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The Witch Doctor President and Other Horrific Rulers

Khalid Elhassan December 25, 2019 32 min

33. When You’re Known as “The Terrible”…

Ivan the Terrible conquering Kazan in 1552. Russia Beyond

Tsar Ivan IV, better known to history as Ivan the Terrible (1530 – 1584), was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547. In 1547, he declared himself “Tsar of all the Russias”, which became the title of Russian monarch from then on.

Ivan created a centralized government, and was a grand conqueror who finally overthrew the last remnants of Mongol domination beneath which Russia had groaned for centuries. He subjugated the neighboring nomadic Khanates, and greatly expanded Russia’s borders. On the other hand, Ivan was an insanely cruel despot, who subjected his people to a decades-long reign of terror.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.