Tsar of Russia (1547-1584). The image of the “terrible tsar” marked the conscience of its contemporaries considerably. Sanguinary tyrant for the ones, it is considered by others as one of the men who contributed the most to the size of Russia. Texts of any kind: songs, folklores, legends, accounts of voyage carry testimony from there.

With the reign of Ivan the Terrible, Russia enters the time of the Muscovite absolutism, orchestrated by a sovereign monarch, with the power without limits but adored of its people, and which are accompanied by the confirmation of a process of centralization and unification of the country.

The interregnum
Mother of Ivan, Helene Glinskaïa, assumes regency, but it enters in conflict with duma of boyards (advisory counsel which ensures the supreme authority when the sovereign is absent from Moscow), i.e. the noble ones of high ranking. When she dies in 1538, Ivan only finds itself in the Kremlin, surrounded by various rival aristocratic clans, mainly Chouïski and Belski. The interregnum is finally ensured by Chouïski, at the cost of worse violences. The young prince, witness of all these atrocities, is also the first victim of the intrigues of palate. In public, all the marks of respect are presented to him, but into private he is insulted and offended.  

Hatred that Ivan carries, during its reign, with the boyards, as its tendency to cruelty (who is being accentuated) took root lasting its childhood. Although its education is neglected, it reads enormously, learns the history in the Byzantine chronicles and devours that of the saints and the Russian Church. It is an young man who expresses a morbid mistrust with regard to all and which already seems to have lost its moral balance. But, unlike its predecessors, it is also one of the men most educated and cultivated of its time.  

The “tsar of all Russies”
In 1547, Ivan decides to be made crown tsar and large-prince of all Russia. He asserts the function and the attributes of the emperor (basileus) Byzantine and thus legitimates Moscovie in charge of Eastern Christendom, succeeding Constantinople fallen into 1453 with the hands from the Turks. During the preparation of the ceremony of crowning, a rich corpus of chronicles and Russian legends are used by Ivan and his Macaire metropolitan to justify its claims under tsar (reserved until the end of the XV E century with the Byzantine emperors, the Bulgarian and Serb sovereigns and the khans tatars) as a heir to the emperor of Constantinople. He is not only any more one large-prince, but a monarch who holds his power of God, confirmed on Earth by the support of the Church. This decision devotes the independence and the hegemony of the new Muscovite State. On January 16th, 1547, Ivan is crowned in the cathedral of the Assumption in the Kremlin. On February 3rd, its marriage with a Russian princess, Anastasia Romanov, approved by the metropolitan and the whole of the boyards, is celebrated there.

Beginnings of the reign

The year 1547 is remembered by a terrible fire in Moscow, which extends to the palate from the tsar in the Kremlin. Ivan makes public act of contrition on the Rouge place, interpreting this misfortune like a punishment for his sins, and announces his desire to control the country for the good of his people. At this point in time the best period of its reign starts. Surrounded by the selected Council (Izbrannaïa Split), made up of the Macaire metropolitan, the Sylvestre priest, Alexis Adachev (officer of the court) and of prince Kourbski, Ivan IV undertakes a series of reforms.  

Reforms
The tsar makes convene the first council of the clergy (Zemski Sobor) of the Russian history, makes publish a penal code (Soudebnik) in 1550, and introduced the electoral principle into the administration of the communities. Central offices of government (prikazy) are created to treat Finances, War, Foreign affairs.  

Local government
Locally, especially where the populations are committed paying a certain sum with the royal Treasury, elected assemblies and officers are charged to control the action of the governors (voïévodes) to prevent the corruption and the exactions of the representatives of the central power. The taxation is set up little by little thanks to a first census of the grounds, making it possible to define with more precision the tax base.  

The army and the Church
The same year, the combatant service with the tsar is organized: land fields are allotted, around Moscow, with sons of boyards, who represent the nobility of the capital to the service of the sovereign. The army is reorganized, of the regiments of musketeers make their appearance. In 1551, the council of the Hundred-Chapters is convened to specify the statutes of the Church in its relationship with the State and the company.  

The development of Moscow
Ivan IV continues to embellish his capital and makes build the cathedral Saint-Basile to commemorate his victory over Tatars de Kazan. He encourages the merchants of province to come in the capital and installs the first printing works of the country in Moscow.

The second part of the reign

In 1553, the tsar falls very seriously sick and, feeling close dying, requests an oath of allegiance of noble from his son Dimitri, which the boyards and its close relations refuse to make, being given its very young age. Its authority extends on all the basin from the Volga (with the annexation of Kazan in 1552, and that of Astrakhan in 1554), but does not succeed in seizing durably Livonie and Estonia. The conquest of the khanat of Siberia (1581-1584) opened in Russia of new prospects in the east.  

First signs of despotism
From the years 1560, the attitude of Ivan with regard to his close advisers changes radically.  

The escape of the boyards
Intrigues of the boyards, dissatisfied with the defeat of the tsar against Livonie, and the death of his wife are undoubtedly the causes. The tsar, convinced that his advisers Sylvestre and Adachev took part in the poisoning of Anastasia, the fact of condemning. In 1560, Adachev far away from the court then is imprisoned, and Sylvestre is exiled in a monastery. The members of their families are put at death, like their collaborators and friends. Consequently, a large number of boyards leaves Russia for Lithuania. Most notable of them is prince Kourbski, who, having left Russia in 1564, addresses to the tsar, since his Polish exile, of very famous letters where he criticizes his despotism.  

False abdication
After the death of Macaire in 1563, the behavior of Ivan IV gives signs of mental imbalance. With the autumn 1564, it leaves Moscow accompanied by his second wife for the small town of Alexandrovsk, from where it makes pretense abdicate. It sends two public letters: one showing the boyards and the clergy of treason, the other reiterating its confidence with the people. The population is disorientated by the vacancy of the power.  Under the pressure of the people, a delegation is formed to beg the tsar to return. Ivan imposes a decree which subjects most of the country and capital to the authority of a crack corps, the opritchniki, in charge of the internal security. Very shaken psychologically by this episode, it upsets its practices of government, and is devoted then to acts of cruelty which will return it sadly celebrates.  

The creation of the opritchnina
Territory reserved is created, opritchnina, where a mode of exception is established and where the tsar installs his faithful, who constitute his armed guard, the opritchniki.  

The territory
This territory is composed of about twenty cities, of the grounds close to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and part of Moscow; then it is widened and ends up representing approximately a third of the kingdom. The installation of the opritchnina divides the country into two: on a side this territory of exception and other the zemtchnina, grounds which continue to be managed by the governors and the traditional local authorities. The tsar also grants the right to judge and punish the criminals as good seems to him.  

The mode of terror
A separate administration is installed in the opritchnina, composed men in the pay of tsar, 1000 in the beginning and of 6000 around 1572. These men equipped with black and assembled on of the same horses color make reign a terror without similar: they organize on the grounds which they dominate of the waves of arrests against the supposed enemies of the tsar: boyards, their families and their close relations. They destroy several cities, in particular Novgorod, whose tsar makes massacre 25 % of the population in 1570. The metropolitan Philippe of Moscow, former confessor of the sovereign, who protests against the mode of the opritchnina, is thrown in prison and is strangled. In 1572, the tsar abolishes this system, but the kingdom remains divided until into 1575.

The madness of the tsar
It seems that, since the death of his first wife and his Dimitri son, the sovereign lost the spirit. Its “insanity” leads it to incomprehensible or monstrous acts; thus, in 1575, it crowns tsar Tatar, Siméon Bekboulatovitch, which it lets control with his own way: giving up all its titles, being made call Ivan of Moscow, it takes part like simple member in the court of Siméon. This inversion of the power and this alarming carnival last almost a year, before Siméon is not relieved. Lastly, in 1581, taken of an access of rage, it strikes his oldest son, Ivan, and wounds it mortally. Consequently, the tsar passes by phases of exaltation or brutality, which alternate with moments of repentance, prayers and scourgings.

Wars against Tatars
Around 1550, the most important wars are directed against the people tatars, which launch starting from the khanats of Kazan, Astrakhan and the Crimea of the raids against Moscow in order to seize spoils and slaves. In 1552, the tsar beats the Moslems and seizes the khanat of Kazan. The annexation of the khanat of Astrakhan in 1556 will support the expansion towards the east; cossacks exceed the Ural and annex the Siberian grounds. The Russians install on the throne of Astrakhan a combined khan, which makes allegiance with Ivan IV. But this khan leagues against the tsar with Tatars of the Crimea; Ivan IV then starts again an offensive against Astrakhan, which is annexed to the Muscovite kingdom. But there remains the khanat of the Crimea, which organizes raids in Russia until 1558, year when he is defeated in Azov. The threat of Tatars of the Crimea is again felt as from 1569, since the troops of the khan arrive to Moscow in 1571 and, not managing to seize the city, burns and devastates most of the capital and country. However, in 1582, overcome by the troops of the tsar, they are forced to withdraw itself.  

The opening towards the Baltic
The opening of the country is marked by the access of the Russian people to the Volga, but especially by the signature of commercial treaties with England. From 1555, an agreement grants the English of the advantages in Russia, in the form of exemptions of taxes. Ivan IV thus breaks the barrier maintained by Poland and Hanse between Russia and Western Europe.  

The war against Livonie
To try to reach the Baltic, the tsar enters in war against Livonie, which is supported by a powerful formed coalition of Poland, Lithuania and Sweden. In the west, the fight against the order of the Sword bearer of Livonie is initially marked by Russian victories, in particular the catch of the fortress of Dorpat (Tartou). In 1560, the order of Livonie is dissolved: its main large last, Kettler, become vassal of king de Pologne, lance, in 1563, in alliance with the Lithuanians, an offensive - which fails - against the troops of prince Kourbski. But as from 1578, Poland, Lithuania and Sweden find themselves allied to fight against the Russian expansionism. Poland passes to the attack in the south of Livonie, its troops advance until Pskov, which it cannot take.  

The defeat
In north, the Swedes crush the Russians. The tsar is obliged to yield and, by the treaties of 1582 and 1583 with Poland and Sweden, to give up all the territorial profits obtained during this war. The great intention of the tsar - to open on the Baltic -, which cost twenty-five years of conflicts, is a total failure: Livonie becomes Polish, Estonia and the gulf of Swedish Finland.  

Assessment of the reign

Ivan IV dies in 1584, leaving a country devastated by the wars, like by the opritchnina, of which it is difficult to measure the demographic cost (the population is approximately 15 million inhabitants in 1600). Despite everything, it bequeaths a country whose surface quadrupled while increasing towards the east: the Volga is opened with the trade, and the going beyond the Ural marks the beginning of the colonization of Western Siberia.  

The incarnation of the despotism
Under this reign is worked out a new autocratic power, which provides the political foundations of unified and centralized Russia. The adjective groznij (terrible) is polysemous: it contains certainly a connotation of brutality and pathological violence, but especially it means “that which inspires the terror”, which incarnates sovereign justice. It is thus synonymous with tyrant or despot. Ivan the Terrible is the incarnation of a theocratic and absolute monarch.  

Succession
Ivan IV had been married eight times, but it left only two sons. It is Fédor Ivanovitch which succeeds to him (its other son, Dimitri, is old only four years). But Fédor is simple of spirit, worried primarily of religion. The assassination of Dimitri and the death of the sovereign in 1598 leave the vacant throne. The terrible episode of the Time of the Disorders starts then, and hard until the advent, at the next century, of Romanov.