Kurbsky;
- Metropolitan Macarius;
- Sylvester;
- clerk Viskovaty.
These are future members of the Elected Rada. It is interesting that the Elected Rada had strong power, and it was they who put an end to the struggle of court factions for power. We also carried out a number of useful reforms for the state.
Reforms of Ivan the Terrible:
- Introduction of free education;
- Creation of the Zemsky Sobor;
- creation of the Streletsky army;
- convening of the Stoglavy Council.
This is only part of the great reforms with the participation of the Elected Rada.
Next to the central core authority, new elected bodies appeared in the center and locally. Mid XVI V. This is a period of economic growth of the Moscow state. About 40 new cities appeared, Russia began to make its way onto the world stage.
Russian foreign policy under Ivan the Terrible
Ivan IV became the first. It was under him that Russia began to turn into an empire. During his reign, the state began to include a number of territories that had not previously belonged to the Russians. This is the time for Russia to enter. And the king is involved in all this.
After three campaigns that took place in 1547-1552. annexed the Kazan Khanate, and in 1554-1556. The Astrakhan Khanate was also annexed. This is how the Volga River began to flow entirely within Russia. It is believed that after the annexation of these particular territories, the people began to respect Ivan IV and began to consider him a truly real Russian Tsar.
In 1553, trade and economic relations with England were established. For the first time, Russia began to make its way into Europe. However, this state of affairs did not suit Sweden. The Livonian War would soon begin in 1558. The first years of the war were successful for Russia. Our troops defeated the Livonian Order and received the first port on the Baltic - Narva. By that time he began to rule independently. The role of the Elected Rada was declining, and the tsar did not consider it necessary to discuss his decisions with this body. They had differences, primarily in their views on the continuation of the Livonian War and in general. In addition, Queen Anastasia died, Ivan considered some members of the Elected Rada to be involved in her death. Yes, the age was suitable for absolute sole rule - he was already almost 30 years old.
The Livonian War lasted until 1583. The country found itself in a catastrophic situation, and the king was forced to sign peace treaties. Poland and Sweden received a number of cities and lands under the Yam-Zapolsky and Plyussky truces. And Muscovite Rus' was left without access to the Baltic Sea and in a terrible state within the state.
Reign of Ivan IV during the oprichnina
The reign of the first tsar was a time of shock for Muscovite Rus'. led the country into economic and social chaos. This is an internal shock when the state actually split into two parts. This is a time of war between several social groups of society - in fact, a state of civil war. The number of taxes collected from the population increased fourfold. This is a huge amount, which led many families into decline and ruin.
Ivan the Terrible is the first Tsar of All Rus', known for his barbaric and incredibly harsh methods of rule. Despite this, his reign is considered significant for the state, which, thanks to the foreign and domestic policies of Grozny, became twice as large in its territory. The first Russian ruler was a powerful and very evil monarch, but managed to achieve a lot in the international political arena, maintaining a total one-man dictatorship in his state, full of executions, disgrace and terror for any disobedience to power.
Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV Vasilyevich) was born on August 25, 1530 in the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow in the family of Grand Duke Vasily III Rurikovich and the Lithuanian princess Elena Glinskaya. He was the eldest son of his parents, so he became the first heir to the throne of his father, whom he was supposed to succeed upon reaching adulthood. But he had to become the nominal Tsar of All Rus' at the age of 3, since Vasily III became seriously ill and died suddenly. After 5 years, the future king’s mother also died, as a result of which at the age of 8 he was left a complete orphan.
The childhood of the young monarch passed in an atmosphere of palace coups, a serious struggle for power, intrigue and violence, which formed a tough character in Ivan the Terrible. Then, considering the heir to the throne to be a child who did not understand anything, the trustees did not pay any attention to him, mercilessly killed his friends and kept the future king in poverty, even depriving him of food and clothing. This instilled in him aggression and cruelty, which already in his youth manifested itself in the desire to torture animals, and in the future the entire Russian people.
At that time, the country was ruled by the princes Belsky and Shuisky, nobleman Mikhail Vorontsov and the maternal relatives of the future ruler Glinsky. Their reign was marked for all of Rus' by the careless disposal of state property, which Ivan the Terrible understood very clearly.
In 1543, he first showed his temper to his guardians by ordering the death of Andrei Shuisky. Then the boyars began to fear the tsar, power over the country was completely concentrated in the hands of the Glinskys, who began to please the heir to the throne with all their might, cultivating animal instincts in him.
At the same time, the future tsar devoted a lot of time to self-education and read many books, which made him the most well-read ruler of those times. Then, being a powerless hostage of the temporary rulers, he hated the whole world, and his main idea was to gain complete and unlimited power over people, which he put above any moral laws.
Government and reforms
In 1545, when Ivan the Terrible came of age, he became a full-fledged king. His first political decision was the desire to marry into the kingdom, which gave him the right to autocracy and inherit the traditions of the Orthodox faith. At the same time, this royal title also became useful for the country’s foreign policy, as it allowed it to take a different position in diplomatic relations with Western Europe and Russia to claim first place among European states.
From the first days of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, a number of key changes and reforms took place in the state, which he developed with the Elected Rada, and a period of autocracy began in Russia, during which all power fell into the hands of one monarch.
The Tsar of All Rus' devoted the next 10 years to global reform - Ivan the Terrible carried out a zemstvo reform, which formed an estate-representative monarchy in the country, adopted a new code of law that tightened the rights of all peasants and serfs, and introduced a labial reform that redistributed the powers of volosts and governors in favor of the nobility.
In 1550, the ruler distributed estates within 70 km from the Russian capital to the “selected” thousand Moscow nobles and formed a streltsy army, which he armed with firearms. The same period was marked by the enslavement of peasants and the ban on Jewish merchants entering Russia.
The foreign policy of Ivan the Terrible at the first stage of his reign was full of numerous wars, which were very successful. He personally took part in the campaigns and already in 1552 took control of Kazan and Astrakhan, and then annexed part of the Siberian lands to Russia. In 1553, the monarch began to organize trade relations with England, and 5 years later entered into a war with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in which he suffered a resounding defeat and lost part of the Russian lands.
After losing the war, Ivan the Terrible began to look for those responsible for the defeat, broke off legislative relations with the Elected Rada and embarked on the path of autocracy, filled with repression, disgrace and executions of everyone who did not support his policies.
Oprichnina
The reign of Ivan the Terrible in the second stage became even tougher and bloodier. In 1565, he introduced a special form of government, as a result of which Russia was divided into two parts - the oprichnina and the zemshchina. The oprichniki, who swore an oath of allegiance to the tsar, fell under his complete autocracy and could not communicate with the zemstvos, who paid the lion's share of their income to the monarch.
In this way, a large army gathered on the estates of the oprichnina, which Ivan the Terrible freed from responsibility. They were allowed to carry out robberies and pogroms of the boyars in a violent manner, and in case of resistance they were allowed to mercilessly execute and kill all those who disagreed with the sovereign.
In 1571, when the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey invaded Rus', the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible demonstrated their complete inability to defend the state - the oprichnina, spoiled by the ruler, simply did not go to war, and out of the entire large army, the tsar managed to assemble only one regiment, which could not resist the army of the Crimean khan. As a result, Ivan the Terrible abolished the oprichnina, stopped killing people, and even ordered the compilation of memorial lists of executed people so that their souls could be buried in monasteries.
The results of the reign of Ivan the Terrible were the collapse of the country's economy and a resounding defeat in the Livonian War, which, according to historians, was his life's work. The monarch realized that while ruling the country, he made many mistakes not only in domestic but also in foreign policy, which by the end of his reign forced Ivan the Terrible to repent.
During this period, he committed another bloody crime and, in moments of rage, accidentally killed his own son and the only possible heir to the throne, Ivan Ivanovich. After this, the king completely despaired and even wanted to go to a monastery.
Personal life
The personal life of Ivan the Terrible is as eventful as his reign. According to historians, the first Tsar of All Rus' was married seven times. The monarch's first wife was Anastasia Zakharyina-Yuryeva, whom he married in 1547. Over more than 10 years of marriage, the queen gave birth to six children, of whom only Ivan and Fyodor survived.
After Anastasia died in 1560, Ivan the Terrible married the daughter of the Kabardian prince, Maria Cherkasskaya. In the first year of marriage to the monarch, the second wife gave birth to a son, who died at the age of a month. After this, Ivan the Terrible’s interest in his wife disappeared, and 8 years later Maria herself died.
The third wife of Ivan the Terrible, Maria Sobakina, was the daughter of a Kolomna nobleman. Their wedding took place in 1571. The king's third marriage lasted only 15 days - Maria died for unknown reasons. After 6 months, the king remarried Anna Koltovskaya. This marriage was also childless, and after a year of family life, the king imprisoned his fourth wife in a monastery, where she died in 1626.
The ruler's fifth wife was Maria Dolgorukaya, whom he drowned in a pond after their wedding night, because he found out that he new wife was not a virgin. In 1975, he married again Anna Vasilchikova, who did not remain queen for long - she, like her predecessors, suffered the fate of being forcibly exiled to a monastery, allegedly for treason against the king.
The last, seventh wife of Ivan the Terrible was Maria Nagaya, who married him in 1580. Two years later, the queen gave birth to Tsarevich Dmitry, who died at the age of 9. After the death of her husband, Maria was exiled to Uglich by the new king, and then forcibly tonsured a nun. She became a significant figure in Russian history as a mother, whose short reign occurred during the Time of Troubles.
Death
The death of the first Tsar of All Rus', Ivan the Terrible, occurred on March 28, 1584 in Moscow. The ruler died while playing chess from the growth of osteophytes, which in recent years had made him practically immobile. Nervous shocks, an unhealthy lifestyle and this serious illness made Ivan the Terrible, at the age of 53, a “decrepit” old man, which led to such early death.
Ivan the Terrible was buried next to his son Ivan, who was killed by him, in the Archangel Cathedral, located in the Moscow Kremlin. After the burial of the monarch, persistent rumors began to appear that the king died a violent and not a natural death. Chroniclers claim that Ivan the Terrible was poisoned by poison, who after him became the ruler of Rus'.
The version of the poisoning of the first monarch was checked in 1963 during the opening of the royal tombs - researchers did not find high levels of arsenic in the remains, so the murder of Ivan the Terrible was not confirmed. At this point, the Rurik dynasty was completely stopped, and the Time of Troubles began in the country.
And Elena Glinskaya. After the death of Ivan's father, his mother took over the reign, which lasted 5 years. After the death of the Grand Duchess, power passed into the hands of members of the Seven Boyars.
The childhood of the future tsar passed in an atmosphere of constant struggle for the main roles between the boyar families of the Shuiskys, Obolenskys, and Belskys. Scenes of boyar self-will and violence developed in Ivan suspicion and deep distrust of people. He marked his 15th birthday (the time of coming of age in the 16th century) only with disgraces and executions.
The beginning of the independent reign of Ivan IV was marked by an act of political significance - on January 16, 1547, he assumed the title of Tsar.
In 1549, a reform party was formed, headed by the Tsar’s favorite Alexei Adashev, and called the “Chosen Rada”. This included people close to the tsar - clerk Ivan Viskovaty, Metropolitan Macarius, priest Sylvester, A.M. Kurbsky. From this time on, the era of the reign of Ivan the Terrible began, marked by successes in internal affairs and foreign policy.
Ivan IV, together with the Elected Rada, carried out a number of reforms aimed at centralizing the Russian state. The nature of the reforms was influenced by the Moscow uprising of 1547, which showed the tsar that his power was not autocratic.
The first step was the convening of the Zemsky Sobor, or Great Zemstvo Duma, in 1550. Ivan IV made it clear that the time of boyar autocracy was over, and he was taking the reins of power into his own hands. The fruit of the meeting was a new edition of the judicial code, which repeated the Code of Laws of 1497, but corrected and supplemented by various decrees and letters related to the improvement of judicial procedures.
In 1551, a Church Council was convened, where the “Royal Questions” were read. All these questions, along with the answers, were divided into one hundred chapters, which is why the entire cathedral code was called Stoglav. Stoglav has the same national significance as the Code of Laws. The church reform of Ivan the Terrible concerned monastic land ownership. In May 1551, a decree was issued on the confiscation of all lands and lands transferred by the Boyar Duma to bishops and monasteries after the death of Vasily III. This law prohibited the church from acquiring new lands without reporting to the government.
Simultaneously with the judicial reform, the Elected Rada began to streamline localism.
In 1553, Ivan the Terrible introduced printing in Rus'. Printing became a new craft, headed by Ivan Fedorov.
In order to strengthen the armed forces, Adashev's government began organizing a permanent Streltsy army and formed a three-thousand-strong Streltsy detachment for the personal protection of the Tsar.
The central point of Ivan the Terrible's foreign policy was the final destruction of the Tatar power. In 1552, Kazan was taken, and in 1556, tsarist troops captured Astrakhan. The defeat of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates put an end to the three-century reign of the Tatars in the Volga region. Following this, the Bashkirs announced their voluntary accession to Russia, the rulers of the Great Nogai Horde and the Siberian Khanate, the princes of Pyatigorsk and Kabarda in the North Caucasus recognized themselves as vassals of the tsar.
But on the other hand, the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan strengthened the hostile attitude of the Crimean Horde towards us. At that time, Ivan IV was busy with the Livonian War that began in 1556, so he abandoned the idea of attacking Crimea.
At the second stage of reforms, a unified order system emerged. Foreign relations were concentrated in the Ambassadorial Prikaz, military affairs in the Razryadny Prikaz, land affairs in the Local Prikaz, complaints addressed to the Tsar were accepted by the Petition Prikaz. The Boyar Duma controlled the activities of the orders. The adoption of the order system led to the abolition of “feedings” in 1556.
With the coming to power of the Chosen Rada, Ivan the Terrible's reforms acquired a pronounced anti-boyar orientation.
Soon, Ivan IV began to become more and more burdened by his advisers, he was worried by the thought that they were leading him and did not give him free rein in anything. Therefore, in 1560, the king dispersed the Rada. This was followed by the era of executions and oprichnina.
In 1564, the entire royal family left the capital, taking with them the treasury and church treasures, and stopped in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. Ivan the Terrible announced his abdication of the throne, counting on persuasion to return. In February 1565, the tsar returned to Moscow and assumed power on the terms he put forward.
Ivan the Terrible established the oprichnina with its own system of government, army and territory, and transferred the Moscow state (zemshchina) to the control of the Boyar Duma. The Tsar assumed unlimited powers to deal with “disobedient” boyars without consulting the Duma.
The oprichnina included the most economically profitable counties in the country, which served as the main source of income for the oprichnina treasury.
The Tsar insisted that the creation of the oprichnina was necessary to combat the abuse of power of the boyars and their treason. A period of bloody executions began, the beating of citizens in droves, and the barbaric destruction of cities. This period of the era of Ivan IV the Terrible was called the “Time of Troubles”.
Ivan Vasilyevich died on March 19, 1584. Russia in the era of Ivan the Terrible was first exalted, and then brought to great exhaustion and humiliation. The rise of industry and trade gave way to decline. And Russian enlightenment, which fell during the Tatar era, fell even lower during the Time of Troubles.
Ivan IV Vasilievich , nicknamed Grozny , by direct name Titus and Smaragd, tonsured - Jonah
Sovereign, Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus' since 1533, first Tsar of All Rus' (since 1547; except 1575-1576)
short biography
The nickname of John IV Vasilyevich, Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus' (since 1533), the first Russian Tsar, who ruled from 1547 for 50 years 105 days - among all those who have ever headed the Russian state, this is a record. Ivan the Terrible was the son of the Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus' Vasily III, a descendant of the Rurik dynasty. His mother, Princess Elena Glinskaya, belonged to the most ancient family, originating from Mamai.
Ivan Vasilyevich was born near Moscow, in the village. Kolomenskoye on August 25, 1530. He became a ruler, although so far only a nominal one, at the age of three and was under the supervision of a special guardian boyar commission created by his father, who had a premonition imminent death. However, the state was under the power of this council for less than a year, after which numerous upheavals occurred.
In 1545, fifteen-year-old Ivan, who had become an adult by the standards of that time, became a full-fledged ruler. The solemn ceremony of his coronation took place on January 16, 1547 in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The 16-year-old sovereign himself initiated this ritual, but many historians believe that he made this decision not without the influence of others. In 1560 the king abolished Elected Rada and began to rule entirely independently.
The long years of Ivan the Terrible's reign were marked by a large number of various reforms and changes in the life of the state. For example, under him, zemstvo councils began to be created, a system of orders was formed, and the oprichnina was formed. The king fought his enemies, sometimes imaginary, with the most severe and merciless methods. He imposed a temporary ban on the traditional transfer of serfs to new owners on St. George's Day.
In the field of foreign policy, the reign of Ivan the Terrible was marked by a large number of wars that went on almost without interruption. If at first the sovereign was lucky (in 1552 the Kazan Khanate was conquered, in 1556 - the Astrakhan Khanate), then the 25th Livonian War ended with huge losses for Russia. At the same time, Ivan the Terrible did a lot to develop trade and political relations with other states, in particular with England, Holland, the Bukhara Khanate, etc.
Ivan the Terrible has remained for centuries not only as a ruler, but also as a unique, controversial personality. From the position of that time, the king was an educated man. The well-known letters to Kurbsky speak of his outstanding literary abilities. It is possible that some literary monuments of that time, in particular, chronicle collections, “Sovereign Discharge”, etc., were compiled not without the influence of the tsar. It is known that he did a lot for book printing, contributed to the development of architecture, initiating the construction of a number of buildings, in particular, St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.
The sovereign's energy, determination, and foresight coexisted in his nature with doubts and spontaneous actions. The king had sadistic tendencies and a mania for persecution; his tough temper and fits of anger went down in history; one of these outbursts ended in 1582 with the murder of his own son. Shortly before his death, he accepted monasticism.
The biography of Ivan the Terrible came to an end on March 18, 1584. The Moscow Archangel Cathedral became his burial place. After the death of the sovereign, there was a lot of talk about the fact that she was violent. At the same time, it is known that in his mature years he was not in excellent health and looked much older than his years. 6 years before the death of the king, his spine was in such poor condition that the sovereign was moved on a stretcher. It is not possible to reliably confirm or refute rumors of a murder; the death of Ivan the Terrible remains shrouded in mystery.
Biography from Wikipedia
Ivan IV Vasilievich, nicknamed the Terrible, also had the names Titus and Smaragd, tonsured - Jonah (August 25, 1530, the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow - March 18 (28), 1584, Moscow) - sovereign, Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus' since 1533, the first king of all Rus' (since 1547; except 1575-1576, when Simeon Bekbulatovich was nominally the “Grand Duke of All Rus'”).
The eldest son of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya. Nominally, Ivan became ruler at the age of 3. After the uprising in Moscow in 1547, he ruled with the participation of a circle of close associates - the “Chosen Rada”. Under him, the convening of Zemsky Councils began, and the Code of Laws of 1550 was compiled. Reforms have been carried out military service, judicial system and public administration, including the introduction of elements of self-government at the local level (guba, zemstvo and other reforms). The Kazan and Astrakhan khanates were conquered, Western Siberia, the Don Army Region, Bashkiria, and the lands of the Nogai Horde were annexed. Thus, under Ivan IV, the increase in the territory of the Russian state was almost 100%, from 2.8 million km² to 5.4 million km²; by the end of his reign, Russia had become larger than the rest of Europe.
In 1560, the Elected Rada was abolished, its main figures fell into disgrace, and the Tsar’s completely independent reign in Russia began. The second half of the reign of Ivan the Terrible was marked by a streak of failures in the Livonian War and the establishment of the oprichnina, during which the country was devastated and the old clan aristocracy was dealt a blow and the positions of the local nobility were strengthened. Formally, Ivan IV ruled longer than any ruler who has ever headed the Russian state - 50 years and 105 days.
early years
On his father's side, Ivan came from the Moscow branch of the Rurik dynasty, on his mother's side - from Mamai, who was considered the ancestor of the Lithuanian princes Glinsky. Paternal grandmother, Sophia Palaeologus, is from the family of Byzantine emperors. Maternal grandmother Anna Jaksic is the daughter of the Serbian governor Stefan Jaksic. Ivan became the first son of Grand Duke Vasily III from his second wife, after many years of childlessness. Born on August 25, he received the name Ivan in honor of St. John the Baptist, the day of the Beheading of whose head falls on August 29. He was baptized in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery by Abbot Joasaph (Skripitsyn); Two elders of the Joseph-Volotsk monastery were elected as successors - monk Cassian Bosoy and abbot Daniel.
Childhood of the Grand Duke
Tradition says that in honor of the birth of John, the Church of the Ascension was founded in Kolomenskoye. According to the right of succession to the throne established in Rus', the grand-ducal 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 III, became seriously ill. The closest contenders to the throne, except for the young Ivan , were Vasily’s younger brothers. Of the six sons of Ivan III, two remained - Prince Staritsky Andrei and Prince Dmitrovsky Yuri.
Anticipating his imminent death, Vasily III formed a “seven-strong” boyar commission to govern the state (it was to the guardian council under the young Grand Duke that the name “Seven Boyars” was first applied, more often in modern times associated exclusively with the oligarchic boyar government of the Time of Troubles in the period after the overthrow of Tsar Vasily Shuisky). The guardians were supposed to take care of Ivan until he reached the age of 15. The guardianship council included his uncle, Prince Andrei Staritsky (younger brother of his father - Vasily III), M. L. Glinsky (uncle of his mother - Grand Duchess Elena) and advisers: the Shuisky brothers (Vasily and Ivan), Mikhail 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: thus, according to the historian A. A. Zimin, Vasily III transferred the management of state affairs to the Boyar Duma, and appointed M. L. Glinsky and D. F. Belsky as guardians of the heir. A.F. Chelyadnina was appointed mother for Ivan.
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 Vasilyevich 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 Ivan 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 (according to one version, she was poisoned by the boyars), and six days later the boyars (princes Ivan and Vasily Vasily 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 Mishchurina " the boyars executed... not loving the fact that he stood for the Grand Duke's cause».
According to the recollections of Ivan himself, “ Prince Vasily and Ivan Shuisky arbitrarily imposed themselves […] as guardians and thus reigned", the future Tsar with his brother Yuri " began to educate them as foreigners or the last poor people,” up to “deprivation of clothing and food».
In 1545, Ivan came of age at the age of 15, thus becoming a full ruler. One of the strongest impressions of the tsar in his youth was the “great fire” in Moscow, which destroyed over 25 thousand houses, and the Moscow uprising of 1547. After the murder of one of the Glinskys, a relative of the Tsar, the rebels came to the village of Vorobyovo, where the Grand Duke had taken refuge, and demanded the extradition of the remaining Glinskys. With great difficulty they managed to persuade the crowd to disperse, convincing them that there were no Glinskys in Vorobyov.
Royal wedding
Great sovereign title of Tsar John IV Vasilyevich at the end of his reign
Bzhїey mlⷭ҇tїyu, the great city of the Tsar and the great Kazakh Izhѡann Vasilyevich of all, Vladimir, Moscow, Ovogorodskaya, Tsar Kazan, Tsar Astrakhan, Pskov, Great Kazan Smolensk, Tver, Yugorsk, ѧ́tskaya, Bulgarian and ҆цны́хъ, whereⷭ҇рь и҆ the Great Kazakh new town Nizovsk land, Chernigov, Rizan, Polotsk, Rostov, Roslav, Beloyezersk, U҆dorsk, ѻ҆bdorsk, cond And the ruler of all Siberian lands and northern countries, and where is the land of Bethlehem and other countries.
On December 13, 1546, Ivan Vasilyevich for the first time expressed to Metropolitan Macarius his intention to marry, and before that Macarius invited Ivan the Terrible to marry into the kingdom.
A number of historians (N.I. Kostomarov, R.G. Skrynnikov, V.B. 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 adhered 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.
Casket-ark for storing the letter of confirmation of Ivan IV's reign. Artist F. G. Solntsev. Russia, F. Chopin's factory. 1853-48 Bronze, casting, gilding, silvering, embossing. State Historical Museum
The ancient “Greek kingdom” with its divinely crowned rulers has always been a model for Orthodox countries, but it fell under the blows of the infidels. Moscow, in the eyes of Orthodox Russian people, was to become the heir of Tsaryagrad-Constantinople. The triumph of autocracy also personified for Metropolitan Macarius the triumph of the Orthodox faith, so the interests of the royal and spiritual authorities were 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 supreme power 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. The Metropolitan placed on Ivan 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.
After the wedding, Ivan’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.
Later, in 1558, Patriarch Joasaph II of Constantinople informed Ivan the Terrible that “ His royal name is commemorated in the Cathedral Church in all Sundays, as the names of former Greek Kings; this is ordered 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, was 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 new title made it possible to take a significantly different position in diplomatic relations with Western Europe. The title of grand duke was translated as “great duke,” while the title “tsar” in the hierarchy stood on a par with the title emperor.
Unconditionally, the title of Ivan was recognized by England already in 1555, followed a little later by Spain, Denmark and the Florentine Republic. 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 kingdom”, but demanded immediate recognition of himself as the king of “all Rus'”, and the emperor conceded on this fundamentally important issue, especially since Maximilian I still titled Vasily III “ By the grace of God, Tsar and Possessor of the All-Russian and Grand Duke" The papal throne turned out to be much more stubborn, defending the exclusive right of popes to grant royal and other titles, 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 Moscow’s claims. Sigismund II Augustus presented a note to the papal throne in which he warned that the recognition by the papacy of Ivan IV of the 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. Thus, one of the successors of Ivan IV, his imaginary son False Dmitry I, used the title of “Tsar,” but Sigismund III, who helped him take the Moscow throne, officially called him simply a prince, not even “great.”
About the digital designation in the title of Ivan the Terrible
With the accession to the throne in 1740 of the infant Emperor Ivan Antonovich, a digital indication was introduced in relation to the Russian tsars bearing the name Ivan (John). Ioann Antonovich began to be called Ioann III Antonovich. This is evidenced by rare coins that have come down to us with the inscription “ John III, by the grace of God, Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia».
« The great-grandfather of John III Antonovich received the specified title of Tsar John II Alekseevich of All Rus', and Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible received the specified title Tsar Ivan I Vasilyevich of All Rus'" Thus, initially Ivan the Terrible was called Ivan the First.
The digital part of the title - IV - was first assigned to Ivan the Terrible by Karamzin in the “History of the Russian State”, since he began counting from Ivan Kalita.
Board under the “Elected Rada”
V. M. Vasnetsov Tsar Ivan the Terrible, 1897
Reforms
Since 1549, together with the “Chosen Rada” (A.F. Adashev, Metropolitan Macarius, A.M. Kurbsky, Archpriest Sylvester and others), Ivan IV carried out a number of reforms aimed at centralizing the state and building public institutions.
In 1549, the first Zemsky Sobor was convened with representatives from all classes, except the peasantry. A class-representative monarchy took shape in Russia.
In 1550, a new code of law was adopted, which introduced a single unit for collecting taxes - a large plow, which amounted to 400-600 acres of land, depending on soil fertility and social status owner, and limited the rights of serfs and peasants (the rules for the transfer of peasants were tightened).
At the beginning of the 1550s, zemstvo and provincial reforms were carried out (started by the government of Elena Glinskaya) that redistributed part of the powers of governors and volostels, including judicial ones, in favor of elected representatives of the black-growing peasantry and nobility.
In 1550, the “chosen thousand” of Moscow nobles received estates within 60-70 km from Moscow and a semi-regular infantry army armed with firearms was formed. In 1555-1556, Ivan IV abolished feeding and adopted the Code of Service. The patrimonial owners became obliged to equip and bring in soldiers depending on the size of their land holdings, on an equal basis with the landowners.
Under Ivan the Terrible, a system of orders was formed: Petition, Posolsky, Local, Streletsky, Pushkarsky, Bronny, Robbery, Pechatny, Sokolnichiy, Zemsky orders, as well as quarters: Galitskaya, Ustyug, Novaya, Kazan order. Since 1551, the functions of the Ambassadorial Order (Chapter 72 of Stoglav “On the Redemption of Prisoners”) were added by the tsar to carry out the ransom of captive subjects from the Horde (for this purpose, a special land tax was collected - “polonian money”).
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. The new seal sealed the treaty with the Kingdom of Denmark dated April 7, 1562.
The Council of the Hundred Heads of 1551, at which the tsar, relying on non-covetous people, hoped to carry out the secularization of church lands, met from January-February to May. The Church was forced to answer 37 questions from the young king (some of which exposed unrest in the priesthood and monastic administration, as well as in monastic life) and accept a compromise collection of Stoglav decisions, which regulated church issues.
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».
Kazan campaigns (1547-1552)
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 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.
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.” 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. During the first (winter of 1547/1548), due to an early thaw, siege artillery went under the ice on the Volga 15 versts from Nizhny Novgorod, and the troops that reached Kazan stood under it for only 7 days. The second campaign (autumn 1549 - spring 1550) followed the news of the death of Safa-Girey, also did not lead to the capture of Kazan, but the Sviyazhsk fortress was built, which served as a stronghold for the Russian army during the next campaign.
The third campaign (June-October 1552) ended with the capture of Kazan. 150,000 people took part in the campaign Russian army, armament included 150 guns. The Kazan Kremlin was taken by storm. Khan Ediger-Magmet was captured by Russian commanders. The chronicler recorded: “ The sovereign did not order to invest a single copper worker on himself.(that is, not a single penny) , no captivity, just the one 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 power" Almost simultaneously with the start of the campaign in June 1552, the Crimean Khan Devlet I Giray made a campaign to Tula.
In defeated Kazan, the tsar appointed Prince Alexander Gorbaty-Shuisky as Kazan governor, and Prince Vasily Serebryany as his assistant.
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 uluses, black people received dangerous tribute 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. During the Livonian War, the Muslim regions of the Volga region began to supply the Russian army with “many three hundred thousand troops”, well prepared for the offensive.
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».
Astrakhan campaigns (1554-1556)
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.
The campaign of 1554 was carried out under the command of the governor Prince Yuri Pronsky-Shemyakin. In the battle of the Black Island, the Russian army defeated the lead Astrakhan detachment, and Astrakhan was taken without a fight. As a result, Khan Dervish-Ali was brought to power, promising support to Moscow.
The campaign of 1556 was associated with the fact that Khan Dervish-Ali went over to the side of the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire. The campaign was led by governor Ivan Cheremisinov. First, the Don Cossacks of Ataman Lyapun 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 the Russian kingdom.
In 1556, the capital of the Golden Horde, Sarai-Batu, was destroyed.
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.
War with Sweden (1554-1557)
During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, trade relations between Russia and England were established 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. 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. 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.
The Swedish king Gustav I Vasa, after an unsuccessful attempt to create an anti-Russian union, which would have included the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Livonia and Denmark, decided to act independently.
The first motive for declaring war on Sweden was the capture of Russian merchants in Stockholm. On September 10, 1555, the Swedish admiral Jacob Bagge with a 10,000-strong army besieged Oreshek; the Swedes' attempts to develop an attack on Novgorod were thwarted by a guard regiment under the command of Sheremetev. On January 20, 1556, a Russian army of 20–25 thousand defeated the Swedes at Kivinebb and besieged Vyborg, but failed to take it.
In July 1556, Gustav I made a proposal for peace, which was accepted by Ivan IV. On March 25, 1557, the Second Truce of Novgorod was concluded for forty years, which restored the border defined by the Orekhov Peace Treaty of 1323 and established the custom of diplomatic relations through the Novgorod governor.
Beginning of the Livonian War
Causes of the war
In 1547, the king ordered 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.
In 1554, Ivan IV demanded that the Livonian Confederation return arrears under the “Yuriev tribute” established by the 1503 treaty, renounce military alliances with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Sweden, and continue the truce. The first payment of the debt for Dorpat was supposed to take place in 1557, but the Livonian Confederation did not fulfill its obligation.
In the spring of 1557, on the shore of Narva, by order of Ivan, a port was established: “The 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 okolnichy prince Dmitry Semenovich Shastunov and Pyotr Petrovich Golovin and Ivan Vyrodkov to Ivangorod, and ordered on Narova below Ivangorod at the mouth of sea city set up for a ship shelter...” However, the Hanseatic League and Livonia did not allow European merchants to enter the new Russian port, and they continued to go, as before, to Revel, Narva and Riga.
The Posvolsky Treaty, concluded on September 15, 1557 between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Order, created a threat to the establishment of Lithuanian power in Livonia. The agreed position of the Hansa and Livonia to prevent Moscow from engaging in independent maritime trade led Tsar Ivan to the decision to begin the struggle for wide access to the Baltic.
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. 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.
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 solemn embassy, to which Spain, Denmark and England were to be invited, to offer the eastern power eternal peace and stop her conquests.
Grozny's performance in the struggle for the Baltic Sea... amazed 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 to Moscow and, by separating Moscow from the centers of 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...
Campaigns against the Crimean Khanate
Since the end of the 15th century, the Crimean khans of the Girey dynasty were vassals of the Ottoman Empire, which was actively expanding in Europe. Part of the Moscow aristocracy and the Pope persistently demanded that Ivan the Terrible enter into a fight with the Turkish Sultan Suleiman the First.
Simultaneously with the beginning of the Russian offensive in Livonia, the Crimean cavalry raided Russian kingdom, several thousand Crimeans broke through to the vicinity of Tula and Pronsk, and R. G. Skrynnikov emphasizes that the Russian government, represented by Adashev and Viskovaty, “had to conclude a truce on the western borders,” as it was preparing for a “decisive clash on the southern border.” 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. Ivan the Terrible proposed an alliance with the Polish king Sigismund II against the Crimea, but he, on the contrary, leaned toward an alliance with the Khanate.
The Fall of the "Chosen One" War with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
On August 31, 1559, the Master of the Livonian Order Gotthard Ketler and the King of Poland and Lithuania Sigismund II Augustus concluded the Treaty of Vilna on the entry of Livonia under the protectorate of Lithuania, 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: the war between Russia and Livonia turned into a struggle between states of Eastern Europe for the Livonian inheritance.
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 the master's residence - Fellin Castle. 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. Aleksei Adashev (voivode of a large regiment) was appointed to Fellin, but he, being ill-born, 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). In connection with 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.
In the fall of 1561, the Union of Vilna was concluded on the formation of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia on the territory of Livonia and the transfer of other lands to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
In January-February 1563, Polotsk was captured. 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.
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 Polotsk) 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.
Oprichnina period (1565-1572)
Allegory of the tyrannical rule of Ivan the Terrible (Germany. First half of the 18th century). Picture from the German weekly journal by David Fassmann “Conversations in the Kingdom of the Dead” (German: Gespräche in dem Reiche derer Todten; 1718-1739).
Reasons for introducing the oprichnina
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, Nikolai 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 believed 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”. Historians believe that the choice of the first 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 embarked on a 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, limiting their patrimonial rights, even more than before, equating them with the local nobility.
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 Zemshchina. The Oprichnina included mainly the 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 Grozny did not declare his renunciation of power, the prospect of the sovereign leaving 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 first victims of the oprichnina were the most prominent boyars: the first governor in the Kazan campaign A. B. Gorbaty-Shuisky with his son Peter, his brother-in-law Pyotr Khovrin, the okolnichy P. Golovin (whose family traditionally occupied the positions of Moscow treasurers), P. I. Gorensky-Obolensky ( his younger brother, Yuri, managed to escape in Lithuania), Prince Dmitry Shevyrev, S. Loban-Rostovsky and others. With the help of the oprichniki, who were exempt from judicial responsibility, Ivan IV forcibly confiscated the boyar and princely estates, transferring them to the oprichniki nobles. The boyars and princes themselves were granted estates in other regions of the country, for example, in the Volga region.
The decree on the introduction of the Oprichnina was approved by the highest bodies of spiritual and secular 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. But a significant part of the zemshchina protested against the oprichnina, so in 1556 about 300 noble persons of the zemshchina filed a petition for the abolition of the oprichnina; Of the petitioners, 50 were subjected to trade execution, several had their tongues cut out, and three were beheaded.
“Moscow dungeon. The end of the 16th century (Konstantin-Eleninsky gates of the Moscow dungeon at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries)", 1912.
For the ordination of Metropolitan Philip, which took place on July 25, 1566, a letter was prepared and signed, 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.” According to R. G. Skrynnikov, thanks to Philip’s intervention, many petitioners of the 1566 Council were released from prison. On March 22, 1568, in the Assumption Cathedral, 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 the church court. Philip was defrocked and exiled to the Tver Otroch Monastery.
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».
In 1569, the tsar's cousin, Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, died (presumably, according to rumors, on the order of the tsar, they brought him a cup of poisoned wine and ordered that Vladimir Andreevich himself, his wife and their eldest daughter drink the wine). Somewhat later, Vladimir Andreevich’s mother, Efrosinya Staritskaya, who repeatedly stood at the head of boyar conspiracies against John IV and was repeatedly pardoned by him, was also killed.
Hike to Novgorod
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. The Kolychev family, to which Philip belonged, was persecuted; some of its members were executed on Ivan's orders.
On January 2, 1570, military detachments surrounded the city, hundreds of priests were put under arrest, and the monasteries were taken under full control. Four days later the king himself arrived here. He defended the service in the St. Sophia Cathedral and then ordered repressions to begin. The guardsmen began to loot throughout the city and its environs. According to chronicles, the punishers spared no one; adults and children were tortured, beaten, and then thrown directly into the Volkhov River. If anyone survived, they were pushed under the ice with sticks. According to various sources, from 2 thousand to 10 thousand people died.
Having dealt with Novgorod, the tsar set out for Pskov. The tsar limited himself only to executing several Pskov residents and plundering their property. At that time, as legend says, Grozny was visiting a Pskov holy fool (a certain Nikola Salos). When it was time for lunch, Nikola handed Ivan a piece of raw meat with the words: “Here, eat it, you eat human flesh,” and then threatened Ivan with many troubles if he did not spare the inhabitants. Grozny, having disobeyed, ordered the bells to be removed from one Pskov monastery. At the same hour, his best horse fell under the king, which impressed Ivan. The Tsar hastily left Pskov and returned to Moscow, where a “search” for Novgorod treason began, which was carried out throughout 1570, and many prominent guardsmen were also involved in the case.
Russian-Crimean War (1571-1572)
In 1563 and 1569, together with Turkish troops, Devlet I Giray made two unsuccessful campaigns against Astrakhan. The Turkish fleet also took part in the second campaign; the Turks also planned to build a canal between the Volga and Don to strengthen their influence in the Caspian Sea, but the campaign ended with an unsuccessful 10-day siege of Astrakhan. Devlet I Giray, dissatisfied with the strengthening of Turkey in this region, also secretly interfered with the campaign.
Beginning in 1567, the activity of the Crimean Khanate began to increase, campaigns were carried out every year. In 1570, the Crimeans, having received almost no resistance, subjected the Ryazan region to terrible devastation.
In 1571, Devlet Giray launched a campaign against Moscow. Having deceived Russian intelligence, the khan crossed the Oka near Kromy, and not at Serpukhov, where the tsarist army was waiting for him, and rushed to Moscow. Ivan left for Rostov, and the Crimeans set fire to the outskirts of the capital, not protected by the Kremlin and Kitai-Gorod. In the subsequent correspondence, the tsar agreed to cede Astrakhan to the khan, but he was not satisfied with this, demanding Kazan and 2000 rubles, and then announced his plans to seize the entire Russian state.
Devlet Giray wrote to Ivan:
I burn and waste everything because of Kazan and Astrakhan, and I apply the wealth of the whole world to dust, hoping for the majesty of God. I came against you, I burned your city, I wanted your crown and head; but you didn’t come and didn’t stand against us, and you still boast that I’m the sovereign of Moscow! If you had shame and dignity, you would come and stand against us.
Stunned by the defeat, Ivan the Terrible replied in a reply message that he agreed to transfer Astrakhan under Crimean control, but refused to return Kazan to the Gireys:
You write about the war in your letter, and if I start writing about the same, then we will not achieve a good deed. If you are angry for the refusal to Kazan and Astrakhan, then we want to give up Astrakhan to you, only now this matter cannot happen soon: for it we must have your ambassadors, but it is impossible to make such a great matter as messengers; Until then you would have granted it, given the terms and not fought our land
Ivan went out to the Tatar ambassadors in a homespun, telling them: “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.”
In 1572, the khan began a new campaign against Moscow, which ended with the destruction of the Crimean-Turkish army in the Battle of Molodi. The death of the 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.
There is a version based on the “History” of Prince Andrei Kurbsky, according to which the winner of Molodi, Vorotynsky, the very next year, by denunciation of a slave, was accused of intending to bewitch the tsar and died from torture, and during the torture the tsar himself raked the coals with his staff.
Grand Duke John IV Vasilievich
(miniature from the Tsar's titular book of 1672)
Flight of the Tsar from Moscow
Sources report different versions of the king's flight. Most of them agree that the tsar was heading towards Yaroslavl, but only reached Rostov. In the news of Devlet-Girey's raid, which occurred in April - May 1571, Horsey's notes quite accurately, judging by other sources, convey the outline of events, starting with the burning of Moscow.
John Vasilyevich the Great, Emperor of Russia, Prince of Muscovy. From Ortelius' map of 1574
The end of the oprichnina
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 abolished the oprichnina altogether and banned its very name, although in fact, under the name of the “sovereign court,” the oprichnina existed until his death.
Unsuccessful actions against Devlet-Girey in 1571 led to the final destruction of the oprichnina elite of the first composition: the head of the oprichnina Duma, the tsar's brother-in-law M. Cherkassky (Saltankul Murza) “for deliberately bringing the tsar under the Tatar attack” was impaled; nurseryman P. Zaitsev was hanged on the gate of his own house; The oprichnina boyars I. Chebotov, I. Vorontsov, the butler L. Saltykov, the master F. Saltykov and many others were also executed. Moreover, the reprisals did not subside even after the Battle of Molodi - celebrating the victory in Novgorod, the tsar drowned the “children of the boyars” in Volkhov, after which a ban was introduced on the very name of the oprichnina. At the same time, Ivan the Terrible brought down repression on those who had previously helped him deal with Metropolitan Philip: the Solovetsky abbot Paisiy was imprisoned on Valaam, the Ryazan bishop Philotheus was deprived of his rank, and the bailiff Stefan Kobylin, who supervised the metropolitan in the Otroche Monastery, was exiled to the distant monastery of Kamenny islands.
International relations during the oprichnina period
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 about 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.
In 1569, Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania united into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth confederation. 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 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 into Moscow. After the death of Sigismund II and the suppression of the Jagiellon dynasty in Poland and Lithuania, Ivan the Terrible was considered one of the candidates for the Polish throne. 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) were to go to the empire, and Livonia and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with all its possessions were to go to Moscow - that is Belarus, Podlasie, Ukraine, so the noble nobility hastened to elect a king and elected Henry of Valois.
In March 1570, Ivan the Terrible issued a “royal letter” (letter of marque) to the Dane Carsten Rohde. In May of the same year, having bought and equipped ships with royal money, Rode went to sea and until September 1570 hunted in the Baltic Sea against Swedish and Polish merchants.
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 “Grand Duke of All Rus',” and Ivan the Terrible himself called himself Ivan of Moscow, left the Kremlin and began to live on Petrovka.
According to the English historian and traveler Giles Fletcher, by the end of the year the new sovereign took away all the charters granted to bishops and monasteries, which the latter had been using for several centuries. All of them were destroyed. After that (as if dissatisfied with such an act and the bad rule of the new sovereign), Ivan the Terrible took the scepter again and, as if to please the church and clergy, allowed the renewal of the charters that he had already distributed on his own behalf, retaining and adding to the treasury as much land as he himself had whatever.
In this way, Ivan the Terrible took from bishops and monasteries (except for the lands that he annexed to the treasury) a countless amount of money: some 40, others 50, others 100 thousand rubles, which he did in order not only to increase his treasury, but also to remove a bad opinion of his cruel rule, setting an example of even worse in the hands of another king.
This was preceded by a new surge of executions, when the circle of associates that had been established in 1572, after the destruction of the oprichnina elite, was destroyed. Having abdicated the throne, Ivan Vasilyevich took his “destiny” and formed his own “appanage” Duma, which was now ruled by the Nagys, Godunovs and Belskys.
The final stage of the Livonian War
On February 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.” By this time, all of Livonia along the Dvina, with the exception of only two cities - Revel and Riga, was in Russian hands.
In 1579, the royal messenger Wenceslaus Lopatinsky brought the king a letter from Batory declaring war. Already in August, the Polish army took Polotsk, then moved to Velikiye 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 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. After the intensification of hostilities between Russia and Sweden in 1582 (Russian victory at Lyalitsy, the unsuccessful siege of Oreshk by the Swedes), peace negotiations began, which resulted in the Truce of Plyus. Yam, Koporye and Ivangorod passed to Sweden along with the adjacent territory of the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. The Russian state found itself cut off from the sea. The country was devastated, and the northwestern regions were depopulated. It should also be noted that the course of the war and its results were influenced by the Crimean raids: only for 3 years out of 25 years of the war there were no significant raids.
Last years
With the direct support of the Nogai Murzas of Prince Ulus, unrest broke out among the Volga Cheremis: cavalry numbering up to 25,000 people, attacking from Astrakhan, devastated the Belyov, 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. The tsar finally managed to completely take away from the church the way to increase church estates with the estates of service people and boyars - as they became poorer, they often gave their estates as a mortgage to the church and for the commemoration of their souls, which harmed the defense capability of the state. The council decided: bishops and monasteries should not buy estates from service people, nor take souls as mortgages or in remembrance. Estates purchased or taken as collateral from service people should be taken to the royal treasury.
In 1580, the tsar destroyed 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 destroyed. And, although in winter they were expelled naked and in what their mother gave birth to, they could not blame anyone for this but themselves, for ... they behaved so arrogantly, their manners were so arrogant, and their clothes were so luxurious that they could all be was 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 Zamoyski: “ 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 Western Siberia by Ermak Timofeevich and his Cossacks in 1583 and his capture of the capital of the Siberian Khanate - Isker - marked the beginning of the conversion of the local population to Orthodoxy: Ermak's troops were accompanied by four priests and a hieromonk. However, this expedition was carried out against the will of the king, who in November 1582, he scolded the Stroganovs for calling into their patrimony the Cossacks-“thieves” - the Volga atamans, who “before that they quarreled us with the Nogai Horde, beat the Nogai ambassadors on the Volga on transport, and robbed and beat the Ordo-Bazarians, and our many robberies and losses were caused to people". Tsar Ivan IV ordered the Stroganovs, under fear of “great disgrace,” to return Ermak from his campaign in Siberia and use his forces to “protect the Perm places.” But while the tsar was writing his letter, Ermak had already inflicted a crushing defeat on Kuchum and occupied his capital.
Death
A study of the remains of Ivan the Terrible showed that in the last six years of his life he developed osteophytes, to such an extent that he could no longer walk on his own and was carried on a stretcher. M. M. Gerasimov, who examined the remains, noted that he had not seen such thick deposits in very old people. Forced immobility, combined with a general unhealthy lifestyle and nervous shocks, led to the fact that at the age of 50 the king 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, but on March 17 and 18 he felt relief from hot baths. On the afternoon of March 18, the king died. The sovereign’s body was swollen and smelled bad “due to the decomposition of the blood.” Jerome Horsey stated that the king died while playing chess.
Vivliofika preserved the dying commission of the Tsar to Boris Godunov: “When the Great Sovereign was vouchsafed the last farewell, the most pure body and blood of the Lord, then, as a testimony, presenting his confessor Archimandrite Theodosius, filling his eyes with tears, saying to Boris Feodorovich: I command you my soul and my son Theodore Ivanovich and his 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 due to the hostile turmoil at court.
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 “ended the tsar’s life 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 tsar’s strangulation, with which V.I. Koretsky agrees: “Apparently, the tsar was given poison first, and then, for good measure, in the turmoil that arose after he suddenly fell , and also strangled.” The historian Valishevsky 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 verified during the opening of the royal tombs in 1963. Studies have shown normal levels of arsenic in the remains and elevated levels of mercury, which, however, was present in many medicinal preparations of the 16th century and was used to treat syphilis, which the king supposedly suffered from. The murder version remained a hypothesis.
At the same time, the Kremlin’s chief archaeologist Tatyana Panova, together with researcher Elena Aleksandrovskaya, considered the conclusions of the 1963 commission incorrect. In their opinion, the permissible limit for arsenic in Ivan the Terrible was exceeded by more than 2 times. In their opinion, the king was poisoned by a “cocktail” of arsenic and mercury, which was given to him over a period of time.
Family and Children
The number of wives of Ivan the Terrible is not precisely established; historians mention the names of six or seven women who were considered the wives of Ivan IV. Of these, only the first 4 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).
The first, the longest of them, was concluded as follows: 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 3, 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 Temryukovna, who came from a family of Kabardian princes. After her death, Marfa Sobakina and Anna Koltovskaya alternately became wives. The third and fourth wives of the king were also chosen based on the results of the bride review, and the same one, since Martha died 2 weeks after the wedding.
This ended the number of legal marriages of the king, and further information becomes more confusing. These were 2 similarities of marriage (Anna Vasilchikova and Maria Nagaya), illuminated in reliable written sources. Probably, information about the later “wives” (Vasilisa Melentyeva and Maria Dolgorukaya) are legends or pure falsification
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, without being embarrassed by the fact that he himself was at that time in Once again married.
A possible explanation for the large number of marriages, which was not typical for that time, is the assumption of K. Walishevsky that Ivan 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. On the other hand, according to the Englishman Jerome Horsey, who knew the king personally, “he himself boasted that he had corrupted a thousand virgins and that thousands of his children had been deprived of their lives.” According to V.B. Kobrin, this statement, although it contains a clear exaggeration, clearly characterizes the tsar’s depravity. Grozny himself, in his spiritual writings, recognized both “fornication” simply and “supernatural fornication” in particular.
Children
sons
Daughters
(all from Anastasia)- Anna Ioannovna(August 10, 1549-1550) - died before reaching the age of one year.
- Maria Ioannovna(March 17, 1551 - December 8, 1552) - died in infancy.
- Evdokia Ioannovna(February 26, 1556-1558) - died at the age of 3.
Personality of Ivan the Terrible
Cultural activities
Ivan IV was one of the most educated people of his time, he had a phenomenal memory and theological erudition.
According to the historian S. M. Solovyov,
Not a single sovereign of our ancient history was distinguished by such a desire and such ability to talk, argue, orally or in writing, in a people's square, at a church council, with a departed boyar or with foreign ambassadors, which is why he received the nickname of rhetorician in the verbal wisdom.
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), stichera for the Presentation of the Vladimir Icon Mother of God, on the death of Peter, Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus', Canon to the Angel the Terrible Voivode (under the pseudonym Parthenius the Ugly). In 1551, by order of the Tsar, the Moscow Cathedral obliged clergy to organize schools in all cities for children for “learning to read and write, and for teaching books.” letters and church psalter singing." The same cathedral approved the widespread use of polyphonic singing. On the initiative of Ivan the Terrible, something like a conservatory was created in Alexandrova Sloboda, where the best musical masters worked, such as Fyodor Krestyanin (Christian), Ivan Yuryev-Nos, brothers Potapovs, Tretyak Zverintsev, Savluk Mikhailov, Ivan Kalomnitin, crusade clerk Andreev. Ivan IV was a good speaker.
By order of the tsar, a unique literary monument was created - the Front Chronicle.
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.
Having founded the Printing House, 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 Palaeologus the most valuable library of the Morean despotates, which included ancient Greek manuscripts; what he did with it is unknown: according to some versions, the library of Ivan the Terrible died 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.
The choir of the sovereign's royal clerks included the largest Russian composers of that time, who enjoyed the patronage of Ivan IV, Fyodor Krestyanin (Christian) and Ivan Nos.
Tsar Ivan and the church
The rapprochement with the West under Ivan IV could not remain without foreigners coming 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 decrees 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 deception, satanic heresy, I think he’s crazy from All-Seeing Eye take cover».
The most significant relations of the tsar with the saints Metropolitan Macarius, Metropolitan German, Metropolitan Philip, the Monk Cornelius of Pskov-Pechersk, as well as Archpriest Sylvester. The actions of the church councils that took place at that time are important, in particular the Stoglavy Council.
One of the manifestations of Ivan IV’s deep religiosity is his significant contributions to various monasteries. Numerous donations for the commemoration of the souls of people killed by his decree have no analogues not only in Russian, but also in European history. However, modern researchers note the initial profanation of this list (the inclusion of Orthodox Christians in it not by baptismal names, but by worldly nicknames, as well as Gentiles, “witch women,” etc.) and consider the synodik “just a kind of pledge, with the help of which the monarch hoped to “redeem” the soul of the deceased prince from the clutches of demons.” In addition, church historians, characterizing the personality of Ivan the Terrible, emphasize that “the fate of the metropolitans after St. Macarius is entirely on his conscience” (all of them were forcibly removed from the high priestly throne, and even the graves of Metropolitans Athanasius, Cyril and Anthony were not preserved). The mass executions of Orthodox priests and monks, the robberies of monasteries and the destruction of churches in the Novgorod lands and the estates of disgraced boyars also do not honor the tsar.
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.
The character of the king according to contemporaries
Ivan grew up in an atmosphere of palace conspiracies, a struggle for power among the warring boyar families of the Shuisky and Belsky. 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, while 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, then according to him right hand The eldest son sits down. 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 picking it up 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.”
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:
The historian will not utter a word of justification for such a person; he can only utter a word of regret if, peering carefully at the terrible image, under the gloomy features of the tormentor he notices the mournful features of the victim; for here, as elsewhere, the historian is obliged to point out the connection between the phenomena: the Shuiskys and their comrades sowed through self-interest, contempt for the common good, contempt for the life and honor of their neighbors - Grozny grew up.
- Solovyov S. M. History of Russia from ancient times.
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 Tale of the Book of Sowing from Previous Years” of the first third of the 17th century describes the ruler as follows: “ Tsar Ivan looks ridiculous, his eyes are gray, his nose is long, he gags; he is large in age, has a dry body, has high shoulders, wide chests, thick muscles; a man of wonderful reasoning, in the science of book veneration, he is content and very eloquent...».
The Venetian ambassador Marco Foscarino in “Report on Muscovy” writes about the appearance of 27-year-old Ivan Vasilyevich: “Handsome in appearance.”
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 strong, large narrow eyes that observe everything most carefully. The jaw is prominent and courageous. His beard is red, with a slight tint of black, quite long and thick, curly, but, like most Russians, he shaves the hair on his head with a razor. In his hand is a staff with a heavy knob, symbolizing the strength of state power in Rus' and the great masculine dignity of the Tsar himself.”
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 180 cm. 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.”
Board performance assessments
The dispute about the results of the reign of Ivan the Terrible began during his lifetime and continues at the present time.
In the eyes of contemporaries
J. Fletcher pointed out the increasing lack of rights of commoners, which negatively affected their motivation to work:
A. D. Litovchenko. Ivan the Terrible shows his treasures to the English ambassador Horsey. Canvas, oil. 1875. Russian Museum
I often saw how, having laid out their goods (such as furs, etc.), they kept looking around and looking 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 constrained 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:
Although Almighty God punished the Russian land so hard and cruelly that no one can describe it, yet the current Grand Duke has achieved that throughout the Russian land, throughout his entire empire, there is one faith, one weight, one measure! He alone rules! Whatever he orders is carried out, and whatever he forbids really remains prohibited. No one will contradict him: neither the clergy nor the laity.
19th century historiography
Nikolai Karamzin described Ivan the Terrible as a great and wise sovereign in the first half of his reign, and a merciless tyrant in the second:
Between other difficult experiences of Fate, in addition to the disasters of the Appanage system, in addition to the yoke of the Mughals, Russia had to experience the threat of the tormenting autocrat: it resisted with love for the 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, arming herself only with prayer and patience, so that in better times she would have Peter the Great, Catherine the Second (History does not like to name the living). In magnanimous humility, the sufferers died on frontal place, like the Greeks in Thermopylae for the fatherland, for Faith and Loyalty, 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!
John's good glory outlived his bad glory in the people's memory: the lamentations fell silent, the sacrifices decayed, and the old traditions were eclipsed by the newest ones.
From the point of view of Nikolai 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. Kostomarov draws the reader’s attention to the contents of the “Spiritual Testament” compiled by Ivan the Terrible around 1572, according to which the country was supposed to be divided between the tsar’s sons into semi-independent fiefs. The historian argues that this path would lead to the actual destruction of a single state according to a scheme well known in Rus'.
Sergei Solovyov saw the main pattern of Grozny’s activity in the transition from “tribal” relations to “state” ones, which were completed by the oprichnina (“... in the will of John IV, the appanage prince becomes a completely subject of the Grand Duke, the elder brother, who already bears the title of tsar. This is the main, fundamental phenomenon - the transition of tribal relations between princes into state ones..."). (Ivan Boltin pointed out that, as in Western Europe, feudal fragmentation in Rus' is being replaced by political unification, and compared Ivan IV with Louis XI; the same comparison of Ivan with Louis is also noted by Karamzin).
Vasily 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, not 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 into scientific circulation big number new materials. 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:
For Russia, the reign of Ivan the Terrible remained one of the darkest periods in its history. The defeat of the reform movement, the outrages of the oprichnina, the “Novgorod pogrom” - these are some of the milestones of Grozny’s bloody path. However, let's be fair. Nearby are the milestones of another path - the transformation of Russia into a huge power, which included the lands of the Kazan and Astrakhan Khanates, Western Siberia from the Arctic Ocean to the Caspian Sea, reforms in the governance of the country, strengthening the international prestige of Russia, expanding trade and cultural ties with the countries of Europe and Asia
V. B. Kobrin assesses the results of the oprichnina extremely negatively:
“Scribe books compiled in the first decades after the oprichnina give the impression that the country experienced a devastating enemy invasion. “In the void” lies not only more than half, but sometimes up to 90 percent of the land, sometimes for many years. Even in the central Moscow district, only about 16 percent of arable land was cultivated. There are frequent references to “arable fallow land,” which has already been “overgrown with bushes,” “overgrown with a forest-grove,” and even “with forest overgrown into a log, into a stake, and into a pole”: the timber has managed to grow on the former arable land. Many landowners became so ruined that they abandoned their estates, from where all the peasants fled, and turned into beggars - “dragging between the yard.”
The internal policy of Ivan IV, after a streak of failures during the Livonian War and as a result of the sovereign’s own desire to establish undivided royal power, acquired a terrorist character and in the second half of his reign was marked by the establishment of the oprichnina (6 years), mass executions and murders, the defeat of Novgorod and atrocities in other cities (Tver, Klin, Torzhok). The oprichnina was accompanied by thousands of victims, and, according to many historians, its results, together with the results of a long and unsuccessful war, led the state to a socio-political crisis.
Positive characteristics
Despite the fact that in Russian historiography there has traditionally been a negative image of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, there was also a direction in it that was inclined to positively evaluate his results. As a general assessment of the results of the reign of Ivan IV, determined by historians adhering to this point of view, the following can be indicated:
Assessing the results of the heyday of the Russian state, the author (R. G. Skrynnikov) mentions the end of feudal strife, the unification of lands, the reforms of Ivan the Terrible, which strengthened the system of government and the armed forces. This made it possible to crush the last fragments of the Golden Horde on the Volga - the Kazan and Astrakhan kingdoms.
But next to this, at the same time, there were Russia’s failures in the Livonian War (1558-1583) for access to the Baltic, there were crop failures in the 60s. XVI century, famine, plague that devastated the country. There was discord between Ivan IV and the boyars, the division of the state into zemshchina and oprichnina, oprichnina intrigues and executions (1565-1572) , weakened the state. ...the invasion of the 40,000-strong Crimean horde, the large and small Nagai hordes on Moscow in 1571, the battle of Russian regiments with a new invasion in the summer of 1572 on the approaches to Moscow; the battle of Molodi, near the Danilov Monastery in July 1591. Those battles became victories.
S. V. Bushuev, G. E. Mironov. History of Russian Goverment
In addition, historians who are of the opinion about the beneficial influence of the reign of Ivan the Terrible on the development of the Russian state cite the following statements as positive results of his reign:
1) Preservation of the country's independence. With sufficient grounds for comparing the scale of the Battle of Kulikovo with the Battle of Molodi (participation of 5 thousand in the first, for example, according to S. B. Veselovsky or 60 thousand according to V. N. Tatishchev, and over 20 thousand in the second - according to R. G. Skrynnikov), the latter also had epochal significance for the further development of the state: it put an end to the inevitable danger of regular devastating Tatar-Mongol expansion; “The chain of Tatar ‘kingdoms’, stretching from Crimea to Siberia, was forever broken.”
2) Formation of defense lines; “...a curious and important feature in the activities of the Moscow government in the darkest and darkest time in the life of Grozny - during the years of its political failures and internal terror... - concern for strengthening the southern border of the state and populating the “wild field”. Under pressure from many reasons, the Grozny government began a series of coordinated measures to defend its southern outskirts...”
Together with the crushing defeat of the troops of the Crimean Khanate, with the Astrakhan Khanate, - “The Capture of Kazan” (1552) opened the way for the Russians to the lower reaches of the great Russian river Volga and to the Caspian Sea.” “Among the continuous failures of the end of the war (Livonian) the Siberian capture of Ermak flashed like lightning in the darkness of the night,” predetermining, along with the strengthening of the success of the previous points, the prospect for further expansion of the state in these directions, with the death of Ermak, ““under the high royal hand” the Moscow government took upon itself, sending to Siberia , to the aid of the Cossacks, their governors with the “sovereign servicemen” and with the “people” (artillery)”; and as for the eastern direction of expansion, the fact that already “half a century after the death of Ermak, the Russians reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean” speaks for itself.
“The Livonian War of Grozny was a timely intervention by Moscow in the paramount international struggle for the right to use the Baltic sea routes.” And even in an unsuccessful campaign, most of the most thorough researchers trace positive factors to the fact that at that time there was long-term trade with Europe by sea (via Narva), and that subsequently, a hundred years later extra years implemented and developed as one of the main directions of his policy by Peter.
“The old view of the oprichnina as a senseless undertaking of a crazy tyrant has been abolished. It is seen as applying to the large landed Moscow aristocracy the “conclusion” that the Moscow government usually applied to the commanding classes of the conquered lands. The withdrawal of large landowners from their “patrimony” was accompanied by the fragmentation of their holdings and the transfer of land to the conditional use of small service people. This destroyed the old nobility and strengthened the new social stratum of “children of the boyars,” the oprichnina servants of the great sovereign.”
3) The general state of culture is characterized by an upsurge, the mature development of which became possible only after overcoming the turmoil. “The Crimean raids and terrible fires caused heavy damage to Moscow and Muscovites during the reign of John IV Vasilyevich. Moscow recovered slowly after that. “But the reign of Ivan the Terrible,” according to I.K. Kondratiev, “was still one of the remarkable reigns that left the stamp of special greatness on Moscow, and with it on the whole of Russia.” Indeed, during these years the first Zemsky Sobor took place in Moscow, Stoglav was created, the kingdoms of Kazan and Astrakhan were conquered, Siberia was annexed, trade with the British began (1553) (as well as with Persia and Central Asia), the first printing house was opened, Arkhangelsk, Kungur and Ufa were built, the Bashkirs were accepted into Russian citizenship, the Don Cossacks, erected famous temple Intercession in memory of the conquest of the Kazan kingdom, better known as St. Basil's. The Streletsky Army was established.
However, critics of this approach point to the small role that Ivan IV himself played in all these events. Thus, the main commander who ensured the conquest of Kazan in 1552 was Alexander Gorbaty-Shuisky, while previous campaigns against Kazan in 1547 and 1549, led by Ivan IV personally, ended in failure. Subsequently, Gorbaty-Shuisky was executed by order of Ivan the Terrible. The initial successes in Livonia and the capture of Polotsk are associated with the name of the talented commander Pyotr Shuisky, after whose death military successes in the Livonian War ceased. Victory over the superior forces of the Crimean Tatars at Molodi was ensured thanks to the military talents of Mikhail Vorotynsky and Dmitry Khvorostinin, and the former was also subsequently repressed by Ivan. Ivan the Terrible himself, both during the first Crimean campaign in 1571 and during the second in 1572, fled from Moscow and waited out the hostilities in Novgorod and Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. In addition, it is believed that Ivan the Terrible was very distrustful of watchmen, who guarded the southern borders and from the executions of the tsar, many boyar children fled to Crimea, one of whom, Kudeyar Tishenkov, subsequently led the Crimeans along roundabout routes to Moscow. Also, cultural studies researchers point out the tenuous connection between the political regime of the state and the cultural state of society.
According to a FOM survey conducted in the fall of 2016, the overwhelming majority of Russians (71%) have a positive assessment of the role of Ivan the Terrible in history. 65% of Russians would approve of the installation of a monument to Ivan the Terrible in their locality.
Ivan the Terrible in culture
S. A. Kirillov. "Ivan groznyj". 1990
Cinema
- The Death of Ivan the Terrible (1909) - actor A. Slavin
- Song about the merchant Kalashnikov (1909) - actor Ivan Potemkin
- Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible (1915) - actor Fyodor Chaliapin
- The Wax Figure Cabinet / Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (1924) - Conrad Veidt
- Wings of a Serf (1926) - Leonid Leonidov
- Pioneer printer Ivan Fedorov (1941) - Pavel Springfeld
- Ivan the Terrible (1944) - Nikolay Cherkasov
- The Tsar's Bride (1965) - Petr Glebov
- Sport, sport, sport (1970) - Igor Klass
- 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
- Old songs about the main thing 3 (1997) - Yuri Yakovlev
- Miracles in Reshetov (2004) - Ivan Gordienko
- Tsar (2009) - Peter Mamonov
- Ivan the Terrible (2009 television series) - Alexander Demidov
- Night at the Museum 2 (2009) - Christopher Guest
- Terrible time (2010) - Oleg Dolin
- Treasures O.K. (2013) - Gosha Kutsenko
Theater
- Ivan the Terrible (1943) is a play in two parts by Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
- Ivan Vasilievich (1936) - play by Mikhail Bulgakov.
- The Death of Ivan the Terrible is a play by Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy. It is the beginning of the trilogy “The Death of Ivan the Terrible. Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. Tsar Boris."
- Woman of Pskov (1871) - opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Written based on the plot of the play of the same name by Lev May.
- Vasilisa Melentyevna (1867) - play by Alexander Ostrovsky.
- The Great Sovereign (1945) - play by Vladimir Solovyov.
- Marfa Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novagorod (1809) - play by Fyodor Ivanov.
- 2016 - Chronicles “Ivan the Terrible” at the Municipal Theater. M. M. Bakhtin (Orel). Director - Valery Simonenko
Literature
- The novel-trilogy “Ivan the Terrible” by V. I. Kostylev (Stalin Prize 2nd degree for 1948).
- “Prince Silver. The Tale of the Times of Ivan the Terrible" by A. K. Tolstoy
- “Kudeyar” by N. I. Kostomarov
- The novel “The Third Rome” by L. Zhdanov
- "Ivan the Terrible" Henri Troyat
- "Ivan IV. Grozny" by E. Radzinsky
- “Ivan the Terrible” R. Payne, N. Romanov
- “Corsairs of Ivan the Terrible” by K. S. Badigin
- “Kings and Wanderers” by V. A. Usov
- “Faces of immortal power. Tsar Ivan the Terrible” by A. A. Ananyeva
- “The Secret Year” by M. Gigolashvili
Music
- Songs “The Terrible Tsar” and “Tsar John” by Zhanna Bichevskaya
- Song “Ivan the Terrible kills the son of Ivan” by Alexander Gorodnitsky
- The song "The Terrible One" by German heavy metal band Grave Digger.
art
- Three paintings dedicated to the death of the son of Ivan the Terrible:
- Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan November 16, 1581 Repina I. E. (1885).
- Ivan the Terrible at the tomb of the son he killed Shustova N. S.(1860s).
- Ivan the Terrible near the body of his son he killed Schwartz V. G.
- Death of Ivan the Terrible (painting by Konstantin Makovsky, 1888)
- Two paintings dedicated to Vasilisa Melentyevna:
- Vasilisa Melentyevna and Ivan the Terrible Nevreva N.V.(1880s).
- Tsar Ivan the Terrible admires Vasilisa Melentyevna Sedova G. S. (1875)
- Tsar Ivan the Terrible Vasnetsova V. M. (1897).
- Oprichniki Nevreva N.V.(formerly 1904)Painting.
- Ivan the Terrible and Malyuta Skuratov Sedova G. S. Painting.
- Tsar Ivan the Terrible in the cell of the holy fool Nicholas Salos Pelevina I. A. Painting
- Tsar Ivan the Terrible asks Abbot Kirill (Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery) to bless him to become a monk Lebedeva K.V. Painting.
- Ivan the Terrible shows treasures to the English ambassador Horsey Litovchenko A. D. (1875).
- Metropolitan Philip refuses to bless Tsar Ivan the Terrible (Engraving based on the painting V. V. Pukireva).
- Ivan groznyj. Sculpture by Mark Antokolsky.
Monuments
- On October 1, 2016, in Orel, founded by decree of Ivan the Terrible, the first monument in Russian history was erected on the embankment near the Epiphany Cathedral at the confluence of the Oka and Orlik rivers. On October 14, 2016, in the presence of the governor of the Oryol region Vadim Potomsky, writer Alexander Prokhanov, head of the “Essence of Time” movement Sergei Kurginyan, leader of the Night Wolves biker club Alexander “Surgeon” Zaldostanov and a large number of citizens, the grand opening of the monument took place.
- On November 4, 2017, in the village of Irkovo, Aleksandrovsky district, a monument to Ivan the Terrible was erected using public money. The author of the bust is Alexander Apollonov.
Computer games
- In Age of Empires III, Ivan the Terrible is introduced as the leader of the Russian civilization.
- In Night at the Museum 2, Ivan the Terrible is introduced as one of the four main villains, along with Al Capone, Kamunra and Napoleon.
