WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.120 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:06.919 the file on a figure who is, I mean, he's basically 00:00:06.919 --> 00:00:09.220 the archetype of the scary Russian ruler. Oh, 00:00:09.220 --> 00:00:12.259 absolutely. You say his name and the immediate 00:00:12.259 --> 00:00:17.030 mental image is almost cinematic. A deranged 00:00:17.030 --> 00:00:20.550 old man, you know, clushing a staff, eyes bulging 00:00:20.550 --> 00:00:23.190 with paranoia. We are talking about Ivan the 00:00:23.190 --> 00:00:25.250 Terrible. It's a name that does a lot of heavy 00:00:25.250 --> 00:00:27.370 lifting, doesn't it? It really does. You hear 00:00:27.370 --> 00:00:29.390 Ivan the Terrible and you don't really need to 00:00:29.390 --> 00:00:31.149 know the history to feel like you understand 00:00:31.149 --> 00:00:34.170 the man. It suggests a cartoon villain, someone 00:00:34.170 --> 00:00:36.090 who wakes up in the morning deciding who's Ed 00:00:36.090 --> 00:00:38.590 to chop off before breakfast. That is the popular 00:00:38.590 --> 00:00:40.659 perception. Yeah. But when I was going through 00:00:40.659 --> 00:00:43.140 the source material for this deep dive, the Chronicles, 00:00:43.240 --> 00:00:45.700 his personal correspondence, even the forensic 00:00:45.700 --> 00:00:48.380 reports, it struck me that the villain label, 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:52.340 while certainly earned in many respects, it actually 00:00:52.340 --> 00:00:55.719 obscures the mechanics of his reign. He wasn't 00:00:55.719 --> 00:00:58.259 just a madman. He was the architect of the modern 00:00:58.259 --> 00:01:01.179 Russian state. Precisely. If you strip away the 00:01:01.179 --> 00:01:03.960 caricature, you find a highly complex political 00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:07.659 operator. And interestingly, the caricature starts 00:01:07.659 --> 00:01:10.790 with the name itself. We translate it as terrible, 00:01:10.930 --> 00:01:13.870 which in modern English just means bad or horrific. 00:01:13.989 --> 00:01:16.629 Right. But the Russian word grozny, it meant 00:01:16.629 --> 00:01:18.930 something very, very different in the 16th century. 00:01:18.989 --> 00:01:21.689 Right. Let's unpack the linguistics first, because 00:01:21.689 --> 00:01:24.469 if we misunderstand the name, we sort of misunderstand 00:01:24.469 --> 00:01:28.019 the entire intent behind his rule. Grozny doesn't 00:01:28.019 --> 00:01:31.140 mean evil. It's an archaic term that's much closer 00:01:31.140 --> 00:01:34.980 to formidable, powerful, or awe -inspiring. Awe 00:01:34.980 --> 00:01:37.000 -inspiring. Yeah. It's the same root you would 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:39.200 use to describe a massive thunderstorm or the 00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:42.879 wrath of God. It implies a power that is terrifying, 00:01:43.180 --> 00:01:45.900 yes, but also magnificent. A much better translation 00:01:45.900 --> 00:01:48.870 might be Ivan the Formidable or even... Ivan 00:01:48.870 --> 00:01:50.950 the awe -inspiring. It's not a critique of his 00:01:50.950 --> 00:01:53.189 morality. It's a description of his authority. 00:01:53.409 --> 00:01:55.769 It's about the divine weight of the crown. Exactly. 00:01:56.030 --> 00:01:58.510 It implies that he keeps his enemies in fear 00:01:58.510 --> 00:02:01.590 and his subjects in strict obedience. For Ivan, 00:02:01.810 --> 00:02:04.769 terror wasn't a flaw. It was a necessary instrument 00:02:04.769 --> 00:02:07.950 of divine justice. But before he became the formidable, 00:02:08.289 --> 00:02:11.069 he was a vulnerable child. And honestly, the 00:02:11.069 --> 00:02:13.110 more you look at his childhood, the more the 00:02:13.110 --> 00:02:16.400 later paranoia. It just makes a frightening amount 00:02:16.400 --> 00:02:18.319 of sense. It really is the classic hurt people, 00:02:18.419 --> 00:02:21.439 hurt people scenario, but on a geopolitical scale. 00:02:22.099 --> 00:02:25.520 Ivan was born in 1530. His father, the Grand 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:28.060 Prince Vasily III, died when Ivan was only three 00:02:28.060 --> 00:02:30.080 years old. So you have a toddler technically 00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:32.539 on the throne, a complete power vacuum. And then 00:02:32.539 --> 00:02:35.759 his mother, Elena Glenskaya, who was acting as 00:02:35.759 --> 00:02:39.219 regent, dies suddenly when he's just eight. The 00:02:39.219 --> 00:02:41.860 sources strongly suggest poison, correct? It 00:02:41.860 --> 00:02:44.039 was heavily suspected at the time, and modern 00:02:44.039 --> 00:02:46.460 analysis tends to support that theory. So at 00:02:46.460 --> 00:02:48.960 eight years old, Ivan is an orphan in a court 00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:51.300 filled with sharks. Right. This is the period 00:02:51.300 --> 00:02:53.520 of the boyar rule. And you have to understand, 00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:56.039 the boyars were the high nobility, specifically 00:02:56.039 --> 00:02:58.960 the Shuski and Belski families, and they essentially 00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:01.039 viewed the state as their personal piggy bank. 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:03.180 I was reading excerpts from the letters Ivan 00:03:03.180 --> 00:03:05.379 wrote later in life to Prince Kerbsky, who was 00:03:05.379 --> 00:03:07.759 a friend who later defected, and the bitterness 00:03:07.759 --> 00:03:11.620 is just palpable. It drips off the page. He doesn't 00:03:11.620 --> 00:03:14.199 sound like a prince recounting his youth. He 00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:16.819 sounds like a neglected foster child. The detail 00:03:16.819 --> 00:03:19.530 in those letters is startling. He explicitly 00:03:19.530 --> 00:03:22.729 describes being treated like a vagrant or a beggar. 00:03:22.789 --> 00:03:25.550 He talks about suffering from hunger, about not 00:03:25.550 --> 00:03:28.069 having proper clothes for himself or his younger 00:03:28.069 --> 00:03:30.729 brother, Yuri. So this isn't just him being dramatic. 00:03:30.849 --> 00:03:34.539 This is real neglect. He recounts watching the 00:03:34.539 --> 00:03:37.500 boyars lounging around his father's palace, putting 00:03:37.500 --> 00:03:40.259 their feet up on the furniture, completely ignoring 00:03:40.259 --> 00:03:42.620 the fact that the actual ruler of the land was 00:03:42.620 --> 00:03:44.879 in the room with them. That image of the boyars 00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:47.520 disrespecting the furniture, it seems like such 00:03:47.520 --> 00:03:50.560 a small thing. But for a child who is told he 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:53.740 is divinely chosen, that must have been incredibly 00:03:53.740 --> 00:03:56.939 disorienting. It fostered a deep pathological 00:03:56.939 --> 00:03:59.939 resentment. He saw the nobility not as the pillars 00:03:59.939 --> 00:04:02.650 of the state, but as... parasites who had stolen 00:04:02.650 --> 00:04:04.889 his childhood and insulted his divine right, 00:04:05.030 --> 00:04:07.789 he learned very, very early that power is the 00:04:07.789 --> 00:04:10.069 only thing that keeps you safe. And that paranoia 00:04:10.069 --> 00:04:12.129 gets baked in right from the start. Absolutely. 00:04:12.310 --> 00:04:14.370 He never trusted them again. Which brings us 00:04:14.370 --> 00:04:18.750 to 1547. Ivan turned 16, and he decides to formalize 00:04:18.750 --> 00:04:21.069 that power in a way no one had ever done before. 00:04:21.699 --> 00:04:25.120 He isn't crowned grand prince. No. He is crowned 00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:28.259 czar of all Russia. This is a massive pivot point 00:04:28.259 --> 00:04:30.339 in Russian history. I mean, it's impossible to 00:04:30.339 --> 00:04:33.160 overstate. Before Ivan, the rulers of Moscow 00:04:33.160 --> 00:04:36.079 were grand princes. So first among equals. The 00:04:36.079 --> 00:04:38.720 sort of senior partner. Exactly. Czar is the 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:41.000 Russified version of Caesar, but it also carries 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:44.069 the weight of the Tatar Khan. By taking this 00:04:44.069 --> 00:04:46.550 title, Ivan was elevating himself to a completely 00:04:46.550 --> 00:04:49.189 different imperial status. He was telling the 00:04:49.189 --> 00:04:51.569 boyars, I am not your colleague. I am your emperor. 00:04:51.769 --> 00:04:54.389 I am answerable only to God. And to sell this 00:04:54.389 --> 00:04:56.689 to the rest of Europe, he didn't just rely on 00:04:56.689 --> 00:04:59.389 the title. He constructed this whole mythological 00:04:59.389 --> 00:05:02.589 genealogy. I found this part fascinating. He 00:05:02.589 --> 00:05:04.889 claimed descent from the Roman Emperor Augustus. 00:05:04.949 --> 00:05:07.509 It was a brilliant piece of propaganda. The church 00:05:07.509 --> 00:05:09.490 and court scribes, they concocted this lineage 00:05:09.490 --> 00:05:11.790 where Rurik, the founder of the Russian dynasty, 00:05:12.009 --> 00:05:14.189 was descended from a mythical figure named Prus, 00:05:14.189 --> 00:05:16.610 who was supposedly the brother of Caesar Augustus. 00:05:16.709 --> 00:05:19.209 So he's telling the courts of Europe, I'm not 00:05:19.209 --> 00:05:22.389 just some northern duke. My great, great, great 00:05:22.389 --> 00:05:26.660 uncle was Augustus. It was all about legitimizing 00:05:26.660 --> 00:05:30.339 his claim to absolute autocratical power. And 00:05:30.339 --> 00:05:33.160 initially, he used that power incredibly effectively. 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:35.699 This is what historians call the good years. 00:05:35.939 --> 00:05:38.279 Right. And it's no exaggeration to say that if 00:05:38.279 --> 00:05:41.579 Ivan had died in, say, 1560, we might remember 00:05:41.579 --> 00:05:45.019 him as Ivan the Great or Ivan the Reformer. So 00:05:45.019 --> 00:05:46.680 let's look at the mechanics of those reforms 00:05:46.680 --> 00:05:48.319 because they weren't just administrative updates. 00:05:48.579 --> 00:05:51.000 They seem to have a very specific political goal. 00:05:51.279 --> 00:05:55.180 For example, he creates the Zemsky Sobor. On 00:05:55.180 --> 00:05:57.279 paper, that looks like a parliament. It does. 00:05:57.620 --> 00:06:00.300 So was Ivan actually trying to share power? Quite 00:06:00.300 --> 00:06:02.160 the opposite. And this is the critical insight. 00:06:02.379 --> 00:06:04.439 The Zemsky Sobor, which gathered representatives 00:06:04.439 --> 00:06:06.459 from the church, the merchants and the lower 00:06:06.459 --> 00:06:08.879 nobility, was a weapon. A weapon against the 00:06:08.879 --> 00:06:11.279 boyars. Precisely. By bringing in these other 00:06:11.279 --> 00:06:13.439 classes, Ivan was building a coalition against 00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:15.560 the high aristocracy. He wasn't sharing power. 00:06:15.860 --> 00:06:18.399 He was diluting the boyars' influence. He was 00:06:18.399 --> 00:06:20.819 saying, I don't need the great families to run 00:06:20.819 --> 00:06:23.120 this country. I have the support of the people. 00:06:23.610 --> 00:06:26.569 He was crowdsourcing his legitimacy to bypass 00:06:26.569 --> 00:06:29.569 the elites. That's clever. And he did the same 00:06:29.569 --> 00:06:31.189 thing with the military, right? With the creation 00:06:31.189 --> 00:06:34.329 of the Streltsy. Exactly. Before this, the army 00:06:34.329 --> 00:06:36.750 was feudal. You had to rely on the nobles to 00:06:36.750 --> 00:06:38.829 bring their peasants to fight. And you can never 00:06:38.829 --> 00:06:40.970 be sure if they would actually show up or turn 00:06:40.970 --> 00:06:43.930 against you. Right. Their loyalty was to their 00:06:43.930 --> 00:06:47.069 local lord first. The Streltsy were a standing 00:06:47.069 --> 00:06:50.069 army of musketeers, paid by the state, armed 00:06:50.069 --> 00:06:53.180 by the state, and loyal only to the Tsar. It 00:06:53.180 --> 00:06:55.759 meant Ivan possessed a monopoly on violence that 00:06:55.759 --> 00:06:57.620 didn't depend on the goodwill of the princes. 00:06:57.860 --> 00:07:00.180 It was a game changer. He also modernized the 00:07:00.180 --> 00:07:03.899 legal code with the Sudebnik of 1550. And this 00:07:03.899 --> 00:07:06.639 is a major cultural shift. He brought the printing 00:07:06.639 --> 00:07:09.160 press to Russia. He established the Moscow print 00:07:09.160 --> 00:07:11.920 yard. But this is where we see the friction between 00:07:11.920 --> 00:07:15.980 Ivan's push for modernization and the very conservative 00:07:15.980 --> 00:07:19.269 society he ruled. What happened? The scribes, 00:07:19.269 --> 00:07:21.290 these are mumps who had spent their entire lives 00:07:21.290 --> 00:07:24.290 copying books by hand. They were furious. They 00:07:24.290 --> 00:07:26.389 viewed printing as heretical, or at the very 00:07:26.389 --> 00:07:28.490 least, a direct threat to their livelihood. They 00:07:28.490 --> 00:07:30.170 actually burned the print yard down, didn't they? 00:07:30.269 --> 00:07:33.870 They did. The first printers, Ivan Fedorov and 00:07:33.870 --> 00:07:36.910 Pyotr Mstislavits, had to flee for their lives 00:07:36.910 --> 00:07:40.110 to Lithuania. It's a powerful reminder that Ivan 00:07:40.110 --> 00:07:42.470 was dragging Russia into the future, sometimes 00:07:42.470 --> 00:07:44.649 kicking and screaming. Speaking of expansion, 00:07:44.870 --> 00:07:47.990 we have to discuss the conquest of Kazan in 1552. 00:07:48.730 --> 00:07:51.029 This was the moment Muscovy really went from 00:07:51.029 --> 00:07:55.040 a regional power to a true empire. But the logistics 00:07:55.040 --> 00:07:57.600 of this campaign were arguably more impressive 00:07:57.600 --> 00:07:59.720 than the actual fighting. Oh, it was a triumph 00:07:59.720 --> 00:08:02.420 of engineering. The Kazan Kanate was a fortress 00:08:02.420 --> 00:08:05.300 city, a remnant of the Golden Horde. Previous 00:08:05.300 --> 00:08:07.240 Russian campaigns had failed because the supply 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:09.120 lines were just too long. You couldn't sustain 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:12.240 a siege. So how did Ivan solve that? Ivan's engineers 00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:14.939 built a full -scale wooden fortress on the Sura 00:08:14.939 --> 00:08:18.379 River, upstream from Kazan. They numbered every 00:08:18.379 --> 00:08:21.060 single log, disassembled it. floated it down 00:08:21.060 --> 00:08:23.240 the Volga River, and reassembled it right on 00:08:23.240 --> 00:08:25.779 Kazan's doorstep in just four weeks. That is 00:08:25.779 --> 00:08:28.199 essentially prefabricated warfare in the 16th 00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:31.579 century. It is. The fortress, named Svjesk, gave 00:08:31.579 --> 00:08:33.360 them the forward base they needed to bring in 00:08:33.360 --> 00:08:35.519 heavy artillery and shatter the walls of Kazan. 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:38.450 And it worked. It worked perfectly. Kazan fell. 00:08:39.070 --> 00:08:42.610 And this victory was monumental. It wasn't just 00:08:42.610 --> 00:08:44.870 a military conquest. It was a religious one. 00:08:45.009 --> 00:08:49.049 It opened the entire Volga trade route and symbolized 00:08:49.049 --> 00:08:52.549 the triumph of orthodoxy over Islam. Which is 00:08:52.549 --> 00:08:55.149 what St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow commemorates. 00:08:55.210 --> 00:08:58.149 Exactly. It was built as a monument to that victory. 00:08:58.470 --> 00:09:00.830 Now we have to touch on the myth. regarding St. 00:09:00.970 --> 00:09:04.490 Basil's. The story goes that Ivan was so struck 00:09:04.490 --> 00:09:07.389 by its beauty that he blinded the architect, 00:09:07.610 --> 00:09:10.429 Postnik Yakovlev, so he could never build anything 00:09:10.429 --> 00:09:13.029 to rival it. It's a great story, but does it 00:09:13.029 --> 00:09:16.210 hold up? It does not. It's a Gothic legend that 00:09:16.210 --> 00:09:18.549 was added much later to enhance his reputation 00:09:18.549 --> 00:09:21.629 for cruelty. We know for a fact it's false because 00:09:21.629 --> 00:09:23.730 Postnik Yakovlev shows up in official records 00:09:23.730 --> 00:09:26.409 years later designing the walls of the Kazan 00:09:26.409 --> 00:09:28.899 Kremlin. Right. It's kind of hard to draft blueprints 00:09:28.899 --> 00:09:30.779 if you've been blinded. It is. But, you know, 00:09:30.799 --> 00:09:33.139 there is a real visual symbol from this victory 00:09:33.139 --> 00:09:35.200 that survives today. If you look at the crosses 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:37.399 on top of the domes of many Russian churches. 00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:38.759 I think I know what you're talking about. The 00:09:38.759 --> 00:09:41.440 crescent moon at the bottom. Yes. You'll often 00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:43.440 see the Christian cross standing on top of a 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:45.899 crescent moon. In the context of the time, this 00:09:45.899 --> 00:09:49.240 was a clear, unambiguous declaration. The cross 00:09:49.240 --> 00:09:52.620 has conquered the crescent. It was a visual manifesto 00:09:52.620 --> 00:09:56.559 of Ivan's holy war. So up to 1560, we have a 00:09:56.559 --> 00:10:00.059 reformer. A conqueror, a state builder. But the 00:10:00.059 --> 00:10:01.419 cracks were always there, weren't they? It's 00:10:01.419 --> 00:10:02.740 not like you just woke up one day and decided 00:10:02.740 --> 00:10:05.519 to be paranoid. The paranoia was the baseline. 00:10:05.659 --> 00:10:08.799 It was his factory setting, you could say. But 00:10:08.799 --> 00:10:11.360 two specific events triggered the avalanche. 00:10:11.519 --> 00:10:15.159 The first was in 1553 when Ivan fell deathly 00:10:15.159 --> 00:10:17.340 ill. He thought he was dying. Okay. And on his 00:10:17.340 --> 00:10:19.519 deathbed, he demanded the boyars swear allegiance 00:10:19.519 --> 00:10:21.879 to his infant son, Dimitri. And they hesitated. 00:10:22.500 --> 00:10:25.220 Worse. Many of them flat out refused. They didn't 00:10:25.220 --> 00:10:27.299 want another child ruler. They remembered the 00:10:27.299 --> 00:10:30.259 chaos of Ivan's own childhood. They started jockeying 00:10:30.259 --> 00:10:32.159 for a different cousin to take the throne instead. 00:10:32.460 --> 00:10:33.899 Right in front of them. Right in front of the 00:10:33.899 --> 00:10:36.500 man they thought was dying. But then Ivan recovered. 00:10:36.759 --> 00:10:40.039 And he never, ever forgot that moment. To him, 00:10:40.039 --> 00:10:42.419 it was absolute proof that his entire court was 00:10:42.419 --> 00:10:44.299 filled with traitors just waiting for his heart 00:10:44.299 --> 00:10:46.940 to stop beating. It confirmed his worst fears 00:10:46.940 --> 00:10:50.179 from childhood. It did. And then... The final 00:10:50.179 --> 00:10:52.740 straw, the event that truly broke him, was in 00:10:52.740 --> 00:10:57.080 1560, the death of Anastasia Romanovna, his first 00:10:57.080 --> 00:10:59.960 and most beloved wife. By all accounts, Anastasia 00:10:59.960 --> 00:11:01.860 was the only person who could ground him, right? 00:11:01.940 --> 00:11:04.320 She was his emotional anchor. She was. When she 00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:07.360 died young, Ivan was absolutely convinced she 00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:09.620 had been poisoned by the boyars. He just fell 00:11:09.620 --> 00:11:11.960 apart. And was she? Is there any truth to that? 00:11:12.139 --> 00:11:14.419 Well, this is fascinating. Forensic analysis 00:11:14.419 --> 00:11:16.639 of her hair, which was performed in the 20th 00:11:16.639 --> 00:11:19.059 century, did show incredibly high levels of... 00:11:19.049 --> 00:11:21.750 mercury. Now, mercury was used as a medicine 00:11:21.750 --> 00:11:23.850 at the time, so it's not definitive proof of 00:11:23.850 --> 00:11:26.190 murder, but it certainly validates Ivan's suspicion. 00:11:27.009 --> 00:11:29.690 In his mind, the boyars had come into his home 00:11:29.690 --> 00:11:32.029 and murdered the love of his life. And that, 00:11:32.049 --> 00:11:34.210 combined with the defection of his best friend 00:11:34.210 --> 00:11:37.730 and top general, Andrei Kursky, to Lithuania. 00:11:37.909 --> 00:11:40.990 It sent him into a complete spiral. Ivan's world 00:11:40.990 --> 00:11:44.149 collapsed. The good years were over. And this 00:11:44.149 --> 00:11:46.669 is where we enter the era of the opryknina. The 00:11:46.669 --> 00:11:50.320 terror. And it began with one of the most manipulative, 00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:53.639 brilliant political stunts in history, the Abdication 00:11:53.639 --> 00:11:57.159 Bluff of 1564. It is an incredible piece of political 00:11:57.159 --> 00:11:59.679 theater. I find this move so fascinating because 00:11:59.679 --> 00:12:03.340 it shows he understood the psychology of his 00:12:03.340 --> 00:12:05.860 people perfectly. He didn't just purge the court 00:12:05.860 --> 00:12:08.820 immediately. He just left. He packed up his treasury, 00:12:09.059 --> 00:12:12.179 his most important icons, his family, and moved 00:12:12.179 --> 00:12:14.950 to a settlement outside Moscow. Then he sent 00:12:14.950 --> 00:12:16.850 two letters back to the capital. One for the 00:12:16.850 --> 00:12:19.350 nobles, one for the people. Exactly. One to the 00:12:19.350 --> 00:12:22.090 boyars and the clergy, accusing them of treason 00:12:22.090 --> 00:12:24.389 and embezzlement. And a second one to the common 00:12:24.389 --> 00:12:27.029 people of Moscow, telling them, I have no quarrel 00:12:27.029 --> 00:12:29.309 with you, you are blameless, but the elites are 00:12:29.309 --> 00:12:31.889 forcing me to quit. He weaponized the peasantry 00:12:31.889 --> 00:12:33.830 against the nobility. It's genius. It caused 00:12:33.830 --> 00:12:36.450 absolute panic. The people believed the Tsar 00:12:36.450 --> 00:12:38.990 was their direct link to God, their protector. 00:12:39.529 --> 00:12:41.649 Without him, they were spiritually and politically 00:12:41.649 --> 00:12:44.690 orphaned. They nearly rioted, forcing a delegation 00:12:44.690 --> 00:12:47.490 of boyars and clergy to ride out to Ivan and 00:12:47.490 --> 00:12:49.970 beg him to return on any terms he wanted. And 00:12:49.970 --> 00:12:52.470 the terms he dictated fundamentally broke the 00:12:52.470 --> 00:12:55.549 Russian state. He demanded two things. First, 00:12:55.750 --> 00:12:59.250 the right to execute traitors without any interference 00:12:59.250 --> 00:13:01.950 from the church or the council. Absolute power 00:13:01.950 --> 00:13:04.269 over life and death. And the second part was 00:13:04.269 --> 00:13:06.870 even more radical. He split the entire country 00:13:06.870 --> 00:13:09.879 in two. One half, the Zemshina, would be run 00:13:09.879 --> 00:13:12.659 by the boyars as normal. The other half, the 00:13:12.659 --> 00:13:15.519 Oprechnina, was Ivan's personal property, his 00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:17.980 private fiefdom. This wasn't just a geographic 00:13:17.980 --> 00:13:20.179 split. It was a state within a state. Correct. 00:13:20.340 --> 00:13:23.320 And of course, the Oprechnina included the wealthiest 00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:26.320 towns, the best agricultural land, the most important 00:13:26.320 --> 00:13:29.840 trade routes. And to police it, he created the 00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:32.000 Oprechniki. These are the figures that haunt 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:35.139 Russian nightmares, the men in black. They weren't 00:13:35.139 --> 00:13:36.879 just soldiers. They were a cult of personality. 00:13:36.980 --> 00:13:39.320 They were. They dressed entirely in black, like 00:13:39.320 --> 00:13:42.340 monks riding black horses. But the visual branding 00:13:42.340 --> 00:13:44.080 that really sticks with you is what they tied 00:13:44.080 --> 00:13:46.379 to their saddles. I read about this. A severed 00:13:46.379 --> 00:13:49.750 dog's head in a broom. Yes. The symbolism was 00:13:49.750 --> 00:13:52.570 blunt and absolutely terrifying. The dog's head 00:13:52.570 --> 00:13:54.889 signified that they would sniff out treason and 00:13:54.889 --> 00:13:56.870 snap at the heels of the czar's enemies. And 00:13:56.870 --> 00:13:58.830 the broom. The broom signified that they would 00:13:58.830 --> 00:14:01.289 sweep Russia clean of corruption and traitors. 00:14:01.809 --> 00:14:04.149 Imagine the psychological impact of seeing a 00:14:04.149 --> 00:14:06.809 thousand men riding into your village with rotting 00:14:06.809 --> 00:14:09.409 dog heads hanging from their saddles. It was 00:14:09.409 --> 00:14:11.870 state -sponsored terrorism. And the economic 00:14:11.870 --> 00:14:14.570 impact was just as devastating. This wasn't just 00:14:14.570 --> 00:14:17.120 about killing people. It was about looting. It 00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:19.779 was organized plunder on a national scale. If 00:14:19.779 --> 00:14:22.820 the Tsar decided a noble was a traitor, the Oproniki 00:14:22.820 --> 00:14:25.240 would seize his lands, his wealth, everything. 00:14:25.580 --> 00:14:28.120 They would then demand exorbitant taxes from 00:14:28.120 --> 00:14:30.899 the peasantry on those lands, sometimes 10 years 00:14:30.899 --> 00:14:33.019 worth of payment in a single year. It must have 00:14:33.019 --> 00:14:35.299 just shattered the economy. It did. It decimated 00:14:35.299 --> 00:14:37.580 the agricultural base of the country and led 00:14:37.580 --> 00:14:40.360 to widespread famine. People fled their lands, 00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:43.299 becoming vagrants. This all culminates in the 00:14:43.299 --> 00:14:46.980 sack of Novgorod in 1570. And Novgorod wasn't 00:14:46.980 --> 00:14:49.500 just another city. It was a historic rival to 00:14:49.500 --> 00:14:51.960 Moscow, a proud republic with a tradition of 00:14:51.960 --> 00:14:54.820 independence. That independence was exactly why 00:14:54.820 --> 00:14:57.559 Ivan hated it. It represented an alternative 00:14:57.559 --> 00:15:01.559 to his model of autocracy. Based on a very flimsy, 00:15:01.559 --> 00:15:04.460 unproven rumor that Novgorod planned to defect 00:15:04.460 --> 00:15:07.539 to Lithuania, Ivan marched the Oprichniki there. 00:15:07.740 --> 00:15:10.259 And what followed wasn't a police action. It 00:15:10.259 --> 00:15:13.419 was a massacre. It was pure butchery. The details 00:15:13.419 --> 00:15:16.799 are gruesome. Men, women, and children were tied 00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:19.460 to sleighs and run into the freezing Volkhov 00:15:19.460 --> 00:15:22.919 River to drown. The city was systematically looted 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:25.059 for five weeks. What are the casualty numbers 00:15:25.059 --> 00:15:27.740 on that? They vary wildly. The chronicles from 00:15:27.740 --> 00:15:29.679 the time talk about... tens of thousands, maybe 00:15:29.679 --> 00:15:32.220 up to 60 ,000. But the city's population was 00:15:32.220 --> 00:15:34.399 probably smaller than that. Modern historians 00:15:34.399 --> 00:15:37.440 think perhaps 2 ,000 to 3 ,000 people died. But 00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:39.139 really, the numbers matter less than the intent. 00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:41.799 Which was? Ivan wasn't just killing people. He 00:15:41.799 --> 00:15:44.639 was killing the spirit of Novgorod. He was physically 00:15:44.639 --> 00:15:46.960 and psychologically erasing the idea that there 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:49.200 could be any power in Russia other than his own. 00:15:49.659 --> 00:15:51.379 But the terror eventually hit a wall. Right. 00:15:51.559 --> 00:15:53.840 The Oprychniki were great at terrorizing unarmed 00:15:53.840 --> 00:15:56.500 farmers and townspeople. But when a real army 00:15:56.500 --> 00:15:58.700 showed up, they fell apart. That's the ultimate 00:15:58.700 --> 00:16:01.840 irony of a police state. The Oprichniki were 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:06.480 bullies, not soldiers. In 1571, the Crimean Tatars 00:16:06.480 --> 00:16:09.820 launched a major raid on Moscow. The Zemshchina 00:16:09.820 --> 00:16:12.139 army was fighting elsewhere, so the job of defending 00:16:12.139 --> 00:16:14.379 the capital fell to the Oprichniki. And they 00:16:14.379 --> 00:16:16.960 failed. They failed spectacularly. They broke 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:19.759 and ran. The Tatars burned Moscow to the ground. 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:23.179 Ivan, hiding in a statehouse, realized his instrument 00:16:23.179 --> 00:16:25.440 of internal terror had made the state completely 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:28.399 vulnerable to external threats. He abolished 00:16:28.399 --> 00:16:30.179 the Oprichnina the very first time. next year. 00:16:30.320 --> 00:16:32.580 So the internal war cools down, but the external 00:16:32.580 --> 00:16:35.179 wars were still raging. And this brings us to 00:16:35.179 --> 00:16:38.259 foreign policy. While Ivan was crushing Novgorod, 00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:40.440 he was also trying to push west in the Livonian 00:16:40.440 --> 00:16:42.980 War. This was the Vietnam of the 16th century 00:16:42.980 --> 00:16:46.120 for Russia. It lasted for 24 years. Ivan was 00:16:46.120 --> 00:16:48.399 absolutely desperate for direct access to the 00:16:48.399 --> 00:16:50.820 Baltic Sea. Help us understand the stakes here. 00:16:50.919 --> 00:16:53.639 Why burn 24 years of blood and treasure fighting 00:16:53.639 --> 00:16:55.860 for a slice of the Baltic coast? Was it just 00:16:55.860 --> 00:16:58.570 land hunger? It was about suffocation. Russia 00:16:58.570 --> 00:17:01.529 was essentially landlocked. To trade with Europe, 00:17:01.649 --> 00:17:04.210 they had to go through middlemen, the Poles, 00:17:04.210 --> 00:17:07.349 the Lithuanians, the Swedes, who all taxed them 00:17:07.349 --> 00:17:10.390 heavily and crucially blocked technology transfers. 00:17:10.690 --> 00:17:13.470 They prevented weapons experts, architects and 00:17:13.470 --> 00:17:16.470 engineers from reaching Moscow. Ivan knew that 00:17:16.470 --> 00:17:18.309 if Russia didn't get a direct port, they would 00:17:18.309 --> 00:17:20.869 always be a second rate technological power. 00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:24.059 He was trying to break the bloc. And he failed. 00:17:24.599 --> 00:17:26.839 Comprehensively. It was a disaster. He ended 00:17:26.839 --> 00:17:29.640 up fighting Sweden, Poland, and Lithuania simultaneously. 00:17:30.339 --> 00:17:33.339 The Polish king, Stephen Bathory, was a brilliant 00:17:33.339 --> 00:17:35.779 commander who pushed the Russians back deep into 00:17:35.779 --> 00:17:38.599 their own territory. Ivan had to sue for peace, 00:17:38.740 --> 00:17:40.819 and he ended up actually losing historical Russian 00:17:40.819 --> 00:17:43.559 lands in the process. A 24 -year war that left 00:17:43.559 --> 00:17:45.400 him worse off than when he started. Exactly. 00:17:45.950 --> 00:17:47.890 However, while the Western Front was a disaster, 00:17:48.089 --> 00:17:50.410 there was this strange and fascinating relationship 00:17:50.410 --> 00:17:52.910 developing with England. This is one of the most 00:17:52.910 --> 00:17:56.490 bizarre subplots of his entire reign. English 00:17:56.490 --> 00:17:59.210 merchants looking for a northern route to China 00:17:59.210 --> 00:18:01.369 had accidentally discovered a route to Russia 00:18:01.369 --> 00:18:04.670 via the White Sea, completely bypassing the Polish 00:18:04.670 --> 00:18:06.910 Lithuanian blockade. So they found a back door. 00:18:07.089 --> 00:18:10.380 They did. The Muscovy Company was formed. And 00:18:10.380 --> 00:18:13.660 Ivan and Queen Elizabeth I became, well, they 00:18:13.660 --> 00:18:16.460 became pen pals. But they were having two completely 00:18:16.460 --> 00:18:18.359 different conversations in these letters, weren't 00:18:18.359 --> 00:18:21.039 they? Elizabeth wanted trade deals. Ivan wanted 00:18:21.039 --> 00:18:23.579 something much more. He wanted a full -blown 00:18:23.579 --> 00:18:26.160 military alliance. And not just an alliance. 00:18:26.380 --> 00:18:29.799 Ivan was so paranoid about his own boyars overthrowing 00:18:29.799 --> 00:18:32.039 him that he actually proposed a secret asylum 00:18:32.039 --> 00:18:35.279 treaty. He asked the Queen of England, if things 00:18:35.279 --> 00:18:37.400 go south here, can I come live in your country? 00:18:37.900 --> 00:18:40.500 The idea of Ivan the Terrible retiring to a cottage 00:18:40.500 --> 00:18:43.480 in the English countryside is just, it's mind 00:18:43.480 --> 00:18:45.619 -boggling. Can you imagine? Elizabeth was very 00:18:45.619 --> 00:18:48.359 polite but very noncommittal. She agreed to grant 00:18:48.359 --> 00:18:50.380 him asylum but stipulated he'd have to pay his 00:18:50.380 --> 00:18:52.480 own way. She wasn't about to put the Russian 00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:54.920 czar on the English public purse. And Ivan did 00:18:54.920 --> 00:18:57.849 not like that. Ivan was furious. He felt she 00:18:57.849 --> 00:18:59.910 was treating him like a merchant not a fellow 00:18:59.910 --> 00:19:03.069 monarch. He wrote her a surprisingly rude letter 00:19:03.069 --> 00:19:05.950 back famously telling her she acted not like 00:19:05.950 --> 00:19:08.970 a sovereign but like a vulgar trading wench. 00:19:08.990 --> 00:19:11.369 Calling Queen Elizabeth a vulgar trading wench 00:19:11.369 --> 00:19:14.630 is certainly a diplomatic choice. It really shows 00:19:14.630 --> 00:19:17.829 his complete inability to understand a monarch 00:19:17.829 --> 00:19:20.009 who is accountable to a parliament or interested 00:19:20.009 --> 00:19:23.309 in commerce. To Ivan, a ruler who cared about 00:19:23.309 --> 00:19:26.029 trade margins wasn't a real ruler. We've covered 00:19:26.029 --> 00:19:29.349 the West and the internal terror, but we have 00:19:29.349 --> 00:19:31.450 to talk about the expansion east because this 00:19:31.450 --> 00:19:33.750 is the moment Russia stops being a European state 00:19:33.750 --> 00:19:35.890 and becomes a Eurasian empire. Right. We're talking 00:19:35.890 --> 00:19:39.079 about Siberia. Right. But Ivan didn't send the 00:19:39.079 --> 00:19:41.059 army to do this, did he? The whole thing started 00:19:41.059 --> 00:19:43.259 very differently. No, it didn't. And this is 00:19:43.259 --> 00:19:45.279 where the story sounds more like the East India 00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:47.819 Company than a royal conquest. It was essentially 00:19:47.819 --> 00:19:50.220 a corporate venture. Started by a single family. 00:19:50.380 --> 00:19:52.900 The Stroganoff family. They were incredibly wealthy 00:19:52.900 --> 00:19:55.180 salt merchants. They were effectively running 00:19:55.180 --> 00:19:57.980 their own private fiefdom on the frontier near 00:19:57.980 --> 00:20:00.500 the Ural Mountains. And they hired a man named 00:20:00.500 --> 00:20:03.990 Yermak Timofeevich. Who was basically a river 00:20:03.990 --> 00:20:06.730 pirate. A Cossack mercenary, yes. They hired 00:20:06.730 --> 00:20:08.609 him to protect their investments in trading posts 00:20:08.609 --> 00:20:11.829 from raids by the local Siberian tribes under 00:20:11.829 --> 00:20:14.569 Khan Kuchum. So the conquest of Siberia, this 00:20:14.569 --> 00:20:17.490 massive addition to the map, started as a private 00:20:17.490 --> 00:20:21.089 security operation. It did. Yermak, with a small 00:20:21.089 --> 00:20:23.849 band of Cossacks armed with muskets, went on 00:20:23.849 --> 00:20:26.490 the offensive against the Khanate of Sibir. They 00:20:26.490 --> 00:20:28.509 were vastly outnumbered, but had the technological 00:20:28.509 --> 00:20:32.339 edge. They defeated Khan Kuchum's army. captured 00:20:32.339 --> 00:20:34.839 his capital, and Euromax sent a messenger to 00:20:34.839 --> 00:20:38.599 Ivan with a simple message. I offer you Siberia. 00:20:38.660 --> 00:20:40.859 How did Ivan react to that? I didn't order this, 00:20:40.859 --> 00:20:43.180 but thanks for the continent. Initially, he was 00:20:43.180 --> 00:20:45.279 angry because the Stroganoffs had provoked a 00:20:45.279 --> 00:20:47.660 war he didn't want or authorize. But once the 00:20:47.660 --> 00:20:50.339 victory was secured, he was delighted. He pardoned 00:20:50.339 --> 00:20:52.740 Yermak and sent reinforcements. It opened up 00:20:52.740 --> 00:20:56.079 vast, unimaginable resources. Furs, minerals, 00:20:56.380 --> 00:20:58.960 timber. It changed Russia's destiny. It did. 00:20:59.099 --> 00:21:01.440 Even though Yermak himself eventually died in 00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:03.319 an ambush drowned in a river because the suit 00:21:03.319 --> 00:21:05.519 of armor Ivan sent him as a gift was too heavy, 00:21:05.660 --> 00:21:08.579 the door to Asia was kicked wide open. Russia's 00:21:08.579 --> 00:21:11.549 center of gravity shifted forever eastward. looked 00:21:11.549 --> 00:21:13.329 at the map and we've looked at the politics. 00:21:14.049 --> 00:21:16.750 But we can't finish this deep dive without looking 00:21:16.750 --> 00:21:20.089 at the man himself in his final years. Because 00:21:20.089 --> 00:21:22.730 the tragedy of Ivan isn't just political. It's 00:21:22.730 --> 00:21:25.970 deeply, deeply personal. His personal life was 00:21:25.970 --> 00:21:29.069 just chaotic. Church law allowed a maximum of 00:21:29.069 --> 00:21:31.970 three marriages. Ivan had at least six or seven 00:21:31.970 --> 00:21:33.829 wives, depending on how you count them. He was 00:21:33.829 --> 00:21:36.450 collecting them. And discarding them. Some died 00:21:36.450 --> 00:21:39.009 under mysterious circumstances. Some were forced 00:21:39.009 --> 00:21:41.930 into convents. He was living in a state of constant 00:21:41.930 --> 00:21:44.710 sin according to his own deeply held religious 00:21:44.710 --> 00:21:47.210 beliefs. That must create a kind of psychological 00:21:47.210 --> 00:21:50.049 dissonance. An extreme one. He would spend hours 00:21:50.049 --> 00:21:52.769 banging his head on the floor in prayer, begging 00:21:52.769 --> 00:21:54.809 God for forgiveness, and then turn around and 00:21:54.809 --> 00:21:57.609 order another brutal execution. He even kept 00:21:57.609 --> 00:22:00.210 a synodic, a book of lists of his victims, so 00:22:00.210 --> 00:22:02.930 he could pay monks to pray for their souls. That 00:22:02.930 --> 00:22:16.650 is a special kind of psychological torture. This 00:22:16.650 --> 00:22:20.690 is the event that doomed the dynasty. Ivan Ivanovich 00:22:20.690 --> 00:22:23.750 was 27 years old. He was capable. He was tough. 00:22:23.970 --> 00:22:26.390 He had been trained his whole life to rule. He 00:22:26.390 --> 00:22:28.690 was the only son who was prepared for the job. 00:22:28.890 --> 00:22:31.349 What sparked the conflict? The sources say it 00:22:31.349 --> 00:22:34.569 was something domestic. It started with a family 00:22:34.569 --> 00:22:37.369 argument. Ivan confronted his son's pregnant 00:22:37.369 --> 00:22:40.250 wife, Yelena, claiming she was dressed immodestly, 00:22:40.390 --> 00:22:43.009 perhaps wearing only one layer of robes instead 00:22:43.009 --> 00:22:45.839 of the traditional three. He began shouting at 00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:48.660 her, maybe even beating her. And the son intervened. 00:22:48.700 --> 00:22:51.319 Naturally. The Tsarevich, Ivan, rushed in to 00:22:51.319 --> 00:22:54.099 protect his wife and their unborn child. The 00:22:54.099 --> 00:22:56.799 argument escalated. The father and son were screaming 00:22:56.799 --> 00:22:59.559 at each other, and Ivan, in a fit of uncontrollable 00:22:59.559 --> 00:23:02.579 rage, swung his iron -tipped staff. The same 00:23:02.579 --> 00:23:04.759 staff he always carried. The same one. It struck 00:23:04.759 --> 00:23:07.240 his son in the temple. The famous Repin painting 00:23:07.240 --> 00:23:09.599 catches the moment right after this. The horror 00:23:09.599 --> 00:23:11.940 in the old man's eyes as he clutches his dying 00:23:11.940 --> 00:23:14.720 son. Blood everywhere. He had killed his own 00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:17.859 legacy. Instantly the rage was gone, replaced 00:23:17.859 --> 00:23:20.960 by horror. He spent the next several days howling 00:23:20.960 --> 00:23:23.480 in grief, pacing the palace, refusing to sleep. 00:23:23.940 --> 00:23:26.240 Because he knew the remaining heir, his younger 00:23:26.240 --> 00:23:29.839 son, Feodor, was completely unfit to rule. Feodor 00:23:29.839 --> 00:23:32.299 was described as weak -minded. Right. Pious but 00:23:32.299 --> 00:23:35.519 simple. Yes. He was gentle, very religious, perhaps 00:23:35.519 --> 00:23:38.039 intellectually disabled. He had no interest in 00:23:38.039 --> 00:23:40.720 power whatsoever. Ivan knew that by killing his 00:23:40.720 --> 00:23:43.200 capable son, he had effectively signed the death 00:23:43.200 --> 00:23:45.599 warrant for the Rurik dynasty, which had ruled 00:23:45.599 --> 00:23:48.859 for over 700 years. And he was right. Fyodor's 00:23:48.859 --> 00:23:50.900 reign was short, and it led directly to the time 00:23:50.900 --> 00:23:53.299 of troubles, a decade and a half of civil war, 00:23:53.480 --> 00:23:56.740 famine, and foreign invasion. Russia nearly ceased 00:23:56.740 --> 00:23:59.190 to exist as a state. all because of that one 00:23:59.190 --> 00:24:01.650 moment of rage. Ivan himself died three years 00:24:01.650 --> 00:24:04.990 later, in 1584. How does the formidable Tsar 00:24:04.990 --> 00:24:07.829 go out? Not in battle, not by an assassin's blade. 00:24:07.930 --> 00:24:10.690 No, very quietly, over a game of chess. He was 00:24:10.690 --> 00:24:12.109 setting up the board to play with a courtier, 00:24:12.269 --> 00:24:15.670 Bogdan Belsky, when he just collapsed and died. 00:24:15.890 --> 00:24:19.009 And the physical reality of his body tells a 00:24:19.009 --> 00:24:21.950 story, too. You mentioned the 1963 exhumation 00:24:21.950 --> 00:24:24.109 earlier. What did the Soviet scientists find 00:24:24.109 --> 00:24:26.400 when they opened the tomb? They found a man who 00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:29.400 was a physical wreck. He was only 53, but his 00:24:29.400 --> 00:24:32.440 skeleton was that of a much older man. His spine 00:24:32.440 --> 00:24:35.519 was fused with osteophyte -sharp, painful bone 00:24:35.519 --> 00:24:37.839 spurs that would have made every single movement 00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:40.539 agonizing. Which provides some context for the 00:24:40.539 --> 00:24:43.480 constant rage. Living in chronic, screaming pain. 00:24:43.980 --> 00:24:46.319 does things to the human mind. It certainly erodes 00:24:46.319 --> 00:24:48.700 your patience and self -control. And the toxicology 00:24:48.700 --> 00:24:51.140 report was the real shocker. It showed massive 00:24:51.140 --> 00:24:53.839 concentrations of mercury in his bones. So was 00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:55.960 he poisoned? Did the boyars finally get him in 00:24:55.960 --> 00:24:58.839 the end? It's the eternal question. But the expert 00:24:58.839 --> 00:25:01.259 consensus now leans toward iatrogenic poisoning, 00:25:01.500 --> 00:25:04.579 meaning doctor -induced. Mercury was the standard 00:25:04.579 --> 00:25:07.039 treatment for syphilis and, more relevantly here, 00:25:07.240 --> 00:25:10.099 for severe joint pain in the 16th century. So 00:25:10.099 --> 00:25:12.279 he was poisoning himself. It seems he was likely 00:25:12.279 --> 00:25:15.359 poisoning himself slowly for years in a desperate 00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:18.279 attempt to cure his own pain. A slow, painful, 00:25:18.500 --> 00:25:21.299 toxic end to a toxic reign. It fits the narrative 00:25:21.299 --> 00:25:24.099 almost too perfectly. So let's zoom out. We've 00:25:24.099 --> 00:25:27.079 unpacked the man, the myth, the massacres, and 00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:29.839 the modernization. What is the ultimate legacy 00:25:29.839 --> 00:25:32.940 of Ivan the Terrible? It is profoundly dualistic. 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:35.519 On one hand, you can't deny that he created the 00:25:35.519 --> 00:25:38.500 modern Russian state. He centralized power. He 00:25:38.500 --> 00:25:41.059 crushed the feudal nobility. He expanded the 00:25:41.059 --> 00:25:44.019 empire to the Caspian Sea and into Siberia. And 00:25:44.019 --> 00:25:46.380 he established the absolute autocracy that would 00:25:46.380 --> 00:25:49.299 define Russia for the next 400 years. Without 00:25:49.299 --> 00:25:52.000 Ivan, there is no Russian empire as we know it. 00:25:52.079 --> 00:25:55.039 But the cost? The cost was horrific. He ruined 00:25:55.039 --> 00:25:57.599 the economy, decimated the population. his own 00:25:57.599 --> 00:26:01.000 cities, instilled a culture of paranoia and denunciation 00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:03.720 that echoes through Russian history. And he killed 00:26:03.720 --> 00:26:05.880 the only heir who could have kept the state stable 00:26:05.880 --> 00:26:08.559 after his death. He built a powerhouse, but he 00:26:08.559 --> 00:26:10.799 left it on a foundation of sand. It's interesting 00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:13.160 to look at how this is all viewed today. In 2016, 00:26:13.359 --> 00:26:15.480 the first ever monument to Ivan the Terrible 00:26:15.480 --> 00:26:17.960 was erected in the Russian city of Orel. And 00:26:17.960 --> 00:26:20.140 it was hugely controversial. It sparked a nationwide 00:26:20.140 --> 00:26:22.920 debate. I can imagine why. Supporters argue that 00:26:22.920 --> 00:26:25.359 he was a strong, effective leader who defended 00:26:25.359 --> 00:26:28.279 Russia against foreign encirclement and strengthened 00:26:28.279 --> 00:26:30.700 the sovereignty of the state, a rehabilitation 00:26:30.700 --> 00:26:33.819 that mirrors the way some people now view Joseph 00:26:33.819 --> 00:26:37.960 Stalin. Opponents see him as a bloody tyrant 00:26:37.960 --> 00:26:40.519 who murdered his own people and set Russia back 00:26:40.519 --> 00:26:44.019 by decades with his paranoia and terror. It really 00:26:44.019 --> 00:26:47.299 forces us to ask, what is the metric of a successful 00:26:47.299 --> 00:26:50.430 ruler? Is it the size of the map or the well 00:26:50.430 --> 00:26:52.349 -being of the people who live on it? That is 00:26:52.349 --> 00:26:54.869 the eternal question of Russian history and perhaps 00:26:54.869 --> 00:26:57.170 of political power in general. And that is where 00:26:57.170 --> 00:26:59.130 we'll leave it for today. We've looked inside 00:26:59.130 --> 00:27:02.009 the mind of the first czar and found a reformer 00:27:02.009 --> 00:27:04.250 and a monster living in the exact same skin. 00:27:04.529 --> 00:27:07.430 Here's a final thought for you to chew on. We 00:27:07.430 --> 00:27:10.029 often judge historical leaders by the territories 00:27:10.029 --> 00:27:12.569 they conquer or the buildings they construct 00:27:12.569 --> 00:27:16.509 because stone and land last a long time. But 00:27:16.509 --> 00:27:18.549 if the foundation of your empire is built on 00:27:18.549 --> 00:27:20.670 the broken backs and the terrified silence of 00:27:20.670 --> 00:27:23.329 your own citizens, how resilient is that structure 00:27:23.329 --> 00:27:26.630 really? Ivan built a colossus, but it collapsed 00:27:26.630 --> 00:27:29.910 the moment he was gone. So is true power about 00:27:29.910 --> 00:27:32.190 control or is it about creating something that 00:27:32.190 --> 00:27:34.450 can actually survive without you? A question 00:27:34.450 --> 00:27:36.529 worth pondering. Thanks for diving deep with 00:27:36.529 --> 00:27:37.789 us. We'll catch you on the next one.