Ivan the Terrible

The 1560s brought to Russia hardships that led to a dramatic change of Ivan's policies. Russia was devastated by a combination of drought, famine, unsuccessful wars against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Tatar invasions, and the sea-trading blockade carried out by the Swedes, the Poles, and the Hanseatic League. His first wife, Anastasia Romanovna, died in 1560, which was suspected to be a poisoning. The personal tragedy deeply hurt Ivan and is thought to have affected his personality, if not his mental health. At the same time, one of Ivan's advisors, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, defected to the Lithuanians, took command of the Lithuanian troops and devastated the Russian region of Velikiye Luki. This series of treasons made Ivan paranoically suspicious of nobility.

The Oprichniki by Nikolai Nevrev (1888). The painting shows the last minutes of boyarin Feodorov, who was arrested for treason. To mock his alleged ambitions on the tsar's title, the nobleman was given tsar's regalia before his execution.

On 3 December 1564, Ivan departed Moscow for Aleksandrova Sloboda, where he sent two letters in which he announced his abdication because of the alleged embezzlement and treason of the aristocracy and the clergy. The boyar court was unable to rule in Ivan's absence and feared the wrath of the Muscovite citizens. A boyar envoy departed for Aleksandrova Sloboda to beg Ivan to return to the throne.[33][34] Ivan agreed to return on condition of being granted absolute power. He demanded the right to condemn and execute traitors and confiscate their estates without interference from the boyar council or church. Ivan decreed the creation of the oprichnina.[35]

Alexsandrova Sloboda was a separate territory within the borders of Russia, mostly in the territory of the former Novgorod Republic in the north. Ivan held exclusive power over the territory. The Boyar Council ruled the zemshchina ('land'), the second division of the state. Ivan also recruited a personal guard known as the Oprichniki. Originally, it numbered 1000.[34][36] The oprichniki were headed by Malyuta Skuratov. One known oprichnik was the German adventurer Heinrich von Staden. The oprichniki enjoyed social and economic privileges under the oprichnina. They owed their allegiance and status to Ivan, not heredity or local bonds.[34]

The first wave of persecutions targeted primarily the princely clans of Russia, notably the influential families of Suzdal. Ivan executed, exiled or forcibly tonsured prominent members of the boyar clans on questionable accusations of conspiracy. Among those who were executed were the Metropolitan Philip and the prominent warlord Alexander Gorbaty-Shuisky. In 1566, Ivan extended the oprichnina to eight central districts. Of the 12,000 nobles, 570 became oprichniki and the rest were expelled.[37]

Under the new political system, the oprichniki were given large estates but, unlike the previous landlords, could not be held accountable for their actions. The men "took virtually all the peasants possessed, forcing them to pay 'in one year as much as [they] used to pay in ten.'"[38] This degree of oppression resulted in increasing cases of peasants fleeing, which, in turn, reduced the overall production. The price of grain increased ten-fold.

Conditions under the Oprichnina were worsened by the 1570 epidemic, a plague that killed 10,000 people in Novgorod and 600 to 1,000 daily in Moscow. During the grim conditions of the epidemic, a famine and the ongoing Livonian War, Ivan grew suspicious that noblemen of the wealthy city of Novgorod were planning to defect and to place the city itself into the control of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A Novgorod citizen Petr Volynets warned the tsar about the alleged conspiracy, which modern historians believe to be false. In 1570, Ivan ordered the oprichniki to raid the city. The oprichniki burned and pillaged Novgorod and the surrounding villages, and the city has never regained its former prominence.[39]

Casualty figures vary greatly from different sources. The First Pskov Chronicle estimates the number of victims at 60,000.[39][40][41] According to the Third Novgorod Chronicle, the massacre lasted for five weeks. The massacre of Novgorod consisted of men, women and children who were tied to sleighs and run into the freezing waters of the Volkhov River, which Ivan ordered on the basis of unproved accusations of treason. He then tortured its inhabitants and killed thousands in a pogrom. The archbishop was also hunted to death.[42] Almost every day, 500 or 600 people were killed or drowned, but the official death toll named 1,500 of Novgorod's "big" people (nobility) and mentioned only about the same number of "smaller" people. Many modern researchers estimate the number of victims to range from 2,000 to 3,000 since after the famine and epidemics of the 1560s, the population of Novgorod most likely did not exceed 10,000–20,000.[43] Many survivors were deported elsewhere.

The Oprichnina did not live long after the sack of Novgorod. During the 1571–72 Russo-Crimean War, the oprichniki failed to prove themselves worthy against a regular army. In 1572, Ivan abolished the Oprichnina and disbanded his oprichniki.

In 1575, Ivan once again pretended to resign from his title and proclaimed Simeon Bekbulatovich, his statesman of Tatar origin, the new Grand Prince of All Rus'. Simeon reigned as a figurehead leader for about a year. According to the English envoy Giles Fletcher, the Elder, Simeon acted under Ivan's instructions to confiscate all of the lands that belonged to monasteries, and Ivan pretended to disagree with the decision. When the throne was returned to Ivan in 1576, he returned some of the confiscated land and kept the rest.

Ivan the Terrible Showing His Treasures to Jerome Horsey by Alexander Litovchenko (1875)

In 1547, Hans Schlitte, the agent of Ivan, recruited craftsmen in Germany for work in Russia. However, all of the craftsmen were arrested in Lübeck at the request of Poland and Livonia. The German merchant companies ignored the new port built by Ivan on the River Narva in 1550 and continued to deliver goods in the Baltic ports owned by Livonia. Russia remained isolated from sea trade.

Ivan established close ties with the Kingdom of England. Russian-English relations can be traced to 1551, when the Muscovy Company was formed by Richard Chancellor, Sebastian Cabot, Sir Hugh Willoughby and several London merchants. In 1553, Chancellor sailed to the White Sea and continued overland to Moscow, where he visited Ivan's court. Ivan opened up the White Sea and the port of Arkhangelsk to the company and granted it privilege of trading throughout his reign without paying the standard customs fees.[44]

With the use of English merchants, Ivan engaged in a long correspondence with Elizabeth I of England. While the queen focused on commerce, Ivan was more interested in a military alliance.[45] During his troubled relations with the boyars, Ivan even asked her for a guarantee to be granted asylum in England if his rule was jeopardised. Elizabeth agreed if he provided for himself during his stay.[46]

Ivan corresponded with overseas Orthodox leaders. In response to a letter of Patriarch Joachim of Alexandria asking him for financial assistance for the Saint Catherine's Monastery, in the Sinai Peninsula, which had suffered by the Turks, Ivan sent in 1558 a delegation to Egypt Eyalet by Archdeacon Gennady, who, however, died in Constantinople before he could reach Egypt. From then on, the embassy was headed by Smolensk merchant Vasily Poznyakov, whose delegation visited Alexandria, Cairo and Sinai; brought the patriarch a fur coat and an icon sent by Ivan and left an interesting account of his two-and-a-half years of travels.[47]

Ivan was the first ruler to begin cooperating with the free cossacks on a large scale. Relations were handled through the Posolsky Prikaz diplomatic department; Moscow sent them money and weapons, while tolerating their freedoms, to draw them into an alliance against the Tatars. The first evidence of cooperation surfaces in 1549 when Ivan ordered the Don Cossacks to attack Crimea.[48]

Ivan IV under the walls of Kazan by Pyotr Korovin (1890)

While Ivan was a child, armies of the Kazan Khanate repeatedly raided northeastern Russia.[49] In the 1530s, the Crimean khan formed an offensive alliance with Safa Giray of Kazan, his relative. When Safa Giray invaded Muscovy in December 1540, the Russians used Qasim Tatars to contain him. After his advance was stalled near Murom, Safa Giray was forced to withdraw to his own borders.

The reverses undermined Safa Giray's authority in Kazan. A pro-Russian party, represented by Shahgali, gained enough popular support to make several attempts to take over the Kazan throne. In 1545, Ivan mounted an expedition to the River Volga to show his support for the pro-Russians.

In 1551, the tsar sent his envoy to the Nogai Horde, and they promised to maintain neutrality during the impending war. The Ar begs and Udmurts submitted to Russian authority as well. In 1551, the wooden fort of Sviyazhsk was transported down the Volga from Uglich all the way to Kazan. It was used as the Russian place d'armes during the decisive campaign of 1552.

On 16 June 1552, Ivan led a strong Russian army towards Kazan. The last siege of the Tatar capital commenced on 30 August. Under the supervision of Prince Alexander Gorbaty-Shuisky, the Russians used battering rams and a siege tower, undermining and 150 cannons. The Russians also had the advantage of efficient military engineers. The city's water supply was blocked and the walls were breached. Kazan finally fell on 2 October, its fortifications were razed and much of the population massacred. Many Russian prisoners and slaves were released. Ivan celebrated his victory over Kazan by building several churches with oriental features, most famously Saint Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow. The fall of Kazan was only the beginning of a series of so-called "Cheremis wars". The attempts of the Moscow government to gain a foothold on the Middle Volga kept provoking uprisings of local peoples, which was suppressed only with great difficulty. In 1557, the First Cheremis War ended, and the Bashkirs accepted Ivan's authority.

In campaigns in 1554 and 1556, Russian troops conquered the Astrakhan Khanate at the mouths of the Volga River, and the new Astrakhan fortress was built in 1558 by Ivan Vyrodkov to replace the old Tatar capital. The annexation of the Tatar khanates meant the conquest of vast territories, access to large markets and control of the entire length of the Volga River. Subjugating Muslim khanates turned Muscovy into an empire.[50]

After his conquest of Kazan, Ivan is said to have ordered the crescent, a symbol of Islam, to be placed underneath the Christian cross on the domes of Orthodox Christian churches.[51][52][53]

In 1568, Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmet Paşa, who was the real power in the administration of the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim, initiated the first encounter between the Ottoman Empire and its future northern rival. The results presaged the many disasters to come. A plan to unite the Volga and Don by a canal was detailed in Constantinople. In the summer of 1569, a large force under Kasim Paşa of 1,500 Janissaries, 2,000 Spakhs and a few thousand Azaps and Akıncıs were sent to lay siege to Astrakhan and to begin the canal works while an Ottoman fleet besieged Azov.

In early 1570, Ivan's ambassadors concluded a treaty at Constantinople that restored friendly relations between the Sultan and the Tsar.

Ioannes Basilius Magnus Imperator Russiae, Dux Moscoviae, by Abraham Ortelius (1574)

In 1558, Ivan launched the Livonian War in an attempt to gain access to the Baltic Sea and its major trade routes. The war ultimately proved unsuccessful and stretched on for 24 years and engaging the Kingdom of Sweden, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Teutonic Knights of Livonia. The prolonged war had nearly destroyed the economy, and the Oprichnina had thoroughly disrupted the government. Meanwhile, the Union of Lublin had united the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Kingdom of Poland, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth acquired an energetic leader, Stephen Báthory, who was supported by Russia's southern enemy, the Ottoman Empire. Ivan's realm was being squeezed by two of the time's great powers.

After rejecting peace proposals from his enemies, Ivan had found himself in a difficult position by 1579. The displaced refugees fleeing the war compounded the effects of the simultaneous drought, and the exacerbated war engendered epidemics causing much loss of life.

Báthory then launched a series of offensives against Muscovy in the campaign seasons of 1579–81 to try to cut the Kingdom of Livonia from Muscovy. During his first offensive in 1579, he retook Polotsk with 22,000 men. During the second, in 1580, he took Velikie Luki with a 29,000-strong force. Finally, he began the Siege of Pskov in 1581 with a 100,000-strong army. Narva, in Estonia, was reconquered by Sweden in 1581.

Unlike Sweden and Poland, Frederick II of Denmark had trouble continuing the fight against Muscovy. He came to an agreement with John III of Sweden in 1580 to transfer the Danish titles of Livonia to John III. Muscovy recognised Polish–Lithuanian control of Livonia only in 1582. After Magnus von Lyffland, the brother of Fredrick II and a former ally of Ivan, died in 1583, Poland invaded his territories in the Duchy of Courland, and Frederick II decided to sell his rights of inheritance. Except for the island of Saaremaa, Denmark had left Livonia by 1585.

Ivan's throne (ivory, metal, wood)

In the later years of Ivan's reign, the southern borders of Muscovy were disturbed by Crimean Tatars, mainly to capture slaves.[54] (See also Slavery in the Ottoman Empire.) Khan Devlet I Giray of Crimea repeatedly raided the Moscow region. In 1571, the 40,000-strong Crimean and Turkish army launched a large-scale raid. The ongoing Livonian War made Moscow's garrison to number only 6,000 and could not even delay the Tatar approach. Unresisted, Devlet devastated unprotected towns and villages around Moscow and caused the Fire of Moscow (1571). Historians have estimated the number of casualties of the fire to be 10,000 to 80,000.

To buy peace from Devlet Giray, Ivan was forced to relinquish his claims on Astrakhan for the Crimean Khanate, but the proposed transfer was only a diplomatic maneuver and was never actually completed. The defeat angered Ivan. Between 1571 and 1572, preparations were made upon his orders. In addition to Zasechnaya cherta, innovative fortifications were set beyond the Oka River, which defined the border.

The following year, Devlet launched another raid on Moscow, now with a numerous horde,[55] reinforced by Turkish janissaries equipped with firearms and cannons. The Russian army, led by Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky, was half the size but was experienced and supported by streltsy, equipped with modern firearms and gulyay-gorods. In addition, it was no longer artificially divided into two parts (the "oprichnina" and "zemsky"), unlike during the 1571 defeat.[56] On 27 July, the horde broke through the defensive line along the Oka River and moved towards Moscow. The Russian troops did not have time to intercept it, but the regiment of Prince Khvorostinin vigorously attacked the Tatars from the rear. The Khan stopped only 30 km from Moscow and brought down his entire army back on the Russians, who managed to take up defense near the village of Molodi. After several days of heavy fighting, Mikhail Vorotynsky with the main part of the army flanked the Tatars and dealt a sudden blow on 2 August, and Khvorostinin made a sortie from the fortifications. The Tatars were completely defeated and fled.[57] The next year, Ivan, who had sat out in distant Novgorod during the battle, killed Mikhail Vorotynsky.[58]

During Ivan's reign, Russia started a large-scale exploration and colonization of Siberia. In 1555, shortly after the conquest of Kazan, the Siberian khan Yadegar and the Nogai Horde, under Khan Ismail, pledged their allegiance to Ivan in the hope that he would help them against their opponents. However, Yadegar failed to gather the full sum of tribute that he proposed to the tsar and so Ivan did nothing to save his inefficient vassal. In 1563, Yadegar was overthrown and killed by Khan Kuchum, who denied any tribute to Moscow.

In 1558, Ivan gave the Stroganov merchant family the patent for colonising "the abundant region along the Kama River", and, in 1574, lands over the Ural Mountains along the rivers Tura and Tobol. The family also received permission to build forts along the Ob River and the Irtysh River. Around 1577, the Stroganovs engaged the Cossack leader Yermak Timofeyevich to protect their lands from attacks of the Siberian Khan Kuchum.

In 1580, Yermak started his conquest of Siberia. With some 540 Cossacks, he started to penetrate territories that were tributary to Kuchum. Yermak pressured and persuaded the various family-based tribes to change their loyalties and to become tributaries of Russia. Some agreed voluntarily because they were offered better terms than with Kuchum, but others were forced. He also established distant forts in the newly conquered lands. The campaign was successful, and the Cossacks managed to defeat the Siberian army in the Battle of Chuvash Cape, but Yermak still needed reinforcements. He sent an envoy to Ivan the Terrible with a message that proclaimed Yermak-conquered Siberia to be part of Russia to the dismay of the Stroganovs, who had planned to keep Siberia for themselves. Ivan agreed to reinforce the Cossacks with his streltsy, but the detachment sent to Siberia died of starvation without any benefit. The Cossacks were defeated by the local peoples, Yermak died and the survivors immediately left Siberia. Only in 1586, two years after the death of Ivan, would the Russians manage to gain a foothold in Siberia by founding the city of Tyumen.

Tsar Ivan IV admires his sixth wife Vasilisa Melentyeva. 1875 painting by Grigory Sedov.

Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan. 1885 painting by Ilya Repin

Ivan the Terrible had at least six (possibly eight) wives, although only four of them were recognised by the Church. Three of them were allegedly poisoned by his enemies or by rivaling aristocratic families who wanted to promote their daughters to be his brides.[10]

1. Anastasia Romanovna (in 1547–1560, death):
   • Tsarevna Anna Ivanovna (10 August 1548 – 20 July 1550)
   • Tsarevna Maria Ivanovna (17 March 1551 – young)
   • Tsarevich Dmitri Ivanovich (October 1552 – 26 June 1553)
   • Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich (28 March 1554 – 19 November 1581)
   • Tsarevna Eudoxia Ivanovna (26 February 1556 – June 1558)
   • Tsar Feodor I of Russia (31 May 1557 – 6 January 1598)
2. Maria Temryukovna (in 1561–1569, death):
   • Tsarevich Vasili Ivanovich (21 March 1563 – 3 May 1563)
3. Marfa Sobakina (28 October – 13 November 1571, death)
4. Anna Koltovskaya (in 1572, sent to monastery). This was the last of his church-authorized weddings. She was later canonized as Saint Daria (locally-venerated saint).[59]
5. Anna Vasilchikova (in 1575/76, sent to monastery)
6. Maria Nagaya (from 1580), widow:
   • Tsarevich Dmitri Ivanovich (19 October 1582 – 15 May 1591) He was later canonized as Saint Right-Believing Demetrius of Uglich and Moscow, tsarevich.[60]

1. Vasilisa Melentyeva (?–1579) (existence disputed)
2. Maria Dolgorukaya (1580) (existence disputed)

In 1581, Ivan beat his pregnant daughter-in-law, Yelena Sheremeteva, for wearing immodest clothing, which may have caused her to suffer a miscarriage. Upon learning of the altercation, his second son, also named Ivan, engaged in a heated argument with his father. The argument ended with the elder Ivan fatally striking his son in the head with his pointed staff.[61] The event is depicted in the famous painting by Ilya Repin, Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on Friday, 16 November 1581, better known as Ivan the Terrible killing his son.

Ivan was a poet and a composer of considerable talent. His Orthodox liturgical hymn, "Stichiron No. 1 in Honor of St. Peter", and fragments of his letters were put into music by the Soviet composer Rodion Shchedrin. The recording, the first Soviet-produced CD, was released in 1988 to mark the millennium of Christianity in Russia.[62][63]

D. S. Mirsky called Ivan "a pamphleteer of genius".[64] The letters are often the only existing source on Ivan's personality and provide crucial information on his reign, but Harvard professor Edward L. Keenan has argued that the letters are 17th-century forgeries. That contention, however, has not been widely accepted, and most other scholars, such as John Fennell and Ruslan Skrynnikov, have continued to argue for their authenticity. Recent archival discoveries of 16th-century copies of the letters strengthen the argument for their authenticity.[65][66]