Ivan the Terrible (77 page)

20
Iuzefovich, op. cit, pp. 96ff; cf.
SIRIO
, 38, p. 171.

21
A first cousin is called
dvoiurodnyy brat
(brother of the second birth) or
brat
(brother), for short, which can create confusion.

22
Muzhichi rod, ne gosudarski
, ‘of peasant birth and not of lordly descent’, and for the king of Denmark see I. Hofmann, ‘Posol'stvo I. Gofmana v Livoniu i russkoe gosudarsto v 1559–1560’,
Istoricheskii Arkhiv,
no. 6, Moscow, 1957, pp. 131–42, at p. 138.

23
I have translated ‘vozovoditel’ as coachman. Iuzefovich, op. cit., pp. 17–18.

24
Ostrowski,
Muscovy and the Mongols
, ch. 8, pp. 164ff., discusses possible Tatar derivations of the title tsar, but I do not find him convincing.

25
Imperialism as an ideology is put forward by two very different authors, each in his own way: G. Hosking,
Russia: People and Empire, 1552–1917,
HarperCollins, London, 1997; and D. Ostrowski,
Muscovy and the Mongols
.

26
The word ‘state’ is recorded for the first time in English in 1538; the Russian situation is more complex, because the word state in use today, ‘gosudarstvo’ in the sense of ‘Staat’ or ‘Etat’ as allegedly used by Louis XIV, for instance, in the phrase ‘L'état c'est moi,’ was first used in Russian in the first surviving will of Ivan IV dating from 1572 (or possibly from 1579). It then referred to his realms, the lands he ruled over, or in German his
Herrschaft
, English ‘Lordship’, French
seigneurie
, Spanish
señorío
. See below, Chapter XXI.

27
Ostrowski in
Muscovy and the Mongols
implies that this irredentism did not exist spontaneously at the time, that it was fostered by a particularly warlike Church under Metropolitan Makarii, and that Ivan III had even been capable of inciting the Crimeans to attack and destroy Lithuanian-occupied Kiev. This is true, but this is a pre-nationalistic era, and the same indifference to nationality and at times even to religion is evident in border warfare between Scotland and England, and in the wars between Christians and Moslems in medieval Spain. The claims of a dynasty come before those of a non-existent nation, let alone a state, and often of a Church.

28
Professor Averil Cameron has kindly confirmed that the name Byzantium for the Roman Empire of the East only came into use in the mid-sixteenth century.

29
See also the stimulating discussion of Ivan as Holy Emperor and as Universal Emperor, in Lehtovirta,
Ivan IV as Emperor
, pp. 273–347. which I find most convincing.

30
See for instance D. Loades,
The Tudor Court
, Headstart History, London, 1992, p. 29: ‘The Kings of France had been recognised as “Emperors in their own kingdom” since the Bull
Per Venerabilem
of 1202, not so the kings of England.' Since the reign of King John, England was under the suzerainty of the Pope.

31
This was of course also the motive for the Reconquista. I have been struck by the lack of understanding of religious passion shown by a number of historians. Religious belief as a factor in the history of a people is barely mentioned, in spite of the vital importance of ‘salvation’ in both the Christian and the Moslem faiths. In contrast see Lehtovirta,
Ivan IV as Emperor
, p. 327, who does not consider Tatar khanates in the relevant period as impressive models for Russian tsars.

32
Notably, Pelenski, Ostrowski and Halperin. See Pelenski, ‘Muscovite Imperial Claims to the Kazan' Khanate’,
Slavic Review
, XXVI, 4, 1967, pp. 559–96.

33
PSRL
, XXIX,
Letopis' nachala tsarstva; Kazanskaia istoria
, ed. G.N. Moiseeva, Leningrad, 1954, pp. 75–8.

34
Quoted in Mansel,
Constantinople
, p. 25.

35
Karamzin,
Istoria
, vol. VIII, ch. 3, pp. 74ff.

36
I am drawing on Kurbsky's description of the battle in which he took part, which may well be inaccurate, since he wrote it some twenty-five years after the event, but which nevertheless is very vivid. See Kurbsky,
History
, pp. 27ff.

37
Ibid., p. 53.

38
See the description by the Danish envoy Uhlfeldt of the Russian habit of turning one's naked buttocks to face spectators as a gesture of contempt. ‘Puteshestvia v Rossii datskogo poslannika Iakova Uhlfeldta v 1575’, tr. by E. Barsov from the Latin in
Chtenia
, 1883, pt 1, pp. 14, 16.

39
According to Karamzin it is now that the title of
sluga
was awarded to the
voevodas
A.B. Gorbaty-Shuisky and M.I. Vorotynsky; Karamzin,
Istoria
, VIII, ch. 3, p. 90 and notes p. 39, n. 262.

40
I have taken this description of events from Karamzin,
Istoria
, VIII, ch. 4, pp. 85ff.

41
Ibid., VIII, ch. 3, pp. 79ff.

42
PSRL
, XIII, no. 2, pp. 214ff, 1553–4.

43
For a reproduction of the icon and commentary see O.I. Podobedova,
Moskovskaia shkola zhivopisi pri Ivana IV
, Moscow, 1972, pp. 22ff. For a different perspective and an imaginative and knowledgeable discussion of the portrayal of Ivan as ‘emperor’ see Lehtovirta,
Ivan IV as Emperor
, pp. 184ff. The icon is large (144 cm by 396 cm). There is a family likeness between this icon and the painting called the
Journey of the Magi
, very different in tone, by Benozzo Gozzoli, in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence, dating from the mid-fifteenth century, in which the Emperor John VIII Paleologus, whose first wife, Anna, was a daughter of Grand Prince Vasily I, is escorted on his way to the Council of Ferrara/Florence, followed by the Three Kings. He is of course the elder brother of Thomas, Despot of Morea, father of Ivan IV's grandmother Sofia. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Sofia might have described the painting; nor is it at all unlikely that Maksim Grek, who had doubtless visited the Palazzo Medici, as it then was, had seen it in Florence. In both the icon and the Renaissance painting, the figures are richly dressed and embellished with gold ornaments, and surrounded by the upright lances above and the horses' legs below marching in uniform and rhythmic formation. The crown of the principal horseman is not the usual radiate crown given to a Russian tsar.

1
PSRL
, XIII, no. 2, pt 1, supplement to Nikonovskaia, pp. 524ff; and
PSRL
, XXIX, Aleksandro-Nevskaia letopis', pp. 212ff.

2
It is often stated that Sylvester was Ivan's confessor. This is not so.

3
According to Veselovsky, the interpolations were either dictated by Ivan or written under his supervision; according to modern research, the interpolations were made in the late 1570s or maybe even later. See S.B. Veselovsky, ‘Interpoliatsii tak nazymaevoy tsarstvennoi knigi o bolezni tsaria Ivana 1553g’, in his
Issledovania po istorii oprichniny
, Moscow, 1963, pp. 255–91.

4
Most of this account is taken from Veselovsky's ‘Interpoliatsii’ and his article ‘Poslednie udely’, pp. 109ff. The dating of the interpolations has been discussed at length by Russian historians (D.N. Al'shits, N.E. Andreyev (Cambridge), I. Gralia, A.A. Amosov, V.V. Morozov and many others). I am very grateful to Dr S.N. Bogatyrev for his help in steering my way through the difficulties of datingthe sources. The first to swear allegiance were the senior boyars, many of them related by marriage or by clan, such as I.V. Sheremetev bol'shoi (senior), M. Ia. Morozov, D.R. Iur'ev Zakhar'in (the Tsaritsa's brother), V.M. Iur'ev Zakhar'in (her cousin), the gentleman of the bedchamber, Aleksei Adashev, the chamberlain (
postel'nichii
), Ignatii Veshniakov, and the
d'iak
Ivan M. Viskovaty.

5
Skrynnikov,
Velikii gosudar'
, I, p. 192.

6
Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, p. 68. Kurbsky,
Correspondence
, Ivan to Kurbsky, 1564, at p. 95.

7
See Carolyn Pouncy, ‘“The Blessed Sil'vestr” and the Politics of Invention in Muscovy, 1545–1570’,
Harvard Ukrainian Studies
, vol. XIX, 1995, pp. 549–72.

8
Veselovsky, ‘Interpoliatsii’, pp. 284ff. It was also possible that Vladimir of
Staritsa recollected the fate of his father, Andrei, who had been arrested and kept imprisoned by the Regent Elena on the death of Vasily III to make sure that he would not overthrow his nephew, the young Ivan IV (Floria, op. cit., p. 70).

9
Veselovsky, ‘Interpoliatsii’ in
Issledovania po istorii oprichniny
, p. 284.

10
Ibid., pp. 290.

11
‘i byst mezh boyar bran' velik i krik i shum velik' (and there was much loud shouting and cries and great noise among the boyars) (Aleksandro-Nevskaia Letopis’,
PSRL
, XXIX, p. 213).

12
Ivan Petrovich Fedorov was entitled to call himself Cheliadnin through his marriage to a member of that family. Zimin,
Formirovanie
, p. 169, and Zimin,
Oprichnina Ivana Groznogo
, Moscow, 1964, pp. 276ff, for his career.

13
Account put together from Floria (
Ivan Groznyi
), Skrynnikov (
Tsarstvo Terrora
), Veselovsky, op. cit., Gralia, and Filiushkin (
Istoriia odnoi mistifikatsii
, pp. 77ff).

14
Gralia,
Ivan Mikhailov Viskovaty
, pp. 101–2.

15
A new rank, duma noble; actual date of its introduction uncertain.

16
Grobowski, ‘
The Chosen Council
’, appendices. V.I. Vorotynsky had died.

17
Kurbsky,
Correspondence
, pp. 96–7.

18
The figure of Ivan Viskovaty is very prominent in the miniatures illustrating the Tsarstvennaia kniga, which suggests that this chronicle was probably put together in the scriptoria of the Office of Foreign Affairs, under his eyes. Gralia, op. cit., pp. 109–9.

19
See Kurbsky,
History
, pp. 77ff. It is on this journey that Ivan met Vassian Toporkov, nephew of Iosif of Volotsk, who advised the Tsar not to appoint advisers wiser than himself. In my view far too much weight has been attached to this superficial remark (Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, p. 73).

20
Floria, op. cit., p. 83.

21
For details of this complex story see N.E. Andreyev, ‘Ob avtore pripisok v litsevykh svodakh Groznogo’, ‘O dele d'yaka Viskovatogo’ and ‘Ioann Groznyy i ikonopis’ XVI veka', repr. in
Studies in Muscovy: Western Influence and Byzantine Inheritance
, Variorum Reprints, London, 1970; see also Pouncy, ‘“The Blessed Sil'vester”’, pp. 556ff. (cf n. 24 in which Sylvester writes to Makarii, ‘Ivan Viskovatyy wrote to you, gosudar’ which is translated as ‘sovereign’!)

22
Floria, op. cit., p. 79ff.

23
Stoglav
, article 98, pp. 373–4 and 496; see also Zimin,
Reformy
, pp. 375–6.

24
I. Gralia argues that at this point Ivan, deeply disappointed by Makarii's defence of church ownership of lands, freed himself from his authority and surrounded himself with advisers of his choice, led by Adashev. In a very negative portrayal of the Metropolitan, he charges Makarii with interfering in secular matters, usurping for himself the role of final arbiter. Gralia,
Ivan Mikhailov Viskovaty
, pp. 133ff. He seems very biased to me and hence not entirely convincing on this issue.

25
The entries in the Nikonovskaia and Tsarstvennaia Chronicles date from the late 1560s.

26
The words
rab
, and
rabinya
are usually translated ‘slave’, but this gives a wholly incorrect impression of the actual sense conveyed at the time.

27
Filiushkin,
Istoria odnoi mistifikatsii
, p. 80.

28
Filiushkin gives the names of the individual members, ibid., p. 91.

29
Among them were several of the Rostovsky princes, and the Princes Shcheniatev, Kurakin, Pronsky, Nemoi and Obolensky. Some of the traitors had been denounced by Ivan Petrovich Fedorov, on whom see Chapter XIV.

30
Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, pp. 82ff.

31
Skrynnikov,
Velikii gosudar'
, I, p. 207;
Tsarstvo terrora
, p. 119. Semen Rostovsky is said to have lost his rank of boyar, but I have never seen any mention of any other such loss of rank.

32
Filiushkin, op. cit., p. 80, analyses the different accounts of 1553, 1564, 1570 and 1580.

33
Gralia suggests that Ivan was already turning against the Metropolitan, pp. 132–46; and see n. 24 above.

34
The Tsarstvennaia Chronicle and the Piskarevskaia Chronicle (
PSRL
, XIII, no. 2 pt 2, PSRL, XXXIV). The former is quoted in Carolyn Johnston Pouncy as an epigraph to her article, ‘“The Blessed Sil'vestr”’.

35
Floria,
Ivan Groznyi
, p. 117; Floria states that he was in fact in charge of Russian foreign policy.

36
L.V. Cherepnin, ed.,
Pamiatniki russkogo prava
, IV, Moscow 1956,
prilozhenia
, pp. 576ff., ‘Voprosy Ivana IV Metropolitu Makariu, soderzhashchie proekt gosudarstvennykh reform’, and pp. 592ff., for text in modern Russian.

37
Ibid. The editor points out that parts of this proposal were carried out in the
ukaz
of 11 January 1558.

38
Ibid., question 10, ‘O vdovykh boyariniakh’. But the question applies to
deti boyarskie
(service gentry). The disregard of personal choice compares not too badly with the practice of the Court of Wards in England.

39
See Smith, ‘The Sixteenth-Century Muscovite Army’, passim, and Chernov,
Vooruzhennye sily
, pp. 43ff.

40
For the quotation from the code of service see PSRL, XXIX, Letopis' nachala tsarstva. Skrynnikov,
Tsarstvo terrora
, pp. 103ff.