The legendary library of Ivan the Terrible has been searched for for several centuries. Some firmly believe in its reality; others believe that it burned down long ago or was lost during the Time of Troubles; in the opinion of others, it was found long ago and priceless manuscripts were sold to major libraries, museums and archives. Which one is right? It is difficult to answer, while only one thing is clear - once this library actually existed.
Priceless library arrives in Moscow
At the beginning of the search for something very valuable and necessary, one must be sure that it exists, or at least can exist. This rule also applies to the legendary library of Ivan the Terrible, which has been unsuccessfully searched for for several centuries. Is there any reason to believe that the legendary library is not a myth, but a real treasure of enormous historical and cultural value?
It is known that there were three large libraries in Constantinople - Tsar, Patriarchal and Public. It was in the Tsar's library that unique ancient scrolls and manuscripts were kept, which, according to legend, migrated to Moscow as a dowry of the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Sophia Palaeologus, married to the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan. Ancient books and manuscripts at one time were taken out of Constantinople besieged by the Turks on one of 17 ships (Genoese, Venetian and Constantinople ships) that managed to break through the Turkish blockade.
As a result, the ancient tomes ended up in Rome. Sophia Palaeologus (1455-1503) also found refuge there. At the age of ten, she became an orphan, the upbringing of the girl and her two brothers was carried out by Cardinal Bissarius of Nicea (1403-1472). Pope Paul II (1417-1471) reacted to the choice of a bridegroom for a girl, in whose veins the blood of Byzantine emperors flowed, with great attention, trying to extract the maximum benefit from her future marriage for herself and the Catholic Church.
When the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III (1440-1505) was widowed in 1467, Pope Pavel II decided on him. He sought not only to smooth over the differences between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, but also with the help of Sophia to increase his influence in the East. In 1469, the Pope, along with a portrait of a girl, sent Ivan III an offer to marry 14-year-old Sophia Palaeologus. The Moscow prince liked the girl, and, although she did not have a dowry, Ivan III understood all the political benefits of such an alliance. The prince agreed.
Although the future tsarina did not have a dowry, she brought with her to Moscow a unique collection of books, taken from Constantinople. Because of the frequent fires in Moscow, Sophia was very afraid of losing them in the fire, so the Italian architect Aristotle Fioravanti invited by her built an underground passage under the Kremlin and a special stone storage for the library.
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Sophia Palaeologus died in 1503, and two years later Grand Duke Ivan III also died. Power passes to Vasily III (1479-1533) - the son of Sophia and the father of Ivan the Terrible. There is every reason to say that the priceless library was intact during his reign. Then she passed to the grandson of Sophia Palaeologus - Tsar Ivan IV. He perfectly remembered her behest to protect books from fire, so he kept them in a special stone dungeon.
Evidence for the existence of Liberia
The library of Ivan the Terrible, or, as it is also called, Liberia (from Lat. Liber - "book"), actually existed, as evidenced by a number of facts. In March 1515, the letter of the Moscow Grand Duke Vasily III came to Athos. He asked to send Elder Savza to systematize the prince's library and translate a number of books. This clearly indicates that the library really existed, and there were many books in it.
Sawa was not sent to the Grand Duke - he was too weak for such a long trip: instead of him, the Athos monk Maxim the Greek (1470-1556) went to the king. In the letter from Athos, the monk was indicated as "skilled in divine writing and the legend or interpretation of any books, both ecclesiastical and Greek verb." Maxim the Greek with great zeal began to carry out the instructions of Ivan III. He devoted nine years of his life to the prince's library.
The Legend of Maxim the Philosophus tells not only about Maxim the Greek, but also about the royal library. There it was written that Vasily III "found in some chambers an innumerable number of Greek books", which were in a special underground book depository. When he first saw the royal library, Maxim the Greek allegedly said that even the Greeks had not seen so many books.
It is interesting that, according to the assumption of a number of researchers, "The Legend of Maxim the Philosophus" was written by Prince Andrei Kurbsky, who for a long time was an associate of Ivan the Terrible. This conclusion suggests itself due to the presence in the "Tale" of a number of fragments that coincide with other works of the prince. By the way, in them you can find references to Cicero and Aristotle, references to the works of Erasmus of Rotterdam and Aeneas Silvius Picolomini. If not in the tsar's library, then where could he get acquainted with these works? This is a strong argument for the reality of the library.
The Chronicle of the Livonian Niestedt is also an important testament to the existence of Liberia. In it, the mayor of Riga, Franz Niestedt (1540-1622), wrote about the German pastor Johann Wettermann, to whom Ivan the Terrible showed his library in 1570.
Accompanied by the king and three clerks, the pastor went down to the dungeon, where, according to Wetterman, "books, like a precious treasure, were kept walled up in two vaulted cellars." These books were in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. It is amazing that the pastor even remembered the names of the clerks who accompanied him. They were Andrey Shchelkalov, Nikita Viskovaty and Nikita Funik.
But all these specified persons were directly related to the royal treasury, where not only finances were kept, but also important documents and books! Some researchers consider this circumstance to be important evidence in favor of the authenticity of Wetterman's message.
Poles "ate" books?
It is worth noting that two of the clerks who accompanied the pastor were executed in 1571, and Nikita Funik was also killed a few years later. It is believed that it was these people who looked after the library of Ivan the Terrible and with their death its traces were lost. The disappearance of Liberia is attributed to 1571, it is believed that it was hidden and sealed in some kind of underground cache. Its disappearance is attributed to the period when Ivan the Terrible "retired from the world" to the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda.
According to his command, Liberia was hidden so that no fire or any other natural disaster could lead to its destruction. But why did the king ordered to hide the library in a deep secret dungeon? Perhaps he feared that his heirs would squander this treasure accumulated over the centuries. There are also suggestions that there were many books on magic in the library, which, if found, would be destroyed. Ivan IV undoubtedly knew about the place where the priceless library was hidden by his order. Maybe the tsar would have told someone about him, but he suddenly died while playing chess.
It is worth noting that doubts about its existence have been repeatedly expressed. For example, there is an opinion that the library was destroyed during the Moscow fire in 1571, when the capital burned down almost to the ground. There is also an assumption that the library disappeared during the Polish invasion in 1612. Some researchers believe that the nobles besieged in the Kremlin, suffering from hunger, scoured the dungeons in search of something edible. When they stumbled upon a repository of ancient books, they tore off their leather bindings, boil them and eat them. Thus, the repository of ancient manuscripts was allegedly destroyed.
A cache in the Kremlin dungeons
However, there is every reason to say that Liberia has safely survived the Time of Troubles. This is evidenced by the report of the sexton Konon Osipov, discovered in the 19th century by the historian Ivan Zabelin. His scientist found, sorting through the archives of Peter I. Osipov reported to the authorities about the story he allegedly heard from the clerk Vasily Makariev, with whom he was on friendly terms.
Makariev, following the order of Princess Sophia, studied the underground of the Kremlin. Then he accidentally stumbled upon a cache in which there were many chests. Although Makariev did not open them, the clerk came to the conclusion that he had found the Liberia of Ivan the Terrible. He reported the find to Princess Sophia, who ordered her to be kept secret. Her confrontation with Peter I ended in defeat, and Makariev kept a secret for many years and only before his death told Osipov about it.
According to Makariev, Osipov described the storehouse as follows: “There is a cache in Moscow under the Kremlin-city, and in that cache there are two chambers, full of chests, filled to the sling. And those chambers behind the great fortification; those chambers have iron doors, crosswise the chains in the opening rings, the locks are hanging, huge, the seals on the wire are lead, and those chambers have one window, and in them there are grilles without locks."
Osipov tried to find the library of Ivan the Terrible on his own, but the underground passage indicated by Makariev was littered with collapsed earth, so the attempt to get to the cache ended in failure. It was then, in 1724, that he turned to the authorities. Peter I ordered Osipov to find a cache and allocated funds for this, but the excavations were not crowned with success.
She will definitely be found
The library of Ivan the Terrible was searched by Boris Godunov, and even False Dmitry. In 1812, finding himself in Moscow, he made an attempt to find Liberia and Napoleon Bonaparte. He gave the order to search all the dungeons of the Kremlin and get ancient manuscripts for him, but the searches were unsuccessful. Perhaps the most famous library searcher was Ignatiy Yakovlevich Stelletsky (1878-1949).
At one time, Stelletsky graduated from the Moscow Archaeological Institute, participated in excavations near Jericho, in the Crimea, in the Ukraine and in the Moscow region. Then the scientist was completely seized by the dream of finding the famous Liberia. He wrote: “I found in the archive the keys to the library of Ivan the Terrible, famous for its romantic legend. I decided to find her at any cost."
In 1933, Ignatiy Yakovlevich wrote to Stalin about the importance of finding the library, as a result he was given permission to search for it in the Kremlin. On December 1, 1933, the scientist wrote in his diary: “Today is a significant date - the first step of a big deal: for the first time in centuries I am starting to search for the library of Ivan the Terrible in the bowels of the Kremlin in a scientific way! It has been hidden under the ground for 460 years, since the arrival of Sophia Palaeologus, and during this time, almost half a millennium, today for the first time the search for this amazing treasure belonging to all mankind begins. Unfortunately, the search that Stelletsky began with the Arsenal Tower was not crowned with success. They had to work under the watchful eye of the NKVD. When the scientist wanted to start excavations under the Nikolskaya Tower, an order was issued to stop work. Before the war, the scientist examined underground passages in the territories of the Novodevichy Convent, Kitai-Gorod, Sukharev Tower and in a number of other places. Then his work was stopped by the war, and in the post-war years, his health did not allow the scientist to continue them.
During the Khrushchev thaw, interest in the search for Liberia flared up again, this happened after the publication in the newspaper "Nedelya" of a number of chapters from the unpublished book of Stelletsky. A public commission for the search for a library was created, chaired by Academician Tikhomirov. However, with the coming to power of Brezhnev and the death of Tikhomirov, this attempt remained unrealized.
On the initiative of German Sterligov, they tried to look for Liberia in the 90s. In 1997, even Yu. M. Luzhkov got involved in the search for the library; the mayor's office allocated funds for this. Although some search work was carried out, they did not bring success.