Ivan groznyj. 5 myths

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

The myth is a weapon. The ancient Chinese commander, the philosopher of war Sun Tzu said: “He who wins without a fight knows how to fight. He knows how to fight who captures fortresses without a siege. The one who crushes the state without an army knows how to fight”- he spoke about the power of the Myth.

The history of any nation, its spiritual health, its belief in itself and its strength is always based on certain myths, and it is these myths that become the living flesh and blood of this people, its assessment of the place in the universe. Today our consciousness has become a battleground for the ideas of two myths, the Black Myth about Russia and the Light Myth about the West

The overwhelming majority of historians, publicists, writers, etc., consider him as a deliberately "unprecedented", in essence, a pathological tyrant, despot, executioner.

It would be absurd to dispute that Ivan IV was a tough ruler. The historian Skrynnikov, who has devoted several decades to the study of his era, proves that under Ivan IV the Terrible, a "mass terror" was carried out in Russia, during which about 3-4 thousand people were killed.

But let us ask ourselves a question: how many people were sent to the other world by the Western European contemporaries of Ivan the Terrible: the Spanish kings Charles V and Philip II, the king of England Henry VIII and the French king Charles IX? It turns out that they executed hundreds of thousands of people in the most brutal manner. So, for example, it was during the time synchronous with the reign of Ivan the Terrible - from 1547 to 1584, in the Netherlands alone, under the rule of Charles V and Philip II, "the number of victims … reached 100 thousand." Of these, “28,540 people were burned alive”. On August 23, 1572, the French king Charles IX took an active "personal" participation in the so-called St. Bartholomew's Night, during which "more than 3 thousand Huguenots" were brutally killed just because they belonged to Protestantism and not to Catholicism; thus, about the same number of people were killed in one night as during the entire period of the terror of Ivan the Terrible! "Night" was continued, and "in general, about 30 thousand Protestants perished in France then within two weeks." In Henry VIII's England, just for "vagrancy" along the main roads, "72 thousand vagrants and beggars were hanged." In Germany, when the peasant uprising of 1525 was suppressed, more than 100,000 people were executed.

And yet, oddly enough and even astonishing, both in the Russian and equally in the Western consciousness, Ivan the Terrible appears as an incomparable, unique tyrant and executioner.

Something similar happens with other examples of Ivan's cruelty, which must be considered without the usual bias and relying on documentary evidence and just logic.

Myth 1. Unreasonable terror

This is probably the most important argument against Ivan. Like, solely for the sake of fun, the formidable tsar slaughtered innocent boyars. Although the periodic emergence of widely ramified conspiracies in the boyar environment is not denied by any self-respecting historian, if only because conspiracies are a common thing in any royal court. Memoirs of that era are full of stories of countless intrigues and betrayals. Facts and documents are stubborn things, and they testify that several dangerous conspiracies that followed one after another were drawn up against Grozny, uniting numerous participants from the tsar's entourage.

So in 1566-1567. the tsar intercepted letters from the Polish king and from the Lithuanian hetman to many of John's noble subjects. Among them was the former equerry Chelyadnin-Fedorov, whose rank made him the de facto leader of the Boyar Duma and gave him the right of a decisive vote in the election of a new sovereign. Together with him, letters from Poland were received by Prince Ivan Kurakin-Bulgachov, three princes of Rostov, Prince Belsky and some other boyars. Of these, only Belsky did not enter into independent correspondence with Sigismund and gave John a letter in which the Polish king offered the prince vast lands in Lithuania for treason to the Russian sovereign. The rest of Sigismund's addressees continued their written relations with Poland and conspired to put Prince Vladimir Staritsky on the Russian throne. In the fall of 1567, when John led a campaign against Lithuania, new evidence of treason fell into his hands. The tsar had to urgently return to Moscow not only to investigate this case, but also to save his own life: the conspirators planned to surround the tsar's headquarters with the military detachments loyal to them, to interrupt the guards and to hand over Grozny to the Poles. At the head of the rebels was Chelyadnin-Fedorov. There is a preserved account of this conspiracy of the political agent of the Polish crown Schlichting, in which he informs Sigismund: “Many noble persons, about 30 people … pledged in writing that they would betray the Grand Duke, along with his oprichniks, into the hands of Your Royal Majesty, if only Your Royal Majesty moved to the country."

The trial of the Boyar Duma took place. The evidence was irrefutable: the treaty of the traitors with their signatures was in the hands of John. Both the boyars and Prince Vladimir Staritsky, who tried to distance themselves from the conspiracy, found the rebels guilty. Historians, based on the notes of the German spy Staden, report the execution of Chelyadnin-Fedorov, Ivan Kurakin-Bulgachov and the princes of Rostov. All of them were allegedly brutally tortured and executed. But, it is reliably known that Prince Ivan Kurakin, the second most important participant in the conspiracy, remained alive and, moreover, 10 years later, he held the post of governor of the city of Venden. Besieged by the Poles, he drank, abandoning the command of the garrison. The city was lost to Russia, and the drunken prince was executed for this. You can't say that you were punished for anything.

And with many of the executed boyars, a similar red tape happened, not to mention the fact that several boyars, like the Vorotynsky brothers, were killed exclusively by historians, not Grozny. Researchers-historians had a lot of fun, finding documents about the life of many boyars, as if nothing had happened, even after they were supposedly beheaded or impaled.

Myth 2. The defeat of Novgorod

In 1563, John learns from the clerk Savluk, who served in Staritsa, about the "great treasonous deeds" of his cousin Prince Vladimir Staritsky and his mother, Princess Euphrosinia. The tsar began an investigation and soon after that Andrei Kurbsky, a close friend of the Staritsky family and an active participant in all his intrigues, fled to Lithuania. At the same time, John's brother, Yuri Vasilievich, dies. This brings Vladimir Staritsky close to the throne. Grozny is forced to take a number of measures to ensure its own security. The tsar replaces all the close people of Vladimir Andreyevich with his confidants, exchanges his inheritance for another and deprives his cousin of the right to live in the Kremlin. John draws up a new will, according to which Vladimir Andreevich, although he remains on the board of trustees, is already an ordinary member, and not the chairman, as before. All these measures cannot even be called harsh, they were just an adequate response to danger. Already in 1566, the easygoing tsar forgave his brother and granted him new possessions and a place in the Kremlin to build a palace. When in 1567 Vladimir, together with the Boyar Duma, sentenced Fedorov-Chelyadnin and the rest of his secret accomplices, John's confidence in him increased even more. However, at the end of the summer of the same year, the Novgorod landowner Pyotr Ivanovich Volynsky, close to the Staritsky court, informs the tsar of a new conspiracy of such magnitude that John, in fear, turned to Elizabeth of England with a request to grant him, in an extreme case, refuge on the banks of the Thames. The essence of the conspiracy, in short, is as follows: the tsar's cook bribed by the Staritsky prince poisons John with poison, and Prince Vladimir himself, returning at this time from the campaign, leads significant military forces. With their help, he destroys the oprichnina detachments, overthrows the young heir and seizes the throne. In this he is assisted by conspirators in Moscow, including those from the highest oprichnina circles, the boyar elite of Novgorod and the Polish king. After the victory, the participants in the conspiracy planned to divide Russia as follows: Prince Vladimir received the throne, Poland - Pskov and Novgorod, and the Novgorod nobility - the liberties of Polish magnates.

Participation in the conspiracy of Moscow boyars and officials close to the tsar was established: Vyazemsky, Basmanovs, Funikov and clerk Viskovaty.

At the end of September 1569, the tsar summoned Vladimir Staritsky, after which the prince leaves the tsar's reception and dies the next day. The conspiracy has been decapitated, but has not yet been destroyed. The conspiracy was headed by the Novgorod archbishop Pimen. John moved to Novgorod. Probably no other event of that time caused such a number of angry attacks against the tsar as the so-called “Novgorod pogrom”. It is known that on January 2, 1570, an advanced detachment of guardsmen set up outposts around Novgorod, and on January 6 or 8, the tsar and his personal guards entered the city. The vanguard arrested noble citizens, whose signatures were under the treaty with Sigismund, and some monks guilty of the heresy of the Judaizers, which served as the ideological feed of the separatism of the Novgorod elite. After the arrival of the sovereign, a trial was held. How many traitors were sentenced to death? The historian Skrynnikov, on the basis of the studied documents and personal records of the tsar, deduces a figure of 1505 people. About the same number, one and a half thousand names, has a list of John's epistles for prayer commemoration in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. Is this a lot or a little to eradicate separatism in a third of the country's territory? Not understanding that time and not knowing all the attendant circumstances, one can only give an idle answer to this question, which does not explain anything in essence. But maybe those who report tens of thousands of "victims of the royal tyranny" are still right? After all, there is no smoke without fire? No wonder they write about 5,000 ruined courtyards out of 6,000 in Novgorod, about 10,000 corpses raised in August 1570 from a mass grave near the Nativity Church? About the desolation of Novgorod lands by the end of the 16th century?

All these facts can be explained without further exaggeration. In 1569-1571. a plague struck Russia. The western and northwestern regions, including Novgorod, were particularly affected. The infection killed about 300,000 inhabitants of Russia. In Moscow itself, in 1569, 600 people died a day - the same as, allegedly, Grozny executed every day in Novgorod. The victims of the plague formed the basis of the myth of the “Novgorod pogrom”.

Myth 3. "Sonicide"

There is one “sacrifice” of John that everyone, young and old, has heard about. The details of Ivan the Terrible's murder of his son have been replicated in thousands of copies by artists and writers.

The father of the "filicide" myth was a high-ranking Jesuit, papal legate Anthony Possevin. He also belongs to the authorship of the political intrigue, as a result of which Catholic Rome hoped, with the help of the Polish-Lithuanian-Swedish intervention, to bring Russia to its knees and, taking advantage of its difficult situation, to force John to subordinate the Russian Orthodox Church to the papal throne. However, the king played his diplomatic game and managed to use Possevin when making peace with Poland, while avoiding concessions in the religious dispute with Rome. Although historians present the Yam-Zapolsky peace treaty as a serious defeat for Russia, it must be said that through the efforts of the papal legate, in fact, Poland received back only its own city of Polotsk, taken by Grozny from Sigismund in 1563. After the conclusion of the peace, John even refused to discuss with Possevin the question of the unification of the churches - after all, he did not promise this. The failure of the Catholic adventure made Possevin John's personal enemy. In addition, the Jesuit arrived in Moscow a few months after the death of the tsarevich and could not witness the incident.

As for the true causes of the event, the death of the heir to the throne caused bewildered discord among contemporaries and controversy among historians. There were enough versions of the death of the tsarevich, but in each of them the words “maybe”, “most likely”, “probably” and “as if” served as the main proof.

But the traditional version reads as follows: once the king went into the chambers of his son and saw his pregnant wife dressed not according to the rules: it was hot, and instead of three shirts she put on only one. The king began to beat his daughter-in-law, and the son - to protect her. Then Grozny struck his son a fatal blow to the head. But in this version, you can see a number of inconsistencies. The "witnesses" are confused. Some say that the princess wore only one dress out of three due to the heat. Is this in November? Moreover, a woman at that time had every right to be in her chambers in only one shirt, which served as a home dress. Another author points out the absence of a belt, which allegedly infuriated John, who accidentally met his daughter-in-law in the "inner chambers of the palace." This version is completely unreliable, if only because it would have been very difficult for the tsar to meet the princess “not dressed according to the charter,” and even in the inner chambers. And in the rest of the palace chambers, even fully dressed ladies of the then Moscow high society did not walk freely. For each member of the royal family, separate mansions were built, connected to other parts of the palace by rather cool transitions in winter. The family of the tsarevich lived in such a separate mansion. The routine of life of Princess Helena was the same as that of other noble ladies of that century: after the morning divine service, she went to her chambers and sat down at needlework with her servants. Noble women lived locked up. Spending their days in their chambers, they did not dare to appear in public and, even having become a wife, could not go anywhere without the permission of their husband, including to the church, and their every step was watched by the relentless servant-guards. The noble woman's room was located in the back of the house, where a special entrance led, the key to which was always in her husband's pocket. No man could enter the female half of the tower, even if he was the closest relative.

Thus, Princess Elena was in the female half of a separate tower, the entrance to which is always locked, and the key is in her husband's pocket. She can leave there only with the permission of her husband and accompanied by numerous servants and maids who would surely take care of decent clothes. In addition, Elena was pregnant and would hardly have been left unattended. It turns out that the only opportunity for the tsar to meet his daughter-in-law in a half-dressed form was to break down the locked door of the maiden's and disperse the hawthorn and hay girls. But history did not record such a fact in the life of John, full of adventures.

But if there was no murder, then from what did the prince die? Tsarevich Ivan died of illness, and some documentary evidence has survived. Jacques Margeret wrote: “There is a rumor that he (the king) killed the eldest (son) with his own hand, which happened differently, because, although he struck him with the end of the rod … and he was wounded by a blow, he did not die from this, and some time later, on a pilgrimage trip. " Using this phrase as an example, we can see how a false version, popular among foreigners with the "light" hand of Possevin, is intertwined with the truth about the death of the prince from illness during a pilgrimage trip. In addition, the duration of the illness was 10 days, from November 9 to 19, 1581. But what kind of illness was it?

In 1963, four tombs were opened in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin: Ivan the Terrible, Tsarevich Ivan, Tsar Theodore Ioannovich and the commander Skopin-Shuisky. When examining the remains, the version of the poisoning of Grozny was verified. Scientists have found that the content of arsenic, the most popular poison at all times, is approximately the same in all four skeletons and does not exceed the norm. But in the bones of Tsar John and Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich, the presence of mercury was found, far exceeding the permissible norm.

How accidental is this coincidence? Unfortunately, all that is known about the Tsarevich's illness is that it lasted 10 days. The place of death of the heir is Aleksandrov Sloboda, located north of Moscow. It can be assumed that, feeling ill, the tsarevich went to the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery to take monastic vows there before his death. It is clear that if he decided to set off on such a long journey, then he did not lie unconscious with a skull injury. Otherwise, the prince would have been cut on the spot. But on the way, the patient's condition worsened and, having reached the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, the heir finally took to his bed and soon died of "fever".

Ivan groznyj. European engraving. 16th century

Myth 4. "Ivan the polygamist"

Almost all historians and writers who wrote about Grozny cannot ignore the theme of his married life. And here the notorious seven wives of Ivan the Terrible appear on the stage, created by the sick imagination of Western memoirists who had read a lot of fairy tales about Bluebeard, and also remembered the real, tragically ending fates of several wives of the English king Henry VIII. Jeremiah Horsey, who lived in Russia for many years, did not hesitate to enroll in the tsar's wife “Natalia Bulgakova, daughter of Prince Fyodor Bulgakov, the chief governor, a man who enjoyed great confidence and experienced in the war … soon this nobleman was beheaded, and his daughter was tonsured a year later. nuns ". However, such a lady did not exist in nature at all. The same can be repeated with regard to some of John's other "wives." In his "Journey to the Holy Places of Russia" A. N. Muravyov indicates the exact number of John's wives. Describing the Ascension Monastery - the final resting place of the Grand Duchesses and Russian Tsaritsa, he says: "Next to the mother of Grozny are four of his spouses …". Of course, four spouses are also a lot. But, first of all, not seven. And, secondly, the third wife of the tsar, Martha Sobakina, was still seriously ill as a bride and died a week after the wedding, never becoming a tsar's wife. To establish this fact, a special commission was convened, and on the basis of its findings, the tsar subsequently received permission for a fourth marriage. According to Orthodox tradition, it was allowed to marry no more than three times.

Myth 5. "The defeat of the German settlement"

In 1580, the tsar carried out another action that put an end to the well-being of the German settlement. This is also used for yet another propaganda attack on Grozny. The Pomeranian historian Pastor Oderborn describes these events in dark and bloody tones: the king, both of his sons, the guardsmen, all in black robes, burst into a peacefully sleeping settlement at midnight, killed innocent residents, raped women, cut off their tongues, pulled out nails, pierced people white with red-hot spears, they burned, drowned and plundered. However, the historian Walishevsky believes that the data of the Lutheran pastor is absolutely unreliable. Here it must be added that Oderborn wrote his libel in Germany, was not an eyewitness to the events and felt a pronounced dislike for John because the king did not want to support the Protestants in their struggle against Catholic Rome.

The Frenchman Jacques Margeret, who lived in Russia for many years, describes this event in a completely different way: “The Livonians who were taken prisoner and taken to Moscow, professing the Lutheran faith, having received two churches inside the city of Moscow, sent public services there; but in the end, because of their pride and vanity, the said temples … were destroyed and all their houses were destroyed. And, although in the winter they were expelled naked, for which their mother had given birth, they could not blame anyone but themselves for this, for … they behaved so arrogantly, their manners were so arrogant, and their clothes were so luxurious that they could all be mistaken for princes and princesses … The main profit they were given the right to sell vodka, honey and other drinks, on which they make not 10%, but a hundred, which seems incredible, but it's true. Similar data is given by a German merchant from the city of Lubeck, not just an eyewitness, but also a participant in the events. He reports that although the order was only to confiscate the property, the perpetrators still used the whip, so he got it too. However, like Margeret, the merchant does not speak of murder, rape, or torture. But what is the fault of the Livonians, who lost their estates and profits overnight?

The German Heinrich Staden, who has no love for Russia, reports that the Russians are forbidden to trade in vodka, and this trade is considered a great disgrace among them, while the tsar allows foreigners to keep a tavern in the courtyard of his house and trade in alcohol, since “foreign soldiers are Poles, Germans, Lithuanians … by their very nature they love to drink. " This phrase can be supplemented with the words of a Jesuit and a member of the papal embassy Paolo Kompani: "The law prohibits the sale of vodka in public in taverns, as this would contribute to the spread of drunkenness." Thus, it becomes clear that the Livonian immigrants, having acquired the right to make and sell vodka to their compatriots, abused their privileges and "began to corrupt Russians in their taverns."

No matter how indignant the paid agitators of Stefan Batory and their modern adherents may be, the fact remains: the Livonians violated Moscow law and incurred the punishment due to the law. Michalon Litvin wrote that “in Muscovy there are no shanks anywhere, and if at least a drop of wine is found at some householder, then his whole house is ruined, the estate is confiscated, the servants and neighbors living on the same street are punished, and the owner himself is forever imprisoned to prison … Since Muscovites abstain from drunkenness, their cities abound with craftsmen diligent in different clans, who, sending us wooden bowls … saddles, spears, jewelry and various weapons, rob our gold."

Of course, the tsar was alarmed when he learned that his subjects were being drunk in the German settlement. But there was no lawlessness, the punishment corresponded to the law, the main provisions of which are given by Michal Litvin: the houses of the criminals were ravaged; property was confiscated; servants and neighbors were whipped; and even leniency was rendered - the Livonians were not imprisoned for life, as was required by law, but were only evicted out of the city and allowed to build houses and a church there.

As can be seen from the above facts, the figure of Ivan the Terrible was pretty demonized, although, of course, during the reign of Grozny there were dark pages, but nothing that went beyond the political culture and customs of that time was difficult to find behind the tsar.

Moreover, behind the clearly distorted image of the Terrible, many researchers do not notice the positive aspects of the reign of Ivan Vasilyevich. But there are also a lot of them.

Under Ivan, Rus rose from her knees and straightened her shoulders from the Baltic to Siberia. Upon accession to the throne, John inherited 2, 8 million square meters. km, and as a result of his rule, the territory of the state has almost doubled - up to 5.4 million square meters. km - slightly more than the rest of Europe. During the same time, the population grew by 30-50% and amounted to 10-12 million people. In 1547, Grozny was married to the kingdom and assumed the title of tsar, equivalent to the imperial one. This state of affairs was legalized by the Ecumenical Patriarch and other hierarchs of the Eastern Church, who saw in John the only defender of the Orthodox faith. Under Ivan, the remnants of feudal fragmentation were finally destroyed, and without this it is not known whether Russia would have survived the Time of Troubles or not. It was during the reign of John IV that church Councils of 1547, 1549, 1551, 1553 and 1562 were held, which laid the foundations for church building in Russia. During the reign of this tsar, 39 Russian saints were canonized, while before him (in six centuries of Christianity in Russia!) Only 22 were glorified.

By order of Ivan the Terrible, over 40 stone churches decorated with golden domes were erected. The tsar founded 60 monasteries, donating domes and decorations to them, as well as donating monetary contributions to them.

John IV, under the name of Parthenius the Fool, wrote the Canon and a prayer to the Archangel Michael, calling him the Terrible Angel. The canon emphasizes the sacred fear emanating from the archangel, here he is described as "formidable and deadly." Tsar John also wrote stichera, about which the experts of our ancient writing speak very highly.