Ed Ranks Reasons Why Ivan the Terrible Was So Terrible

It's called FASHION.

Ivan IV Vasilyevich, Czar of Russia from 1547 to 1584, is known to history as "Ivan the Terrible." If you get a royal cognomen of "the terrible," obviously you've done some messed up things, right? So why exactly was he so terrible? At first glance, he might appear to have been an effective and capable leader. His early reign was marked by peaceful reforms and modernization (such as revised law codes), he was known as an able diplomat, a patron of arts and trade, and he helped to found Russia's first publishing house (bringing the printing press to Russia). You know St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow? The onion-dome one from Tetris? Yeah, that was his! He had that built to celebrate his victory over Kazan. He was also widely beloved by the common people of Russia, and remains a popular figure in Russian folklore.

Sounds like a swell guy! So, why so terrible? Let's rank seven reasons why!

7.  The Nickname Really Wasn't "Terrible," the Title is Just Mistranslated

Translation is more of an art than a science, and arguably the Russian "Ива́н Гро́зный"​ (Ivan Grozny) can also be interpreted to mean "Ivan the Fearsome" or "Ivan the Formidable."  If those were the terms we used in English for Ivan, then he'd sound more like a badass conqueror. I already said that he built St. Basil's to celebrate his victory over Kazan (a powerful Tartar/Turkik Khanate that was a successor empire to the famous Mongolian Golden Horde since 1438). He also conquered the Astrakhan Khanate, another powerful Tartar Turkic state in the Volga Delta. So really are we thinking about this whole "terrible" thing wrong? Is he really only terrible because he's feared by  his enemies? To a degree, but then again, "he wasn't really terrible" is a pretty bad answer to the question "Why was Ivan so terrible?," so I'll rank this one last (especially because he actually was terrible).

6. Mass Repression of the Boyars through the Oprichnina

The Boyars were Russian aristocrats. Repressing aristocrats doesn't sound that bad, does it? One could even say that Ivan was fighting against the noble elites and for the common man by repressing aristocrats. Except he sort of really wasn't. He was really just trying to find a way to weasel himself into exercising greater autocratic control over Russia's nobility to make himself more powerful. And what better way to repress and establish control than with violent purges! Ivan the Terrible set up six thousand Oprichniki, the first political police in Russian history. They engaged in a lot of executing, exiling, and torturing. The Massacre of Novgorod was the cherry on top of the Oprichnina, but I'll rank that separately below because it involved more than just the Boyars. 

5. Allowing his People to Suffer Vicious Crimean Raids

Those Tartars, always invading Russia!

In the later years of Ivan's reign, his southern borders were increasingly attacked by Crimean Tatars, who wished to quickly capture people to make slaves.  Shit really hit the fan in 1571 when a the 40,000-strong Crimean/Turkish army launched a large-scale raid which allowed a bunch of Russians to be kidnapped into slavery. Oh, they also devastated unprotected towns and villages around Moscow and caused the 1571 Fire of Moscow. The 40,000 Crimean essentially faced no opposition, as Ivan really only left an army of 6,000 behind to defend his territory during the ongoing Livonian War (that war being another reason he's terrible, as you'll see below). The number of casualties of the fire alone vary from 10,000 to as many 80,000. Ivan's armies would eventually get off their sorry asses and counterattack in 1572, leading to a decisive Russian victory over the Crimeans. But the damage was already done because dipshit Ivan allowed his people to be murdered and enslaved and half his countryside to be burnt to a crisp. 

4. Engaging in the Stupid, Needless Livonian War

America isn't the only country that enters stupid wars that it can't win for no reason. In 1558 Ivan launched the Livonian War in an attempt to gain access to the Baltic Sea and its major trade routes. The war ultimately proved unsuccessful, stretching on for nearly a quarter of a century and getting Russia into punching matches with Sweden, Lithuania, Poland, and the Teutonic Knights of Livonia. The Swedes, Poles and the Hanseatic League then began a sea-trading blockade which cut off Russia's supplies. The prolonged war combined with the blockage basically destroyed the economy of Russia and diverted Ivan's attention away from other important matters like managing his state or protecting his southern borders. 

3. Periods of Near Total Neglect of His Duties as Head of State

In the intro, I gave the years of Ivan's reign as from 1547 to 1584, because that's when his reign actually was. The real story is that it's a bit more complicated, because Ivan frequently did stupid shit like pretending to abdicate the throne. The first time he did this was in 1564 at the beginning of his Oprichnina, when it was just a ploy to get more power. During this period, Ivan held exclusive power over the Oprichnina territory, and pretty much neglected the rest of the country. I'm not on "Team Aristocracy" or anything, but in a monarchical society - the aristocracy have a role to play in controlling local territories. Kings (or Czars, in this case) can't directly rule an ENTIRE country. He needs Dukes and Counts and shit for that. But when Ivan wanted direct, total control - he could only do it over certain areas. Saying "Nope, I'm not ruling the rest of the country anymore and am just focusing on these parts" is a sure fire way to be that asshole kid who takes his ball and leaves when he's losing in a game. In 1575 he did yet another bitch pretend resignation as Czar move.  Also, while speaking of neglect, his dedication to his needless Livonian War was also another sure sign of the neglect of his duties to protect the rest of the country which he let burn. So yeah, that's terrible.

2. Brutally Massacring the People of Novgorod

Just a totally normal painting of skeletons haunting Ivan.

I said that Ivan was "widely beloved by the common people of Russia, and remains a popular figure in Russian folklore." Well, not in Novgorod and its surrounding areas. In 1569 the small town Izborsk was captured by the Lithuanians due to some turncoats on the inside opening the city to them. Ivan became super paranoid about that happening again in the city of Novgorod, and so he took the reasonable next steps of having an army surround and lay siege to the city.  90% of the farmland surrounding the city was burned. Of course with the no supplies or food thing, starvation, plagues and disease spread soon after with many dying just from that before the more formal massacre began.  Later when Ivan's forces decided to enter the city, they would begin burning down monasteries, imprisoning the clergy and or/beating them to death in the streets, etc. Ivan blamed the Church for plotting against him, but instead of stopping is attacks there decided to go for the strategy of, "How about just murdering everyone - the aristocrats, the middle class, the innocent?"  A five week long massacre occured, with sources at the time claiming 60,000 dead. Of course, the city of Novgorod wasn't that big and people always inflate numbers, so modern scholars think it's somewhere between 2,500 to 12,000. Which is still horrible.

1. He was Batshit Fucking Crazy

Sometimes you just gotta kill your son and heir. For reasons.

You all hear about George III being crazy, but he had nothing on Ivan the Terrible. Ivan was prone to paranoia, rages, and episodic outbreaks of mental instability that increased as he got older. Remember how he was burning down churches and killing clergy in Novgorod? At the same time he was doing that, he also demanded to be taken to the the Saint Sophia Cathedral for a divine liturgy from the archbishop, which is not something that sane people do. Basically it was, "I am going to murder you and burn this place down, but first I need to stop and have a Eucharistic service because I'm a holy man." Why was Ivan so crazy? Who knows. Maybe it was just in the blood like with Targaryens. His first wife, Anastasia Romanovna, died in 1560 and it was thought to have greatly effected his mental health. The defection of some nobles who were supposed to be loyal to him to the Lithuanians also started to make him more and more paranoid. He is popularly believed to have killed his eldest son and heir, Ivan Ivanovich, and the latter's unborn son during one of his outbursts. This left the basically incompetent Feodor Ivanovich to inherit the throne, whose shitty  led to the end of the Rurikid dynasty and the devastating Time of Troubles for 15 years.