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'''Ivan IV Vasilyevich''' (Russian Ива́н Четвёртый, Васи́льевич, ''Ivan Chetvyorty, Vasilyevich''), known in English as '''''Ivan the Terrible''''' (Russian Ива́н Гро́зный, ''Ivan Grozny'') ([[August 25]], 1530, Moscow – [[March 28]], 1584 ,<ref>[http://www.geocities.com/quermaz/history/h4mar/h4mar28.html 28 March: This Date in History<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Moscow) was '''''Grand Prince of Moscow''''' from 1533. The epithet "Grozny" is associated with might, power and strictness, rather than poor performance, horror or cruelty. Some authors more accurately translate it into modern English as ''Ivan the Awesome'' <ref>C. G. Jacobsen. [http://www.jstor.org/pss/424804 Myths, Politics and the Not-so-New World Order.] Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), pp. 241-250; <small>Quote from page 242: "...his governing style and system, was that of Ivan the Terrible - whose Russian nickname is more properly and more evocatively translated as Ivan the Awesome."</small></ref><ref>Roy Temple House, Ernst Erich Noth, University of Oklahoma. [http://books.google.com/books?id=fRsMAAAAIAAJ&q=%22ivan+the+awesome%22&dq=%22ivan+the+awesome%22&ei=jyxsSMzIE6fSigGaqeWsDw&pgis=1 Books Abroad: An International Literary Quarterly.] v. 15, 1941; page 343. ISSN: 0006-7431.</ref><ref>Frank D. McConnell. [http://books.google.com/books?id=rqhZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22ivan+the+awesome%22&dq=%22ivan+the+awesome%22&ei=rTBsSMvZLoS8jgGi4ZgU&pgis=1 Storytelling and Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature.] Oxford University Press, 1979. ISBN 0195025725; <small>Quote from page 78: "But Ivan IV, Ivan the Terrible, or as the Russian has it, Ivan groznyi, "Ivan the Magnificent" or "Ivan the Awesome," is precisely a man who has become a legend"</small></ref>.
Ivan was the long awaited son of Vasili III, who had divorced his first wife in the 1520s on the grounds that she was barren (he charged her with sorcery and had her forcibly [[tonsure]]d a [[nun]] before marrying Elena Glinskaya, Ivan's mother.) When Ivan was just three years old his father died from a boil and inflammation on his leg which developed into blood poisoning. Ivan was proclaimed the Grand Prince of Moscow at his father’s request. At first, his mother Elena Glinskaya acted as a regent, but she died of what many believe to be assassination via poison<ref>Martin, ''Medieval Russia'', 331; Pushkareva, ''Women in Russian History'', 65-67.</ref> when Ivan was merely eight years old. She was replaced as regent by boyars from the Shuisky family until Ivan assumed power in 1544. According to his own letters, Ivan and his younger brother Yuri customarily felt neglected and offended by the mighty boyars from the Shuisky and Belsky families.
Ivan was crowned king with Monomakh's Cap at the [[Dormition Cathedral (Moscow Kremlin)|Cathedral of the Dormition]] at age sixteen on [[January 16]], 1547. Despite calamities triggered by the Great Fire of 1547, the early part of his reign was one of peaceful reforms and modernization. Ivan revised the law code (known as the sudebnik), created a standing army (the streltsy),<ref>Michael C. Paul, "The Military Revolution in Russia 1550-1682," ''The Journal of Military History'' 68 No. 1 (January 2004): 9-45, esp. pp. 20-22.</ref> established the Zemsky Sobor or assembly of the land, a public, consensus-building assembly, the council of the nobles (known as the Chosen Council), and confirmed the position of the Church with the Council of the Hundred Chapters, which unified the rituals and ecclesiastical regulations of the entire country. He introduced the local self-management in rural regions, mainly in the Northeast of Russia, populated by the state peasantry. During his reign the first printing press was introduced to Russia (although the first Russian printers [[Ivan Fedorov (printer)Fyodorov|Ivan Fedorov]] and Pyotr Mstislavets had to flee from Moscow to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania).
In 1547 Hans Schlitte, the agent of Ivan, employed handicraftsmen in Germany for work in Russia. However all these handicraftsmen were arrested in Lübeck at the request of Poland and Livonia. The German merchant companies ignored the new port built by Ivan on the Narva River in 1550 and continued to deliver goods in the Baltic ports owned by Livonia. Russia remained isolated from sea trade.
Ivan formed new trading connections, opening up the White Sea and the port of Arkhangelsk to the Muscovy Company of English merchants. In 1552 he defeated the Kazan Khanate, whose armies had repeatedly devastated the Northeast of Russia,<ref>Russian chronicles record about forty attacks of Kazan Khans on the Russian territories (mainly the regions of Nizhniy Novgorod, Murom, Vyatka, Vladimir, Kostroma, and Galich) in the first half of the 16th century. In 1521, the combined forces of Khan Muhamed Giray and his Crimean allies attacked Russia and captured more than 150,000 slaves. ''The Full Collection of the Russian Annals, vol.13, SPb, 1904''</ref> and annexed its territory. In October of that year, Ivan selected a site in the Kazan Kremlin near theKhan palace and mosque for the constructionof the [[Annunciation Cathedral of Kazan Kremlin]] in honor of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Virgin<ref name="AnnCathKK">[http://www.tatar.ru/index.php?DNSID=7deb2d24c81a9d9c5ebf5558886035db&node_id=3065 ''The Annunciation Cathedral of Kazan Kremlin''.] Retrieved on 2009-06-20</ref>.In 1556, he annexed the Astrakhan Khanate and destroyed the largest slave market on the river Volga. These conquests complicated the migration of the aggressive nomadic hordes from Asia to Europe through Volga and transformed Russia into a multinational and multiconfessional state.
Ivan IV corresponded with Orthodox leaders overseas as well. In response to a letter of Patriarch [[Joachim of Alexandria]] asking the Tsar for financial assistance for the [[St. Catherine's Monastery (Sinai)|Monastery of St. Catherine]] in Sinai, which had suffered from the Turks, Ivan IV sent in 1558 a delegation to Egypt led by [[archdeacon]] Gennady, who, however, died in [[Constantinople]] before he could reach Egypt. From then on, the embassy was headed by a Smolensk merchant Vasily Poznyakov. Poznyakov's delegation visited Alexandria, Cairo, and Sinai, brought the patriarch a fur coat and an icon sent by the Tsar, and left an interesting account of its two and half years' travels.<ref>[http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx?tabid=5142 ХОЖДЕНИЕ НА ВОСТОК ГОСТЯ ВАСИЛИЯ ПОЗНЯКОВА С ТОВАРИЩИ] (The travels to the the Orient by the merchant Vasily Poznyakov and his companions) {{ru icon}}</ref>
The Tsar had [[St. Basil's Cathedral (Moscow)|St. Basil's Cathedral]] constructed in Moscow to commemorate the seizure of Kazan. Legend has it that he was so impressed with the structure that he had the architect, Postnik Yakovlev, blinded, so that he could never design anything as beautiful again. In fact, it is known that Yakovlev designed several churches and the kremlin walls in Kazan itself in the early 1560s, as well as the chapel over St. Vasilii's grave that was added to St. Basil's Cathedral in 1588, several years after Ivan's death, indicating that he had not, in fact, been blinded by the tsar years earlier.
Other events of this period include the introduction of the first laws restricting the mobility of the peasants, which would eventually lead to serfdom, and change in Ivan's personality, traditionally linked to his near-fatal illness in 1553 and the death of his first wife, Anastasia Romanovna in 1560. Ivan suspected boyars of poisoning his wife and of plotting to replace him on the throne with his cousin, Vladimir of Staritsa. In addition, during that illness Ivan had asked the boyars to swear an oath of allegiance to his eldest son, an infant at the time. Many boyars refused, deeming the tsar's health too hopeless to survive. This angered Ivan and added to his distrust of the boyars. There followed brutal reprisals and assassinations, including those of [[Philip II of Moscow|Metropolitan Philip]] and Prince Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky.
The 1565 formation of the ''Oprichnina'' was also significant. The ''Oprichnina'' was the section of Russia (mainly the Northeast) directly ruled by Ivan and policed by his personal servicemen, the ''Oprichniki''. This system of ''Oprichnina'' has been viewed by some historians as a tool against the omnipotent hereditary nobility of Russia (boyars) who opposed the absolutist drive of the tsar, while others have interpreted it as a sign of the paranoia and mental deterioration of the tsar.
== Later reign ==
The later latter half of Ivan's reign was far less successful. Although Khan Devlet I Giray of Crimea repeatedly devastated the Moscow region and even set Moscow on fire in 1571, the Tsar supported Yermak's conquest of Tatar Siberia, adopting a policy of empire-building, which led him to launch a victorious war of seaward expansion to the west, only to find himself fighting the Swedes, Lithuanians, Poles, and the Livonian Teutonic Knights.
For twenty-four years the Livonian War dragged on, damaging the Russian economy and military and failing to gain any territory for Russia. In the 1560s the combination of drought and famine, Polish-Lithuanian raids, Tatar invasions, and the sea-trading blockade carried out by the Swedes, Poles and the Hanseatic League devastated Russia. The price of grain increased by a factor of ten. Epidemics of the plague killed 10,000 in [[Novgorod]]. In 1570 the plague killed 600-1000 in Moscow daily.<ref>R.Skrynnikov, "Ivan Grosny", M., AST, 2001</ref> One of Ivan's advisors, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, defected to the Lithuanians, headed the Lithuanian troops and devastated the Russian region of Velikiye Luki. This treachery deeply hurt Ivan. As the Oprichnina continued, Ivan became mentally unstable and physically disabled. In one week, he could easily pass from the most depraved orgies to anguished prayers and fasting in a remote northern monastery.<!--Please don't justify tyranism by mental problems: --Modern researchers, basing on the analysis of the remains of Ivan, assume the mercury poisoning of tsar (as well as at his mother Helena Glinskaya). The mercury poisoning destroyed his mental health.-->
Because he gradually grew unbalanced and violent, the Oprichniks under Malyuta Skuratov soon got out of hand and became murderous thugs. They massacred nobles and peasants, and conscripted men to fight the war in Livonia. Depopulation and famine ensued. What had been by far the richest area of Russia became the poorest. In a dispute with the wealthy city of Novgorod, Ivan ordered the Oprichniks to murder inhabitants of this city, which was never to regain its former prosperity. His followers burned and pillaged the city and villages.<ref name=Novgorod1911>[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Novgorod,_Russia_(Capital) Novgorod, Russia (Capital)]</ref> As many as 60,000 might have been killed during the infamous Massacre of Novgorod in 1570;<ref>[http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#IvanT Ivan the Terrible, Russia, (r.1533-84)]</ref><ref name=Novgorod1911/><ref name=PskovChronicle/> many others were deported elsewhere.<ref name=PskovChronicle> According to the Third Novgorod Chronicle, the massacre lasted for five weeks. Almost every day 500 or 600 people were killed or drowned. The First Pskov Chronicle estimates the number of victims at 60,000.</ref> Yet the official death toll named 1,500 of Novgorod ''big'' people (nobility) and only mentioned about the same number of ''smaller'' people. Many modern researchers estimate number of victims between two and three thousand. (After the famine and epidemics of 1560s the population of Novgorod perhaps did not exceed 10,000-20,000.)<ref> Having investigated the report of Maljuta Skuratov and commemoration lists (''sinodiki''), R. Skrynnikov considers, that the number of victims was 2,000-3,000. (Skrynnikov R. G., "Ivan Grosny", M., AST, 2001) </ref>
With the failure of negotiations, Batory replied with a series of three offensives against Muscovy in each campaign seasons of 1579–1581, trying to cut The Kingdom of Livonia from Muscovian territories.
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 army. Finally, he started the Siege of [[Pskov ]] in 1581 with a 100,000-strong army.
Frederick II had trouble continuing the fight against Muscovy unlike Sweden and Poland. He came to an agreement with John III in 1580 giving him the titles in Livonia. That war would last from 1577 to 1582. Muscovy recognized Polish-Lithuanian control of Ducatus Ultradunensis only in 1582. After Magnus von Lyffland 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 Œsel, Denmark was out of the Baltic by 1585. As of 1598, Polish Livonia was divided onto:
== Epistles ==
D.S. Mirsky called Ivan "a pamphleteer of genius". The epistles attributed to him are the masterpieces of old Russian (perhaps all Russian) political journalism. They may be too full of texts from the [[Holy Scripture|Scriptures ]] and the Fathers, and their [[Church Slavonic]] is not always correct. But they are full of cruel irony, expressed in pointedly forcible terms.
The shameless bully and the great polemicist are seen together in a flash when he taunts the runaway prince Kurbsky with the question: "If you are so sure of your righteousness, why did you run away and not prefer martyrdom at my hands?" Such strokes were well calculated to drive his correspondent into a rage. "The part of the cruel tyrant elaborately upbraiding an escaped victim while he continues torturing those in his reach may be detestable, but Ivan plays it with truly Shakespearian breadth of imagination".<ref>D.S. Mirsky. ''A History of Russian Literature''. Northwestern University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8101-1679-0. Page 21.</ref> These letters are often the only existing source on Ivan's personality and provide crucial information on his reign, but Harvard professor Edward Keenan has argued that these letters are 17th century forgeries. This contention, however, has not been widely accepted, and other scholars, such as John Fennell and Ruslan Skrynnikov continued to argue for their authenticity. Recent archival discoveries of 16th century copies of the letters strengthen the argument for their authenticity.<ref>Edward L. Keenan, ''The Kurbskii-Groznyi Apocrypha
the 17th-Century Genesis of the "Correspondence" Attributed to Prince A. M. Kurbskii and Tsar Ivan IV'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); Janet Martin, ''Medieval Russia 980-1584'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 328-329.</ref>
Besides his letters to Kurbsky he wrote other satirical invectives to men in his power. The best is his letter to the [[abbot ]] of the [[Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery]], where he pours out all the poison of his grim irony on the unascetic life of the boyars, shorn monks[[monk]]s, and those exiled by his order. His picture of their luxurious life in the citadel of ascetism is a masterpiece of trenchant sarcasm. Ivan later attacked and killed Mikhail Kulakiwski.
== Sobriquet ==
==Modern controversy==
There is an active and controversial movement in modern Russia campaigning in favor of granting sainthood to tsar Ivan IV.<ref>[http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-317469.html ''Russians Laud Ivan the Not So Terrible; Loose Coalition Presses Orthodox Church to Canonize the Notorious Czar.''] [[Washington Post]], November 10, 2003</ref> The official Russian Orthodox Church remains opposed to the idea.<ref>[http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-6258666_ITM ''Church says nyet to St. Rasputin.''] UPI NewsTrack, October 4, 2004</ref>
==References==
* Madariaga, Isabel de. ''Ivan the Terrible. First Tsar of Russia''. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2005 (hardcover, ISBN 0-300-09757-3); 2006 (paperback, ISBN 0-300-11973-9).
* Payne, Robert; Romanoff, Nikita. ''Ivan the Terrible''. Lanham, MD: Cooper Square Press, 2002 (paperback, ISBN 0-8154-1229-0).
* [[Henri Troyat|Troyat, Henri]]. ''Ivan the Terrible''. New York: Buccaneer Books, 1988 (hardcover, ISBN 0-88029-207-5); London: Phoenix Press, 2001 (paperback, ISBN 1-84212-419-6).
*''Ivan IV'', World Book Inc, 2000. World Book Encyclopedia. <!-- a pretty anemic reference -->