BOYARS

1
BOYARS

• Basil III
• Continued fathers policies
• Had a son, the future Ivan IV
• Boyars
• Descendants of the former rulers of appanage
  principalities
• Supposed to serve the Grand Prince
• Served as military commanders, chief bureaucrats,
  and key advisors

2
BOYAR RESISTANCE

• Boyar Duma
• Advisory assembly to Grand Prince
• Problems
• Represented powerful potential threat to power of
  the Grand Prince
• Owned huge estates, wealthy, proud, and descended
  from families as old and prestigious as the
  ruling dynasty of Moscow
• Continually tried to carve out permanent
  positions of power for themselves
• Boyar resistance to centralizing policies of Ivan
  III and Basil III had grown

3
REGENCY I

• Ivan III only three years old when he inherited
  the throne
• Regency established headed by his mother Helena
  Glinsky and composed of the boyar duma
• Helena murdered by boyars, who then took control
  of the regency

4
REGENCY II

• Regency boyars divide into factions and struggled
  with each other for control
• Imprisonments, exiles, executions, and
  assassinations became common place
• Dominant faction always stole huge sums from
  treasury, gave jobs to unqualified flunkies, and
  used power to intimidate rivals

5
YOUNG IVAN IV

• Ivan IV was terribly abused by boyar regents
• Forgot to feed him, neglected his needs, and
  fired his favorite servants
• Ivan withdrew into his own private world
• Reading voraciously
• Tortured animals
• Became a withdrawn, cruel, and brutal little boy

6
IVAN TAKES CONTROL

• At age 13, Ivan has leaders of boyars murdered
  and, two years later, is officially crowned tsar
  and marries Anastasia
• Begins good half of his reign
• Creates Chosen Council
• Metropolitan of Moscow
• Priest named Sylvester
• Young bureaucrat
• Honest and capable men who held long-range
  interests of state before personal interests

7
ZEMSKY SOBOR

• assembly of the land
• Made up of two houses
• Upper house (old boyar duma, high church
  officials, and high-level bureaucrats)
• Lower house (representatives of lower
  nobilitygentry and urban merchants)
• Two goals
• To create broad base of support for his reforms
  before he implemented themsounding board
• Dilute boyar influence over government affairs

8
TURNING POINT

• Ivan decides to conquer all the Tatar khanates
  and place them under Muscovite control
• Defeated Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan
• Wife dies in 1560 and Ivan becomes suspicious of
  advice of Chosen Council
• Dismisses Chosen Council and assumes total
  control of state affairs
• bad half of reign begins

Anatasia
9
LIVONIAN WAR REASONS

• Instead of going after Khanate of Crimea, Ivan
  tries to militarily win Russia access to the
  Baltic Sea
• Needed outlet to West for commercial, cultural,
  and technological reasons
• Livonian Knights, Poland, and Sweden blocked
  Russian access to Western experts
• Russia had to break this blockade to avoid being
  strangled by lack of Western commercial and
  technological contacts

10
LIVONIAN WAR RESULTS

• Attacked Livonian knights, pulling Lithuania,
  Poland, Sweden, and Denmark into war against him
• 1558-1580
• Russia gains nothing from war and never gained
  access to Baltic Sea
• Reinforced Ivans suspicions of boyars
• Best general, Prince Kurbsky, lost battle and
  defected to the Lithuanians
• Ivan views this a personal betrayal and an act of
  treason
• Has nervous breakdown

11
BEGINNING OF OPRICHNINA

• Ivan leaves Moscow and writes two letters
  announcing his intention to abdicate because of
  treachery of boyars
• Agrees to stay on throne on two conditions
• Dictatorial power to do anything he wanted to
  suspected traitors
• Allowed to set up new administrative apparatus
  that would be free of traditional restraints and
  restrictions
• Sets up oprichnina

12
OPRICNINA IN ACTION

• Russia divided into two parts
• Zemshchina (remained under control of traditional
  institutions
• Oprichnina (heartland of Russia)
• Boyars in oprichnina had their land confiscated
  and redistributed to the oprichniki (lower level
  gentry)
• Oprichniki carried out confiscations themselves
• Literal reign of terror against boyars
• Murder and torture
• Turned Russia into wasteland
• Ivan calls it all off in 1572

13
OPRICHNINA RESULTS

• Psychotic revenge of absolute madman?
• Yes, to a degree
• Goal was also to break power of boyars
• Boyar power permanently broken
• Replaced with grateful members of the lower
  gentry who accepted boyar land in exchange for
  faithfully serving tsar
• Started process of transforming Russian nobility
  into a subservient, dependent servant of state
• Ivans methods were pure madness but it was the
  madness of genius

14
THE END OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE

• Ivan loses control after 1572
• Went through six wives
• Treated all horribly
• Murdered eldest son in 1581
• Cried all day, insomniac, talked to sons ghost,
  and completely out of touch with reality
• Died in March 1584
• Maybe poisoned