The Myth of "Pitch Darkness"

A. Vasnetsov. "The Oprichniks Enter the City" (sketch of the scenery for the opera "The Oprichnik" by P. I. Tchaikovsky), 1911
Introduction of the oprichnina
On December 3, 1564, Russian Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich and his family suddenly left the capital on a pilgrimage. The Tsar 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 the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda.
On January 3, 1565, he announced his abdication in favor of his eldest son, the young Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich, due to his "anger" at the boyars, churchmen, governors, and clerks. The people in the capital rebelled against the boyars' "treason." The Boyar Duma asked the Tsar to return to the throne. A delegation headed by Archbishop Pimen arrived in the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda and persuaded the Tsar to return to the throne.
In early February 1565, Ivan IV returned to Moscow from the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. On February 3, he announced that he was once again taking over the government, so that he would be free to execute traitors, impose disgrace on them, and deprive them of their property.without bothering or worrying" from the clergy and establish "oprichnina" in the state. Everything that was not included in this oprichnina was zemshchina, headed by its own zemstvo boyars and even (in 1575-1576) a special zemstvo tsar.
According to the chronicler:
The word "oprichnina" comes from the Old Russian "oprich", which means "outside", "outside", "separately", "beyond", "special", "except". Another ancient name for the oprichniks, "kromeshniks", comes from the word "except".
During the time of Ivan Vasilyevich, the oprichniks were called "the sovereign's people" The word "oprichnik" began to be used thanks to the efforts of N. M. Karamzin (How Karamzin distorted Russian history) at the beginning of the 19th century and became a household name for those who fought against revolutionaries with cruel measures.

The Moscow state during the oprichnina era. The lands taken into the oprichnina are shaded. Source: "K stories Oprichnina of the 1897th century" / S. F. Platonov. St. Petersburg, XNUMX
Oprichnina order
Oprichniki were selected from land-poor nobles. In 1565, "1000 heads" of nobles were selected who had severed all ties with the zemshchina (owners and estates that were not part of the oprichnina).
The oprichnina was established by the tsar on the model of a monastic order, which was directly subordinate to him. Its spiritual center became the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda.
The initial number of oprichniks was one thousand people. Then the oprichnik staff expanded to 6 thousand people, oprichnik voivodes and heads appeared. The oprichniks' clothing resembled monks (black skufia and cassocks), but unlike them, they had the right to wear and use weaponEach oprichnik took an oath of allegiance to the tsar and pledged not to communicate with the zemstvo people.
The oprichniks were divided into the sovereign's regiment (guard) and four orders - Bedchamber, Armor (weapons), Stables and Food (food).
The lands of the oprichnina belonged personally to the sovereign and his people. The most developed trade and economic centers and lands that had previously belonged to the aristocracy went to them. Soon, up to half of the state's territory was included in the oprichnina.
As a result, the tsar suppressed the political opposition (including economically), liquidated the remnants of the appanage squads and created a military support for himself in the form of service people who were completely dependent on the mercy of the sovereign.
Ivan the Terrible also supplemented the "vertical" of power with a "horizontal" - a system of zemstvo self-government. Its peak was the zemstvo councils, where delegates from different cities and estates decided the most important issues. Such a policy was supported by the majority of the state's population. This gave Rus' greater stability and allowed it to survive during the years of the future Time of Troubles.
Soviet historian A. A. Zimin noted in his monograph “The Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible”:
The king's goal was
This policy was supported by broad sections of the nobility, the townspeople and the people as a whole.
Therefore, in folklore, the figure of Ivan the Terrible is assessed positively. The Tsar was the defender of the people against the nobility and external enemies.

Mikhail Avilov. Oprichniki in Novgorod
The Myth of the Bloody Tsar
During the Livonian War, a powerful information campaign was launched against Russia. It was then that the main methods and images (the so-called "black myths") were formed, which the opponents of the Russian people have used for centuries, right up to the present time (Who created the “black” myth about the “bloody tyrant” Ivan the Terrible).
Ivan the Terrible, through the efforts of Western propaganda and then local Russian accomplices, was turned into one of the most "terrible and bloody" figures in world and Russian history. And it is not surprising. It is difficult to find a person in Russian history who would have done so much for our people. Thus, the territory of the Russian state almost doubled.
For the masters of the West, Ivan Vasilyevich is a terrible and wise enemy. Hence the hatred towards him, the slander. Although in comparison with the Western rulers of the same era, who literally drowned their and neighboring countries, cities in blood, and who are considered great and wise in Western countries, Ivan the Terrible is a great humanist. After all, according to the calculations of Russian historians, he repressed only a few thousand people. And he suffered from this, his conscience tormented him.
But Western rulers, who had tens and hundreds of thousands of dead on their account, did not suffer from this. In particular, Catholic Rome, which initiated the Inquisition courts, executions of "heretics", the genocide of the Moors, Jews, which began the Crusades and "witch hunts", did not doubt their actions. As did the English kings, who during the enclosure exterminated almost all of their peasantry.
Ivan the Terrible was called a "tyrant" in the West, who bathed in the blood of his subjects and exterminated the "pillars" of the Russian state. This idea was spread among the gentry, in European courts, that is, to individuals and groups interested in weakening the Russian state. They also sent it to Russian nobles to lure them to the side of the West, to choose "freedom" instead of "slavery" and "dictatorship".
This method has survived to this day: now it is designated by the term "European choice". They say that in Russia there is an eternal "dictatorship", "totalitarianism", "imperial habits", "prison of nations", "Great Russian chauvinism". And in Europe - "freedom", "human rights" and "tolerance". Also in the West, the image of "cruel, aggressive Russian barbarians, slavishly submissive to their tyrant king" (the basis has been preserved to this day).
For example, when in 1561 a leaflet appeared with the following title:
Thus, the myth of “Germany raped by the Russians” in 1945 is only a repetition of an earlier image.
Ivan the Terrible was compared to the pharaoh who persecuted the Jews, Nebuchadnezzar and Herod. He was called a tyrant. It was then that the word "tyrant" began to be used to describe all the rulers of Russia in principle who were not liked by Westerners (that is, who defended the interests of Russia and the Russian people). In the West, the myth was launched about Ivan the Terrible killing his own son.
Saxon Elector Augustus I was the author of a famous maxim, the meaning of which was that the Russian danger was comparable only to the Turkish one. Ivan the Terrible was depicted in the dress of a Turkish sultan. They wrote about his harem of dozens of wives, and he allegedly killed those who became boring.

Ivan the Terrible as a tyrant and executioner. Woodcut from the edition: Georg von Hoff, Erschreckliche greuliche und unerhorte Tyranney Iwan Wasilowitz, 1581
Thus, the foundations of the information war that was waged during the Livonian War against Russia, the Russians and Ivan the Terrible have survived for centuries. As soon as Russia begins to defend its interests, the West immediately raises a new wave about the "Russian threat" and the Russian tyrant tsar. At the same time, in Russia itself, this myth has taken root in the pro-Western elite and intelligentsia.
Beginning with N. M. Karamzin and subsequent liberal Russian historians and publicists, the myth of the "bloody murderer tsar" was formed in Russia. It was so strong that Ivan the Terrible, one of the most striking and great figures in Russian history, was not included in the epochal monument "Millennium of Rus'" (1862).
In the future, this negative assessment of Ivan the Terrible continued to dominate. At the same time, the Russian aristocracy and liberal intelligentsia were complete like-minded people of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Only under Tsar Alexander III, when a course was taken to strengthen patriotic values and combat Russophobia, did they try to whitewash the image of the great ruler Ivan the Terrible.
The era of Joseph Stalin was also an exception - the Russian statesman, defender of national, imperial interests - understood Ivan Vasilyevich well. Under him, Ivan the Terrible was held in high esteem. In the late USSR, Ivan the Terrible was again denigrated, accused of despotism, terror, murder, robbery and the complete ruin of the country, which became the basis for the future Time of Troubles. The tsar was also accused of enslaving the peasants.
The terrible tsar, having created the oprichnina, showed how to fight internal enemies who are oriented towards the West or who drag civilization into the past, preventing it from developing. He showed that for Rus' to preserve itself, survive the onslaught of the West and develop, it is necessary to suppress internal treason and thieves.
The oprichnina was also a bold attempt (ahead of its time) to create a parallel control circuit to counter the narrow elite, group, clan interests of princes and boyars, and the separatism of regions that still remembered their former independence (Veliky Novgorod).
At the same time, a fairly effective system of local self-government was formed. "Horizontal power". It is not for nothing that the former oprichnina lands of the Pomor North and the Volga region would later become the areas where the Second Militia of Minin and Pozharsky was formed in 1612, and this says a lot.
Thus, one should not be surprised by such hatred towards the first Russian tsar on the part of external and internal enemies of the Russian people. Ivan Vasilyevich is one of the most skillful and thrifty rulers of Rus' in its entire history. At the same time, he was a Terrible Tsar for the enemies of Rus', who dreamed of destroying it, dismembering it, and tearing it apart into appanages and patrimony.
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