The most shocking feats of the first tsar of Russia. He laid the foundations of the Russian empire, but he scared his contemporaries

Ivan IV the Terrible was the first Tsar of Russia. He remained known in history mainly for the controversies surrounding him. He was an extremely harsh ruler, repeatedly showing extraordinary cruelty. He is the one who also established the first Russian secret police.

Ivan the Terrible, portrait from the 19th century PHOTO wikipedia

Ivan IV the Terrible is one of the most famous Russian leaders of the Middle Ages, reigning for nearly four decades from 1547 to 1584. He was the first Tsar of Russia, an absolutist leader who paved the way for the country to become a major European power. Ivan's reign transformed Russia from a medieval state into an empire on its way. He came to the throne when he was only three years old. Later, when he had reached the age of adolescence, in 1547, a group of Russian reformers gathered around the young prince of Moscow and crowned him as tsar (czar-cesar) of all the Russians.

In the early years of his reign, Ivan established a council and established the Zemski Sobor, a consultative assembly convened regularly by the tsar. A policy of extensive administrative and social reforms followed. He revised the legal code, elements of local self-government, and established the first Russian standing army. It is about detachments of steltia, infantrymen armed with muskets (originally arquebuses) and large axes. Later, they would create great problems for the tsars, just as the janissaries did in the Ottoman Empire. Ivan IV massively expanded Russia's borders by conquering the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates and thereby bringing the Volga entirely under Russian control.

In addition, he conquered Siberia. The first tsar of Russia placed great emphasis on culture, opening the first printing press and the first newspaper. He initiated ties with the great European powers, especially with England. He was often described by contemporary sources as an intelligent and involved Tsar. However, Ivan IV had a dark side that earned him the nickname “the Terrible” or “the Terrible”. Many of his achievements were overshadowed by the latter part of his reign, when he had terrible excesses. He was said to be prone to paranoia, sadism, violent outbursts and mental instability. The decisions of his last reign and life threw the country into total chaos. Here are some disturbing things that have remained known about Ivan IV “the Terrible”.

He had a mental disorder that turned him into a real monster

Ivan the Terrible was accused of terrible deeds. First, he purged the Russian nobility. All those whom he considered untrustworthy or prone to treason and conspiracy he sent to death. His secret police, made up of assassins, executed a significant number of Russian boyars. In the Middle Ages, however, it was not uncommon for a monarch to get rid of political rivals or those he considered a threat. It was more of a precaution. The problem was Ivan the Terrible's paranoia, which grew with age. Often the accusations were unfounded. Those suspected of treason, often just out of paranoia, were killed along with their relatives.

Ivan IV the Terrible PHOTO wikipedia

On the orders of Ivan the Terrible, an entire city was put through fire and sword. It is about Novgorod, one of the most prosperous medieval Russian cities. He suspected the inhabitants of the city of treason so he ordered the entire settlement to be purged. More than 15,000 people died, the city ended up being depopulated and in almost complete economic decline. It was one of the most abominable crimes in Russian history. Ivan IV the Terrible is also said to have ordered Postnik Iakovlev, the architect who designed St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, to be blinded so that he would never be able to build something so beautiful. However, historians say the whole story is just a myth. In any case, Ivan IV shocked his contemporaries with a cruelty born of paranoia and terrible anxiety. Specialists suspect that he was suffering from a mental disorder – temporal lobe epilepsy or bipolar syndrome, which would explain the episodes of irritability, loss of control and sudden mood swings.

'”He had a complex personality and his acts were imbued with deep religiosity, episodes of rage, mood swings and a sense of 'personal destiny'. The possible association between these personality traits and possible epilepsy that Ivan IV may have suffered from is discussed. This association is called “temporal lobe syndrome.” Given the mood swings, with severe irritability and episodes of loss of control alternating with feelings of guilt, sadness and isolation, another possibility is that the Tsar had bipolar affective disorder or, less likely, a personality disorder.”say specialists Ricardo Espinoza and Evelyn Benavides, in “The possible temporal lobe syndrome of Ivan IV the Terrible”.

These mental or personality disorders can be explained by the fact that he had a traumatic childhood. When Ivan was only 3 years old, his father, Vasili III, died, leaving Ivan's mother, Elena Glinskaia, as regent. Paranoid about assassins, she insisted her son be surrounded by armed guards. Elena died on April 4, 1538, possibly murdered, and Ivan was treated very cruelly by the great boyars. Although he was allowed to live in a palace, Ivan was left in rags and forced to beg for food, forced to participate in torture scenes and brutal murders.

He killed his own son

One of the most horrific things attributed to Ivan the Terrible is that he allegedly killed his own son in a fit of rage. The first Russian Tsar had between six and eight wives, only four of whom were recognized by the Church. Some of them would have been poisoned by assassins paid by the boyar families who wanted to offer their own daughters as brides. With his wives, the Tsar had nine children. Among them is Ivan Ivanovich, the heir to the throne.

Tsar Ivan IV's men PHOTO wikipedia

At one point, Tsar Ivan IV, an elderly man and increasingly affected by his personality disorders, pointed out to the crown prince's wife, the beautiful Elena Sheremeteva, that she was inappropriately dressed, given her advanced pregnancy. Ivan Ivanovich defended him and an altercation arose between father and son. Out of control, Ivan IV hit his son on the head with his sharp scepter. The prince suffered a severe shock and died shortly after. A few hours after the incident, Elena Şeremeteva suffered a miscarriage. There are different opinions about this incident as well. Some blame the murder on the tsar's mental problems and say that he did not intend to kill his son, he just had an uncontrolled fit of rage.

He created the first political police

Perhaps the greatest infamy attributed to Ivan IV the Terrible is the establishment of a terrible political police, a group of assassins and fanatical killers who acted at his command. They were called oprichniki and were fervent Orthodox, totally devoted to the Tsar. Initially, the group consisted of a thousand men who served as bodyguards and secret police. They became oprichniki after taking an oath of allegiance: “I swear to be faithful to the Lord, the Grand Prince and his kingdom, the young Grand Princes and the Grand Princess, and not to keep silent about any evil that I may know or hear or hear that is directed against the Tsar, his dominion, the young princes or the Tsarina. I also swear not to eat or drink with the zemshchina (the rest of the country as distinct from the oprischina-the Tsar's private domain) and to have nothing in common with them. And I seal this oath by kissing the cross“.

The nobles Aleksei Basmanov and Afanasy Viazemsky were in charge of recruiting people. Only representatives of small nobility or townspeople who came from the territories of the Tsar's personal domains were accepted. Oprichniki enjoyed social and economic privileges. Their goal was to oppress, kill, rob at the Tsar's orders all those whom Ivan IV considered traitors, enemies, a potential danger. They were known for riding black horses, dressed in black clothes, with a severed dog's or wolf's head on the saddle pommel. The dog's head symbolized the sniffing out of the Tsar's enemies everywhere. Oprichniks were ordered to execute anyone suspected of disloyalty to the Tsar and used various methods of torture. “Children of evil…hundreds and thousands of times worse than executioners”described Prince Kurbsky, the one who fled Moscow in 1564.