rus.car ivan grozni

7/29/2019 Rus.car Ivan GroznI

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Ivan IV Vasilyevich (Russian: ???? ??????????; 25 August 1530 28 March [O.S. 18 March] 1584),[1] known in English as Ivan the Terrible (Russian: About this sound???? ???????? (helpinfo), Ivan Grozny; lit. Fearsome), was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and Tsar of All the Russias from 1547 until his death. Hislong reign saw the conquest of the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia, transforming Russia into a multiethnic and multiconfessional state spanning almostone billion acres, approximately 4,046,856 km2 (1,562,500 sq mi).[2] Ivan managed countless changes in the progression from a medieval state to an empire and emerging regional power, and became the first ruler to be crowned as Tsar of Allthe Russias.

Historic sources present disparate accounts of Ivan's complex personality: he was described as intelligent and devout, yet given to rages and prone to episodicoutbreaks of mental illness. On one such outburst he beat and unpremeditatedly killed his groomed and chosen heir Ivan Ivanovich. This left the Tsardom to be passed to Ivan's younger son, the weak and intellectually disabled[3] Feodor Ivanovich. Ivan's legacy is complex: he was an able diplomat, a patron of arts and trade, founder of the Russia's first Print Yard, but he is also remembered for hisapparent paranoia and arguably harsh treatment of the nobility.Contents

1 Sobriquet2 Early life3 Domestic policy

3.1 Oprichnina3.2 Sack of Novgorod4 Foreign policy

4.1 Diplomacy and trade4.2 Conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan4.3 Russo-Turkish war4.4 Livonian war4.5 Crimean raids4.6 Conquest of Siberia

5 Personal life5.1 Children5.2 Arts5.3 Epistles

5.4 Death6 Legacy6.1 Cinema and literature

7 Ancestry8 See also9 References

9.1 Notes9.2 Bibliography9.3 General references

10 Further reading11 External links

Sobriquet

The English word terrible is usually used to translate the Russian word grozny in Ivan's nickname, but the modern English usage of terrible, with a pejorative connotation of bad or evil, does not precisely represent the intended meaning. The meaning of grozny is closer to the original usage of terribleinspiring fear orterror, dangerous (as in Old English in one's danger), formidable or threatening. Other translations were suggested, such as Ivan the Fearsome or Ivan the Formidable.[4][5][6]Early life


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Ivan was the son of Vasili III and his second wife, Elena Glinskaya. When Ivan was three years old, his father died from a boil and inflammation on his leg which developed into blood poisoning. Ivan was proclaimed the Grand Prince of Moscowat his father's request. At first, his mother Elena Glinskaya acted as regent,but she died of what many believe to be assassination by poison[7][8] when Ivanwas only eight years old. According to his own letters, Ivan, along with his younger brother Yuri, often felt neglected and offended by the mighty boyars from the Shuisky and Belsky families.

Ivan was crowned with Monomakh's Cap at the Cathedral of the Dormition at age 16on 16 January 1547. He was the first person to be crowned as "Tsar of All the Russias", hence, claiming the ancestry of Kievan Rus. Prior to that, rulers of Muscovy were crowned as Grand Princes, although Ivan III the Great, his grandfather, styled himself "tsar" in his correspondence.

By being crowned Tsar, Ivan was sending a message to the world and to Russia: hewas now the one and only supreme ruler of the country, and his will was not tobe questioned. "The new title symbolized an assumption of powers equivalent andparallel to those held by former Byzantine Emperor and the Tatar Khan, both known in Russian sources as Tsar. The political effect was to elevate Ivan's position."[9] The new title not only secured the throne, but it also granted Ivan a newdimension of power, one intimately tied to religion. He was now a "divine" leader appointed to enact God's will, "church texts described Old Testament kings as'Tsars' and Christ as the Heavenly Tsar."[10] The newly appointed title was the

n passed on from generation to generation, "succeeding Muscovite rulers...benefited from the divine nature of the power of the Russian monarch...crystallized during Ivan's reign."[11]Domestic policy

Despite calamities triggered by the Great Fire of 1547, the early part of Ivan'sreign was one of peaceful reforms and modernization. Ivan revised the law code(known as the sudebnik), created a standing army (the streltsy),[12] establishedthe Zemsky Sobor or assembly of the land, a public, consensus-building assembly, the council of the nobles (known as the Chosen Council), and confirmed the position of the Church with the Council of the Hundred Chapters, which unified therituals and ecclesiastical regulations of the entire country. He introduced local self-government to rural regions, mainly in the northeast of Russia, populated

by the state peasantry.

By Ivan's order in 1553 the Moscow Print Yard was established and the first printing press was introduced to Russia. The 1550s and 1560s saw the printing of several religious books in Russian. The new technology provoked discontent with traditional scribes, which led to the Print Yard being burned in an arson attack and the first Russian printers Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets being forced toflee from Moscow to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Nevertheless, printing of books resumed from 1568 onwards, with Andronik Timofeevich Nevezha and his son Ivannow heading the Print Yard.Portrait of Ivan IV by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1897 (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)

Ivan had St. Basil's Cathedral constructed in Moscow to commemorate the seizure

of Kazan. Legend has it that he was so impressed with the structure that he hadthe architect, Postnik Yakovlev, blinded so that he could never design anythingas beautiful again. In reality, Postnik Yakovlev went on to design more churchesfor Ivan and Kazan's Kremlin walls in the early 1560s, as well as the chapel over St. Basil's grave that was added to St. Basil's Cathedral in 1588, several years after Ivan's death. Although more than one architect was associated with this name and constructions, it is believed that the principal architect is one andthe same person.[13][14][15]

Other events of this period include the introduction of the first laws restricti


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ng the mobility of the peasants, which would eventually lead to serfdom.OprichninaMain article: OprichninaThe Oprichniki by Nikolai Nevrev. The painting shows the last minutes of boyarinFeodorov, arrested for treason. To mock his alleged ambitions on the Tsar's title, the nobleman was given Tsar's regals before execution.

The 1560s brought hardships to Russia that led to dramatic change of Ivan's policies. Russia was devastated by a combination of drought and famine, Polish-Lithuanian raids, Tatar invasions and the sea-trading blockade carried out by the Swedes, Poles and the Hanseatic League. His first wife, Anastasia Romanovna, died in 1560, and her death was suspected to be a poisoning. This personal tragedy deeply hurt Ivan and is thought to have affected his personality, if not his mentalhealth. At the same time, one of Ivan's advisors, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, defected to the Lithuanians, took command of the Lithuanian troops and devastated theRussian region of Velikiye Luki. The series of treasons made Ivan paranoically suspicious of nobility.

On December 3, 1564, Ivan IV departed Moscow for Aleksandrova Sloboda. From there he sent two letters in which he announced his abdication because of the alleged embezzlement and treason of the aristocracy and clergy. The boyar court was unable to rule in the absence of Ivan and feared the wrath of the Muscovite citizenry. A boyar envoy departed for Aleksandrova Sloboda to beg Ivan to return to the throne.[16] Ivan IV agreed to return on condition of being granted absolute po

wer. He demanded that he should be able to execute and confiscate the estates oftraitors without interference from the boyar council or church. Upon this, Ivandecreed the creation of the oprichnina.[17]

The oprichnina consisted of a separate territory within the borders of Russia, mostly in the territory of the former Novgorod Republic in the north. Ivan held exclusive power over the oprichnina territory. The Boyar Council ruled the zemshchina ('land'), the second division of the state. Ivan also recruited a personalguard known as the oprichniki. Originally it was a thousand strong.[18] The oprichniki were headed by Malyuta Skuratov. The oprichniki enjoyed social and economic privileges under the oprichnina. They owed their allegiance and status to Ivan, not to heredity or local bonds.[19]

The first wave of persecutions targeted primarily the princely clans of Russia,notably the influential families of Suzdal. Ivan executed, exiled, or forcibly tonsured prominent members of the boyar clans on questionable accusations of conspiracy. Among those executed were the Metropolitan Philip and the prominent warlord Alexander Gorbaty-Shuisky. In 1566 Ivan extended the oprichnina to eight central districts. Of the 12,000 nobles there, 570 became oprichniks, the rest wereexpelled.[20]

Under the new political system, the Oprichniki were given large estates, but unlike the previous landlords, could not be held accountable for their actions. These men, "took virtually all the peasants possessed, forcing them to pay 'in oneyear as much as [they] used to pay in ten.'"[21] This degree of oppression resulted in increasing cases of peasants fleeing which in turn led to a drop in the o

verall production. The price of grain increased by a factor of ten.Sack of NovgorodMain article: Massacre of Novgorod

Conditions under Oprichnina were worsened by the 1570 epidemics of plague that killed 10,000 people in Novgorod. In Moscow it killed 6001000 daily.[22] During the grim conditions of the epidemics, famine and ongoing Livonian war, Ivan grew suspicious that noblemen of the wealthy city of Novgorod were planning to defect,placing the city itself into the control of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1570 Ivan ordered the Oprichniki to raid the city. The Oprichniki burned and pilla


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ged Novgorod and the surrounding villages, and the city was never to regain itsformer prominence.[23]

Casualty figures vary greatly in different sources. The First Pskov Chronicle estimates the number of victims at 60,000.[23][24][25][25] Yet the official deathtoll named 1,500 of Novgorod's big people (nobility) and mentioned only about the same number of smaller people. Many modern researchers estimate the number ofvictims to range from 20003000 (after the famine and epidemics of 1560s the population of Novgorod most likely did not exceed 10,00020,000).[26] Many survivors were deported elsewhere.

Oprichnina did not live long after the sack of Novgorod. During the 1571-1572 Russo-Crimean war, oprichniks failed to prove themselves worthy against a regulararmy. In 1572, Ivan abolished the Oprichnina and disbanded his oprichniks.Foreign policyDiplomacy and tradeIvan the Terrible Showing His Treasures to Jerome Horsey by Alexander Litovchenko (1875)

In 1547 Hans Schlitte, the agent of Ivan, recruited craftsmen in Germany for work in Russia. However all these craftsmen were arrested in Lbeck at the request ofPoland and Livonia. The German merchant companies ignored the new port built byIvan on the river Narva in 1550 and continued to deliver goods in the Baltic ports owned by Livonia. Russia remained isolated from sea trade.

Ivan established very close ties with England. Russo-English relations can be traced to 1553, when Richard Chancellor sailed to the White Sea and continued overland to Moscow. Upon his return to England in 1555, the Muscovy Company was formed by himself, Sebastian Cabot, Sir Hugh Willoughby, and several London merchants. Ivan opened up the White Sea and the port of Arkhangelsk to the Company and granted the Company privilege of trading throughout his reign without paying thestandard customs fees.[27] Muscovy Company retained the monopoly in Russo-English trade until 1698.

With the use of English merchants, Ivan engaged in a long correspondence with Queen Elizabeth. While the queen focused on commerce, Ivan was more interested ina military alliance. During his troubled relations with the boyars, the tsar eve

n asked her for a guarantee to be granted asylum in England should his rule be jeopardised.

Ivan IV corresponded with Orthodox leaders overseas as well. In response to a letter of Patriarch Joachim of Alexandria asking the Tsar for financial assistancefor the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, which had suffered from the Turks,Ivan IV sent in 1558 a delegation to Egypt led by archdeacon Gennady, who, however, died in Constantinople before he could reach Egypt. From then on the embassy was headed by Smolensk merchant Vasily Poznyakov. Poznyakov's delegation visited Alexandria, Cairo and Sinai, brought the patriarch a fur coat and an icon sent by the Tsar and left an interesting account of its 2.5 years of travels.[28]Conquest of Kazan and AstrakhanMain article: Siege of Kazan (1552)

While Ivan IV was a minor, armies of the Kazan Khanate repeatedly raided the northeast of Russia,[29] In the 1530s the Crimean khan formed an offensive alliancewith Safa Giray of Kazan, his relative. When Safa Giray invaded Muscovy in December 1540, the Russians used Qasim Tatars to contain him. After his advance wasstalled near Murom, Safa Giray was forced to withdraw to his own borders.

These reverses undermined Safa Giray's authority in Kazan. A pro-Russian party,represented by Shahgali, gained enough popular support to make several attemptsto take over the Kazan throne. In 1545 Ivan IV mounted an expedition to the Volg


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a River to show his support for pro-Russian factions.Ivan IV under the walls of Kazan by Pyotr Korovin

In 1551 the tsar sent his envoy to the Nogai Horde and they promised to maintainneutrality during the impending war. The Ar begs and Udmurts submitted to Russian authority as well. In 1551 the wooden fort of Sviyazhsk was transported downthe Volga from Uglich all the way to Kazan. It was used as the Russian place d'armes during the decisive campaign of 1552.

On 16 June 1552 Ivan IV led a 150,000-strong Russian army towards Kazan. The last siege of the Tatar capital was commenced on 30 August. Under the supervision of Prince Alexander Gorbaty-Shuisky, the Russians used ram weapons, a battery-tower, mines, and 150 cannons. The Russians also had the advantage of efficient military engineers. The city's water supply was blocked and the walls were breached. Kazan finally fell on 2 October, its fortifications were razed, and much of the population massacred. About 60,000 - 100,000 Russian prisoners and slaves werereleased. The Tsar celebrated his victory over Kazan by building several churches with oriental features, most famously Saint Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow.

The fall of Kazan had as its primary effect the outright annexation of the Middle Volga. The Bashkirs accepted Ivan IV's authority two years later. In 1556 Ivanannexed the Astrakhan Khanate and destroyed the largest slave market on the river Volga. These conquests complicated the migration of the aggressive nomadic ho

rdes from Asia to Europe through Volga. As a result of the Kazan campaigns, Muscovy was transformed into the multinational and multi-faith state of Russia.Russo-Turkish warMain article: Russo-Turkish War (15681570)

In 1556, the khanate was conquered by Ivan the Terrible, who had a new fortressbuilt on a steep hill overlooking the Volga. In 1568 the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmet Pasa, who was the real power in the administration of the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim, initiated the first encounter between the Ottoman Empire and her future northern rival. The results presaged the many disasters to come. A plan to unite the Volga and Don by a canal was detailed in Constantinople and in the summer of 1569 a large force under Kasim Pasa of 1,500 Janissaries, 2000 Spakhs, and few thousand Azaps, and Akincis, were sent to lay siege to Astrakhan and

begin the canal works, while an Ottoman fleet besieged Azov.

Early in 1570, the ambassadors of Ivan IV of Russia concluded at Constantinoplea treaty which restored friendly relations between the Sultan and the Tsar.Livonian warMain article: Livonian War

In an attempt to gain access to Baltic sea and its major trade routes, Ivan launched an ultimately unsuccessful 24 years Livonian war of seaward expansion to the west and finding himself fighting the Swedes, Lithuanians, Poles and the Livonian Teutonic Knights.[icon] This section requires expansion. (January 2012)Ioannes Basilius Magnus Imperator Russiae, Dux Moscoviae by Abraham Ortelius (15

74)

Having rejected peace proposals from his enemies, Ivan IV found himself in a difficult position by 1579. The displaced refugees fleeing the war compounded the effects of the simultaneous drought, and exacerbated war engendered epidemics, causing much loss of life.

Altogether the prolonged war had nearly destroyed the economy, Oprichnina had thoroughly disrupted the government, while The Grand Principality of Lithuania hadunited with The Kingdom of Poland and acquired an energetic leader, Stefan Bato


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ry, who was supported by Russia's southern enemy, the Ottoman Empire (1576). Ivan's realm was now being squeezed by two of the great powers of the day.

After negotiations with Ivan failed, Batory launched a series of offensives against Muscovy in the campaign seasons of 15791581, trying to cut The Kingdom of Livonia from Muscovite territories. During his first offensive in 1579, he retook Polotsk with 22,000 men. During the second, in 1580, he took Velikie Luki with a29,000-strong force. Finally, he began the Siege of Pskov in 1581 with a 100,000-strong army. Narva in Estonia was reconquered by Sweden in 1581.

Unlike Sweden and Poland, Denmark under Frederick II had trouble continuing thefight against Muscovy. He came to an agreement with John III of Sweden, in 1580,transferring the Danish titles of Livonia to him. Muscovy recognized Polish-Lithuanian control of Livonia only in 1582. After Magnus von Lyffland, brother of Fredrick II and former ally of Ivan, died in 1583, Poland invaded his territoriesin The Duchy of Courland and Frederick II decided to sell his rights of inheritance. Except for the island of Saaremaa, Denmark was out of the Baltic by 1585.Crimean raidsMain article: Russo-Crimean Wars

In late years of Ivan's reign southern borders of Muscovy were disturbed by Crimean Tatars. Khan Devlet I Giray of Crimea repeatedly raided the Moscow region. In 1571, the 40,000-strong Crimean and Turkish army launched a large-scale raid.Due to ongoing Livonian war, Moscow's garrison was as small as 6,000, and could

not even delay the Tatar approach. Unresisted, Devlet devastated unprotected towns and villages around Moscow and set Moscow on fire. Historians estimate the number of casualties of the fire from 10,000 to as many 80,000 people.

To buy peace from Devlet Giray, Ivan was forced to relinquish his rights on Astrakhan in favor of Crimean Khanate (although this proposed transfer was only a diplomatic maneuver and was never actually complete). This defeat angered Ivan. Upon his orders, between 1571 and 1572 preparations were made. In addition to Zasechnaya cherta, innovative fortifications were set beyond the river Oka that defined the border.

Next year Devlet launched another raid on Moscow, now with 120,000-strong[30] horde, equipped with cannons and reinforced by Turkish janissaries. On 26 July 157

2 the horde crossed the Oka River near Serpukhov, destroyed the Russian vanguardof 200 noblemen and advanced towards Moscow.

The Russian army, led by Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky, was half the size, estimatedat between 60,000-70,000 men, yet it was an experienced streltsi army, equippedwith modern firearms and gulyay-gorods. On 30 July the armies clashed near theLopasnya River in what will be known as the Battle of Molodi, that continued formore than a week. The outcome was decisive Russian victory. The Crimean horde was defeated so thoroughly that both the Ottoman Sultan and the Crimean khan, hisvassal, had to give up their ambitious plans of northward expansion into Russia.Conquest of SiberiaMain article: Russian conquest of Siberia

During Ivan's reign, Russia started a large-scale exploration and colonization of Siberia. In 1555, shortly after the conquest of Kazan, Siberian khan Yadegar and Nogai khan Ismail pledged their allegiance to Ivan, in hope that he would help them against their opponents. However, Yadegar failed to gather the full sum of tribute he proposed to the tsar, so Ivan did nothing to save his inefficient vassal. in 1563 Yadegar was overthrown and killed by khan Kuchum, who denied anytribute to Moscow.

In 1558 Ivan gave the Stroganov merchant family patent for colonizing "the abund


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ant region along the Kama River", and in 1574 lands over the Ural Mountains along the rivers Tura and Tobol. They also received permission to build forts alongthe Ob and Irtysh rivers. Around 1577, the Stroganovs hired the Cossack leader Yermak Timofeyevich to protect their lands from attacks of the Siberian Khan Kuchum.

In 1580 Yermak started his conquest of Siberia. With some 540 Cossacks he started to penetrate territories that were tributary to Kuchum. Yermak pressured and persuaded the various family-based tribes to change their loyalties and become tributaries of Russia. Some agreed voluntarily, under better terms than with Kuchum, other were forced. He also established distant forts in the newly conquered lands. The campaign was successful, and cossacks managed to defeat the Siberian army in the Battle of Chuvash Cape, but Yermak was still in need for reinforcements. He sent an envoy to Ivan the Terrible, with a message that proclaimed Yermak-conquered Siberia a part of Russia, to the dismay of the Stroganovs, who planned to keep Siberia for themselves. Ivan agreed to reinforce the cossacks with hisstreltsi. Yermak's conquest expanded Ivan's empire to the east and allowed himto style himself "Tsar of Siberia" in the tsar's very last years.Personal life[icon] This section requires expansion. (January 2012)ChildrenTsar Ivan IV admires his sixth wife Vasilisa Melentyeva. 1875 painting by Grigory Semyonovich Sedov (18361886)

By Anastasia Romanovna:

Tsarevna Anna Ivanovna (10 August 1548 20 July 1550)Tsarevna Maria Ivanovna (17 March 1551 young)Tsarevich Dmitri Ivanovich (October 1552 26 June 1553)Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich (28 March 1554 19 November 1581)Tsarevna Eudoxia Ivanovna (26 February 1556 June 1558)Tsar Feodor I of Russia (31 May 1557 6 January 1598)

By Maria Temryukovna:

Tsarevich Vasili Ivanovich (21 March 1563 3 May 1563)

By Maria Nagaya:

Tsarevich Dmitri Ivanovich (19 October 1582 15 May 1591)

In 1581 Ivan beat his pregnant daughter-in-law for wearing immodest clothing, and this may have caused a miscarriage. His oldest son, also named Ivan, upon learning of this, engaged in a heated argument with his father, resulting in Ivan striking his son in the head with his pointed staff, causing his son's death. Thisevent is depicted in the famous painting by Ilya Repin, Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on Friday, 16 November 1581 better known as Ivan the Terrible killing his son.Arts

Ivan was a poet, a composer of considerable talent, and supported the arts. HisOrthodox liturgical hymn, "Stichiron No. 1 in Honor of St. Peter", and fragmentsof his letters were put into music by Soviet composer Rodion Shchedrin. The recording was released in 1988, marking the millennium of Christianity in Russia, and was the first Soviet-produced CD.[31][32][33]EpistlesIvan's repentance: he asks a father superior of the Pskovo-Pechorsky Monastery to let him take the tonsure at his monastery. Painting by Klavdiy Lebedev.

D.S. Mirsky called Ivan "a pamphleteer of genius".[34] The epistles attributed t


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o him are the masterpieces of old Russian (perhaps all Russian) political journalism. They may be too full of texts from the Scriptures and the Fathers, and their Church Slavonic is not always correct, but they are full of cruel irony, expressed in pointedly forcible terms.

The shameless bully and the great polemicist are seen together in a flash when he taunts the runaway prince Kurbsky with the question: "If you are so sure of your righteousness, why did you run away and not prefer martyrdom at my hands?" Such strokes were well calculated to drive his correspondent into a rage. "The part of the cruel tyrant elaborately upbraiding an escaped victim while he continues torturing those in his reach may be detestable, but Ivan plays it with truly Shakespearian breadth of imagination".[35] These letters are often the only existing source on Ivan's personality and provide crucial information on his reign, but Harvard professor Edward Keenan has argued that these letters are 17th century forgeries. This contention, however, has not been widely accepted, and most other scholars, such as John Fennell and Ruslan Skrynnikov continued to argue fortheir authenticity. Recent archival discoveries of 16th century copies of the letters strengthen the argument for their authenticity.[36][37]

Besides his letters to Kurbsky he wrote other satirical invectives to men in hispower. The best is his letter to the abbot of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery,where he pours out all the poison of his grim irony on the unascetic life of the boyars, shorn monks, and those exiled by his order. His picture of their luxurious life in the citadel of ascetism is a masterpiece of trenchant sarcasm.

DeathDeath of Ivan the Terrible by Ivan Bilibin (1935)

Ivan died from a stroke while playing chess with Bogdan Belsky[38] on 28 March [O.S. 18 March] 1584.[38] Upon Ivan's death, the ravaged kingdom was left to hisunfit and childless middle son Feodor. Feodor died childless in 1598, ushering in the Time of Troubles.LegacyForensic facial reconstruction of Ivan IV by Mikhail GerasimovIvan's throne (ivory, metal, wood)

In the centuries following Ivan's death, historians developed different theoriesto better understand his reign, but independent of the perspective through whic

h one chooses to approach this, it cannot be denied that Ivan the Terrible changed Russian history and continues to live on in popular imagination. His political legacy completely altered the Russian governmental structure; his economic policies ultimately contributed to the end of the Rurik Dynasty, and his social legacy lives on in unexpected places.

Arguably Ivan's most important legacy can be found in the political changes he enacted in Russia. In the words of historian Alexander Yanov, "Ivan the Terribleand the origins of the modern Russian political structure [are]... indissolublyconnected." [39]

A title alone may hold symbolic power, but Ivan's political revolution went further, in the process significantly altering Russia's political structure. The cre

ation of the Oprichnina marked something completely new, a break from the past that served to diminish the power of the boyars and create a more centralized government. "...the revolution of Tsar Ivan was an attempt to transform an absolutist political structure into a despotism... the Oprichnina proved to be not onlythe starting point, but also the nucleus of autocracy which determined... the entire subsequent historical process in Russia."[40] Ivan created a way to bypassthe Mestnichestvo system and elevate the men among the gentry to positions of power, thus suppressing the aristocracy that failed to support him.[41] Part of this revolution included altering the structure of local governments to include, "a combination of centrally appointed and locally elected officials. Despite late


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r modifications, this form of local administration proved to be functional and durable." [11] Ivan successfully cemented autocracy and a centralized governmentin Russia, in the process also establishing "a centralized apparatus of political control in the form of his own guard."[42] The idea of a guard as a means of political control became so ingrained in Russian history that it can be traced toPeter the Great, Vladimir Lenin, who "... [provided] Russian autocracy with itsCommunist incarnation", and Joseph Stalin, who "[placed] the political police over the party." Yanov concludes that "Czar Ivan's monstrous invention [i.e. theguard] has thus dominated the entire course of Russian history."

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