The biography of Ivan the Terrible still impresses many with its originality and significance. This is one of the most famous great princes of Moscow and all Russia today, who actually led the country for 37 years, except for a short period when Simeon Bekbulatovich was the nominal king. The reign of Ivan the Terrible was remembered by many as the unjustified cruelty with which he led his subordinates.
Prince’s childhood
The hero of our article was born in 1530. Talking about the biography of Ivan the Terrible, you need to start with the fact that as a candidate for the throne, they began to consider him at the age of three, when his father Vasily III became seriously ill.
Anticipating his imminent death, he formed a boyar commission for governing the state, the members of which were to serve as guardians. An interesting fact from the biography of Ivan the Terrible: he could become a king only after the onset of 15 years.
Power struggle
After the death of Vasily, everything was calm in the country for only about a year. In 1534, there were a number of permutations in the ruling circles. The influence was exerted by the fact that Prince Belsky and the deceased Lyatsky went to serve with the Lithuanian prince. Soon one of the guardians, Ivan Mikhail Glinsky, who died in prison, was arrested. Several more famous boyars were arrested.
Ivan the Terrible became a full-fledged ruler only in 1545. In his memoirs, he described that one of his most vivid impressions of his youth was the so-called great fire in Moscow, when about 25 thousand houses were destroyed. Interesting facts from the life and biography of Ivan the Terrible often amazed and surprised many. So, at the very beginning of his reign, he almost became a victim of rebellion. In 1547, rioters killed one of Glinsky’s relatives of the tsar’s mother, and then they came to the village of Vorobyevo, where the Grand Duke was hiding. With great difficulty, the crowd managed to convince that the prince was not here.
Wedding to the throne
An important event in the brief biography of Ivan the Terrible, which is given in this article, was the wedding.
Historians still argue who insisted on this rite. Some argue that it was beneficial to the king’s relatives, while others believe that in Ivan at a young age the desire for power manifested itself. Therefore, this was his personal decision, which came as a complete surprise to the boyars.
There is also a version that Metropolitan Macarius had a hand in the wedding, which was beneficial to bring the church closer to the state. As a result, the ceremony took place in January 1547. Macarius blessed Ivan to the kingdom.
Reforms in Russia
An important role in the biography of Ivan the Terrible is played by reforms, which he carried out a lot. Basically, all of them were aimed at strengthening power, centralizing the state, as well as building relevant public institutions.
In Wikipedia, in the biography of Ivan the Terrible, interesting initiatives are often mentioned. In 1549 the first Zemsky Sobor was convened, in which all Russian estates took part, except the peasantry. So formally representative monarchy took shape.
In 1550, a new lawyer came out, who established a single unit for collecting taxes, the value of which depended on the social status of the owner and the fertility of the soil.
Then in the country the provincial and zemstvo reforms took place, which radically redistributed the powers of governors in volosts. In 1550, a streltsy army appeared.
It was under Grozny that a system of orders was formed in the state. In the 1560s, the familiar reform of state sphragistics was carried out, which established the type of state press. A horseman appeared on the chest of the eagle, which was taken from the coat of arms of the Rurikovich. For the first time, a new seal was used on an agreement with the Kingdom of Denmark.
Military campaigns
In the biography of Ivan the Terrible was a large number of military campaigns. Since the beginning of the XVI century, the Kazan Khanate constantly fought with Moscow Russia. Over the years, about forty trips to Russian lands were made. More than the rest suffered Kostroma, Vladimir, Vologda, Murom.
Most historians believe that the first Kazan campaign took place in 1545. In total, Ivan the Terrible, a brief biography confirms this, made three trips to Kazan. The first ended in failure when the siege artillery left due to an early thaw. Therefore, those troops that reached Kazan stood under the walls of the city for only a week.
It was not possible to take the city during the second campaign, which began after the death of Safa Giray. But the Russian army built the fortress of Sviyazhsk, which for many years became a stronghold for the domestic army.
Finally, the third campaign ended in triumph. In October 1552, Kazan was taken. It was attended by about 150 thousand soldiers, armed with 150 guns. The Kazan Kremlin was taken as a result of the assault. Khan captured. This victory meant an important foreign policy success of the king, and also contributed to the strengthening of his power within the state.
The deputy of Grozny in Kazan was left Prince Horbaty-Shuisky. After Ivan 4 the Terrible, in a brief biography it is written about this, took Kazan, he had ambitious plans to capture all of Siberia.
Trade Relations with England
But Russia had problems not only with the Kazan Khanate. Soon he had to wage war against Sweden. An interesting fact from the biography of Ivan the Terrible, "Wikipedia" tells about him, like this article, this is the establishment of trade relations with England. It was possible to establish communication through the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Previously, trade routes lay through Sweden, so the Scandinavians were at a loss, having lost a considerable share of the profit that they received for providing transit.
The beginning of the relationship between Moscow and London was laid by the British navigator Richard Chansler, who sailed to Russia through the White Sea in 1553. Ivan the Terrible met with him personally, shortly after that the Moscow Company was founded in the English capital, which received a monopoly from Ivan on trade rights.
Confrontation with Sweden
The outraged Swedish king Gustav I Vasa tried to create an anti-Russian coalition, but this plan failed. Then he decided to act independently.
The reason for the war with Sweden was the capture of Russian merchants in Stockholm. The Swedes went on the offensive, capturing Oreshek, but could not reach Novgorod. In January 1556, the 25,000th Russian army routed the Swedes, besieging Vyborg, but could not capture it.
Then Gustav I proposed a truce, to which Ivan the Terrible agreed. In 1557, a Novgorod truce was concluded for a period of 40 years. It also stipulated diplomatic relations through Novgorod governors.
Livonian war
In life, the biography of Ivan the Terrible was another important war - the Livonian. Her main goal was to take possession of the Baltic coast. At first, the Russian army was successful: Narva, Neuhaus, Derpt were captured, the order troops were defeated near Riga. By 1558, the Russian army captured almost the entire eastern part of Estonia, and in 1559 actually completed the rout of the Livonian Order.
Only then did the governors decide to accept the peace proposal put forward by Denmark. The parties were able to maintain neutrality until the end of 1559. Then they began to actively conduct peace talks with Livonia, in exchange for certain concessions from German large cities.
Interesting facts were often found in the biography of Ivan the Terrible. So, thanks to his military successes, he was able to gain respect among foreign leaders. As a result, in 1560, the imperial congress of deputies was convened in Germany, at which foreigners finally recognized the strength and power of the Russian army. It was decided to send the embassy to Moscow and offer the Tsar eternal peace.
The appearance of the oprichnina
In addition to militancy, Grozny was also famous for the introduction of the oprichnina in the country. He announced this in 1565. After that, the country, by his decree, was divided into two parts - the oprichnina and the zemstvo.
The concept of "oprichnina" existed in Russia from 1565 to 1572. So Ivan the Terrible called the personal inheritance, on which was his own army and state apparatus. At the same time, revenues went to the state treasury.
In those days, the same word began to be called the policy of terror, which the king introduced in the country. He conducted it in relation to any opposition-minded citizens in all spheres of society. According to many historians, the oprichnina took the form of terrorist despotism under the autocracy.
In the oprichnina, there were areas in the north-east of the country, on which boyar-estates were rarely found. Its center was the Alexander's settlement, which the king announced his new official residence. It was from there that in 1565 he sent a letter addressed to the boyars, the clergy and the whole people that he was abdicating. This news greatly excited the Moscow people. The prospect of anarchy did not please anyone.
Victims of terror
Soon the first victims of the terror organized by Grozny appeared. The first victims of the oprichnina were the famous and status boyars. Oprichniki were not afraid of any punishment, because they were exempted from criminal liability. The king began to forcibly confiscate the estates, passing them to the noblemen among the guardsmen. To princes and boyars, from whom he took the land, he gave estates in other areas of the country, for example, in the Volga region.
It is worth noting that the decree on the introduction of oprichnina in Russia was officially approved by both secular and spiritual authorities. It is believed that this decision was approved by the Zemsky Sobor. At the same time, most of the Zemstvo protested against this state of affairs. For example, in 1556, about 300 representatives of the nobility appealed to the tsar with a petition to abolish the oprichnina. Three of them were executed by decapitation, some were cut off their tongues, and about 50 people were subjected to public corporal punishment.
The end of the oprichnina
For many, the end of the oprichnina came as unexpectedly as its beginning. In many ways, the invasion of Rus by the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey in 1571 contributed to this. By that time, many of the guardsmen had already demonstrated their complete disability, having decomposed morally. They were used to robbing ordinary citizens and simply did not show up for a real battle.
As a result, Moscow was burned. By 1572, the oprichnina army was united with the zemsky, and the tsar decided to completely abolish the oprichnina in Russia. Although the name itself, in the meaning of his sovereign's court, survived until the death of Ivan IV.
The death of Ivan the Terrible
A study of the remains of the king showed that in the last years of his life he developed various diseases. In particular, he developed an osteophyte, due to which he could not walk, he was carried around the wards on a stretcher. Due to this immobility, which was aggravated by an unhealthy lifestyle and constant stress, by the age of 50 the king looked like a decrepit old man.
Back in 1584, he was engaged in public affairs, but by March his health had deteriorated sharply. The king fell into oblivion. March 18, he died. His body was swollen and smelled bad. The British ambassador to the Russian court, Horsey claimed that before his death, Grozny played chess.
Version of the death of the king
Contemporaries could not reliably establish whether the king died of illness or for some violent reason. At court, a confusion arose immediately.
Persistent rumors circulated that the king was poisoned by his close ones. In particular, Boris Godunov and Bogdan Belsky were suspected of this. There was even evidence that Godunov bribed a doctor who was treating Grozny for fear of being executed himself along with other nobles.
Horsey put forward a version of the strangulation of Ivan IV, also suspecting Godunov of this. The Englishman claimed that at first the king was given poison, and in the turmoil that rose when he fell, they also strangled.
In the middle of the 20th century, the version of poisoning was not confirmed. As a result of the analysis, normal arsenic content was found in his remains, but there was a lot of mercury, which, however, was explained by the fact that in the 16th century it was part of many drugs. She was even treated with syphilis, which the king supposedly suffered from.
According to other researchers, the norm of arsenic admissible for humans in Ivan the Terrible was doubled. They suspected that he was the victim of a deadly “cocktail” of mercury and arsenic. And they gave it to Grozny for a certain time, so it was not possible to unambiguously immediately confirm the version of the poisoning.