Ivan the Terrible (37 page)

One must also ask where did Ivan get the idea of setting up part of his realm to prey on the other part, like a cancerous growth, moving around in the body politic, now taking in cities and land and now expelling them, after having stripped them clean. After all, other kings in other countries have been afraid of dynastic rivals for the throne (like King Henry VIII) or of overmighty subjects who had to be cut down to size, or of a solid aristocratic opposition to their policies like that of the barons to King John of England. Other countries suffered from feudal fragmentation, or difficulty in extending royal authority throughout the land; others have suffered from conflict between a rich and powerful aristocracy, a class of military landed gentry, a poor peasantry. Other countries too were burdened by constant warfare, requiring additional resources in men and treasure which had to be extorted from the population. In other countries economic forces were at work leading to changes in the mode of production. But nowhere was the attempt made to solve these problems by the creation and imposition of a duplicate state. Other rulers have instituted reigns of terror but they have not divided the state into two or even three and allowed one part to prey upon another.

There is one possible source for the idea of setting up a special guard of
oprichniki
in the form which it took, namely the Tsaritsa Maria Temriukovna. She was very young when she arrived in Russia, and most Russian authors, as noted above, completely reject the idea that she had any influence on Ivan or that he even liked her.
⁴⁵
But she bore him a short-lived son, lived with him for eight years, probably shared in some of the court entertainments since Tatar women were not accustomed to seclusion, and accompanied him everywhere. In summer 1564 she went with Ivan on a pilgrimage to Pereiaslavl' Zalesskii, and the monks and other observers there ‘were impressed with her modest bearing, religious proclivities, and grasp of affairs’.
⁴⁶

The idea that the concept of the
oprichniki
originated with her is first mentioned by one of the German military nobles who briefly served in the
oprichnina
, Heinrich von Staden. He wrote that: ‘She [Maria] advised the Grand Prince to choose five hundred harquebusiers from among his people and generously provide them with clothes and money. They were to ride with him daily and guard him day and night.’ Ivan followed this advice according to Staden, ‘and chose from his own and foreign nations a handpicked order’.
⁴⁷
Maria's brother, Prince Mikhail
Cherkassky who had been at court in the care of Ivan since 1558 and whose wife was related to Tsaritsa Anastasia, became an important leader of the
oprichniki
.

Ostrowski, who has pursued more than other scholars the notion of extensive Mongol influence on Russian political institutions,
⁴⁸
does detect the presence of Tatar influence in what he considers to be Ivan's deliberate choice to set up ‘a steppe khanate’, taking his cue from Genghis Khan and excluding Byzantium in the form of the Orthodox Church and the Boyar Council in favour of an eastern divan.
⁴⁹
Maria Temriukovna has a bad reputation in Russian folklore; in a song about the death of Anastasia, the first Tsaritsa warns Ivan not to marry a pagan wife, and Maria and her brother Mikhail are made responsible for the introduction of the
oprichnina
⁵⁰
.

There are two respects in which Tatar influence could be discerned. One is the setting up of the corps of
oprichniki
, the special guards, which Staden attributes to Maria. According to Vernadsky, Genghis Khan had organized his imperial guards into a corps ten thousand strong, composed of the best soldiers and officers of each unit. ‘The guards became the cornerstone of the whole army organization and administration of Genghis Khan's empire.’ They had privileges: a private in the guards was considered higher in rank than any commander of an army unit. They were on permanent duty and when not fighting were employed as messengers, ambassadors and administrators.
⁵¹
The second aspect in which Mongol influence may be detected is the setting up of an appanage, which featured also in Mongol practice, particularly in relation to the provision of an income for dowagers.

At least one Soviet historian, S.M. Kashtanov, has raised the question whether the extremely favourable treatment of the Tatar princelings by Ivan was a deliberate measure adopted because he felt he could place greater trust in their loyalty, perhaps in part owing to his wife's insinuations. Because the Tatar tsars and tsarevichi (ex-rulers and their sons) were descended from Genghis Khan or from Tatar families which had recently reigned, and were thus dynastically pure, they stood above the unreliable Russian boyars and service princes. Moreover, the tsarevichi had no support in Russian society and depended entirely on the Tsar's favour alone. They could not compete with the Riurikovichi as possible claimants to the Russian throne. This may also explain Ivan's treatment of the descendants of the Grand Prince of Lithuania, Gedimin, the Bel'sky and Mstislavsky princes, who survived all disgraces and continued to be appointed as leaders of the Boyer Council, in turn, replaced at times by Tatar tsarevichi. This in Kashtanov's view explains
the extent of the grants of land the Tatar tsarevichi received and the important positions they held. Mikhail Temriukovich Cherkassky was granted what in fact amounted to an old style appanage with all the attendant privileges.
⁵²
Moreover, Ivan showed considerable interest, even affection, for Tatars in his entourage during most of his life and also trusted them as military commanders.

In one sense war with the Crimeans was Russia's most pressing and constant problem, for the Tatar hordes could conduct their devastating raids from the distant steppes without any warning. They also fluctuated between alliance with the King of Poland–Lithuania (who also used Tatar mercenary troops) and with Russia. Russia, however, had begun to develop a systematic defence against Tatar raids by creating a chain of fortifications along the southern border which remained a feature of Russian life until the annexation of the Crimea in 1783. The first defensive line was along the river Oka, running through Tula and Serpukhov to Nizhnii Novgorod but this was much too near Moscow by the middle of the sixteenth century, and it was supplemented by a line running through a number of towns such as Kolomna, Kashira, Serpukhov and Kaluga. This defensive line consisted of forts manned by cavalry patrols on the alert to detect Tatar movements and protect the settled population. Early in his reign Ivan IV set about strengthening this line and built another one further south, including the new town of Orel, and extending to Alatyr on the River Sura. The total system was about a thousand kilometres long and the line was composed of earthworks, felled trees and palisades, and moats, manned by patrols based on the nearest towns. Ivan himself attached great importance to this defensive network and in the summer of 1565 conducted a lengthy tour of the new towns and inspected the defences.
¹
But if Ivan were to embark on a serious campaign against Lithuania, now increasingly supported by the forces of the more powerful Polish army, he needed to cover himself not only against the Crimea but also against both Sweden and Denmark, who both made claims on Livonia.

Livonia and north Russia

Meanwhile in Sweden, Gustavus Vasa's long reign had come to end on 29 September 1560 and he had been replaced by his eldest son, Erik XIV, a man who was, intellectually at least, cast in the mould of the
cultured Renaissance monarch. The new King had recently turned back from a journey to England where Elizabeth, now Queen, had rejected his offer for her hand. It was just as well for, though much the most personable of all her suitors, he was, ‘with all his brilliant endowments, a tragically unhappy man, tense and nervous, self-questioning, self-torturing; liable to violent changes of humour; at once suspicious and credulous, cruel and timid. The gem was flawed from the beginning; and under a sharp blow was always liable to disintegrate’ – in fact, in temperament he was very like Ivan IV.
²
The accession of Erik XIV introduced a new element into Russo-Swedish relations for, in his communications with Ivan, Erik could start from a much stronger position than his father Gustavus, since his mother was the daughter of a German prince and, like Ivan, he was a king by hereditary right and not by election.
³
Just as Sigismund had refused to address Ivan as Tsar, so Ivan had always refused Gustavus's demand to be acknowledged as his equal and for negotiations between Russia and Sweden to take place directly with the Tsar in Moscow and not with the Governor of Novgorod. Born of a mother of princely rank, Erik was the first Swedish king to demand to be called Majesty, and was very proud of his descent from the Goths.
⁴

The new King was determined to achieve Swedish control of Reval which would allow him to dominate both shores of the Gulf of Finland, where Narva, now in Russian hands, had replaced Reval as the Russian staple for the lucrative trade with Russia. In Erik's view his most likely ally among the competing powers was Russia and he negotiated a renewal of the existing truce with Ivan early in 1561, as a result of which Reval accepted the overlordship of Sweden in June 1561. Erik proceeded forcibly to interfere with the trade of the Hansa and other powers through Narva, by seizure of merchant fleets on the high seas, in order to divert the trade to Swedish controlled Reval.
⁵
An armistice of twenty years was concluded between Russia and Sweden in August 1561,
⁶
which stabilized their relations and protected Ivan's back. But an event took place in 1562 which was to complicate relations between Russia and Sweden for some time.

Erik's younger half-brother and heir, John, Duke of Finland, was anxious to acquire an independent establishment on the lines of an appanage, and to marry well. He turned his attention to the sister of Sigismund Augustus, Catherine Jagiellonka, she who had refused Ivan's offer after the death of Anastasia not long before. Now, without waiting for the full consent of his brother the King, John took the bit between the teeth and won Sigismund's consent to his marriage to Catherine by
being somewhat economical with the truth regarding his political and financial prospects. The marriage took place on 4 October 1562, and outraged Erik. John was arrested, tried and condemned by the Swedish Riksdag for treason. When John resisted, he was besieged in his own castle, taken prisoner and kept locked up in the castle of Gripsholm for five years with his wife. The marriage survived to become a cause of conflict between Sweden and Russia when Ivan decided that he wanted the bride he had lost back.

The situation around Livonia had become more and more complex since the so-called ‘Seven Years' War’ in the Baltic, between Sweden and Denmark, had broken out in 1563. Ivan was happy to stand back and let Sweden and Denmark fight it out, but he did not want at that time to alienate Denmark with whom he had signed a treaty in 1562 by which he recognized both Danish annexation of the castle of Sonneburg in Livonia and the King's brother, Duke Magnus, as Bishop of Oesel and Duke of Courland (shortly to be seized by the ex-Grand Master Kettler in agreement with Sigismund Augustus). Erik of Sweden, who needed Russian goodwill for his war with Denmark signed the treaty of Dorpat with Ivan in May 1564 (in Novgorod, as of old), in which Russia recognized Erik's right to Reval and some other castles, while Erik recognized that the rest of Livonia was Ivan's patrimony. But it was not a permanent settlement.
⁷

Meanwhile Sigismund had secured a truce with the Crimea for the Commonwealth in 1564/5, during which the Crimeans launched a couple of attacks on Russia, but in 1566 the Sultan called on his Crimean vassal to turn away from attacks on Russia and join in the Turkish struggle against the Holy Roman Emperor in Hungary. The Crimean Tatars, having demanded the return of Kazan' and Astrakhan', were conjuring up the threat of Turkish support, and proposed a two-year armistice in March 1566, provided the Russians paid the usual tribute which Ivan, of course, refused. On the contrary, he carried out a strong demonstration against the Crimeans together with a month-long inspection of the fortifications of the southern border at the end of April 1566.

The Livonian Order had now completely ceased to be an independent factor, though it still had troops in the area. After her conquest of Polotsk, Russia had agreed to sign a truce with Poland–Lithuania until the end of 1563, which later led Ivan to complain that he had been misled into allowing the Commonwealth a breathing space in which to rearm.

In 1563 to 1564 peace talks between Russia and a large Polish–Lithuanian
embassy continued, each side putting forth maximalist claims which were promptly refused by the other. Ivan as usual demanded the return of all the old West Russian lands (Kiev,
et al
.) and the cession of his ‘ancestral land’, Livonia. The Poles seemed willing to negotiate on the basis of the
uti possidetis
and therefore to cede Polotsk to Ivan. But both sides refused to give way on the real issues which separated them: the Poles insisted on keeping the whole course of the River Dvina and Riga, ceding only a small portion of the land above and below Polotsk, and refused to recognize Ivan's title of Tsar.