Ivan III Vasilievich (Ivan the Great) b. January 22, 1440 - died on October 27, 1505 - the Grand Duke of Moscow from 1462 to 1505, the sovereign of all Russia. Gatherer of the Russian lands around Moscow, the creator of the all-Russian state.
In the middle of the 15th century, the Russian lands and principalities were in a state of political fragmentation. There were several strong political centers to which all other regions gravitated; each of these centers pursued a completely independent internal policy and opposed all external enemies.
Such centers of power were Moscow, Novgorod the Great, more than once beaten, but still mighty Tver, as well as the Lithuanian capital - Vilna, which owned the entire colossal Russian region called "Lithuanian Rus". Political games, civil strife, external wars, economic and geographical factors gradually subordinated the weak to the strongest. The possibility of creating a single state appeared.
Childhood
Ivan III was born on January 22, 1440 in the family of the great Moscow prince Vasily Vasilyevich. Ivan's mother was Maria Yaroslavna, daughter of the appanage prince Yaroslav Borovsky, Russian princess of the Serpukhov branch of the house of Daniel. He was born on the day of commemoration of the Apostle Timothy and in his honor received his "direct name" - Timothy. The next church holiday was the day of the transfer of the relics of St. John Chrysostom, in whose honor the prince received the name by which he is best known in history.
In his childhood, the prince endured all the hardships of civil strife. 1452 - he was already sent as the nominal head of the army on a campaign to the Ustyug fortress Kokshengu. The heir to the throne successfully fulfilled the commission he had received, cutting off Ustyug from the Novgorod lands and brutally ravaging the Kokshenga volost. Returning from the campaign with a victory, on June 4, 1452, the prince Ivan married his bride. Soon, the bloody civil strife, which had lasted for a quarter of a century, began to subside.
In subsequent years, Prince Ivan became a co-regent of his father. On the coins of the Muscovy state appears the inscription "challenge all Russia", he himself, like his father, Vasily, bears the title "Grand Duke".
Promotional video:
Accession to the throne
1462, March - Ivan's father, Grand Duke Vasily, fell seriously ill. Not long before that, he drew up a will, according to which he divided the grand princely lands between his sons. As the eldest son, Ivan received not only the great reign, but also the main part of the state's territory - 16 main cities (not counting Moscow, which he was supposed to own together with his brothers). When Vasily died on March 27, 1462, Ivan became the new Grand Duke without any problems.
The reign of Ivan III
Throughout the reign of Ivan III, the main goal of the country's foreign policy was the unification of north-eastern Russia into a single state. Having become the Grand Duke, Ivan III began his unifying activity by confirming previous agreements with neighboring princes and a general strengthening of his positions. Thus, treaties were concluded with the Tver and Belozersk principalities; Prince Vasily Ivanovich, married to the sister of Ivan III, was placed on the throne of the Ryazan principality.
Unification of principalities
Beginning in the 1470s, activities aimed at annexing the remaining Russian principalities increased sharply. The first was the Yaroslavl principality, which finally lost the remnants of independence in 1471. 1472 - Prince Dmitrovsky Yuri Vasilyevich, Ivan's brother, died. The Dmitrov principality passed to the Grand Duke.
1474 - the turn of the Rostov principality came. The Rostov princes sold "their half" of the principality to the treasury, finally turning into the service nobility as a result. The Grand Duke handed over what he received to his mother's inheritance.
Taking Novgorod
The situation with Novgorod developed differently, which is explained by the difference in the nature of the statehood of the appanage principalities and the trade and aristocratic Novgorod state. An influential anti-Moscow party was formed there. A collision with Ivan III was inevitable. 1471, June 6 - a ten thousandth detachment of Moscow troops under the command of Danila Kholmsky set out from the capital in the direction of the Novgorod land, a week later the army of Striga Obolensky advanced on a campaign, and on June 20, 1471, Ivan III himself began a campaign from Moscow. The advance of the Moscow troops across the lands of Novgorod was accompanied by plunder and violence designed to intimidate the enemy.
Novgorod, too, did not sit idly by. From the townspeople they formed a militia, the number of this army reached 40,000 people, but its combat effectiveness, due to the haste of forming from the townspeople not trained in military affairs, was low. On July 14, a battle began between the opponents. During the battle on the Sheloni River, the Novgorod army was utterly defeated. The losses of the Novgorodians amounted to 12,000 people, about 2,000 people were taken prisoner.
1471, August 11 - a peace treaty was signed, according to which Novgorod pledged to pay an indemnity of 16,000 rubles, retained its state structure, but could not "surrender" to the authority of the Lithuanian Grand Duke; a significant part of the vast Dvina land was ceded to the Grand Duke of Moscow. But before the final defeat of Novgorod, several more years passed, until on January 15, 1478, Novgorod surrendered, the veche orders were abolished, and the veche bell and the city archive were sent to Moscow.
Invasion of the Tatar Khan Akhmat
Relations with the Horde, which were already tense, had finally deteriorated by the early 1470s. The horde continued to disintegrate; on the territory of the former Golden Horde, in addition to the direct successor ("Big Horde"), the Astrakhan, Kazan, Crimean, Nogai and Siberian Hordes were also formed.
Ivan III tears apart the khan's letter
1472 - Khan of the Big Horde Akhmat began a campaign against Russia. At Tarusa, the Tatars met with a large Russian army. All attempts by the Horde to cross the Oka were repulsed. The Horde army burned the city of Aleksin, but the campaign as a whole ended in failure. Soon, Ivan III stopped paying tribute to the Khan of the Great Horde, which inevitably should have led to new clashes.
1480, summer - Khan Akhmat moved to Russia. Ivan III, having collected troops, headed south to the Oka River. For 2 months, the army ready for battle was waiting for the enemy, but Khan Akhmat, also ready for battle, did not start offensive actions. Finally, in September 1480, Khan Akh-mat crossed the Oka south of Kaluga and headed across Lithuanian territory to the Ugra River. Fierce clashes began.
The attempts of the Horde to cross the river were successfully repulsed by Russian troops. Soon Ivan III sent ambassador Ivan Tovarkov to the khan with rich gifts, asking him to retreat away and not to ruin the "ulus". 1480, October 26 - the Ugra river froze over. The Russian army, having gathered together, retreated to the city of Kremenets, then to Borovsk. On November 11, Khan Akhmat gave the order to retreat. "Standing on the Ugra" ended with the actual victory of the Russian state, which received the desired independence. Khan Akhmat was soon killed; after his death, civil strife broke out in the Horde.
Expansion of the Russian state
The peoples of the North were also included in the Russian state. 1472 - “Great Perm”, inhabited by Komi, Karelian lands, was annexed. The Russian centralized state was becoming a multinational super-ethnos. 1489 - Vyatka was annexed to the Russian state - remote and in many ways mysterious for modern historians of the land beyond the Volga.
The rivalry with Lithuania was of great importance. Moscow's desire to subjugate all Russian lands all the time ran into opposition from Lithuania, which had the same goal. Ivan directed efforts to reunite the Russian lands that were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. 1492, August - troops were sent against Lithuania. They were headed by Prince Fyodor Telepnya Obolensky.
The cities of Mtsensk, Lyubutsk, Mosalsk, Serpeysk, Khlepen, Rogachev, Odoev, Kozelsk, Przemysl and Serensk were taken. A number of local princes went over to the side of Moscow, which strengthened the position of the Russian troops. And although the results of the war were fixed by a dynastic marriage between the daughter of Ivan III, Elena and the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Alexander, soon the war for the Seversk lands broke out with renewed vigor. The decisive victory in it was won by the Moscow troops at the battle of Vedrosha on July 14, 1500.
By the beginning of the 16th century, Ivan III had every reason to call himself the Grand Duke of All Russia.
Personal life of Ivan III
The first wife of Ivan III, Princess Maria Borisovna of Tver, died on April 22, 1467. Ivan began to look for another wife. 1469, February 11 - ambassadors from Rome appeared in Moscow to offer the Grand Duke to marry the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Sophia Palaeologus, who lived in exile after the fall of Constantinople. Ivan III, having overcome in himself religious rejection, discharged the princess from Italy and married her in 1472. In October of the same year, Moscow met its future empress. The wedding ceremony took place in the still unfinished Assumption Cathedral. The Greek princess became the Grand Duchess of Moscow, Vladimir and Novgorod.
Ivan III and Sophia Palaeologus
The main meaning of this marriage was that the marriage to Sophia Palaeologus contributed to the establishment of Russia as the successor of Byzantium and the proclamation of Moscow as the Third Rome, the stronghold of Orthodox Christianity. After his marriage to Sophia, Ivan III for the first time dared to show the European political world the new title of the sovereign of all Russia and forced to recognize it. Ivan was called "the sovereign of all Russia".
Formation of the Moscow State
At the beginning of Ivan's reign, the Moscow principality was surrounded by the lands of other Russian principalities; dying, he transferred to his son Vasily the country that united most of these principalities. Only Pskov, Ryazan, Volokolamsk and Novgorod-Seversky were able to maintain their relative independence.
During the reign of Ivan III, the final registration of the independence of the Russian state took place.
The complete unification of the Russian lands and principalities into a mighty state demanded a whole series of cruel, bloody wars, in which one of the rivals had to crush the forces of all the others. Internal transformations were no less necessary; in the state system of each of these centers, semi-dependent appanage principalities continued to exist, as well as cities and institutions that had noticeable autonomy.
Their complete subordination to the central government provided the one who was the first to do this, strong rear in the fight against neighbors and an increase in their own military power. In other words, it was not the state with the most perfect, the softest and most democratic legislation that had the greatest chances of winning, but a state whose internal unity would be unshakable.
Before Ivan III, who ascended the grand princely throne in 1462, there was no such state yet, and hardly anyone could imagine the very possibility of its emergence in such a short period of time and within such impressive boundaries. In all of Russian history there is no event or process comparable in significance to the formation at the turn of the 15th – 16th centuries. Moscow state.
A. Mudrova