Oprichnina brief description. Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible: how it happened

In 1564, the Tsar unexpectedly left Moscow for Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, as if abdicating the throne. At the request of the clergy, boyars and all sorts of people, Ivan the Terrible agreed to return to the kingdom, but on the condition of establishing oprichnina to deal with traitors and disobedient people. It was a special court, which the tsar formed for himself, with special boyars, a butler, treasurers and other managers, clerks, all sorts of clerks and courtiers, with a whole court staff. The chronicler strongly emphasizes this expression “special court”, the fact that the king sentenced everything in this court “to be done to himself in a special way.”

From the service people, Ivan the Terrible selected 1000 people into the oprichnina, who were assigned streets with several settlements in the capital, outside the walls of the White City, behind the line of the current boulevards; the former inhabitants of these streets and settlements, servicemen and clerks, were evicted from their homes to other streets of the Moscow suburb. For the maintenance of this court, “for his daily use” and his children, princes Ivan and Fyodor, he allocated from his state up to 20 cities with counties and several separate volosts, in which the lands were distributed to the guardsmen, and the former landowners were removed from their estates and estates and received land in neo-oprichnaya districts. Up to 12 thousand of these deportees in winter, with their families, walked on foot from the estates taken from them to the remote empty estates allotted to them.

The oprichnina separated from the state was not an entire region, a continuous territory, it was made up of villages, volosts and cities, even only parts of other cities, scattered here and there, mainly in the central and northern counties (Vyazma, Kozelsk, Kargopol, etc.). “The state is its own Moscow,” i.e. All the rest of the land subject to the Moscow sovereign, with its army, court and administration, the tsar ordered the boyars, who were ordered to be “in the zemstvo”, to be in charge of and do all sorts of zemstvo affairs, and this half of the state received the name Zemshchina. And central government agencies who remained in the zemshchina, orders they had to act as before, “repair the government in the old way,” turning on all important zemstvo matters to the duma of zemstvo boyars, which ruled the zemstvo, reporting to the sovereign only about military and most important zemstvo affairs. So the entire state was divided into two parts: the zemshchina and the oprichnina; the boyar duma remained at the head of the first, the tsar himself became the head of the second, without giving up the supreme leadership of the duma of the zemstvo boyars.

Oprichniki. The murder of boyar Fedorov by Ivan the Terrible. Painting by N. Nevrev

At first glance, the oprichnina appears to be an institution devoid of any political meaning. In fact, having declared all the boyars traitors, Tsar Ivan the Terrible left control of the land in the hands of these traitors. But the origin of the oprichnina is closely connected with the political clash that caused it. Term oprichnina borrowed from specific time: in princely charters of the 14th century. Oprichnina were the names given to the estates of princesses-widows. The oprichnina of the tsar was, as it were, a special inheritance that he allocated to himself from the state, from Zemshchina. But Ivan the Terrible gave this institution a previously unprecedented task, which was to exterminate the sedition that nested in the Russian land, mainly among the boyars. Thus, the oprichnina acquired the significance of the highest police force in cases of high treason. A detachment of a thousand service people, enlisted in the oprichnina and then increased to six thousand, became a corps of watchmen for internal sedition.

This was the origin and purpose of the oprichnina. But it did not answer the political question that caused it, and did not resolve the dispute between the Moscow sovereign and his boyars. The dispute was aroused by one contradiction in the political system of the Moscow state. This is a state in the 16th century. became an autocratic monarchy, but with aristocratic government, headed by noble and demanding boyars. This means that the nature of the new power of the Moscow sovereign did not correspond to the nature of the government bodies through which it was supposed to act. Both sides then felt in an awkward position and did not know how to get out of it. The difficulty lay in the inconvenient political position of the boyars for the sovereign, as a government class that constrained him. Therefore, there were two ways out of the difficulty: it was necessary either to eliminate the boyars as a government class and replace them with other, more flexible and obedient instruments, or to attract the most reliable people from the boyars to the throne and rule with them, as Ivan had already ruled at the beginning of his reign. reign

A. Vasnetsov. Moscow dungeon during the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible

The king thought about both; but he couldn’t do one thing, and he couldn’t do the other or didn’t want to. He could not soon create another government class sufficiently familiar and capable of governing. In any case, in choosing one way or another, one had to act against the political situation of an entire class, and not against individuals. Ivan did the opposite: suspecting the entire boyars of treason, he rushed at the suspects, tearing them out with the hands of the guardsmen one by one - but left the class at the head of the zemstvo administration. Unable to crush the order of government that was inconvenient for him, he began to exterminate individual people he hated. This was the political purposelessness of the oprichnina: caused by a clash, the cause of which was order, not persons, it was directed against persons, and not against order. In this sense, we can say that the oprichnina did not answer the question that caused it.

Based on materials from the works of the great Russian historian V. O. Klyuchevsky

In 1560, Ivan the Terrible began to change the system of his government. He dissolved Elected Rada, putting disgrace on its leaders. The deterioration of relations with his comrades-in-arms began after 1553, when, during the tsar’s illness, they agreed to place on the throne not his son, but Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky.

A gradual transition to the oprichnina begins.

Reasons for oprichnina:

1. Failures in the Livonian War.

2. The presence of a relatively strong opposition of boyars and appanage princes.

3. The king’s desire to strengthen his own power.

4. The fight against separatism, primarily Novgorod.

5. Some personality traits of Ivan the Terrible (cruelty, suspicion, etc.)

Apparently, the oprichnina was conceived as a model of an ideal state, from the point of view of Ivan the Terrible.

In December 1564, Ivan the Terrible went on a pilgrimage to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. From there in January 1565 (date of the beginning of the oprichnina) he sent two letters to Moscow. In the first - he “blasphemed” the boyars - he accused them of treason. In the second, he addressed the people, saying that he held no grudge against them, but would not return to the throne because of the boyars’ betrayals. At the request of the Muscovites, the boyars were forced to go to the Tsar to bow. Ivan agreed to return to the throne on the condition that he would be allowed to introduce oprichnina.

The main content of the oprichnina policy:

1. The entire land of Russia was divided into two unequal parts - zemshchina and oprichnina.

2. Oprichnina (an ancient term denoting the allotment of the prince's widow) becomes the property of Ivan and is under his undivided authority.

3. Zemshchina was governed by Zemsky Sobors, the Boyar Duma and orders, but the tsar also intervened in this process.

4. The oprichnina army fought the opposition within the oprichnina and carried out punitive and predatory campaigns against the zemshchina. The apotheosis of the oprichnina was the campaign against Novgorod in 1569, the reason for which was a false denunciation accusing the Novgorodians of treason.

5. Mass terror was launched against dissidents. The main executioner was Malyuta Skuratov. During the Novgorod campaign, he strangled Metropolitan Philip, who condemned the oprichnina. Vladimir Staritsky was killed along with his family.

Since the oprichnina policy did not produce the desired results, the tsar decided to curtail it. The reason for this was the inability of the oprichnina army to protect Moscow from the campaigns of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey in 1571 and 1572. He was defeated by the Zemstvo army under the command of Mikhail Vorotynsky. IN 1572 The oprichnina was abolished. However, the repressions continued (M. Vorotynsky was killed).

In 1575, the idea of ​​the oprichnina received an unexpected continuation. Ivan left Moscow for a year, placing the Tatar Khan Simeon Bekbulatovich on the royal throne. The true meaning of this event remained unknown.

Shortly before his death (in 1581), Ivan, in a fit of rage, killed his eldest son Ivan Ivanovich, the only full-fledged contender for the throne.

IN 1584 Mr. Ivan the Terrible dies. The weak and sickly Fyodor Ivanovich became the tsar, under whom the tsarina’s brother, the former guardsman, Boris Godunov, actually ruled. A number of cities were founded under him (Arkhangelsk, Saratov, Tsaritsyn, etc.). IN 1589 Russian Orthodox Church finally becomes autocephalous (self-governing) - the first Russian is elected patriarch – Job.

Enslavement continues: in 1581-82 gg. are introduced "reserved summers"- temporary ban on peasants crossing on St. George’s Day; in 1592 a population census was carried out (compilation of “scribal books”); V 1597 introduced "lesson summer"- a five-year search for runaway peasants.

In 1591, in Uglich, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, 14-year-old Tsarevich Dmitry, died under mysterious circumstances. Popular rumor blamed Boris Godunov for his death.

In 1598, Fyodor Ivanovich dies and this ends the Rurik dynasty.

The significance of the reign of Ivan IV:

1. The predatory campaigns of the guardsmen led to the devastation of Russian lands.

2. The economic crisis causes a mass exodus of peasants to the outskirts of the country. There is a rapid increase in the number of Cossacks.

3. The flight of peasants, in turn, leads to a crisis in the feudal economy - estates are left without workers. Wanting to keep the peasants on the land of the landowners, the state is taking new steps towards their enslavement.

4. As a result of the terror, the layer of free private owners (boyars) was destroyed. Thus, Russia lost the social basis for the development of democratic principles in society.

5. The role of officials and nobles in society has noticeably increased. The boyars and appanage princes were greatly weakened.

6. People's dissatisfaction with the authorities is growing.

7. An insurmountable dynastic crisis arises. It can be argued that the global consequence of the reign of Ivan the Terrible was the Time of Troubles.

Culture of the period of creation of the Russian centralized state (second half of the 13th – 16th centuries)

Events related to the struggle against the Mongol yoke, the rise of Moscow and the creation of a single centralized state had a significant impact on the development of Russian culture. The main theme of literature in the second half of the 13th century was Batya’s invasion. The first response to this event is "The Word about the Destruction of the Russian Land"- imbued with the genuine tragedy of what is being described. Another work - The story of the ruin of Ryazan by Batu"– already contains a call to fight against the enemy. One of the characters in the Tale is the Ryazan boyar Evpatiy Kolovrat, leading a guerrilla war against the Mongols. A separate work is dedicated to him: “Song about Evpatiy Kolovrat.”

With the first victories over a formidable enemy, optimism and pride in its people come to Russian literature. A number of works were created dedicated to the Battle of Kulikovo, which became one of the main themes in the culture of this period.

The central place in the literature of this time is occupied by "Zadonshchina"(end of the 14th century, author – Safoniy Ryazanets) and "The Tale of the Massacre of Mamayev"(first half of the 15th century, author unknown).

From the end of the 14th century. All-Russian chronicles are being revived, glorifying the deeds of the Moscow princes and condemning their enemies. In the 15th century, literature increasingly emphasized the chosenness of Moscow and its princes. IN "Tales of the Princes of Vladimir" the idea of ​​succession of power of the Moscow sovereigns from the Byzantine and even Roman emperors (from Augustus) was pursued. Another work of this kind is the message of a monk Filathea Vasily III, which stated that Moscow is the “third Rome” (theory "Moscow is the third Rome"). The “First Rome” (Rome itself) fell because of heresies, the “Second Rome” - because union(union) with Catholicism (Union of Florence). “Two Romes fell, but the third cost, and the fourth never happened.” Philatheus's theory turned Moscow into the capital of Orthodoxy and assigned it the responsibility for its protection.

In the second half of the 15th century, the old genre experienced a new birth "walking"- description of travel. Particularly interesting "Walking across three seas" Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin, which describes a journey to Iran and India (1469 - 1472).

At the beginning of the 16th century, interest in reading increased sharply in Russia. In an effort to satisfy this interest and direct it in the right direction, Metropolitan Macarius creates "Great Fourth Menaion". “Cheti” – books intended not for church service, but for reading. “Minea” are collections of works distributed for daily reading.

An outstanding monument of literature of the 16th century was "Domostroy" Sylvester. From a patriarchal point of view, this book described what kind of order should reign in the family and in the house in general.

An important achievement was the beginning of printing. The first printing house was opened around 1553, but the name of the printer is not known. IN 1563 – 64 years, the printing house of Ivan Fedorov, who is considered to be the first printer, has been operating. The first printed book in Rus' - "Apostle".

One of the main trends in the development of culture in the 16th century was secularization or secularization, i.e. strengthening of secular principles in culture. One of the manifestations of this process is the emergence of Russian journalism. The most prominent publicists of that time were Fyodor Karpov and Ivan Peresvetov (perhaps Ivan the Terrible himself wrote under this pseudonym). One of the brightest monuments of journalism of the 16th century was the correspondence of Ivan IV with Andrei Kurbsky.

End of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries. marked by serious religious disputes. In the 1480s. in Novgorod, and then in Moscow, a heretical movement manifests itself Judaizers directed against the official church. Heretics denied the basic church dogmas and demanded the destruction of the church hierarchy, monasticism and the confiscation of church lands. In 1490, a church council condemned heresy. At the same time, two currents formed within the church itself: non-covetousness, whose leaders, the desert monks Nil Sorsky and Bassian Patrikeev, sought to raise the authority of the clergy by renunciation of property, asceticism and moral self-improvement; And Josephiteness led by Joseph Volotsky, who advocated a financially strong church. Non-covetous people were condemned by the Stoglavy Council as heretics.

Architecture after the Mongol invasion experienced a period of decline. Monumental construction stopped for half a century. Only from the beginning of the 16th century. it is gradually being revived, mainly in Novgorod and Pskov, which suffered relatively little from the invasion, and in Moscow. In Novgorod, the form of churches is simplified even more: it is surprisingly plastic and expressive (the Church of St. Nicholas on Lipne). Monuments also appear that are distinguished by the richness of their external decor (the Church of Fyodor Stratelates and the Savior on Ilyin Street). A unique uniqueness was given to Pskov churches by special belfries erected above the façade of the church or to the side of it (the churches of Vasily on Gorka, St. George from Vzvoz). In Moscow, the white stone Kremlin (1367) became a unique symbol of its Rise. However, truly grandiose construction takes place here in the second half. XV-early XVI centuries. Italian masters P. A. Solari and A. Fioravanti are building new brick walls of the Kremlin - made of red brick, more than 2 km long, with 18 towers. Aristotle Fioravanti builds on Cathedral Square of the Kremlin Assumption Cathedral, masters Solari and Ruffo, together with Pskov builders, are erecting the Annunciation Cathedral. Thus, the ensemble of the Chamber of Facets is formed.

Most a clear sign architectural monuments of the 16th century is the tent style. The masterpiece and at the same time the earliest example of this style is the church Ascension in the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow, built in honor of the birth of Ivan IV. The pinnacle of Russian architecture of the 16th century is the cathedral Pokrova on the Rv y, dedicated to the capture of Kazan (better known as St. Basil's Cathedral - in honor of the famous Moscow holy fool). Built by masters Barma and Postnik.

In the 1530s. a semi-ring of fortifications of Kitai-Gorod was added to the Kremlin, defending central part posada. At the end of the 16th century. The architect Fyodor Kon erected a ring of fortifications of the White City, which included almost all of the then Moscow. He also built a powerful Kremlin in Smolensk.

In the XIV-XV centuries. Russian icon painting reaches its highest development. The most important role here was played by the Byzantine Theophanes the Greek, who arrived in the 1370s. to Rus'. In 1378, he painted the Church of the Savior on Ilyin in Novgorod (the frescoes have partially survived). Several icons of the Annunciation Cathedral in Moscow are attributed to him. Another outstanding icon painter was Andrei Rublev (about 1360-1430 gg.). His most famous icon is "Trinity". Rublev's frescoes have been preserved in the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir. Rublev's traditions in the second half of the 15th and early 16th centuries. continued Dionysius, from whose works the frescoes of the Nativity Cathedral of the Ferapont Monastery (1502) have come down to us.

Iconography in the 16th century. is experiencing increasing difficulties. She is constrained by a rigid canon - a model beyond which the icon painter was forbidden to go. As a result, a unique artistic direction is developed in which the ideological content and the inner world of the characters depicted recede into the background. The masters - Procopius Chirin, the Savin brothers - sought to prove themselves in painting techniques, to depict the refined beauty of figures and clothes. This direction was called the Stroganov school, named after the Stroganov merchants, who contributed to its development with their orders.

Section 6. Russia in the 17th century

The role of the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible in the history of the Russian state

Hundreds, if not thousands of historical studies, monographs, articles, reviews have been written about such a phenomenon as the oprichnina of I. the Terrible (1565-1572), dissertations have been defended, the main causes have long been identified, the course of events has been reconstructed, and the consequences have been explained.

However, to this day, neither in domestic nor in foreign historiography there is a consensus on the issue of the significance of the oprichnina in history Russian state. For centuries, historians have been debating: how should we perceive the events of 1565-1572? Was the oprichnina simply the cruel terror of a half-mad despot king against his subjects? Or was it based on a sound and necessary policy in those conditions, aimed at strengthening the foundations of statehood, increasing the authority of the central government, improving the country’s defense capability, etc.?

In general, all the diverse opinions of historians can be reduced to two mutually exclusive statements: 1) the oprichnina was determined by the personal qualities of Tsar Ivan and had no political meaning (N.I. Kostomarov, V.O. Klyuchevsky, S.B. Veselovsky, I. Y. Froyanov); 2) the oprichnina was a well-thought-out political step of Ivan the Terrible and was directed against those social forces that opposed his “autocracy.”

There is also no unanimity of opinion among supporters of the latter point of view. Some researchers believe that the purpose of the oprichnina was to crush the boyar-princely economic and political power associated with the destruction of large patrimonial land ownership (S.M. Solovyov, S.F. Platonov, R.G. Skrynnikov). Others (A.A. Zimin and V.B. Kobrin) believe that the oprichnina “aimed” exclusively at the remnants of the appanage princely aristocracy (Staritsky Prince Vladimir), and was also directed against the separatist aspirations of Novgorod and the resistance of the church as a powerful one opposing the state organizations. None of these provisions are indisputable, so the scientific discussion about the meaning of the oprichnina continues.

What is oprichnina?

Anyone who is at least somehow interested in the history of Russia knows very well that there was a time when guardsmen existed in Rus'. In the minds of the majority modern people this word has become the definition of a terrorist, a criminal, a person who deliberately commits lawlessness with the connivance of the supreme power, and often with its direct support.

Meanwhile, the very word “oprich” in relation to any property or land ownership began to be used long before the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Already in the 14th century, “oprichnina” was the name given to the part of the inheritance that goes to the prince’s widow after his death (“widow’s share”). The widow had the right to receive income from a certain part of the land, but after her death the estate was returned to the eldest son, another eldest heir, or, in the absence of one, was assigned to the state treasury. Thus, oprichnina in the XIV-XVI centuries was a specially allocated inheritance for life.

Over time, the word “oprichnina” acquired a synonym that goes back to the root “oprich”, which means “except.” Hence “oprichnina” - “pitch darkness”, as it was sometimes called, and “oprichnik” - “pitch”. But this synonym was introduced into use, as some scientists believe, by the first “political emigrant” and opponent of Ivan the Terrible, Andrei Kurbsky. In his messages to the Tsar, the words “pitch people” and “utter darkness” are used for the first time in relation to the oprichnina of Ivan IV.

In addition, it should be noted that the Old Russian word “oprich” (adverb and preposition), according to Dahl’s dictionary, means: “Outside, around, outside, beyond what.” Hence “oprichnina” - “separate, allocated, special.”

Thus, it is symbolic that the name of the Soviet employee of the “special department” - “special officer” - is actually a semantic tracing of the word “oprichnik”.

In January 1558, Ivan the Terrible began the Livonian War to seize the Baltic Sea coast in order to gain access to sea communications and simplify trade with Western European countries. Soon the Grand Duchy of Moscow faces a broad coalition of enemies, including Poland, Lithuania, and Sweden. In fact, the Crimean Khanate also participates in the anti-Moscow coalition, which ravages the southern regions of the Moscow principality with regular military campaigns. The war is becoming protracted and exhausting. Drought, famine, plague epidemics, Crimean Tatar campaigns, Polish-Lithuanian raids and a naval blockade carried out by Poland and Sweden devastate the country. The sovereign himself continually faces manifestations of boyar separatism, the reluctance of the boyar oligarchy to continue the Livonian War, which was important for the Moscow kingdom. In 1564, the commander of the Western army, Prince Kurbsky - in the past one of the tsar’s closest personal friends, a member of the “Elected Rada” - goes over to the enemy’s side, betrays Russian agents in Livonia and participates in the offensive actions of the Poles and Lithuanians.

Ivan IV's position becomes critical. It was possible to get out of it only with the help of the toughest, most decisive measures.

On December 3, 1564, Ivan the Terrible and his family suddenly left the capital on a pilgrimage. The king took with him the treasury, personal library, icons and symbols of power. Having visited the village of Kolomenskoye, he did not return to Moscow and, after wandering for several weeks, stopped in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. On January 3, 1565, he announced his abdication of the throne, due to “anger” at the boyars, church, voivode and government officials. Two days later, a deputation headed by Archbishop Pimen arrived in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, which persuaded the tsar to return to his kingdom. From Sloboda, Ivan IV sent two letters to Moscow: one to the boyars and clergy, and the other to the townspeople, explaining in detail why and with whom the sovereign was angry, and against whom he “bears no grudge.” Thus, he immediately divided society, sowing the seeds of mutual distrust and hatred of the boyar elite among ordinary townspeople and the minor serving nobility.

At the beginning of February 1565, Ivan the Terrible returned to Moscow. The Tsar announced that he was again taking over the reigns, but on the condition that he was free to execute traitors, put them in disgrace, deprive them of their property, etc., and that neither the boyar Duma nor the clergy would interfere in his affairs. Those. The sovereign introduced the “oprichnina” for himself.

This word was used at first in the sense of special property or possession; now it has acquired a different meaning. In the oprichnina, the tsar separated part of the boyars, servants and clerks, and in general made his entire “everyday life” special: in the Sytny, Kormovy and Khlebenny palaces a special staff of housekeepers, cooks, clerks, etc. was appointed; special detachments of archers were recruited. Special cities (about 20, including Moscow, Vologda, Vyazma, Suzdal, Kozelsk, Medyn, Veliky Ustyug) with volosts were assigned to maintain the oprichnina. In Moscow itself, some streets were given to the oprichnina (Chertolskaya, Arbat, Sivtsev Vrazhek, part of Nikitskaya, etc.); the former residents were relocated to other streets. Up to 1,000 princes, nobles, and children of boyars, both Moscow and city, were also recruited into the oprichnina. They were given estates in the volosts assigned to maintain the oprichnina. Former landowners and patrimonial owners were evicted from those volosts to others.

The rest of the state was supposed to constitute the “zemshchina”: the tsar entrusted it to the zemstvo boyars, that is, the boyar duma itself, and put Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Belsky and Prince Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavsky at the head of its administration. All matters had to be resolved in the old way, and with big matters one should turn to the boyars, but if military or important zemstvo matters happened, then to the sovereign. For his rise, that is, for his trip to the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, the tsar exacted a fine of 100 thousand rubles from the Zemsky Prikaz.

The "oprichniki" - the sovereign's people - were supposed to "root out treason" and act exclusively in the interests of the tsarist power, supporting the authority of the supreme ruler in wartime conditions. No one limited them in the methods or methods of “eradicating” treason, and all the innovations of Ivan the Terrible turned into cruel, unjustified terror of the ruling minority against the majority of the country’s population.

In December 1569, an army of guardsmen, personally led by Ivan the Terrible, set out on a campaign against Novgorod, who allegedly wanted to betray him. The king walked as if through enemy country. The guardsmen destroyed cities (Tver, Torzhok), villages and villages, killed and robbed the population. In Novgorod itself, the defeat lasted 6 weeks. Thousands of suspects were tortured and drowned in Volkhov. The city was plundered. The property of churches, monasteries and merchants was confiscated. The beating continued in Novgorod Pyatina. Then Grozny moved towards Pskov, and only the superstition of the formidable king allowed this ancient city to avoid a pogrom.

In 1572, when a real threat was created to the very existence of the Moscow state from the Krymchaks, the oprichnina troops actually sabotaged the order of their king to oppose the enemy. The battle of Molodin with the army of Devlet-Girey was won by regiments under the leadership of the “Zemstvo” governors. After this, Ivan IV himself abolished the oprichnina, disgraced and executed many of its leaders.

Historiography of the oprichnina in the first half of the 19th century

Historians were the first to talk about the oprichnina already in XVIII-early XIX centuries: Shcherbatov, Bolotov, Karamzin. Even then, a tradition had developed to “divide” the reign of Ivan IV into two halves, which subsequently formed the basis of the theory of the “two Ivans,” introduced into historiography by N.M. Karamzin based on the study of the works of Prince A. Kurbsky. According to Kurbsky, Ivan the Terrible was a virtuous hero and a wise statesman in the first half of his reign and a crazy tyrant-despot in the second. Many historians, following Karamzin, associated the sharp change in the sovereign’s policy with his mental illness, caused by the death of his first wife Anastasia Romanovna. Even versions of “replacing” the king with another person arose and were seriously considered.

The watershed between the “good” Ivan and the “bad”, according to Karamzin, was the introduction of the oprichnina in 1565. But N.M. Karamzin was still more of a writer and moralist than a scientist. Painting the oprichnina, he created an artistically expressive picture that was supposed to impress the reader, but in no way answer the question about the causes, consequences and the very nature of this historical phenomenon.

Subsequent historians (N.I. Kostomarov) also saw the main reason for the oprichnina solely in the personal qualities of Ivan the Terrible, who did not want to listen to people who disagreed with the methods of carrying out his generally justified policy of strengthening the central government.

Solovyov and Klyuchevsky about the oprichnina

S. M. Solovyov and the “state school” of Russian historiography he created took a different path. Abstracting from the personal characteristics of the tyrant king, they saw in the activities of Ivan the Terrible, first of all, a transition from old “tribal” relations to modern “state” ones, which were completed by the oprichnina - state power in the form as the great “reformer” himself understood it. . Solovyov was the first to separate the cruelties of Tsar Ivan and the internal terror he organized from the political, social and economic processes of that time. From the point of view of historical science, this was undoubtedly a step forward.

V.O. Klyuchevsky, unlike Solovyov, considered the internal policy of Ivan the Terrible to be completely aimless, moreover, dictated exclusively by the personal qualities of the sovereign’s character. In his opinion, the oprichnina did not answer pressing political issues, and also did not eliminate the difficulties that it caused. By “difficulty,” the historian means the clashes between Ivan IV and the boyars: “The boyars imagined themselves to be powerful advisers to the sovereign of all Rus' at the very time when this sovereign, remaining faithful to the view of the appanage patrimonial landowner, in accordance with ancient Russian law, granted them as his courtyard servants the title of the sovereign's slaves. Both sides found themselves in such an unnatural relationship to each other, which they did not seem to notice while it was developing, and which they did not know what to do with when they noticed it.”

The way out of this situation was the oprichnina, which Klyuchevsky calls an attempt to “live side by side, but not together.”

According to the historian, Ivan IV had only two options:

Eliminate the boyars as a government class and replace them with other, more flexible and obedient instruments of government;

Disunite the boyars, bring to the throne the most reliable people from the boyars and rule with them, as Ivan ruled at the beginning of his reign.

It was not possible to implement any of the outputs.

Klyuchevsky points out that Ivan the Terrible should have acted against the political situation of the entire boyars, and not against individuals. The tsar does the opposite: unable to change the political system that is inconvenient for him, he persecutes and executes individuals (and not only the boyars), but at the same time leaves the boyars at the head of the zemstvo administration.

This course of action of the tsar is by no means a consequence of political calculation. It is, rather, a consequence of a distorted political understanding caused by personal emotions and fear for one’s personal position:

Klyuchevsky saw in the oprichnina not a state institution, but a manifestation of lawless anarchy aimed at shaking the foundations of the state and undermining the authority of the monarch himself. Klyuchevsky considered the oprichnina one of the most effective factors that prepared the Time of Troubles.

Concept by S.F. Platonov

The developments of the “state school” were further developed in the works of S. F. Platonov, who created the most comprehensive concept of the oprichnina, which was included in all pre-revolutionary, Soviet and some post-Soviet university textbooks.

S.F. Platonov believed that the main reasons for the oprichnina lay in Ivan the Terrible’s awareness of the danger of the appanage princely and boyar opposition. S.F. Platonov wrote: “Dissatisfied with the nobility surrounding him, he (Ivan the Terrible) applied to her the same measure that Moscow applied to its enemies, namely, “conclusion”... What worked so well with the external enemy, the Terrible planned to try with the internal enemy, those. with those people who seemed hostile and dangerous to him.”

In modern language, the oprichnina of Ivan IV formed the basis for a grandiose personnel reshuffle, as a result of which large landowner boyars and appanage princes were resettled from appanage hereditary lands to places remote from their former settlement. The estates were divided into plots and complaints were made to those boyar children who were in the service of the tsar (oprichniki). According to Platonov, the oprichnina was not the “whim” of a crazy tyrant. On the contrary, Ivan the Terrible waged a focused and well-thought-out struggle against large boyar hereditary land ownership, thus wanting to eliminate separatist tendencies and suppress opposition to the central government:

Grozny sent the old owners to the outskirts, where they could be useful for the defense of the state.

Oprichnina terror, according to Platonov, was only an inevitable consequence of such a policy: the forest is cut down - the chips fly! Over time, the monarch himself becomes a hostage to the current situation. In order to stay in power and complete the measures he had planned, Ivan the Terrible was forced to pursue a policy of total terror. There was simply no other way out.

“The entire operation of reviewing and changing landowners in the eyes of the population bore the character of disaster and political terror,” the historian wrote. - With extraordinary cruelty, he (Ivan the Terrible), without any investigation or trial, executed and tortured people he disliked, exiled their families, ruined their farms. His guardsmen did not hesitate to kill defenseless people, rob and rape them “for a laugh.”

One of the main negative consequences of the oprichnina Platonov recognizes is the disruption of the economic life of the country - the state of stability of the population achieved by the state was lost. In addition, the population’s hatred of the cruel authorities brought discord into society itself, giving rise to general uprisings and peasant wars after the death of Ivan the Terrible - the harbingers of the Troubles of the early 17th century.

In his general assessment of the oprichnina, S.F. Platonov puts much more “pluses” than all his predecessors. According to his concept, Ivan the Terrible was able to achieve indisputable results in the policy of centralization of the Russian state: large landowners (the boyar elite) were ruined and partly destroyed, a large mass of relatively small landowners and service people (nobles) gained dominance, which, of course, contributed to increasing the country's defense capability . Hence the progressive nature of the oprichnina policy.

It was this concept that was established in Russian historiography for many years.

“Apologetic” historiography of the oprichnina (1920-1956)

Despite the abundance of contradictory facts that came to light already in the 1910-20s, S.F. Platonov’s “apologetic” concept regarding the oprichnina and Ivan IV the Terrible was not at all disgraced. On the contrary, it gave birth to a number of successors and sincere supporters.

In 1922, the book “Ivan the Terrible” by former Moscow University professor R. Vipper was published. Witnessing the breakup Russian Empire Having tasted the full extent of Soviet anarchy and tyranny, political emigrant and quite serious historian R. Vipper created not historical research, and a very passionate panegyric to the oprichnina and Ivan the Terrible himself - a politician who managed to “restore order with a firm hand.” The author for the first time examines the internal politics of Grozny (oprichnina) in direct connection with the foreign policy situation. However, Vipper's interpretation of many foreign policy events is largely fantastic and far-fetched. Ivan the Terrible appears in his work as a wise and far-sighted ruler who cared, first of all, about the interests of his great power. The executions and terror of Grozny are justified and can be explained by completely objective reasons: the oprichnina was necessary due to the extremely difficult military situation in the country, the ruin of Novgorod - for the sake of improving the situation at the front, etc.

The oprichnina itself, according to Vipper, is an expression of democratic (!) tendencies of the 16th century. Thus, the Zemsky Sobor of 1566 is artificially connected by the author with the creation of the oprichnina in 1565; the transformation of the oprichnina into a courtyard (1572) is interpreted by Vipper as an expansion of the system caused by the betrayal of the Novgorodians and the ruinous raid of the Crimean Tatars. He refuses to admit that the reform of 1572 was in fact the destruction of the oprichnina. The reasons for the catastrophic consequences for Rus' of the end of the Livonian War are equally unobvious to Vipper.

The chief official historiographer of the revolution, M.N., went even further in his apologetics for Grozny and the oprichnina. Pokrovsky. In his “Russian History from Ancient Times,” the convinced revolutionary turns Ivan the Terrible into the leader of a democratic revolution, a more successful forerunner of Emperor Paul I, who is also portrayed by Pokrovsky as a “democrat on the throne.” Justification of tyrants is one of Pokrovsky's favorite themes. He saw the aristocracy as such as the main object of his hatred, because its power is, by definition, harmful.

However, to faithful Marxist historians, Pokrovsky’s views undoubtedly seemed overly infected with an idealistic spirit. No individual can play any significant role in history - after all, history is governed by the class struggle. This is what Marxism teaches. And Pokrovsky, having listened enough to the seminaries of Vinogradov, Klyuchevsky and other “bourgeois specialists,” was never able to get rid of the burp of idealism in himself, giving too much great value individuals, as if they did not obey the laws of historical materialism common to all...

The most typical of the orthodox Marxist approach to the problem of Ivan the Terrible and the oprichnina is M. Nechkina’s article about Ivan IV in the First Soviet Encyclopedia (1933). In her interpretation, the personality of the king does not matter at all:

The social meaning of the oprichnina was the elimination of the boyars as a class and its dissolution into the mass of small land feudal lords. Ivan worked to realize this goal with “the greatest consistency and indestructible perseverance” and was completely successful in his work.

This was the only correct and only possible interpretation of the policies of Ivan the Terrible.

Moreover, this interpretation was so liked by the “collectors” and “revivers” of the new Russian Empire, namely the USSR, that it was immediately adopted by the Stalinist leadership. The new great-power ideology needed historical roots, especially in anticipation of the upcoming war. Stories about Russian military leaders and generals of the past who fought with the Germans or with anyone remotely similar to the Germans were urgently created and replicated. The victories of Alexander Nevsky, Peter I (true, he fought with the Swedes, but why go into details?..), Alexander Suvorov were recalled and extolled. Dmitry Donskoy, Minin with Pozharsky and Mikhail Kutuzov, who fought against foreign aggressors, also after 20 years of oblivion, were declared national heroes and glorious sons of the Fatherland.

Of course, under all these circumstances, Ivan the Terrible could not remain forgotten. True, he did not repel foreign aggression and did not win a military victory over the Germans, but he was the creator of a centralized Russian state, a fighter against disorder and anarchy created by malicious aristocrats - the boyars. He began to introduce revolutionary reforms with the goal of creating a new order. But even an autocratic king can play a positive role if the monarchy is a progressive system at this point in history...

Despite the very sad fate of Academician Platonov himself, who was convicted in an “academic case” (1929-1930), the “apologization” of the oprichnina that he began gained more and more momentum in the late 1930s.

Coincidentally or not, but in 1937 - the very “peak” Stalin's repressions– Platonov’s “Essays on the History of the Troubles in the Moscow State of the 16th–17th centuries” were republished for the fourth time, and the Higher School of Propagandists under the Central Committee of the Party published (though “for internal use”) fragments of Platonov’s pre-revolutionary textbook for universities.

In 1941, director S. Eisenstein received an “order” from the Kremlin to shoot a film about Ivan the Terrible. Naturally, Comrade Stalin wanted to see a Terrible Tsar who would fully fit into the concept of the Soviet “apologists.” Therefore, all the events included in Eisenstein’s script are subordinated to the main conflict - the struggle for autocracy against the rebellious boyars and against everyone who interferes with him in unifying the lands and strengthening the state. The film Ivan the Terrible (1944) exalts Tsar Ivan as a wise and fair ruler who had a great goal. Oprichnina and terror are presented as inevitable “costs” in achieving it. But even these “costs” (the second episode of the film) Comrade Stalin chose not to allow on screens.

In 1946, a Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was issued, which spoke of the “progressive army of the guardsmen.” The progressive significance in the then historiography of the Oprichnina Army was that its formation was a necessary stage in the struggle to strengthen the centralized state and represented a struggle of the central government, based on the serving nobility, against the feudal aristocracy and appanage remnants.

Thus, a positive assessment of the activities of Ivan IV in Soviet historiography was supported at the highest state level. Until 1956, the most cruel tyrant in Russian history appeared on the pages of textbooks, works of art and in cinema as a national hero, a true patriot, a wise politician.

Revision of the concept of oprichnina during the years of Khrushchev’s “thaw”

As soon as Khrushchev read his famous report at the 20th Congress, all panegyric odes to Grozny came to an end. The “plus” sign abruptly changed to a “minus”, and historians no longer hesitated to draw completely obvious parallels between the reign of Ivan the Terrible and the reign of the only recently deceased Soviet tyrant.

A number of articles by domestic researchers immediately appear in which the “cult of personality” of Stalin and the “cult of personality” of Grozny are debunked in approximately the same terms and using real examples similar to each other.

One of the first articles published by V.N. Shevyakova “On the issue of the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible”, explaining the causes and consequences of the oprichnina in the spirit of N.I. Kostomarov and V.O. Klyuchevsky – i.e. extremely negative:

The tsar himself, contrary to all previous apologetics, was called what he really was - the executioner of his subjects exposed to power.

Following Shevyakov’s article comes an even more radical article by S.N. Dubrovsky, “On the cult of personality in some works on historical issues (on the assessment of Ivan IV, etc.).” The author views the oprichnina not as a war of the king against the appanage aristocracy. On the contrary, he believes that Ivan the Terrible was at one with the landowner boyars. With their help, the king waged a war against his people with the sole purpose of clearing the ground for the subsequent enslavement of the peasants. According to Dubrovsky, Ivan IV was not at all as talented and smart as historians of the Stalin era tried to present him. The author accuses them of deliberately juggling and distorting historical facts indicating the personal qualities of the king.

In 1964, A.A. Zimin’s book “The Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible” was published. Zimin reworked huge amount sources, raised a lot of factual material related to the oprichnina. But his own opinion was literally drowned in the abundance of names, graphs, numbers and solid facts. The unambiguous conclusions so characteristic of his predecessors are practically absent in the historian’s work. With many reservations, Zimin agrees that most of the bloodshed and crimes of the guardsmen were useless. However, “objectively” the content of the oprichnina in his eyes still looks progressive: Grozny’s initial thought was correct, and then everything was ruined by the oprichnina themselves, who degenerated into bandits and robbers.

Zimin's book was written during the reign of Khrushchev, and therefore the author tries to satisfy both sides of the argument. However, at the end of his life A. A. Zimin revised his views towards a purely negative assessment of the oprichnina, seeing "the bloody glow of the oprichnina" an extreme manifestation of serfdom and despotic tendencies as opposed to pre-bourgeois ones.

These positions were developed by his student V.B. Kobrin and the latter’s student A.L. Yurganov. Based on specific research that began before the war and carried out by S. B. Veselovsky and A. A. Zimin (and continued by V. B. Kobrin), they showed that S. F. Platonov’s theory about the defeat as a result of the oprichnina of patrimonial land ownership - nothing more than a historical myth.

Criticism of Platonov's concept

Back in the 1910-1920s, research began on a colossal complex of materials, formally, it would seem, far from the problems of the oprichnina. Historians have studied a huge number of scribe books where land plots of both large landowners and service people were recorded. These were, in the full sense of the word, accounting records of that time.

And the more materials related to land ownership were introduced into scientific circulation in the 1930s-60s, the more interesting the picture became. It turned out that large landholdings did not suffer in any way as a result of the oprichnina. In fact, at the end of the 16th century it remained almost the same as it was before the oprichnina. It also turned out that those lands that went specifically to the oprichnina often included territories inhabited by service people who did not have large plots. For example, the territory of the Suzdal principality was almost entirely populated by service people; there were very few rich landowners there. Moreover, according to scribe books, it often turned out that many guardsmen who allegedly received their estates in the Moscow region for serving the tsar were their owners before. It’s just that in 1565-72, small landowners automatically fell into the ranks of the guardsmen, because The sovereign declared these lands oprichnina.

All these data were completely at odds with what was expressed by S. F. Platonov, who did not process scribal books, did not know statistics and practically did not use sources of a mass nature.

Soon another source was discovered, which Platonov also did not analyze in detail - the famous synodics. They contain lists of people killed and tortured by order of Tsar Ivan. Basically, they died or were executed and tortured without repentance and communion, therefore, the king was sinful in that they did not die in a Christian way. These synodics were sent to monasteries for commemoration.

S. B. Veselovsky analyzed the synodics in detail and came to an unequivocal conclusion: it is impossible to say that during the period of oprichnina terror it was mainly large landowners who died. Yes, undoubtedly, the boyars and members of their families were executed, but besides them, an incredible number of service people died. Persons of the clergy of absolutely all ranks died, people who were in the sovereign's service in the orders, military leaders, minor officials, and simple warriors. Finally, an incredible number of ordinary people died - urban, townspeople, those who inhabited villages and hamlets on the territory of certain estates and estates. According to S. B. Veselovsky’s calculations, for one boyar or person from the Sovereign’s court there were three or four ordinary landowners, and for one service person there were a dozen commoners. Consequently, the assertion that the terror was selective in nature and was directed only against the boyar elite is fundamentally incorrect.

In the 1940s, S.B. Veselovsky wrote his book “Essays on the History of the Oprichnina” “on the table”, because it was completely impossible to publish it under a modern tyrant. The historian died in 1952, but his conclusions and developments on the problem of oprichnina were not forgotten and were actively used in criticism of the concept of S.F. Platonov and his followers.

Another serious mistake of S.F. Platonov was that he believed that the boyars had colossal estates, which included parts of the former principalities. Thus, the danger of separatism remained – i.e. restoration of one or another reign. As confirmation, Platonov cites the fact that during the illness of Ivan IV in 1553, the appanage prince Vladimir Staritsky, a large landowner and close relative of the tsar, was a possible contender for the throne.

An appeal to the materials of the scribe books showed that the boyars had their own lands in different, as they would say now, regions, and then appanages. The boyars had to serve in different places, that’s why they bought land on occasion (or it was given to them) where they served. The same person often owned land in Nizhny Novgorod, Suzdal, and Moscow, i.e. was not tied specifically to any particular place. There was no talk of somehow separating, of avoiding the process of centralization, because even the largest landowners could not gather their lands together and oppose their power to the power of the great sovereign. The process of centralization of the state was completely objective, and there is no reason to say that the boyar aristocracy actively prevented it.

Thanks to the study of sources, it turned out that the very postulate about the resistance of the boyars and the descendants of appanage princes to centralization is a purely speculative construction, derived from theoretical analogies between the social system of Russia and Western Europe in the era of feudalism and absolutism. The sources do not provide any direct basis for such statements. The postulation of large-scale “boyar conspiracies” in the era of Ivan the Terrible is based on statements emanating only from Ivan the Terrible himself.

The only lands that could lay claim to a “departure” from a single state in the 16th century were Novgorod and Pskov. In the event of separation from Moscow in the conditions of the Livonian War, they would not have been able to maintain independence, and would inevitably have been captured by opponents of the Moscow sovereign. Therefore, Zimin and Kobrin consider Ivan IV’s campaign against Novgorod historically justified and condemn only the tsar’s methods of struggle with potential separatists.

The new concept of understanding such a phenomenon as the oprichnina, created by Zimin, Kobrin and their followers, is based on the proof that the oprichnina objectively resolved (albeit through barbaric methods) some pressing problems, namely: strengthening centralization, destroying the remnants of the appanage system and the independence of the church. But the oprichnina was, first of all, a tool for establishing the personal despotic power of Ivan the Terrible. The terror he unleashed was of a national nature, was caused solely by the tsar’s fear for his position (“beat your own so that strangers will be afraid”) and did not have any “high” political goal or social background.

The point of view of the Soviet historian D. Al (Alshits), already in the 2000s, expressed the opinion that the terror of Ivan the Terrible was aimed at the total subjugation of everyone and everything to the unified power of the autocratic monarch. Everyone who did not personally prove their loyalty to the sovereign was destroyed; the independence of the church was destroyed; The economically independent trading Novgorod was destroyed, the merchant class was subjugated, etc. Thus, Ivan the Terrible did not want to say, like Louis XIV, but to prove to all his contemporaries through effective measures that “I am the state.” The oprichnina acted as a state institution for the protection of the monarch, his personal guard.

This concept suited the scientific community for some time. However, trends towards new rehabilitation Ivan the Terrible and even the creation of his new cult were fully developed in subsequent historiography. For example, in an article in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1972), while there is a certain duality in the assessment, positive qualities Ivan the Terrible are clearly exaggerated, and negative ones are downplayed.

With the beginning of “perestroika” and a new anti-Stalinist campaign in the media, Grozny and the oprichnina were again condemned and compared with the period of Stalinist repressions. During this period, the reassessment of historical events, including the cause, resulted mainly not in scientific research, but in populist reasoning on the pages of central newspapers and magazines.

Employees of the NKVD and other law enforcement agencies (the so-called “special officers”) in newspaper publications were no longer referred to as “oprichniki”; the terror of the 16th century was directly associated with the “Yezhovshchina” of the 1930s, as if all this had happened just yesterday. “History repeats itself” - this strange, unconfirmed truth was repeated by politicians, parliamentarians, writers, and even highly respected scientists who were inclined to conduct historical parallels Grozny-Stalin, Malyuta Skuratov-Beria, etc. etc.

The attitude towards the oprichnina and the personality of Ivan the Terrible himself today can be called a “litmus test” of the political situation in our country. During periods of liberalization of social and state life in Russia, which, as a rule, are followed by a separatist “parade of sovereignties”, anarchy, a change in the value system - Ivan the Terrible is perceived as a bloody tyrant and tyrant. Tired of anarchy and permissiveness, society is again ready to dream of “ strong hand", the revival of statehood, and even stable tyranny in the spirit of Grozny, Stalin, or anyone else...

Today, not only in society, but also in scientific circles, the tendency to “apologize” Stalin as a great man is again clearly visible. statesman. From television screens and the pages of the press they are again persistently trying to prove to us that Joseph Dzhugashvili created a great power that won the war, built rockets, blocked the Yenisei and was even ahead of the rest in the field of ballet. And in the 1930s-50s they imprisoned and shot only those who needed to be imprisoned and shot - former tsarist officials and officers, spies and dissidents of all stripes. Let us remember that Academician S.F. Platonov held approximately the same opinion regarding the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible and the “selectivity” of his terror. However, already in 1929, the academician himself became one of the victims of the oprichnina contemporary to him - the OGPU, died in exile, and his name was erased from the history of Russian historical science for a long time.

Based on materials:

Veselovsky S.B. Tsar Ivan the Terrible in the works of writers and historians. Three articles. – M., 1999

Platonov S.F. Ivan the Terrible. – Petersburg: Brockhaus and Efron, 1923

Chronology

• 1276 - 1303 Reign of Daniil Alexandrovich. Formation of the Moscow Principality.
• 1325 - 1340 The reign of Ivan Danilovich Kalita.
• 1462 - 1505 The reign of Ivan III Vasilyevich.
• 1480 “Standing” on the Ugra River, liberation of Russian lands from the Golden Horde yoke.
• 1533 - 1584 The reign of Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible.
• 1547 Crowning of Ivan IV.
• 1549 Convening of the first Zemsky Sobor.
• 1550 Compilation of the Code of Law.
• 1552 Annexation of the Kazan Khanate.
• 1556 Annexation of the Astrakhan Khanate.
• 1558 - 1583 Livonian War.
• 1565 - 1572 Oprichnina.
• 1584 - 1598 Reign of Fyodor Ioannovich.
• 1598 - 1605 The reign of Boris Godunov.

Reform period

After death in 1533 Vasily III, his three-year-old son ascended the grand-ducal throne Ivan IV. In fact, the state was ruled by his mother Elena Glinskaya. Both during the reign of Elena and after her death in 1538, the struggle for power between the boyar groups of the Belskys, Shuiskys, and Glinskys did not stop. This struggle took place before the eyes of the young Ivan IV. As Russian historians noted, “he was caressed like a sovereign and insulted like a child” (V.O. Klyuchevsky), “all this gave rise to annoyance, anger, hidden malice in the heart of the young Grand Duke” (N.M. Karamzin).

The arbitrariness of the boyars caused widespread discontent and open protests in a number of Russian cities. Popular uprisings showed that the country needs reforms to strengthen statehood and centralize power. Ivan IV embarked on the path of carrying out such reforms.

In January 1547 Ivan IV, having reached adulthood, officially married to the kingdom.

This was supposed to confirm “with the seal of faith the holy union between the state and the people” (N.M. Karamzin). “Ivan IV was the first of the Moscow sovereigns who saw and vividly felt within himself the king in the true biblical sense, the anointed of God. This was a political revelation for him, and from that time on his royal self became for him an object of pious worship” (V.O. Klyuchevsky).

IN 1549 g. A council of people close to him formed around the young Ivan IV, called “ Elected Rada" Princes D. Kurlyatev, A. Kurbsky, M. Vorotynsky, Moscow Metropolitan Macarius, the Tsar's confessor Sylvester, and clerk of the Ambassadorial Prikaz I. Viskovaty took part in the work of the Elected Rada. The composition of the Chosen Rada seemed to reflect a compromise between various layers of the ruling class. The elected council existed until 1560; she carried out transformations called reforms of the mid-16th century.

The opinion of a Russian historian of the 19th century is interesting. N.I. Kostomarov, who believed that “this sovereign was under the influence of one or the other all his life” and “that the deeds that constituted the glory of the reign before the fall of Sylvester came from this latter and his circle and ... were carried out not only not according to him (Ivan IV ) instructions, but often against desire.”

A common feature of the reforms of the 50s is their anti-boyar orientation. Proclaiming these reforms, the government of Ivan IV portrayed them as measures whose purpose was to eliminate the consequences of boyar rule and strengthen the economic and political positions of those social groups whose interests it expressed and on which it relied - nobles, landowners and upper towns.

Ivan IV sharply condemned the boyar rule in previous years. In relation to the nobility, on the contrary, a policy of support began to be pursued. In 1550, a “sentence” was issued to place 1000 children of boyars (i.e., nobles) around Moscow and distribute to them estates “60 or 70 miles away in the Moscow district, and in half of Dmitrov, and in Ruza, and in Zvenigorod, ... both in grouse and obroch villages.” In addition, the nobles were exempted from the jurisdiction of the boyar-governors, and all judicial and administrative matters were transferred to the jurisdiction of the state. This measure strengthened the power of the tsar and at the same time weakened the power of the boyars.

The general trend towards centralization of the country necessitated the publication of a new set of laws - Sudebnik 1550. Taking the code of law of Ivan III as a basis, the compilers of the new Code of Law made changes to it related to the strengthening of central power. It confirmed the right of peasants to move on St. George’s Day. The feudal lord was now responsible for the crimes of the peasants, which increased their personal dependence on the master.

In the same year there were also military reforms, the essence of which was to create a Streltsy army armed with firearms. Localism was limited, the essence of which was that the possibility of occupying any post in the army was predetermined by local accounts, that is, the mutual relationships between individual princely or boyar families, and within these families - the mutual relationships between individual members of these families. The feudal nobility did not want to give up these privileges. Therefore, the army command was deprived of the opportunity to operationally manage the authorities; appointments to posts were determined not by political considerations, but by the local hierarchy. Ivan IV demanded that this order be destroyed: “in every rank there should be no parochialism, who will be sent with whom whereever, so that there will be no disruption to the military cause.

A new authority has emerged - Zemsky Sobor. Zemsky Sobors met irregularly and dealt with the most important state affairs, primarily issues of foreign policy and finance. During the interregnum, new kings were elected at Zemsky Sobors. They included Boyar Duma, Consecrated Cathedral- representatives of the highest clergy; Representatives of the Zemsky Sobors were also present at the meetings nobility And the tops of the garden. The first Zemsky Sobor was convened in 1549 g.

The convening of the council is evidence of creation estate representative institution and the transformation of Russia into an estate-representative monarchy. At that time, the king's power still needed the support of the estates. Zemsky sobors did not limit the power of the tsar, they were advisory in nature, but they contributed to the implementation of local political measures of the supreme power and allowed it to maneuver between the nobility and the boyars.

In 1551, on the initiative of the Tsar and the Metropolitan, a Council of the Russian Church was convened, which received the name Stoglavy, since his decisions were formulated in one hundred chapters. The decisions of church hierarchs reflected the changes associated with the centralization of the state. The Council approved the adoption of the Code of Laws of 1550 and the reforms of Ivan IV.

Oprichnina

By 1557, the Rada's work on the planned internal transformations had ended. Foreign policy issues became a priority. When resolving this issue, Ivan the Terrible broke with the Elected Rada, which, in contrast to the Tsar’s intentions to conquer Livonia, proposed to take possession of the Crimea.

Disagreement in political views was exacerbated by the death of Ivan the Terrible's wife, Anastasia, for which Sylvester and Adashev were blamed. This led to their disgrace and the execution of their supporters, relatives, and loved ones. A new environment formed around the king. It included Alexey and Fyodor Basmanov, Afanasy Vyazemsky, Vasily Gryaznoy, Malyuta Skuratov. The political order and the behavior of the king changed.

Ivan IV, fighting the rebellions and betrayals of the boyar nobility, saw them as the main reason for the failures of his policies. He firmly stood on the position of the need for strong autocratic power, the main obstacle to the establishment of which, in his opinion, was the boyar-princely opposition and boyar privileges. The king began to solve this issue using purely medieval means.

In January 1565 g. From the royal residence of the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow, the tsar went to the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda through the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. From there he addressed the capital with two messages. In the first, sent to the clergy and the Boyar Duma, Ivan IV announced his renunciation of power due to the betrayal of the boyars and asked to be allocated a special inheritance - oprichnina(from the word “ besides" - except). In the second message, addressed to the townspeople of the capital, the tsar reported on the decision made and added that he had no complaints about the townspeople.

It was a well-calculated political maneuver. Using the people's faith in the tsar, Ivan the Terrible expected that he would be called to return to the throne. When this happened, the tsar dictated his conditions: the right to unlimited autocratic power and the establishment of the oprichnina. The country was divided into two parts: oprichnina And zemshchina. Ivan IV included the most important lands in the oprichnina.

It included Pomeranian cities, cities with large towns and important strategic locations, as well as the most economically developed areas of the country. The nobles who were part of the oprichnina army. Its composition was initially determined to be one thousand people.

The oprichniki wore black, monastic-like clothes and attached dog heads and brooms to their saddles, thereby demonstrating the dog’s devotion to the tsar and their readiness to wipe out any of his enemies from the face of the earth at any moment.

Oprichnina terror dealt merciless blows not only to the boyar and princely nobility, but also to the entire population. In her person, Ivan IV created a kind of half-monastic, half-knightly order, built on generous land and monetary grants from the sovereign and on unquestioning obedience to his will.

The increase in mass terror led to the fact that the guardsmen themselves became the object of the tsar’s wrath. Executed were Alexey Danilovich Basmanov, the de facto leader of the oprichnina, his son Fyodor, Prince Vyazemsky, and the head of the zemshchina Ivan Mikhailovich Viskovaty.

At the end of 1569, the campaign against Novgorod began. An army of fifteen thousand under the leadership of Ivan the Terrible destroyed all the villages on the road to him, then dealt with the townspeople for 40 days. N.I. Kostomarov notes unheard-of cruelty against the local population: “grain reserves and livestock have been destroyed, the Volkhov River is clogged with bodies.” Upon returning to Moscow, 18 gallows were erected on Red Square, and the instruments of execution were laid out: stoves, frying pans, iron tongs. N.I. Kostomarov is convinced that “the king took pleasure in the pictures of evil.” N.M. Karamzin, summing up the reign of Ivan IV, put its consequences on a par with the disasters during the Tatar-Mongol yoke. IN. Klyuchevsky believed that the tsar “conceived more than he did, and had more effect on the nerves and imagination of his contemporaries than on the state order.”

The oprichnina eliminated political fragmentation in the country, but caused even more contradictions in the country. An economic crisis has ripened in the country and devastation has set in. The catastrophe was aggravated by natural disasters, famine, and plague.

In 1571, the oprichnina army was unable to protect Russia from the Tatar invasion, and Devlet-Girey carried out a pogrom in Moscow.

IN 1572 Ivan the Terrible abolished the oprichnina and forbade even mentioning her. The territory, troops, service people, the Boyar Duma were united. But the executions did not stop. Problems within the country and the economic crisis were aggravated by the defeat in the Livonian War.

The government sought a way out of the crisis through administrative measures. In response to the flight of the peasants, serfdom was adopted, which actually enslaved the peasants.

The era of Ivan the Terrible was one of the most difficult and controversial in history. Russian history. It led, on the one hand, to success in the centralization of the country, on the other, to the ruin of the country, arbitrariness and mass extermination of people.

Foreign policy of Ivan the Terrible

The main objectives of Russian foreign policy in the 16th century. were:

• A). in the southeast and east - the fight against the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates and the beginning of the development of Siberia;
• b). in the west - the struggle for access to the Baltic Sea;
• V). in the south - protecting the country from the attacks of the Crimean Khan.

A). Southeast and eastern directions.

The Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, formed as a result of the collapse of the Golden Horde, constantly threatened Russian lands. They controlled the Volga trade route.

Kazan was taken by storm, which began on October 1 1552 g. Four years after the capture of Kazan, in 1556, was annexed Astrakhan. In 1557 Chuvashia and most Bashkiria voluntarily became part of Russia. Recognized dependence on Russia Nogai Horde- a state of nomads that emerged from the Golden Horde at the end of the 14th century. Thus, new fertile lands and the entire Volga trade route became part of Russia. Russia's ties with peoples expanded North Caucasus and Central Asia.

The annexation of Kazan and Astrakhan opened up the opportunity for advancement in Siberia.

Rich merchant-industrialists the Stroganovs received charters from Ivan IV the Terrible to own lands along the Tobolu River. Using their own funds, they formed a detachment of free Cossacks led by Ermak Timofeevich. In 1581, Ermak and his army penetrated the territory of the Siberian Khanate, and a year later defeated the troops of Khan Kuchum and took his capital Kashlyk (Isker). The population of the annexed lands had to pay rent in kind in fur - yasak.

b). Western direction

Trying to reach the Baltic coast, Ivan IV fought the grueling Livonian War for 25 years (1558 - 1583). Start Livonian War was accompanied by victories of Russian troops, who took Narva and Yuryev (Dorpt). A total of 20 cities were taken. Russian troops advanced towards Riga and Revel (Tallinn). In 1560, the Livonian Order was defeated. The war became protracted and several European powers were drawn into it.

IN 1569 Poland and Lithuania united into one state - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth(Union of Lublin). The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden captured Narva and carried out successful military operations against Russia. Only the defense of the city of Pskov in 1581, when its residents repelled 30 assaults and made about 50 sorties against the troops of the Polish king Stefan Batory, allowed Russia to conclude a truce for a period of 10 years in Yama Zapolsky, a town near Pskov in 1582. A year later it was concluded Plyusskoe truce with Sweden. The Livonian War ended in defeat. Russia gave Livonia to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in exchange for the return of captured Russian cities, except Polotsk. Sweden retained the developed Baltic coast, the cities of Korela, Yam, Narva, and Koporye.

The failure of the Livonian War was ultimately a consequence of Russia's economic backwardness, which was unable to successfully withstand a long struggle against strong opponents. The ruin of the country during the oprichnina years only made matters worse.

V). South direction.

The Crimean khans raided the southern regions of Russia. The government of Ivan IV did not consider direct confrontation with Crimea, therefore limited itself to defensive measures. Construction began in the 50s Serif line- a defensive line of fortresses and natural barriers.

Oprichnina was a sharp change in the domestic political course from reform to repression. Historians of the 19th century looked for the reasons for this turn in the character of the king and his relations with his inner circle. Soviet historians have long tried to present these reasons as a conscious desire to put an end to the boyar aristocracy.

The modern interpretation of the oprichnina is based on the fact that it was the tsar’s struggle against any political opponents for the establishment of autocracy.

Skrynnikov considers it a coup at the top with the aim of establishing unlimited rule.

Florya – political revolution.

Reasons for the oprichnina

1. The inability to fully implement reforms, especially military ones, due to the lack of land for distribution.

2. The tsar’s political jealousy of his immediate circle as an obstacle to his autocracy.

3. The desire to weaken the influence of the princely-boyar aristocracy on state policy.

4. Failures in foreign policy. In 1564, the inevitability of war both in Livonia and with Crimea became obvious.

Since we were talking about a war between an Orthodox state and a Protestant and Muslim one, by placing responsibility for a different conduct of the war on the careless boyars, the tsar had the opportunity to accuse them of treason not only to the sovereign, but also to all Orthodox Christianity.

Prerequisites for the oprichnina

1. Personality of the king.

2. His belief that faithful servants can only be honorable.

3. His conviction that he should rule with absolute authority.

4. The king’s confidence that, as God’s viceroy on earth, he must save the souls of sinful subjects.

5. The state of war provided an easy opportunity to accuse political enemies of treason.

Preparing the oprichnina

In 1560, Tsarina Anastasia died and the collapse of the elected Rada began. Adashev fell into disgrace. Sylvester was sent to the Cyril Monastery to the north.

In 1561, Ivan 4 married Maria Temryukovna (Kabardian princess Kuchenya).

After this, the sons from the first marriage were allocated to a special court. The will, just in case, provided for a list of boyar guardians in case Prince Ivan inherited the throne as a child. The seven boyars were led by Prince Mstislavsky. The Zakharyins, maternal relatives, took four places on this list. The more aristocratic families - the Staritskys, Belskys, Sheremetyevs, Morozovs and others - were offended.

In 1562, certain aristocratic families were prohibited from inheriting estates without the knowledge of the Tsar, and the female line was excluded. The Vorotyn, Suzdal, Shui, Yaroslavl, and Starodub princes suffered. In terms of political weight and local standing, they were higher than other service princes.

Then the accusation of treason against Adashev’s relatives, acquaintances and neighbors began (“Starodubskoe case”).

Then the Sheremetyevs suffered. Kurbsky fled to Lithuania.

In 1564, Danila Romanovich Zakharyin died, and it became obvious that this family was losing its political weight.

Little by little, a new entourage of the king is taking shape.

The place of the closest adviser was taken by Alexey Basmanov-Pleshcheev, a boyar, a governor (“silovik”). His son Fyodor became Ivan's favorite.

The place of Sylvester's confessor was first taken by Metropolitan Macarius, and then by Athanasius, who indulged the king.

Behind Basmanov, the transport governor Afanasy Vyazemsky and the nobleman Petrok Zaitsev were surrounded by the tsar. + characteristic of the boyar-princes of Cherkasy.

But the Boyar Duma is dissatisfied and it is impossible to force it to reconcile using traditional methods.

Extraordinary measures are needed. Departure of Ivan 4 in December 1564 to Alexandrov Sloboda. He was accompanied by nobles. He has enough boyar children and governors. On the eve of the clash with the nobility, the tsar managed to secure the support of a number of boyars and clerks, members of the sovereign's court. It was the presence of such support that allowed the king to take an independent position.

In January 1565, a message to the Metropolitan that he had left his state because he was expelled by his own slaves - the boyars. The accusation concerned not only the boyar Duma. But the entire ruling stratum, since they supported the boyars by drawing up guarantee records. The prosecution was supposed to remind society what awaits the country if there is no king in it.

The Boyar Duma asks the Tsar to lay aside their anger and rule the state as he “pleases.” The townspeople were afraid that without the king, the nobles could force merchants and artisans to do everything for nothing, the mob was on the side of the sovereign.

Klyuchevsky wrote that “It was as if the Tsar had begged for a police dictatorship from the State Council.”

It was impossible to raise the children of the boyars to war to protect the rights of a narrow circle of advisers to the sovereign and senior hierarchs. And there are no wars without privates. → it is “suitable” for him to demand the creation of an oprichnina. The elite was not psychologically prepared for war with the “natural” king, who had recently been crowned king and conquered the Muslim kingdoms. The only Orthodox king in the world.

Initially, it was a question of a territory with separate administration. A little later word will be perceived as a symbol of politics.

The Moscow state was called the Zemshchina and remained under the control of the Boyar Duma. But the oprichnina was placed, as it were, above the zemshchina.

The territories taken under control by the tsar were called oprichnina. He received unlimited powers to manage them. In essence, it turned out to be the king's lot.

Territory

1) palace parishes;

2) northern territories with active trade. Vologda, Ustyug + the flow of the Northern Dvina and access to the White Sea;

3) salt production centers. Kargopol, Galitskaya Salt, Vychegda Salt, a kind of salt monopoly;

4) Suzdal, Mozhaisk, Vyazemsky districts.

Then the territory expanded.

Finance

Taxes from the oprichnina lands + property of the disgraced (and the boyar had it in the zemshchina → and their king).

Oprichnaya Boyar Duma

Formally, it was headed by the queen's brother Mikhail Cherkassky. The Basmanovs and their friends were really in charge.

A new Duma rank has been introduced = Duma nobleman for those who are completely ignorant. The Duma included the old Moscow boyars Pleshcheevs, Kolychevs, and Buturlins.

Oprichnina army

Recruited from noble nobles who did not know the boyars. The boyars received positions not according to local calculations, but according to the will of the tsar. Land salaries are higher than in zemshchina. Those who did not join the sovereign’s troops could not count on preserving their ancestral property.

In order to actually find lands, they were confiscated from everyone who was not enrolled in the oprichnina army (including nobles, and not just princes and boyars). So the noble class was divided. The guardsmen retained their estates located in zemstvo districts. Their lands were exempted from a number of taxes and duties.

It was precisely for the confiscation of lands that such a large army was required (a vicious circle).

If oprichniki participated in hostilities, oprichnina governors were considered superior to zemstvo governors.

Discipline in the army through the oath of personal allegiance to the king and the opportunity for honorable men to curry favor.

The army has a guarantee of impunity in actions against the enemies of the king.

Thus, the oprichnina is a full-fledged state within a state.

Zemshchina

Ruled by the seven-boyars headed by I.P. Chelyadnin (horsemaster).

The Zemstvo Boyar Duma was headed by the princes Belsky and Mstislavsky.

The orders continued to work. Despite the division, the solution to all important issues relating to this territory and the entire state as a whole continued to remain in the hands of the king.

Oprichnina terror

1564–1565

Ivan 4 and his entourage understood that their policy was detrimental to the interests of many, did not enjoy the support of wide circles of the nobility and could meet resistance → terror was supposed to intimidate those who disagreed and deprive them of the will to resist.

1567–1570 – mass terror.

At first, the disgraced nobility were exiled to the Kazan lands and given estates. Kazan governors (!) P.A. Kurakin and A.I. Katyrev-Rostovsky, with a salary of one thousand quarters of arable land, received dachas for 120 quarters of fallow land. 12 princes Gagarins received one village for all, etc.

The Suzdal nobility suffered the most (after all, Moscow was the city of the Rostov-Suzdal principality, and not vice versa).

The decree on the oprichnina marked the beginning of the “great migration” of landowners of all categories in the Old Moscow lands.

In 1566, some of the disgraced were returned back and even given lands, including family lands (but not all). The king is free to execute and pardon.

But no compromise has been reached. The Old Moscow boyars and zemstvo nobility feared disgrace and began to express dissatisfaction with the tsar’s policies + rumors about the Staritsky conspiracy. It was possible to cope with their opposition only by turning to mass terror.

The king felt insecure.

The territory of the oprichnina was expanded → the army was already 1.5 thousand. New oprichnina fortresses are being built in Moscow opposite the Kremlin and in Vologda.

Mass terror is judged mainly by Ivan the Terrible's Synodik. 3-4 thousand people were killed, of which at least 700 were nobles (without family members).

Many members of the Zemstvo Boyar Duma, princes and boyars returned from exile in Kazan, were executed. But untitled victims predominated.

Malyuta Skuratov (Grigory Lukyanovich Belsky) appeared in the tsar’s entourage. The rank of Duma nobleman in the oprichnina was given to the executioner Vasily Gryaznoy.

After the death of Queen Maria in 1569, reprisals followed against the Cherkasskys, Basmanovs, and Vyazemskys.

In 1570, the oprichnina pogrom of Novgorod and Pskov was intended to intimidate the townspeople and replenish the oprichnina treasury. Novgorod was taken into oprichnina.

In Moscow, the top zemshchina, including the printer, were executed
I. Viskovaty, treasurer Nikita Funikov, chief clerks of the orders (! And the bureaucracy got it).

By the end of 1570, the terror had exhausted itself. The elite, including the one that established the oprichnina, have been eliminated, the mob is intimidated.

The new oprichnina Duma included young people from zemstvo and disgraced families - Shuisky, Trubetskoy, Odoevsky, Pronsky. Skuratov and Gryaznoy were really in charge. Skuratov died in the war in 1572.

1571 - Crimean Tatars burned Moscow.

The tsar had to gradually erase the difference between governing the oprichnina and the zemshchina. Land salaries have been equalized. The treasury has been consolidated. Increasingly, troops are being sent to united forces.

The text of the decree on the abolition of the oprichnina is not known to specialists. He might not have existed.

Reasons for the collapse of the oprichnina

1. A new environment cannot be created without zemstvo people (since in the oprichnina its creators are either in power or have been eliminated, but there are no others).

2. The absolute power of the tsar has increased and he actually decides matters both in the oprichnina and in the zemshchina.

3. Fear of disobedience by the taxing population who condemned the terror.

Consequences of the oprichnina

1. Political:

1) Stabilization of the regime of the tsar’s personal power with the strengthening of despotism.

2) Limitation of the competence of the Boyar Duma in internal governance.

3) The growth of the political weight of the service bureaucracy (Duma nobles, clerks).

4) Unconditional unification around the king of all landowners.

5) Strengthening the relationship between the church and royal power (unwanted churchmen are also victims of terror).

6) The prospect of consolidation of the noble class in the struggle to expand their rights is excluded.

2. Social

1) The personal, but not the social composition of large landowners changed (the boyars and princes remained).

2) The combat effectiveness of the army is weakened.

3) Self-government of the townspeople was finally eliminated.

4) Exploitation of the tax-paying population and dependent population intensified.

3. Economic

1) Desolation of the old arable center (population departure, reduction of plowing)

2) Tax arrears.

3) The inability of landowners to retain the dependent population (especially small nobles).

Deep crisis, demoralization of society.

State Polar Academy

Department of French Language and Literature

By discipline

"Domestic History"

Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible: its prerequisites and consequences

Completed

student of group 201

Moroz E.S.

Scientific supervisor

Ph.D. ist. Sci., Assoc. Portnyagina N.A.

St. Petersburg 2010

Introduction

1. Background

1.1.1Birth of Ivan the Terrible

1.1.2Childhood

1.2. Beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible

1.3 Foreign policy

2. Oprichnina

2.1 Definition

2.2 Beginning of the oprichnina

2.3 The essence of the oprichnina

3. Prerequisites for the oprichnina

4. Consequences of the oprichnina

Historical sources

Introduction

Ivan IV (1533-1584) is a bright personality in Russian history, but few of us perceive him as a positive person, and yet he contributed to the development of his country, in particular, he took the first steps in creating an estate-representative monarchy in Russia. And what so darkened his reputation?

8. Oprichnina: its causes and consequences.

– One of the main reasons is the oprichnina policy. And although it cannot be called ill-conceived, it was still not far-sighted. It is noteworthy that in the opinion of modern people, the main quality of this policy is cruelty. However, we must not forget that it took place more than 5 centuries ago and the temperament of the people of that time was strikingly different from the present: many things associated with the oprichnina were completely tolerable for that time, nevertheless, some of the tsar’s contemporaries were shocked by the atrocities that took place at that time. It is also surprising how much the policy of the oprichnina contradicts the time of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, when the Elected Rada was created and the Zemsky Sobor was convened. Compared to the first period of the reign of Ivan IV, oprichnina cannot in any way be called a policy working for the benefit of the inhabitants of the state. And now many generations of people have been asking the question: What are the reasons for choosing such a tough policy? Could it not have subsequently become the cause of the crisis that engulfed Russia at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries? Undoubtedly, answers to these questions should be sought not only in the political situation of that time, but also in the life of the king himself. All these aspects will be discussed in this essay.

Goal: to determine why Ivan the Terrible decided to introduce oprichnina and what this policy led to.

Objectives: analyze the tsar’s contradictory actions, trace the development of his character, understand how the personal aspect of his life influenced his political activities, what consequences his actions led to during the oprichnina period.

1. Background

1.1 The period of Ivan IV’s life before coronation

Since the personality and character of the king has no small influence on his political actions, it is worth paying attention to the conditions in which his personality was formed.

1.1.1 Birth of Ivan the Terrible

Ivan was born on August 25, 1530. Already at this time, signs of degeneration of the royal family appeared: the brother of the future king was born a deaf-mute idiot. “The descendants of “old Igor,” the Kyiv prince of Varangian origin, married within their circle for seven centuries. The Moscow Rurikovichs chose brides from the families of Tver, Ryazan princes and other Rurikovichs. Ivan IV received heavy heredity from his ancestors.” (2.1) His son, Fyodor, suffered from dementia, and Dmitry was stricken with epilepsy from infancy. It is possible to assume that poor heredity could also affect Ivan’s psychological health: At the end of his life, sharply expressed traits of foolishness and buffoonery become noticeable in Ivan’s behavior (D.S. Likhachev). With amazing ease, Tsar Ivan moved in his writings from humility to pride and anger, which humiliated and destroyed his interlocutor. The king was not averse to starting a verbal duel with the victim at the moment when the executioner had already prepared an ax.”

1.1.2 Childhood

After the death of Vasily III, the grand-ducal throne was taken by his three-year-old son Ivan. In fact, the state was ruled by his mother Elena Glinskaya, although traditions did not allow the participation of women in government affairs, Vasily said to his wife before his death: “I blessed my son Ivan with the state and the great reign, and I wrote to you in my spiritual letter, as in previous spiritual letters of our fathers and ancestors according to their heritage, like the former great duchesses.”

The Grand Duchess died on April 3, 1538 (there are suggestions that she was poisoned). Power passed to the surviving members of the Seven Boyars.

1.1.3 The Tsar’s adolescence and youth

Ivan grew up in an environment of palace coups, struggles for power among those at war with each other boyar families Shuiskikh and Belsky. “Being members of one of the most aristocratic Russian families, the Shuiskys did not want to share power with those who gained influence thanks to the personal favor of Vasily III. The discord between the “princes of the blood” (as the Shuiskys were called by foreigners) and the old advisers of Vasily III (boyars Yuriev, Tuchkov and Duma clerks) was resolved by unrest. Six months after the death of the ruler, the Shuiskys captured their neighbor Fyodor Mishurin and put him to death” (2.1).

Therefore, there was an opinion that the murders, intrigues and violence that surrounded Ivan contributed to the development of suspicion, secrecy and cruelty in him. S. Solovyov, analyzing the influence of the morals of the era on the character of Ivan IV, notes that he “did not recognize the moral, spiritual means for establishing the truth, or, even worse, having realized it, he forgot about them; instead of healing, he intensified the disease, accustoming him even more to torture, bonfires and the chopping block.”

The boyars, trying to gain the favor of the young king, encouraged his “pranks” in every possible way: “The important and proud gentlemen later raised him, competing with each other, flattering and pleasing him in his voluptuousness and lust - to the misfortune of themselves and their children. And when he began to grow up, at the age of twelve, I will omit everything that he used to do before, I will only say this: he first began to shed the blood of animals, throwing them from great heights... and also did many other unworthy things..., and his teachers flattered him, allowing him to do this , praising him, to his own misfortune, teaching the child” (1.1) At the age of fifteen, he already began to “abandon people,” more and more showing in himself the cruelty developed by boyar flattery.

According to A.M. Kurbsky (from the “story of the Grand Duke of Moscow”), when Ivan IV was seventeen years old, senators began to use him in the fight against people they disliked: this is how the “bravest strategist” Ivan Belsky was killed. After some time, the tsar himself “ordered to kill another noble prince named Andrei Shuisky,” and two years later he killed three more noble people. And only with the arrival of Sylvester, “a man in the rank of priest,” was Ivan’s rampage more or less pacified, “severely conjuring him with the formidable name of God and, in addition, revealing to him miracles and, as it were, signs from God,” Sylvester corrected the “depraved” disposition of the king and guided him to the right way. And Alexey Adashev, who was useful to the state, then entered into an “alliance” with him.

1.2 Beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible

At the age of 16, Ivan first expressed a desire to be crowned king; this can be explained from two points of view: Skrynnikov and Kostomarov believe that this was facilitated by Metropolitan Macarius and the tsar’s maternal relatives, acting in their own interests, and the historian V. O. Klyuchevsky suggested that Ivan made this decision of his own free will; this was evidenced by his clearly expressed desire for power. On January 16, 1547, Ivan Vasilyevich became a full-fledged king.

After the period of “boyar rule”, Ivan the Terrible needed to strengthen his power. The Russian nobility was especially interested in carrying out the reforms that were proposed by I.S. Peresvetov. The idea of ​​strong royal power, curbing boyar arbitrariness, and reliance on “service people” (nobles) were approved by the tsar. An Elected Rada was created, which included A.M. Kurbsky, A.F. Adashev, priest Sylvester, M.I. Vorotynsky, I.M. Viscous. It began to play the role of the boyar duma. The fall of the Elected Rada is assessed by historians differently. According to V.V. Kobrin, this was a manifestation of the conflict between two programs for the centralization of Russia: through slow structural reforms or rapidly, by force. Historians believe that the choice of the second path was due to the personal character of Ivan the Terrible, who did not want to listen to people who did not agree with his policies. Thus, after 1560, Ivan took the path of tightening power, which led him to repressive measures. A number of reforms were prepared in the Elected Rada: Zemstvo reform, Lipa reform, reforms in the army. In 1549 the first Zemsky Sobor was convened, and in 1550 a new code of law was created, etc.

However, the temper of Ivan the Terrible made itself felt at this time. Political persecution did not stop, which became the topic of correspondence between Grozny and Kurbsky. Kurbsky complained about the injustice of repressions against the boyars, to which the tsar replied that he was punishing not “well-wishers, but traitors, and that the boyars suffered from him much less than he from them” (2.2) The tsar wrote about the suffering that he suffered during of his orphaned childhood due to the fault of the boyars, he described his resentment towards Sylvester and Adashev. Soon, Adashev’s resignation occurred, which had no explanation; this was the reason for the sovereign’s desire to revise the Tsar’s Book. The largest postscript to the text of this book is devoted to “the story of the conspiracy of the boyars and Prince Staritsky during the tsar’s illness in March 1553” (2.2) Almost all participants in the rebellion were severely punished: Staritsky was executed, and the tsar’s aunt (a fairly young woman) was imprisoned in a monastery .

Royal book: “... and henceforth there was enmity between the great sovereign and Prince Volodymyr Ondreevich.” It cannot be said that the excessive distrust and secrecy of Ivan IV was groundless. Perhaps originating in him in childhood, it was constantly “fed” by subsequent conspiracies against the royal power: Synodal list: “... and from that time on there was enmity between the sovereign and the people”

Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible.

Oprichnina- this is one of the periods in the history of Russia, between 1565 and 1572, marked by extreme terror against the subjects of Tsar Ivan IV. This concept also referred to a part of the country with a special system of government, which was allocated for the maintenance of the guardsmen and the royal court. The Old Russian word itself has the meaning “special” in origin.

Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible implied repression, confiscation of property, and forced relocation of people. It included central, western and southwestern districts, partly Moscow and some northern regions, sometimes entire populated areas fell under the oprichnina.

Reasons for the emergence of oprichnina.

Reasons for the oprichnina have not yet been precisely named; perhaps it was simply the king’s desire to strengthen power. Introduction of the oprichnina was marked by the creation of an oprichnina army of 1000 people, who were assigned to carry out the royal decrees; later their number increased.

Oprichnina as a feature of state policy became a huge shock for the country. By implementing extreme measures to confiscate the property of feudal lords and lands for the state benefit, the oprichnina was aimed at centralizing power and nationalizing income.

Goals of the oprichnina

The phenomenon was aimed at eliminating the feudal fragmentation of the principalities and its goal was to undermine the independence of the boyar class. Entered in 1565 oprichnina became the desire of Ivan IV, tired of the betrayals of the boyars, to execute the unfaithful nobles of his own free will.

Consequences of the introduction of oprichnina

Oprichnina Ivana 4 almost completely eliminated the owners who could become the basis of civil society in the country. After its implementation, the people became even more dependent on the existing government and the absolute despotism of the monarch was established in the country, but the Russian nobility found itself in a more privileged position.

Prerequisites and consequences of oprichnina

Establishment of the oprichnina worsened the situation in Russia, in particular in the economy. Some villages were devastated, and cultivation of arable land ceased. The ruin of the nobles entailed that the Russian army, of which they formed the basis, weakened and this became the reason for the loss of the war with Livonia.

Consequences of the oprichnina were such that no one, regardless of class and position, could feel safe. In addition, in 1572, the king’s army was unable to repel the attack of the Crimean Tatar army on the capital, and Ivan the Terrible decided to abolish the existing system of repression and punishment, but in fact it existed until the death of the sovereign.

The second stage of Ivan's reign was the introduction of the oprichnina in Russia.

In January 1565 ᴦ. left the royal residence near Moscow for Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda.

From there he addressed the capital with two messages.

Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible: causes and consequences

In the first, sent to the clergy and the Boyar Duma, Ivan IV announced the renunciation of power due to the betrayal of the boyars and asked to be allocated a special inheritance - the oprichnina.

In the second message, addressed to the townspeople of the capital, the tsar reported on the decision made and added that he had no complaints about the townspeople.

It was a well-calculated political maneuver.

Using the people's faith in the tsar, Ivan the Terrible expected that he would be called to return to the throne. When this happened, the tsar dictated his conditions: the right to unlimited autocratic power and the establishment of the oprichnina.

The country was divided into two parts: oprichnina and zemshchina. Ivan IV included the most important lands in the oprichnina. It included Pomeranian cities, cities with large settlements and strategically important ones, as well as the most economically developed areas of the country.

The nobles who were part of the oprichnina army settled on these lands.

Oprichnina- this is the internal policy of Ivan the Terrible from 1565 to 1572, whose goal was to strengthen the personal power of the tsar and fight against the boyars.

Ivan IV, fighting the rebellions and betrayals of the boyar nobility, saw them as the main reason for the failures of his policies.

Due to constant betrayals of Ivan, he sought to strengthen his power. His goal is the extermination of any treason. There was a period in the life of Ivan the Terrible when he became very ill

The center and north-west of the Russian lands, where the boyars were especially strong, were subjected to the most severe defeat.

At the same time, the tsar abolished the oprichnina, which in 1572 ᴦ. was transformed into the sovereign's courtyard.

Results of the oprichnina:

Strengthening the personal power of the king

Social crisis, population decline and worsening conditions of the people

State crisis (some lands were about 70% uncultivated)

Further processes of registration of serfdom. 1581 - Decree on Protected Years.

Oprichnina is a period in the history of Russia from 1565 until the death of Ivan the Terrible, marked by state terror and a system of emergency measures.

In 1572, the oprichnina actually ceased - the army showed its inability to repel the attack of the Crimean Tatars on Moscow, after which the tsar decided to abolish it.

Question 19.

The best thing history gives us is the enthusiasm it arouses.

Goethe

The oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible is considered briefly by modern historians, but these were events that had a great influence both on the tsar himself and his entourage, and on the entire country as a whole. During the oprichnina of 1565-1572, the Russian Tsar tried to strengthen his own power, whose authority was in a very precarious position. This was due to the increasing incidence of treason, as well as the disposition of the majority of the boyars against the current tsar. All this resulted in massacres, largely because of which the tsar received the nickname “Terrible”. In general, the oprichnina was expressed in the fact that part of the lands of the kingdom was transferred to the exclusive rule of the state. The influence of the boyars was not allowed on these lands. Today we will briefly look at the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible, its causes, stages of reform, as well as the consequences for the state.

Reasons for the oprichnina

Ivan the Terrible remained in the historical view of his descendants as a suspicious man who constantly saw conspiracies around him. It all started with the Kazan campaign, from which Ivan the Terrible returned in 1553. The Tsar (at that time still the Grand Duke) fell ill, and greatly fearing the betrayal of the boyars, he ordered everyone to swear allegiance to his son, the baby Dmitry. The boyars and courtiers were reluctant to swear allegiance to the “diaperman”, and many even evaded this oath. The reason for this was very simple - the current king is very sick, the heir is less than a year old, there are a large number of boyars who lay claim to power.

After recovery, Ivan the Terrible changed, becoming more cautious and angry towards others. He could not forgive the courtiers for their betrayal (refusing the oath to Dmitry), knowing full well what caused this. But the decisive events that led to the oprichnina were due to the following:

• In 1563, Moscow Metropolitan Macarius dies. He was known for having enormous influence on the king and enjoying his favor. Macarius restrained the king’s aggression, instilling in him the idea that the country was under his control and there was no conspiracy. The new Metropolitan Afanasy took the side of the dissatisfied boyars and opposed the tsar. As a result, the king only grew stronger in the idea that there were only enemies around him.
• In 1564, Prince Kurbsky abandoned the army and went to serve in the Principality of Lithuania. Kurbsky took many military commanders with him, and also declassified all Russian spies in Lithuania itself. This was a terrible blow to the pride of the Russian Tsar, who after this became finally convinced that there were enemies around him who could betray him at any moment.

As a result, Ivan the Terrible decided to eliminate the independence of the boyars in Russia (at that time they owned lands, maintained their own army, had their own assistants and their own courtyard, their own treasury, and so on). The decision was made to create an autocracy.

The essence of the oprichnina

At the beginning of 1565, Ivan the Terrible leaves Moscow, leaving behind two letters. In the first letter, the tsar addresses the metropolitan, saying that all the clergy and boyars are involved in treason. These people only want to have more lands and plunder the royal treasury. With the second letter, the tsar addressed the people, saying that his reasons for absence from Moscow were related to the actions of the boyars. The tsar himself went to Alexandrov Sloboda. There, under the influence of the residents of Moscow, the boyars were sent in order to return the Tsar to the capital. Ivan the Terrible agreed to return it, but only on the condition that he would receive the unconditional power to execute all enemies of the state, as well as create a new system in the country. This system is called the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible, which is expressed in the division of all lands of the country into:

1. Oprichnina - lands that the tsar seizes for his own (state) administration.
2. Zemshchina - lands that the boyars continued to control.

To implement this plan, Ivan the Terrible created a special detachment - the guardsmen. Initially their number was 1000 people. These people made up the tsar's secret police, which reported directly to the head of state, and which brought the necessary order to the country.

Part of the territory of Moscow, Kostroma, Vologda, Mozhaisk and some other cities were chosen as oprichnina lands. Local residents who were not included in the state oprichnina program were forced to leave these lands. As a rule, they were provided with land in the most remote hinterlands of the country. As a result, the oprichnina solved one of the most important tasks that was set by Ivan the Terrible. This task was to weaken the economic power of individual boyars. This limitation was achieved due to the fact that the state took over some of the best land in the country.

The main directions of the oprichnina

Such actions of the tsar were met with sincere discontent of the boyars. Wealthy families, which had previously actively expressed their dissatisfaction with the activities of Ivan the Terrible, now began to wage their struggle even more actively to restore their former power. To counter these forces, a special military unit, the Oprichniki, was created. Their main task, by order of the tsar himself, was to “gnaw” all traitors and “sweep out” treason from the state. It is from here that those symbols that are directly associated with the guardsmen came from. Each of them carried a dog's head at the saddle of his horse, as well as a broom. The guardsmen destroyed or sent into exile all people who were suspected of treason against the state.

In 1566, another Zemsky Sobor was held. On it, an appeal was submitted to the tsar with a request to eliminate the oprichnina. In response to this, Ivan the Terrible ordered the execution of everyone who was involved in the transfer and in the preparation of this document. The reaction of the boyars and all the dissatisfied followed immediately. The most significant is the decision of Moscow Metropolitan Athanasius, who resigned from his priesthood. Metropolitan Philip Kolychev was appointed in his place. This man also actively opposed the oprichnina and criticized the tsar, as a result of which literally a few days later Ivan’s troops sent this man into exile.

Main blows

Ivan the Terrible sought with all his might to strengthen his power, the power of the autocrat. He did everything for this. That is why the main blow of the oprichnina was directed at those people and those groups of people who could realistically lay claim to the royal throne:

• Vladimir Staritsky. This is the cousin of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who was highly respected among the boyars, and who was very often named as the person who should take power instead of the current Tsar. To eliminate this man, the guardsmen poisoned Vladimir himself, as well as his wife and daughters. This happened in 1569.
• Veliky Novgorod. From the very beginning of the formation of the Russian land, Novgorod had a unique and original status. It was an independent city that obeyed only itself. Ivan, realizing that it is impossible to strengthen the power of the autocrat without pacifying the rebellious Novgorod is impossible. As a result, in December 1569, the king, at the head of his army, set out on a campaign against this city.

  Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible 1565 - 1572

  On their way to Novgorod, the tsar's army destroys and executes thousands of people who in any way showed dissatisfaction with the actions of the tsar. This campaign lasted until 1571. As a result of the Novgorod campaign, the oprichnina army established the power of the tsar in the city and in the region.

Cancellation of the oprichnina

At a time when the oprichnina was established by a campaign against Novgorod, Ivan the Terrible received news that Devlet-Girey, the Crimean Khan, with an army raided Moscow and almost completely set the city on fire. Due to the fact that almost all the troops that were subordinate to the king were in Novgorod, there was no one to resist this raid. The boyars refused to provide their troops to fight the tsarist enemies. As a result, in 1571 the oprichnina army and the tsar himself were forced to return to Moscow. To fight the Crimean Khanate, the tsar was forced to temporarily abandon the idea of ​​the oprichnina, uniting his troops and the zemstvo troops. As a result, in 1572, 50 kilometers south of Moscow, the united army defeated the Crimean Khan.

One of the most significant problems of the Russian land of this time was on western border. The war did not stop there Livonian Order. As a result, constant raids Crimean Khanate, the ongoing war against Livonia, internal unrest in the country, and the weak defense capability of the entire state contributed to Ivan the Terrible abandoning the idea of ​​the oprichnina. In the fall of 1572, the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible, which we briefly reviewed today, was canceled. The tsar himself forbade everyone to mention the word oprichnina, and the oprichniki themselves became outlaws. Almost all the troops that were subordinate to the tsar and established the order he needed were later destroyed by the tsar himself.

Results of the oprichnina and its significance

Any historical event Well, especially since something as massive and significant as the oprichnina carries with it certain consequences that are important for posterity. The results of the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible can be expressed in the following main points:

1. Significant strengthening of the tsar's autocratic power.
2. Reducing the influence of the boyars on state affairs.
3. The severe economic decline of the country, which occurred as a result of the split that emerged in society due to the oprichnina.
4. Introduction of reserved years in 1581. The protected summers, which prohibited the transfer of peasants from one landowner to another, were due to the fact that the population of the central and northern parts of Russia fled en masse to the south. Thus, they escaped from the actions of the authorities.
5. The destruction of large boyar lands. Some of the first steps of the oprichnina were aimed at destroying and taking away their property from the boyars, and transferring this property to the state. This was successfully implemented.

Historical assessment

A brief narrative about the oprichnina does not allow us to accurately understand the essence of those events. Moreover, this is difficult to do even with a more detailed analysis. The most revealing thing in this regard is the attitude of historians to this issue. Below are the main ideas that characterize the oprichnina, and which indicate that there is no single approach to assessing this political event. The basic concepts are as follows:

• Imperial Russia. Imperial historians presented the oprichnina as a phenomenon that had a detrimental effect on the economic, political and social development Russia. On the other hand, many historians of imperial Russia have said that it is in the oprichnina that one should look for the origins of autocracy and the current imperial power.
• The era of the USSR. Soviet scientists have always described the bloody events of the tsarist and imperial regimes with particular enthusiasm. As a result, in almost all Soviet works the oprichnina was presented as necessary element, who formed the movement of the masses against oppression by the boyars.
• Modern opinion. Modern historians speak of the oprichnina as a destructive element, as a result of which thousands of innocent people died. This is one of the reasons that allows one to accuse Ivan the Terrible of bloodiness.

The problem here is that studying the oprichnina is extremely difficult, since there are practically no real historical documents of that era left. As a result, we are not dealing with the study of data, nor with the study of historical facts, but very often we are dealing with the opinions of individual historians, which are not substantiated in any way. That is why oprichnina cannot be assessed unambiguously.

All we can talk about is that at the time of the oprichnina, there were no clear criteria within the country by which the definition of “oprichnik” and “zemshchik” was made. In this regard, the situation is very similar to the one that was in initial stage the formation of Soviet power, when dispossession took place. In the same way, no one had even the remotest idea of ​​what a fist was, and who should be considered a fist. Therefore, as a result of dispossession as a result of the oprichnina, a huge number of people suffered who were not guilty of anything. This is the main historical assessment of this event. Everything else fades into the background, since in any state the main value is human life. Strengthening the power of an autocrat by exterminating ordinary people is a very shameful step. That is why in recent years life, Ivan the Terrible forbade any mention of the oprichnina and ordered the execution of almost people who took an active part in these events.

The remaining elements that are presented modern history both the consequences of the oprichnina and its results are very doubtful. After all, the main result, which all history textbooks talk about, is the strengthening of autocratic power. But what kind of strengthening of power can we talk about if after the death of Tsar Ivan a time of troubles began? All this did not just result in some riots or other political events. All this resulted in a change in the ruling dynasty.