Ivan IV the Terrible, Tsar of Russia

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Ivan IV (Ivan Vasil’evich, Ivan the Terrible, Ivan Groznyi [the Awe-Inspiring]) was born in 1530 and ruled from 1533 to 1547 as Grand Prince of Moscow and All Russia and from 1547 to 1584 as Tsar and Grand Prince of All Russia. Ivan is among the most controversial rulers in all of Russian history. Everything significant about his life is contested. Controversy has endured partially because Ivan’s reign was politicized in his own lifetime as anti-Russian propaganda during the Livonian War (1558–1582), in which Russia sought to acquire an outlet on the Baltic Sea, portrayed Ivan as a sadistic oriental despot. It also persists partially because Russia was a manuscript culture virtually bereft of printing, and the surviving sources, while ample in quantity, are often problematic in quality. During his minority, which marked the first phase of Ivan’s reign, first, his mother, Grand Princess Elena, and, then, various boyar (aristocratic) cliques vied for power after Elena’s death in 1538. Ivan’s minority continued until he was crowned tsar and married in 1547, inaugurating the so-called long 1550s in which Russia undertook major domestic and foreign policy initiatives. Russia successfully expanded down the Volga River by conquering the Tatar khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan and launched the ultimately unsuccessful Livonian War. The purpose of the Livonian War may have been strategic, economic, or ideological. For reasons that are still debated, in 1564 Ivan established the oprichnina (an untranslatable word for his separate “court”) against real or imaginary enemies. The oprichniki (members of the oprichnina) imposed a reign of terror on the country, culminating in a massive assault on the city of Novgorod for “treason” and the torture and execution of hundreds of Muscovites of various classes. For equally unknown reasons, in 1572 Ivan abolished the oprichnina. Ivan was the first Russian ruler to employ mass terror for political purposes. In 1575–1576 Ivan abdicated in favor of a puppet Christian, Chingissid (descendent of Chinggis Khan), Simeon Bekbulatovich, who “reigned” as Grand Prince, not tsar, of Muscovy. The failure of Russia’s Livonian War induced Ivan to seek arbitration from the papacy to make peace with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1582; Russia lost all its territorial acquisitions in the war. After the accidental death in 1581 of Ivan’s eldest son and heir, Tsarevich Ivan, usually attributed to Ivan, he sank into despair. Economic collapse characterized Russia during Ivan’s remaining years. Ivan’s reign began in glory and ended in disaster at home and abroad, leaving for modern historians a confused legacy to try to sort out.

General Overviews

While the bibliography on the reign of Ivan the Terrible includes a large number of books and articles devoted entirely to the period 1533–1584, often the best discussions of specific themes are found in articles or books devoted to longer periods. Consequently, this article will cite many items whose titles do not specify “Ivan the Terrible” as their subject. Three excellent brief overviews of Ivan’s reign are available, each embedded in a textbook. The strength of Crummey 1987 is its mastery of the major historiographical schools of interpretation of Ivan’s reign. Martin 2007 concentrates on political and economic history; the author explains changes in administration very clearly. Bogatyrev 2006 personifies recent semiotic interpretations of Ivan’s reign, often incorporating the author’s own original research into his exposition. Familiarity all three overviews will give the reader an excellent orientation to the different current approaches to the study of Ivan.

Bogatyrev, Sergei. “Ivan IV, 1533–84.” In The Cambridge History of Russia. Vol. 1, From Early Rus’ to 1689. Edited by Maureen Perrie, 240–263. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521812276Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A short survey of Ivan’s reign that covers domestic and foreign affairs. The most original sections rely upon the author’s own research on ideology and symbolism. Rejects the notion of a boyar oligarchy or an illiterate or poisoned Ivan. In more recent articles, Bogatyrev has modified or expanded his analysis.
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Crummey, Robert O. The Formation of Muscovy, 1304–1613. London: Longman, 1987.
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See pp. 143–178 for a very sound analysis of major interpretations of Ivan’s reign and the various theories that have sought to explain Ivan’s motives and policies.
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Martin, Janet. Medieval Russia, 980–1584. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511811074Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
While a broad general history, the work includes a sensible overview of Ivan’s reign in the later chapters focusing on political and economic issues and carefully explaining changes in central and local governments and the impact of economic developments (pp. 364–415).
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“Biographies”

There are no proper “biographies” of Ivan. Ivan left no private papers, so it is impossible to write a successful personal biography about him. Gaps in documentation of public affairs, for example minutes of meetings of the Royal Council (Duma), render it impossible even to write a proper “political biography” of Ivan. Consequently books titled “Ivan the Terrible” are actually about Ivan and his reign. Tabloid biographies exist in many languages. They consist almost entirely of regurgitated atrocity stories of uneven reliability and often portray Ivan as insane; none is cited here. Scholarly monographs about the entirety of Ivan’s reign are another matter. Kobrin 1989 was rushed into print during a relaxation of censorship at the end of the Soviet Union. Its moral outrage harks back to some Imperial Russian condemnations of Ivan’s tyranny. Floria 1999 is a very sound analysis that treats Ivan evenhandedly as a rational political actor. Pavlov and Perrie 2003 represents the collaboration of a Russian and an English historian, respectively, and to some extent the convergence of Russian and European scholarship since the removal of Soviet censorship. Its Ivan too is rational, not insane. Pavlov and Perrie 2003 has a clear thesis with a negative evaluation of Ivan’s impact upon Russian history. It is more critical of Ivan than Floria 1999 but far less than Kobrin 1989.

Floria, Boris. Ivan Groznyi. Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1999.
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An analysis of domestic and foreign policies under Ivan the Terrible that does not attempt to resolve the nagging question of who set policy. Strongly hints that Ivan’s victims constituted an insufficient threat to justify mass terror against them. Ivan turned Russia from an estate monarchy to an autocracy in which the estates served the state.
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Kobrin, Vladimir Borisovich. Ivan Groznyi. Moscow: Moskovskii Rabochii, 1989.
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Stirring moral condemnation of Ivan the Terrible’s senseless violence and contempt for anyone who defends Ivan’s actions on the grounds that the ends justify the means. Ivan was a sadistic and cruel despot, a tyrant, and a drunken debauchee. Whatever he contributed to centralization could have been accomplished by more humane means.
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Pavlov, Andrei, and Maureen Perrie. Ivan the Terrible. London: Pearson/Longman, 2003.
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Ivan decided in the 1560s that the corporate-estate institutions he helped establish in the 1550s placed unacceptable limits on his autocratic authority and power. Therefore, he established the oprichnina to divide the nascent estates against themselves, ensuring state dominance over society. Ivan, thus, decided Russia’s political future.
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Reference Works

No book-length bibliographic works are available about Ivan, despite the growing number of studies of his reign. Nor are encyclopedias or reference works about Ivan available in Western languages. Ivan Groznyi Ektsiklopediia (Volpe 2007) reflects popular interest in Ivan in Russia. Tsar’ Ivan IV Groznyi: Samoderzhavnyi i samovlastnyi (Perevenentsev 2005) represents the most popular genre of Ivan “anthology” in Russia today, a compilation of a brief narrative, selective sources translated into modern Russian, and excerpts from Russian historiography. Although neither the encyclopedia nor such anthologies make an original contribution to scholarship, they do suggest the level of interest in Ivan among the Russian reading public and the insularity of that interest.

Perevenentsev, S. V. ed. Tsar’ Ivan IV Groznyi. Samoderzhavnyi i samovlastnyi. Svidetel’stva prizhiznennye: Da vedaiut potomki . . . Moscow: Russkii mir, 2005.
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(Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible, Autocratic and Despotic: Testimonies of Contemporaries: Let Our Descendants Know . . .) This typical anthology contains a genealogy of Ivan, a narrative, samples of the hymns attributed to Ivan, translated excerpts from both contemporary Russian and foreign sources, and excerpts from Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russian-language scholarship on Ivan, favoring conservative and religious interpretations.
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Volpe, M. L., ed. Ivan Groznyi Ektsiklopediia. Moscow: ACT Izdatel’stvo, Zebra E, 2007.
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Ivan the Terrible Encyclopedia is profusely illustrated but lacks any scholarly apparatus. It is largely a regurgitation of “traditional” Russian historical views of Ivan as a tyrant that ignores even recent Russian-language scholarship, let alone Western scholarship.
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Publications of Primary Sources

An ample number of narrative and documentary sources about the reign of Ivan have been published, including chronicles, tales, epistles, hagiography, diplomatic papers, genealogies, land cadastres, and decrees. Much more material, especially documents, remains unpublished, and some of the older source publications no longer meet scholarly standards. The majority of historians still believe that the correspondence exchanged between the defector Prince Andrei Kurbsky and Ivan remains the most illuminating source about Ivan’s political mentality and ideology. The Kurbsky-Ivan correspondence has been translated into several languages. Fennell 1963 is the English translation, and it is unlikely ever to be superseded. Fennell 1965 also is a translation of Kurbsky’s “History of the Grand Princes of Moscow,” written in exile. Howes 1967 is a published translation of Ivan’s only extant testament, which gives material meaning to the concept of Russia as the “patrimony” (private property) of the ruler. Likhachev and Lur’e 1951 is a Soviet publication of most epistles attributed to Ivan. Additional correspondence issued in Ivan’s name was almost certainly written by him, so this collection should be considered incomplete. Dewey 1966 is a collection of government texts illustrating the “reforms” of the 1550s. Emchenko 2000 is a publication and source study of the “Council of One Hundred Chapters,” the decisions of a 1551 council of the Russian Orthodox Church concerning reform of religious practices. Berry and Crummey 1968 includes the most important accounts of Ivan IV by English visitors.

Berry, Lloyd E., and Robert O. Crummey, eds. Rude & Barbarous Kingdom: Russia in the Accounts of Sixteenth-Century English Voyages. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.
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Fully annotated publication of probably the most valuable foreign accounts of Muscovy during (or about) the reign of Ivan IV by English visitors, accompanied by excellent introductory material that puts the accounts into proper context.
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Dewey, Horace W., ed. Muscovite Judicial Texts, 1488–1556. Michigan Slavic Materials 7. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, 1966.
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Annotated translations of Muscovite immunity charters, the Sudebnik (Law Code) of 1550, anti-brigandage charters, and local government charters, illustrating an attempt to standardize and improve legal procedures and central and local government administrations.
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Emchenko, E. B. Stoglav. Issledovanie i tekst. Moscow: Indrik, 2000.
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A detailed study of the Church Council that tried to “reform” church practices and of the documentation of its decisions based upon manuscript analysis and textual comparison, which sheds new light on church-state relations in the middle of the 16th century.
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Fennell, John L. I., ed. The Correspondence of Prince A. M. Kurbsky and Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, 1564–1579. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1963.
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The exchange of polemical letters between defector boyar Prince Andrei Kurbskii and Ivan IV includes the sharpest criticism of Ivan by a Russian from the 16th century and the best articulation by Ivan of his theories of royal authority. Facing pages of the original text and Fennell’s annotated translation.
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Fennell, John L. I., ed. Prince A. M. Kurbsky’s History of Ivan IV. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1965.
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In exile Kurbskii wrote his “History,” much of it based upon rumors coming out of Russia about events there. A devastating indictment of Ivan’s execution of innocent Russian martyrs from a moral rather than political stand, not terribly reliable factually. Superb translation on facing pages of text and annotation.
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Howes, Robert Craig, ed. The Testaments of the Grand Princes of Moscow. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967.
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Ivan’s Testament (pp. 304–360) begins with personal reflections of the testator’s sinfulness and advice to his sons. Contains both the Russian original and an annotated translation. The text may reflect composition in stages. It definitely became obsolete with the death of Ivan’s eldest son and heir, Tsarevich Ivan, in 1581.
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Likhachev, Dmitrii Sergeevich, and Iakov Solomonovich Lur’e, eds. Poslaniia Ivana Groznogo. Moscow-Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo A. N. SSSR, 1951.
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The most expansive printed collection of Ivan’s epistles (The Epistles of Ivan the Terrible), with original texts and modern Russian translations, fully annotated, including letters Ivan may have ghostwritten in the names of his boyars. Contains both diplomatic and ideological epistles.
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Critical Studies of Primary Sources

The question of the authenticity of putatively 16th-century texts that survive only in 17th-century manuscripts is difficult to avoid. Keenan 1971 was the first to broach seriously the issue of the authenticity of the correspondence between Kurbsky and Ivan. A number of American scholars tend to agree with Keenan, but the majority of historians specializing in Ivan do not. The twenty-five-year debate over the issue is analyzed in Halperin 1998. Foreign accounts are another major source genre that has often occasioned comment. These provide information unavailable in native sources but at the risk of European ignorance and especially prejudice. Earlier studies concentrated on factual accuracy; more recent works, such as Poe 2000, the most comprehensive study of the value of the foreign accounts for political history, pay as much attention to mentality. Of course, opinions differ on the value of each and every foreign account about Ivan’s reign.

Halperin, Charles J. “Edward Keenan and the Kurbskii-Groznyi Correspondence in Hindsight.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 46 (1998): 376–403.
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Concludes that Keenan’s critics have successfully impugned Keenan’s arguments about the authenticity of the correspondence. Moreover Keenan’s general conception of 16th-century Muscovite culture and society, especially his theory of the two cultures of court and church, misrepresents the significance of religion in court life and identity.
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Keenan, Edward L. The Kurbskii-Groznyi Apocrypha: The Seventeenth-Century Genesis of the “Correspondence” Attributed to Prince A. M. Kurbsky and Tsar Ivan IV. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
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Keenan argues that the correspondence between Ivan and Kurbsky, like all writings attributed to them, including Kurbsky’s “History,” are 17th-century apocrypha. Both men were illiterate. Keenan proposes a sharp cultural divide between the secular, pragmatic court of cavalrymen and the religiously intolerant Russian Orthodox Church. With an appendix by Daniel C. Waugh.
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Poe, Marshall T. “A People Born to Slavery”: Russia in Early Modern European Ethnography, 1476–1748. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.
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The definitive exposition of the European stereotype of Russia as a despotism. Despite bias, the Europeans’ portrayal of Russia as a tyranny was fundamentally accurate. Superbly traces the application to Ivan of traveling folklore atrocity stories about the Ottoman sultan and Vlad Tsepesh, also known as Dracula.
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Edited Collections

Hellie 1987 includes an entire year’s worth of four issues (the proceedings of a conference) and Berelowitch, et al. 2005 is a double issue. Both are devoted to Ivan’s reign as a whole. While both illustrate the breadth of research about Ivan’s reign at present, they also reveal how much of that research, given its scope and the nature of the sources sustaining it, is published as articles and not monographs.

Berelowitch, André, Vladislav Nazarov, and Pavel Uvarov, eds. Special Issue: La Russie vers 1550: Mouvement nationale ou empire en formation? Cahiers du Monde Russe 46 (2005).
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Thirty four articles, including six in English, fifteen in French, and thirteen in Russian, on a broad range of political, social, intellectual, and religious themes. Not all articles pertain to the reign of Ivan IV.
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Hellie, Richard, ed. Special Issue: Ivan the Terrible: A Quarcentenary Celebration of His Death. Russian History 14 (1987).
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Nineteen articles, including sixteen in English, two in German, and one in Russian, on a variety of topics in history, literature, and folklore as well as source study and historiography.
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Political Structure and Concepts

Traditionally, historians have emphasized the authoritarian nature of Muscovite “autocracy” and the dominance of state over society, foregrounding the absence of “Western” constitutional theories or limits on royal authority. Recent research analyzes the disparity between the mode of political analysis of factions, interest groups, and social classes, on the one hand, and the moral-religious representation of political narrative in the Russian sources, on the other. Krom 2005 articulates this dilemma very well. Poe 2002 restates the traditional interpretation of state hegemony, while Kivelson 2002 notes contradictions between this essay and Poe’s previous research. Crummey 1989 addresses the key political concept of “reform,” which is often repeated in scholarly narratives, noting the need for precise definitions and sensitive attention to how the Muscovites viewed political change.

Crummey, Robert O. “Reform under Ivan IV: Gradualism & Terror.” In Reform in Russia and the USSR: Past & Prospects. Edited by Robert O. Crummey, 12–27. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.
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Although the concept of “reform” was alien to a society that valued “custom” and “antiquity,” during the 1550s the government tried to improve the functioning of state administration but it did not act from a conscious theory or comprehensive program. This was not modernization or the creation of an estate-representative monarchy but rather mobilization.
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Kivelson, Valerie A. “On Words, Sources, and Historical Method: Which Truth about Muscovy?” Kritika 3 (2002): 487–499.
DOI: 10.1353/kri.2002.0039Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Responding to Poe 2002, Kivelson points out that despotism, not a value-neutral term, misses the role of custom and religion in defining relations between the ruler and society. The Harvard School espouses a critical comparative approach to Muscovite history that uses the early modern European “new monarchies” to elucidate Muscovite reality.
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Krom, Mikhail Mikhailovich. “Byla li ‘politika’: v Rossii XVI v.?” Odissei: Chelovek v istorii (2005): 283–303.
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Did “Politics” Exist in Russia in the Sixteenth Century? attempts to finesse the disconnect between scholarly depictions of politics in practice, including court factions and policy formulation, and the contemporary Muscovite source discourse that substituted largely moral evaluations of political actors by religious criteria for “politics.” Krom sees the concept of “political culture” as the solution to this disconnect.
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Poe, Marshall. “The Truth about Muscovy.” Kritika 3 (2002): 473–486.
DOI: 10.1353/kri.2002.0044Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
European travelers accurately depicted Muscovy as a despotism whose ruler had unlimited but not arbitrary authority over his servile subjects to a degree greater than any European monarch. Russia was not European culturally or institutionally. According to Poe, the Harvard School of Muscovite political and social history founded by Edward Keenan distorts this reality.
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Political Narrative

Traditional political narratives have tried to present simple straightforward schemas of political developments, each of which, in turn, falls to newer research and analysis. The long-dominant and still widespread paradigm is that, during the period of “reforms” of the 1550s, Ivan relied upon the “Chosen Council,” an informal group of influential advisers led by Alexei Adashev, a member of the gentry, and Sylvester, a priest, which tried to limit the authority of the aristocracy. Because of policy failures or foreign policy reverses, or just because Ivan was now mature but insane, he took over the reins of power. Ivan launched the oprichnina, a frontal attack on the aristocracy and its landowning base. After that reign of terror petered out, Ivan, for unknown reasons, abdicated pro forma to the Mongol Chingissid Simeon Bekbulatovich. No consensus exists on whether Ivan’s victims were innocent or guilty or whether, even if they were guilty, the threat to Ivan’s person and authority justified his extreme measures. Krom 2010 impugns the image of “boyar misrule” during Ivan’s minority, which supposedly motivated both the “reforms” of the 1550s and Ivan’s more drastic measures during the oprichnina and thereafter. Halperin 2008 questions whether Ivan’s invocation of his mistreated childhood as an excuse for his adult misbehavior should be taken at face value. Grobovsky 1969 and Filiushkin 1998 reject the existence, let alone functioning, of the “Chosen Council” during the 1550s. Opeide 2000 points out that disagreements among historians over the purpose and success of the oprichnina derive from differing definitions of what constituted the oprichnina. Skrynnikov 1992 presents the most sophisticated multiphased interpretation of the oprichnina as an evolving phenomenon, lacking a single animating political logic. Iurganov 1997 represents recent semiotic interpretations of the oprichnina as a reflection of religious, not political, ideology. Finally, Ostrowski 2012 comprehensively surveys theories of the logic behind the Simeon Bekbulatovich episode. Ostrowski 2012 highlights the steppe, Mongol element in Muscovite political culture.

Filiushkin, Aleksandr Il’ich. Istoriia odnoi mistifikatsii: Ivan Groznyi i “Izbrannaia Rada.” Moscow: Voronezh Gosudarstvennyi Universitet, 1998.
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InHistory of a Mystification. Ivan the Terrible and the “Chosen Council,” Filiushkin demonstrates that Alexei Adashev and the priest Sylvester did not play the roles ascribed to them by the theory of the “Chosen Council” by Ivan and Kurbskii. Both were prominent individuals, but, on the whole, Filiushkin debunks the extent of their influence, let alone dominance, over Ivan and government policy.
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Grobovsky, Anthony N. The “Chosen Council” of Ivan IV: A Reinterpretation. Brooklyn, NY: Theo. Graus’, 1969.
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The “Chosen Council” never existed. The career trajectories of no cohort of advisers to Ivan match the putative chronology of the “Chosen Council.” Moreover, Kurbsky never claimed there was a “Chosen Council,” just “chosen council,” selected advisers upon whom Ivan relied when he ruled according to custom and religious precept.
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Halperin, Charles. J. “The Minority of Ivan IV.” In Rude & Barbarous Kingdom Revisited: Essays in Russian History in Honor of Robert O. Crummey. Edited by Chester Dunning, Russell Martin, and Daniel Rowland, 41–52. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2008.
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Argues that attributions of the minor Ivan’s actions to himself and his mother, Grand Princess Elena Glinskaia, and references to Ivan’s “youth,” suggest that the Muscovite court was sensitive to the exigencies of dealing with a child-monarch and did not permit Ivan to be mistreated, as he later claimed.
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Iurganov, Aleksandr L’vovich. “Oprichnina i strashnyi sud.” Otechestvennaia istoriia 3 (1997): 52–75.
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“The oprichnina and the Last Judgment.” The oprichnina was a religious institution. Its purpose was to purge the Russian people of sin in anticipation of the Day of Judgment. The apocalypse had not occurred in the year 7000 (1492) from the Creation or in 7070 (1562). Ivan could not stand to wait for 7077 (1569).
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Krom, Mikhail Mikhailovich. “Vdovstvuiushchee tsarstvo”: Politicheskii krizis v Rossii 30–40-kh godov XVI veka. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2010.
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In this book titled The Widowed Kingdom: The Political Crisis in Russia in the 1530s and 1540s. Russia successfully weathered the storm of court factional politics during Ivan’s minority because the apolitical bureaucracy maintained stability and set domestic and foreign policies. Since all authority was vested in the ruler, it is improper to speak of a “regency council”; the so-called regents were the executors of Vasilii III’s testament.
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Opeide, Gunnar. “Making Sense of Opričnina.” Poliarnyi vestnik: Reports from Tromsø University Department of Russian 3 (2000): 64–100.
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Theories of the oprichnina differ because historians operate with differing definitions of the oprichnina: the entire period 1565–1572, government policy during this period, the institution and style of political rule involving terror, the oprichniki corps, and a separate territory. Opeide affirms that Ivan was trying to simplify the working of his private administration.
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Ostrowski, Donald. “Simeon Bekbulatovich’s Remarkable Career as Tatar Khan, Grand Prince of All Rus’, and Monastic Elder.” Russian History 39 (2012): 269–299.
DOI: 10.1163/18763316-03903001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A comprehensive survey of the evidence and explanations of Ivan’s abdication to Simeon Bekbulatovich, concluding that Ivan was preempting the plan of some Muscovite boyars, reported in the account of Daniel Printz, to make the Crimean khan the ruler of Russia because only a Chingissid could be a true khan/tsar.
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Skrynnikov, Ruslan grigor’evich. Tsarstvo terrora. St. Petersburg: Nauka, Sankt-Peterburgskoe otdelenie, 1992.
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In this most extensive political analysis of Ivan’s “kingdom of terror” Skrynnikov proposes that the oprichnina lacked a single consistent political goal. Rather, its focus changed, in part, because Ivan lacked the power to carry out his changing policies to their logical conclusions because of the objections of the elite.
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Central and Local Government

Historians disagree about the degree of “centralization” of political authority in Muscovy and the degree to which the central government micromanaged provincial affairs. The challenge has always been to correlate legislation written in Moscow with the realities of administration on the ground. The extent to which provincial elites exercised any self-government or autonomy speaks directly to this question. Brown 1983 traces the evolution of the central administrative apparatus as a process that took time. Davies 1987 and Davies 1997 show that centrally appointed governors engaged in a subtle political and social interaction with local elites in order to perform their duties and that the central government was flexible in applying multiple provincial administrative strategies rather than dogmatic in imposing its will upon its subjects. Bogatyrev 2005 addresses the significance of locally elected or selected anti-brigandage officials on the emergence of all-class local societies and regional identities. Romaniello 2012 analyzes the administration of annexed territory occupied by Muslim Tatars and others, while Angermann 1972 evaluates the short-lived administration of annexed territory occupied by Lutheran Germans.

Angermann, Norbert. Studien zur Livland Politik Ivan Groznyjs. Marburg, Germany: J. G. Herder-Institut, 1972.
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This study begins with the motives for the Livonian War and ends with a discussion of Muscovite opponents of the Livonian War, but its strength is its analysis of the temporary Muscovite administration of Livonia, which necessitated the imposition of Muscovite governors and garrisons, military servitors, and conditional land grants.
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Bogatyrev, Sergei. “Localism and Integration in Muscovy.” In Russia Takes Shape: Patterns of Integration from the Middle Ages to the Present. Edited by Sergei Bogatyrev, 59–127. Saarijärvi, Finland: Gummerus Kirjapaino Oy, 2005.
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Creation of new local governmental institutions to fight banditry reflects the relationship of the center with local elites, centralization via mobilizing local elites, and their integration into the center. It fostered the social cohesion of all local classes. Contains a prosopography of banditry officials (called “anti-brigandage (guba) elders”).
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Brown, Peter B. “Muscovite Government Bureaus.” Russian History 10 (1983): 268–330.
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State chancelleries existed in fact before they did so in name. The process of structuring “chambers” (izby) out of the Curia Regis and household of the ruler into “departments” (prikazy) took decades. Brown identifies the first appearance of the name of each bureau.
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Davies, Brian. “The Town Governors under Ivan IV.” Russian History 14 (1987): 77–143.
DOI: 10.1163/187633187X00060Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Local government was an unsystematic combination of several types of officials, including vice-regents (namestniki) funded by “feeding” off the local population (a practice known as kormlenie), locally elected anti-brigandage and local administration elders, “governors” (voevody) who received cash and land, fortification stewards, and siege captains.
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Davies, Brian. “The Politics of Give and Take: Kormlenie as Service Remuneration and Generalized Exchange, 1488–1726.” In Culture and Identity in Muscovy, 1359–1584. Edited by Ann M. Kleimola and Gail D. Lenhoff, 39–67. UCLA Slavic Studies 3. Moscow: ITZ-Garant, 1997.
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Kormlenie, or “Feeding” (funding of governors by the local populace in the form of services, gratuities and supplies, instead of receiving state salaries), created a process of mutual acknowledgment and obligation between administrators and local society that belies clichés about “centralization.” The abolition of the system in 1556 was not implemented consistently.
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Romaniello, Matthew P. Elusive Empire: Kazan and the Creation of Russia, 1552–1671. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012.
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A rich analysis of how Muscovite administrative policy responded to the exigencies of administering the territory of the newly conquered Khanate of Kazan, populated by non-Slavic non-Christians, and gradually integrating the middle Volga River region into an imperial framework.
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Foreign Policy

Studies of Russian foreign policy have long been a tradition in Russian historiography, both in diplomatic narratives and in institutional histories. For obvious reasons, Russian relations with England have been the subject of much study, but those relations were primarily commercial, not political. The key step in Russia’s expansion eastward, down the Volga River to the Caspian Sea, was the annexation of the Kazan Khanate, a successor state of the Jochid ulus (“Golden Horde”), in 1552, studied in Pelenski 1974. The most important bureaucrat during Ivan’s reign was the foreign policy specialist Viskovatyi, the subject of Grala 1994; he was eventually executed by Ivan for treason. Khoroshkevich 2003 is not the only, just the most recent and most competent, work to argue that Ivan’s domestic policy, namely the oprichnina, was motivated by foreign policy considerations, namely the Livonian War.

Grala, Ieronim. (Hieronym Grala). Ivan Mikhailovich Viskovatyi: Kar’era gosudarstvennogo deiatelia v Rossii XVI v. Moscow: Radiks, 1994.
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Comprehensive examination of the career of professional state secretary, sometime “minister of foreign affairs,” keeper-of-the-seal, “chancellor,” and gentry member of the Royal Council In Ivan Mikhailovich Viskovatyi: The Career of a Statesman in Sixteenth-Century Russia, Grala examines Viskovatyi’s social background, religious knowledge, and administrative and diplomatic activities; Grala concludes he was totally innocent of the charges of treason for which he was executed in 1570.
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Khoroshkevich, Anna Leonidovna. Rossiia v sisteme mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii serediny XVI veka. Moscow: Drevnekhranilishche, 2003.
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In Russia in the System of International Relations of the Mid-Sixteenth Century, Khoroshkevich attributes the Livonian War to Ivan’s egoistic search for European confirmation of his imperial title and incompetent interference in Muscovite foreign policy, not to commercial or strategic considerations. Ivan, a despot, established the oprichnina to squelch domestic opposition to his imprudent foreign policy and to secure financing for the war.
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Pelenski, Jaroslaw. Russia and Kazan: Conquest and Imperial Ideology, 1438–1560s. The Hague: Mouton, 1974.
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Russia’s conquest of the Kazan Khanate was no accident but the product of decades of effort. Muscovy claimed sovereignty over Kazan on a variety of historical, legal, juridical, and religious grounds. The annexation of Kazan was supported by members of all social classes and was central to Muscovite imperial ideology.
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Military History

Military history has long been a favorite subject of Russian historiography, including studies of strategy, tactics, weaponry, recruitment, and military competence. Ivan’s quality as a military commander-in-chief is a much debated point, especially since Russia so resoundingly lost the Livonian War. Recent scholarship has integrated Russia into the “gunpowder revolution” in noting that Ivan introduced standing infantry units of harquebusiers. Esper 1969 dismisses diatribes about Russia’s need for foreign military technology as an excuse for commercial monopoly. Smith 1993 presents a positive assessment of Russia’s logistical capabilities. Filjushkin 2008 surveys a range of issues of military history of Ivan’s reign, but not the possibility of Ottoman military influence. Filiushkin 2010 is an international conference anthology which sheds much light on military history as well as other aspects of the Livonian War. The size of Russia’s overall forces and field armies has generated considerable controversy.

Esper, Thomas. “Military Self-Sufficiency and Weapons Technology in Muscovite Russia.” Slavic Review 28.2 (1969): 185–208.
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Livonian, Polish, and Habsburg complaints that Russia could wage war only because it imported arms were just excuses to maintain their trade monopolies over Russia. Although Russia imported some raw materials such as copper and tin for armament manufacture, it was mostly self-sufficient in arms production.
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Filiushkin, Aeksandr Il’ich, ed. Baltiiskii vopros v kontse XV–XVI vv. Sbornik nauchnykh statei. Moscow: Kvadriga, 2010.
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This work (in English, The Baltic Question at the End of the Fifteenth and in the Sixteenth Century) contains thirty-seven articles, including thirty-three in Russian, one in German, and three in English, on a variety of political, diplomatic, social, military, and source-study themes concerning competition for commercial and naval superiority in the Baltic Sea (the “Baltic Question”). Includes background articles on the question before Ivan’s reign.
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Filjushkin, Alexander. Ivan the Terrible: A Military History. London: Frontline, 2008.
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The “crusade” against Muslim Tatars shifted from offensive to defensive military action. The Baltic Wars (not a single “Livonian War”) ended in military disaster but was only of minor significance. Tactical and strategic deficiencies, lack of military professionalism, and cultural backwardness were responsible for Russia’s defeats more than her enemies.
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Smith, Dianne L. “Muscovite Logistics, 1462–1598.” Slavonic and East European Review 71 (1993): 35–65.
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Russia had two armies, cavalry with infantry and artillery support to fight the Tatars in the south and infantry and artillery with cavalry support to fight Europeans in the north and west. Russian success suggests that the country met this unprecedented logistical challenge. Russia did not lose the Livonian War because of logistics.
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Society

Traditional studies of the various social classes in 16th-century Muscovy emphasized their subservience to state authority and obligations for service and taxation. More recent social history has uncovered areas of autonomous activity and negotiated relations with the state. No synthesis of this vast field has yet been produced. Most historians still describe Ivan’s Muscovy as in the process of becoming a caste society, which was not completed until serfdom was definitively established in the 17th century. Smith 1977 reveals that the overwhelming majority of the population—perhaps 90 percent—constituted the peasantry, although the author’s prime interest is the economy. Kollmann 1987 has carried the study of the importance of kinship to the aristocracy to a new level, and the author finds evidence that Muscovy was an oligarchy, not an oriental despotism, in which the boyars dominated society. Bogatyrev 2000 finds a more diverse elite, broader than just the aristocracy, and not as autonomous in relying on kinship for advancement and status. Bogatyrev 2000 allots to the ruler more say in the political apportionment of authority than Kollmann 1987. Finally, Mikhailova 2003 explores the broader middle serving classes, including the gentry. There are also studies of artisans, slaves, foreigners, and merchants.

Bogatyrev, Sergei. The Sovereign and His Counsellors: Ritualised Consultations in Muscovite Political Culture, 1350s–1570s. Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian toimituksia. Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae. Humaniora 307. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2000.
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For the ruler to consult his advisers was normative. During the reign of Ivan IV, the “Privy Council” included only selective boyars, other trusted nobles, and professional bureaucrats. The role of the sovereign should be neither overestimated nor underestimated. Loyalty was as important as kinship in determining access to Ivan.
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Kollmann, Nancy Shields. Kinship and Politics: The Making of the Muscovite Political System, 1345–1547. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987.
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The aristocratic boyar clans exercised exclusive political power. Politics consisted of marital politics. Nobles rose to boyar rank via genealogical seniority, not merit. The linchpin of the system was the arrangement of marriages between rulers and lesser gentry (not aristocrats) in order to strike a balance among court clans.
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Mikhailova, Irina Borisovna. Sluzhilye liudi severo-vostochnoi Rusi v XIV-pervoi polovine XVI veka: Ocherki sotsial’noi istorii. St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2003.
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InServing People of North-East Rus’ from the Fourteenth through the First Half of the Sixteenth Century, Mikhailova affirms that “serving people” (sluzhilye liudi) consisted of gentry and members of the royal “court” or “household” who performed ceremonial, judicial, administrative, and military functions, as well as domestic servants and artisans who fulfilled economic functions. Careers in the gentry depended upon origin, clan ties, the sovereign’s favor, and personal ability.
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Smith, Robert E. F. Peasant Farming in Muscovy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511562235Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Economic and social parameters of peasant agricultural life must take into account regional variations, here in Moscow district in the center, in Toropets in the former Smolensk principality, and in newly annexed Kazan.
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Women

Traditional research on the “women’s question” in Russia emphasized Russian Orthodox Christian monastic misogynistic writings and female subservience to a patriarchal society. Recent research has taken a more balanced approach, emphasizing women’s property rights, their influence over elite marriage, and even their entrepreneurial and political activities. Kollmann 1983 takes a fresh look at the seclusion of elite women in the terem (women’s quarters) from the perspective of social anthropology. Kleimola 1992 sees Ivan’s reign as the zenith of women’s dowry rights, but Weickhardt 2008 takes a much dimmer view of women’s legal rights at the time. How the development of both conditional landowning, with its obligation for military service, and autocracy affected women remain open questions.

Kleimola, Ann M. “‘In Accordance with the Canons of the Holy Apostles’: Muscovite Dowries and Women’s Property Rights.” Russian Review 51 (1992): 204–229.
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Women’s rights to dowries, in land, cash, and movables, gave them opportunities to exercise management skills and flexibility in allocating their property to heirs. Women could use their cash reserves to purchase land. These property rights did not diminish during the 16th century.
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Kollmann, Nancy Shields. “The Seclusion of Elite Muscovite Women.” Russian History 10 (1983): 170–187.
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Seclusion of elite women did inhibit their public roles, but it also reflected the value placed upon women for kinship marriage politics, gave them the opportunity to influence marriage politics in private, and broadcast family status and wealth. Even secluded women were integrated into the Muscovite elite.
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Weickhardt, George G. “Legal Rights of Women in Russia, 1100–1750.” In Early Russian Law. By George G. Weickhardt, 77–100. Idyllwild, CA: Charles Schlacks, 2008.
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Women’s legal rights were most restricted under Ivan. The state grew wary of anyone inheriting land who could not perform military service and, therefore, restricted women’s inheritance rights to land. Women were granted greater rights in the 17th and 18th centuries than they possessed in the 16th century. First published in Slavic Review 55 (1996): 1–23.
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Economy

Without question the Russian economy under Ivan went from prosperity in the first half of the 16th century to what is considered catastrophic collapse by the end of his reign, a result of war, terror, epidemic, and crop failure. Economic data are hard to come by, however. Much research, even by Western scholars, viewed capitalism and manorialism as successive stages rather than noticing the typical early modern European combination of natural and money economies. Man’kov 1951 finds that Russia did participate in the Price Revolution of the 16th century and notes the significance of money for the tax-paying peasantry. Baron 1980 reassesses the author’s previously stated traditional view that the state prioritized political issues at the expense of economic development for Russia’s “weak” merchant class. Bushkovitch 1978 finds that the “merchantry,” defined economically and not juridically, did quite well and was not “ruthlessly exploited” by the state exclusively for fiscal motives.

Baron, Samuel H. “Ivan the Terrible, Giles Fletcher, and the Muscovite Merchantry: A Reconsideration.” In Muscovite Russia: Collected Essays. By Samuel H. Baron. London: Variorum Reprints, 1980.
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Revising his earlier negative assessment based upon the Weber thesis, Baron now finds that Ivan was concerned with merchants’ affairs when he insisted upon commercial reciprocity in international trade agreements. Despite Russian economic backwardness and institutional obstacles to capitalist development, Russian merchants did well for themselves economically. First published in Slavonic and East European Review 56 (1978): 563–585.
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Bushkovitch, Paul. “Taxation, Tax Farming, and Merchants in Sixteenth-Century Russia.” Slavic Review 37 (1978): 381–398.
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Tax farming and elected local tax officials varied depending upon prosperity and the state’s fiscal needs. Tax farmers came not from leading but rather from middling merchants, including northern peasants. This was not “centralization.” Middle merchants exploited the state for profit, the state did not just exploit middle merchants for revenue.
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Man’kov, A. G. Tseny i ikh dvizhenie v russkom gosudarstve XVI veka. Moscow-Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo A. N. SSSR, 1951.
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InPrices and Their Changes in the Russian State in the Sixteenth Century, Man’kov notes that because Muscovy imported its silver from Europe, it should have been affected by the Price Revolution in the West, and it he finds that it was affected. Despite fluctuations and regional variations, agricultural prices rose over the course of the 16th century. Manufactured goods were less commercialized than agricultural products.
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Religion

Studies of religion in Muscovy have always been divided between diatribes about Russian superstition, obsession with ritual over religious substance, ignorant clergy, and a politically servile church, on the one hand, and paeans to Russian piety and devotion, ascetic monasticism, and the centrality of religion to Russia’s national identity on the other. National partisanship has played a major role in this scholarship, which, however, is still of much value. Modern historians have moved beyond institutional study of the Russian Orthodox Church to studies of religion itself. Bushkovitch 1992 is a work by a major innovator in this regard. Kollmann 1980 presents a fairly negative portrayal of the parish clergy, but one free of cant. Makarii 2002 and Volodikhin 2009 examine the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church in the persons of two metropolitans, Makarii, former archbishop of Great Novgorod, who led the church from 1542 to his death in 1563, and Filipp, former abbot of the Solovetskii Monastery on the White Sea, who became metropolitan in 1566 and was removed from office and later murdered at Ivan’s order in 1569. Ostrowski 1992 studies what was supposedly the major “partisan” divide among Russian monks and bishops (all bishops came from the monastic clergy) between Trans-Volga Elders and Josephans, which has been grossly exaggerated. Finally, Miller 2010 and Dykstra 2006 examine two of Muscovy’s leading monasteries, the Trinity-Sergius Monastery and the Iosif-of-Volokolamsk Monastery, both major economic, political, and spiritual powerhouses. Historians now realize that there was no “one” Russian Orthodox Church; studies of priests and monks, bishops, and monasteries reveal the variety underneath the facade of Church uniformity. Steindorff 1994 is a work based on research of the commemoration of deceased relatives in the Iosif-of-Volokolamsk Monastery.

Bushkovitch, Paul. Religion and Society in Russia: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
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During the 16th century, miracle cults gradually replaced monastic sanctity as the motive force of Russian Orthodox religion as monks lost charisma. The church responded by strengthening the disciplinary role of bishops and priests. The degree of uniformity imposed upon the church during the mid-16th century has been exaggerated.
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Dykstra, Tom E. Russian Monastic Culture: “Josephism” and the Iosifo-Volokolamsk Monastery, 1479–1607. Munich: Otto Sagner, 2006.
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The Iosif-of-Volokolamsk monastery did not reproduce the social hierarchy outside the monastic walls; some non-nobles attained leadership positions, some nobles did not. Authority in the monastery was shared by the abbot and a council of elders; this consensus politics matches that of the elite at the Russian court.
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Kollmann, Jack E., Jr. “The Stoglav Council and Parish Priests.” Russian History 7 (1980): 65–91.
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The Council of One-Hundred Chapters purported to try to improve the education and morality of parish priests but was more concerned with control by prelates and the collection of fees for prelates. Priests remained dependent upon their parishes for income. The council had little effect upon parish clergy.
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Makarii, Arkhimandrit (Veretennikov). Zhizn’ i trudy sviatitelia Makariia mitropolita Moskovskogo i vsea Rusi. Moscow: Izdatel’skii sovet Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvy, 2002.
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The most extensive, largely descriptive, study of metropolitan Makarii (The Life and Works of Saint Makarii, Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia) surveys comprehensively his life as metropolitan, including his administrative, political, theological, literary, and artistic activities, and reproduces in an appendix all documents written by or to him. The author also promoted Makarii’s canonization in 1988 and wrote his official church vita.
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Miller, David B. Saint Sergius of Radonezh, His Trinity Monastery, and the Formation of the Russian Identity. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010.
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The Trinity-St. Sergius monastery became a national center of Russian religion and St. Sergius a national totem. The monastery was sustained not only by the elite, but also by a community of venerators, mostly lower gentry who donated to, and served and were shorn at, the monastery. Monastic documentation practices encouraged pragmatic literacy.
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Ostrowski, Donald. “Church Polemics and Monastic Land Acquisition in Sixteenth-Century Muscovy.” In Major Problems in Early Modern Russian History. Edited by Nancy Shields Kollmann, 129–153. New York: Garland, 1992.
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The supposed debate over the legitimacy of monastic landowning of populated villages at the Church Council of 1503 is a mid-16th-century polemical invention. The antagonism between the Trans-Volga Elders / Non-Possessors and the Josephans (followers of Iosif, abbot of the Volokolamsk monastery), has been exaggerated, modernized, and politicized. First published in Slavonic and East European Review 64 (1986): 355–379.
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Steindorff, Ludwig. Memoria in Altrussland: Untersuchungen zu den Formen christlicher Totensorge. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994.
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Steindorff uncovers the elevation of memorial prayers for the dead in the 16th-century Iosif-of-Volokolamsk monastery to an articulated system of graded donations and commemorations. He explores the social and religious significance of the practice.
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Volodikhin, Dmitrii. Mitropolit Filipp. Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 2009.
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Comprehensive presentation of the life and martyrdom of Filipp from the point of view of a devoted son of the Russian Orthodox Church who rejects any but spiritual interpretations of Filipp’s actions on behalf of the faith and the faithful, for which he was later canonized.
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Political Ideology

Because the figure of Ivan dominates his reign, conceptions of Ivan’s political ideology have often loomed large in studies of the 16th century, even among those historians who think Ivan had mental problems. Renaissance, Byzantine, and Mongol elements have been detected in Ivan’s theory of uncontested rule, expressed in his “First Epistle to Kurbsky” (see Publications of Primary Sources, specifically Fennell 1963). Cherniavsky 1968 finds parallels—not influences—between Machiavelli and Ivan, and the author paints a brilliant portrait of the Renaissance “mood” of Ivan’s Muscovy that has found few adherents among specialists. Bushkovitch 1986 calls into question Cherniavsky’s emphasis upon Third Rome, autocracy, and empire as the foundation stones of 16th-century Muscovite political identity. Hunt 1993 extrapolates from literature and art to infer that Ivan propagated a personal mythology of rule deeply rooted in Christian theology. Rowland 1996 continues the reevaluation of Third Rome ideology, concluding that the scriptural concept of the Chosen People, the New Israel, exerted far more influence. The approach taken by Bushkovitch, Hunt, and Rowland resonates with recent semiotic research on art and architecture, ritual and ceremony, and the oprichnina, all of which foreground the religious underpinning of Ivan’s and Russia’s identity.

Bushkovitch, Paul. “The Formation of National Consciousness in Early Modern Russia.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 10 (1986): 355–376.
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The monk Filofei has two theories of Moscow as the Third Rome, “optimistic” and “pessimistic,” but narrative sources omit both. They emphasize harmony between the ruler and his elite and the ruler’s consultation with the elite, as much an idealization as the image of absolute and unlimited power created in ideological sources.
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Cherniavsky, Michael. “Ivan the Terrible as a Renaissance Prince.” Slavic Review 27.2 (1968): 195–211.
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Argues that mid-16th century Muscovy was characterized by a Renaissance “mood” and that Ivan articulated a Renaissance attitude toward the necessity of a ruler to be feared rather than loved, paralleling Machiavelli, but with a Northern Renaissance retention of religious morality, hence, Ivan’s conflicted ambiguity toward sin and repentance.
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Hunt, Priscilla. “Ivan IV’s Personal Mythology of Kingship.” Slavic Review 52 (1993): 769–809.
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Ivan’s personal mythology derived from Divine Wisdom theology, which articulated the ruler’s likeness to the second person of the Trinity. Ivan expressed the dual nature of Christ, reconciling his violence with his role as pious ruler. Ivan assimilated this personal mythology experientially from court literature, art, and ceremonies.
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Rowland, Daniel B. “Moscow: The Third Rome or the New Israel?” Russian Review 55 (1996): 591–614.
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The significance of the theory of Moscow as the Third Rome has been exaggerated. The dominant idea in literary and artistic works of the reign of Ivan IV was the conception of Russia as the New Israel, Russians as the new Chosen People, and Moscow as the New Jerusalem.
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Literature, Painting, and Architecture

The literature, art, and architecture patronized by the church and court alike expressed the same religious ideology and cultural values, the same sense of identity. “The Book of Degrees of Imperial Genealogy” formulated a new approach to Rus’ history centered on the dynasty and cooperation between church and state. Lenhoff and Kleimola 2011 encapsulates the results of considerable recent research on the manuscripts, provenance, evolution, content, and context of this innovative and revisionist text. Changes in artistic style and content did not always come easily. Miller 1981 analyzes the most famous incident of accusations of heresy against new icons and frescoes tainted by Western influence, for which the accuser was convicted of heresy. Rowland 1994 analyzes one of Muscovy’s most famous icons, commonly but misleadingly titled the “Church Militant” to find historical, allegorical, and contemporary layers of meaning. In Rowland 2003, the author analyzes the murals of the Golden Hall (or Golden Palace) in trying to extract the impact these biblical images had on the secular and (to Rowland) illiterate elite audience who viewed them. Finally, Flier 1995 finds similarly sophisticated theological content physically incorporated into the architecture of the most famous church of Ivan’s Muscovy, perhaps of Russia itself, commonly called St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square.

Flier, Michael S. “Filling in the Blanks: The Church of the Intercession and the Architectonics of Medieval Muscovite Ritual.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 19 (1995): 120–137.
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St. Basil’s Church on Red Square is a sophisticated, complex architectural expression of the events leading to the conquest of Kazan in 1552, symbolizing the theological eternal truths of Christ, the Mother of God, and the kingdom to come and the power of Russian national saints and icons.
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Lenhoff, Gail, and Ann Kleimola, eds. The Book of Royal Degrees and the Genesis of Russian Historical Consciousness: “Stepennaia kniga tsarskogo rodosloviia” i genezis russkogo istoricheskogo soznaniia. UCLA Slavic Studies 7. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2011.
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Anthology of twenty-two articles, five in Russian and seventeen in English, reflecting the last decade’s research on the provenance, textual history, contents, and significance of an innovative narrative history of Rus’ from St. Vladimir in Kiev to Ivan IV in Moscow.
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Miller, David B. “The Viskovatyi Affair of 1553–54: Official Art, the Emergence of Autocracy, and the Disintegration of Medieval Russian Culture.” Russian History 8 (1981): 293–332.
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The head of the “bureau of foreign affairs,” Viskovatyi was correct that the new icons and frescoes painted for the Kremlin churches after the 1547 fire reflected Western-inspired theological innovations, but his purpose was to mount a political attack on the person in charge, the priest Sylvester. Viskovatyi was convicted of heresy.
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Rowland, Daniel. “Biblical Military Imagery in the Political Culture of Early Modern Russia: The Blessed Host of the Heavenly Tsar.” In Medieval Russian Culture. Vol. 2. Edited by Michael S. Flier and Daniel Rowland, 182–213. California Slavic Studies 29. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
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This icon expressed the notion that the ruler and nobility shared a sacred role in advancing salvation, treating the conquest of Kazan allegorically as the Second Coming of Christ. This ideology resonated with other artistic and literary works from the middle of the 16th century, including the Golden Hall murals.
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Rowland, Daniel. “Two Cultures, One Throne Room: Secular Courtiers and Orthodox Culture in the Golden Hall of the Moscow Kremlin.” In Orthodox Russia: Belief and Practice under the Tsars. Edited by Valerie A. Kivelson and Robert H. Greene, 33–57. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003.
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The Golden Hall murals taught the court elite that political power came from God; the ruler, his clan, the Russian army, and Russia were protected by God, Christ, and the Mother of God; the ruler should be pious, behave morally, and (agreeing with Kollmann and Bogatyrev) consult the courtiers.
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Ceremony

Ritual and ceremony, performed amidst the artistic and architectural ensembles expressive of Russian Orthodox Christianity and Muscovite political and cultural identity, further propagated political ideology among the elite and, to some extent, the populace at large. Relying in part upon current theories of the significance of nonverbal communication, recent study of ritual and ceremony has shed much new light on its dynamics. Miller 1967 examines the Byzantine ceremony of Ivan’s imperial coronation and the limits and delimits of the parallels between Byzantine and Muscovite theories of divine rule. Kollmann 1994 shows that Ivan’s processions and hunting trips were not merely for rest and recreation but, especially early in Ivan’s reign, demonstrated physically that Ivan had now, in fact, assumed office and was asserting the boundaries of his sacred space. Finally Flier 2006 paints a striking composite picture of the ceremonies of the Muscovite court, both religious and secular, as a coherent exposition of the image of the ruler, the court, the elite, and Russia, synthesizing the author’s own recent research as well as that of other scholars.

Flier, Michael S. “Political Ideas and Rituals.” In The Cambridge History of Russia. Vol. 1, From Early Rus’ to 1689. Edited by Maureen Perrie, 387–408. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521812276Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The Muscovite court observed a series of rituals validating the parallel of the earthly tsar ruling the earthly kingdom and the heavenly tsar ruling the Kingdom of Heaven. Cyclical rituals included New Year’s, Last Judgment (Shrovetide), the Fiery Furnace, Epiphany, and Palm Sunday. Other rituals included coronation and royal progressions.
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Kollmann, Nancy Shields. “Pilgrimage, Procession and Symbolic Space in Sixteenth-Century Russian Politics.” In Medieval Russian Culture. Vol. 2. Edited by Michael S. Flier and Daniel Rowland, 163–181. California Slavic Studies 29. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
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Ivan’s frequent pilgrimages, hunting expeditions, and processions were more than recreational diversions; they were symbolic ceremonial nonverbal communication testifying to his authority, marking the sacred space under his rule, and attesting to the splendor of the ruler, the power of his entourage, and his devotion to God. Ritual activities were politics.
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Miller, David B. “The Coronation of Ivan IV in 1547.” Jarbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 15 (1967): 559–574.
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Metropolitan Makarii supervised the Byzantine coronation of Ivan as “tsar” in 1547, Makarii’s greatest triumph. Makarii’s sermon raised his conception of Ivan’s obligations to state and church to the level of official doctrine. Unlike Byzantine practice, Makarii addressed Ivan after he had been crowned but before his anointing and communion.
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Ivan’s Private Life and Public Image

Historiography about Ivan has had to deal since the 16th century with Ivan’s baneful public image as a sex-crazed, sadistic tyrant, an image created during Ivan’s lifetime by his enemies, both European and Russian. Much still being written about Ivan to this day continues to echo this stereotype, a caricature that does little to explain his actions. Kappeler 1972 constitutes the fundamental study of the European war propaganda that demonized Ivan during the Livonian War. These pamphlets did not need to diagnose Ivan as insane because his evil and satanic nature was self-explanatory. Beginning in the late 19th century, psychologists and psychiatrists began to diagnose Ivan as mentally ill, probably today the most widespread “explanation” of his seemingly senseless behavior. Halperin 2007 calls into question the utility of this paradigm, seeing Ivan’s “insanity” as no more than an admission of ignorance by historians. Ivan’s private life, especially his marriages, has often served as a leitmotif of his personal instability. Martin 2012 has definitively resolved the number and identities of Ivan’s wives and confirmed at least de facto church sanction for his marriages. Mut’ia 2010 and Platt 2011 trace the ambiguities and contradictions in artistic images of Ivan in modern Russian culture, showing their responsiveness to the course of Russian history and culture, their ambivalence at times on whether Ivan’s “achievements” compensated for his “excesses,” and the continuing fascination of historians and artists, in both Russia and elsewhere, with the gargantuan legacy of Ivan the Terrible.

Halperin, Charles J. “Ivan IV’s Insanity.” Russian History 34 (2007): 207–218.
DOI: 10.1163/187633107X00112Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A diagnosis of Ivan’s mental health four hundred years after his death is dubious at best, and divorces Ivan from his own reign. Attributing Ivan’s actions to insanity does not clarify them; it is merely an admission that historians cannot adequately explain his behavior and policies.
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Kappeler, Andreas. Ivan Groznyi im Spiegel der ausländischen Druckschriften seiner Zeit: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des westlichen Russlandbildes. Geist und Werk der Zeiten 33. Bern, Switzerland: H. Lang, 1972.
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The classic study of the 16th-century Flugblätter, fly-sheets (flyleafs) printed in German, Latin, and Polish during the Livonian War that presented Ivan as a sadistic, inhuman Oriental monster and which continue to influence his popular and scholarly image to this day.
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Martin, Russell E. A Bride for the Tsar: Bride-Shows and Marriage Politics in Early Modern Russia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2012.
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Establishes conclusively that Ivan was married seven times, not eight, always with at least the tacit approval of the church, and definitively identifies his seven wives. Ivan had no common-law marriages or concubines. The bride-show was not a meaningless ritual but a key element of court politics.
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Mut’ia, Natal’ia Nikolaevna. Ivan Groznyi: Istorizm i lichnost’ pravitelia v otechestvennom iskusstve XIX–XX vv. St. Petersburg: Ateleia, 2010.
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The most extensive survey of images of Ivan in modern Russian culture, including novels, short stories, poetry, plays, operas, paintings, sculpture, and film. Mut’ia correlates changing images of Ivan with broader cultural movements such as classicism, romanticism, positivism, and Marxism.
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Platt, Kevin M. F. Terror & Greatness: Ivan and Peter as Russian Myths. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011.
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Platt’s cultural history of images of Ivan and Peter presents dense analyses of selective paired examples of works that illustrate, in turn, the selectivity of Russian historical memory in allocating one characteristic to each ruler, because Ivan was also great and Peter was also terrible.