We analyze 15 popular legends about Ivan the Terrible

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Is it true that the tsar tortured animals in childhood, personally executed people and was nicknamed the Terrible for these atrocities? Did he exhaust all his wives and kill his son? A strong ruler who raised Russia from its knees, or a madman, who also suffers from seizures? Let's figure out what is true and what is not.

Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584) for most of our contemporaries is a symbol of Russian history of the 16th century - an era when a single Moscow state was created from separate lands and principalities of North-Eastern Russia, when the question of how, in what ways and in what form this process would go … The first Russian crowned tsar did a lot - both in word and deed - to establish the order that he considered the only correct one.

He ruled for a very long time, and during this time there were too many important and tragic events. How not to appear various legends, if his era was remembered for a long time, and there is little true evidence of it. Too few. But he had many opponents, and a long struggle with neighbors - the Polish-Lithuanian state and Sweden - gave rise to a real information war.

Legend 1. As a child, Ivan the Terrible tortured animals

Verdict:it is not proven.

The crazy youth of the future tsar, who threw animals from the rooftops and trampled passers-by at a gallop, was described in his "History of the Grand Duke of Moscow" by a former boyar and military leader, and then a political émigré, Prince Andrei Kurbsky. On the one hand, children, and not only royal ones, can be cruel in their games. On the other hand, Kurbsky's History was intended to expose the tyrant king, but how could one do without a graphic illustration in this case?

Legend 2. Ivan the Terrible suffered from seizures

Verdict: it is unknown.

What are seizures? Migraines are one thing, uncontrollable anger is another, and epilepsy is another. The tsar was a suspicious person, he loved to be treated, but to make a diagnosis based on stories (including those people who did not enter the royal chambers) and 450 years later was a thankless task. A study of his remains in the 1960s showed that the sovereign had a whole bunch of diseases of the musculoskeletal system, but it is not possible to establish his mental state from the bones.

Legend 3. Ivan the Terrible went crazy after the death of his first wife, was paranoid and did not trust anyone

Verdict: it is not true.

For mental disorder, see the previous point. First wife, "young woman" (Yunitsa (obsolete) - a girl, a teenage girl.) Anastasia, as the tsar called her in the second letter to Kurbsky, he seems to really love - in any case, he remembered and remembered many years later. She believed - or he assured himself that her enemies had worn out her. It is unlikely that he did not trust anyone at all, otherwise how would he then run the state?

Another thing is that the suspicious tsar, with the passage of time, sent to disgrace or to death those whom he had completely trusted before. So he said goodbye to the advisers, to whom he listened in his youth, - the devious Alexei Adashev and the priest Sylvester; he did the same with the leaders of his oprichnina - Afanasy Vyazemsky, Mikhail Cherkassky, Alexei Basmanov.

Legend 4. He constantly made new wives, and got rid of old ones

Verdict: loved to marry, but the accusation is unfounded.

The king's personal life was as confusing as his politics. After the death of his first wife Anastasia Romanovna and the second, the Kabardian princess Maria Temryukovna, he chose Marfa Sobakina as his wife, who lived only 15 days after the wedding and died for an unknown reason. In 1572, the tsar forced the clergy to allow him a fourth marriage (while usually the third was not approved by the Church as a "pig's life"), and then the fifth, but both Anna Koltovskaya and Anna Vasilchikova were tonsured as nuns. Vasilisa Melentieva, obviously, was not a legal wife at all.

The last queen was in 1580, Maria Nagaya, who gave birth to Tsarevich Dmitry, who died in 1591 in Uglich under unclear circumstances. But shortly before his death, Ivan the Terrible was making new matrimonial plans: he sent a special ambassador to England, the Duma nobleman Fyodor Pisemsky, to ask Queen Elizabeth for the hand of her relative Mary Hastings.

Legend 5. Ivan the Terrible was actually a homosexual

Verdict: it is not verifiable.

According to the writings of foreigners, Ivan Vasilyevich "began to incline" to the sin of Sodom with his favorite Fyodor Basmanov. However, no one was holding a candle.

The tsar definitely did not become an "ideological" homosexual: on campaigns he was usually accompanied by concubines, and at the end of his life he boasted to the British ambassador Jerome Horsey that he had corrupted a thousand girls. It seems that Grozny believed that there were no moral prohibitions for his "free tsarist autocracy", and thus he proved his superiority to the court circle.

Legend 6. Terrible he was nicknamed for his cruelty: the king personally executed people, and ordered many to be impaled

Verdict: nicknamed, but not for cruelty.

On a stake and in other ways, the king executed more than once. Just remember that times were different and human life was valued differently than in our politically correct time. And the concept of "formidable" has a different connotation than "cruel" or "bloody" - "harsh", "dangerous to enemies", "strict".

At that gloomy medieval time, executions were enough both in the West and in the East. Tsar Ivan's atrocities were amazing because they were deliberately theatrical. According to a contemporary, Ivan the Terrible summoned the boyar Ivan Fedorov to the palace, forced him to take his throne and said: “You have what you were looking for, what you aspired to in order to be the Grand Duke of Moscow and take my place,” after which he personally stabbed the old servant …

In the summer of 1570, at Chistye Prudy in Moscow, he first effectively pardoned more than a hundred “traitors” who had already said goodbye to their lives - let them go to their wives and children, and then arranged a demonstrative execution of 120 remaining ones, including many prominent clerks of Moscow orders. And not just, but with fiction.

The "Piskarevsky Chronicler" reports that the tsar "ordered the execution of the diak Ivan Viskovaty on the joint of cutting, and the deacon Nikita Funikov should be scalded with bread."

Together with them, Vasily Stepanov, who headed the Local Order, was executed, the head of the Big Parish, the main financial department of Russia at that time, Ivan Bulgakov, the head of the Robber Order (something like the Ministry of Internal Affairs) Grigory Shapkin. Numerous executions were not perceived as excessive cruelty - why not rejoice in the punishment of corrupt officials and traitors? Here is the sovereign - what to execute, what can show mercy!

The life of the oprichnina guards in Alexandrova Sloboda was filled with gloomy solemnity. After the punitive campaigns, the tsar and his servants put on monastic (that is, monastic.) Clothes. The “abbot” Ivan IV himself and Malyuta Skuratov rang the bells in the morning, gathering the “brethren” for prayer; those who did not appear were punished. During the long service, the tsar and his sons prayed and sang in the church choir, then went to a meal, after which they returned to normal state affairs.

Legend 7. Red Square is called so because Ivan the Terrible executed people there

Verdict:it is not true.

The word “red” in the name of Red Square means “beautiful”, just like in the phrase “red maiden”. And it began to be called that only from the end of the 17th century.

Legend 8. Ivan the Terrible was very religious and repented all the time

Verdict: this is true.

From the height of his regal majesty, Ivan the Terrible contemptuously called the Swedish king Johan III "sufferer" (Stradnik - a slave who worked in the economy of a feudal lord in Russia in the XIV-XV centuries.), and even in a message to his enemy, the king of the Commonwealth Stefan Batory, considered it necessary to indicate that “the king of great states is by God's will, and not by human desire ".

But out of immeasurable pride, he suddenly turned to repentance: “… the body is exhausted, the spirit is sick, the scabs of the body and the soul are multiplying … … The mental and sensual sank into the robbers … … For this sake we hate everyone,” he described his state of mind in his will in the summer of 1572 in Novgorod, where the tsar was expecting news of the outcome of the decisive battle with the Crimean Khan Devlet-Giray.

After the death of the heir, Tsarevich Ivan, the shocked tsar ordered to compile lists of those executed by his order and send them to monasteries with large sums of money for monastic prayers for the deceased. According to these lists ("synodiks of the disgraced"), about 4,000 people were killed.

Legend 9. Ivan the Terrible was a strong ruler and raised Russia from its knees

Verdict: it is not true.

Russia at the beginning of the 16th century was not “on its knees”, but was a young, rapidly growing power. Different people understand the phrase "strong ruler" differently. For some it means chopping off the heads of enemies, for others it means providing conditions for the successful development of the country. It was under Tsar Ivan in the 1570s that a crisis began in the country.

The devastation of the lands due to the hardships of the Livonian War and the introduction of the oprichnina led to frequent exodus of peasants from their land. Scribe books of the early 80s indicate that in many counties arable land has decreased significantly, and the population has died out or fled, as evidenced by the following records: "The guardsmen tortured them, their belly was robbed, the yard was burned." Zemsky districts in the 70s paid two or even three times more taxes than courtyard ones (Since 1564, the tsar divided the state into two parts: his personal inheritance (oprichnina) and everything else (zemstvo).).

The cities suffered not only from repression, but also from the "vaults" (resettlements) of merchants to Moscow - so the layer of rich and enterprising people in provincial cities was eliminated. The executions of the governor and the "desolation" of the noble possessions undermined the fighting efficiency of the army: in the late 70s, the nobles were beaten with a whip to force them to go to war.

Legend 10. Ivan the Terrible hated boyars

Verdict: it is not true.

The boyar of the 16th century is not a special breed of harmful people, but the highest rank among the then elite, the sovereign's court. Members of the Boyar Duma, tsarist governors, ambassadors, governors - they all come from several dozen noble families, whose ancestors from generation to generation served the Moscow princes. It was impossible to do without them.

A descendant of the legitimate sovereigns, Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, could execute one or another boyar, but it never entered his head to appoint the most loyal, but simple peasants or even ordinary provincial nobles in their place. Therefore, in the oprichnina, the new servants of the king were not at all artistic.

The Oprichnaya Duma was headed by the Kabardian prince Mikhail Cherkassky, brother of the new queen Maria, representatives of the old families - boyars Aleksey Basmanov and Fyodor Umnovo-Kolychev; princes Nikita Odoevsky, Vasily Tyomkin-Rostovsky, Ivan Shuisky. Yes, and among other guardsmen there were Rurikovich and Gediminovich - the princes of Rostov, Pronsky, Khvorostinins, Volkonsky, Trubetskoy, Khovansky. And also members of other old and honest Moscow families - Godunovs, Saltykovs, Pushkins, Buturlins, Turgenevs, Nashchokins. Even the chief executioner of the oprichnina, Malyuta Skuratov-Belsky, came from a completely worthy service family.

Legend 11. Ivan the Terrible played the abdication of the throne, because he was tired of the reign

Verdict: it is unknown.

Simeon Bekbulatovich. Painting by an unknown Polish artist. Late 16th - early 17th century Earlier it was believed that the painting depicts Mikhail Borisovich Tverskoy.

On October 30, 1575, Ivan the Terrible put the baptized Tatar prince Simeon Bekbulatovich on the throne. He himself, in the petition to Simeon Bekbulatovich, modestly called himself "Prince Ivan of Moscow" and settled "behind Neglina … in Orbat opposite the Old Stone Bridge."

But he did not give real power to anyone and after 11 months he returned to his former place, and Simeon was granted by the Grand Duke of Tver. Historians are still arguing about what this performance meant. The tsar wanted to quietly revive the oprichnina? To take away the privileges of the Church by someone else's hands? Claim to the throne of the neighboring Polish-Lithuanian state?

Legend 12. Ivan the Terrible killed his son

Verdict: it is unknown.

Most historians mention the conflicts between father and son, both because of the tsar's dissatisfaction with his daughter-in-law (the sovereign believed that she dressed in an inappropriate way), and in connection with suspicion and envy of the son, whom the people wanted to see at the head of the army. We will never reliably know what happened on the November night of 1581, but it can be argued that the famous painting by Ilya Repin does not correspond to reality.

Preserved and at the end of the XIX century were published documents testifying that the prince "lost heart"; his father summoned doctors from Moscow to his settlement, but the treatment was unsuccessful, and after 11 days Ivan Ivanovich died. What caused the illness, and whether there was actually a fatal blow to the head with a rod, we will never know: when the tsarevich's grave was opened, it turned out that his remains turned into dust, only the lower jaw remained from the skull.

Legend 13. Ivan the Terrible conquered Siberia

Verdict: it is not true.

First, the “conquest”, or rather the annexation, of Siberia is a long process that ended only in the 18th century; the development of its vastness and wealth continues even now. Secondly, there is no reason to believe that Tsar Ivan was the initiator or leader of this enterprise.

The profane Stroganovs invited the dashing ataman Yermak Timofeevich with a detachment to protect their possessions in the Urals from the raids of the Siberian Khan Kuchum. In the fall of 1582, a detachment of the ataman of 540 people moved beyond the Urals. A handful of people crossed the mountains, along the Tobol and Irtysh rivers penetrated the heart of the Siberian Khanate and captured its capital Kashlyk, from where Ermak sent messengers to Moscow with gifts and news of victory.

In 1585, Yermak himself died, but in his footsteps came new detachments of Cossacks and Moscow servicemen. The development of Siberia began, new cities appeared there: Tyumen, Berezov, Tara; the Siberian capital Tobolsk was built on the Irtysh; the fortress of Verkhoturye became the gateway to Siberia, through which the only land road ran.

Legend 14. He was well educated, knew many languages and built his own library

Verdict: this is true.

Ivan groznyj. Painting by Klavdiy Lebedev. Before 1916Wikimedia Commons

Tsar Ivan possessed an undoubted - as they say, from God - literary gift and the ability of figurative thinking and "biting" style, rare for a medieval scribe. The tsar was always capable of jokes, taunts, unexpected turn of phrase. For example, Prince Kurbsky solemnly announces to Ivan: "… behold, I think, no longer my face until the days of the Last Judgment." To which the king, with a mockery, replies: "Who is boo and desires such an Ethiopian face to see?"

Not only the appearance of a series of his letters and correspondence with the boyar Kurbsky is connected with the tsar's literary interests. One of the mysteries of the 16th century is the location and composition of the Tsar's library. The chronicle of the Riga burgomaster Nienstedt contains a story about how the tsar's associates were taken out of the walled up room and shown to the Livonian pastor Johann Vetterman several books in Greek, Latin and Hebrew.

And in 1819, a professor at the University of Dorpat, Christopher Dabelov, discovered a certain inventory of the books of this library, which contained the works of Cicero, Tacitus, Polybius, Aristophanes and other ancient authors. Unfortunately, neither the originals of this inventory, nor the library itself have yet been found, despite repeated searches. But even without these manuscripts, more than 100 books are known that at one time belonged to the king.

On the initiative of Ivan IV, the obverse annalistic collection was compiled - the monumental history of mankind from the creation of the world, including his own reign. The mysterious "postscripts" of an unknown editor in the margins of the last volumes of this set contain unique information about the events at the court of Ivan the Terrible. Even if these notes were not made by the hand of the tsar himself (in the 16th century writing was not a "tsarist" affair), his role as an imperious and biased editor of the history of his own reign is undoubted.

The tsar could start a theological dispute right at the reception - or, in vexation at the failed political union, write to Queen Elizabeth of England in 1570 in response to her diplomatic explanation that such agreements require discussion in parliament: only people, but peasants trading … And you are in your maiden rank as a vulgar maiden."

At the end of his life, under the pseudonym Parthenius the Ugly, he wrote a canon to the "formidable voivode" - the Archangel Michael. In his words, one can read both the fear of the appearance of a formidable angel, and the hope for the salvation of his sinful soul: “Erect my end, may I repent of my evil deeds, may I take away the sinful burden from me. Travel far away with you. Terrible and formidable angel, do not frighten me less powerful. Give me, angel, your humble coming and red walk, and I will rejoice you. Sing to me, angel, the cup of salvation."

Legend 15. Ivan the Terrible did not die a natural death: he was poisoned

Verdict: it is unknown.

To die in the 16th century - even for a tsar - was no work in the then state of medicine; Ivan Vasilievich's health had greatly diminished towards the end of his life. The king died on March 18, 1584; in Moscow there were rumors about his violent death, but it is impossible to prove or disprove them. Historians have no consensus on this score. A study of the tsar's bone remains showed an abundance of mercury in them, but this could also have happened from the use of ointments, common for medicine of that time, with which Ivan was treated for syphilis.