General Notes

Ivan IV Vasilyevich, called The Terrible (1530-84), grand duke of Moscow
(1533-47) and czar of Russia (1547-84), one of the creators of the Russian
state.
Ivan was born in Moscow on August 25, 1530, the grandson of Ivan III and the
son of Basil III, whom he succeeded at the age of three. He was the first
Russian ruler to be formally crowned as czar. The first 13 years of Ivan's
reign constitute one of the greatest periods of internal reform, external
expansion, and centralization of state power in the history of Russia. In 1549
Ivan convoked the Zemsky Sobor, the first national representative assembly
ever summoned by a Russian ruler. In the same year he initiated a
comprehensive revision and modernization of the Russian law code. He conquered
and annexed the Tatar khanates of Kazan' (1552) and Astrakhan' (1556),
bringing the entire Volga River within the borders of Russia and ending the
threat of these Tatar areas to Russia. The long Livonian War (1558-83), an
attempt to gain a foothold on the Baltic coast, was, however, ultimately
unsuccessful.
Ivan's reign after 1560 is remarkable more for the czar's repeated displays of
erratic behavior and wanton brutality than for his statesmanship. He
surrounded himself with a select group of noblemen, whom he allowed to
exercise despotic power over his entire domain. In 1570 he ravaged the town of
Novgorod and ordered the slaying of thousands of its inhabitants because they
had been reported, on dubious authority, to be conspiring against him. Ten
years later Ivan brought personal tragedy upon himself when, in a fit of
anger, he struck and killed his eldest and favorite son. In his later years,
Ivan began the acquisition of Siberia after most of the Ob' River Basin had
been brought under Russian control (1581-83) by the cossack leader Yermak
Timofeyevich. Ivan died on March 18, 1584.