Ivan the Terrible

by Isabel de Madariaga

Ivan IV "the Terrible" (1533-1584), is one of the key figures in Russian history, yet he has remained among the most neglected. Notorious for pioneering a policy of unrestrained terror—and for killing his own son—he has been credited with establishing autocracy in Russia. This is the first attempt to write a biography of Ivan from birth to death, to study his policies, his marriages, his atrocities, and his disordered personality, and to link them as a coherent whole.

Isabel de Madariaga situates Ivan within the background of Russian political developments in the sixteenth century. And, with revealing comparisons with English, Spanish, and other European courts, she sets him within the international context of his time. The biography includes a new account of the role of astrology and magic at Ivan's court and provides fresh insights into his foreign policy. Facing up to problems of authenticity (much of Ivan's archive was destroyed by fire in 1626) and controversies which have paralyzed western scholarship, de Madariaga seeks to present Russia as viewed from the Kremlin rather than from abroad and to comprehend the full tragedy of Ivan’s reign.

Genres: History, Biography, Russia, Nonfiction, Russian History, European History, Biography Memoir

526 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shakespearean Villain

Although Isabel de Madariaga is considered as a titan amongst Russian historians, I’m sad to say did not enjoy her book Ivan the Terrible. The writing style is confused, broken and extremely frustrating. The book is 383 reading pages long, so short, but it took me a long time to read. This was due to having to constantly go back and re-read paragraphs as they I couldn’t recall what was being discussed. Eventually I had to read out loud, slowly. But this again still didn’t clarify everything.

This ultimately is a shame as the subject matter itself is interesting. Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, or as we more commonly know Ivan the Terrible is a hard hitter in Russian history. He a Russian version of King Henry VIII of England or Roman Emperor Caligula. I saw a combination of the two of these and had the classic trait of a young ruler with so much potential which went wrong.

In some ways Ivan’s rule was a success. He expanded the borders of Russia, grew its importance in Europe, grew its wealth through trade and production and created an efficient (ish for the time) government. It is also bad as he relentlessly persecuted his people and his nobles, which alienated him and ultimately prevented the renaissance taking place in Russia. This can explain how it was behind until Peter the Great came to the thrown at the end of the seventeenth century and forced Russia to modernise.

Ivan started well, but then after the death of his wife Anastasia Romanovna 13 years into their marriage and his beloved brother Iuri increased his paranoia and loneliness. Following this his womanising (and even some homosexual experiences), torture and mass executions began as he believed everyone was trying to take his throne from him. The persecution of the noble and boyar families in the newly acquired northern territories of the old Novgorod Republic via his military police Opeichnina is surely its horrifying as Stalin’s Great Terror in the 1930s. Another fascinating factor of Ivan’s reign is that he twice ‘pseudo-abdicated’ giving power to another in order to exalt blame and consolidate power when he was ‘asked’ to come back to rule again.

He had a complicated relationship with other monarchs at the time, looking down on elected monarchs (such as in Poland-Lithuania or Sweden at the time) or those answerable to their people (such as in England). His relationship with Queen Elizabeth I of England was also long, complex and up and down. It was also important as it opened up Russia to the West via trade.

I will now have to turn to other authors to read about this Shakespearean villain who took pleasure in torturing his victims and persecuting those who he thought was acting against him. The man also killed his son Ivan in a fit of rage after the younger challenged him for striking his wife. This in the end drove him to his own grave as he never recovered from the guilt and the damage it did to his dynasty. He knew this and it broke him. Unfortunately it’s unlikely that I’ll read Ivan the Terrible again as the writing style was too difficult to enjoy the content.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting in form; the author is up-front about the fact that this book is not based on primary sources. This is a weakness, to be sure, but it is, at the same time, a strength, as it allows the author an opportunity to examine the work of previous historians, and make judgments as to whether one historian has a more plausible account of events than another. That being said, the writing is dry as dust, the author could not find a synonym for "appanage", which must occur more than 300 times in the text, and occasionally years of Ivan's reign are simply skipped over without explanation, though they are often returned to in passing when subjects related to the events which happened in them arise.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Newflash! Ivan the Terrible was actually Terrible (with a capital T that rhymes with P - never mind).

The issue is, not a lot of contemporary, primary sources survive. Moscow was mostly constructed of wood- there were a lot of fires. We don't even know if Ivan could write.

de Madariaga does her very best, and what she is able to verify is certainly very interesting, but at the end of the day, it didn't really satisfy my curiosity.

[Olli-Pekka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kirjan alku sisälsi mielenkiintoista ja arkista kuvausta 1500-luvun elämästä ja ihmisyydestä. Iivanan elämän edetessä sisältö muuttui seikkaperäisemmäksi ja niin akateemiseksi, että tällainen normi historian harrastaja ei meinannut pysyä juonessa mukana. Iivanan tekemisistä on myös paljon arvailuja ja väärää tietoa, eikä historioitsija Madariagakaan välillä tiennyt, että ketä uskoa ja mitä kirjoittaa.

Kirjan päätyttyä oli fiilis, että kovin vähän tästä tarttui mieleen. Ehkä tärkeimpänä jäi jonkinlainen käsitys siitä mitä tapahtui mongolien valtakauden jälkeen ja mille taustoille Venäjä syntyi. Itselleni liian hevi kirja, joka meinasi jäädä kesken ja kulutti lukuintoa vietävästi.

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 2 out of 5]

Långtråkig men användbar, och med en logisk struktur. För mig, som läste den som fritidsläsning, är tyvärr det förra viktigare än det senare, men jag ser helt klart nyttan för professionella med att se Ivans testamentes skildring av Oprichnina, eller hur handelsrelationen med britterna inkluderade sökandet efter engelska siffermagiker.

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading one biography of Ivan the Terrible isn’t enough for me since my previous read (Ivan the Terrible by Robert Payne and Nikita Romanoff) leans heavily toward Ivan’s psychological profile. And so, I embarked upon another biographical book of Ivan IV by the late historian Isabel de Madariaga. This one is rather impersonal yet thoroughly comprehensive in its study of the political reign of Ivan the Terrible, on how and why Ivan might have chosen particular acts and what he hoped to achieve by his choices and conducts. By no means Madariaga avoided the cruelty of Ivan’s acts but the majority of her focus was on how Ivan IV reigned Muscovy throughout his life.

And I observed that Ivan IV clearly didn’t reign his realm well. Though he expanded Muscovy (despite never involving himself in a single battlefield as he was, allegedly, a coward) and thus granting his realm considerable prestige yet the cost of achieving them and holding on to them was enormous, one of them was the depopulation of citizens in metropolitan cities. No doubt that the bulwark of Ivan’s policies was about foreign wars. After the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan, Ivan spent the majority of his life —apart from torturing his own boyars and citizens by setting up an oprichnina— conducting diplomatic relations and wars over the rights to incorporate Livonia into his realm. By conquering Livonia, Ivan hoped to achieve greater flexibility on the northern sea trading route rather than having to pay tolls and risk many goods being confiscated by the Hanseatic League, Sweden, Denmark, and Livonia itself.

But clearly, his severe personality disorder impeded his own mission though he’s not the only one who suffered from a psychological defect. Erik XIV of Sweden who had shown some mental instability early on in his life had to deal with Ivan IV over the hand of a noble lady (she was Catherine Jagiellonka, the sister of King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland-Lithuania, who was married off to Erik XIV’s brother). Apparently, Ivan wished to put Catherine Jagiellonka as his hostage in Muscovy so he can use her as a bargaining tool to demand something from Sigismund II Augustus. Whereas Erik XIV of Sweden needed Muscovy’s military support and had no problem promising to hand over Catherine to Ivan despite knowing that Catherine is already married. Even courtiers in both countries shook their own heads over the ordeal. Good thing was, they were not successful in their scheme.

“Catherine proved loyal to her husband and shared his captivity in the castle of Gripsholm, and Ivan’s demand to seize John’s legal wife by force could only increase suspicion in Sweden that both Erik and Ivan were mentally deranged.” ~Chapter XIII: The Boyar Plot: 1) the Letters to King Sigismund, page 212.

Ivan IV’s insistence on waging war in Livonia had a lot of repercussions and he certainly couldn’t keep up when he concurrently purged his own capable boyars and citizens, leaving him severely bankrupt both in finance and manpower. Stephen Bathory, the successor king of Sigismund II Augustus decided to answer Ivan’s blatant disregard for international policy by invading back the land of Ivan’s domain and taking several cities in his campaigns such as Polotsk and Velikiye Luki. Apparently, these losses shocked him to the core and forced his psyche to a breaking point. And yet, he was still able to devise the most cunningly and roundabout way of making a peace term without being the first to offer it. Ivan decided to involve the Papacy of Rome to mediate between him and Bathory by alluding to the Pope that he wished to join a Christian alliance against the Ottoman Turks and possibly acknowledging Catholicism supremacy over the Orthodox, an empty offer as Ivan did not intend to actually wage war with the Ottomans or even to accept Catholicism in his realm. The bait was bitten by the Pope and the Pope agreed to send Antonio Possevino, a distinguished papal legate, to propose peace terms between Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania in the hope that it results in a coalition against the Turks.

“Ivan now embarked on a wide ranging diplomatic ploy, which reveals that though he may not have been a good general, he understood very well how to muddy the European diplomatic waters.
He called a meeting of the Boyar Council, on 25 August 1580, in Alexandrovskaia Sloboda, to discuss the situation. The result of these consultations was the dispatch of a messenger first to Vienna, then on to Rome. Leontii Istoma Shevrigin, who left on 6 September, was a mere courier (gonets), belonging to the lowest diplomatic rank in the Russian service, which enabled him to travel without ostentation, and therefore with greater safety, since he was less likely to attract attention and be intercepted. He was charged with a letter from Ivan proposing to join the Emperor Rudolph II in an alliance against the Ottomans and, in order to enable him to do so, inviting the Emperor at the same time to bring pressure to bear on Bathory to make peace with Russia, on terms which would allow Ivan to keep at least four Livonian fortresses.
But Ivan was proposing an even bolder venture. Shevrigin was to continue on to Rome and pick up the threads of earlier soundings from the Vatican, throwing out hints of a possible acceptance of the supremacy of the Pope by the Russian Orthodox Church, an aspiration which had been high on the agenda of the popes ever since the Council of Florence in the fifteenth century. Ivan hoped thus to win time and to encourage the Pope, then Gregory XIII, to mediate a peace or a truce between Russia and the Commonwealth, a thoroughly original proposal running counter to all previous Russian dealings with the papacy.” ~Chapter XIX: Peace Negotiations, page 325-326.

What does this tell us? No doubt, Ivan had incredible intellectual ability when it comes to scheming his way out but he also suffered from a psychological defect (his paranoia) that hindered his rational judgement. His paranoia weighed heavily on his mind and finally tipped over to give way to unparalleled cruelty. Who suffered? Everyone who was not a Tsar.

Stephen Báthory at Pskov, painted by Jan Matejko. The truce was called the Treaty of Yam-Zapolsky. Mediated by the papal legate Antonio Possevino (black-robed Jesuit at the centre), Both Bathory and Ivan IV conceded territories to achieve the ten-year truce. This truce also dashed Ivan’s hope of acquiring the Baltic ports and the Northern trade routes.

This book is thoroughly detailed on Ivan’s political, military, and diplomatic policies but may not be a good introductory biography. It’s best to read other biographical books to get a sense of why Ivan did what he did.

[Meghan Portillo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so angry by the time I finally finished this book that I immediately started to reread Troyat's Ivan the Terrible before I could embark on Ivan the Terrible by Payne & Romanoff (which I am really excited about because it's supposedly going to be a "psychological biography"). I felt that Ivan was more of a footnote than the subject of this book, which focused more on foreign policy and wars than it did on Ivan. I realize that those were primary concerns, but I expected to learn more about Ivan - not everything else about Russia.

She only devoted 20 pages (!!) to his birth, childhood, coronation, *and* marriage; his wives are barely mentioned at all; the murder of his son is relegated to several paragraphs. I am really cursing the fire that destroyed so many valuable records; I realize that that's the main reason she leaves so much out, but come on! The jacket information claims that Ivan IV has "remained among the most neglected" but there have been multiple biographies written about him.

It's obvious that she's passionate about Russian history: in the notes section, she uses words like "excellent," "illuminating," "stimulating," "imaginative," and - my personal favorite - "delightful" when referring readers to sources they'll probably never have access to, let alone be able to read. I was really surprised when I realized that most of the words I looked up originated around Ivan's lifetime or before it - so she definitely knows her stuff. I just wish she'd used that passion to tell us more about what Ivan IV was like as a person (outside of the obvious) and what he did at home instead of going on for pages about something that didn't directly involve Ivan IV, throwing in a murder or massacre here and there.

[Adam Windsor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a tough read. Partly this is because Ivan IV really did deserve his sobriquet, but a bigger problem is the writing, which is often dry as dust, and is dense in the wrong ways. The grammar is often as tortured as Ivan's victims!

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[Melisende · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not finding this maintains my interest but shall persevere till finished.

Finished this late yesterday (Saturday).

This really is a definite work on Russia and Ivan - so much so that I would be hesitant in recommending it for a novice to this particularly area of study. It is a very indepth coverage of the political, social and economic status of Russia before and during the reign of Ivan IV. At times, I found myself bogged down in detail when all I really wanted was to hear more about Ivan, his family and court.

The author achieves her goal in providing the reader with a comprehensive study of the man and his times.

[Martina Adovica · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I wanted to read about the history of Russia, I would have picked up a book on the history of Russia. I desired to find out more about Ivan the Terrible and yet I never received anything remotely interesting. This book was informative in the wrong way. Detailed and yet not corresponding to its title.

[Alexei · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not at liberty to give this book five stars which in my view it amply deserves simply because I am not a professional historian and cannot fully appraise the value of its arguments. Yet it is actually because of these arguments that i consider it excellent. The author rejects and debanks most of the usual cliches of Russian/Soviet scholarship about historical necessities and shows that many of the erratic and extreme actions of the monarch are best explained by his personal hangups and his clearly deranged mind.

[KariG · Rating 3 out of 5]

Venäjän kuuluisimman tsaarin verinen historia yksiin kansiin painettuna.

Tarina alkaa todella pitkäveteisesti, kun kirjoittaja käy juurta jaksain läpi Venäjän historiaa ja sen poliittisia käänteitä kaikkine nimityksineen ja vuosilukuineen. Iivanaan päästyään hän laskee innoituksensa irti ja nämä jaksot ovatkin kertakaikkisen mahtavia kaikessa mielipuolisuudessaan: mikäli Iivanan harjoittama sorto ja teloitusorgiat pitävät puoliksikaan paikkansa, en ihmettele, että Stalin ihaili miestä niin suuresti.

[James Ruley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a careful historical study of Ivan the Terrible, but it was ultimately largely inaccessible due to poor narrative framing and an over abundance of details. I would only recommend this book to someone who was (1) really interested in Ivan and (2) already had read several books about him.

2.5/5

[Mikko Åberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Todella vaihteleva taso. Alku oli aikamoista kahlaamista ja termien selittelyä, eikä millään hyvällä tavalla. Keskikohdan paikkeilla kirja muuttui luettavaksi. Kirja oli ehkä turhan akateeminen normi lukijalle, mutta toinen akateemikko ja Venäjää jo ennestään tunteva saisi tästä ehkä enemmän irti.

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars might be generous, as this might be the most boring book I have ever read. That said, if you want to know absolutely everything about Ivan the terrible and Russia as a whole in the 14/15th century, then this is the book for you.

[Gregory · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish, so boring.

[Julian Haigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essential time in Russian history, Ivan the Terrible kept Russia on its independent path of development without the benefit of close connections with Western Europe because he was culturally not European but more a product of the structure of the Ottoman empire resultant from the breakup of the Eastern and Western traditions and understandings. His continual attempts to connect with Europe show the high level of interest in establishing such linkages, but more often his approach to foreign affairs was just foreign to the European powers.

While Ivan was not quite so terrible as the Livonians (Latvia/Estonia) and Lithuanians (his main European adversaries reported, he killed his own son in a fit of rage along with monks and the lowly to high, and destroyed the city of Novgorod.

Ivan IV created a new administrative organization based more solely on his absolute rule, the Oprichina, but as the 'reformed' regime did not actually work, as authoritarian rulers the world over (Pol Pot/Mao/Stalin among them), turns back on to the more 'civilized' elements of the established order, killing and plundering his own people. He never knew his father, his mother died when he was very young and he relied on the nobles to rule until he came of age.

De Madriaga provides a scholarly account of Ivan the Terrible based on the best available contemporary accounts. De Madariaga does superbly providing explanation and analysis in regards to what we know and then summing up alternative theories or stories, providing her insight into likeliness of eventuality.

[Nikki M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very detailed. One can tell the author put her time and love into writing it. There are plenty of sources in the back of the book, just in case you want to read other books along with this one to further your knowledge of Russia during the period of Ivan the Terrible. If your studying some part of Russian history this book will def. help. I wanted to learn more about Russia when I finished this book. It gives you a broader idea of why Russia is the way it is today through their policies, way of life, and the relationships they have with the rest of the world. Good book.

[alina virgilyn c. brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is extremely informative, and I enjoyed Isabel de Madariaga's view on Ivan's life. In essence, this book paraphrases all preceding books on Ivan the Terrible. Madariaga's sources range from newspaper articles to full-size books in a variety of languages. This book is extremely good when using for research, with several tid-bits of information. However, Madariaga tends to mix in opinion with fact on a regular basis which can irk the reader and make it difficult to separate the two.

[Johnny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Turgid, overwritten, pedantic, dense. I got to page 74 and gave up and I NEVER give up reading a book I've started.

Clearly there are not enough primary sources for a decent written life of Ivan IV. I'm actively looking for an alternative author who's written the biography that I set out to want.

[Saj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this a while ago, but apparently forgot to update here. I really enjoyed the book, it was well-written with a good combination of history and anecdotes. Another area of history I would love to read more about...

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine academic biography of Ivan the Terrible that puts him firmly in his historical context: not only the life of the lunatic ruler but an overview of medieval Russia, its social structures and its political and military challenges. A very good book indeed.

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

scholarly review of Ivan's life and times; can be difficult going at times if you do not have a good foundation knowledge of Russian history/social climate

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty short on the 'terrible' part so far. Great for anyone interested in the political history of Russia.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely informative, but a struggle to finish. I lost count of the number of times I fell asleep while reading this.