Ivan IV Vasilievich (Terrible) (born 25 August 1530 - death 18 (28) March 1584) - sovereign, Grand Duke of Moscow and All Russia (from 1533), the first Russian tsar (from 1547), who turned the state into an absolute monarchy, is known for brutal mass disgraces and executions. On the one hand, a reformer, poet, composer; on the other, a tyrant, famous for his cruelty, reaching the level of sadism.
Background
Even during the reign of Ivan III (1462–1505), the Russian state began to acquire the main features of an autocratic monarchy. Under the leadership of his son, Vasily III (1505-1533), it continued to move towards increased centralization and despotism. The situation changed in connection with the death of Vasily III in 1533 and the minority of Ivan IV (1530-1584), the new Grand Duke and the first Russian tsar (since 1547). In 1533-1538, Elena Glinskaya, the mother of the future Ivan the Terrible, ruled. In subsequent years, the Boyar Duma had real power, within which there was a fierce struggle between the boyar groups. As a result, the arbitrariness of the local feeders grew, there was no capable state apparatus, and social discontent grew. The popular uprising in Moscow in 1547 was suppressed with difficulty.
The main dates of the reign of Ivan the Terrible:
Chosen Rada
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By that time, a circle of advisers had formed around Ivan, who understood the need for systemic reforms. The state was unified, but not centralized. There was no well-established administrative apparatus: the army, the court, tax collection, law enforcement agencies, etc. In the localities, the "feeding staff" were not civil servants. In such a situation, the so-called "Chosen Rada" appeared (some historians consider this term a later one) - an unofficial government. It included the nobleman A. Adashev, prince A. Kurbsky, priest Sylvester. They were supported by Metropolitan Macarius.
Reforms of the "Chosen Rada"
• 1549 - Zemsky Cathedral. A representative body from the people was introduced (except for serfs)
• 1550 - Military reform. For the first time there is a standing army - archers
• 1550 - Exit of the Code of Laws - a new set of laws, which was supplemented by Ivan the Terrible
• 1551 - Introduction of the church code of rules, consisting of 100 chapters - "Stoglav"
• 1553 - Creation of a system of orders
• 1555 - "Big plow" - a unit of land tax. The amount of tax depended on the quality of the land and on who owned the land.
• Cancellation of feedings
The reforms of the Elected Rada contributed to the strengthening of the Russian centralized state. They strengthened the tsarist power, led to the reorganization of local and central government, and strengthened the military power of the state.
1560 - The Chosen Rada was abolished, its main figures were in disgrace and the completely independent reign of Ivan the Terrible began.
Ivan IV and Sylvester during the Moscow fire in 1547 (P. Pleshanov).
Coronation
The first step was the coronation of Ivan IV (1547). He was the first to accept the title of king (from "Caesar"). This also emphasized the continuity of power from the Roman and Byzantine emperors.
Zemsky Sobor and orders
New bodies of power and administration were created: Zemsky Sobor (1549) and orders (Ambassadorial, robber, discharge, etc.). The Zemsky Sobor is a meeting of representatives of the estates, except for dependent peasants and serfs, and was convened by the tsar to discuss the most important issues. The Boyar Duma was an integral part of the Zemsky Sobor.
Military reforms
In the middle of the 16th century, from the Volga to the Baltic, Russia was surrounded by a ring of hostile states. In this situation, it was extremely important to have an efficient army. Due to the lack of money in the treasury, the state paid for services in land. With regard to military service, estates were equated to estates. Now a patron or landowner could start service at the age of 15 and pass it on by inheritance. Service people were subdivided into two main groups: servicemen "according to the fatherland" (ie, by inheritance - boyars and nobles) and by "device" (ie, by recruitment - gunners, archers, etc.).
1556 - For the first time, the "Code of Service" was adopted, which regulated the passage of military service. Cossacks were involved for the border service. Foreigners became another component of the Russian troops, but their number was insignificant. During military campaigns, localism was limited.
As a result of the military reform, Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible began to have an army that it did not have before. The creation of a combat-ready army made it possible for Russia to solve some of the long-standing strategic tasks of foreign policy.
Monetary reform
On the territory of the entire state, a single monetary unit was introduced - the Moscow ruble. The right to collect trade duties passed into the hands of the government. From now on, the entire population of the state was obliged to bear the tax - a complex of natural and monetary obligations. For the whole country, a single unit of tax collection was established - a large plow. Depending on the fertility of the soil and the social status of the owner, the large plow ranged from 400 to 600 hectares of land.
Tsar's judicial code
1550 - the adoption of the new "Tsarskoe juridnik", which introduced a common unit for collecting taxes, the right of peasants to move on St. George's Day was confirmed, and the punishment for bribery was introduced for the first time.
Ivan the Terrible and Metropolitan Philip (O. Kuzmin).
Stoglavy church cathedral
1551 - The Hundred-Glavny Church Council - so called because its decisions were formulated in a hundred chapters. For a long time, Stoglav became a code of Russian church law. Restricted the further growth of church holdings in cities and the financial privileges of the clergy; there was a unification of the all-Russian pantheon of saints, the regulation of services and rituals, outlined the opening of schools for the training of priests, etc.
Foreign policy
Largely thanks to such reforms, major foreign policy successes have been achieved. 1552 - the capture of Kazan - the capital of the Kazan Khanate, in 1556 Astrakhan surrendered. The entire Volga was under Moscow rule. The road for the "Ural-stone" was opened. The Cossack detachment of Ataman Ermak began the conquest and development of Western Siberia.
Local tribes did not try to put up serious resistance, as the aliens did not encroach on their way of life. The military policy of Ivan the Terrible was determined not only by the desire to secure the borders (for example, the Kazan Tatars all the time threatened Moscow, participating in raids and ruining the neighboring Russian lands), but also by the logic of the formation of a centralized state, the interests of the military-service class.
Livonian war
The Livonian War began in the west (1558-1583). The purpose of which was - access to the Baltic Sea. In the early years, Russian troops were able to take a number of fortresses. The Livonian Order disintegrated. But Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Poland and Lithuania) entered the war against Moscow, dividing the lands of the Livonian Order. The Russian army suffered a series of defeats. Only thanks to the courage of the people of Pskov, the king of Poland was unable to take the city. As a result, instead of expanding its access to the sea, Russia lost even its former possessions (Narva, Koporye, Ivangorod).
Social development
In social terms, by the middle of the 16th century, the estate system was finally formed. The main estates were boyars, nobles, clergy, merchants, Cossacks, townspeople, peasants and serfs. The nobles received land (an estate - hence the landowner) for service.
Cossacks who lived in border and neutral territories and were engaged exclusively in military activities received from Moscow military supplies, food, other goods, as well as money. At the same time, the Cossacks wanted to preserve self-government. Moscow needed the Cossacks as an experienced military force, but did not want to put up with "freemen" on its borders and sought to subordinate the Cossacks to state power. This created an objective basis for conflicts.
The Posad population and the peasantry were "heavy" estates, that is, they paid different taxes. The peasantry was divided into "black" (state) and dependent. The first lived in communities and obeyed the government. The latter were dependent on boyars, nobles and monasteries. Until the end of the 15th century, people of all classes had the right to move freely. Over time, it became more and more limited. The departure of a boyar or nobleman abroad was now regarded as high treason. For dependent peasants, the Code of Law of 1497 restricted the right to cross on St. George's Day (two weeks in November after the end of agricultural work). The Code of Law of 1550, in addition to this, demanded an exit payment ("elderly").
The formation of serfdom had an objective basis. At the expense of the income from the estate, the nobles had to carry out military service with their equipment, and put up several infantrymen. The departure of the peasants, the luring of them by the boyars ruined the landowners, making them incapable of serving. In this situation, the state increasingly began to restrict the right of transition (reserved years), began the search for fugitive peasants, introducing “lease years” (the period for searching for fugitive peasants).
Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible.
Oprichnina and its consequences
By the end of the activities of the Chosen Rada, tension grew between the sovereign and his entourage. The course towards centralization hit the interests of many princes and boyars. Dissatisfaction with the prolonged Livonian War grew. 1560 - the wife of Ivan the Terrible, Anastasia Zakharyina-Romanova, whom he loved very much, died. The sovereign suspected the boyars were guilty of her death. In the early 1560s, treason became more frequent, the loudest of which was the flight of A. Kurbsky.
1565 - the tsar introduced the oprichnina (1565-1572). The territory of Russia was divided into two parts: oprichnina and zemstvo. The oprichnina included the most important lands. There the sovereign had the right to be an unlimited ruler. On these lands, the king settled the oprichnina army, which was supposed to support the population of the zemstvo. The feudal lords who did not get into the oprichnina army, but whose land was in the oprichnina, were moved to the zemstvo army.
Fighting the remnants of the appanage order and striving to destroy the slightest oppositional sentiments, Ivan the Terrible staged a cruel terror. He was directed against the boyars and nobles, whom the sovereign suspected of treason, but the common population also suffered from them. According to various estimates, about 37 thousand people became victims of repressions during the entire reign of Ivan the Terrible (however, other historians consider this figure to be extremely underestimated). The oprichnina led to the ruin of the state, the desolation of many lands, worsened the situation of the peasants and in many ways contributed to its further enslavement.
During the years of the oprichnina, Russia was largely able to move forward along the path of centralization (with the execution of Prince Vladimir Staritsky, the last appanage principality disappeared; with the deposition of Metropolitan Philip Kolychev, the independence of the church was even more severely undermined; with the capture of Novgorod (1570), the last remnants of city self-government perished).
The reactionary nature of the policy pursued by Tsar Ivan should be noted.
The point is not only in the repressive, despotic means of its implementation. The oprichnina came at a time when there was no direct threat to the national security of Russia. As a result, the state centralization accelerated by it, outstripping the possibilities of society, led to the final subordination of all estates to the power of the sovereign.
Invasion of the Tatars (1571-1572)
Taking advantage of the distraction of Russian troops in Livonia, the Muslims resumed the attack on Russia from the south. The Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey, prompted by the Sultan, who was not going to give up the Kazan and Astrakhan kingdoms, in 1571 organized a campaign against Moscow with 120 thousand Crimeans and Nogais. The sovereign governors did not manage to block his way through the Oka. The Khan walked around them, went to Serpukhov, where Ivan the Terrible was at that time with the guardsmen. The king fled north. Devlet-Girey approached Moscow and burned it, except for the Kremlin. Many people perished or were taken prisoner by the Tatars.
At one time, the sovereign, overwhelmed by panic, even wanted to return Astrakhan to the Muslims, but refused this promise in view of the success achieved by the Russian governors the next year. 1572 - Devlet-Girey again moved to Moscow, but was defeated on the banks of the river. Lopasny, at the Molodei, Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky. The tsar then refused to return Astrakhan to the Tatars.
Before the death of Ivan the Terrible, the Metropolitan ordains him to the schema (P. Geller).
The last years of the reign of Ivan the Terrible
Things were more successful at the end of the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the East, where in 1582 the Cossacks of Ataman Ermak annexed part of Siberia. From the history of relations between Russia and the West during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, it is important to establish close contacts with England. 1553 - Three English ships set out to explore the northeastern trade routes. Two ships with the head of the expedition, Willoughby, froze off the coast of Lapland, the third under the command of Richard Chancellor reached the mouth of the Northern Dvina. Chancellor was reported to the king, who rejoiced at the opportunity to establish new relations with foreigners. He sent a letter to the king of England, and then approved the privilege of an English merchant company, founded for trade with Russia.
Board result
Thus, the state power under the rule of Ivan the Terrible united the disunited social elements into estates and local unions by mutual responsibility, obligations in favor of the state. The autocrat relied on violence and traditional ideas about the king's right to dispose of in the country, as in his domain. As a result, the state suffered economic ruin, serfdom intensified, peasants fled to the outskirts, and Russia's foreign policy positions were weakened. This was the result of the reign of Ivan the Terrible.
Many Russian historians describe Ivan IV as a great and wise tsar in the first half of his reign and a ruthless tyrant in the second. Foreign leaders noted the creation of good Russian artillery, the strengthening of the autocracy and the eradication of heresies.
Death
Exhausted by an abnormal and dissolute life and the hardships of his cruel reign, Ivan the Terrible fell mortally ill and died on March 18, 1584 at the age of 53.
A study of the remains of Ivan IV showed that in the last 6 years of his life he developed osteophytes, and so much so that he was no longer able to walk on his own and was carried on a stretcher. Forced immobility, together with a general unhealthy lifestyle and nervous shocks, led to the fact that in his 50 years the sovereign looked like a decrepit old man.
The version of the poisoning of Ivan IV was tested during the opening of the royal tombs in 1963. Studies have revealed normal arsenic levels in the remains and an increased content of mercury, which, however, was present in many drugs of the 16th century and which was used to treat syphilis, which the king could presumably be ill with. The murder version remained a hypothesis.
Meanwhile, the chief archaeologist of the Kremlin T. Panova together with E. Alexandrovskaya considered the conclusions of the 1963 commission to be incorrect. They believe that the permissible norm of arsenic in Ivan the Terrible is exceeded by more than two times.