Not to be confused with Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, or Boris Good Enough. From the “regional history” wish list. Naturally, I had heard the name, but didn’t know much about him. At the same time England was enjoying the Renaissance and the Elizabethan Age (Ivan was born in 1530 and died in 1584), Russia was ruled by a guy who actually makes Stalin look reasonable. He set people’s heads on fire, impaled them, boiled them alive, burned them at the stake, dismembered them, and when feeling merciful, merely cut off their ears, noses, and lips. One of his most interesting accomplishments was the creation of the oprichnina, which essentially set up a State within a State in Russia, and which allowed people in one State to freely plunder the other. He married seven times, often to the winner of a sort of “Miss Russia” contest, and at one point considered marriage to Queen Elizabeth. (Now there’s an alternate history topic for you). He destroyed the ancient cities of Pskov and Novgorod, and pauperized Russia with a series of fruitless wars against Sweden, Poland-Lithuania, and the Livonian Knights. (It’s interesting that he found admiration of a sort from Soviet-era historians, who decided all this destruction was a historical necessity).


The author of this biography, Isabel de Madariaga, is a little handicapped by the paucity of contemporary documentation. A lot of information about Ivan comes from foreign sources; the records of the English Muscovy Company and various comments from Poland, Lithuania, the Empire, and other neighbors. Since most of these were hostile to Russia, there’s some suspicion of exaggeration; but there’s enough from internal sources to back up most of the allegations. I found the book well-written; the major problem is the large number of Russian terms used. Although there’s a glossary, it’s short and not easy to reference. I realize that a boyar is not quite the same as a “noble”, and strel’tsy are not quite e the same as “musketeers”, but if you are going to have your glossary translate stol’nik as “steward (for example), why not just use “steward” in the text? This is a minor quibble, though; I’d suggest copying the one-page glossary and keeping it handy while you read. Four stars. ( )

So fascinating subject and so boring and dry book! There got to be better books about Ivan the Terrible. I got through the end but It took some effort (and I am used to academic research). ( )

How to tell the history of a difficult man when the sources you have are fragmentary at best? To a large degree the author does so by way of examining the extant diplomatic correspondence, and then interpolating from there. Considering that Ivan's focus was on foreign affairs, and most everything else was subordinated to the considerations of recreating Greater Rus, this often works out well. When De Madariaga descends into the morass that was the Polish royal succession after the demise of the Jagiellon dynasty the eyes can certainly glaze over. This is definitely history for historians.

Besides that the author has little patience with efforts to try and assign some meaning to Ivan's acts in terms of adding to the greater Russian state or as a way station on the way to a higher level of civilization. While it's arguable that many of Ivan's atrocities were not especially notable in an era riddled with atrocities, what seems to be the case is that Ivan's conception of himself was more a throwback to medieval thinking about an hereditary sovereign being the anointed of God (a concept adopted in the course of Muscovy declaring itself the "Third Rome"), which Ivan's own upbringing inculcated in him, but there was no one capable of inculcating the discipline that would discourage an unstable personality from taking that understanding to its logical conclusion and creating a tyranny that was totalitarian in its scope. Upon finishing De Madariaga's depiction of the course of the Oprichnina (Ivan's state within a state) the comparable case that comes to mind is that of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. The metaphor that De Madariaga chooses to end her narrative on is that of Lucifer; star of the morning on the way to becoming prince of hell. ( )

Don't pick up this volume with the hope of entertaining reading. Only buy this book if you are doing serious research on Ivan or Russia in the time of the first Tsar. While I stuck with it to the finish (I almost never quit a book), it was far more challenging than I bargained for. The author throws around Russian names and terms like her readers are graduate level students in Russian history. I was looking for something in the vein of Peter the Great and ended up with a college textbook. ( )