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Russian Studies 09/09/11 Spragins Ivan the
Terrible : Reading Guide Previous
Interpretations Karamzin “Ivan was
a tragic character, whose progressive statesmanship during the first half of his
reign was undone by the violence of his later years, when he became
unbalanced psychologically.” “To put
Russia on a par with Europe and invent a "modern" past, they argued
that the ad hoc boyar councils and noble assemblies appointed by Ivan were
embryos of modern government institutions.” Stalin Era “The
image of the sixteenth-century tsar as a progressive
"state-builder"— driven to use terror to force his reforms through
against the opposition of the aristocracy.”
Stalin:
“Had he destroyed the five feudal clans, there would have been no Time of
Troubles.” Soviet View Post-Stalin After
Stalin's death, when the "cult of personality" was discredited in
the USSR, Soviet historians moved toward a broader Marxist view of
"class interests" during Ivan's reign. de Madariaga’s Interpretation Ivan
‘Grozny’: "awe-inspiring" and "formidable": the tsar
responsible for the emergence of a Muscovy capable of conquest beyond its
borders. This was achieved by Ivan’s
consolidation of a military class which owed its land to ‘service to the
state’: the votchina,
but then he died without leaving a capable heir, a quick descent into the
chaos of the Time of Troubles Sacred
kingship: Ivan saw himself as a god on earth, half divine and half human, who
was responsible "for the eternal salvation of his people, for which he
would be called upon to answer at the Last Judgment." His sins? repentance for ("drunkenness, fornication,
adultery...") rather than for the atrocities perpetrated to maintain and
further consolidate his power. His crimes? submit to
divine justice and accept your punishment: resistance was a sign of treason
and therefore a sin: Stalin's tyranny: the despotism of the "holy
Russian tsar." Almost
Freudian implication of Ivan’s pathological paranoia as a ruler in his later
years on his violent upbringing and family tragedies: terror, vengeance,
preemptive violence with the oprichniki, final irrational violence against his son and
heir. It views
Ivan, in her words, "standing in Moscow and looking out over the walls
of the Kremlin towards the rest of Europe, and not looking in—and down—into
Russia, over its Western border, from outside." Childhood a miserable
childhood. the
origins of the tsar's pathological behavior in later life? According
to Ivan, he was "left to the tender mercies of uncaring boyars” and in
retribution at the age of just thirteen, he ordered the brutal killing of
Prince Andrei Shuisky. However, he also exhibited an
early taste for torturing birds and animals De Madariaga gives more significance to the education of
the young tsar. She constructs a fascinating picture of the literature
that influenced his outlook on the world, from the Bible and Apocrypha to
medieval ballads and romances and the tales of Dracula, a warrior king
who was severe and cruel "for the sake of his subjects." Early Rule The
Metropolitan Makary was a major influence on the
young tsar, de Madariaga argues. A fervent believer
in the holy mission of Moscow to become the capital of Orthodox (Eastern)
Christianity following the fall of Constantinople to the Turks. Ivan advanced
his claim to be the secular head of the Christian world in the East. Like
all the monarchs of sixteenth-century Europe, Ivan set out with the aim of
building up his power in his realm. He wanted to extend his sovereignty to
the corners of his land and roll back the powers of those princes and boyars
who stood in the way of a unified authority. Property
rights were linked more closely to the performance of military service. (votchina)
The army was reformed, and a new personal guard of musketeers (strel'tsy) was organized to protect the tsar. Ivan's
realm expanded in the east with the
conquest of Kazan (in 1552) and Astrakhan (in 1554). It was this religious
mission, an Orthodox crusade, that lay behind the conquest of the Asiatic
steppe, rather than any "ideology of imperialism" Later Years/ Oprichnina The death
of the tsar's wife, Anastasia, in 1560, was the major turning point in
Ivan's reign, de Madariaga believes. Anastasia's
death unhinged Ivan, who suspected the boyars of having poisoned her. He
reacted in a frenzy of violence against the boyar clans. death of the
Metropolitan Makary in 1563, left the tsar even
more lonely the oprichnina— a "duplicate state" which he allowed to prey
on the rest of his domain as Stalin
became known as "Genghis Khan
with a telephone" a separate domain of
the tsar's realm which was carved out of lands that were confiscated from the
princes and boyars, who were then expelled from the new territory. The new
holders of the land were the oprichniki, a
new class of loyal servitors, many of them from quite humble origins, who
formed Ivan's private guard. In 1567
and 1568, a boyar-Polish plot to unseat him from his throne the Poganaya meadow in
Moscow on July 25, 1570 Eventually,
the terror swallowed the oprichniki
themselves, as Ivan, like Stalin in 1937, became afraid of
"enemies" and "traitors" among his most loyal supporters. In 1571,
when hundreds of Muscovites were killed and many more were taken off as
slaves by the horsemen. Ivan instructed Maliuta
Skuratov. the "eye of the sovereign"
(oko gosudarevo)—
to carry out a purge of the oprichnik
generals Ivan's
final act of violence was the tragic murder of his son in 1581
Assessment Three
different interpretive approaches each including aspects of the others: 1.
Implication of Ivan’s
pathological paranoia as a ruler in his later years grew from his violent
upbringing: terror, vengeance, preemptive violence with the oprichniki,
final irrational violence against his son and heir. 2.
Sacred kingship: Ivan
saw himself as a god on earth, half divine and half human, who was
responsible "for the eternal salvation of his people, for which he would
be called upon to answer at the Last Judgment." His sins? drunkeness, fornication,
adultery... rather than for the atrocities perpetrated to maintain and
further consolidate his power. Remorse? Russia must submit to divine justice
and accept its punishment: resistance was a sign of treason and therefore a
sin: Stalin's tyranny: the despotism of the "holy Russian tsar." 3.
Machiavellian (Stalin)
interpretation: any act that promotes the security and power of the Prince is
‘good’ because civil war is the worst case scenario for everyone in the
state. Ivan’s creation of the oprichnina? Would Machiavelli have approved? Ivan
consolidated the state’s power and thus raised more taxes for his use by
rewarding a gang of soldiers loyal only to him (the strelsy, and then the oprichnina)
with votchina:
land and peasants. However this grant was not hereditary. It depended on the
loyalty of the soldier to the tsar. This system worked well for a time, but
Ivan eventually had to purge the strelsy and then the oprichnina. When Ivan died he
could not even trust his son and heir. The state exploded into the anarchy of
the Time of Troubles. |