Ivan the Great

Grand prince of Moscow (r. 1462-1505)

• Born: January 22, 1440
• Birthplace: Moscow (now in Russia)
• Died: October 27, 1505
• Place of death: Moscow (now in Russia)

Ivan united the Slavic independent and semi-independent principalities and cities under the aegis of the Muscovite rulers and began the long struggle with Poland-Lithuania and Sweden to recover the Ukraine, White Russia, and the Baltic States. Ivan also ended Russia’s 240 years of Mongol or Tatar rule and proclaimed the independence of his country.

Early Life

Ivan III Vasilyevich, better known as Ivan (ee-VAHN) the Great, grand prince of Muscovy, was the son of Grand Prince Vasily II and Maria Yaroslavna. Vasily’s reign was beset from the beginning by a series of savage civil wars with his rebellious uncles and cousins, who contested the throne of Muscovy. One of Vasily’s uncles, Prince Yury, defeated him in 1433 and assumed the title of grand prince. When Yury died in 1434, one of his sons, Dmitri Shemyaka, claimed the throne, arrested Vasily, blinded him, and sent him into exile. The young Ivan, only six years old, was also seized by agents of Shemyaka and jailed with his father. Vasily, however, recovered his throne in 1447 and, despite being blind, ruled for another fifteen years.

Throughout the remainder of Vasily’s reign, Ivan was closely associated with his father’s administration. The blind Vasily assigned to him many of the daily duties and tasks of his government, providing him with valuable experience and political training in the affairs of the state. At the age of nine, Ivan was proclaimed grand prince and coruler in order to eliminate any question as to the succession to the throne. When Ivan was twelve years old, his father arranged, perhaps for political considerations, the marriage of his son to Maria, the daughter of the grand prince of Tver.

In 1452, Ivan was at the head of an army that defeated his father’s enemy, Shemyaka. In 1458, Ivan was in charge of a successful military campaign against the Tatars to the south. On the death of his father on March 27, 1462, Ivan ascended the throne as grand prince and sovereign of Moscow at age twenty-two.

Life’s Work

Ivan’s reign was characterized by a series of foreign and domestic threats, all of which he was able to overcome. He proved to be a remarkable ruler of Russia, an individual with unusual political foresight and bold accomplishments. Ivan was endowed with extraordinary energy and native intelligence. He was persistent, calculating, and, at the same time, excessively cautious, secretive, and cunning in the extreme. He often avoided taking chances and was hesitant of drastic measures. Instead, he preferred to achieve his goal within the limits of his own power and resources. He employed discretion, calmly tolerated delays often breaking his word and used sinuous diplomacy, of which he proved to be a Machiavellian master. These attributes made him secure of himself and brought him many victories, for which he earned the appellation “the Great.”

Ivan’s major objective was to transform the small and often contested role of the principality of Moscow into the political center of a unified Russian state. He achieved this task through conquest, diplomacy, the purchase of land, annexation, and voluntary surrender of independent and semi-independent Russian principalities and free cities. He replaced the regional political fragmentation with a strong centralized administrative state. By the end of Ivan’s reign, he had gathered all the Russian territories under the rule of the Muscovite grand prince and had incorporated them into the Muscovite state, increasing its territory from 150,000 square miles to nearly 400,000 square miles at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

At the time of Ivan’s accession to the throne, there were four major principalities independent of Moscow Yaroslavl’, Rostov, Tver’, and Ryazan’ and three city-states: the republic of Novgorod the Great, Vyatka, and Pskov. The principalities of Yaroslavl’ and Rostov were among the least independent Russian lands. By the treaties of 1463 and 1474, they were both formally annexed to Moscow.

Ivan’s most important acquisition was the ancient city-republic of Novgorod the Great and its extensive colonies to the northeast. The republic of Novgorod had preserved its independence for many centuries from both the Mongols and the Teutonic knights. Since the early fifteenth century, however, Novgorod had vacillated between Moscow and Poland-Lithuania. The Princes of Moscow viewed Novgorod’s relations with these Catholic states with suspicion and distrust.

When a pro-Lithuanian party turned to Casimir IV, king of Poland and grand prince of Lithuania, seeking to select as their prince a Lithuanian, Ivan III turned against the Novgorodians. Accusing them of apostasy, he invaded the city in the spring of 1471 and imposed on them a treaty that bound the city closer to Moscow. Within a few years, however, the Novgorodians broke the terms of the treaty, and a pro-Polish party turned again to Poland-Lithuania. This new development forced Ivan to attack the city for a second time in 1478 and to order the annexation of its territory to Moscow and the confiscation of church lands. Finally, he ordered the deportation and exile of hundreds of prominent noble families, confiscation of their estates, and parceling out of these lands to individuals of lower classes conditional on military service. Ivan’s acts signaled the end of Novgorod’s independence.

The principality of Tver’ was the second most important of Ivan’s acquisitions. For centuries, Tver’ had been Moscow’s chief contender for control of Russia. When the grand prince of Tver’, Mikhail, concluded a political alliance with Lithuania in 1483, Ivan used this act as an excuse to invade Tver’ and officially annex it. The city of Vyatka, a former colony of Novgorod, was annexed in 1489. Finally, the principalities of Ryazan’ and Pskov came under Moscow’s control, but they were annexed by Ivan’s son and successor, Vasily III , in 1521.

In the area of foreign affairs, Ivan was successful against both the Tatars to the east and the Poles and Lithuanians to the west. The Tatars, who established the Golden Horde in the southeastern part of Russia, remained potentially the most dangerous adversaries since the thirteenth century. Yet in the second half of the fifteenth century, the Golden Horde broke up into the independent khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea. Ivan’s goal was not only to terminate Moscow’s nominal subservience to the khan of the Golden Horde but also to secure the southeastern boundaries of his realm from further attacks and incursions by the Tatar forces, allowing him to focus his attention on his principal task: the recovery of the Russian historical lands from Poland-Lithuania.

The friction between Moscow and the Golden Horde came to a head in 1480, when Khan Akhmed concluded an alliance with Poland-Lithuania and staged an attack on Moscow on the grounds that Ivan refused to pay him the customary annual tribute. The Russian and Tatar armies met on the opposite banks of the Ugra River in the fall of 1480. For more than two months, neither Akhmed nor the Russians attempted to attack each other. After waiting for the arrival of the Lithuanian and the Polish armies, who failed to appear, Akhmed suddenly withdrew his troops without giving a battle. In this rather unheroic manner, Ivan terminated Moscow’s 240 years of Mongol domination.

Ivan also organized military campaigns against the Tatar khanate of Kazan to the southeast of Moscow. In 1487, Ivan captured the khanate and placed on its throne a Tatar vassal ruler, further stabilizing the southeastern boundaries of his realm until the 1550’s, when Kazan was finally annexed by Ivan IV.

Ivan III maintained friendly relations with the Tatar khan of Crimea and the Ottoman sultan. In 1480, he signed a treaty with the Crimean leader, Mengli Giray, against the Golden Horde and Poland. Though the Crimean Tatars remained unreliable allies, their hostility toward Lithuania and Poland helped Ivan in his plan to recover the ancient territory of Kievan Russia. In 1494, Ivan seized the town of Vyazma and annexed it to Moscow. A year later, he concluded a truce and entered into dynastic relations with the Grand Prince Alexander of Lithuania by offering his daughter in marriage. This arrangement, however, did not prevent Ivan from going to war with his son-in-law in 1500, on the grounds that his Orthodox subjects had allegedly been persecuted by the Catholic Church. When the war ended in 1503, Ivan captured much of the western Russian lands, except the cities of Kiev and Smolensk.

Finally, Ivan faced the growing power of Sweden, a perennial adversary of the Russians since the thirteenth century. In 1493, Ivan and the king of Denmark signed an alliance against Sweden. The same year, Ivan went to war against Sweden, trying to gain control of Finland and the Baltic States. The Swedes, however, retaliated and attacked northern Russia, forcing Ivan to sign a truce in 1497. It was left to Peter the Great to break the power of Sweden in the eighteenth century.

Ivan’s successes to the east against the Tatar khanates made Moscow the most powerful state on the Eurasia steppes, replacing the Golden Horde. His victories over Lithuania brought him into direct contact with Europe, and its sovereigns began to view him as a powerful and independent ruler. At the same time, Moscow gradually increased its economic and cultural ties with the West. In 1472, after the death of his first wife, Ivan married Sophia Palaeologus , the niece of the last Byzantine emperor.

The marriage of Sophia to Ivan was arranged, strangely enough, by Pope Paul II, who hoped to bring the Russian Orthodox Church under the orbit of the Roman Catholic Church. Ivan remained faithful to his orthodoxy, however, and used the marriage to the Byzantine princess to buttress the prestige and power of the office of the Muscovite ruler. To underscore the importance of his new position, he adopted the double-headed black eagle of Byzantium to his family coat of arms, called himself autocrat, or samoderzhets an imitation of the Byzantine emperors and added the complex Byzantine court ceremonies to his own. Ivan was also the first Russian ruler to use the title “czar” (Latin caesar) and “sovereign of all Russia.” Moscow would henceforth claim to be the “Third Rome” after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the imperial idea became part of Russia’s messianic tradition to modern times.

In his internal policy, Ivan was largely responsible for the administrative system he introduced, which lasted until the seventeenth century. He reformed the local government by introducing the system known as kormlenie, or the “feeding” system. This administrative innovation called for the appointment of district and provincial governors, who were charged with collecting taxes and custom duties for the grand prince, running the army and local militia, and administering justice. The governors were practically supported by taxes they extracted from the local population, thus the meaning of the term “feeding.”

Ivan further suppressed and weakened the power of appanage princes, eliminated their separatist tendencies, and confiscated their lands. He replaced the hereditary aristocracy and created a new service system, known as pomestie. Under this system, the officials of the grand prince were granted land in return for military service. This new development led, in turn, to the formation of a new social class , the service gentry, or dvorianstvo. This service class became the core of Russia’s military power and the staunch supporter of autocracy.

Ivan reformed the executive organs of the central government. At the end of the fifteenth century, the first bureaus, known as prikazy, were established. The prikazy, run by secretaries, were in charge of the various departments of the grand prince’s government. Ivan also improved the system of justice. In 1497, he issued the first code of law, called Sudebnik. The code provided a uniform legal system and court procedure for the entire territory of the Muscovite realm. The law also outlined the rules and obligations of the peasants to their landlords, placing the first restrictions on their freedom to move about the land, as the growing gentry class demanded more peasant labor. These restrictions foreshadowed the beginning of serfdom in Russia.

During the last years of Ivan’s reign, the Russian Orthodox Church underwent a serious inner crisis. There was growing opposition to the vast accumulation of wealth and land by the church and by monasteries. A group, called strigolniki, a religious sect known as Judaizers, and a minority of churchmen called the Trans-Volga Elders or “Non-Possessors,” led by Nil Sorsky, criticized a range of practice within the church. These practices included the conduct of high prelates, monastic life, rituals, liturgy, and icon worship, as well as moral corruption, and simony. The majority of the conservative hierarchy of the church, led by Joseph of Volokolamsk defended the Church and monastic lands and condemned the reformers. Supporting the divine right of autocracy, they asked Ivan to suppress and persecute the reformers as heretics.

Ivan pondered for some time on the growing power of a church that appeared a rival of the state. He would have sided with the Trans-Volga Elders and secularized the church lands, but at the Church Council of 1503, he yielded to the demands of the Josephites and condemned the critics as heretics. At that point, Ivan was greatly concerned with family rivalry over the question of succession to the throne. He yielded to his wife, Sophia, and bestowed on his son Vasily the title of grand prince and asked the boyars to swear allegiance to him. In the meantime, the khanate of Kazan broke away from Moscow’s subservience, and the Lithuanian War ended in 1503 rather inconclusively, as Ivan failed to recover all the Russian historical lands in the West. Two years later, on October 27, 1505, Ivan died at the age of sixty-five, unlamented and apparently unloved by his own people. He was succeeded by his son Vasily.

Significance

Ivan the Great was an outstanding ruler. His reign marked a turning point in the history of Russia from the medieval to the modern age. He created modern Russia. By gathering the Russian lands around the principality of Moscow, Ivan strengthened the power of the central government and increased the role and prestige of the Muscovite state and its ruler, both at home and abroad. Indeed, Ivan’s diplomatic, political, military, and administrative achievements were comparable to those of his contemporaries Louis IX of France, Henry VII of England, and Ferdinand II and Isabella I of Spain.

Ivan was the first to encourage economic and cultural relations with the West and invited foreign craftspeople and artisans to Moscow, among them the noted Italian architect Aristotle Fioravanti, who built the famous Assumption (Uspenski) Cathedral in the Kremlin and other Italian-style palaces. Contacts with the Europeans convinced Ivan that Russia could learn from the West and that Russia could borrow its technical knowledge in order to strengthen its new position and compete successfully with other states. At the same time, Ivan protected and defended the Orthodox faith from Roman Catholicism and made the institution of the church the loyal supporter and advocate of Russian autocracy. In more ways than one, Ivan’s accomplishments determined the course that Russia was to follow. He was the first to forge the great beginnings of Russia, which was destined to become a great European power. His appellation of “the Great” is deserved.

Bibliography

Fennel, J. L. I. “The Attitude of the Josephians and the Trans-Volga Elders to the Heresy of the Judaisers.” Slavonic and East European Review 29 (June, 1951): 486-509. An inquiry into the different views of supporters of Sanin and the reformers of Sorsky toward the religious sect of the Judaizers.

Fennel, J. L. I. Ivan the Great of Moscow. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1962. The most complete and detailed study of all aspects of Ivan’s reign in any language. The author emphasizes Ivan’s foreign policy, diplomatic methods, and military campaigns in the Russo-Lithuanian War. Contains an extensive and valuable bibliography.

Grey, Ian. Ivan III and the Unification of Russia. New York: Collier, 1964. This is a well-written, detailed biography by a writer and biographer whose other work includes an account of Ivan the Terrible. Discusses the process of the unification of the Russian lands under the Muscovite princes, the wars and military campaigns against domestic and foreign enemies, and the emergence of the grand prince of Moscow as the leader of a strong and unified Russian state. Contains an index and brief bibliography.

Hunczak, Taras, ed. Russian Imperialism from Ivan the Great to the Revolution. Reprint. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2000. Anthology of essays detailing the territorial expansion and imperial aspirations of Russia from the late fifteenth century to the early twentieth century. Includes maps, bibliographic references, and index.

Ostrowski, Donald. Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304-1589. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. A history of the development of Muscovy and the Russian state that focuses on its relationship to and interactions with other cultures, especially those of the Mongols. Looks at the extent to which external secular and religious practices were absorbed into, modified, or incorporated by Russian religious and political institutions, and the ways in which cross-cultural influence shaped the nation inherited and consolidated by Ivan. Includes glossary, chronology, bibliography, and index.

Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. A History of Russia. 6th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Places Ivan’s rule in the broader context of the formation of the Russian state. Includes photographic plates, illustrations, maps, bibliography, and index.

Soloviev, Sergei M. History of Russia: The Reign of Ivan III the Great. Edited and translated by John D. Windhausen. Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, 1979. A very important study of Ivan’s reign by a great, “classic” Russian historian. Soloviev discusses Ivan’s campaigns against Novgorod the Great, the acquisition of the various Russian principalities, his wars with the Eastern khanates, and Sophia and her influence in Russia.

Soloviev, Sergei M. History of Russia: Russian Society in the Age of Ivan III. Translated and edited by John D. Windhausen. Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, 1979. A continuation of the previous work. Includes chapters on Ivan’s wars with Lithuania and Livonia and a discussion of Russian society under Ivan.

Vernadsky, George. Russia at the Dawn of the Modern Age. Vol. 4 in A History of Russia. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1959. The most complete account and interpretation of Ivan’s reign by an expert on the history of Russia. Vernadsky argues that Sophia had little influence in the court or on Ivan. Contains an extensive bibliography of Russian works.