Tsar Ivan The Man Behind the Monster
Posted: Saturday, March 21, 2009
by Connor Davidson
Ivan the terrible (1530 -1584) waged war on this own people of Russia for forty years, needlessly slaughtering tens of thousands of this own people. I plan to investigate how a man can become so evil.
To set the scene it is 16th centaury Europe – a place where execution and torture were routine. Ivan however took this a step further – his victims were executed and tortured for the Tsars personal pastime. He even stabbed his own son to death in a fit of rage!
To start to understand him you must first look at his childhood. When he was very young his father (the grand duke) died. His mother then fought to get power before being poised by the nobility.
As a child he grew up in constant fear of his life. At his Kremlin palace in Moscow he had huge numbers of armed guards patrolling the corridors. Ivan was a paranoid, neglected child who was certain the nobles were after him like they were after his mother. Imagine living you life thinking you were going to be murdered at any moment – it would drive the best of us mad.
As Ivan got older he became more and more obsessed by the words of the Old Testament. This led him to believe that the Orthodox faith was the true form of Christianity and hence that he was the most powerful ruler and hence had power over all mortals. His anger boiled over at a Christmas feast where he savagely killed nobles by throwing them to hunting dogs to be torn to shreds. This accelerated him on the road to absolute power. Absolute power as they say corrupts absolutely.
Something quite remarkable then happened: he put his cruelty to one side and got married. The Tsar was now happy. Well for a while anyway. His wife died a few years later and the Tsar was distraught. This led him to the worst, perverted realisation: "If god could take his mother and his wife he was surely evil and the best path to god was through evil".
As a result the Tsar went mad yet again and committed -arguably- the worst atrocity in the medieval world. He killed tens of thousands of people, entire families vanished and whole town's populations disappeared. He set up the Oprichnina were set up as a "police" force to commit the Tsars atrocities for him.
To conclude: Ivan grew up in a brutal age and was brutal. He began life with both his parents being killed and his first wife was killed also. Now one can begin to understand there was many deep psychological problems faced by the Tsar which account (in part) for his actions.
I hope that you can appreciate the harshness of his childhood and the world that he grew up in. But I believe his actions and believes should be studied but never adopted – what Ivan done was wrong and there is not one thing anyone can do to change that.
Connor Davidson 3/21/09 I hope that you can appreciate the harshness of his childhood and the world that he grew up in. But I believe his actions and believes should be studied but never adopted – what Ivan done was wrong and there is not one thing anyone can do to change that.
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Top-level comments on this article: (6 total)A very sad story but very informative about Tsar Ivan childhood and his later years. yes Childhood events and incidences does play a a vital role in shaping and moulding the Adulthood. I am sorry for Ivan and I wish that evry child would have a happy, healthy and constructive childhood memories. It is also important for Parents to know that our child could be facing unresolved fears, traumas that can mar his/her personality in the future.I also am reminded not to be judjemental about people's actions because behind every action there is a cause.May every humanbeing enjoy a fantastic childhood.Thank you once again for this story. I am touched.Regards,SwapnaI agree every child is entitled to a good childhood. Tsar Ivan never got that. He had no-one. He went for years only speaking to a very small number of people.I agree every child is entitled to a good childhood. Tsar Ivan never got that. He had no-one. He went for years only speaking to a very small number of people.
This brings up the debate- nature or nurture?If I lived like he did, I would be driven mad, but this mad? I am not so sure about that.Also, that second image gives me a bit of a fright.That is a good point.The picture is scary - that was the artists idea.
Hi Connor,Wow, I never really knew how he had earned his name. Shows what mental illness can do on one side and happiness and love (with his wife) can do. I was always fascinated with the Russian Rasputin. His eyes and Charles Manson's seem a lot alike.At soe point I will be writing an article on Rasputin. Thanks for the comment.
Tsar Ivan was one of the worst things for Russia.
Interesting and informative cncerning someone who few know little about and about a very significant aspect of life.
Sad as Swapna said. It is deadly. And very well written CONN. God bless you.
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