Chronology of events. Time of Troubles: chronology of events Oprichnina period 1565 1572

Oprichnina

Territories included in the oprichnina

Oprichnina- a period in the history of Russia (from 1572), marked by state terror and a system of emergency measures. Also "oprichnina" was called a part of the territory of the state, with special management, allocated for the maintenance of the royal court and oprichniki ("The Tsar's oprichnina"). The oprichnik is a person who is in the ranks of the oprichnina army, that is, the guard created by Ivan the Terrible as part of his political reform in 1565. Oprichnik is a later term. At the time of Ivan the Terrible, the guardsmen were called "the sovereign's people."

The word "oprichnina" comes from the Old Russian "Oprich" which means "special", "except"... The essence of the Russian Oprichnina is in the allocation of part of the land in the kingdom exclusively for the needs of the royal court, its servants - the nobles and the army. Initially, the number of guardsmen - "thousand oprichnina" - was one thousand boyars. The oprichnina in the Moscow principality was also called an inheritance allocated to a widow when dividing her husband's property.

Background

In 1563, one of the voivods who commanded the Russian troops in Livonia, Prince Kurbsky, betrayed the tsar, who betrays the tsar's agents in Livonia and participates in the offensive operations of the Poles and Lithuanians, including the Polish-Lithuanian campaign against Velikiye Luki.

The betrayal of Kurbsky strengthens Ivan Vasilyevich in the idea that a terrible boyar conspiracy exists against him, the Russian autocrat, the boyars not only want to end the war, but also plot to kill him and put on the throne his obedient cousin Ivan the Terrible. And that the Metropolitan and the Boyar Duma intercede for the disgraced and prevent him, the Russian autocrat, from punishing the traitors, therefore extraordinary measures are required.

The external distinction of the guardsmen was a dog's head and a broom attached to the saddle, as a sign that they gnaw and sweep the traitors to the king. The tsar turned a blind eye to all the actions of the guardsmen; in a collision with a zemstvo man, the oprichnik always came out right. The guardsmen soon became a scourge and an object of hatred for the boyars; all the bloody deeds of the second half of the reign of Grozny were committed with the indispensable and direct participation of the guardsmen.

Soon the tsar with the guardsmen left for the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, from which he made a fortified city. There he started something like a monastery, recruited 300 brethren from the guardsmen, called himself hegumen, Prince Vyazemsky - a cellar, Malyuta Skuratov - a paraklisiarch, together with him went to the bell tower to ring, zealously attended services, prayed and at the same time feasted, entertained himself with torture and executions; raided Moscow and the tsar did not encounter opposition in anyone: Metropolitan Athanasius was too weak for this and, after spending two years in the pulpit, retired, and his successor Philip, a courageous man, on the contrary, began to publicly denounce the iniquities perpetrated by order Tsar, and was not afraid to speak against Ivan, even when he was extremely furious at his words. After the Metropolitan demonstratively refused to give Ivan his Metropolitan blessing in the Assumption Cathedral, which could have caused mass disobedience to the Tsar as a Tsar - a servant of the Antichrist, the Metropolitan with extreme haste was removed from the pulpit and (presumably) was killed during the campaign against Novgorod (Philip died after personal conversation with the emissary of the king Malyuta Skuratov, rumored to be strangled with a pillow). The Kolychev family, to which Philip belonged, was persecuted; some of its members were executed by order of John. In 1569, the tsar's cousin, Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, also died (presumably, according to rumors, by order of the tsar, they brought him a cup with poisoned wine and an order that Vladimir Andreevich himself, his wife and their eldest daughter drank the wine). A little later, the mother of Vladimir Andreevich, Efrosinya Staritskaya, who had repeatedly stood at the head of boyar conspiracies against John IV and was repeatedly pardoned by him, was also killed.

John the Terrible in Al. settlement

Campaign against Novgorod

Main article: Hike of the oprichnina troops to Novgorod

In December 1569, suspecting the Novgorod nobility of complicity in the "conspiracy" of Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, who had recently committed suicide on his order, and at the same time intending to be handed over to the Polish king, Ivan, accompanied by a large army of guardsmen, marched against Novgorod.

Despite the Novgorod chronicles, the "Synodic of Disgraced", compiled around 1583, with reference to the report ("tale") of Malyuta Skuratov, speaks of 1505 executed under the control of Skuratov, of which 1490 were chopped off from pishchals. The Soviet historian Ruslan Skrynnikov, adding to this number all the Novgorodians named by name, received an estimate of 2170-2180 executed; stipulating that the reports might not be complete, many acted "regardless of Skuratov's orders," Skrynnikov admits a figure of three to four thousand people. V. B. Kobrin considers this figure to be extremely underestimated, noting that it is based on the premise that Skuratov was the only or at least the main manager of the murders. In addition, it should be noted that the result of the destruction of food supplies by the guardsmen was a famine (so cannibalism is mentioned), accompanied by a raging plague epidemic at that time. According to the Novgorod chronicle, 10 thousand people were found in the common grave opened in September 1570, where the emerging victims of Ivan the Terrible were buried, as well as those who died from the ensuing hunger and disease. Kobrin doubts that this was the only place where the victims were buried, however, he considers the figure of 10-15 thousand to be the closest to the truth, although the total population of Novgorod then did not exceed 30 thousand. However, the killings were not limited to the city itself.

From Novgorod Grozny went to Pskov. Initially, he was preparing the same fate, but the tsar limited himself only to the execution of several Pskovites and the confiscation of their property. At the time, as the popular legend says, Grozny was staying with one of the Pskov holy fools (a certain Nikola Salos). When it was time for dinner, Nikola handed Grozny a piece of raw meat with the words: "Oh, eat it, you eat human flesh," and after that he threatened Ivan with many troubles if he did not spare the inhabitants. Grozny, disobeying, ordered to remove the bells from one Pskov monastery. At the same hour, his best horse fell under the king, which made an impression on John. The tsar hastily left Pskov and returned to Moscow, where searches and executions began again: they were looking for accomplices in the Novgorod treason.

Moscow executions in 1571

“Moscow torture chamber. End of the 16th century (Konstantino-Eleninsky gate of the Moscow torture chamber at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries) ", 1912

Now the people closest to the tsar, the leaders of the oprichnina, fell under the repressions. The Tsar's favorites were accused of treason, the Basmanov oprichniks - father and son, Prince Afanasy Vyazemsky, as well as several prominent leaders of the Zemshchyna - printer Ivan Viskovaty, Treasurer Funikov, etc. Together with them, at the end of July 1570, up to 200 people were executed in Moscow : the Duma clerk read the names of the convicts, the executioners-oprichniks stabbed, chopped, hanged, poured boiling water over the convicts. As they said, the tsar personally took part in the executions, and crowds of guardsmen stood around and greeted the executions with shouts of "goyda, goyda." The wives, children of the executed, even their household members were persecuted; their estate was taken over by the sovereign. Executions were resumed more than once, and subsequently perished: Prince Pyotr Serebryany, Duma clerk Zakhary Ochin-Pleshcheev, Ivan Vorontsov, etc. Boyarin Kozarinov-Golokhvatov, who accepted the schema in order to avoid execution, he ordered to blow up on a barrel of gunpowder, on the grounds that the schemas are angels, and therefore must fly to heaven. The Moscow executions of 1571 were the apogee of the terrible oprichnina terror.

The end of the oprichnina

According to R. Skrynnikov, who analyzed the memorial lists ( synodics), about 4.5 thousand people, however, other historians, such as V. B. Kobrin, consider this figure to be extremely underestimated.

The immediate result of desolation was "glory and pestilence", since the defeat undermined the foundations of the shaky economy of even the survivors, depriving it of resources. The flight of the peasants, in turn, led to the need to forcibly keep them in place - hence the introduction of the "reserved years", which gradually grew into the establishment of serfdom. In terms of ideology, the oprichnina led to a decline in the moral authority and legitimacy of the tsarist government; from a protector and legislator, the tsar and the state he personifies turned into a robber and rapist. The system of state administration that had been built for decades was replaced by a primitive military dictatorship. The trampling by Ivan the Terrible of Orthodox norms and values and repression against young people deprived the self-adopted dogma "Moscow is the third Rome" of meaning and led to a weakening of moral guidelines in society. According to a number of historians, the events associated with the oprichnina were the direct cause of the systemic socio-political crisis that gripped Russia 20 years after the death of Grozny and known as the Time of Troubles.

The oprichnina showed its complete military ineffectiveness, manifested during the invasion of Devlet-Girey and recognized by the king himself.

The oprichnina approved the unlimited power of the tsar - autocracy. In the 17th century, the monarchy in Russia became in fact dualistic, but under Peter I, absolutism in Russia was restored; this consequence of the oprichnina, thus, turned out to be the most long-term.

Historical assessment

Historical assessments of the oprichnina can radically differ depending on the era, the scientific school to which the historian belongs, etc. as an action to combat “treason”, and unofficial, which saw in it a senseless and difficult to understand excesses of the “formidable king”.

Pre-revolutionary concepts

According to most pre-revolutionary historians, the oprichnina was a manifestation of the tsar's morbid insanity and his tyrannical inclinations. In the historiography of the XIX century, this point of view was adhered to by N. M. Karamzin, N. I. Kostomarov, D. I. Ilovaisky, who denied any political and generally rational meaning in the oprichnina.

VO Klyuchevsky looked at the oprichnina in a similar way, considering it the result of the tsar's struggle with the boyars — a struggle that “had not a political, but a dynastic origin”; neither the one nor the other side knew how to get along with one another and how to do without each other. They tried to separate, live side by side, but not together. An attempt to arrange such a political cohabitation was the division of the state into oprichnina and zemstvo.

E. A. Belov, being an apologist for Grozny in his monograph “On the Historical Significance of the Russian Boyars Until the End of the 17th Century,” finds a deep state meaning in the oprichnina. In particular, the oprichnina contributed to the destruction of the privileges of the feudal nobility, which hindered the objective tendencies of centralization of the state.

At the same time, the first attempts are being made to find the social, and then the socio-economic background of the oprichnina, which became mainstream in the 20th century. According to KD Kavelin: "Oprichnina was the first attempt to create a service nobility and replace it with the clan nobility, in the place of the clan, the blood principle, to put the beginning of personal dignity in state administration."

In his „ Full course lectures on Russian history “prof. S.F. Platonov presents the following view of the oprichnina:

In the establishment of the oprichnina, there was no "removal of the head of state from the state", as S. M. Solovyov put it; on the contrary, the oprichnina took the entire state in its root part into its own hands, leaving the borders to the "zemstvo" administration, and even strove for state reforms, for it introduced significant changes in the composition of service land tenure. Destroying his aristocratic system, the oprichnina was directed, in essence, against those sides of the state order that tolerated and supported such a system. It acted not “against persons,” as V. O. Klyuchevsky says, but against order, and therefore was much more an instrument of state reform than a simple police means of suppressing and preventing state crimes.

S.F. Platonov sees the main essence of the oprichnina in the energetic mobilization of land tenure, in which land tenure, thanks to the massive withdrawal of former patrimonials from the lands taken into the oprichnina, was torn away from the previous feudal-patrimonial order and was associated with compulsory military service.

Since the end of the 1930s, the point of view of the progressive nature of the oprichnina prevailed in Soviet historiography, which, according to this concept, was directed against the remnants of fragmentation and the influence of the boyars, which was considered a reactionary force, and reflected the interests of the serving nobility, who supported centralization, which, in ultimately, it was identified with national interests. The origins of the oprichnina were seen, on the one hand, in the struggle of large patrimonial and small local landownership, on the other hand, in the struggle of the progressive central government and the reactionary princely-boyar opposition. This concept went back to pre-revolutionary historians and, above all, to S.F. Platonov, and at the same time it was implanted in an administrative way. The installation point of view was expressed by JV Stalin at a meeting with filmmakers about the second episode of Eisenstein's film "Ivan the Terrible" (as you know, prohibited):

(Eisenstein) portrayed the guardsmen as the last bastards, degenerates, something like the American Ku Klux Klan ... The troops of the oprichnina were progressive troops that Ivan the Terrible relied on to gather Russia into one centralized state against the feudal princes who wanted to split and weaken his. He has an old attitude to the oprichnina. The attitude of the old historians to the oprichnina was grossly negative, because they regarded the repressions of Grozny as repressions of Nicholas II and were completely distracted from the historical situation in which this took place. In our time, a different look at this "

In 1946, the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was issued, which spoke of the "progressive army of guardsmen." Progressive significance in the then historiography of the Oprichnaya army consisted in the fact that its formation was a necessary stage in the struggle to strengthen the centralized state and was a struggle of the central government, relying on the serving nobility, against the feudal aristocracy and appanage survivals, making it impossible even to partially return to it - and thereby ensure the military defense of the country. ...

A detailed assessment of the oprichnina is given in the monograph by A. A. Zimin "Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible" (1964), which contains the following assessment of the phenomenon:

The oprichnina was a weapon in the defeat of the reactionary feudal nobility, but at the same time the introduction of the oprichnina was accompanied by an intensified seizure of the peasant "black" lands. The oprichnina order was a new step towards strengthening feudal ownership of land and enslaving the peasantry. The division of the territory into "oprichnina" and "zemstvo" (...) contributed to the centralization of the state, for this division was directed against the boyar aristocracy and the appanage-princely opposition. One of the tasks of the oprichnina was to strengthen the defense capability, therefore, the lands of those nobles who did not serve military service from their estates were selected for the oprichnina. The government of Ivan IV carried out a personal review of the feudal lords. The whole of 1565 was filled with measures for sorting out lands, breaking the existing old land tenure.In the interests of wide circles of the nobility, Ivan the Terrible took measures aimed at eliminating the remnants of the former fragmentation and, by bringing order to feudal disorder, to strengthen the centralized monarchy with a strong royal power at the head. Sympathized with the policy of Ivan the Terrible and the townspeople, interested in strengthening the tsarist power, eliminating the remnants of feudal fragmentation and privileges. The struggle of the government of Ivan the Terrible with the aristocracy met with the sympathy of the masses. The reactionary boyars, betraying the national interests of Russia, strove to dismember the state and could lead to the enslavement of the Russian people by foreign invaders. The oprichnina marked a decisive step towards strengthening the centralized apparatus of power, combating the separatist claims of the reactionary boyars, and facilitating the defense of the borders of the Russian state. This was the progressive content of the reforms of the oprichnina period. But the oprichnina was also a means of suppressing the oppressed peasantry, it was carried out by the government due to the strengthening of feudal-serf oppression and was one of the significant factors that caused a further deepening of class contradictions and the development of class struggle in the country. "

At the end of his life, A.A. Zimin revised his views towards a purely negative assessment of the oprichnina, seeing in "The bloody glow of the oprichnina" extreme manifestation of feudal and despotic tendencies as opposed to the pre-bourgeois. These positions were developed by his student V. B. Kobrin and the latter's student A. L. Yurganov. Based on specific studies that began before the war and carried out in particular by S. B. Veselovsky and A. A. Zimin (and continued by V. B. Kobrin), they showed that the theory of the defeat of patrimonial land tenure as a result of the oprichnina is a myth. From this point of view, the difference between patrimonial and local land tenure was not as fundamental as previously thought; the mass withdrawal of estates from the oprichnina lands (in which S.F. Platonov and his followers saw the very essence of the oprichnina), contrary to the declarations, was not carried out; and the reality of estates was lost mainly by the disgraced and their relatives, while the "trustworthy" patrimonials, apparently, were taken to the oprichnina; at the same time, those counties where small and medium landownership prevailed were taken to the oprichnina; in the oprichinina itself there was a large percentage of the clan nobility; Finally, allegations about the personal orientation of the oprichnina against the boyars are also refuted: the victims-boyars are especially noted in the sources because they were the most prominent, but in the end they perished from the oprichnina, first of all, ordinary landowners and commoners: according to S. B. Veselovsky's estimates, on there were three or four ordinary landowners for one boyar or a person from the Tsar's court, and a dozen commoners for one serviceman. In addition, terror fell upon the bureaucracy (clergy), which, according to the old scheme, was supposed to be the mainstay of the central government in the struggle against the "reactionary" boyars and appanage survivals. It is also noted that the resistance of the boyars and the descendants of appanage princes to centralization is generally a purely speculative construction derived from theoretical analogies between the social system of Russia and Western Europe in the era of feudalism and absolutism; the sources do not give any direct grounds for such statements. The postulation of large-scale "boyar conspiracies" in the era of Ivan the Terrible is based on statements emanating from Grozny himself. Ultimately, this school notes that, although the oprichnina objectively solved (albeit by barbaric methods) some urgent tasks, first of all, the strengthening of centralization, the destruction of the remnants of the appanage system and the independence of the church - it was, first of all, an instrument for establishing the personal despotic power of Ivan the Terrible.

According to V.B. Kobrin, the oprichnina objectively strengthened centralization (which “The Chosen Rada tried to do by the method of gradual structural reforms”), did away with the remnants of the appanage system and the independence of the church. At the same time, oprichnina robberies, murders, extortion and other outrages led to the complete ruin of Russia, recorded in the census books and comparable to the consequences of an enemy invasion. The main result of the oprichnina, according to Kobrin, is the assertion of autocracy in extremely despotic forms, and indirectly the assertion of serfdom. Finally, the oprichnina and terror, according to Kobrin, undermined the moral foundations of Russian society, destroyed the self-esteem, independence, responsibility.

Only a comprehensive study of the political development of the Russian state in the second half of the 16th century. will allow to give a substantiated answer to the question about the essence of the repressive regime of the oprichnina from the point of view of the historical fate of the country.

In the person of the first Tsar Ivan the Terrible, the historical process of the formation of the Russian autocracy found a performer who was fully aware of his historical mission. In addition to his journalistic and theoretical speeches, this is clearly evidenced by the precisely calculated and with full success carried out political action of the establishment of the oprichnina.

Alshits D.N. The beginning of autocracy in Russia ...

The most notable event in the assessment of the oprichnina was the artwork of Vladimir Sorokin "The Day of the Oprichnik". It was published in 2006 by the Zakharov publishing house. This is a fantastic dystopia in the form of a one-day novel. Life, customs and technologies of abstract "parallel" Russia in the 21st and 16th centuries are intricately intertwined here. So, the heroes of the novel live in Domostroi, have servants and lackeys, all ranks, titles and crafts correspond to the era of Ivan the Terrible, but they drive cars, shoot beam weapons and communicate using holographic videophones. The main character, Andrey Komyaga, is a high-ranking oprichnik, one of the confidants of "Bati" - the chief oprichnik. Above all is the Tsar-autocrat.

Sorokin portrays the "guardsmen of the future" as unscrupulous marauders and murderers. The only rules in their "brotherhood" are loyalty to the sovereign and to each other. They use drugs, engage in sodomy for reasons of team-building, take bribes, and do not shy away from dishonest rules of the game and violations of laws. And, of course, they kill and rob those who have fallen out of favor with the sovereign. Sorokin himself assesses the oprichnina as the most negative phenomenon, which is not justified by any positive goals:

The oprichnina is bigger than the FSB and the KGB. This is an old, powerful, very Russian phenomenon. Since the 16th century, despite the fact that it was officially under Ivan the Terrible for only ten years, it strongly influenced Russian consciousness and history. All our punitive bodies, and in many respects our entire institution of power, are the result of the influence of the oprichnina. Ivan the Terrible divided society into people and oprichnina, made a state within a state. This showed the citizens of the Russian state that they do not have all the rights, but all the rights of the oprichnina. To be safe, you have to become oprichnina, separate from the people. This is what our officials have been doing for these four centuries. It seems to me that the oprichnina, its perniciousness, has not yet been truly considered, not appreciated. But in vain.

Interview for the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets", 08/22/2006

Notes (edit)

"Textbook" History of Russia ", Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov Faculty of History 4th edition, A. Orlov, V. A. Georgiev, N. G. Georgieva, T. A. Sivokhina ">
Skrynnikov R.G. Ivan the Terrible. - P. 103. Archived
V. B. Kobrin, "Ivan the Terrible" - Chapter II. Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.
V. B. Kobrin. Ivan the Terrible. M. 1989. (Chapter II: "The Path of Terror", "The collapse of the oprichnina". Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.).
The Beginning of Autocracy in Russia: The State of Ivan the Terrible. - Alshits D.N., L., 1988.
N. M. Karamzin. History of Russian Goverment. Vol. 9, chapter 2. Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.
N.I.Kostomarov. Russian history in the biographies of its main figures Chapter 20. Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.
S.F. Platonov. Ivan the Terrible. - Petrograd, 1923.S. 2.
Rozhkov N. The origin of autocracy in Russia. M., 1906. S. 190.
Spiritual and treaty letters of the great and appanage princes. - M. - L, 1950.S. 444.
Error in footnotes? : Invalid tag ; no text specified for footnotes plat
Wipper R. Yu. Ivan the Terrible . Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.... - C.58
Korotkov I.A.Ivan the Terrible. Military activity. Moscow, Voenizdat, 1952, p. 25.
Bakhrushin S.V. Ivan the Terrible. M. 1945.S. 80.
Polosin I.I.Social and political history of Russia in the 16th early 18th century. P. 153. Collection of articles. M. Academy of Sciences. 1963 382 s.
I. Ya.Froyanov. Drama of Russian history. P. 6
I. Ya.Froyanov. Drama of Russian history. S. 925.
Zimin A.A. Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible. Moscow, 1964, pp. 477-479, cit. on
A. A. Zimin. A knight at a crossroads. Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.
A. L. Yurganov, L. A. Katsva. Russian history. XVI-XVIII centuries. M., 1996, pp. 44-46
Skrynnikov R.G. The kingdom of terror. SPb., 1992. P. 8
Alshits D.N. The beginning of autocracy in Russia ... P.111. See also: Al Daniel. Ivan the Terrible: famous and unknown. From legends to facts. SPb., 2005.S. 155.
Assessment of the historical significance of the oprichnina at different times.
Interview of Vladimir Sorokin to the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets", 22.08.2006. Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.

Literature

... Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.
VB Kobrin IVAN THE GROZNY. Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.
World history, vol. 4, M., 1958. Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.
Skrynnikov R. G. "Ivan the Terrible", AST, M, 2001. Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.

The Russian state (from 1565 to 1572), when the state struggle against the traitors to the Motherland came to the fore. It was a whole complex of measures, which was characterized by the creation of a special oprichnina army ("oprichniki"), at the time of Ivan Vasilyevich they were called "sovereign people". Initially, the number of this royal guard was small - 1 thousand people. Also "oprichnina" was called a part of the territory of the Muscovy, with special management, allocated for the maintenance of the royal court and "sovereign people" ("Tsar's oprichnina"). This measure was aimed at undermining the independence of large landowners. The word "oprichnina" comes from the Old Russian "oprich", which means "special", "except". This was the name of the part of the inheritance or patrimony that remained to the widow. Some of them went to their sons, and “oprichit” - to feed the widow.

What led to the introduction of the oprichnina?

The main reason for the introduction of the oprichnina was the internal opposition to the tsar's course. Ivan Vasilyevich felt that things were not going well in Russia. Many of his activities met with latent opposition. Initiated business was sabotaged, slowed down, brought to naught. Many powerful people did not like the centralization of Russia, the course towards the elimination of old liberties. Naturally, they had strong allies abroad, especially in Poland and Rome.

The tsar also had information that there were traitors in the army and in the state apparatus, and they hinder the development of Russia, pass on secret data to the enemy, and sabotage important undertakings. Apparently, thanks to the traitors, the Polish troops were able to defeat the army of Peter Shuisky, which set out from Polotsk, on January 26, 1564 in the battle at Ula. The Russian troops actually walked through their territory, this relaxed them, moved light, armor and heavy things were put into carts. Radziwill with a small army was able to ambush and with a sudden blow practically destroyed the Russian command - Shuisky, princes Semyon and Fyodor Paletsky, several governors were taken prisoner. The troops, left without control, in fact simply fled, human losses were small, but the Poles captured the baggage train and artillery. Poland perked up, the shock of the loss of Polotsk was overcome, thoughts of peace were rejected. The war continued. It is believed that the Polish command was simply warned about the route of the Russian troops. The boyar Ivan Sheremetev and his brother Nikita, the governor of Smolensk, fell under suspicion. They were accused of treason. However, they had many supporters and intercessors, who acted as guarantors and made a bail, the boyars were released.

At the beginning of 1564, boyars Mikhail Repnin and Yuri Kashin were killed in Moscow. A little later Dmitry Ovchina-Obolensky was killed. Historians have found out that the cousins Repnin and Kashin from the Obolensky clan, each time acted as guarantors for those accused of treason and disgraced. They were the organizers of sabotage and opposition. Ovchina-Obolensky, apparently, was their accomplice. The king received information about their betrayal, but could not punish them with legal methods, their hands were tied by the old order. The Boyar Duma will not give out its own people, it will cover it up. Therefore, a secret order had to be given to eliminate the traitors. It is clear that the boyars immediately realized where the wind was blowing from. A scandal arose with the participation of the Metropolitan and the clergy. The Tsar had to explain (!). So much for the "tsarist dictatorship".

In April, Kurbsky fled to Lithuania. In fact, he became the "Vlasov" of that time. And his fault is even heavier. Vlasov went over to the side of the enemy already in captivity. And Kurbsky went over to the side of the enemy long before the flight. At least since 1562 he was in secret correspondence with Radziwill, Sub-Chancellor Volovich and the Polish king. Even Valishevsky admitted that the defeat at Nevel in 1562, when Kurbsky's forces defeated four times smaller enemy troops, was caused by some kind of "suspicious relations" between the prince and the Lithuanians. It was Kurbsky who ensured the defeat of Shuisky's army, Skrynnikov's work contains his letters to Radziwill about which route the army is going, how best to organize an attack on it (Skrynnikov R.G. Ivan the Terrible). Kurbsky, after the death of Repnin and Kashin, realized that it was his turn and fled, taking a large sum of money (he was the governor of Livonia). He betrayed all Russian agents in Lithuania and Poland to the Poles and actively joined information war against Russia. Sigismund gave him the city of Kovel, Krev's old age, 28 villages and 4 thousand acres of land.

It should be noted that there is one more fact of Ivan Vasilyevich's "bloodiness" and "inhumanity". While running away, Kurbsky did not forget to seize gold and silver, but abandoned his wife and son. The great sovereign did not touch the relatives of Kurbsky. Moreover, he sent them to Lithuania to see the head of the family.

In the midst of a difficult struggle with Poland and the Crimean Khanate, the king learned about a new conspiracy, the villains wanted to destroy his entire family. He makes a non-standard decision - the entire royal court began to gather on pilgrimage. Moreover, it was like an exodus, all the shrines, crosses, books, icons, treasury were loaded into the carts. The tsar summoned some boyars and clerks (officials) with him. He did not give any explanations. On December 3, 1564, Tsar Ivan the Terrible with his family, having received the blessing of the Metropolitan, left the capital. I visited the village of Kolomenskoye, where, due to the beginning of the thaw, the thaw, I stayed for two weeks. The king was in deep thought. What to do? Treason blossomed in lush color. Ruined his beloved wife Anastasia. Apparently, they have already tried to poison the sovereign himself. It was possible to abandon the struggle, to abdicate the throne (as Emperor Nicholas II will do in the future), or to gather the will into a fist and fight treason, the “fifth column”. The first path led to chaos, the dominance of temporary workers, boyar clans, defeat in the war. Perhaps, Rome's attempt to establish itself on the Russian land.

After Kolomenskoye, the sovereign went to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, then to the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. He has already made a choice, "crossed the Rubicon." Already on the way, the tsar dispatches messengers, summons "elected" nobles from all cities, with people and "with all service attire." An impressive, loyal army is gathering at the sovereign's hand. On January 3, 1565, the metropolitan and the boyars received a letter from Ivan Vasilyevich, which listed the grievances and guilt of the nobility and officials from childhood - the plundering of the sovereign's treasury, lands, arbitrariness against people, treason, covering up criminals, neglecting the defense of the Motherland, etc. He said that he could not bear it, "left his state" and went to live where "God will instruct." However, the sovereign did not abdicate the throne, this would give the opposition an excuse for the enthronement of Prince Vladimir Staritsky. He remained tsar and, by his decree, laid disgrace on the boyars and the government apparatus, they were removed from the management of the state.

At the same time, other emissaries of the king brought another letter, which was read out to the townspeople. It also listed the guilt of the nobility and officials. The king assured that he did not hold any grudge against ordinary people. It was a very skillful move. Moscow was seething. The people rose up for their king. The boyars and clergy, who had gathered for a meeting with the metropolitan, found themselves in a real siege. The people demanded to send a delegation to the king and ask him to return. Ordinary people themselves turned to him, asking not to leave them "to be plundered by the wolves." They said that they were ready to "consume" the villains and traitors on their own, let the tsar point at them.

The metropolitan himself wanted to go to Ivan Vasilyevich, but the boyars did not let him in, fearing that a riot and pogroms would begin in Moscow. A delegation headed by Archbishop Pimen of Novgorod went to the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. Boyars, nobles, clerks followed him. It was “surrender”. The delegates begged the tsar to return to the capital, agreeing to "rule as he pleases, the sovereign," and over the traitors "in the stomach and execution is his will." The sovereign took pity, removed the disgrace and dictated a number of conditions to the Boyar Duma and the Consecrated Cathedral. He received the right to punish the guilty without a trial of the Boyar Duma and grief from the clergy. And to eradicate the proliferating "fifth column" and "liberal" - dreaming of complete freedom, opposition, a state of emergency was introduced, oprichnina. In early February 1565, the tsar returned to Moscow, and established on February 3 "oprichnina".

The main activities of the oprichnina

The emphasis was not on repression, although it was impossible to do without them, but on preventive measures. The king assigned part of the land to his personal possession, they were called oprichnina. It included a number of counties in the Central and Western parts of the Russian state, the entire North, part of Moscow, individual cities and volosts in other areas. All other lands were considered "Zemshchina" and were ruled as before. In fact, Ivan Vasilyevich formed his huge "patrimony" and, relying on it, began to destroy the patrimonial system of princes and boyars.

When the oprichnina was introduced from the treasury, the tsar took a huge amount - 100 thousand rubles, they were needed to get up, ”180 descendants of the Suzdal, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Starodub princes, who were moved to Kazan with their families. Their ancestral estates passed into the management of the sovereign. This was not a punishment, they remained in the service, received estates in the Middle Volga region, material compensation for the move. So the base of dozens of representatives of the nobility was undermined, with their ambitions, communication with "their" cities, counties, villages.

The tsar, in his new destiny, formed a new system of government: the oprichnina court, the Duma, a special guard of a thousand soldiers. They tried to select reliable people. The Oprichnaya Duma was headed by the tsarina's brother Mikhail Temryukovich, key posts were occupied by the Basmanovs, Vyazemsky, Pleshcheevs, Kolychevs, Buturlins. The affairs of the "Zemshchina" were directed by the old Boyar Duma. The boyars continued to solve the current state affairs, and on the most important of them they made reports to the sovereign.

"The best thousand", the guard was an old dream of the sovereign. At one time, the "elected council" was unable to resolve the issue of establishing the guard, since no land was found. Now boyar children from Vyazma, Suzdal and other cities were called. A thorough check of family ties, personal contacts was carried out, only "clean" ones who were not noticed in connections with participants in past conspiracies were accepted. The last interview was conducted by the king himself. Lands were found, other nobles were resettled from them, to other counties. A strict check was carried out in relation to the future officials of the oprichnina court, even the servants were checked. The "guardsmen" took a special oath, they were supposed not to know, not to conduct any business with the "zemstvo". They were subject only to the court of the sovereign himself, received twice as much money and land salaries than ordinary boyar children. However, the sovereign did not want the "sovereign people" to become proud, having received special rights and privileges. He perceived his post as a service to God, the state and wanted the "oprichniks" to become a kind of military-religious brotherhood serving the people, Russia and the Creator. For this, 300 young people were selected. Their charter was close to that of a monastery. For them the tsar was an abbot, Vyazemsky was a cellarem, Grigory Lukyanov-Belsky was a sexton. The members of the fraternity wore black robes and skufeikas. The daily routine was very tough: at midnight prayer was midnight office, wake up at 4 am and Matins, then Liturgy. In general, the church service took about 9 hours a day. Late arrival or failure to appear was punishable by an 8-day penance. The king personally set an example of piety.

Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda became the center of the oprichnina yard. However, one should not talk about the transfer of the capital. Government offices remained in Moscow, the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda became the permanent residence of the sovereign. It was expanded, new buildings and churches were built. Anyone could come to the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda and talk about treason, abuse, announcing at the outpost that he had the sovereign's "word and deed."

The functions of the guardsmen were not limited to the protection of the king. The guardsmen actually became the first special service in Russia. Their number gradually increased to 6 thousand soldiers. They wore black clothes, their distinctive symbols were a broom and the image of a dog's head - they had to sweep out evil spirits, be faithful like dogs, protecting the sovereign and the state.

The king continued and resettlements, they were introduced into the system. Having resettled some, they were replaced by others. Already in the spring of 1566, a year after the eviction, half of the boyar families were returned from Kazan, the next year they returned the other half. But they were settled not in their native places, but in other counties, mainly in the Ryazan region (at the same time solving the problem of the defense of the southern borders). Lands were taken from large Ryazan patrimonials, they were given in exchange for estates in other districts. As a result of such "castling" princes and boyars were turned into service nobility.

In 1566 the tsar "exchanged" the inheritance from Vladimir Staritsky. Staritsa, Vereya and Aleksin went to the oprichnina, and in return the tsar's cousin received Dmitrov, Borovsk and Zvenigorod. In material terms, the prince even won, having received larger and richer cities. But he was torn away from the "fiefdom", where he was considered a master. In the former possessions of Vladimir Andreevich, a "search" was carried out - some of the servicemen were left, others were sent to other districts. In 1567, Kostroma was taken to the oprichnina, and there was also a "search". In 1568, the same was done with the Belozersk district. In 1569, Yaroslavl, Rostov and Poshekhonye were taken to the oprichnina. After the addition of new counties, the oprichnina occupied almost half of the state. It must be said that not everyone was "sorted out"; most of the boyar children who were not connected with the opposition did not change their place of residence. So, out of about 50-60 thousand boyar children, not half, but about 12 thousand people changed their place of residence.

As a result, the tsar solved the main task in about 4 years - the elimination of large estates and the groupings of the nobility formed around them.

The oprichnina marked the end of reforms, and its consequences affected society for decades. There is no consensus about the essence of the oprichnina. Some believe that the oprichnina was directed against the orders of the specific antiquity. Others consider it an alternative to Western parliamentarism and emphasize the role of Ivan IV's personal qualities, his stubborn desire for autocracy and mental instability. In Soviet historical literature, it was customary to consider the oprichnina as a consequence of the struggle between the boyars and the nobility. It seems that in any case, oprichnina methods were the worst option for solving national problems of governing the country in the context of the Livonian War and growing financial needs. As a result of total centralization, unrestricted autocracy of Ivan IV, the country turned to the path of conservative feudal evolution.

In December 1564, Ivan IV undertook a political maneuver that allowed him to consolidate his power and start a merciless terror. The Tsar unexpectedly left Moscow for the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda (now the town of Aleksandrov, Vladimir Region). From here, in January 1565, he sent two messages to Moscow, which were read out on Red Square. In the first, the tsar accused the boyars of treason, suddenly assured the "black people" that "there is no anger or disgrace on them." With this demagogic gesture, the tsar opposed the feudal lords and the townspeople, posing as the defender of ordinary people.

The people of Moscow demanded that the boyars and clergy persuade the tsar to return. Taking advantage of the boyars' confusion, Ivan IV forced them to agree to divide the country into zemstvo and oprichnina. The Boyar Duma remained at the head of the Zemshchina. The oprichnina was a kind of personal destiny, subject only to the tsar, his fiefdom. A special oprichnina army of 1 thousand people was created (by the end of the oprichnina - up to 6 thousand). In the oprichnina, Ivan the Terrible gradually included the center and north of the country, where the liquidation of large estates began. The lands of the boyars-princes passed to the guardsmen, most of whom became nobles - a reliable support for the tsar.

A tornado of repression swept over the country in 1569-1570. The robberies of the guardsmen (under the guise of confiscations) assumed monstrous proportions. One of the most dramatic episodes of the oprichnina is the pogrom of Novgorod. According to the minimum estimate, there were about 3 thousand victims, and most likely - one and a half to two times more (according to VB Kobrin, up to 10-15 thousand people).

However, the oprichnina army, accustomed to fighting the civilian population, was unable to defend Moscow from the army of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey in May 1571. In a few hours, a grandiose fire destroyed the capital. The losses among the inhabitants were enormous. On the way back, the Krymchaks plundered more than 30 cities and counties, and more than 60 thousand Russians were taken into slavery. In the fall of the same year, at the reception of the Crimean ambassadors, Ivan IV dressed up in a simple sermyagu to demonstrate how ruined he is.

As a result, the oprichnina subjugated the society to the unlimited power of the tsar, who became the main landowner in the state.

The role of the Boyar Duma fell. The bureaucracy became the social support of the authorities. Its layer has expanded. Owners independent of the government were liquidated. There was a nationalization of society, everyone depended on the state and personally on the king.

The most severe economic crisis became a consequence of the oprichnina. The government was looking for a way out of it in administrative measures. Serf legislation was a response to the flight of the peasants.

A highly educated man, a subtle diplomat who began his reign with brilliant reforms, Ivan the Terrible ended his life as a ruler in a country where "great ruin" was raging. The suppression of the dynasty (the murder of his own son) prepared a political crisis, which grew into the Troubles of the 17th century.

1565 - 1572 - This is a period that is part of the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible (1547 - 1584). The entire reign of Ivan IV can be divided into two stages: the first - the reforms of the Chosen Rada, the main goal of which was to strengthen the royal power, which were generally positive (1547 - 1564) and the second - the ruin of the country during the oprichnina and the Livonian War, as a result which weakened and was practically devastated by the Russian state (1565 - 1584). This historical period (1565 - 1572) went down in history as the era of the oprichnina terror, becoming one of the darkest phenomena in Russian history. I will name the most important events in this time frame.

The policy of the oprichnina. Perhaps the most mysterious and complex phenomenon in Patriotic history... In Russia, it was customary to call the oprichnina an inheritance, which was allocated to the widow of the prince for life, except - "oprichnina" - the rest of the land.

During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, this concept acquired a different meaning. The tsar divided the country into oprichnina - as if a special sovereign destiny - and into zemstvo with a corresponding division of all elements of power and administration. There were two Boyar Dumas and two troops - oprichnaya and zemstvo. There were even two capitals - huge Moscow (the capital of the Zemshchina) and the terrifying Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda (respectively, the capital of the oprichnina). So in a significant part of Russia, a special power of the tsar was established - a state within a state. Executions and brutal persecutions began everywhere. In 1570, a blow was struck at Novgorod. The defeat of the city lasted for about six weeks. The executions were accompanied by brutal torture. Every day hundreds of people were thrown under the ice of Volkhov. The main executors of the tsar's will were the oprichniks, who for the terror unleashed by them were called pitchmen.

The oprichnina was headed by V. Yuriev, A. Basmanov, G. Skuratov-Belsky (aka Malyuta Skuratov) and Prince M. Cherkassky. The guardsmen executed many boyars and nobles, they did not spare the common people either. The oprichnina terror was fiercely criticized by Metropolitan Philip. He publicly condemned Ivan the Terrible and the oprichnina for the execution of innocent people. In response, the tsar ordered the dethronement of the rebellious metropolitan. Philip was exiled to Tver, and two years later he was strangled by the tsar's favorite, the oprichnik-executioner Malyuta Skuratov. The fate of Metropolitan Philip became a kind of warning - the tsar outlined a line that was dangerous to cross when it came to the power of the autocrat.

The oprichnina had huge negative consequences. The main result was the ruin of the country, the death of a large number of people. In addition, the country's economic and social development worsened (population flight to the Don and Siberia, desolation of many territories). In the context of the Livonian War, a significant consequence of the oprichnina was the weakening of the military power and defense capability of the Russian state.

Dealing with their people, the guardsmen were unable to repel external enemies from Moscow. In 1571, a new disaster struck Moscow: the devastating raid of the Crimean Khan Davlet-Gerey. The army of the guardsmen proved to be incapable of resisting the khan, then Moscow was set on fire and burned out.

The events of 1571-1572 had a strong influence on the king. It was clear that a country divided into two honors could not resist external enemies. As a result, in the fall of 1572, the oprichnina was abolished, the oprichniks were executed, and the word “oprichnina” itself was not allowed to be pronounced aloud on pain of death.

The oprichnina was a terrible offspring of Ivan the Terrible. The consequences of the seven-year oprichnina terror were terrible: estates and estates were ruined, the peasants did not cultivate the soil, villages, villages, entire cities were destroyed. The oprichnina policy was basically anti-national. Its goal was purely selfish: the achievement of unlimited power of the king. The oprichnina worsened the economic and political situation in Russia, weakened the country and served as one of the causes of the Troubles.

Oprichnina, 1565-1572

Prerequisites for the oprichnina was that the government of Grozny consisted of boyars, united in one goal to master Moscow policy and direct it in their own way. The “Chosen Rada”, consisting of the descendants of appanage princes, “princes”, pursued a princely policy and therefore had to sooner or later come into sharp conflict with the sovereign, who was aware of his sovereignty; as well as the government of the tsar could not quite successfully conduct the reforming business for the reason that there was no agreement and unanimity in it.

So, already in 1553, during a serious illness of Grozny, it was discovered that she was glad not for the accession of the little son of Grozny, Dimitri, but his cousin (Grozny) - Prince Vladimir Andreevich. In 1557-1558, the tsar had a clash with the boyars because of the Livonian War, which the boyar's council did not want. And in 1560, with the death of Grozny's wife Anastasia Romanovna, Grozny had a direct break with his advisers. Sylvester and Adashev were exiled, attempts by the boyars to return them led to repression; however, these repressions have not yet reached the point of bloody executions. The persecution acquired a decisive and cruel character only in connection with the departure (“treason”) of the boyars. Noticing the tendency of the dissatisfied to leave, Grozny took from the boyars, suspected of wanting to leave for Lithuania, the obligation not to leave for the surety of several persons; with such “letters of guarantee” he bound all the boyars. But there were still departures of the dissatisfied, and in 1564 Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky managed to flee to Lithuania, abandoning the troops and the fortress entrusted to him in the theater of war, justifying his escape with "intolerable rage and bitter hatred." The descendants of the old Russian dynasty, the "princess", having become the service boyars of their kinsmen of the Moscow tsar, demanded for themselves participation in power; and the king regarded them as ordinary subjects, whom he had “more than one hundred,” and therefore denied all their claims.

The controversy between Grozny and Kurbsky revealed the innocent character of the “elected Rada”, which obviously served as an instrument not for bureaucratic boyars, but for appanage-princely politics, and made restrictions on the tsarist power not in favor of the Duma, but in favor of a certain social environment (princes).

The concentration of ever greater completeness of power in the hands of Ivan the Terrible, the desire to achieve the unquestioning submission of the feudal lords to their power, forced them to stand in opposition to the tsar. The boyars continued to strive to preserve their rights and privileges and claimed to share power with the tsar. The strengthening of the opposition pushed the imperious, suspicious and cruel Ivan the Terrible to strengthen his autocratic power. The struggle for the power of the tsar, who believed that his power, God's chosen one, should be unlimited, and all people in the state are his slaves, took terrible and bloody forms.

This nature of the opposition led Grozny to the determination to destroy the importance of the princes by radical measures, perhaps even to completely destroy them. The combination of these measures aimed at the tribal aristocracy is called oprichnina.

In December 1564, Ivan IV left the capital, and in January of the following year he sent two messages to Moscow. In one, addressed to the clergy and service people, the tsar accused princes and boyars of treason, and because of this he renounces the throne. In another message addressed to the townspeople, he repeated the same thing, but added that he had no anger against the townspeople. And since after the reforms of the 50s (the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan) the people were entirely on the side of the tsar, who fought for him against the boyars, a delegation was sent asking Ivan IV to return to the kingdom.

After talking with the delegation, the tsar agrees to remain in the kingdom, but stipulates a number of conditions: his power will be unlimited, he himself will blame the traitors at his discretion, execute the boyars without trial or investigation.

The essence of the oprichnina was that Grozny applied to the territory of the old appanage principalities, where the fiefdoms of the service princes-boyars were located, the order that was usually used by Moscow in the conquered lands. From the conquered lands, the most prominent and for Moscow dangerous people were taken out to their inner regions, and in their place were sent settlers from the indigenous Moscow places. Deprived of the local ruling environment and receiving the same environment from Moscow, the conquered region began to gravitate towards a common center - Moscow. What he succeeded with the external enemy, Grozny decided to test with the internal enemy. He decided to withdraw from the specific hereditary estates of their owners - the princes and settle them in remote areas from Moscow; in place of the exiled nobility, he lodged service petty on small land plots formed from old estates.

To do this, he arranges for the sovereign destiny - "oprichnina", in which the Oprichny Duma operated, which became a semi-monastic, semi-royal order based on monetary and land handouts and unquestioning obedience to the tsar. The oprichnina became a powerful military punitive machine in the hands of Ivan IV.

Cruel, manic suspicious, often falling into fits of frenzied anger, prone to immorality, one of the manifestations of which was monstrous sadism, cherished by the boyars in his distant childhood, and at the same time deeply religious Ivan IV, unleashed a mass terror in the country that was directed against everything its population. The tsar sought to strengthen personal power by whipping up universal fear in the country. The terror in Russia was total. Grozny executed both the right and the guilty, supporters and opponents.

The oprichnina aroused discontent and anger against the tsar. The church refused to support Ivan the Terrible in his deeds. In 1556, at the Zemsky Sobor, dissatisfaction with the oprichnina was quite weighty, followed by new executions.

In 1569-1570, Ivan the Terrible made a campaign with the oprichnina army to Novgorod on denunciation of treason. On the way, the guardsmen burned cities, plundered, and killed residents. The defeat of Novgorod lasted 40 days. The losses suffered by the most economically developed part of Russia were enormous. Out of 6,000 households (in round numbers), about 5,000 were devastated and Novgorod was weakened forever. And when he returned to Moscow, Grozny was scorched by those who instilled in him anger at the Novgorodians.

Dissatisfaction with the oprichnina in the country was growing; it grew in the oprichnina itself, since the executions of the "traitors" began in it itself. Oprina's policies were increasingly weakening the country from within. The position of Russia in the then marching Livonian War worsened.

In 1571, the blow of the Crimean Khanate followed. Khan Davlet-Girey invaded Russia and burned Moscow. All this led to the fact that, in 1572, Ivan the Terrible canceled the oprichnina and, on pain of death, forbade even mentioning this word.

Subjectively, Ivan the Terrible, introducing the oprichnina, pursued one goal - to strengthen his autocratic power. Objectively, it contributed to the centralization of the country, since it struck a blow at the remnants of feudal fragmentation. However, the end does not justify the means. The consequences of the oprichnina for Russia were tragic. Along with the Livonian War, it contributed to the fact that at the end of the century Russia found itself in a severe economic crisis. The bloody confusion of terror claimed many human lives, the pogroms of the oprichnina were accompanied by the destruction of the productive forces. The atrocities of the guardsmen were unprecedented and had no excuses.

In the preparation of this work were used materials from the site studentu.ru