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The truth about Tsar Emperor Nicholas II and the Royal Family - video films based on a true story. Unfairly slandered Tsar Ivan the Terrible

Ivan the Terrible was unfairly slandered. Destroying myths

Ivan the Terrible - the first Tsar of All Rus', known for his barbaric and incredibly harsh methods of rule - liberal historians lie, repeating the propaganda of Catholic and Lutheran envoys, escaped conspirators...

Ivan the Terrible was one of the most humane rulers of Europe.
Debunking the Myths

Myth is a weapon. The ancient Chinese commander, philosopher of war Sun Tzu said: “He who wins without a battle knows how to fight. He who captures fortresses without a siege knows how to fight. He who crushes a state without an army knows how to fight” - he spoke about the power of Myth. The history of any people, their spiritual health, their faith in themselves and their strengths is always based on certain myths, and it is these myths that become the living flesh and blood of this people, their assessment of their place in the universe. Today our consciousness has become a battleground for the ideas of two myths, The Black Myth about Russia and the Light Myth about the West.

The vast majority of historians, publicists, writers, etc. consider Ivan the Terrible as a deliberately “unprecedented”, essentially pathological tyrant, despot, executioner.

It would be absurd to dispute that Ivan IV was tough ruler. The historian Skrynnikov, who devoted several decades to studying his era, proves that under Ivan IV the Terrible, “mass terror” was carried out in Russia, during which about 3-4 thousand people were killed.

But let's ask ourselves a question: how many people were sent to the next world by Western Europeans contemporaries Ivan the Terrible: Spanish kings Charles V and Philip II, King of England Henry VIII and French king Charles IX? It turns out that they executed hundreds of thousands of people in the most brutal manner. So, for example, it was precisely during the time synchronous with the reign of Ivan the Terrible - from 1547 to 1584, in the Netherlands alone, which was under the rule of Charles V and Philip II, that “the number of victims... reached up to 100 thousand". Of them were "burned alive 28,540 people". On August 23, 1572, the French king Charles IX took an active "personal" part in the so-called St. Bartholomew's Night, during which "more than 3 thousand Huguenots"only because they belonged to Protestantism and not to Catholicism; thus, overnight approximately the same number of people were killed as throughout the reign of Ivan the Terrible! “The Night” continued, and “in total, about 30 thousand Protestants died in France within two weeks.” In England, Henry VIII was hanged just for “vagrancy” along the highways. 72 thousand tramps and beggars." In Germany, during the suppression of the peasant uprising of 1525, more than 100,000 people.

And yet, strange and even amazing, both in the Russian and equally in the Western consciousness, Ivan the Terrible appears as an incomparable, unique tyrant and executioner.

Something similar happens with other examples of Ivan’s cruelty, which must be considered without the usual bias and based on documentary evidence and simple logic.

Myth 1. Unreasonable terror

This is probably the most important argument against Ivan. Like, just for fun The formidable tsar slaughtered innocent boyars. Although the periodic occurrence of widely branched conspiracies among the boyars Not a single self-respecting historian denies it, if only because conspiracies are commonplace in any royal court. Memoirs of that era are replete with stories of countless intrigues and betrayals. Facts and documents are stubborn things, and they testify that several dangerous conspiracies were drawn up against Grozny, one after another, uniting numerous participants from the tsarist circle.

So in 1566-1567. The tsar intercepted letters from the Polish king and from the Lithuanian hetman to many of John’s noble subjects. Among them was the former equerry Chelyadnin-Fedorov, whose rank made him the de facto leader of the Boyar Duma and gave him the right to a decisive vote in the election of a new sovereign. Together with him, Prince Ivan Kurakin-Bulgachov, three princes of Rostov, Prince Belsky and some other boyars received letters from Poland. Of these, only Belsky did not enter into independent correspondence with Sigismund and handed over to John a letter in which the Polish king offered the prince vast lands in Lithuania for treason against the Russian sovereign. The remaining addressees of Sigismund continued written relations with Poland and formed a conspiracy aimed at placing Prince Vladimir Staritsky on the Russian throne.

In the fall of 1567, when John headed campaign against Lithuania, new evidence of treason fell into his hands. The Tsar had to urgently return to Moscow not only to investigate this case, but also to save his own life: the conspirators planned to surround the Tsar’s headquarters with military detachments loyal to them, kill the oprichnina guards and hand over Grozny to the Poles. The rebels were led by Chelyadnin-Fedorov. A report on this conspiracy by the political agent of the Polish crown, Schlichting, has been preserved, in which he informs Sigismund: “Many noble persons, approximately 30 people... pledged in writing that they would betray the Grand Duke along with his guardsmen into the hands of Your Royal Majesty, if only Your The Royal Majesty has marched on the country."

The trial of the Boyar Duma took place. The evidence was irrefutable: the agreement of the traitors with their signatures was in the hands of John. Both the boyars and Prince Vladimir Staritsky, who tried to dissociate himself from the conspiracy, found the rebels guilty. Historians, based on the notes of the German spy Staden, report the execution of Chelyadnin-Fedorov, Ivan Kurakin-Bulgachov and the princes of Rostov. All of them were allegedly brutally tortured and executed. But it is reliably known that Prince Ivan Kurakin, the second most important participant in the conspiracy, remained alive and, moreover, 10 years later, served as governor of the city of Wenden. Besieged by the Poles, he drank heavily, abandoning command of the garrison. The city was lost to Russia, and the drunkard prince was for it executed. It seems that you can’t say that they were punished for nothing.

And similar red tape happened to many executed boyars, not to mention the fact that several boyars, like the Vorotynsky brothers, were killed exclusively historians, not Grozny. Historian researchers had a lot of fun finding documents about the lives of many boyars, who continued as if nothing had happened even after their heads were allegedly cut off or impaled.

Myth 2. The defeat of Novgorod

In 1563, John learns from clerk Savluk, who served in Staritsa, about the “great treacherous deeds” of his cousin Prince Vladimir Staritsky and his mother, Princess Euphrosyne. The king began an investigation and soon after that Andrei Kurbsky fled to Lithuania, a close friend of the Staritsky family and an active participant in all his intrigues. At the same time, John’s brother, Yuri Vasilyevich, dies. This brings Vladimir Staritsky closer to the throne. Grozny is forced to take a number of measures to ensure its own safety. The Tsar replaces all of Vladimir Andreevich's close people with his proxies, exchanges his inheritance for another and deprives his cousin of the right to live in the Kremlin. John draws up a new will, according to which Vladimir Andreevich, although he remains on the board of guardians, is already an ordinary member, and not the chairman, as before. All these measures cannot even be called harsh, they were simply adequate response to danger. Already in 1566, the easy-going tsar forgives his brother and rewards him with new possessions and a place in the Kremlin to build a palace. When in 1567 Vladimir, together with the Boyar Duma, convicted Fedorov-Chelyadnin and the rest of his secret accomplices, John’s trust in him increased even more.

However, at the end of the summer of the same year, a Novgorod landowner close to the Staritsky court Petr Ivanovich Volynsky informs the king about a new conspiracy of such magnitude that John, in fear, turned to Elizabeth of England with a request to provide him, as a last resort, shelters on the banks of the Thames.

As for the true reasons for the event, the death of the heir to the throne caused puzzled disagreement among contemporaries and controversy among historians. There were enough versions of the prince’s death, but in each of them the main evidence was the words “perhaps”, “most likely”, “probably” and “as if”.

But the traditional version goes like this: one day the king entered his son’s chambers and saw his pregnant wife dressed inappropriately: It was hot, and instead of three shirts she put on only one. The king began to beat his daughter-in-law, and the son began to defend her. Then Grozny dealt a fatal blow to his son’s head. But even in this version one can see a number of inconsistencies. The "witnesses" are confused. One says that the princess wore only one dress out of three due to the heat. Is this in November? Moreover, at that time a woman had every right to be in her chambers only in one shirt, which served as a house dress. Another author points out the absence of a belt, which allegedly infuriated John, who accidentally met his daughter-in-law in the “inner chambers of the palace.” This version is completely unreliable, if only because it would be very difficult for the king to meet the princess “dressed not according to the rules,” and even in the inner chambers. And in the rest of the palace chambers, even fully dressed ladies of the then Moscow high society did not walk freely.

Separate mansions were built for each member of the royal family, connected to other parts of the palace by passages that were quite cool in winter. The prince’s family lived in such a separate mansion. The routine of Princess Elena's life was the same as that of other noble ladies of that century: after the morning service, she went to her chambers and sat down to needlework with her servants. Noble women lived locked up. Spending their days in their small rooms, they did not dare to appear in public and, even having become a wife, could not go anywhere without the permission of their husband, including to church, and their every step was watched by persistent servant-guards. The noble woman's room was located in the back of the house, where there was a special entrance, the key to which was always in the husband's pocket. No man could enter the female half of the tower, even if he was the closest relative.

Thus, Princess Elena was in the female half of a separate mansion, the entrance to which was always locked, and the key was in her husband’s pocket. She can leave there only with the permission of her husband and accompanied by numerous servants and maids, who would certainly take care of decent clothing. Besides, Elena was pregnant and would hardly have been left unattended. It turns out that the only way for the king to meet his daughter-in-law in a half-dressed state was to break down the locked door to the maid’s room and disperse the hawthorns and hay girls. But history did not record such a fact in John’s adventurous life.

But if there was no murder , then why did the prince die? Tsarevich Ivan died of illness, for which some documentary evidence has been preserved. Jacques Margeret wrote: “There is a rumor that he (the king) killed the eldest (son) with his own hand, which happened differently, since although he hit him with the end of the staff... and he was wounded by the blow, he did not die from this, and some time later, on a pilgrimage trip." Using this phrase as an example, we can see how the false version , popular among foreigners with the “light” hand of Possevin, intertwined with the truth about the prince’s death from illness during a pilgrimage trip. In addition, the duration of the illness was 10 days, from November 9 to November 19, 1581. But what kind of disease was this?

The Frenchman Jacques Margeret, who lived in Russia for many years, describes this event quite differently: “The Livonians, who were captured and taken to Moscow, professing the Lutheran faith, having received two churches inside the city of Moscow, held public services there; but in the end , because of their pride and vanity, said temples... were destroyed and all their houses were destroyed. And, although in winter they were expelled naked, as their mother gave birth to, they could not blame anyone but themselves for this, for... they behaved so arrogantly, their manners were so arrogant, and their clothes were so luxurious that they all could be mistaken for princes and princesses... Their main profit was given to them by the right to sell vodka, honey and other drinks, from which they make not 10%, but a hundred, which may seem incredible, but it’s true." Similar data is provided by the German merchant from the city of Lübeck, not just an eyewitness, but also a participant in the events. He reports that although it was ordered only to confiscate the property, the executors still used the whip, so he also got it. However, like Margeret, the merchant does not talk about murder, nor rape, nor torture. But what is the fault of the Livonians, who lost their estates and profits overnight?

The German Heinrich Staden, who has no love for Russia, reports that the Russians It is prohibited to sell vodka, and this trade is considered a great disgrace among them, while the tsar allows foreigners to keep a tavern in the courtyard of his house and sell alcohol, since “foreign soldiers - Poles, Germans, Lithuanians ... by nature love to drink.” This phrase can be supplemented by the words of the Jesuit and member of the papal embassy Paolo Compani: “The law prohibits the sale of vodka publicly in taverns, as this would contribute to the spread of drunkenness.” Thus, it becomes clear that the Livonian settlers, having received the right to produce and sell vodka to their compatriots, abused their privileges and " began to corrupt in their Russian taverns."

No matter how indignant the paid agitators of Stefan Batory and their modern adherents may be, the fact remains: the Livonians violated Moscow legislation and suffered the punishment due by law. Mikhalon Litvin wrote that " there are no taverns anywhere in Muscovy, and if even a drop of wine is found on any householder, then his entire house is ruined, his estate is confiscated, the servants and neighbors living on the same street are punished, and the owner himself is forever imprisoned... Since Muscovites abstain from drunkenness , then their cities abound with diligent craftsmen of various kinds, who, sending us wooden bowls... saddles, spears, jewelry and various weapons, rob us of gold."

Of course, the tsar was alarmed when he learned that his subjects were being soldered to death in a German settlement. But there were no lawlessnesses; the punishment was in accordance with the law, the main provisions of which are given by Mikhalon Lytvyn: the houses of the criminals were destroyed; property was confiscated; servants and neighbors were punished with whips; and even leniency was shown - the Livonians were not imprisoned for life, as required by law, but only They were evicted outside the city and allowed to build houses and a church there.

As can be seen from the above facts, the figure of Ivan the Terrible was fairly demonized, although, of course, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible there were dark pages, but it is difficult to find anything that went beyond the political culture and morals of that time for the tsar.

Moreover, behind the clearly distorted image of Grozny, many researchers do not notice positive aspects of the reign of Ivan Vasilyevich. But there are also a lot of them.

Under Ivan, Rus' rose from its knees and straightened its shoulders from the Baltic to Siberia. Upon ascending the throne, John inherited 2.8 million square meters. km, and as a result of his rule, the territory of the state almost doubled - to 5.4 million square meters. km - a little more than the rest of Europe. During the same time the population grew by 30-50% and amounted to 10-12 million people. In 1547, Grozny was crowned king and took the title of tsar, equivalent to the imperial one. This state of affairs was legitimized by the Ecumenical Patriarch and other hierarchs of the Eastern Church, who saw in John the only defender of the Orthodox faith. Under Ivan, the remnants of feudal fragmentation were finally destroyed, and without this it is not known whether Russia would have survived the Time of Troubles or not.

By order of Ivan the Terrible, over 40 stone churches decorated with golden domes were erected. The king founded 60 monasteries, giving them domes and decorations, as well as donating money to them.

Intelligence interrogation: Klim Zhukov about the repressions of Ivan the Terrible

The slandered Tsar Ivan the Terrible (V. Manyagin, A. Fursov, I. Froyanov)

Ivan groznyj. Portrait without retouching.
For many, the name of Ivan the Terrible is associated with the words “despot”, “tyrant”. But is it? A number of historical documents indicate otherwise. 1885 A new work by Ilya Repin “Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan” is exhibited in St. Petersburg. The picture caused extreme indignation among the St. Petersburg intelligentsia. No one disputed the artist's skill. The very plot of the film, where fiction was presented as historical fact, was criticized. Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, church historian and member of the State Council Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev sent a letter to Emperor Alexander III: “The picture cannot be called historical, since this moment is... fantastic. Ivan the Terrible did not kill his son.” This film is a historical investigation devoted to the analysis of the activities of the Russian Tsar.

This is a film about a man who, in the 16th century, first united our country and created a single powerful state from separate disunited and self-interested principalities, about a sovereign who for the first time placed upon himself the crown of the Tsar of All Rus', about one of the most complex, powerful and contradictory personalities - about Tsar Ioann Vasilyevich, who went down in history under the name Grozny.

Ivan the Terrible, the first Russian Tsar (1547-1584) under whom the territory of the state doubled and many cities were founded

Ivan IV was slandered by his contemporaries and many, completely unaware of his lifetime deeds, consider him a tyrant. All this speaks of gaps in education and inadequacy in terms of knowledge of the real history of his life. The biggest misconception is that he killed his son - this did not happen. However, some quite deliberately continue to denigrate him, pursuing the goal of harming as much Russia as possible and the correct, unbiased perception of the events taking place at that time.

During the same historical era, the “civilized” rulers of European countries - the Spanish kings Charles V and Philip II, the English king Henry VIII and the French king Charles IX - executed hundreds of thousands of people in the most brutal manner. So, for example, in the Netherlands alone, which was under the rule of Charles V and Philip II, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible (from 1547 to 1584), there were about 100 thousand “heretics” executed or died under torture, where did Ivan the Terrible and 3 thousand executed during the reign.

At the same time, the murderous monarchs from Europe are presented as beacons of democracy, and they turn a blind eye to all their monstrous crimes. The morals of “civilized” Europe are well demonstrated by the fact that most of the victims were burned alive in front of a huge crowd (people went to watch the execution as if it were a theatrical performance) and, as a rule, in the presence of the kings themselves.

Another fairly well-known fact. During the so-called Bartholomew's Night (note that King Charles IX of France actively participated in it), on August 23, 1572, more than 3 thousand Huguenots (Protestants) were brutally killed just because they dared to choose a slightly different religious path. It turns out that in just one night in the most civilized European country, approximately the same number of people were killed as during the entire period of Ivan the Terrible’s reign of terror. Let us add that then about 30 thousand Protestants died throughout France within two weeks.

The son of Grand Duke Vasily III and Elena Vasilievna Glinskaya, Ivan the Terrible was one of the most educated people of his time, possessed a phenomenal memory and theological erudition. In January 1547, the solemn crowning of Grand Duke Ivan IV took place in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Signs of royal dignity were placed on him: the cross of the Life-Giving Tree, barmas and the cap of Monomakh. The royal title allowed him to take a significantly different position in diplomatic relations with Western Europe. The grand ducal title was translated as “prince” or “grand duke.” The title “king” was either not translated at all, or translated as “emperor”. The Russian autocrat thereby stood on a par with the only Holy Roman Emperor in Europe.

The Tsar contributed to the organization of book printing in Moscow and the construction of St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square.

Since 1549, Ivan IV carried out a number of reforms aimed at centralizing the state.

During the third campaign, Kazan was taken (1552). Immediately after the capture of Kazan, in January 1555, the ambassadors of the Siberian Khan Ediger asked the tsar to “take the whole Siberian land under his name and stand up (defend) from everyone and put his tribute on them and send his man to whom to collect the tribute.” "

The campaign of 1556 was due to the fact that Khan Dervish-Ali went over to the side of the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire. The Don Cossacks defeated the Khan's army near Astrakhan, after which in July Astrakhan was again taken without a fight. As a result of this campaign, the Astrakhan Khanate was subordinated to the Russian kingdom.

Sweden started the war in 1555. Swedish admiral Jacob Bagge with a 10,000-strong army besieged Oreshek. On January 20, 1556, a Russian army of 20-25 thousand defeated the Swedes at Kivinebb and besieged Vyborg, but could not take it. In July 1556, Gustav I made a proposal for peace, which was accepted by Ivan IV.

In 1556, the capital of the Golden Horde, Sarai-Batu, was destroyed.

In 1558, Grozny began the Livonian War for the capture of the Baltic Sea coast. By 1560, the army of the Livonian Order was completely defeated, and the Order itself ceased to exist.

The Russian-Crimean wars ended with the death of a selected Turkish army near Astrakhan in 1569 and the defeat of the Crimean horde near Moscow in 1572, at the Battle of Molodi, which put a limit to Turkish-Tatar expansion in Eastern Europe.

In 1565, the tsar announced the introduction of oprichnina in the country. This period in the history of Russia was marked by extreme repressions, confiscation of feudal property and lands in favor of the state, and the struggle of Ivan the Terrible against alleged treason among the boyar-princely nobility. What, in general, could very well have been, as it recently became known, that the tsar himself, like his son before that, was poisoned with mercury, traces of which were preserved in the bones... In his will of 1579, he repented of his sins, none of the European monarchs before I did not indulge in such sentimentality.

By the way, after the death of his son, Ivan the Terrible sat for several days in despair at the coffin of the prince. It seems that events developed as follows. About ten days before the death of the prince, Ivan the Terrible beat his pregnant daughter-in-law, Elena Sheremeteva, with a staff. The reason for this was that he found her undressed (in those days a woman could appear before a stranger when she was wearing at least three shirts). But it is likely that the main reason for the king’s anger was his reluctance to have a descendant from Sheremeteva. That same night, Elena gave birth to a stillborn child.

When the prince learned about this, he broke down, because he loved his wife. There was an attack of epilepsy, then a fever, and on November 19, 1581, the son of Ivan the Terrible died. Let us note that Ivan IV did not expect such a development of events. The death of his direct heir almost deprived him of his sanity, thoroughly damaging his psyche and health. Two years later, Ivan the Terrible himself died.

The information war has been going on against Russia for a long time, just since the time of Ivan the Terrible, who laid the foundation for our state as we know it. Europeans were very afraid of such a rapid rise of Russia, and since then the so-called information war began.

During his reign, the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates were conquered, Western Siberia, the Don Army Region, Bashkiria, and the lands of the Nogai Horde were annexed. Thus, under Ivan IV, the increase in the territory of Rus' was almost 100%, from 2.8 million km² to 5.4 million km²; by the end of his reign, the Russian state had become larger than the rest of Europe. Here is an incomplete list of cities founded under him: Sviyazhsk, Cheboksary, Belgorod, Voronezh, Ufa... And many more were founded in the next few years after his death - following the plans of the now deceased tsar.

Now do you understand why they are trying to denigrate him by any means?

465 years ago, in 1552, the future Tsar Boris Fedorovich Godunov was born. His reign was short-lived, just over 7 years (1598 - 1605), but an entire era in the history of Russia is associated with the name of this man - an era, alas, completely distorted by a number of authoritative historians, starting with N.M. Karamzin.

In 1584, after the death of Ivan the Terrible, his middle son Fyodor Ioannovich ascended the throne. He was a quiet, kind and very pious man, with little preparation for government. He ended up on the throne by chance - three years earlier, the eldest son of Ivan the Terrible, heir to the throne, Ivan, died untimely (and was not at all killed by his father, as our pundits rewrite the lies of foreigners). There is, by the way, an evidentiary version that both Ivans, father and son, were poisoned.

Perhaps the most important thing that Fyodor knew and what he held firmly to while on the throne was that power was given to the tsar by God, which means that the tsar must dispose of it in a Divine manner. Indeed, the whole life of Tsar Fedor was the personification of the high spiritual and moral level of the supreme power. At the helm of state, he placed his elderly maternal uncle Nikita Romanovich Yuryev (the progenitor of the future Romanov dynasty) and the 32-year-old boyar Boris Fedorovich Godunov - the closest people of Grozny in recent years. A year later, the uncle died, and soon Godunov became the sole helmsman - the head of the government, in modern terms.

He inherited a country extremely weakened by the protracted Livonian War, which, unfortunately, did not achieve its main geopolitical goal - creating access to the Baltic Sea. The government had three tasks: to ensure external peace, to ensure internal order and to ensure the growth of the economy and the well-being of the people. Godunov coped brilliantly with all these tasks.

Under him, Russia achieved unprecedented prosperity, power and international authority. Numerous fortresses and temples were built. New cities were founded - Tyumen, Tobolsk, Berezovo, Surgut and Tara in Siberia, Voronezh, Ufa, Samara, Tsaritsyn and many others. The army was strengthened. Trade grew rapidly - an indicator of the growth of industry and agriculture. Foreign specialists, mainly ore miners, were invited to work in the country. The Russian cities of Yam, Koporye, Ivangorod, and Oreshek, captured by Sweden during the Livonian War, were returned. The strengthening of central power continued, and without the usual executions for that cruel century.

But, perhaps, the highest political success of the “prime minister” was the establishment of the patriarchate in 1589, which immediately elevated Russia throughout the Christian world. Since the fall of Byzantium (1453), there has been a painful conflict for Russia - on the one hand, it was the only independent Orthodox state, and also very powerful, and on the other, the Russian Church, which did not have its own patriarch, occupied a subordinate position in relation to to the Eastern patriarchs. The Eastern Patriarchs, whose departments were located in the lands occupied by the Turks, were quite happy with this situation - they had the opportunity to regularly travel to Moscow for alms (very, very considerable!). As a result of Godunov’s subtle diplomacy, the issue was successfully resolved during the next visit of the Patriarch of Constantinople to Moscow.

Godunov's contemporaries, even those who envied his high position, characterized the ruler in the best light, noting his great intelligence, education, eloquence, mercy and kindness. And in his personal life - a faithful husband and caring father - he was an example of high morality. These same contemporaries highly appreciated the results of his reign.

It is quite natural that after the death of the childless Fyodor in 1598 and the end of the Rurik dynasty, Boris was elected to the royal throne. He was elected not by the Boyar Duma, but by the Zemsky Sobor, which represented different social strata and different lands of the state. It seemed that Boris's reign would be as prosperous and long as his reign under the late tsar. But an unexpected disaster came: for three years in a row (1601-1603), due to summer (!) frosts, “naked” winters and incessant rains, there was a terrible crop failure, and famine struck the country. The tsar took desperate measures, distributed free bread from government reserves, punished speculators and resellers, but could not overcome the famine: popular unrest began in the country.

That’s when the envious boyars began to spread the dirtiest rumors and gossip about Boris (as they say now, “black PR”). The death in 1591 of the 8-year-old Tsarevich Dmitry, the youngest son of Grozny, was attributed to Godunov. The election of Godunov to the throne was explained by bribing the delegates of the Zemsky Sobor. These gossip and rumors were willingly recorded by foreigners who were then in Russia, as well as by supporters of envious boyars.

Alas, the entire Godunov period of Karamzin’s “History” was built on these sources, and not on scientific analysis. On the basis of Karamzin’s false “History” A.S. Pushkin wrote his brilliant drama, and on the basis of Pushkin’s historically false drama M.P. Mussorgsky wrote his brilliant opera. This chain stretched throughout the entire 19th century. Only in the 20th century were there objective historians (the first of them S.F. Platonov) who, using logic, documents and facts, proved that the murder of the prince (if it happened at all) was least of all beneficial to Boris. That rumors about the bribery of delegates of the Zemsky Sobor appeared no earlier than 1603. That all earlier records indicate a sincere and unconditional election of the tsar. Soviet historians (R.G. Skrynnikov and others) finally confirmed that the conclusions of the investigative commission corresponded to reality: the prince himself ran into a knife as a result of a sudden attack of epilepsy.

To top off the famine, there was a new misfortune: Boris’s enemies began to spread rumors that the prince miraculously remained alive and was going to fight for power. This is how the first False Dmitry appeared, who from the Polish abroad in the fall of 1604 moved to Moscow, acquiring numerous supporters along the way. This was the beginning of a civil war, the stress of which Boris’s body could no longer withstand - in April 1605 he died of hemorrhage. The boyars swore allegiance to his 16-year-old son Fedor, but soon betrayed him too - they provoked (not without the participation of Polish agents) the Moscow mob to kill the new tsar along with his mother, Boris's widow.

The regicide was not in vain - the Great Troubles began, which cost Russia colossal victims, terrible devastation, loss of a large part of the territory and threw it back decades. Troubles in general cost Russia dearly - in 1605, 1917, and 1991.

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Comments 23

Comments

23. h : Reply to 22., Elena Sergeeva:
2017-05-14 at 19:21

In one of the conversation programs between director and producer Kirill Mozgalevsky and ANNA-NEWS editor-in-chief Marat Musin, Kirill M. spoke about his work in the Vatican archives. There he came across a folder - correspondence between the Vatican and their envoys to Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The agent writes: Tsar Ivan the Terrible’s son has died... In response from the Vatican, an instruction follows: in the official report on the state of affairs in Russia, one should write: “Ivan the Terrible killed his son”... As stated in this program, the historian Karamzin, who worked in archives of the Vatican, read reports already corrected by “well-wishers” of Russia.

Very interesting. But who corrected the Norman theory in his head?

22. Elena Sergeeva : I agree with point 20 -- lucia
2017-05-14 at 19:03

In one of the conversation programs between director and producer Kirill Mozgalevsky and ANNA-NEWS editor-in-chief Marat Musin, Kirill M. spoke about his work in the Vatican archives. There he came across a folder - correspondence between the Vatican and their envoys to Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The agent writes: Tsar Ivan the Terrible’s son has died... In response, an instruction follows from the Vatican: in the official report on the state of affairs in Russia it should be written: “Ivan the Terrible killed his son”...
As stated in this program, the historian Karamzin, who worked in the Vatican archives, read reports already corrected by Russia’s “well-wishers.”

20. h : Reply to 18., Russian Stalinist:
2017-05-13 at 19:05

and historians. I don’t believe that Karamzin wrote on the tsar’s order. And in general, the whole story is a dark forest. And no matter what Filaret did, one should not imagine the Romanovs as if they were engaged in historical manipulation for three hundred years. Karamzin lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, so when describing the era of Grozny and Godunov, he relied on historical documents, and they were rewritten and forwarded under Filaret, when he was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom. And subsequent generations of the Romanovs and Russian historians, of course, relied on Filaret’s sources, because there were no other, alternative ones left. So this is not their fault , they used what was available.

There are other ways to restore the truth. Hope. gradually all this work will be done.

I also hope that the result will be a coherent and truthful picture, without the abuse of the words “great”, “insignificant” and so on.

19. Russian Stalinist : Reply to 14., Ivan Ledorub:
2017-05-13 at 18:08

By the way, do you respect Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin?
By the way, he once said: “Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov and Peter the Great created Russia. Insignificant petty envious people slandered them. Our task is to restore their good name.”

18. Russian Stalinist : Reply to 16., Lucia:
2017-05-13 at 17:48

Karamzin lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, so when describing the era of Ivan the Terrible and Godunov, he relied on historical documents, and they were rewritten and forwarded under Filaret, when he was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom.
And subsequent generations of the Romanovs and Russian historians, of course, relied on Filaret’s sources, because there were no other, alternative ones left.
So it’s not their fault; they used what was available.

17. Russian Stalinist : Reply to 14., Ivan Ledorub:
2017-05-13 at 17:41

It is deeply symbolic that after the death of Tsar Boris and his children, the Lord did not leave a single representative of the Godunov family on earth. And the murdered Tsarevich Dimitri is revered, by definition, as a martyr, and, of course, not because of illness, which, however, has not been thoroughly proven... And, by the way, the Troubles began precisely under Godunov, and not after...

And today there are people living in Russia who bear the name Godunov.
Tsarevich Dimitri was killed by the enemies of Russia and the enemies of Godunov; read at least “The Autocracy of the Spirit” by the ever-memorable Bishop John (Snychev).
While the legitimate Russian Tsar was alive, the impostor had no chance of success, which is why Godunov was poisoned, and his son, the legal heir to the throne, was too young and inexperienced, which the traitors and traitors took advantage of.

16. h : Reply to 13., Russian Stalinist:
2017-05-13 at 12:24

and historians.

I don’t believe that Karamzin wrote on the tsar’s order. And in general the whole story is a dark forest.

And no matter what Filaret does, one should not imagine the Romanovs as if they had been engaged in historical fraud for three hundred years.

15. M. Yablokov : Reply to 14., Ivan Ledorub:
2017-05-13 at 11:17

It has already been proven that there was no point in killing Tsarevich Dimitry Godunov. And unmotivated murder is more likely for our contemporaries))

14. Ivan Ice pick :
2017-05-13 at 09:46

13. Russian Stalinist : Reply to 11., Lucia:
2017-05-12 at 23:52

And it’s not me who says that Filaret rewrote history, but historians.
From 1613 to 1619, i.e. During the period of Michael’s sole rule until the return of his father Filaret from Polish captivity, in official documents Godunov was called the last legitimate Tsar before the Time of Troubles, received the highest ratings, and after 1619 he became the same villain as False Dmitry.
Who could force you to make such a sharp turn?
The answer is obvious.
And the fact that in the 18th and 19th centuries Godunov was one of the main anti-heroes of official imperial historiography was not my idea either.
Let's leave Karamzin alone for a moment, let's open the history of Russia for Ishimova's children, the same one that Pushkin read in the morning before the fatal duel ("This is how you should write!..")
The description of Godunov in it is no different from the description of Karamzin, the same set of cliches.
And on the monument “Millennium of Russia” there was no place for Godunov, nor for Grozny.
This is also a fact; anyone can go to Veliky Novgorod and see this with their own eyes.

12. Russian Stalinist : Reply to 11., Lucia:
2017-05-12 at 23:31

Let’s not distort the official Romanov historiography. Otherwise it will work out. that you can praise someone, you immediately need to condemn someone. Whatever Godunov was in personal or state terms. he was not Rurikovich. And there were many of them. And if Filaret was the initiator of such rumors, then he should have tried to slander Pozharsky by all means. But Pozharsky was simply sent away. And I don’t blame anyone, Filaret can be understood, he had personal and long-standing scores with Godunov. Godunov was the Tsar who exiled the Romanovs and forcibly tonsured Theodore Nikitich, albeit for the cause of a conspiracy against the Tsar. Neither Pozharsky was not noticed in any way, did not fight for the throne, did not offend the Romanovs. That's not exactly what I mean. You say that Filaret bent historiography and his followers too. Then it would be beneficial for them to somehow slander not so much Godunov as Pozharsky. because his image looks completely irresistible and it is clear to everyone that he should have been the tsar, and not Mikhail Romanov.

Why on earth did Pozharsky have to be a king?
He had no rights to the throne; the Moscow Kingdom, which survived the Troubles, is not Byzantium with its principle of “personal merit,” where every successful commander could lay claim to the throne and the red shoes of the basileus.
Although the Godunovs and Romanovs were not Rurikovichs, they became related to the royal dynasty: Grozny married a representative of the Romanov family, and Godunov’s sister Irina married Feodor Ioannovich.
This is what predetermined the outcome of the Zemsky Councils of 1598 and 1613.
They chose the one who was currently closest to the extinct dynasty.

11. h : Reply to 10., Russian Stalinist:
2017-05-12 at 21:58

That's not exactly what I mean. You say that Filaret bent historiography and his followers too. Then it would be beneficial for them to somehow slander not so much Godunov as Pozharsky. because his image looks completely irresistible and it is clear to everyone that he should have been the tsar, and not Mikhail Romanov.

10. Russian Stalinist : Reply to 7., Lucia:
2017-05-12 at 20:02

And I don’t blame anyone, Filaret can be understood; he had personal and long-standing scores to settle with Godunov.
Godunov was the Tsar who exiled the Romanovs and forcibly tonsured Theodore Nikitich, albeit for a cause - for a conspiracy against the Tsar.
Pozharsky was not seen in anything like that, did not fight for the throne, and did not offend the Romanovs.

let's do it without distortion.
but it works out. that you can praise someone, you immediately need to condemn someone.
Whatever Godunov was in personal or state terms. he was not Rurikovich. And there were many of them.
And if Filaret was the initiator of such rumors, then he should have tried to slander Pozharsky by all means. But Pozharsky was simply sent away.

6. Russian Stalinist : Re: Slandered Tsar Boris Godunov
2017-05-12 at 16:45

Let's not forget that there was censorship in the Empire, the official view of Godunov as a murderer and criminal was established in 1619, when Filaret returned from Polish captivity and ordered the writing of a new version of Russian history of the era of Godunov and the Time of Troubles, in which the main villain was precisely Godunov.
If Karamzin or Pushkin had written about how good Godunov was, no one would have missed their works.
At the same time, Karamzin, when visiting the Sergius Lavra, standing in front of the Godunovs’ tomb, exclaimed: “What if we slander a person?!” But he couldn't write something like that.
Grozny and Godunov became the main anti-heroes of official Romanov historiography; it is not for nothing that they did not find a place on the “Millennium of Russia” monument.

5. Russian Stalinist : Reply to 2., Lucia:
2017-05-12 at 16:11

This is all very nice. But it doesn't reveal the topic. Anyone who is attracted by the title of the article will be waiting for an answer to the question - how are the suspicions that have been repeatedly expressed against Godunov refuted? Everyone knows and has heard them - he is credited with the poisoning of the Terrible Tsar, the poisoning of Tsar Theodore Ioannovich, the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry, intrigues to obtain the throne. Unfortunately, the author did not touch upon these topics, limiting himself to mentioning only the prince.

But he mentioned historians who in their books refuted this slander - Platonov, Skrynnikov.
The personality of Boris Godunov and his era are also well written in “The Autocracy of the Spirit” by the ever-memorable Bishop John.
Among modern historians I can name Bokhanov, who in his book “Boris Godunov” carefully examined and convincingly refuted all the listed anti-Godunov myths.
The article is intended to attract the attention of people so that, after reading it, they become interested in the topic and read the relevant historical works, which provide answers to the questions.

4. Observer. : Reply to 2., Lucia: what about the Bolsheviks?
2017-05-12 at 15:53

Everyone knows and has heard them - he is credited with the poisoning of the Terrible Tsar, the poisoning of Tsar Theodore Ioannovich, the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry...

Thanks to the author!
Boris Feodorovich Godunov is one of the greatest figures in our history, slandered by the enemies of Russia and the Russian people.
But there are big doubts from what he died.
According to eyewitnesses, on April 13, the Tsar had lunch, climbed the tower from which he loved to explore Moscow, and suddenly began bleeding from his nose, mouth and ears.
In the same way, a few years later the young hero of Russia Skopin-Shuisky will die, poisoned at a feast with his brother Vasily Shuisky.

Even the official version of history contains a huge number of facts testifying to historical forgeries and the constant desire of our sworn partners to throw mud at Rus' and the Russian people. Why did Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich displease the propagandists so much?

The merit of Ivan the Terrible in publishing the first Russian printed books is undoubted. In general, much in Russian history called “first” is associated with the name of this tsar. The first pharmacy appeared under him, the first regular army - archers, also under him. Ivan Vasilyevich is the founder of the regular border troops, who approved the “Charter of the Guard and Border Service” on February 16, 1571.

Firefighters will not let you lie - before Ivan Vasilyevich, fires in Rus' were not extinguished and were not allowed to be extinguished - they say, it is God’s will; The Terrible Tsar had to cut off several particularly orthodox heads in order to change society’s view of firefighting. In 1584, shortly before his death, Ivan the Terrible established the Stone Order, to which stone craftsmen and brickmakers were subordinate.

“And it is known in that Order that the entire Moscow state has stone work and craftsmen; and for what kind of royal building will those craftsmen be needed, and they are collected from all the cities, and the royal treasuries give them money for daily food, so that they can be well fed. Yes, in Moscow, well-known (producing lime) brickyards and factories are known in that order, and where white stone is born and lime is made, and those cities with taxes and income are known in that Order...”

In general, he was an extraordinary ruler, unfairly slandered by foreigners and court historiographers of the dynasty Romanovs, and in order to understand the tangled history of the library named after him, one will unwittingly have to clear away the centuries-old rubble of slander and slander, honest misconceptions, outright lies and concealment of documents.

For example, one of the most valuable sources of the era of Ivan the Terrible, "Stoglav", was inaccessible to historians for a long time. In 1667, it was banned by Patriarch Nikon as a heretical work. For almost two hundred years this document was classified!

A Jerome Horsey assured the European public that the bloodthirsty Ivan the Terrible brutally killed in Novgorod 700 thousand people, despite the fact that the population in that Novgorod was barely 30 thousand...And the dog heads and brooms on the guardsmen’s saddles are fiction. The guardsmen wore on their belts the symbol of a broom that sweeps away treason, a woolen brush.

Generations of historians have done so much, they have tried so hard, painting with black paint the deeds of Ioannov, that in the understanding of the average person they called him the Terrible because of his unparalleled cruelty.

Few people now remember that Grozny first called his grandfather, Ivan III, who earned this nickname at the age of twelve, when in 1452 he drove Dmitry Shemyaka through the Vologda forests. This name was given to him in a praiseworthy sense; he was formidable for enemies and obstinate disobedients.

“It is rare that the founders of Monarchies are famous for their tender sensitivity, and the firmness necessary for great affairs of state borders on severity. They write that timid women fainted from the angry, fiery gaze of John; that the petitioners were afraid to go to the throne; that the nobles trembled and at feasts in the palace did not dare to whisper a word or move from their place, when the Emperor, tired of the conversation, hot with wine, dozed for hours at a time at dinner; everyone sat in deep silence, waiting for a new order to amuse him and have fun.

Having already noticed the severity of Ioannov’s punishments, we add that the most noble officials, secular and spiritual, were not exempt from the terrible trade execution; Thus, they publicly whipped the Ukhtomsky prince, the nobleman Khomutov and the former Archimandrite Chudovsky for the forged document they wrote for the land of the deceased brother Ioannov ... "

Who did Karamzin write this about? About Ivan the Terrible, that’s just it, about which? When quoting, I deliberately omitted the date, and if you don’t know that this happened in 1491, then you won’t understand that this was written about John III. But it just so happened that in public opinion it was John IV- a pathologically cruel tyrant, sadist and executioner, and if he doesn’t drink human blood for a day, he doesn’t go to sleep.

Even Alexander Bushkov’s book, written seemingly in defense of the good name of the first Russian Tsar, is called “Ivan the Terrible. Bloody poet." But the historian R.G. Skrynnikov, who devoted several decades to studying the era of Ivan the Terrible, irrefutably proved, that during the “mass terror” of the time of John IV in Russia was executed near 3-4 thousand person, and according to court decisions, in accordance with by law.

For example, in 1577, Prince Ivan Kurakin’s head was cut off. Kurakin at one time participated in the conspiracy of Vladimir Staritsky, when Ivan the Terrible was to be captured and handed over to the Poles. The spiritual fathers begged forgiveness for the traitor prince, and Kurakin was even appointed governor of the city of Wenden. But when the city was besieged by the Poles, Kurakin went on a drinking binge, and as a result the Poles took the city. Here Ivan the Terrible’s patience ran out, and he shortened the prince by his head... That’s just the verdict for the princes and boyars approved by the boyar duma!

English historian and philosopher R.J. Collingwood said that “the personality of any more or less significant historical figure should certainly be considered taking into account the time in which he lived and worked, as well as specific historical conditions.” And yet - the scale of any event can only be realized in comparison - during the reign of Henry VIII, around the same time, in the “civilized” Britain was 72 thousand executed people (about 2.5% of the total population of the country) “for vagrancy and begging,” and under Queen Elizabeth - 89 thousand Human!

And where did so many tramps suddenly come from that they had to be hung along the roads in a picturesque disorder? And these were just peasants, driven from their lands - industrial England needed pastures for sheep. Armed guards stood at road intersections, stopped anyone passing, and if he could not convincingly prove that he was a local tenant, they dragged him to the gallows, without bothering to prove his guilt and the finicky legal proceedings. So the former peasant was faced with a choice - either to go to gallows or in manufactory, work for peanuts.

In 1525 in Germany executed during the suppression of the peasant uprising more than 100 thousand Human.

It was during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, from 1547 to 1584 the Netherlands, under the rule of the Spanish kings Charles V and Philip II, the number of victims reached 100 000! Moreover, these were, first of all, “heretics” who were executed or died under torture.

French King Charles IX on August 23, 1572 took personal part in St. Bartholomew's Night, during which he was killed more than three thousand Huguenots. In one night - about the same as during the entire reign of Ivan the Terrible. But it's only one night. And in just two weeks they killed all over France about 30 thousand Protestants.

The list of glorious deeds of European monarchs is continued by Ivan Vasilyevich himself, in a conversation with the English envoy, who said: “I am being condemned abroad for committing a terrible crime in Novgorod... But how great was the mercy of King Louis XI, who turned his city of Liege to ashes and decay? and Arras? He severely punished treason. And the Danish ruler of Christians persecuted many thousands of people for treason.”

Somehow the image of an unprecedented tyrant, despot and executioner is dimming against the background of the actions of “civilized” monarchs... Why throughout the world, it is our Ivan Vasilyevich who is the super-tyrant, the super-executioner?

Well, firstly, he mercilessly incriminates himself: “Alas, me, a sinner! Woe to me, wretched one! Oh, poor me! I, a stinking dog, am forever in drunkenness, fornication, adultery, defilement, murder, robbery, theft and hatred, in all kinds of villainy...” This is Ivan Vasilyevich writing to the abbot of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. After reading this, gullible foreigners made a completely logical and justified conclusion: “Ivan the Terrible, nicknamed “Vasilievich” for his cruelty!!! (This is not my typo, dear reader, this is what it was written in the French encyclopedic dictionary - “nicknamed “Vasilievich” for his cruelty).

And besides, we should not forget that the Western Church in every possible way approved and blessed the executions of heretics, but Metropolitan Philip of Moscow publicly refused to bless Ivan the Terrible, even though he humbly asked him about it three times. The Metropolitan could not forgive Ivan “for shedding Christian blood.” It turns out that we are accused of cruelty only because in Russia accepted higher moral standards?

And if we ourselves, and he himself, call himself an unprecedented villain, then why will the West argue with us? By the way, these same foreigners, calling Ivan the Terrible an unprecedented tyrant, were at the same time incredibly surprised - it turns out that in Russia they don’t hang for theft! Their surprise is understandable - at the same time in England, theft in the amount of six pence guaranteed the gallows.

But there are people who should know the truth, and should convey this truth to us - these are professional historians. Let's take the work of a historian V.B. Kobrin"Ivan groznyj". It says that “the era of Ivan the Terrible is characterized by an incredible scale of repression.” How did Kobrin know this? Everything is fine with the source. This is V.I. Lenin told him that the Russian autocracy was “Asian-savage”, that “there is a lot of antediluvian barbarism in it.”

He is echoed by other luminaries of historical science, who so furiously accused Ivan the Terrible that in the heat of the moment they piled up a great deal of utter nonsense. For example, they miraculously synthesized the three Vorotynsky brothers, Mikhail, Alexander and Vladimir, into one exemplary victim of the unprecedented cruelty of Ivan the Terrible.

Let's start with Karamzin: “The first of the Russian governors, the first servant of the sovereigns is the one who, in the most glorious hour of John’s life, sent to tell him: “Kazan is ours”; who, already persecuted, already marked by disgrace, the dishonor of exile and prison, crushed the khan's power on the banks of Lopasnya and also forced the tsar to declare gratitude to him for saving Moscow, ten months after his triumph was handed over to death, accused by his slave of sorcery and intent to inform the king... A man of glory and valor was brought to the king, chained...

John, hitherto sparing the life of this last of Adashev’s faithful friends, as if in order to have at least one victorious commander in case of extreme danger. The danger passed - and the sixty-year-old hero was tied up on a tree between two fires; burned, tortured. They say that John himself, with his bloody rod, raked the burning coals to the body of the sufferer. Burnt to death, barely breathing, they took Vorotynsky to Beloozero. He died on the way. His famous ashes lie in the monastery of Kirill. “Oh, great husband!” - writes the unfortunate Kurbsky. - A husband strong in soul and mind! Sacred is your memory in the world! You served an ungrateful fatherland, where valor destroys and glory is silent..."

My reader! Hold back your bitter tears! Let's better look into the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery and be surprised to see that it is not Mikhail who is buried there, but his brother, Vladimir. The widow erected a temple over his grave. (Kobrin) Vladimir had been in the monastery since 1562, when his brothers Mikhail and Alexander fell into disgrace (Zimin, Khoroshkevich).

But, since a purely specific history of the reign of terror, then the brothers Alexander and Vladimir were pushed aside, and all the troubles were attributed to the most famous of the brothers - Mikhail. As a result, a completely wild and ridiculous version appeared, in which incredible adventures and transformations occur with Mikhail.

If you believe our historians, who trustfully repeat confused Kurbsky's nonsense, then in 1560 Mikhail was exiled to Beloozero, but in 1565 he was summoned from there and, according to Kurbsky, tortured. Here he was burned over a low fire, and (well, of course!), the king personally shoveled the burning coals under him. After this Vorotynsky as if he had died on the road to Beloozero (Valishevsky).

After this, the prince, tortured to death, receives into possession of the city of Starodub-Ryapolovsky (Platonov) and at the same time sends a complaint to the tsar from the monastery imprisonment that his family and the 12 servants who are with him are not being sent the Rhine and French wines, fresh fish, raisins, prunes and lemons allotted from the treasury ( Valishevsky).

In 1571, Mikhail suddenly, without leaving the monastery cell, found himself in the chair of the chairman of the commission for reorganizing the defense of the southern borders, valiantly defeating the Crimeans in the Battle of Molodi (Zimin, Khoroshkevich) in July 1572, and in April 1573 the tireless Ivan the Terrible again with his own hands roasts it on the fire (Zimin, Khoroshkevich). A year after the second death On February 16, 1574, Mikhail signed a new charter for the guard service (and again - Zimin, Khoroshkevich).

Western historians are not far behind our historians. In 1560, Ivan the Terrible captured the Grand Master of the Livonian Order, Fürstenberg. Western historians have taken their breath away by depicting how the unfortunate grandmaster, along with other prisoners, was led through the streets of Moscow, beaten with iron sticks, after which they were tortured to death and thrown to be devoured by birds of prey. Nevertheless, 15 years after his painful death, he sends his brother a letter from Yaroslavl, where he was granted land by a cruel tyrant. In the letter, Furstenberg writes that he “has no reason to complain about his fate.” Ivan the Terrible invited him to become governor in Livonia, he refused, and lived out his life in peace.

Ivan the Terrible demanded that the nobles kiss the cross for allegiance, everyone swore allegiance and kissed the cross, and immediately Prince Dmitry Vishnevetsky, who had previously fled from Poland to Ivan, fled to Poland. Once again not getting along with Sigismund, the thrice traitor Vishnevetsky goes to Moldova, where he starts a coup d'etat, for which the Turkish Sultan He was executed in Istanbul as a troublemaker and rebel. But guess at once who historians recorded the execution of Vishnevetsky as? That's right, on the Moscow bloodthirsty despot and tyrant...

Kostomarov at the suggestion Kurbsky talks about the execution in 1561 of Ivan Shishkin with his wife and children, and meanwhile, in Zimin we read that two years after the execution, in 1563, Ivan Shishkin serves as a governor in Starodub.

The Novgorod bishop was sentenced to death. Oh God! O cruel king!

But he was sentenced for “... treason, minting a coin and sending it and other treasures Kings of Poland and Sweden, accused of the sin of sodomy, keeping witches, boys and animals and other terrible crimes. All his property - a huge amount of horses, money and treasures - was confiscated in favor of the king, and the bishop himself was sentenced to eternal imprisonment in a cellar, where he lived in shackles on his hands and feet, painted images and paintings, made combs and saddles, eating only bread and water." (J. Horsey). It turns out - sentenced but not executed. He lived alone, worked, ate modestly... As befits a monk.

According to Kurbsky, the evil tsar exiled Sylvester, an associate of Ivan the Terrible, the compiler of Domostroi, and the priest of the Annunciation Cathedral in Moscow, to imprisonment on Solovki; in reality, Sylvester himself, with the name Spiridon, took monastic vows at the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, where he gave his soul to God.

“In addition, Ivan sent Simeon the Nagoy, another instrument of his atrocities, to rob and rob Shchelkan, a great bribe-taker, who, having married a young beautiful woman, divorced her, cutting and cutting through her bare back with a saber. Having killed Ivan Latin, his faithful servant, Simeon Nagoy knocked 5 thousand rubles out of Shchelkan’s heels” (J. Horsey). Not bad? Divorced by cutting and cutting through his bare back with a saber! And 5 thousand rubles! You can roughly imagine how many proud Polish people they are gentry fought for 50 kopecks a month.

The bribe-taker who formalized the divorce in such an original way, Andrei Shchelkalov, outlived Ivan the Terrible and died about 1597.

According to Karamzin, who trustingly repeated Kurbsky’s absurdities, Ivan Vasilyevich Sheremetev was shackled in “heavy chains,” imprisoned in a “stuffy dungeon,” “tormented by the monster king.” Coming out of prison, Sheremetev, they say, was saved only by becoming a monk of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, but even there the “monster king” pestered him and reprimanded the abbot for “indulging” Sheremetev...

In fact, it was so - in 1564 Sheremetev tried to escape, was captured, but the tsar forgave him, and after that the boyar continued to fulfill his duties (Valishevsky), sitting for several years in the Boyar Duma (Karamzin). In 1571, Sheremetev commanded troops during the war with the Crimeans, and only 9 years after the escape attempt he ended up in a monastery, where he lived very comfortably, which is why the great sovereign was angry with the abbot.

Isn’t Sheremetev’s example enough? Need more? Please!

The prince was caught trying to escape and forgiven V.M. Glinsky, escaped twice and was forgiven twice I.D. Belsky. Entered into an agreement with the Poles, but the governor of the city of Starodub, Prince, was pardoned V. Funikov. And they all ran... The boyar ran over to the enemy during the fighting in the winter of 1563 Kolychev, T. Pukhov-Teterin, M. Sarokhozin...And Karamzin subsequently justified breaking the oath and fleeing to the enemy: “...flight is not always treason, civil laws cannot be stronger than the natural: to escape from the tormentor...”.

Almost all of the "reliable evidence of cruelty" from this period is based on letters Kurbsky. Well, let's take a closer look at him... Prince Andrei Kurbsky was a direct descendant of Rurik and the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir, moreover, on the senior line, while Grozny was on the junior line, and therefore considered himself entitled to claim the throne. It is believed that the king hated him for this, and also because he was “an outstanding statesman and a great commander.”

And was it precisely out of hatred that John appointed him governor of Livonia and commander-in-chief of the 100,000-strong army in Livonia?

In August 1562, the “great commander”, at the head of a 15,000-strong army, suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of 4,000 Poles near Nevel. Whether it was treason, as Valishevsky points out about Kurbsky’s “suspicious relations” with Poland, or criminal negligence, but the wound saves Kurbsky from responsibility. He is demoted - from commander-in-chief he is transferred to governor of the city of Dorpat (Now Tartu).

This town has such an aura, or what? In 1991, the head of the Tartu garrison, division commander Dzhokhar Dudayev also did something similar - he suddenly hated the CPSU, of which he had been a member for many years, and, breaking his oath, began to fight against the army in which he had made a career...

Commander of the Russian troops in Livonia, Prince Kurbsky conducted personal correspondence with King Sigismund Augustus, carefully stipulating the conditions of his transition. “Closed sheets” were received from the king himself, Hetman Radziwill and Lithuanian sub-chancellor Volovich, in which they offered Kurbsky to leave Muscovy and move to Lithuania. Having received preliminary consent, Kurbsky was sent already “open sheets” - official letters with large royal seals, guaranteeing “royal affection” and a substantial monetary reward. (These documents are preserved in Polish archives).

And only then, on an April night in 1564, “a victim of royal tyranny” Prince Kurbsky he descended on ropes from the fortress wall of Dorpat, where the boyar children S.M. were waiting for him below. Veshnyakov, G. Kaisarov, I. Neklyudov, I.N. Cockroaches... 12 people in total. Wife and 9 year old son he forgot, and the “cruel tyrant” released the traitor’s family to Lithuania so that they could reunite with the “noble” fugitive, but by that time Kurbsky had already managed to marry a rich widow. And then it turned out that a year before the escape, the prudent prince took from the Pechora Monastery large loan, and is not going to return it.

(Later, after the death of Kurbsky, his descendants were again accepted into Russian citizenship... Poor nobles Kurbskie adopted the surname Krupskiy, and by all accounts – Nadezhda Konstantinovna is his descendant...)

In Lithuania, the traitor was joyfully greeted and received possession of the city of Kovel with a castle, (at the junction of modern Belarus, Ukraine and Poland) Krevo old age, 10 villages, 4 thousand acres of land in Lithuania and 28 villages in Volyn. This is where the noble and selfless knight and started writing accusatory letters, which are again associated with many legends and speculations.

For example, as Kurbsky’s faithful servant, Shibanov undertook to deliver Kurbsky’s message to the Tsar: “From my lord, your exile, Prince Andrei Mikhailovich.” The angry king hit him in the leg with his sharp rod: blood flowed from the ulcer; the servant, standing motionless, was silent. John leaned on the staff and ordered Kurbsky’s letter to be read aloud.”

Here are just the scenes of this, so touchingly described by Karamzin, did not have And it couldn't be for a simple reason - Vasily Shibanov could not be a messenger from Lithuania; the faithful servant was abandoned by the traitorous prince in Russia and arrested during the investigation into the circumstances of the prince's flight.

But it’s a painfully picturesque scene, and Alexey Tolstoy picks up: “Shibanov was silent. Scarlet blood streamed from the pierced leg..."

The noble exile did not limit himself to writing accusatory letters. Kurbsky handed over to the Lithuanians all Livonian supporters of Moscow, with whom he himself had negotiated, and named the names of Moscow intelligence officers at the royal court.

“On the advice of Kurbsky, the king set the Crimean Tatars against Russia, and then sent his troops to Polotsk. Kurbsky took part in this battle. A few months later, with a detachment of Lithuanians, he crossed the Russian borders for the second time. As newly found archival documents testify, the prince, thanks to his good knowledge of the area, managed to surround the Russian corps, drove it into a swamp and defeated it” (R. Skrynnikov).

The “exile” wanted to regain his patrimonial rights to the Yaroslavl principality. He asked the king to give him a 30,000-strong army to capture Moscow.

“Kurbsky accosted the enemies of the fatherland... He betrayed his honor and soul to Sigismund, advised how to destroy Russia; reproached the king for his weakness in the war; persuaded him to act more boldly, not to spare the treasury, in order to incite the khan against us - and soon they heard in Moscow that 70 thousand Lithuanians, Poles, Prussian Germans, Hungarians, Volokhs with the traitor Kurbsky were going to Polotsk, that Devlet-Girey with 60 thousand predators had entered to the Ryazan region..."

And this is written by the same Karamzin!

Do you think the policy of “double standards” was invented by the Americans, or some other malicious foreigners? Figurines, we ourselves create an opinion about unprecedented cruelty and, in general, the “wrongness” of Russian history.

V.V. Kozhinov gives this example - in 1847, Alexander Herzen, our exemplary “Westernizer,” emigrated from Russia because he considered his homeland to be the center of evil - five Decembrists were executed. And it should be noted that from 1773, when six leaders of the Pugachevism were executed, until 1847 - almost 75 years - the execution of the Decembrists was the only one in Russia.

But a little more than a year passed after Herzen left for gracious, meek and philanthropic Europe, and right before his eyes, eleven thousand were shot in just three days ( 11 000 ) participants in the June uprising in Paris. Horrified by such bloodshed, Herzen initially wrote to friends in Moscow: “God grant that the Russians take Paris, it’s time to end this stupid Europe!” But then he got used to it and managed to convince Europe that the execution of the Decembrists should be qualified as an expression of unprecedented cruelty inherent in Russia...

Perhaps we can compare Ivan Vasilyevich with figures closer to our time? No, no, I don’t mean Joseph Vissarionovich at all!

During the Stolypin reform, in 8 months of 1906, 1,102 people were executed by decisions of military courts, more than 137 per month, and if we take those executed under Ivan the Terrible to the maximum - 5 thousand people over 50 years (they were also executed for murder, rape, arson residential building with people, robbery of a temple, high treason), then the simplest calculation gives barely 8 people per month for the entire country. The vast majority of those executed are known by name. The “political” belonged to the upper classes and were guilty of very real, not mythical conspiracies and betrayals. Almost all of them were previously forgiven under the cross-kissing oath, that is, they were oathbreakers, political repeat offenders.

Close to Russia both in language and geographically, Poland fell apart, disappeared from the face of the earth as a state, precisely as a result of those processes of state nihilism, freedom and separatism of the gentry, which Ivan Vasilyevich burned out with a hot iron in Rus'. It was the criminals who were executed, and there is no need to pretend that we are talking about innocent victims. Every death sentence under Grozny, it was pronounced only in Moscow and approved personally by the tsar, and the verdict on the princes and boyars was also carried out by the boyar duma.

Well, at the beginning of the twentieth humane century - legal proceedings were simplified to the limit - they looked thoughtfully at the man - barefoot, shaggy, and he smelled like a rascal... Well, nothing less than a rebel! They took me behind the barn and spanked me. Then, at the suggestion of Stolypin, Nicholas II signed a decree on military courts, they were then called "rapid-firing".

It was enough to declare a province under martial law, and a certain category of criminal cases would fall under the jurisdiction of military courts, consisting of ordinary combat officers; even military lawyers were not involved. The trial took place within 48 hours of the arrest of the suspect, and the sentence, most often hanging, was carried out within 24 hours. It’s clear that there could be no serious investigation, so it was mostly innocent people who died! Well, what could two or three randomly appointed combat officers, who were unable to carry out even the simplest investigative actions, understand about the evidence and evidence?

And after that - Ivan, which means a tyrant and despot, and darling Stolypin- almost an icon for our liberals.

The idea of installing a monument was literally in the air - in 2005, they wanted to install a monument to John IV in the city of Lyubim, Yaroslavl region, very close to the Vologda region. The local administration was already ready to pay the costs, and Zurab Tsereteli himself undertook to realize the monument in bronze; the idea of installing the monument was also supported by the residents of the town, first mentioned in the chronicles since 1546.

But the Yaroslavl diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church MP opposed the installation of the monument. Archbishop of Yaroslavl and Rostov Kirill addressed a message to the governor, regional prosecutor and chief federal inspector with a demand to prevent the installation of a monument to Tsar John IV.

Archbishop Kirill argued that the installation of the monument would lead “...to the most unpredictable consequences, will worsen the crime situation in the area...” and could become a “destabilizing factor.” Fearing horror stories and horror films, imagining how the population of a town of less than 7 thousand people would be excited by the sight of a monument to a man who died more than 400 years ago, and would go to destroy everything in the area, the idea of a monument was scrapped.

No one in Europe demolishes monuments to murderous kings, both compatriots and our historians write about them, at least respectfully, but only when it comes to Ivan Vasilyevich... Splashing with saliva, coming out with bloody foam, they begin to talk about a completely unique, exceptional, a unique villain, an unsurpassed tyrant and executioner!

Practically his contemporary, separated from Ivan the Terrible by a very small number of years, the Tsar Vaska Shuisky(on the throne from May 1606 to July 1610) in 1607 promised pardon to Bolotnikov and his associates; when they surrendered, the promise was forgotten - Bolotnikov himself was drowned in Kargopol, and four thousand prisoners the rebels were executed in a very simple way - they were taken to the banks of the Yauza and... With a club to the back of the head - bale, in water - plop! Four thousand blows - four thousand corpses floated along the Yauza and further along the Moscow River... Ileik, who called himself Peter, the son of Tsar Fedor, was also executed in Moscow, contrary to the promise to grant life.

But! On the monument by Mikeshin “Millennium of Russia” (1862), Vasily Ioannovich Shuisky found a place among 109 outstanding figures of our country, but it is useless to look for Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible there...

Even closer is the brilliant commander of all times and peoples, called by Astafiev “the poacher of the Russian people,” Georgy Zhukov. 1939, Khalkhin Gol. “In a few months they were shot 600 person, and presented for the award 83 ..." (Secretary General of the Union of Writers of the USSR V.P. Stavskikh.)

Shall we count? 600 executions - this is just 104 days (from June 5 to September 16). There are six death sentences a day. And look at the monument they erected to him in Moscow, and the bust in his homeland...

There are several rulers whose negative myths have overshadowed the true essence of their reign, all their achievements and victories. One of the slandered sovereigns is Ivan the Terrible. Since childhood, we have all been instilled with the idea of Ivan the Terrible as an extremely cruel and almost insane ruler, whose actions are difficult to explain from a reasonable point of view. What do we remember about the era of Ivan the Terrible? Oprichnina? Murder of the prince? How were the king's opponents boiled in oil? For some reason, this is precisely what the emphasis is on when describing the era of the reign of John IV. Much less time is devoted to the expansion of the Russian state, not to mention cultural and economic achievements, which are practically ignored. But the king is not as formidable as he is portrayed.

Firstly, John IV can be called the real creator of the Russian state. Formally, this outstanding man occupied the throne for fifty years - from 1533 to 1584, ascending to it at the age of three. However, John IV, later nicknamed “The Terrible,” was crowned king in 1547. The seventeen-year-old sovereign, despite his young age, very quickly became familiar with issues of public administration and began to reform it. During the years of Ivan the Terrible's reign, a management system was created that at that time best met the needs of the growing Russian state.

The transformation of Russia into an estate-representative monarchy is also the merit of Ivan the Terrible. Already in 1549, on the initiative of the 19-year-old sovereign, a Zemsky Sobor was convened, in which representatives of all Russian classes except the peasantry participated. Subsequently, part of the powers of local authorities was redistributed in favor of representatives of the nobility and the black-growing peasantry. By the way, it was Ivan the Terrible who began to form the conditions for the further development of the Russian nobility, which he considered as a counterbalance to the boyars and their influence. The nobles began to be generously endowed with estates. So, already in 1550, a thousand Moscow nobles received estates, after which the Streltsy army was formed, which for a long time became the support of the Russian sovereigns.

But the main merit of Ivan the Terrible in terms of state building was the territorial expansion of the Russian state. It was under Ivan the Terrible that the territory of Muscovite Rus' increased by almost 100% and surpassed the entire Europe in area. Thanks to the military victories of Ivan the Terrible and his commanders, Rus' included the lands of fragments of the Golden Horde - the Kazan Khanate, the Astrakhan Khanate, the Great Nogai Horde, as well as the Bashkir lands. The Siberian Khanate became a vassal of Rus', which after Ivan the Terrible finally became part of the Russian state. In addition, Russian troops during the reign of Ivan the Terrible repeatedly made campaigns against the Crimean Khanate, invading the territory of the Crimean Peninsula. The formation of the Russian state took place in endless wars with neighboring states and political entities, which were initially very aggressive towards Rus'. Who knows whether the Russian state would have been able to secure its borders and increase in size if it had been ruled at that time by a less tough and purposeful sovereign?

If no one argues with the military successes of Ivan the Terrible, then his internal policies have always caused a lot of discussion, and in historical literature in general, a critical line regarding the tsar’s policies prevailed. Thus, the introduction of the oprichnina was interpreted as nothing other than the creation of a harsh dictatorship with reprisals against dissidents. In fact, in that difficult political situation, the introduction of the oprichnina was a brilliant political move by Ivan the Terrible. Let us recall that Rus', like other states, was at that time corroded by feudal fragmentation. The introduction of the oprichnina was an excellent way, if not to completely defeat, then at least to significantly minimize the level of feudal fragmentation in the Russian state. Oprichnina played into the hands not only of Ivan the Terrible, but also of the interests of unification and centralization of the state. The organization of the oprichnina army as a paramilitary monastic order was also a brilliant idea, which gave religious legitimation to the oprichniki’s activities. The tsar himself became abbot of the oprichnina army, Afanasy Vyazemsky became a cellarer, and Malyuta Skuratov became a sexton. The guardsmen's lifestyle resembled a monastic one, and this showed that worldly, personal interests were alien to them.

For a long time, historical literature, following the official course, interpreted the oprichnina as a “black page” in Russian history, and the oprichniki as cruel executioners capable of the most notorious atrocities. In pre-revolutionary historiography, the oprichnina was generally viewed solely as a consequence of the tsar’s mental insanity, saying that Ivan the Terrible went crazy and that is why he created the oprichnina. However, then a more objective point of view triumphed, viewing the oprichnina through the prism of the confrontation between the tsar, who sought to strengthen his sole power, and the boyars, who did not want to part with their opportunities and privileges.

Such a tendentious interpretation missed the real need of the Russian state for such an institution during its formation and accelerated development. Another thing is that the guardsmen actually committed many atrocities; many prominent government and religious figures died at their hands, not to mention ordinary people. At some point, Ivan the Terrible could no longer fully control the flywheel of the repressive mechanism he had launched.

However, it is worth remembering that many people wanted the removal of Ivan the Terrible over the long half-century of his reign. Conspiracies against the king were drawn up regularly. Ivan the Terrible lived in a state of total danger, when it was completely unclear when, where and from whom to expect the next attack attempt. So, in 1563, John IV learned about the conspiracy of his cousin Prince Vladimir Staritsky and his mother Princess Euphrosyne. As a result of the investigation, the involvement of his friend Andrei Kurbsky in Staritsky’s intrigues was established. After Yuri Vasilyevich, John’s brother, died, the tsar was forced to alienate all people close to Vladimir Staritsky from the throne, since it was Vladimir Staritsky who came close to the throne. The tsar transferred Staritsky from chairman to ordinary members of the guardianship council in his will. Can this be called repression? Despite the fact that in 1566 Ivan the Terrible, famous for his hot-tempered but easy-going disposition, forgave Vladimir Staritsky and allowed him to begin construction of his palace on the territory of the Kremlin.

But already in 1567, the landowner Peter Volynsky informed Ivan the Terrible about a new conspiracy. According to Vladimir Staritsky’s plan, the cook was supposed to poison the tsar with poison, and the prince himself, at the head of military formations loyal to him, would destroy the oprichnina army and, with the help of his Moscow comrades, take power in the capital. If this conspiracy were successful, the Russian state would be under the rule of Vladimir Staritsky in the status of a tsar, and Pskov and Novgorod would be transferred to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Many noble Novgorodians agreed with the latter circumstance, to whom Vladimir Staritsky promised the rights and privileges of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility. As you can see, the plan was quite serious and very frightened Ivan the Terrible himself. At the end of September 1569, Vladimir Staritsky, who arrived to visit Ivan the Terrible, was poisoned at a gala reception with the Tsar and died the day after the feast. That is, for six years Ivan the Terrible was under the threat of imminent death if the conspirators won, and all this time the tsar did not kill Staritsky, hoping that his cousin would come to his senses and abandon his regicidal plans.

The “Novgorod pogrom”, which is considered one of the bloodiest crimes of Ivan the Terrible, is also correlated with the liquidation of Vladimir Staritsky. In fact, it should be understood that after the death of Staritsky, the conspiracy of the boyar elite against the tsar was not eliminated. It was headed by Novgorod Archbishop Pimen. It was to neutralize the conspiracy that Ivan the Terrible undertook a campaign to Novgorod, where he arrested a number of noble people of the city, primarily those who entered into an agreement with Sigismund and were going to participate in the overthrow of the tsar and the dismemberment of the Russian state. According to some reports, as a result of the investigation into the conspiracy of Staritsky and his followers, 1,505 people were executed. Not so much for that time, considering, for example, the scale of executions in Western European countries, where the Inquisition was raging and bloody religious wars were fought.

His own son, Ivan Ivanovich (1554-1581), is often included among the “victims of the cruel tsar.” The whole world knows the painting by Ilya Efimovich Repin “Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan November 16, 1581.” According to a widespread myth, Ivan Ivanovich was mortally wounded by his own distraught father, Ivan the Terrible, during a quarrel in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda in November 1581 and died five days after the wound - on November 19. However, this version is still considered unproven. There is not a single factual evidence in favor of her being right. Moreover, there is no evidence of the generally violent nature of Ivan Ivanovich’s death. Although 27 years old, and Ivan Ivanovich reached exactly this age in 1581, is early even by medieval standards, we should not forget about diseases and the lack of medicine in those distant centuries.

Of course, in relations with his son, Ivan the Terrible often went too far. So, Ivan Ivanovich already had three marriages during his young years - the union with Evdokia Saburova lasted a year, with Feodosia Solova - four years, and Ivan Ivanovich’s last wife was Elena Sheremeteva, with whom he married in the year of his death. This number of marriages was explained by dissatisfaction with the son’s wives on the part of the “cool” father and father-in-law. Ivan the Terrible did not like all the prince's wives. Therefore, they ended the same way - by becoming a nun. The tsar’s hatred of Elena Sheremeteva allegedly led to a quarrel between father and son. The version that the king killed his son was also supported by the papal legate Antonio Possevino. He said that the sovereign allegedly beat Elena Sheremeteva to such an extent that she lost her child. When Ivan Ivanovich intervened in the situation, Grozny hit him in the head with his staff, causing the prince a mortal wound. The king himself was then very sad, called the best doctors, but nothing could be done, and the heir to the throne was buried with the highest honors.

In 1963, almost four centuries after those dramatic events, in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, experts opened the graves of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich and Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich. Medical-chemical and medical-forensic examinations were carried out, which established that the permissible content of mercury in the prince’s remains was 32 times higher than the permissible content of mercury, and the permissible content of lead and arsenic was several times higher. But centuries later no one could establish what this could be connected with. It is likely that the prince could have been poisoned. But then this version does not at all correlate with the violent death at the hands of his own father, which was reported by the papal legate.

A number of researchers consider the version of the murder of the prince by his own father to be a complete hoax, a component of the “information war” that has been waged by the West against Russia and Russian history for centuries. Already in those days, the enemies of the Russian state did a lot to discredit it, and for the papal legate to make one of the most significant Russian sovereigns, the collector of Russian lands Ivan the Terrible, a mentally ill child killer, was an excellent way to denigrate the Tsar and Rus'.

Ivan the Terrible died two years after the death of his son Ivan Ivanovich - March 18 (28), 1584. Despite the fact that the king was a relatively old man, for several years before his death he felt bad and his condition only worsened. Even the papal legate Possevino reported back in 1582 that “the king did not have long to live.” Ivan the Terrible looked bad, could not move independently and the servants carried him on a stretcher. The reason for this state of the king was found out only centuries later, during the study of his remains. Ivan the Terrible developed osteophytes that prevented him from moving freely. The scientists who conducted the study claimed that even very old people had not encountered such deposits. Immobility, life in a state of stress and nervous shock made the king's life much shorter than it could have been.

Fifty-year-old Ivan the Terrible not only looked, but also felt like a very old man. His condition began to deteriorate rapidly at the end of the winter of 1584. If in February 1584 Ivan the Terrible still tried to show interest in state affairs, then at the beginning of March 1584 he became very ill. The ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, who was on his way to Moscow to receive the tsar, was stopped on March 10 precisely because the tsar was feeling unwell, and was no longer able to hold audiences. On March 16, 1584, the king fell into a state of unconsciousness. However, the next day there was some improvement associated with taking hot baths recommended by doctors. But they did not prolong the king’s life for long. On March 18, 1584, around noon, one of the greatest sovereigns in the entire history of the Russian state died at the age of 54.

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The truth about Tsar Emperor Nicholas II and the Royal Family - video films based on a true story. Unfairly slandered Tsar Ivan the Terrible

Ivan the Terrible was unfairly slandered. Destroying myths

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