Ivan the Terrible (46 page)

Randolph then returned to England accompanied by a Russian ambassador, Andrei Grigorievich Savin who, Ivan hoped, would advance the negotiations for a treaty of alliance, which would now be dealt with in England. Savin brought with him the draft of a treaty ‘of perpetuall amity’ between the two powers, offensive and defensive, providing for mutual armed assistance when demanded, and confirming in broad terms the commercial privileges already granted by Russia to England but extending them to both sides.
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In the meantime Ivan had become aware that the overthrow of Erik of Sweden in favour of a prince married to the sister of the King of Poland, and the impending union of Poland and Lithuania, had wrecked his
Livonian policy. He was not strong enough to stand alone against the Commonwealth and he had lost his Swedish ally, at a time when the Khan of Crimea was being urged by the new Ottoman Sultan, Selim, who had succeeded in 1566, to join in a campaign against him.

The Ottomans had for some time been reacting against the growing power of Russia in the southeast and its control of the middle Volga, which endangered the pilgrim route from the East to Mecca and Medina. Moreover, the appearance of Russia on the lower Volga upset the balance between the Ottomans and the Persians, and the Khan of Crimea could prove a valuable ally to the former by claiming the heritage of the Golden Horde on the Caspian Sea and demanding the return of the two Tatar khanates, Kazan' and Astrakhan'. Already in 1564 the Khan of Crimea was claiming that he had many grievances against Ivan which could not be assuaged by many ‘skins’.
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The Russians had abandoned the old Tatar city of Astrakhan' on the right bank of the Volga and had built a new and stronger fortress on an island some ten miles downstream.
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The main outpost of the Ottomans was the fort of Azak on the estuary of the Don, on the Sea of Azov, a centre of the Turkish slave trade. By the mid-sixteenth century, the Cossacks established on the Lower Don, under the leadership of Prince D. Vishnevetsky, the occasional ally of Ivan IV, began to threaten Turkish trade. But relations with Russia were not as yet sufficiently important for the Porte to embark on direct negotiations and these were mainly – though not exclusively – carried on through the Crimean Tatars.

However, émigrés from Kazan', Astrakhan' and Kabarda in Turkish territory pressed the Sultan to expel the Russians from their lands, with the support of the Khan of the Crimea and other local princes, and the idea began to be talked about of cutting a canal between the Don and the Volga which would enable the Turks to advance by water up the Don from Azov to Perevoloka, cross to the Volga and continue into central Russia or down to Astrakhan', which would then become the base for campaigns against Persia, or into the Caucasus.
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Selim proved more favourable to the plan than had Suleiman earlier, and serious investigation of the possibilities began. By the beginning of 1568, the decision to embark on a campaign had been taken in the Porte. Ships were built in Kaffa; artillery and detachments of janissaries gathered in Constantinople, together with an army of 15,000 from the Balkan provinces. Military supplies and ammunition, as well as a labour force to dig the canal, were collected in the Crimea, where the Khan, Devlet Girey, was by no means enthusiastic at the prospect of closer control of his policy by the Turks. The Russians were kept fully informed of
Turkish plans through their envoy in the Crimea, Afanasii Nagoi, who was privately informed by the Crimeans of what the Porte was planning, because it did not suit them to see the Ottomans installed in Astrakhan' and dominating the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus. Rumours of the plan to dig a canal spread throughout Europe and aroused much interest.

The Turkish flotilla, bearing the troops, advanced from Azov up the Don in July 1569 and joined the Crimean army in Perevoloka in August, where the Ottomans had planned to start on the construction of the canal. But they had left it too late: the Don was too shallow, and even the portage between the Don and the Volga was too difficult, and the digging proved way beyond the capacity of the force assembled, to the indignation of the Turks. The project was abandoned, and the Turkish and Crimean armies withdrew to lay siege to Astrakhan'. They occupied the old, abandoned town, and the local Tatars were happy to provide the force with river galleys to take them up the Volga. But they made no headway against the new Russian fortress which was well defended by Prince Peter Serebrianovich Obolensky who had his own river forces. The real cause of the failure, however, was the divergence of views between the Turks and the Crimeans who, according to some accounts, did their best to thwart Turkish plans in order to discourage them from making any further attempts on Astrakhan'.
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So the Turks and the Crimeans finally lifted the siege in September 1569, unwilling to face a long stay in such inhospitable country in winter. The Turks turned away to fight the Venetians, and in April 1571 a peace settlement was concluded by an exchange of letters between the Porte and Ivan, by which Russia agreed to destroy a Russian stronghold on the River Terek in the Northern Caucasus, renounce support for Kabarda, open the road to pilgrims and merchants, and satisfy the Khan of Crimea's claims to the payment of tribute by Russia. Thus, the tribute which Ivan III had refused to pay was now imposed again on Ivan IV.
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Meanwhile the Crimeans, free from the pressure of their over-powerful ally, could return to the pursuit of their own interests, namely the fight for the recovery of Kazan', and prepare for a new campaign of their own.

Ivan now considered a negotiated solution to the war in the North by attempting to set up a vassal kingdom of Livonia as a Russian protectorate, probably on the advice of the two Livonian nobles, who had entered his service, Johann Taube and Eilhard Kruse, and of Ivan Viskovaty, the head of the Office of Foreign Affairs, who had never been enthusiastic about the Livonian war. A candidate for the new kingdom was easily found in Magnus, the younger brother of King Frederick II of Denmark and ruler of the island of Oesel and the Danish possessions in
Livonia, who had been seeking an establishment for himself, and a wife, for some time.

The Russian embassy sent to fetch Catherine Jagiellonka returned at last from Stockholm without the queen, but with detailed information about the overthrow of Erik in June 1569, though Ivan had undoubtedly been kept in touch by means of couriers.
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No doubt also the spreading undercurrents from the ‘treason’ of Fedorov, and particularly Fedorov's pre-knowledge of the existence of the plot of 1567 (if he did really provide Vladimir of Staritsa with a list of conspirators), maintained Ivan in a state of constant agitation. He sent his cousin out of the way, to Nizhnii Novgorod, an important military outpost against the then impending Tatar-Turkish attack, while he prepared his downfall. It was easy to bribe a cook in Vladimir's service to denounce his master for having tried to induce him to kill the Tsar with poisoned fish. Ivan sent for his cousin at once to Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda, outside which he was surrounded by
oprichniki
, commanded by Ivan's henchmen, V.G. Griaznoi and Maliuta Skuratov. They informed the prince that he was no longer the Tsar's brother but his enemy, because he had attempted, not only to seize the crown, but to murder Ivan by bribing the cook to give him poison. As members of the Tsar's immediate family the Staritskys could not appear before a tribunal or even be executed; but Ivan had evidently decided that he could no longer allow Vladimir to threaten his hold on the throne and that he must execute him. After a trivial investigation of the evidence, on 9 October 1569 Vladimir, with his wife and daughter, were brought into the Tsar's presence, and told by the Tsar that they were to drink a cup of poison. At first Vladimir refused as he did not want to commit suicide, which was a sin, but his wife persuaded him to drink on the grounds that it was Ivan who would have to answer for it at the Last Judgment. Both then swallowed the poisoned draught, and their nine-year-old daughter also drank the poison. Ivan issued orders that his aunt, Evfrosin'ya, at the time in a convent in Beloozero, should be brought to the Sloboda and on the way she and twelve of her ladies and five of her servants were suffocated by smoke on board the barge they were travelling on by Griaznoi and Maliuta Skuratov, who seemed to be charged with most of Ivan's dirty work at this time. Neither A.D. Viazemsky, nor A.D. Basmanov nor his son Fedor was involved; possibly their disgrace was already looming in 1569 if they dared to protest against the extent of Ivan's executions.

The many executions are confirmed by the entries in the
Sinodiki
where the cook is named, as well as a fisherman who procured the fish which was allegedly poisoned, and a number of
d'yaki
and nobles in
Vladimir's service. Ivan offered prayers for all of them. He was also surprisingly inconsistent about Vladimir's family. The nine-year-old daughter was forced to die, but Vladimir's son, Vasily, and his daughters Evfimia and Maria by his first wife, who were not present, were spared, and some years later an appanage was returned to the son, Vasily.
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The next event in Ivan's intimate circle which might have had a disturbing impact on his emotional balance was the death, on 9 September 1569, of his Tsaritsa, Maria Temriukovna, the Princess of Kabarda, probably then in her mid-twenties. Nothing is known for a fact about her relationship with Ivan, except that she had a son in 1563, who died when he was only a few months old. Russian and Soviet historians have portrayed her in a very negative light. How could Ivan have been attracted by a savage Tatar, however pretty, wrote Solov'ev,
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in disregard of how attractive a young Tatar girl could be, particularly to Ivan brought up among Tatars. The boyars are said to have detested her, but again where is the evidence? The presence of high ranking Tatar princes and mirzas at court and in the army was taken for granted in Russia at the time, and they probably participated in the feasts and banquets which Ivan organized for the entertainment of his court (a banquet is a solemn meal for ambassadors, a
pir
is a feast). Many of them converted to Orthodoxy and married into boyar families, and probably there were intermarriages lower down the social scale.

Maria's brother, Prince Saldanliuk (baptized Mikhail) Temriukovich Cherkassky had been in Moscow since boyhood, was taught his letters under Ivan's orders and became a boon companion of the Tsar. He was given lands and powers and treated like an appanage prince, even issuing charters in his own name. He was married to the daughter of V.M. Iur'ev, of the Zakhar'in clan, a cousin of Tsaritsa Anastasia, and he continued in high favour until 1571. His other sister was married to the head of the
zemshchina
for a while, tsarevich Mikhail Kaibulich. Daughter of one of the leading rulers of the Tatars of Kabarda, Maria Temriukovna was related to many local chiefs. In reply to a letter of condolence, on her death, from the Khan's wife, Ivan asserted that in memory of his wife he would care for and protect her relatives as before.
But other local khans who did not feel bound to Russia may have aroused his suspicions.

There is some mystery about Tsaritsa Maria's death – a farrago of rumours, that she died poisoned by the boyars or that she attempted to poison her husband. The common people apparently regarded her as responsible for the change in Ivan's nature after the death of Anastasia.
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But maybe also that they regarded her, as the
oprichnik
Heinrich von Staden states, as responsible for Ivan's formation of a special guard for himself, well-clothed and well-paid, who should ride with him by day and by night, namely the corps of
oprichniki
.
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That, during one of his attacks of panic, Maria should have advised Ivan, drawing on her memories of Tatar life, is not unlikely.

There is no reason to suppose that Ivan was not profoundly grieved by the loss of Maria. She may have been responsible for the introduction of more unrestrained feasting at court, with clowns, dwarfs and jesters; she may simply have kept Ivan in a good temper. Her death would in any case have been followed by an investigation (with all the usual tortures) of all the possible uses of poison; if Ivan was fond of her, it may have profoundly unbalanced him, as did the death of Anastasia and, coupled with the fate of Erik of Sweden, may well have intensified Ivan's always present suspicions of the loyalty of his cousin Vladimir of Staritsa. Maria's death also seriously undermined his position in the south where discord had broken out among the various princes of the Kabarda.

Relations with Poland–Lithuania and the Livonian war were going badly. Though the Lithuanian magnates had endeavoured to put off the evil day, a closer union with Poland was now imminent. Only the precarious life of the last male heir of the Jagiellos, the childless Sigismund Augustus II, held Poland and Lithuania together and the final arrangements were worked out in summer 1569. The two parties agreed with much difficulty that Livonia would be jointly owned and ruled by Poland and Lithuania, and they drew up a new constitutional structure for what was to be known in future as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Lublin Sejm lasted from 23 December 1568 to 1 July 1569, and the union finally agreed on was proclaimed on 1 July 1569. It provided for a king elected by both nations, and a joint senate and sejm, elected by
sejmiki
or dietines; and for bishops, commandants and castellans, again finally to be elected in both halves of the Commonwealth. The Grand Principality of Lithuania retained its administrative autonomy, its chancellorship, treasury and armed forces under its own Hetman and officials, and the Lithuanian Statute (the law code revised again in 1566) remained valid in Lithuania and unaffected by the union.
Poland had no law code. Poland benefited, however, by a territorial readjustment within the Commonwealth: exasperated by Lithuanian tergiversation over the union, Podlasie, then Volhynia, and then the Palatinate of Kiev were finally incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland, a
coup de main
by which Lithuania lost over half its territory to Poland, and Poland acquired the Ukrainian problem. There were many difficulties in the implementation of this new constitution but over time the Commonwealth worked out its solutions.
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