Ivan IV the Terrible
Ivan the Terrible (1530 - 1584) - the first Russian tsar who turned the state into an absolute monarchy, known for cruel mass disgraces and executions. The idol of Peter I, one of Stalin's favorite heroes, is a very controversial personality. On the one hand, a reformer, poet, composer; on the other, a tyrant who became famous for his cruelty, reaching the level of sadism.
With the beginning of the 16th century, the process of the formation of a single class of feudal lords began in Russia, and a tendency towards centralization of government was outlined. There were also appanage principalities, mostly belonging to the younger brothers of the Grand Duke Vasily III; his power was still weak, a single administrative apparatus did not exist. The greatest concern of the Grand Duke was caused precisely by the brothers, because for 20 years of his marriage with Solomonia Yuryevna, from the boyar family of the Saburovs, she never gave birth to him, there was no heir. Then Vasily decides to divorce. Solomonia was tonsured a nun in Suzdal, in the Intercession Monastery, where, after a century and a half, the first wife of Peter 1 will also be kept.
The new wife of the tsar is the young beauty princess Elena Glinskaya. According to legends, the Glinsky family originates from the ruler of the Golden Horde Mamai, whose sons, after the death of their father, fled to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, converted to Orthodoxy and received the city of Glinsk as their inheritance. Thus, it turns out that Ivan IV is simultaneously a descendant of both Dmitry Donskoy and Mamai. After the suppression of the uprising raised by Elena's uncle against the principality of Lithuania, the Glinsky family fled to Russia. Elena was then two years old. After four years of marriage, the new wife gave birth to an heir - Ivan. Churches were built in his honor, bells were cast. The second son, Yuri, was born deaf and dumb.
1533 - Vasily III suddenly fell ill and died of blood poisoning, having managed to bless Ivan for the great reign. So he came to the throne at the age of three. For the first five years, on behalf of young Ivan, his mother ruled. The ruler she was firm and resolute. In the struggle for power that had begun, which was claimed by Vasily III's brother Yuri and her uncle Mikhail, Elena won: both candidates died in captivity. Then another brother of Vasily III, Andrei Staritsky, was eliminated, after suppressing the rebellion that he raised against Moscow.
But a year later, Elena suddenly dies. It was rumored that she was poisoned. It turned out that on April 3, 1538, an eight-year-old boy, an orphan, Ivan IV, sat on the throne on his own. On the head of young Ivan is the cap of Monomakh, in his hands a scepter and orb, and around the throne is a fierce struggle of boyar families for power. Scenes of violence, murders, pleas for mercy, flattering, embezzlement, complete neglect of him, the Grand Duke - this is what Ivan happened to see around him. And he noticed everything, remembered everything, turning into cruel and spiteful. Already at the age of 13, Ivan passed his first death sentence to the boyar Prince Andrei Shuisky, ordering his hounds to kill him.
And two years later, Andrei Buturlin's tongue was cut off for an impolite word, Ivan IV's favorites, the boyars Vorontsovs and Prince I. Kubenskaya, were executed on a denunciation, and 70 venerable elders from Pskov, who came to the Grand Duke to complain about the abuses of the governor, he tortured himself, dousing with alcohol and setting fire to beards.
The year 1547 was rich in events. In January, Ivan IV was crowned and assumed the title of tsar. This played an important role in international relations with both the East and the West. In March, the tsar will marry the boy-girl Anastasia from the old Moscow family of the Zakharyins. So near the throne, along with the Glinskys, the relatives of the young queen appeared. And in the summer, hot and windy, Moscow caught fire and burned while there was something to burn. Several thousand people died, the population was left homeless. Then an uprising broke out, during which many of the Glinskys died, whom Muscovites believed were to blame for what had happened.
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Soon after this, in 1549, the Chosen Rada appeared under the tsar, a group of advisers, which included the priest Sylvester, A. Adashev, Andrei Kurbsky, Dmitry Kurlyatev. Then the reforms began. Their task was to strengthen the centralization of the state. Orders were created that were in charge of individual branches of state life; adopted a new Code of Laws - a set of laws; formed the Stoglavy Cathedral - as a reform of the church, designed to strengthen its centralization, unify rituals, and improve the customs of the clergy. The tsar himself played an active role in the work of the cathedral. In addition, localism was limited, the exact order of service for feudal lords was introduced, the feeding system was abolished, and local power was entirely transferred to the elected representatives of the estates; created a permanent streltsy army. Along with this, typography began to spread,foreign pharmacies and doctors appeared.
At the same time, the borders of the state expanded: they conquered the Kazan, Astrakhan and Siberian khanates. The Tsar was directly involved in the conquest of the Kazan Khanate. In 1558, the Livonian War began - for the conquest of the Baltic lands, seized by the Livonian Order, and for access to the Baltic Sea. This war lasted 25 years, but it did not achieve its goal.
Against the background of such events, from 1553, Tsar Ivan began to cool down to the Chosen Rada. He then fell so seriously ill that they even raised the question of succession to the throne. Ivan insisted on taking the oath to his 5-month-old son, but many of the boyars leaned in favor of Ivan's cousin, Vladimir Staritsky. But the king recovered and in 1560 defeated his Rada. Sylvester was exiled to the Solovetsky monastery, and A. Adashev died on the eve of his arrest. It was his advisers that the tsar blamed for the death of his wife Anastasia. In fact, he, a power-hungry man, was already burdened by them - people so powerful, with a strong will. Above all, the king was impatient, and reforms took time. For the accelerated implementation of his plans, Ivan chose only one method - mass terror.
1564, January - Russian troops suffer a series of defeats. Tsar Ivan quickly found the guilty, although they did not leave Moscow. He killed Prince M. Repnin with his own hands, by his order, Prince Yu. Kashin was killed right on the threshold of the church, and then - Prince D. Ovchinin. They were all from the Obolensky family. Then the governor N. Sheremetev was executed. The mother of Vladimir Staritsky, Princess Efrosinya, was exiled to a monastery. The repressions intensified even after Andrei Kurbsky fled to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, fearing tsarist disfavor, and a number of boyars followed him.
In December, the tsar went on a pilgrimage and soon arrived at Aleksandrov Sloboda. From here, in January 1565, he sent two letters to Moscow. In the first there were accusations against the boyars and nobles, in the second, intended for the townspeople, it was said that the tsar was not angry with them. Then, left without a king, the people began to ask him to return and punish the traitors. It turned out that the people themselves sanctioned terror. Ivan the Terrible agreed to return on condition that he would execute the traitors at his own discretion and establish an oprichnina - a land where he would arrange everything in his own way. This includes the best lands in the country, including part of Moscow. The rest of the land was the Zemshchina, which paid the tsar 100,000 rubles. A special oprichnina army was created, the number of which reached 6,000 people. The guardsmen took a special oath of allegiance to the king and received estates. They had their own insignia: a broom to sweep out treason, and a dog's head to gnaw it out.
In Aleksandrova Sloboda, which became the royal residence, a kind of monastic brotherhood was created, where Ivan the Terrible acted as hegumen - abbot. Drinks followed the divine services, at which the tsar decided who to kill, who to burn, etc. The nervous tension of these times led to the fact that Ivan IV completely, albeit temporarily, went bald. In addition, he saw conspiracies everywhere, and he himself gladly took part in the investigation, when testimony was given under torture; himself, jabbing his finger at the boyars who were right there, prompted the tortured person the necessary names.
In the executions in which he forced all his entourage to participate, Ivan the Terrible was very inventive, he was amused by the sight. People were sewn into bear skins, hounded by dogs, tied to barrels of gunpowder and blown up … At times, Ivan IV killed people as a joke. Once, for the sake of laughter at a feast, he poured hot cabbage soup on one of the guardsmen and saw how he was suffering from burns, he "took pity" on the poor man … stuck a knife into him. And then the feast continued as if nothing had happened. Suspecting the noble boyar Fedorov of intending to seize the tsar's throne, Ivan the Terrible ordered to put him, dressed in tsar's clothes, on the throne, and then stabbed him with a knife. Then Fedorov was finished off with knives by the guardsmen. There are many such examples.
People were killed both one at a time and by families. Metropolitan Philip was indignant at this, but he was only imprisoned in a monastery near Tver. And then Ivan dealt with his brother Vladimir Staritsky, giving the order to him to drink poison with his family. After these events began the campaign of the oprichnina troops led by Ivan the Terrible to Novgorod. On the way, to Tver, the new favorite of the tsar, Grigory Lukyanovich Belsky, better known as Malyuta Skuratov, strangled Philip. Accusing the Novgorodians of wanting to withdraw to Poland, Ivan IV staged a massacre in the city. At the same time, not sparing women or babies. People were killed in various ways: burned, lowered alive under the ice, tore apart by horses. Up to 15,000 people were killed then. Moreover, the property of the killed was confiscated. Then the campaign to Pskov began, but here, according to legend, Ivan had a terrible vision, and in Pskov it cost only the robbery of the townspeople.
1570 is the peak of terror. It was the turn of the people closest to Ivan the Terrible - the leaders of the oprichnina. On July 25, mass executions began on Red Square in Moscow. The king himself was in charge of this matter. More than 100 people died that day. They killed in different ways: some were alternately doused with boiling water and cold water, the skin was cut from others with belts, the skin was ripped off from the third, and the fourth was chopped into pieces. The charges were the same - treason. In addition to the nobility, the oprichnina took the lives of thousands of ordinary people. As a result, many lands became empty, the peasants fled, famine and pestilence began, the war was lost.
1572 - Ivan the Terrible canceled the oprichnina. Because of the terror, an emptiness was more and more often formed around the king, he was more and more consumed by a feeling of loneliness, he was tormented by a persecution mania. The tsar began to seriously consider fleeing to England and conducted secret negotiations about this with Queen Elizabeth. He even intended to marry her niece Mary Hastings, although he was once again married at that time.
And he had many marriages. After the death of two wives - Anastasia and Maria Temryukovna, Princess Cherkasskaya - in 1571 Ivan IV married Martha Sobakina, but three weeks later she also died. The fourth marriage was forbidden by the church. But under pressure from Ivan the Terrible, the church council agreed. Anna Koltovskaya became a new wife in 1572, but she was soon tonsured into a nun. One year - 1575 - the next wife, Anna Vasilchikova, lived with Ivan. Then the widow Vasilisa Melentieva became the queen for a short time. And finally, in 1580, the tsar married for the seventh time, to Maria Nagoya, who gave birth to the unfortunate Tsarevich Dmitry, who died in Uglich in 1591.
Of the many children of Ivan the Terrible, three survived: Ivan and Fedor from Anastasia and Dmitry from Maria Nagoya. Ivan, the heir, was as cruel as his father: he cut off the heads of the disgraced with him. At the age of 30, he was already married three times. But on November 9, 1581, the king beat his son with a staff, so much so that he died within 10 days. The reasons for this atrocity were called various: suspicion of some intentions of the son or that he stood up for his pregnant wife, whom the father-in-law beat with a stick.
The heir died - the king was in despair. He even stopped calling himself king for several months. Now the feeble-minded Fedor became the heir. And the king had three years to live. His body was worn out: loose nerves, drunkenness, debauchery, and even powerful deposits of salts on the spine. Ivan IV now moved a little, at 53 he looked like a decrepit old man.
1584, March 18 - Tsar Ivan the Terrible died. Many legends are associated with his death. According to one of them, Boris Godunov and Malyuta Skuratov's nephew Bogdan Belsky, who feared for their lives, strangled him; on the other - he was poisoned by Belsky. According to modern medicine, the tsar died of poisoning with drugs, ointments, which he used to treat venereal diseases and which included mercury. There is information that the king died of lupus erythematosus. He actually rotted alive.
Be that as it may, the death of Ivan the Terrible opened a new page in the history of Russia.
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