Ivan IV of Russia

"Ivan the Terrible" redirects here. For other uses, see Ivan the Terrible (disambiguation). Ivan IV Vasilyevich (Russian: Иван IV Васильевич) (August 25, 1530 – March 18, 1584) was the Grand Duke of Muscovy from 1533 to 1547 and was the first ruler of Russia to assume the title of tsar. His long reign saw the conquest of Tartary and Siberia and subsequent transformation of Russia into a multiethnic and multiconfessional state. This tsar retains his place in the Russian tradition simply as Ivan Grozny (, ). He is commonly referred to in English as Ivan the Terrible.

Early reign

Ivan (or Ioann, as his name is rendered in Church Slavonic) was a long-awaited son of Vasili III. Upon his father's death, he formally came to the throne at the age of three, but his minority was dominated by regents. Initially his mother Elena Glinskaya acted as regent, but she died when Ivan was only eight. She was replaced as regent by boyars from the Shuisky family until Ivan assumed power in 1544. According to his own letters, Ivan customarily felt neglected and offended by the mighty boyars from the Shuisky and Belsky families. In one letter, he painfully recalls an episode when one drunken boyar put his dirty boots on Ivan's bed. These traumatic experiences doubtlessly contributed to his hatred of the boyars and to his mental instability. He was known to throw cats and dogs out of the Kremlin windows, among other cruel acts.

Ivan was crowned tsar with Monomakh's Cap at the Cathedral of the Dormition at age sixteen on January 16 1547. The early part of his reign was one of peaceful reforms and modernization. Ivan revised the law code (known as the sudebnik), created a standing army (the streltsy), established the Zemsky Sobor, the council of the nobles (known as the Chosen Council), and confirmed the position of the Church with the Council of the Hundred Chapters, which unified the rituals and ecclesiastical regulations of the entire country. During his reign the first printing press was introduced to Russia (although the first Russian printers Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets had to flee from Moscow to Grand Duchy of Lithuania).

In 1547 Hans Schlitte, the agent of tsar Ivan, employed handicraftsmen in Germany for work in Russia. However all these handicraftsmen were arrested in Lübeck at the request of Poland and Livonia. The German merchant companies ignored the new port built by tsar Ivan on the river Narva in 1550 and delivered the goods still in the Baltic ports owned by Livonia. Russia remained isolated from sea trade.

Ivan formed new trading connections, opening up the White Sea and the port of Arkhangelsk to the Muscovy Company of English merchants. He also annexed the Kazan and Astrakhan Khanates to the east, thus transforming Russia into a multinational and multiconfessional state. He had St. Basil's Cathedral constructed in Moscow to commemorate the seizure of Kazan. Legend has it that he was so impressed with the structure that he had the architects blinded, so that they could never design anything as beautiful again.

Ivans ivory throne.jpg Other less positive aspects of this period include the introduction of the first laws restricting the mobility of the peasants, which would eventually lead to serfdom. The dramatic change in Ivan's personality is traditionally linked to his near-fatal illness in 1553 and the death of his first wife, Anastasia Romanovna. Ivan suspected boyars of poisoning his wife and of plotting to replace him on the throne with his cousin, Vladimir of Staritsa. In addition, during that illness Ivan had asked the boyars to swear an oath of allegiance to his eldest son, an infant at the time. Many boyars refused, deeming the tsar's health too hopeless to survive. This angered Ivan and added to his distrust of the boyars. There followed brutal reprisals and mass murders of innocent people, including Metropolitan Philip and Prince Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky.

Also problematic was the 1565 formation of the Oprichnina. The Oprichnina was the section of Russia directly ruled by Ivan and policed by his personal servicemen, the Oprichniks. This whole system of Oprichnina has been viewed by some historians as a tool against the omnipotent hereditary nobility of Russia (boyars) who opposed the absolutist drive of the tsar, while others have interpreted it as a sign of the paranoia and mental deterioration of the tsar.

Later reign

Because he gradually grew unbalanced and violent, the Oprichniks under Malyuta Skuratov soon got out of hand and became murderous thugs. They murdered nobles and peasants, and conscripted men to fight the war in Livonia. Depopulation and famine ensued. What had been by far the richest area of Russia became the poorest. In a dispute with Novgorod Republic, Ivan ordered the Oprichniks to murder the inhabitants of this city. Between thirty and forty thousand were killed. Yet the official death toll named 1,500 of Novgorod big people (nobility) and only mentioned about the same number of smaller people.

Khan Devlet I Giray of Crimea repeatedly devastated Moscow region and burnt down Moscow in 1571.

In 1581, Ivan beat his pregnant daughter-in-law for wearing immodest clothing, causing a miscarriage. His son, also named Ivan, upon learning of this, engaged in a heated argument with his father which resulted in the son's (accidental) death. This event is depicted in the famous painting by Ilya Repin, Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on Friday, November 16, 1581 better known as Ivan the Terrible killing his son.

Death and legacy

Ivan died while playing chess with Bogdan Belsky on March 18 1584, a date which had previously been prophesied for his death. When Ivan's tomb was opened during renovations in the 1960s, his remains were examined and discovered to contain very high amounts of mercury, indicating a high probability that he was poisoned. Modern suspicion falls on his advisors Belsky and Boris Godunov (who became tsar in 1598). Three days earlier, Ivan had allegedly attempted to rape Irina, Godunov's sister and Fyodor's wife. Her cries attracted Godunov and Belsky to the noise, whereupon Ivan let Irina go, but Belski and Godunov considered themselves marked for death. The tradition says that they either poisoned or strangled Ivan in fear for their own lives. The mercury found in Ivan's remains may also be related to treatment for syphilis, which it is speculated that Ivan had. Upon Ivan's death, the ravaged kingdom was left to his unfit and childless son Feodor.

Sobriquet

The English word terrible is usually used to translate the Russian word grozny in Ivan's nickname, but the modern English usage of terrible, with a pejorative connotation of bad or evil, does not precisely represent the intended meaning. Grozny's meaning is closer to the original usage of terrible—inspiring fear or terror, dangerous (as in Old English in one's danger), formidable, threatening, or awesome. Perhaps a translation closer to the intended sense would be Ivan the Fearsome. (Compare the city name Grozny.) The Russian people gave Ivan this nickname after he seized Kazan.

References

Troyat, H. Ivan the Terrible, Weidenfeld & Nicholson history, 2001. ISBN 1842124196
Bobrick, B. Ivan the Terrible, Canongate Books Ltd, 1990. ISBN 0862412889
Payne, R. and Romanoff, N. Ivan the Terrible, Cooper Square Press, 2002. ISBN 0815412290
De Madariaga, Isabel. Ivan the Terrible. First Tsar of Russia, 2005. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300097573
Ivan IV, World Book Inc, 2000. World Book Encyclopedia

External links

BBC History page - Ivan the Terrible
"Mad Monarchs" - Ivan IV
The ancestors tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible (in the Russian languages)
British Film Institute - About Eisenstein's films