"Ivan the Terrible"

Russia as an empire did not emerge until the 16^th century, quite late as compared to other Eurasian regions. It initially broke away from the Mongols and therefore was heavily influenced by the Mongol way of empire but other influences stemmed from the Turk and Byzantine empires. The Moscovite empire had 3 pillars, the first and most important being the Tsar, next the land grant system for elites, and the church. Ivan, “The Terrible” was the first official Tsar of Russia. At the tender age of 3 he was declared the Grand Prince of Moscow due to his father’s death. Until his mother’s passing when Ivan was only 8 years old, she was the leader of the territory. Still too young to govern a society Ivan had to watch as his throne was ran by a group of nobles otherwise known as regents who were bidding for supreme power. Ivan grew up with no true companionship and was often mistreated by the regents. Many have stated that his treatment towards nobles and his unruly hostility towards them stemmed from his childhood.

At the young age of 16 Ivan became Russia’s first Tsar. Initially Ivan was an innovative leader focused on reforming and strengthening Russia as an empire. Russia flourished; he centralized the government, created a new law code, promoted and extended Russian trade, and built an elite military. At a young age Ivan’s goal was to rule as many people and as much territory as possible, so his campaigns to extend the empire came as no surprise. Under his leadership the Russian military was transformed, there overtaking of Syria completely changes Russian society.

The Syrian conquest introduced the strictly Orthodox Christian empire to foster Muslims, for the first time the empire had multiple religions. Despite the large amount of land and people who were already under Russian control, Ivan also brought the first new ethnicity to the empire as well. He was a great leader who elevated the young empire to new heights in a short period of time.

We are all familiar with the negative aspects of Ivan’s reign, his mistreatment of nobles and unjust executions, his random rants, and his unfortunate murder of his son and best option as heir to the throne. His death is thought to have been caused by poison from someone in his royal court, which is not surprising due to his often uncontrollable temper. Most are not aware that much of the early success that the Russian empire had was because of Ivan “the terrible” son of Ivan ‘the great”.

 http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/the-ryurikovich-dynasty/ivan-iv-the-terrible/