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What tipped Ivan over the edge and turned him from a reasonable ruler into a full-blown tyrant were two events that both took place in 1558 and 1560. The first was the betrayal of his great friend Prince Kurbsky.
Jul 22, 2024 · Ivan the Terrible, a medieval Russian ruler, earned his foreboding nickname through horrifying repressions and costly wars. Initially a peaceful and progressive leader, Ivan later became an autocrat who murdered thousands of boyars and civilians to consolidate power.
- Nathan Chandler
Ivan IV Vasilyevich (Russian: Иван IV Васильевич; [d] 25 August 1530 – 28 March [O.S. 18 March] 1584), commonly known as Ivan the Terrible, [e] was Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1533 to 1547, and the first Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia from 1547 until his death in 1584. [3]
- Overview
- Early life
- Early reforms
- The Livonian War
Ivan’s father died when he was three, and his mother died—possibly by poison—before his eighth birthday. Ivan’s formative years would be spent as a pawn in the struggles between rival groups of aristocrats.
What was Ivan the Terrible’s family like?
Ivan had at least six wives—including five in a period of just nine years—and his marriages frequently ended in the poisoning or imprisonment of his spouse. He murdered his son Ivan in a fit of rage and savagely kicked Ivan's pregnant wife, causing her to miscarry. These actions virtually guaranteed the demise of the Rurik dynasty.
How did Ivan the Terrible change the world?
Ivan used terror to centralize the Russian state, and his disastrous involvement in the Livonian War nearly bankrupted his newly established empire. He also promoted the Orthodox Church and oriented Russian foreign policy toward Europe.
Where is Ivan the Terrible buried?
Ivan was the son of Grand Prince Vasily III of Moscow and his second wife, Yelena Glinskaya. He was to become the penultimate representative of the Rurik dynasty. On December 4, 1533, immediately after his father’s death, the three-year-old Ivan was proclaimed grand prince of Moscow. His mother ruled in Ivan’s name until her death (allegedly by poi...
On January 16, 1547, Ivan was crowned “tsar and grand prince of all Russia.” The title tsar was derived from the Latin title caesar and was translated by Ivan’s contemporaries as “emperor.” In February 1547 Ivan married Anastasia Romanovna, a great-aunt of the future first tsar of the Romanov dynasty.
Since 1542 Ivan had been greatly influenced by the views of the metropolitan of Moscow, Makari, who encouraged the young tsar in his desire to establish a Christian state based on the principles of justice. Ivan’s government soon embarked on a wide program of reforms and of the reorganization of both central and local administration. Church councils summoned in 1547 and 1549 strengthened and systematized the church’s affairs, affirming its Orthodoxy and canonizing a large number of Russian saints. In 1549 the first zemski sobor was summoned to meet in an advisory capacity—this was a national assembly composed of boyars, clergy, and some elected representatives of the new service gentry. In 1550 a new, more detailed legal code was drawn up that replaced one dating from 1497. Russia’s central administration was also reorganized into departments, each responsible for a specific function of the state. The conditions of military service were improved, the armed forces were reorganized, and the system of command altered so that commanders were appointed on merit rather than simply by virtue of their noble birth. The government also introduced extensive self-government, with district administrators elected by the local gentry.
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One object of the reforms was to limit the powers of the hereditary aristocracy of princes and boyars (who held their estates on a hereditary basis) and promote the interests of the service gentry, who held their landed estates solely as compensation for service to the government and who were thus dependent on the tsar. Ivan apparently aimed at forming a class of landed gentry that would owe everything to the sovereign. All the reforms took place under the aegis of the so-called “Chosen Council,” an informal advisory body in which the leading figures were the tsar’s favourites Aleksey Adashev and the priest Silvestr. The council’s influence waned and then disappeared in the early 1560s, however, after the death of Ivan’s first wife and of Makari, by which time Ivan’s views and his entourage had changed. Ivan’s first wife, Anastasia, died in 1560, and only two male heirs by her, Ivan (born 1554) and Fyodor (born 1557), survived the rigors of medieval childhood.
Russia was at war for the greater part of Ivan’s reign. Muscovite rulers had long feared incursions by the Tatars, and in 1547–48 and 1549–50 unsuccessful campaigns were undertaken against the hostile khanate of Kazan, on the Volga River. In 1552, after lengthy preparations, the tsar set out for Kazan, and the Russian army then succeeded in taking the town by assault. In 1556 the khanate of Astrakhan, located at the mouth of the Volga, was annexed without a fight. From that moment onward, the Volga became a Russian river, and the trade route to the Caspian Sea was rendered safe.
With both banks of the Volga now secured, Ivan prepared for a campaign to force an exit to the sea, a traditional concern of landlocked Russia. Ivan felt that trade with Europe depended on free access to the Baltic and decided to turn his attention westward. In 1558 he went to war in an attempt to establish Russian rule over Livonia (in present-day...
- Richard Bevan
- He had a difficult childhood. When Ivan was just 3 years old his father, Vasili III, died from disease, leaving Ivan’s mother, Elena Glinskaya, as regent.
- He was never expected to rule. Ivan the Terrible was never expected to rule. His poor health as a youth, coupled with the perceived mental failings of his deaf brother, Yuri Vasilievich, meant that the ruling elite and politicians ignored him as a contender for the throne, neglecting his wellbeing after his mother Elena died.
- He achieved an important victory over Kazan. When Ivan was crowned tsar, the hostile khanate of Kazan sat on the fringes of the tsar’s power and was seen as a threat.
- He created Russia’s first secret police. Ivan created the first political and feared secret police in the history of Russia, called the Oprichniki. This army consisted of around 6,000 men dressed in black, who rode black horses and drove in black carriages to instil fear.
Ivan was responsible for involving Russia in prolonged and mostly disastrous wars against Poland and Sweden but, perhaps his biggest crime was his reign of terror against the hereditary nobility. On top of all this, he also beat his pregnant daughter-in-law and murdered his only son.
Jul 11, 2024 · Consolidating more power in the region than any ruler had ever seen before, Ivan Vasilyevich was known for waging bloody wars against his enemies and massacres against his own people. He could be especially brutal toward his family and even killed his own son during one of his infamous rages.
