Vasily III

Grand prince of Moscow (r. 1505-1533)

• Born: Possibly March 25 or 26, 1479
• Birthplace: Moscow (now in Russia)
• Died: December 3, 1533
• Place of death: Moscow (now in Russia)

Vasily III successfully continued the process of expanding and centralizing political power in Moscow, building on the efforts of his predecessors to bring together independent Russian principalities. He increased Russia’s territorial size through economic pressure, diplomacy, and wars, and he left a strong state to his son Ivan the Terrible.

Early Life

Vasily (vehs-YEEL-yi) was the son of Ivan the Great and Sophia Palaeologus , Ivan’s second wife. Vasily was not expected to become the ruling prince of Moscow, but family disputes and the premature death of his stepbrother, who was next in line of succession, gave Vasily the opportunity to vie successfully for power. In 1502, Ivan designated Vasily next in line as grand prince of Moscow.

Information is limited about Vasily’s personal life, but he could read and write, a talent unusual for that period. He is described as able and intelligent but also willing to use violence and intimidation against domestic opponents. His firmness denied marriage rights to his brothers, but Vasily married twice. His first marriage, to Solomonia Saburova, which lasted more than two decades, did not produce a son, so he divorced Solomonia in 1525. In 1526, he married Elena Glinskaya, and they had two sons: Ivan and Yuri. The older son became Czar Ivan IV, who ruled Russia with an iron hand, earning him the epithet “Ivan the Terrible .”

Life’s Work

The focus of Vasily III’s foreign policy continued his father’s efforts to expand the borders of the principality of Muscovy to a size that justified changing the country’s name from Muscovy to Russia. Competition with Russia’s western neighbors, Lithuania and Poland, was a common feature during Vasily’s reign. A Russian victory annexed in 1514 the important Lithuanian city of Smolensk to the west. Another territorial goal was to reach the Baltic Sea to the northwest.

Vasily opposed rival Russian princes who ruled small regional principalities, which had given nominal allegiance to Moscow but still maintained a degree of economic and foreign policy independence. Through intimidation and diplomacy, Vasily succeeded in absorbing several outlying regions.

Farther to the south, Vasily faced the Tatars in the Crimea region, but he failed to decisively defeat them, as they later reached the environs of Moscow on two occasions and caused considerable chaos in the center of the Russian state. On the eastern border, he faced the Tatars in the Kazan area on the Volga River, fighting three campaigns to bring it under Moscow’s control. On other occasions, he used diplomacy and money to obtain Tatar support for his military campaigns against other opponents.

Vasily’s primary objective was to strengthen Moscow and consolidate its authority over all territories within the Russian domain. In addition, he wanted to establish a credible military force to deal with his enemies to the west, south, and east.

Throughout his rule, Vasily continued Moscow’s contacts with Europe, with the goal of borrowing and utilizing the technical skills of the more advanced West to modernize his nation. He recruited Europeans to live in Moscow and to share their expertise.

Like his father, Vasily sought to increase his ruling power and to reduce the influence of the feudal and powerful land-owning nobles, the boyars. He had to undercut their authority and reduce their influence without creating unified opposition against him. The boyar (noble) Duma, an advisory council, still existed to offer advice to the ruler, but Vasily relied on the council less and less.

As the Russian nation expanded in size, he also provided land and authority to his followers in the pomestie system, which bound them closer to the national ruler. These loyal members of his administration steadily increased in power as boyar authority gradually declined.

During this period, as in prior centuries, the Russian Orthodox Church was an important source of influence and guidance for the nation and its population. Moscow’s rulers used this institution to unify and centralize the state further. Vasily, even before assuming power, defended and supported the Russian Orthodox Church as an essential bulwark that helped to hold Russia together. He cooperated with religious leaders who opposed rival religious movements, and their support aided Vasily’s efforts to create a more autocratic state under his rule in Moscow.

Religious opponents to the traditional Orthodox leadership, and consequently to Vasily as the Russian ruler, included the Trans-Volga Elders, who criticized the extensive wealth of the established church as being incompatible with Christian doctrine and behavior. The traditional religious leaders understandably opposed relinquishing their massive authority and extensive possessions. Joseph of Volokolamsk was a prominent Orthodox theologian who asserted that the church needed these economic resources to carry out its Christian mission; he led the Orthodox Church’s opposition to the Trans-Volga Elders. Vasily supported Joseph and his followers (the Josephites) in this bitter religious confrontation, which maintained the status quo.

Another significant element drawing state and church closer together in this period was the concept of the Third Rome. This theory asserted that Moscow was the leader of the true Christian faith, after the fall of ancient Rome and Constantinople as centers of the faith in prior centuries. This theological argument portrayed the Russian rulers as the most important defenders of Christianity, and hence the Russian Orthodox Church favored the increase of Moscow’s political authority. Vasily took advantage of this theory to extend his influence.

Vasily, though, never became subservient to the Orthodox Church. Visitors described life at the royal court at the Kremlin in Moscow as cultured and impressive, even with secular overtones. Occasionally, Vasily would don Western-style clothing, and he trimmed his beard, radical departures that offended social and religious traditionalists.

Despite Vasily’s achievements, Russia under his rule was not a just and democratic nation and society. His extensive and autocratic government, the continued power of the boyar class, and the overwhelming role of the Orthodox Church dominated millions of poor Russians whose quality of life could only be marginal at best. Serfdom, made more legally binding over several centuries (especially expanded during the reign of Vasily’s father, Ivan the Great), added to the oppressive social conditions in this period.

Significance

Nation building in Russia replicated a similar process taking place in England, France, and Spain at about the same time. Ruling between a famous father (Ivan the Great) and a powerful son (Ivan the Terrible), Vasily III is given less attention than his illustrious relatives. Nonetheless, his leadership significantly increased Russia’s territorial growth. It also continued the important trend toward consolidating power in the hands of autocratic Russian rulers.

Vasily’s diplomatic and economic contacts with Europe helped to modernize his administration, and the contacts led to greater efficiency in guiding the Russian state.

As grand prince of Muscovy, with Moscow as its capital, Vasily III ruled Russia with energy and success. He occasionally used the word “czar” (from the Latin “caesar”) to describe his political position and power. This title became a source of authority that his son Ivan the Terrible institutionalized within fifteen years of his father’s death and lasted until the abolition of the Russian monarchy in the 1917 revolution.

Bibliography

Crummey, Robert O. The Formation of Muscovy, 1304-1613. New York: Longman, 1987. Traces Moscow’s emergence as the nucleus of the growing Russian state.

Duffy, James P., and Vincent L. Ricci. Czars: Russia’s Rulers for over One Thousand Years. New York: Facts on File, 1995. This comprehensive reference work describes Russia’s rulers from the tenth to the twentieth century.

Herberstein, Sigmund von. Description of Moscow and Muscovy. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1969. English translation of an important contemporary source, written by a German diplomat who served in Moscow during Vasily’s rule.

Kollmann, Nancy. S. Kinship and Politics: The Making of the Muscovite Political System, 1345-1547. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1987. Examines changes in the Russian administrative and governing system, tracing the interplay of boyar power with efforts to achieve more-centralized authority.

Payne, Robert, and Nikita Romanoff. Ivan the Terrible. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2002. Paperback reprint of a 1975 biography of Ivan the Terrible that includes coverage of Vasily’s impact on Russian government and daily life, which he passed on to his son.

Solovev, Sergei M. The Age of Vasili III. Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, 1976. English translation of a noted Russian historian’s extensive description and analysis of Russia during Vasily’s years in power.

Troyat, Henri. Ivan the Terrible. London: Phoenix Press, 2002. Paperback reprint of a 1984 biography of Ivan the Terrible. Includes an assessment of Vasily’s impact on the Russian government and nation.

Vernadsky, George. Russia at the Dawn of the Modern Age. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1959. Covers the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries to the end of Vasily’s reign. Includes discussion of domestic and foreign policies and the changes taking place in the growing Russian state.