Who was Ivan IV?
Ivan’s father, Basil III, died on the night of 3-4 December 1533, when Ivan was just three years old. Yelena Glinsky, Ivan’s mother, was his capricious regent until her death in 1538, after which battles for the regency became the focus of palace coups, murders, imprisonment and exiles. In this atmosphere, the very intelligent Ivan learned to be suspicious and vengeful, and to take pleasure in inflicting pain. At the age of 12 he began to ’shed the blood of our dumb friends,’ throwing animals off high roofs. By the age of 15, he began to do the same with people. But boyars who noted the youth’s temperament, praised him, saying: “Oh how brave and courageous this tsar will be!” Ivan’s most powerful impressions of his teenage years (he was 16 when crowned tsar) came shortly after his coronation and marriage to Anastasia Zakharina-Yuryeva, a member of the popular boyar family which later became the Romanov dynasty. During Moscow’s Great Fire and the ensuing riots of 1547, crazed mobs kille
