Ivan the Terrible is the nickname of Ivan IV of the Rurik dynasty of Russia, which literally translates to "Ivan the Terrible" (Иван Грозный). He was Russia's first tsar and was known for his cruelty and spree. During his reign, Russia's territory nearly doubled, from 2.8 million square kilometers to 5.4 million square kilometers, surpassing the Holy Roman Empire of its time and becoming the largest country in Europe.
In the eyes of foreigners, ivan the terrible, who likes to expand, tends to be a negative image. For example, ivan the terrible murder of his son came from a Catholic missionary living in Moscow. However, in the minds of Russians, Ivan the Terrible was not a demon, but an image of light and darkness.
In the first part of the film Ivan the Terrible (1944), young Ivan gives a speech at the coronation ceremony
In the film Ivan the Terrible, the famous Soviet director Eisenstein, the first act is the scene of Ivan IV being crowned tsar of all Russia. Ivan, after putting on the Monomacher crown, accepted the blessing of gold coins poured over his head, and then he gave a speech that set the tone for the entire film. A few of them read: "The land in which our ancestors lived for generations is now torn apart and has fallen into the hands of foreign enemies." The rivers on which we depend for our survival — the Volga, the Daugava, the Volkhov — have their mouths in the hands of the enemy. The land of the Slavs fell in vain. So why are we still sitting idly by today? Not to recover lost ground? The first two Romes have been overthrown, and Moscow, the third Rome, there will never be a fourth Rome, it will never be destroyed! I, on the other hand, was the undisputed ruler of the Third Rome, the Grand Duke of Moscow and the Tsar. ”
As soon as these words came out, the envoys of various countries who came to the ceremony were very shocked, and the pope envoy was the first to say: "The pope will not approve!" The envoys of the Holy Roman Empire then shouted, "Your Majesty the Emperor will not agree!" (The emperor here refers to the rulers of the Habsburg dynasty)", and then the envoys of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania cried out even more angrily: "Europe will never allow it!" Finally, the envoy of the Venetian city-state rolled his eyes and whispered to his companions, "If one day [Russia] becomes stronger, they will all have to admit it." ”
Later, the plot of the film is: Ivan introduced compulsory military service, established a standing army, attacked the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan, smashed the rebellion plot of the Great Nobles of Boyar, and fought a Livonian War with Lithuania for the outlet to the Baltic Sea. This speech can be said to have set the tone for his subsequent actions. Although Western Europe was very dissatisfied with his "expansion", in his view, it was not expansion, but the recovery of lost land.
The Grand Duke of Lithuania in the second part of Ivan the Terrible is portrayed as a treacherous character
In ancient Europe, the Slavs were the most widely distributed people in Eastern Europe, and once formed a community with the Grand Duke of Kiev as the core - Kievan Rus' . But their development was interrupted by the Mongol invasion, and under the enslavement of the Golden Horde, Kievan Rus' split into numerous city-state-like grand duchies. The more developed Central and Western Europeans looked down on the Slavs and considered them synonymous with "poverty, barbarism and backwardness". By the time of Ivan the Terrible, russia was far from a powerful state, although the Russians had been freed from the enslaved rule of the Golden Horde. For example, the Regions of Belarus and the Baltic Sea where the West Slavs lived were under the control of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, while the estuary of the Volga River, where Russia was of great interest, was under the control of the Astrakhan Khanate, which had split off from the Golden Horde.
It was restored in 1994 from the remains of Zoë Paleorog, niece of the last Emperor of the Byzantine Empire
An oil painting depicting Ivan III marrying Princess Sophia
For Ivan himself, his "indisputable" identity is not unfounded. His grandmother was the niece of the last Byzantine princess Zoe Paleolog (later changed to the Russian name "Sophia"), the last Byzantine Emperor of Eastern Rome, Constantine XI, and her father was Thomas, King of the Kingdom of Moriah, a vassal of the Byzantine Empire. In 1453, Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks, and the Byzantine Empire collapsed. Seven years later, the Turks destroyed the Kingdom of Moriya, and the last piece of land belonging to the Byzantine Empire disintegrated. Thomas, King of Morria, fled to Italy with his children. In 1469, under the influence of Pope Paul II, Ivan III married Thomas's daughter Zoe, who died without heirs, so that Russia was qualified to call himself the "Third Rome", which is where Ivan IV claimed to be the orthodox heir of the Eastern Roman Empire.
In addition, Ivan the Terrible claimed to be the heir of the Golden Horde, which would be ridiculous if it were only because his grandfather Ivan III had defeated and brought about the fall of the Golden Horde. In fact, however, he was really a member of the Golden Family – from his maternal line. His mother, Jelena Greenskaya, was a descendant of the Golden Horde nobleman Mamai (Мамай), the tenth grandson of the founder of the Golden Horde, Boerjin Shuchi. In the relatively old portrait of Ivan the Terrible, it can be seen that he has obvious Mongol characteristics. In Qing Dynasty historical records, Ivan the Terrible is also known as Chahan Khan. According to the bloodline revered by western aristocrats, Ivan IV was born wearing two crowns, and his status was more noble than that of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, the King of Poland, and the Ottoman Sultan. Calling him crazy, saying that he was "crazy expanding", from his own point of view, he thought that these places originally belonged to him.
exegesis:
[1] The Russian word tsar (царь) is actually a transliteration of Caesar.