Ivan the Terrible
Ivan IV, better known as Ivan the Terrible (1530 – 1584), was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547, after which he declared himself “Tsar of all the Russias”, which became the title of Russian monarchs from then on. He created a centralized government and was a grand conqueror who finally overthrew the last remnants of Mongol subjugation beneath which Russia had groaned for centuries, subjugating the neighboring nomadic Khanates and greatly expanding Russia’s borders. On the other hand, he was an insanely cruel despot who subjected his people to a decades-long reign of terror.
Ivan ascended the throne at age 3, and Russia was governed by his mother as regent in his name. However, she died when he was 7, and a power struggle erupted between competing boyars, or Russian nobles, in which the child Ivan was left defenseless, exploited and tormented by boyars who mistreated and abused him in his own palace. That made him bitter, bitterness gave way to insanity, and before long, he was venting his frustrations by torturing small animals.
By the time he took personal control of the government, Ivan was a paranoid, resentful, and angry young man who distrusted people in general, and detested the boyar class in particular. To that end, he instituted a system known as the oprichnina in the 1560s that amounted to a reign of terror which augured the absolute monarchy that was to be Russia’s hallmark for centuries to come. With a special police force, the Oprichniki, he kicked off a wave of persecutions that targeted the boyars and spread from there in ever greater ripples that soon covered all his lands.
His most infamous act of cruelty occurred in Novgorod. In 1570, when that city defied him, he marched on it in the dead of winter, and after seizing it went on an orgy of violent depravity. He started off with the clergy, whom he rounded up and ordered flogged from dawn until dusk, for days on end, until they each paid a 20 ruble fine. Hundreds died, and afterward, he ordered the survivors executed. The population fared no better: he ordered the torture of leading citizens along with their families. Men were executed, and women and children were bound and thrown into a nearby river, where they were trapped under the ice as soldiers patrolled the area on foot, wielding hooks and spears to push down any who surfaced. By the time Ivan was finally sated, over 60,000 had perished.
Even his family was not spared his fits of uncontrollable rage. In 1581, he assaulted his pregnant daughter-in-law when he saw her wearing clothes that he deemed too revealing, causing her to miscarry. When his son and heir angrily berated him for attacking his wife, Ivan the Terrible smashed his head in with his scepter, causing a fatal wound from which he died a few days later. He followed him 3 years later, dying from a stroke while playing chess.
