Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  J. CALVITT CLARKE III

  Tver, the town ruled by Grand Prince Alexander Mikhailovich, revolted against the Tatars. In 1328 Ivan visited Khan Uzbek, who gave him the patent for the grand princely throne and troops to punish the insurgents. After Ivan devastated Tver and forced Alexander to flee, the town and its prince never regained their position of power. Significantly, in his rivalry with Tver, Ivan won the support of the Metropolitan, who chose Moscow for his residence. In the 1330s, as Grand Prince Ged-imin increasingly threatened Russia, Ivan also fought to suppress pro-Lithuanian factions in the northwestern towns. His greatest challenge was to subdue Novgorod, which used its association with Lithuania against him, and which challenged him when he levied Tatar tribute on it. By faithfully collecting the tribute, however, and by visiting the Golden Horde on nine occasions and winning the khan’s trust, he persuaded the Tatars to stop raiding Russia. Moreover, by currying the khan’s favour, Ivan was able to keep the title of grand prince and secure succession to it for his son Simeon. Ivan died on March 31, 1340. See also: GOLDEN HORDE; GRAND PRINCE; MOSCOW

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Fennell, John L. I. (1968). The Emergence of Moscow 1304-1359. London: Secker and Warburg. Martin, Janet. (1995). Medieval Russia 980-1584. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

  MARTIN DIMNIK

  IVAN I

  (d. 1340), prince of Moscow and sole grand prince of Vladimir.

  By collaborating with the Tatar overlords in Saray, Ivan I overcame his rivals in Tver and made Moscow the most important domain in northeast Russia. He was nicknamed “Moneybag” (“Kalita”) to reflect his shrewd money handling practices.

  Ivan Danilovich was the son of Daniel and grandson of Alexander Yaroslavich “Nevsky.” In 1325, when he succeeded his brother Yury as prince of Moscow, he continued Moscow’s fight with Tver for supremacy. Two years later the people of

  IVAN II

  (1326-1359), prince of Moscow and grand prince of Vladimir. In the 1340s Lithuania encroached into western Russia and challenged the Golden Horde for control of Russian towns. Thus the prince of Moscow and other princes had to establish relations with both foreign powers. Ivan’s elder brother Simeon and father Ivan I Danilovich “Kalita” (“Moneybag”) had collaborated with the Tatars to promote Moscow’s interests against princely rivals and against Lithuania. Ivan, a weak ruler under whose reign Moscow’s authority declined, charted a different course. After Simeon died in 1353, Ivan traveled to Saray, where Khan Jani-Beg, against the objections of Novgorod and Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod, gave him

  IVAN III

  the patent for the grand princely throne of Vladimir. Later, however, he was persuaded to establish cordial relations with Lithuania and to decrease Moscow’s subordination to the khan. He formed a treaty with pro-Lithuanian Suzdal, arranged a marriage alliance with Lithuania, and prevented Tatar envoys from entering Muscovite lands. His change of policy kindled serious opposition. Many of his councilors fled to pro-Tatar Ryazan, thus weakening Moscow’s internal solidarity. Metropolitan Alexei also sided with the defectors. When the khan himself challenged Ivan, he yielded to the pressure. In 1357 he submitted to Berdi-Beg, the new khan, and was reconciled with his disgruntled boyars. But he failed to increase Moscow’s territories, and Novgorod ignored him. Moreover, in the testament he issued before his death, he confirmed the practice of hereditary appanages, which his brother Simeon had first espoused, and which further fragmented the Moscow principality. He died on November 13, 1359. See also: GOLDEN HORDE; MOSCOW

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Fennell, John L. I. (1968). The Emergence of Moscow 1304-1359. London: Secker and Warburg. Martin, Janet. (1995). Medieval Russia 980-1584. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

  MARTIN DIMNIK

  Eighteenth-century portrait of Ivan III. © ARCHIVO ICONOGRAFICO, S.A./CORBIS

  IVAN III

  (1440-1505), grand prince of Moscow (1462-1505), sovereign of “all Russia” (from 1479).

  Ivan Vasilyeich was the eldest son and successor to Basil II, co-regent in the last years of his blind father. Ivan’s youth coincided with the dynastic war, in which he took part at age twelve, leading the campaign against Dmitry Shemyaka (1452). Thereafter, Ivan became a steady champion of autocratic rule.

  Under Ivan III’s reign, the uniting of separate Russian principalities into a centralized state made great and rapid progress. Some of these principalities lost their independence peacefully (Yaroslavl, 1463-1468; Rostov, 1474); others tried to resist and were subjugated by military force (Great Novgorod, 1471-1478; Tver, 1485; Vyatka, 1489). The incorporation of Great Novgorod into the emerging Muscovite state took especially dramatic form. When Novgorodian boyars questioned the sovereignty of the grand prince over their city-state, Ivan III led his troops to Great Novgorod. In the battle on the Shelon River, July 14, 1471, the Novgorodian army was completely defeated. Four boyars who had been captured (including Dmitry Boretsky, one of the leaders of anti-Muscovite party in Novgorod) were executed by the grand prince’s order. In the peace treaty of August 11, 1471, the city acknowledged the lordship of the grand prince and gave up the right of independent foreign relations. Six years later, Ivan III found a pretext to start a new campaign against Novgorod; this time the city-state surrendered without a struggle. In January 1478, Great Novgorod lost its autonomy completely: The veche (people’s assembly) and the office of posadnik (the head of the city government) were abolished, and the assembly’s bell, the symbol of Novgorod’s sovereignty, was taken away to Moscow. In the 1480s, having

  IVAN III

  confiscated the domain of the archbishop of Great Novgorod and the estates of local boyars, Ivan III began to distribute these lands among his military men on condition of loyal service. Thus the po-mestie system was established, which became the basis of the social and military organization in Muscovy.

  Soon after the conquest of Great Novgorod, Ivan III assumed the title of the sovereign of all Russia (gosudar vseya Rusi). Not only did the title reflect the achievements of the grand prince in uniting the Russian lands, but it also implied claims to the rest of the territories with eastern Slavic population, which at that time lived under the rule of Lithuanian princes. So conflict with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania became imminent.

  In the 1480s, some princes from the Upper Oka region (Vorotynskies, Odoyevskies, and others) left Lithuanian service for Moscow, and Ivan III accepted them and their patrimonies (towns Vorotynsk, Peremyshl, Odoev, and so forth). During the war of 1492 to 1494, the Muscovite army occupied an important town of Vyazma (in the Smolensk region). The peace treaty signed on February 5, 1494, legalized all the acquisitions of Ivan III. Peace, though ensured by the marriage of Ivan’s daughter, Elena, to the grand duke of Lithuania, Alexander, turned out to be a short-term armistice: In 1500 another Russian-Lithuanian war began.

  First, the princes of Novgorod Seversk and Star-odub went over to the grand prince of Moscow. Then Ivan III sent his troops to defend his new vassals. In the battle at Vedrosha River (July 14, 1500), which decided the outcome of the war, Muscovite commanders defeated the Lithuanian army and captured its leader, hetman Konstantin Ostrozhsky. During the summer campaign of 1500 Muscovite forces occupied Bryansk, Toropets, Putivl, and other towns. According to the armistice of 1503, the border with Lithuania moved far in the southwestern direction.

  Ivan III was the first Russian ruler to gain full independence from the Golden Horde. From about 1472 he paid no tribute to the khan. Twice, in 1472 and 1480, khan Ahmad invaded Russia, trying to restore his sovereignty over the Russian land and its ruler, but both times he failed. The withdrawal of Ahmad from the banks of Ugra River in November 1480 symbolized the overthrow of the yoke.

  The unified Russian state played an increasingly visible role on the international scene: Ivan III established relations with Crimea (1474), Venice (1474), Hungary (1482), the German empire (1489), Denmark (1493), and the Ottoman empire (1496). To meet the needs of his expanded state, Ivan III began to recr
uit engineers and military specialists from the West. The towers and walls of the Kremlin were built in the 1480s and 1490s by Italian architects and remain one of the most visible material signs of Ivan III’s reign.

  The contours of the Russian foreign policy, shaped in Ivan’s reign, remained stable for generations to come. In the west, Ivan III left to his heir the incessant struggle with the Polish and Lithuanian rulers over the territories of the eastern Slavs. In the east and south, a more differentiated policy was pursued toward the khanates that had succeeded the Golden Horde. This policy included attempts to subjugate the khanate of Kazan in the middle Volga and efforts aimed at neutralizing Crimea.

  In his last years Ivan III faced a serious dynastic crisis after the unexpected death in 1490 of his heir, also Ivan (the “Young”), the son of the first Ivan’s III wife, Maria of Tver (d. 1467). In 1472 Ivan III married Sophia Paleologue, a Byzantine princess brought up in Rome. This marriage also produced children, including Basil (Vasily). Ivan the Young, married to Yelena, the daughter of Moldavian prince, left a son, Dmitry. So, after 1490, Ivan III was to choose between his grandson (Dmitry) and son (Basil). At first, he favored the grandson: In February 1498, Dmitry was crowned as grand prince and heir to his grandfather. But later Dmitry and his mother Yelena fell into disgrace and were taken into custody; Basil was proclaimed the heir (1502). The reasons for these actions remain unclear. In July 1503, Ivan III experienced a stroke and real power passed into the hands of Basil III.

  Contemporaries and later historians agree in depicting Ivan III as a master politician: prudent, cautious, efficient, and very consistent in his policy of constructing a unified and autocratic Russian state. See also: GOLDEN HORDE; MUSCOVY; NOVGOROD THE GREAT

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Alef, Gustave. (1986). The Origins of Muscovite Autocracy: The Age of Ivan III. Berlin: Osteuropa-Institut. Crummey, Robert O. (1987). The Formation of Muscovy, 1304-1613. London: Longman.

  IVAN IV

  Fennell, John L. (1961). Ivan the Great of Moscow. London: Macmillan. Kollmann, Nancy Shields. (1986). “Consensus Politics: The Dynastic Crisis of the 1490s Reconsidered.” Russian Review 45:235-267. Vernadsky, George. (1959). Russia at the Dawn of the Modern Age. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

  MIKHAIL M. KROM

  IVAN IV

  (1530-1584), “The Terrible” (Grozny), grand prince of Moscow and tsar of all Russia.

  The long reign of Ivan IV saw the transformation of Muscovy into a multiethnic empire through ambitious political, military, and cultural projects, which revolved around the controversial figure of the monarch.

  IVAN IV AND THE RURIKID DYNASTY

  Born to the ruling Moscow branch of the Rurikid dynasty, Ivan nominally became grand prince at the age of three after the death of his father, Grand Prince Vasily III. During the regency of Ivan’s mother, Yelena Glinskaya, from 1533 to 1538, ruling circles strengthened Ivan’s position as nominal ruler by eliminating Prince Andrei Ivanovich of Staritsa and Prince Yury Ivanovich of Dmitrov, representatives of the royal family’s collateral branches. Ivan’s status as dynastic leader was reinforced during his coronation as tsar on January 16, 1547. Drawing extensively on Byzantine and Muscovite coronation rituals and literary texts to reveal the divine sanction for Ivan’s power, the ceremony posited continuity between his rule and the rule of the Byzantine emperors and Kievan princes. Ivan continued the aggressive policy of his ancestors toward the collateral branches of the dynasty by eliminating his cousin, Prince Vladimir An-dreyevich of Staritsa (1569).

  Ivan was married several times. His wives were from Muscovite elite clans (Anastasia Zakharina Romanova, Maria Nagaya) and from relatively obscure gentry families (Marfa Sobakina, Anna Koltovskaya, Anna Vasilchikova). He also tried to raise the status of the dynasty by establishing matrimonial ties with foreign ruling houses, but succeeded only in marrying the Caucasian Princess Maria (Kuchenei) (1561). Throughout his reign, Ivan sought to secure the succession of power for

  Ivan the Terrible stands before St. Basil’s Cathedral, erected to commemorate his victory over the Kazan khanate. THE

  BETTMANN ARCHIVE. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.

  his sons, although he accidentally killed his elder son Ivan (1581). The tsar’s other son, the reportedly mentally challenged Fyodor, eventually inherited the throne.

  IVAN IV AND HIS COURT

  When Ivan was a minor, power was in the hands of influential courtiers. Under Yelena Glinskaya, Prince Mikhail Lvovich Glinsky competed for power with Yelena’s favorite, Prince Ivan Fyodorovich Ovchina-Obolensky. Yelena’s death (1538) was followed by fierce competition between the princely clans of Shuyskys, Belskys, Kubenskys, and Glin-skys, and the boyar Vorontsov clan. After his coronation, Ivan attempted to stabilize the situation at court through improving the registry of elite military servitors, providing them with prestige land-holdings around Moscow, and regulating service relations among the elite during campaigns. The authorities limited the right of some princely families to dispose of their lands in order to pursue the lands policy. Ivan granted top court ranks to a wide

  IVAN IV

  circle of elite servitors, which especially benefited the tsarina’s relatives, the Zakharins-Yurevs. Ivan also favored officials of lower origin, Alexei Fyo-dorovich Adashev and Ivan Mikhaylovich Visko-vaty, though some experts question their influence at court. Historians sometimes call the ruling circles of the 1550s “the chosen council,” but this vague literary term is apparently irrelevant to governmental institutions.

  Beginning in 1564, Ivan IV subjected his court to accusations of treason, executions, and disgraces by establishing the Oprichnina. Despite the subsequent abolition of the Oprichnina in 1572, Ivan continued to favor some of its former members. Among them were the elite Nagoy and Godunov families, including Ivan’s relative and would-be tsar Boris Godunov. The established princely Shuysky and Mstislavsky clans and the Zakharin-Yurev bo-yar family retained their high positions at court throughout Ivan’s reign.

  Ivan’s court also included Tatar servitors, including prominent members of the Chingissid dynasty, who received the title of tsar. Ivan granted the last survivor of those Tatar tsars, Simeon Bek-bulatovich (Sain-Bulat), the title of grand prince of Moscow and official jurisdiction over a considerable part of the realm. Historians usually interpret the reign of Simeon (1575-1576) as a parody of the Muscovite political system. It may be that Ivan, in granting Simeon the new title, sought to deprive Simeon of the title of tsar and thereby eliminate a possible Chingissid succession to the throne.

  IVAN IV AND HIS REALM

  In the 1550s, Ivan IV and his advisors attempted to standardize judicial and administrative practices across the country by introducing a new law code (1550) and delegating routine administrative and financial tasks to the increasingly structured chancelleries. The keeping of law and order and control of the local population’s mobility became the tasks of locally elected officials, in turn accountable to the central chancelleries. The remote northern territories enjoyed a greater autonomy in local affairs than the central parts of the country.

  Albeit limited and inconsistent, these reforms allowed Ivan to maintain an approximately 70,000-man army and to pursue an aggressive foreign policy. With the capture of the Tatar states of Kazan (1552) and Astrakhan (1556), Ivan acquired vast territories populated with a multiethnic, predominantly Muslim population with distinctive cultural and economic traditions. The conquest of those lands, whose peoples remained rebellious throughout Ivan’s reign, contributed to the tension between Muscovy and the powerful Muslim states of Crimea and Turkey, which jointly attacked Astrakhan in 1569. The Crimean khan devastated Moscow in 1571, but Ivan’s commanders inflicted a defeat on him in 1572. Ivan failed to avoid simultaneous involvement in military conflicts on several fronts. Without settling the conflict in the south, he launched a war against his western neighbor, Livonia, in 1558. Historians traditionally interpret the Livonian War (1558-1583) in geopolitical terms, asserting that Ivan
was looking for passage to the Baltic Sea to expand overseas trade. Revisionists explain the war’s origins in terms of Ivan’s short-range interest in getting tribute. The Livonian war only resulted in human and material losses for Muscovy. Ivan supported commercial relations between Muscovy and England, but attempts to conclude a political union with the queen of England were in vain. The war, famines, epidemics, and the Oprichnina caused a profound economic crisis in Muscovy, especially in the Novgorod region. By the end of Ivan’s reign, peasants abandoned 70 to 98 percent of arable land throughout the country. Many of them fled to the periphery of the realm, including Siberia, whose colonization intensified in the early 1580s.

  IVAN IV AND THE ORTHODOX CHURCH

  Ivan IV cultivated a close relationship with the Orthodox Church through regular pilgrimages and generous donations to monasteries. The symbolism of court religious rituals, in which the tsar participated with the metropolitan, and the semiotics of Ivan’s residence in the Kremlin stressed the divine character of the tsar’s power and the prevailing harmony between the tsar and the church. In 1551, Ivan participated in a church council that attempted to systematize religious practices and the jurisdiction of church courts. Metropolitan Macarius, head of the church and a close advisor to the tsar, sponsored an ideology of militant Orthodoxy that presented the tsar as champion and protector of the true faith. Macarius also played a part in conducting domestic and foreign policy. Contrary to traditional views, the court priest Silvester apparently did not exert political influence on the tsar. Ivan demonstrated a flexible attitude toward the landownership of the church and its tax privileges.