Ivan the Terrible

• 1. The Boy Who Became Tsar

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  On the 25th of August, a child named Ivan Vasilyevich drew his first breath in Moscow. He was the eldest son of Vasili III and Elena Glinskaya. His father died when Ivan was three years old from blood poisoning caused by an abscess on his leg. The young boy inherited a throne while six other sons of Ivan III remained as potential rivals. A group of reformers united around him to crown him tsar in 1547 at the age of sixteen. This coronation took place inside the Cathedral of the Dormition within the Moscow Kremlin. The metropolitan placed the Cross of the Life-Giving Tree upon the new ruler. He also received barmas and the cap of Monomakh before being anointed with myrrh. Ivan IV became the first Russian monarch to bear the title of tsar of all Russia. This decision sent a message that he was now the supreme ruler whose will could not be questioned. The political effect elevated his position to one equivalent to the Byzantine caesar or Tatar khan.

• 2. Reforms And Early Expansion

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  Ivan revised the legal code by issuing the Sudebnik of 1550. He established a standing army known as the streltsy to protect the realm. The tsar convened the Zemsky Sobor which served as the first Russian parliament of feudal estates. He created the Chosen Council to advise him on matters of state. In ecclesiastical affairs, Ivan strengthened the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church through the Council of the Hundred Chapters held in 1551. This council standardized rituals and ecclesiastical law across the entire realm. He introduced forms of local self-government in rural areas particularly in northeastern Russia. These reforms aimed to improve local administration and tax collection for the growing state. The tsar also ordered the establishment of the Moscow Print Yard in 1553. This move introduced the first printing press to Russia despite strong opposition from traditional scribes. An arson attack destroyed the original Print Yard but production resumed in 1568 under Andronik Timofeevich Nevezha. Ivan IV marked his victory over Kazan with the construction of Saint Basil's Cathedral on Red Square. The distinctive design incorporated oriental architectural features to honor the conquest.

• 3. The Oprichnina Terror

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  On the 3rd of December 1564 Ivan left Moscow for Aleksandrova Sloboda. He sent two letters announcing his abdication due to alleged embezzlement by the aristocracy. A boyar envoy departed to beg Ivan to return to the throne. He agreed to return only after being granted absolute power to execute traitors without interference. Ivan decreed the creation of the Oprichnina which was a separate territory within Russia mostly located in the former Novgorod Republic. He held exclusive power over this territory while the Boyar Council ruled the rest of the land known as the Zemshchina. Ivan recruited a personal guard known as the oprichniki originally numbered at one thousand men. Malyuta Skuratov headed these forces alongside other commanders like Heinrich von Staden. Members of the oprichniki were granted large estates and owed allegiance solely to Ivan rather than heredity or local bonds. The first wave of persecutions targeted princely clans notably the influential families of Suzdal. They executed exiled or forcibly tonsured prominent members of the boyar clans including Metropolitan Philip and Alexander Gorbaty-Shuisky. In 1566 Ivan extended the oprichnina to eight central districts where 570 nobles became oprichniki out of 12,000 total.

• 4. The Sack Of Novgorod

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  Conditions under the oprichnina worsened during the 1570 epidemic that killed ten thousand people in Novgorod. A famine and ongoing Livonian War added to the grim conditions facing the city. Ivan grew suspicious that noblemen in the wealthy city of Novgorod planned to defect to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A citizen named Petr Volynets warned the tsar about an alleged conspiracy that modern historians believe never existed. In 1570 Ivan ordered the oprichniki to raid the city. They burned and pillaged Novgorod along with surrounding villages until the city lost its former prominence. The massacre lasted for five weeks according to the Third Novgorod Chronicle. Men women and children were tied to sleighs and run into the freezing waters of the Volkhov river. Thousands died in a pogrom orchestrated by the tsar on the basis of unproven accusations. The archbishop was hunted down and killed while almost every day five hundred or six hundred people perished. Many survivors were deported from the city leaving it permanently diminished. Modern researchers estimate the number of victims to range between two thousand and three thousand since the population had likely not exceeded twenty thousand after previous epidemics.

• 5. The Livonian War

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  In 1558 Ivan IV launched the Livonian War to secure access to the Baltic Sea and its lucrative trade routes. The conflict ultimately proved unsuccessful and lasted for twenty-four years drawing in multiple regional powers including Sweden and Poland-Lithuania. The prolonged war devastated the Russian economy and severely disrupted governance alongside internal turmoil caused by the oprichnina. By the 1570s Ivan's realm found itself strategically encircled by dominant powers to the west and south. Stephen Báthory launched major offensives against Muscovy between 1579 and 1581 aiming to sever Livonia from Russian control. He captured Polotsk with an army of approximately twenty-two thousand men in his first campaign of 1579. During his second offensive in 1580 he seized Velikiye Luki with a force estimated at twenty-nine thousand troops. The following year in 1581 he initiated the Siege of Pskov with an army reportedly numbering around one hundred thousand men marking the largest engagement of the war. Meanwhile Narva was recaptured by Sweden further eroding Muscovy's positions along the Baltic frontier. The Livonian War concluded in 1583 with the Truce of Plussa ending Muscovy's presence in Livonia.

• 6. The Southern Front

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  In 1571 a Crimean-Ottoman army of about forty thousand men launched a large-scale invasion of the Moscow region. Most Russian forces were engaged in the ongoing Livonian War leaving the capital defended by only six thousand troops. The Crimean force entered Moscow virtually unopposed burning much of the city and its surrounding settlements. Contemporary estimates of people killed in the fire varied widely ranging from ten thousand to eighty thousand souls. In the aftermath Ivan sought to buy peace but the proposed concession regarding Astrakhan was never implemented. Devlet I Giray launched another raid on Moscow the next year with a horde of one hundred twenty thousand men reinforced by Turkish janissaries. The Russian army led by Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky was half the size but experienced and supported by streltsy equipped with modern firearms. On the 2nd of August Mikhail Vorotynsky flanked the Tatars and dealt a sudden blow near the village of Molodi. The Tatars were completely defeated and fled after several days of heavy fighting. The following year Ivan who had sat out in distant Novgorod during the battle killed Mikhail Vorotynsky for his role in the victory.

• 7. The Heir And The Death

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  On the 19th of November 1581 Ivan fatally struck his son Ivan Ivanovich in the head with a pointed staff during an altercation over clothing. His daughter-in-law Yelena Sheremeteva suffered a miscarriage within hours of the incident. Historians generally believe that Ivan killed his heir in a fit of rage ending the argument after the fatal blow. This event left his younger son Feodor Ivanovich to inherit the throne as a politically ineffectual figure. Feodor died childless in 1598 which ushered in the Time of Troubles. Ivan IV himself died from a stroke while playing chess with Bogdan Belsky on the 18th of March 1584. Upon his death the Russian throne was left to his middle son Feodor who reigned until 1598. Chemical analysis of his remains disproved earlier suggestions that he suffered from syphilis or was poisoned by arsenic. At the time of his death he stood 178 cm tall and weighed between eighty-five and ninety kilograms. Researchers concluded that he had developed various bone diseases and could barely move due to excessive mercury concentration in his body.

• 8. The Legacy Of Terror

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  Ivan completely altered Russia's governmental structure establishing the character of modern political organization. His creation of the oprichnina afforded him personal protection and curtailed traditional powers of the boyars. Henceforth tsarist autocracy and despotism would lie at the heart of the Russian state. The empire's local administration combined locally and centrally appointed officials proving durable and practical for later modification. Peter the Great built on those connections in his bid to make Russia a major European power. At Ivan's death the empire encompassed the Caspian Sea to the southwest and Western Siberia to the east. His southern conquests ignited several conflicts with the expansionist Ottoman Empire confining their territories to the Balkans. The reign of Ivan IV the Terrible was in short a disaster for Muscovy as subjects were impoverished and economic resources depleted. Nikolay Karamzin described Ivan as a tormentor of his people particularly from 1560 though even after that date Karamzin believed there was a mix of good and evil in his character. In 1922 historian Robert Wipper wrote a biography reassessing Ivan as a monarch who loved ordinary people. Joseph Stalin decided Soviet historians should praise strong leaders like Ivan Alexander Nevsky and Peter the Great.