Encyclopedia of Russian History

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cultural knowledge was badly damaged and links

with the outside Muslim world cut off. Islam was

forced into isolation. The most important conse-

quence of this isolation was that “Islam” was

rendered synonymous with “tradition”. Official

channels of socialization, such as the school sys-

tem and the army, which reached very deep into

society, were not just secular, but atheistic. With

maktabs and madrasas abolished, the ranks of the

carriers of Islamic knowledge denuded, and conti-

nuity with the past made difficult by changes in

script, religious knowledge was vastly circum-

scribed and the site of its reproduction pushed into

private or covert realms. The public sphere were

stripped of all references to Islam.

During World War II, as the state’s hostility to

religion abated briefly, it sought to permit limited

practice of religion under close supervision. To this

end, it created three new Muslim spiritual admin-

istrations in addition to the one at Ufa to oversee

the practice of Islam. Of the four, the one based in

Tashkent and responsible for Central Asia soon

emerged as the most significant. The spiritual as-

semblies had to tread a thin line between satisfy-

ing the requirements of the state and ensuring a

space in which Islamic institutions could exist of-

ficially. A great deal of religious activity existed be-

yond the control of the assemblies, but it was at

home in a specifically Soviet context. Islam in the

postwar decades was subordinated to powerful na-

tional identities formed for the most part in the So-

viet period. Islam and its rituals were celebrated as

part of one’s national heritage even as Islamic

knowledge shrunk greatly.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Islam

has become more prominent in public life as Mus-

lims have engaged in a recovery of their national

and cultural heritage. Mosques have been reopened

or rebuilt and contacts with Muslims abroad es-

tablished, and a there has been a general increase

in personal piety. Nevertheless, the Soviet-era con-

nections between Islam and national heritage re-

main intact, and as post-Soviet regimes undertake

nation-building, Islam retains its strong cultural

definitions.

See also: CENTRAL ASIA; GASPIRALI, ISMAIL BEY; GOLDEN

HORDE; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONAL-

ITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; RELIGION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bennigsen, Alexandre, and S. Enders Wimbush. (1979).

Muslim National Communism: a Revolutionary Strat-

egy for the Colonial World. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.

Carrère d’Encausse, Hélène. (1988). Islam and the Russ-

ian Empire: Reform and Revolution in Central Asia, tr.

Quintin Hoare. Berkeley: University of California

Press.

DeWeese, Devin. (1995). Islamization and Native Religion

in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Is-

lam in Historical and Epic Tradition. University Park:

Pennsylvania State University Press.

Frank, Alan J. (1998). Islamic Historiography and “Bul-

ghar” Identity among the Tatars and Bashkirs of Rus-

sia. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.

Frank, Alan J. (2001). Muslim Institutions in Imperial Rus-

sia: The Islamic World of Novouznesensk District and

the Kazakh Inner Horde, 1780–1920. Leiden, Nether-

lands: Brill.

Gammer, Moshe. (1994). Muslim Resistance to the Tsar:

Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan.

London: Frank Cass.

Geraci, Robert. (2001). Window on the East: National and

Imperial Identities in Late Imperial Russia. Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press.

Kamp, Marianne R. (1998). “Unveiling Uzbek Women: Lib-

eration, Representation, and Discourse, 1906–1929.”

Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago.

Kappeler, Andreas. (1992). “Czarist Policy Toward the

Muslims of the Russian Empire.” In Muslim Com-

munities Reemerge: Historical Perspectives on National-

ity, Politics, and Opposition in the Former Soviet Union

and Yugoslavia, ed. Andreas Kappeler et al. Durham,

NC: Duke University Press.

Keller, Shoshana. (2000). To Moscow, not Mecca: Soviet

Campaigns against Islam in Central Asia, 1917–1941.

Westport, CT: Praeger.

Khalid, Adeeb. (1998). The Politics of Muslim Cultural Re-

form: Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley: University

of California Press.

Khalid, Adeeb. (2000). “Society and Politics in Bukhara,

1868–1920.” Central Asian Survey 19: 367–396.

Ro’i, Yaacov. (2000). Islam in the Soviet Union: From the

Second World War to Gorbachev. New York: Colum-

bia University Press.

Steinwedel, Charles. (1999). “Invisible Threads of Empire:

State, Religion, and Ethnicity in Tsarist Bashkiria,

1773–1917.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia Univer-

sity, New York.

Swietochowski, Tadeusz. (1995). Russia and Azerbaijan:

A Borderland in Transition. New York: Columbia Uni-

versity Press.

DEEB

HALID

ISLAM

683

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

ISRAEL, RELATIONS WITH

During most of the Soviet period, Soviet-Israeli re-

lations were strained if not broken. Although

Moscow gave diplomatic and even military support

(via Czechoslovakia) to Israel during its war of in-

dependence (1948–1949), by 1953 it had shifted to

a pro-Arab position and it broke diplomatic rela-

tions with Israel during the June 1967 Six-Day

War. From the mid-1960s until Mikhail Gorbachev

came to power, the USSR, seeking to align the Arab

world against the United States, called Israel the

“lynchpin of U.S. imperialism in the region.” Un-

der Gorbachev, however, the USSR made a major

shift in policy, taking an even-handed position in

the Arab-Israeli conflict, and by 1991 had reestab-

lished full diplomatic relations with Israel.

In the period since the collapse of the Soviet

Union, relations between Moscow and Jerusalem,

already warming in the final years of the Soviet

Union when Gorbachev was in power, continued

to improve. Trade between the two countries rose

to a billion dollars per year, Jews were free to em-

igrate from Russia to Israel, and the two countries

even cooperated in the production of military

equipment such as helicopters and airborne com-

mand-and-control aircraft (AWACS). On the diplo-

matic front, under both Yeltsin and Putin, Russia

took a balanced position, unlike the pre-Gorbachev

Soviet government, which consistently took a pro-

Arab, anti-Israeli stand. However, during the pe-

riod when Yevgeny Primakov was Russia’s Foreign

Minister and Prime Minister (1996–1999), there

was a marked tilt toward the Arab position. Fol-

lowing Primakov’s ouster and the renewed Russ-

ian involvement in a war against Islamic rebels

in Chechnya (where Israel supported Russia

diplomatically), Russia under Putin’s leadership

switched back to a balanced position. Some Russ-

ian leaders even compared the Islamic-based ter-

rorism Israel faced, from Hamas and Islamic Jihad,

to the Islamic-based opposition Russia was battling

in Chechnya.

The major problem in the Russian-Israeli rela-

tionship was the supply of Russian arms and mil-

itary technology—including missile technology—to

Iran. Given the fact that the clerical leadership of

Iran called for Israel’s destruction and supplied

weapons to both Hezbollah and to the Palestinian

Authority to fight Israel, Israel bitterly opposed the

Russian sales. However, after the collapse of the So-

viet Union, Iran became Russia’s number one ally

in the Middle East, and Russia continued to supply

Iran with arms.

One of the dynamic aspects of the Russian-

Israeli relationship after 1991 was the role of the

million-plus Jews from the former Soviet Union

(FSU) who emigrated to Israel. They formed the

largest Russian-speaking diaspora outside the FSU

and constituted a major cultural bond between Is-

rael and Russia. As the Russian vote became in-

creasingly important in Israeli elections, candidates

for the post of Israeli Prime Minister sought to cul-

tivate this electorate by announcing their wish to

improve ties with Russia. For its part, Moscow, es-

pecially under Putin, developed a special relation-

ship with the Russian community in Israel and

saw that community as a tool to enhance Russian-

Israeli trade and hence improve the Russian econ-

omy. Below the level of official relations, the Rus-

sian mafia created ties (including money-laundering

ties) with its Russian counterparts in Israel, and

this led to joint efforts by the Russian and Israeli

governments to fight crime, occasioning frequent

mutual visits of the Ministers of the Interior of both

countries to deal with this problem.

Another major change from Soviet times was

Russia’s willingness to follow the U.S. lead in seek-

ing to end the Israeli-Arab conflict. Thus Russia

supported the OSLO I and OSLO II peace agreements

in tandem with U.S. efforts to end the Al-Aksa in-

tifada through the U.S.–backed Mitchell Report.

Such action was facilitated in part by the decreas-

ing importance to Russia of the Arab-Israeli con-

flict, which was pivotal to Moscow’s policy in the

Middle East during Soviet times, and in part by

Russia’s desire, especially under Putin, to demon-

strate cooperation with the United States.

See also: JEWS; IRAN, RELATIONS WITH; IRAQ, RELATIONS

WITH; REFUSENIKS; UNITED STATES, RELATIONS WITH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Freedman, Robert O. (2001). Russian Policy Toward the

Middle East Since the Collapse of the Soviet Union: The

Yeltsin Legacy and the Challenge for Putin (The Donald

W. Treadgold Papers in Russian, East European, and

Central Asian Studies, no. 33). Seattle: Henry M.

Jackson School of International Studies, University

of Washington.

Nizamedden, Talal. (1999). Russia and the Middle East.

New York: St. Martin’s.

Rumer, Eugene. (2000). Dangerous Drift: Russia’s Middle

East Policy. Washington, DC: Washington Institute

for Near East Policy.

ISRAEL, RELATIONS WITH

684

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Shaffer, Brenda. (2001). Partners in Need: The Strategic Re-

lationship of Russia and Iran. Washington, DC:

Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Vassiliev, Alexei. (1993). Russian Policy in the Middle East:

From Messiasism to Pragmatism. Reading, UK: Ithaca

Press.

OBERT

O. F

REEDMAN

ITALY, RELATIONS WITH

From the time of Italy’s unification in the mid-

nineteenth century through the post-Soviet era,

schizophrenic collaboration and competition in the

Balkans and Danubian Europe has marked Italo-

Russian relations, with national interests consis-

tently trumping shifting ideologies in both countries.

The schizophrenia was there from the begin-

ning. Although Tsar Alexander II, for example, ob-

jected to Italy’s unification, the wars fought to that

end could not have been arranged and contained

without the Tsar’s complicity. By the late 1870s

liberal Italy was becoming enmeshed in the Triple

Alliance with Austria and Germany. Although it

was primarily directed against France, the Italians

hoped the alliance would also blunt autocratic

Russia’s penetration of the Balkans. Later, Russia’s

defeat at Japanese hands in 1905 removed the

counterbalance to Austria’s influence in the Balkans,

and Italy became every bit as aggrieved as Russia

by Austria’s conduct during the First Bosnian Cri-

sis (1908–1909). The result was the Italo-Russian

Racconigi Agreement (1909). Of the European pow-

ers, only Italy supported Russia on the Straits

Question. Although Rome promised several times

to stand by its obligations taken at Racconigi, Rus-

sia proved unable to use the Italo-Turkish War

(1911–1912) as an excuse to reexamine the Straits

Question.

During World War I, both Rome and Petrograd

feared Austro-German advances into the Balkans.

Rome, however, was no more eager to see Germanic

dominance replaced by Russian-led Panslavism than

Russia was to see it replaced by Italian influence.

The complex, multilateral negotiations that brought

Italy into the war (1915) required the uneasy com-

promise of Russian and Italian ambitions in the

Balkans. These compromises seriously eroded Rus-

sia’s political situation and betrayed Serbia, Russia’s

ally and caucasus belli. After the war, Italy gener-

ally refrained from supporting the anti-Bolshevik

White armies during Russia’s civil war, although

Rome did provide small contingents to the Allied in-

tervention in Vladivostok and briefly planned to in-

tervene in Georgia.

Thereafter, Italo-Soviet relations fell into the

old grooves of Realpolitik. Even Benito Mussolini’s

rise to power (1922) had little effect on diplomatic

directions. Despite the presumed ideological an-

tipathies dividing communist Russia and fascist

Italy, the Duce exploited Italy’s position between

the Allies and the Soviets to reintroduce Russia into

Europe and to arbitrate among the great powers.

Although commercial aspirations motivated Italy’s

recognition of the Soviets (1924), the fascists and

soviets also drew together in common hostility to

responsible parliamentary systems of government.

By 1930, the Soviet Union, Italy, and Germany

were tending to ally against France and its allies.

With Hitler’s rise to power (1933), Moscow

and Rome sought ways to contain the threat of a

resurgent Germany. Through extensive coopera-

tion, both began to support the status quo to block

German expansion, especially in the Balkans. Rus-

sia’s nonaggression pact with Italy (1933) marked

a significant step in its Collective Security policy

directed against Germany. Italy’s successful defense

of Austria (1934)—the one successful example of

Collective Security before World War II—seemed to

vindicate Soviet policy.

Good relations, despite Moscow’s extraordi-

nary efforts at appeasement, collapsed during the

Italo-Ethiopian War (1935–1936) and the Spanish

Civil War (1936–1939). Afterward the Italo-Soviet

economic agreements (February 1939) began a rap-

prochement and presaged the Nazi-Soviet Pact of

August. Even after World War II began, Moscow

continued to hope to split the Italo-German alliance

and to use Italy to block German penetration into

the Balkans: for example, by encouraging Italy’s

plan for a bloc of Balkan neutrals in the Fall and

Winter of 1939. These plans came to naught when

Germany and then Italy attacked Russia in June

1941. The Italian expeditionary army on the East-

ern Front met horrific disaster in 1943.

The Allies signed an armistice with Italy in

1943, and the following year the USSR recognized

the new Italy. In 1947, the two signed a peace

treaty. Italo-Russian relations were again subsumed

in the struggles between larger alliance systems, this

time with Italy playing a crucial role in the North

Atlantic Treaty Organization, which stood against

the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. Particularly interesting

ITALY, RELATIONS WITH

685

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

was the rise of the Italian Communist Party (PCI).

After the brutal crushing of the Hungarian Revolt

(1956), however, the PCI began to distance itself

from the USSR and to promote an “Italian Road to

Socialism.” In March 1978, the PCI entered a gov-

ernmental majority for the first time. Stung by the

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the PCI increasingly

promoted Eurocommunism, which ultimately

played a large role in delegitimizing Soviet Russia’s

imperial satellite system in Eastern Europe. After the

collapse of Communism in Russia in the early

1990s, the main point of cooperation and conflict

between Russia and Italy remained focused in the

Balkans and Danubian regions.

See also: BALKAN WARS; WORLD WAR I; WORLD WAR II

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clarke, J. Calvitt. (1991). Russia and Italy against Hitler:

The Bolshevik-Fascist Rapprochement of the 1930s.

New York: Greenwood Press.

Corti, Eugenio. (1997). Few Returned: Twenty-Eight Days

on the Russian Front, Winter 1942–1943, tr. Peter Ed-

ward Levy. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

Nobile, Umberto. (1987). My Five Years with Soviet Air-

ships, tr. Frances Fleetwood. Akron, OH: Lighter-

Than-Air Society.

Toscano, Mario. (1970). Designs in Diplomacy: Pages from

European Diplomatic History in the Twentieth Century.

Translated and edited by George A. Carbone. Balti-

more: The Johns Hopkins Press.

Urban, Joan Barth. (1986). Moscow and the Italian Com-

munist Party: From Togliatti to Berlinguer. Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press.

J. C

ALVITT

LARKE

III

IVAN I

(d. 1340), prince of Moscow and sole grand prince

of Vladimir.

By collaborating with the Tatar overlords in

Saray, Ivan I overcame his rivals in Tver and made

Moscow the most important domain in northeast

Russia. He was nicknamed “Moneybag” (“Kalita”)

to reflect his shrewd money handling practices.

Ivan Danilovich was the son of Daniel and

grandson of Alexander Yaroslavich “Nevsky.” In

1325, when he succeeded his brother Yury as prince

of Moscow, he continued Moscow’s fight with

Tver for supremacy. Two years later the people of

Tver, the town ruled by Grand Prince Alexander

Mikhailovich, revolted against the Tatars. In 1328

Ivan visited Khan Uzbek, who gave him the patent

for the grand princely throne and troops to pun-

ish the insurgents. After Ivan devastated Tver and

forced Alexander to flee, the town and its prince

never regained their position of power. Signifi-

cantly, in his rivalry with Tver, Ivan won the sup-

port of the Metropolitan, who chose Moscow for

his residence. In the 1330s, as Grand Prince Ged-

imin increasingly threatened Russia, Ivan also

fought to suppress pro-Lithuanian factions in the

northwestern towns. His greatest challenge was to

subdue Novgorod, which used its association with

Lithuania against him, and which challenged him

when he levied Tatar tribute on it. By faithfully

collecting the tribute, however, and by visiting the

Golden Horde on nine occasions and winning the

khan’s trust, he persuaded the Tatars to stop raid-

ing Russia. Moreover, by currying the khan’s

favour, Ivan was able to keep the title of grand

prince and secure succession to it for his son

Simeon. Ivan died on March 31, 1340.

See also: GOLDEN HORDE; GRAND PRINCE; MOSCOW

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fennell, John L. I. (1968). The Emergence of Moscow

1304–1359. London: Secker and Warburg.

Martin, Janet. (1995). Medieval Russia 980–1584. Cam-

bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

ARTIN

IMNIK

IVAN II

(1326–1359), prince of Moscow and grand prince

of Vladimir.

In the 1340s Lithuania encroached into western

Russia and challenged the Golden Horde for control

of Russian towns. Thus the prince of Moscow and

other princes had to establish relations with both

foreign powers. Ivan’s elder brother Simeon and fa-

ther Ivan I Danilovich “Kalita” (“Moneybag”) had

collaborated with the Tatars to promote Moscow’s

interests against princely rivals and against Lithua-

nia. Ivan, a weak ruler under whose reign Moscow’s

authority declined, charted a different course. Af-

ter Simeon died in 1353, Ivan traveled to Saray,

where Khan Jani-Beg, against the objections of

Novgorod and Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod, gave him

IVAN I

686

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

the patent for the grand princely throne of Vladi-

mir. Later, however, he was persuaded to establish

cordial relations with Lithuania and to decrease

Moscow’s subordination to the khan. He formed a

treaty with pro-Lithuanian Suzdal, arranged a

marriage alliance with Lithuania, and prevented

Tatar envoys from entering Muscovite lands. His

change of policy kindled serious opposition. Many

of his councilors fled to pro-Tatar Ryazan, thus

weakening Moscow’s internal solidarity. Metro-

politan Alexei also sided with the defectors. When

the khan himself challenged Ivan, he yielded to the

pressure. In 1357 he submitted to Berdi-Beg, the

new khan, and was reconciled with his disgruntled

boyars. But he failed to increase Moscow’s territo-

ries, and Novgorod ignored him. Moreover, in the

testament he issued before his death, he confirmed

the practice of hereditary appanages, which his

brother Simeon had first espoused, and which fur-

ther fragmented the Moscow principality. He died

on November 13, 1359.

See also: GOLDEN HORDE; MOSCOW

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fennell, John L. I. (1968). The Emergence of Moscow

1304–1359. London: Secker and Warburg.

Martin, Janet. (1995). Medieval Russia 980–1584. Cam-

bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

ARTIN

IMNIK

IVAN III

(1440–1505), grand prince of Moscow (1462–1505),

sovereign of “all Russia” (from 1479).

Ivan Vasilyeich was the eldest son and succes-

sor to Basil II, co-regent in the last years of his

blind father. Ivan’s youth coincided with the dy-

nastic war, in which he took part at age twelve,

leading the campaign against Dmitry Shemyaka

(1452). Thereafter, Ivan became a steady champion

of autocratic rule.

Under Ivan III’s reign, the uniting of separate

Russian principalities into a centralized state made

great and rapid progress. Some of these principal-

ities lost their independence peacefully (Yaroslavl,

1463–1468; Rostov, 1474); others tried to resist

and were subjugated by military force (Great Nov-

gorod, 1471–1478; Tver, 1485; Vyatka, 1489).

The incorporation of Great Novgorod into the

emerging Muscovite state took especially dramatic

form. When Novgorodian boyars questioned the

sovereignty of the grand prince over their city-

state, Ivan III led his troops to Great Novgorod. In

the battle on the Shelon River, July 14, 1471, the

Novgorodian army was completely defeated. Four

boyars who had been captured (including Dmitry

Boretsky, one of the leaders of anti-Muscovite

party in Novgorod) were executed by the grand

prince’s order. In the peace treaty of August 11,

1471, the city acknowledged the lordship of the

grand prince and gave up the right of independent

foreign relations. Six years later, Ivan III found

a pretext to start a new campaign against Nov-

gorod; this time the city-state surrendered without

a struggle. In January 1478, Great Novgorod lost

its autonomy completely: The veche (people’s as-

sembly) and the office of posadnik (the head of the

city government) were abolished, and the assem-

bly’s bell, the symbol of Novgorod’s sovereignty,

was taken away to Moscow. In the 1480s, having

IVAN III

687

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Eighteenth-century portrait of Ivan III. © A

RCHIVO

CONOGRAFICO

S.A./CORBIS

confiscated the domain of the archbishop of Great

Novgorod and the estates of local boyars, Ivan III

began to distribute these lands among his military

men on condition of loyal service. Thus the po-

mestie system was established, which became the

basis of the social and military organization in

Muscovy.

Soon after the conquest of Great Novgorod,

Ivan III assumed the title of the sovereign of all Rus-

sia (gosudar vseya Rusi). Not only did the title re-

flect the achievements of the grand prince in uniting

the Russian lands, but it also implied claims to the

rest of the territories with eastern Slavic popula-

tion, which at that time lived under the rule of

Lithuanian princes. So conflict with the Grand

Duchy of Lithuania became imminent.

In the 1480s, some princes from the Upper Oka

region (Vorotynskies, Odoyevskies, and others) left

Lithuanian service for Moscow, and Ivan III ac-

cepted them and their patrimonies (towns

Vorotynsk, Peremyshl, Odoev, and so forth). Dur-

ing the war of 1492 to 1494, the Muscovite army

occupied an important town of Vyazma (in the

Smolensk region). The peace treaty signed on Feb-

ruary 5, 1494, legalized all the acquisitions of Ivan

III. Peace, though ensured by the marriage of Ivan’s

daughter, Elena, to the grand duke of Lithuania,

Alexander, turned out to be a short-term armistice:

In 1500 another Russian-Lithuanian war began.

First, the princes of Novgorod Seversk and Star-

odub went over to the grand prince of Moscow.

Then Ivan III sent his troops to defend his new vas-

sals. In the battle at Vedrosha River (July 14, 1500),

which decided the outcome of the war, Muscovite

commanders defeated the Lithuanian army and

captured its leader, hetman Konstantin Ostrozhsky.

During the summer campaign of 1500 Muscovite

forces occupied Bryansk, Toropets, Putivl, and

other towns. According to the armistice of 1503,

the border with Lithuania moved far in the south-

western direction.

Ivan III was the first Russian ruler to gain full

independence from the Golden Horde. From about

1472 he paid no tribute to the khan. Twice, in 1472

and 1480, khan Ahmad invaded Russia, trying to

restore his sovereignty over the Russian land and

its ruler, but both times he failed. The withdrawal

of Ahmad from the banks of Ugra River in No-

vember 1480 symbolized the overthrow of the

yoke.

The unified Russian state played an increas-

ingly visible role on the international scene: Ivan

III established relations with Crimea (1474), Venice

(1474), Hungary (1482), the German empire

(1489), Denmark (1493), and the Ottoman empire

(1496). To meet the needs of his expanded state,

Ivan III began to recruit engineers and military spe-

cialists from the West. The towers and walls of the

Kremlin were built in the 1480s and 1490s by Ital-

ian architects and remain one of the most visible

material signs of Ivan III’s reign.

The contours of the Russian foreign policy,

shaped in Ivan’s reign, remained stable for gener-

ations to come. In the west, Ivan III left to his heir

the incessant struggle with the Polish and Lithu-

anian rulers over the territories of the eastern Slavs.

In the east and south, a more differentiated policy

was pursued toward the khanates that had suc-

ceeded the Golden Horde. This policy included at-

tempts to subjugate the khanate of Kazan in the

middle Volga and efforts aimed at neutralizing

Crimea.

In his last years Ivan III faced a serious dynas-

tic crisis after the unexpected death in 1490 of his

heir, also Ivan (the “Young”), the son of the first

Ivan’s III wife, Maria of Tver (d. 1467). In 1472

Ivan III married Sophia Paleologue, a Byzantine

princess brought up in Rome. This marriage also

produced children, including Basil (Vasily). Ivan the

Young, married to Yelena, the daughter of Molda-

vian prince, left a son, Dmitry. So, after 1490, Ivan

III was to choose between his grandson (Dmitry)

and son (Basil). At first, he favored the grandson:

In February 1498, Dmitry was crowned as grand

prince and heir to his grandfather. But later Dmitry

and his mother Yelena fell into disgrace and were

taken into custody; Basil was proclaimed the heir

(1502). The reasons for these actions remain un-

clear. In July 1503, Ivan III experienced a stroke

and real power passed into the hands of Basil III.

Contemporaries and later historians agree in

depicting Ivan III as a master politician: prudent,

cautious, efficient, and very consistent in his pol-

icy of constructing a unified and autocratic Russ-

ian state.

See also: GOLDEN HORDE; MUSCOVY; NOVGOROD THE

GREAT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alef, Gustave. (1986). The Origins of Muscovite Autocracy:

The Age of Ivan III. Berlin: Osteuropa-Institut.

Crummey, Robert O. (1987). The Formation of Muscovy,

1304–1613. London: Longman.

IVAN III

688

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Fennell, John L. (1961). Ivan the Great of Moscow. Lon-

don: Macmillan.

Kollmann, Nancy Shields. (1986). “Consensus Politics:

The Dynastic Crisis of the 1490s Reconsidered.”

Russian Review 45:235–267.

Vernadsky, George. (1959). Russia at the Dawn of the

Modern Age. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

IKHAIL

M. K

ROM

IVAN IV

(1530–1584), “The Terrible” (Grozny), grand

prince of Moscow and tsar of all Russia.

The long reign of Ivan IV saw the transfor-

mation of Muscovy into a multiethnic empire

through ambitious political, military, and cultural

projects, which revolved around the controversial

figure of the monarch.

IVAN IV AND THE RURIKID DYNASTY

Born to the ruling Moscow branch of the Rurikid

dynasty, Ivan nominally became grand prince at

the age of three after the death of his father, Grand

Prince Vasily III. During the regency of Ivan’s

mother, Yelena Glinskaya, from 1533 to 1538, rul-

ing circles strengthened Ivan’s position as nominal

ruler by eliminating Prince Andrei Ivanovich of

Staritsa and Prince Yury Ivanovich of Dmitrov,

representatives of the royal family’s collateral

branches. Ivan’s status as dynastic leader was re-

inforced during his coronation as tsar on January

16, 1547. Drawing extensively on Byzantine and

Muscovite coronation rituals and literary texts to

reveal the divine sanction for Ivan’s power, the cer-

emony posited continuity between his rule and the

rule of the Byzantine emperors and Kievan princes.

Ivan continued the aggressive policy of his ances-

tors toward the collateral branches of the dynasty

by eliminating his cousin, Prince Vladimir An-

dreyevich of Staritsa (1569).

Ivan was married several times. His wives were

from Muscovite elite clans (Anastasia Zakharina

Romanova, Maria Nagaya) and from relatively ob-

scure gentry families (Marfa Sobakina, Anna

Koltovskaya, Anna Vasilchikova). He also tried to

raise the status of the dynasty by establishing mat-

rimonial ties with foreign ruling houses, but suc-

ceeded only in marrying the Caucasian Princess

Maria (Kuchenei) (1561). Throughout his reign,

Ivan sought to secure the succession of power for

his sons, although he accidentally killed his elder

son Ivan (1581). The tsar’s other son, the report-

edly mentally challenged Fyodor, eventually inher-

ited the throne.

IVAN IV AND HIS COURT

When Ivan was a minor, power was in the hands

of influential courtiers. Under Yelena Glinskaya,

Prince Mikhail Lvovich Glinsky competed for power

with Yelena’s favorite, Prince Ivan Fyodorovich

Ovchina-Obolensky. Yelena’s death (1538) was fol-

lowed by fierce competition between the princely

clans of Shuyskys, Belskys, Kubenskys, and Glin-

skys, and the boyar Vorontsov clan. After his coro-

nation, Ivan attempted to stabilize the situation at

court through improving the registry of elite mil-

itary servitors, providing them with prestige land-

holdings around Moscow, and regulating service

relations among the elite during campaigns. The

authorities limited the right of some princely fam-

ilies to dispose of their lands in order to pursue the

lands policy. Ivan granted top court ranks to a wide

IVAN IV

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Ivan the Terrible stands before St. Basil’s Cathedral, erected to

commemorate his victory over the Kazan khanate. T

ETTMANN

RCHIVE

. R

EPRODUCED BY PERMISSION

circle of elite servitors, which especially benefited

the tsarina’s relatives, the Zakharins-Yurevs. Ivan

also favored officials of lower origin, Alexei Fyo-

dorovich Adashev and Ivan Mikhaylovich Visko-

vaty, though some experts question their influence

at court. Historians sometimes call the ruling cir-

cles of the 1550s “the chosen council,” but this

vague literary term is apparently irrelevant to gov-

ernmental institutions.

Beginning in 1564, Ivan IV subjected his court

to accusations of treason, executions, and disgraces

by establishing the Oprichnina. Despite the subse-

quent abolition of the Oprichnina in 1572, Ivan con-

tinued to favor some of its former members.

Among them were the elite Nagoy and Godunov

families, including Ivan’s relative and would-be tsar

Boris Godunov. The established princely Shuysky

and Mstislavsky clans and the Zakharin-Yurev bo-

yar family retained their high positions at court

throughout Ivan’s reign.

Ivan’s court also included Tatar servitors, in-

cluding prominent members of the Chingissid dy-

nasty, who received the title of tsar. Ivan granted

the last survivor of those Tatar tsars, Simeon Bek-

bulatovich (Sain-Bulat), the title of grand prince

of Moscow and official jurisdiction over a consid-

erable part of the realm. Historians usually inter-

pret the reign of Simeon (1575–1576) as a parody

of the Muscovite political system. It may be that

Ivan, in granting Simeon the new title, sought to

deprive Simeon of the title of tsar and thereby

eliminate a possible Chingissid succession to the

throne.

IVAN IV AND HIS REALM

In the 1550s, Ivan IV and his advisors attempted

to standardize judicial and administrative practices

across the country by introducing a new law code

(1550) and delegating routine administrative and

financial tasks to the increasingly structured chan-

celleries. The keeping of law and order and control

of the local population’s mobility became the tasks

of locally elected officials, in turn accountable to

the central chancelleries. The remote northern ter-

ritories enjoyed a greater autonomy in local affairs

than the central parts of the country.

Albeit limited and inconsistent, these reforms

allowed Ivan to maintain an approximately 70,000-

man army and to pursue an aggressive foreign pol-

icy. With the capture of the Tatar states of Kazan

(1552) and Astrakhan (1556), Ivan acquired vast

territories populated with a multiethnic, predomi-

nantly Muslim population with distinctive cultural

and economic traditions. The conquest of those

lands, whose peoples remained rebellious through-

out Ivan’s reign, contributed to the tension between

Muscovy and the powerful Muslim states of

Crimea and Turkey, which jointly attacked As-

trakhan in 1569. The Crimean khan devastated

Moscow in 1571, but Ivan’s commanders inflicted

a defeat on him in 1572. Ivan failed to avoid si-

multaneous involvement in military conflicts on

several fronts. Without settling the conflict in the

south, he launched a war against his western

neighbor, Livonia, in 1558. Historians traditionally

interpret the Livonian War (1558–1583) in geopo-

litical terms, asserting that Ivan was looking for

passage to the Baltic Sea to expand overseas trade.

Revisionists explain the war’s origins in terms of

Ivan’s short-range interest in getting tribute. The

Livonian war only resulted in human and mater-

ial losses for Muscovy. Ivan supported commercial

relations between Muscovy and England, but at-

tempts to conclude a political union with the queen

of England were in vain. The war, famines, epi-

demics, and the Oprichnina caused a profound eco-

nomic crisis in Muscovy, especially in the

Novgorod region. By the end of Ivan’s reign, peas-

ants abandoned 70 to 98 percent of arable land

throughout the country. Many of them fled to the

periphery of the realm, including Siberia, whose

colonization intensified in the early 1580s.

IVAN IV AND THE

ORTHODOX CHURCH

Ivan IV cultivated a close relationship with the Or-

thodox Church through regular pilgrimages and

generous donations to monasteries. The symbolism

of court religious rituals, in which the tsar partic-

ipated with the metropolitan, and the semiotics of

Ivan’s residence in the Kremlin stressed the divine

character of the tsar’s power and the prevailing

harmony between the tsar and the church. In 1551,

Ivan participated in a church council that attempted

to systematize religious practices and the jurisdic-

tion of church courts. Metropolitan Macarius, head

of the church and a close advisor to the tsar, spon-

sored an ideology of militant Orthodoxy that pre-

sented the tsar as champion and protector of the

true faith. Macarius also played a part in conduct-

ing domestic and foreign policy. Contrary to

traditional views, the court priest Silvester appar-

ently did not exert political influence on the tsar.

Ivan demonstrated a flexible attitude toward the

landownership of the church and its tax privileges.

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Ivan often played ecclesiastical leaders off each

other and even deposed disloyal hierarchs.

CONTROVERSY OVER IVAN’S

PERSONALITY AND HISTORICAL ROLE

Ivan is credited with writing diplomatic letters to

European monarchs, epistles to elite servitors and

clerics, and a reply to a Protestant pastor. Dmitry

Likhachev, J. L. I. Fennell, and other specialists de-

scribe Ivan as an erudite writer who developed a

peculiar literary style through the use of different

genres, specific syntax, irony, parody, and mock-

ery of opponents. According to his writings, Ivan,

traumatized by childhood memories of boyar arbi-

trariness, sought through terror to justify his au-

tocratic rule and to prevent the boyars from

regaining power. Edward Keenan argues that Ivan

was illiterate, never wrote the works attributed to

him, and was a puppet in the hands of influential

boyar clans. The majority of experts do not share

Keenan’s view. All information on the influence of

particular individuals and clans on Ivan comes

from biased sources and should be treated with cau-

tion.

Nikolay Karamzin created an influential ro-

mantic image of an Ivan who first favored pious

counselors but later became a tyrant. Many his-

torians have explained Ivan’s erratic policy in psy-

chological terms (Nikolay Kostomarov, Vasily

Klyuchevsky); some have assumed a mental dis-

order (Pavel Kovalevsky, D. M. Glagolev, Richard

Hellie, Robert Crummey). The autopsy performed

on Ivan’s remains in 1963 suggests that Ivan

might have suffered from a spinal disease, but it

is unclear how the illness affected his behavior. The

probability that Ivan was poisoned should be min-

imized. Other historians sought to rationalize

Ivan’s behavior, presuming that he acted as a

protector of state interests in a struggle with bo-

yar hereditary privileges (Sergei Solovyov, Sergei

Platonov). According to Platonov, Ivan was a na-

tional democratic leader whose policy relied on the

nonaristocratic gentry. This concept was revived

in Stalinist historiography, which implicitly par-

alleled Ivan and Stalin by praising the tsar

for strengthening the centralized Russian state

through harsh measures (Robert Vipper, Sergei

Bakhrushin, Ivan Smirnov). Stepan Veselovsky

and Vladimir Kobrin subjected Platonov’s concept

to devastating criticism. Beginning in the 1960s,

Soviet historians saw Ivan’s policy as a struggle

against various elements of feudal fragmentation

(Alexander Zimin, Kobrin, Ruslan Skrynnikov).

The political liberalization of the late 1980s evoked

totalitarian interpretations of Ivan’s rule (the later

works of Kobrin and Skrynnikov). Boris Uspen-

sky, Priscilla Hunt, and Andrei Yurganov explain

Ivan’s behavior in terms of the cultural myths of

the tsar’s power.

See also: AUTOCRACY; BASIL III; GLINSKAYA, ELENA

VASILYEVNA; KIEVAN RUS; KURBSKY, ANDREI

MIKHAILOVICH; MAKARY, METROPOLITAN; MUSCOVY;

OPRICHNINA; OTHRODOXY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bogatyrev, Sergei. (1995). “Grozny tsar ili groznoe vre-

mya? Psikhologichesky obraz Ivana Groznogo v is-

toriografii.” Russian History 22:285–308.

Fennell. J.L.I. ed., tr. (1955). The Correspondence between

Prince Kurbsky and Tsar Ivan IV of Russia. Cambridge,

UK: Cambridge University Press.

Fennell, John. (1987). “Ivan IV As a Writer.” Russian His-

tory 14:145–154.

Kalugin, V.V. (1998). Andrey Kurbsky i Ivan Grozny.

Teoreticheskie vzglyady i literaturnaya tekhnika

drevnerusskogo pisatelya. Moscow: Yazyki russkoy

kultury.

Keenan, Edward L. (1971). The Kurbskii–Groznyi Apoc-

rypha: The Seventeenth-Century Genesis of the “Corre-

spondence” Attributed to Prince A. M. Kurbskii and Tsar

Ivan IV, with an appendix by Daniel C. Waugh.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kliuchevsky, V.O. (1912). A History of Russia, tr. C. J.

Hogarth, vol. 2. London: J. M. Dent and Sons.

Hunt, Priscilla. (1993). “Ivan IV’s Personal Mythology

of Kingship.” Slavic Review 52:769–809.

Perrie, Maureen. (2001). The Cult of Ivan the Terrible in

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Platonov, S.F. (1986). Ivan the Terrible, ed. and tr. Joseph

L. Wieczynski, with “In Search of Ivan the Terrible”

by Richard Hellie. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic Inter-

national Press.

Rowland, Daniel. (1995). “Ivan the Terrible As a Car-

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to Edward Keenan on His Sixtieth Birthday by His Col-

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ternational Press.

ERGEI

OGATYREV

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IVAN V

(1666–1696), Tsar Ivan Alexeyevich, third son of

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.

Ivan V, who suffered from physical and per-

haps mental impairments, ruled jointly with his

younger brother Peter (the Great). There is no ev-

idence that Ivan ever exercised power or made any

independent decisions during his lifetime. Virtually

nothing is known about his early life in the Krem-

lin Palace. He suddenly came into prominence in

April 1682 with the death of his older brother, Tsar

Fyodor (r. 1676–1682). Though the boyars and the

church passed him over in favor of his half-brother

Peter, the revolt of the musketeers compelled them

to appoint Ivan as co-tsar and soon made possible

the emergence of Ivan’s sister Sophia as regent of

Russia. Despite having been often portrayed as

merely the unhappy tool of Sophia and her

Miloslavsky relatives against Peter and his family,

the Naryshkins, it seems that Ivan’s household

soon distanced itself from Sophia and in 1689 sup-

ported the coup d’etat that removed Sophia from

the regency. In 1684 Sophia had Ivan married to

Praskovya Saltykova, a young noblewoman from

a clan Sophia believed to be friendly to her aims.

Ultimately the Saltykovs supported Peter and be-

came an important element in Peter’s court. Ivan

and Praskovya’s daughter, Anna Ivanovna, ruled

Russia from 1730 to 1740.