Ivan The Terrible or Ivan IV Vasilyevich also called Ivan IV was born on 25th August 1530 in Kolomenskoye, Russia. And almost from the moment of his birth, his life was destined to not be a happy one. He was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and the first Tsar of Russia from 1547 to 1584.
Ivan The Terrible was the son of Vasili III. The Rurikid ruler of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, and he was appointed Grand Prince at three years old after his father died of infection. This was after all the 16th century and medical technology had barely advanced past the stage of rubbing feces into open wounds.
Early Life Of Ivan The Terrible
Ivan was the first son of Grand Prince Vasily III of Russia and his second wife, Elena Glinskaya. The early life of Ivan The Terrible not really good for him when he was only three years old his father died because of infection
To make matters worse, Muscovy itself was a significantly backward land, while Europe was in full-on Renaissance mode, Muscovy was caught in the vice-like grip of the Dark Ages. This would be a problem that plagued the Russian state until the 20th century, as it would fight over and over again to rise above its status as Europe’s backwater.
Shortly after the death of his father. Ivan The Terrible was proclaimed grand prince, though as we’ll soon see this title meant very little in Muscovy royal court. His mother took control of the throne on his behalf and acted as regent, until six years later when she died suddenly and mysteriously.
Even though people suddenly dying was pretty much just a regular Sunday afternoon in 16th century Muscovy, the death of Ivan’s mother was a little too sudden and convenient for the elite boyar a ruling class of wealthy merchants and noblemen who weren’t keen on taking orders from anyone they hadn’t personally installed on the throne.
Ivan The Terrible and his younger brother Yuri were raised by different boyar families, who continued their power struggles as they named themselves regents to the throne. In effect, the young Ivan’s future ruler of Muscovy was nothing more than a pawn caught up in the boyar’s chess game, and the center of an intense tug of war between powerful families.
Moscow, the default capital, would even come to be known as the “third Rome”. Under Macarius tutelage, Ivan was crowned on the 16th of January, 1547 at the age of sixteen. The Boyar’s had wanted Ian to be crowned as Grand Prince, but Ivan refused the boyar’s and instead, under Macarius’ suggestion, crowned himself Tsar the Russian equivalent of Caesar. The message was clear Ivan wasn’t taking anyone’s crap anymore, especially not the boyar’s.
The Oprichnina
In 1564, Ivan left Moscow and sent a letter informing his former court that he was abdicating his throne. In the letter, Ivan stated that the continued crimes of the aristocracy and clergy against his throne and the nation itself made it impossible for him to rule.
Muscovite citizens grew angry with the boyars, and they were forced to ask Ivan to return to the throne. Ivan agreed, but only if he was given absolute power with no checks or balances. Reluctantly, the boyars agreed. This would prove to be a major mistake.
Upon returning to the capital, Ivan immediately created the oprichnina, a territory within the borders of Muscovy where Ivan had complete and total power. The boyars would rule the rest of the land, the Zemshchina. To enforce his will and ferret out political opponents, Ivan created the first of Russia’s famous secret police, the Oprichniki. Headed by Malyuta Skuratov, an extreme sadist, the Oprichniki launched a wave of terror and violence against the population and the boyars both.
Always wishing to keep the boyars under his thumb and in fear of him, Ivan allowed Skuratov to do as he pleased, and the latter was fond of occasionally sending the Oprichniki to round up married women of Moscow so they could all be raped.
This not only kept the boyars in terror but with many unwanted pregnancies, would devastate many powerful aristocratic bloodlines. With the aid of the Oprichniki, Ivan arrested, tortured, and exiled many boyars he accused of conspiracy against the crown- often on the most flimsy of charges.
In 1566, Ivan expanded the borders of the oprichnina, the territory he ruled alone, and included eight other districts. Out of 12,000 nobles in those territories, 570 became Oprichniki, while the rest fled or were expelled. As Ivan’s secret police, the Oprichniki owed their allegiance only to him and was rewarded handsomely for their service.
Where the treatment of peasants by the boyars had been reined in by Ivan’s reforms years ago, the Oprichniki were given complete and absolute immunity from prosecution. They could do as they wished in large estates given to them by Ivan, and they often did-killing, robbing, or raping as they pleased.
This led to a mass exodus of peasants from the land, which inevitably caused a massive collapse of farming in Muscovy. Grain scarcity would lead to a massive hike in prices, and the Muscovite economy all but collapsed.
The Livonian War
The military disaster also visited Ivan’s reign. Ivan The Terrible lunched the Livonian War in 1558, just to gain access to the Baltic Sea and its major trade routes in Europe. A landlocked nation with no access to the open ocean, Ivan tried unsuccessfully to invade lands to the west- what would be today modern Latvia and Estonia.
Under a blockade by other European nations, Muscovy desperately needed access to the open ocean if it was going to prosper financially. Despite some initial success. Ivan’s forces met with disaster after disaster.
To make matters worse, one of Ivan’s closest advisors- Prince Andrei Kurbsky, defected to the Lithuanians he was fighting and returned to the region of Velikiey Luki at the head of a Lithuanian army, devastating it. This would further cement Ivan’s mistrust and hatred for the nobility.
Plague and famine soon hit Muscovy, and the ongoing Livonian war against the Western European powers only served to further take a toll on the nation. Ivan’s paranoia escalated to truly insane heights, and he grew fearful that the city of Novgorod was planning to defect to Lithuania.
While historians believe that this was completely false, Ivan, ever fearful and paranoid, ordered a raid of the city by the Oprichniki. Once more they were given free rein, and Ivan’s secret police pillaged Novgorod and every surrounding village.
Ancient casualty figures number the victims at 60,000, but this is likely extremely exaggerated. What is known though is that Ivan routinely ordered the execution of Novgorod’s citizens, tying men, women, and children to sleighs and running them into the freezing Volkhov river. Many more were tortured, and the archbishop was arrested, then set loose in the woods to be hunted and killed like an animal by Ivan’s secret police.
Death Of Ivan The Terrible
Ivan’s black legacy of torture, rape, and murder, would spread across Muscovy. While his moniker as ‘the terrible’ was a mistranslation of a Russian honorific, Ivan nevertheless lived up to his mistranslated title and remains one of the most reviled men in history.
Ivan The Terrible died from a stroke while playing chess with Bogdan Belsky in 1584 at an age of 53, and while he was a brutal dictator his sheer determination and willpower would serve to unify Muscovy and set it on the path to becoming modern Russia. Now that you’ve learned all about one of history’s most evil men.