Ivan the Terrible, on the one hand, is a wise reformer, an outstanding and talented figure of the Moscow state, on the other, a bloody tyrant, a real murderer who subjected his subjects to monstrous repressions. How did the formation of the personality of one of the most extraordinary rulers happen, which had a noticeable impact on the course of Russian history?
Probably, the reasons for the suspicion, self-will, vengefulness and unjustified cruelty of Ivan IV lie in the events that happened to him in his childhood and youth. What was the ruler’s childhood?
According to legend, on August 25, 1530, at the very moment when Ivan the Terrible was born - the first-born of Grand Duke Vasily III and his second wife Elena Glinsky, a terrible thunderstorm broke out in the whole kingdom, in which contemporaries saw a bad omen. The baby was named Ivan in honor of the predecessor of Jesus Christ - John the Baptist. The name of Ivan was also the grandfather of the little prince. His father, Prince Vasily, lived only three years after the birth of the heir.
The court records say that the terminally ill Vasily III blessed his offspring to rule the state, and ordered his wife, whom he considered courageous and wise, to keep the state “under his son” until he came of age. There is another source indicating that Prince Vasily transferred control not to the princess, but to the boyars. This version seems more plausible, because he had no right to violate ancient traditions and centuries-old customs that did not allow women to participate in government affairs.
At the patient’s bed, the board was handed over to the boyars, the “seventh” guardianship council, which was headed by the unit prince Andrei Staritsky. Soon after the day when the Grand Duke passed away, the efforts of the boyars three-year-old Ivan was crowned. The nominal
reign of Ivan the Terrible began.
It is rather difficult to briefly describe the thirteen years that have passed between the coronation and the wedding to the kingdom. Ivan was an 8-year-old boy when his mother Elena Glinskaya died. Feelings of abandonment and loneliness developed in him the habit of constantly looking around and listening.
Ivan the Terrible, surrounded during ceremonies by royal luxury and subservient humility, in everyday life fully experienced shyness in everything, indifference and neglect on the part of the boyars and princes. Children's hardships were exacerbated by the fierce struggle for power of the boyar groups, accompanied by killings, intrigues and violence.
The childhood of Ivan the Terrible became the time when unattractive features of his character were formed: secrecy, suspiciousness, pretense, duplicity and cruelty.
At 12, an embittered teenager tormented and mutilated animals, throwing them from high towers, at 13 gave the order to kill one of the boyars. According to a contemporary, from the age of 15 the future tsar has a new fun - to ride with young men on horses in the streets and markets, to beat and rob ordinary people.
Ivan the Terrible became the king of all Russia in January 1547, when a wedding to the kingdom took place in the Assumption Cathedral - a solemn ceremony borrowed from Byzantium. The future sovereign was dressed in royal clothes during the wedding and laid a crown on him. Thus ended the childhood and adolescence of the first tsar of the Russian kingdom.