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Vladimir Putin has showed his true colours over the past few years attacking Chechnya, Crimea and now Ukraine in a bid to restore the historical Russian empire.
Russia, and its successor state the USSR, has had more than its fair share of unscrupulous and often brutal leaders.
From the reign of “Ice Queen” Anna Ivanovna, who exacted horrifying punishments on people suspected of “political crimes” to the rule of feared “Red Czar” Josef Stalin, Russians have lived in fear for centuries.
But the most fearsome of them all was Ivan IV Vasilyevich – known to history as Ivan The Terrible.
His parents both died when he was very young, and while Ivan was technically Czar the early years of his reign were dominated by the rule of a "Chosen Council" of advisers.
Ivan’s cruelty was limited to catching and torturing small animals when he was a child, but at the age of 13 Ivan asserted his power in no uncertain terms.
In 1543 Ivan had Andrei Shuisky, who was effectively ruling Russia in his name, arrested and put to death. Rumours persist that he had Andrei’s body dismembered and fed to his dogs.
He went on to launch the bloody Livonian War, which failed in its bid to expand Russia’s rule into Livonia – now the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia – but the conflict increased Ivan’s power in his own country.
But the early years of Ivan’s reign were marked by positive reforms and modernisation. He commissioned the building of the landmark St. Basil's Cathedral, which is still an icon of the Moscow skyline today.
But he is also said to have had the cathedral’s architect, Postnik Yakovlev, blinded so that he could never design anything as beautiful again.
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Ivan was intensely paranoid – perhaps justifiably given that his own mother and three of his wives are believed to have been fatally poisoned.
As he grew older Ivan’s power, and his paranoia, increased. In a daring masterstroke he announced his abdication in 1564, claiming he could not continue as Czar because of the financial misconduct of Russia’s priests and aristocrats
The aristocracy of the era feared a popular uprising if the Czar was removed and begged Ivan to return. He agreed, but only on condition of being granted absolute power. He demanded the right to condemn and execute traitors and confiscate their estates without consulting any other authority.
Ivan went on to set up the Oprichnina, Russia’ first secret police force, and used it to terrorise the Russian nobility into submission.
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But Ivan was perfectly capable of creating terror of his own. While the title “Ivan the Terrible” could be translated as meaning “powerful,” or “fearsome,” Ivan definitely earned the title.
He executed, exiled and humiliated prominent members of the aristocracy and greatly increased the financial tributes the remaining estate-owners had to pay.
Ivan took a particular dislike to the powerful city of Novgorod, believing that its leaders had made a deal with Poland, and ordered the Oprichnina to punish the inhabitants.
As many as fifteen thousand people are believed to have died in the five-week Massacre of Novgorod in 1570.
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Ivan’s army rounded up the city’s leading merchants and tortured them for information about the nobles’ deal with the Polish king.
They burned prisoners with a "clever fire-making device" called a grill, or simply roasted them over fires.
Women and children of all ages were bound and thrown from a high bank into the frozen Volkhov river where they were trapped under the ice.
Ivan’s soldiers patrolled the water in boats, armed with boat hooks, spears, lances and axes, finishing off the survivors.
Every day, hundreds were beheaded or drowned,
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In 1581 Ivan, who was then around 51 years old, beat his daughter-in-law because she was dressed in what he saw as excessively revealing dress.
She was pregnant at the time and the attack caused her to miscarry. Ivan had killed his own unborn grandchild.
Her husband, Ivan’s oldest son Ivan Ivanovich, reacted furiously, and as father and son argued, Ivan hit his son over the head with his staff, killing him.
In the 1580s, with his health failing, Ivan became obsessed with death. He brought in witches and fortune tellers to console him but nothing could postpone the inevitable. He died March 18, 1584, leaving the kingdom to his son Feodor, whose chaotic reign culminated in the catastrophic Time of Troubles, and led to the establishment of the doomed Romanov Dynasty.
Ivan wrecked his country, and personally killed both his heir and his grandchild. Russia was left in ruins, economically and socially, but more recently Ivan’s reputation has grown.
Stalin was a great admirer of Ivan’s, saying that that Soviet historians should praise the role of strong leaders. In 2003, a movement was launched to have Ivan declared a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church.
In 2016, a statue of Ivan the Terrible – shown astride a horse and in full imperial regalia – was erected in the city of Oryol.
“There are a lot of politics in [statue],” said Andrei Minakov, the head of Oryol’s local history museum. “The reality of what he did as a ruler, without his personal characteristics, is maybe attractive for some people.”
There was a clear hint that in Putin’s Russia, the image of a strong leader who would stop at nothing to expand his country’s borders is again something to celebrate.
- Vladimir Putin
- Russia
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