Ivan the Terrible

Czar of Russia (r. 1547-1584)

• Born: August 25, 1530
• Birthplace: Moscow, Russia
• Died: March 18, 1584
• Place of death: Moscow, Russia

Of all Russian czars, Ivan contributed the most in giving shape to Russian autocracy as it would exist until the end of serfdom in 1861. He also conquered Kazan and Astrakhan, significantly reducing the Tatar threat and securing important trade routes in the Volga region, and took the first steps toward the incorporation of Siberia.

Early Life

Ivan (ee-VAHN) the Terrible was born in the Kremlin Palace in Moscow. His father, Vasily III , had married Ivan’s mother, Princess Elena Glinskaya, when his first wife failed to provide him an heir. Vasily died in 1533, leaving the three-year-old Ivan to be reared in the world of Kremlin politics, a world marked by violence, intrigues, and unashamed struggles for power among the hereditary nobles (boyar) and princely families. In order to forestall any threat to Ivan’s succession, especially from his two uncles, Ivan was immediately declared as the next ruler. Under Muscovite law and custom, it was his mother who now exercised power as the regent. Although the next five years, until Elena’s death in 1538, were normal years for Ivan, Kremlin politics were far from normal. Elena faced threats from her husband’s two brothers, forcing her to order their arrest and imprisonment. Even her own uncle, Mikhail Glinsky, on whom she had relied in the beginning, appeared too ambitious; he suffered the same fate as the others.

Elena’s death in 1538 opened a new chapter in young Ivan’s life. Within a week of his mother’s death, his nanny, Agrafena Chelyadina, who had provided him with loving care and affection, was taken away. The Kremlin now reverberated with intrigues and counterintrigues, especially those of two princely families, the Shuiskys and the Belskys. Power changed hands more than once. The first round went to the Shuiskys. Two brothers, Vasily and Ivan Shuisky, exercised power through the boyar Duma in succession. Ivan Shuisky in particular made a special point of neglecting and insulting both Ivan and his own brother. Ivan later recalled that Ivan Shuisky once “sat on a bench, leaning with his elbows on our father’s bed and with his legs on a chair, and he did not even incline his head towards us . . . nor was there any element of deference to be found in his attitude toward us.” Then, when power had passed to the Belskys and Ivan Shuisky was trying to regain it, Ivan had the horrifying experience of Shuisky’s men breaking into his bedchamber in the night in search of the metropolitan.

Ivan thus developed deep hatred for the boyars, especially for the Shuiskys, who once again controlled power. Andrey Shuisky, who became the leader of this group after Ivan Shuisky’s illness, imposed a reign of increased corruption and terror. Ivan, in a bold move in 1543, when he was only thirteen years old, ordered Prince Andrey to be arrested and brutally killed.

During these early years, Ivan not only witnessed cruel acts perpetrated around him that implanted fear and suspicion of boyars in his young heart but also engaged in such acts himself for fun and pleasure. Torturing all kinds of animals, riding through the Moscow streets knocking down the young and the old men, women, and children and engaging in orgies became his pastime.

Ivan, especially under the guidance of Metropolitan Makary, also read the Scriptures and became the first truly literate Russian ruler. Some scholars have cast doubt on this, challenging the authenticity of his correspondence with Prince Andrey Kurbsky after the defection of his once-trusted adviser to Lithuania, but most evidence suggests that Ivan became a well-read person. In Makary, Ivan also found support for his belief in his role as an absolute ruler whose power was derived from God.

Toward the end of 1546, when he was still sixteen, Ivan decided to have himself crowned as czar. He also decided to search for a bride from his own realm. Although his grandfather, Ivan III (Ivan the Great ), had used the title of czar, Ivan IV was the first to be so crowned in a glittering ceremony in Moscow on January 16, 1547. On February 3, he was married to Anastasia Romanovna Zakharina, of a boyar family. She was to provide him many years of happy married life and to serve as a calming influence on his impulsive personality.

Life’s Work

The first part of Ivan’s rule as Russia’s czar was marked by several important reforms. He hated the boyars but did not try to dismantle the boyar Duma at this time. Instead, he created a chosen council consisting of some of his close advisers that included Metropolitan Makary, Archpriest Silvester, and Aleksey Adashev, a member of the service-gentry class. He also called the zemskii sobor(assembly of the land), representing the boyars and the service gentry as well as the townspeople, the clergy, and some state peasants.

A major drawback that adversely affected the fighting capacity of the Russian army was the system known as mestnichestvo, by which the appointments to top positions were based on the birth and rank of various boyars, not on their ability to command and fight. As he had done with the boyar Duma, Ivan did not end the system but provided for exceptions in case of special military campaigns. He also created regular infantry detachments known as the streltsy, to be paid by the state and to serve directly under the czar, and he regularized the terms and conditions under which a nobleman was expected to serve in the army. These steps greatly enhanced the army’s fighting ability.

Some reforms in the system of local self-government were also undertaken in order to make it more efficient, especially for the purpose of tax collection. A collection and codification of laws resulted in the law code of 1550. A church council, the Hundred Chapters Council (for the hundred questions submitted to it), seriously undertook the question of reform in the Russian Orthodox Church . Ivan, though not successful in secularizing church lands, was able to limit the church’s power to acquire new lands which, in the future, could be done only with the czar’s consent.

This early period of reform saw the establishment of important trade links between Russia and England. In search of a northeastern passage to China, the English explorer Richard Chancellor found himself in the White Sea. Ivan warmly received him in Moscow and granted the English important trading privileges, hoping to acquire arms and support from the English against Ivan’s European adversaries in his drive to find a foothold on the Baltic coast.

The early reform period was also marked by important successes in foreign policy. Although the long Mongolian domination over Russia had come to an end during the reign of Ivan’s grandfather, Ivan the Great, the Mongolian khanates in the east and south still created problems. Their rulers undertook occasional raids against Moscow and the Muscovite territories. Ivan finally decided to undertake a military campaign to conquer the Kazan khanate in the upper Volga region. After some initial setbacks, he succeeded in capturing and annexing the whole khanate in 1557. While the Mongolian rule in Ivan III’s time had ended without a major fight, the bloody battle at Kazan, with heavy casualties on both sides, came as a sweet revenge for the Russians. Ivan followed this by conquering Astrakhan in the south, thus acquiring the whole Volga region that now provided access to the Caspian Sea.

At this midpoint in his reign, Ivan experienced some unusual developments that reinforced his suspicion and hatred for the boyars. The result was the start of one of the bloodiest chapters in Russian history, during which thousands of people were tortured and executed. During his brief but serious illness in 1553, Ivan had asked various princes and boyars to take an oath of loyalty to his infant son, Dmitry. To his surprise and horror, he found that not everyone was ready to do so, including some of his closest advisers such as Silvester. Then, a dispute arose over Ivan’s desire to engage in a war in the north to acquire territories on the Baltic coast from the Livonian Order of the German Knights. While Ivan decided to embark on the Livonian campaign in 1558, achieving some initial successes, the war was opposed by several members of the chosen council who noted the difficulties of fighting a two-front war. Finally, his beloved wife, Anastasia, died in 1560, removing a calming and restraining influence from his life.

Apparently deciding to destroy the power of the boyars once and for all, Ivan undertook a reign of terror. Some, like Adashev, were thrown in prison, where they died of torture and hunger. Others, like Prince Kurbsky, fled the country and joined Ivan’s enemies, further intensifying the czar’s suspicions about their loyalty. Ivan, in a well-planned move in December, 1564, suddenly decided to leave Moscow in full daylight with his belongings and to settle at nearby Alexandrovskaia Sloboda. In his message to the people of Moscow, he charged the boyars with disloyalty and treason but expressed faith in the ordinary people. As he had calculated, in asking him to return to Moscow, the people agreed to his condition that he should be allowed a free hand in punishing the boyars as well as in creating a separate state for himself that would be outside the jurisdiction of regular laws; this was to be known as Oprichnina.

Ivan took immediate steps to assign vast tracts of land in the Moscow region and other parts of Russia to the new autonomous state. As he did this, his objective seemed somewhat clearer. Much of the land belonged to the boyar families who were now forced to flee and seek land elsewhere. Ivan also selected a band of loyal guards, known as the oprichniki, whose number eventually rose to six thousand. They were assigned some of the newly vacated lands with the understanding that they would have the obligation to serve the czar. Thus, they became a part of the expanding service-gentry class.

While the aims of the Oprichnina seemed quite rational, what appeared incomprehensible was the excessive use of torture and murder by Ivan and his oprichniki. The job of the oprichniki was to clear the land of all possible traitors, but they themselves became a scourge of the land, killing and robbing innocent people. Anyone who criticized or opposed Ivan became his victim. Metropolitan Philip, who courageously castigated the czar for loosing these death squads on the Russian people, was thrown into a monastery and later strangled by one of Ivan’s men. Ivan’s cruelty, which bordered on insanity, was evident in the killings of thousands of innocent people that he personally undertook in Novgorod in 1570 on the suspicion that the territory was planning to defect to Lithuania.

In 1571, when the Crimean Tatars raided Moscow, the oprichniki failed to protect it. Instead, Moscow was saved when, in 1572, Russia’s regular forces inflicted a crushing defeat on the Tatar army. Ivan then decided to disband Oprichnina. The Livonian War , however, did not go well for Ivan. After twenty-five years of fighting, Russia appeared exhausted. When the war ended in 1583, the country had lost all the gains it had made in the initial stages of the war. Indeed, Ivan had stretched himself too far. The end of the Livonian War also marked the end of his reign, as he died in 1584.

Significance

Ivan the Terrible’s reign remains one of the most controversial eras in Russian history. There is no doubt that his achievements were many. The victory over Kazan, which Ivan memorialized in the construction of the magnificent St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, and the conquest of Astrakhan, made available the whole Volga region for Russian trade and, because of the exploits of the Cossack leader Yermak Timofey, started Russia on its march into Siberia. Ivan’s reforms, undertaken painstakingly and thoughtfully in the earlier period of his reign, provided for a more efficient civil administration and a better fighting force. Without these reforms, his victory over Kazan would not have been possible.

Even his struggle against the hereditary boyars and the resulting expansion of the service-gentry class, essential elements in the strengthening of Russian autocracy, constituted a continuation of the process that had already existed. What makes this period so puzzling is the excessive amount of force, including the use of inhumane torture, freely used by Ivan in order to weaken the power of the boyars. Providing a pathological interpretation, some historians find Ivan paranoid and his Oprichnina the work of a madman. Others, although acknowledging his excessive cruelty, see him not as a madman but as one who had lost his peace of mind and was haunted by an intense feeling of insecurity for himself and his family. Still others point to the fact that if Ivan used excessive force, it was not uncommon in a Europe dominated by the ideas of Niccolò Machiavelli. For them, Ivan, like some of his contemporaries, was a Renaissance prince. Whatever the final judgment may be, Ivan significantly expanded Russian frontiers and gave shape to a Russian autocracy that, in its essential contours, remained unchanged until the Great Reforms undertaken by Alexander II during the 1860’s.

Bibliography

Cherniavsky, M. “Ivan the Terrible as Renaissance Prince.” Slavic Review 27 (March, 1968): 195-211. This article argues that Ivan was no exception in using excessive force against his enemies in a Renaissance Europe dominated by Machiavellian ideas.

Grey, Ian. Ivan the Terrible. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1964. A popular biography that presents an uncritical portrait of Ivan the Terrible. Blame for much of Ivan’s cruelty is placed on his opponents. Contains a limited bibliography.

Keenan, Edward. The Kurbskii-Groznyi Apocrypha. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971. This book challenges the authenticity of Ivan’s correspondence with Prince Kurbsky. Keenan’s view remains controversial.

Kurbsky, A. M. The Correspondence Between Prince A. M. Kurbsky and Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, 1564-1579. Edited and translated by J. L. I. Fennell. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1955. An excellent translation of a valuable but controversial historical source.

Kurbsky, A. M. Prince A. M. Kurbsky’s History of Ivan IV. Edited and translated by J. L. I. Fennell. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1965. Written by Prince Kurbsky after his defection, the book describes the events from 1533 to the early 1570’s in a most critical manner. Though a valuable historical source, it is a highly partisan study of Ivan’s reign.

Myerson, Daniel. Blood and Splendor: The Lives of Five Tyrants, from Nero to Saddam Hussein. New York: Perennial, 2000. Short but gripping and fully realized biography of Ivan, in a collection that also portrays Nero, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein.

Pavlov, Andrei, and Maureen Perrie. Ivan the Terrible. London: Pearson/Longman, 2003. Major reassessment of Ivan’s reign seeks to do away with the stereotypes of Cold War-era historians and achieve a balanced and accurate appraisal of Ivan as neither an evil genius nor a wise and benevolent statesman. Argues that Ivan’s campaign of terror was motivated not merely by personal sadism but by a belief in the divine right of the monarch to punish treason on earth in a manner as extreme as the punishments of Hell. Includes maps, genealogical tables, bibliographic references, index.

Platonov, S. F. Ivan the Terrible. Edited and translated by Joseph L. Wieczynski. Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, 1974. An excellent translation of a work by a famous Russian historian of the old St. Petersburg school of Russian historiography, which emphasized facts in making historical interpretations. While Platonov does not accept the view of Ivan as paranoid, the book has an introductory part, “In Search of Ivan the Terrible,” by Richard Hellie, that does.

Shulman, Sol. Kings of the Kremlin: Russia and Its Leaders from Ivan the Terrible to Boris Yeltsin. London: Brassey’s, 2002. Ivan is the first of the major Russian leaders profiled in this history of the Kremlin. Includes photographic plates, illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.

Skrynnikov, Ruslan G. Ivan the Terrible. Edited and translated by Hugh F. Graham. Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, 1981. A serious and balanced study by a Soviet historian that presents Ivan and his Oprichnina in a nonideological framework. Contains a short bibliography of Russian-language books and articles.