What years of Ivan's reign 3. Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III

Grand Duchess Sophia (1455-1503) from the Greek Palaiologan dynasty was the wife of Ivan III. She came from a line of Byzantine emperors. By marrying a Greek princess, Ivan Vasilyevich emphasized the connection between his own power and that of Constantinople. Once upon a time, Byzantium gave Christianity to Rus'. The marriage of Ivan and Sofia closed this historical circle. Their son Basil III and his heirs considered themselves successors to the Greek emperors. To transfer power to her own son, Sophia had to wage many years of dynastic struggle.

Origin

The exact date of birth of Sofia Paleolog is unknown. She was born around 1455 in the Greek city of Mystras. The girl's father was Thomas Palaiologos, the brother of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI. He ruled the Despotate of Morea, located on the Peloponnese peninsula. Sophia's mother, Catherine of Achaia, was the daughter of the Frankish prince Achaea Centurion II (Italian by birth). The Catholic ruler conflicted with Thomas and lost a decisive war to him, as a result of which he lost his own possessions. As a sign of victory, as well as the annexation of Achaea, the Greek despot married Catherine.

The fate of Sofia Paleolog was determined by dramatic events that happened shortly before her birth. In 1453, the Turks captured Constantinople. This event marked the end of the thousand-year history of the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople was at the crossroads between Europe and Asia. Having occupied the city, the Turks opened their way to the Balkans and the Old World as a whole.

If the Ottomans defeated the emperor, then the other princes did not pose a threat to them at all. The Despotate of Morea was captured already in 1460. Thomas managed to take his family and flee from the Peloponnese. First, the Palaiologos came to Corfu, then moved to Rome. The choice was logical. Italy became the new home for many thousands of Greeks who did not want to remain under Muslim citizenship.

The girl's parents died almost simultaneously in 1465. After their death, the story of Sofia Paleolog turned out to be closely connected with the story of her brothers Andrei and Manuel. The young Palaiologos were sheltered by Pope Sixtus IV. In order to enlist his support and ensure a calm future for the children, Thomas, shortly before his death, converted to Catholicism, abandoning the Greek Orthodox faith.

Life in Rome

The Greek scientist and humanist Vissarion of Nicea began training Sophia. Most of all, he was famous for being the author of the project for the union of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, concluded in 1439. For the successful reunification (Byzantium made this deal, being on the verge of destruction and hoping in vain for help from the Europeans), Vissarion received the rank of cardinal. Now he became the teacher of Sophia Paleologus and her brothers.

From an early age, the biography of the future Moscow Grand Duchess bore the stamp of Greco-Roman duality, of which Vissarion of Nicea was an adherent. In Italy she always had a translator with her. Two professors taught her Greek and Latin. Sophia Palaiologos and her brothers were supported by the Holy See. Dad gave them more than 3 thousand ecus a year. Money was spent on servants, clothes, a doctor, etc.

The fate of Sofia's brothers turned out to be exactly the opposite of each other. As the eldest son of Thomas, Andrei was considered the legal heir of the entire Palaiologan dynasty. He tried to sell his status to several European kings, hoping that they would help him regain the throne. As expected, the crusade did not happen. Andrei died in poverty. Manuel returned to his historical homeland. In Constantinople, he began to serve the Turkish Sultan Bayezid II, and according to some sources, he even converted to Islam.

As a representative of the extinct imperial dynasty, Sophia Palaiologos from Byzantium was one of the most enviable brides in Europe. However, none of the Catholic monarchs with whom they tried to negotiate in Rome agreed to marry the girl. Even the glory of the Palaiologos name could not overshadow the danger posed by the Ottomans. It is precisely known that Sophia’s patrons began to match her with the Cypriot King Jacques II, but he responded with a firm refusal. Another time, the Roman Pontiff Paul II himself proposed the girl’s hand to the influential Italian aristocrat Caracciolo, but this attempt at a wedding also failed.

Embassy to Ivan III

In Moscow, they learned about Sofia in 1469, when the Greek diplomat Yuri Trachaniot arrived in the Russian capital. He proposed to the recently widowed but still very young Ivan III the project of marriage with the princess. The Roman Epistle delivered by the foreign guest was composed by Pope Paul II. The Pontiff promised Ivan support if he wanted to marry Sophia.

What made Roman diplomacy turn to the Moscow Grand Duke? In the 15th century, after a long period of political fragmentation and the Mongol yoke, Russia reunited and became a major European power. In the Old World there were legends about the wealth and power of Ivan III. In Rome, many influential people hoped for the help of the Grand Duke in the struggle of Christians against Turkish expansion.

One way or another, Ivan III agreed and decided to continue negotiations. His mother Maria Yaroslavna reacted favorably to the “Roman-Byzantine” candidacy. Ivan III, despite his tough temperament, was afraid of his mother and always listened to her opinion. At the same time, the figure of Sophia Palaeologus, whose biography was connected with the Latins, did not please the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Philip. Realizing his powerlessness, he did not oppose the Moscow sovereign and distanced himself from the upcoming wedding.

Wedding

The Moscow embassy arrived in Rome in May 1472. The delegation was headed by the Italian Gian Batista della Volpe, known in Russia as Ivan Fryazin. The ambassadors were met by Pope Sixtus IV, who had recently replaced the deceased Paul II. As a token of gratitude for the hospitality shown, the pontiff received a large amount of sable fur as a gift.

Only a week passed, and a solemn ceremony took place in the main Roman Cathedral of St. Peter, at which Sophia Paleologus and Ivan III became engaged in absentia. Volpe played the role of groom. While preparing for an important event, the ambassador made a serious mistake. The Catholic rite required the use of wedding rings, but Volpe did not prepare them. The scandal was hushed up. All the influential organizers of the engagement wanted to complete it safely and turned a blind eye to the formalities.

In the summer of 1472, Sophia Paleologus, together with her retinue, the papal legate and Moscow ambassadors, set off on a long journey. At parting, she met with the pontiff, who gave the bride his final blessing. Of several routes, Sofia's companions chose the path through Northern Europe and the Baltics. The Greek princess crossed the entire Old World, coming from Rome to Lubeck. Sofia Palaeologus from Byzantium endured the hardships of a long journey with dignity - such trips were not the first time for her. At the insistence of the pope, all Catholic cities organized a warm welcome for the embassy. The girl reached Tallinn by sea. This was followed by Yuryev, Pskov, and then Novgorod. Sofia Paleolog, whose appearance was reconstructed by specialists in the 20th century, surprised Russians with her foreign southern appearance and unfamiliar habits. Everywhere the future Grand Duchess was greeted with bread and salt.

On November 12, 1472, Princess Sophia Paleologus arrived in the long-awaited Moscow. The wedding ceremony with Ivan III took place on the same day. There was an understandable reason for the rush. Sophia's arrival coincided with the celebration of the day of memory of John Chrysostom, the patron saint of the Grand Duke. So the Moscow sovereign gave his marriage under heavenly protection.

For the Orthodox Church, the fact that Sofia was the second wife of Ivan III was reprehensible. A priest who would officiate such a marriage had to risk his reputation. In addition, the attitude towards the bride as a foreign Latina has been entrenched in conservative circles since her appearance in Moscow. That is why Metropolitan Philip avoided the obligation to perform the wedding. Instead, the ceremony was led by Archpriest Hosiya of Kolomna.

Sophia Palaeologus, whose religion remained Orthodox even during her stay in Rome, nevertheless arrived with the papal legate. This envoy, traveling along Russian roads, demonstratively carried in front of him a large Catholic crucifix. Under pressure from Metropolitan Philip, Ivan Vasilyevich made it clear to the legate that he was not going to tolerate such behavior that embarrassed his Orthodox subjects. The conflict was settled, but “Roman glory” haunted Sophia until the end of her days.

Historical role

Together with Sofia, her Greek retinue came to Russia. Ivan III was very interested in the heritage of Byzantium. The marriage to Sophia became a signal for many other Greeks wandering in Europe. A stream of co-religionists arose who sought to settle in the possessions of the Grand Duke.

What did Sofia Paleolog do for Russia? She opened it to Europeans. Not only Greeks, but also Italians went to Muscovy. Masters and learned people were especially valued. Ivan III patronized Italian architects (for example, Aristotle Fioravanti), who built a large number of architectural masterpieces in Moscow. A separate courtyard and mansions were built for Sophia herself. They burned down in 1493 during a terrible fire. The Grand Duchess's treasury was lost along with them.

During the days of standing on the Ugra

In 1480, Ivan III escalated the conflict with the Tatar Khan Akhmat. The result of this conflict is known - after a bloodless stand on the Ugra, the Horde left Russia and never again demanded tribute from it. Ivan Vasilyevich managed to throw off the long-term yoke. However, before Akhmat left the possessions of the Moscow prince in disgrace, the situation seemed uncertain. Fearing an attack on the capital, Ivan III organized the departure of Sophia and their children to White Lake. Together with his wife there was the grand ducal treasury. If Akhmat had captured Moscow, she should have fled further north closer to the sea.

The decision to evacuate, which was made by Ivan 3 and Sofia Paleolog, caused outrage among the people. Muscovites began to recall with pleasure the “Roman” origins of the princess. Sarcastic descriptions of the empress's flight to the north were preserved in some chronicles, for example in the Rostov vault. Nevertheless, all the reproaches of his contemporaries were immediately forgotten after the news arrived in Moscow that Akhmat and his army had decided to retreat from the Ugra and return to the steppes. Sofia from the Paleolog family arrived in Moscow a month later.

The heir problem

Ivan and Sofia had 12 children. Half of them died in childhood or infancy. The remaining grown children of Sofia Paleolog also left behind offspring, but the Rurik branch, which began from the marriage of Ivan and the Greek princess, died out around the middle of the 17th century. The Grand Duke also had a son from his first marriage to the Tver princess. Named after his father, he is remembered as Ivan Mladoy. According to the law of seniority, it was this prince who was supposed to become the heir to the Moscow state. Of course, Sofia did not like this scenario, who wanted power to pass to her son Vasily. A loyal group of court nobility formed around her, supporting the princess’s claims. However, for the time being, she could not influence the dynastic issue in any way.

Since 1477, Ivan the Young was considered his father's co-ruler. He took part in the battle on the Ugra and gradually learned princely duties. For many years, Ivan the Young's position as the rightful heir was undeniable. However, in 1490 he fell ill with gout. There was no cure for “ache in the legs.” Then the Italian doctor Mister Leon was discharged from Venice. He undertook to cure the heir and vouched for success with his own head. Leon used rather strange methods. He gave Ivan a certain potion and burned his legs with red-hot glass vessels. The treatment only made the illness worse. In 1490, Ivan the Young died in terrible agony at the age of 32. In anger, Sophia's husband Paleologus imprisoned the Venetian, and a few weeks later he publicly executed him.

Conflict with Elena

The death of Ivan the Young did not bring Sofia much closer to the fulfillment of her dream. The deceased heir was married to the daughter of the Moldavian sovereign, Elena Stefanovna, and had a son, Dmitry. Now Ivan III faced a difficult choice. On the one hand, he had a grandson, Dmitry, and on the other, a son from Sofia, Vasily.

For several years, the Grand Duke continued to hesitate. The boyars split again. Some supported Elena, others - Sofia. The first had significantly more supporters. Many influential Russian aristocrats and nobles did not like the story of Sophia Paleologus. Some continued to reproach her for her past with Rome. In addition, Sofia herself tried to surround herself with her native Greeks, which did not benefit her popularity.

On the side of Elena and her son Dmitry there was a good memory of Ivan the Young. Vasily’s supporters resisted: on his mother’s side, he was a descendant of the Byzantine emperors! Elena and Sofia were worth each other. Both of them were distinguished by ambition and cunning. Although the women observed palace decorum, their mutual hatred of each other was no secret to the princely entourage.

Opal

In 1497, Ivan III became aware of a conspiracy being prepared behind his back. Young Vasily fell under the influence of several careless boyars. Fyodor Stromilov stood out among them. This clerk was able to assure Vasily that Ivan was already going to officially declare Dmitry his heir. Reckless boyars suggested getting rid of their competitor or seizing the sovereign's treasury in Vologda. The number of like-minded people involved in the venture continued to grow until Ivan III himself found out about the conspiracy.

As always, the Grand Duke, terrible in anger, ordered the execution of the main noble conspirators, including clerk Stromilov. Vasily escaped prison, but guards were assigned to him. Sofia also fell into disgrace. Her husband heard rumors that she was bringing imaginary witches to her place and was trying to get a potion to poison Elena or Dmitry. These women were found and drowned in the river. The Emperor forbade his wife to come into his sight. To top it off, Ivan actually declared his fifteen-year-old grandson his official heir.

The fight continues

In February 1498, celebrations were held in Moscow to mark the coronation of young Dmitry. The ceremony in the Assumption Cathedral was attended by all the boyars and members of the grand ducal family with the exception of Vasily and Sofia. The disgraced relatives of the Grand Duke were pointedly not invited to the coronation. The Monomakh Cap was put on Dmitry, and Ivan III arranged a grand feast in honor of his grandson.

Elena's party could triumph - this was her long-awaited triumph. However, even supporters of Dmitry and his mother could not feel too confident. Ivan III was always distinguished by impulsiveness. Because of his tough temperament, he could throw anyone into disgrace, including his wife, but nothing guaranteed that the Grand Duke would not change his preferences.

A year has passed since Dmitry's coronation. Unexpectedly, the sovereign's favor returned to Sophia and her eldest son. There is no evidence in the chronicles about the reasons that prompted Ivan to reconcile with his wife. One way or another, the Grand Duke ordered the case against his wife to be reconsidered. During the repeated investigation, new circumstances of the court struggle were discovered. Some denunciations against Sofia and Vasily turned out to be false.

The sovereign accused the most influential defenders of Elena and Dmitry - princes Ivan Patrikeev and Simeon Ryapolovsky - of slander. The first of them was the chief military adviser to the Moscow ruler for more than thirty years. Ryapolovsky's father defended Ivan Vasilyevich as a child when he was in danger from Dmitry Shemyaka during the last Russian internecine war. These great merits of the nobles and their families did not save them.

Six weeks after the boyars' disgrace, Ivan, who had already returned favor to Sofia, declared their son Vasily the prince of Novgorod and Pskov. Dmitry was still considered the heir, but members of the court, sensing a change in the sovereign’s mood, began to abandon Elena and her child. Fearing the same fate as Patrikeev and Ryapolovsky, other aristocrats began to demonstrate loyalty to Sofia and Vasily.

Triumph and death

Three more years passed, and finally, in 1502, the struggle between Sophia and Elena ended with the fall of the latter. Ivan ordered guards to be assigned to Dmitry and his mother, then sent them to prison and officially deprived his grandson of his grand-ducal dignity. At the same time, the sovereign declared Vasily his heir. Sofia was triumphant. Not a single boyar dared to contradict the decision of the Grand Duke, although many continued to sympathize with eighteen-year-old Dmitry. Ivan was not stopped even by a quarrel with his faithful and important ally - Elena's father and the Moldavian ruler Stefan, who hated the owner of the Kremlin for the suffering of his daughter and grandson.

Sofia Paleolog, whose biography was a series of ups and downs, managed to achieve the main goal of her life shortly before her own death. She died at the age of 48 on April 7, 1503. The Grand Duchess was buried in a sarcophagus made of white stone, placed in the tomb of the Ascension Cathedral. Sofia's grave was next to the grave of Ivan's first wife, Maria Borisovna. In 1929, the Bolsheviks destroyed the Ascension Cathedral, and the remains of the Grand Duchess were transferred to the Archangel Cathedral.

For Ivan, the death of his wife was a strong blow. He was already over 60. In mourning, the Grand Duke visited several Orthodox monasteries, where he diligently devoted himself to prayer. The last years of their life together were overshadowed by disgrace and mutual suspicions of the spouses. Nevertheless, Ivan III always appreciated Sophia’s intelligence and her assistance in state affairs. After the loss of his wife, the Grand Duke, feeling the proximity of his own death, made a will. Vasily's rights to power were confirmed. Ivan followed Sophia in 1505, dying at the age of 65.

Ivan III(1440-1505), Grand Duke of All Rus' (from 1462), son of the Grand Duke. He was married with his first marriage (1452) to Princess Maria Borisovna of Tver, and with his second marriage to Sophia Paleolog. During the reign of Ivan III, the formation of the central state apparatus began. He annexed Yaroslavl (1463), Novgorod (1477), Perm (1478), Tver (1485), Vyatka (1489), etc. Under him, the Mongol-Tatar yoke was overthrown (“standing on Ugra" 1480). As a result of the Russian-Lithuanian wars (1487-1494, 1500-1503), he included the Verkhovsky principalities and lands with the cities of Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversky, etc. into the state. In 1483 and 1499 he sent military detachments to Western Siberia. He participated in the drafting of the Code of Laws of 1497, and supervised stone construction in Moscow. Strengthened the international authority of the Russian state.

(22.1.1440 - 27.10.1505, Moscow), Grand Duke of Moscow from 1462, eldest son. Since 1450 he has been referred to as the Grand Duke - co-ruler of his father. He was a prominent statesman who showed extraordinary military and diplomatic abilities. Under Ivan III, the formation of the territory of the core of the Russian centralized state was completed: the Yaroslavl (1463), Rostov (1474) principalities, the Novgorod feudal republic (1478), the Tver Grand Duchy (1485), the Vyatka principality were annexed to the Moscow principality (1489) and most of the Ryazan lands. Influence on Pskov and the Ryazan Grand Duchy was strengthened. After the wars of 1487-1494. and 1500-1503 with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a number of western Russian lands went to Moscow: Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversky, Gomel, Bryansk, etc. After the war of 1501-1503. Ivan III forced the Livonian Order to pay tribute (for the city of Yuryev). In the 60-80s. The government of Ivan III successfully fought the Kazan Khanate, which since 1487 came under the strong political influence of Rus'. During the reign of Ivan III, a centralized apparatus of power began to take shape: a command system of government was born, the Code of Law of 1497 was drawn up. Local land ownership developed and the political importance of the nobility greatly increased. Ivan III fought against the separatism of appanage princes (for example, his brothers Boris Volotsky and Andrei Bolshoi in the 80-90s) and significantly limited their sovereign rights. By the end of the reign of Ivan III, many appanages were liquidated.

The most important achievement during the reign of Ivan III was the overthrow of the Tatar-Mongol yoke. Under the pressure of the popular masses, he was forced to organize a strong defense against the invasion of Khan Akhmat. During the reign of Ivan III, the international authority of the Russian state grew, diplomatic ties were established with the papal curia, the German Empire, Hungary, Moldova, Turkey, Iran, Crimea, etc. Under Ivan III, the formalization of the full title of Grand Duke of “All Rus'” began (in some documents he already called king). For the second time, Ivan III was married to Zoya (Sophia) Paleologus, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor.

During the reign of Ivan III, large construction began in Moscow (the Kremlin, its cathedrals, the Chamber of Facets); Stone fortresses were built in Kolomna, Tula, and Ivangorod.

Literature:

1. Bazilevich K.V. Foreign policy of the Russian centralized state. Second half of the 15th century. M., 1952; Cherepnin L.V.
2. Formation of the Russian centralized state in the XIV-XV centuries. M., 1960.

HELL. Gorsky.

Ivan III(1440, Moscow - 1505, ibid.), Grand Duke of Vladimir and Moscow from 1462, “Sovereign of All Rus'” from 1478. The eldest son of the Grand Duke and Maria Yaroslavna. Under Ivan III, the Yaroslavl (1463), Rostov (1474) and Tver (1485) principalities, the Novgorod Republic (1478), the Vyatka Land (1489), etc. were annexed to the Grand Duchy of Moscow. the dependence of Pskov and Ryazan increased; Rus' was liberated from the Mongol-Tatar yoke (“standing on the Ugra”, 1480). The Kazan Khanate became a vassal of Rus' (1487). As a result of the wars with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1487-1494 and 1500-1503), Bryansk, Chernigov, Toropets, Novgorod-Seversky, Starodub and others went to Moscow. He was married (from 1452) to the Tver princess Maria Borisovna. With his second marriage (1472), he married Zoya (Sophya) Paleologus, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor. During the reign of Ivan III, Moscow became the largest political and commercial center of Rus'. In 1464, a stone sculpture of St. George the Victorious, patron saint of Moscow, was installed on the Frolov Gate of the Kremlin. According to the plan of Ivan III, beautiful churches and strong fortifications were to testify to the greatness of the capital. In 1485-1495 under the leadership of Italian masters, the walls of the Kremlin were rebuilt (construction began on the southern side; in 1491-1492 the eastern fortifications were rebuilt). In 1475-1479. A new Assumption Cathedral was built in the Kremlin in 1484-1489. Pskov craftsmen rebuilt the Annunciation Cathedral in 1487-1491. The Chamber of Facets was erected. In 1479-1505 The chronicles record the construction of about 25 churches in Moscow. Despite the scale of stone construction, Moscow remained mostly wooden, and fires were frequent. In 1472, a fire that started in the church near the Resurrection on the Moat destroyed almost the entire settlement, 25 churches burned down. Moscow suffered significantly from a fire in 1485. The fire in August 1488 destroyed about 5 thousand houses and 30 churches. One of the largest Moscow fires occurred in July - August 1493; the Grand Duke himself and his family were forced to live beyond the Yauza “in peasant households.” After this, Ivan III ordered the demolition of courtyards and churches across the river. Neglinnaya 110 fathoms from the Kremlin walls. In 1499, Ivan III “laid out his stone courtyard, stone and brick chambers”; in the last year of his life he ordered the dismantling and re-building of the Archangel Cathedral and the Church of St. John Climacus near the Bells (completed under Vasily III). He was buried in the Archangel Cathedral.

Literature:

Alekseev Yu.G. Sovereign of All Rus'. Novosibirsk, 1991.

E.I. Kuksina.

Ivan III (baptized Timofey) Vasilyevich the Great, Saint(01/22/1440 - 10/27/1505), Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus'. Son of Grand Duchess Maria Yaroslavna, daughter of the Serpukhov prince.

From a young age, Ivan became an assistant to his blind father. He took part in the fight against, went on campaigns to other lands. Having become the Grand Duke of Moscow after the death of his father in 1462, he annexed the Yaroslavl and Rostov principalities, the Novgorod land, the Tver principality, the Vyatka, part of the Ryazan, Chernigov, Seversk, Bryansk and Gomel lands. Ivan forced the Livonian Order to pay tribute to Moscow for the ancient Russian city of Yuryev (modern Tartu), which it owned. Ivan's outstanding achievement was the overthrow of the Golden Horde yoke in 1480, for which he received the popular nickname Saint. After marrying the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Sophia (Zoe) Paleologus in 1472, he seemed to make himself the heir of the Byzantine basileus. In a number of documents, Ivan called himself “sovereign” and “tsar”, and crowned his grandson Dmitry as king. During his reign, Rus' turned into the Russian state, the coat of arms of which was a double-headed eagle, borrowed from Byzantium. Another symbol of the Moscow state was St. George the Victorious, slaying the serpent with a spear.

Ivan fought mercilessly against the princely-boyar opposition. He established norms for taxes collected from the population in favor of the governors. The first orders in charge of individual branches of government appeared in Moscow. In 1497, the all-Russian Code of Law was published, with the help of which legal proceedings began to be carried out. The nobility and the noble army began to play a larger role. In the interests of the noble landowners, the transfer of peasants from one master to another was limited. The peasants received the right to make the transition only once a year - a week before the autumn St. George's Day (November 26) and a week after St. George's Day. Under Ivan, artillery appeared as an integral part of the army. Ivan dealt harshly with the movement of “non-acquisitors,” whose activities were aimed at undermining state power.

During the reign of Ivan, the Moscow Kremlin was surrounded by mighty brick walls and towers and became an impregnable fortress. The Faceted Chamber, the Assumption and the Annunciation Cathedrals were built in the Kremlin. Stone fortresses were also erected in Kolomna, Tula and Ivan Gorod.

The chronicler wrote about him (retelling by V.N. Tatishchev): “This blessed and praiseworthy great prince... added many reigns and multiplied his strength, refuted the barbarian wicked power and delivered the entire Russian land of tributary and captivity, and many tributaries from the Horde for himself Teach, introduce many crafts, which I did not know before, bring love and friendship and brotherhood to many distant sovereigns, glorify the entire Russian land...”

O.M. Rapov

(1440-1505) - Grand Duke of Moscow (from 1462). Born on January 22, 1440 in Moscow. Father - , mother - Maria Yaroslavna, Borovsk princess. In 1445, after his father was blinded during the struggle for succession to the throne by his nephew Dmitry Shemyaka, Ivan was taken to the city of Pereyaslav-Zalessky, then to the city of Uglich, and from there, together with his mother and father, to Tver. In 1446 he was engaged to the Tver princess Marya Borisovna. In 1448, he “went with the regiments to repel the Kazan people from the Vladimir and Murom lands.” In 1450 he was declared co-ruler with his father. In 1452 he was married to Princess Maria Borisovna. In 1459, with his army, he drove the Tatars from the banks of the Oka. In 1460, having provided assistance to the Pskovites from the raids of their neighbors, he was named Prince of Pskov. In 1462, after the death of his father, he officially became the Grand Duke of Moscow, continuing his father’s struggle against the separatism of the appanage princes to unite the Russian lands into a sovereign state.

In 1463, the Yaroslavl principality was annexed to Moscow, although in 1464 it had to confirm the independence of Ryazan and Tver. In 1467 he sent an army to Kazan, but the campaign was unsuccessful. In April of the same year, his wife Marya Borisovna died (possibly poisoned), from whose marriage there was a nine-year-old son - the soon-to-be co-ruler of Ivan III, and then the Tver prince Ivan the Young. From 1468, Ivan III began to go with him on military campaigns, and later, during his campaigns, he left his son in charge (“in charge”) of Moscow.

In 1468, the Russians, having penetrated Belaya Voloshka, found themselves east of Kazan. In 1470, Ivan Vasilyevich, having quarreled with Novgorod, demanded a ransom from the city. July 14, 1471 at the Battle of the River. Sheloni defeated the Novgorodians, who promised to pay Moscow 80 pounds of silver.

In the summer of 1472, having repelled the invasion of Khan Akhmet in the south, Moscow troops in the northeast invaded the lands of Great Perm. The Perm land came under the rule of the Moscow Grand Duke. This opened the way for Moscow to the North with its fur wealth, as well as towards the Kama River and the seizure of the eastern lands of the Kazan Khanate to weaken the Horde.

In November 1472, at the suggestion of the Pope, Ivan III married the niece of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine Paleologus, Sophia Fomineshna Palaiologos. After the wedding, Ivan III “commanded” the Moscow coat of arms with the image of St. George slaying the serpent to be combined with a double-headed eagle - the ancient coat of arms of Byzantium. This emphasized that Moscow was becoming the heir to the Byzantine Empire. The idea that arose then about the worldwide role of “Moscow - the third Rome” led to the fact that Ivan III began to be viewed as “the king of all Orthodoxy”, and the Russian Church as the successor of the Greek Church. In addition to the coat of arms with a double-headed eagle, Monomakh's cap with barms became an attribute of royal power during the ceremony of crowning the kingdom. (According to legend, the latter were sent to Ivan III by the Byzantine emperor).

The marriage with Sophia Paleologus contributed to increasing the authority of the Moscow prince among other Russian princes and facilitated his task of collecting Russian lands.

In 1473, Ivan III began to move his army westward towards Lithuania. In 1474, the Principality of Rostov joined Moscow and a friendly alliance was concluded with the Crimean Khan Mengli-Girey. In 1476, Ivan III took an important step towards liberation from the Horde, ceasing to pay it an annual monetary “exit” (“tribute”). In 1477, leaving Ivan the Young in Moscow, Ivan III went to Veliky Novgorod and, having subjugated this city with its vast lands, by 1478 he strengthened his position on the western borders. The symbol of Novgorod “liberty” - the veche bell - was taken to Moscow. Prominent representatives of the boyars, hostile to Moscow, including Marfa Boretskaya, were arrested and sent into exile in the “lower cities”.

In 1479, the most acute moment of Ivan III’s struggle with the appanage princes came, which the Horde Khan Akhmat took advantage of. When Ivan III and his army were on the western borders, the Horde moved towards Moscow. Ivan the Young, who was “in charge” of Moscow, led the regiments to Serpukhov and on June 8, 1480 stood with them on the river. Eel. Fearing for his son’s life, Ivan III ordered him to leave, but Ivan the Young began to “wait for the Tatars,” and Ivan III hastily began to strengthen his positions on the approaches to the river. Oka near Kolomna and Tarusa. On September 30, he arrived in Moscow to “make peace” with the appanage princes and mobilize them to fight the Tatars. In Moscow, Ivan III met the discontent of the people who were preparing to repel the invasion and began to “speak evilly” to him, demanding that he go to the troops to defend Moscow. On October 3, Ivan arrived with his detachment of troops on the left bank of the river. Ugra at its confluence with the river. Oku (near Kaluga). In October 1480, Khan Akhmet also approached the Ugra, trying to cross to the left bank, but was repulsed by the Russians. A confrontation between Russians and Tatars began (“Standing on the Ugra”), which lasted until the end of the year. The Tatars did not dare to fight the main battle. The onset of frost and hunger strike, lack of food forced Akhmet to leave. Standing on the river Eel actually put an end to the Horde yoke, which lasted more than 240 years.

In 1481, Ivan III conquered the lands of the Livonian Order, and in 1481-1482. - the terms of the treaty letters of the Grand Duke with the appanage princes of the Moscow house were revised with the prospect of their annexation to Moscow. In 1485, Moscow annexed the Tver Principality, Ivan the Young was declared the Prince of Tver. In 1487, Russian troops captured Kazan, where in place of the captured Khan Ali, Ivan III placed his brother Muhammad-Emin, related by family ties to the Crimean Khan, which strengthened Ivan III’s relations with Crimea and allowed him to launch a new offensive on Lithuania, which continued with interruptions until 1503.

Power-hungry and prudent, cautious and decisive at the right moment, Ivan III consistently and purposefully pursued both foreign and domestic policies aimed at creating a strong monarchical power. According to the Belozersk charter of Ivan III in 1488, all classes in Moscow and lands subordinate to Moscow turned out to be dependent on the Grand Duke; his possessions extended further and further: in 1489 Vyatka was conquered, the northeastern lands were absorbed by the Moscow principality.

As the power of the Moscow prince strengthened, his prestige in other countries strengthened. Thus, in 1489, Ivan III received the first friendly letter from the German Emperor Frederick III. The strengthening of Moscow's position in Europe further strengthened the political and ideological positions of Ivan III within the state. In 1490, he convened a church council to consider and condemn the heresy of the “Judaizers,” giving freedom to the Russian Orthodox Church in the fight against dissidents. In 1491, he imprisoned his brother the Uglich prince, and annexed his inheritance to Moscow. In the same year, having received the discovery of silver mines on the Tsylma River in the Pechersk region, he accelerated the completion of the construction of a secular building in the Kremlin - the Faceted Chamber for receiving foreign ambassadors and other special occasions.

In 1492, Ivan III managed to establish friendly relations with the Turkish Sultan, and in the west, to continue the interrupted war with Lithuania; there the borders were strengthened by the construction of a stone fortress in Ivan-gorod (near Narva). In 1494, the first stage of the war with Lithuania ended in peace and family union. But Ivan III could be irreconcilable and cruel: in 1495, irritated by the Livonian Order, he ordered all the Hanseatic merchants who were then in Moscow to be thrown into prison; in 1496, while fighting with the Swedes, he devastated Finland.

In the internal life of Moscow, Ivan III introduced major changes to the grand-ducal palace and patrimonial administration, changing it to the so-called “mandatory system”. New institutions - orders - grew out of personal orders from the Grand Duke to persons from among the ruling class. In 1497, at the “order” of Ivan III, clerk Vladimir Gusev compiled the Code of Laws of 1497 - a kind of code of feudal law (procedural, civil, criminal, etc.). The Code of Law defended the feudal landowners, oppressing the freedom of the peasants: now their transition from one landowner to another was limited by the so-called. “St. George’s Day” (the week before November 26 and the week after this date) and became common for all of Rus'. Under Ivan III, local land ownership expanded and the role of the nobility began to increase, although the service landowners were greatly inferior to the boyar nobility.

Ivan III sought to maintain contact with Constantinople. In 1497 he sent ambassadors there with gifts. But this did not stop him in 1498 from “putting disgrace” on his “Byzantine” wife Sophia Paleologus, who was accused (as it turned out later - by slander) of participating in an attempt on his princely power. Ivan III assigned guards to his wife and their eldest son Vasily, executed the alleged initiators of the conspiracy and solemnly crowned his grandson from the son of Ivan the Young, Dmitry, to the throne in the Assumption Cathedral. But already in 1499 he radically changed his decision: he made peace with Sophia and Vasily, and partly executed those who slandered them, and partly tonsured them as monks. Now Dmitry and Ivan the Young’s wife, Elena Voloshanka, suspected of participating in the conspiracy, were subjected to severe disgrace. Dmitry was put in a “stone” (prison), where he died “in want” 10 years later.

In 1499, another land was annexed to Moscow - Yugra. In 1500, the war began again with the Lithuanians, who were defeated on July 14 of the same year at the river. Vedroshe. In 1501, Russian troops, having occupied the lands of Livonia, reached almost Revel. The Livonian Order undertook to pay tribute to Moscow for the city of Yuryev. On March 25, 1503, according to a peace treaty with Lithuania, Moscow received 19 cities (Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversky, Gomel, Bryansk, etc.), as well as 70 volosts, 22 settlements, 13 villages. In 1504, according to the will of his brother Boris and in connection with the death of his son, Ivan III annexed Ruza and the lands around it to Moscow.

In 1503, Ivan III convened a council, according to the verdict of which many heretics who opposed the dominant ideology - the Josephites - were burned, imprisoned or exiled. On April 7 of the same year, Sophia Paleolog died. Having been married to Ivan III for 30 years, she gave birth to five sons, the eldest of whom soon became the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily IV, as well as four daughters. Shortly before his death, Ivan III traveled a lot to monasteries, “writing spiritual letters.”

Ivan III died on October 27, 1505 in Moscow at the age of 65 and was buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin.

Under Ivan III, most of the estates were liquidated and turned into simple estates, into local land ownership. The strengthening of Ivan III’s position within the state was accompanied by the strengthening of the Russian population’s national unity and successes in foreign policy. The territory of the Moscow Principality increased from 24 thousand to 64 thousand square meters. km. Its diplomatic ties were established from the German Empire with Rome, Hungary, Moldavia, Crimea, Turkey and Iran.

Under Ivan III, fortress walls were erected near Kolomna and Tula on its approaches to Moscow. In the Kremlin, the construction of the Orthodox cathedrals - the Assumption and the Annunciation - was completely completed, and the construction of the tomb of the great princes - the Archangel Cathedral - was almost completed. A magnificent and solemn etiquette was established in the palace life of Moscow. A new form of state seal with the image of a double-headed eagle was also adopted, and a mythical genealogy was compiled specifically to substantiate the royal origin of the Russian princes, which traced the ancestor of the Russian princes Rurik to the Roman Caesar Augustus. It seemed that Rurik was a descendant of Caesar Augustus, and in the 14th generation - Ivan III himself. Under Ivan III, with the formation of the main territory of the Moscow State on the model of Byzantium, his full title was introduced: “John, by the grace of God, Sovereign of All Rus' and Grand Duke of Vladimir, and Moscow, and Novgorod, and Pskov, and Tver, and Ugra, and Perm, both Bulgarian and others.” In the course of diplomatic relations with Livonia and German cities, Ivan III called himself “Tsar of All Rus'”, the Danish king called him “Emperor”, and later Ivan III in one of the letters called his son Vasily “Autocrat of All Rus'”.

Lev Pushkarev

Literature:

1. Alekseev Yu.G. Sovereign of All Rus'. Novosibirsk, 1991;
2. Pchelov E.V. Rurikovich. History of the dynasty. M., 2001;
3. Cherepnin L.V. Formation of the Russian centralized state in the XIV-XV centuries. M., 1969.

John III Vasilievich - Grand Duke of Moscow, son of Maria Yaroslavna, born on January 22, 1440, was his father’s co-ruler in the last years of his life, ascended the throne in 1462. He continued the policies of his predecessors, striving for the unification of Rus' under the leadership of Moscow and destroying appanage principalities and the independence of the veche regions, as well as fighting with Lithuania over the Russian lands that had joined it. John’s actions were not particularly decisive: cautious and calculating, not possessing personal courage, he preferred to achieve his intended goal with slow steps, taking advantage of favorable circumstances. Moscow's power has already reached significant development, while its rivals have noticeably weakened; this gave broad scope to John's cautious policy. Individual Russian principalities were too weak; The Grand Duchy of Lithuania also lacked the means to fight, and the unification of these forces was hampered by the consciousness of their unity already established among the mass of the Russian population and the hostile attitude of the Russians towards Catholicism, which was becoming stronger in Lithuania. The Novgorodians, fearing for their independence, decided to seek protection from Lithuania, although in Novgorod itself a strong party was against this decision. John at first limited himself to exhortations. But the Lithuanian party, led by the Boretsky family, finally gained the upper hand. First, one of the serving Lithuanian princes Mikhail Olelkovich (Alexandrovich) was invited to Novgorod (1470), and then, when Mikhail, having learned about the death of his brother Semyon, who was the Kiev governor, went to Kiev, an agreement was concluded with the King of Poland and the Grand Duke Lithuanian Casimir. Novgorod surrendered to his rule, with the condition of preserving Novgorod customs and privileges. Then John set out on a campaign, gathering a large army, which included auxiliary detachments of his three brothers, Tver and Pskov. Casimir did not give help to the Novgorodians, and their troops, on July 14, 1471, suffered a decisive defeat in the battle of the river. Sheloni from Voivode John, Prince Danil Dmitrievich Kholmsky; a little later, another Novgorod army was defeated on the Dvina by Prince Vasily Shuisky. Novgorod asked for peace and received it, subject to the payment of 15,500 rubles, the concession of part of Zavolochye and the obligation not to enter into an alliance with Lithuania. After that, however, a gradual restriction of Novgorod liberties began. In 1475, John visited Novgorod and tried the court here in the old way, but then the complaints of the Novgorodians began to be accepted in Moscow, where they were held in court, summoning the accused to Moscow bailiffs, contrary to the privileges of Novgorod. Novgorodians tolerated these violations of their rights, without giving a pretext for their complete destruction. In 1477, however, such a pretext appeared to John: the Novgorod ambassadors, Podvoisky Nazar and the veche clerk Zakhar, introducing themselves to John, called him not “master,” as usual, but “sovereign.” In vain were the answers of the Novgorod veche that it did not give its envoys such an order; John accused the Novgorodians of denial and dishonor to him, and in October he set out on a campaign against Novgorod. Without encountering resistance and rejecting all requests for peace and pardon, he reached Novgorod and besieged it. Only here did the Novgorod ambassadors learn the conditions under which the Grand Duke agreed to pardon his fatherland: they consisted in the complete destruction of the veche government. Surrounded on all sides, Novgorod had to agree to these conditions, as well as to the surrender of all Novotorzhsky volosts, half of the lordships and half of the monasteries, to the Grand Duke, having only managed to negotiate small concessions in the interests of the poor monasteries. On January 15, 1478, the Novgorodians swore an oath to John on new terms, after which he entered the city and, having captured the leaders of the party hostile to him, sent them to Moscow prisons. Novgorod did not immediately come to terms with its fate: the very next year there was an uprising, supported by the suggestions of Casimir and John's brothers - Andrei Bolshoi and Boris. John forced Novgorod to submit, executed many of the perpetrators of the uprising, imprisoned Bishop Theophilus, evicted more than 1,000 merchant families and boyar children from the city to the Moscow regions, resettling new residents from Moscow in their place. New conspiracies and unrest in Novgorod only led to new repressive measures. John especially widely applied the system of evictions to Novgorod: in one year, 1488, more than 7,000 living people were brought to Moscow. Through such measures, the freedom-loving population of Novgorod was finally broken. Following the fall of Novgorod's independence, Vyatka also fell, and in 1489 was forced by the governors of John to complete submission. Of the veche cities, only Pskov still retained the old structure, achieving this by complete submission to the will of John, who, however, gradually changed the Pskov order: thus, the governor elected by the veche was replaced by those appointed here exclusively by the Grand Duke; The council's resolutions on smerds were repealed, and the Pskov residents were forced to agree to this. One after another, the appanage principalities fell before John. In 1463, Yaroslavl was annexed by the cession of their rights by the local princes; in 1474 The Rostov princes sold the remaining half of the city to John. Then the turn came to Tver. Prince Mikhail Borisovich, fearing the growing power of Moscow, married the granddaughter of the Lithuanian Prince Casimir and concluded an alliance treaty with him in 1484. John started a war with Tver and waged it successfully, but at Michael’s request he gave him peace, on the condition of renouncing independent relations with Lithuania and the Tatars. Having retained its independence, Tver, like Novgorod before, was subjected to a series of oppressions; especially in border disputes, the Tver residents could not obtain justice for the Muscovites who seized their lands, as a result of which an increasing number of boyars and boyar children moved from Tver to Moscow to serve the Grand Duke. Driven out of patience, Mikhail started relations with Lithuania, but they were open, and John, not listening to requests and apologies, approached Tver in September 1485; Most of the boyars went over to his side, Mikhail fled to Casimir, and Tver was annexed. In the same year, John received Vereya according to the will of Prince Mikhail Andreevich, whose son, Vasily, even earlier, frightened by John’s disgrace, fled to Lithuania. Within the Moscow principality, appanages were also destroyed, and the importance of appanage princes fell before the power of John. In 1472, John's brother, Prince Yuri of Dmitrov, or George, died; John took his entire inheritance for himself and gave nothing to the other brothers, violating the old order, according to which the escheated inheritance was to be divided among the brothers. The brothers quarreled with John, but made peace when he gave them some volosts. A new clash occurred in 1479. Having conquered Novgorod with the help of his brothers, John did not allow them to participate in the Novgorod volost. Already dissatisfied with this, the brothers of the Grand Duke were even more offended when he ordered one of his governors to seize the boyar (Prince Ivan Obolensky-Lyko) who had left him for Prince Boris. The princes of Volotsk and Uglitsky, Boris and Andrei Bolshoi Vasilyevich, having communicated with each other, entered into relations with the Novgorodians and Lithuania and, having gathered troops, entered the Novgorod and Pskov volosts. But John managed to suppress the uprising of Novgorod, Casimir did not give help to the brothers of the Grand Duke; They alone did not dare to attack Moscow and remained on the Lithuanian border until 1480, when the invasion of Khan Akhmat gave them the opportunity to profitably make peace with their brother. John agreed to make peace with them and gave them new volosts, and Andrei Bolshoy received Mozhaisk, which previously belonged to Yuri. In 1481, Andrei Menshoi, John's younger brother, died; having owed him 30,000 rubles during his lifetime, he left him his inheritance in his will, in which the other brothers did not receive a share. Ten years later, John arrested Andrei Bolshoi in Moscow, who a few months earlier had not sent his army against the Tatars on his orders, and put him in close confinement, in which he died in 1494; his entire inheritance was taken over by the Grand Duke. Boris Vasilyevich's inheritance, upon his death, was inherited by his two sons, one of whom died in 1503, leaving his part to John. Thus, the number of inheritances created by John’s father was greatly reduced by the end of John’s reign. At the same time, a new beginning was firmly established in the relations of the appanage princes with the greats: John's will formulated the rule that he himself followed, and according to which escheated appanages were to pass to the Grand Duke. This rule destroyed the possibility of concentrating appanages in someone else's hands other than the Grand Duke, and the importance of appanage princes was completely undermined. The expansion of Moscow's possessions at the expense of Lithuania was facilitated by the unrest that took place in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Already in the first decades of John's reign, many serving princes of Lithuania went over to him, preserving their estates; the most prominent of them were the princes and Ivan Vasilyevich Belsky. After the death of Casimir, when Poland elected Jan-Albrecht as king, and Alexander took the Lithuanian table, John began an open war with the latter. The attempt made by the Lithuanian Grand Duke to stop the struggle through a kinship alliance with the Moscow dynasty did not lead to the expected result: John agreed to the marriage of his daughter Elena with Alexander no sooner than he concluded peace, according to which Alexander recognized him as the title of sovereign of all Rus' and all acquired Moscow during the land war. Later, the very family union became for John only an additional pretext for interfering in the internal affairs of Lithuania and demanding an end to the oppression of the Orthodox. John himself, through the mouths of the ambassadors sent to Crimea, explained his policy towards Lithuania: “there is no lasting peace between our Grand Duke and the Lithuanian; the Lithuanian wants from the Grand Duke those cities and lands that were taken from him, and the Great Prince wants from him his fatherland, the whole Russian land.” These mutual claims already in 1499 caused a new war between Alexander and John, successful for the latter; On July 14, 1500, Russian troops won a great victory over the Lithuanians near the river. Vedrosha, and the Lithuanian hetman, Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky, was captured. The peace concluded in 1503 secured Moscow's new acquisitions, including Chernigov, Starodub, Novgorod-Seversky, Putivl, Rylsk and 14 other cities. Under John, Muscovite Rus', strengthened and united, finally threw off the Tatar yoke. Khan of the Golden Horde Akhmat, back in 1472, under the influence of the Polish king Casimir, undertook a campaign against Moscow, but only took Aleksin and could not cross the Oka, behind which John’s strong army had gathered. In 1476, John refused to pay tribute to Akhmat, and in 1480 the latter again attacked Rus', but at the river. The Ugrians were stopped by the army of the Grand Duke. John himself still hesitated for a long time, and only the insistent demands of the clergy, especially the Rostov Bishop Vassian, prompted him to personally go to the army and break off negotiations with Akhmat. All autumn, the Russian and Tatar armies stood one against the other on different sides of the river. Ugrians; when it was already winter and severe frosts began to bother the poorly dressed Tatars of Akhmat, he, without waiting for help from Casimir, retreated on November 11; the following year he was killed by the Nogai prince Ivak, and the power of the Golden Horde over Russia collapsed completely. Following this, John took offensive actions against another Tatar kingdom - Kazan. The unrest that began in Kazan after the death of Khan Ibrahim between his sons, Ali Khan and Muhammad Amen, gave John the opportunity to subjugate Kazan to his influence. In 1487, Mohammed-Amin, expelled by his brother, came to John, asking for help, and then the army of the Grand Duke besieged Kazan and forced Ali Khan to surrender; Muhammad-Amin was installed in his place, who actually became a vassal to John. In 1496, Muhammad-Amin was overthrown by the Kazan people, who recognized the Nogai prince Mamuk; not having gotten along with him, the Kazan people again turned to John for the king, asking only not to send Muhammad-Amin to them, and John sent to them the Crimean prince Abdyl-Letif, who had recently come to his service, to them. The latter, however, was already deposed by John in 1502 and imprisoned in Beloozero for disobedience, and Kazan was again given to Muhammad-Amin, who in 1505 broke away from Moscow and began a war with it by attacking Nizhny Novgorod. Death did not allow John to restore his lost power over Kazan. John maintained peaceful relations with Crimea and Turkey. The Crimean Khan Mengli-Girey, himself threatened by the Golden Horde, was a loyal ally of John both against it and against Lithuania; Not only was trade profitable for the Russians carried out with Turkey at the Kafinsky market, but from 1492 diplomatic relations were also established through Mengli-Girey. The nature of the power of the Moscow sovereign under John underwent significant changes, which depended not only on its actual strengthening, with the fall of appanages, but also on the emergence of new concepts on the soil prepared by such strengthening. With the fall of Constantinople, Russian scribes began to transfer to the Moscow prince the idea of ​​the tsar - the head of Orthodox Christianity, which was previously associated with the name of the Byzantine emperor. John’s family environment also contributed to this transfer. His first marriage was to Maria Borisovna Tverskaya, from whom he had a son, John, nicknamed Young; John named this son the Grand Duke, trying to strengthen the throne for him. Marya Borisovna died in 1467, and in 1469 Pope Paul II offered John the hand of Zoya, or, as she came to be known in Russia, Sophia Fominishna Palaeologus, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor. The Grand Duke's ambassador, Ivan Fryazin, as Russian chronicles call him, or Jean Battista della Volpe, as his real name was, finally arranged this matter, and on November 12, 1472, Sophia entered Moscow and married John. Along with this marriage, the customs of the Moscow court also changed greatly: the Byzantine princess conveyed to her husband higher ideas about his power, which were outwardly expressed in increased pomp, in the adoption of the Byzantine coat of arms, in the introduction of complex court ceremonies, and which alienated the Grand Duke from the boyars. The latter were therefore hostile to Sophia, and after the birth of her son Vasily in 1479 and the death in 1490 of John the Young, who had a son Dimitri, two parties clearly formed at the court of John, of which one, consisting of the most noble boyars , including the Patrikeevs and Ryapolovskys, defended the rights to the throne of Demetrius, and the other - mostly noble children of boyars and clerks - stood for Vasily. This family feud, on the basis of which hostile political parties collided, was also intertwined with the issue of church politics - about measures against the Judaizers; Demetrius's mother, Elena, was inclined towards heresy and refrained John from taking drastic measures, while Sophia, on the contrary, stood for the persecution of heretics. At first, victory seemed to be on the side of Dmitry and the boyars. In December 1497, a conspiracy was discovered by Vasily’s adherents against the life of Demetrius; John arrested his son, executed the conspirators and began to beware of his wife, who was caught in relations with sorcerers. On February 4, 1498, Demetrius was crowned king. But already the next year, disgrace befell his supporters: Semyon Ryapolovsky was executed, Ivan Patrikeev and his son were tonsured as monks; soon John, without taking away the great reign from his grandson, declared his son the Grand Duke of Novgorod and Pskov; finally, on April 11, 1502, John clearly put Elena and Demetrius in disgrace, putting them in custody, and on April 14 he blessed Vasily with a great reign. Under John, the clerk Gusev compiled the first Code of Law. John tried to boost Russian industry and art and summoned craftsmen from abroad, of whom the most famous was Aristotle Fioravanti, the builder of the Moscow Assumption Cathedral. John died in 1505.

Ivan III Vasilievich the Great(knee of 18 Rurikovich). From the family of Moscow Grand Dukes. Son and princess of Malayaroslavl Maria Yaroslavovna. Born January 22, 1440. Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus' in 1462-1506.

Wanting to legitimize the new order of succession to the throne and take away from hostile princes any pretext for unrest, Vasily II, during his lifetime, named Ivan Grand Duke. All letters were written on behalf of the two great princes. By 1462, when Vasily died, 22-year-old Ivan was already a man who had seen a lot, with an established character, ready to solve difficult state issues. He had a cool disposition and a cold heart, was distinguished by prudence, lust for power and the ability to steadily move towards his chosen goal.

In 1463, under pressure from Moscow, the Yaroslavl princes ceded their patrimony. Following this, Ivan began a decisive struggle with Novgorod. They have long hated Moscow here, but they considered it dangerous to go to war with Moscow on their own. Therefore, the Novgorodians resorted to the last resort - they invited the Lithuanian prince Mikhail Olelkovich to reign. At the same time, an agreement was concluded with King Casimir, according to which Novgorod came under his supreme authority, renounced Moscow, and Casimir undertook to protect it from attacks by the Grand Duke. Having learned about this, Ivan III sent ambassadors to Novgorod with meek but firm speeches. The ambassadors reminded that Novgorod is Ivan’s fatherland, and he does not demand from him more than what his ancestors demanded.

The Novgorodians expelled the Moscow ambassadors with dishonor. Thus it was necessary to start a war. On July 13, 1471, on the banks of the Sheloni River, the Novgorodians were completely defeated. Ivan the Third, who arrived after the battle with the main army, moved to take Novgorod with weapons. Meanwhile, there was no help from Lithuania. The people in Novgorod became agitated and sent their archbishop to ask the Grand Duke for mercy. As if condescending to strengthen the intercession for the guilty metropolitan, his brothers and boyars, the Grand Duke declared his mercy to the Novgorodians: “I give up my dislike, I put away the sword and the thunderstorm in the land of Novgorod and release it full without compensation.” They concluded an agreement: Novgorod renounced its connection with the Lithuanian sovereign, ceded part of the Dvina land to the Grand Duke and undertook to pay a “kopeck” (indemnity). In all other respects, this agreement was a repetition of the one concluded under.

In 1467, the Grand Duke became a widower, and two years later began wooing the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Princess Sophia Fominichna Palaeologus. Negotiations dragged on for three years. On November 12, 1472, the bride finally arrived in Moscow. The wedding took place on the same day. The marriage of the Moscow sovereign with the Greek princess was an important event in Russian history. He opened the way for connections between Muscovite Rus' and the West. On the other hand, together with Sophia, some orders and customs of the Byzantine court were established at the Moscow court. The ceremony became more majestic and solemn. The Grand Duke himself rose to prominence in the eyes of his contemporaries. They noticed that Ivan, after marrying the niece of the Byzantine emperor, appeared as an autocratic sovereign on the Moscow grand-ducal table; He was the first to receive the nickname Terrible, because he was a monarch for the princes of the squad, demanding unquestioning obedience and strictly punishing disobedience. He rose to a royal, unattainable height, before which the boyar, prince and descendant of Rurik and Gedemin had to reverently bow along with the last of his subjects; at the first wave of Ivan the Terrible, the heads of the seditious princes and boyars lay on the chopping block. It was at that time that Ivan III began to inspire fear with his very appearance. Women, contemporaries say, fainted from his angry gaze. The courtiers, fearing for their lives, had to amuse him during his leisure hours, and when he, sitting in his armchairs, indulged in a doze, they stood motionless around him, not daring to cough or make a careless movement, so as not to wake him. Contemporaries and immediate descendants attributed this change to the suggestions of Sophia, and we have no right to reject their testimony. Herberstein, who was in Moscow during the reign of Sophia’s son, said about her: “She was an unusually cunning woman; at her inspiration, the Grand Duke did a lot.”

First of all, the gathering of the Russian land continued. In 1474, Ivan bought from the Rostov princes the remaining half of the Rostov principality. But a much more important event was the final conquest of Novgorod. In 1477, two representatives of the Novgorod veche came to Moscow - the subvoy Nazar and the clerk Zakhar. In their petition they called Ivan and his son sovereigns, whereas before all the Novgorodians called them masters. The Grand Duke seized on this and on April 24 sent his ambassadors to ask: what kind of state does Veliky Novgorod want? The Novgorodians responded at the meeting that they did not call the Grand Duke sovereign and did not send ambassadors to him to talk about some new state; all of Novgorod, on the contrary, wants everything to remain unchanged, as in the old days. Ivan came to the metropolitan with the news of the perjury of the Novgorodians: “I didn’t want a state with them, they themselves sent it, but now they are locking themselves up and accusing us of lies.” He also announced to his mother, brothers, boyars, governors and, with the general blessing and advice, armed himself against the Novgorodians. Moscow detachments were disbanded throughout the Novgorod land from Zavolochye to Narova and were supposed to burn human settlements and exterminate the inhabitants. To protect their freedom, the Novgorodians had neither material means nor moral strength. They sent the bishop with ambassadors to ask the Grand Duke for peace and truth.

The ambassadors met the Grand Duke in the Sytyn churchyard, near Ilmen. The Grand Duke did not accept them, but ordered his boyars to present to them the guilt of Veliky Novgorod. In conclusion, the boyars said: “If Novgorod wants to hit with his forehead, then he knows how to hit with his forehead.” Following this, the Grand Duke crossed the Ilmen and stood three miles from Novgorod. The Novgorodians once again sent their envoys to Ivan, but the Moscow boyars, as before, did not allow them to reach the Grand Duke, uttering the same mysterious words: “If Novgorod wants to hit with his forehead, then he knows how to hit with his forehead.” Moscow troops captured Novgorod monasteries and surrounded the entire city; Novgorod turned out to be closed on all sides. The lord set off again with the ambassadors. This time the Grand Duke did not allow them to come to him, but his boyars now announced bluntly: “There will be no veche and no bell, there will be no mayor, the Grand Duke will hold the state of Novgorod in the same way as he holds the state in the Lower Land, and rule in Novgorod to his governors." For this they were encouraged that the Grand Duke would not take away the land from the boyars and would not remove the inhabitants from the Novgorod land.

Six days passed in excitement. The Novgorod boyars, for the sake of preserving their estates, decided to sacrifice freedom; the people were unable to defend themselves with weapons. The Bishop and the ambassadors again came to the Grand Duke’s camp and announced that Novgorod agreed to all the conditions. The ambassadors proposed to write an agreement and approve it on both sides with a kiss of the cross. But they were told that neither the Grand Duke, nor his boyars, nor the governors would kiss the cross. The ambassadors were detained and the siege continued. Finally, in January 1478, when the townspeople began to suffer severely from hunger, Ivan demanded that half of the lordly and monastic volosts and all the Novotorzh volosts, no matter whose they were, be given to him. Novgorod agreed to everything. On January 15, all townspeople were sworn in to complete obedience to the Grand Duke. The veche bell was removed and sent to Moscow.

In March 1478, Ivan III returned to Moscow, successfully completing the whole matter. But already in the fall of 1479 he was told that many Novgorodians were being sent with Casimir, calling him to them, and the king promised to appear with regiments, and communicated with Akhmat, Khan of the Golden Horde, and invited him to Moscow. Ivan's brothers were involved in the conspiracy. The situation was serious, and, contrary to his custom, Ivan began to act quickly and decisively. He concealed his real intention and started a rumor that he was going against the Germans who were then attacking Pskov; even his son did not know the true purpose of the campaign. Meanwhile, the Novgorodians, relying on the help of Casimir, drove out the grand ducal governors, resumed the veche order, elected a mayor and a thousand. The Grand Duke approached the city with the Italian architect and engineer Aristotle Fioravanti, who set up cannons against Novgorod: his cannons fired accurately. Meanwhile, the grand ducal army captured the settlements, and Novgorod found itself under siege. Riots broke out in the city. Many realized that there was no hope for protection, and hurried in advance to the camp of the Grand Duke. The leaders of the conspiracy, unable to defend themselves, sent to Ivan to ask for “savior,” that is, a letter of free passage for negotiations. “I saved you,” answered the Grand Duke, “I saved the innocent; “I am your sovereign, open the gate, I will enter, I will not offend anyone innocent.” The people opened the gate and Ivan entered the church of St. Sofia, prayed and then settled in the house of the newly elected mayor Efrer Medvedev. Meanwhile, the informers presented Ivan with a list of the main conspirators. Based on this list, he ordered fifty people to be captured and tortured. Under torture, they showed that the bishop was in complicity with them; the bishop was captured on January 19, 1480 and taken to Moscow without a church trial, where he was imprisoned in the Chudov Monastery. The archbishop's treasury went to the sovereign. The accused accused others, and a hundred more people were captured. They were tortured and then all executed. The property of those executed was assigned to the sovereign. Following this, more than a thousand merchant families and boyar children were expelled and settled in Pereyaslavl, Vladimir, Yuryev, Murom, Rostov, Kostroma, and Nizhny Novgorod. A few days after that, the Moscow army drove more than seven thousand families from Novgorod to Moscow land. All real and movable property of those resettled became the property of the Grand Duke. Many of those exiled died on the way, as they were driven away in the winter without allowing them to gather; the survivors were resettled in different towns and cities: the Novgorod boyar children were given estates, and instead of them Muscovites were settled in the Novgorod land. In the same way, instead of the merchants exiled to Moscow land, others were sent from Moscow to Novgorod.

Having dealt with Novgorod, Ivan hurried to Moscow; news came that the Khan of the Great Horde, Akhmat, was moving towards him. In fact, Rus' had been independent from the Horde for many years, but formally the supreme power belonged to the Horde khans. Rus' grew stronger - the Horde weakened, but continued to remain a formidable force. In 1480, Khan Akhmat, having learned about the uprising of the brothers of the Grand Duke and agreed to act in concert with Casimir of Lithuania, set out for Moscow. Having received news of Akhmat's movement, Ivan sent regiments to the Oka, and he himself went to Kolomna. But the khan, seeing that strong regiments were stationed along the Oka, took a direction to the west, to Lithuanian land, in order to penetrate the Moscow possessions through the Ugra; then Ivan ordered his son Ivan and brother Andrei the Lesser to hurry to Ugra; The princes carried out the order, came to the river before the Tatars, occupied fords and carriages. Ivan, far from a brave man, was in great confusion. This is evident from his orders and behavior. He immediately sent his wife and the treasury to Beloozero, giving orders to flee further to the sea if the khan took Moscow. He himself was very tempted to follow, but was restrained by his entourage, especially Vassian, Archbishop of Rostov. After spending some time on the Oka, Ivan ordered Kashira to be burned and went to Moscow, supposedly for advice with the metropolitan and the boyars. He gave the order to Prince Daniil Kholmsky, upon the first dispatch from him from Moscow, to go there together with the young Grand Duke Ivan. On September 30, when Muscovites were moving from the suburbs to the Kremlin to sit under siege, they suddenly saw the Grand Duke entering the city. The people thought that it was all over, that the Tatars were following in Ivan’s footsteps; Complaints were heard in the crowds: “When you, Sovereign Grand Duke, reign over us in meekness and quiet, then you rob us in vain, but now you yourself have angered the tsar, without paying him a way out, and hand us over to the tsar and the Tatars.” Ivan had to endure this insolence. He traveled to the Kremlin and was met here by the formidable Vassian of Rostov. “All Christian blood will fall on you because, having betrayed Christianity, you run away, without putting up a fight with the Tatars and without fighting them,” he said. - Why are you afraid of death? You are not an immortal man, a mortal; and without fate there is no death for man, bird, or bird; give me, an old man, an army in my hands, and you will see if I turn my face before the Tatars!” Ashamed, Ivan did not go to his Kremlin courtyard, but settled in Krasnoye Selets. From here he sent an order to his son to go to Moscow, but he decided it would be better to incur his father’s wrath than to go from the coast. “I’ll die here, but I won’t go to my father,” he said to Prince Kholmsky, who persuaded him to leave the army. He guarded the movement of the Tatars, who wanted to secretly cross the Ugra and suddenly rush to Moscow: the Tatars were repulsed from the shore with great damage.

Meanwhile, Ivan III, having lived for two weeks near Moscow, somewhat recovered from his fear, surrendered to the persuasion of the clergy and decided to go to the army. But he didn’t get to Ugra, but stopped in Kremenets on the Luzha River. Here again fear began to overcome him and he completely decided to end the matter peacefully and sent Ivan Tovarkov to the khan with a petition and gifts, asking for a salary so that he would retreat away. The khan answered: “They favor Ivan; let him come to beat him with his brow, just as his fathers went to our fathers in the Horde.” But the Grand Duke did not go.

Akhmat, who was not allowed to cross the Ugra by the Moscow regiments, boasted all summer: “God grant winter to you: when all the rivers stop, there will be many roads to Rus'.” Fearing the fulfillment of this threat, Ivan, as soon as the Ugra became, on October 26, ordered his son and brother Andrei with all the regiments to retreat to Kremenets to fight with united forces. But even now Ivan did not know peace - he gave the order to retreat further to Borovsk, promising to fight there. But Akhmat did not think of taking advantage of the retreat of the Russian troops. He stood on the Ugra until November 11, apparently waiting for the promised Lithuanian help. But then severe frosts began, so that it was impossible to endure; the Tatars were naked, barefoot, and ragged, as the chronicler put it. The Lithuanians never came, distracted by the attack of the Crimeans, and Akhmat did not dare to pursue the Russians further north. He turned back and went back to the steppe. Contemporaries and descendants perceived the standing on the Ugra as the visible end of the Horde yoke. The power of the Grand Duke increased, and at the same time the cruelty of his character increased noticeably. He became intolerant and quick to punish. The further, the more consistently and boldly than before, Ivan III expanded his state and strengthened his autocracy.

In 1483, the Prince of Verei bequeathed his principality to Moscow. Then it was the turn of Moscow's long-time rival, Tver. In 1484, Moscow learned that Prince Mikhail Borisovich of Tverskoy had struck up a friendship with Casimir of Lithuania and married the latter’s granddaughter. Ivan III declared war on Mikhail. Muscovites occupied the Tver volost, took and burned the cities. Lithuanian help did not come, and Mikhail was forced to ask for peace. Ivan gave peace. Mikhail promised not to have any relations with Casimir and the Horde. But in the same 1485, Michael’s messenger to Lithuania was intercepted. This time the reprisal was quicker and harsher. On September 8, the Moscow army surrounded Tver, on the 10th the settlements were lit, and on the 11th the Tver boyars, abandoning their prince, came to Ivan’s camp and beat him with their foreheads, asking for service. Mikhail Borisovich fled to Lithuania at night. Tver swore allegiance to Ivan, who planted his son in it.

In 1489, Vyatka was finally annexed. The Moscow army took Khlynov almost without resistance. The leaders of the Vyatchans were whipped and executed, the rest of the inhabitants were taken out of the Vyatka land to Borovsk, Aleksin, Kremenets, and the landowners of the Moscow land were sent in their place.

Ivan was just as lucky in the wars with Lithuania. On the southern and western borders, petty Orthodox princes with their estates continually came under the authority of Moscow. The Odoevsky princes were the first to be transferred, then the Vorotynsky and Belevsky princes. These petty princes constantly entered into quarrels with their Lithuanian neighbors - in fact, the war did not stop on the southern borders, but in Moscow and Vilna they maintained a semblance of peace for a long time. In 1492, Casimir of Lithuania died, and the table passed to his son Alexander. Ivan, together with Mengli-Girey, immediately began a war against him. Things went well for Moscow. The governors took Meshchovsk, Serpeisk, Vyazma; The Vyazemsky, Mezetsky, Novosilsky princes and other Lithuanian owners, willy-nilly, went into the service of the Moscow sovereign. Alexander realized that it would be difficult for him to fight both Moscow and Mengli-Girey at the same time; he planned to marry Ivan’s daughter, Elena, and thus create a lasting peace between the two rival states. Negotiations proceeded sluggishly until January 1494. Finally, a peace was concluded, according to which Alexander ceded to Ivan the volosts of the princes who had passed to him. Then Ivan agreed to marry his daughter to Alexander, but this marriage did not bring the expected results. In 1500, strained relations between father-in-law and son-in-law turned into outright hostility over new defections to Moscow by princes who were Lithuania's henchmen. Ivan sent his son-in-law a marking document and after that sent an army to Lithuania. The Crimeans, as usual, helped the Russian army. Many Ukrainian princes, in order to avoid ruin, hastened to surrender to the rule of Moscow. In 1503, a truce was concluded, according to which Ivan retained all the conquered lands. Soon after this, Ivan died. He was buried in Moscow in the Church of the Archangel Michael.

Ryzhov K. All the monarchs of the world Russia. 600 short biographies. M., 1999

For forty-three years, Moscow was ruled by Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich or Ivan III (1462–1505).

The main merits of Ivan the Third:

Annexation of vast lands.

Strengthening the state apparatus.

Increasing the international prestige of Moscow.

The Yaroslavl Principality (1463), the Tver Principality in 1485, the Rostov Principality in 1474, Novgorod and its possessions in 1478, the Perm Territory in 1472 were annexed to Moscow.

Ivan the Third waged successful wars with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. According to the treaty of 1494, Ivan III received Vyazma and other lands, his daughter, Princess Elena Ivanovna, married the new Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander Jagiellon. However, family ties stretching between Moscow and Vilna (the capital of Lithuania) did not prevent a new war. It turned out to be a real military disaster for the son-in-law of Ivan III.

In 1500, the troops of Ivan III defeated the Lithuanians on the Vedrosha River, and in 1501 they were defeated again near Mstislavl. While Alexander Jagiellon rushed around his country, trying to establish defenses, Moscow governors occupied more and more cities. As a result, Moscow brought a huge territory under control. According to the truce of 1503, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania gave up Toropets, Putivl, Bryansk, Dorogobuzh, Mosalsk, Mtsensk, Novgorod-Seversky, Gomel, Starodub and many other cities. This was the greatest military success in the entire life of Ivan III.

According to V.O. Klyuchevsky, after the unification of the lands, the Moscow principality became national, now the entire Great Russian people lived within its borders. At the same time, Ivan referred to himself in diplomatic correspondence as the sovereign of all Rus', i.e. expressed his claims to all the lands that were once part of the Kyiv state.

In 1476, Ivan the Third refused to pay tribute to the rulers of the Horde. In 1480, after standing on the Ugra, the rule of the Tatar khans ended formally.

Ivan the Third successfully entered into dynastic marriages. His first wife was the daughter of the Tver prince. This marriage allowed Ivan Vasilyevich to claim the reign of Tver. In 1472, for his second marriage, he married the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Sophia Paleologus. The Moscow prince became, as it were, the successor of the Byzantine emperor. In the heraldry of the Moscow principality, not only the image of St. George the Victorious began to be used, but also the Byzantine double-headed eagle. At the beginning of the 16th century. An ideological concept began to develop, which was supposed to justify the greatness of the new state (Moscow - 3 Rome).

Under Ivan III, a lot of construction was done in Rus', especially in Moscow. In particular, new Kremlin walls and new churches were erected. Europeans, primarily Italians, were widely involved in engineering and other services.

At the end of his reign, Ivan the Third became involved in an acute conflict with the Orthodox Church. The prince sought to limit the economic power of the church and deprive it of tax benefits. However, he failed to do this.

At the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries. The state apparatus of the Moscow Principality began to form. The princes in the annexed lands became boyars of the Moscow sovereign. These principalities were now called districts and were ruled by governors-feeders from Moscow.

Ivan 3 used the annexed lands to create a system of estates. Noble landowners took possession (not ownership) of plots of land that the peasants were supposed to cultivate. In exchange, the nobles performed military service. The local cavalry became the core of the army of the Moscow principality.

The aristocratic council under the prince was called the Boyar Duma. It included boyars and okolnichy. 2 national departments emerged: 1. Palace. He ruled the lands of the Grand Duke. 2. Treasury. She was in charge of finances, the state press, and archives.

In 1497, the first national code of law was published.

The personal power of the Grand Duke increased sharply, as can be seen from Ivan’s will. Advantages of Grand Duke Vasily 3 over other members of the princely family.

Now only the Grand Duke collected taxes in Moscow and conducted criminal courts in the most important cases. Before this, the princes' heirs owned plots in Moscow and could collect taxes there.

The exclusive right to mint coins. Before this, both the great and appanage princes had such rights.

If the brothers of the Grand Duke died without leaving sons, then their inheritance passed to the Grand Duke. Before this, appanage princes could dispose of their estates at their own discretion.

Also, according to treaty letters with his brothers, Vasily 3 arrogated to himself the sole right to negotiate with foreign powers.

Vasily III (1505-1533), who inherited the throne from Ivan III, continued his course towards building a unified Russian state. Under him, Pskov (1510) and Ryazan (1521) lost their independence. In 1514, as a result of a new war with Lithuania, Smolensk was captured.

Confrontation between the Moscow State and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

This state strengthened in the mid-13th century. since its rulers were able to successfully resist detachments of German crusaders. Already in the middle of the 13th century. Lithuanian rulers began to annex the Russian principalities to their possessions.

An important feature of the Lithuanian state was its bi-ethnicity. A minority of the population were Lithuanians themselves, while the majority of the population were Slavic Ruthenians. It should be noted that the process of expansion of the Lithuanian state was relatively peaceful. Causes:

Accessions often took the form of dynastic alliances.

The benevolent policy of the Lithuanian princes towards the Orthodox Church.

Russian (Rusyn) language became the official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and was used in office work.

Developed legal culture of the Principality of Lithuania. There was a practice of concluding written treaties (rows), where local elites agreed on their right to participate in the selection of governors for their lands.

By the middle of the 14th century. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania united all Western Russian lands except Galicia (at that time it was part of the Kingdom of Poland).

In 1385, the Lithuanian prince Jagiello entered into a dynastic marriage with the Polish princess Jadwiga and signed an agreement in Krevo, which largely determined the fate of the Lithuanian state. According to the Union of Krevo, Jagiello took upon himself the obligation to convert the entire population of the Principality of Lithuania to the true Catholic faith, as well as to recapture the Polish lands captured by the Teutonic Order. The agreement was beneficial for both parties. The Poles received a powerful ally to fight the Teutonic Order, and the Lithuanian prince received help in the dynastic struggle.

The conclusion of the Union of Krevo helped the Polish and Lithuanian states militarily. In 1410, the united troops of the two states inflicted a decisive defeat on the army of the Teutonic Order in the Battle of Grunwald.

At the same time, until the end of the 1430s. The Principality of Lithuania was going through a period of intense dynastic struggle. In 1398-1430. Vitovt was the Grand Duke of Lithuania. He managed to consolidate the scattered Lithuanian lands and entered into a dynastic union with the Moscow principality. Thus, Vitovt actually disavowed the Krevo Union.

In the 1430s. Prince Svidrigailo managed to unite around himself the nobility of the Kyiv, Chernigov and Volyn lands, who were dissatisfied with the policy of Catholicization and centralization, and began a struggle for power throughout the entire Lithuanian state. After a tense war of 1432-1438. he was defeated.

In socio-economic terms, the Principality of Lithuania developed very successfully throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. In the 15th century many cities switched to the so-called Magdeburg law, which guaranteed self-government and independence from princely power. On the other hand, the nobility played a huge role in the life of the Lithuanian state, which actually divided the state into zones of influence. Each prince had his own system of legislation and taxation, his own military detachments, and controlled government bodies in his lands. 15 of the 40 cities that were located on the territory of modern Belarus were on magnate lands, which often limited their development.

Gradually, the Lithuanian state became more and more integrated with the Polish one. In 1447, the Polish king and Lithuanian prince Casimir issued a general land privilege, which guaranteed the rights of the szlachta (nobility) in both Poland and Lithuania. In 1529 and 1566 The Pan's Rada (council of aristocrats, the highest governing body of the Lithuanian state) initiated the creation of 2 Lithuanian statutes. The first codified the rules of civil and criminal law. The second statute regulated the relationship between the gentry and aristocrats. The gentry received guaranteed rights to participate in local and state government bodies (sejmiks and valny sejms). At the same time, an administrative reform was carried out; following the example of Poland, the country was divided into voivodeships.

In comparison with the Moscow state, the Principality of Lithuania was distinguished by greater religious tolerance. On the territory of the principality, the Orthodox and Catholic churches coexisted and competed; in the mid-16th century. Protestantism became quite widespread.

Relations between Lithuania and Moscow during the second half of the 15th and 16th centuries. were mostly tense. States competed with each other for control over Russian lands. After a series of successful wars, Ivan 3 and his son Vasily the Third managed to annex the border lands in the upper reaches of the Oka and Dnieper, the most important success of Vasily 3 was the annexation of the strategically important Smolensk principality in 1514 after a long struggle.

During the Livonian War of 1558-1583. At the first stage of hostilities, the Lithuanian army suffered serious defeats from the troops of the Moscow Tsar. As a result, in 1569 the Union of Lublin was concluded between Poland and Lithuania. Reasons for imprisonment: 1. Military threat from the Moscow Tsar. 2. Economic situation. In the 16th century Poland was one of the largest grain traders in Europe. The Lithuanian nobility wanted free access to such profitable trade. 3. The attractiveness of the Polish gentry culture, the great legal guarantees that the Polish gentry had. 4. It was important for the Poles to gain access to the very fertile but poorly developed lands of the Principality of Lithuania. According to the union, as part of a single state, Lithuania retained its legal proceedings, administration and the Russian language in office work. Freedom of belief and the preservation of local customs were especially noted. At the same time, the Volyn and Kyiv lands were transferred to the Polish Kingdom.

Consequences of the union: 1. Increase in military potential. The Polish king Stefan Batory managed to inflict heavy defeats on the troops of Ivan the Terrible; the Muscovite kingdom eventually lost all its conquests in the Baltic states. 2. Powerful migration of the Polish population and the population of Galicia to the east of the Lithuanian state.3. The reception of Polish culture primarily by the local Russian nobility. 4. Revitalization of spiritual life, since the Orthodox Church needed to compete in the struggle for minds with Catholics and Protestants. This contributed to the development of the education system.

In 1596, on the initiative of the Catholic Church in Brest, a church union was concluded between the Catholic and Orthodox churches of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The union was actively supported by the Polish kings, who counted on the consolidation of their state.

According to the union, the Orthodox Church recognized the supremacy of the Pope and a number of Catholic dogmas (filioque, the concept of purgatory). At the same time, Orthodox rituals remained unchanged.

The Union not only did not contribute to the consolidation of society, but on the contrary, split it. Only a part of Orthodox bishops recognized the union. The new church received the name Greek Catholic or Uniate (from the 18th century). Other bishops remained faithful to the Orthodox Church. In this they were supported by a significant part of the population of the Lithuanian lands.

Additional tension was caused by the activities of the Zaporozhye and Ukrainian Cossacks. Detachments of free Christian people went for prey to the Wild Field back in the 13th century (brodniki). However, the consolidation of the Cossacks into a serious and recognized force occurred in the 15-16th centuries. due to the constant raids of the Crimean Khanate. In response to the raids, the Zaporozhye Sich emerged as a professional military association. The Polish kings actively used the Zaporozhye Cossacks in their wars, but the Cossacks remained a source of unrest, since they were joined by everyone dissatisfied with the current situation.

Childhood and youth

Foreign policy

"Gathering Lands"

Annexation of Novgorod

Union with the Crimean Khanate

Hikes to Perm and Ugra

Domestic policy

Introduction of the Law Code

Architecture

Literature

Church politics

First conflicts

Fight of the heirs

Death of the Grand Duke

Character and appearance

Results of the board

Ivan III Vasilievich(also known as Ivan the Great; January 22, 1440 - October 27, 1505) - Grand Duke of Moscow from 1462 to 1505, son of the Moscow Grand Duke Vasily II Vasilyevich the Dark.

During the reign of Ivan Vasilyevich, a significant part of the Russian lands around Moscow was united and its transformation into the center of the all-Russian state. The final liberation of the country from the power of the Horde khans was achieved; The Code of Laws, a set of state laws, was adopted, and a number of reforms were carried out that laid the foundations for the local land tenure system.

Childhood and youth

Ivan III was born on January 22, 1440 in the family of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily Vasilyevich. Ivan's mother was Maria Yaroslavna, daughter of the appanage prince Yaroslav Borovsky, Russian princess of the Serpukhov branch of the house of Daniil (Danilovich family) and a distant relative of his father. He was born on the day of memory of the Apostle Timothy, and in his honor he received his “direct name” - Timothy. The nearest church holiday was the day of the transfer of the relics of St. John Chrysostom, in honor of which the prince received the name by which he is best known.

Reliable data about the early childhood of Ivan III has not been preserved; most likely, he was raised at the court of his father. However, subsequent events radically changed the fate of the heir to the throne: on July 7, 1445, near Suzdal, the army of Grand Duke Vasily II suffered a crushing defeat from the army under the command of the Tatar princes Mamutyak and Yakub (sons of Khan Ulu-Muhammad). The wounded Grand Duke was captured, and power in the state temporarily passed to the eldest in the family of Ivan Kalita's descendants - Prince Dmitry Yuryevich Shemyaka. The capture of the prince and the anticipation of the Tatar invasion led to increased confusion in the principality; The situation was aggravated by a fire in Moscow.

In the fall, the Grand Duke returned from captivity. Moscow had to pay a ransom for its prince - about several tens of thousands of rubles. Under these conditions, a conspiracy matured among the supporters of Dmitry Shemyaka, and when in February 1446 Vasily II and his children went to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, a rebellion began in Moscow. The Grand Duke was captured, transported to Moscow, and on the night of February 13-14, he was blinded by order of Dmitry Shemyaka (which earned him the nickname “Dark”). According to Novgorod sources, the Grand Duke was accused of “bringing the Tatars to the Russian land” and distributing Moscow lands to them “for feeding”.

The six-year-old prince Ivan did not fall into the hands of Shemyaka: Vasily’s children, together with the loyal boyars, managed to escape to Murom, which was under the rule of a supporter of the Grand Duke. After some time, Ryazan Bishop Jonah arrived in Murom, announcing Dmitry Shemyaka’s agreement to allocate an inheritance to the deposed Vasily; Relying on his promise, Vasily's supporters agreed to hand over the children to the new authorities. On May 6, 1446, Prince Ivan arrived in Moscow. However, Shemyaka did not keep his word: three days later, Vasily’s children were sent to Uglich to their father, in captivity.

After several months, Shemyaka finally decided to grant the former Grand Duke an inheritance - Vologda. Vasily's children followed him. But the overthrown prince was not at all going to admit his defeat, and left for Tver to ask for help from the Grand Duke of Tver Boris. This union was formalized by the engagement of six-year-old Ivan Vasilyevich to the daughter of the Tver prince, Maria Borisovna. Soon Vasily's troops occupied Moscow. The power of Dmitry Shemyaka fell, he himself fled, and Vasily II re-established himself on the grand-ducal throne. However, Shemyaka, who had gained a foothold in the northern lands (his base was the recently captured city of Ustyug), was not at all going to give up, and the internecine war continued.

The first mention of the heir to the throne, Ivan, as the “Grand Duke” dates back to this period (approximately the end of 1448 - mid-1449). In 1452, he was already sent as the nominal head of the army on a campaign against the Ustyug fortress of Kokshengu. The heir to the throne successfully completed the assignment he received, cutting off Ustyug from the Novgorod lands (there was a danger of Novgorod entering the war on the side of Shemyaka) and brutally ruining the Koksheng volost. Returning from the campaign with a victory, Prince Ivan married his bride, Maria Borisovna (June 4, 1452). Soon, Dmitry Shemyaka, who had suffered final defeat, was poisoned, and the bloody civil strife that had lasted for a quarter of a century began to wane.

Accession to the Grand Duke's throne

In subsequent years, Prince Ivan becomes his father's co-ruler. The inscription “Ospodari of All Rus'” appears on the coins of the Moscow State; he himself, like his father, Vasily, bears the title “Grand Duke”. For two years, the prince, as an appanage prince, ruled Pereslavl-Zalessky, one of the key cities of the Moscow state. Military campaigns, where he is the nominal commander, play an important role in the education of the heir to the throne. So, in 1455, Ivan, together with the experienced governor Fyodor Basenko, made a victorious campaign against the Tatars who had invaded Rus'. In August 1460, he led the Russian army, closing the path to Moscow to the Tatars of Khan Akhmat who invaded Rus' and besieged Pereyaslavl-Ryazan.

In March 1462, Ivan's father, Grand Duke Vasily, became seriously ill. Shortly before this, he drew up a will, according to which he divided the grand-ducal lands between his sons. As the eldest son, Ivan received not only the great reign, but also the bulk of the territory of the state - 16 main cities (not counting Moscow, which he was supposed to own together with his brothers). Only 12 cities were bequeathed to the remaining children of Vasily; at the same time, most of the former capitals of the appanage principalities (in particular, Galich - the former capital of Dmitry Shemyaka) went to the new Grand Duke. When Vasily died on March 27, 1462, Ivan without any problems became the new Grand Duke and carried out the will of his father, allocating lands to his brothers according to the will.

The Grand Duke, who ascended the throne, marked the beginning of his reign by issuing gold coins, on which the names of Grand Duke Ivan III and his son, heir to the throne, Ivan the Young were minted. The issue of coins did not last long and was stopped after a short time.

Foreign policy

Throughout the reign of Ivan III, the main goal of the country's foreign policy was the unification of northeastern Rus' into a single Moscow state. It should be noted that this policy turned out to be extremely successful. At the beginning of Ivan's reign, the Moscow principality was surrounded by the lands of other Russian principalities; dying, he handed over to his son Vasily the country that united most of these principalities. Only Pskov, Ryazan, Volokolamsk and Novgorod-Seversky retained relative (not too broad) independence.

Starting from the reign of Ivan III, relations with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania became particularly acute. Moscow's desire to unite the Russian lands was clearly in conflict with Lithuanian interests, and constant border skirmishes and the transfer of border princes and boyars between states did not contribute to reconciliation. Meanwhile, successes in the expansion of the country also contributed to the growth of international relations with European countries.

During the reign of Ivan III, the final formalization of the independence of the Russian state took place. The already fairly nominal dependence on the Horde ceases. The government of Ivan III strongly supports the opponents of the Horde among the Tatars; in particular, an alliance was concluded with the Crimean Khanate. The eastern direction of foreign policy also turned out to be successful: combining diplomacy and military force, Ivan III introduced the Kazan Khanate into the wake of Moscow politics.

"Gathering Lands"

Having become the Grand Duke, Ivan III began his foreign policy activities by confirming previous agreements with neighboring princes and generally strengthening his position. Thus, agreements were concluded with the Tver and Belozersky principalities; Prince Vasily Ivanovich, married to the sister of Ivan III, was placed on the throne of the Ryazan principality.

Beginning in the 1470s, activities aimed at annexing the remaining Russian principalities intensified sharply. The first was the Yaroslavl principality, which finally lost the remnants of independence in 1471, after the death of Prince Alexander Fedorovich. The heir of the last Yaroslavl prince, Prince Daniil Penko, entered the service of Ivan III and later received the rank of boyar. In 1472, Prince Yuri Vasilyevich of Dmitrov, Ivan’s brother, died. The Principality of Dmitrov passed to the Grand Duke; however, the rest of the brothers of the deceased Prince Yuri opposed this. The brewing conflict was hushed up not without the help of Vasily’s widow, Maria Yaroslavna, who did everything to quell the quarrel between the children. As a result, Yuri’s smaller brothers also received part of Yuri’s lands.

In 1474 it was the turn of the Rostov principality. In fact, it was part of the Moscow state before: the Grand Duke was a co-owner of Rostov. Now the Rostov princes sold “their half” of the principality to the treasury, thus finally turning into a serving nobility. The Grand Duke transferred what he received to his mother's inheritance.

Annexation of Novgorod

The situation with Novgorod developed differently, which is explained by the difference in the nature of the statehood of the appanage principalities and the trade-aristocratic Novgorod state. The clear threat to independence from the Moscow Grand Duke led to the formation of an influential anti-Moscow party. It was headed by the energetic widow of the mayor Marfa Boretskaya and her sons. The obvious superiority of Moscow forced supporters of independence to search for allies, primarily in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, in the context of the religious struggle between Orthodoxy and Uniateism, the appeal to the Catholic Casimir, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, was received extremely ambiguously by the evening, and the Orthodox Prince Mikhail Olelkovich, the son of the Kiev prince and cousin of Ivan III, who arrived on November 8, 1470, was invited to defend the city. However, due to the death of the Novgorod Archbishop Jonah, who invited Mikhail, and the subsequent aggravation of the internal political struggle, the prince did not stay in the Novgorod land for long, and already on March 15, 1471 he left the city. The anti-Moscow party managed to win a major success in the internal political struggle: an embassy was sent to Lithuania, after the return of which a draft agreement was drawn up with Grand Duke Casimir. According to this agreement, Novgorod, while recognizing the power of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, nevertheless kept its state structure intact; Lithuania pledged to help in the fight against the Moscow state. A clash with Ivan III became inevitable.

On June 6, 1471, a detachment of ten thousand Moscow troops under the command of Danila Kholmsky set out from the capital in the direction of the Novgorod land, a week later the army of Striga Obolensky set out on a campaign, and on June 20, 1471, Ivan III himself began a campaign from Moscow. The advance of Moscow troops through the lands of Novgorod was accompanied by robberies and violence designed to intimidate the enemy.

Novgorod also did not sit idle. A militia was formed from the townspeople, and the mayors Dmitry Boretsky and Vasily Kazimir took command. The size of this army reached forty thousand people, but its combat effectiveness, due to the haste of its formation from townspeople not trained in military affairs, remained low. In July 1471, the Novgorod army advanced in the direction of Pskov, with the goal of preventing the Pskov army, allied to the Moscow prince, from connecting with the main forces of Novgorod’s opponents. On the Sheloni River, the Novgorodians unexpectedly encountered Kholmsky’s detachment. On July 14, a battle began between the opponents.

During the Battle of Shelon, the Novgorod army was completely defeated. The losses of the Novgorodians amounted to 12 thousand people, about two thousand people were captured; Dmitry Boretsky and three other boyars were executed. The city found itself under siege; among the Novgorodians themselves, the pro-Moscow party gained the upper hand and began negotiations with Ivan III. On August 11, 1471, a peace treaty was concluded, according to which Novgorod was obliged to pay an indemnity of 16,000 rubles, retained its state structure, but could not “surrender” to the rule of the Lithuanian Grand Duke; A significant part of the vast Dvina land was ceded to the Grand Duke of Moscow. One of the key issues in relations between Novgorod and Moscow was the issue of judicial power. In the autumn of 1475, the Grand Duke arrived in Novgorod, where he personally dealt with a number of cases of unrest; Some anti-Moscow opposition figures were declared guilty. In fact, during this period, a judicial dual power developed in Novgorod: a number of complainants were sent directly to Moscow, where they presented their claims. It was this situation that led to the emergence of a reason for a new war, which ended with the fall of Novgorod.

In the spring of 1477, a number of complainants from Novgorod gathered in Moscow. Among these people were two minor officials - the sub-troop Nazar and the clerk Zakhary. In presenting their case, they called the Grand Duke “sovereign” instead of the traditional address “master,” which assumed the equality of “Mr. Grand Duke” and “Mr. of Great Novgorod.” Moscow immediately seized on this pretext; Ambassadors were sent to Novgorod, demanding official recognition of the title of sovereign, the final transfer of the court into the hands of the Grand Duke, as well as the establishment of a Grand Duke's residence in the city. The veche, after listening to the ambassadors, refused to accept the ultimatum and began preparations for war.

On October 9, 1477, the grand ducal army set out on a campaign against Novgorod. It was joined by the troops of the allies - Tver and Pskov. The siege of the city that began revealed deep divisions among the defenders: supporters of Moscow insisted on peace negotiations with the Grand Duke. One of the supporters of concluding peace was the Novgorod Archbishop Theophilus, which gave the opponents of the war a certain advantage, expressed in sending an embassy to the Grand Duke with the archbishop at its head. But the attempt to come to an agreement on the same terms was not crowned with success: on behalf of the Grand Duke, strict demands were made to the ambassadors (“I will ring the bell in our fatherland in Novgorod, there will be no mayor, and we will keep our state”), which actually meant the end of Novgorod independence. Such a clearly expressed ultimatum led to the outbreak of new unrest in the city; Because of the city walls, high-ranking boyars began moving to the headquarters of Ivan III, including the military leader of the Novgorodians, Prince V. Grebenka-Shuisky. As a result, it was decided to give in to Moscow’s demands, and on January 15, 1478, Novgorod surrendered, the veche rules were abolished, and the veche bell and the city archive were sent to Moscow.

“Standing on the Ugra” and liberation from the power of the Horde

Relations with the Horde, which were already tense, completely deteriorated by the early 1470s. The horde continued to disintegrate; on the territory of the former Golden Horde, in addition to its immediate successor (the “Great Horde”), the Astrakhan, Kazan, Crimean, Nogai and Siberian Hordes were also formed. In 1472, Khan of the Great Horde Akhmat began a campaign against Rus'. At Tarusa the Tatars met a large Russian army. All attempts of the Horde to cross the Oka were repulsed. The Horde army managed to burn the city of Aleksin, but the campaign as a whole ended in failure. Soon (in the same 1472 or in 1476) Ivan III stopped paying tribute to the Khan of the Great Horde, which inevitably should have led to a new clash. However, until 1480 Akhmat was busy fighting the Crimean Khanate.

According to the “Kazan History” (a literary monument written no earlier than 1564), the immediate cause of the outbreak of the war was the execution of the Horde embassy sent by Akhmat to Ivan III for tribute. According to this news, the Grand Duke, refusing to pay money to the khan, took “the basma of his face” and trampled it; after this, all the Horde ambassadors, except one, were executed. However, the messages in “Kazan History,” which also contain a number of factual errors, are frankly legendary in nature and, as a rule, are not taken seriously by modern historians.

One way or another, in the summer of 1480, Khan Akhmat moved to Rus'. The situation for the Moscow state was complicated by the deterioration of relations with its western neighbors. The Lithuanian Grand Duke Casimir entered into an alliance with Akhmat and could attack at any moment, and the Lithuanian army could cover the distance from Vyazma, which belonged to Lithuania, to Moscow in a few days. The troops of the Livonian Order attacked Pskov. Another blow for Grand Duke Ivan was the rebellion of his siblings: the appanage princes Boris and Andrei the Bolshoi, dissatisfied with the oppression of the Grand Duke (thus, in violation of customs, Ivan III, after the death of his brother Yuri, took his entire inheritance for himself and did not share with his brothers the rich booty taken in Novgorod, and also violated the ancient right of departure of the nobles, ordering the capture of Prince Obolensky, who had left the Grand Duke for his brother Boris), together with his entire court and squads, drove to the Lithuanian border and entered into negotiations with Casimir. And although, as a result of active negotiations with his brothers, as a result of bargaining and promises, Ivan III managed to prevent them from acting against him, the threat of a repeat of the civil war did not leave the Russian state.

Having found out that Khan Akhmat was moving towards the Russian border, Ivan III, having gathered troops, also headed south, to the Oka River. The troops of the Tver Grand Duke also came to the aid of the Grand Duke's army. For two months, the army, ready for battle, was waiting for the enemy, but Khan Akhmat, also ready for battle, did not begin offensive actions. Finally, in September 1480, Khan Akhmat crossed the Oka south of Kaluga and headed through Lithuanian territory to the Ugra River - the border between Moscow and Lithuanian possessions.

On September 30, Ivan III left his troops and left for Moscow, giving orders to the troops under the formal command of the heir, Ivan the Young, under whom his uncle, the appanage prince Andrei Vasilyevich Menshoi, was also a member, to move in the direction of the Ugra River. At the same time, the prince ordered Kashira to be burned. Sources mention the Grand Duke's hesitation; in one of the chronicles it is even noted that Ivan panicked: “he was horrified and wanted to run away from the shore, and sent his Grand Duchess Roman and the treasury with her to Beloozero.”

Subsequent events are interpreted ambiguously in the sources. The author of an independent Moscow code from the 1480s writes that the appearance of the Grand Duke in Moscow made a painful impression on the townspeople, among whom a murmur arose: “When you, the Great Prince, reign over us in meekness and quietness, then there are many of us in you sell foolishness (you demand a lot of what you shouldn’t). And now, having angered the Tsar yourself, without paying him a way out, you hand us over to the Tsar and the Tatars.” After this, the chronicle reports that the Rostov bishop Vassian, who met the prince together with the metropolitan, directly accused him of cowardice; After this, Ivan, fearing for his life, left for Krasnoe Seltso, north of the capital. Grand Duchess Sophia with her entourage and the sovereign's treasury was sent to a safe place, to Beloozero, to the court of the appanage prince Mikhail Vereisky. The Grand Duke's mother refused to leave Moscow. According to this chronicle, the Grand Duke repeatedly tried to summon his son, Ivan the Young, from the army, sending him letters, which he ignored; then Ivan ordered Prince Kholmsky to deliver his son to him by force. Kholmsky did not carry out this order, trying to persuade the prince, to which he, according to this chronicle, replied: “It’s appropriate for me to die here, and not to go to my father.” Also, as one of the measures to prepare for the Tatar invasion, the Grand Duke ordered the burning of the Moscow suburb.

As R. G. Skrynnikov notes, the story of this chronicle is in clear contradiction with a number of other sources. Thus, in particular, the image of the Rostov Bishop Vassian as the worst accuser of the Grand Duke does not find confirmation; judging by the “Message” and biographical facts, Vassian was completely loyal to the Grand Duke. The researcher connects the creation of this code with the environment of the heir to the throne, Ivan the Young, and the dynastic struggle in the grand-ducal family. This, in his opinion, explains both the condemnation of Sophia’s actions and the praise addressed to the heir - as opposed to the indecisive (which turned into cowardly under the pen of the chronicler) actions of the Grand Duke.

At the same time, the very fact of Ivan III’s departure to Moscow is recorded in almost all sources; the difference in the chronicle stories relates only to the duration of this trip. The Grand Ducal chroniclers reduced this trip to just three days (September 30 - October 3, 1480). The fact of fluctuations in the grand ducal circle is also obvious; the grand ducal code of the first half of the 1490s mentions a certain Mamon as an opponent of resistance to the Tatars; In addition to G.V. Mamon, the independent code of the 1480s, hostile to Ivan III, also mentions I.V. Oshchera, and the Rostov chronicle - V.B. Tuchko. Meanwhile, in Moscow, the Grand Duke held a meeting with his boyars and ordered the preparation of the capital for a possible siege. Through the mediation of the mother, active negotiations were held with the rebellious brothers, which ended in the restoration of relations. On October 3, the Grand Duke left Moscow to join the troops, however, before reaching them, he settled in the town of Kremenets, 60 versts from the mouth of the Ugra, where he waited for the arrival of the detachments of the brothers who stopped the rebellion - Andrei Bolshoi and Boris Volotsky. Meanwhile, violent clashes began on the Ugra. Attempts by the Horde to cross the river were successfully repulsed by Russian troops. Soon, Ivan III sent ambassador Ivan Tovarkov to the khan with rich gifts, asking him to retreat away and not ruin the “ulus”. The Khan demanded the prince’s personal presence, but he refused to go to him; the prince also refused the khan’s offer to send to him his son, brother, or ambassador Nikifor Basenkov, known for his generosity (who had previously often traveled to the Horde).

On October 26, 1480, the Ugra River froze. The Russian army, having gathered together, retreated to the city of Krements, then to Borovsk. On November 11, Khan Akhmat gave the order to retreat. A small Tatar detachment managed to destroy a number of Russian volosts near Aleksin, but after Russian troops were sent in its direction, it also retreated to the steppe. Akhmat’s refusal to pursue Russian troops is explained by the unpreparedness of the Khan’s army to wage war in harsh winter conditions - as the chronicle reports, “the Tatars were naked and barefoot, they were ragged.” In addition, it became completely clear that King Casimir was not going to fulfill his allied obligations towards Akhmat. In addition to repelling the attack of the Crimean troops allied to Ivan III, Lithuania was busy solving internal problems. “Standing on the Ugra” ended with the actual victory of the Russian state, which received the desired independence.

Confrontation with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Border War of 1487-1494

Significant changes occurred during the reign of Ivan III in the relations of the Moscow state with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Initially friendly (the Lithuanian Grand Duke Casimir was even appointed, according to the will of Vasily II, as the guardian of the children of the Grand Duke of Moscow), they gradually worsened. Moscow's desire to unite the Russian lands constantly encountered opposition from Lithuania. The attempt of the Novgorodians to come under the rule of Casimir did not contribute to the friendship of the two states, and the union of Lithuania and the Horde in 1480, during the “standing on the Ugra,” strained relations to the limit. The formation of the union of the Russian state and the Crimean Khanate dates back to this time.

Beginning in the 1480s, the escalation of the situation led to border skirmishes. In 1481, a conspiracy of princes Ivan Yuryevich Golshansky, Mikhail Olelkovich and Fyodor Ivanovich Belsky, who wanted to transfer their possessions to the Grand Duke of Moscow, was discovered in Lithuania; Ivan Golshansky and Mikhail Olelkovich were executed, Prince Belsky managed to escape to Moscow, where he received control of a number of regions on the Lithuanian border. In 1482, Prince I. Glinsky fled to Moscow. In the same year, the Lithuanian ambassador B.A. Sakovich demanded that the Moscow prince recognize the rights of Lithuania to Rzhev and Velikiye Luki and their volosts.

In the context of the confrontation with Lithuania, the alliance with Crimea acquired particular importance. Following the agreements reached, in the fall of 1482 the Crimean Khan made a devastating raid on Lithuanian Ukraine. As the Nikon Chronicle reported, “on September 1, according to the word of the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan Vasilyevich of All Rus', Mengli-Girey, the king of the Crimean Perekopsk Horde, came with all his might to the queen and took the city of Kyiv and burned it with fire, and seized the governor of the Kyiv sir Ivashka Khotkovich , and I have taken countless amounts of it; and the land of Kyiv is empty.” According to the Pskov Chronicle, as a result of the campaign, 11 cities fell, and the entire district was devastated. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was seriously weakened.

Border disputes between the two states continued throughout the 1480s. A number of volosts, which were originally in joint Moscow-Lithuanian (or Novgorod-Lithuanian) possession, were actually occupied by the troops of Ivan III (primarily this concerns Rzhev, Toropets and Velikiye Luki). Periodically, clashes arose between the Vyazma princes who served Casimir and the Russian appanage princes, as well as between the Mezet princes (supporters of Lithuania) and the Odoevsky and Vorotynsky princes who went over to the side of Moscow. In the spring of 1489, things came to an open armed clash between Lithuanian and Russian troops, and in December 1489, a number of border princes went over to the side of Ivan III. Protests and mutual exchanges of embassies yielded no result, and the undeclared war continued.

On June 7, 1492, Casimir, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, died. After him, his son, Alexander, was elected to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Another son of Casimir, Jan Olbracht, became the Polish king. The inevitable confusion associated with the change of the Lithuanian Grand Duke weakened the principality, which Ivan III did not fail to take advantage of. In August 1492, troops were sent against Lithuania. They were led by Prince Fyodor Telepnya Obolensky. The cities of Mtsensk, Lyubutsk, Mosalsk, Serpeisk, Khlepen, Rogachev, Odoev, Kozelsk, Przemysl and Serensk were taken. A number of local princes went over to Moscow’s side, which strengthened the position of the Russian troops. Such rapid successes of the troops of Ivan III forced the new Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander to begin peace negotiations. One of the means of resolving the conflict proposed by the Lithuanians was Alexander's marriage to Ivan's daughter; The Grand Duke of Moscow reacted to this proposal with interest, but demanded that all controversial issues be resolved first, which led to the failure of the negotiations.

At the end of 1492, the Lithuanian army with Prince Semyon Ivanovich Mozhaisky entered the theater of military operations. At the beginning of 1493, the Lithuanians managed to briefly capture the cities of Serpeisk and Mezetsk, but during a counterattack by Moscow troops they were repulsed; In addition, the Moscow army managed to take Vyazma and a number of other cities. In June-July 1493, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander sent an embassy with a proposal to make peace. As a result of lengthy negotiations, a peace treaty was finally concluded on February 5, 1494. According to it, most of the lands conquered by Russian troops were part of the Russian state. In addition to other cities, the strategically important fortress of Vyazma, located not far from Moscow, became Russian. The cities of Lyubutsk, Mezetsk and Mtsensk, and some others were returned to the Lithuanian Grand Duke. The consent of the Moscow sovereign was also obtained for the marriage of his daughter Elena with the Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander.

Union with the Crimean Khanate

Diplomatic relations between the Moscow state and the Crimean Khanate during the reign of Ivan III remained friendly. The first exchange of letters between the countries took place in 1462, and in 1472 an agreement on mutual friendship was concluded. In 1474, an alliance agreement was concluded between Khan Mengli-Girey and Ivan III, which, however, remained on paper, since the Crimean Khan soon had no time for joint actions: during the war with the Ottoman Empire, Crimea lost its independence, and Mengli himself Giray was captured, and only in 1478 he again ascended the throne (now as a Turkish vassal). However, in 1480, the union agreement between Moscow and Crimea was concluded again, and the agreement directly named the enemies against whom the parties were supposed to act together - Khan of the Great Horde Akhmat and the Grand Duke of Lithuania. In the same year, the Crimeans made a campaign against Podolia, which did not allow King Casimir to help Akhmat during the “stand on the Ugra”.

In March 1482, due to deteriorating relations with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Moscow embassy again went to Khan Mengli-Girey. In the autumn of 1482, the troops of the Crimean Khanate made a devastating raid on Lithuanian Ukraine. Among other cities, Kyiv was taken, and all of southern Rus' was devastated. From his booty, the khan sent Ivan a chalice and a paten from the Kyiv St. Sophia Cathedral, which had been robbed by the Crimeans. The devastation of the lands seriously affected the combat effectiveness of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

In subsequent years, the Russian-Crimean alliance showed its effectiveness. In 1485, Russian troops already made a campaign into the Horde lands at the request of the Crimean Khanate, which was attacked by the Horde. In 1491, in connection with new Crimean-Horde skirmishes, these campaigns were repeated again. Russian support played an important role in the victory of the Crimean troops over the Great Horde. Lithuania's attempt in 1492 to lure Crimea to its side failed: from 1492 Mengli-Girey began annual campaigns against lands belonging to Lithuania and Poland. During the Russian-Lithuanian war of 1500-1503, Crimea remained an ally of Russia. In 1500, Mengli-Girey twice devastated the lands of southern Rus' belonging to Lithuania, reaching Brest. The actions of the Great Horde, allied to Lithuania, were again neutralized by the actions of both Crimean and Russian troops. In 1502, having finally defeated the khan of the Great Horde, the Crimean khan launched a new raid, devastating part of Right Bank Ukraine and Poland. However, after the end of the war, which was successful for the Moscow state, relations were observed to deteriorate. Firstly, the common enemy disappeared - the Great Horde, against which the Russian-Crimean alliance was largely directed. Secondly, now Russia is becoming a direct neighbor of the Crimean Khanate, which means that now Crimean raids could be carried out not only on Lithuanian, but also on Russian territory. And finally, thirdly, Russian-Crimean relations worsened due to the Kazan problem; the fact is that Khan Mengli-Girey did not approve of the imprisonment of the overthrown Kazan Khan Abdul-Latif in Vologda. However, during the reign of Ivan III, the Crimean Khanate remained an ally of the Moscow state, waging joint wars against common enemies - the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Great Horde, and only after the death of the Grand Duke began constant raids of the Crimeans on lands belonging to the Russian state.

Relations with the Kazan Khanate

Relations with the Kazan Khanate remained an extremely important direction of Russian foreign policy. During the first years of Ivan III's reign they remained peaceful. After the death of the active Khan Mahmud, his son Khalil ascended the throne, and soon the deceased Khalil, in turn, was succeeded in 1467 by another son of Mahmud, Ibrahim. However, the brother of Khan Mahmud, the elderly Kasim, who ruled the Kasimov Khanate, dependent on Moscow, was still alive; a group of conspirators led by Prince Abdul-Mumin tried to invite him to the Kazan throne. These intentions found support from Ivan III, and in September 1467, the soldiers of Kasimov Khan, together with Moscow troops under the command of I. V. Striga-Obolensky, began an attack on Kazan. However, the campaign was unsuccessful: having met Ibrahim’s strong army, Moscow troops did not dare cross the Volga and retreated. In the winter of the same year, Kazan troops made a campaign into the Russian border lands, ravaging the outskirts of Galich Mersky. In response, Russian troops carried out a punitive raid on the Cheremis lands that were part of the Kazan Khanate. Border skirmishes continued in 1468; A major success of the Kazan people was the capture of the capital of the Vyatka land - Khlynov.

The spring of 1469 was marked by a new campaign of Moscow troops against Kazan. In May, Russian troops began to besiege the city. However, the active actions of the Kazan residents made it possible to first stop the offensive of the two Moscow armies, and then defeat them one by one; Russian troops were forced to retreat. In August 1469, having received reinforcements, the Grand Duke’s troops began a new campaign against Kazan, however, due to the deterioration of relations with Lithuania and the Horde, Ivan III agreed to make peace with Khan Ibrahim; According to its terms, the Kazan residents handed over all previously captured prisoners. For eight years after this, relations between the parties remained peaceful. However, at the beginning of 1478, relations became tense again. The reason this time was the campaign of the Kazan people against Khlynov. Russian troops marched on Kazan, but did not achieve any significant results, and a new peace treaty was concluded on the same terms as in 1469.

In 1479, Khan Ibrahim died. The new ruler of Kazan was Ilkham (Alegam), the son of Ibrahim, a protege of a party oriented towards the East (primarily the Nogai Horde). The candidate from the pro-Russian party, another son of Ibrahim, 10-year-old Tsarevich Muhammad-Emin, was sent to the Moscow state. This gave Russia a reason to interfere in Kazan affairs. In 1482, Ivan III began preparations for a new campaign; An army was assembled, which also included artillery under the leadership of Aristotle Fioravanti, but the active diplomatic opposition of the Kazan people and their willingness to make concessions made it possible to maintain peace. In 1484, the Moscow army, approaching Kazan, contributed to the overthrow of Khan Ilham. The protege of the pro-Moscow party, 16-year-old Mohammed-Emin, ascended the throne. At the end of 1485 - beginning of 1486, Ilham again ascended the Kazan throne (also not without the support of Moscow), and soon Russian troops made another campaign against Kazan. On July 9, 1487, the city surrendered. Prominent figures of the anti-Moscow party were executed, Muhammad-Emin was again placed on the throne, and Khan Ilham and his family were sent to prison in Russia. As a result of this victory, Ivan III accepted the title of “Prince of Bulgaria”; Russia's influence on the Kazan Khanate increased significantly.

The next worsening of relations occurred in the mid-1490s. Among the Kazan nobility, dissatisfied with the policies of Khan Muhammad-Emin, an opposition formed with the princes Kel-Akhmet (Kalimet), Urak, Sadyr and Agish at their head. She invited the Siberian prince Mamuk to the throne, who arrived in Kazan with an army in mid-1495. Muhammad-Emin and his family fled to Russia. However, after some time, Mamuk came into conflict with some of the princes who invited him. While Mamuk was on campaign, a coup took place in the city under the leadership of Prince Kel-Akhmet. Abdul-Latif, brother of Muhammad-Emin, who lived in the Russian state, was invited to the throne, who became the next khan of Kazan. The attempt of Kazan emigrants led by Prince Urak in 1499 to place Agalak, the brother of the deposed Khan Mamuk, on the throne was unsuccessful. With the help of Russian troops, Abdul-Latif managed to repel the attack.

In 1502, Abdul-Latif, who began to pursue an independent policy, was removed with the participation of the Russian embassy and Prince Kel-Akhmet. Muhammad-Amin was again elevated to the Kazan throne (for the third time). But now he began to pursue a much more independent policy aimed at ending dependence on Moscow. The leader of the pro-Russian party, Prince Kel-Akhmet, was arrested; opponents of the influence of the Russian state came to power. On June 24, 1505, on the day of the fair, a pogrom occurred in Kazan; Russian subjects who were in the city were killed or enslaved, and their property was plundered. The war has begun. However, on October 27, 1505, Ivan III died, and Ivan’s heir, Vasily III, had to lead it.

Northwestern direction: wars with Livonia and Sweden

The annexation of Novgorod shifted the borders of the Moscow state to the north-west, as a result of which Livonia became a direct neighbor in this direction. The continued deterioration of Pskov-Livonian relations eventually resulted in open conflict, and in August 1480 the Livonians besieged Pskov - however, unsuccessfully. In February of the following year, 1481, the initiative passed to the Russian troops: the grand ducal forces, sent to help the Pskovites, made a campaign into the Livonian lands, crowned with a number of victories. On September 1, 1481, the parties signed a truce for a period of 10 years. Over the next few years, relations with Livonia, primarily trade, developed quite peacefully. However, the government of Ivan III took a number of measures to strengthen the defensive structures of the north-west of the country. The most significant event of this plan was the construction in 1492 of the stone fortress Ivangorod on the Narova River, opposite the Livonian Narva.

In addition to Livonia, another rival of Russia in the northwestern direction was Sweden. According to the Orekhovets Treaty of 1323, the Novgorodians ceded a number of territories to the Swedes; now, according to Ivan III, the moment has come to return them. On November 8, 1493, Russia entered into an alliance treaty with the Danish king Hans (Johann), a rival of the ruler of Sweden, Sten Sture. Open conflict broke out in 1495; in August the Russian army began the siege of Vyborg. However, this siege was unsuccessful, Vyborg held out, and the grand ducal troops were forced to return home. In the winter and spring of 1496, Russian troops carried out a number of raids on the territory of Swedish Finland. In August 1496, the Swedes struck back: an army on 70 ships, descending near Narova, landed near Ivangorod. The Grand Duke's deputy, Prince Yuri Babich, fled, and on August 26 the Swedes took the fortress by storm and burned it. However, after some time, Swedish troops left Ivangorod, and it was quickly restored and even expanded. In March 1497, a truce was concluded in Novgorod for 6 years, ending the Russian-Swedish war.

Meanwhile, relations with Livonia deteriorated significantly. Considering the inevitability of a new Russian-Lithuanian war, in 1500 an embassy from the Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander was sent to the Grand Master of the Livonian Order Plettenberg with a proposal for an alliance. Remembering Lithuania's previous attempts to subjugate the Teutonic Order, Plettenberg did not give his consent immediately, but only in 1501, when the issue of war with Russia was finally resolved. The treaty signed in Wenden on June 21, 1501 completed the formalization of the alliance.

The reason for the outbreak of hostilities was the arrest of about 150 Russian merchants in Dorpat. In August, both sides sent significant military forces against each other, and on August 27, 1501, Russian and Livonian troops fought in a battle on the Seritsa River (10 km from Izborsk). The battle ended in victory for the Livonians; They failed to take Izborsk, but on September 7 the Pskov fortress Ostrov fell. In October, Russian troops (which also included units of serving Tatars) carried out a retaliatory raid into Livonia.

In the campaign of 1502, the initiative was on the side of the Livonians. It began with an invasion from Narva; in March, Moscow governor Ivan Loban-Kolychev died near Ivangorod; Livonian troops struck in the direction of Pskov, trying to take Red Town. In September, Plettenberg's troops struck a new blow, again besieging Izborsk and Pskov. In the battle of Lake Smolina, the Livonians managed to defeat the Russian army, but they were unable to achieve greater success, and peace negotiations were held the following year. On April 2, 1503, the Livonian Order and the Russian state concluded a truce for a period of six years, restoring relations on the terms of the status quo.

War with Lithuania 1500-1503

Despite the settlement of border disputes that led to the undeclared war of 1487-1494, relations with Lithuania continued to remain tense. The border between the states continued to remain very unclear, which in the future was fraught with a new aggravation of relations. A religious problem was added to the traditional border disputes. In May 1499, Moscow received information from the governor of Vyazma about the oppression of Orthodoxy in Smolensk. In addition, the Grand Duke learned of an attempt to impose the Catholic faith on his daughter Helen, the wife of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander. All this did not help maintain peace between countries.

At the end of 1499 and the beginning of 1500, Prince S.I. Belsky and his estates moved to the Moscow state; the cities of Serpeisk and Mtsensk also went over to Moscow’s side. In April 1500, princes Semyon Ivanovich Starodubsky and Vasily Ivanovich Shemyachich Novgorod-Seversky came into the service of Ivan III, and an embassy was sent to Lithuania declaring war. Fighting broke out along the entire border. As a result of the first strike of the Russian troops, Bryansk was captured, the cities of Radogoshch, Gomel, Novgorod-Seversky surrendered, Dorogobuzh fell; Princes Trubetskoy and Mosalsky went into the service of Ivan III. The main efforts of the Moscow troops were concentrated in the Smolensk direction, where the Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander sent an army under the command of the great Lithuanian hetman Konstantin Ostrozhsky. Having received the news that Moscow troops were standing on the Vedroshi River, the hetman headed there. On July 14, 1500, during the Battle of Vedroshi, Lithuanian troops suffered a crushing defeat; more than 8,000 Lithuanian soldiers died; Hetman Ostrogsky was captured. On August 6, 1500, Putivl fell under the attack of Russian troops; on August 9, Pskov troops allied with Ivan III took Toropets. The defeat at Vedrosha dealt a sensitive blow to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The situation was aggravated by the raids of the Moscow-allied Crimean Khan Mengli-Girey.

The 1501 campaign did not bring decisive success to either side. The fighting between Moscow and Lithuanian troops was limited to small skirmishes; in the fall of 1501, Moscow troops conducted an unsuccessful siege of Mstislavl. A major success of Lithuanian diplomacy was the neutralization of the Crimean threat with the help of the Great Horde. Another factor acting against the Moscow state was a serious deterioration in relations with Livonia, which led to a full-scale war in August 1501. In addition, after the death of the Polish king Jan Olbracht (June 17, 1501), Grand Duke Alexander of Lithuania also became the Polish king.

In the spring of 1502, fighting was inactive. The situation changed in June, after the Crimean Khan finally managed to defeat the Khan of the Great Horde, Shikh-Ahmed, which made it possible to carry out a new devastating raid in August. Moscow troops also struck: on July 14, 1502, the army under the command of Dmitry Zhilka, the son of Ivan III, set out for Smolensk. However, a number of miscalculations (lack of artillery and low discipline of the assembled troops), as well as the stubborn defense of the defenders, did not allow the city to be taken. In addition, the Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander managed to form a mercenary army, which also marched in the direction of Smolensk. As a result, on October 23, 1502, the Russian army lifted the siege of Smolensk and retreated.

At the beginning of 1503, peace negotiations began between the states. However, both Lithuanian and Moscow ambassadors put forward obviously unacceptable peace conditions; as a result of a compromise, it was decided to sign not a peace treaty, but a truce for a period of 6 years. According to it, 19 cities with volosts, which before the war constituted about a third of the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, remained in the possession of the Russian state (formally - for the period of the truce); so, in particular, the Russian state included: Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversky, Starodub, Gomel, Bryansk, Toropets, Mtsensk, Dorogobuzh. The truce, known as the Blagoveshchensky (after the Feast of the Annunciation), was signed on March 25, 1503.

Continuation of the “gathering of lands” and the “capture of Tver”

After the annexation of Novgorod, the policy of “gathering lands” was continued. At the same time, the actions of the Grand Duke were more active. In 1481, after the death of Ivan III’s childless brother, the appanage Vologda prince Andrei the Lesser, his entire allotment passed to the Grand Duke. On April 4, 1482, Prince Mikhail Andreevich of Verei concluded an agreement with Ivan, according to which, after his death, Beloozero passed to the Grand Duke, which clearly violated the rights of Mikhail’s heir, his son Vasily. After Vasily Mikhailovich fled to Lithuania, on December 12, 1483, Mikhail concluded a new agreement with Ivan III, according to which, after the death of the Vereisky prince, the entire inheritance of Mikhail Andreevich went to the Grand Duke (Prince Mikhail died on April 9, 1486). On June 4, 1485, after the death of the Grand Duke’s mother, Princess Maria (monastically known as Martha), her inheritance, including half of Rostov, became part of the Grand Duke’s possessions.

Relations with Tver remained a serious problem. Sandwiched between Moscow and Lithuania, the Great Principality of Tver was going through hard times. It also included appanage principalities; Since the 60s of the 15th century, the transition of the Tver nobility to Moscow service began. Sources also preserved references to the spread of various heresies in Tver. Numerous land disputes between Muscovites-patrimonial owners, who owned land in the Tver Principality, and Tver residents did not improve relations. In 1483, the hostility turned into armed confrontation. The formal reason for it was the attempt of the Tver prince Mikhail Borisovich to strengthen his ties with Lithuania through a dynastic marriage and an alliance treaty. Moscow responded to this by breaking off relations and sending troops to the Tver lands; The Tver prince admitted his defeat and in October-December 1484 concluded a peace treaty with Ivan III. According to it, Mikhail recognized himself as the “lesser brother” of the great Moscow prince, which in the political terminology of that time meant the actual transformation of Tver into an appanage principality; the treaty of alliance with Lithuania, of course, was torn apart.

In 1485, using as a pretext the capture of a messenger from Mikhail Tverskoy to the Lithuanian Grand Duke Casimir, Moscow again broke off relations with the Tver Principality and began hostilities. In September 1485, Russian troops began the siege of Tver. A significant part of the Tver boyars and appanage princes switched to Moscow service, and Prince Mikhail Borisovich himself, seizing the treasury, fled to Lithuania. On September 15, 1485, Ivan III, together with the heir to the throne, Prince Ivan the Young, entered Tver. The Tver principality was transferred to the heir to the throne; in addition, a Moscow governor was appointed here.

In 1486, Ivan III concluded new agreements with his brothers-apanage princes - Boris and Andrei. In addition to recognizing the Grand Duke as the "eldest" brother, the new treaties also recognized him as a "lord", and used the title "Grand Duke of All Rus'". However, the position of the Grand Duke's brothers remained extremely precarious. In 1488, Prince Andrey was informed that the Grand Duke was ready to arrest him. An attempt to explain himself led to Ivan III swearing “by God and the earth and the mighty God, the creator of all creation” that he did not intend to persecute his brother. As R. G. Skrynnikov and A. A. Zimin note, the form of this oath was very unusual for an Orthodox sovereign.

In 1491, the relationship between Ivan and Andrei Bolshoi reached a denouement. On September 20, the Uglich prince was arrested and thrown into prison; His children, princes Ivan and Dmitry, were also imprisoned. Two years later, Prince Andrei Vasilyevich the Bolshoi died, and four years later, the Grand Duke, having gathered the highest clergy, publicly repented of the fact that “with his sin, by not being careful, he was killed.” However, Ivan’s repentance did not change anything in the fate of Andrei’s children: the Grand Duke’s nephews spent the rest of their lives in captivity.

During the arrest of Andrei Bolshoi, another brother of Prince Ivan, Boris, Prince Volotsky, also came under suspicion. However, he managed to justify himself to the Grand Duke and remain free. After his death in 1494, the principality was divided between Boris’s children: Ivan Borisovich received Ruza, and Fedor received Volokolamsk; in 1503, Prince Ivan Borisovich died childless, leaving the estates to Ivan III.

A serious struggle between supporters of independence and supporters of Moscow unfolded in the early 1480s in Vyatka, which retained significant autonomy. Initially, success accompanied the anti-Moscow party; in 1485 the Vyatchans refused to participate in the campaign against Kazan. The retaliatory campaign of the Moscow troops was not crowned with success; moreover, the Moscow governor was expelled from Vyatka; the most prominent supporters of the grand ducal power were forced to flee. Only in 1489, Moscow troops under the command of Daniil Shchenya achieved the capitulation of the city and finally annexed Vyatka to the Russian state.

The Ryazan principality also practically lost its independence. After the death of Prince Vasily in 1483, his son, Ivan Vasilyevich, ascended the Ryazan throne. Another son of Vasily, Fedor, received Perevitesk (he died childless in 1503, leaving the estate to Ivan III). The de facto ruler of the principality was Vasily's widow, Anna, the sister of Ivan III. In 1500, the Ryazan prince Ivan Vasilyevich died; The guardian of the young Prince Ivan Ivanovich was first his grandmother Anna, and after her death in 1501, his mother Agrafena. In 1520, with the capture of the Ryazan prince Ivan Ivanovich by Muscovites, in fact, the Ryazan principality finally turned into an appanage principality within the Russian state.

Relations with the Pskov land, which at the end of the reign of Ivan III remained practically the only Russian principality independent of Moscow, also took place in line with the gradual restriction of statehood. Thus, the Pskov residents are losing their last opportunity to influence the choice of princes and grand-ducal governors. In 1483-1486, a conflict occurred in the city between, on the one hand, the Pskov mayor and the “black people”, and, on the other hand, the Grand Duke’s governor, Prince Yaroslav Obolensky and the peasants (“smerds”). In this conflict, Ivan III supported his governor; Ultimately, the Pskov elite capitulated, fulfilling the demands of the Grand Duke.

The next conflict between the Grand Duke and Pskov flared up at the beginning of 1499. The fact is that Ivan III decided to grant his son, Vasily Ivanovich, the reign of Novgorod and Pskov. The Pskovites regarded the Grand Duke’s decision as a violation of “old times”; Attempts by the posadniks to change the situation during negotiations in Moscow only led to their arrest. Only by September of the same year, after Ivan’s promise to respect the “old times,” was the conflict resolved.

However, despite these differences, Pskov remained a loyal ally of Moscow. Pskov assistance played an important role in the campaign against Novgorod in 1477-1478; Pskovites made a significant contribution to the victories of Russian troops over the forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In turn, the Moscow regiments took all possible part in repelling the attacks of the Livonians and Swedes.

Hikes to Perm and Ugra

While developing Northern Pomerania, the Moscow state, on the one hand, faced opposition from Novgorod, which considered these lands its own, and, on the other hand, with the opportunity to begin advancing to the north and northeast, beyond the Ural Mountains, to the Ob River, in the lower reaches of which there was Yugra, known to the Novgorodians. In 1465, by order of Ivan III, the inhabitants of Ustyug under the leadership of the Grand Duke's governor Timofey (Vasily) Skryaba made a campaign against Ugra. The campaign was quite successful: having subdued a number of small Ugra princes, the army returned victorious. In 1467, a not very successful campaign against the independent Vogulichs (Mansi) was carried out by the Vyatchans and Komi-Permyaks.

Having received part of the Dvina land under the 1471 treaty with Novgorod (and Zavolochye, Pechora and Yugra continued to be considered Novgorod), the Muscovite kingdom continued its advance to the north. In 1472, using insults to Moscow merchants as a pretext, Ivan III sent Prince Fyodor Pestroy with an army to the recently baptized Great Perm, who subjugated the region to the Moscow state. Prince Mikhail of Perm remained the nominal ruler of the region, while the real rulers of the country, both spiritually and civilly, were the Perm bishops.

In 1481, Perm the Great had to defend itself from the Vogulichs, led by Prince Asyka. With the help of the Ustyuzhans, Perm managed to fight back, and already in 1483 a campaign was launched against the rebellious Vogulichs. The expedition was organized on a grand scale: under the command of the grand ducal governors Prince Fyodor Kurbsky the Black and Ivan Saltyk-Travin, forces were gathered from all the northern districts of the country. The campaign turned out to be successful; as a result, the princes of a vast region populated mainly by Tatars, Vogulichs (Mansi) and Ostyaks (Khanty) submitted to the authorities of the Moscow state.

The next, and most large-scale, campaign of Russian troops against Ugra was undertaken in 1499-1500. In total, according to archival data, 4041 people took part in this expedition, divided into three detachments. They were commanded by Moscow governors: Prince Semyon Kurbsky (commanding one of the detachments, he was also the commander of the entire campaign), Prince Pyotr Ushaty and Vasily Gavrilov Brazhnik. During this campaign, various local tribes were conquered, and the Pechora and upper Vychegda basins became part of the Moscow state. It is interesting that the information about this campaign, received by S. Herberstein from Prince Semyon Kurbsky, was included by him in his “Notes on Muscovy”. Fur tribute was imposed on the lands conquered during these expeditions.

Domestic policy

Integration of newly annexed lands

After the annexation of the Yaroslavl principality in 1471, a fairly strict unification with the general Moscow order began on its territory. A specially appointed envoy of the Grand Duke brought Yaroslavl princes and boyars into the Moscow service, taking away part of their lands. In one of the critical chronicles of that time, these events are described as follows: “Whoever has a good village, he took it away, and whoever has a good village, he took it away and wrote it down to the Grand Duke, and whoever is a good boyar or a boyar’s son, he wrote it down to him.” " Similar processes took place in Rostov, which came under the control of Moscow. Here, too, there was a process of recruiting the local elite (both princes and boyars) into the service of the Grand Duke, and the Rostov princes retained in their hands significantly smaller estates compared to the Yaroslavl princes. A number of properties were acquired by both the Grand Duke and the Moscow nobility.

The annexation of the Tver principality in 1485 and its integration into the Russian state happened quite smoothly. It was actually turned into one of the appanage principalities; Ivan Ivanovich was installed “in the great reign in Tfer.” The Moscow governor V.F. Obrazets-Dobrynsky was left under Prince Ivan. Tver retained many attributes of independence: the princely lands were governed by a special Tver Palace; although some Tver boyars and princes were transferred to Moscow, the new Tver prince ruled the principality with the help of the Tver boyar Duma; the appanage princes who supported Ivan III even received new estates (however, not for long; they were soon taken away from them again). In 1490, after the death of Ivan Ivanovich, Tver for some time passed to Prince Vasily, and in 1497 it was taken from him. By the beginning of the 16th century, the Tver court finally merged with the Moscow court, and some Tver boyars moved to the Moscow Duma.

Integration into the national structure of the Belozersk Principality is also of interest. After its transition to Moscow in 1486, the Belozersk charter was promulgated in March 1488. Among other things, it established feeding standards for government officials and also regulated legal proceedings.

The most profound changes were those that befell the Novgorod land. The differences between the social system of the Novgorod state and the Moscow order were much more profound than in other newly annexed lands. The veche order was based on the wealth of the Novgorod boyar-merchant aristocracy, which owned vast estates; The Novgorod church also had vast lands. During the negotiations on the surrender of the city to the Grand Duke, the Moscow side gave a number of guarantees, in particular, it was promised not to evict the Novgorodians “to the Bottom” (outside the Novgorod land, to the Moscow territory itself) and not to confiscate property.

Immediately after the fall of the city, arrests were made. The irreconcilable opponent of the Moscow state, Marfa Boretskaya, was taken into custody, the vast possessions of the Boretsky family passed into the hands of the treasury; A similar fate befell a number of other leaders of the pro-Lithuanian party. In addition, a number of lands belonging to the Novgorod church were confiscated. In subsequent years, arrests continued: thus, in January 1480, Archbishop Theophilus was taken into custody; in 1481, the boyars Vasily Kazimir, his brother Yakov Korobov, Mikhail Berdenev and Luka Fedorov, who had recently been accepted into the sovereign service, fell into disgrace. In 1483-1484, a new wave of arrests of boyars on charges of treason followed; in 1486, fifty families were evicted from the city. And finally, in 1487, a decision was made to evict the entire landowning and trading aristocracy from the city and confiscate its estates. In the winter of 1487-1488, about 7,000 people were evicted from the city - boyars and “living people”. The following year, more than a thousand merchants and “living people” were evicted from Novgorod. Their estates were confiscated to the treasury, from where they were partially distributed as estates to Moscow boyar children, partially transferred to the ownership of Moscow boyars, and partially constituted the possessions of the Grand Duke. Thus, the place of the noble Novgorod patrimonial lands was taken by Moscow settlers who owned the land already on the basis of the local system; The resettlement of the nobility did not affect the common people. In parallel with the confiscations of estates, a land census was carried out, summing up the results of land reform. In 1489, part of the population of Khlynov (Vyatka) was evicted in the same way.

The elimination of the dominance of the old landowning and trading aristocracy of Novgorod went in parallel with the breakdown of the old state administration. Power passed into the hands of governors appointed by the Grand Duke, who were in charge of both military and judicial-administrative affairs. The Novgorod archbishop also lost a significant part of his power. After the death of Archbishop Theophilus in 1483 (arrested in 1480), he became the Trinity monk Sergius, who immediately turned the local clergy against him. In 1484, he was replaced by Gennady Gonzov, an archimandrite of the Chudov Monastery, appointed from Moscow, a supporter of the grand ducal policy. In the future, Archbishop Gennady became one of the central figures in the fight against the heresy of the “Judaizers.”

Introduction of the Law Code

The unification of the previously fragmented Russian lands into a single state urgently required, in addition to political unity, to also create the unity of the legal system. In September 1497, the Code of Law, a unified legislative code, was put into effect.

There is no exact data regarding who could have been the compiler of the Code of Laws. The prevailing opinion for a long time that its author was Vladimir Gusev (going back to Karamzin) is considered in modern historiography as a consequence of an erroneous interpretation of a damaged chronicle text. According to Ya. S. Lurie and L. V. Cherepnin, here we are dealing with a mixture of two different news in the text - about the introduction of the Code of Law and about the execution of Gusev.

The following monuments of ancient Russian legislation are usually cited as known to us sources of legal norms reflected in the Code of Laws:

• Russian Truth
• Charter charters (Dvinskaya and Belozerskaya)
• Pskov judicial charter
• A number of decrees and orders of Moscow princes.

At the same time, part of the text of the Code of Laws consists of norms that have no analogues in previous legislation.

The range of issues reflected in this first generalizing legislative act in a long time is very wide: this includes the establishment of uniform norms of legal proceedings for the entire country, and norms of criminal law, and the establishment of civil law. One of the most important articles of the Code of Laws was Article 57 - “On Christian Refusal”, which introduced a single deadline for the entire Russian state for the transfer of peasants from one landowner to another - a week before and a week after St. George’s Day (autumn) (November 26). A number of articles addressed issues of land ownership. A significant part of the text of the monument was occupied by articles on the legal status of slaves.

The creation of the all-Russian Code of Law in 1497 became an important event in the history of Russian legislation. It is worth noting that such a unified code did not exist even in some European countries (in particular, in England and France). The translation of a number of articles was included by S. Herberstein in his work “Notes on Muscovy”. The publication of the Code of Laws was an important measure to strengthen the political unity of the country through the unification of legislation.

Cultural and ideological politics

The unification of the country could not but have a beneficial effect on the culture of Russia. Large-scale fortress construction, the construction of temples, and the flourishing of chronicle writing in the era of Ivan III are visible evidence of the spiritual upsurge of the country; At the same time, an important fact indicating the intensity of cultural life is the emergence of new ideas. It was at this time that concepts emerged that in the future would form a significant part of the state ideology of Russia.

Architecture

Russian architecture made a big step forward under Ivan III; A significant role in this was played by the fact that, at the invitation of the Grand Duke, a number of Italian masters arrived in the country, introducing Russia to the architectural techniques of the rapidly developing Renaissance.

Already in 1462, construction began in the Kremlin: repairs of walls that required repairs began. Subsequently, large-scale construction at the grand-ducal residence continued: in 1472, at the direction of Ivan III, on the site of the dilapidated cathedral, built in 1326-1327 under Ivan Kalita, it was decided to build a new Assumption Cathedral. Construction was entrusted to Moscow craftsmen; however, when very little remained before the completion of the work, the cathedral collapsed. In 1475, Aristotle Fioravanti was invited to Russia, and he immediately got down to business. The remains of the walls were demolished and a temple was built in their place, which invariably aroused the admiration of his contemporaries. On August 12, 1479, the new cathedral was consecrated by Metropolitan Gerontius.

In 1485, intensive construction began in the Kremlin, which did not stop throughout the life of the Grand Duke. Instead of the old wooden and white stone fortifications, brick ones were built; By 1515, Italian architects Pietro Antonio Solari, Marco Ruffo, and a number of others turned the Kremlin into one of the most powerful fortresses of that time. Construction continued inside the walls: in 1489, Pskov craftsmen built the Annunciation Cathedral, a new grand-ducal palace was erected, one of the parts of which was the Faceted Chamber, built by Italian architects in 1491. In total, according to chronicles, about 25 churches were built in the capital in the years 1479-1505.

Large-scale construction (primarily defense-oriented) was also carried out in other parts of the country: for example, in 1490-1500 the Novgorod Kremlin was rebuilt; in 1492, on the border with Livonia, opposite Narva, the Ivangorod fortress was erected. The fortifications of Pskov, Staraya Ladoga, Yam, Orekhov, Nizhny Novgorod (since 1500) were also updated; in 1485 and 1492, large-scale work was carried out to strengthen Vladimir. By order of the Grand Duke, fortresses were built on the outskirts of the country: in Beloozero (1486), in Velikiye Luki (1493).

Literature

The reign of Ivan III was also the time of the appearance of a number of original literary works; Thus, in particular, in the 1470s, the Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin wrote his “Walking across Three Seas”. An interesting monument of the era is “The Tale of Dracula,” compiled by Fyodor Kuritsyn on the basis of legends he heard during his stay in Wallachia, which tells about the Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes, famous for his cruelty.

A significant impetus to the development of religious literature was given by the fight against the heresy of the “Judaizers”; Disputes about church wealth were also reflected in the works of this era. One can note a number of works by Joseph Volotsky, in which he appears as an ardent denouncer of heresy; This denunciation takes its most complete form in The Enlightener (the first edition of which, however, was compiled no earlier than 1502).

Chronicle writing experienced its heyday during this period; At the Grand Duke's court, chronicle vaults were intensively compiled and revised. However, at the same time, it was precisely during this period, due to the unification of the country, that independent chronicle writing, which was a characteristic feature of the previous era, completely disappeared. Beginning in the 1490s, chronicles created in Russian cities - Novgorod, Pskov, Vologda, Tver, Rostov, Ustyug and a number of other places - represent either a modified grand ducal codex or a chronicle of a local nature that does not claim to have all-Russian significance. Church (in particular, metropolitan) chronicles during this period also merged with the grand ducal ones. At the same time, the chronicle news is being actively edited and processed both in the interests of grand ducal politics and in the interests of specific groups that enjoyed the greatest influence at the time the code was written (primarily this was associated with the dynastic struggle between the party of Vasily Ivanovich and Dmitry the grandson).

Ideology of power, title and coat of arms

The most notable embodiments of the emerging ideology of the united country in historical literature are considered to be the new coat of arms - a double-headed eagle, and the new title of the Grand Duke. In addition, it is noted that it was in the era of Ivan III that those ideas were born that would later form the official ideology of the Moscow state.

Changes in the position of the Grand Duke of Moscow, who transformed from the ruler of one of the Russian principalities into the ruler of a vast power, could not but lead to changes in the title. Already in June 1485, Ivan III used the title of “Grand Duke of All Rus',” which also meant claims to lands that were under the rule of the Grand Duke of Lithuania (who was also called, among other things, “Grand Duke of Russia”). In 1494, the Lithuanian Grand Duke expressed his willingness to recognize this title. The full title of Ivan III also included the names of the lands that became part of Russia; now he sounded like “the sovereign of all Rus' and the Grand Duke of Vladimir, and Moscow, and Novgorod, and Pskov, and Tver, and Perm, and Yugorsk, and Bulgaria, and others.” Another innovation in the title was the appearance of the title “autocrat”, which was a copy of the Byzantine title “autocrat”. The era of Ivan III also dates back to the first cases of the Grand Duke using the title “Tsar” (or “Caesar”) in diplomatic correspondence - so far only in relations with petty German princes and the Livonian Order; The royal title begins to be widely used in literary works. This fact is extremely indicative: since the beginning of the Mongol-Tatar yoke, the Khan of the Horde was called “king”; such a title was almost never applied to Russian princes who did not have state independence. The transformation of the country from a tributary of the Horde into a powerful independent power did not go unnoticed abroad: in 1489, the ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor Nikolai Poppel, on behalf of his overlord, offered Ivan III the royal title. The Grand Duke refused, pointing out that “by God’s grace we are sovereigns on our land from the beginning, from our first ancestors, and we have the appointment from God, both our ancestors and we... and just as we didn’t want the appointment from anyone before, we don’t want it now.” we want."

The appearance of the double-headed eagle as a state symbol of the Moscow state was recorded at the end of the 15th century: it is depicted on the seal of one of the charters issued in 1497 by Ivan III. Somewhat earlier, a similar symbol appeared on the coins of the Tver principality (even before joining Moscow); a number of Novgorod coins minted under the rule of the Grand Duke also bear this sign. There are different opinions regarding the origin of the double-headed eagle in historical literature: for example, the most traditional view of its appearance as a state symbol is that the eagle was borrowed from Byzantium, and the niece of the last Byzantine emperor and the wife of Ivan III, Sophia Paleologus, brought it with her. ; This opinion goes back to Karamzin. As noted in modern studies, in addition to obvious strengths, this version also has disadvantages: in particular, Sophia came from Morea - from the outskirts of the Byzantine Empire; the eagle appeared in state practice almost two decades after the marriage of the Grand Duke to the Byzantine princess; and, finally, no claims of Ivan III to the Byzantine throne are known. As a modification of the Byzantine theory of the origin of the eagle, the South Slavic theory associated with the significant use of double-headed eagles on the outskirts of the Byzantine world gained some popularity. At the same time, no traces of such interaction have yet been found, and the very appearance of the double-headed eagle of Ivan III differs from its supposed South Slavic prototypes. Another theory of the origin of the eagle can be considered the opinion that the eagle was borrowed from the Holy Roman Empire, which used this symbol since 1442 - and in this case, the emblem symbolizes the equality of ranks of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Grand Duke of Moscow. It is also noted that one of the symbols depicted on the coins of the Novgorod Republic was a single-headed eagle; in this version, the appearance of a double-headed eagle on the seal of the Grand Duke looks like a development of local traditions. It is worth noting that at the moment there is no clear opinion about which theory more accurately describes reality.

In addition to the adoption of new titles and symbols, the ideas that emerged during the reign of Ivan III, which formed the ideology of state power, also deserve attention. First of all, it is worth noting the idea of ​​succession of grand-ducal power from the Byzantine emperors; This concept first appears in 1492, in the work of Metropolitan Zosima “Exposition of Paschal.” According to the author of this work, God placed Ivan III, as well as “the new Tsar Constantine, in the new city of Constantine, - Moscow and the entire Russian land and many other lands of the sovereign.” A little later, such a comparison will find harmony in the concept of “Moscow - the third Rome,” finally formulated by the monk of the Pskov Elizarov Monastery Philotheus already under Vasily III. Another idea that ideologically substantiated the grand-ducal power was the legend about the regalia of Monomakh and the origin of the Russian princes from the Roman Emperor Augustus. Reflected in the somewhat later “Tale of the Princes of Vladimir,” it will become an important element of state ideology under Vasily III and Ivan IV. It is curious that, as researchers note, the original text of the legend put forward not Moscow, but Tver great princes as descendants of Augustus.

It is worth noting that such ideas did not become widespread during the reign of Ivan III; for example, it is significant that the newly built Assumption Cathedral was compared not with the Constantinople Hagia Sophia, but with the Vladimir Assumption Cathedral; the idea of ​​​​the origin of the Moscow princes from Augustus until the middle of the 16th century is reflected only in extra-chronicle sources. In general, although the era of Ivan III is the period of the emergence of a significant part of the state ideology of the 16th century, one cannot talk about any state support for these ideas. The chronicles of this time are scanty in ideological content; they do not reveal any single ideological concept; the emergence of such ideas is a matter of a subsequent era.

Church politics

An extremely important part of Ivan III's domestic policy was his relationship with the church. The main events characterizing church affairs during his reign can be called, firstly, the emergence of two church-political movements, which had different attitudes towards the practice of church life that existed at that time, and, secondly, the emergence, development and defeat of such called the “heresy of the Judaizers.” It should be noted that the internal church struggle was repeatedly influenced by both contradictions within the grand ducal family and external factors. In addition, the Union of Florence that took place in 1439 and the attempts of the Catholic Church to force the Orthodox Church to recognize it introduced a certain complexity into the affairs of the church.

First conflicts

For the first time, the Grand Duke came into conflict with the church authorities in 1478, when the abbot of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery Nifont decided to transfer from the Rostov Bishop Vassian to direct subordination to the appanage prince Mikhail of Vereisky. At the same time, Metropolitan Gerontius supported the rector, and the Grand Duke supported Bishop Vassian; Under pressure, the Metropolitan yielded. In the same year, having conquered Novgorod, the Grand Duke carried out widespread confiscations of the lands of the richest Novgorod diocese. In 1479 the conflict escalated again; The occasion was the procedure for the consecration of the newly built Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin by Metropolitan Gerontius. Until the dispute was resolved, the metropolitan was forbidden to consecrate churches. However, soon the Grand Duke had no time for theological subtleties: in 1480, Khan of the Great Horde Akhmat moved to Rus', Ivan III was busy defending the country, and the dispute had to be postponed until 1482. By this time, the issue had become very acute also because, due to the Grand Duke’s ban, many newly built churches remained unconsecrated. Having lost patience, the Metropolitan, leaving the department, left for the Simonov Monastery, and only a trip to him by Ivan III himself with an apology made it possible to temporarily quell the conflict.

The years 1483-1484 were marked by a new attempt by the Grand Duke to subjugate the obstinate Gerontius. In November 1483, the Metropolitan, citing illness, again left for the Simonov Monastery. However, this time Ivan III did not go to Gerontius, but tried to displace him by forcefully detaining him at the monastery. Only a few months later the Metropolitan returned to the throne.

Meanwhile, two movements arose in the Russian church and became somewhat widespread, with different attitudes to the issue of church property. The followers of Nil Sorsky, who received the name “non-covetous,” advocated the church’s voluntary renunciation of wealth and a transition to a poorer and ascetic life. Their opponents, who received the name “Josephites” (“Osiphites”, named after Joseph Volotsky), on the contrary, defended the church’s right to wealth (in particular, to land). At the same time, the Josephites advocated compliance with the monastic rules, poverty and hard work of each individual monk.

The heresy of the “Judaizers” and the council of 1490

In 1484, Ivan III appointed his longtime supporter Gennady Gonzov as bishop of Novgorod. Soon the newly appointed bishop sounded the alarm: in his opinion, a heresy had appeared and spread widely in Novgorod (referred to in historical literature as the “heresy of the Judaizers”). Gennady began an active struggle against it, even drawing on the experience of the Catholic Inquisition, but here he came across unforeseen circumstances: some of the alleged heretics enjoyed the patronage of the Grand Duke. Thus, in particular, Fyodor Kuritsyn had considerable influence on government affairs; the places of priests in the Assumption and Archangel Cathedrals were occupied by two more heretics - Denis and Alexey; The wife of the heir to the throne, Ivan Ivanovich, Elena Voloshanka, was associated with heretics. Gennady’s attempts, based on the testimony of heretics arrested in Novgorod, to achieve the arrest of Moscow supporters of heresy did not yield results; Ivan III was not inclined to attach much importance to the case of heresy. Nevertheless, Gennady managed to attract a number of church hierarchs to his side; among others, he was actively supported by Joseph Volotsky.

In May 1489, Metropolitan Geronty died. Archbishop Gennady became the senior hierarch of the church, which immediately strengthened the position of supporters of the eradication of heresy. In addition, on March 7, 1490, the heir to the throne, Prince Ivan Ivanovich, died, whose wife was the patroness of heretics, Elena Stefanovna, as a result of which the influence of adherents of the zealot of Orthodoxy Sophia Paleologue and Prince Vasily grew. However, on September 26, 1490, the enemy of Archbishop Gennady, Zosima, became the new metropolitan (Joseph of Volotsky, without shying away from strong expressions, reproached Zosima for heresy), and on October 17, a church council was convened.

The result of the council was the condemnation of heresy. A number of prominent heretics were arrested; some were imprisoned (they were kept in very harsh conditions, which became fatal for many), some were extradited to Gennady, and demonstrably transported around Novgorod. One of the Novgorod chronicles also mentions more brutal reprisals: the burning of heretics “on the Dukhovskoe field.” At the same time, some supporters of the heresy were not arrested: for example, Fyodor Kuritsyn was not punished.

Discussion about church property and the final defeat of heresy

The Council of 1490 did not lead to the complete destruction of the heresy, but it seriously weakened the position of its supporters. In subsequent years, opponents of heretics carried out significant educational work: thus, between 1492 and 1504, “The Tale of the Newly Appeared Heresy of the Novgorod Heretics” by Joseph Volotsky was completed. To a certain extent, this revival of church thought was associated with the advent of the year 7000 “from the creation of the world” (1492 from the Nativity of Christ) and the widespread expectation of the end of the world. It is known that such sentiments caused ridicule from supporters of heresy, which in turn led to the appearance of explanatory writings by church leaders. Thus, Metropolitan Zosima wrote “Exposition of Paschal” with calculations of church holidays for 20 years in advance. Another type of such work was the translation into Russian of a number of Catholic anti-Jewish treatises by clerk Dmitry Gerasimov. In addition to anti-heretical ideas, in particular, thoughts about the inadmissibility of confiscation of church lands became widely known: thus, around 1497 in Novgorod, on behalf of Archbishop Gennady, the Catholic Dominican monk Benjamin compiled a treatise on this topic. It should be noted that the appearance of such a work in Novgorod was dictated primarily by the Novgorod reality - the confiscations of archbishop's lands by the Grand Duke.

In August and early September 1503, a new church council was convened. During its course, important decisions were made that significantly changed everyday church practice: in particular, fees for appointment to church positions were completely abolished. This decision apparently found support among non-possessors. In addition, this practice has been repeatedly criticized by heretics. However, a number of measures were also adopted, proposed and actively supported by the Josephites. After signing the conciliar verdict (Ivan III sealed it with his own seal, which emphasized the importance of innovations), the cathedral moved towards its logical conclusion; Joseph Volotsky even managed to leave the capital, called by urgent matters. However, unexpectedly, Nil of Sorsky brought up for discussion the question of whether it was worthy for monasteries to own estates. During the heated discussion, the non-possessors and Josephites failed to come to a consensus. Ultimately, the attempt of the non-covetous people to convince the church hierarchs that they were right failed, despite the Grand Duke’s obvious sympathy for the idea of ​​​​secularization of the lands.

The Council of 1503, occupied primarily with internal church problems, did not finally resolve the issue of heresy; at the same time, by this time the position of heretics in the princely court was more precarious than ever. After the arrest of their patroness Elena Voloshanka in 1502 and the proclamation of Vasily Ivanovich, the son of the champion of Orthodoxy Sophia Paleologus, as heir, supporters of the heresy largely lost influence at court. Moreover, Ivan himself finally listened to the opinion of the clergy; Joseph Volotsky, in a message to the confessor of Ivan III that has reached us, even mentions the repentance of the Grand Duke and the promise to punish heretics. In 1504, a new church council was convened in Moscow, condemning prominent figures of heresy to death. On December 27, 1504, the main heretics were burned in Moscow; executions also took place in Novgorod. Such a brutal massacre caused a mixed reaction, including among the clergy; Joseph Volotsky was forced to issue a special message emphasizing the legality of the executions that took place.

Family and the question of succession

The first wife of Grand Duke Ivan was Maria Borisovna, the daughter of Tver Prince Boris Alexandrovich. On February 15, 1458, a son, Ivan, was born into the family of the Grand Duke. The Grand Duchess, who had a meek character, died on April 22, 1467, before reaching the age of thirty. According to rumors that appeared in the capital, Maria Borisovna was poisoned; clerk Alexey Poluektov, whose wife Natalya, again according to rumors, was somehow involved in the poisoning story and turned to fortune tellers, fell into disgrace. The Grand Duchess was buried in the Kremlin, in the Ascension Convent. Ivan, who was in Kolomna at that time, did not come to his wife’s funeral.

Two years after the death of his first wife, the Grand Duke decided to marry again. After a conference with his mother, as well as with the boyars and the Metropolitan, he decided to agree to the proposal recently received from the Pope to marry the Byzantine princess Sophia (Zoe), the niece of the last emperor of Byzantium, Constantine XI, who died in 1453 during the capture of Constantinople by the Turks . Sophia's father, Thomas Palaiologos, the last ruler of the Despotate of Morea, fled from the advancing Turks to Italy with his family; his children enjoyed papal patronage. The negotiations, which lasted for three years, ultimately ended with the arrival of Sophia. On November 12, 1472, the Grand Duke married her in the Kremlin Assumption Cathedral. It is worth noting that the attempts of the papal court to influence Ivan through Sophia and convince him of the need to recognize the union completely failed.

Fight of the heirs

Over time, the Grand Duke's second marriage became one of the sources of tension at court. Soon enough, two groups of the court nobility emerged, one of which supported the heir to the throne, Ivan Ivanovich the Young, and the second, the new Grand Duchess Sophia Paleologue. In 1476, the Venetian A. Contarini noted that the heir “is in disgrace with his father, since he behaves badly with his despina” (Sophia), however, already from 1477, Ivan Ivanovich was mentioned as his father’s co-ruler; in 1480 he played an important role during the clash with the Horde and the “standing on the Ugra”. In subsequent years, the grand ducal family grew significantly: Sophia gave birth to the grand duke a total of nine children - five sons and four daughters.
Meanwhile, in January 1483, the heir to the throne, Ivan Ivanovich the Young, also married. His wife was the daughter of the ruler of Moldavia, Stephen the Great, Elena. On October 10, 1483, their son Dmitry was born. After the annexation of Tver in 1485, Ivan the Young was appointed Prince of Tver by his father; in one of the sources of this period, Ivan III and Ivan the Young are called “autocrats of the Russian land.” Thus, throughout the 1480s, Ivan Ivanovich’s position as the legal heir was quite strong. The position of the supporters of Sophia Paleologus was much less favorable. Thus, in particular, the Grand Duchess failed to obtain government positions for her relatives; her brother Andrei left Moscow with nothing, and her niece Maria, the wife of Prince Vasily Vereisky (heir to the Vereisko-Belozersky principality), was forced to flee to Lithuania with her husband, which also affected Sophia’s position.

However, by 1490 new circumstances came into play. The son of the Grand Duke, heir to the throne, Ivan Ivanovich, fell ill with “kamchyuga in the legs” (gout). Sophia ordered a doctor from Venice - “Mistro Leon”, who arrogantly promised Ivan III to cure the heir to the throne; however, all the doctor’s efforts were powerless, and on March 7, 1490, Ivan the Young died. The doctor was executed, and rumors spread throughout Moscow about the poisoning of the heir; a hundred years later, these rumors, now as undeniable facts, were recorded by Andrei Kurbsky. Modern historians regard the hypothesis of the poisoning of Ivan the Young as unverifiable due to a lack of sources.

The conspiracy of Vladimir Gusev and the coronation of Dmitry the grandson

After the death of Ivan the Young, his son, grandson of Ivan III, Dmitry, became the heir to the throne. Over the next few years, the struggle continued between his supporters and the adherents of Vasily Ivanovich; by 1497 this struggle had seriously intensified. This aggravation was facilitated by the decision of the Grand Duke to crown his grandson, giving him the title of Grand Duke and thus resolving the issue of succession to the throne. Of course, Vasily’s supporters were categorically not satisfied with the actions of Ivan III. In December 1497, a serious conspiracy was uncovered, which aimed at the rebellion of Prince Vasily against his father. In addition to the “departure” of Vasily and the reprisal against Dmitry, the conspirators also intended to seize the grand ducal treasury (located on Beloozero). It is worth noting that the conspiracy did not find support among the highest boyars; The conspirators, although they came from quite noble families, nevertheless were not part of the Grand Duke’s inner circle. The result of the conspiracy was the disgrace of Sophia, who, as the investigation found out, was visited by witches and sorcerers; Prince Vasily was placed under house arrest. The main conspirators from among the boyar children (Afanasy Eropkin, Shchavei Scriabin, Vladimir Gusev), as well as the “dashing women” associated with Sophia, were executed, and some conspirators went to prison.

On February 4, 1498, the coronation of Prince Dmitry took place in the Assumption Cathedral in an atmosphere of great pomp. In the presence of the metropolitan and the highest hierarchs of the church, boyars and members of the grand ducal family (with the exception of Sophia and Vasily Ivanovich, who were not invited to the ceremony), Ivan III “blessed and granted” his grandson the great reign. The barmas and Monomakh's Cap were placed on Dmitry, and after the coronation a “great feast” was given in his honor. Already in the second half of 1498, the new title of Dmitry (“Grand Duke”) was used in official documents. The coronation of Dmitry the grandson left a noticeable mark on the ceremony of the Moscow court (for example, the “Rite of the Wedding of Dmitry the Grandson,” which describes the ceremony, influenced the wedding rite developed in 1547 for the coronation of Ivan IV), and was also reflected in a number of extra-chronicle monuments (primarily in “The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir,” which ideologically substantiated the rights of Moscow sovereigns to Russian lands).

Transfer of power to Vasily Ivanovich

The coronation of Dmitry the grandson did not bring him victory in the battle for power, although it strengthened his position. However, the struggle between the parties of the two heirs continued; Dmitry received neither inheritance nor real power. Meanwhile, the internal political situation in the country worsened: in January 1499, by order of Ivan III, a number of boyars were arrested and sentenced to death - Prince Ivan Yuryevich Patrikeev, his children, Princes Vasily and Ivan, and his son-in-law, Prince Semyon Ryapolovsky. All of the above were part of the boyar elite; I. Yu. Patrikeev was a cousin of the Grand Duke, held the rank of boyar for 40 years and at the time of his arrest headed the Boyar Duma. The arrest was followed by the execution of Ryapolovsky; The life of the Patrikeevs was saved by the intercession of Metropolitan Simon - Semyon Ivanovich and Vasily were allowed to become monks, and Ivan was put “behind the bailiffs” (under house arrest). A month after this, Prince Vasily Romodanovsky was arrested and executed. The sources do not indicate the reasons for the disgrace of the boyars; It is also not entirely clear whether it was connected with any disagreements on foreign or domestic policy, or with the dynastic struggle in the grand ducal family; in historiography there are also very different opinions on this matter.

By 1499, Vasily Ivanovich apparently managed to partially regain his father’s trust: at the beginning of this year, Ivan III announced to the Pskov mayors that “I, Grand Duke Ivan, granted my son Grand Duke Vasily, gave him Novgorod and Pskov.” However, these actions did not find understanding among the Pskov residents; the conflict was resolved only by September.

In 1500, another Russian-Lithuanian war began. On July 14, 1500, at Vedrosha, Russian troops inflicted a serious defeat on the forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It is to this period that the chronicle news of Vasily Ivanovich’s departure to Vyazma and about serious changes in the Grand Duke’s attitude towards his heirs dates back. There is no consensus in historiography on how to interpret this message; In particular, assumptions are made about Vasily’s “departure” from his father and the Lithuanians’ attempt to capture him, as well as opinions about Vasily’s readiness to go over to the side of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In any case, 1500 was a period of growing influence for Basil; in September he was already called the Grand Duke of “All Rus'”, and by March 1501 the leadership of the court on Beloozero passed to him.

Finally, on April 11, 1502, the dynastic battle came to its logical conclusion. According to the chronicle, Ivan III “put disgrace on his grandson, Grand Duke Dmitry, and on his mother, Grand Duchess Elena, and from that day on he did not order them to be remembered in litanies and litias, or named Grand Duke, and put them behind bailiffs.” A few days later, Vasily Ivanovich was granted a great reign; Soon Dmitry the grandson and his mother Elena Voloshanka were transferred from house arrest to captivity. Thus, the struggle within the grand ducal family ended with the victory of Prince Vasily; he turned into a co-ruler of his father and the legal heir of a huge power. The fall of Dmitry the grandson and his mother also predetermined the fate of the Moscow-Novgorod heresy: the Church Council of 1503 finally defeated it; a number of heretics were executed. As for the fate of those who lost the dynastic struggle themselves, it was sad: on January 18, 1505, Elena Stefanovna died in captivity, and in 1509, “in need, in prison,” Dmitry himself died. “Some believe that he died from hunger and cold, others that he suffocated from smoke,” Herberstein reported about his death.

Death of the Grand Duke

In the summer of 1503, Ivan III became seriously ill. Shortly before this (April 7, 1503), his wife, Sophia Paleologus, died. Leaving his affairs, the Grand Duke went on a trip to the monasteries, starting with the Trinity-Sergius. However, his condition continued to deteriorate: he became blind in one eye; partial paralysis of one arm and one leg occurred. On October 27, 1505, Grand Duke Ivan III died. According to V.N. Tatishchev (however, it is unclear how reliable), the Grand Duke, having called his confessor and metropolitan to his bed before his death, nevertheless refused to take monastic vows. As the chronicle noted, “the sovereign of all Russia was in the state of the Grand Duchess... 43 years and 7 months, and all the years of his life were 65 and 9 months.” After the death of Ivan III, a traditional amnesty was carried out. The Grand Duke was buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.

According to the spiritual charter, the grand-ducal throne passed to Vasily Ivanovich, the other sons of Ivan received appanage cities. However, although the appanage system was actually restored, it was significantly different from the previous period: the new Grand Duke received much more lands, rights and benefits than his brothers; The contrast with what Ivan himself received at one time is especially noticeable. V. O. Klyuchevsky noted the following advantages of the grand ducal share:

• The Grand Duke now owned the capital alone, giving his brothers 100 rubles from his income (previously, the heirs owned the capital jointly)
• The right of court in Moscow and the Moscow region now belonged only to the Grand Duke (previously, each of the princes had such a right in his part of the villages near Moscow)
• Only the Grand Duke now had the right to mint coins
• Now the possessions of the appanage prince who died childless passed directly to the Grand Duke (previously such lands were divided between the remaining brothers at the discretion of the mother).

Thus, the restored appanage system was noticeably different from the appanage system of previous times: in addition to increasing the grand ducal share during the division of the country (Vasily received more than 60 cities, and his four brothers got no more than 30), the Grand Duke also concentrated political advantages in his hands.

Character and appearance

A description of the appearance of Ivan III made by the Venetian A. Contarini, who visited Moscow in 1476 and was honored with a meeting with the Grand Duke, has reached our time. According to him, Ivan was “tall, but thin; In general he is a very handsome person.” The Kholmogory chronicler mentioned Ivan's nickname - Humpbacked, which perhaps indicates that Ivan was stooped - and this, in principle, is all that we know about the appearance of the Grand Duke. One nickname given by contemporaries - "The Great" - is currently used most often. In addition to these two nicknames, two more nicknames of the Grand Duke have reached us: “Terrible” and “Justice”.
Little is known about the character and habits of Ivan Vasilyevich. S. Herberstein, who visited Moscow already under Vasily III, wrote about Ivan: “... For women he was so formidable that if one of them accidentally came across him, then he would not lose his life at his glance.” He did not ignore the traditional vice of Russian princes - drunkenness: “during dinner, he mostly indulged in intoxication to such an extent that he was overcome by sleep, and all those invited were meanwhile struck with fear and silent; upon waking up, he usually rubbed his eyes and then only began to joke and show cheerfulness towards the guests.” The author of one Lithuanian chronicle wrote about Ivan that he was “a man of a brave heart and a valenka” - which was probably some exaggeration, since the Grand Duke himself preferred not to go on campaigns himself, but to send his commanders. S. Herberstein wrote on the same occasion that “the great Stefan, the famous palatine of Moldavia, often remembered him at feasts, saying that he, sitting at home and indulging in sleep, multiplies his power, and he himself, fighting every day, is barely able protect the borders."

It is known that Ivan III listened very closely to the advice of the boyar Duma; nobleman I. N. Bersen-Beklemishev (executed under Vasily III) wrote that the Grand Duke “loved and favored those who spoke against him.” Andrei Kurbsky also noted the monarch’s love for boyar councils; however, judging by the words of Kurbsky’s opponent by correspondence, Ivan IV, Ivan III’s relationship with the boyars was by no means idyllic.

The characterization of Ivan’s religious views also faces a lack of data. It is known that for a long time his support was enjoyed by freethinking heretics: two Novgorod heretics (Denis and Alexei) were appointed to the Kremlin cathedrals; Fyodor Kuritsyn enjoyed considerable influence at court; in 1490 Zosima, whom some church leaders considered a supporter of heresy, was elected metropolitan. Judging by one of Joseph Volotsky's letters, Ivan knew about the connections of his daughter-in-law, Elena Voloshanka, with heretics.

Results of the board

The main result of the reign of Ivan III was the unification of most of the Russian lands around Moscow. Russia included: the Novgorod land, the Tver principality, which had long been a rival of the Moscow state, as well as the Yaroslavl, Rostov, and partially Ryazan principalities. Only the Pskov and Ryazan principalities remained independent, however, they were not completely independent. After successful wars with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Novgorod-Seversky, Chernigov, Bryansk and a number of other cities (which before the war made up about a third of the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) became part of the Moscow state; dying, Ivan III transferred to his successor several times more lands than he himself accepted. In addition, it was under Grand Duke Ivan III that the Russian state became completely independent: as a result of the “standing on the Ugra”, the power of the Horde Khan over Russia, which had lasted since 1243, completely ceased. Russia is turning into a strong state, capable of pursuing an independent policy in its own interests.

The years of Ivan III's reign were also marked by successes in domestic politics. In the course of the reforms carried out, a set of laws of the country was adopted - the Code of Laws of 1497. At the same time, the foundations of the command system of management were laid, and the local system also appeared. The centralization of the country and the elimination of fragmentation were continued; The government waged a fairly tough fight against the separatism of the appanage princes. The era of the reign of Ivan III became a time of cultural upsurge. The construction of new buildings (in particular, the Moscow Assumption Cathedral), the flourishing of chronicle writing, the emergence of new ideas - all this testifies to significant successes in the field of culture.

In general, we can say that the reign of Ivan III Vasilyevich was extremely successful, and the nickname of the Grand Duke, “Great”, widespread in science and journalism, best characterizes the scale of the actions of this extraordinary political figure in the era of the formation of a unified Russian state.

On January 22, 1440, a son was born to Grand Duke Vasily II and his wife Maria Yaroslavna in Moscow. The future heir to the throne was named Ivan in honor of St. John Chrysostom. The boy's happy and carefree childhood was overshadowed by an event that occurred in 1445 near Suzdal. The army of Vasily II was defeated by the Tatars. The prince was captured. Residents of Moscow, led by temporary ruler Dmitry Yuryevich Shemyaka, were in despair at the thought that the enemy could attack their city. But soon Vasily II returns from captivity. For this, Muscovites had to transfer an amount beyond their means to the Horde. The discontent of the people was to the advantage of Shemyaka and his supporters. They organized a conspiracy against the Grand Duke.

On the way to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Vasily II was captured and blinded. It was after this that they began to call him the Dark One. Fearing reprisals, Ivan and his younger brothers and boyars loyal to their father hid in Murom. Shemyaka lured Ivan to Uglich by cunning, where his father was imprisoned. But, for some unknown reason, Prince Vasily and his son were released. Once free, they, with the Tver prince Boris and a large army, appeared in Moscow. Shemyaka's power fell. In 1452, Ivan led the army sent by his father to capture the Kokshengu fortress. Upon returning to Moscow, Ivan was married to Princess Maria, daughter of Boris Tverskoy. Ivan's second wife was Sofia Paleolog. Dmitry Shemyaka was poisoned. His claims to the throne and bloody internecine wars are a thing of the past. In 1460, after the death of Vasily II, the throne passed to Ivan III.

He went down in history as Ivan the Great. First of all, the new sovereign worked to strengthen and expand the principality that belonged to him. The Moscow principality now included Yaroslavl, Rostov, Dmitrov, Novgorod. Historians call this process “gathering Russian land.” The famous stand on Uglich ended the period of the Tatar-Mongol yoke. During the last months of his life, Ivan III visited holy places. He died on October 22, 1505. He was buried in the Archangel Cathedral on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin.

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Biography of Ivan III

The future Ivan the Great, born January 22, 1440. Father was Vasily II, mother Maria Yaroslavna. Early childhood was quite standard for grand ducal children, upbringing at court.

Ivan's late childhood was beset by many great misfortunes. Father, as a result of the defeat at Suzdal, was captured by the Tatars. Rus' was threatened by a Tatar raid. A major fire occurred in Moscow. With the return of his father, the internal political situation became even more complicated. While Vasily was in captivity, the eldest of Kalita’s descendants, Dmitry Shemyaka, was in power. However, upon his return, Vasily brought with him a great debt. Shemyaka was forced to leave Moscow. Troubles were brewing in the capital, and as soon as the sovereign left the city, a riot broke out. Dmitry Shemyaka and his supporters captured Vasily and transported him to Moscow. There the Grand Duke forcibly lost his sight, because, according to the rebels, he fraternized with the Tatars and distributed lands to them. After being blinded, the Grand Duke was sent to prison in Uglich, where Shemyaka himself had previously been imprisoned.

Ivan was able to be rescued and transported to a city loyal to his father. However, having succumbed to the promises of the rebel Shemyaki, they returned to Moscow. The promises were false and the son, with other children, was exiled to his father. Some time later, Dmitry nevertheless decided to fulfill his promise, and allocated an entire inheritance for Vasily - Vologda. But the former Grand Duke did not accept defeat, and the internecine war flared up with renewed vigor.

Ivan grew up and became a full-fledged participant in the internal war. It was only after about twenty-five years that the war finally subsided. By this time, Ivan was already married to Maria Borisovna, the daughter of the Tver prince. Their engagement was a consequence of the conclusion of an alliance between Grand Duke Vasily II and Prince of Tver Boris.

The war was over and a measured life awaited the prince, burdened with princely responsibilities. So, being an appanage prince, Ivan pays much more attention to military campaigns. Over the course of 5 years, he took part in several major campaigns against the Tatars. If in the first battles he was only nominally the commander, and the army was led by experienced commanders, then later, having gained experience, he actually commands. After his father's death, he generously divided the lands between his brothers according to his father's will. Ivan himself was appointed heir and ascended the throne on March 27, 1462. The transfer of the title took place without any problems, because the new sovereign was not greedy for power.

Having risen to power, Ivan first of all shows that the agreements concluded by his father will continue to be valid, and thus everyone wins. Next, the Grand Duke sets a course for the unification of Russian lands. Without any problems, we managed to annex the principalities: Yaroslavl, Dmitrov, Rostov. The Novgorod lands were next in line, however, to annex them it was necessary to equip an army. The campaign turned out to be successful, and Novgorod independence was lost.

One of the main merits of Ivan the Great was the liberation of Rus' from the long-term Tatar yoke. The Golden Horde was fragmented into new khanates and, in fact, no longer represented a single state. Thanks to this, as well as the unification of the Russian state, Ivan was able to enter into open confrontation with the Horde. Standing on the Ugra River confirmed that from now on Rus' is independent and free.

Next, Ivan had to face a new threat. Relations with the neighboring Grand Duchy of Lithuania gradually deteriorated. Having reached a critical point, they escalated into open war. 7 years later, a peace treaty was concluded, according to which most of the lands captured during the conflict were part of the Russian state.

An important achievement of Ivan III’s foreign policy is also the conclusion of an alliance with the Crimean Khanate. Rus' acquired a valuable ally, albeit not for long.

In general, Ivan's foreign policy greatly strengthened Rus'.

On October 27, 1505, Ivan III died due to illness. By this time, he had been married twice, his second wife was Sophia Paleologue, and managed to have nine children.

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