Ivan the Terrible: Centralization in Sixteenth Century Muscovy (original) (raw)
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2021
Research objectives: To provide a comprehensive overview of Muscovite interaction with Tatars during Ivan IV’s reign, both with each successor state of the Jochid ulus and with Tatars who moved to Muscovy and entered Ivan IV’s service. Research materials: This study is based upon Russian sources from the reign of Ivan IV concerning the Tatars, including narratives such as chronicles and documentary evidence such as diplomatic reports. Results and novelty of the research: Muscovite policy toward the Tatars did not derive from a single dominating motive, neither hostility, such as religious animosity toward Muslims or the drive for imperial territorial expansion, nor the desire to cooperate with Tatars for the sake of commerce or the need for steppe military allies. Ivan adapted his policies to individual circumstances, vassal puppet rulers or outright conquest as needed. Tatars from the vassal khanate of Kasimov helped Ivan conquer Kazan’ and Astrakhan’ and fight Crimea. Nogai mercha...
The Many Deaths of Ivan the Terrible and Their Interpretations
Mundo Eslavo, 2014
Born on August 25th 1530, Ivan the Terrible lived a relatively long life but was thought to be dead many times. During his childhood many rumors about his death circulated, contributing to the instability of court politics. In March 1553, shortly after his triumph, the conquest of Kazan (October 2 1552), he fell extremely ill, and a tragicomedy was played around his bed about the would-be succession. The many tales about this episode do not add up and were rewritten several times. Ivan’s real death, on March 18th 1584, is recorded in very different ways in English and Russian sources. This paper explores the mechanics of History writing in Muscovy and the birth of Kremlinology abroad. The positivist approach consists of eliminating “errors” in each tale and establishing a plausible reconstruction of the chain of events. We try to understand the purpose of each narration and the reason why some elements are kept or omitted.
Reinventing the Russian monarchy in the 1550s: Ivan the Terrible, the dynasty, and the church
The Slavonic and East European Review, 2007
Reinventing the Russian Monarchy in the 1550s: Ivan the Terrible, the Dynasty, and the Church by Sergei Bogatyrev This article focuses on the political and cultural priorities of the Daniilovichi dynasty in the middle of the sixteenth century. In the late 1540s to 1550s Ivan IV faced two interrelated challenges: strengthening the prestige of the dynasty and securing succession for his heir. Using the relations with the Orthodox East, the court functionaries, apparently actively supported by Ivan, launched an ambitious dynastic project which was focused on the antiquity of the Muscovite dynasty, the confirmation of Ivan's title of tsar by the patriarch, and the commemoration of members of the dynasty in ancient ccntres of Orthodoxy. The 'Greek project' of Ivan the Terrible was a major step in turning the Muscovite monarchy into a dynastic state.
Terror, War and Reformation: Ivan the Terrible in the Age of Apocalypticism
In sixteenth-century Muscovy, eschatological expectations grew stronger. Since the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, Muscovy was considered the only "right-believing" monarchy left. This suggested that it had a special role in salvation history and that it was the New Israel of the Latter Days. In the 1550s, the dominant court faction was influenced by such eschatological interpretation patterns. They termed themselves the "strong in Israel", and their enemies the "followers of Antichrist". How did Ivan become a terrorist in this context? This chapter highlights links between the conviction to live in the Latter Days, interpretations of Protestant Reformation, the war in Livonia, and the terror policy at home. In the tsar's view, Protestants were "false prophets", "servants of the Antichrist" or "Antichrists" themselves. On this religious background, terror became an instrument in a war against the followers of Antichrist. The Tsar first disgraced opponents to the war against Livonia, and then executed noblemen and "punished" towns suspected of being favorable to the "Germans" or the Polish king.
2016
is a curious time for Russia and for historians specializing in the area because it is a fragile manifestation of what is undoubtedly a strong and unified linguistic, religion and ethnic world. There was little religious persecution, tyranny or mass warfare. Wars were, as always for the era, small scale and done among elites and their servitors. There was no serfdom and few, if any, taxes. To oversimplify, the philosophical conception was based around the price as the unifying principle of the society. There was no "state" in any sense of the term. Each of the regions of Rus' had their own history, and these were incorporated into a common history of the Russian land as a single community was a fact, while fragmentation was a perversion rather than an inherent tendency. Kiev was summarized largely by the thought and actions of the Caves Monastery: there, the philosophy of the Kievan realm was manifest and articulated. The ontology of the realm was that matter,always permeable by spirit, was brought to its terminus-its goal-through the spirit. The state, the crown and social life are granted its final telos by the church. Spiritual life is the striving for inner freedom. Logos, the very presence of Christ in His own creation, is the Trinity functional in natural law. The Father is the source, Logos the pattern and the Spirit its manifestation and grace. In the thought of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk (1173) centers around the ontological conception that any object, if perceived without the passions of life, sin and desire, appear as form. In the Chronicles, the person is revealed in the unfolding of events; the substance of all things shows itself historically. Nations are this substance. While it is fashionable in the age of immense profits from multinational conglomerates to deny the existence of historical nations, the empirical record shows a very different story. The Chronicles of both Kiev and Polotsk show nations to be essential actors manifesting the design of Substance over time. In Kiev, there existed two parallel forms of political power: the landed estate and the prince. These did not always coincide. The Retinue (or the druzhina) were the old tribal leaders of the Slavic peoples who saw their relevance fade as the state developed. At the same time, the veche, or the assembly, was the forum for the old tribal landowners. Again, these two did not always coincide. Fragmentation occurred when the estates grew in power while the opposite occurred when the prince was a strong military figure with great authority. The fragmentation of the Kievan realm is the result of numerous economic forces. The strengthening of the feudal estates is of immense importance as an oligarchy developed which led to substantial class struggle. Local nobles and their private armies no longer needed Kiev, the church nor moral scruples. Local strongmen took advantage of advances in agriculture such as the three field rotational system which led to increases the production. The oligarchs then took this excess product and turned it into an important source of income. Their private armies grew. This was manifest in the strengthening of cities, all of which served as the capital of local regions and soon, the presence of oligarchical rule. When the route to Byzantium was closed off due to the Crusaders and the earlier monopolization of trade in Venice, this weakened the economic foundation of unity, diminished the flow of trade duties and of course, undermined the economic power of the prince of Kiev. The main source of wealth became the control over the peasants. This, added to the wars for the Kievan throne and the raids of the Polovtsian nomads, Kiev was rapidly weakening. In the thought of St. Cyril of Turov and Clement (Smolyatich), "fragmentation" was the chaotic appearance of the world under the control of passion. Centrifugal tendencies in ancient Russia were stopped temporarily due to the Polovtsian danger which demanded joint efforts among local princes. After the death of the great St. Vladimir II Monomakh, Mstyslav the Great (1125-1132) continued his father's policy of centralization. Upon his death, there were about 14 of these principalities in Russia: