The Myth of "Pitch Darkness"

42
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:

“And then, due to the sins of the whole Russian land, a great rebellion and hatred arose among all people, and internecine strife and great misfortune, and the sovereign was moved to anger, and for the great treason the tsar instituted the oprichnina.”

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 oprichnina was a tool for the defeat of the reactionary feudal nobility... The division of the territory into "oprichnina" and "zemshchina"... contributed to the centralization of the state, since this division was aimed with its edge against the boyar aristocracy and the appanage-princely opposition. One of the tasks of the oprichnina was to strengthen the defense capability, therefore the lands of those nobles who did not serve in the military from their patrimonies were taken into the oprichnina. The government of Ivan IV carried out a personal review of feudal lords. The entire year of 1565 was filled with measures to redistribute lands, breaking up the established ancient land ownership."

The king's goal was

"to eliminate the remnants of the former fragmentation and, by bringing order to the feudal disorder, to strengthen the centralized monarchy with a strong royal power at the head."

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:

"Very vile, horrible, hitherto unheard of, true new news about the atrocities committed by Muscovites against captive Christians from Livonia, men and women, virgins and children, and what harm they cause them daily in their country. Along the way, it is shown what the great danger and need of the Livonians is. To all Christians, as a warning and to improve their sinful life, written from Livonia and printed. Nuremberg 1561."

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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  1. +3
    3 February 2025 04: 28
    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.

    In the USSR during the GMS era, all sorts of things were denigrated... It was the ideologists of the West who, through party traitors, convinced the country's population that we were living incorrectly, and all our rulers (especially during the Soviet era) were either tyrants or irresponsible blockheads...
    And what's there... All the bones of Lenin and Stalin have been washed. Peter I has been characterized from all sides. The time of Ivan the Terrible has come... By 2036 we will reach Prince Vladimir and the Baptism of Rus...
    And the phrase: "As if a company of poor students were operating in history!" will be completely appropriate... Contrasting with the modern history of Russia, where a company (party) of excellent students operates - differing from the previous ones by a "glorious" list of deeds for the good of the Fatherland...
    1. +13
      3 February 2025 04: 45
      The formidable Tsar, having created the oprichnina, showed how to fight internal enemies
      It's time for us to create an oprichnina... Together with SMERSH...
      1. +3
        3 February 2025 05: 39
        Quote: Uncle Lee
        It's time for us to create oprichnina... Together with SMERSH....
        Now this is actually a good idea. But under the current leadership it will be impossible to do this.
        1. +4
          3 February 2025 05: 42
          Quote: Dutchman Michel
          Only under the current leadership

          They don’t need her, the oprichnina...they are already calm and well-fed.
          1. -2
            3 February 2025 05: 47
            Quote: Uncle Lee
            They don't need it, the oprichnina...they are already calm and well-fed
            It's like that!
          2. +4
            3 February 2025 05: 59
            Quote from Uncle Lee
            They don’t need her, the oprichnina...they are already calm and well-fed.

            Great again...
            But is there really no oprichnina, ready at any time to disperse, bend, impose taxes in a camouflaged form, veiled, so that the masses would treat it with understanding?
            1. -3
              3 February 2025 06: 04
              Quote: yuriy55
              disperse, bend, encircle

              Specify the objects of application.
              1. +7
                3 February 2025 06: 13
                Quote from Uncle Lee
                Specify the objects of application.

                If you don't know the meaning of these words, why should I explain anything to you? Just put (-) and continue living with a sense of accomplishment...
                To impose taxes, new tariffs, duties
                Bend - to deprive of the rights prescribed in the Constitution...
                Disperse - to get rid of public expressions of dissatisfaction with the constructed capitalist fairy tale...
                Like that...
                1. -4
                  3 February 2025 07: 29
                  Quote: yuriy55
                  Just put (-)

                  It is difficult for me to get a minus, as well as a plus.... And everything you described can be done without oprichnina. And I asked about the objects of application, and I already know about the methods... And judging by your decoding, the objects of application themselves appeared. hi
                2. +5
                  3 February 2025 11: 23
                  Sorry, but somehow they always forget that the oprichnina is not about finances as such. But you can compare it with the Yeni Cheri - the Janissaries. So the oprichniks were shock troops that were equipped better and also staffed with good human resources. True, no one pays much attention to this. And Skuratov was the first to die, having burst onto the fortress wall. (Somehow it doesn't fit with the tax collector and the agent of the cloak and dagger.
                  1. -1
                    4 February 2025 09: 30
                    Quote: saigon
                    So the oprichniks were shock troops that were better equipped and staffed with good human resources.

                    In the history of Russia there was a case, it seems, in Tver. There the oprichniks got tired of killing Russians and decided to kill the Tatar prisoners sitting in prison. When the unarmed prisoners realized that they were being killed, they took the weapons from the oprichniks with their bare hands. The sadistic oprichniks had to call the Zemsky riflemen to protect themselves from the Tatar prisoners. The oprichnik army turned out to be incapable of successfully fighting an external enemy. In the Battle of Molodi, when the question of the life and death of Russia as a state arose, a military leader from the Zemsky was appointed over the oprichniks. At the end of the oprichnik, Ivan the Terrible seriously considered emigrating to England and asked the British queen about the possibility of providing political asylum in the event of an uprising against him or in the event of the capture of Vologda by the Crimean Tatars, where the oprichniks planned to sit out the raids of the Crimean Tatars.
            2. +4
              3 February 2025 07: 23
              Quote: yuriy55
              there is no oprichnina ready at any time to disperse, bend, impose a tribute in a camouflaged, veiled manner

              We, all commentators and authors, would be dispersed by the newly-minted oprichniks, in the best case scenario, and no one will ask the masses, they will also be “bent over”
        2. -2
          4 February 2025 09: 02
          Quote: Dutchman Michel
          But under the current leadership it will be impossible to do this.

          Putin is successful because under him the Malyuta Skuratovs, Nikolai Yezhovs, Lavrentiy Beriyas and Felix Dzerzhinskys sit quietly on the pole under strict control and do not have the power to oppress, torture and kill the Rokossovskys, Korolevs, Bartinis, Tupolevs, Polikarpovs, Gumilevs, Vavilovs, Yesenins and Klyuyevs.
      2. -6
        3 February 2025 10: 32
        Bolshevism is the essence of Russian civilization.

        Quote from Uncle Lee
        It's time for us to create an oprichnina...

        So it is already being created and the oprichniks are being forged on the battlefield, and their skills are being honed under the program "Time of Heroes", a structure specially created by V.V. Putin - the time has come.

        ps
        If V.V. Putin did not need managers more loyal to Russia, he would not have created a new structure - it is a troublesome and expensive matter. This means that the management personnel who prepare lice and senezh do not suit him.

        Quote: bober1982
        and no one will ask the masses

        Well, the referendum (elections) took place not long ago.
        The people agree with the president's policies.
        1. 0
          4 February 2025 09: 06
          Quote: Boris55
          So it is already being created and the oprichniks are being forged on the battlefield, and their skills are being honed under the program "Time of Heroes", a structure specially created by V.V. Putin - the time has come.

          What's wrong with more power and trust in those who risked their lives and shed their blood? Under Yeltsin, power passed to parasites and traitors.
      3. +5
        3 February 2025 10: 34
        Quote from Uncle Lee
        It's time for us to create an oprichnina... Together with SMERSH...

        The border of the oprichnina should not be territorial, but people. I am ready to put the public above the personal, to serve my people. Our man! Only we must start from the very top.
      4. +1
        3 February 2025 21: 22
        Our Tsar is very timid.....................
      5. +1
        3 February 2025 21: 40
        Quote from Uncle Lee
        It's time for us to create an oprichnina

        The crystal center of the oprichnina, and its essence, is the Person of the authoritative Tsar. The Tsar is wise and strong... and stands like a mountain for God's commandments and truth, and for his people. Otherwise, it (the positive oprichnina) is impossible by definition.
        Is not it ?
      6. -1
        4 February 2025 09: 17
        Quote from Uncle Lee
        It's time for us to create an oprichnina... Together with SMERSH...

        Ivan the Terrible dispersed the oprichnina at the end of his reign. In addition, under Ivan the Terrible there were more blatant absurdities, such as the transfer of royal power to Simeon Bekbulatovich, a Tatar khan. If we were to truly introduce the oprichnina as it was under Ivan the Terrible, then we would have to appoint Ramzan Kadyrov, Bashir al-Assad or Viktor Yanukovych as President instead of Putin, by analogy with Simeon Bekbulatovich. By the way, historians in Russia are very embarrassed by the topic that Ivan the Terrible wrote petitions to Simeon Bekbulatovich, pretending to be an obedient subject.
  2. +12
    3 February 2025 05: 26
    I don't understand the message of such articles. Everyone who knows about the merits of Ivan the Terrible is convinced of this. The fact that there was no cruelty at that time is a fairy tale for children. The oprichnina received enormous power. And this power corrupts. Manual control does not pass without a trace. Take any political figure who enjoyed enormous power, the consequences were terrible. And after Ivan the Terrible, and after Peter the Great, and after Joseph Stalin. There was turmoil to a greater or lesser extent.
    1. +4
      3 February 2025 06: 01
      Maybe it’s worth understanding that... “such are the times, such are the morals” is not a figure of speech but a recognition of the obvious.
      Also, does anyone have a complex about their “St. Bartholomew’s” and other nights, and there are plenty of them/similar ones for everyone!
      In general, our history is what it is, and as various figures try to twist it, it is always worthwhile to CAREFULLY figure out WHO BENEFIT FROM THIS!
      Our country has MANY enemies, unfortunately, that means... well, it's clear.
    2. +1
      3 February 2025 18: 20
      And our System doesn't work any other way. Without strict leadership, everything ends up in the October Revolution in some form.
  3. +3
    3 February 2025 05: 45
    The formidable Tsar, having created the oprichnina, showed how to fight internal enemies who are oriented towards the West
    All our internal enemies live in their beloved West and on YouTube channels they pour feces on the country and the people. If you hit one of them on the head with an ice pick, the others will immediately calm down.
    1. +5
      3 February 2025 06: 09
      Quote: Dutchman Michel
      All our internal enemies live here in their beloved West and On YouTube channels they pour feces on the country and its people.

      There is a lot of different bullshit on YouTube, but there are also those who try to convey to users the specific reasons for the failures of our skillful management... They closed it and it was a weight off their shoulders...
      But yesterday on the same Solovyov's channel there were questions without answers about St. Petersburg and the siege of Leningrad, about Stalingrad and the Battle of Stalingrad. Where, they say, are these cities on the map of the new Russia... And the number of people wanting to know what the Mausoleum has done wrong to their descendants and why it is more terrible than Lobnoye Mesto is also increasing every year...
      1. -8
        3 February 2025 11: 07
        All power to the Soviets of People's Deputies!

        Quote: yuriy55
        about St. Petersburg and the siege of Leningrad, about Stalingrad and the Battle of Stalingrad.

        The questions raised are correct, but solutions to them are not offered.

        The original reason is in the state-run Constitution of the Russian Federation, which defines the colonial status of Russia. In order to make changes to Chapters 1, 2 and 9, a decision of the "Constitutional Assembly" is required, the law on which is not adopted by deputies of all convocations of the Duma.

        What does the president do about this?
        Prepares new management personnel in the interests of Russia - "Time of Heroes". Only by changing the elite in the country, it is possible to elect a sane Duma, which will finally adopt the "Law on the Constitutional Assembly", thanks to which it will be possible not only to amend the current Constitution (Chapters 1,2,9, XNUMX, XNUMX), but also to rewrite it completely.

        Only after getting rid of the colonial status will the Red Flag flutter over the country again, Stalingrad will become Stalingrad, Leningrad - Leningrad, Sverdlovsk - Sverdlovsk. Only after this will the plywood fall from the Mausoleum and the sun of freedom will shine over the country again.

        ps
        Read about flags and how they determine the status of countries in the hierarchy of states:
        https://vp-sssr.ru/download/works/14/gosudarstvennye-simvoly-i-gosudarstvennyi-suverenitet.pdf
        1. +1
          3 February 2025 18: 26
          Sometimes I am simply amazed at this mess in my mind...
          VVP said openly and directly that he is a liberal. What Stalingrad, if the Mausoleum is draped without any "colonialist oppression"? Regarding the programs... Where is Rokhlin or Lebed in the end?
          1. 0
            4 February 2025 19: 44
            Where is Rokhlin or Lebed in the end?
            There is no need to talk about Lebed here. Do you need another Khasavyurt?
  4. +2
    3 February 2025 06: 02
    The choice is really big. Where to start, who to start laundering first, spat upon by Westerners and other liberals and just envious people. With Ivan the Terrible or with Stalin. There are no monuments to either of them in Russia, no museums for them, no centers of their estates, .. Even if they named a street or an alley after them. At least a new frigate or a new nuclear submarine! None of this! Even if they named a portrait of Stalin, with whose name on their lips soldiers died going into attack in WWII, even if they carried a portrait of Stalin at the Victory Parade now. None of this!
    Consequently, such articles are just an empty release of steam into a puddle. If we ourselves did not spit on them, then the West's spit would not stick to them either...
    1. +2
      3 February 2025 06: 04
      Quote: North 2
      From Ivan the Terrible or from Stalin. Both have monuments in Russia, no museums for them, no centers of their estates.
      Yeltsin Center will be enough wink wink wink
    2. +4
      3 February 2025 11: 17
      Where to start, who is the first to start laundering, spat upon by Westerners and other liberals and simply envious people. With Ivan the Terrible or with Stalin.


      I don’t know about Ivan the Terrible, but after Stalin’s death, his own entourage was the first to spit on him, and Beria started it.
  5. The comment was deleted.
  6. +4
    3 February 2025 10: 02
    Where will they start signing up people to be oprichniks?
    1. +3
      3 February 2025 11: 08
      Quote: avia12005
      Where will they start signing up people to be oprichniks?

      Come to your senses! If you ask, you'll be quickly labeled a "Navalist"! Because any political initiative "from below" is equated with a threat to the ruling regime in Russia!
    2. -6
      3 February 2025 11: 29
      Our cause is just, the enemy will be defeated, victory will be ours!

      Quote: avia12005
      Where will they start signing up people to be oprichniks?

      Only through SVO.

      Quote: Nikolaevich I
      Because any political initiative “from below” is equated with a threat to the ruling regime in Russia!

      Don't pee past the toilet. The authorities themselves are creating the oprichnina (Time of Heroes).
  7. +5
    3 February 2025 10: 53
    The Tsar was the defender of the people against the nobility
    ...Not like now.. "Please, be understanding.." (c)
  8. +5
    3 February 2025 11: 03
    Isn't it time to start translating the word "formidable" correctly? In European Germanic and Romance languages ​​it is translated as "terrible", which means "bringing terror". In fact, "formidable" is a synonym for "harsh" and means "bearing deserved punishment" or "strict". In European countries, "harsh" is "sever". And in Ancient Rome, this nickname (Sever) was given to many.
  9. +2
    3 February 2025 13: 13
    In the book by A. Bushkov "Ivan the Terrible. Bloody poet" on pages 357-393 there is a list of oprichniks by name. There are about two thousand names.
  10. +3
    3 February 2025 13: 17
    The oprichnina was also a bold attempt (ahead of its time) to create a parallel control circuit.

    an advanced thing, what can I say: the oprichniks stabbed, chopped, hanged, poured boiling water on the condemned. They used hot frying pans, ovens, pincers, thin ropes that rubbed the body, for example. Funikov was alternately doused with boiling water and cold water, his wife, undressed, was put on a taut rope and dragged along it several times, the flesh was cut off alive from Viskovaty. In Aleksandrova Sloboda, the household members of the executed (about 60 women and children) were drowned in the Seraya River, etc.
    V. O. Klyuchevsky
    :" oprichnina, bringing out sedition, introduced anarchy, protecting the sovereign, shook the very foundations of the state. Directed against imaginary sedition, she was preparing the real one"
    .

    As a result, the oprichnina so-called "army" (which killed its own top brass several times - very familiar, yes)), accustomed to killing unarmed people, simply ... did not show up for war when the real danger came and the Tatars burned Moscow in their presence.

    .ruin and terror of the oprichnina years (1565-1572) became one of the main reasons for the deep crisis that Russia experienced at the end of the XNUMXth century.
  11. 0
    3 February 2025 14: 26
    Karamzin at least did not justify Kurbsky, unlike all the liberal scum.
    And the fact that Ivan the Terrible was a tyrant, that was most likely true.
    As they say, 'there's no smoke without fire'...
  12. +3
    3 February 2025 18: 16
    The author seems to have gone crazy and then remembered Lenin, Marx and Lenin.
  13. 0
    5 February 2025 19: 32
    Everything was fine with us, everyone lived richly and happily, we ate meat three times a day, and what was left, the foxes carried into the forest.
    And all the troubles were invented by the Germans.

    Is it possible, in a more or less historical publication, to separate the blood of those who fought for their new power against a power that was not theirs, and those who plowed, hunted, defended their homes from the "Germans", and were driven into the army by force?
    Much is written about axes, which are used to "cut down forests". But often many times more chips are lost.
    She is always there to support you, whether you are a king or a pawn, although it is more pleasant to be a king in life.
    1. 0
      6 February 2025 05: 59
      At least it's more pleasant to be a king in life.

      If it's pleasant to live with paranoia. From the time of the Roman Empire until the beginning of the 20th century, almost every second or third monarch was the target of assassination attempts or attempts to overthrow him, sometimes more than once.
  14. 0
    9 February 2025 07: 14
    Why doesn’t the author of the article write at the end of the article where the oprichnina went?
    The correct answer is that the oprichnina was abolished by Tsar Ivan IV. 1572... total from 1565-72 = 7 years - in the case that the "oprichnina" was so good and positive, why did Tsar Ivan 4 abolish the oprichnina??
    The author is silent...
    The reason is "they wanted the best, but it turned out as always" - the oprichniks, after cutting off the top of the boyar sedition, began to terrorize the common people.
    Another reason why the author of the article does not mention the oprichnik's appearance in his description broom и dog's head tied to the saddle? - explanation from historians - "dog's head" = dog's loyalty to the Tsar, readiness to bite anyone for the Tsar, "broom" = sweeping away sedition and everything unnecessary.
    Below is a drawing of an oprichnik from the "correct" angle.