Why was Ivan the Terrible slandered?
Viktor Vasnetsov “Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible”, 1897
Great People's Sovereign
Modern historical science, if researchers are not interested in denigrating Emperor Ivan Vasiliev, quite easily refutes the accusations brought against him as unreliable or extremely exaggerated. Facts show that he was one of the most effective and successful rulers in the entire history of Rus-Russia.
The Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus' Ivan IV was one of the most educated people of his time, he had a phenomenal memory and erudition. The Tsar contributed to the organization of book printing in Moscow and the construction of St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square. He pursued a large-scale urban planning policy, built cities and fortresses.
He carried out a number of successful reforms to centralize and strengthen the state, successfully fought against specific separatism (oprichnina), was actually the first to create a regular army and made an attempt to create the Baltic Navy. In addition to strengthening the “vertical of power”, he created a “horizontal” - zemstvo, community administration. It was the zemstvos created by Ivan the Terrible that saved the Russian state during the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century.
As a result of several victorious wars and campaigns, he doubled the territory of the state, annexing the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, part of the North Caucasus and Western Siberia to the Russian kingdom. The problem of security of the eastern borders of the state was solved. In fact, under him, the Russian kingdom became the sacred heir of two great lost empires - Byzantium and the Golden Horde.
Thus, it was Ivan IV who laid the foundations of the Russian Empire, its power and wealth.
Another interesting fact is that Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich is one of the few sovereigns who has entered the people's memory. The people preserved the bright memory of Ivan IV as the Tsar-Father, the defender of Bright Rus' both from external enemies and from internal ones - traitor boyars, thieves and oppressors. People even revered Ivan the Terrible as a revered saint. Several ancient icons of Ivan the Terrible, where he is depicted with a halo, have survived to the present day.
In 1621, the holiday of “the discovery of the body of King John” was established (June 10 according to the Julian calendar), and in the surviving calendar of the Koryazhemsky monastery Ivan IV is mentioned as a great martyr. That is, even then the Church confirmed the fact of the murder of the sovereign. This was done by Patriarch Filaret (Romanov), who was the father of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich.
Grigory Sedov “Ivan the Terrible and Malyuta Skuratov.” 1871
The Birth of Black Mythology
Foreigners were the first to invent terrible tales about the great king (Who created the “black” myth about the “bloody tyrant” Ivan the Terrible), many of whom themselves served Russia, but abroad were connected to the information war that began during the Livonian War. There were many diplomats and ambassadors among them who visited Moscow.
We are currently seeing an example of such a campaign, taking into account the greatly increased possibilities for brainwashing. Any attempt by Russia to resolve issues on the world stage in the interests of national security causes a wave of hysteria and panic in the West.
“The Russians are coming” is far from a modern invention. It was Ivan IV’s attempt to return the previously lost northwestern regions and access to the Baltic (Varangian) Sea to the Russian kingdom that led to the first large-scale information war against Rus' and its leader. The then fifth column, like Prince Andrei Kurbsky, also took part in this war. The terrible and righteous king was accused of all sins - from mass terror to the murder of his son, sodomy and orgies.
This is how the West created the image of a bloody demon king, practically the governor of the dark forces on earth. It’s interesting that he still dominates the information field there. The most successful Russian tsar, who has done a lot for the prosperity of the state and the people, in the information field of the West is a tyrant, a ghoul killer.
Patriarch Nikon tried to suppress the official veneration of the great king, who became famous for splitting the Church and modernizing it according to European (Greek) standards, emasculating the spirit of asceticism and righteousness from it. In essence, Nikon became a liquidator who destroyed the principles that Sergius of Radonezh brought. Nikon was not satisfied with the authority of Ivan the Terrible, since he wanted to put his status above the royal one, becoming an “Orthodox pope.”
However, then these attempts were not crowned with success. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich deeply revered Ivan the Terrible, moreover, Nikon’s activities led to turmoil, and he was unable to complete his subversive work. Just during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, by his direct order, the icon painter Simon Ushakov updated the icon of the “blessed and Christ-loving, God-crowned Great Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke John Vasilyevich” in the Faceted Chamber. This image was created during the reign of Fyodor Ivanovich.
Tsar Peter I highly regarded Ivan the Terrible and considered himself his follower. Pyotr Alekseevich said:
“This sovereign is my predecessor and example. I always took him as a model in prudence and courage, but I could not yet equal him. "
Empress Catherine the Great also assessed the reign of Ivan IV positively. She defended the memory of the great king from attacks.
Ivan groznyj. Painting by Jan Matejko, 1875
Its development
In addition to external enemies, Ivan Vasilyevich also had internal enemies, who were the ideological heirs of traitors and thieves, with whom the great sovereign fought mercilessly. The “strong ones,” whose ambitions and appetites were curtailed by Ivan Vasilyevich, had heirs.
When Russia under Peter I again launched an offensive in Europe, trying to regain access to the Baltic and Black Seas, a new wave of information warfare arose in the West. They immediately started a campaign about the “Russian threat.” And to consolidate the image of “terrible Russian barbarians” who want to enslave all of Europe, they dug out from the archives the old slander about Ivan the Terrible and refreshed it.
The next peak of interest in the “bloody” king came with the French Revolution.
This interest seems a little strange. The French revolutionaries literally drowned the country in blood. Over the course of several days of “popular terror”, thousands of people were beaten and torn to pieces in Paris. People were beheaded in guillotines, drowned alive on barges, hanged and shot with grapeshot. At the same time, they inflated myths about Ivan the Terrible and were indignant at his cruelty. Apparently, for some reason the Russian Tsar did not please the French revolutionaries, many of whom emerged from secret lodges and were Satanists.
From France, slander began to reach Russia.
The first to criticize Ivan the Terrible was the freemason Radishchev. Gradually, the position of Westerners in Russia strengthened. And a great admirer of the French Revolution, court writer Nikolai Karamzin, took up the history of Russia. Karamzin’s work was picked up by a whole galaxy of liberal historians, publicists, writers and writers. They so successfully shaped public opinion in the Russian Empire that in 1862, when the epoch-making monument “Millennium of Rus'” was created in Veliky Novgorod, the figure of Ivan Vasilyevich did not appear on it.
Did not deserve! The man who annexed the Volga route to Russia, solved the problem of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, turned our country into a great power (empire) is absent from the monument. Although there are also third-rate figures like Anastasia Romanova (the first wife of Ivan the Terrible) and Marfa Boretskaya, who represented the party ready to annex Novgorod to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
It is curious that the Russian aristocracy and the liberal intelligentsia of the common ranks at that time acted on the same front, not accepting the merits of the formidable tsar. And communists, like Marx and Engels, had great antipathy towards Ivan the Terrible. This is not surprising. Engels and Marx were notable Russophobes.
Some enlightenment regarding the figure of Ivan Vasilyevich appeared during the reign of Alexander III. At this time, the Russian Empire took a course towards strengthening patriotic, traditional values, and a policy of Russification was purposefully pursued. A number of works appeared that rejected the slander of the liberal intelligentsia.
In the 1920s, a critical point of view on the personality of Ivan the Terrible prevailed. Only in the 1930s, when, at the behest of Joseph Stalin, the process of reviving a great power and cleansing the country of the fifth column began, Ivan Vasilyevich was rehabilitated.
After the end of the Stalin era, a wave of revelations of the supposed “horrors” of the reign of Ivan the Terrible and “oprichnina terror” began again.
During the years of perestroika and the victory of capitalism, Ivan the Terrible also aroused hatred with his activities. Rulers and fighters against thieves and traitors were again out of fashion.
Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan November 16, 1581. Ilya Repin, 1885
Lies about oprichnina terror
In the West, a black myth was created about the “oprichnina terror” during the reign of Ivan Vasilyevich. He was actively supported by supporters of Western liberalism in Russia itself. Allegedly, the mad tsar created a terrorist organization that drenched the entire Russian kingdom in blood and destroyed thousands, tens of thousands of innocent people. A simply demonic figure of the Russian Tsar was created.
In many ways, this myth was created because of Ivan Vasilyevich himself, who had a conscience and suffered from the fact that politics leads to victims. He publicly repented. By his will, the Synodik of the Disgraced was compiled - a synodik for church commemoration of persons who suffered from the oprichnina.
However, historians have conducted a thorough study and, based on documentary sources, report that 3-4 thousand were executed during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Moreover, Ivan Vasilyevich ruled for a very long time - from 1533 (he was crowned king in 1547) to 1584. This clearly does not amount to “mass terror”.
Western rulers of the same era could kill, execute, burn, and drown more people in a month, a week, or even a day.
Ermak's ambassadors before Ivan the Terrible. Hood. Stanislav Rosvorovsky, 1884The truth about the “enlightened and civilized” West
During the same historical era, the “enlightened” rulers of the Western powers and the “merciful” Vatican killed hundreds of thousands and even millions of people in the most brutal manner. Moreover, they exterminated both strangers and their own population.
The clergy and the Inquisition “in the name of Christ” killed hundreds of thousands of “witches and witchers.” The crusaders, in the name of God, wiped out entire cities of “heretics” or “infidels” from the face of the earth.
The British authorities and nobles exterminated almost the entire peasant class during the enclosure - “the sheep began to devour people.” The peasants were simply driven off the land, doomed to starvation, vagrancy or slavery in factories. At the same time, they adopted the most severe “bloody” laws against vagrants. The British several times turned Ireland into a “desert” - a land without people, slaughtering the local natives.
The Spanish conquistadors destroyed unique Indian civilizations in Central and South America. Their achievements were looted and burned. Thousands of Indians were executed and turned into slaves. Vast territories were cleared of the native population.
In the same spirit, the Spaniards cleared out the Philippines.
At that time, the Philippines stood at the level of the cultures of Indochina. Rich and beautiful cities flourished. Many peoples had their own written language. Even women were literate, that is, in terms of education and culture, the Filipino natives were much higher than the Europeans. There were huge libraries (the books here were made of palm leaves and wood).
There was developed trade with China. The Philippines maintained contact with the Arab world and Turkey. But the islands were divided into Hindu and Muslim principalities, which were at enmity with each other. This helped the Spaniards capture the islands.
The most important role in the capture was played by Christian missionaries, who played the role of scouts, propagandists, broke the will of local leaders to resist, and founded outposts, which soon turned into fortresses. An ancient and developed culture was destroyed.
Most local residents gradually even lost their native languages, switching to the language of the occupiers. The archipelago and its peoples have forgotten their native names.
Actually, European predators prepared the same fate for the ancient Japanese civilization.
Christian missionaries and merchants had already prepared the ground for the occupation. The country is mired in civil strife. There was a fifth column in the form of Japanese Christians. Japan was saved by Prince Oda Nobunaga, who devoted his entire life to unifying the country. Relying on the outstanding commanders Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he led the struggle for the unification of the country.
These talented leaders were able to rein in large feudal lords, eliminated the fifth column, banned Christianity and isolated the country from foreigners. As a result, Japan retained its independence, and we can now admire its unique culture.
Spain distinguished itself with yet another massacre – this time in Western Europe itself. Its rich province, the Netherlands, rebelled. The Spaniards unleashed a bloody reign of terror, trying to drown the rebellion in blood. However, neighboring countries such as England were interested in separating the Netherlands from Spain, so the rebels eventually achieved partial success.
The war was characterized by extreme cruelty. The rebels were hanged, burned and chopped down. All residents of the Netherlands were called “unburnt heretics.”
At the same time, people there were slaughtered in entire cities. So, in November 1572, the Spanish army destroyed all the townspeople of the city of Zutphen, and in December, Spanish soldiers massacred almost all the inhabitants of Narden. In 1573, Haarlem suffered the same fate. 20 thousand people were killed, some of them were drowned in the river.
It must be said that the “Spanish” army was only in name. There were detachments from Italy (there was no single Italian nation yet), various kinds of Germans and Albanian mercenaries, etc. The rebels also carried out terror against officials and supporters of the king.
Therefore, extreme cruelty and mercilessness were then characteristic of all residents of “civilized” Europe.
During this period, Germany had just moved away from the split between Catholics and Reformed (Protestants), when they there, too, enthusiastically slaughtered each other. From the terrible Peasant War of 1524–1526, when the mob slaughtered and tore apart the nobles and the rich, and hired soldiers cleared entire cities, districts and regions of people.
But, apparently, life was boring for Europeans without executions and massacres, so a witch hunt began in Germany. The “Great Hunt” began in the mid-16th century and lasted approximately two centuries. Tens of thousands of people were brutally killed.
At the same time, Eastern Europe almost did not experience this terrible process.
Witchcraft hysteria practically did not affect the Orthodox Russian kingdom. A woman in Rus' was not viewed as an inherently sinful being.
In Western Europe, it was enough for a woman to stand out from the crowd with something - intelligence, independence, beauty, red hair, a birthmark, etc. etc. to get to the fire. It is clear that such processes opened up space for sadists who could show their qualities there officially.
Those who had wealth were also accused. They snitched on neighbors they liked, women who did not show favoritism to a suitor, and others. So informers, judges and executioners received additional income there. “Enlightened” Europeans went to brutal executions as if it were a holiday, with their families and children.
A brutal, uncompromising religious war was going on in France. Only during the so-called On St. Bartholomew's Night (the night of August 24, 1572), several thousand people were killed in Paris alone. Many more were killed across the country that day and in the days that followed. A wave of violence in the capital led to a bloodbath throughout the country.
Thus, more people were brutally killed in Paris in one day than during the entire reign of Tsar Ivan the Terrible.
If in the Russian kingdom of Ivan Vasilyevich 3-4 thousand people were executed (perhaps slightly more), then in the main powers of Western Europe (Spain, France, the Netherlands and England) about 300-400 thousand people were killed at the same time. Moreover, under Ivan the Terrible, traitor boyars, thieves, and criminals were executed, while in Western Europe the overwhelming majority of those killed were innocent victims.
Therefore, our supposed “bloody tyrant” Ivan IV, in comparison with their Philip II, Henry VIII, Charles IX and other Western rulers, who in Europe are by no means considered “bloody monsters”, is just a petty hooligan or even a righteous man. In the West, their murderous rulers are not considered criminals; moreover, they are even considered great statesmen and are role models.
A typical example of “double standards” of Western propaganda!
At the same time, Ivan the Terrible was clearly a man of fine spiritual organization.
The tsar himself accused himself “of filth, of murder... of hatred, of all kinds of villainy,” of being an “unclean and nasty murderer.” He donated large amounts of money for the “remembrance of the souls” of those executed. Subsequently, this self-criticism was used by critics of the great sovereign as an argument for his “bloodiness.” Like, since he recognizes himself as a murderer, that means that’s the way it is.
No ruler in Western Europe would even dream of repenting like that. They, while killing, slept peacefully.
This is an excellent example of the difference between the spiritual matrices of Russian and Western civilizations.
Alexander Litovchenko. Ivan the Terrible shows his treasures to the English ambassador Horsey. 1875
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