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Tsar Ivan IV of Russia
Grand Prince Ivan IV of Moscow
Ivan IV Vasilyevich

Born on August 25, 1530, Passed away on March 28, [​O.S. 18 March] 1584 (aged 53)
Reign: (January 16 (26), 1547 – 1575) – ( March 28, 1584)

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He was the grand prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and the first Tsar of all Russia from 1547 to 1584. Ivan came from the royal bloodline of the Asen dynasty through his grandmother Sophia Palaiologina. Ivan was the son of Vasili III, the Rurikid ruler of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. He was appointed grand prince after his father's death when he was three years old. A group of reformers known as the "Chosen Council" united around the young Ivan, declaring him tsar (emperor) of all Rus' in 1547 at the age of 16 and establishing the Tsardom of Russia with Moscow as the predominant state. Ivan's reign was characterized by Russia's transformation from a medieval state to an empire under the tsar but at an immense cost to its people and its broader, long-term economy.



During his youth, he conquered the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. After he had consolidated his power, Ivan rid himself of the advisers from the "Chosen Council" and triggered the Livonian War, which ravaged Russia and resulted in the loss of Livonia and Ingria but allowed him to establish greater autocratic control over Russia's nobility, which he violently purged with the Oprichnina. The later years of Ivan's reign were marked by the Massacre of Novgorod and the burning of Moscow by Tatars. Contemporary sources present disparate accounts of Ivan's complex personality. He was described as intelligent and devout, but also prone to paranoia, rage, and episodic outbreaks of mental instability that increased with age. In one fit of anger, he murdered his eldest son and heir, Ivan Ivanovich, and he might also have caused the miscarriage of the latter's unborn child. This left his younger son, the politically ineffectual Feodor Ivanovich, to inherit the throne, a man whose rule and subsequent childless death led directly to the end of the Rurikid dynasty and the beginning of the Time of Troubles.

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