; complete the political centralization of the Russian state; establish autocracy (by repressive means).
Tasks:
1) Eliminate the appanage system: in 1563, the appanage of Yuri Staritsky was liquidated;
2) To subordinate the church to the royal will (the church must approve all the actions of the king) is the work of Metropolitan Philip;
3) The defeat of opposition centers - Novgorod, Pskov, Tver;
4) The defeat of the boyar-princely opposition;
5) Carrying out a purge of the boyar duma and the system of orders;
6) Resolve the conflict between the nobility and the boyars in favor of the nobles (the support of the autocracy).
Oprichnina stages:
1) 1565 - 1566. - the beginning of terror is not of a mass nature;
2) 1567 - 1572. - period of mass terror, peak of terror - summer 1569 - summer 1570;
3) 1572 - 1584. - terror is hidden (veiled) in nature;
February 3, 1565 - the beginning of the oprichnina; Crop failures occur in the north of the country, leading to severe famine.
1570 - 1571 - a terrible plague epidemic in North-Western and Central Rus'; failures in the Livonian War. A sacred element was superimposed - preparation for the Last Judgment.
1st stage. Executions are sporadic: Obolensky, Kurakin, Gorbaty-Shuisky, Repnin; The Yaroslavl, Starodub, and Rostov princes were sent into exile in Kazan. In the spring of 1566, Metropolitan Afanasy voluntarily resigned his rank and entered a monastery. Ivan the 4th left his sights on Fyodor Kolychev (Philip) in the role of Metropolitan, and put forward the abolition of the oprichnina as a condition. In June 1566, Philip became metropolitan - there was a decline in terror, people began to return from Kazan exile; opals occur.
In 1566, Vladimir Staritsky was deprived of his inheritance and exiled to Vologda.
Stage 2 (1566 - 1572) - the case of Ivan Fedorov, the leader of the Boyar Duma in Zemshchina, is being developed. At the very beginning of the reign of Ivan Fedorovich, Ivan the 4th ordered the execution of his son. In March 1568, Metropolitan Philip refused Ivan the 4th and the guardsmen favor. Philip was captured, sent to the Otroch monastery (Tver) and in December 1569 Malyuta Skuratov killed the metropolitan.
In 1569, two rumors persisted:
Allegedly, Novgorod does not want Ivan the 4th, but Staritsky;
Novgorodians want to go under the rule of Lithuania.
Rumors spread deliberately.
In September 1566, Vladimir Staritsky with his wife and children (youngest daughter) were summoned to Moscow, Ivan the 4th forced them to take poison. On the same day, Staritsky’s mother was killed.
At the end of autumn, Ivan the 4th with the oprichnina army set off on a punitive campaign; Klin, Tver, Torzhok, Novgorod and Pskov were burned. In Novgorod, 1/2 of the population was slaughtered, 27 monasteries were destroyed, all the icons were taken away, and the St. Sophia Cathedral was destroyed. In Pskov, the terror was not so widespread.
On July 25, 1570, mass executions take place at Poganaya Luzha in Moscow. 300 people were sentenced to execution, but 194 were pardoned. Viskovaty and Afanasy Vyazemsky were executed.
In 1571, Divlet-Girey approached Moscow and set it on fire (the ring to the center burned). As a result (“The smell of human bodies spread throughout the entire district”), having left, Divlet-Girey demanded Kazan and Astrakhan.
In 1572, the oprichnina army (Khvorostynin) and the Zemstvo army (Vorotynsky) were created. In 1545, near the village of Molodi (near Moscow), Divlet-Girey was defeated (July 15, 1572). After this victory, Ivan the 4th forbade the use of the words “oprichnina, oprichnik” and historians believed that it was abolished.
1) But there was no order to abolish the oprichnina;
2) The terror was secretive;
3) In 1572, the throne in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became vacant and Ivan the 4th put forward his candidacy for the throne.
3rd stage 1572-1584. The oprichnina was renamed the State Court. A new direction is emerging - terror against ardent guardsmen. The terror against Zemshchina was weakened, several people were posthumously rehabilitated and part of their property was returned to distant relatives. 2 icons (one miraculous) were solemnly returned to Novgorod. The outbreak of terror occurred in 1575.
In 1574, the throne in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became vacant, and Ivan the 4th ascended to the throne. The Magi predicted that Ivan the 4th should die (Ivan the 4th took off his royal title and took the title of Moscow Prince; Simeon Bikbulatovich was appointed tsar).
From 1578-1579 executions stop. In 1581, in the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, Ivan the 4th kills his son, Ivan. Ivan Ivanovich's daughter-in-law gave birth to a stillborn son.
Results of the oprichnina:
1) Autocracy was established, the centralization of the state was completed;
2) The Church became an instrument of tsarist policy, approving the actions of the tsar;
3) The state apparatus has turned into an apparatus of repression;
4) The country experienced a deep economic crisis (approximately 90% of the land was not cultivated);
5) The treasury is empty, taxation and feudal exploitation of the population are increasing (in 1581, the “Decree on Reserved Summers” was adopted - travel from one to another is prohibited on St. George’s Day);
6) Colossal human losses;
7) The color of the nation, the top of all classes, is embossed;
8) The country’s military potential has sharply weakened;
9) The shameful end of the Livonian War (1558 - 1583).
In 1582, the Yam-Zapolsky truce was signed between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for 10 years, and in 1583, the Plyussky truce was signed between Russia and Sweden for 10 years: Livonia was lost; access to the Baltic Sea; cities: Ivan-gorod, Yam, Koporye, Karela volost;
11) chronicle writing stopped, a blow to culture.
Page 1 of 2
The uncontrollable desire that I felt Ivan the Terrible to strengthen personal power and his methods of combating political opponents left the imprint of despotism on all the events of the oprichnina years. At the same time, the role played oprichnina, determined by the fact that guardsmen were the king's personal servants and enjoyed complete impunity. Thus, both the autocracy itself and its despotic features were strengthened, an example of which is oprichnina terror. The authorities tried to compensate for their weakness, due to the underdevelopment of the state apparatus, with cruelty.
A special uniform was introduced for the guardsmen: they had to tie dog heads to the necks of their horses, and something like a brush or broom to the quiver of arrows, as a sign that the guardsmen were obliged to gnaw, like dogs, “sovereign traitors” and sweep away “treason.” "from the country.
Already in February 1565, immediately upon the return of Ivan the Terrible from the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, several of the most prominent representatives of the princely aristocracy (including boyar A. B. Gorbaty-Shuisky and others) were executed, others were forcibly tonsured as monks. Some of the boyars, who poorly led military actions against the Crimeans and Lithuania, were arrested in the fall of 1564 and released only after a new oath of allegiance to Ivan IV and a financial guarantee for huge sums. Many of the princes of Yaroslavl and Rostov also fell into disgrace, their property was confiscated; some of them with their wives and children were exiled “to live” in Kazan and Sviyazhsk, that is, they were supposed to become landowners of the Kazan region. The first repressions after the establishment of the oprichnina were also directed against representatives of the boyar group, which spoke out back in 1553 against Ivan the Terrible during his illness.
In the spring of 1566, obvious signs of a political thaw began to appear one after another. In April, Kazan exiles were amnestied. Some of them even had their seized estates returned to them. At the request of the zemstvo boyars and nobles led by Ivan Fedorov, the tsar removed the disgrace from the talented commander Mikhail Vorotynsky, returned the governor to the court and returned a significant part of the family estates. Prince Vladimir Staritsky also received back his Kremlin court, which had previously been transferred to the oprichnina. Grozny showed his cousin other signs of his favor.
V. B. Kobrin, considering the respite in the policy of terror of 1566, notes that “something completely incomprehensible is happening,” regarding the strange zigzags of tsarist policy as an attempt to lull public opinion. The emerging departure from the repressive oprichnina policy would have been impossible without widespread opposition to the initiatives of Ivan the Terrible among the boyars, a significant part of the nobles and clergy. Ivan noticed the growing dissatisfaction with the oprichnina in time and assessed the potential threat. In addition, during the year of the existence of the new order, the tsar may have cooled somewhat towards his brainchild - such a reaction is quite natural for ardent, addicted natures like Ivan the Terrible. The long-nurtured plan came true and ceased to worry its creator with the same force. The Tsar decided to retreat from some of the extremes of the oprichnina policy and even disavow some of his most odious actions.
During the oprichnina years, the question of the relationship between the state and the church became acute. Among the clergy, two factions continued to compete with each other, this non-acquisitive(Trans-Volga elders) and Osiphlites. If the former, objectively reflecting the interests of the boyar opposition, sharply opposed the oprichnina, then the latter generally supported the centralizing policy of Ivan the Terrible. However, the clergy’s support for government measures aimed at strengthening the centralized state was not unconditional: the Osiphlans remained opposed to any attempts to limit the growth of monastic land wealth.
In May 1566, “due to great weakness,” Metropolitan Afanasy left his high priestly see and retired to the Chudov Monastery. Whatever the true reasons for the metropolitan’s resignation, his departure looked like a demonstrative step. It is known that the former metropolitan died in the 70s, that is, at least four years after his resignation, which gives reason to doubt the seriousness of the illness that befell him. R. G. Skrynnikov believes that Athanasius left the high priest's post, seeking the abolition of the oprichnina order. Perhaps the metropolitan did not have enough health and strength to lead the Russian Church, but to counter the destructive acts of the sovereign with the firmness that he demonstrated in the days of the establishment of the oprichnina.
Archbishop German Polev of Kazan, who was initially nominated as a candidate for his place, very sharply raised the question of the continued existence of the oprichnina and was soon exiled from the metropolitan court. In his place, the tsar summoned abbot Philip Kolychov from the Solovetsky Monastery. At the very first meetings with Ivan the Terrible, Philip, like Herman, set the decisive condition for accepting the metropolitan rank as the destruction of the oprichnina. Only the mediation of the higher clergy led to a temporary agreement with the tsar, as a result of which Philip became metropolitan on July 25, 1566.
In the summer of 1566, some of the service people, participants in the Zemsky Sobor of that year, defiantly turned to Grozny with a request to stop the “violence” of the guardsmen. More than three hundred representatives of the zemshchina, including the tsar’s courtiers, came to the palace to protest against the excesses and abuses. “We all serve you faithfully, shed our blood for you. You... have placed your bodyguards on our necks, who tear our brothers and blood from our midst, cause offense, beat, cut, crush, and in the end kill.” The oral presentation was followed by the submission of a petition, sealed with the signatures of the intercessors.
The answer was various punishments - from the death penalty to punishment with a whip.
The anti-government action of the nobles in Moscow made such an impressive impression that the tsarist diplomats were forced to issue special explanations abroad. Regarding the execution of the members of the Zemsky Sobor, they stated the following: about those dashing people, “the sovereign found out that they thought dashingly about the sovereign and about the sovereign land, and the sovereign, having found it to be their fault, therefore ordered their execution.” This was the official version: the demand of the zemstvo service people to abolish the oprichnina was qualified by the authorities as an attack on the safety of the tsar and his “land.”
In 1567, the “sheets” sent by the Polish king Sigismund II Augustus and the “panami-rad” to the most noble Moscow boyars who headed the Boyar Duma were intercepted - Prince. I. D. Velsky, book. I. F. Mstislavsky, book. M. I. Vorotynsky and I. P. Fedorov. The latter were asked to “succumb” to the king with all their estates and persuade other Moscow boyars to do the same. For complete success, Sigismund promised to help the Moscow boyars with military forces. The conspirators decided to take advantage of Ivan IV's upcoming campaign against Lithuania in the fall and informed Sigismund that as soon as the Russian troops came into contact with the Lithuanian ones, Tsar Ivan would be captured and handed over to the king. The head of the conspiracy was the most prominent boyar of the zemshchina, I. P. Fedorov, who enjoyed great influence.
At the beginning of October 1567, Ivan the Terrible, together with Tsarevich Ivan and Prince Vladimir Andreevich, headed an oprichnina detachment to Novgorod, which was the base for further military operations during the Livonian War. From here it was originally planned to go with the “Zemstvo” regiments to the Lithuanian border. However, on November 12, near Velikiye Luki, Ivan IV hastily convened the governor for a military council, at which it was decided to postpone the campaign and leave the main army in Velikiye Luki and Toropets.
November 21 Ivan the Terrible, bypassing Moscow, arrived in Alexandrov Sloboda. The reason for such a hasty return was that Prince Vladimir Andreevich, frightened by the obvious failure of the conspiracy in which he himself was a participant, saving himself, together with I. F. Mstislavsky and I. D. Velsky, handed over to Ivan the Terrible a list of conspirators.
Upon returning from the trip Ivan IV energetically set about eradicating treason. First of all, the head of the conspiracy, I.P. Fedorov, was executed. The tsar responded to the public denunciation by Metropolitan Philip (at the beginning of 1568) in connection with this execution with repressions against the metropolitan boyars and servants. With sharp attacks, Philip aroused many guardsmen against himself. A split also occurred among the higher clergy. Ultimately, the overwhelming majority of the highest hierarchs, saving their estates, power and lives, sided with the king. Philip was condemned by the “cathedral” and the Boyar Duma, exiled to captivity in the Tver Otroch Monastery, and later killed. Two days after the meeting of the council that condemned Philip Kolychev, German Polev, the only church hierarch who dared to speak out in defense of the deposed metropolitan, was executed.
At the beginning of 1569, news came to Moscow about the impending surrender to the enemies of a number of cities in Livonia occupied by the Russians. All this made Ivan the Terrible very suspicious of what was happening on the Novgorod-Pskov border. Already in March 1569, 150 boyar families were “reduced” from Novgorod to Moscow, and 500 from Pskov. Obviously, these were the families of the most influential and feared upper echelons of the Novgorod population.
The word “oprichnina” takes its roots from the Old Russian “oprich”, which translates as “except”, “special”. In the 16th century, this term was used to describe territories that were already in the personal use of the sovereign and his inner circle.
If we talk about domestic politics, then the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible is briefly a policy of repression against rebellious boyars, aimed at strengthening autocratic power and centralization of the state, which lasted from 1565 to 1572. Its essence was to pacify the then quite strong boyar class at any cost, in particular, physical reprisals, confiscation of land holdings and all property in favor of the state, and forced relocation of people to other territories became widespread.
This time went down in history as a time of bloody massacres, rampant arbitrariness and lawlessness committed by the king and his entourage. In order to understand what happened, it is necessary to know the causes and consequences of this phenomenon.
The Tsar's guardsmen
The reasons for oprichnina can be listed as follows:
- Unsuccessful foreign policy (losses in the West in the Livonian War, started by the tsar in 1558 for territories on the Baltic coast, the tsar blamed everything on the boyars, their reluctance and inability to act decisively, as well as disrespect for the tsarist authority; raids of the Crimean Tatars);
- The death in 1560 of Ivan the Terrible’s beloved wife Anastasia (who was one of the few who could restrain the unbridled temper of the tsar; she was probably poisoned), in 1563 the death of Metropolitan Macarius, the tsar’s spiritual mentor. The fall of the Elected Rada (it was created from associates tsar, carried out a number of reforms, but disagreements between the tsar and its leader Alexei Adashev in the field of foreign policy, as well as the tsar’s dissatisfaction with the slow pace of reforms led to the dissolution of the Elected Rada in 1560);
- The betrayal in 1563 of the military leader Prince Andrei Kurbsky, who was part of the Chosen Rada and fled to hostile Lithuania (after this, the already suspicious tsar begins to see a conspiracy everywhere, and is convinced of the boyars’ disloyalty to him).
These and other reasons gave rise to such a phenomenon as the oprichnina. Oprichnina politics began in 1565, when Ivan the Terrible left Moscow, moving to Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, and dividing the territory of the state into “oprichnina” (part of Moscow, and the counties closest to it, vast territories in the west and south of the state) and “zemshchina” (all remaining land).
From Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, Ivan the Terrible writes and sends 2 letters to the capital, the first was addressed to the new metropolitan and the boyars, the second to the people. The letters said that Ivan Vasilyevich was refusing his rule because of the conspiracies of the boyars, betrayal and disobedience of their royal power, but he did not hold grudges against the common people.
At the behest of the sovereign, Basmanov-Pleshcheev (a representative of the royal family) creates an oprichnina army - the personal guard of the tsar, the servicemen who were part of it were endowed with privileges, and essentially unlimited power (the tsar turned a blind eye to the lawlessness committed by the guardsmen, and often encouraged them, he himself participating in bloody fun).
The guardsmen sat astride black horses, with a broom and a dog's head attached to the saddles. These symbols said that the guardsmen were ready to sweep away, like rubbish, from the borders of the country everyone who did not agree with the power of the tsar and dared to resist him. And they are faithful to him like dogs. The initial number of the oprichnina army was 1000 people, which subsequently increased significantly.
So, we have looked at the reasons, now let’s move on.
Zemshchina was subject to taxes in favor of the oprichnina; boyars and their associates who were unfaithful to the tsar were forcibly resettled there, having previously been deprived of property, land holdings and ranks. In the oprichnina, bloody executions of boyars and princes began. From Aleksandovskaya Sloboda, Ivan the Terrible regularly makes visits to Moscow to punish traitors to the state and his personal enemies. Almost everyone who dared to stand in his way, to resist the lawlessness that was happening, soon died.
In 1569, Ivan the Terrible, not unreasonably, decided that Novgorod was dissatisfied with what was happening and a conspiracy was brewing against him and his policies. The Tsar gathers large forces and goes with them to Novgorod, reaching it in the winter of 1570. The atrocities in Novgorod lasted 1.5 months, during which time mass beatings of people, 500-600 people, took place every day. Robbery of local residents, arson, and murder of civilians became widespread. Only 5th part of the population remained alive. Thus, all possible resistance in Novgorod was broken.
Next, the bloody movement headed to Pskov. A significantly increased army of guardsmen entered the city. At first, Ivan the Terrible wanted to organize bloody massacres in Pskov, similar to those in Novgorod, but only a few boyars were executed, and their property was confiscated to the state treasury.
After Pskov, the tsar and his army return to Moscow, frozen with fear, in order to find and eradicate the infection of the Novgorod conspiracy. The Moscow massacres became the highest point in the chaos of the oprichnina. According to experts, approximately 200 people from the top of the boyar class were executed, including people close to the tsar. The consequences of such a massacre, the mass extermination of representatives of ancient clans, had a painful impact on the state of internal politics and the perception of what was happening inside and outside the country.
The failure of the oprichnina policy and its disastrous consequences for the country (its defense capability in particular) became visible in 1571 during the invasion of Moscow by the Crimean Tatars led by Khan Devlet-Girey. Then the oprichnina troops, accustomed to robbery and robbery, spoiled by the weak resistance of the townspeople, were unable to defend Moscow; many simply did not show up on the battlefield.
Soon the tsar abolished the oprichnina policy, disbanded the oprichnina, and even executed several, but Ivan the Terrible’s close retinue existed in this form until his death, only changing its name from oprichnina to court.
We examined the reasons and course of the oprichnina policy. What were its consequences and results for the country?
The consequences and results of the oprichnina policy were as follows:
- The Boyar Duma lost its role as a governing body (during the years of the oprichnina it was never convened); it remained rather as a tribute to tradition.
- Tens of thousands of people died. According to calculations, for every executed boyar there were several service people and up to a dozen peasants and artisans. People were confused and disoriented.
- The country was on the verge of an economic crisis, up to 90% of arable land was not cultivated, and famine set in.
- Strengthening serfdom (Ivan the Terrible abolished St. George's Day, now peasants could not move to other lands or change owners.)
- Russia lost the 25-year Livonian War with the Polish-Lithuanian state, lost all access to the Baltic Sea and lands in the Gulf of Finland, which went to the Swedes, who took advantage of the situation.
- The unstable situation associated with the dynastic crisis (Ivan Vasilyevich did not leave behind a direct heir to the throne and power), social tension in all layers of society led Russia to the sad and tragic times of the Time of Troubles and impostors.
On his deathbed, the tsar “forgave” all the disgraced boyars - “traitors” who were executed during the oprichnina by his decree.
