Ivan the Terrible

Ivan the terrible wedged a forty-year war on his own country, Russia. He devised cruel sadistic punishments in his personal torture chamber. He watched Prisoners filleted boiled and even fried. Execution and torture were routine in sixteenth century Europe. With Ivan it went beyond the standard routines he was a strict, even brutal ruler. Ivan destroyed villages, towns, and an entire city; he stabbed his son to death in a fit of rage, all in the name of God.
In 1533 the death of Vasily III set the Russian state into chaos. As Grand Duke of Moscow, he controlled the country and its rival noble families. Ivan his son and heir to the thrown was just three years old the day his father died. Five years later the nobility murdered Ivan’s Mother with a poison. He spent his childhood in terror armed men stalked the corridors of his palace as the royal factions fought for supremacy. Ivan was an emotional wreck. An eight-year-old boy feeling abandoned by his mother and father scared for his life as he is surrounded by violence of the factions fighting for power. Fear consumed his every moment. Despite his fears, he escaped unharmed. He started to believe that God was saving him. With the lack of human contact he was pushed to immersed himself in reading. Ivan read Old Testament and ancient books, obsessed with the respect and power of past rulers. The Old Testament is very bloody, with surpluses of killing, massacring and destroying. Here is where Ivan learned that a ruler is strong severe and brutal. Identity and purpose was found for Ivan in Christianity. The Russian Orthodox believed that in the fifteenth century Russia had become the true center of Christianity, orthodoxy was the true faith, and the ruler of Russia was the protector of orthodoxy. In other words Ivan saw the ruler of Russia to be the ruler of all rulers, the most important. Ivan’s worship was increasingly excessive, bang his head against the ground to religious idols caused him to for a callus on his...