- CountryRussia
- Town:Oryol
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Year of creation:2016
- Rider(s):Ivan the Terrible
(1530 –1584) was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and the first Tsar of all Rus from 1547 to 1584.
Ivan was the son of Vasili III, the Rurikid ruler of the Grand Duchy of Moscow and was appointed Grand Prince when he was three years old after his father’s death. A group of reformers known as the “Chosen Council” united around the young Ivan, declaring him tsar (emperor) of All Rus’ in 1547 at the age of 16 and establishing the Tsardom of Russia with Moscow as the predominant state. Ivan’s reign was characterized by Russia’s transformation from a medieval state to an empire under the tsar but at an immense cost to its people and its broader, long-term economy.
During his youth there was a conquest of the Khanate of Kazan and the Khanate of Astrakhan. After he had consolidated his power, Ivan got rid of the advisers from the “Chosen Council” and triggered the Livonian War, which ravaged Russia and resulted in the loss of Livonia and Ingria but allowed him to establish greater autocratic control over Russia’s nobility, which he violently purged. The later years of Ivan’s reign were also marked by the Massacre of Novgorod and the burning of Moscow by Tatars.
Historic sources present disparate accounts of Ivan’s complex personality. He was described as intelligent and devout but also prone to paranoia, rages, and episodic outbreaks of mental instability that increased with age. In one fit of outrage, he murdered his eldest son and heir, Ivan Ivanovich, and the latter’s unborn child, which left his younger son, the politically ineffectual Feodor Ivanovich, to inherit the throne, a man whose rule directly led to the end of the Rurikid dynasty and to the beginning of the Time of Troubles.
- Sculptor(s):Molchanov, Oleg
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The Russian city of Oryol inaugurated the country’s first ever monument to Ivan the Terrible, a 16th-century tyrant whose rehabilitation has been lobbied for by officials despite protests from historians and locals.
Tsar Ivan IV ruled Russia from 1547 to 1584 and earned the moniker “Terrible” due to his brutal policy of oprichnina, which included the creation of a secret police that spread mass terror and executed thousands of people.
The governor of Russia’s Oryol region nonetheless backed the monument, saying during its inauguration on Friday that Ivan the Terrible “was a defender of our land, a tsar who expanded its frontiers”.
The monument was also backed by Russia’s culture minister, who has argued that Ivan the Terrible’s brutal rule is a myth and that his name was tarnished by western travellers who slandered him in their writings.
However, historian Vladislav Nazarov, who specialises in that period, said Ivan the Terrible’s rule precipitated a socioeconomic and political crisis that two decades later led to Russia’s first civil war. “This statue appears as yet another symbol dividing Russian society into those favouring Joseph Stalin-like ”strongman” rule and others decrying repression and authoritarianism”.
Photo by Alexander Ryumin
