Lectures for students on Russian history (Методика освоения содержания предметного образования (История)). Учебное пособие

the death of his brother Svyatoslav Iziaslav came back to Kiev and was killed there in two years by his younger brother Vsevolod. Vsevolod ruled Kiev from 1078 to 1093. From 1093 to 1113 the son of Iziaslav Sviatopolk ruled in Kiev while his cousin Vsevolod’d son Vladimir Monomakh ruled in Chernigov. This Grand Prince was very unpopular because of state salt monopoly. The General Assembly of all Russian princes took place in Liubech near Chernigov in 1097 during which princes promised to be friends.

At the death of Sviatopolk in 1113 social tension was very high in Kiev. There was revolt and people invited Vladimir Monomakh to be Grand Prince because he was very popular among common people. He was a ruler for 12 years (1113-1125) he was already 60 when he started to rule, bur he had a reputation of “true knight” because of his permanent struggle against the Polovtsy. There were two aims of his reign: uniting Russian lands and princes and protection southern lands from invasions of the Polovtsy. Under Vladimir the first Russian Crusade took place to the steppe against the Polovtsy in 1111. He was married to the daughter of Harold II of England.

Tasks 1. Answer the following questions:

1.What did adoption of Christianity mean for Russia?

2.What was the cause of disintegration in Russia?

3.What is Iaroslav the Wise famous for?

4.What happened at the general assembly at Liubech?

5.Why was Vladimir Monomakh elected in 1113?

6.What is Vladimir Monomakh famous for?

2.Watch video “History of Russian Empire” (Matteo Zilli, part 1 of 20) and summarize new information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlwPOqn9Oto.

3.Topics for writing essay.

1.Baptism of Russia. The role of the Church in the further development of the state.

2.The main features of the reign of Iaroslav the Wise.

3.The role of Vladimir Monomakh in Russian history.

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Ivan married at the age of sixteen and was crowned in the same year – 1547 with great ceremony in Moscow Uspensky Cathedral as a Tsar of All Russia. So, he was the first Muscovite sovereign to be crowned with this august title. His first wife was Anastasia Zacharina – an indirect relative of the Romanov dynasty which was later succeeded to the Russian throne.

The Ivan’s greatest contribution to the growth of the county came from military campaigns against the Tatars. In 1552 Ivan and his army besieged the fortress of Kazan. It was situated in the lower of the Volgariver (on the trade route to the Orient). Tatar’s fortress fell down after a six week siege. Four years later Ivan captured Astrachan. After that Russia ruled the Volga-river route all the way to the Caspian Sea. Kazan and Astrachan lands that had been the Tatar’s home now belong to the Tsar of Russia. So Ivan embraced the course of the Volga-river with non-Slavic population too. During the reign Ivan expanded at the rate of something like on the average square miles per day, it was an extraordinary thing for that time, only Americans could do this when they drive towards the Pacific Ocean from another coast. To commemorate his victories the Cathedral of Virgin’s Intercession was erected in the heart of Moscow. The second name of it was after Saint Basil. This Cathedral became a masterpiece of art and architecture and symbol of Russia. The architects of this Cathedral (Russian craftsmen – Barma and Postnik) were blinded.

The Cossack leader Yermak invades the Tatar Khanate of Siberia with few troops, destroyed and occupied its capital in 1582. Yermak was killed later. So, the territory of Russia was increased.

Ivan’s passion for lands and power was matched in these years by passion for his wife. His bride Anastasia came from a family destined for the pinnacle of greatness. Ivan loved his wife very much. When Anastasia was his wife there were no executions and tsar behaved himself very well. So as his contemporaries remember this was the finest time of his reign, his glory: his court was rich and strong, his empire extended the influence to the Poles. His wife had to born a healthy heir to the throne.

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During the early years of Ivan’s reign important domestic reforms took place under the influence of four men – A. Kurbsky, member of gentry A. Adashev, a priest Sylvestor and Viskovatiy who were the closest advisers of the Tsar. New Law Code was published. Local government was also reformed. Then there were various ecclesiastical and military reforms. At that time the first Russian army was established, it was called “Streltsy”. They were equipped with fire arms. Other reform was introduction of printing.

But the fate turned against Ivan. A devastating fire swept across Moscow. After this Tsarina Anastasia fell sick with terrible fever. Tsar prayed for God to spare his beloved wife. Poison had taken his mother, Anastasia had been poisoned too. The death of Tsarina Anastasia in 1560 marked a change in the reign of Ivan IV. The throne was the object of the dark conspiracy. That particular death was a real part and parcel of a much larger complex. He began to earn the title of the “Terrible”. In his own essays Ivan wrote that he wanted to be called the Tsar of terror.

In 1553 the explorer Richard Chancellor sailed from Gravesend and landed on the bank of the Northern Dvina. He was a founder of new trade route. Thirty years later town Archangelsk was founded on that place. Chancellor went to Moscow and was welcomed by the Tsar. Ivan had a hope to set an anti-Polish military alliance with England and wanted to get marry one of the Lady of the Queen. Since the death of his first wife Anastasia, he had married so many times that the Orthodox Church would

of a marriage proposal to marry of Lady Hastings who was a lady-in- waiting in Elizabeth's court and who was related to Elizabeth herself. This two would have made for a rather strange alliance of Moscow and London in the age of Shakespeare. The Tsar had not need of a wife to bring an area, the succession was assured. That’s why he granted England extensive trading concessions. Chancellor when he passed through Muscovy was struck by the country’s size and prosperity. He found Moscow to be a city larger than London.

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Part II

Tsar wished to extend territory of the state on the Baltic coast. His aim was to get access to Western Europe and according this he started campaign against the weakest enemy in the West – the Livonian Order of Knights in the area of modern Estonia and Latvia. First time Ivan had some victories. But Poland, Sweden and Lithuania protected the interests of the Order and Ivan had to continue war against these countries. Defeated by Polish King Stephen Batoriy Ivan was forced to make peace in 1582-1583. So, war lasted more than a quarter of century. Poland and Sweden divided lands of the Order. The war in the north-west was a failure.

During long and bloody war against Swedes, Poles and Livonians Ivan IV had been engaged in warfare against his own subjects. It was called “Oprichnina” and established in 1565. Ivan the Terrible recognized that he still had very many internal enemies. Therefore, on December 1565

because he was not being allowed to rule by noblemen and he was moving out for good with a heart filled with sorrow no longer wishing to enjoy betrayal. Ivan the Terrible renounced his throne, the crown, Empire and had noted that people have no master. He abandoned the Kremlin. Russian people feared the country would fall apart and advocated he removed himself from the religion. He knew he was going to be asked back, the mood of the people was against boyars especially the people in Moscow. The people came to him and they said one of the classic Russian phrases that sheep cannot be without a shepherd and he may do what ever he wants. Ivan agreed to return but only on one condition he must have free hands to rule Russia as he pleased and punish enemies anyway he chose. After that the terror began at the foot of the Kremlin walls.

Ivan ordered the execution of hundreds of nobles, counselors, even priests. The limits were turned on his advisers, military heroes, trusted noblemen. They had opposed his wars, denied taxes. They were cast into prison, subjected to torture. So, they paid with their lands and their lives. Sylvestor and A. Adashev were the first victims. They were imprisoned.

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The reason was a difference of opinion over military policy. The two advisers wanted to follow the campaign against the Tatars, proposing to attack the powerful Crimean Khanate. Even his closest allies like Andrey Kurbskiy fled the field of battle and defected to Russian enemies. Soon after an angry letter from general arrived at the Tsar court, Kurbskiy asked Ivan the Terrible “why have you murdered the illustrious warriors”.

The correspondence between the Tsar and A. Kurbskiy became a masterpiece of ancient literature.

To crush all opposition Ivan the Terrible created his own private army, who were cloaked in black and recruited from some parts of the society, ride horses. This army terrorized the population and could be considered as a version of the Spanish Inquisition. Ivan’s warriors dressed like monks and they acted as though they were in some kind of quasi monastery and at the same time they were engaged in terrible killings, tortures. The Oprichniks were private army of the Tsar. They were five or six thousand people in black clothes riding black horses with special emblems

(a dog’s head and broom). Ivan the Terrible sometimes even invented special executions. Tsar pointed out to kill not just noble boyars but their entire families what it left no one of a family to pray for the dead.

Oprichnina was the name given to the lands in the north of Russia which covered a third or a half of Muscovy. One of the most popular events of Oprichnina was massacre in Novgorod in 1570. During five weeks many thousands of people were killed, because Novgorod was very independent town with its own archbishop and town manager. The second town after Novgorod was Tver. Even Metropolitan Philip of Moscow and All Russia was prisoned and waiting his killing because he said in public that Ivan and his policy are wrong. On 25 July 1570 Ivan presided by himself on Moscow square dismemberment and boiling alive of some victims (even elephant was cut to pieces because it didn’t bow to him).

For his deeds Tsar gave sums of money to priests and monasteries that they must pray for the souls of victims. As his crusade of terror swept the land, only the most devout dared to challenge the Tsar. For nearly eight years the war was waged against his own people.

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Ivan was so busy with Oprichnina and he didn’t defend the centre of the state. When Russian real enemies attacked, the nation was too weak to resist. In 1571 Russian old enemies with the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey swept north out of the Crimea and sack Moscow. Flame engulfed the wooden metropolis. In three hours the city burned to the ground. Over 60,000 people died in a day. Ivan faced with a ruined capital in a shattered land. After that his terrible army of Black Riders was abolished, but the damage had already been done. The brutality of the guardsmen coupled with disaster and disease in years to come would devastate the heart of Muscovy. If we are to believe the statistics that have survived some of the areas of Muscovy are 50 per cent, 60 per cent, some of them eighty and ninety per cent were depopulated. In a year Devlet-Girey came with army to Moscow again but met defeat by Russian army under Prince M. Vorotynskiy, a hero of the conquest of Kazan. Later this general was killed by fire according order of the Tsar.

This event belongs to the last years of Ivan’s reign. The domestic tragedy was occurred when Ivan swung his iron-tipped stuff in a fit of temper and struck dead his beloved eldest son and heir, the Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich. The Tsar had never been happy with his son's choice for a bride. Data of the November evening in 1581: Ivan was furious at the dress of his daughter-in-law and was furious at the way she behaved towards him which he took to be as a sign of disrespect. Shocked son and heir turned on his father. The Tsar responded in fury. Blind with rage Ivan struck out Tsarevich with his heavy iron staff. The son of his great love Anastasia was struck death by Ivan himself.

With the death of his heir Ivan's life seemed to unravel. Chronics said that the Tsar felt haunted by the thousands he had killed. Not least the murder of his own loved son. He executed a great number of people. If than as a religious person he tried to seek absolution for this sin. According to legends, at the age of 53 Ivan was convened by a congress of mystics and stargazers to peer into the future. What they foresaw was his death; they even named the date – March 18th 1584. Ivan was playing chess on the eve of the 18. Not long before midnight the Tsar fell dead.

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Tsar Ivan the Terrible had raised Muscovy from a kingdom to an empire. Ivan with brutality had destroyed the son and heir but he had risen to leave Russia after his death. Ivan had shattered a royal life that

to occur to the students of Russian history. The Terrible Tsar chief aim was to strengthen and centralized Russian state by destroying the boyars,

a “progressive phenomenon” in the outstandingly authoritarian Stalin’s era. Stalin himself went even further once remarking that Ivan had wrongly wasted time over his prayers which might have been better spent slaughtering yet more boyars. So, there was a tendency to idolize the tyrant but even those who admired him most were well advised to do so from a safe distance. Peasants and petty townsmen accordingly fled to the wild lands on the periphery of the south and south-east where they had now become known as Cossaks. Terror, taxation and war were not the only reasons for this massive exodus from the centre and north-west of Muscovy. There was also the progressive escape of the peasantry, virtually bound to the soil by the end of the century through enactment’s curtailing the traditional freedom to leave a master’s service at the time of St. George day – 26 November each year. It was the process of establishing of new state and political system – absolute monarchy in the XVII century.

Tasks 1. Answer the following questions:

1.What was the political situation in Moscovy in the time of Ivan’s childhood?

2.What were Ivan’s greatest contributions to the growth and

development of Moscovy?

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3.What domestic reforms were introduced by Ivan IV during his reign?

4.When and how did Ivan IV earn the title of the “Terrible”?

5.Was Ivan’s foreign policy successful?

6.What state did Ivan IV leave to his descendants?

2.Watch video “History of Russian Empire” (Matteo Zilli, part 3-5 of 20) and summarize new information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vMGH9F9DXE.

3.Topics for writing essay.

1.Achievements and faults of Ivan IV.

2.The phenomenon of Oprichnina: causes and effects.

3.Russian-English relations under Ivan IV.

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Lecture 4. THE TIMES OF TROUBLES

Part I

In fact, the Times of troubles – the period between the death of Tsar Theodore in 1598 and the coronation of the first of the Romanov dynasty in 1613 – is often known as the period of peasants’ wars and foreign intervention.

The death of Ivan IV came as a relief to everyone in Muscovy save the Oprichnicks. During the next 20 years the princely Shuiskiys and Mstislavskiys, the boyar Romanov and the Oprichnick Godunov contested the throne. Their inconclusive conflicts gave representative

of the Land. Weak central governments were at first unable to resist feudal demands for the intensification of serfdom but the end of the