Mad Kings & Queens: Raving Royals and How To Survive Them (Wednesday, 2nd Period)

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"Ivan IV Vasilyevich, or 'Ivan Gronzy' was the first ruler of Russia to call himself "Tsar" or Emperor King," Ghanima said briskly.  "His name is synonymous in the West with torture, cruelty, and paranoia.  He established a bodyguard, the Oprichniki, which has been described as Russia's first secret police.  Nevertheless, many people in Russia consider him a national hero."

"When Ivan was three, his father died, and his mother, Jelena Glinskaya, became regent until she was poisoned five years later by the nobles of the court.  According to his own letters, Ivan and his younger brother Yuri, who was a deaf-mute, customarily felt neglected and offended by the mighty boyars from the Shuisky and Belsky families.  They frequently went hungry, witnessed murders, and were subject to physical and verbal abuse."

"By the time Ivan was in his early teens, sources say that he was showing some signs of this abuse.  Allegedly, his favorite pastime was throwing live animals from towers and watching them fall to their deaths.  He tore feathers off live birds.  He raped, robbed, and killed villagers for sport," Ghanima said.  "Which was, to be honest, a time-honored tradition in the boyar families.  Tormenting villagers, that is."

"Ivan was crowned the first Tsar when he was sixteen, and married soon afterwards.  There was a national competition to find a bride, and virgins from all over the kingdom were assembled in the Kermlin for the event.  He chose Anastasia Romonova, and according to all accounts it was a love-match on both sides," Ghanima mused fondly.  "Anastasia tempered Ivan's outbursts, and they were very happy together."

"Despite calamities triggered by the Great Fire of 1547, the early part of his reign was one of peaceful reforms and modernization. Ivan revised the law code, known as the sudebnik, created a standing army, established the Zemsky Sobor or assembly of the land, a public, consensus-building assembly, the council of the nobles, and confirmed the position of the Church with the Council of the Hundred Chapters, which unified the rituals and ecclesiastical regulations of the entire country. He introduced the local self-management in rural regions, mainly in the Northeast of Russia, populated by the state peasantry. During his reign the first printing press was introduced to Russia."

"Other events of this period include the introduction of the first laws restricting the mobility of the peasants, which would eventually lead to serfdom, and change in Ivan's personality, traditionally linked to his near-fatal illness in 1553 and the death of his first wife, Anastasia Romanovna in 1560. Ivan suspected boyars of poisoning his wife and of plotting to replace him on the throne with his cousin, Vladimir of Staritsa. In addition, during that illness Ivan had asked the boyars to swear an oath of allegiance to his eldest son, an infant at the time. Many boyars refused, deeming the tsar's health too hopeless to survive. This angered Ivan and added to his distrust of the boyars. There followed brutal reprisals and assassinations, including those of Metropolitan Philip and Prince Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky."

"The 1565 formation of the Oprichnina was also significant. The Oprichnina was the section of Russia directly ruled by Ivan and policed by his personal servicemen, the Oprichniki. This system of Oprichnina has been viewed by some historians as a tool against the omnipotent hereditary nobility of Russia who opposed the absolutist drive of the tsar, while others have interpreted it as a sign of the paranoia and mental deterioration of Ivan."

"The later half of Ivan's reign was far less successful. Although Khan Devlet I Giray of Crimea repeatedly devastated the Moscow region and even set Moscow on fire in 1571, the Tsar supported Yermak's conquest of Tatar Siberia, adopting a policy of empire-building, which led him to launch a victorious war of seaward expansion to the west, only to find himself fighting the Swedes, Lithuanians, Poles, and the Livonian Teutonic Knights."

"For twenty-four years the Livonian War dragged on, damaging the Russian economy and military and failing to gain any territory for Russia. In the 1560s the combination of drought and famine, Polish-Lithuanian raids, Tatar invasions, and the sea-trading blockade carried out by the Swedes, Poles and the Hanseatic League devastated Russia. The price of grain increased by a factor of ten. Epidemics of the plague killed 10,000 in Novgorod. In 1570 the plague killed 600-1000 in Moscow daily. One of Ivan's advisors, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, defected to the Lithuanians, headed the Lithuanian troops and devastated the Russian region of Velikiye Luki. This treachery deeply hurt Ivan. As it continued, Ivan became mentally unstable and physically disabled. In one week, he could easily pass from the most depraved orgies to anguished prayers and fasting in a remote northern monastery."

"Because he gradually grew unbalanced and violent, the Oprichniks under Malyuta Skuratov soon got out of hand and became murderous thugs. They massacred nobles and peasants, and conscripted men to fight the war in Livonia. Depopulation and famine ensued. What had been by far the richest area of Russia became the poorest. In a dispute with the wealthy city of Novgorod, Ivan reportedly ordered the Oprichniks to murder inhabitants of this city, which was never to regain its former prosperity. His followers burned and pillaged the city and villages, and as many as 5,000 might have been killed during the infamous Massacre of Novgorod in 1570."

"Although it is thought rumored that Ivan died while setting up a chess board, it is more likely that he died while playing chess with Bogdan Belsky on March 18, 1584. When Ivan's tomb was opened during renovations in the 1960s, his remains were examined and discovered to contain very high amounts of mercury, indicating a high probability that he was poisoned. Modern suspicion falls on his advisers Belsky and Boris Godunov, who became tsar in 1598. Three days earlier, Ivan had allegedly attempted to rape Irina, Godunov's sister and Feodor's wife. Her cries attracted Godunov and Belsky to the noise, whereupon Ivan let Irina go, but Belsky and Godunov considered themselves marked for death. The tradition says that they either poisoned or strangled Ivan in fear for their own lives. Upon Ivan's death, the ravaged kingdom was left to his unfit and childless son Feodor."

"Ivan's long reign saw the conquest of the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia, transforming Russia into a multiethnic and multiconfessional state spanning almost 1 billion acres, growing during his term at a rate of approximately 50 square miles a day.  It's an astounding accomplishment, especially considering adversity he faced."

"Interestingly enough, the English word terrible is usually used to translate the Russian word grozny in Ivan's nickname, but the modern English usage of terrible, with a pejorative connotation of bad or evil, does not precisely represent the intended meaning. Grozny's meaning is closer to the original usage of terrible—inspiring fear or terror, dangerous," Ghanima wrote on the board.  "Formidable, threatening, or awesome. Perhaps a translation closer to the intended sense would be Ivan the Fearsome, or Ivan the Formidable."  She tapped her chalk against the wall, and turned to smile at them.  "Somehow, Ivan the Awesome does not quite inspire the same fear as 'Terrible' does."