General Notes

Ivan III Vasilyevich (1440-1505), called The Great, grand duke of Moscow
(1462-1505) who strengthened the hegemony of Moscow over the other Russian
principalities, and was the self-described Sovereign of All Russia. He was
born in Moscow on January 22, 1440, the son of Basil II, whom he succeeded. In
1470 he launched a war against Novgorod, which he conquered and annexed in
1478, thereby acquiring all of northern Russia from Lapland to the Ural
Mountains. In 1480, by refusing to make the customary payment of tribute to
the Tatar khan, Ivan ended the formal subservience of the Muscovite rulers to
the Tatars. Subsequently, he further increased his domain by conquest, by
purchases of territory, and by exacting allegiance from weaker princes. Ivan
invaded Lithuania in 1492 and again in 1500 and forced Alexander (reigned
1501-06), the ruler of that country and king of Poland, to cede (1503) a score
of Lithuanian towns to him. By his marriage in 1472 to Zoë (Sophia), niece of
the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaeologus, Ivan also made
creditable his claim to be the protector of the Orthodox church. Soon after
his marriage Ivan added the two-headed eagle of the Byzantine escutcheon to
his own coat of arms and, modeling his regime on that of the autocratic
Byzantine rulers, drastically curtailed the powers and privileges of the other
Russian princes and the Russian aristocracy. Ivan also issued the first
Muscovite legal code in 1497. He died on October 27, 1505, in Moscow.