The campaign of Ivan the Terrible to Novgorod took place in 1569-1570. It was essentially a punitive operation, which the king personally headed when he found out that the city nobility might not be true to him. The speech was accompanied by massacres, became one of the bloodiest pages in the history of the reign of this sovereign. This article will discuss the reasons for the campaign, its events and outcomes.
Background
Ivan the Terrible’s campaign in Novgorod actually began after the tsar suspected the Novgorod nobility of treason. He became aware that the boyars could be involved in a conspiracy in which he suspected Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky.
Staritsky was the penultimate unit prince in the history of Russia, the grandson of Ivan III. Ivan the Terrible, he was a cousin. In childhood, he spent three years in prison after his father opposed the government of Elena Glinsky. He was released only in 1541, when he was 8 years old. My father had died in prison by then.
When Tsar Ivan the Terrible fell ill, many boyars saw in Staritsky an alternative to Tsarevich Dmitry. But then the party of supporters of the king won, which was a letter of allegiance to the ruler. It was signed by Vladimir Andreevich. After the king’s recovery, Staritsky attempted a coup d'etat, which ended in failure. But his opal did not last long.
After it was repeatedly negotiated. In 1569, the occasion was the reception that the residents of Kostroma gave him when he was sent at the head of the army to defend Astrakhan. He was urgently summoned to Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. At the entrance of Staritsky, an oprichnina army surrounded. The testimony of the tsar’s cook, who under torture admitted that Vladimir had persuaded him to poison Ivan IV, became a formal reason for the accusation.
The prince was executed in October, and in December the tsar moved to Novgorod.
Denunciation
Besides the fact that he suspected the boyars of Vladimir’s support, another reason for Ivan the Terrible’s campaign in Novgorod was the fear that the nobility was going to swear allegiance to the Polish king Sigismund II. The ruler of a neighboring country has indeed long had views of these lands.
The reason for these fears was the denunciation filed by an unknown vagrant Peter from Volhynia. As it turned out later, in Novgorod he was punished for something, so he was angry with the city. He accused its residents, along with Archbishop Pimen, of planning to plant Prince Vladimir Staritsky on the Russian throne, and transferring Novgorod and Pskov to the Polish monarch.
According to Soviet historian Vladimir Borisovich Kobrin, who specialized in medieval Russia, the denunciation was initially ridiculous and ridiculous, in addition, it contained many contradictions. The matter, at least, was that Novgorodians were simultaneously accused of two crimes that contradicted each other. On the one hand, they wanted to be ruled by Poland, and on the other, they wanted to plant the new tsar on the Russian throne.
This did not bother Ivan IV, who had long seen a threat in strong and freedom-loving boyars.
Punishment
The campaign of Ivan the Terrible to Novgorod began in the autumn of 1560. On the way, the guardsmen acted ruthlessly. In particular, they looted and massacres in Klin, Tver and Torzhok. The same fate befell a number of cities that met on their way.
According to the surviving documents, it was possible to confirm the killing of 1,505 people. Mostly these were Tatar and Lithuanian prisoners in prison. They also killed the Novgorodians and Pskovites, who were evicted from their homes and are now taken unawares by the oprichniks on their way to Moscow.
Metropolitan in disgrace
Repression affected specific well-known personalities. The royal minions reached the Metropolitan of Moscow Philip II, who by that time had repeatedly exposed the atrocities committed by the tsar.
Initially, he was abbot of the Solovetsky Monastery, proving himself an able leader. Philip strongly disagreed with the king’s brutal and bloodthirsty policies. Speaking against Ivan the Terrible, fell into disgrace.
In 1568, a church court was held, at which charges against negligent clergymen, standard for that time, were brought against Philip. He was suspected of witchcraft, as well as of some misconduct when he was abbot in Solovki. The Metropolitan was deprived of his dignity and exiled to the Otroch Assumption Monastery in Tver.
The murder of Philip
One of the leaders of the oprichnina Malyuta Skuratov was sent to the monastery to him to ask for a blessing on the campaign to Novgorod. Philip refused. Then Malyuta strangled the monk, and then turned to the head priest, saying that his cell was so hot that the former metropolitan had died of burning.
Philip was quickly buried. It is possible that the czar’s approximate had a personal order from Ivan the Terrible to kill the priest. The main source of the version of the murder of the disgraced metropolitan is the Life dated to the end of the 16th century, as well as several later chronicles.
Under the walls of Novgorod
Already in early January 1570, the oprichnina army was near the walls of Novgorod. According to historians, it totaled about 15,000 people. Of these, about one and a half thousand archers.
The city was cordoned off, the treasury was sealed. By January 6, Ivan IV himself arrived in the city. Two days later, the Novgorod clergy met with the oprichnik army on the Great Bridge across the Volkhov River. Ivan the Terrible personally accused the treason of the Novgorod archbishop Pimen. Togo was arrested and imprisoned. They abused him, depriving him of dignity, and then exiled to a monastery near Tula, where he soon died. Prince Andrei Kurbsky claimed that Pimen was executed by order of the king.
It is worth noting that before that Pimen was considered a loyal supporter of the monarch, for example, he helped him to expose Philip. However, this did not prevent Ivan the Terrible from publicly humiliating the clergyman. The king called him a buffoon, ordered to undress and tie to a horse, which he declared his wife. In this form Pimen was taken around the city.
It later turned out that one of the squires named Athanasius Vyazemsky tried to warn the archbishop. In punishment, he was beaten with a whip in the square, and then exiled to Gorodetsky Posad, where he soon died.
Executions in Novgorod
After that, the guardsmen began to commit atrocities in the city. It is practically impossible to establish the exact number of victims, since the calculation was carried out only at first, while, by order of the king, there was a targeted destruction of the clerks and the nobility. A court was arranged in the Rurik hillfort. As a result of it, 211 landowners, 137 of their relatives, 45 clerks and clerks, as many as members of their families were killed. Among the first victims of the Novgorod pogrom were the boyars of Davydov and Syrkov, the main clerks of Bessonov and Rumyantsev.
After that, the king began to go around the neighboring monasteries, depriving them of all the wealth that was available. At this time, the guardsmen made a targeted attack on the Novgorod settlement. As a result of this attack, a large number of people died, which is not amenable to official registration.
Torture
After that, torture began in the city, which lasted until mid-February. Using a variety of sophisticated methods, many local residents were executed, including women and even children. Annalistic sources claim that the tsar ordered the Novgorodians to be poured with incendiary mixture, and after they were still alive and already burnt they were thrown into the Volkhov. Some were dragged behind the sleigh before drowning.
Monks and priests were subjected to various bullying. They were beaten with batons, and after that they were also thrown into the river. Contemporaries claim that Volkhov was full of corpses. Legends about this were passed from mouth to mouth until the 19th century.
Some were beaten to death with sticks, forced to give all the property that they had, fried in hot flour. The Novgorod chronicler says that on some days the death toll reached one and a half thousand people. The days when 500-600 people were beaten were considered successful.
Crop failure and plague
Churches and private homes of Novgorod were looted. Food and property were destroyed. Detachments of the oprichniks were sent 200-300 kilometers around the city, where they continued to commit atrocities.
However, the worst was still not this. In the years 1659-1570 crop failure occurred in Novgorod. The total destruction of supplies in the city led to a terrible famine, from which even more people died than at the hands of the guardsmen. Testimonies claim that cannibalism even spread in Novgorod. The culmination of the troubles was the plague epidemic that began in Russia before Ivan the Terrible’s campaign in Novgorod and Pskov.
Versions on the number of killed
The exact number of people killed in Novgorod is still unknown. Kobrin speaks of 10-15 thousand people. Ruslan Grigorievich Skrynnikov, who also studied the era of Ivan the Terrible, is about 4-5 thousand. Moreover, about 30,000 people lived in the city at that time.
The number of victims is still controversial among scientists. Of course, the figures cited by contemporaries may be exaggerated, there are data that exceed the population of the city itself. At the same time, the terror spread to the surrounding lands, so the total number of deaths could be much larger.
Calculations of Skrynnikov and Kobrin
Skrynnikov in his study gives a list of Novgorodians who died during the pogrom. It contains the names of 2170-2180 people. At the same time, the historian emphasizes that the reports could not be exhaustive, since some of the guardsmen acted without the direct orders of Malyuta Skuratov, therefore, the final figure is determined in the region of 4-5 thousand.
Kobrin insists that this data is greatly underestimated. He notes that Skrynnikov’s point of view is based on the assumption that Skuratov was the main, if not the only one who ordered the killings. At the same time, Malyuta’s detachment could be only one of the many who organized terror in Novgorod. Therefore, in his version, he speaks of 10-15 thousand victims - up to half of the entire population of Novgorod, emphasizing that not only city residents were killed.
One of the annals mentions a common grave, opened in September 1570, in which buried the surfaced victims of the king. It turned out to be about 10 thousand people. Kobrin clarifies that this grave might not be the only one.
The result of Ivan the Terrible’s campaign in Novgorod was the destruction of most of the city’s population. If not immediately, then as a result of the ensuing famine and plague. The idea of the most cruel and merciless king, who was ready for anything to stay in power, was established in the consciousness of the people.
Pogrom in Pskov
From Novgorod Ivan the Terrible went to Pskov. Here he killed the hegumen of the Pskov-Pechersky monastery Cornelius with his own hands. This is reported by the Third Pskov Chronicle and Prince Andrei Kurbsky.
Cornelius went to the king at the head of the local clergy and served a prayer service at Trinity Cathedral. After that, he personally met with Ivan IV, who killed him.
It is believed that the reason was the support of the disgraced prince of Kurbsky, with whom the monastery was in correspondence. According to the annals, the king repented of the murder almost immediately after the deed. He carried the body of Cornelius in his arms to the monastery.
Meeting with the holy fool
The executions in Pskov were not as widespread as in Novgorod. The king limited himself to killing only a few noble nobles and confiscating their property. According to legend, at that time the king was visiting a holy fool, known as Nikola Salos. During lunch, the holy fool handed him a piece of raw meat, offering to eat, noting that he was already eating human. Thus, Salos reproached him with cruelty, which is believed to have prevented mass executions in Pskov itself.
According to legend, the king wanted to disobey and ordered to remove the bell from one of the monasteries. At that moment, his best horse fell beneath him. This sign, to which he always attached great importance, made a strong impression on him. Ivan the Terrible hastily left Pskov for Moscow.
Interestingly, the first meeting with Salos was mentioned by the English diplomat Jerome Horsey. Moreover, he describes the holy fool in a negative light. He calls him a sorcerer or a scammer who met the king in Pskov, began to curse him, scold and threaten him. In particular, he called a devourer of Christian flesh. The king allegedly shuddered at his words, asking him to pray for forgiveness and deliverance. At the same time, Horsey calls the holy fool a miserable creature.
In the capital, the search for dissidents and execution continued. The state punitive machine continued to search for traitors, accomplices of the Novgorodians.