Passion for Ivan the Terrible. Bloody monster or statesman?

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

The monument to Ivan the Terrible is the first monument to Tsar Ivan the Terrible in the history of Russia, opened in Orel on October 14, 2016. Why was the public (and the liberal public especially) so excited by the appearance in Orel of a monument to Ivan IV the Terrible?

An ordinary, seemingly, story happened in the old city of Oryol - the city administration decided, in honor of the 450th anniversary of the native city, to erect a monument to its founder, Tsar Ivan the Terrible. As it suddenly turned out, I decided not in a good hour.

An artist from the Krasnoyarsk Territory Vladislav Gultyaev, in protest, erected his monument to the tsar in the form of an aspen stake on the banks of the distant northern river Kan and burst into an angry speech:

You should not erect monuments to people who used targeted terror against their own people. Well, I also wanted to remind you that the times when people were tortured, killed just like that, killed by order, are not so far away. Our grandfathers and women remember this perfectly, but we are their descendants. If we do not want to repeat the same mistakes, we must be aware of this and firmly believe that this is unacceptable.

The Siberian Rembrandt was supported by the famous writer Boris Akunin living in London (in the world Grigory Chkhartishvili):

There are, of course, enough villains in Russian history. But if it were necessary to conduct a casting for the role of the most disgusting monster in all of Russian history, this place would be taken by Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. If you really want to erect a monument to him, just drive an aspen stake into the ground. This will be the best.

And it went, and it went, and it galloped across the dense Internet spaces …

Journalists, writers, bloggers and merchandisers, political scientists and just politicians, public figures of various calibers and glamorous ladies from society, experts and prominent specialists in various fields of some kind of activity, just lovers of strawberry stories and uncompromising lovers of truth … They spoke brightly and hotly, sometimes referred to historical facts from the Internet, and more to the inner sense of justice.

Who and why is Ivan the Terrible hindered

However, our society and not ours were divided in the assessment of the event itself and the role of the personality of Tsar Ivan the Terrible in Russian history. And there are reasons for that. And these reasons, it seems to me, are very far from both history (as a science) and from the long-dead Russian tsar. Everything here is not carrion, but smells of living blood.

Why am I so sure that the conflict did not arise at all because of the personality of Ivan the Terrible? But because the bulk of the people who considered it possible to speak about Ivan Vasilievich know very little about the subject of the dispute. And, apparently, they don't want to know.

What arguments are used in the heated and simply offensive debates of the parties? These arguments can be roughly divided into two capacious groups and one small opinion that no one hears:

• the installation of the monument offends the historical memory of millions of people. It is impossible to perpetuate the memory of the one who was engaged in total murder and terribly, for no reason, tyrannized his people;
• he did a lot for the formation of the Russian state, and brought benefits more than harm;
• you don't know anything about Ivan the Terrible. A history from a history textbook is 90% falsification of history. History is science. Historians who write history and do not study history have nothing to do with historical science. Read smart books instead of engaging in … verbiage. It's good to have two heads, but it's better to have your own clever one.

Since I really wanted to “have my own clever one,” I began to fill it with useful knowledge from a modern school history textbook. As many as 27 pages about the reign of Ivan the Terrible! And out of these twenty-seven, nine are about how he, a born cannibal, executed innocent people. He was executed solely because he had a cruel character. No more and no less.

Satrap and tyrant, honestly!

This is exactly what I would have thought if I judged the king solely by this textbook. Poor, poor Ivan Vasilievich …

• Did you take Kazan?
• I took it.
• Why did you take it?
• I decided to end the independence of the Kazan Khanate!

Do you think I'm kidding? This is exactly how the textbook says about the reasons for the campaign against Kazan - Ivan the Terrible decided to end the "independence" of the Kazan Khanate. And then he decided to "annex" the Astrakhan Khanate, the lands of the Nogai Horde and Siberia.

A typical Russian tsar who wants to end the independence of his neighbors! Russians always do this with their independent neighbors. Why? But because they are Russian. What is incomprehensible here?

And not a word about the fact that during the years of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, these independent neighbors made more than 40 raids on the Russian lands and turned southeastern Russia into a desert - they burned cities and villages, and drove the people "full of".

Why did the Livonian War start?

Having achieved brilliant success in the east, Ivan IV turned his gaze to the west. The lack of ports on the Baltic Sea limited trade with European countries. Ivan IV decided to recapture the possessions of the Livonian Order.

Again, a typical Russian tsar, who saw other people's pretty ports on the Baltic Sea and, if not to build his own, decided to clean up the Livonian ones. Satrap, he is a satrap.

And, again, not a word about the good neighbors who captured and plundered Russian merchants in Stockholm, about the Swedish siege of Nut and the campaign of King Gustav I Vasa against Novgorod, about the insolent refusal to pay "Yuryev's tribute", about the arrest of 300 artisans, who, by order of Ivan Grozny was hired in Europe by the Saxon Schlitte (the Saxon was then executed, but the artisans were "left to themselves"), about the port built on the banks of the Narva on the orders of Ivan the Terrible, and about how the "Livonians" blocked this port and did not let merchant ships into it.

Ivan Vasilyevich tired of enduring this Livonian rudeness, so he "turned his gaze to the west." And not at all because he liked other people's ports. Patience, I suppose, took and ended.

How did it end in relation to the "progressive" boyars. The tsar, according to the textbook, wanted to strengthen his power, and the boyars were for … Democrats, it turns out, they were, "young talented reformers." I am not kidding. It was with great surprise that I read about "talented reformers" in a textbook. It was these almost holy people who were innocently executed by the bloody maniac Grozny.

And weren't there real betrayals and just incredible theft of state money? I will not bore you with a list of boyars and children of boyars, church ministers, etc., who were caught, even before the oprichnina was established, of high treason and theft. Were they? Were! But there were no “mass executions” (as it is written in the textbook) and “purposeful terror against one's own people”. This is already an overkill.

It must be said that the reputation of Ivan the Terrible was greatly tarnished by the Khrushchev thaw. The entire party world condemned the Stalinist repressions and placed a taboo on the dangerous topic. For a known reason, they imposed it - the comrades-in-arms were still alive. And I wanted to write about a bloody tyrant and a criminal regime. This is where Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible came in handy, whom Joseph Vissarionovich allegedly sympathized with.

By the way, Stalin considered Ivan the Terrible to be too soft a tsar who, instead of executing his enemies, “prayed and cried”.

And gradually, from writer to writer, Ivan Vasilievich turned into Joseph Vissarionovich.

It was from this thaw moment that “mass executions”, “cruel reprisals”, “innocent victims”, etc. appeared in textbooks. They wrote about Tsar Grozny, but kept Comrade Stalin in mind … Later, repressions and terror against their own people appeared in the texts. Another ten years of perestroika would have been added to the "funnels" of Ivan the Terrible - the evil guardsmen took away the repressed innocent democratic boyars-reformers on terrible black horses, which the people called funnels!

And do not accuse me of making fun of the really innocent victims! In 1937, all men over 16 years old were shot in my family. Therefore, I have my own special attitude to repressions and “bloody maniacs”. And I will not joke on this topic. There is not even little room in this misfortune even for bitter humor.

And there should be no room for speculation on this misfortune. How else, if not cheap speculation, can you call this pseudo-liberal howl? And who are the judges, gentlemen, fake reformers and no less fake democrats? Plundered a great country, and now you remember the people? Do you care about his welfare and moral purity?

Did the monument to Ivan the Terrible scare you? And the people liked the monument. And not at all because our "stupid dark people" longs for a whip and an ax over themselves. Lord modern boyars and boyar children! The people got tired of your theft and destruction of the Russian state, of outright betrayal and impunity of those whom the TV defined as "modern elites." And it does not matter to this people who Ivan the Terrible really was - he, this people, for the most part, knows about Ivan IV Vasilievich no more than you do. Only you are screaming about "mass repressions", which did not take place, and the people stubbornly - about the collector of the Russian state. You need to preserve the hothouse conditions for personal theft, and the popular veche is already against it.

The pot is boiling. And you shouldn't forget about it. It is necessary to thoroughly study Russian history and identify some patterns. This is me about how such a Russian seething-longsuffering always ends. A bloody bath in which both the guilty and the innocent will perish.

You want European values - the window to Europe is open. Fly away! To London, to Paris, to New York, to Tel Aviv, to hell. They are already tired of you there, all eyes have overlooked. Leave Russia to the Russians, who do not need shocks or European integration, but Great Russia. Not a terrible empire, but a country that you can and should be proud of.

Leave it to those who do not want to give up their roots, from their history. Yes, there were terrible bloody pages in this story. So what? Shall we take them and rip them out, or rewrite them? Or do we again need to repent before the "enlightened Europe" for the sins of our ancestors? Why on earth and in front of whom? They have their own history, in comparison with which ours is the life of the saints.

And the monument to Ivan the Terrible is such a warning.

It's time to build a Russian state, strong, sovereign and prosperous, in which not only boyars and their children will live well! And then the Terrible Tsar will appear!