HISTORY'S CURRENTS

IVAN THE TERRIBLE

Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV) was born in 1533 and became leader of the Principality of Moscow in 1547. Ivan was the first Prince of Moscow to have himself officially crowned Tsar or Czar, the Russian for word for Caesar. Ivan was a strong ruler and expanded the boundaries of the new Russian State and began to break the power of the Boyars, the Russian nobility.

Between 1552 and 1556, Ivan conquered Kazan and Astrakhan from the Tarters. These and other conquest allowed Ivan to control the entire Volga River and its important trade route through the heart of Russia. This waterway allowed trade with Western Europe including England. Ivan also expanded his control to areas east of the Ural Mountains. Ivan, however, did suffer military setbacks. In 1571 the Tarters were able to sack and burn Moscow. Ivan lost lands in northern Russia to the Swedes, and he also lost land to the Polish King Stephen Barthory in several long wars that ended in 1582.

The heart of Ivan’s reign, however, was his struggle with the Boyars. Ivan had to hand over total control of the peasants who worked the nobles’ estates in order to gain troops and money for his incessant wars. Eventually, serfdom crept into Russia at a time when it was disappearing from Western Europe. Ivan created the Russian Duma, a Boyar council to advise him and the Zemski Sobor a quasi parliament of Boyars, landowners, churchmen, and representatives of the cities and towns. The Zemski Sobor failed to development into a true parliament and only met once during Ivan’s reign.

In 1553 Ivan became ill, and the Boyars refused to take an oath of allegiance to his son. Ivan unexpectedly recovered from his illness and began a campaign to eradicate the Boyar class. Ivan created the oprichnina, the forerunner of the secret police, to destroy the Boyars. They traveled the realm on horseback, dressed in black with dog’s heads and brooms on their saddles, waging war on the Boyars. Ivan rewarded the oprichniks with land and titles, but later had them murdered as well.

In 1564 a noble, Prince Andri Kurbski, led a Boyar revolt that drove Ivan from Moscow. Ivan still had the support of the Russian Orthodox Church and the common peasants who blamed the Boyars, not Ivan, for their change in status and fortune. Ivan was reinstated and the bloodbath began. Ivan broke all opposition to his rule, unfortunately for his dynasty, he killed his son in a fit of rage eradicating his only heir to the throne even though he had six or seven wives.

The Boyars returned to power during the “Years of Troubles” that followed Ivan’s death in 1584. In 1613 the Zemski Sobor elected Michael Romanov, a grand-nephew of Ivan, to the throne. Michael Romanov established the Romanov dynasty that ruled Russia till the Bolshevik Revolution in1917.

History’s currents or current history? You decide!