CHAPTER XI
ASSASSINATIONS BY IVAN THE TERRIBLE
(1560-1584)
RUSSIAN history abounds in instances of famous assassinations. Sometimes these murders were committed by the rulers of Russia, at other times these rulers themselves were the victims. Ivan the Fourth, whose very surname, “the Terrible,” sufficiently indicates his character, was one of the most cruel and inhuman monarchs who ever ruled over a nation, either in ancient or modern times. It is therefore not one famous assassination which we wish to describe, but a series of monstrous crimes, unparalleled in history as the acts of one individual.
Ivan was only three years old when his father died. A regency was formed, composed of his mother and a council of boyars, belonging to different factions, who were constantly at war with one another. At no time had Russia been more poorly governed. As Ivan grew up, he was despised and maltreated by the haughty nobility; his favorites were abused. In order to divert his mind from nobler occupations and keep him in profound ignorance of public affairs, he was amused and entertained with coarse and brutal games which developed his innate cruelty and ferocity, and made him, at an early age, the terror of those who were subordinated to him. He delighted in torturing and slowly killing domestic animals, and also in crippling and killing old men and old women whom he encountered in the streets while riding fast horses or driving a carriage like a madman, without looking either right or left. He was a mere boy yet—hardly fourteen—when the boyars began to fear him and predicted a reign of terror when he should assume the reins of government.
At seventeen, he dissolved the regency and declared his intention to reign for himself. He also wanted to get married, and sent out messengers to the different provinces of the Empire to pick out the most beautiful young girls and send them to the capital, that he might choose a wife from among their number. Many noblemen hid their handsome daughters, or sent them far away from home on hearing of the Czar’s intention. His reputation for excessive cruelty had reached already the remotest parts of the Empire, and nearly every boyar trembled at the mere idea of becoming his father-in-law. But the messenger succeeded nevertheless in bringing together several hundred young girls of extraordinary beauty, and sent them to the capital. Ivan then chose from their number Anastasia Romanowna, a young girl of great beauty and great brilliancy of mind. He fell desperately in love with her, and through the superiority of her mind she gained a great influence over him, and succeeded even in keeping his cruelty in check.
Ivan was a man of natural ability. He had some striking qualities, and might have been a great ruler if his education had been entrusted to competent and wise teachers. At an early age he learned the art of dissembling to perfection, and possessed the rare faculty of keeping his plans and intentions secret even from his closest friends. It was only after the conquest of Kasan that he threw off the mask. Until then he had been exceedingly friendly and kind to a number of the powerful noblemen, who considered themselves almost his peers in rank and birth. But when that conquest had added to his power and authority, he suddenly said to his boyars: “At last I am free! God has made me the master over all. Beware!” Again it was his wife, Anastasia Romanowna, who with rare political sagacity prevented him from too openly showing hostility and impatience at their pretentious conduct. He was very young, and could afford to wait. But in 1560, when Ivan was only twenty-nine years old, Anastasia, his best friend and his ablest counsellor, died, and he found no loving hand to restrain his passions and keep his cruelty and ferocity in check. Nevertheless, for some time after her death the softening influence of his wife (whom he had really loved) over his cruel nature made itself felt, and for the next four years he proceeded rather cautiously. He considered all the boyars his enemies and traitors; and he commenced murdering them, one at a time.
In 1564 he threw off all restraint. He suddenly disappeared with all his soldiers and servants, and rumors were circulated that he intended to abdicate the crown and to retire from public life. The abject fear in which the people had lived for thirty years had fully demoralized them. Boyars, clergymen, and the great mass of the people went nearly crazy at the idea that their “dear little father” would no longer rule over them. At last they discovered his place of retirement, and the manifestations of public delight at this discovery were almost boundless. Delegation after delegation waited upon him and implored him on their knees that he might return to his capital and continue to govern them. At last Ivan consented to return, but he consented conditionally. He demanded—and they all cheerfully agreed to the demand—that he should have full and absolute power to punish all his enemies and all traitors by banishment or death and confiscation of their property, without being interfered with, even by the clergy. It was a regular coup d’état. From this act dates the absolute rule of the emperors of Russia, and Ivan the Fourth thenceforth took the official title of “Czar of all the Russias,” which his successors have retained to the present day.
Ivan had carefully matured his plan. He took possession of a certain number of cities and country districts, expelled the proprietors from them, declared them territory forfeited to the government, and distributed them among certain of his own adherents upon whose fidelity he could count. These adherents generally were taken from the lowest classes of the people, knew no other law than the will of their master, and obeyed him blindly. While confiscating all these estates without mercy or hesitation, on the most trivial or far-fetched pretexts, he was shrewd enough to respect constitutional rights in other parts of the Empire. His plan was to increase the imperial private domains gradually to enormous proportions by dispossessing year after year the legitimate proprietors of the soil, and by this method to destroy the power of the nobility. In order to accomplish this purpose he did not hesitate to employ the most cruel and disreputable means for the conviction and punishment of his intended victims.
One of his favorite ways for entrapping and punishing a rich boyar was to order one of the servants employed in the imperial household to steal jewelry or other valuables, and then to seek refuge in the boyar’s residence. Of course, the fugitive was closely pursued by the Czar’s guards, drawn from his hiding-place, and then massacred together with the boyar and his family, who, the Czar pretended to believe, were the thief’s accomplices and deserved death as well as the offender. But much oftener the terrible Czar rushed down, with a numerous suite of his followers, upon the residence of a wealthy boyar, put all the men, the children and the old women of the domain to the sword, carried off the young women and girls, and abandoned them on the highways after he and his gang had satisfied their desires on them. On the trumped up charge that Grand Duke Wladimir, his own cousin, as well as the Grand Duke’s wife and grown daughters had participated in a conspiracy against the Czar’s life, he forced him to commit suicide by drinking poison, while the Grand Duchess and her beautiful young daughters, and all their ladies of honor and female servants, were divested of their garments, exposed in a state of complete nudity on the market space of the town adjacent to their domain, and afterwards butchered in cold blood. Wladimir’s immense wealth and all his real estate were confiscated by the crown. In this manner Ivan succeeded in overpowering the boyars, one after another, in a very short time, and acquiring immense wealth. He visited the different provinces and departments in succession, and wherever he appeared he left a track of desolation, rapine, and murder. From the capital of each province he organized marauding tours in all directions, placing each under the command of an officer on whose devotion to himself and ferocity to others he could count. But the most terrible expeditions were those which he commanded himself. It can truthfully be said that wherever Ivan “visited,” he destroyed everything in sight,—not only the human inhabitants, but also the farm and domestic animals, even dogs and cats. He took also a pleasure in draining ponds and creeks, so as to cause the fish to die, and after having killed or mutilated all things living, he ordered the buildings to be set on fire, and left the scene of his cruelty and lust amidst the wild huzzas of his comrades. No civilized, or half-civilized country had ever witnessed such atrocities on the part of its own ruler.
If Ivan was not travelling and marauding he resided generally in the Alexandrowna Convent, which he had strongly fortified. This convent, situated in the neighborhood of Moscow, and surrounded by dense forests, was not only the scene of his bestial orgies and excesses, and of his more than beastly cruelty, but also of his hypocritical zeal for religion and divine service. The convent, although transformed into a palace, remained still a convent. Ivan’s most abject and infamous favorites were acting as monks, while Ivan himself performed the functions of the pontiff. He also acted as a bell-ringer for the church. Quite early in the morning, at four o’clock, mass was read and public service was held in the church, lasting till seven o’clock. Regularly every evening, from seven to eight o’clock, there was again divine service. The time intervening between the dinner and the last church service was employed by him in going to the torture rooms of the palace where his victims—and there was always a number of them—were subjected to the most excruciating pain, and in many cases tortured to death. To be invited to these scenes of horror was a mark of imperial favor.