Ivan the Terrible

This was the name by which Tsar Ivan IV has become known to history. Ivan the Terrible ruled from the late 1530s until his death in the 1580s. He completed the task, begun by his predecessors, of making Moscow secure in its control of all of Russia and of beginning the eastward expansion of Russian control into Siberia. Ivan also succeeded in overcoming the last strongholds of the former Mongol empire. Ivan was the first Russian ruler to designate himself as "tsar" (from "tsesar"=Latin 'Caesar'), i.e., "emperor."

Ivan gained his complete ascendancy over the nation (he actually was the "legal" owner of about one-half of the nation's territory) by a previously unparalleled use of ruthless force and terror. His armed henchmen, the feared oprichniki forcibly dispossessed and often killed any who opposed the tsar. Ivan is often compared with his contemporary, Henry VIII of England.

In a final act of infamy, the aged Ivan murdered his son and heir, thereby precipitating a national crisis which led to a time of disorder and national weakness known to history as the Time of Trouble (approximately from the 1590s to 1613).