IVAN IV, the TERRIBLE
### I. Ivan the Terrible at the corpse of the son he had killed
Painting by Julius Sittenfeld (Berlin) after the original by V. G. Svarc
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IVAN IV, the TERRIBLE. — Born in 1533, died in 1584, he was Macarius (v.) in 1547 without prior permission from the Byzantine patriarch, who only in 1562 recognized the validity of his coronation. Ivan’s reign marked the acme of medieval Russia under the influence of the school of Joseph of Volokolamsk. The *Domostroi* (a code regulating the daily life of laypeople) and the *Stoglav* (which does so for the clergy), both published under Ivan, became unchallenged norms of life.
Ivan also consolidated the then-current state laws into a new codification known as the *Sudebnik* (1549). During his reign, a new type of chronicle was also published: the *Book of Degrees*, which traced the lineage of the ruling family through the centuries. Ivan introduced the art of printing to Russia, but due to popular resistance, he later dismissed the printer, who emigrated to Poland.
Ivan unconditionally supported his metropolitan’s religious initiatives. He successfully debated a notable Polish Protestant, Rokita.
In the realm of sacred art, Ivan commissioned two Russian architects, Barmat and Postnik, to build the Church of the Intercession (later known as St. Basil’s Cathedral) on Red Square in front of the Moscow Kremlin, another similar church in Sviyazhsk near Kazan, and a third in Vologda. To adorn his palace and these churches, he employed painters who, in a new style no longer guided by Platonic conceptions, created frescoes and icons.
Ivan did not lose his religious sense even amid his terrible ferocity; he was aware of his wrongdoing and, before his death, attempted in some way to atone for his misdeeds.
From a young age, he felt the "grandeur of power": even his cruelties and crimes, rather than reflecting the whims of an autocrat, stemmed from the resolve of a leader determined to achieve his goals at any cost. Notorious was his merciless repression of the boyars (a social class he feared for their intrigues and plots): entire families were destroyed, regardless of age or gender. Many nobles managed to flee, some joining the Polish-Lithuanian side, including Prince Kurbsky, who later engaged in a polemical correspondence with his former sovereign. This exchange was significant in the development of Russian literature and politically meaningful, as it foreshadowed key themes in the ideological struggle between autocracy and a vague "liberalism" with noble undertones.
Militarily, Ivan IV achieved great victories against the Tatars, conquering Kazan and Astrakhan. In a way, he anticipated Peter the Great’s policies with his struggle to conquer the Baltic lands (against the Swedes and Poles): notable early successes in Livonia were later followed by setbacks. The wars and the struggle against the boyars gravely weakened the state. Not long after his death, Russia entered the so-called "Time of Troubles." Ivan has greatly interested historians, novelists, and poets. In the U.S.S.R., his figure has been largely "revalorized": he is exalted as an opponent of the boyars in the name of state power and as a fighter against the Baltic Germans and Swedes in the name of Russia’s greatness.