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1-011 Ivan the Awesome
Vol. 1- No. 11
1995
Lead: Few figures in Russia's vast and interesting history have elicited the same degree of fear as has Ivan the Terrible or, more precisely, Ivan the Awesome. Intro: A Moment In Time with Dan Roberts. Content: With that fascinating combination of religious devotion and personal cruelty, he was a contemporary of Elizabeth I of England. Ivan began his reign as a three-year-old at the death of his father and only slowly was able to wrest authority from the nobles who ruled in his name. His first attempt at independent action set the tone of his long and infamous career. At the age of thirteen, Ivan ordered the arrest of one of the leaders of the factions that were struggling for power at the court. Prince Andrey Shuysky was then brutally murdered by the keeper of Ivan's dogs. Ivan once even had the tongue cut from the mouth of an impertinent nobleman who dared to criticize him. Despite this inclination to brutality, the early part of his rule was generally a forward-looking one. His marriage to his first wife, Anatasya, was a happy one and together with Metropolitan Makarythe, leader of the Orthodox Church, the queen encouraged Ivan to institute a series of reforms. He established the Chosen Council, a group of close advisors. The affairs of the church were set in greater order, a new legal code was instituted in 1550, more autonomy was granted to local governments, and the domination over Russian affairs of the Tatars was broken. To reduce the power of the old Russian nobility and bring the country more closely under his own control, Ivan divided the kingdom into two parts and ruled one of them himself. Thousands of victims were killed or tortured because they resisted the power of the Czar and his reforms. Late in life, Ivan's conscience began to eat at him and he endowed whole monasteries filled with monks who prayed night and day for the souls of those he murdered. Among his thousands of victims is numbered his own son and heir, Ivan, whom the Czar fatally wounded in a family argument in 1581. The Producer of A Moment in Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. Resources Graham, Stephen. Ivan the Terrible: The Life of Ivan IV of Russia. Graham, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1966. Skrynnikov, R.G. "An Overview of the Righn of Ivan IV: What was the Oprichina," Soviet Studies in History 24(1-2, 1985), 62-82. Skrynnikov, R.G. "The Syndicon of those who Fell Into Disgrace Under Tsar, Ivan the Terrible." Soviet Studies in History 24 (1-2, 1985), 45-61. Troyat, Henri. Ivan the Terrible. Translated by Joan Pinkham. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984. Yanov, Alexander. The Origins of Autocracy: Ivan the Terrible in Russian History. Translated by Stephen Dunn. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Copyright 2006 by Broadcast Partners, LLC LAC071606
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