The Childhood…

Ivan Grozny also known as Ivan the terrible, but if you check Grozny is actually translated to the awesome so it is actually Ivan the Awesome. When people hear Ivan the terrible they usually think of a torturer a murder and a tyrant. He was born August 25, 1530 at first he was a good kid ,but that all changed actually Ivan had a good reason for being so horrible. At the age of just three his father died and then by age eight he was intelligent and loved books, but he was molested by boyars. After being abused and lonely Ivan took out his anger on animals, he would ripe feathers off of birds pierce their eyes and then slit there bodies. Then at age thirteen he was already an alcoholic but that wasn’t the worst of it he also threw animals off of high walls and inspect the remains but still that wasn’t the worst he was in a gang that knocked down old people, stole, and raped women. He disposed of his victims by hanging, strangling, burying alive or thrown to hungry bears.

Ivan’s Reign

Ivan's Ivory Throne

Picture Courtesy of Google Images

In 1547 Ivan was finnaly crownd tsar of all Russia eventually a while after his reign he decided to choose a wife. He did it by holding a beuty contest and instantly fell in love with Anastasia Romanovna who gave him six children, which of only two survived infancy. During Ivan’s first year of reign he reformed the government, church, and army making for a powerful force. With his power he conquered the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan near the Wolga River. Then in 1558 Ivan took control of the Baltic cities Narva and Polotsk. During the wars on March 1553 Ivan had a very high fever, most likely thinking he was going to die he demanded that Princes and boyars swear an oath of allegiance to his infant son Dimitri, most of them refused. When Ivan recovered he was angry of the betrayal toward him when he was weak, so he decided to make a policy to set up a strong centralised state and to oppress and destroy his enemies with it. In 1560 his wife Anastasia died, Ivan accused the boyars of poisoning her. Even though he had no actual evidence he still tortured and executed many of them. Feeling betrayed a while before Christmas in 1564 he secretly left Moscow. After much negotiating Ivan came back to Moscow with the power to punish and do whatever he wished to people who he found disloyal. The instruments of Ivan’s new rule were the Oprichniki' they were like Ivan’s goons who did whatever Ivan wanted without question.

Later On…

Ivan Also had eight wives. “In 1561 he had married a Circassian beauty, Maria Temriukovna, but he soon tired of her. Two years after her death in 1569 he married Martha Sobakin, a merchant's daughter, but she died two weeks later. Ivan's fourth wife was Anna Koltovskaya, whom he sent to a convent in 1575. He married a fifth time to Anna Wassilchikura, who was soon replaced by Wassilissa Melentiewna. She foolishly took a lover, who was impaled under Wassilissa's window before her, too, was dispatched to a convent. After his seventh wedding day Ivan discovered that his new bride, Maria Dolgurukaya, was not a virgin anymore. He had her drowned the next day. His eight and last wife was Maria Nagaya, whom Ivan married in 1581”

And eventually ended up killing his own son.

Ivan then died March 18, 1584.

Stories of ‘Oprichniki'

From http://www.xs4all.nl/~kvenjb/madrus.htm

(Very violent)

“They regularly performed sacrilegious masses that were followed by extended orgies of sex, rape and torture. Frequently Ivan would act as master of the rituals, in which, with sharp and hissing-hot pincers, ribs were torn out of men's chests. Drunken licentiousness was alternated with passionate acts of repentance. After throwing himself down before the altar with such vehemence that his forehead would be bloody and covered with bruises, Ivan would rise and read sermons on the Christian virtues to his drunken retainers. “

“Once, he had peasant women stripped naked and used as target practice by his Oprichniki. Another time, he had several hundred beggars drowned in a lake. A boyar was set on a barrel of gunpowder and blown to bits.”

“Jerome Horsey wrote how Prince Boris Telupa "was drawn upon a long sharp-made stake, which entered the lower part of his body and came out of his neck; upon which he languished a horrible pain for 15 hours alive, and spoke to his mother, brought to behold that woeful sight. And she was given to 100 gunners, who defiled her to death, and the Emperor's hungry hounds devoured her flesh and bones". His treasurer, Nikita Funikov, was boiled to death in a cauldron. His councilor, Ivan Visionary, was hung, while Ivan's entourage took turns hacking off pieces of his body.”

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