What territories were designated for oprichnina. Results and consequences of the oprichnina

Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky wrote about the oprichnina more than a hundred years ago: “This institution has always seemed strange both to those who suffered from it and to those who studied it.” Over the past hundred years, the situation in science has changed little. Stepan Borisovich Veselovsky wrote about studying the era of Ivan the Terrible: “The maturation of historical science is moving so slowly that it can shake our faith in the power of human reason in general, and not just in the question of Tsar Ivan and his time.”

To understand what the oprichnina is, why the hero of our story created it, what its results were, whether it had any meaning, and if so, what, you must first get acquainted with the basic facts, with the outline of events.

So, on December 3, 1564, the king went on a pilgrimage. Well, it’s business as usual for a sovereign. The royal “tours” of the monasteries were both the fulfillment of religious duty and inspection trips. But this departure was completely unusual. "The Rise" of the Tsar “I was not like I was before,”- the official chronicle reports. The boyars and “noble neighbors,” whom the sovereign ordered to go with him, were ordered to take their wives and children. The tsar was also accompanied by nobles from all the cities whom he had “selected” to be with him. They had to take servants, spare horses and all the “official attire”, that is, weapons, armor, supplies. The tsar took on pilgrimage all the jewelry, gold and silver dishes, icons and crosses, all the clothes, money, and treasury. The treasury was a repository not only of purely material values, but also of the state archive.

As soon as the tsar reached Kolomenskoye, he had to stop: a thaw, surprising for December, suddenly arrived, and with it, the thaw. Only two weeks later the royal “train” set off again. By December 21, my relatives and I arrived at the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. It seems that the trip went as standard: the tsar prayed, celebrated the memory of St. Peter the Metropolitan, and then moved on to the old grand-ducal hunting village of Alexandrov Sloboda (now the city of Alexandrov, Vladimir region). His father also loved to “amuse himself” with hunting there - Vasily III, the Tsar visited there more than once. Last time he visited Sloboda (as this village was often called) only six months ago. Now the train goes to Aleksandrov for about two hours, Tsar Ivan took almost a month to get there.

Kobrin V. Ivan the Terrible

IVAN IV'S MESSAGE

We did not shed any blood in the churches of God. The victorious and holy blood is not visible in our land at the present time, and we do not know about it. And the church thresholds - as far as our strength and intelligence and the faithful service of our subjects are sufficient - shine with all sorts of decorations worthy of God's church, with all sorts of donations; after we got rid of your demonic power, we decorate not only the thresholds, but also the platform and vestibule - foreigners can see this too. We do not stain church thresholds with blood; We have no martyrs for the faith; when do we find well-wishers who lay down their souls for us sincerely, and not deceitfully, not those who speak good with their tongues but plan evil in their hearts, give gifts and praise before our eyes, but revile and reproach us behind our eyes (like a mirror that reflects the one who who looks at him and forgets the one who has departed), when we meet people free from these shortcomings, who serve us honestly and do not forget, like a mirror, the entrusted service, then we reward them with a great salary; the one who, as I said, resists, deserves execution for his guilt. And in other countries you will see for yourself how they punish villains - not in the local way. It is you, out of your evil disposition, who decided to love traitors, but in other countries they do not like traitors and execute them and thereby strengthen their power.

VICTIMS OPRICHNINA

Traditional ideas about the scale of oprichnina terror need to be revised. Data on the death of many tens of thousands of people are extremely exaggerated. According to the synod of the disgraced, which reflected the original oprichnina documents, about 3,000-4,000 people were killed during the years of mass terror. Of these, the nobility accounted for at least 600-700 people, not counting their family members. The oprichnina terror weakened the influence of the boyar aristocracy, but it also caused great damage to the nobility, the church, and the highest bureaucracy, that is, those social forces that served as the strongest support for the monarchy. From a political point of view, terror against these layers and groups was complete nonsense.

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).

The price that Russia paid for the elimination of political fragmentation did not exceed the sacrifices of other European nations sacrificed on the altar of centralization. The first steps of absolute monarchy in European countries were accompanied by streams of blood from subjects, sometimes more persistent in preserving antiquity than the Russian princes. These are civil, or religious, wars in France, which took up the entire second half of the century. This is the movement in Northumberland and Westmorland in 1568 in England. These are the endless auto-da-fe in Spain, under the religious cover of which the struggle to strengthen royal power was hidden.

Of the eastern and southeastern European states, Russia was the only country that not only managed to defend its state independence (unlike Bulgaria, Serbia, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and others), but also confidently moved along the path of centralization.

EXTRACT FROM THE SYNOPSIS OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE

They were beaten in oprishnina, and they sing for them ponahidou for 7 weeks on Thursday after Pascha. Remember, Lord, the souls of your deceased male and female slaves, murdered princes and princesses, and all Orthodox Christians, male and female, whose names are not written...

SYNODICA STUDY

These “books,” together with Ivan IV’s decree on the obligatory commemoration of fellow believers killed in the oprichnina during services and generous contributions to their souls, were sent to the monasteries of Russia, where the monastic scribes processed the received paintings of those executed into the now well-known local Synodics of the Disgraced. For example, even the monks of such a tiny and insignificant monastery as the Assumption Sharovkin Hermitage on the Zhizdra River received a memorial contribution for the disgraced (90 rubles). It is possible that “state books” with the names of those executed were sent there from the capital’s office, and it was only by chance that the local Synodic of the disgraced was not preserved to this day.

As noted earlier, the abbots and senior brethren of monastic monasteries received lists of “state books” and material donations, bypassing the offices of the All-Russian metropolitan and diocesan bishops, directly from the hands of secular bureaucrats, who probably served in the Panikhida Prikaz or even in the royal office. This is precisely what explains the shocking discrepancy between the texts of the Synodics of the disgraced 1583, which may indicate absolutely arbitrary editing on the ground, apparently the only option list of victims of oprichnina terror due to its obvious unsuitability for liturgical commemoration. The fact is that the compilers of the “state books” wrote down in them not only many executed compatriots under their secular, and not baptismal names, but also “women”-witches, and Western Christians, and Muslims. If the commemoration of the latter at church services turned out to be unacceptable for dogmatic reasons, then the commemoration of Orthodox Christians by worldly names was initially devoid of any practical meaning. As you know, the naming of a newborn on the eighth day is “a sign of his dedication to God and his future responsibilities to Him and to the church,” and a worldly name or nickname has nothing to do with either the Lord or the church.

Kurukin I., Bulychev A. Daily life of the guardsmen of Ivan the Terrible

SOURCES ABOUT OPRICHNINA

The outcome of archival research depends not only on the amount of labor expended, but also on intuition and luck. The most important thing is to find a guiding thread, the right direction of search. You can spend half your life in an archive and not find anything. Most often, the right path is helped by finding contradictions found in the source. The official chronicle report on the establishment of the oprichnina says that after the execution of the traitors, the tsar “put disgrace” on some nobles and boyar children, “and sent others to his estate in Kazan to live with their wives and children.” There is no explanation in the source about who the victims of the royal wrath who were exiled were. Boyar children made up the bulk of the noble class. What significance could the exile of certain boyar children have? The silent chronicle news did not attract special attention researchers. However, intuition suggested that the chronicler deliberately kept silent about the facts known to him. The first findings confirmed the suspicion. The books of the Rank Order preserved the following entry: “In the same year (1565), the sovereign, in his sovereign disgrace, sent the princes of Yaroslavl and Rostov and many other princes and nobles... to Kazan to live...” The Rank Book definitely states that the victims of the oprichnina evictions were not ordinary nobles , and titled nobility.

Skrynnikov R. Ivan the Terrible

LIKE AFTER THE WAR

Scribe books compiled in the first decades after the oprichnina give the impression that the country experienced a devastating enemy invasion. Not only more than half, but sometimes up to 90 percent of the land lies “in the void,” sometimes for many years. Even in the central Moscow district, only about 16 percent of arable land was cultivated. There are frequent mentions of “arable land-fallow land”, which has already been “overgrown with bushes”, “overgrown with a forest-grove” and even “with forest overgrown into a log, into a stake and into a pole”: the timber has managed to grow on the former arable land. Many landowners became so bankrupt that they abandoned their estates, from where all the peasants fled, and turned into beggars - “dragging between the yard.”

Of course, not only the oprichnina is to blame for this terrible devastation; sometimes we only deal with its indirect consequences. The fact is that during the oprichnina years, tax oppression increased sharply. The 100 thousand rubles that Ivan IV took from the zemshchina for his “rise” were only the beginning. However, we must not forget that in 1570-1571 a plague epidemic raged in Russia, which claimed many human lives. She, of course, cannot be counted among the oprichnina.

And yet the role of the oprichnina in the desolation was exceptionally great. Material for judgments about this is given to us by books of “searches”, investigations into the reasons for the desolation of certain villages and hamlets Novgorod land. In some cases, the reason for the death or flight of peasants is called “Germans” - Swedish troops who invaded during Livonian War to part of the territory of Novgorod land. But there are many more entries of this kind: “...the oprichinas tortured them to death, the children died of hunger,” “the oprichinas robbed their belly, and seized the cattle, and they themselves died, the children fled without weight,” “the oprichinas tortured them, they robbed their bellies, they burned the house.” . It often turns out that desolation also came from the “tsar’s taxes,” that is, ultimately from the same oprichnina that sharply increased the tax yoke.

Kobrin V. B. Ivan the Terrible

The role of the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible in the history of the Russian state

Hundreds, if not thousands of historical studies, monographs, articles, reviews have been written about such a phenomenon as the oprichnina of I. the Terrible (1565-1572), dissertations have been defended, the main causes have long been identified, the course of events has been reconstructed, and the consequences have been explained.

However, to this day, neither in domestic nor in foreign historiography there is a consensus on the issue of the significance of the oprichnina in history Russian state. For centuries, historians have been debating: how should we perceive the events of 1565-1572? Was the oprichnina simply the cruel terror of a half-mad despot king against his subjects? Or was it based on a sound and necessary policy in those conditions, aimed at strengthening the foundations of statehood, increasing the authority of the central government, improving the country’s defense capability, etc.?

In general, all the diverse opinions of historians can be reduced to two mutually exclusive statements: 1) the oprichnina was determined by the personal qualities of Tsar Ivan and had no political meaning (N.I. Kostomarov, V.O. Klyuchevsky, S.B. Veselovsky, I. Y. Froyanov); 2) the oprichnina was a well-thought-out political step of Ivan the Terrible and was directed against those social forces that opposed his “autocracy.”

There is also no unanimity of opinion among supporters of the latter point of view. Some researchers believe that the purpose of the oprichnina was to crush the boyar-princely economic and political power associated with the destruction of large patrimonial land ownership (S.M. Solovyov, S.F. Platonov, R.G. Skrynnikov). Others (A.A. Zimin and V.B. Kobrin) believe that the oprichnina “aimed” exclusively at the remnants of the appanage princely aristocracy (Staritsky Prince Vladimir), and was also directed against the separatist aspirations of Novgorod and the resistance of the church as a powerful one opposing the state organizations. None of these provisions are indisputable, so the scientific discussion about the meaning of the oprichnina continues.

What is oprichnina?

Anyone who is at least somehow interested in the history of Russia knows very well that there was a time when guardsmen existed in Rus'. In the minds of the majority modern people this word has become the definition of a terrorist, a criminal, a person who deliberately commits lawlessness with the connivance of the supreme power, and often with its direct support.

Meanwhile, the very word “oprich” in relation to any property or land ownership began to be used long before the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Already in the 14th century, “oprichnina” was the name given to the part of the inheritance that goes to the prince’s widow after his death (“widow’s share”). The widow had the right to receive income from a certain part of the land, but after her death the estate was returned to the eldest son, another eldest heir, or, in the absence of one, was assigned state treasury. Thus, oprichnina in the XIV-XVI centuries was a specially allocated inheritance for life.

Over time, the word “oprichnina” acquired a synonym that goes back to the root “oprich”, which means “except.” Hence “oprichnina” - “pitch darkness”, as it was sometimes called, and “oprichnik” - “pitch”. But this synonym was introduced into use, as some scientists believe, by the first “political emigrant” and opponent of Ivan the Terrible, Andrei Kurbsky. In his messages to the Tsar, the words “pitch people” and “utter darkness” are used for the first time in relation to the oprichnina of Ivan IV.

In addition, it should be noted that the Old Russian word “oprich” (adverb and preposition), according to Dahl’s dictionary, means: “Outside, around, outside, beyond what.” Hence “oprichnina” - “separate, allocated, special.”

Thus, it is symbolic that the name of the Soviet employee of the “special department” - “special officer” - is actually a semantic tracing of the word “oprichnik”.

In January 1558, Ivan the Terrible began the Livonian War to seize the Baltic Sea coast in order to gain access to sea communications and simplify trade with Western European countries. Soon the Grand Duchy of Moscow faces a broad coalition of enemies, which include Poland, Lithuania, and Sweden. In fact, the Crimean Khanate also participates in the anti-Moscow coalition, which ravages the southern regions of the Moscow principality with regular military campaigns. The war is becoming protracted and exhausting. Drought, famine, plague epidemics, Crimean Tatar campaigns, Polish-Lithuanian raids and a naval blockade carried out by Poland and Sweden devastate the country. The sovereign himself continually faces manifestations of boyar separatism, the reluctance of the boyar oligarchy to continue the Livonian War, which was important for the Moscow kingdom. In 1564, the commander of the Western army, Prince Kurbsky - in the past one of the tsar’s closest personal friends, a member of the “Elected Rada” - goes over to the enemy’s side, betrays Russian agents in Livonia and participates in the offensive actions of the Poles and Lithuanians.

Ivan IV's position becomes critical. It was possible to get out of it only with the help of the toughest, most decisive measures.

On December 3, 1564, Ivan the Terrible and his family suddenly left the capital on a pilgrimage. The king took with him the treasury, personal library, icons and symbols of power. Having visited the village of Kolomenskoye, he did not return to Moscow and, after wandering for several weeks, stopped in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. On January 3, 1565, he announced his abdication of the throne, due to “anger” at the boyars, church, voivode and government officials. Two days later, a deputation headed by Archbishop Pimen arrived in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, which persuaded the tsar to return to his kingdom. From Sloboda, Ivan IV sent two letters to Moscow: one to the boyars and clergy, and the other to the townspeople, explaining in detail why and with whom the sovereign was angry, and against whom he “bears no grudge.” Thus, he immediately divided society, sowing the seeds of mutual distrust and hatred of the boyar elite among ordinary townspeople and the minor serving nobility.

At the beginning of February 1565, Ivan the Terrible returned to Moscow. The Tsar announced that he was again taking over the reigns, but on the condition that he was free to execute traitors, put them in disgrace, deprive them of their property, etc., and that neither the boyar Duma nor the clergy would interfere in his affairs. Those. The sovereign introduced the “oprichnina” for himself.

This word was used at first in the sense of special property or possession; now it has acquired a different meaning. In the oprichnina, the tsar separated part of the boyars, servants and clerks, and in general made his entire “everyday life” special: in the Sytny, Kormovy and Khlebenny palaces a special staff of housekeepers, cooks, clerks, etc. was appointed; special detachments of archers were recruited. Special cities (about 20, including Moscow, Vologda, Vyazma, Suzdal, Kozelsk, Medyn, Veliky Ustyug) with volosts were assigned to maintain the oprichnina. In Moscow itself, some streets were given over to the oprichnina (Chertolskaya, Arbat, Sivtsev Vrazhek, part of Nikitskaya, etc.); the former residents were relocated to other streets. Up to 1,000 princes, nobles, and children of boyars, both Moscow and city, were also recruited into the oprichnina. They were given estates in the volosts assigned to maintain the oprichnina. Former landowners and patrimonial owners were evicted from those volosts to others.

The rest of the state was supposed to constitute the “zemshchina”: the tsar entrusted it to the zemstvo boyars, that is, the boyar duma itself, and put Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Belsky and Prince Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavsky at the head of its administration. All matters had to be resolved in the old way, and with big matters one should turn to the boyars, but if military or important zemstvo matters happened, then to the sovereign. For his rise, that is, for his trip to Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, the tsar exacted a fine of 100 thousand rubles from the Zemsky Prikaz.

The "oprichniki" - the sovereign's people - were supposed to "root out treason" and act exclusively in the interests of the tsarist power, supporting the authority of the supreme ruler in wartime conditions. No one limited them in the methods or methods of “eradicating” treason, and all the innovations of Ivan the Terrible turned into cruel, unjustified terror of the ruling minority against the majority of the country’s population.

In December 1569, an army of guardsmen, personally led by Ivan the Terrible, set out on a campaign against Novgorod, who allegedly wanted to betray him. The king walked as if through enemy country. The guardsmen destroyed cities (Tver, Torzhok), villages and villages, killed and robbed the population. In Novgorod itself, the defeat lasted 6 weeks. Thousands of suspects were tortured and drowned in Volkhov. The city was plundered. The property of churches, monasteries and merchants was confiscated. The beating continued in Novgorod Pyatina. Then Grozny moved towards Pskov, and only the superstition of the formidable king allowed this ancient city to avoid a pogrom.

In 1572, when a real threat was created to the very existence of the Moscow state from the Krymchaks, the oprichnina troops actually sabotaged the order of their king to oppose the enemy. The battle of Molodin with the army of Devlet-Girey was won by regiments under the leadership of the “Zemstvo” governors. After this, Ivan IV himself abolished the oprichnina, disgraced and executed many of its leaders.

Historiography of the oprichnina in the first half of the 19th century

Historians were the first to talk about the oprichnina already in the 18th and early 19th centuries: Shcherbatov, Bolotov, Karamzin. Even then, a tradition had developed to “divide” the reign of Ivan IV into two halves, which subsequently formed the basis of the theory of the “two Ivans,” introduced into historiography by N.M. Karamzin based on the study of the works of Prince A. Kurbsky. According to Kurbsky, Ivan the Terrible was a virtuous hero and a wise statesman in the first half of his reign and a crazy tyrant-despot in the second. Many historians, following Karamzin, associated the sharp change in the sovereign’s policy with his mental illness caused by the death of his first wife, Anastasia Romanovna. Even versions of “replacing” the king with another person arose and were seriously considered.

The watershed between the “good” Ivan and the “bad”, according to Karamzin, was the introduction of the oprichnina in 1565. But N.M. Karamzin was still more of a writer and moralist than a scientist. Painting the oprichnina, he created an artistically expressive picture that was supposed to impress the reader, but in no way answer the question about the causes, consequences and the very nature of this historical phenomenon.

Subsequent historians (N.I. Kostomarov) also saw the main reason for the oprichnina solely in the personal qualities of Ivan the Terrible, who did not want to listen to people who disagreed with the methods of carrying out his generally justified policy of strengthening the central government.

Solovyov and Klyuchevsky about the oprichnina

S. M. Solovyov and the “state school” of Russian historiography he created took a different path. Abstracting from the personal characteristics of the tyrant king, they saw in the activities of Ivan the Terrible, first of all, a transition from old “tribal” relations to modern “state” ones, which were completed by the oprichnina - state power in the form as the great “reformer” himself understood it. . Solovyov was the first to separate the cruelties of Tsar Ivan and the internal terror he organized from the political, social and economic processes of that time. From the point of view of historical science, this was undoubtedly a step forward.

V.O. Klyuchevsky, unlike Solovyov, considered the internal policy of Ivan the Terrible to be completely aimless, moreover, dictated exclusively by the personal qualities of the sovereign’s character. In his opinion, the oprichnina did not answer pressing political issues, and also did not eliminate the difficulties that it caused. By “difficulty,” the historian means the clashes between Ivan IV and the boyars: “The boyars imagined themselves to be powerful advisers to the sovereign of all Rus' at the very time when this sovereign, remaining faithful to the view of the appanage patrimonial landowner, in accordance with ancient Russian law, granted them as his courtyard servants the title of the sovereign's slaves. Both sides found themselves in such an unnatural relationship to each other, which they did not seem to notice while it was developing, and which they did not know what to do with when they noticed it.”

The way out of this situation was the oprichnina, which Klyuchevsky calls an attempt to “live side by side, but not together.”

According to the historian, Ivan IV had only two options:

Eliminate the boyars as a government class and replace them with other, more flexible and obedient instruments of government;

To divide the boyars, to attract to the throne the most reliable people from the boyars and rule with them, as Ivan ruled at the beginning of his reign.

It was not possible to implement any of the outputs.

Klyuchevsky points out that Ivan the Terrible should have acted against the political situation of the entire boyars, and not against individuals. The king does the opposite: not being able to change what is inconvenient for him. political system, he persecutes and executes individuals (and not only the boyars), but at the same time leaves the boyars at the head of the zemstvo administration.

This course of action of the tsar is by no means a consequence of political calculation. It is, rather, a consequence of a distorted political understanding caused by personal emotions and fear for one’s personal position:

Klyuchevsky saw in the oprichnina not a state institution, but a manifestation of lawless anarchy aimed at shaking the foundations of the state and undermining the authority of the monarch himself. Klyuchevsky considered the oprichnina one of the most effective factors that prepared the Time of Troubles.

Concept by S.F. Platonov

Developments " public school“were further developed in the works of S. F. Platonov, who created the most comprehensive concept of oprichnina, which was included in all pre-revolutionary, Soviet and some post-Soviet university textbooks.

S.F. Platonov believed that the main reasons for the oprichnina lay in Ivan the Terrible’s awareness of the danger of the appanage princely and boyar opposition. S.F. Platonov wrote: “Dissatisfied with the nobility that surrounded him, he (Ivan the Terrible) applied to her the same measure that Moscow applied to its enemies, namely, “conclusion”... What succeeded so well with the external enemy, the Terrible planned to try with the internal enemy, those. with those people who seemed hostile and dangerous to him.”

Speaking modern language, the oprichnina of Ivan IV formed the basis for a grandiose personnel reshuffle, as a result of which large landowner boyars and appanage princes were resettled from appanage hereditary lands to places remote from their former settlement. The estates were divided into plots and complaints were made to those boyar children who were in the service of the tsar (oprichniki). According to Platonov, the oprichnina was not the “whim” of a crazy tyrant. On the contrary, Ivan the Terrible waged a focused and well-thought-out struggle against large boyar hereditary land ownership, thus wanting to eliminate separatist tendencies and suppress opposition to the central government:

Grozny sent the old owners to the outskirts, where they could be useful for the defense of the state.

Oprichnina terror, according to Platonov, was only an inevitable consequence of such a policy: the forest is cut down - the chips fly! Over time, the monarch himself becomes a hostage to the current situation. In order to stay in power and complete the measures he had planned, Ivan the Terrible was forced to pursue a policy of total terror. There was simply no other way out.

“The entire operation of reviewing and changing landowners in the eyes of the population bore the character of disaster and political terror,” the historian wrote. - With extraordinary cruelty, he (Ivan the Terrible), without any investigation or trial, executed and tortured people he disliked, exiled their families, ruined their farms. His guardsmen did not hesitate to kill defenseless people, rob and rape them “for a laugh.”

One of the main negative consequences Oprichnina Platonov recognizes the violation of the economic life of the country - the state of stability of the population achieved by the state was lost. In addition, the population’s hatred of the cruel authorities brought discord into society itself, giving rise to general uprisings and peasant wars after the death of Ivan the Terrible - the harbingers of the Troubles of the early 17th century.

In his general assessment of the oprichnina, S.F. Platonov puts much more “pluses” than all his predecessors. According to his concept, Ivan the Terrible was able to achieve indisputable results in the policy of centralization of the Russian state: large landowners (the boyar elite) were ruined and partly destroyed, a large mass of relatively small landowners and service people (nobles) gained dominance, which, of course, contributed to increasing the country's defense capability . Hence the progressive nature of the oprichnina policy.

It was this concept that was established in Russian historiography for many years.

“Apologetic” historiography of the oprichnina (1920-1956)

Despite the abundance of contradictory facts that came to light already in the 1910-20s, S.F. Platonov’s “apologetic” concept regarding the oprichnina and Ivan IV the Terrible was not at all disgraced. On the contrary, it gave birth to a number of successors and sincere supporters.

In 1922, the book “Ivan the Terrible” by former Moscow University professor R. Vipper was published. Witnessing the breakup Russian Empire Having tasted the full extent of Soviet anarchy and tyranny, political emigrant and quite serious historian R. Vipper created not a historical study, but a very passionate panegyric to the oprichnina and Ivan the Terrible himself - a politician who managed to “restore order with a firm hand.” The author for the first time examines the internal politics of Grozny (oprichnina) in direct connection with the foreign policy situation. However, Vipper's interpretation of many foreign policy events is largely fantastic and far-fetched. Ivan the Terrible appears in his work as a wise and far-sighted ruler who cared, first of all, about the interests of his great power. The executions and terror of Grozny are justified and can be explained by completely objective reasons: the oprichnina was necessary due to the extremely difficult military situation in the country, the ruin of Novgorod - for the sake of improving the situation at the front, etc.

The oprichnina itself, according to Vipper, is an expression of democratic (!) tendencies of the 16th century. Thus, the Zemsky Sobor of 1566 is artificially connected by the author with the creation of the oprichnina in 1565, the transformation of the oprichnina into a courtyard (1572) is interpreted by Vipper as an expansion of the system caused by the betrayal of the Novgorodians and the ruinous raid Crimean Tatars. He refuses to admit that the reform of 1572 was in fact the destruction of the oprichnina. The reasons for the catastrophic consequences for Rus' of the end of the Livonian War are equally unobvious to Vipper.

The chief official historiographer of the revolution, M.N., went even further in his apologetics for Grozny and the oprichnina. Pokrovsky. In his “Russian History from Ancient Times,” the convinced revolutionary turns Ivan the Terrible into the leader of a democratic revolution, a more successful forerunner of Emperor Paul I, who is also portrayed by Pokrovsky as a “democrat on the throne.” Justification of tyrants is one of Pokrovsky's favorite themes. He saw the aristocracy as such as the main object of his hatred, because its power is, by definition, harmful.

However, to faithful Marxist historians, Pokrovsky’s views undoubtedly seemed overly infected with an idealistic spirit. No individual can play any significant role in history - after all, history is controlled by class struggle. This is what Marxism teaches. And Pokrovsky, having listened enough to the seminaries of Vinogradov, Klyuchevsky and other “bourgeois specialists,” was never able to get rid of the burp of idealism in himself, attaching too much importance to individuals, as if they did not obey the laws of historical materialism common to all...

The most typical of the orthodox Marxist approach to the problem of Ivan the Terrible and the oprichnina is M. Nechkina’s article about Ivan IV in the First Soviet Encyclopedia (1933). In her interpretation, the personality of the king does not matter at all:

The social meaning of the oprichnina was the elimination of the boyars as a class and its dissolution into the mass of small land feudal lords. Ivan worked to realize this goal with “the greatest consistency and indestructible perseverance” and was completely successful in his work.

This was the only correct and only possible interpretation of the policies of Ivan the Terrible.

Moreover, this interpretation was so liked by the “collectors” and “revivers” of the new Russian Empire, namely the USSR, that it was immediately adopted by the Stalinist leadership. The new great-power ideology needed historical roots, especially on the eve of the upcoming war. Stories about Russian military leaders and generals of the past who fought with the Germans or with anyone remotely similar to the Germans were urgently created and replicated. The victories of Alexander Nevsky, Peter I (true, he fought with the Swedes, but why go into details?..), Alexander Suvorov were recalled and extolled. Dmitry Donskoy, Minin with Pozharsky and Mikhail Kutuzov, who fought against foreign aggressors, also after 20 years of oblivion, were declared national heroes and glorious sons of the Fatherland.

Of course, under all these circumstances, Ivan the Terrible could not remain forgotten. True, he did not repel foreign aggression and did not win a military victory over the Germans, but he was the creator of a centralized Russian state, a fighter against disorder and anarchy created by malicious aristocrats - the boyars. He began to introduce revolutionary reforms with the goal of creating a new order. But even an autocratic king can play a positive role if the monarchy is a progressive system at this point in history...

Despite the very sad fate of Academician Platonov himself, who was convicted in an “academic case” (1929-1930), the “apologization” of the oprichnina that he began gained more and more momentum in the late 1930s.

Whether by chance or not, in 1937 – the very “peak” of Stalin’s repressions – Plato’s “Essays on the History of the Time of Troubles in the Moscow State of the 16th–17th centuries” were republished for the fourth time, and the Higher School of Propagandists under the Central Committee of the Party published (though “for internal use”) fragments of Platonov’s pre-revolutionary textbook for universities.

In 1941, director S. Eisenstein received an “order” from the Kremlin to shoot a film about Ivan the Terrible. Naturally, Comrade Stalin wanted to see a Terrible Tsar who would fully fit into the concept of the Soviet “apologists.” Therefore, all the events included in Eisenstein’s script are subordinated to the main conflict - the struggle for autocracy against the rebellious boyars and against everyone who interferes with him in unifying the lands and strengthening the state. The film "Ivan the Terrible" (1944) exalts Tsar Ivan as a wise and fair ruler who had great goal. Oprichnina and terror are presented as inevitable “costs” in achieving it. But even these “costs” (the second episode of the film) Comrade Stalin chose not to allow on screens.

In 1946, a Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was issued, which spoke of the “progressive army of the guardsmen.” The progressive significance in the then historiography of the Oprichnina Army was that its formation was a necessary stage in the struggle to strengthen the centralized state and represented a struggle of the central government, based on the serving nobility, against the feudal aristocracy and appanage remnants.

Thus, a positive assessment of the activities of Ivan IV in Soviet historiography was supported at the highest state level. Until 1956, the most cruel tyrant in the history of Russia appeared on the pages of textbooks, works of art and in cinema as a national hero, a true patriot, and a wise politician.

Revision of the concept of oprichnina during the years of Khrushchev’s “thaw”

As soon as Khrushchev read his famous report at the 20th Congress, all panegyric odes to Grozny came to an end. The “plus” sign abruptly changed to a “minus”, and historians no longer hesitated to draw completely obvious parallels between the reign of Ivan the Terrible and the reign of the only recently deceased Soviet tyrant.

A number of articles by domestic researchers immediately appear in which the “cult of personality” of Stalin and the “cult of personality” of Grozny are debunked in approximately the same terms and using real examples similar to each other.

One of the first articles published by V.N. Shevyakova “On the issue of the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible”, explaining the causes and consequences of the oprichnina in the spirit of N.I. Kostomarov and V.O. Klyuchevsky – i.e. extremely negative:

The tsar himself, contrary to all previous apologetics, was called what he really was - the executioner of his subjects exposed to power.

Following Shevyakov’s article comes an even more radical article by S.N. Dubrovsky, “On the cult of personality in some works on historical issues (on the assessment of Ivan IV, etc.).” The author views the oprichnina not as a war of the king against the appanage aristocracy. On the contrary, he believes that Ivan the Terrible was at one with the landowner boyars. With their help, the king waged a war against his people with the sole purpose of clearing the ground for the subsequent enslavement of the peasants. According to Dubrovsky, Ivan IV was not at all as talented and smart as historians of the Stalin era tried to present him. The author accuses them of deliberate manipulation and distortion historical facts, testifying to the personal qualities of the king.

In 1964, A.A. Zimin’s book “The Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible” was published. Zimin processed a huge number of sources, raised a lot of factual material related to the oprichnina. But his own opinion was literally drowned in the abundance of names, graphs, numbers and solid facts. The unambiguous conclusions so characteristic of his predecessors are practically absent in the historian’s work. With many reservations, Zimin agrees that most of the bloodshed and crimes of the guardsmen were useless. However, “objectively” the content of the oprichnina in his eyes still looks progressive: Grozny’s initial thought was correct, and then everything was ruined by the oprichnina themselves, who degenerated into bandits and robbers.

Zimin's book was written during the reign of Khrushchev, and therefore the author tries to satisfy both sides of the argument. However, at the end of his life A. A. Zimin revised his views towards a purely negative assessment of the oprichnina, seeing "the bloody glow of the oprichnina" an extreme manifestation of serfdom and despotic tendencies as opposed to pre-bourgeois ones.

These positions were developed by his student V.B. Kobrin and the latter’s student A.L. Yurganov. Based on specific research that began before the war and carried out by S. B. Veselovsky and A. A. Zimin (and continued by V. B. Kobrin), they showed that S. F. Platonov’s theory about the defeat as a result of the oprichnina of patrimonial land ownership - nothing more than a historical myth.

Criticism of Platonov's concept

Back in the 1910-1920s, research began on a colossal complex of materials, formally, it would seem, far from the problems of the oprichnina. Historians have studied a huge number of scribe books where land plots of both large landowners and service people were recorded. These were, in the full sense of the word, accounting records of that time.

And the more materials related to land ownership were introduced into scientific circulation in the 1930s-60s, the more interesting the picture became. It turned out that large landholdings did not suffer in any way as a result of the oprichnina. In fact, at the end of the 16th century it remained almost the same as it was before the oprichnina. It also turned out that those lands that went specifically to the oprichnina often included territories inhabited by service people who did not have large plots. For example, the territory of the Suzdal principality was almost entirely populated by service people; there were very few rich landowners there. Moreover, according to scribe books, it often turned out that many guardsmen who allegedly received their estates in the Moscow region for serving the tsar were their owners before. It’s just that in 1565-72, small landowners automatically fell into the ranks of the guardsmen, because The sovereign declared these lands oprichnina.

All these data were completely at odds with what was expressed by S. F. Platonov, who did not process scribal books, did not know statistics and practically did not use sources of a mass nature.

Soon another source was discovered, which Platonov also did not analyze in detail - the famous synodics. They contain lists of people killed and tortured by order of Tsar Ivan. Basically, they died or were executed and tortured without repentance and communion, therefore, the king was sinful in that they did not die in a Christian way. These synodics were sent to monasteries for commemoration.

S. B. Veselovsky analyzed the synodics in detail and came to an unequivocal conclusion: it is impossible to say that during the period of oprichnina terror it was mainly large landowners who died. Yes, undoubtedly, the boyars and members of their families were executed, but besides them, an incredible number of service people died. Persons of the clergy of absolutely all ranks died, people who were in the sovereign's service in the orders, military leaders, minor officials, and simple warriors. Finally, an incredible number of ordinary people died - urban, townspeople, those who inhabited villages and hamlets on the territory of certain estates and estates. According to S. B. Veselovsky’s calculations, for one boyar or person from the Sovereign’s court there were three or four ordinary landowners, and for one service person there were a dozen commoners. Consequently, the assertion that the terror was selective in nature and was directed only against the boyar elite is fundamentally incorrect.

In the 1940s, S.B. Veselovsky wrote his book “Essays on the History of the Oprichnina” “on the table”, because it was completely impossible to publish it under a modern tyrant. The historian died in 1952, but his conclusions and developments on the problem of oprichnina were not forgotten and were actively used in criticism of the concept of S.F. Platonov and his followers.

Another serious mistake of S.F. Platonov was that he believed that the boyars had colossal estates, which included parts of the former principalities. Thus, the danger of separatism remained – i.e. restoration of one or another reign. As confirmation, Platonov cites the fact that during the illness of Ivan IV in 1553, the appanage prince Vladimir Staritsky, a large landowner and close relative king

An appeal to the materials of the scribe books showed that the boyars had their own lands in different, as they would say now, regions, and then appanages. The boyars had to serve in different places, and therefore, on occasion, they bought land (or it was given to them) where they served. The same person often owned land in Nizhny Novgorod, Suzdal, and Moscow, i.e. was not tied specifically to any particular place. There was no talk of somehow separating, of avoiding the process of centralization, because even the largest landowners could not gather their lands together and oppose their power to the power of the great sovereign. The process of centralization of the state was completely objective, and there is no reason to say that the boyar aristocracy actively prevented it.

Thanks to the study of sources, it turned out that the very postulate about the resistance of the boyars and the descendants of appanage princes to centralization is a purely speculative construction, derived from theoretical analogies between social system Russia and Western Europe eras of feudalism and absolutism. The sources do not provide any direct basis for such statements. The postulation of large-scale “boyar conspiracies” in the era of Ivan the Terrible is based on statements emanating only from Ivan the Terrible himself.

The only lands that could lay claim to a “departure” from a single state in the 16th century were Novgorod and Pskov. In the event of separation from Moscow in the conditions of the Livonian War, they would not have been able to maintain independence, and would inevitably have been captured by opponents of the Moscow sovereign. Therefore, Zimin and Kobrin consider Ivan IV’s campaign against Novgorod historically justified and condemn only the tsar’s methods of struggle with potential separatists.

The new concept of understanding such a phenomenon as the oprichnina, created by Zimin, Kobrin and their followers, is built on the proof that the oprichnina objectively resolved (albeit by barbaric methods) some pressing problems, namely: strengthening centralization, destroying the remnants of the appanage system and the independence of the church. But the oprichnina was, first of all, a tool for establishing the personal despotic power of Ivan the Terrible. The terror he unleashed was of a national nature, was caused solely by the tsar’s fear for his position (“beat your own so that strangers will be afraid”) and did not have any “high” political goal or social background.

The point of view of the Soviet historian D. Al (Alshits), already in the 2000s, expressed the opinion that the terror of Ivan the Terrible was aimed at the total subjugation of everyone and everything to the unified power of the autocratic monarch. Everyone who did not personally prove their loyalty to the sovereign was destroyed; the independence of the church was destroyed; The economically independent trading Novgorod was destroyed, the merchant class was subjugated, etc. Thus, Ivan the Terrible did not want to say, like Louis XIV, but to prove to all his contemporaries through effective measures that “I am the state.” The oprichnina acted as a state institution for the protection of the monarch, his personal guard.

This concept suited the scientific community for some time. However, trends towards a new rehabilitation of Ivan the Terrible and even towards the creation of his new cult were fully developed in subsequent historiography. For example, in an article in Bolshoi Soviet Encyclopedia(1972) in the presence of a certain duality in the assessment, the positive qualities of Ivan the Terrible are clearly exaggerated, and the negative ones are downplayed.

With the beginning of “perestroika” and a new anti-Stalinist campaign in the media, Grozny and the oprichnina were again condemned and compared with the period of Stalinist repressions. During this period, revaluation historical events, including the reasons, resulted mainly not in Scientific research, and into populist discussions on the pages of central newspapers and magazines.

Employees of the NKVD and other law enforcement agencies (the so-called “special officers”) in newspaper publications were no longer referred to as “oprichniki”; the terror of the 16th century was directly associated with the “Yezhovshchina” of the 1930s, as if all this had happened just yesterday. “History repeats itself” - this strange, unconfirmed truth was repeated by politicians, parliamentarians, writers, and even highly respected scientists who were inclined again and again to draw historical parallels between Grozny and Stalin, Malyuta Skuratov and Beria, etc. and so on.

The attitude towards the oprichnina and the personality of Ivan the Terrible himself today can be called a “litmus test” of the political situation in our country. During periods of liberalization of public and state life in Russia, which, as a rule, are followed by a separatist “parade of sovereignties,” anarchy, and a change in the value system, Ivan the Terrible is perceived as a bloody tyrant and tyrant. Tired of anarchy and permissiveness, society is again ready to dream of “ strong hand", the revival of statehood, and even stable tyranny in the spirit of Grozny, Stalin, or anyone else...

Today, not only in society, but also in scientific circles, the tendency to “apologize” Stalin as a great statesman is again clearly visible. From television screens and the pages of the press they are again persistently trying to prove to us that Joseph Dzhugashvili created a great power that won the war, built rockets, blocked the Yenisei and was even ahead of the rest in the field of ballet. And in the 1930s-50s they imprisoned and shot only those who needed to be imprisoned and shot - former tsarist officials and officers, spies and dissidents of all stripes. Let us remember that Academician S.F. Platonov held approximately the same opinion regarding the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible and the “selectivity” of his terror. However, already in 1929, the academician himself became one of the victims of the oprichnina contemporary to him - the OGPU, died in exile, and his name was erased from the history of Russian historical science for a long time.

Formation of the personality of Ivan Vasilyevich.

In 1572, in the face of the failure of the oprichnina policy, Ivan IV was forced to abolish the oprichnina. The reign of Ivan 4. Oprichnina, its essence and consequences. Russia in the 16th century. From the policy of reform to oprichnina terror. The struggle to achieve the main strategic goals in the field of domestic and foreign policy continued in the 16th century. The consequences of the oprichnina, aggravated by the failures in the Livonian War, were tragic for the country.

The Livonian War was protracted, which significantly complicated the internal political situation in Russia. Dissatisfaction with the policies of Ivan IV and the continuation of the war began to grow among the boyars and nobles. Some people from the king's inner circle also joined them. In 1564, Prince A. Kurbsky, who had previously commanded the Russian troops, defected to the side of Russia’s opponents - the Poles. The prince's betrayal further aggravated Russia's failures in the Livonian War. Under these conditions, Ivan IV decides to introduce the oprichnina in 1565.

Russia during the oprichnina:

1) the country was divided into two parts. Oprichnina (the part of the country subject to the tsar) included lands located in the central and richest regions of the country. The oprichnina developed its own system of government bodies;

2) in Zemshchina - in the rest of the territory - the old order was preserved with the same Boyar Duma, orders;

3) a special oprichnina army was created, which turned into the police force of the state. They brutally tortured and executed all those dissatisfied with the oprichnina.

Goals of the oprichnina

Ivan the Terrible, by introducing the oprichnina, pursued the goal of destroying the separatism of the feudal nobility. He carried out the oprichnina policy, not stopping at any measures.

The tsar took into his inheritance (oprichnina) many districts in the west, southwest and center of Russia, the rich northern regions, and part of the territory of Moscow. The oprichnina corps - a thousand specially selected nobles - received estates in oprichnina districts, while all zemstvo residents were evicted from them. The oprichnina had its own Duma, its own court, and internal orders. Ivan the Terrible concentrated control over diplomacy and the most important affairs in his hands, he removed himself from current management, and all the hardships of the Livonian War lay on the zemshchina. The oprichnina corps had only two responsibilities: protecting the king and exterminating traitors.

The fight against possible treason was carried out through mass repressions: executions, resettlement, confiscation of land and property. Soon terror took over the entire country; not only individual boyar or noble families, but even entire cities became its victims. Many executions took place in Novgorod (according to minimal estimates, there were about 3 thousand victims). The reason for this was Ivan the Terrible’s suspicions about the treasonous connections of the Novgorodians with the Polish king.

Oprichnina terror took on a terrifying scale, the leaders of the oprichnina changed (when A. Basmanov was executed, Malyuta Skuratov took his place), but reprisals against the “traitors” did not stop. Eminent boyars with all the people close to them, and senior government officials, and very “little” people, and peasants became victims of repression. The oprichnina lasted for 7 years - until 1572.

In 1572, the tsar abolished the oprichnina. The oprichnina and zemstvo territories were reunited. The abolition of the oprichnina was associated with the complete economic decline of the country - the devastation of entire regions, with the defeats of the Russian army in the Livonian War, with the campaign of the Crimean Khan against Rus'.

What the oprichnina policy led to, its consequences for the socio-economic development of the state:

1) the oprichnina with its bloody actions, Ivan the Terrible still managed to strengthen the regime of personal power, suppress all opposition, and eliminate all pockets of specific separatism;

2) the destruction of the richest territories led the country to a state of crisis. In the 70-80s. a real economic crisis began, which was expressed in the desolation of cities and villages, the death of a large mass of people, the flight of peasants to the outskirts of the country, and famine;

3) the oprichnina policy led to an even greater deterioration of Russia’s position in the Livonian War.

oprichnina (from oprich - except, especially; in the 14th-15th centuries oprishnina was a special property allocated to members of the grand ducal dynasty) - 1) Name. the sovereign's inheritance in 1565-72 (his territory, troops, institutions). 2) Name of internal policies of the government of Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible in the same years. Since the 16th century. various opinions were expressed about the reasons for the introduction of O. and its essence; O. is assessed differently in modern times. historiography. Ivan IV justified the oprichnina measures by citing boyar treason. For A.M. Kurbsky, the essence of O. was reduced to the senseless extermination of governors slandered in treason and sorcery. Close to his assessment are the judgments about O. by the compiler of the 1617 chronograph I. M. Katyrev-Rostovsky and the author of the Vremennik clerk Ivan Timofeev. H. M. Karamzin believed that the establishment of the O. was caused by Ivan IV’s groundless fear for his life and the O. did not pursue any goals other than ensuring the personal safety of the Tsar. S. M. Soloviev (following K. D. Kavelin) saw in O. a means for establishing a progressive state. began in his primordial struggle with the clan (princely-boyar), believing that the choice of such a terrible means was due to the personal qualities of Ivan IV. According to V. O. Klyuchevsky, O. arose as a result of the contradiction between the absolute monarchy and the aristocracy, which constituted the government. staff; Ivan IV, not being able to crush the government that was inconvenient for him. system, began to destroy the department. persons Klyuchevsky saw in O. the fruit of the Tsar’s “overly timid imagination,” and her ch. The goal was to ensure the personal safety of Ivan IV. Point of view of Kavelin - Solovyov about the state. necessity of O. was developed by S. F. Platonov. He assessed O. as a large state company. reform that put an end to economic and political the power of the landed aristocracy. Owl research historians (P. A. Sadikov, S. B. Veselovsky, A. A. Zimin, I. I. Polosin, I. I. Smirnov, L. V. Cherepnin, S. O. Shmidt, R. G. Skrynnikov, V. B. Kobrin, S. M. Kashtanov, V. I. Koretsky, etc.) showed that O. should be understood as a number of military, administrative, and financial. and social measures of the government of Ivan IV and certain policies, the significance of which was reduced to overcoming the remnants of feudal rule. fragmentation in the country, the rise of the nobility and the strengthening of the cross. enslavement. The implementation of these measures and this policy was accompanied by massive repressions, which affected not only the princes and boyars, but also the nobles, as well as the people. masses. In the 40s and 50s. under the influence of J.V. Stalin’s assessments in certain works of Sov. historians emphasized only the progressive significance of O. in the struggle for centralization of the state. Its emergence was explained by the struggle between reactionaries. boyars and progressive nobility. O.'s role in suppressing antifeudalism was underestimated. speeches and in strengthening serfdom (republications of R. Yu. Vipper’s book “Ivan the Terrible” in 1942 and 1944, works by I. I. Smirnov “Ivan the Terrible”, Leningrad, 1944, and S. V. Bakhrushin “Ivan the Terrible” - see . in "Scientific Works", vol. 2, M., 1954). S. B. Veselovsky in 1940-51 worked on essays on politics. history of O., in which the idealization of Ivan IV and O. was criticized (most of the essays were first published posthumously in 1963). In his opinion, O.’s institution did not pursue the state. goals, it was caused by Ivan IV’s fears for personal safety. Formation of special oprichnina orders and troops, changes in the placement of fiefs. land ownership, theft of “black” lands and other socio-economic measures. and political character were not foreseen by Ivan IV, but were a consequence of the creation of a special oprichnina court and increased repression. One of important reasons liquidation O. Veselovsky considered its degeneration into robbery. On the contrary, A. A. Zimin considers the establishment of O. a continuation of the previous policy of Ivan IV and proves that the spearhead of O. was directed against the remnants of appanage antiquity (liquidation of the Staritsa appanage, overcoming the separatism of Veliky Novgorod and the church). New problems were solved by old means and in old forms (resurrection of the inheritance - “O.”), through mass extermination of the population, etc., which means. degree predetermined her downfall. Mn. questions of the history of O. remain controversial and require further research. The institution of O. was prepared by the events of the beginning. 60s 16th century Ivan IV sought to actively continue the Livonian War of 1558-83, but encountered opposition among his circle. The break with the Elected Rada and disgrace with the princes and boyars in 1560-64 caused discontent among the feudal lords. nobility, leaders of orders and high clergy; some feudal lords betrayed the tsar by fleeing abroad (A.M. Kurbsky and others). The Metropolitan and the boyars turned to Ivan IV with a request to stop reprisals against his subjects “without any reason or misconduct.” On Dec. 1564 Ivan IV retired to Alexandrov Sloboda and on January 3. 1565 announced his abdication of the throne because of “anger” at the clergy, boyars, children of boyars and officials. A deputation from the Boyar Duma and the clergy arrived in the settlement, and the region agreed to grant the Tsar emergency powers. A decree was prepared, Crimea Ivan IV announced the establishment of a “special” court with a special territory, army, finances and administration. The goal of O. was proclaimed to be the eradication of “sedition.” A special one was created. control apparatus and an army unquestioningly obedient to the king (initially 1000 people), who were directly subordinate to him. The O. included: in the Center - Mozhaisk, Vyazma, Suzdal, etc.; to the south-west - Kozelsk, Przemysl, Belev, Medyn, etc.; in the north - Dvina, Veliky Ustyug, Kargopol, Vologda, etc., as well as palace possessions. Income from this territory. entered the state treasury and went to maintain the oprichnina army, the administrative apparatus, etc. The number of the oprichnina army subsequently increased to 5-6 thousand people, Kostroma, Staritsa, part of Novgorod, Obonezhskaya and Bezhetskaya Pyatina and other territories were included in the oprichnina inheritance. In O. there was an oprichnina Duma and finance. orders - Cheti. Command personnel for O. were staffed mainly. from the sovereign's court. The government introduced the non-jurisdiction of the general state guardsmen. authorities and courts. The rest of the state received the name zemshchina. It continued to be governed by the Boyar Duma, which was, however, forced to seek the consent of the tsar on all important issues. To establish the O., a huge one-time tax of 100 thousand rubles was taken from the zemshchina. From the territory Many local feudal landowners who were not included in the “special court” were evicted, and their lands were transferred to the oprichniki nobles. The nobles taken into O. were better allocated land and peasants and received generous benefits. These land requisitions to a certain extent undermined the economy. and political the importance of large landed aristocracy. With the establishment of O., disgraces and executions intensified. Active conductors of the oprichnina repressions were the boyar A.D. Basmanov, the prince of arms. A. I. Vyazemsky, M. L. Skuratov-Belsky and others. The establishment of O. and the actions of Ivan IV the Terrible, aimed at physical. destruction of their political opponents and the confiscation of their land holdings, caused protest among part of the ruling class. At the Zemsky Sobor of 1566, a group of nobles filed a petition for the abolition of O. The petitioners were executed. Metropolitan Athanasius expressed O.'s dissatisfaction (abandoned the throne on May 19, 1566); The new Metropolitan Philip Kolychev (dead in 1569) also spoke out against O. In 1568, a large wave of repression began (the case of boyar I.P. Fedorov), which ended with the liquidation of the Ancient Estate (1569) and the defeat of Novgorod (1570). In the case of I.P. Fedorov, more than 400 people were executed. (on July 6, 1568 - 369 people), during the Novgorod campaign in Tver, Torzhok and Novgorod, the guardsmen killed 1505 people only on the report of M. L. Skuratov-Belsky. Oprichnina repressions were accompanied by murders and robberies of the population of cities and estates. Among those killed in Novgorod, most were “black” townspeople. To extort excessive taxes from the population, Ivan the Terrible during the years of O. used the system of “oprichnaya” and “sovereign rights.” As a result, O. Ivan IV achieved a sharp strengthening of autocratic power and gave it Eastern features. despotism. Feudal in essence and methods of implementation, the policy of O. became important stage there is a cross on the way. enslavement. During the years of O., the government widely distributed “black” and palace lands to the feudal lords. At the same time the cross increased sharply. duties, the oprichniki removed peasants from the zemshchina “by force and not on time.” A sharp increase in government taxes and private ownership. duties caused the ruin of the peasants, aggravated by the war. actions, raids of the Crimean Tatars, famine, pestilence, oprichnina rights. In conditions of oprichnina terror, when any protest was suppressed in the bud, Ch. Mass escapes and non-payment of taxes became forms of peasant resistance. The division of the state into O. and Zemshchina was fraught with many negative consequences for the ruling class. Called, according to L.V. Tcherepnin’s definition, “to paralyze the possibility of a mass baptismal movement,” the O. clearly failed to cope with its task. The raid on Moscow by the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey in 1571 also revealed the weakness of the oprichnina army. In 1572 O. was abolished and part of the confiscated lands was returned to their former owners. A new revival of O. for less than a year (under the name of “destiny”) occurred in 1575-76, when Ivan IV faced opposition among the ruling class. Having placed the service khan Simion Bekbulatovich at the head of the zemshchina, Ivan IV accepted the title of “Prince of Moscow” and began new land searches. Lit.: Platonov S.F., Essays on the history of the Time of Troubles in Moscow. state of the XVI-XVII centuries, M., 1937; Sadikov P. A., Essays on the history of the oprichnina, M.-L., 1950; Veselovsky S.V., Studies on the history of the oprichnina, M., 1963; Zimin A. A., Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible, M., 1964; Polosin I.I., Socio-political. history of Russia XVI - early. XVII century Sat. Art., M., 1963; Smirnov I.I., Klas. contradictions in feud. village in Russia at the end. XVI century, "PIMK", 1933, No. 5-6; Bibikov G.N., On the question of the social composition of the guardsmen of Ivan the Terrible, "Tr. GIM", v. 14, M., 1941; Cherepnin L.V., Preface, in the collection: "PRP", v. 4, M., 1956; his, Zemsky Sobors and the establishment of absolutism in Russia, in the collection: Absolutism in Russia (XVII-XVIII centuries), M., 1964; Kobrin V.B., Composition of the oprichnina court of Ivan the Terrible, "Archaeographic Yearbook for 1959", M., 1960; Skrynnikov R.G., Oprichnaya land reform of Grozny 1565, IZ, vol. 70, M., 1961; him, Oprichnina and the last appanage reigns in Rus', in the same place, vol. 76, M., 1965; him, Synodik of the disgraced Tsar Ivan the Terrible as a historical. source, in the collection: Questions of the history of the USSR XVI-XVIII centuries, Leningrad, 1965, p. 22-86 (Teaching notes of the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute named after A.I. Herzen, vol. 278); Kashtanov S.M., To the study of the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible, "ISSSR", 1963, No. 2; Schmidt S. O., On the history of cathedrals of the 16th century, IZ, vol. 76, M., 1965. V. I. Koretsky. Moscow. -***-***-***- Russian state during the oprichnina years (1565-1572)

Once again, big and fiery greetings to everyone from the distant Urals, whose sky rests on Ural mountains! Andrey Puchkov is in touch with you. The oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible is the second no less important topic after. For many guys, this is something of a dark spot. Well, oprichnina and oprichnina, what else is there to talk about? But in fact, you need to know its causes, main events and consequences! Otherwise you won't pass the exam! So in this article we will briefly explore this topic.

"Oprichniki". Artist Nikolai Nevrev, 1888. The painting shows the execution of boyar Ivan Petrovich Fedorov-Chelyadnin

Origins

Oprichnina was the name given to the widow of a serviceman after his death, so that she could feed herself and her children. Oprichnina under Ivan the Terrible was a policy aimed at eliminating opposition to the tsarist government. This is its essence. What made the king personally allocate such an inheritance for himself? And what does the opposition have to do with it? Let's figure it out.

From the 12th to the 15th centuries, and to be precise, until 1521, the historical process of unifying the lands around Moscow took place. The Moscow prince proved that he is the leader of this association, as well as the initiator of the fight against the yoke of the Golden Horde. During the process of unification, various principalities were “absorbed” by Moscow. How this happened is a separate big topic. Where did the princes of these principalities go? They became appanage princes and either remained in place or moved to Moscow, receiving their patrimony in exchange for their principality.

I say this process again, it is very complex and multifaceted, so here I am resorting to simplification. So these appanage princes could not understand why they now have less power and authority than the Tsar of All Rus' now has? After all, he was recently still a prince like them! The same sentiments reigned among the boyars. And the childhood of Ivan the Terrible is a clear example of this.

Well, in about 1553, something completely out of the ordinary happened: the king allegedly fell ill with a serious illness, and many thought that he would die. And therefore, many princes and boyars swore allegiance not to his son Dmitry, but to the appanage prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky! The king soon recovered, but did not forget this incident.

Thus, the opposition to the tsarist power was represented not only by appanage princes, but also by the boyars.

Course of events

It all started in December 1564, when Ivan the Terrible went on a pilgrimage to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. The ruler took the entire treasury with him. And after the prayer he never returned to Moscow. The townspeople rebelled and went to look for the king. They found him in Alexandrova Sloboda. Ivan sent two letters: one to the Muscovites, and the other to the boyars, in which he accused the boyars of sedition and treason.

As a result, Ivan nevertheless agreed to return to the throne, but on the conditions that he would be allowed to commit oprichnina and he would be able to execute and pardon without trial. As a result, the whole country was divided into oprichnina and zemshchina: in the first, only the tsar ruled, and in the second, he ruled together with the boyar duma.

The oprichnina period itself lasted from 1565 to 1572. Here are the events you need to know:

• An oprichnina army was established, which was organized on the principle of a monastic-knightly order. The most famous guardsmen you need to know were: Malyuta Skuratov, Mikhail Vorotynsky, Boris Godunov, Afanasy Vyazemsky, brothers Fyodor and Alexey Basmanov, Vasily Gryaznoy, etc.
• Oprichnina terror affected all members of the Chosen Rada, who carried out reforms under Ivan the Terrible. Only Andrei Kurbsky, who fled to Lithuania, was saved. Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky was also executed: he was forced to take poison with his family.
• The oprichnina terror peaked in the winter of 1570, when at least 20,000 people were executed in Novgorod. The reasons for it were rumors that Novgorod again wanted to come under the rule of Lithuania.
• The oprichnina ended in 1572, after the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray went on a campaign to Moscow. As a result of the Battle of Molodi, the Moscow army was completely defeated, the guardsmen fled. Therefore, the king even forbade the use of this word itself.

Consequences

The results of the Oprichnina were terrible: the country was devastated, many villages were destroyed. Don’t forget that Moscow was still fighting for the Baltic states at that time. But the opposition to the tsarist government could not be destroyed. After the death of Ivan the Terrible, the boyars actually began to rule the country under the feeble-minded Fyodor Ioannovich.

So, we have briefly and clearly discussed the most important things in this topic. However, you must understand that it, like others, has a lot of nuances. Moreover, you need to solve tests on the topic, and better under the supervision of a competent teacher who will help and check, and also point out your specific mistakes and show the way to overcome them. All this is available in our training courses.

Best regards, Andrey Puchkov