Ivan III of Moscow

Early life

Ivan Vasilyevich was born on 22 January 1440 into the family of Vasily II, the grand prince of Moscow, and Maria of Borovsk, the daughter of an appanage prince and a granddaughter of Vladimir the Bold.

The first time Ivan is called heir and grand prince in treaties between his father and other Russian princes is in a treaty with Ivan Vasilyevich of Suzdal dating from 1448 or 1449. The title of grand prince is not included in a treaty with Casimir IV of Poland dating from 13 August 1449, but appears again in treaties with Vasily Yaroslavich of Serpukhov in the early 1450s.

Ivan had four brothers: Yury, Andrey Bolshoy ("the big"), Boris, and Andrey Menshoy ("the little"). In the same will that Vasily II had given Ivan III the grand principality, his brothers were awarded appanages. Yury was given Dmitrov, Mozhaysk and Serpukhov, Andrey Bolshoy was given Uglich, Bezhetsk and Verkh and Zvenigorod, Boris was given Volokolamsk, Rzhev and Ruza, while Andrey Menshoy was given Vologda.

Reign

Territorial expansion and centralisation

Ivan's rule is marked by vastly expanding the territory and his control of the Muscovy. As part of the successful "gathering of the Russian lands", Ivan brought the independent duchies of different Rurikid princes under the direct control of Moscow, leaving the princes and their posterity without royal titles or land inheritance. It was during Ivan's reign that the emergence of a centralized Russian state occurred following a period of feudal fragmentation, with Moscow at its center.

Following a war with the Novgorod Republic in 1456, due to Novgorod's support of the rebellious Dmitry Shemyaka against Vasily II in his civil war, Moscow began to gradually seize land in the northern territories that were formerly under Novgorodian control for the next decade and half due to a desire for luxury furs in the area. This led to a struggle with Novgorod for the Russian fur trade, and thus, an economic rivalry for fur, land and trade ports. Some Novgorodian boyars were opposed to Moscow as a result, while others pursued a pro-Moscow policy in the hopes that good relations could reduce disruption in east-west trade, while Novgorod was also dependent on the Russian lands to its southwest for important imports such as grain. Some Novgorodians were also attracted to Moscow due to it being the center of Russian Orthodoxy as opposed to Lithuania, where Catholicism was dominant and its culture was being increasingly polonised, though some Novgorodian clergy adopted a pro-Lithuanian policy for political reasons due to fears that embracing the grand prince of Moscow would eventually lead to the end of Novgorod's independence.

By 1470, with the pro-Lithuanian faction being dominant, the Novgorodian boyars questioned Ivan's sovereignty over the city-state as their prince. Novgorod negotiated with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and requested Casimir IV to send them a prince. This led to Mikhailo Olelkovich, Ivan's cousin, being accepted as the new prince, though he would step down as prince shortly after. Ivan saw the actions of Novgorod as a cause for war, and he also called it an act of apostasy from Orthodoxy (in part, because Poland and its monarchs were Catholic). Ivan led his troops to Novgorod where his army defeated the Novgorodians at the Battle of Shelon on 14 July 1471. Ivan then had the four leaders of the anti-Moscow faction in Novgorod executed, including the son of Marfa Boretskaya, an influential boyar woman who had played a leading role in the faction. In a peace treaty signed on 11 August 1471, Novgorod agreed to abandon its overtures to Lithuania and to cede a considerable portion of its northern territories, while paying a war indemnity of 15,500 rubles. Novgorod also had to recognize Moscow's claims to territories to the east of the Northern Dvina which they had been struggling over. Ivan took a promise of allegiance from Novgorod, but left its system of government in place.

Domestic policy

The character of the government of Moscow changed significantly under Ivan III, taking on a new autocratic form, as Moscow increased its hegemony, but also to new imperial pretensions. After the fall of Constantinople, Orthodox canonists were inclined to regard the grand princes of Moscow, where the Metropolitan of Kiev moved in 1325 after the Mongol invasions, as the successors of the Byzantine emperors. Ivan himself appeared to welcome the idea, and he began to use the title of tsar in foreign correspondence, meaning caesar.

The adoption of Byzantine symbolism and its ceremonial style in effect allowed for the Muscovite grand prince to claim the powers of that of a Byzantine emperor. Russian ruling circles were already well aware of Byzantine traditions, including the court, hierarchy, and symbolism, due in part to most of the Kievan metropolitans and clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church having been Greeks. The Russians had also long called the Byzantine emperor tsar, and had known of the South Slavic writers who gave the title to their most successful rulers. A Serbian monk who had arrived in Moscow in the early 1440s helped to provide the foundation for the title, having composed a "chronograph" which included the prophecy of a "Russian" clan coming to rule in Constantinople. He also referred to the Muscovite grand prince as the "Orthodox tsar and autocrat" following the Council of Florence.

This movement coincided with a change in the family circumstances of Ivan III. After the death of his first consort in 1467, Maria of Tver, and at the suggestion of Pope Paul II in 1469, who hoped thereby to bind Moscow to the Holy See, Ivan III wedded Sophia Palaiologina (also known under her original name Zoe) in 1472, daughter of Thomas Palaeologus, despot of Morea, who claimed the throne of Constantinople as the brother of Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor. Frustrating the Pope's hopes of reuniting the two faiths, the princess endorsed Eastern Orthodoxy. Due to her family traditions, she encouraged imperial ideas in the mind of her consort. It was through her influence that the ceremonious etiquette of Constantinople (along with the imperial double-headed eagle and all that it implied) was adopted by the court of Moscow. Ivan combined the double-headed eagle with his emblem of Saint George slaying the dragon; his family seal became and remained a symbol of the Russian tsars until the monarchy was abolished in 1917. Ivan's marriage would add to Moscow's prestige after the Russian Orthodox Church had earlier declared itself autocephalous in 1448, and a native metropolitan was installed in Moscow. The transformation to absolutism was supported by the Russian Orthodox Church, which benefitted from Moscow's increased international standing, with the doctrine of Moscow as the "third Rome" beginning to emerge.

Foreign policy

Moscow played an increasingly visible role in international affairs as it established diplomatic relations with the Crimean Khanate and the Republic of Venice in 1474, the Kingdom of Hungary in 1482, the Holy Roman Empire in 1489, the Kingdom of Denmark in 1493, and the Ottoman Empire in 1496. The outline of Russian foreign policy for the next several generations was shaped during Ivan's reign, where his successors would continue to struggle with Poland and Lithuania over the territories of the East Slavs, while a more differentiated policy was pursued towards the Muslim khanates, with attempts at subjugating the Khanate of Kazan and neutralizing the Crimean Khanate.

In 1476, Ivan refused to pay the customary tribute to Ahmed Khan, and in 1480, Ahmed Khan launched an invasion of Russia. Throughout the autumn, the Muscovite and Tatar hosts confronted each other on opposite sides of the Ugra River until 11 November 1480, when Ahmed retreated into the steppe. In traditional Russian historiography, it is marked as the end of the "Tatar yoke" over Russia. In the following year, Ahmed Khan, while preparing a second expedition against Moscow, was suddenly attacked, routed and slain by Khan Ibak of the Nogai Horde, whereupon the Golden Horde suddenly fell to pieces. In 1487, Ivan reduced the Khanate of Kazan, one of the offshoots of the Horde, to the condition of a vassal state, though in his later years, it broke away from his suzerainty. With the other Muslim powers, the khan of the Crimean Khanate and the sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Ivan's relations were peaceful and even amicable. The Crimean khan, Meñli I Giray, helped him against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and facilitated the opening of diplomatic relations between Moscow and Constantinople, where the first embassy appeared in 1495.

The Christian rulers in the Caucasus began to see the Russian monarchs as their natural allies against the Muslim regional powers. The first attempt at forging an alliance was made by Alexander I, king of a small Georgian kingdom of Kakheti, who dispatched two embassies, in 1483 and 1491, to Moscow. However, as the Russians were still too far from the Caucasus, neither of these missions had any effect on the course of events in the region. In 1488, Ivan sought gun founders, master gunners for siege cannons, gold and silversmiths, and Italian master builders from King Matthias Corvinus.

In his dealings with the Habsburgs, Ivan was offered the title of king (rex) if he would join the alliance against Turkey, but he rejected such offers and continued his own policy, laying claim to the Kievan legacy and adopting the title of autocrat (samoderzhets), sovereign (gosudar) of the Russian land, and grand prince of Moscow and all Russia. Beginning in 1484, Ivan began to use the title of tsar in his foreign correspondence with secondary powers in Europe, including the Livonian Order. At times the title was translated as imperator, such as in a 1493 treaty with Denmark where Ivan was called "domino Johanne totius Rutzie imperator". Ivan also began insisting on the title to the Habsburgs in 1489, and he continued to portray himself to his subjects and foreign states as the Orthodox emperor. Whenever was possible in diplomatic situations, Ivan and his representatives would refer to him as tsar. Isabel de Madariaga believes that, had the title of Russian monarchs continued to be translated as rex, Russia's assimilation into the ranking order of states in Europe would have been "much easier".

Legacy

Ivan conquered or brought under his control the lands of "Great Russia", leading to Russian historians to call him the "gatherer of the Russian lands". Ivan therefore arguably became best known for his consolidation of Muscovite rule; his contemporaries and later historians saw Ivan as a skilled politician who was consistent and efficient in the construction of a unified and autocratic Russian state. His predecessors had increased Moscow's territory from less than 600 square miles (1,600 square kilometres) under Ivan II (r. 1353–1359) to more than 15,000 square miles (39,000 square kilometres) at the end of Vasily II's reign. It remained for Ivan III to absorb Moscow's old rivals, Novgorod and Tver, and establish virtually a single rule over what had been appanages. Although the circumstances surrounding the acquisitions varied, the results were basically the same: former sovereign or semi-autonomous principalities were reduced to the status of provinces of Moscow, while their princes joined the ranks of the Muscovite service nobility.

After the death of his first wife in 1467, Ivan married Sophia (Zoë) Palaiologina in 1472, a Byzantine princess and niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, who was killed in battle in 1453. The Vatican sponsored the marriage in hope of bringing Moscow under the sway of the Pope and of establishing a broad front against the Turks, a goal that failed. From Ivan's point of view, the marriage fitted well into the general trend of elevating the Muscovite ruler.

Following his second marriage, Ivan developed a complicated court ceremonial on the Byzantine model and began to use the title of "tsar" and "autocrat". Also during the reign of Ivan and his son, Vasily III, Moscow came to be referred to by spokesmen as the third Rome. Philotheos, a monk from Pskov, developed the idea of Moscow as the true successor to Byzantium and, hence, to Rome.

An impressive building program in Moscow took place under Ivan, directed primarily by Italian artists and craftsmen. New buildings were erected in the Kremlin in Moscow, and its walls were strengthened and furnished with towers and gates. In 1475, Ivan III established the first cannon foundry of Russia in Moscow, which started native cannon production.

The British historian John Lister Illingworth Fennell emphasizes Ivan's military and economic success, as well as his success in centralizing control over local rulers; however, he stated that his reign was also marked by cultural depression, lack of freedom, and isolation from the West.

Title

In the 1480s, during his consolidation of territories, Ivan III had the following title: "By the Grace of God, the Great Sovereign of the Russian land, Grand Prince Ivan Vasilyevich, Tsar of all Russia, Vladimir, and Moscow, and Novgorod, and Pskov, and Yugorsk, and Vyatka, and Perm, and others".

At the beginning of the 1490s, he also had the following title: "Ivan, by the Grace of God, Sovereign of all Russia and Grand Prince of Vladimir, and Moscow, and Novgorod, and Pskov, and Tver, and Yugorsk, and Perm, and Bulgar, and others".

Seal

Following his marriage to Sophia Palaiologina, Ivan combined the double-headed eagle with his emblem of Saint George slaying the dragon.

Marriages and children

1. By Maria of Tver:

Ivan Ivanovich (Ivan the Young) (15 February 1458 – 7 March 1490).

2. By Sophia Palaiologina:

Anna (born 1474), died in infancy ;

Elena (born 1475), died in infancy ;

Feodosia (born 1475–?) ;

Helena (19 May 1476 – 20 January 1513), Grand Duchess of Lithuania and Queen of Poland ;

Vasily III (25 March 1479 – 3 December 1533), Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia ;

Yury Ivanovich (23 March 1480 – 8 March 1536) ;

Dmitry Ivanovich (6 October 1481 – 14 February 1521) ;

Eudoxia Ivanovna (1492 – 1513); married Peter (born Kudaikul), son of Ibrahim, Khan of Kazan. Had issue, one daughter: Anastasia Petrovna, wife of Fyodor Mstislavsky, and later of Vasily "Nemoy" Shuisky ;

Simeon Ivanovich (21 March 1487 – 26 June 1518) ;

Andrey of Staritsa (5 August 1490 – 11 December 1537).