When people think of Ivan IV, they think of a mad man that had no mercy for anyone. It was hard to stop his horrible fits of cruelty and paranoia. That is when Ivan IV took the name of "Ivan the Terrible" from his bazaar behavior. He was one of the most ruthless tyrants in history. Yet for many people in Russia, he is a national hero, even thought he is a man of contradiction. One example of that is when he believed he was chosen to save the souls of his people, but he was the one who brutally killed thousands of people.
Ivan, born in 1530, was only three years old when he inherited the Russian throne after his father's death. In 1538 when Ivan was seven, his mother was poisoned by the boyars of the court. Because of this, Ivan and his brother Yuri were left in the hands of the boyars to be taken care of.
Ivan IV of Russia ("Ivan the Terrible") demonstrat...
Ivan the Terrible by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1897
English: The ivory throne of Tsar Ivan IV The Terr...At the age of 17, Ivan was crowned Russia's first Tsar. Three weeks later he was to choose his bride; Anastasia Romanov the daughter of a minor noble, they were happily married. It is said that she calmed him down when he had his horrible outbreaks of anger.
Ivan had launched a war against Russia's biggest enemy, the Tartars. He showed no mercy towards these Muslim people and destroyed their culture without thinking twice. He became the Orthodox crusader of the sixteenth century when he set a conquest of Kazan and later of Astrakhan and Siberia. During this time his wife, Anastasia, helped him to keep his short-tempered anger under control, but then she died in 1560, which was considered the
In 1564, Ivan left Moscow to a small town and he sent a messenger to say that the...