The campaign of Ivan the Terrible against Novgorod took place in 1569-1570. It was essentially a punitive operation, which was personally led by the king, when he found out that the city's nobility might not be faithful to him. The performance was accompanied by massacres, became one of the bloodiest pages in the history of the reign of this sovereign. This article will discuss the reasons for the campaign, its events and results.
Background
Ivan the Terrible's campaign against Novgorod actually began after the tsar suspected the Novgorod nobility of treason. He became aware that the boyars might be involved in a conspiracy in which he suspected Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky.
Staritsky was the penultimate specific prince in the history of Russia, the grandson of Ivan III. Ivan the Terrible, he was a cousin. As a child, he spent three years in prison after his father spoke out against the government of Elena Glinskaya. He was released only in 1541, when heturned 8 years old. The father had by then died in prison.
When Tsar Ivan the Terrible fell ill, many boyars saw in Staritsky an alternative to Tsarevich Dmitry. But then the party of supporters of the king won, which drew up a letter of loy alty to the ruler. Vladimir Andreevich also signed it. After the tsar's recovery, Staritsky attempted a coup d'état, which ended in failure. But his fall from grace did not last long.
After he was repeatedly slandered. In 1569, the occasion was the reception that the inhabitants of Kostroma gave him when he was heading the army to defend Astrakhan. He was urgently summoned to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. At the entrance, Staritsky was surrounded by an oprichnina army. The formal reason for the accusation was the testimony of the tsar's cook, who confessed under torture that Vladimir had persuaded him to poison Ivan IV.
The prince was executed in October, and in December the tsar moved to Novgorod.
Denunciation
Besides the fact that he suspected the boyars of supporting Vladimir, another reason for Ivan the Terrible's campaign against Novgorod was the fear that the nobility was going to swear allegiance to the Polish king Sigismund II. The ruler of a neighboring country really had plans for these lands for a long time.
The reason for these fears was a denunciation filed by an unknown vagabond Peter from Volyn. As it turned out later, in Novgorod he was punished for something, so he was angry with the city. He accused its inhabitants, together with Archbishop Pimen, of planning to place Prince Vladimir Staritsky on the Russian throne, and to transfer Novgorod itself, together with Pskov, to the Polishmonarch.
According to the Soviet historian Vladimir Borisovich Kobrin, who specialized in medieval Russia, the denunciation was initially ridiculous and ridiculous, besides, it contained many contradictions. The point at least was that Novgorodians were simultaneously accused of two crimes that contradicted each other. On the one hand, they wanted to be under the rule of Poland, and on the other hand, they wanted to put a new tsar on the Russian throne.
This did not bother Ivan IV, who had long seen the strong and freedom-loving boyars as a threat.
Punishment
Ivan the Terrible's campaign against Novgorod began already in the autumn of 1560. Along the way, the guardsmen acted ruthlessly. In particular, they staged robberies and massacres in Klin, Tver and Torzhok. The same fate befell a number of cities that met on their way.
According to the surviving documents, it was possible to confirm the murder of 1505 people. Mostly these were Tatar and Lithuanian captives who were imprisoned. They also killed Novgorodians and Pskovians, who were evicted from their homes and are now taken by surprise by guardsmen on their way to Moscow.
Metropolitan in disgrace
Repressions also affected specific famous personalities. The tsar's minions got to the Metropolitan of Moscow Philip II, who by that time had already repeatedly denounced the atrocities committed by the tsar.
Initially, he was abbot of the Solovetsky Monastery, proving himself a capable leader. Philip categorically disagreed with the cruel and bloodthirsty policies of the king. Having spoken out against Ivan the Terrible, he fell into disgrace.
In 1568, a church trial took place, at which Philip was brought against the standard charges for that time for negligent clergy. He was suspected of witchcraft, as well as some misdemeanors when he was hegumen in Solovki. The Metropolitan was defrocked and exiled to Otroch Assumption Monastery in Tver.
Murder of Philip
One of the leaders of the oprichnina, Malyuta Skuratov, was sent to the monastery to ask him to bless the campaign against Novgorod. Philip refused. Then Malyuta strangled the monk, and then turned up to the abbot, saying that it was so hot in his cells that the former metropolitan died of intoxication.
Philip was quickly buried. It is possible that the tsar's entourage had a personal order from Ivan the Terrible to kill the priest. The main source of the version about the murder of the disgraced metropolitan is the Life, dating from the end of the 16th century, as well as several later chronicle references.
Under the walls of Novgorod
Already in the first days of January 1570, the oprichnina army was at the walls of Novgorod. According to historians, it numbered about 15,000 people. Of these, about one and a half thousand archers.
The city was cordoned off, the treasury was sealed. By January 6, Ivan IV himself arrived in the city. Two days later, the Novgorod clergy met with the oprichnina army on the Great Bridge across the Volkhov River. Ivan the Terrible personally accused Archbishop Pimen of Novgorod of treason. Togo was arrested and imprisoned. They abused him, depriving him of his dignity, and thenexiled to a monastery near Tula, where he soon died. Prince Andrei Kurbsky claimed that Pimen was executed by order of the king.
It is worth noting that before that, Pimen was considered a loyal supporter of the monarch, for example, he helped him denounce Philip. However, this did not prevent Ivan the Terrible from publicly humiliating the clergyman. The king called him a buffoon, ordered him to undress and tie him to a horse, which he declared his wife. In this form, Pimen was taken around the city.
Later it turned out that one of the squires named Athanasius Vyazemsky tried to warn the archbishop. As punishment, he was beaten with a whip in the square, and then exiled to Gorodetsky Posad, where he soon died.
Executions in Novgorod
After that, the guardsmen began to rampage in the city. It is almost impossible to establish the exact number of victims, since the count was carried out only at the beginning, while the purposeful destruction of the clerks and the nobility was carried out by order of the king. A court was arranged in the Rurik settlement. As a result, 211 landowners, 137 of their relatives, 45 clerks and clerks, as many members of their families were killed. Among the first victims of the Novgorod pogrom were the boyars Davydov and Syrkov, the chief clerks Bessonov and Rumyantsev.
After that, the king began to go around the surrounding monasteries, depriving them of all their we alth. At this time, the guardsmen made a targeted attack on Novgorod Posad. As a result of this attack, a large number of people died, which cannot be officially recorded.
Torture
After that, torture began in the city, which continued untilmid February. With the use of various sophisticated methods, many local residents were executed, including women and even children. Annalistic sources claim that the tsar ordered the Novgorodians to be doused with an incendiary mixture, and after they were still alive and already burned, they were thrown into the Volkhov. Some were dragged behind sleds before drowning.
Monks and priests were subjected to various abuses. They were beaten with clubs and then thrown into the river. Contemporaries claim that the Volkhov was full of corpses. Traditions about this were passed from mouth to mouth until the 19th century.
Some were beaten to death with sticks, forced to give up all the property they had, fried in red-hot flour. The Novgorod chronicler says that on some days the number of those killed reached one and a half thousand people. Days when 500-600 people were beaten were considered successful.
Crop failure and plague
Churches and private houses of Novgorod were looted. Food and property were destroyed. Detachments of the guardsmen were sent 200-300 kilometers around the city, where they continued to commit excesses.
However, the worst thing was not that. In 1659-1570, there was a crop failure in Novgorod. The total destruction of supplies in the city led to a terrible famine, from which even more people died than at the hands of the guardsmen. Evidence claims that cannibalism even spread in Novgorod. The plague epidemic, which began in Russia even before Ivan the Terrible's campaign against Novgorod and Pskov, completed the troubles.
Versions about the number of those killed
Exactthe number of people killed in Novgorod is still unknown. Kobrin speaks about 10-15 thousand people. Ruslan Grigoryevich Skrynnikov, who also studied the era of Ivan the Terrible, is about 4-5 thousand. At the same time, about 30,000 people lived in the city at that time.
The number of victims is still controversial among scientists. Of course, the figures given by contemporaries can be exaggerated, there are data that exceed the population of the city itself. At the same time, the terror spread to the surrounding lands, so the total number of deaths could be much higher.
Skrynnikov and Kobrin's calculations
Skrynnikov in his study gives a list of names of Novgorodians who died during the pogrom. It contains the names of 2170-2180 people. At the same time, the historian emphasizes that the reports could not be exhaustive, since some guardsmen acted without direct orders from Malyuta Skuratov, so the final figure is determined in the region of 4-5 thousand.
Kobrin insists that these figures are greatly underestimated. He notes that Skrynnikov's point of view is based on the assumption that Skuratov was the main, if not the only one, who ordered the killings. At the same time, Malyuta's detachment could only be one of many who staged terror in Novgorod. Therefore, in his version, he speaks of 10-15 thousand victims - up to half of the entire population of Novgorod, emphasizing that not only urban residents were killed.
One of the chronicles mentions a common grave, opened in September 1570, in which the victims of the tsar who surfaced were buried. It turned out to be about 10 thousand people. Kobrin specifies that this grave could not be the only one.
The result of Ivan the Terrible's campaign against Novgorod was the destruction of most of the city's population. If not immediately, then as a result of the subsequent famine and plague. The idea of the most cruel and merciless king, who is ready for anything to stay in power, was established in the minds of the people.
Pogrom in Pskov
From Novgorod, Ivan the Terrible went to Pskov. Here, with his own hands, he killed the abbot of the Pskov-Pechersk monastery Cornelius. This is reported by the Third Pskov Chronicle and Prince Andrei Kurbsky.
Cornelius went to the king at the head of the local clergy and served a prayer service in the Trinity Cathedral. After that, he personally met with Ivan IV, who killed him.
It is believed that the reason was the support of the disgraced Prince Kurbsky, with whom the monastery was in correspondence. According to the chronicle, the king repented of the murder almost immediately after the deed. He carried the body of Cornelius in his arms to the monastery.
Meeting the holy fool
Executions in Pskov were not as large-scale as in Novgorod. The tsar limited himself to killing only a few noble boyars and confiscating their property. According to legend, at that time the king was visiting the holy fool, known as Nikola Salos. During dinner, the holy fool handed him a piece of raw meat, offering to eat it, noting that he was already eating human flesh. Thus, Salos rebuked him for cruelty, which is believed to have prevented mass executions in Pskov itself.
According to legend, the king wanted to disobey and ordered to remove the bell from one of the monasteries. At the same moment, his best horse fell under him. This sign, to which he always attached great importance, made a strong impression on him. Ivan the Terrible hastily left Pskov for Moscow.
Interestingly, the meeting with Salos was mentioned for the first time by the English diplomat Jerome Horsey. Moreover, he describes the holy fool in a negative light. He calls him a sorcerer or a swindler who met the tsar in Pskov, began to curse, scold and threaten him. In particular, he called him a devourer of Christian flesh. The king allegedly shuddered at his words, asking him to pray for forgiveness and deliverance. Horsey at the same time calls the holy fool a miserable creature.
The search for dissidents and executions continued in the capital. The state punitive machine continued to search for traitors, accomplices of the Novgorodians.
