The special sovereign's inheritance is called. What is oprichnina, what was its meaning and what were the consequences. Reasons for introducing the oprichnina

Oprichnina

OPRICHNINA-s; and. East.

1. The system of internal political measures of Ivan the Terrible in 1565 - 1572, carried out to strengthen the Russian centralized state and to combat the princely-boyar opposition and alleged treason.

2. Part of the Moscow state, allocated in 1565 by Ivan the Terrible as a special fief, under his direct control, with a special administrative apparatus and a special army. The whole earth was divided into zemshchina and oprichnina.

3. The special army of Ivan the Terrible, which served as his support in the fight against the princely-boyar opposition.

4. In appanage Rus' of the 13th - 15th centuries: part of the appanage allocated as a special possession (for example: part allocated to the widow of a prince for lifelong possession).

1) in the XIV-XV centuries. special appanage ownership of women from the grand ducal family. 2) The name of the inheritance of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible in 1565-1572 with a special territory, army and state apparatus. 3) The system of internal political measures of Ivan IV the Terrible in 1565-72 to combat alleged treason among the nobility (mass repressions, executions, land confiscations, etc.).

OPRICHNINA (oprichnina, from Old Russian oprich - especially), the name of the internal policy of Ivan the Terrible (cm. IVAN IV the Terrible) in 1565-1572. In the 14th and 15th centuries oprishnina was the name given to the special appanage ownership of a member of the grand ducal family, usually women. In 1565, Ivan the Terrible allocated himself an oprichnina - a sovereign inheritance with a special territory, troops, and institutions. The oprichnina policy was aimed at eradicating alleged treason among the nobility (mass repressions, executions, land confiscations).
The establishment of the oprichnina was prepared by the events of the early 1560s.
Many local landowners who were not included in the “special” court were evicted from the oprichnina territory, and their lands were transferred to the oprichnina nobles. The nobles who were taken into account, better than other landowners, were allocated land and peasants, and received generous benefits. These land redistributions to some extent undermined the economic and political importance of the large landed aristocracy. With the beginning of the oprichnina, disgraces and executions intensified. The conductors of the oprichnina repressions were boyar A.D. Basmanov, armorer Prince A.I. Vyazemsky, M.L. Skuratov-Belsky. The establishment of the oprichnina and the actions of Ivan IV the Terrible, aimed at the physical destruction of real and imaginary political opponents and the confiscation of their land holdings, caused protest from part of the nobility and clergy. At the Zemsky Sobor of 1566, a group of nobles filed a petition for the abolition of the oprichnina. The petitioners were executed. Metropolitan Afanasy (abandoned the throne on May 19, 1566) expressed dissatisfaction with the oprichnina; the new Metropolitan Philip Kolychev (strangled by M.L. Skuratov in 1569) also spoke out against the oprichnina. In 1568, a large wave of repression began (the case of boyar I.P. Fedorov), which ended with the liquidation of the Staritsky inheritance (1569) and the defeat of Novgorod (1570). In the case of I.P. Fedorov executed more than 400 people. During the Novgorod campaign in Tver, Torzhok (in the cities through which the guardsmen marched) and Novgorod, the guardsmen killed 1,505 people only on the report of Skuratov-Belsky (in fact, there were many times more executed and killed). Oprichnina repressions were accompanied by murders and robberies of the population of cities and estates. Among those killed in Novgorod, most were black townspeople. The population was subject to unaffordable taxes, for the collection of which the guardsmen used torture and execution.
As a result of the oprichnina, Ivan IV achieved a sharp strengthening of autocratic power, giving it the features of an eastern despotism. The policy of oprichnina became an important stage on the path of peasant enslavement. During the years of the oprichnina, the tsarist government generously distributed black and palace lands to landowners, especially from among the oprichnina. At the same time, peasant duties increased sharply, and oprichniki removed peasants from the zemshchina “by force and not on time. The increase in state taxes and private duties caused the ruin of the peasants. The oprichnina terror was aggravated by the protracted war in Livonia, raids by the Crimean Tatars, famine, epidemics, and purges. Under conditions of oprichnina terror, when any protest was suppressed in the bud, the main forms of resistance of the peasantry were mass escapes and non-payment of taxes. The division of the state into oprichnina and zemshchina was fraught with disastrous consequences. In 1572, the oprichnina was abolished and part of the confiscated lands were returned to their former owners. The revival of the oprichnina under the name “destiny” occurred in 1575-1576, when Ivan IV put the serving Tatar khan Simeon Bekbulatovich at the head of the zemshchina, and he himself began new land redistributions.
Since the 16th century, various opinions have been expressed about the reasons for the introduction of the oprichnina and its essence. Progressive Russian historiography as a whole has leaned towards a negative assessment of the consequences of the oprichnina for the development of the Russian state. Research by Soviet historians (P.A. Sadikov, S.B. Veselovsky, A.A. Zimin, I.I. Polosin, I.I. Smirnov, L.V. Cherepnin, S.O. Schmidt, R.G. Skrynnikova, V.B. Kobrina, S.M. Kashtanova, N.E. Nosova) considered the oprichnina as a complex of military, administrative, financial and social measures of the government of Ivan IV, aimed at overcoming the remnants of feudal fragmentation in the country, the rise of the nobility and the strengthening of the peasantry. enslavement, but recognized that the oprichnina policy was accompanied by massive repressions that affected not only the princes and boyars, but also the nobles, as well as the broad masses. Historians of post-Soviet Russia do not see any positive aspects in the oprichnina policy; they believe that the scale of repressions of Ivan the Terrible is in no way justified and is largely connected with the manic character traits of the tsar himself. The oprichnina undermined the economy and productive forces of Russia, which became one of the reasons for the crisis of the Time of Troubles.

encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .

See what “oprichnina” is in other dictionaries:

OPRICHNINA, 1) in the 14th and 15th centuries. special appanage ownership of women from the grand ducal family. 2) The name of the inheritance of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible in 1565 72 with a special territory, army and state apparatus. 3) The system of internal political measures of Ivan IV in 1565 72 ... Russian history

OPRICHNINA, oprichnina, many. no, female (source). 1. In ancient Rus', during the appanage period, a plot of land allocated for lifelong use to the widow of a prince. 2. During the reign of Ivan IV, part of the state allocated for the direct administration of the tsar and... ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

1) in the XIV-XV centuries. special appanage ownership of women from the grand ducal family; 2) the name of the inheritance of Ivan the Terrible in 1565-1572. with a special territory, army and state apparatus; 3) the system of internal political measures of Ivan the Terrible in 1565-1572... Legal dictionary

1) in the 14th and 15th centuries. special appanage of women from the grand-ducal family2)] The name of the appanage of Ivan the Terrible in 1565 72 with a special territory, army and state apparatus3) The system of internal political measures of Ivan the Terrible in 1565 72 to combat p... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

OPRICHNINA, s, female. 1. In Russia in 1565-1572: a system of emergency measures carried out by Ivan IV to defeat the boyar-princely opposition and strengthen the autocracy. 2. The part of state territories that was under direct control... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

Noun, number of synonyms: 1 reason (1) Dictionary of synonyms ASIS. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

1) in the 14th and 15th centuries. special appanage ownership of women from the grand ducal family; 2) the name of the inheritance of Ivan the Terrible in 1565 72 with a special territory, army and state apparatus; 3) the system of internal political measures of Ivan the Terrible in 1565 72 to combat ... Political science. Dictionary.

Oprichnina- (from the Old Russian "oprich" except, separately, especially) the name of the system of measures carried out by Ivan IV in order to strengthen the centralized state and eliminate the economic and political influence of the boyars and princes (former appanage princes).... ... Encyclopedia of Law

Oprichnina- OPRICHNINA, 1) in the 14th and 15th centuries. special appanage ownership of women from the grand ducal family. 2) The name of the inheritance of Ivan IV the Terrible in 1565 72 with a special territory, army and state apparatus. 3) Terrorist dictatorship of Ivan IV the Terrible,... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

The best thing history gives us is the enthusiasm it arouses.

Goethe

The oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible is considered briefly by modern historians, but these were events that had a great influence both on the tsar himself and his entourage, and on the entire country as a whole. During the oprichnina of 1565-1572, the Russian Tsar tried to strengthen his own power, whose authority was in a very precarious position. This was due to the increasing incidence of treason, as well as the disposition of the majority of the boyars against the current tsar. All this resulted in massacres, largely because of which the tsar received the nickname “Terrible”. In general, the oprichnina was expressed in the fact that part of the lands of the kingdom was transferred to the exclusive rule of the state. The influence of the boyars was not allowed on these lands. Today we will briefly look at the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible, its causes, stages of reform, as well as the consequences for the state.

Reasons for the oprichnina

Ivan the Terrible remained in the historical view of his descendants as a suspicious man who constantly saw conspiracies around him. It all started with the Kazan campaign, from which Ivan the Terrible returned in 1553. The Tsar (at that time still the Grand Duke) fell ill, and greatly fearing the betrayal of the boyars, he ordered everyone to swear allegiance to his son, the baby Dmitry. The boyars and courtiers were reluctant to swear allegiance to the “diaperman”, and many even evaded this oath. The reason for this was very simple - the current king is very sick, the heir is less than a year old, there are a large number of boyars who lay claim to power.

After recovery, Ivan the Terrible changed, becoming more cautious and angry towards others. He could not forgive the courtiers for their betrayal (refusing the oath to Dmitry), knowing full well what caused this. But the decisive events that led to the oprichnina were due to the following:

• In 1563, Moscow Metropolitan Macarius dies. He was known for having enormous influence on the king and enjoying his favor. Macarius restrained the king’s aggression, instilling in him the idea that the country was under his control and there was no conspiracy. The new Metropolitan Afanasy took the side of the dissatisfied boyars and opposed the tsar. As a result, the king only became more convinced that there were only enemies around him.
• In 1564, Prince Kurbsky abandoned the army and went to serve in the Principality of Lithuania. Kurbsky took many military commanders with him, and also declassified all Russian spies in Lithuania itself. This was a terrible blow to the pride of the Russian Tsar, who after this became finally convinced that there were enemies around him who could betray him at any moment.

As a result, Ivan the Terrible decided to eliminate the independence of the boyars in Russia (at that time they owned lands, maintained their own army, had their own assistants and their own courtyard, their own treasury, and so on). The decision was made to create an autocracy.

The essence of the oprichnina

At the beginning of 1565, Ivan the Terrible leaves Moscow, leaving behind two letters. In the first letter, the tsar addresses the metropolitan, saying that all the clergy and boyars are involved in treason. These people only want to have more lands and plunder the royal treasury. With the second letter, the tsar addressed the people, saying that his reasons for absence from Moscow were related to the actions of the boyars. The tsar himself went to Alexandrov Sloboda. There, under the influence of the residents of Moscow, the boyars were sent in order to return the Tsar to the capital. Ivan the Terrible agreed to return it, but only on the condition that he would receive the unconditional power to execute all enemies of the state, as well as create a new system in the country. This system is called the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible, which is expressed in the division of all lands of the country into:

1. Oprichnina - lands that the tsar seizes for his own (state) administration.
2. Zemshchina - lands that the boyars continued to control.

To implement this plan, Ivan the Terrible created a special detachment - the guardsmen. Initially their number was 1000 people. These people made up the tsar's secret police, which reported directly to the head of state, and which brought the necessary order to the country.

Part of the territory of Moscow, Kostroma, Vologda, Mozhaisk and some other cities were chosen as oprichnina lands. Local residents who were not included in the state oprichnina program were forced to leave these lands. As a rule, they were provided with land in the most remote hinterlands of the country. As a result, the oprichnina solved one of the most important tasks that was set by Ivan the Terrible. This task was to weaken the economic power of individual boyars. This limitation was achieved due to the fact that the state took over some of the best land in the country.

The main directions of the oprichnina

Such actions of the tsar were met with sincere discontent of the boyars. Wealthy families, which had previously actively expressed their dissatisfaction with the activities of Ivan the Terrible, now began to wage their struggle even more actively to restore their former power. To counter these forces, a special military unit, the Oprichniki, was created. Their main task, by order of the tsar himself, was to “gnaw” all traitors and “sweep out” treason from the state. It is from here that those symbols that are directly associated with the guardsmen came from. Each of them carried a dog's head at the saddle of his horse, as well as a broom. The guardsmen destroyed or sent into exile all people who were suspected of treason against the state.

In 1566, another Zemsky Sobor was held. On it, an appeal was submitted to the tsar with a request to eliminate the oprichnina. In response to this, Ivan the Terrible ordered the execution of everyone who was involved in the transfer and in the preparation of this document. The reaction of the boyars and all the dissatisfied followed immediately. The most significant is the decision of Moscow Metropolitan Athanasius, who resigned from his priesthood. Metropolitan Philip Kolychev was appointed in his place. This man also actively opposed the oprichnina and criticized the tsar, as a result of which literally a few days later Ivan’s troops sent this man into exile.

Main blows

Ivan the Terrible sought with all his might to strengthen his power, the power of the autocrat. He did everything for this. That is why the main blow of the oprichnina was directed at those people and those groups of people who could realistically lay claim to the royal throne:

• Vladimir Staritsky. This is the cousin of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who was highly respected among the boyars, and who was very often named as the person who should take power instead of the current Tsar. To eliminate this man, the guardsmen poisoned Vladimir himself, as well as his wife and daughters. This happened in 1569.
• Velikiy Novgorod. From the very beginning of the formation of the Russian land, Novgorod had a unique and original status. It was an independent city that obeyed only itself. Ivan, realizing that it is impossible to strengthen the power of the autocrat without pacifying the rebellious Novgorod is impossible. As a result, in December 1569, the king, at the head of his army, set out on a campaign against this city. On their way to Novgorod, the tsar's army destroys and executes thousands of people who in any way showed dissatisfaction with the actions of the tsar. This campaign lasted until 1571. As a result of the Novgorod campaign, the oprichnina army established the power of the tsar in the city and in the region.

Cancellation of the oprichnina

At a time when the oprichnina was established by a campaign against Novgorod, Ivan the Terrible received news that Devlet-Girey, the Crimean Khan, with an army raided Moscow and almost completely set the city on fire. Due to the fact that almost all the troops that were subordinate to the king were in Novgorod, there was no one to resist this raid. The boyars refused to provide their troops to fight the tsarist enemies. As a result, in 1571 the oprichnina army and the tsar himself were forced to return to Moscow. To fight the Crimean Khanate, the tsar was forced to temporarily abandon the idea of ​​the oprichnina, uniting his troops and the zemstvo troops. As a result, in 1572, 50 kilometers south of Moscow, the united army defeated the Crimean Khan.

One of the most significant problems of the Russian land of this time was on the western border. The war with the Livonian Order did not stop there. As a result, the constant raids of the Crimean Khanate, the ongoing war against Livonia, internal unrest in the country, and the weak defense capability of the entire state contributed to Ivan the Terrible abandoning the idea of ​​the oprichnina. In the fall of 1572, the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible, which we briefly reviewed today, was canceled. The Tsar himself forbade everyone to mention the word oprichnina, and the oprichniki themselves became outlaws. Almost all the troops that were subordinate to the tsar and established the order he needed were later destroyed by the tsar himself.

Results of the oprichnina and its significance

Any historical event, especially one as massive and significant as the oprichnina, carries with it certain consequences that are important for posterity. The results of the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible can be expressed in the following main points:

1. Significant strengthening of the tsar's autocratic power.
2. Reducing the influence of the boyars on state affairs.
3. The severe economic decline of the country, which occurred as a result of the split that emerged in society due to the oprichnina.
4. Introduction of reserved years in 1581. The protected summers, which prohibited the transition of peasants from one landowner to another, were due to the fact that the population of the central and northern parts of Russia fled en masse to the south. Thus, they escaped from the actions of the authorities.
5. The destruction of large boyar lands. Some of the first steps of the oprichnina were aimed at destroying and taking away their property from the boyars, and transferring this property to the state. This was successfully implemented.

Historical assessment

A brief narrative about the oprichnina does not allow us to accurately understand the essence of those events. Moreover, this is difficult to do even with a more detailed analysis. The most revealing thing in this regard is the attitude of historians to this issue. Below are the main ideas that characterize the oprichnina, and which indicate that there is no single approach to assessing this political event. The basic concepts are as follows:

• Imperial Russia. Imperial historians presented the oprichnina as a phenomenon that had a detrimental effect on the economic, political and social development of Russia. On the other hand, many historians of imperial Russia have said that it is in the oprichnina that one should look for the origins of autocracy and the current imperial power.
• The era of the USSR. Soviet scientists have always described the bloody events of the tsarist and imperial regimes with particular enthusiasm. As a result, almost all Soviet works presented the oprichnina as a necessary element that formed the movement of the masses against oppression by the boyars.
• Modern opinion. Modern historians speak of the oprichnina as a destructive element, as a result of which thousands of innocent people died. This is one of the reasons that allows one to accuse Ivan the Terrible of bloodiness.

The problem here is that studying the oprichnina is extremely difficult, since there are practically no real historical documents of that era left. As a result, we are not dealing with the study of data, nor with the study of historical facts, but very often we are dealing with the opinions of individual historians, which are not substantiated in any way. That is why oprichnina cannot be assessed unambiguously.

All we can talk about is that at the time of the oprichnina, there were no clear criteria within the country by which the definition of “oprichnik” and “zemshchik” was made. In this regard, the situation is very similar to that which was at the initial stage of the formation of Soviet power, when dispossession took place. In the same way, no one had even the remotest idea of ​​what a fist was, and who should be considered a fist. Therefore, as a result of dispossession as a result of the oprichnina, a huge number of people suffered who were not guilty of anything. This is the main historical assessment of this event. Everything else fades into the background, since in any state the main value is human life. Strengthening the power of an autocrat by exterminating ordinary people is a very shameful step. That is why, in the last years of his life, Ivan the Terrible prohibited any mention of the oprichnina and ordered the execution of almost people who took an active part in these events.

The remaining elements that modern history presents as the consequences of the oprichnina and its results are very doubtful. After all, the main result, which all history textbooks talk about, is the strengthening of autocratic power. But what kind of strengthening of power can we talk about if after the death of Tsar Ivan a time of troubles began? All this did not just result in some riots or other political events. All this resulted in a change in the ruling dynasty.

In January 1565, from the royal residence of the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow, through the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, the tsar left for Alexandrovskaya Sloboda (now the city of Alexandrov, Vladimir region). From there he addressed the capital with two messages. In the first, sent to the clergy and the Boyar Duma, Ivan IV reported the renunciation of power due to the betrayal of the boyars and asked to be allocated a special inheritance - oprichnina (from the word “oprich” - in addition, in the old days this was the name of additional land granted to the grand duchesses). In the second message, addressed to the townspeople of the capital, the tsar reported on the decision made and added that he had no complaints about the townspeople.

It was a well-calculated political maneuver. Using the people's faith in the tsar, Ivan the Terrible expected that he would be called to return to the throne. When this happened, the tsar dictated his conditions: the right to unlimited autocratic power and the establishment of the oprichnina. The country was divided into two parts: the oprichnina and the zemshchina. Ivan IV included the most important lands in the oprichnina. It included Pomeranian cities, cities with large settlements and strategically important ones, as well as the most economically developed areas of the country. The nobles who were part of the oprichnina army settled on these lands. Its composition was initially determined to be one thousand people. The population of the zemshchina had to support this army. The oprichnina, in parallel with the zemshchina, developed its own system of governing bodies.

Management of Russia during the oprichnina period

Oprichnina is a system of measures of a terrorist military dictatorship to defeat the enemies of the tsar, strengthen autocracy, and further enslave the people.

It cannot be considered that the oprichnina was directed entirely against the willfulness of the boyars. It did not change the nature of feudal land tenure, nor did it eliminate the remnants of the appanage system. If the Elected Rada followed the path of gradual reforms necessary for the country, then the oprichnina is an attempt at accelerated centralization, the establishment of the most brutal despotism, autocratic order.

In an effort to destroy the separatism of the feudal nobility, Ivan IV did not stop at any cruelty. Oprichnina terror, executions, exiles began. In Tver, Malyuta Skuratov strangled Moscow Metropolitan Philip (Fedor Kolychev), who condemned the oprichnina lawlessness. In Moscow, Prince Vladimir Staritsky, the Tsar's cousin who claimed the throne, his wife and daughter, who was summoned there, were poisoned. His mother, Princess Evdokia Staritskaya, was also killed. The center and north-west of the Russian lands, where the boyars were especially strong, were subjected to the most severe defeat. In December 1569, Ivan undertook a campaign to Novgorod, whose inhabitants allegedly wanted to come under the rule of Lithuania. On the way, Klin, Tver, and Torzhok were destroyed. Particularly cruel executions (about 200 people) took place in Moscow on June 25, 1570. In Novgorod itself, the pogrom lasted six weeks. Thousands of its inhabitants died a cruel death, houses and churches were plundered.

However, an attempt to resolve contradictions in the country with brute force (executions and repression) could only give a temporary effect. It did not completely destroy boyar-princely land ownership, although it greatly weakened its power; the political role of the boyar aristocracy was undermined. The wild tyranny and death of many innocent people who became victims of oprichnina terror still evoke horror and shudder. The oprichnina led to an even greater aggravation of contradictions within the country, worsened the position of the peasantry and largely contributed to its consolidation.

In 1571, the oprichnina army was unable to repel a raid on Moscow by the Crimean Tatars, who burned the Moscow settlement - this revealed the inability of the oprichnina army to successfully fight external enemies. True, the following year, 1572, not far from Podolsk (the village of Molodi), 50 km from Moscow, the Crimeans suffered a crushing defeat from the Russian army, led by the experienced commander M.I. Vorotynsky. However, the tsar abolished the oprichnina, which in 1572 was transformed into the “Sovereign Court”.

Oprichnina weakened the country politically and economically. A number of historians believe that an alternative to the oprichnina could be structural transformations similar to the reforms of the Chosen Rada. This would allow, according to experts who share this point of view, instead of the unlimited autocracy of Ivan IV, to have an estate-representative monarchy with a “human face.”

CONCLUSION

During the reign of Tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible), the Kazan, Astrakhan and Siberian khanates were conquered, and the raids of the Crimean hordes on Moscow were stopped. During his many-year reign, Ivan IV sought to create an autocratic government, a centralized power, introduced a legal code (Code), the Streltsy army, and significantly expanded the territory of Russia.

At the same time, the tsar led the country to economic ruin, political destabilization, and weakening positions in foreign policy.

There is an eternal dispute: “who was the Terrible - a hero or an executioner.” Oprichnina, senseless executions of prominent people, tyranny and arbitrariness do not go unnoticed by historians. The Livonian War, which lasted 25 years and cost Russia countless victims, was unsuccessful.

The reign of Ivan the Terrible largely predetermined the course of the further history of our country - the “rust” of the 70-80s of the 16th century, the establishment of serfdom on a state scale and that complex knot of contradictions at the turn of the 16th – 17th centuries, which contemporaries called “troubles”.

But, despite the “character of despotism” often characteristic of that era, every truly Russian person with feelings of gratitude and respect should remember the first dynasty, with which the Russian people, in the eyes of history, experienced more than six centuries of its existence, filled with and great deeds and great disasters; during whose reign it developed into a powerful nation, acquired a vast territory and took its rightful place among other historical peoples of Europe and the whole world.

The content of the article

OPRICHNINA- a system of emergency measures used by the Russian Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible in 1565–1572 in domestic politics to defeat the boyar-princely opposition and strengthen the Russian centralized state. (The very word “oprichnina” (“oprishnina”) comes from the ancient Russian - “special”. In the 14th–15th centuries, “Oprishnina” was the name given to the members of the grand ducal dynasty of the state appanage with territory, troops and institution).

Introduction of the oprichnina in the 16th century. Ivan the Terrible was caused by the complexities of the internal situation in the country, including the contradiction between the political consciousness of the boyars, certain circles of the highest bureaucracy (secretaries), the highest clergy who wanted independence, on the one hand, and, on the other, Ivan the Terrible’s desire for unlimited autocracy based on the latter’s firm belief in personal godlikeness and God’s chosenness and who set the goal of bringing reality into line with his own beliefs. Ivan the Terrible's persistence in achieving absolute power, unhampered by either law, custom, or even common sense and considerations of state benefit, was strengthened by his tough temperament. The appearance of the oprichnina was associated with the Livonian War that bled the country, which began in 1558, and the worsening situation of the people due to crop failures, famine, and fires caused for many years by exceptionally hot summers. The people perceived adversity as God's punishment for the sins of the rich boyars and expected the tsar to create an ideal state structure (“Holy Rus'”).

The internal political crisis was aggravated by Ivan the Terrible’s resignation of the Elected Rada (1560), the death of Metropolitan Macarius (1563), who kept the tsar within the bounds of prudence, and the betrayal and flight abroad of Prince A.M. Kurbsky (April 1564). Having decided to break the brewing opposition, on December 3, 1564 Ivan the Terrible, taking with him the state treasury, personal library, revered icons and symbols of power, together with his wife Maria Temryukovna and children, suddenly left Moscow, going on a pilgrimage to the village of Kolomenskoye. He did not return to Moscow; he wandered around for several weeks until he settled 65 miles from the capital in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. On January 3, 1565, Ivan the Terrible announced his abdication of the throne due to “anger” at the boyars, governors and officials, accusing them of treason, embezzlement, and unwillingness to “fight against enemies.” He declared to the Posadskys that he had no anger or disgrace against them.

Fearing “turmoil” in Moscow, on January 5, a deputation from the boyars, clergy and townspeople, led by Archbishop Pimen, arrived in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda with a request to the Tsar to return and “do the sovereign’s work.” Having wrested consent from the Boyar Duma to introduce a state of emergency in the state, the tsar put forward the conditions that henceforth he would be free to execute and pardon at his discretion and demanded the establishment of an oprichnina. In February 1565 Grozny returned to Moscow. Those close to him did not recognize him: his burning gaze faded, his hair turned grey, his gaze moved, his hands were shaking, his voice was hoarse (Having read about this from V.O. Klyuchevsky, the psychiatrist academician V.M. Bekhterev four centuries later diagnosed: “paranoia” )

A significant part of the territory of the Moscow state was allocated by Ivan the Terrible as a special sovereign inheritance (“oprich”); here traditional law was replaced by the “word” (arbitrariness) of the monarch. In the sovereign's inheritance, “their own” were created: the Duma, orders (“cells”), the tsar’s personal guard (up to 1 thousand guardsmen at the beginning and by the end of the oprichnina - up to 6 thousand). The best lands and more than 20 large cities (Moscow, Vyazma, Suzdal, Kozelsk, Medyn, Veliky Ustyug, etc.) went to the oprichnina; by the end of the oprichnina, its territory accounted for 60% of the Moscow state. The territory that was not included in the oprichnina was called zemshchina; she retained the Boyar Duma and “her” orders. The tsar demanded a huge sum from the zemshchina for the establishment of the oprichnina - 100 thousand rubles. However, the tsar did not limit his power to the territory of the oprichnina. During negotiations with a deputation from the zemshchina, he negotiated for himself the right to uncontrollably dispose of the lives and property of all subjects of the Moscow state.

The composition of the oprichnina court was heterogeneous: among the oprichniki there were princes (Odoevsky, Khovansky, Trubetskoy, etc.), and boyars, foreign mercenaries, and simply service people. By joining the oprichnina, they renounced their family and generally accepted norms of behavior, took an oath of allegiance to the tsar, including not communicating with “zemstvo” people. Their goal was to get closer to the throne, power and wealth.

Promising the people to “establish the Kingdom of God on earth” headed by him, “God’s anointed,” Ivan the Terrible began with a bloody assertion of the autocrat’s power. He called himself “abbot”; oprichniks - “monastic brothers”, who in churches at night, dressed in black, performed blasphemous rituals. The symbol of the guardsmen's service to the tsar became a dog's head and a broom, which meant “gnaw out and sweep away treason.” Being a suspicious person, the king began to see this betrayal everywhere and especially did not tolerate honest and independent people who stood up for the persecuted.

Bound by harsh discipline and common crimes, the guardsmen operated in the zemshchina as if in enemy territory, zealously carrying out the orders of Ivan the Terrible to eradicate “sedition,” limitlessly abusing the power granted to them. Their actions were aimed at paralyzing the people's will to resist, instilling terror, and achieving unquestioning submission to the will of the monarch. Cruelty and atrocities in reprisals against people became the norm for the guardsmen. Often they were not satisfied with simple execution: they cut off heads, cut people into pieces, and burned them alive. Disgraces and executions became a daily occurrence. Provincial nobleman Malyuta Skuratov (M.L. Skuratov - Belsky), boyar A.D. Basmanov, and Prince A.I. Vyazemsky stood out for their special zeal and implementation of the royal whims and decrees. In the eyes of the people, the guardsmen became worse than the Tatars.

Ivan the Terrible's task was to weaken the Boyar Duma. The first victims of the guardsmen were representatives of a number of noble noble families; the tsar persecuted his distant relatives, descendants of the Suzdal princes, especially harshly. Local feudal landowners were evicted from the oprichnina territory by the hundreds. Their lands and the lands of their peasants were transferred to the oprichniki nobles, and the peasants were often simply killed. The nobles taken into the oprichnina, better than other landowners, were allocated land and serfs, and received generous benefits. Such land redistribution, indeed, greatly undermined the economic and political influence of the landed aristocracy.

The establishment of the oprichnina and its use by the tsar as a weapon for the physical destruction of political opponents, the confiscation of land holdings, caused a growing protest from part of the nobility and clergy. In 1566, a group of nobles filed a petition for the abolition of the oprichnina. All petitioners were executed by Ivan the Terrible. In 1567, opposite the Trinity Gate of the Kremlin (on the site of the Russian State Library), an oprichnina courtyard was built, surrounded by a powerful stone wall, where the unjust trial was carried out. In 1568, the “case” of boyar I.P. Fedorov began a large wave of repressions, as a result of which from 300 to 400 people were executed, mostly people from noble boyar families. Even Metropolitan Philip Kolychev, who opposed the oprichnina, was imprisoned in a monastery by order of the tsar, and was soon strangled by Malyuta Skuratov.

In 1570, all the forces of the oprichniki were directed towards the rebellious Novgorod. As the tsar's oprichnina army advanced towards Novgorod, in Tver, Torzhok, and in all populated areas, the oprichnina killed and robbed the population. After the defeat of Novgorod, which lasted six weeks, hundreds of corpses remained; as a result of this campaign, their number was at least 10 thousand; in Novgorod itself, most of the dead were townspeople. All repressions were accompanied by robberies of the property of churches, monasteries and merchants, after which the population was subject to unaffordable taxes, for the collection of which the same tortures and executions were used. The number of victims of the oprichnina during the 7 years of its “official” existence alone amounted to a total of up to 20 thousand (with the total population of the Moscow state by the end of the 16th century about 6 million).

Grozny managed to achieve a sharp strengthening of autocratic power and give it the features of oriental despotism. The zemstvo opposition was broken. The economic independence of large cities (Novgorod, Pskov, etc.) was undermined and they never rose to their previous level. In an atmosphere of general mistrust, the economy could not develop. Of course, the oprichnina ultimately could not change the structure of large land ownership, but after Grozny, time was needed to revive boyar and princely land ownership, which was necessary in those days for the economic development of the country. The division of troops into oprichnina and zemstvo became the reason for the decline in the combat effectiveness of the Russian state. Oprichnina weakened the Moscow state and corrupted the upper layer of society. When in 1571 the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey attacked Moscow, the guardsmen, who had become robbers and murderers, did not want to go on a campaign to defend Moscow. Devlet-Girey reached Moscow and burned it, and the frightened king rushed to flee the capital. The campaign of Devlet-Girey “sobered up” Grozny and caused a very quick official abolition of the oprichnina: in 1572 Grozny forbade even mentioning the oprichnina under pain of punishment with a whip.

However, only the name of the oprichnina itself disappeared, and under the name of the “sovereign court”, Grozny’s arbitrariness and repression continued, but they were now directed against the oprichnina. In 1575, the tsar, hoping to gain allies in foreign policy, even declared the Tatar service khan Simeon Bekbulatovich “sovereign of all Rus'”, and called himself the appanage prince “Ivan of Moscow,” but already in 1576 he regained the royal throne, simultaneously changing almost the entire composition of the oprichnina.

The essence of the oprichnina and its methods contributed to the enslavement of the peasants. During the oprichnina years, “black” and palace lands were generously distributed to landowners, and peasant duties increased sharply. The guardsmen took the peasants out of the zemshchina “by force and without delay.” This affected almost all lands and led to the ruin of land farms. The area of ​​arable land was rapidly declining. (in the Moscow district by 84%, in the Novgorod and Pskov lands - by 92%, etc.) The devastation of the country played a negative role in the establishment of serfdom in Russia. The peasants fled to the Urals and the Volga region. In response, “reserved summers” were introduced in 1581, when “temporarily” peasants were forbidden to leave the landowners at all, even on St. George’s Day.

Due to government taxes, pestilence, and famine, the cities were depopulated. The weakened country suffered one after another serious defeats in the Livonian War. According to the truce of 1582, she ceded all of Livonia to the Poles; under an agreement with the Swedes, she lost the cities of Yam, Ivan-Gorod, and others.

Historians are still arguing whether the oprichnina was aimed at the remnants of the appanage princely antiquity or was directed against the forces that interfered with the strengthening of the autocracy of Ivan the Terrible, and the defeat of the boyar opposition was only a side effect. The question of whether the oprichnina was abolished by the tsar at all and whether there was a second “surge” of it in the 1570s and on other issues has not been resolved. One thing is absolutely clear: the oprichnina was not a step towards a progressive form of government and did not contribute to the development of the state. This was a bloody reform that destroyed it, as evidenced by its consequences, including the onset of the “Troubles” at the beginning of the 17th century. The dreams of the people, and above all the nobility, about a strong monarch “standing for the great truth” were embodied in unbridled despotism.

Lev Pushkarev, Irina Pushkareva

APPLICATION. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE OPRICHNINA

(according to the Nikon Chronicle)

(...) That same winter, on the 3rd day of December, a week, the Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia with his Tsarina and Grand Duchess Marya and with their children (...) went from Moscow to the village of Kolomenskoye. (...) His rise was not like before, as before he went to monasteries to pray, or to which he went on detours for his fun: he took with him holiness, icons and crosses, decorated with gold and stone drags, and gold and silver judgments , and the suppliers of all kinds of ships, gold and silver, and clothing and money, and all their treasury, were taken with them. Which boyars and noblemen, neighbors and clerks, he ordered to go with him, and many of them he ordered to go with them with their wives and children, and the nobles and children of the boyars' choice from all the cities that the sovereign of life had taken with him, he ordered all of them to go with him. with people and with whom, with all the official attire. And he lived in a village in Kolomenskoye for two weeks due to bad weather and confusion, that there were rains and the reins in the rivers were high... And as the rivers became, both the king and sovereign from Kolomenskoye went to the village of Taninskoye on the 17th day, a week, and from Taninskoye to the Trinity, and to the miracle worker the memory of Metropolitan Peter. December 21st day, I celebrated at the Trinity in the Sergius Monastery, and from the Trinity from the Sergius Monastery I went to Sloboda. In Moscow at that time there was Afanasy, Metropolitan of All Russia, Pimin, Archbishop of the Great Novagrad and Paskova, Nikandr, Archbishop of Rostov and Yaroslavl and other bishops and archimandrites and abbots, and princes and the Grand Duke, boyars and okolnichy and all the clerks; yet I was in bewilderment and despondency about such a sovereign great unusual upsurge, and I don’t know where it will go further. And on the 3rd day the tsar and the grand duke sent from Sloboda to his father and the pilgrim to Ofonasiy, Metropolitan of All Russia, with Kostyantin Dmitreev, Polivanov’s son, with his comrades and a list, and in it were written the treasons of the boyars and governors and all the treasons of the orderly people that they committed and losses to his state before his sovereign age after his father, blessed in memory of the Great Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich of All Russia. And the Tsar and the Grand Duke laid their anger on their pilgrims, on the archbishops and bishops and on the archimandrites and on the abbots, and on their boyars and on the butler and the equerry and on the guards and on the treasurers and on the clerks and on the children of the boyars and on all the clerks He laid his disgrace in the fact that after his father... the great sovereign Vasily... in his unfulfilled years as a sovereign, the boyars and all the commanding people of his state caused many losses to the people and their sovereign treasuries were drained, but they did not add any profits to his sovereign treasury , also his boyars and governors took the sovereign's lands for themselves, and distributed the sovereign's lands to their friends and his tribe; and the boyars and governors holding great estates and votchinas behind them, and feeding the sovereign's salaries, and having collected great riches for themselves, and did not care about the sovereign and about his state and about all Orthodox Christianity, and from his enemies from the Crimean and from Lithuanian and The Germans did not even want to defend the peasantry, but especially to inflict violence on the peasants, and they themselves were taught to withdraw from the service, and they did not want to stand up for the Orthodox peasants in bloodshed against the Bezzermen and against the Latins and Germans; and in what way does he, the sovereign, his boyars and all the clerks, as well as the serving princes and boyars’ children, want to punish them for their faults and look at the archbishops and bishops and archimandrites and abbots, forming with the boyars and the nobles and the clerks and with everyone officials, they began to cover the sovereign tsar and the grand duke; and the Tsar and the Sovereign and the Grand Duke, out of great pity of heart, not even having to endure their many treacherous deeds, left his state and went where to settle, where God would guide him, the Sovereign.

The Tsar and Grand Duke sent a letter with Kostyantin Polivanov to the guests and to the merchant and to the entire Orthodox peasantry of the city of Moscow, and ordered that letter to be carried before the guests and in front of all the people by clerk Pugal Mikhailov and Ovdrey Vasilyev; and in his letter he wrote to them so that they should not hold any doubts for themselves, there would be no anger at them and no disgrace. Having heard this, the Most Reverend Athos, Metropolitan of All Russia and the archbishops and bishops and the entire consecrated council, that they had suffered this for their sins, the sovereign left the state, greatly offended by this and in great bewilderment of life. The boyars and the okolniki, and the boyar’s children and all the clerks, and the priestly and monastic rank, and the multitude of people, hearing that the sovereign put his anger and disgrace on them and left his state, they, from many sobs of tears in front of Ofonasiy, the metropolitan of all Russia and before the archbishops and bishops and before the entire consecrated cathedral with tears saying: “alas! woe! How many sins have we sinned against God and the wrath of our sovereign against him, and his great mercy has turned into anger and rage! Now let us resort to this and who will have mercy on us and who will deliver us from the presence of foreigners? How can there be sheep without a shepherd? When wolves see a sheep without a shepherd, and the wolves snatch up the sheep, who will escape from them? How can we live without a sovereign?” And many other words similar to these were uttered to Athos, Metropolitan of All Russia and the entire consecrated cathedral, and not only this saying, especially in a great voice, begging him with many tears, so that Athos, Metropolitan of All Russia, with the archbishops and bishops and with the consecrated cathedral, would perform his feat and cry He quenched their cry and begged the pious sovereign and the king for mercy, so that the sovereign, the king and the great prince would turn away his anger, show mercy and give up his disgrace, and would not leave his state and would rule and rule his own states as was fitting for him, the sovereign; and who will be the sovereign’s villains who did treasonous deeds, and in them God knows, and he, the sovereign, and in his life and in his execution is the sovereign’s will: “and we all with our heads go after you, the sovereign saint, to our sovereign Tsar and the Grand Duke about hit his sovereign grace with your forehead and cry.”

Also, the guests and merchants and all the citizens of the city of Moscow, according to the same brow, beat Afonasiy, Metropolitan of All Russia and the entire consecrated cathedral, to beat the sovereign tsar and the grand duke with their brows, so that he would show mercy on them, would not leave the state and would not let them be plundered by a wolf especially He delivered him from the hands of the mighty; and who will be the sovereign's villains and traitors, and they do not stand for them and will consume them themselves. Metropolitan Afonasy, having heard from them the crying and unquenchable lamentation, did not deign to go to the sovereign for the sake of the city, that all the officials had abandoned the sovereign’s orders and the city had left behind no one, and sent them to the pious Tsar and Grand Duke in the Oleksandrovskaya Sloboda from himself the same days, on the 3rd day of January, Pimin, Archbishop of Veliky Novgorod and Paskova and Mikhailov Chud, prayed to Archimandrite Levkiy and beat his forehead, so that the Tsar and the Grand Duke would be over him, his father and pilgrim, and over his pilgrims, over archbishops and bishops, and on everything in the consecrated cathedral he showed mercy and put aside his anger, he would also have shown his mercy over his boyars and over the okolnichy and over the treasurers and over the governors and over all the clerks and over all the Christian people, he would have put aside his anger and disgrace from them, and on the state would have ruled and ruled his own states, as it suited him, the sovereign: and whoever would be traitors and villains to him, the sovereign, and his state, and over those the sovereign’s will would be in his life and in execution. And the archbishops and bishops beat themselves up and went to Sloboda to the Tsar and Sovereign and the Grand Duke for his royal favor. (...) Boyars Prince Ivan Dmitreevich Belskoy, Prince Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavskaya and all the boyars and okolnichy, and treasurers and nobles and many clerks, without going to their homes, went from the metropolitan court from the city for the archbishop and the rulers to the Oleksandrovskaya Sloboda; Also, guests and merchants and many black people, with much crying and tears from the city of Moscow, went to the archbishops and bishops to beat their foreheads and cry to the tsar and the grand duke about his royal mercy. Pimin (...) and Chudovsky Archimandrite Levkia arrived in Slotino and went to Sloboda, as the sovereign commanded them to see with their eyes.

The Emperor ordered them to go to his place from the bailiff; I arrived in Sloboda on the 5th day of January... And I prayed to him with many prayers with tears for all the peasant people, as I had spoken before. The pious Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia, having mercy on all Orthodox Christians, for his father and pilgrim Afanasy, Metropolitan of All Russia and for his pilgrims archbishops and bishops, his boyars and clerks ordered the archbishop and the bishop to see their eyes and all to the consecrated cathedral, his merciful words of praise were spoken: “for our father and pilgrim Athos, Metropolitan of Russia, prayers and for you, our pilgrims, we want to take our states with petitions, but how can we take our states and rule our states, we will order everything to our father to his own and to the pilgrim to Ophonasiy, Metropolitan of all Russia with his pilgrims”... and released them to Moscow... And leave with you the boyars Prince Ivan Dmitreevich Belsky and Prince Pyotr Mikhailovich Shchetanev and other boyars, and to Moscow on the same day in January 5 day, he released the boyars Prince Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavsky, Prince Ivan Ivanovich Pronsky and other boyars and officials, so that they would follow their orders and rule his state according to the previous custom. The Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke accepted the petition of the archbishops and bishops to the effect that his traitors, who committed treason against him, the Sovereign, and in which they were disobedient to him, the Sovereign, should be laid down on those, and others should be executed with their bellies and statures imati; and to create a special one for himself in his state, for a courtyard for himself and for his entire daily life, to create a special one for himself, and for the boyars and okolnichy and the butler and the treasurers and clerks and all sorts of clerks, and for the nobles and the children of the boyars and the steward and the solicitors and the tenants, to create a special one for himself ; and at the palaces, on Sytny and on Kormovoy and on Khlebenny, to inflict inflicts on klyushniks and podklushniks and sytniks and cooks and bakers, and all kinds of masters and grooms and hounds and all kinds of courtyard people for every purpose, and he sentenced the archers to inflict especially on themselves.

And the sovereign, the Tsar and the Grand Duke, ordered the use of cities and volosts for his children, the Tsarevich Ivanov and the Tsarevich Fedorov: the city of Iozhaesk, the city of Vyazma, the city of Kozelesk, the city of Przemysl, two lots, the city of Belev, the city of Likhvin, both halves, the city Yaroslavets and with Sukhodrovye, the city of Medyn and with Tovarkova, the city of Suzdal and with Shuya, the city of Galich with all its suburbs, with Chukhloma and with Unzheya and with Koryakov and with Belogorodye, the city of Vologda, the city of Yuryevets Povolskaya, Balakhna and with Uzoloya, Staraya Rusa, the city of Vyshegorod on Porotva, the city of Ustyug with all the volosts, the city of Dvina, Kargopol, Vagu; and the volosts: Oleshnya, Khotun, Gus, Murom village, Argunovo, Gvozdna, Opakov on Ugra, Klinskaya Circle, Chislyaki, Orda villages and the Pakhryanskaya camp in the Moscow district, Belgorod in Kashin, and the volosts of Vselun, Oshta. The threshold of Ladoshskaya, Totma, Pribuzh. And the sovereign received other volosts with a fed payback from which the volosts would receive all sorts of income for his sovereign's daily life, the salaries of the boyars and nobles and all of his sovereign's servants who would be in his oprichnina; and from which cities and volosts the income is not sufficient for his sovereign's daily life, and take other cities and volosts.

And the sovereign made 1000 heads of princes and nobles and children of boyar courtyards and policemen in his oprichnina, and gave them estates in those cities from Odnovo, which the cities captured in oprishnina; and he ordered the votchinniki and landowners, who did not live in the oprichnina, to be taken out of those cities and ordered the land to be transferred to that place in other cities, since he ordered the oprichnina to be created for themselves especially... He commanded and at the posad the streets were taken into oprichnina from the Moscow River: Chertolskaya street and from Semchinsky village and to the full, and Arbatskaya street on both sides and with Sivtsov Enemy and to Dorogomilovsky to the full, and to Nikitskaya street half the street, from the city driving on the left side and to the full, beside the Novinsky Monastery and the Savinsky Monastery of settlements and along Dorogomilovsky settlements, and to the New Devich Monastery and Alekseevsky Monastery settlements; and the settlements will be in oprichnina: Ilyinskaya, near Sosenki, Vorontsovskaya, Lyshchikovskaya. And which streets and settlements the sovereign caught in the oprichnina, and in those streets he ordered the boyars and nobles and all the clerks to live, whom the sovereign caught in the oprichnina, but whom he did not order to be in the oprichnina, and those from all the streets he ordered to be transferred to the new streets on Posad

He ordered his Moscow state, the army and the court and the council and all sorts of zemstvo affairs to be supervised and carried out by his boyars, whom he ordered to live in the zemstvo: Prince Ivan Dmitreevich Belsky, Prince Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavsky and all the boyars; and he ordered the stablemaster and the butler and the treasurer and the clerk and all the clerks to follow their orders and rule according to the old times, and to come to the boyars about important matters; and the military men will conduct or great zemstvo affairs, and the boyars will come to the sovereign about those matters, and the sovereign and the boyars will order the administration of that matter.

For his rise, the tsar and the grand duke sentenced him to take one hundred thousand rubles from the zemstvo; and some boyars and governors and clerks went to the death penalty for great treason against the sovereign, and others came to disgrace, and the sovereign should take their bellies and fortunes upon himself. The archbishops and bishops and archimandrites and abbots and the entire consecrated cathedral, and the boyars and clerks, decided everything on the sovereign's will.

That same winter, February, the Tsar and the Grand Duke ordered the death penalty for their great treasonous deeds of the boyar Prince Oleksandr Borisovich Gorbatovo and his son Prince Peter, and Okolnichevo Peter Petrov's son Golovin, and Prince Ivan, Prince Ivanov's son Sukhovo-Kashin, and Prince Dmitry to Prince Ondreev, son of Shevyrev. The boyar Prince Ivan Kurakin and Prince Dmitry Nemovo ordered to be tonsured into monks. And the nobles and boyar children who fell into disgrace with the sovereign, he laid his disgrace on them and took their bellies upon himself; and others he sent to his estate in Kazan to live with their wives and children.

The oprichnina, a specially created appanage and personal guard of the Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible, was responsible for mass executions, persecution of the monarch's enemies and confiscation of property: they enjoyed and abused the phenomenal scale of power. But why did this old black intelligence agency appear?

Uncompromising, ruthless and eternally loyal to the Tsar, they terrorized the entire country and even had the last word in court. The dog's head hung from their necks, and they wore outfits similar to the dark robes of a monk. Everyone was afraid of them, from the poor to the nobles.

Ivan the Terrible, the Grand Duke of Moscow who allegedly killed his son, is associated with one of the darkest periods in Russian history. The frightened ruler created a new social class: his personal guards and secret police came up with the oprichnina. He used this special class of loyalists to punish those who displeased him.

Emergency measures

When Andrei Kurbsky, a military leader of noble birth and closest friend of Ivan the Terrible, betrayed him in 1564, the latter took an unprecedented step. He left Moscow while Russia was at war with Lithuania. After a quick prayer, the Tsar gathered his family, emptied the state treasury, and secretly left the Kremlin. But fleeing Moscow later turned out to be a bad decision.

There was panic in the capital. People were afraid that the country was left without a ruling elite. Crowds flocked outside the Alexander Kremlin, demanding Ivan's return to Moscow and an end to the anarchy that had created chaos in the capital.

A month later, Ivan the Terrible returned to Moscow with an ultimatum: he would continue to reign, but the country would be divided into two parts. One half remains in the full power of the tsar and his oprichnina, the other goes to the boyars and the princely elite. All other classes will continue to live in their usual places.

Dog class

Members of the oprichnina were chosen from the lower classes. The main criterion was that they had no connections with any of the noble dynasties. Each member, or oprichnik, promised to be loyal to the Tsar and swore to live by a special code: abstain from eating, drinking, or maintaining connections with anyone who was not a member of the oprichnina. If a guardsman violated these rules, then both he and his comrade were sentenced to execution.

Members of the oprichnina lived in a separate part of the city, in several central areas of Moscow (around Old Arbat and Nikitskaya Street). Ivan unceremoniously forced out the former tenants to accommodate his faithful guards, and the people were literally driven out, forced to seek a new refuge with their households.

The Tsar's personal guard initially numbered 1,000 guardsmen, and later this number grew to 6,000 people.

Executions by the will of the king

The political rationale for the oprichnina was to prevent dissent in the country and maintain control over power. It was at this time that the term "crime against the sovereign" first emerged as a real basis for repression (it only began to be used legally in 1649).
According to historical chronicles, members of the oprichnina carried out mass executions, robbed and pillaged people. In 1570, the entire Novgorod nobility was accused of treason against the tsar. “The accusation was clearly absurd and controversial,” says historian Vladimir Kobrin. Despite this, the noble Novgorodians were executed, as were several hundred residents. They were doused with tar, set on fire and thrown into the Moscow River alive.

The legal code of Ivan the Terrible made the death penalty one of the most common punishments. Sometimes one word from the guardsman was enough. After the execution, the oprichnik demanded all the property of the “traitor,” and the most active were generously rewarded.

It is not surprising that no one appreciated the strength of the evidence presented in support of executions “at the will of the king”; some of the accusations were outright bogus.

The oprichnina eventually weakened to such an extent that it was no longer able to defend itself against external enemies. A year after the devastation of Novgorod in 1571, the Crimean Khan attacked Moscow. The oprichnina barely managed to defend the throne, causing Ivan the Terrible to disband them and do what he did best: execute his senior officers.