Ivan the terrible, p.2
Ivan the Terrible, page 2
There has also been in the last thirty years a major assault, in the West, on one of the hitherto most important sources on which historians have depended, namely the correspondence between the Tsar and Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky, and the History of Ivan IV, attributed to the latter. Professor Edward Keenan of Harvard University has argued at length that these two works are in fact forgeries, or ‘apocrypha’ as he prefers it, produced in the seventeenth century.14 In addition Professor Keenan has argued that during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, as before and after, Russia was governed by an oligarchy, composed of members of aristocratic clans, closely interrelated by marriage; they governed in the name of the Tsar, who had no power and in the case of Ivan IV, was in fact illiterate. In addition an abyss separated the culture, such as it was, of the secular court society from that of church and monastic society. These latter arguments are expressed in an essay entitled ‘Muscovite Folkways’, originally drafted in 1976 as part of a Department of State contract, rewritten several times, and finally published in 1986, and ‘meant to stimulate and provoke rather than to convince’.15 However, Keenan has recently reiterated his view that Ivan was illiterate.16
This particular reader has not been convinced of the validity of any of these propositions. I am not qualified in linguistic and textual analysis. But as a practising historian I cannot accept the validity of Keenan's theories on historical grounds. There may be no evidence that Ivan was literate, but there is also no evidence that he was not. And there is no doubt that many boyars were literate – they had to be literate in order to negotiate treaties and truces.17 I cannot accept either that Ivan was the illiterate tool of an oligarchy. It is really wildly improbable that the institution of the oprichnina in 1565, or the destruction of Novgorod and its inhabitants in 1570, were carried out merely on the initiative and authority of princes and boyars, and it certainly was not in their interests. Such policies would have to be imposed by someone with overwhelming authority. There is also too much similarity between the language of Ivan in his first letter to Kurbsky, of 1565, and the letters written to King Sigismund II, Augustus of Poland–Lithuania in 1567; these were ostensibly written by three great magnates in Russian service, and in fact by Ivan himself, and the texts have survived in the records of the Posol'sky Prikaz (Office of Foreign Affairs), and later in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.18 It is in my view quite probable that Ivan had learnt to read (it is after all not so difficult); it is equally probable that he did not write himself but dictated his most important missives, as most rulers did. Daniel Prinz von Buchau, imperial envoy in 1575, states positively that it was beneath the dignity of boyars to write themselves.19
The theory of the separation of the two cultures, religious and secular, is also unconvincing, when every line that was written in Russia as part of the formulation or implementation of policy by members of governing bodies is imbued with religious thought and feeling and couched in religious language. Even the lengthy disquisitions of ambassadors are replete with quotations from the Old and New Testaments. Priests were present at births, marriages, and deathbeds, they played a big part as confessors, and in pilgrimages to monasteries, often on foot, which were a frequent and normal part of life. They drew up wills. The Orthodox liturgy repeated familiar sounds to the faithful who probably knew much of it by heart. It is partly for this reason that I have included many quotations from writings attributed to Ivan, whether political or religious or, as so often, both. It is the way into his mind, the only way to understand his personality.
In the circumstances, I do not propose to attempt to refute Professor Keenan's theories, but will confine myself to referring the interested reader to the extensive literature covering the debate which he has launched.20
I have however adopted a few general principles of research and interpretation which I will state here. First of all, I have tried to write the history of Ivan IV, 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. Adopting such an approach makes it easier to avoid supercilious judgments, to grasp what happened in Russia in Russian terms, to feel its full tragedy. This may explain why throughout I speak of Russia and not Muscovy. Ivan IV was Tsar vseya Rusi, of all Russia, and he considered himself to be the heir of Kievan Rus'. In the titulature of the Tsar, Vladimir came before Moscow. The emphasis on Moscow derives from the fact that it was the first big city which Westerners of all kinds came across, and by the time they became acquainted with Russia the history of Kievan Rus' was unknown to them, except of course to the Poles and Lithuanians. I do not believe one can read the present back into the past without distorting the past. Sixteenth-century Russians did not know that four centuries later the Ukraine would be an independent country with its capital in Kiev, nor that Russia would have conquered and then lost the Crimea.
At the same time I have pursued a comparative approach, for I think that many of the problems which faced Russia were of the same nature as those which France, Germany and, to a lesser degree, England had to contend with – though not necessarily at the same time as Russia. Both German emperors and French kings had had to struggle to have their authority accepted throughout their lands, a struggle in which Germany failed, and Russia had only partly succeeded by the sixteenth century. England had been forcibly unified under William the Conqueror, but it too had had to struggle to extend its borders to the coasts of the whole island, and to the whole archipelago, and was successful in Wales; partly so, for part of the time, in Scotland, and only partly so in Ireland.21 The Trastámaras and the Habsburgs too had failed to unify the Iberian peninsula, where local fueros or constitutional rights survived, and the realm consisted of a union of crowns: it was a composite state.22 The extension of a central royal authority throughout the realm was only achieved by the Bourbon dynasty in the eighteenth century. The Habsburgs and their predecessors on the imperial throne had dismally failed to unify the German lands. Sweden broke away from Danish control and asserted its independence. These various polities which emerged over time in Europe and turned into nations, share many common problems and it is up to the historian to detect them in the various disguises which they assume because of cultural, religious, geographical and political differences. England is an island and enjoys the blessings of the Gulf Stream; Russia has mainly infertile soil and an abominable climate; some European countries had been part of the Roman Empire of the West and formed a community which spoke Latin; others formed part of or were influenced by the Roman Empire of the East, practised their common Orthodox Christian religion, adopted much later, in the vernacular, and did not acquire a common language. But all these peoples have an underlying, common, Christian culture and shared political concepts, not always easy to detect, but which it is the duty of historians to seek out and define.
Finally I come to the question of the nature of evidence. Here I think that the advice given by Paul Bushkovitch in his ‘The Life of Saint Filipp’ is well worth following. He sets out a number of ‘rules of reading’, recommending them particularly for research into the study of Russian religion. The first and principal rule, which is most relevant to my research is: ‘A text is what it says it is about. Thus the life of Saint Sergei of Radonezh is not about the development of national consciousness in Russia. It is about the life of a monastic saint. It is about monasticism.’ I have tried to follow this thoroughly sound recommendation. I can only hope that I will have satisfied my readers that I have done so.
I have also adopted a number of expressions which may seem idiosyncratic to my readers, but which are based on my determination not to mislead them by using words which distort what they meant at the time. The first of these is the word ‘autocracy’, used everywhere now as the translation of the Russian samoderzhavie. In the sixteenth century, and later, samoderzhavie signified sovereignty. Samoderzhets was translated into English as ‘self-upholder’.23 Secondly, I use Russia, not Muscovy to describe the realm of the Tsars, and Russian as an adjective for both Rus' and Russia. Muscovy was only one principality forming part of Russia, and its Riurikovich Grand Princes maintained their dynastic claims to the principalities on the Dnieper which had been absorbed by Lithuania after the Mongol conquest. Thirdly, I have tried to evade the use of the name ‘Byzantium’. Thanks to Gibbon, It has become associated with deviousness, intrigue, and corruption, and leads readers to forget that Constantinople was founded by a Roman emperor, that for a thousand years it was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, using first the Latin, then the Greek language. Not that the Roman empire of Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, Heliogabalus was not also corrupt – but then we are less critical of our own fathers. Finally, faced with the real difficulty of finding suitable terms for the cavalry of Russia, I have borrowed from Professor Valerie Kivelson the designation ‘service gentry’ to describe the boyarskiye deti, and the later dvoriane of Russia because as a class they seem to me closest to the English landed gentry at a time when the latter were not at all genteel.
Highgate, 2004
Acknowledgements
It is with deep gratitude that I acknowledge all the help that I have been given in the preparation of this book. In the first place I must thank the Leverhulme Trust for a generous grant for research assistance to enable me to complete it. I also wish to thank Professors Michael Branch and George Kolankevich, successively Directors of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, now part of University College London, for the facilities which they granted me, as an Honorary Research Fellow, and which enabled me to make use of the rich collection of the Library of the School. My thanks also go to the Librarian, Dr Lesley Pitman, and the staff of the Library, for their kindness and patience with me, and to Vladimir Smith Mesa for extra special attention. I must also record my gratitude to the London Library, a centre of excellence if ever there was one, and to Raj Khan who looked after my computer.
I must single out five people whose help was invaluable. My old friend and colleague, Professor W.F. Ryan, who helped me with offprints and suggestions, read the whole work, and saved me from many infelicities. Needless to say he is not to be blamed for any which remain. Secondly, my new friend (made on the Internet!) Dr Sergey N. Bogatyrev, who was generosity itself, supplying me with offprints, photocopies of his articles, and suggestions for reading, read the whole of my MS, and allowed me to pick his brains in endless conversations. He too, however, must be absolved of responsibility if I have occasionally wilfully refused to follow his lead. And to my old friend, Professor H.M. Scott, who also read the early chapters and gave me sound criticism and advice. Fourthly, Mrs Gwyneth Learner, who took on the chore of being my research assistant and gave me invaluable help in areas beyond my reach. And finally Mrs Vlasta Gyenes, Senior Library Assistant at SSEES, without whose constant friendly and kind assistance I would not have been able to complete my work in the Library now that I can no longer climb stairs or ladders. All these kind friends gave me enormous moral support, and sometimes physical support.
In Russia I am grateful to Professor R.G. Skrynnikov, who kindly gave me his book, Tsarstvo Terrora; to Professors A.B. Kamensky and S.A. Kozlov, who also sent me books, and to Dr Oleg Omel'chenko, who was more than kind in procuring books for me as well as photocopies of obscure articles. Na dobruyu pamyat'.
I am also grateful to Dr J. Lehtovirta, who gave me his book, to Dr Julia Gerasimova of Leyden University, for advice on illustrations, to Professor R. Frost, for much good advice, to Professor W.E. Butler for advice on Russian law, to Professor A. Pippidi, Director of the Institute of Modern History in Bucharest, who filled me in on the background to relations between Moldavia and Russia and sent me photocopies of articles, to Professor Averil Cameron who advised me on Byzantium, to Dr Susan Reynolds, who educated me in medieval history, to Professor John Guy who put me on the right track in English history, and to Dr N. Mears for information on the courtship of Queen Elizabeth by Erik of Sweden. I would also like to thank Robert Baldock at Yale University Press for his constant support, and Candida Brazil who coped with a difficult manuscript with unfailing patience and efficiency. Finally I am deeply grateful to Dr Stephen Sebag Montefiore, who gave me most useful help and information on sixteenth-century medicine and advised me and provided me with literature on the psychiatric problems of Ivan the Terrible.
Russia and Poland-Lithuania, mid-sixteenth century
Chapter I
The Historical Background
The world the Grand Prince Ivan Vasil'evich was born into in 1530 was still somewhat strange and mysterious to western Europeans, though better known to travellers from Italy, the Holy Roman Empire and the one-time imperial Roman lands in the Balkans and the Middle East, now under Ottoman rule. Until the Mongol conquest in 1238–42, the Orthodox Christian Slavo-Scandinavian1 princes in Russia had maintained relations with the kings of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Moldavia, Hungary and France, and the Holy Roman Emperor, and there had been frequent intermarriages. Harold Hardrada, king of Norway, married a daughter of Vladimir Yaroslavich; the first wife of Grand Prince Vladimir Monomakh, whom he married in 1067, was a daughter of King Harold Godwineson of England; and the Kievan princess Anna, daughter of Iaroslav the Wise, married Henry I, King of France, in 1051.2
The Mongol Conquest
The Mongol conquest profoundly affected the natural evolution of medieval, or Kievan, Russia, but there is no agreement among the experts as to the nature and extent of its impact.3 It was a traumatic experience, coming only thirty-eight years after the fall of Constantinople to the Latin crusaders in 1204. This was also a considerable shock to the Orthodox Rus', whose religious capital was now in the hands of schismatics, and who had to look to Nicaea for ecclesiastical direction until 1296.
The Mongol conquest destroyed the remaining unity of Kievan Rus'.4 A good deal of the south-western part of the old Kievan grand principality, including Kiev itself, which had been devastated, came under direct Mongol rule, and by the fourteenth century had been absorbed, mainly by conquest, into the Grand Principality of Lithuania. As a result Kiev went one way and the city of Vladimir on the Kliaz'ma, founded in 1108 by Prince Vladimir Monomakh, went another, with consequences which will be discussed below. The principalities gravitating around the city of Vladimir, in the north-east, and the republic of Novgorod in the north continued under their own princes, subject to Mongol approval. The character of the north-eastern principalities defined the new community which arose around it. The climate was harsher, the winter was longer, the forest was denser, the days were shorter in winter though longer in the brief summer than in Kievan Rus'. Communication with the Eastern Roman Empire or central Europe was more difficult, and settlement was more recent in the north-east. The independent city republic of Novgorod was held by the Mongols on a somewhat loose rein, but it too formed part of the Mongol empire since its trade was of considerable importance to these rulers of the steppe.
Not only was the zemlia or land of Rus' thus divided, the north-east and the south-west losing touch with each other, but the fairly continuous contacts with eastern and central Europe which had marked the old ruling élite and the merchant class were much reduced – except for the city republics of Novgorod and Pskov, which continued to trade with the Hanseatic League, and the trade with the West which trickled through Smolensk. Vladimir and Moscow now participated more in trade ventures to the Middle East. There were no more Riurikid marriages with European royal and princely houses. There were some marriages with the Mongol ruling house, but not many after the conversion of the Golden Horde to Islam in 1340.
The Mongols did not settle in Rus', since the land was not suitable for the nomadic life which was the basis of the economy on which their huge cavalry army relied. Khan Baty established his capital in Saray, on the lower Volga, and summoned the Russian princes repeatedly to Saray, or sent them on to the Mongol capital Karakorum, in Mongolia, to have their iarlyki (patents to rule) renewed. This long journey was so exhausting that several princes, notably Alexander Nevsky, died on the way or the way back.
The khan of the Mongol empire had to be chosen among the descendants of Genghis Khan, the Golden Kin. Hence the Mongols were quite prepared to accept the Russian principle of confining the choice of princes to a ruling family, the Riurikids, descendants of the semi-mythical Scandinavian prince Riurik, and frequently accepted the choice made by the Russians, though they did not hesitate to reject it when they preferred another candidate. Their policy broadly was not to allow any principality to become too strong. They delegated the task of collecting the heavy tribute imposed on the Russian lands to the princes, and eventually to the ruler of Moscow, though the assessment was made by Mongol officials. It is estimated that in the late fourteenth century the principality of Moscow paid between five and seven thousand rubles a year, a very large sum bearing in mind that this was not the only financial burden.5
