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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.