Years of life and reign of Ivan 4. Main dates of the life and activities of Ivan iv

“The Tsar did or planned a lot of good, smart, even great things, and along with this he did even more actions that made him an object of horror and disgust for his contemporaries and subsequent generations” (V. Klyuchevsky “Course of Russian History”)

The reign of Ivan the Terrible over the Russian state 1547 - 1584

Biography of Ivan the Terrible. Briefly

Ivan Vasilyevich (Grozny) was the eldest son of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya (daughter of Prince Vasily Lvovich from the Lithuanian Glinsky family and his wife Anna, originally from Serbia)

• 1530, August 25 - Ivan the Terrible was born

“By nature, Ivan received a lively and flexible mind, thoughtful and a little mocking. But the circumstances in which Ivan’s childhood passed spoiled this mind early and gave it an unnatural, painful development. Since childhood, he saw himself among strangers. A feeling of orphanhood, abandonment, and loneliness was etched in his soul early and deeply and remained throughout his life, about which he repeated at every opportunity: “My relatives did not care about me.” Hence his timidity, which became the main feature of his character. Like all people who grew up among strangers, without a father's gaze or a mother's greeting, Ivan early acquired the habit of walking around looking around and listening. This developed suspicion in him, which over the years turned into a deep distrust of people. As a child, he often experienced indifference or neglect from others. He himself later recalled in a letter to Prince Kurbsky how he and his younger brother Yuri were constrained in everything in childhood, kept like wretched people, poorly fed and clothed, not given any will in anything, forced to do everything by force and beyond their age. On solemn, ceremonial occasions - when leaving or receiving ambassadors - they surrounded him with royal pomp, stood around him with servile humility, and on weekdays the same people did not stand on ceremony with him, sometimes pampered him, sometimes teased him. They used to play with their brother Yuri in the bedroom of their late father, and the leading boyar, Prince I.V. Shuisky, would lie down on a bench in front of them, lean his elbow on the bed of the late sovereign, their father, and put his foot on it, not paying any attention to the children , neither paternal, nor even sovereign"

• 1533, December 3 - Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III, father of Ivan the Terrible, died
• 1533, December - Elena Glinskaya, Ivan’s mother, removed from power the seven guardians appointed by her husband’s last will, including her brother-in-law and her uncle, and became the ruler of the Russian state. She was assisted by her favorite Prince Ivan Fedorovich Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky, Prince Mikhail Lvovich Glinsky, former adviser to Vasily the Third Ivan Yuryevich Podzhogin

Elena Glinskaya ruled Muscovy for five years. It was a time of numerous boyar intrigues against her, arrests and deaths of the conspirators. Under Helena in 1537, a peace beneficial for Russia was concluded with the Polish king Sigismund I, which ended the Russian-Lithuanian war of 1534-1537, Sweden pledged not to help the Livonian Order and Lithuania, a monetary reform was carried out (a single currency was introduced - silver money weighing 0. 34 gr.), the Kitai-Gorod wall was built

• 1538, April 4 - Elena Glinskaya died, rumored to have been poisoned by the boyars
• 1538-1543 - the childhood of Ivan IV, which took place in continuous bloody feuds of the boyar clans of the Shuisky and Belsky
• 1542, January 3 - supporters of Prince I. Shuisky at night by surprise attacked Metropolitan Joasaph, who stood for the princes of Belsky. The ruler hid in the palace of the Grand Duke. The rebels broke the metropolitan's windows, rushed after him into the palace and, at dawn, noisily broke into the bedroom of the little sovereign Ivan the Fourth, awakened and frightened him
• 1543, September - Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Shuisky, his like-minded people, in front of the eyes of Metropolitan Macarius and 13-year-old Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich, beat the boyar Fyodor Vorontsov, who had won the love of the growing Ivan IV
• 1543, December 29 - Ivan Vasilyevich (the future Grozny), accusing the Shuiskys of “committing lawlessness and arbitrariness,” ordered the hounds to kill Shuisky
• 1546, December 13 - Ivan Vasilyevich expressed his intention to marry Metropolitan Macarius
• 1547, January 7 - on the advice of Metropolitan Macarius, Ivan Vasilyevich was married to the kingdom and for the first time in Russian history received the title of tsar

Crowning - the coronation ceremony of Russian monarchs, which had a pronounced sacred connotation and included the sacrament of anointing

• 1547, February 2 - marriage of Ivan the Terrible with Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina-Yuryeva
• 1547, April 12-June - fires in Moscow. A third of the city was destroyed, including Arbat and the Kremlin, large parts of Kitai-Gorod, Tverskaya, Dmitrovka, Myasnitskaya. Ivan IV and his close boyars waited out the fires in the village of Vorobyovo. Then the first thing he ordered was the restoration of the Kremlin
• 1547, June 21 - uprising of Muscovites, confident that Moscow burned down from the witchcraft of the Glinskys.
• 1547, June 29 - the rebels came to the village of Vorobyovo, where Ivan IV had taken refuge, and demanded the extradition of the Glinskys. With great difficulty, they managed to persuade the crowd to disperse, convincing them that there were no Glinskys in Vorobyov. As soon as the danger had passed, the king ordered the arrest of the main conspirators and their execution
• 1547-1548, December 20-March 7 - the first unsuccessful campaign of the army of Ivan the Terrible to conquer Kazan
• 1548, late autumn - a group of several progressive-minded nobles and priests formed around the young tsar (the so-called “elected council”), whose advice Ivan listened to in pursuing his domestic and foreign policy.

The “Chosen Rada” included princes D. Kurlyatev, M. Vorotynsky, A. Kurbsky, okolnichy A. Adashev, Moscow Metropolitan Macarius, priest of the home church of the Moscow kings Sylvester, clerk of the Ambassadorial Prikaz I. Viskovaty

• 1549-1550, November 24-March 25 - the second unsuccessful campaign of Ivan the Terrible to conquer Kazan
• 1549, August 10 - the daughter of Ivan and Anastasia Anna was born, died July 20, 1550
• 1551, March 17 - daughter Maria was born, died December 8, 1552
• 1552, June 16-October 11 - the third successful campaign of Ivan Vasilyevich to conquer Kazan
• 1552, October 2 - conquest of Kazan
• 1552, October - son Dmitry was born, died June 4, 1553
• 1553, autumn - Ivan the Terrible's serious illness. The political crisis associated with it: a manifestation of the opposition of the boyars
• 1554, March 28 - son Ivan was born
• 1555-1561 - construction of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow
• 1556, February 25 - daughter Evdokia was born, died in June 1558
• 1556, August 26 - the Astrakhan kingdom was annexed to Russia
• 1557, May 31 - son Fedor was born, died January 7, 1558
• 1560, spring - Ivan IV’s advisors Sylvester and A. Adashev fall out of favor
• 1560, September - death of Tsarina Anastasia Romanovna
• 1560, August 21 - wedding of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich and the daughter of the Kabardian prince Temryuk Maria
• 1563, March - son Vasily was born, died on May 3
• 1564, March - Ivan Fedorov completed work on the first Russian printed book, “The Acts of the Apostles...” in the first Russian printing yard, located in Moscow on Nikolskaya Street

Eternally anxious and suspicious, Ivan early got used to thinking that he was surrounded only by enemies, and cultivated in himself a sad inclination to look out for how an endless network of intrigues was being woven around him, with which, it seemed to him, they were trying to entangle him from all sides. This made him constantly on guard; the thought that an enemy was about to rush at him from around the corner became his habitual, every-minute expectation. With a suspicious and painfully excited sense of power, he considered good direct advice an encroachment on his sovereign rights, disagreement with his plans - a sign of sedition, conspiracy and treason. Having removed good advisers from himself, he surrendered to the one-sided direction of his suspicious political thought, which everywhere suspected intrigues and sedition, and inadvertently raised the old question about the attitude of the sovereign to the boyars - a question that he was not able to resolve and which therefore should not have been raised. This question was insoluble for the Moscow people of the 16th century. Therefore, it was necessary to hush it up for the time being, smoothing out the contradiction that caused it through the means of prudent policy, but Ivan wanted to cut the issue down at once, exacerbating the contradiction itself

• 1564, December 25 (January 3 according to the present day) - two letters from Ivan Vasilyevich, one to the people with assurance of good feelings, the second to the Metropolitan - accusing the boyars of treason and announcing their intention to abdicate the throne. The people's delegation begged him not to do this. As a condition for his return, Ivan the Terrible demanded that he be given his own inheritance, where he could rule at his own discretion.
• 1565, January 5 - Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible established the oprichnina

As a result, the whole country was divided into two parts - zemshchina and oprichnina, that is, into state and personal lands of the kings. The oprichnina included the northern and northwestern regions, rich in fertile lands, some central destinies, the Kama region, and even individual streets of Moscow. The capital of the oprichnina became Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda; Moscow remained the capital of the state. The oprichnina lands were ruled personally by the tsar, and the zemstvo lands by the Boyar Duma; the oprichnina also had a separate treasury, its own. However, the Grand Parish, that is, the analogue of the modern Tax Administration, which was responsible for the receipt and distribution of taxes, was uniform for the entire state; The Ambassadorial Order also remained common. This seemed to symbolize that, despite the division of the lands into two parts, the state is still united and indestructible

• 1565-1569 - Oprichnina. These years went down in history with many stories about persecution, injustice, cruel executions of boyars, servicemen and their servants
• 1566, June 28 - the Zemsky Cathedral opened. Its members protested the establishment of the oprichnina, filing a petition for its abolition for 300 signatures; Of the petitioners, 50 were beaten with a whip, several had their tongues cut out, and three were beheaded (Wikipedia).
• 1568, March 22 - in the Assumption Cathedral, Metropolitan Philip refused to bless the Tsar and demanded the abolition of the oprichnina. In response, the guardsmen beat the metropolitan's servants to death with iron sticks, then a trial was initiated against the metropolitan in church court
• 1569, September 6 - the second wife of Ivan the Terrible, Maria Temryukovna, died
• 1569, December 23 - Metropolitan Philip (in the world boyar Fyodor Kolychev) was strangled by Malyuta Skuratov
• 1569, December - 1570, February - campaign of the oprichnina army to Novgorod, whose nobles Ivan the Terrible suspected of intending to surrender to the Polish king Sigismund. As a result, in Novgorod, with a population of approximately 30,000, about 5,000 were killed (during the campaign against Novgorod, the oprichnina army defeated Pskov, Tver, Klin, Torzhok)

  The theme of the Novgorod veche is illustrated by a painting by a proletarian artist, where a group of fashionable boyars argue almost to the point of a fight with ragged workers. Meanwhile, the greatest expert on Ancient Novgorod, Anatoly Kirpichnikov, assures that there were no crowds at the meeting, but sat on benches. Kirpichnikov lined the entire Sofia Square with benches, and it turned out that no more than 300 people could attend the meeting. This means that Novgorod democracy was representative, parliamentary. In Novgorod during the so-called “Mongol-Tatar yoke,” the literacy of the population was universal, children were taught in schools. Instead of bast shoes, they wore morocco here, since there was little dirt on the streets: city services lined the sidewalks with wood. The scribe books mention about 30 trades that the Novgorodians were engaged in in addition to their agricultural work. By the 15th century in Vodskaya Pyatina alone (northwest Novgorod possessions) there were 215 blast furnaces, each smelting 1.5 tons of iron. Even then, firearms were produced in the city. Along with London, Bruges, Cologne, Bergen, Hamburg, our northern city was a member of the Hanseatic League - the then prototype of the WTO. If in the 15th century. Novgorod defeated Moscow, we probably would have had a completely different story. But it turned out the other way around. Later, under Ivan the Terrible, the guardsmen carried out genocide in Novgorod on such a scale that 150 years later, Peter I was thinking about how to teach at least noble children to write their name and where to get guns for the war with the Swede (“Arguments of the Week,” No. 34 (576) from 08/31/2017)

• 1570, July 25 - on suspicion of high treason, the head of the embassy order, the outstanding diplomat I. Viskovaty, was executed, who was crucified on a cross and dismembered alive in front of the king and the crowd. Together with Viskovaty, about a hundred more people were executed, and the state treasurer N. Funikov was boiled alive
• 1571, May - Crimean Khan Devlet-Gerey burned Moscow
• 1571, October 28 - Ivan Vasilyevich married Marfa Vasilievna Sobakina
• 1571, mid-November - the third wife of Ivan the Terrible died
• 1572, June 30 - in the battle of the village of Molodi, 45 km. south of Moscow, near Podolsk, the Russian army defeated the army of Devlet-Gerei
• 1572 - Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible abolished the oprichnina, but executions and lawlessness did not stop. In 1573, the governor, Prince M.I., died from torture. Vorotynsky, who defeated Devlet-Girey in the Battle of Molodin. So some scientists (including S.M. Solovyov) defined the oprichnina within the chronological framework of 1565-1584
• 1581, September 1 - Ermak’s campaign to Siberia began, marking the beginning of its annexation to Russia
• 1581, November 19 - Ivan the Terrible's son died, beaten by his father in a fit of anger
• 1582, October 19 - a son, Dmitry, was born to Ivan the Terrible from Maria Feodorovna Nagoy. Died May 15, 1591
• 1584, March 18 - Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible, the last, died

Reforms of Ivan the Terrible

The internal policy of Ivan the Terrible was subordinated to the goal of strengthening and centralizing government, strengthening royal power, weakening the influence of feudal boyars on affairs in the country, and establishing the supremacy of the state over the church.

- Convening of the Zemsky Sobor (1549, February 27)
- Organization of the royal service. Around Moscow, 1070 nobles received land, which formed a new Streltsy army for Rus' (1549, October)
- The adoption of the new “Tsar’s Code of Law”, which introduced a common unit for collecting taxes, confirmed the right of peasants to move on St. George’s Day, and punishment for bribery was introduced for the first time (1550, June)
- The Stoglavy Sobor (Church and Zemsky Sobor) limited the further growth of church properties in cities and the financial privileges of the clergy; the unification of the all-Russian pantheon of saints took place, the regulation of services and rituals, the establishment of schools for the population (1551, early January)
- Zemstvo reform: “the abolition of feeding, replacing governors and volostels with elected public authorities, entrusting not only the criminal police to the zemstvo worlds themselves, but also the entire local zemstvo administration together with the civil court” (1552)
- Reorganization of public administration - formation of a system of orders (future ministries): Petition, Ambassadorial, Local, Streletsky, Pushkarsky, Bronny, Robbery, Printed, Sokolnichiy, Zemsky orders
- Abolition of some boyar privileges, in particular the right to a portion of tax revenues (1555)
- The “Code of Service” (on the military service of nobles) was adopted (1556)
- Change in entry into inheritance rights: in the absence of immediate heirs, the estates are transferred to the state (1562)

Ivan IV, Tsar of Russia and Grand Duke of Moscow, who later received the nickname Grozny, was born on August 25, 1530. After the death of his father, Grand Duke Vasily III, in 1533, Ivan was in the care of his mother, Elena Glinskaya, until the age of eight. When she was poisoned by the boyars (1538), the influential Shuisky family came to power in Moscow.

Elena Glinskaya. Reconstruction from the skull, S. Nikitin, 1999

The Shuiskys became famous for their cruel, selfish rule. Metropolitan Daniel was overthrown by them, and the royal treasury was plundered. Supporters of the Shuiskys seized the lucrative positions of governors and judges in areas where they oppressed the people with impunity through extortion and traded justice. In 1540, the Shuiskys were removed from power, and it passed to the smart Ivan Belsky. During his six-month reign, he carried out reforms that anticipated many future transformations of the Chosen Rada. On Belsky’s initiative, robbery and tateb cases were excluded from the jurisdiction of government officials (governors and tiuns) and transferred to the elected court lip prefects or heads together with jurors or kissers. The campaign against Moscow launched by the Crimean Khan Saip-Girey in 1541 failed: Dmitry Belsky forced him to retreat. But in January 1542 Ivan Belsky was overthrown by Ivan Shuisky and killed. Power passed to Ivan Shuisky, and then to his relative Andrei, who had previously become famous for robbery and oppression in the position of Pskov governor.

P. Pleshanov. Ivan IV and Sylvester during the Moscow fire of 1547

The most important matter of this time during the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible was the convening in 1550 of the first Zemsky Sobor in Rus', the result of which was to provide the population of the Moscow state with wider elected self-government. In the same year appeared new code of law. In 1551, a church council was convened, which received the name Stoglavogo. Of the foreign policy affairs of this period of the reign of Ivan IV, the main ones were the conquest of the Kazan kingdom and the campaign against Astrakhan. After the Kazan Khan Safa-Girey died in 1549, discord and unrest began among his subjects. Ivan approached the walls of Kazan with his army (1550). He did not take the city that time, but founded the strong fortress of Sviyazhsk 37 versts opposite Kazan - a convenient stronghold for new campaigns. There the Russian government imprisoned Shig-Aley, who had been the Kazan Khan more than once before. Soon he was restored to the Kazan throne as an assistant to Moscow, and then Ivan IV overthrew him and directly sent his governor, Prince Semyon Mikulinsky, to Kazan.

The Kazan people did not let him into the city. All parties of local Murzas and mullahs reconciled, inviting the Nogai prince Ediger, with 10,000 Nogais, to their city. The Russian government gathered 100,000 troops, Ivan the Terrible himself became their leader. The Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey, who tried to help his co-religionists, attacked Moscow lands from the south, but was repulsed from Tula. The troops of Ivan IV besieged Kazan on August 20, 1552 and continued the siege until October 2. On this day, the wall was destroyed by an explosion. The Russians burst into the city and took it. The conquest of the Kazan kingdom subjugated to the Russian state a significant area of ​​land to the east to Vyatka and Perm and to the south to the Kama. Taking advantage of the disagreements in Astrakhan and the precarious position of Khan Yamgurchey, Ivan the Terrible in 1554 sent an army that expelled Yamgurchey and installed the Nogai prince Derbysh. He, however, soon entered into relations with the Crimean Devlet-Girey and opened a war against Moscow. The Russian detachment remaining in Astrakhan defeated and drove out Derbysh, and Astrakhan was annexed to the Moscow state (1556). The entire Volga region became part of Russia.

Siege and capture of Kazan in 1552

In 1553, Ivan IV began to have disagreements with his advisers on government affairs, who were too constraining for the power-hungry tsar. The beginning of disagreements was the question of succession to the throne during the serious illness of the king (1553). Ivan wanted to see his young son Dmitry on the throne, and his closest advisers, fearing the excessive influence of the relatives of Dmitry’s mother, the Zakharyins, stood for the sovereign’s cousin, Vladimir Andreevich. Ivan IV recovered and harbored a grudge against the members of the Chosen Rada. At the same time, departures and secret negotiations with Lithuania began for some of the most cautious boyars. Ivan the Terrible also disagreed with his advisers on foreign policy issues: the Rada tried to focus all its attention on Crimean affairs, and Ivan turned his gaze to the West. In 1560, Tsarina Anastasia, who had a restraining influence on her husband, died. Saddened by the death of his wife, Ivan IV distanced himself even more from his entourage. Alexey Adashev was soon sent by the governor to the remote city of Fellin, and the priest Sylvester voluntarily went to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. Their enemies, especially the Zakharins, began to slander their favorites, as if they had tormented Anastasia. Ivan allegedly gave credence to the accusations and brought the recent rulers of the state to trial, but did not allow them to appear for explanations. Sylvester was exiled to the Solovetsky monastery, Alexey Adashev was transferred to custody in Dorpat, where he soon died.

A year after the death of his first wife, Ivan the Terrible married the baptized Circassian princess Maria, but soon lost interest in her and indulged in dissipation along with his new favorites, who greatly influenced him in a bad way, but did not embarrass him in any way. These were Alexey Basmanov and his son Fyodor, Prince Afanasy Vyazemsky, Malyuta Skuratov-Belsky and Vasily Gryaznoy. At the same time, still fragmentary persecutions and executions of boyars who seemed suspicious for some reason began. In the early 1560s. Daniil Adashev (Alexei's brother), Prince Dmitry Ovchina-Obolensky, Mikhail Repnin, Dmitry Kurlyatov and his family, etc. were executed. The heroes of the wars with Kazan and Crimea, Mikhail Vorotynsky, Ivan Vasilyevich Bolshoi, Sheremetev and others, were sent to prison. Ivan the Terrible took oaths from some other noble boyars that they would faithfully serve the Tsar and would not leave for Lithuania and other states. But the flights to Lithuania continued - the head of the Dnieper Cossacks, Prince Dmitry Vishnevetsky, who had previously arrived from there to serve Ivan IV, two princes of Cherkassy, ​​Vladimir Zabolotsky and others went there. Disgrace also befell members of the Moscow ruling dynasty: Vladimir Andreevich and his wife Efrosinya. The tsar's particular anger was caused by the flight to Lithuania of Andrei Kurbsky, who burst out with thunderous letters and denunciations. Also in 1564, Metropolitan Macarius, who retained some authority before Ivan IV, died. By the will of the tsar, the church council elected his former confessor, the Archpriest of the Annunciation Elder Afanasy, as the new metropolitan.

N. Nevrev. Oprichniki (Murder of Boyar Fedorov by Ivan the Terrible)

The end of 1564 was marked by an unusual and unexpected act of the king. Ivan the Terrible left Moscow with his courtiers and a large baggage train and settled not far from the capital, in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. A month after leaving, on January 3, 1565, he sent a letter to Moscow addressed to the clergy and boyars. It listed “the betrayals of boyars and governors and all sorts of commanding people,” and then it was reported that the tsar, “not though they could tolerate many treacherous deeds,” put his disgrace on them and went to live where God would indicate. At the same time, another letter was brought, dividing the interests of the Moscow population: it was written that the anger and disgrace of Ivan IV did not concern Moscow guests, merchants and ordinary people. Numerous petitioners went to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda to ask the Tsar to resign from disgrace, continue to reign, execute his villains and bring out treason. After intense requests, Ivan the Terrible agreed to change his anger to mercy, but on the condition of allocating for himself oprichnina- a special part of the state, which he will rule independently of the boyars.

Explanations of the oprichnina by historians are varied. Kostomarov sees in her a semi-robber squad of royal servants, in whom he could trust and destroy everyone and everything that seemed suspicious and unpleasant to him. Close to the same opinion is V. O. Klyuchevsky, who represents the oprichnina as a detective agency, “the highest police in cases of high treason.” Solovyov saw in the oprichnina an attempt by Ivan the Terrible to formally separate himself from the boyar government class, which was unreliable in his eyes; The new tsar's court, built for this purpose, degenerated into an instrument of terror in matters of boyar and any other treason. Bestuzhev-Ryumin and E. Belov give the oprichnina a greater political meaning: they think that the oprichnina was directed against the descendants of appanage princes and had the goal of breaking their traditional rights and advantages. S. F. Platonov, believing the latter opinion to be close to the truth, explains the oprichnina more broadly and more thoroughly, pointing out its consequences in the further course of Russian history. Ivan IV set up a special courtyard in Moscow on Vozdvizhenka, although he lived more in the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, established a special government household in it, chose boyars, okolnichy, butler, treasurer, clerks, clerks, clerks, selected special nobles, boyar children, stewards, solicitors , residents. Grozny supplied all kinds of trusted henchmen, as well as special archers, to the royal services.

All possessions of the Moscow state were divided into two parts. Ivan IV chose cities with volosts for himself and his sons, which were supposed to cover the costs of the royal household and the salaries of serving people selected for the oprichnina. In the volosts of these cities, estates were exclusively distributed to those nobles and boyar children who were enrolled in the oprichnina. The rest of Rus' was called Zemshchina and entrusted the leadership of the zemstvo boyars, Ivan Belsky, Ivan Mstislavsky and others (in 1575, the baptized Tatar prince Simeon Bekbulatovich was placed at the head of the zemshchina, as if in mockery, with the title of Grand Duke). In the zemshchina there were old ranks with the same names as in the oprichnina. All matters of zemstvo administration were referred to the boyar council, and the boyars reported to the sovereign in the most important cases. Zemshchina had the meaning of a disgraced land suffered by the tsar's wrath. The territory of lands that went to the oprichnina in the 1570s. XVI century covered almost half of the Muscovite kingdom and was made up of cities and volosts located in the central and northern regions of the state - in Pomorie, Zamoskovnye and Zaoksky cities, in the Pyatina areas of Novgorod land, Obonezh and Bezhetsk. Resting in the north on the White Sea, the oprichnina lands cut like a wedge into the “zemshchina”, dividing it in two. In the east, the Perm and Vyatka cities, Ponizovye and Ryazan remained behind the zemshchina; in the west - the cities of border and Seversky.

The territory of the oprichnina was largely the territory of the old specific estates, where the ancient orders still lived and the old authorities still acted next to the power of the Moscow sovereign. With few and insignificant exceptions, all those places in which these old appanage principalities previously existed were introduced into the oprichnina administration. Thus, the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible systematically destroyed the patrimonial land tenure of the service princes throughout its entire territory. With the oprichnina, the “armies” of several thousand servants, with whom the princes used to come to the sovereign’s service, should have disappeared, just as all other traces of old appanage customs and liberties in the field of official relations should have been eradicated. Thus, taking ancient appanage territories under the control of the oprichnina to house his new servants, Ivan IV made radical changes in them, replacing the remnants of appanage remnants with new orders that made everyone equal before the sovereign in his “special everyday life”, where there could no longer be appanage memories and aristocratic traditions. Eliminating old land relations in the oprichnina, the government of Ivan IV, in their place, established monotonous orders everywhere, tightly linking the right of land ownership with compulsory service.

So, the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible crushed the land ownership of the nobility in its form as it existed from ancient times. The former appanage aristocracy turned into ordinary service landowners. If we remember that along with this land movement there were disgraces, exiles and executions, directed primarily at the same princes, then we can be sure that in the oprichnina there was a complete defeat of the appanage aristocracy. The guardsmen included at first about 1000 people with families, and then more than 6000. At the head of the oprichnina were the favorites of Ivan IV: Malyuta Skuratov, Basmanovs, Afanasy Vyazemsky, etc. During this period of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, terrible times of violence, deprivation of land and property came and the rights of the “zemstvo” people, robberies and executions. At this time, the following died: son-in-law of Ivan Mstislavsky Alexander Gorbaty Shuisky, Ivan Chelyadnin, Prince Kurakin-Bulgakov, Dmitry Ryapolovsky, princes of Rostov, Turuntai-Pronsky, Pyotr Shchenyatev, Duma clerk Kazarin-Dubrovsky and many others.

A. Vasnetsov. Moscow dungeon during the oprichnina era

Ivan IV created a strange lifestyle at the oprichnina court. He started a kind of monastery in the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, selected 300 guardsmen, put black robes on them over gold-embroidered caftans, and taffeta or hats on their heads. The Terrible called himself abbot, others - cellarer and sexton, etc., composed a monastic rule for the brethren, rang in the bell tower, read the lives of saints at meals in a monastic manner, etc. From this “monastic life” Ivan IV directly passed to searches, torture, torment, revelry and debauchery. Then Metropolitan Philip also died. He was from a noble family of boyars, the Kolychevs, elected from among the abbots of the Solovetsky Monastery, at the insistence of Ivan IV, appointed metropolitan after the retirement of Athanasius (June 1566) and did not cease to grieve and beat the Tsar with his forehead for those who had been disgraced. Philip denounced the tsar for his behavior and attacked the guardsmen and their self-will. In 1568 he was deposed and imprisoned in the Otroch Monastery, where he was strangled by Malyuta Skuratov. At the beginning of the same year, Ivan the Terrible’s cousin Vladimir Andreevich died. They suspected him that he wanted to go to King Sigismund Augustus, and they killed him along with his wife in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda.

Entire cities and regions began to fall into disgrace. Based on a false denunciation accusing Archbishop Pimen and many Novgorodians of wanting to surrender to the Polish king Sigismund Augustus, Ivan IV decided to conduct a search and punish the perpetrators. In December 1569, Grozny set out on a military campaign in his own state. Klin, Tver and Torzhok were plundered, and many residents were killed. Through Vyshny Volochok, Valdai and Yazhelbitsy, Ivan IV with his guardsmen and army approached Novgorod. Even earlier, an advanced regiment arrived in the city and arrested a number of residents. The king, who arrived on January 6, 1570, ordered the killing of many of the black clergy. Then Archbishop Pimen and other clergy and inhabitants of Novgorod were captured. Monasteries and churches were robbed, and then, on the orders of Ivan the Terrible, the massacre of Novgorodians began indiscriminately. The beating was accompanied by preliminary torture and torment. The guardsmen drowned people in the Volkhov River, sparing neither women nor children. The dead must be counted at least 15,000 people. The city and all its surroundings were destroyed and plundered. On February 13, Ivan IV went to Pskov, whose frightened inhabitants expressed humiliation and submission and were spared. In Moscow, the tsar continued to investigate the case of Novgorod treason, carried out torture interrogations of many of those arrested, and in June up to 120 people were executed on Red Square - and among them were many prominent guardsmen.

All these bloody events within the state took place simultaneously with the continuation of the mostly unsuccessful campaigns and battles in the war for Livonia. Ivan the Terrible began this war in 1558 with the Livonian Order. The Russians passed through Livonia, devastated it and took Narva, Dorpat, and other large cities and castles north of the Western Dvina. The master of the order, Ketler, had to look for allies in the person of the Poles. He concluded an agreement with the Polish-Lithuanian king: Livonia was given under the protection of Sigismund II. The Lithuanians, however, did not help the Germans well, and the Russians captured the fortified places of Marienburg and Fellin. Soon Livonia fell apart, and the Order completely ceased to exist. His possessions were divided between neighboring powers. The island of Ezel and the adjacent coast were taken by the Danes, Revel and the lands near the Gulf of Finland by the Swedes. The rest (most) of the Order's possessions were placed under the supreme rule of Sigismund in vassal relations. In the fall of 1561, Kettler accepted the title of hereditary Duke of Courland and Semigallia, and Livonia, in which he remained royal governor, was united with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Now Russia had to fight with Poland and Lithuania. Ivan IV himself moved with an army and took Polotsk in 1563, but in January 1565 the Russian army was defeated near Orsha by Polish-Lithuanian troops. In 1570, a three-year truce was concluded, subsequently continued, on the terms of ownership of what was captured by whom. In 1576, the warlike Stefan Batory, an excellent commander, was elected to the Polish-Lithuanian throne. Already in 1578, an 18,000-strong Russian detachment was defeated by united Polish, German and Swedish troops near Wenden. In 1579, Batory, with a large, well-organized army, took Polotsk from Ivan the Terrible, in 1580 - Velikiye Luki, Nevel, Toropets, Opochka, Krasny, and at the end of August 1581 he approached the walls of Pskov. However, the siege of Pskov by the Poles dragged on, and Batory was unable to take it. New diplomatic negotiations began, at which the pope's envoy, the Jesuit Antonius Possevin, acted as a mediator. The negotiations ended on January 6, 1582 in Zapolsky Yam with a ten-year truce. Ivan IV abandoned Livonia, returned Polotsk and Velizh to Lithuania, and Batory agreed to return the Pskov suburbs he had taken.

Taking advantage of the distraction of Russian forces in Livonia, the Muslims resumed their attack on it from the south. The Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey, encouraged by the Sultan, who did not think of abandoning the Kazan and Astrakhan kingdoms, in 1571 organized a campaign against Moscow with 120,000 Crimeans and Nogais. The governors of Ivan the Terrible did not have time to block his path across the Oka. The Khan walked around them and headed to Serpukhov, where the Tsar and the guardsmen were at that time. Ivan IV cowardly fled to the north. Devlet-Girey approached Moscow and burned it, except the Kremlin. Many people died or were taken into captivity by the Tatars. Panic-stricken Ivan the Terrible at one time even intended to return Astrakhan to the Muslims, but abandoned this promise in view of the success achieved by the Russian commanders the following year. In 1572 Devlet-Girey again moved towards Moscow, but was defeated on the banks of the river. Lopasni, y Younger, Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky. Ivan the Terrible then refused to return Astrakhan to the Tatars.

Things were more successful at the end of the reign of Ivan IV in the East, where in 1582 the Cossacks of the ataman annexed part of Siberia. From the history of Russia's relations with the West during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, it is important to establish close contacts with England. In 1553, three English ships set off to explore the northeastern trade routes. Two ships with the head of the expedition, Willoughby, froze off the coast of Lapland, the third, under the command of Richard Chancellor, reached the mouth of the Northern Dvina. Chancellor was reported to Ivan IV, who was delighted at the opportunity to establish new relations with foreigners. He sent a letter to the English king, and then approved the privilege of an English merchant company founded to trade with Russia.

Conquest of Siberia by Ermak. Painting by V. Surikov, 1895

Exhausted by an abnormal and dissolute life and the hardships of his cruel rule, Ivan the Terrible fell mortally ill and died on March 18, 1584 at the age of 53.

Ivan IV was a brilliant publicist and orator. The contents of two of his speeches have reached us. One of them was said by him at the Zemsky Sobor in 1550. In it, the tsar regretted the injustices that were committed by the boyars during his childhood, promised that this would not happen in the future and asked the people to reconcile with the boyars. Another speech was delivered by him at the Church Council of the Stoglavy, preserved in the acts of the latter and remarkable for its acquaintance with the shortcomings of church life of that time. But the most famous is the Correspondence of Ivan the Terrible with Prince A. M. Kurbsky. From this Correspondence Ivan the Terrible owns two letters in which the idea of ​​unlimited royal power is ardently defended. The same idea is conveyed in two other letters from Ivan: to the Polish king Stefan Batory and the English Queen Elizabeth (the latter is distinguished by extremely cynical expressions). In addition, he wrote the “Message to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery,” which is remarkable for its vivid depiction of the shortcomings of monastic life of that time. The shortcomings of Ivan the Terrible as a writer should include the absence of any plan in his works, an excessive number of quotes and examples from the Holy Scriptures and other sources, and extreme verbosity, which was aptly characterized by his opponent Kurbsky, saying that he does not know how to “many words in short words.” close the mind." However, the corrosive irony, which Kurbsky aptly called biting, the ability to notice the weak side of the enemy, deftly reflect the blow, as well as strong figurative language force one to recognize Ivan the Terrible as one of the most gifted Russian writers of pre-Petrine times.

The biography of Ivan the Terrible still amazes many with its originality and significance. This is one of the most famous Grand Dukes of Moscow and All Rus' today, who actually led the country for 37 years, with the exception of a short period when Simeon Bekbulatovich was the nominal king. The reign of Ivan the Terrible is remembered by many for the unreasonable cruelty with which he led his subordinates.

Prince's childhood

The hero of our article was born in 1530. When talking about the biography of Ivan the Terrible, we must begin with the fact that he began to be considered as a contender for the throne at the age of three, when his father Vasily III became seriously ill.

Anticipating his imminent death, he formed a boyar commission to govern the state, the members of which were supposed to serve as guardians. An interesting fact from the biography of Ivan the Terrible: he could become king only after he was 15 years old.

Power struggle

After Vasily's death, everything was calm in the country for only about a year. In 1534, a number of changes took place in the ruling circles. The influence was exerted by the fact that Prince Belsky and the okolnichy Lyatsky went into the service of the Lithuanian prince. Soon one of Ivan’s guardians was arrested and died in prison. Several more famous boyars were arrested.

Ivan the Terrible became a full-fledged ruler only in 1545. In his memoirs, he described that one of the most vivid impressions of his youth was the so-called great fire in Moscow, when about 25 thousand houses were destroyed. Interesting facts from the life and biography of Ivan the Terrible often amazed and surprised many. So, at the very beginning of his reign, he almost became a victim of an uprising. In 1547, rebels killed one of the Glinskys, relatives of the Tsar’s mother, and then came to the village of Vorobyovo, where the Grand Duke was hiding. With great difficulty they managed to convince the crowd that the prince was not there.

An important event in the short biography of Ivan the Terrible, which is given in this article, was the wedding.

Historians are still arguing about who insisted on this ritual. Some argue that he was beneficial to the king’s relatives, while others believe that Ivan already showed a desire for power at a young age. Therefore, it was his personal decision, which came as a complete surprise to the boyars.

There is also a version that Metropolitan Macarius had a hand in the wedding, for whom it was beneficial to bring the church closer to the state. As a result, the solemn ceremony took place in January 1547. Macarius blessed Ivan for the kingdom.

Reforms in Russia

An important role in the biography of Ivan the Terrible is played by reforms, of which he carried out many. Basically, all of them were aimed at strengthening power, centralizing the state, as well as building relevant public institutions.

In Wikipedia, in the biography of Ivan the Terrible, interesting initiatives are often mentioned. In 1549, the first Zemsky Sobor was convened, in which all Russian classes took part, except the peasantry. This is how the estate-representative monarchy was officially formed.

In 1550, a new code of law was published, which established a uniform unit for collecting taxes, the amount of which depended on the social status of the owner and the fertility of the soil.

Then the provincial and zemstvo reforms took place in the country, which radically redistributed the powers of governors in the volosts. In 1550, the Streltsy army appeared.

It was under Grozny that a system of orders was formed in the state. In the 1560s, the familiar reform of state sphragistics was implemented, which established the type of state seal. A rider appeared on the eagle’s chest, which was taken from the Rurikovich coat of arms. The first time the new seal was used was on a treaty with the Kingdom of Denmark.

Military campaigns

The biography of Ivan the Terrible included a large number of military campaigns. Since the beginning of the 16th century, the Kazan Khanate was constantly at war with Muscovite Russia. Over these years, about forty campaigns were made against Russian lands. Kostroma, Vladimir, Vologda, and Murom suffered more than others.

Most historians believe that the first took place in 1545. In total, Ivan the Terrible, a short biography confirms this, made three campaigns against Kazan. The first ended in failure when the siege artillery withdrew due to an early thaw. Therefore, those troops that reached Kazan stood under the walls of the city for only a week.

It was not possible to take the city during the second campaign, which began after the death of Safa-Girey. But the Russian army built the Sviyazhsk fortress, which for many years became a stronghold for the Russian army.

Finally, the third campaign ended in triumph. In October 1552, Kazan was taken. About 150 thousand soldiers, armed with 150 cannons, took part in it. The Kazan Kremlin was taken as a result of the assault. Khan is captured. This victory meant an important foreign policy success for the tsar, and also contributed to the strengthening of his power within the state.

Prince Gorbaty-Shuisky was left as governor of Grozny in Kazan. After Ivan the Terrible, as written about in his short biography, took Kazan, he had ambitious plans to capture all of Siberia.

Trade connections with England

But Rus' had problems not only with the Kazan Khanate. Soon it became necessary to wage war against Sweden. An interesting fact from the biography of Ivan the Terrible, Wikipedia talks about him, like this article, is the establishment of trade relations with England. It was possible to establish communication through the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Previously, trade routes ran through Sweden, so the Scandinavians were at a loss, losing a significant share of the profit they received for providing transit.

The relationship between Moscow and London began with the British navigator Richard Chancellor, who sailed to Rus' through the White Sea in 1553. Ivan the Terrible met him personally, and soon after this the Moscow Company was founded in the English capital, which received a monopoly from Ivan on trading rights.

Confrontation with Sweden

The outraged Swedish king Gustav I Vasa tried to create an anti-Russian coalition, but this plan failed. Then he decided to act on his own.

The reason for the war with Sweden was the capture of Russian merchants in Stockholm. The Swedes went on the offensive, capturing Oreshek, but were unable to reach Novgorod. In January 1556, a 25,000-strong Russian army completely defeated the Swedes, besieging Vyborg, but failed to capture it.

Then Gustav I proposed a truce, which Ivan the Terrible agreed to. In 1557, the Truce of Novgorod was concluded for a period of 40 years. It also stipulated diplomatic relations through Novgorod governors.

Livonian War

In the life and biography of Ivan the Terrible there was another important war - the Livonian War. Its main goal was to take possession of the Baltic coast. At first, the Russian army was successful: Narva, Neuhaus, Dorpat were taken, and the order's troops were defeated near Riga. By 1558, the Russian army captured almost the entire eastern part of Estonia, and in 1559 it actually completed the defeat of the Livonian Order.

Only then did the governors decide to accept the peace proposal put forward by Denmark. The parties were able to maintain neutrality until the end of 1559. At the same time, they began to actively negotiate peace with Livonia, in exchange for certain concessions from large German cities.

In the biography of Ivan the Terrible, interesting facts were often encountered. Thus, thanks to his military successes, he was able to gain respect among foreign leaders. As a result, in 1560, an imperial congress of deputies was convened in Germany, at which foreigners finally recognized the strength and power of the Russian army. It was decided to send an embassy to Moscow and offer the Tsar eternal peace.

The emergence of the oprichnina

In addition to belligerence, Grozny became famous for the introduction of the oprichnina in the country. He announced this in 1565. After this, by his decree, the country was divided into two parts - the oprichnina and the zemshchina.

The concept of "oprichnina" existed in Rus' from 1565 to 1572. This is what Ivan the Terrible called his personal inheritance, which included his own army and state apparatus. At the same time, income went to the state treasury.

In those days, the same word began to be used to describe the policy of terror that the tsar introduced in the country. He carried it out against any opposition-minded citizens in all spheres of society. According to many historians, the oprichnina took the form of terrorist despotism under the autocracy.

The oprichnina included regions in the northeast of the country, where patrimonial boyars were rarely found. Its center was the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, which the Tsar declared as his new official residence. It was from there that in 1565 he sent a letter addressed to the boyars, the clergy and the entire people, stating that he would abdicate the throne. This news greatly excited the Moscow people. The prospect of anarchy did not please anyone.

Victims of terror

Soon the first victims of the terror perpetrated by Ivan the Terrible appeared. The first victims of the oprichnina were famous and high-status boyars. The guardsmen were not afraid of any punishment, because they were exempt from criminal liability. The Tsar began to forcibly confiscate the estates, transferring them to the nobles from among the guardsmen. He gave estates in other regions of the country, for example in the Volga region, to the princes and boyars from whom he took away lands.

It is worth noting that the decree on the introduction of oprichnina in Russia was officially approved by both secular and spiritual authorities. It is believed that this decision was also approved by the Zemsky Sobor. At the same time, most of the zemshchina protested against this state of affairs. For example, in 1556, about 300 representatives of the nobility turned to the tsar with a petition asking him to abolish the oprichnina. Three of them were executed by beheading, some had their tongues cut out, and about 50 people were subjected to public corporal punishment.

The end of the oprichnina

For many, the end of the oprichnina came as unexpectedly as its beginning. This was largely due to the Crimean invasion of Rus' in 1571. By that time, many of the guardsmen had already demonstrated their complete incapacity for combat, having become morally rotten. They were accustomed to the robberies of ordinary citizens and simply did not show up for a real battle.

As a result, Moscow was burned. By 1572, the oprichnina army was combined with the zemstvo army, and the tsar decided to completely abolish the oprichnina in Rus'. Although the name itself, in the meaning of his sovereign's court, remained until the death of Ivan IV.

Death of Ivan the Terrible

A study of the king's remains showed that in the last years of his life he developed various diseases. In particular, he developed osteophyte, due to which he could not walk, he was carried around the wards on a stretcher. Because of this immobility, which was aggravated by an unhealthy lifestyle and constant stress, by the age of 50 the king looked like a decrepit old man.

As early as 1584, he was engaged in government affairs, but by March his health had deteriorated sharply. The king fell into unconsciousness. On March 18 he died. His body was swollen and smelled foul. The British ambassador to the Russian court, Horsey, claimed that before his death Ivan the Terrible played chess.

Versions of the death of the king

Contemporaries were never able to reliably establish whether the king died from illness or for some violent reason. Confusion immediately arose at court.

There were persistent rumors that the king was poisoned by his entourage. In particular, Boris Godunov and Bogdan Belsky were suspected of this. There was even evidence that Godunov bribed the doctor who treated Ivan the Terrible, fearing that he himself would be executed along with other nobles.

Horsey put forward a version of the strangulation of Ivan IV, also suspecting Godunov of this. The Englishman claimed that the king was first given poison, and in the confusion that arose when he fell, he was also strangled.

In the middle of the 20th century, the version of poisoning was not confirmed. As a result of the analysis, a normal level of arsenic was found in his remains, but there was a lot of mercury, which, however, was explained by the fact that in the 16th century it was part of many medicines. She was even treated for syphilis, from which the tsar supposedly also suffered.

According to other researchers, Ivan the Terrible’s permissible level of arsenic for humans was twice exceeded. They suspected that he was the victim of a deadly “cocktail” of mercury and arsenic. And they gave it to Grozny over a certain period of time, so it was not possible to immediately confirm the version of poisoning.

IVAN IV THE TERRIBLE

LIFE STORY

Childhood and youth of Ivan the Terrible.

The twenty-year marriage of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III with Solomonia Saburova was fruitless. There is no sufficient reason to blame Solomonia alone for this. The well-known opponent of Ivan the Terrible, the traitor Prince Andrei Kurbsky, wrote that the father of his enemy Vasily III was looking for healers and sorcerers who would help him acquire male strength. In the end, the Grand Duke, with the help of Metropolitan Daniel and the obedient part of the clergy, managed to send his legal wife to a monastery against her will and marry the charming young Lithuanian princess Elena Glinskaya.
The wedding took place in 1526. Ivan IV, later nicknamed the Terrible, was born in 1530, when his father, Vasily III, was already over fifty. He was a very desirable child, and the whole country was awaiting his birth. However, contrary to expectations, she did not have children for another 3 years.

Crowning of Ivan IV the Terrible.

In the seventeenth year of his life, Ivan announced to Metropolitan Macarius that he wanted to get married and he also made a speech that he wanted to accept the title of king. 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, the barma and the Monomakh cap. 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. And on February 3 we got married to Anastasia Zakharyina-Romanova. A union with such a woman, if it did not immediately soften the tsar’s violent character, then prepared for his further transformation. Over the course of thirteen years of marriage, the queen exerted a softening influence on Ivan and bore him sons. But a series of major fires in Moscow in the spring and summer of 1547 interrupted the reign of Ivan IV, which had so solemnly begun.

Revolt against the Glinskys.

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 strongest impressions of the tsar in his youth was the “great fire” and the Moscow uprising of 1547. The greatest devastation was caused by a fire on June 21, 1547, which lasted 10 hours. The main territory of Moscow burned down, 25 thousand houses burned down, about 3 thousand people died. The Glinskys in power were blamed for the disasters. A rumor spread throughout the city that the Tsar’s grandmother Anna Glinskaya, turning into a bird, flew around the city, “washed out human hearts and put them in water, and sprinkled them with that water while driving around Moscow,” which caused the fire.

Elected Rada.

Plans for the reorganization of Russia were hatched by a small group of people surrounding Ivan IV at that time. One of them was Metropolitan Macarius, the most educated man of that time, who actively participated in government activities in the 40s and 50s. Another close associate was the priest of the court Cathedral of the Annunciation, Sylvester. Surrounded by Ivan IV was also a nobleman, Alexey Fedorovich Adashev, who was not of noble origin. By the beginning of 1549, the influence on Tsar Sylvester and Adashev had increased significantly, and the latter became, in fact, the head of the government, which Andrei Kurbsky later called the “Elected Rada”. Sylvester, with “childish scarecrows”, as Ivan put it, pushed him onto the path of repentance and attempts to cleanse himself and the country from all evil with the help of new advisers, who were selected according to Sylvester’s instructions and constituted the “elected council”, which overshadowed the boyar duma in the current administration and legislation . Its significance is undeniable for the 50s, but not unlimited, as it was complicated and weakened by the influences of the Zakharyins and Metropolitan Macarius. The surviving news completely conceals the great preparatory work that began from that time, from 1550, which made it possible to carry out a number of major state events and captured not only Ivan himself and his employees, but also in non-governmental circles of society, causing a discussion in it of the main issues of internal and foreign policy of the renewed Moscow kingdom. Issues about the significance of the secular aristocracy, large landownership, clergy, monasteries, the local class, autocracy, the Zemsky Sobor, etc. were touched upon and resolved controversially. Ivan’s personal participation imparted some external drama to the first government speech on the path of reform and turned it into a condemnation of the era of boyar rule and childhood tsar, which was assessed as a time of state disorder and popular suffering. All subsequent reforms, as well as the successes of Russian foreign policy in the middle of the 16th century, are associated with the name of Alexei Adashev. In addition to them, the Duma members Zakharyin, D.I. Kurlyatev, I.V. Sheremetev, A.I. also participated in the development and implementation of reforms. Kurbsky.

Reforms of central and local authorities under Ivan the Terrible.

February 1549 marks the beginning of the activity of Zemsky Sobors in Rus' - estate representative bodies. “Zemstvo Sobors,” wrote L.V. Cherepnin, “are a body that replaced the veche,” which adopted the ancient Russian “traditions of the participation of public groups in resolving government issues,” but replaced “elements of democracy with the principles of class representation.”
The first council is usually considered to be a meeting convened by the king on February 27. First, he spoke before the boyars, okolnichy, butlers and treasurers in the presence of the church "consecrated council", and on the same day he spoke before the governors, princes and nobles.
The next step was the direct elimination of viceroyal administration in certain regions in 1551-1552. And in 1555-1556, by the tsar’s verdict “on feeding”, viceroyal administration was abolished on a national scale. Its place was taken by local government, which had come a long and difficult way.

Reforms in the socio-economic sphere under Ivan the Terrible.

Already in the Code of Laws of 1550, significant issues of land ownership are addressed. In particular, resolutions are adopted that make it difficult for the continued existence of patrimonial lands.
Articles on the privately owned population occupy a special place. In general, the right of peasants to move on St. George’s Day under Art. 88 remained, but the fee for the “elderly” increased slightly. Art. 78 determined the position of another significant group of the population - indentured servants. It was forbidden, for example, to turn service people who became debtors into slaves.

Military transformations under Ivan the Terrible.

The basis of the armed forces was now the horse militia of landowners. The landowner or patrimonial owner had to go to work “on horseback, in crowds and armed.” In addition to them, there were service people “according to the instrument” (recruitment): city guards, artillerymen, archers. The militia of peasants and townspeople was also preserved - the staff, which carried out auxiliary service.
In 1550, an attempt was made to organize a three-thousand-strong corps of “elected archers from the arquebus” near Moscow, who were obliged to always be ready to carry out important assignments. It included representatives of the most noble families and the top of the Sovereign's Court. The Streltsy were already a regular army, armed with the latest weapons and supported by the treasury. The organizational structure of the Streltsy army was later extended to all troops.
The control of the noble army was extremely complicated by the custom of localism. Before each campaign (and sometimes during the campaign) protracted disputes took place. “No matter who they send with whomever they do, everyone will take their place,” noted Ivan IV in 1550. Therefore, localism in the army was prohibited and military service “without places” was prescribed. The principle of high-born princes and boyars occupying the highest positions in the army was thereby violated.

Annexation of the Astrakhan and Kazan Khanates.

The primary task in the middle of the 16th century was the fight against the Kazan Khanate, which directly bordered Russian lands and held the Volga trade route in its hands. Initially, they tried to resolve the Kazan issue diplomatically by placing a Moscow protege on the throne. However, this ended in failure, as did the first campaigns (1547-1548; 1549-1550).
In 1551, preparations began for a new campaign. In the spring, 30 km west of Kazan, at the confluence of the Sviyaga River with the Volga, a wooden fortress was built in the shortest possible time - Sviyazhsk, the construction of which from pre-prepared blocks was supervised by the clerk of the Discharge Order. I.G. Vyrodkov. In August, a large Russian army (150 thousand) besieged Kazan. The siege lasted almost a month and a half. And again Vyrodkov distinguished himself by bringing the movable siege towers of the “walk-city” to the walls, and also carried out a number of tunnels under the walls.

Development of Siberia.

The annexation of the Volga region also created the preconditions for further development of lands in the east. Now the path lay in Siberia, which attracted huge reserves of furs. In the 50s of the 16th century, the Siberian Khan Ediger recognized himself as a vassal of Russia, but Khan Kuchum, who then came to power, broke off these relations. The merchants and industrialists Stroganovs played a major role in the advance to Siberia, who received extensive possessions along the Kama and Chusovaya rivers. To protect their possessions, they built a number of fortified cities and created military garrisons populated by “hunting people” - Cossacks. Around 1581-1582 (there is disagreement regarding this date), the Stroganovs equipped a military expedition of Cossacks and military men from the cities beyond the Urals. The head of this detachment (about 600 people) was Ataman Ermak Timofeevich.

Code of laws of 1550.

At the first Zemsky Sobor, Ivan IV the Terrible decided to create a new legal code - the Sudebnik. The basis was the previous Code of Laws of 1497.
In the Code of Laws of 1550, out of 100 articles, most are devoted to issues of administration and court. In general, the old governing bodies (central and local) were still retained, but significant changes were made to their activities. Thus, their evolutionary transformation continued within the framework of the emerging class-representative state. Thus, the governors were now deprived of the right of final judgment in higher criminal cases; it was transferred to the center. The Code of Law, at the same time, expanded the activities of city clerks and provincial elders: the most important branches of local government were completely assigned to them. And their assistants - elders and “best people” - according to the decree of the Code of Law, were required to participate in the viceroyal court, which meant control by those elected by the population over the activities of the governors. The importance of service people - nobles - was also raised by the fact that they were not subject to the jurisdiction of the governors' court.

Stoglavy Cathedral of 1551.

The process of strengthening state power inevitably again raised the question of the position of the church in the state. The royal power, whose sources of income were few and whose expenses were high, looked with envy at the wealth of churches and monasteries.
At a meeting of the young tsar with Metropolitan Macarius in September 1550, an agreement was reached: monasteries were forbidden to found new settlements in the city, and to establish new courtyards in old settlements. Posad people who fled from taxes to monastic settlements were also “brought back” back. This was dictated by the needs of the state treasury.
However, such compromise measures did not satisfy the government. In January-February 1551, a church council was convened, at which the royal questions, compiled by Sylvester and imbued with a non-covetous spirit, were read out. The answers to them amounted to one hundred chapters of the verdict of the council, which received the name Stoglavogo, or Stoglav. The Tsar and his entourage were worried about whether “it was worthy for monasteries to acquire land and receive various preferential charters.

By decision of the council, royal support to monasteries that had villages and other possessions ceased. Stoglav forbade giving money from the monastery treasury in "growth" and bread in "nasp", i.e. - at interest, which deprived the monasteries of permanent income.
A number of participants in the Council of the Hundred Heads (Josephites) met the program set out in the royal questions with fierce resistance.
The program of tsarist reforms outlined by the Elected Rada was rejected in the most significant points by the Stoglavy Council. The wrath of Ivan IV the Terrible fell on the most prominent representatives of the Josephites. On May 11, 1551 (i.e., a few days after the end of the council), the purchase of patrimonial lands by monasteries “without reporting” to the tsar was prohibited. All the lands of the boyars, which they had transferred there during Ivan’s childhood (from 1533), were taken away from the monasteries. Thus, control of the royal power was established over the movement of church land funds, although the properties themselves remained in the hands of the church. The church retained its possessions even after 1551.
At the same time, transformations were carried out in the internal life of the church. The previously created pantheon of all-Russian saints was established, and a number of church rituals were unified. Measures were also taken to eradicate the immorality of the clergy.

The fate of the reforms of the 50s of the 16th century.

It is generally accepted that the reforms of the Elected Rada were carried out in order to strengthen the social position of the noble class as opposed to the conservative boyars, which was slowing down this process. V.B. Kobrin managed to prove that almost all layers of society were interested in strengthening the state. Therefore, the reforms were carried out not to please any one class and not against any class. The reforms meant the formation of a Russian estate-representative state. At the same time, a reasonable balance in the distribution of power between a number of classes (Zemsky Sobors), the government (the Elected Rada) and the tsar was implied and put into practice. It took time for this system to be approved. Due to a number of circumstances, the balance of power structures became unstable already in the first half of the 50s. Reform activities were nullified in the 60s by external (Livonian War) and internal (oprichnina) reasons. The personality of Tsar Ivan the Terrible also meant a lot here - a man of statesmanship, but with an exaggeratedly developed lust for power, and, perhaps on this basis, with some mental deviations.

Oprichnina.

The famous Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky once remarked about the oprichnina: “This institution always seemed strange both to those who suffered from it and to those who studied it.” Indeed, the oprichnina existed for only seven years, but how many scientific “copies” have been broken to clarify its causes and goals.
In general, all the diverse opinions of historians can be reduced to two mutually exclusive statements: 1) the oprichnina was determined by the personal qualities of Tsar Ivan and had no political meaning (V.O. Klyuchevsky, S.B. Veselovsky, I.Ya. Froyanov); 2) the oprichnina was a well-thought-out political step of Ivan the Terrible and was directed against those social forces that opposed his “autocracy.” The latter point of view, in turn, also “bifurcates.” Some researchers believe that the purpose of the oprichnina was to crush the boyar-princely economic and political power (S.M. Solovyov, S.F. Platonov, R.G. Skrynnikov). Others (A.A. Zimin and V.B. Kobrin) believe that the oprichnina “targeted” the remnants of the appanage princely antiquity (Staritsky Prince Vladimir), and was also directed against the separatist aspirations of Novgorod and the resistance of the church as a powerful organization opposing the state. None of these provisions are indisputable, so the debate about oprichnina continues.
Apparently, the reasons for the emergence of the oprichnina should be sought not in the fight against certain social groups, but in the reaction of the autocratic government, which is trying to strengthen itself, to the alternative to state development represented by estate-representative institutions.
However, it is necessary to know not only the opinion of researchers, but also the course of the oprichnina “action” itself.
On December 3, 1564, the tsar, unexpectedly for many, left Moscow with his family, accompanied by pre-selected boyars and nobles. He also took with him the treasury and “holiness”. After visiting the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, he headed to his summer residence - Alexandrovskaya Sloboda (now the city of Alexandrov, 100 km northeast of Moscow). From here, at the beginning of January 1565, Ivan IV the Terrible sent two letters to Moscow. In the first - addressed to the boyars, clergy and service people - he accused them of treason and condoning treason, and in the second the tsar announced to the Moscow townspeople that he “has no anger at them and no disgrace.” The Tsar's messages, read on Red Square, caused great excitement in the city. The Moscow “people” demanded that the tsar be persuaded to return to the throne, threatening that otherwise they would “consume the state’s villains and traitors.”
A few days later, in the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, Ivan Vasilyevich received a delegation of the clergy and boyars and agreed to return to the throne with the condition “that he would lay down his own disgrace on those who betrayed him, the sovereign, and in which he, the sovereign, were disobedient, and execute others and their bellies and their lives, and create an oprichnina for themselves in their state, create a courtyard for themselves and all their daily routine.”
Oprichnina was not a new thing, for this has long been the name of the inheritance that the prince gave to his widow, “oprichnina” (except for) other land. However, in this case, oprichnina meant the personal destiny of the king. The rest of the state began to be called the zemshchina, which was governed by the Boyar Duma. The political and administrative center of the oprichnina became the “special court” with its Boyar Duma and orders, partially transferred from the zemshchina. The oprichnina had a special treasury. Initially, a thousand were taken into the oprichnina (by the end of the oprichnina - already 6 thousand), mostly service people, but there were also representatives of some old princely and boyar families. A special uniform was introduced for the guardsmen: they tied dog heads to the necks of their horses, and a broom to the quiver of arrows. This meant that the guardsman had to gnaw at the “sovereign traitors” and sweep out treason.
It is usually believed that the oprichnina included territories where princely-boyar land ownership dominated. The eviction of large landowners from there to zemshchina lands thus undermined their economic base and weakened their position in the political struggle. However, recently it has become clear that the lands that became oprichnina were populated mainly by either service people (nobles), or other faithful servants of the sovereign (western lands), or were black-sown (Pomorye). An oprichnina unit was also allocated in Moscow. Moreover, some of the landowners of these lands simply went over to the oprichnina. Of course, evictions were carried out. But their scale should not be exaggerated, and the victims were soon returned to their places. The oprichnina did not at all change the structure of large-scale land ownership, writes V.B. Kobrin; boyar and princely land ownership survived the oprichnina. Although one cannot help but say that many boyars became victims of the tsar’s painful suspicions. He constantly imagined conspiracies against him - and the heads of often innocent people flew by the dozens.
The action of Ivan the Terrible and the guardsmen against the old appanage institutions reached its climax in 1569-1570. Church hierarchs did not support oprichnina policies. Metropolitan Afanasy retired to a monastery, and his replacement, Philip Kolychev, denounced the oprichnina. He was deposed and imprisoned in a monastery.

Livonian War.

In 1553, an English trading company sent an expedition to China across the Arctic Ocean, part of which died, and part, led by Richard Chancellor, arrived at the mouth of the Northern Dvina and reached Moscow, where Ivan graciously received him. Two years later, Chancellor appeared as an ambassador from the English government and concluded an agreement on duty-free trade for the British in Russia, and in 1557, a Moscow agent, Osip Nepeya, achieved the same for the Russians in England. This revived in Moscow the idea of ​​​​breaking through to the Baltic Sea in order to establish direct and more convenient relations with Western Europe than in the north, which were resolutely prevented by the Livonian Order, which did not allow the craftsmen and artists recruited in Germany in 1547 in Germany on behalf of Ivan Schlitte to Russia .
The Livonian War became the “work of the whole life” of Ivan IV the Terrible (I.I. Smirnov), and K. Marx noted that its goal “was to give Russia access to the Baltic Sea and open communication routes with Europe.”
Livonia, created in the 13th century by the German knights of the sword, was a weak state in the 14th century, essentially divided between the Order, bishops and cities. The Order was headed by him only formally. At the same time, the Order, relying on the support of other states, prevented the establishment of contacts between Russia and Western European countries.
The immediate reason for the start of the Livonian War was the question of the “Yuriev tribute” (Yuriev, later called Dorpat (Tartu), was founded by Yaroslav the Wise). According to the treaty of 1503, an annual tribute had to be paid for it and the surrounding territory, which, however, was not done. In addition, the Order concluded a military alliance with the Lithuanian-Polish king in 1557. In January 1558, Ivan IV moved his troops to Livonia. The beginning of the war brought him victories: Narva and Yuriev were taken.

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 journey.

Death of the first Russian Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible.

According to the testimony of anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov, who examined the skeleton of Ivan the Terrible, in the last years of his life, the tsar developed powerful salt deposits (osteophytes) on his spine, which caused him terrible pain with every movement. Before his death, Grozny looked like a decrepit old man, although he was only 53 years old. In the last year he could no longer walk on his own - he was carried.

Ivan the Terrible (reconstruction by M. Gerasimov)

The legacy of Ivan the Terrible.

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.

Sources used.

1. Mussky I.A. 100 great dictators. - Moscow: Veche, 2000.
2. Boris Florya. Ivan the Terrible. - Moscow: Young Guard, 1999.
3. All the monarchs of the world. Russia/under control K. Ryzhova. - Moscow: Veche, 1999.
4. Encyclopedia "The World Around Us" (cd).
5. Great Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius 2000 (cd).
6. Chronicles of Charon. Encyclopedia of death.

Ivan IV Vasilievich , nicknamed Grozny , by direct name Titus and Smaragd, tonsured - Jonah

Sovereign, Grand Duke of Moscow and first Tsar of All Rus'

Brief 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, however, 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 foresaw his 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 tsar abolished the Chosen Rada and began to rule exclusively 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 energy, determination, and foresight of the sovereign 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 Sobors began, and the Code of Laws of 1550 was compiled. Reforms of the military service, judicial system and public administration were carried out, including the introduction of elements of self-government at the local level (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-fledged 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 Aistrakhan, Pskov, Great Kazan Smolensk, Tver, Yugorsk, ѧ́tsk, Bulgarian and ҆҆ны́хъ, whereⷭ҇рь и҆ мідікїй к҃зў new towns 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 approval of Ivan IV as king. 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. Archpriest Sylvester’s different interpretation of supreme power 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 on all Sundays, like 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 incessantly, 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 of the infant Emperor Ivan Antonovich to the throne in 1740, 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, etc.), 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 the fertility of the soil and the social status of the owner, and limited the rights of slaves 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. A Russian army of 150,000 took part in the campaign; the armament included 150 cannons. The Kazan Kremlin was taken by storm. Khan Ediger-Magmet was 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 to 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 battles,” 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 due to 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 the okolnichy prince Dmitry Semenovich Shastunov and Pyotr Petrovich Golovin and Ivan Vyrodkov to Ivangorod, and ordered a city to be built on Narova below Ivangorod at the mouth of the sea for a ship shelter...” However, the Hanseatic League and Livonia 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 to attract Spain, Denmark and England, to offer eternal peace to the eastern power and stop its 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 the Russian kingdom, several thousand Crimeans broke through to the outskirts 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 preparations were made for a “decisive showdown 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 the 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 with arms against their king».

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. Oprichnina included mainly northeastern Russian lands, where there were few patrimonial boyars. The center of Oprichnina became the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda - the new residence of Ivan the Terrible, from where on January 3, 1565, messenger Konstantin Polivanov delivered a letter to the clergy, the Boyar Duma and the people about the Tsar’s abdication of the throne. Although Veselovsky believes that Grozny did not declare his renunciation of power, the prospect of the departure of the sovereign and the onset of a “sovereign time”, when nobles could again force city merchants and artisans to do everything for them for nothing, could not help but excite Moscow townspeople.

The 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 given 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 guardsmen 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 the execution of several Pskov residents and the robbery of 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.

Recent 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 defeated the German settlement. Frenchman Jacques Margeret, who lived in Russia for many years, writes: “ The Livonians, who were captured and taken to Moscow, professing the Lutheran faith, having received two churches inside the city of Moscow, held public services there; but in the end, because of their pride and vanity, the said temples... were destroyed and all their houses were 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 to be mistaken for princes and princesses... Their main profit was the right to sell vodka, honey and other drinks, from which they make not 10%, but a hundred, which may seem incredible, but it’s true».

In 1581, the Jesuit A. Possevin went to Russia, acting as a mediator between Ivan and Poland, and, at the same time, hoping to persuade the Russian Church into a union with the Catholic Church. His failure was predicted by the Polish Hetman 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, which the Jesuit himself had to give justice to, rejected 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 order 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 witness, 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 secret plans of the Godunovs against the tsar and put forward a version of the strangulation of the tsar, 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 has not been 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, not embarrassed by the fact that he himself was once again married at that time .

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

• 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 on the Presentation of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, on the repose of Peter Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus', Canon Angel the Terrible Voivode (under the pseudonym Parthenius the Ugly). In 1551, by order of the Tsar, the Moscow Council obliged clergy to organize schools in all cities for children for “learning to read and write, and for the teaching of book writing and church singing psalter." 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, the Potapov brothers, 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 Facial 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

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 charm, satanic heresy, because he thinks he’s crazy to hide from the All-Seeing Eye».

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 environment 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, during 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 foams like a horse and goes as if into madness; in this state, he also gets angry at people he meets. - Ambassador Daniil Prince writes from Bukhov. - The cruelty that he often commits on his own, whether it originates in his nature, or in the baseness (malitia) of his subjects, I cannot say.<…>When he is at the table, the eldest son sits on his right hand. He himself is of rude morals; for he rests his elbows on the table, and since he does not use any plates, he eats food by 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. Oil on canvas. 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 the Terrible as a great and wise sovereign in the first half of his reign, 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 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 the execution site, like the Greeks at Thermopylae for their fatherland, for Faith and Fidelity, without even a thought of rebellion. In vain, some foreign historians, excusing Ioannova’s cruelty, wrote about conspiracies that were supposedly destroyed by her: these conspiracies existed solely in the vague mind of the Tsar, according to all the evidence of our chronicles and state papers. The clergy, Boyars, famous citizens would not have summoned the beast from the den of Sloboda Aleksandrovskaya if they had been plotting treason, which was brought against them as absurdly as sorcery. No, the tiger reveled in the blood of lambs - and the victims, dying in innocence, with their last look 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, without distinguishing between friends and enemies”; the oprichnina, from his point of view, prepared “real sedition” - the Time of Troubles.

Historiography of the 20th century

S. F. Platonov saw the strengthening of Russian statehood in the activities of Ivan the Terrible, but condemned him for the fact that “a complex political matter was further complicated by unnecessary torture and gross debauchery”, and that the reforms “took on the character of general terror.”

R. Yu. Vipper considered Ivan the Terrible in the early 1920s as a brilliant organizer and creator of a major power; in particular, he wrote about him: “Ivan the Terrible, a contemporary of Elizabeth of England, Philip II of Spain and William of Orange, the leader of the Dutch Revolution, had solve military, administrative and international problems similar to the goals of the creators of the new European powers, but in a much more difficult situation. His talents as a diplomat and organizer perhaps surpass them all.” Vipper justified harsh measures in domestic politics by the seriousness of the international situation in which Russia was: “The division of the reign of Ivan the Terrible into two different eras included at the same time an assessment of the personality and activities of Ivan the Terrible: it served as the main basis for belittling his historical role, for including 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 a continuous war, and, moreover, the most difficult war that the Great Russian state had ever waged.”

At that time, Vipper’s views were rejected by Soviet science (in the 1920-1930s, which saw Grozny as an oppressor of the people who prepared serfdom), but were subsequently supported during the period when the personality and activities of Ivan the Terrible received official approval from Stalin. During this period, Grozny’s terror was justified by the fact that the oprichnina “finally and forever broke the boyars, made it impossible to restore the order of feudal fragmentation and consolidated the foundations of the political system of the Russian national state”; This approach continued the concept of Solovyov - Platonov, but was complemented by the idealization of the image of Ivan.

In the 1940s-1950s, Academician S.B. Veselovsky studied a lot about Ivan the Terrible, who did not have the opportunity, due to the prevailing position at that time, to publish his main works during his lifetime; he abandoned the idealization of Ivan the Terrible and the oprichnina and introduced a large number of new materials into scientific circulation. Veselovsky saw the roots of terror in the conflict between the monarch and the administration (the Sovereign's court as a whole), and not specifically with the large feudal boyars; he believed that in practice Ivan did not change the status of the boyars and the general order of governing the country, but limited himself to the destruction of specific real and imaginary opponents (Klyuchevsky already pointed out that Ivan “beat not only the boyars and not even the boyars primarily”).

At first, the concept of Ivan’s “statist” domestic policy was also supported by A. A. Zimin, speaking of justified terror against feudal lords who betrayed national interests. Subsequently, Zimin accepted Veselovsky's concept of the absence of a systematic fight against the boyars; in his opinion, the oprichnina terror had the most destructive effect on the Russian peasantry. Zimin recognized both the crimes and state services of Grozny:

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 mentions of “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 bankrupt that they abandoned their estates, from where all the peasants fled, and turned into beggars - “dragging between the yards.”

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 the Russian State

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, more than a hundred years later, it was implemented and developed as one of the main directions of its policy 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 were established, the famous Church of the Intercession was erected in memory of the conquest of the Kazan kingdom, better known as St. Basil.” 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 the Terrible". 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 Vasilyevich (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" by 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.

fine arts

• 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 Shvarts 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 the Terrible. 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, the writer Alexander Prokhanov, the leader of the “Essence of Time” movement Sergei Kurginyan, the leader of the Night Wolves biker club Alexander “The 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.
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