With the adoption of the title of Tsar by Ivan the Terrible in 1547, the genealogy of the Grand Dukes of Moscow became one of the means to substantiate the claims of the ruling dynasty to royal power. Compiling a detailed genealogy was one of the main tasks of the scribes. As a result of their work, two remarkable monuments appeared, outwardly oriented towards the presentation of Russian history from ancient times: "The Sovereign Genealogy" and "Book of Powers". However, their main goal was to make the family of Moscow and Vladimir princes ancient. The compilers have developed a family tree of Ivan the Terrible, the roots of which go back to the reign of the Roman emperor Octavian Augustus.
Reality
Ivan the Terrible was interested in genealogy not only because of the need to substantiate his claims to the royal title. In the Middle Ages in Russia, the church played a paramount role, not only ensuring the connection of a person with God, but also determiningthe whole system of private relations. The connection with the church was especially important for the ruling family of Rurikovich. Ivan the Terrible during the period of the oprichnina even wore a monastic dress and conducted services according to the canons. But in his father's reign, the connection between princes and church hierarchs was threatened.
Grand Duke Vasily III, father of Ivan the Terrible, married Solomonia Saburova in 1505, but the marriage turned out to be childless. The married couple tried by all available means to solve the problem, that is, they often went on a pilgrimage, prayed to the holy protectors, but the long-awaited heir did not appear. Desperate Solomonia turned even to healers and sorcerers, but this could not happen to her - in 1525, with the connivance of Metropolitan Daniel, the wife of the Grand Duke was forcibly tonsured a nun, and the following year Vasily III married the young Elena Glinskaya.
Mother of Ivan the Terrible
The Grand Duke has taken an unprecedented step. Many church hierarchs, especially Maxim the Greek, Vassian Patrikeev and Metropolitan Varlaam, openly condemned Vasily's actions and refused to recognize his new marriage as legal. The Moscow prince resolutely de alt with them and did not even stop before depriving the metropolitan of his dignity - again for the first time in Russian history.
The attitude towards Elena Glinskaya in society was appropriate. Her Lithuanian origin, the way in which she became a princess, her behavior that did not meet the norms - all this caused hostility. Under the influence of his young wife, Vasily III despised another norm: he cut his beard. And soon crawledrumors about the connection of the young princess with the governor Ivan Fedorovich Telepnev-Obolensky, nicknamed Ovchina. Evil tongues conveyed the same rumor: for four years, the second marriage of Vasily III remained childless, until the princess met Ovchina. To this day, this allows some historians to believe that in the genealogy of Ivan the Terrible, there may not have been the Grand Dukes of Moscow.
Degeneration of a dynasty
The described events suggest that the Rurik dynasty, which ruled Russia from time immemorial, was approaching its end. Whether Vasily III was the father of Ivan the Terrible and his seriously ill brother Yuri or not, it is impossible to say with complete certainty. However, there are all signs of degeneration: the very first Russian tsar, especially after the death of his first wife, had a mental disorder, expressed in a tendency to cruelty. His eldest son Ivan had the same problem, and the second son, Fedor, according to contemporaries, was not of this world. He also failed to leave offspring.
There are various theories about the reason that the Moscow ruling house was on the verge of extinction. Someone accused the wife of Ivan III - Zoya (Sofya) Paleolog, also a representative of a fading dynasty. Supporters of the paternity of Telepni-Obolensky indicate that among his ancestors there were people with nicknames indicating the presence of serious he alth problems. However, apart from conspiracy theories, it seems inevitable that the life force of the ruling family in power, according tochronicle sources, from 862, by the end of the 16th century, it simply dried up.
House of Kalitiches
By the time Ivan the Terrible came to power, the family tree of the Rurik dynasty had greatly branched out. There were several local dynasties that trace their origin to Rurik: Obolensky, Shuisky, Baryatinsky, Mezetsky, etc. To justify their rights to supreme power, the Moscow dynasty needed to stand apart from the rest of the princes. In this regard, the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky Daniil (1277-1303) began to be called the founder of the dynasty of the Princes of All Russia.
However, this branch of Rurikovich received its name in honor of the nickname of the most famous for the destructive Tver campaign of 1327 and for mutually beneficial cooperation with the Horde administration of Prince Ivan Kalita (1322-1340). This is not surprising: Ivan I was the only descendant of Daniel who was able to lay the foundations of the dynasty. In addition, it was during his reign that Moscow became a serious center of power, the supremacy of which Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod and Tver were forced to recognize. The visible embodiment of this change was the transfer of the metropolitan residence to Moscow in 1325.
It is the name of Kalita that underlies the genealogy of Ivan the Terrible: the descendants of this prince firmly held the Horde label for a great reign in their hands. Even the plague epidemic of the mid-14th century did not prevent this. The activities of Kalita, aimed at ensuring the welfare of the Moscow principality, made it possible to openly fight the Tatars under his grandson Dmitry Donskoy(1359-1389). According to historians, it was under Kalita that a generation grew up that did not experience panic fear of the Mongols and was able to challenge it.
The dynastic origins of Grozny's cruelty
It is not necessary to accuse Elena Glinskaya of fornication. The descendants of Dmitry Donskoy in each generation showed all the great authority and cruelty. The ancestors of Ivan the Terrible died at a very young age, passing the principality to young children, forced to resist other contenders for power. This trend reached its peak in 1425, when Vasily I, the son of Donskoy, died. For twenty years, the principality of Moscow, created with such difficulty, plunged into the abyss of feudal war. Vasily II (1425-1453), in the course of the struggle, first with his uncle, and then with his cousins, used methods that were unexpected for the Russian people: on his orders, Prince Vasily Kosoy was blinded, and after a while the same fate befell the Moscow ruler. Some idea of how the subjects treated Vasily II is given by the phrase attributed on the margins of the chronicle record of his death: "Judas the murderer, your fate has come."
The First Terrible
The son of Vasily II, the grandfather of Ivan the Terrible, Ivan III, was also distinguished by his severe temper. It was he who first received the title of sovereign (or ruler) and the nickname Terrible. In the last years of his life, he faced a dynastic crisis: the established principle of inheritance of power from father to son was severely tested: the eldest son, Ivan the Young, suddenly died. Ivan III had to choose who was "older" - grandson Dmitry orsecond son, Vasily. The thoughts of the Grand Duke turned into the fact that at first the son Vasily tasted the prince's dungeon, and then the grandson Dmitry died in it.
Thus, even a cursory glance at the genealogy of Ivan the Terrible shows that the terrible events of his reign are naive to explain only by the possible adultery of his mother. The descendants of Ivan Kalita were quick to judge and punish and never stopped before the execution of their closest relatives. In the activities of the first Russian tsar, this feature of the Russian dynasty was superimposed on the psychological trauma suffered in childhood and extremely ambitious plans.
