Prince Ivan 3 and Sofia. Sofia Paleolog and Ivan III the Third: a love story, interesting biography facts

Sofia Paleolog and Ivan III the Third: a love story, interesting biographical facts. The recently released series “Sofia” touched upon the previously unexplained topic of the personality of Prince Ivan the Great and his wife Sophia Paleologue. Zoya Paleolog came from a noble Byzantine family. After the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, she and her brothers fled to Rome, where they found the protection of the Roman throne. She converted to Catholicism, but remained faithful to Orthodoxy.

Sofia Paleolog and Ivan III the Third: a love story, interesting biographical facts. At this time, Ivan the Third became a widower in Moscow. The prince's wife died, leaving a young heir, Ivan Ivanovich. The Pope's ambassadors went to Muscovy to propose the candidacy of Zoe Paleologus to the sovereign. The marriage took place only three years later. At the time of her marriage, Sofia, who adopted a new name and Orthodoxy in Rus', was 17 years old. The husband was 15 years older than his wife. But, despite such a young age, Sofia already knew how to show character and completely broke off relations with the Catholic Church, which disappointed the Pope, who was trying to gain influence in Rus'.

Sofia Paleolog and Ivan III the Third: a love story, interesting biographical facts. In Moscow, the Latin woman was received very hostilely; the royal court was against this marriage, but the prince did not heed their persuasion. Historians describe Sophia as a very attractive woman; the king liked her as soon as he saw her portrait brought by the ambassadors. Contemporaries describe Ivan as a handsome man, but the prince had one weakness, common to many rulers in Rus'. Ivan the Third loved to drink and often fell asleep right during the feast; the boyars at that moment became quiet and waited for the prince-father to wake up.

Sofia Paleolog and Ivan III the Third: a love story, interesting biographical facts. The relationship between the spouses was always very close, which the boyars did not like, who saw Sofia as a great threat. At court they said that the prince ruled the country “from his bedchamber,” hinting at the omnipresence of his wife. The Emperor often consulted with his wife, and her advice benefited the state. Only Sofia supported, and in some cases directed, Ivan’s decision to stop paying tribute to the Horde. Sofia contributed to the spread of education among the nobles; the princess's library could be compared with the collection of books of European rulers. She supervised the construction of the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin; at her request, foreign architects came to Moscow.

Sofia Paleolog and Ivan III the Third: a love story, interesting biographical facts. But the personality of the princess aroused conflicting emotions among her contemporaries; opponents often called her a witch for her passion for drugs and herbs. And many were sure that it was she who contributed to the death of the eldest son of Ivan the Third, the direct heir to the throne, who was allegedly poisoned by a doctor who was invited by Sophia. And after his death, she got rid of his son and daughter-in-law, the Moldavian princess Elena Voloshanka. After which her son Vasily the Third, father of Ivan the Terrible, ascended the throne. How true this could be, one can only guess; in the Middle Ages, this method of fighting for the throne was very common. The historical results of Ivan the Third were colossal. The prince managed to collect and increase Russian lands, tripling the area of ​​the state. Based on the significance of his actions, historians often compare Ivan the Third with Peter. His wife Sofia also played a significant role in this.

Most historians agree that the grandmother, Grand Duchess Sophia (Zoya) Paleologus of Moscow played a huge role in the formation of the Muscovite kingdom. Many consider her the author of the concept “Moscow is the third Rome”. And together with Zoya Paleologina, a double-headed eagle appeared. At first it was the family coat of arms of her dynasty, and then migrated to the coat of arms of all the tsars and Russian emperors.

Childhood and youth

Zoe Paleologue was born (presumably) in 1455 in Mystras. The daughter of the despot of Morea, Thomas Palaiologos, was born at a tragic and turning point - the time of the fall of the Byzantine Empire.

After the capture of Constantinople by the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II and the death of Emperor Constantine, Thomas Palaiologos, along with his wife Catherine of Achaia and their children, fled to Corfu. From there he moved to Rome, where he was forced to convert to Catholicism. In May 1465, Thomas died. His death occurred shortly after the death of his wife in the same year. The children, Zoya and her brothers, 5-year-old Manuel and 7-year-old Andrei, moved to Rome after the death of their parents.

The education of orphans was undertaken by the Greek scientist, Uniate Vissarion of Nicea, who served as a cardinal under Pope Sixtus IV (it was he who commissioned the famous Sistine Chapel). In Rome, the Greek princess Zoe Palaiologos and her brothers were raised in the Catholic faith. The cardinal took care of the maintenance of the children and their education.

It is known that Vissarion of Nicea, with the permission of the pope, paid for the modest court of the young Palaiologos, which included servants, a doctor, two professors of Latin and Greek, translators and priests. Sofia Paleolog received a fairly solid education for those times.

Grand Duchess of Moscow

When Sophia came of age, the Venetian Signoria became concerned about her marriage. The king of Cyprus, Jacques II de Lusignan, was first offered to take the noble girl as his wife. But he refused this marriage, fearing a conflict with the Ottoman Empire. A year later, in 1467, Cardinal Vissarion, at the request of Pope Paul II, offered the hand of a noble Byzantine beauty to the prince and Italian nobleman Caracciolo. A solemn engagement took place, but for unknown reasons the marriage was called off.

There is a version that Sophia secretly communicated with the Athonite elders and adhered to the Orthodox faith. She herself made an effort not to marry a non-Christian, upsetting all the marriages offered to her.

In the turning point for the life of Sophia Paleologus in 1467, the wife of the Grand Duke of Moscow, Maria Borisovna, died. This marriage produced an only son. Pope Paul II, counting on the spread of Catholicism to Moscow, invited the widowed sovereign of All Rus' to take his ward as his wife.

After 3 years of negotiations, Ivan III, having asked for advice from his mother, Metropolitan Philip and the boyars, decided to get married. It is noteworthy that the negotiators from the pope prudently kept silent about Sophia Paleologue’s conversion to Catholicism. Moreover, they reported that the proposed wife of Paleologina is an Orthodox Christian. They didn't even realize that it was so.

In June 1472, in the Basilica of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Rome, the betrothal of Ivan III and Sophia Paleologus took place in absentia. After this, the bride's convoy left Rome for Moscow. The same Cardinal Vissarion accompanied the bride.

Bolognese chroniclers described Sophia as a rather attractive person. She looked 24 years old, had snow-white skin and incredibly beautiful and expressive eyes. Her height was no higher than 160 cm. The future wife of the Russian sovereign had a dense physique.

There is a version that in Sophia Paleolog’s dowry, in addition to clothes and jewelry, there were many valuable books, which later formed the basis of the mysteriously disappeared library of Ivan the Terrible. Among them were treatises and unknown poems.

At the end of a long route that ran through Germany and Poland, the Roman escorts of Sophia Paleologus realized that their desire to spread (or at least bring closer) Catholicism to Orthodoxy through the marriage of Ivan III to Paleologus had been defeated. Zoya, as soon as she left Rome, demonstrated her firm intention to return to the faith of her ancestors - Christianity. The wedding took place in Moscow on November 12, 1472. The ceremony took place in the Assumption Cathedral.

The main achievement of Sophia Paleolog, which turned into a huge benefit for Russia, is considered to be her influence on her husband’s decision to refuse to pay tribute to the Golden Horde. Thanks to his wife, Ivan the Third finally dared to throw off the centuries-old Tatar-Mongol yoke, although the local princes and elite offered to continue paying the quitrent in order to avoid bloodshed.

Personal life

Apparently, Sophia Paleologue’s personal life with Grand Duke Ivan III was successful. This marriage produced a significant number of offspring - 5 sons and 4 daughters. But it’s difficult to call the existence of the new Grand Duchess Sophia in Moscow cloudless. The boyars saw the enormous influence that the wife had on her husband. Many people didn't like it.

Rumor has it that the princess had a bad relationship with the heir born in the previous marriage of Ivan III, Ivan the Young. Moreover, there is a version that Sophia was involved in the poisoning of Ivan the Young and the further removal from power of his wife Elena Voloshanka and son Dmitry.

Be that as it may, Sophia Paleologus had a huge influence on the entire subsequent history of Rus', on its culture and architecture. She was the mother of the heir to the throne and the grandmother of Ivan the Terrible. According to some reports, the grandson bore considerable resemblance to his wise Byzantine grandmother.

Death

Sophia Paleologue, Grand Duchess of Moscow, died on April 7, 1503. The husband, Ivan III, survived his wife by only 2 years.

Sophia was buried next to the previous wife of Ivan III in the sarcophagus of the tomb of the Ascension Cathedral. The cathedral was destroyed in 1929. But the remains of the women of the royal house were preserved - they were transferred to the underground chamber of the Archangel Cathedral.

In the family of the Morean despot Thomas Palaiologos († 1465), brother of Emperor Constantine XI.

Orphaned at an early age, Sophia was raised with her brothers at the court of the Pope.

Advantageous marriage

« Was with her- says the chronicler, - and your lord(Legate Antony) not according to our custom, dressed all in red, wearing gloves, which he never takes off and blesses in them, and they carry in front of him a cast crucifix, mounted high on a pole; does not approach icons and does not cross himself; in the Trinity Cathedral he only venerated the Most Pure One, and then on the orders of the princess».

Having learned that the Latin cross was being carried ahead of the procession, Metropolitan Philip threatened the Grand Duke: “ If you allow the faithful Moscow to carry the cross before the Latin bishop, then he will enter through the same gate, and I, your father, will go out of the city differently».

According to legend, she brought with her a “bone throne” (now known as the “throne of Ivan the Terrible”) as a gift to her husband: its wooden frame was entirely covered with plates of ivory and walrus bone with scenes on biblical themes carved on them.

Sofia also brought with her several Orthodox icons, including, as is believed, a rare icon of the Mother of God “Blessed Heaven”.

Fight for the throne

On April 18 of the year, Sofia gave birth to her first daughter Anna (who died quickly), then another daughter (who also died so quickly that they did not have time to baptize her).

In the year Sofia's first son, Vasily, was born. Over the years of her 30-year marriage, Sophia gave birth to 5 sons and 4 daughters.

in the year the eldest son of Ivan III, Ivan the Young, suffered from aching legs (“kamchyug”) and died at the age of 32. He was the last to leave his young son Dimitri (+ 1509) from his marriage to Elena, the daughter of Stefan, the ruler of Moldova, and therefore now the question arose of who should inherit the great reign - his son or his grandson. The struggle for the throne began, the court was divided into two sides.

The princes and boyars supported Elena, the widow of Ivan the Young, and her son Dmitry; on the side of Sofia and her son Vasily there were only boyar children and clerks. They began to advise the young prince Vasily to leave Moscow, seize the treasury in Vologda and Beloozero and destroy Demetrius. But the conspiracy was discovered in December of the year. In addition, enemies told the Grand Duke that Sofia wanted to poison his grandson in order to place her own son on the throne, that she was secretly visited by sorcerers preparing a poisonous potion, and that Vasily himself was participating in this conspiracy. Ivan III took the side of his grandson and arrested Vasily.

However, Sofia managed to achieve the fall of Elena Voloshanka, accusing her of adherence to the heresy of the Judaizers. Then the Grand Duke put his daughter-in-law and grandson into disgrace and named Vasily the legal heir to the throne.

Influence on politics and culture

Contemporaries noted that Ivan III, after marrying the niece of the Byzantine emperor, appeared as a formidable sovereign on the Moscow grand-ducal table. The Byzantine princess brought sovereign rights to her husband and, according to the Byzantine historian F.I. Uspensky, the right to the throne of Byzantium, which the boyars had to reckon with. Previously, Ivan III loved “meeting against himself,” that is, objections and disputes, but under Sophia he changed his treatment of the courtiers, began to behave inaccessibly, demanded special respect and easily fell into anger, every now and then inflicting disgrace. These misfortunes were also attributed to the harmful influence of Sophia Paleologus.

An attentive observer of Moscow life, Baron Herberstein, who came to Moscow twice as an ambassador of the German Emperor during the reign of Vasily III, having heard enough boyar talk, notes about Sophia in his notes that she was an unusually cunning woman who had great influence on the Grand Duke, who, at her suggestion, made much. Finally, the chroniclers confirm this, saying, for example, that according to the suggestions of Sophia, Ivan III finally broke with the Horde. As if she once said to her husband: “ I refused my hand to rich, strong princes and kings, for the sake of faith I married you, and now you want to make me and my children tributaries; Don't you have enough troops?»

As a princess, Sofia enjoyed the right to receive foreign embassies in Moscow. According to the legend, cited not only by Russian chronicles, but also by the English poet John Milton, in 1999 Sofia was able to outwit the Tatar khan by declaring that she had a sign from above about the construction of a temple to St. Nicholas on the spot in the Kremlin where the house of the khan's governors stood, who controlled the yasak collections. and the actions of the Kremlin. This story presents Sophia as a determined person (“ kicked them out of the Kremlin, demolished the house, although she did not build a temple"). Ivan III really refused to pay tribute and trampled on the Khan’s charter right at the Horde court in Zamoskvorechye; Rus' actually stopped paying tribute to the Horde.

Sophia managed to attract doctors, cultural figures and especially architects to Moscow. The creations of the latter could make Moscow equal in beauty and majesty to European capitals and support the prestige of the Moscow sovereign, as well as emphasize the continuity of Moscow not only with the Second, but also with the First Rome. Arriving architects Aristotle Fioravanti, Marco Ruffo, Aleviz Fryazin, Antonio and Petro Solari erected the Faceted Chamber in the Kremlin, the Assumption and Annunciation Cathedrals on the Kremlin Cathedral Square; construction completed

Ivan III and Sophia Paleolog

Ivan III Vasilyevich was the Grand Duke of Moscow from 1462 to 1505. During the reign of Ivan Vasilyevich, a significant part of the Russian lands around Moscow was united and transformed into the center of the all-Russian state. The final liberation of the country from the power of the Horde khans was achieved. Ivan Vasilyevich created a state that became the basis of Russia until modern times.

The first wife of Grand Duke Ivan was Maria Borisovna, the daughter of the Tver prince. On February 15, 1458, a son, Ivan, was born into the family of the Grand Duke. The Grand Duchess, who had a meek character, died on April 22, 1467, before reaching the age of thirty. The Grand Duchess was buried in the Kremlin, in the Ascension Convent. Ivan, who was in Kolomna at that time, did not come to his wife’s funeral.

Two years after her death, the Grand Duke decided to marry again. After a conference with his mother, as well as with the boyars and the metropolitan, he decided to agree to the proposal recently received from the Pope to marry the Byzantine princess Sophia (in Byzantium she was called Zoe). She was the daughter of the Morean despot Thomas Palaiologos and was the niece of the emperors Constantine XI and John VIII.

The decisive factor in Zoya’s fate was the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Constantine XI died in 1453 during the capture of Constantinople. 7 years later, in 1460, Morea was captured by the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II, Thomas fled with his family to the island of Corfu, then to Rome, where he soon died. To gain support, Thomas converted to Catholicism in the last year of his life. Zoya and her brothers - 7-year-old Andrei and 5-year-old Manuel - moved to Rome 5 years after their father. There she received the name Sophia. The Palaiologos came under the patronage of Cardinal Vissarion, who retained his sympathies for the Greeks.

Zoya has grown over the years into an attractive girl with dark, sparkling eyes and soft white skin. She was distinguished by a subtle mind and prudence in behavior. According to the unanimous assessment of her contemporaries, Zoya was charming, and her intelligence, education and manners were impeccable. Bolognese chroniclers wrote enthusiastically about Zoe in 1472: “She is truly charming and beautiful... She was short, she seemed about 24 years old; the eastern flame sparkled in her eyes, the whiteness of her skin spoke of the nobility of her family.”

In those years, the Vatican was looking for allies to organize a new crusade against the Turks, intending to involve all European sovereigns in it. Then, on the advice of Cardinal Vissarion, the pope decided to marry Zoya to the Moscow sovereign Ivan III, knowing about his desire to become the heir of the Byzantine basileus. The Patriarch of Constantinople and Cardinal Vissarion tried to renew the union with Russia through marriage. It was then that the Grand Duke was informed about the stay in Rome of a noble bride devoted to Orthodoxy, Sophia Palaeologus. Dad promised Ivan his support if he wanted to woo her. Ivan III's motives for marrying Sophia, of course, were related to status; the brilliance of her name and the glory of her ancestors played a role. Ivan III, who claimed the royal title, considered himself the successor of the Roman and Byzantine emperors.

On January 16, 1472, Moscow ambassadors set off on a long journey. In Rome, Muscovites were honorably received by the new Pope Sixtus IV. As a gift from Ivan III, the ambassadors presented the pontiff with sixty selected sable skins. The matter quickly came to an end. Pope Sixtus IV treated the bride with paternal concern: he gave Zoe, in addition to gifts, about 6,000 ducats as a dowry. Sixtus IV in St. Peter's Cathedral performed a solemn ceremony of Sophia's betrothal in absentia to the Moscow sovereign, who was represented by the Russian ambassador Ivan Fryazin.

On June 24, 1472, having said goodbye to the pope in the Vatican gardens, Zoe headed to the far north. The future Grand Duchess of Moscow, as soon as she found herself on Russian soil, while still on her way down the aisle to Moscow, insidiously betrayed all the hopes of the pope, immediately forgetting all her Catholic upbringing. Sophia, who apparently met in childhood with the Athonite elders, opponents of the subordination of the Orthodox to Catholics, was deeply Orthodox at heart. She immediately openly, brightly and demonstratively showed her devotion to Orthodoxy, to the delight of the Russians, venerating all the icons in all the churches, behaving impeccably at the Orthodox service, crossing herself as an Orthodox woman. The Vatican's plans to make the princess a conductor of Catholicism in Rus' failed, as Sophia immediately demonstrated a return to the faith of her ancestors. The papal legate was deprived of the opportunity to enter Moscow, carrying the Latin cross in front of him.

Early in the morning of November 21, 1472, Sophia Paleologus arrived in Moscow. On the same day, in the Kremlin, in a temporary wooden church, erected near the Assumption Cathedral under construction, so as not to stop services, the sovereign married her. The Byzantine princess saw her husband for the first time. The Grand Duke was young - only 32 years old, handsome, tall and stately. His eyes were especially remarkable, “formidable eyes.” And before, Ivan Vasilyevich was distinguished by a tough character, but now, having become related to the Byzantine monarchs, he turned into a formidable and powerful sovereign. This was largely due to his young wife.

Sophia became the full-fledged Grand Duchess of Moscow. The very fact that she agreed to go from Rome to distant Moscow to seek her fortune suggests that she was a brave, energetic woman.

She brought a generous dowry to Rus'. After the wedding, Ivan III adopted the coat of arms of the Byzantine double-headed eagle - a symbol of royal power, placing it on his seal. The two heads of the eagle face the West and the East, Europe and Asia, symbolizing their unity, as well as the unity (“symphony”) of spiritual and temporal power. Sophia's dowry was the legendary “Liberia” - a library (better known as the “library of Ivan the Terrible”). It included Greek parchments, Latin chronographs, ancient Eastern manuscripts, among which were unknown to us poems by Homer, works by Aristotle and Plato, and even surviving books from the famous Library of Alexandria.

According to legend, she brought with her a “bone throne” as a gift to her husband: its wooden frame was entirely covered with plates of ivory and walrus ivory with scenes on biblical themes carved on them. Sophia also brought with her several Orthodox icons.

With the arrival in the capital of Russia of the Greek princess, the heir to the former greatness of the Palaiologans, in 1472, a fairly large group of immigrants from Greece and Italy formed at the Russian court. Over time, many of them occupied significant government positions and more than once carried out important diplomatic assignments of Ivan III. They all returned to Moscow with large groups of specialists, among whom were architects, doctors, jewelers, coiners and gunsmiths.

The great Greek woman brought with her her ideas about the court and the power of government. Sophia Paleolog not only brought about changes at court - some Moscow monuments owe their appearance to her. Much of what is now preserved in the Kremlin was built precisely under Grand Duchess Sophia.

In 1474, the Assumption Cathedral, built by Pskov craftsmen, collapsed. The Italians were involved in its restoration under the leadership of the architect Aristotle Fioravanti. With her, they built the Church of the Deposition of the Robe, the Faceted Chamber, so named on the occasion of its decoration in the Italian style - with facets. The Kremlin itself - the fortress that guarded the ancient center of the capital of Rus' - grew and was created before her eyes. Twenty years later, foreign travelers began to call the Moscow Kremlin a “castle” in European style, due to the abundance of stone buildings in it.

Thus, through the efforts of Ivan III and Sophia, the Paleologus Renaissance flourished on Russian soil.

However, Sophia's arrival in Moscow did not please some of Ivan's courtiers. By nature, Sophia was a reformer, participation in state affairs was the meaning of life for the Moscow princess, she was a decisive and intelligent person, and the nobility of that time did not like this very much. In Moscow, she was accompanied not only by the honors given to the Grand Duchess, but also by the hostility of the local clergy and the heir to the throne. At every step she had to defend her rights.

The best way to establish oneself was, of course, childbearing. The Grand Duke wanted to have sons. Sophia herself wanted this. However, to the delight of her ill-wishers, she gave birth to three daughters in a row - Elena (1474), Elena (1475) and Theodosia (1475). Unfortunately, the girls died soon after birth. Then another girl was born, Elena (1476). Sophia prayed to God and all the saints for the gift of a son. There is a legend associated with the birth of Sophia’s son Vasily, the future heir to the throne: as if during one of the pilgrimage campaigns to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, in Klementievo, Grand Duchess Sophia Paleologus had a vision of the Venerable Sergius of Radonezh, who “was cast into the bowels of her as a young man floor." On the night of March 25-26, 1479, a boy was born, named Vasily in honor of his grandfather. For his mother, he always remained Gabriel - in honor of the Archangel Gabriel. Following Vasily, she gave birth to two more sons (Yuri and Dmitry), then two daughters (Elena and Feodosia), then three more sons (Semyon, Andrei and Boris) and the last, in 1492, daughter Evdokia.

Ivan III loved his wife and took care of his family. Before the invasion of Khan Akhmat in 1480, for the sake of safety, Sophia was sent first to Dmitrov and then to Beloozero with her children, court, noblewomen and princely treasury. Bishop Vissarion warned the Grand Duke against constant thoughts and excessive attachment to his wife and children. One of the chronicles notes that Ivan panicked: “I was in horror and wanted to run away from the shore, and sent my Grand Duchess Roman and the treasury with her to Beloozero.”

The main significance of this marriage was that the marriage to Sophia Paleologus contributed to the establishment of Russia as the successor to Byzantium and the proclamation of Moscow as the Third Rome, the stronghold of Orthodox Christianity. After his marriage to Sophia, Ivan III for the first time dared to show the European political world the new title of Sovereign of All Rus' and forced them to recognize it. Ivan was called “the sovereign of all Rus'.”

The question inevitably arose about the future fate of the offspring of Ivan III and Sophia. The heir to the throne remained the son of Ivan III and Maria Borisovna, Ivan the Young, whose son Dmitry was born on October 10, 1483 in his marriage to Elena Voloshanka. In the event of his father’s death, he would not hesitate to get rid of Sophia and her family in one way or another. The best they could hope for was exile or exile. At the thought of this, the Greek woman was overcome with rage and impotent despair.

Throughout the 1480s, Ivan Ivanovich's position as the legal heir was quite strong. However, by 1490, the heir to the throne, Ivan Ivanovich, fell ill with “kamchyuga in the legs” (gout). Sophia ordered a doctor from Venice - “Mistro Leon”, who arrogantly promised Ivan III to cure the heir to the throne. Nevertheless, all the doctor’s efforts were fruitless, and on March 7, 1490, Ivan the Young died. The doctor was executed, and rumors spread throughout Moscow about the poisoning of the heir. Modern historians regard the hypothesis of the poisoning of Ivan the Young as unverifiable due to a lack of sources.

On February 4, 1498, the coronation of Prince Dmitry Ivanovich took place in the Assumption Cathedral in an atmosphere of great pomp. Sophia and her son Vasily were not invited.

Ivan III continued to painfully search for a way out of the dynastic impasse. How much pain, tears and misunderstanding his wife had to experience, this strong, wise woman who was so eager to help her husband build a new Russia, the Third Rome. But time passes, and the wall of bitterness that his son and daughter-in-law built with such zeal around the Grand Duke collapsed. Ivan Vasilyevich wiped away his wife’s tears and cried with her. Like never before, he felt that the white light was not nice to him without this woman. Now the plan to give the throne to Dmitry did not seem successful to him. Ivan Vasilyevich knew how all-consumingly Sophia loved her son Vasily. Sometimes he was even jealous of this maternal love, realizing that the son reigned entirely in the mother’s heart. The Grand Duke felt sorry for his young sons Vasily, Yuri, Dmitry Zhilka, Semyon, Andrei... And he lived together with Princess Sophia for a quarter of a century. Ivan III understood that sooner or later Sophia’s sons would rebel. There were only two ways to prevent the performance: either destroy the second family, or bequeath the throne to Vasily and destroy the family of Ivan the Young.

On April 11, 1502, the dynastic battle came to its logical conclusion. According to the chronicle, Ivan III “put disgrace on his grandson, Grand Duke Dmitry, and on his mother, Grand Duchess Elena.” Three days later, Ivan III “blessed his son Vasily, blessed him and made him autocrat of the Grand Duchy of Volodymyr and Moscow and All Rus'.”

On the advice of his wife, Ivan Vasilyevich released Elena from captivity and sent her to her father in Wallachia (good relations with Moldavia were needed), but in 1509 Dmitry died “in need, in prison.”

A year after these events, on April 7, 1503, Sophia Paleologus died. The body of the Grand Duchess was buried in the cathedral of the Kremlin Ascension Monastery. Following her death, Ivan Vasilyevich lost heart and became seriously ill. Apparently, the great Greek Sophia gave him the necessary energy to build a new power, her intelligence helped in state affairs, her sensitivity warned of dangers, her all-conquering love gave him strength and courage. Leaving all his affairs, he went on a trip to the monasteries, but failed to atone for his sins. He was overcome by paralysis: “... took away his arm and leg and eye.” On October 27, 1505, he died, “having been in the great reign for 43 and 7 months, and all the years of his life were 65 and 9 months.”