Creation of an oprichnina army. Causes and consequences of oprichnina

The main goal oprichnina was the establishment of absolutely unlimited power of the tsar, close in nature to eastern despotism. The meaning of these historical events is that in the middle - second half of the 16th century. Russia faces an alternative further development. The beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the huge role played at that time by the Elected Rada, the reforms being carried out, the convening of the first Zemsky Sobors could lead to the formation of more soft version development towards a limited representative monarchy. But, due to the political ideas and character of Ivan the Terrible, another option was developed: an unlimited monarchy, autocracy close to despotism.

Ivan the Terrible strove for this goal, stopping at nothing, without thinking about the consequences.

Oprichnina and Zemshchina

In December 1564, Ivan the Terrible, taking with him his family, “close” boyars, part of the clerks and nobles, as well as the entire treasury, left Moscow on a pilgrimage to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, however, after being there for a week, he moved on and stayed in the village of Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. From there, in January 1565, a messenger arrived in Moscow with two messages, which were announced publicly. The letter addressed to the boyars, clergy, nobles and children of the boyars said that the tsar was putting “disgrace” on all of them for their “treason,” the theft of the sovereign’s treasury and lands, and for their unwillingness to protect him from external enemies. Therefore, he decided to renounce the throne and settle “where God will guide him, the sovereign.” The second letter was addressed to merchants and townspeople, it said that he did not hold any grudge against them.

The king, of course, did not intend to abdicate the throne. He opposed the feudal lords ordinary people, presenting himself as the defender of the latter. As was calculated, the townspeople began to demand that the boyars persuade the tsar not to leave the kingdom and promised that they themselves would destroy the sovereign’s enemies. When the delegation arrived in Alexandrov Sloboda, the tsar agreed to return to the throne with the condition of establishing an “oprichnina” - giving him the right to execute “traitors” and confiscate their property at his discretion.

The term “oprichnina” was known before. This was the name of the land that the prince bequeathed to his widow in addition to the rest of the territory. Now this word has been given new meaning. The entire territory of the Russian state was divided into two parts. The first is the oprichnina, a kind of inheritance that belongs only to the sovereign of all Rus' and is taken under his control. The second part is the rest of the land - zemshchina. The feudal lords accepted into the oprichnina constituted a special “sovereign court”, became the tsar’s personal servants, and were under his special protection. Both the oprichnina and the zemshchina had their own Boyar Duma and orders. Princes I. Belsky and I. Mstislavsky were placed at the head of the zemshchina, who were supposed to report to the tsar on military and civil affairs.

In addition, Ivan the Terrible created a special personal guard, the oprichnina. The guardsmen dressed in black and tied a dog's head and a broom-shaped hand to the saddle as a sign that they, like devoted dogs, would gnaw at treason and sweep it out of the state. No matter what the guardsmen did, people from the zemshchina could not resist in any way.

When the land was divided into the oprichnina, volosts and counties with developed feudal land tenure were taken: central, part of the western and northern. At the same time, the tsar warned that if the income from these lands was not enough, other lands and cities would be taken into the oprichnina. In Moscow, an oprichnina part was also allocated, the border ran along Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street. Feudal lords who lived in the oprichnina lands and were not part of the oprichnina had to be evicted, giving them land elsewhere in the zemshchina; usually those evicted received land on the estate instead of estates. A complete resettlement from the zemshchina to the oprichnina lands did not happen, although it was quite massive.

The tsar’s reprisal against the “enemies” of him and the state began. Frequent pretexts for this were denunciations, signed and anonymous, and the denunciations were not verified. Upon denunciation, the oprichnina army was urgently sent to the estate of the person against whom the denunciation was received. Anyone suspected of treason could face anything: from relocation to another territory to murder. Property was given to the oprichniki, the land went to the oprichnina, and the informer, if he was known, was entitled to a certain percentage of the property of the person subjected to execution.

Cancellation of the oprichnina

formidable reform oprichnina

The division of the state into oprichnina and zemshchina, constant disgraces and executions weakened the state. It was dangerous, since at that time the most difficult Livonian War was going on. “Traitors” were blamed for the failures of military operations. Türkiye took advantage of the weakening of the country. Turkish and Crimean troops besieged Astrakhan in 1571, and then the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey went to Moscow. The guardsmen, who were supposed to hold the barrier on the banks of the Oka, for the most part did not show up for duty. Devlet-Girey set fire to a Moscow suburb, a fire started, and the city burned down. The Tsar fled from Moscow, first to Alexandrov Sloboda, then further to Beloozero. The following year, the khan repeated the raid, hoping to capture the king himself. But this time Ivan the Terrible united the oprichnina and zemstvo troops, placing the disgraced Prince Vorotynsky at their head. In July 1572, in a battle near the village of Molodi, 50 km. from Moscow, the army of Devlet-Girey was defeated.

In the same year, the tsar abolished the oprichnina, some of the victims were given back their lands, the word “oprichnina” was banned, but the terror did not stop, everything continued as before.

Results of the oprichnina

As a result of the Livonian War and the oprichnina, the land was devastated. Peasants fled to the Don and Volga, many boyars and nobles became beggars. A land census taken at the end of the century showed that approximately half of the previously cultivated land had become wasteland. This played an important role in the next stage of enslavement of the peasants.

Oprichnina - a period at the end of the 16th century in Rus', characterized by terror and bloody crimes of the Tsar's vigilantes Ivan the Terrible.

Characteristics of the oprichnina

The word “oprichnina” usually refers to several phenomena. The word itself comes from the Old Russian “oprich”, which means “special”; this is the word Ivan the Terrible used to call his personal guardsmen, oprichniki, who guarded him and committed atrocities by his decree. This is where the name of this entire historical period came from - “oprichnina” - as a period of atrocities by the royal guardsmen. In addition, Ivan the Terrible and his oprichniki were engaged in taking away lands and money from the people in favor of the tsar and the royal retinue; this phenomenon was also called “oprichnina”.

Thus, the essence of the oprichnina is the seizure of property from citizens in favor of the state using particularly brutal methods.

Oprichnina was the result of state reforms in 1565 carried out by Ivan the Terrible.

The beginning of the oprichnina. Causes of occurrence.

The creation of a special guard and guardsmen was associated with Livonian War. Ivan the Terrible was famous for his brutal temper and suspicion. In 1558, he started the Livonian War, the goal of which was to conquer new lands on the Baltic coast. Unfortunately, the war did not proceed as quickly and successfully as the tsar wanted, so he repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction and reproached the governors for conducting military operations incorrectly.

Failures accumulated, and this aroused suspicions in Ivan 4. Pretty soon he came to the conclusion that there was a secret conspiracy against him, in which the boyars (who never supported his military decisions) and the governors participated. In confirmation of the king’s words, during the Livonian War, one of the governors betrayed him and went over to the enemy’s side.

As a result, tormented by suspicions, the king decides that they want to kill him and put another person on the throne in his place. To protect himself, Ivan the Terrible creates a special retinue consisting of a thousand people, which he calls guardsmen and orders them to monitor his safety and the integrity of his power. The guardsmen included boyars and ordinary warriors and representatives of other segments of the population. Over time, the guardsmen turned from warriors into an analogue of the royal court.

Main events of the oprichnina

Ivan the Terrible was very afraid for his power and his life and suspected treason everywhere, so he quite often forced his guardsmen to carry out executions. As a result, the actions of the tsar's soldiers sometimes went beyond his orders and became extremely brutal; the guardsmen killed, robbed and took away property and often innocent people. The king turned a blind eye to this, worrying more about his own safety.

A huge retinue must be supported somehow. Ivan the Terrible, together with the guardsmen, leaves for Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda and organizes a settlement there, from where he manages state affairs and carries out executions of alleged state traitors. During the same period, a decree was adopted according to which the funds and lands that the tsar allocated for the maintenance of his guardsmen were to be used for the use of the state. Despite the decree, lands were often taken by force. By this time, the remaining boyars, princes and ordinary people were already extremely dissatisfied with the atrocities of the tsar, but everyone who tried to stop him died.

In 1569, information reached Ivan 4 that Novgorod was preparing a campaign against him and regicide. Ivan gathers a huge army consisting of his guardsmen and moves towards Novgorod in order to reason with the state traitors. While the king, who entered the city, is trying to find those to blame, his guardsmen simply rob the residents and kill them, taking their property for themselves.

After Novgorod, the tsar moves to Pskov, where he sees a new conspiracy. In Pskov, the oprichniki limited themselves only to executing some residents whom the tsar called traitors.

The era of rampant oprichnina is coming. In 1570-1571, Ivan the Terrible returned to Moscow. By this point, the tsar sees conspiracies almost everywhere, so real terror begins in Moscow. Almost everyone was executed, including those closest to him. The guardsmen, on the orders of the tsar, and sometimes without him, brutally beat people, maimed them, and took away their property and money. Moscow was mired in chaos and blood.

In 1560, Ivan the Terrible began to change the system of his government. He dissolved the Chosen Rada, putting its leaders in disgrace. The deterioration of relations with his comrades-in-arms began after 1553, when, during the tsar’s illness, they agreed to place on the throne not his son, but Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky.

A gradual transition to the oprichnina begins.

Reasons for oprichnina:

1. Failures in the Livonian War.

2. The presence of a relatively strong opposition of boyars and appanage princes.

3. The king’s desire to strengthen his own power.

4. The fight against separatism, primarily Novgorod.

5. Some personality traits of Ivan the Terrible (cruelty, suspicion, etc.)

Apparently, the oprichnina was conceived as a model of an ideal state, from the point of view of Ivan the Terrible.

In December 1564, Ivan the Terrible went on a pilgrimage to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. From there in January 1565 (date of the beginning of the oprichnina) he sent two letters to Moscow. In the first - he “blasphemed” the boyars - he accused them of treason. In the second, he addressed the people, saying that he held no grudge against them, but would not return to the throne because of the boyars’ betrayals. At the request of the Muscovites, the boyars were forced to go to the Tsar to bow. Ivan agreed to return to the throne on the condition that he would be allowed to introduce oprichnina.

The main content of the oprichnina policy:

1. The entire land of Russia was divided into two unequal parts - zemshchina and oprichnina.

2. Oprichnina (an ancient term denoting the allotment of the prince's widow) becomes the property of Ivan and is under his undivided authority.

3. Zemshchina was governed by Zemsky Sobors, the Boyar Duma and orders, but the tsar also intervened in this process.

4. The oprichnina army fought the opposition within the oprichnina and carried out punitive and predatory campaigns against the zemshchina. The apotheosis of the oprichnina was the campaign against Novgorod in 1569, the reason for which was a false denunciation accusing the Novgorodians of treason.

5. Mass terror was launched against dissidents. The main executioner was Malyuta Skuratov. During the Novgorod campaign, he strangled Metropolitan Philip, who condemned the oprichnina. Vladimir Staritsky was killed along with his family.

Since the oprichnina policy did not produce the desired results, the tsar decided to curtail it. The reason for this was the inability of the oprichnina army to protect Moscow from the campaigns of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey in 1571 and 1572. He was defeated by the Zemstvo army under the command of Mikhail Vorotynsky. IN 1572 The oprichnina was abolished. However, the repressions continued (M. Vorotynsky was killed).

In 1575, the idea of ​​the oprichnina received an unexpected continuation. Ivan left Moscow for a year, placing the Tatar Khan Simeon Bekbulatovich on the royal throne. The true meaning of this event remained unknown.

Shortly before his death (in 1581), Ivan, in a fit of rage, killed his eldest son Ivan Ivanovich, the only full-fledged contender for the throne.

IN 1584 Mr. Ivan the Terrible dies. The weak and sickly Fyodor Ivanovich became the tsar, under whom the tsarina’s brother, the former guardsman, Boris Godunov, actually ruled. A number of cities were founded under him (Arkhangelsk, Saratov, Tsaritsyn, etc.). IN 1589 g. The Russian Orthodox Church finally becomes autocephalous (self-governing) - the first Russian is elected patriarch – Job.

Enslavement continues: in 1581-82 gg. are introduced "reserved summers"- temporary ban on peasants crossing on St. George’s Day; in 1592 a population census was carried out (compilation of “scribal books”); V 1597 introduced « summer lessons» - a five-year search for runaway peasants.

In 1591 in Uglich he died under mysterious circumstances younger son Ivan the Terrible 14-year-old Tsarevich Dmitry. Popular rumor blamed Boris Godunov for his death.

In 1598, Fyodor Ivanovich dies and this ends the Rurik dynasty.

The significance of the reign of Ivan IV:

1. The predatory campaigns of the guardsmen led to the devastation of Russian lands.

2. Economic crisis causes a mass exodus of peasants to the outskirts of the country. Coming fast growth the number of Cossacks.

3. The flight of peasants, in turn, leads to a crisis in the feudal economy - estates are left without workers. Wanting to keep the peasants on the land of the landowners, the state is taking new steps towards their enslavement.

4. As a result of the terror, the layer of free private owners (boyars) was destroyed. Thus, Russia lost social base for the development of democratic principles in society.

5. The role of officials and nobles in society has noticeably increased. The boyars and appanage princes were greatly weakened.

6. People's dissatisfaction with the authorities is growing.

7. An insurmountable dynastic crisis arises. It can be argued that the global consequence of the reign of Ivan the Terrible was the Time of Troubles.

Culture of the period of creation of the Russian centralized state (second half of the 13th – 16th centuries)

Events related to the fight against Mongol yoke, the rise of Moscow and the creation of a single centralized state had a significant impact on the development of Russian culture. The main theme of literature in the second half of the 13th century was Batya’s invasion. The first response to this event is "The Word about the Destruction of the Russian Land"- imbued with the genuine tragedy of what is being described. Another work - The story of the ruin of Ryazan by Batu"– already contains a call to fight against the enemy. One of the characters in the Tale is the Ryazan boyar Evpatiy Kolovrat, presenter guerrilla warfare against the Mongols. A separate work is dedicated to him: “Song about Evpatiy Kolovrat.”

With the first victories over a formidable enemy, optimism and pride in its people come to Russian literature. A number of works were created dedicated to the Battle of Kulikovo, which became one of the main themes in the culture of this period.

The central place in the literature of this time is occupied by "Zadonshchina"(end of the 14th century, author – Safoniy Ryazanets) and "The Tale of the Massacre of Mamayev"(first half of the 15th century, author unknown).

From the end of the 14th century. All-Russian chronicles are being revived, glorifying the deeds of the Moscow princes and condemning their enemies. In the 15th century, literature increasingly emphasized the chosenness of Moscow and its princes. IN "Tales of the Princes of Vladimir" the idea of ​​succession of power of the Moscow sovereigns from the Byzantine and even Roman emperors (from Augustus) was pursued. Another work of this kind is the message of a monk Filathea Vasily III, which stated that Moscow is the “third Rome” (theory "Moscow is the third Rome"). The “First Rome” (Rome itself) fell because of heresies, the “Second Rome” - because union(union) with Catholicism (Union of Florence). “Two Romes fell, but the third cost, and the fourth never happened.” Philatheus's theory turned Moscow into the capital of Orthodoxy and assigned it the responsibility for its protection.

In the second half of the 15th century, the old genre experienced a new birth "walking"- description of travel. Particularly interesting "Walking across three seas" Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin, which describes a journey to Iran and India (1469 - 1472).

At the beginning of the 16th century, interest in reading increased sharply in Russia. In an effort to satisfy this interest and direct it in the right direction, Metropolitan Macarius creates "Great Fourth Menaion". “Cheti” are books intended not for church services, but for reading. “Minea” are collections of works distributed for daily reading.

An outstanding monument of literature of the 16th century was "Domostroy" Sylvester. From a patriarchal point of view, this book described what kind of order should reign in the family and in the house in general.

An important achievement was the beginning of printing. The first printing house was opened around 1553, but the name of the printer is not known. IN 1563 – 64 years, the printing house of Ivan Fedorov, who is considered to be the first printer, has been operating. First printed book in Rus' - "Apostle".

One of the main trends in the development of culture in the 16th century was secularization or secularization, i.e. strengthening of secular principles in culture. One of the manifestations of this process is the emergence of Russian journalism. The most prominent publicists of that time were Fyodor Karpov and Ivan Peresvetov (perhaps Ivan the Terrible himself wrote under this pseudonym). One of the brightest monuments of journalism of the 16th century was the correspondence of Ivan IV with Andrei Kurbsky.

End of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries. marked by serious religious disputes. In the 1480s. in Novgorod, and then in Moscow, a heretical movement manifests itself Judaizers directed against the official church. Heretics denied the basic church dogmas and demanded the destruction of the church hierarchy, monasticism and the confiscation of church lands. In 1490, a church council condemned heresy. At the same time, two currents formed within the church itself: non-covetousness, whose leaders, the desert monks Nil Sorsky and Bassian Patrikeev, sought to raise the authority of the clergy by renunciation of property, asceticism and moral self-improvement; And Josephiteness led by Joseph Volotsky, who advocated a financially strong church. Non-covetous people were condemned by the Stoglavy Council as heretics.

Architecture after the Mongol invasion experienced a period of decline. Monumental construction stopped for half a century. Only from the beginning of the 16th century. it is gradually being revived, mainly in Novgorod and Pskov, which suffered relatively little from the invasion, and in Moscow. In Novgorod, the form of churches is simplified even more: it is surprisingly plastic and expressive (the Church of St. Nicholas on Lipne). Monuments also appear that are distinguished by the richness of their external decor (the Church of Fyodor Stratelates and the Savior on Ilyin Street). A unique identity was given to Pskov churches by special belfries erected above the façade of the church or to the side of it (the churches of Vasily on Gorka, St. George from Vzvoz). In Moscow, the white stone Kremlin (1367) became a unique symbol of its Rise. However, truly grandiose construction takes place here in the second half. XV-early XVI centuries. Italian masters P. A. Solari and A. Fioravanti are building new brick walls of the Kremlin - made of red brick, more than 2 km long, with 18 towers. Aristotle Fioravanti builds on Cathedral Square of the Kremlin Assumption Cathedral, masters Solari and Ruffo, together with Pskov builders, are erecting the Annunciation Cathedral. Thus, the ensemble of the Chamber of Facets is formed.

The most striking feature of the architectural monuments of the 16th century is the tent style. The masterpiece and at the same time the earliest example of this style is the church Ascension in the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow, built in honor of the birth of Ivan IV. The pinnacle of Russian architecture of the 16th century is the cathedral Pokrova on the Rv y, dedicated to the capture of Kazan (better known as St. Basil's Cathedral - in honor of the famous Moscow holy fool). Built by masters Barma and Postnik.

In the 1530s. A semi-ring of fortifications of Kitay-Gorod was added to the Kremlin, protecting the central part of the settlement. At the end of the 16th century. The architect Fyodor Kon erected a ring of fortifications of the White City, which included almost all of the then Moscow. He also built a powerful Kremlin in Smolensk.

In the XIV-XV centuries. Russian icon painting reaches its highest development. The most important role here was played by the Byzantine Theophanes the Greek, who arrived in the 1370s. to Rus'. In 1378, he painted the Church of the Savior on Ilyin in Novgorod (the frescoes have partially survived). Several icons of the Annunciation Cathedral in Moscow are attributed to him. Another outstanding icon painter was Andrei Rublev (about 1360-1430 gg.). His most famous icon is "Trinity". Rublev's frescoes have been preserved in the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir. Rublev's traditions in the second half of the 15th and early 16th centuries. continued Dionysius, from whose works the frescoes of the Nativity Cathedral of the Ferapont Monastery (1502) have come down to us.

Iconography in the 16th century. is experiencing increasing difficulties. She is constrained by a rigid canon - a model beyond which the icon painter was forbidden to go. As a result, a unique artistic direction is developed, in which the ideological content, inner world the characters portrayed fade into the background. The masters - Procopius Chirin, the Savin brothers - sought to express themselves in painting techniques, to depict the refined beauty of figures and clothes. This direction was called the Stroganov school, named after the Stroganov merchants, who contributed to its development with their orders.

Section 6. Russia in the 17th century

Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible and its consequences for the Russian state.

Introduction________________________________________________3

1. Introduction of the oprichnina__________________________________________4

2. Reasons and goals of the oprichnina______________________________6

3. Results and consequences of the oprichnina______________________________9

Conclusion_______________________________________________ 13

List of used literature________________________ 15

Introduction.

The central event in the history of Russia in the 16th century was the oprichnina. True, only seven years out of the 51 years that Ivan the Terrible spent on the throne. But what seven years! The “fire of ferocity” that broke out in those years (1565-1572) claimed many thousands, and even tens of thousands of human lives. In our enlightened times, we are accustomed to counting the victims in the millions, but in the rough and cruel 16th century. there was neither such a large population (only 5-7 million people lived in Russia), nor those advanced technical means of exterminating people that scientific and technological progress brought with it.

The time of Ivan the Terrible is of great historical significance. The tsar's policy and its consequences had a huge impact on the course of national history. The reign of Ivan IV, which amounted to half of the 16th century, contains the key moments in the formation of the Russian state: the expansion of territories controlled by Moscow, changes in the centuries-old ways of internal life and, finally, the oprichnina - one of the bloodiest and greatest in historical significance acts of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. It is the oprichnina that attracts the views of many historians. After all, there is no exact information about why Ivan Vasilyevich resorted to such unusual measures. It is officially believed that the oprichnina lasted 7 years from 1565 to 1572. But the abolition of the oprichnina was only formal, the number of executions, of course, decreased, the concept of “oprichnina” was eliminated, it was replaced in 1575 by the “sovereign court”, but general principles and the order remained untouched. Ivan the Terrible continued his oprichnina politics, but under a different name, and with a slightly changed leadership team, practically without changing its direction.

The purpose of the work is to explore the oprichnina policy of Ivan the Terrible, what were its reasons, what goals was it aimed at and what objective results did it lead to?

Introduction of the oprichnina

So, December 1564, the last pre-oprich month. The situation in the country was alarming. The foreign policy situation is not easy. Even during the reign of the Chosen Rada, the Livonian War began (1558) - against those who ruled the Baltic states on the territory of modern Latvia and Estonia Livonian Order. During the first two years, the Livonian Order was defeated. The Tatar cavalry from the Kazan Khanate, conquered in 1552, played a significant role in the victories of the Russian troops. But it was not Russia that took advantage of the fruits of the victory: the knights came under the protection of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which launched military operations against Russia. Sweden also spoke out, not wanting to lose its share in the Baltic states. Russia faced two strong opponents instead of one weak one in this war. At first, the situation was still favorable for Ivan IV: in February 1563, after a long siege, they managed to take the important and well-fortified fortress of Polotsk. But, apparently, the tension of forces was too great, and military happiness began to betray Russian weapons. Less than a year later, in January 1564, in the battle of the Ula River, not far from Polotsk, Russian troops suffered a severe defeat: many soldiers were killed, hundreds of servicemen were captured.

Such was the eve of the oprichnina. On December 3, 1564, a rapid development of events began: on this day, the tsar with his family and associates went on a pilgrimage to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, taking with them their entire treasury, and numerous pre-selected accompanying persons were ordered to go with their families.

Having delayed near Moscow due to the sudden onset of thaw, having prayed at the Trinity, by the end of December the tsar reached Alexandrova Sloboda (now the city of Alexandrov, Vladimir region) - a village where both Vasily III and Ivan himself rested and “amused” themselves with hunting more than once IV. From there, on January 3, 1565, a messenger arrived in Moscow, bringing two letters. In the first, addressed to Metropolitan Afanasy, it was reported that the tsar laid his anger on all bishops and abbots of monasteries, and his disgrace on all service people, from boyars to ordinary nobles, since service people deplete his treasury, serve poorly, betray, and church hierarchs they are covered. Therefore, “out of great pity of heart, not wanting to endure their treacherous deeds, he left his state and went where he would settle, where God would guide him, the sovereign.” The second letter was addressed to the entire posad population of Moscow; in it, the tsar assured the simple Moscow people, “so that they do not hold any doubts for themselves, there is no anger against them and no disgrace.”

It was a brilliant political maneuver by a talented demagogue: the tsar, in the toga of a guardian, spoke for the interests of the lower classes of the townspeople, against the feudal lords hated by the townspeople. All these proud and noble nobles, in comparison with whom a simple city dweller is a third-class man, it turns out, are vile traitors who angered the Tsar-Father and brought him to the point where he abandons the state. And the “townsman”, the artisan or merchant, is the support of the throne. But what should we do now? After all, a state is a state because it is headed by a sovereign. Without the sovereign, “who will we resort to and who will have mercy on us and who will save us from finding foreigners?” - this is how, according to the official chronicle, the Moscow people interpreted it after listening to the tsar’s letters. And they resolutely demanded that the boyars beg the tsar to return to the kingdom, “and who will be the sovereign’s villains and traitors, and they do not stand for them and will consume them themselves.”

Two days later, a deputation of clergy and boyars was in Alexandrova Sloboda. The tsar had mercy and agreed to return, but under two conditions: “traitors,” including those who were only “in what way he, the sovereign, were disobedient,” “to put his own disgrace on those, and to execute others,” and secondly, “inflict oprishna on him in his state.”

In the oprichnina (from the word “oprich”, “except” for the rest of the “land” - hence - zemshchina or zemstvo), the tsar allocated part of the country’s districts and “1000 heads” of boyars and nobles. Those enrolled in the oprichnina were supposed to have lands in the oprichnina districts, and among the zemstvos, those “who would not be in the oprichnina,” the tsar ordered to take away estates and estates in the oprichnina districts and give others in the zemstvo districts in return. The oprichnina had its own Boyar Duma (“boyars from the oprichnina”), and its own special troops were created, led by the governors “from the oprichnina.” An oprichnina unit was also allocated in Moscow.

From the very beginning, the number of guardsmen included many offspring of noble and ancient boyar and even princely families. Those who did not belong to the aristocrats, however, even in the pre-oprich years were mainly part of the “household children of the boyars” - the top of the feudal class, the traditional support of the Russian sovereigns. The sudden rise of such low-ranking but “honest” people has happened many times before (for example, Adashev). The point was not in the supposedly democratic origin of the guardsmen, because they supposedly served the tsar more faithfully than the nobility, but in the fact that the guardsmen became the personal servants of the autocrat, who, by the way, enjoyed a guarantee of impunity. The guardsmen (their number approximately quadrupled in seven years) were not only the tsar’s personal guards, but also participants in many military operations. And yet executioner functions were the main ones for many of them, especially for the top.

Reasons and goals of the oprichnina

What were its reasons, what goals was it aimed at and what objective results did it lead to? Was there any meaning in this orgy of executions and murders?

In this regard, it is necessary to dwell on the question of the relationship between the boyars and the nobility, and the political positions of these social groups of the feudal class. All historians are unanimous that all government policies of the 15th-16th centuries. was aimed at centralizing the country, and it was embodied in decrees and laws, formalized as “sentences” of the Boyar Duma, the highest government institution. The aristocratic composition of the Duma is known and firmly established; it is sometimes considered a kind of council of the nobility that limits the power of the monarch. So, it is the boyars who take measures aimed at centralization.

Economically, the boyars were not interested in separatism, rather the opposite. They did not own large latifundia, located compactly, “within one boundary.” A large landowner had fiefs and estates in several - four or five, or even six districts. The boundaries of the counties are the boundaries of the former principalities. The return to appanage separatism seriously threatened the land holdings of the nobility.

Titled boyars, scions of old princely families that had lost their independence, gradually merged with the untitled nobility. The fragments of the princely estates themselves, where their rights were still in the first third of the 16th century. bore some traces of their former sovereignty, and constituted an ever smaller part of their possessions, located in the same striped pattern as those of the untitled boyars.

There was no significant difference in the social composition of landowners and patrimonial owners: among both, we find aristocrats, middle-ranking service people, and “small fry.” It is impossible to contrast votchina and estate as hereditary and non-hereditary possessions: both votchina could be confiscated in disgrace, for official misconduct or for a political crime, and estates were actually inherited from the very beginning. And the size of the estates and estates does not give reason to consider the estate large and the estate small. Along with large estates, there were many small and even tiny ones, where the landowner, along with the exploitation of the labor of dependent peasants, was forced to plow the land himself. At the same time, along with small estates (but initially there were no such microscopic estates as small estates), there were also very large estates, not inferior in size to large estates. All this is very important, because precisely the opposition of the large “boyar estate” to the “small noble estate” is the main support of the concept of the confrontation between the boyars and the nobility, the struggle of the boyars against centralization.

The oprichnina was not anti-boyar either. And the point here is not only that the relocations, in which they saw the main social meaning of this event, were not so massive and comprehensive. S. B. Veselovsky carefully studied the composition of those executed under Ivan the Terrible. Of course, there were many boyars among the dead: they stood closer to the sovereign, and therefore the royal wrath fell on them more often. “Whoever was close to the Grand Duke was burned, and whoever remained away froze,” wrote Heinrich Staden. And the execution of a noble boyar was much more noticeable than the death of an ordinary son of a boyar, not to mention a peasant or a “posad peasant.” In the Synodik of the Disgraced, where, by order of Tsar Ivan, his victims were recorded for church commemoration, the boyars are named by name, and people from the lower strata of society are often named with a number with the addition: “You, Lord, you yourself know their name.” And yet, according to Veselovsky’s calculations, for one boyar or person from the sovereign’s court “there were three or four ordinary landowners, and for one representative of the class of privileged service landowners there were a dozen people from the lower strata of society.” Clerks and clerks, lowly state officials are the basis of the emerging apparatus of state administration, the support of centralization. But how many of them died during the oprichnina years! “Under Tsar Ivan,” wrote Veselovsky, “serving in the administrative apparatus was no less life-threatening than serving as a boyar.”

So, the edge of the oprichnina terror was not directed only or even mainly against the boyars. It was already noted above that the composition of the guardsmen themselves was no less aristocratic than the composition of the zemshchina.

Thus, destroying the aristocratic system of service land ownership, the oprichnina was directed, in essence, against those aspects of the state order that tolerated and supported such a system. She did not act “against individuals,” as V.O. says. Klyuchevsky, namely against order, and therefore was much more an instrument of state reform than a simple police means of suppressing and preventing state crimes.

Results and consequences of the oprichnina

The path of centralization of the country through oprichnina terror, which Grozny followed, was ruinous and even disastrous for Russia. Centralization has moved forward, but in forms that simply cannot be called progressive. The point here is not only that moral feeling is protesting (which, however, is also important), but also that the consequences of the oprichnina had a negative impact on the course of national history. Let's take a closer look at its political consequences:

One of the political consequences of Ivan the Terrible's oprichnina was the unusually energetic mobilization of land ownership, led by the government. The oprichnina moved service people in droves from one land to another; lands changed owners not only in the sense that instead of one landowner another came, but also in the fact that palace or monastery land turned into local distribution, and the estate of a prince or the estate of a boyar’s son was assigned to the sovereign. There was, as it were, a general revision and a general reshuffling of ownership rights.

The years of the oprichnina were a new stage in the history of the anti-feudal struggle of the peasantry. Unlike previous times, the arena of class battles was no longer widespread in individual villages and hamlets, but in the entire country. The voice of spontaneous protest was heard in every Russian village. In the conditions of oprichnina terror, the growth of sovereign and sovereign taxes and other completely unexpected disasters (pestilence, famine), the main form of struggle was the mass flight of peasants and townspeople, which led to the desolation of the central regions of the country. Of course, this form of peasant resistance to the feudal lords was still passive in nature and testified to the immaturity of the peasantry, crushed by need and ignorance. But peasant escapes played a huge and not yet fully appreciated role in the subsequent history of Russia. Settling in the north and “behind the stone”, in distant Siberia, in the Volga region and in the south, fugitive peasants, artisans and slaves developed these territories with their heroic feats of labor. It was they, these unknown Russian people, who ensured the economic growth of the Russian outskirts and prepared the further expansion of the territory of the Russian state. At the same time, runaway peasants and slaves made up the main contingent of the emerging Don, Yaik and Zaporozhye Cossacks, which became established at the beginning of the 17th century. the most organized active force in the peasant war.

The senseless and brutal beatings of the innocent population made the very concept of oprichnina synonymous with arbitrariness and lawlessness.

The gradual dispossession of peasants and the transition of black-plowed lands into the orbit of exploitation by secular and ecclesiastical feudal lords were accompanied during the years of the oprichnina by a sharp increase in taxes levied by the state and land rent in favor of secular and ecclesiastical landowners. During the oprichnina years, serious shifts occurred in the forms of feudal rent. The process of development of corvée, which began already in the middle of the 16th century, intensified.

The ruin of the peasantry, burdened with double oppression (of the feudal lord and the state), was complemented by the strengthening of the landowners' tyranny, which prepared the final triumph of serfdom.

One of the most important consequences oprichnina is that the relationship between the central government and the church has become very complex and tense. The Church found itself in opposition to the regime of Ivan the Terrible. This meant a weakening of ideological support for the tsarist government, which at that time threatened with serious consequences both for the tsar and for the state as a whole. As a result of the oprichnina policy, the independence of the church in the Russian state was undermined.

Oprichnina was a very complex phenomenon. New and old were intertwined in it with the amazing whimsicality of mosaic patterns. Its peculiarity was that the centralization policy was carried out in extremely archaic forms, sometimes under the slogan of a return to antiquity. Thus, the government sought to achieve the elimination of the last appanages by creating a new sovereign appanage - the oprichnina. Confirming the autocratic power of the monarch as an immutable law of state life, Ivan the Terrible at the same time transferred the fullness of executive power to the zemshchina, i.e. main territories of Russia, into the hands of the Boyar Duma and orders, actually strengthening specific gravity feudal aristocracy in the political system of the Russian state.

The culmination of the oprichnina terror was the end of 1569 - the summer of 1570. Probably, in the summer of 1569 the tsar received the long-desired denunciation. Novgorod the Great, a city that had always been under suspicion, decided to change: the king of lime, in his place put the Staritsa prince Vladimir Andreevich and transferred under the authority of the king of Poland (in 1569 the kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania turned a personal union into a state one, creating a united state - Rzeczpospolita). Before this, in September 1569, he summoned Vladimir Andreevich with his wife and youngest daughter and forced them to take poison. On the way to Novgorod, the guardsmen staged bloody pogroms in Tver and Torzhok. Many residents died, and the Livonian and Lithuanian prisoners held there were destroyed. In January 1570, a pogrom began in Novgorod, which lasted more than a month. From three to four thousand died (according to R. G. Skrynnikov’s calculations) to 10-15 thousand people (as the author of this essay believes). Novgorod churches were robbed. In the villages and hamlets of the Novgorod land, bandits of oprichniks were rampant, devastating both landowners' estates and peasant households, killing residents, and forcibly deporting peasants to their estates and estates. Several thousand people died in Pskov. The oprichnina, from a gloomy punitive mechanism, degenerated into a gang of murderers with princely and boyar titles.

Thus, during the punitive campaigns of Ivan the Terrible, large trade and craft centers of the country were devastated, which undermined the economy and trade of the state. It should also be noted that their economic independence was destroyed. After the pogrom of 1570, Novgorod turned from a rival of Moscow into an ordinary city of the Russian centralized state, completely subordinate to the Moscow administration.

Note that Ivan IV, fighting the rebellions and betrayals of the feudal nobility, saw them as the main reason for the failures of his policies. He firmly stood on the position of the need for strong autocratic power, the main obstacles to the establishment of which were the boyar-princely opposition and boyar privileges. The question was what methods would be used to fight. Ivan the Terrible dealt with the remnants of feudal fragmentation using purely feudal methods.

Internal turmoil could not but affect foreign policy. The Livonian War (1558-1583) was lost. There are several reasons for the defeat in this war, including miscalculations in the choice of the main direction in foreign policy, but the main reason, I believe, is the depletion of the forces and resources of the Russian state, the economic backwardness of Russia, which was entailed by the oprichnina policy of Ivan the Terrible. Russia could not successfully withstand a long struggle against strong opponents. The country's economy was undermined to a large extent as a result of punitive campaigns against the country's trade and craft centers. Suffice it to say that in the entire Novgorod land only a fifth of the inhabitants remained in place and were alive. Under the conditions of the oprichnina, the peasant economy lost its stability: it lost its reserves, and the very first crop shortage led to famine. “A man killed a man for a piece of bread,” wrote Staden. In addition, the Moscow state, subjected to oprichnina terror, turned out to be practically non-defensive. As a result of this, in 1571 the central regions were burned and plundered by the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey. Russia's international authority has also fallen.

Conclusion

Oprichnina is forced centralization without sufficient economic and social prerequisites. In these conditions, the authorities are trying to compensate for their real weakness with terror. It creates not a clearly functioning apparatus of state power that ensures the implementation of government decisions, but an apparatus of repression that envelops the country in an atmosphere of fear.

One of the significant consequences of the oprichnina was that it contributed to the establishment of serfdom in Russia. Serfdom cannot be considered a progressive phenomenon. The point is not only that our morality is not able to recognize the transformation of more than half of the country's population into slaves (or at least half-slaves) as progress. It is no less significant that serfdom preserved feudalism, delayed the emergence and then the development of capitalist relations, and thereby became a powerful brake on progress in our country. Its establishment may have been a kind of immune reaction of the feudal society of Eastern European countries to the development of capitalism in neighboring states.

The barbaric, medieval methods of Tsar Ivan’s struggle with his political opponents, his uncontrollably cruel character left an ominous imprint of despotism and violence on all the events of the oprichnina years.

The building of the centralized state was built on the bones of many thousands of workers who paid dearly for the triumph of autocracy. The strengthening of feudal-serf oppression in the conditions of the growing ruin of the country was the most important condition that prepared the final enslavement of the peasants. The flight to the southern and eastern borders of the state, the desolation of the center of the country were also tangible results of the oprichnina, which indicated that the peasants and townspeople did not want to put up with the increased taxes and “rights” of arrears. The struggle of the oppressed with the old and new masters from the oprichnina environment gradually and continuously intensified. Russia was on the eve of a grandiose peasant war that broke out at the beginning of the 17th century.

The oprichnina terror and its consequences are of enormous historical value, which should serve as an edification to subsequent generations. In order to know in the future what such radical methods that Ivan the Terrible used in his time could lead to.

Bibliography

1. Zimin A.A. Oprichnina. M., Territory, 2001. – 448 p.

2. Kobrin V.B. Ivan the Terrible: Chosen Rada or Oprichnina? / History of the Fatherland: people, ideas, decisions. Essays on the history of Russia IX – beginning. XX century comp.: Kozlov. M., Publishing House of Political Literature, 1991. – 536 p.

3. Platonov S.F. Lectures on Russian history. St. Petersburg, Crystal. 1997. – 396 p.

4. Skrynnikov R.G. Ivan groznyj. - M.: Nauka, 1975. – 499 p.

5. Solovyov S. M. On the history of ancient Russia. Volume 1. M., Moscow, 1992 – 544 p.

Faces a broad coalition of enemies, including the Kingdom of Sweden, the Kingdom of Poland, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In fact, the Crimean Khanate participates in the anti-Russian coalition and is a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, which is ruined by regular military campaigns southern regions Rus'. The war is becoming protracted and exhausting. Drought and famine, plague epidemics, Crimean Tatar campaigns, Polish-Lithuanian raids and a naval blockade carried out by Sweden devastate the country.

Reasons for introducing the oprichnina

According to Soviet historians A. A. Zimin and A. L. Khoroshkevich, the reason for Ivan the Terrible’s break with the “Chosen Rada” was that the latter’s program was exhausted. In particular, an “imprudent respite” was given to Livonia, as a result of which several European states were drawn into the war. In addition, the tsar did not agree with the ideas of the leaders of the “Chosen Rada” (especially Adashev) about the priority of the conquest of Crimea in comparison with military operations in the West. Finally, “Adashev showed excessive independence in foreign policy relations with Lithuanian representatives in 1559.” and was eventually dismissed.

It should be noted that such opinions about the reasons for Ivan’s break with the “Chosen Rada” are not shared by all historians. In the 19th century, N.I. Kostomarov, a well-known critic of centralization, saw the background of the conflict in the negative characteristics of the character of Ivan the Terrible, and, on the contrary, highly appreciated the activities of the “Chosen Rada”. V. B. Kobrin also believed that the personality of the tsar played a decisive role here, however, at the same time, he linked Ivan’s behavior with his commitment to the program of accelerated centralization of the country, opposed to ideology gradual change“The chosen one is welcome.” Historians believe that the choice of the first path was due to the personal character of Ivan the Terrible, who did not want to listen to people who did not agree with his policies. Thus, according to Kobrin, after 1560 Ivan took the path of tightening power, which led him to repressive measures.

According to R. G. Skrynnikov, the nobility would easily forgive Grozny for the resignation of his advisers Adashev and Sylvester, but she did not want to put up with the attack on the prerogatives of the boyar Duma. The ideologist of the boyars, Kurbsky, protested most strongly against the infringement of the privileges of the nobility and the transfer of management functions into the hands of clerks (deacons): “ The Great Prince has great faith in Russian clerks, and he chooses them neither from the gentry nor from the nobles, but especially from the priests or from the common people, otherwise he makes his nobles hateful» .

New discontent of the princes, Skrynnikov believes, was caused by the royal decree of January 15, 1562, limiting their patrimonial rights, even more than before, equating them with the local nobility. As a result, in the early 1560s, there was a desire among the nobility to flee from Tsar Ivan abroad. So, I. D. Belsky tried to escape abroad twice and was twice forgiven; Prince V. M. Glinsky and I. V. Sheremetev were caught while trying to escape and were forgiven. Tension was growing among those around Grozny: in the winter of 1563, boyars Kolychev, T. Pukhov-Teterin, and M. Sarokhozin defected to the Poles. He was accused of treason and conspiracy with the Poles, but then the governor of Starodub, V. Funikov, was pardoned. For attempting to leave for Lithuania, the Smolensk voivode, Prince Dmitry Kurlyatev, was recalled from Smolensk and exiled to a remote monastery on Lake Ladoga. In April 1564, Andrei Kurbsky fled to Poland in fear of disgrace, as Grozny himself later indicated in his writings, sending an accusatory letter from there to Ivan.

According to Doctor of Historical Sciences I. Ya. Froyanov, the sources of the oprichnina go back to the reign of Ivan III, when the West unleashed an ideological war against Russia, planting on Russian soil the seeds of a most dangerous heresy that undermined the foundations Orthodox faith, Apostolic Church and, therefore, the emerging autocracy. This war, which lasted almost a century, created such religious and political instability in the country that it threatened the very existence of the Russian state. And the oprichnina became a unique form of his protection.

Device

The oprichnina was established by the tsar on the model of a monastic order, which was directly subordinate to him. Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda (Vladimir region) became its spiritual center. The ideological meaning of the oprichnina was the “sifting of Russian life” to separate the “good seeds of Orthodox conciliarity” from the “tares of heretical wisdom, foreign morals.”

The initial number of guardsmen was one thousand people. Then the staff of the oprichniki expanded, and oprichnina governors and heads appeared. The guardsmen's attire resembled monks (black skufeiks and cassocks), but unlike them, they had the right to carry and use weapons. The greeting of the guardsmen was the cry of “goyda!” Each oprichnik swore an oath of allegiance to the tsar and pledged not to communicate with the zemstvo. As the oprichnina "abbot", the tsar performed a number of monastic duties. The cellarer Afanasy Vyazemsky was considered second after the abbot. The sexton was Malyuta Skuratov. So, at midnight everyone got up for the midnight office, at four in the morning for matins, and at eight the mass began. The Tsar set an example of piety: he himself rang for matins, sang in the choir, prayed fervently, and during the common meal read the Holy Scriptures aloud. In general, worship took about 9 hours a day.

The guardsmen were divided into the sovereign's regiment (guard) and four orders, namely: Bed, in charge of maintaining the palace premises and household items of the royal family; Bronny - weapon; Stables, which was in charge of the huge horse farm of the palace and the royal guard; and Nourishing - food.

As the Livonian nobles Taube and Kruse argued, “The guardsmen (or chosen ones) should have a known and noticeable difference while riding, namely the following: dog heads on the horse’s neck and a broom on the whip. This means that they first bite like dogs, and then sweep everything unnecessary out of the country." There is no consensus among scientists whether we are talking about real dog heads, their symbolic images, or just a metaphor. Review of literature and opinions on this issue gives by Charles Halperin (he himself tends to take a literal understanding of the messages about heads). The broom could symbolize a wonderful weapon that kills the enemy to death.

Story

Course of events

At the same time, there is evidence that orders for executions and torture were often given in the church. Historian G.P. Fedotov believes that “ Without denying the repentant sentiments of the tsar, one cannot help but see that he knew how to combine atrocity with church piety in established everyday forms, desecrating the very idea of ​​the Orthodox kingdom» .

In 1569, the tsar's cousin, Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, died (presumably, according to rumors, on the order of the tsar, they brought him a cup of poisoned wine and ordered that Vladimir Andreevich himself, his wife and their eldest daughter drink the wine). Somewhat later, Vladimir Andreevich’s mother, Efrosinya Staritskaya, who repeatedly stood at the head of boyar conspiracies against Ivan IV and was repeatedly pardoned by him, was also killed.

In the Tver Otrochy Monastery in December, Malyuta Skuratov personally strangled Metropolitan Philip, who refused to bless the campaign against Novgorod. The Kolychev family, to which Philip belonged, was persecuted; some of its members were executed on Ivan's orders.

Formation of the oprichnina

The beginning of the formation of the oprichnina army can be considered the same year 1565, when a detachment of 1000 people selected from the “oprichnina” districts was formed. Subsequently, the number of “oprichniks” reached 6,000 people. The Oprichnina Army also included detachments of archers from the oprichnina territories. From that time on, service people began to be divided into two categories: boyar children, from the zemshchina, and boyar children, “household servants and policemen,” that is, those who received the sovereign’s salary directly from the “royal court.” Consequently, the Oprichnina army should be considered not only the Sovereign’s regiment, but also service people recruited from the oprichnina territories and who served under the command of the oprichnina (“yard”) governors and heads.

Schlichting, Taube and Kruse mention 500-800 people of the “special oprichnina”. These people, if necessary, served as trusted royal agents, carrying out security, intelligence, investigative and punitive functions.

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 Vologda, Vyazma, Suzdal, Kozelsk, Medyn, Veliky Ustyug) with volosts were assigned to maintain the oprichnina. In Moscow itself, some streets were put at the disposal of the oprichnina (Chertolskaya, Arbat, Sivtsev Vrazhek, part of Nikitskaya, etc.); the former residents were relocated to other streets. A thousand specially selected nobles, children of boyars, both Moscow and city, were also recruited into the oprichnina. The condition for accepting a person into the oprichnina army and the oprichnina court was the absence of family and service ties with noble boyars. They were given estates in the volosts assigned to maintain the oprichnina; the former landowners and patrimonial owners were transferred 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 ascent, that is, for the trip to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, the tsar exacted 100 thousand rubles from the Zemsky Prikaz (for that time an absolutely fantastic amount).

According to academician S. F. Platonov, the government ordered the oprichnina and zemstvo people to act together. So, in May 1570 " The sovereign ordered that all the boyars, zemstvo and oprishnina, talk about the (Lithuanian) borders... and the boyars, zemstvo and oprishnina, spoke about those borders" and came to one common decision.

According to Academician S. F. Platonov, after the establishment of the oprichnina, the land ownership of the large feudal nobility, boyars and princes, who were mostly resettled to the outskirts of the state, where constant military operations took place, was quickly destroyed:

Oprichnina was the first attempt to resolve one of the contradictions of the Moscow political system. It crushed the landownership of the nobility as it existed in ancient times. Through a forced and systematically carried out exchange of land, she destroyed the old connections of the appanage princes with their ancestral estates wherever she considered it necessary, and scattered the princes, suspicious in the eyes of Grozny, to different places of the state, mainly on its outskirts, where they turned into ordinary service landowners.

Critics of Platonov's approach point out the inconsistency of his concepts with the realities of the time, in particular the exaggeration of the role and influence of feudal landowners. As the Soviet historian S. B. Veselovsky noted, even the grandfather of Grozny, Ivan III, deprived the appanage feudal lords of almost all rights and privileges, including independence from the local grand-ducal volosts; in addition, the “sovereign oprichnina” included mainly lands that had never previously belonged to large boyar and princely families. In his own words:

Thus, the direction of the oprichnina against the old land ownership of the former appanage princes should be recognized as a complete misunderstanding<…>[There is] another statement by S. F. Platonov, which is also aimed at comprehending and rehabilitating the oprichnina. I mean his characterization of the former appanage princes as powerful feudal lords who retained some of the rights of semi-independent sovereigns and constituted a class of privileged service landowners special category persons with interests in many respects hostile to the interests of other titled and untitled landowners. For the time of Tsar Ivan, such a view of the princes should be considered a hundred years too late.

Campaign against Novgorod (1569-1570)

In December 1569, suspecting the Novgorod nobility of complicity in the “conspiracy” of Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, who had recently been killed on his orders, and at the same time of intending to surrender to the Polish king, Ivan, accompanied large army Oprichniks opposed Novgorod.

Despite the Novgorod chronicles, the “Synodik of the Disgraced”, compiled around 1583, with reference to the report (“fairy tale”) of Malyuta Skuratov, speaks of 1505 executed under Skuratov’s control. Soviet historian Ruslan Skrynnikov, adding to this number all the named Novgorodians, received an estimate of 2170-2180 executed; stipulating that the reports may not have been complete, many acted “independently of Skuratov’s orders,” Skrynnikov admits a figure of three to four thousand people. V. B. Kobrin also considers this figure to be extremely underestimated, noting that it is based on the premise that Skuratov was the only, or at least the main organizer of the murders. In addition, it should be noted that the result of the destruction of food supplies by the guardsmen was famine (so cannibalism is mentioned), accompanied by a plague epidemic that was raging at that time. According to the Novgorod chronicle, in a common grave opened in September 1570, where the surfaced victims of Ivan the Terrible were buried, as well as those who died from the ensuing hunger and disease, 10 thousand people were found. Kobrin doubts that this was the only burial place of the dead, but considers the figure of 10-15 thousand to be closest to the truth, although the total population of Novgorod at that time did not exceed 30 thousand. However, the killings were not limited to the city itself.

From Novgorod, Grozny went to Pskov. Initially, he prepared the same fate for him, but the tsar limited himself to only executing several Pskovites and confiscating their property. Ivan the Terrible ordered the removal of bells from a Pskov monastery. At the same hour, his best horse fell under the king, which impressed Ivan. The Tsar hastily left Pskov and returned to Moscow, where searches and executions began again: they were looking for accomplices of the Novgorod treason. From this case, only a description has been preserved in the Census Book of the Ambassadorial Prikaz: “Pillar, and in it is an article list from the detective from the treason case of the 78th (1570) year on the Nougorodsk Archbishop Pimin, and on the Novgorod clerks, and on the clerks, and on the guests, and on the lord's clerks, and on the children of the boyars, and on the clerks, as they referred to Moscow (were in connection with Moscow; below is the list)... that Archbishop Pimin wanted to give Novgorod and Pskov to the Lithuanian king with them, and they wanted to destroy the Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Russia with evil intent, and put Prince Volodimer Ondreevich on the state; and in that case, from torture, many spoke about that treason against the Novgorod Archbishop Pimin and against his advisers and against themselves, and in that case, many were put to death with multiple executions, and others were sent to prison, but the matter did not come to that, and they were released, and others were granted”; then there is an important note: “... but the original case, that list of articles was written out, not found, but the verdict... and the list for the sexton, who was punished, is much dilapidated and torn, and the large list of articles is dilapidated”; that is, there are no authentic documents here either, as S. F. Platonov repeatedly points out. A number of persons were captured who set the tone in affairs after the dispersal of the “Chosen Rada”: A. D. Basmanov with his son Fyodor, clerk of the Ambassadorial Prikaz I. M. Viskovaty, treasurer N. Funikov-Kurtsev, oprichnina cellarer (supply) A. Vyazemsky and others (all of them were killed, some in a particularly savage way: for example, Funikov was doused with boiling and cold water alternately, his wife, having undressed, was put on a tight rope and dragged along it several times, the meat was cut off from Viskovaty alive). In Alexandrova Sloboda they were drowned in the river. Gray household members of those executed (about 60 women and children). In total, 300 people were sentenced to execution, but the tsar pardoned 187 of them.

Moscow executions of 1570‒1571

Now the people closest to the tsar, the leaders of the oprichnina, came under repression. The tsar's favorites, the oprichniki Basmanovs - father and son, Prince Afanasy Vyazemsky, as well as several prominent leaders of the zemshchina - printer Ivan Viskovaty, treasurer Funikov and others were accused of treason. Together with them, at the end of July 1570, up to 200 people were executed in Moscow : the Duma clerk read the names of the condemned, the oprichniki executioners stabbed, chopped, hung, poured boiling water over the condemned. As they said, the tsar personally took part in the executions, and crowds of guardsmen stood around and greeted the executions with cries of “goyda, goyda.” The wives and children of those executed, even their household members, were persecuted; their estate was taken away by the sovereign. Executions were resumed more than once, and subsequently died: Prince Peter Serebryany-Obolensky, Duma clerk Zakhary Ochin-Pleshcheev, Ivan Vorontsov, etc., and the tsar came up with special methods of torture: hot frying pans, ovens, tongs, thin ropes rubbing the body, etc. . P. Boyarin Kozarinov-Golokhvatov, who accepted the schema in order to avoid execution, he ordered to be blown up on a barrel of gunpowder, on the grounds that the schema-monks were angels, and therefore should fly to heaven. The Moscow executions of 1570-1571 were the apogee of oprichnina terror.

The end of the oprichnina

According to R. Skrynnikov, who analyzed the memorial lists, the victims of repression during the entire reign of Ivan IV were ( synodics), about 4.5 thousand people, however, other historians, such as V. B. Kobrin, consider this figure to be extremely underestimated.

The immediate result of desolation was “famine and pestilence,” since the defeat undermined the foundations of the shaky economy of even those who survived and deprived it of resources. The flight of the peasants, in turn, led to the need to forcibly keep them in place - hence the introduction of “reserve years”, which smoothly grew into the establishment of serfdom. In ideological terms, oprichnina led to a decline in moral authority and legitimacy royal power; from a protector and legislator, the king and the state he personified turned into a robber and rapist. The system of government that had been built over decades was replaced by a primitive military dictatorship. Ivan the Terrible’s trampling of Orthodox norms and values ​​and repression against the church deprived the self-accepted dogma “Moscow is the third Rome” of meaning and led to a weakening of moral guidelines in society. According to a number of historians, the events associated with the oprichnina were the direct cause of the systemic socio-political crisis that gripped Russia 20 years after the death of Ivan the Terrible and known as the “Time of Troubles”.

The oprichnina showed its complete military ineffectiveness, which manifested itself during the invasion of Devlet-Girey and was recognized by the tsar himself.

The oprichnina established the unlimited power of the tsar - autocracy. In the 17th century, the monarchy in Russia became virtually dualistic, but under Peter I, absolutism was restored in Russia; This consequence of the oprichnina, thus, turned out to be the most long-term.

Historical assessment

Historical assessments of the oprichnina can vary radically depending on the era, the scientific school to which the historian belongs, etc. To a certain extent, the foundations of these opposing assessments were laid already in the times of Ivan the Terrible, when two points of view coexisted: the official one, which considered the oprichnina as an action to combat “treason,” and an unofficial one, which saw in it a senseless and incomprehensible excess of the “formidable king.”

Pre-revolutionary concepts

According to most pre-revolutionary historians, the oprichnina was a manifestation of the tsar's morbid insanity and tyrannical tendencies. In the historiography of the 19th century, this point of view was adhered to by N. M. Karamzin, N. I. Kostomarov, D. I. Ilovaisky, who denied any political and generally rational meaning in the oprichnina.

V. O. Klyuchevsky looked at the oprichnina in a similar way, considering it the result of the tsar’s struggle with the boyars - a struggle that “had not a political, but a dynastic origin”; Neither side knew how to get along with one another or how to get along without each other. They tried to separate, to live side by side, but not together. An attempt to arrange such political cohabitation was the division of the state into the oprichnina and the zemshchina.

E. A. Belov, appearing in his monograph “About historical significance Russian boyars until the end of the 17th century." an apologist for Grozny, finds deep state meaning in the oprichnina. In particular, the oprichnina contributed to the destruction of the privileges of the feudal nobility, which impeded the objective tendencies of centralization of the state.

At the same time, the first attempts are being made to find the social and then the socio-economic background of the oprichnina, which became mainstream in the 20th century. According to K. D. Kavelin: “Oprichnina was the first attempt to create a service nobility and replace the clan nobles with it, in place of the clan, the blood principle, to put the beginning of personal dignity in public administration.”

In his “Complete course of lectures on Russian history” prof. S. F. Platonov presents the following view of the oprichnina:

In the establishment of the oprichnina there was no “removal of the head of state from the state,” as S. M. Solovyov put it; on the contrary, the oprichnina took into its own hands the entire state in its root part, leaving boundaries to the “zemstvo” administration, and even strived for state reforms, because it introduced significant changes to the composition of the service land tenure. Destroying his aristocratic system, the oprichnina was directed, in essence, against those aspects of the state order that tolerated and supported such a system. It acted not “against individuals,” as V. O. Klyuchevsky says, but precisely against order, and therefore was much more an instrument of state reform than a simple police means of suppressing and preventing state crimes.

S. F. Platonov sees the main essence of the oprichnina in the energetic mobilization of land ownership, in which land ownership, thanks to the mass withdrawal of former patrimonial owners from the lands taken into the oprichnina, was torn away from the previous appanage-patrimonial feudal order and associated with compulsory military service.

Since the late 1930s, the prevailing view in Soviet historiography was the progressive nature of the oprichnina, which, according to this concept, was directed against the remnants of fragmentation and the influence of the boyars, viewed as a reactionary force, and reflected the interests of the service nobility who supported centralization, which ultimately account, was identified with national interests. The origins of the oprichnina were seen, on the one hand, in the struggle between large patrimonial and small-scale landownership, and on the other hand, in the struggle between the progressive central government and the reactionary princely-boyar opposition. The guiding point of view was expressed by J.V. Stalin at a meeting with filmmakers regarding the 2nd episode of Eisenstein’s film “Ivan the Terrible” (as is known, banned):

(Eisenstein) portrayed the oprichnina as the last scabs, degenerates, something like the American Ku Klux Klan... The oprichnina troops were progressive troops that Ivan the Terrible relied on to gather Russia into one centralized state against the feudal princes who wanted to fragment and weaken his. He has an old attitude towards the oprichnina. The attitude of old historians towards the oprichnina was grossly negative, because they regarded the repressions of Grozny as the repressions of Nicholas II and were completely distracted from the historical situation in which this happened. Nowadays there is a different way of looking at it.

This concept went back to pre-revolutionary historians and, above all, to S. F. Platonov, and at the same time it was implanted through administrative means. However, it should be noted that not all Soviet historians followed the official line. For example, S. B. Veselovsky wrote:

S. F. Platonov lost sight of the fact that the Code of Law of 1550 definitely forbade the children of boyars who had not received full retirement from entering the service of rulers and private individuals.<…>in the same 1550, a decree was passed prohibiting the metropolitan and the rulers from accepting into their service the children of boyars without the special permission of the tsar. And in the coming years, in connection with the Code of 1556 on feeding and service from the land, service from the land became mandatory and all landowners lost the right not to serve anyone or to serve princes, boyars and other large landowners. This big blow to the remnants of feudalism was made long before the oprichnina<…>And in general, the oprichnina had nothing to do with these really important state transformations.

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 the struggle of the central government, based on the serving nobility, against the feudal aristocracy and appanage remnants, to make even a partial return to it impossible - and thereby ensure military defense countries. .

A detailed assessment of the oprichnina is given in the monograph by A. A. Zimin “The Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible” (1964), which contains the following assessment of the phenomenon:

The oprichnina was a weapon for the defeat of the reactionary feudal nobility, but at the same time, the introduction of the oprichnina was accompanied by an intensified seizure of peasant “black” lands. The oprichnina order was a new step towards strengthening feudal ownership of land and enslaving the peasantry. The division of the territory into “oprichnina” and “zemshchina” (...) contributed to the centralization of the state, because this division was directed with its edge against the boyar aristocracy and the appanage princely opposition. One of the tasks of the oprichnina was to strengthen the defense capability, therefore the lands of those nobles who did not serve military service from their estates were taken into the oprichnina. The government of Ivan IV carried out a personal review of the feudal lords. The entire year of 1565 was filled with measures to enumerate lands, break up the existing ancient land tenure. In the interests of wide circles of the nobility, Ivan the Terrible carried out measures aimed at eliminating the remnants of former fragmentation and, restoring order in the feudal disorder, strengthening the centralized monarchy with strong royal power at the head. The townspeople, who were interested in strengthening tsarist power and eliminating the remnants of feudal fragmentation and privileges, also sympathized with the policies of Ivan the Terrible. The struggle of the government of Ivan the Terrible with the aristocracy met with the sympathy of the masses. The reactionary boyars, betraying the national interests of Rus', sought to dismember the state and could lead to the enslavement of the Russian people by foreign invaders.

Oprichnina marked a decisive step towards strengthening the centralized apparatus of power, combating the separatist claims of the reactionary boyars, and facilitated the defense of the borders of the Russian state. This was the progressive content of the reforms of the oprichnina period. But the oprichnina was also a means of suppressing the oppressed peasantry; it was carried out by the government by strengthening feudal-serf oppression and was one of the significant factors that caused the further deepening of class contradictions and the development of class struggle in the country. .

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 even before the war and carried out especially by S. B. Veselovsky and A. A. Zimin (and continued by V. B. Kobrin), they showed that the theory of defeat as a result of the oprichnina of patrimonial land ownership is a myth. From this point of view, the difference between patrimonial and local land ownership was not as fundamental as previously thought; the mass withdrawal of votchinniki from the oprichnina lands (in which S. F. Platonov and his followers saw the very essence of the oprichnina) was not carried out, contrary to declarations; and it was mainly the disgraced and their relatives who lost the reality of the estates, while the “reliable” estates, apparently, were taken into the oprichnina; at the same time, precisely those counties where small and medium landownership predominated were taken into the oprichnina; in the oprichine itself there was a large percentage of the clan nobility; finally, statements about the personal orientation of the oprichnina against the boyars are also refuted: the victims-boyars are especially noted in the sources because they were the most prominent, but in the end, it was primarily ordinary landowners and commoners who died from the oprichnina: according to the calculations of S. B. Veselovsky, on 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. In addition, terror also fell on the bureaucracy (dyacry), which, according to the old scheme, should be the support of the central government in the fight against the “reactionary” boyars and appanage remnants. It is also noted that the resistance of the boyars and the descendants of appanage princes to centralization is generally a purely speculative construction, derived from theoretical analogies between the social system of Russia and Western Europe of the era of feudalism and absolutism; The sources do not provide any direct grounds for such statements. The postulation of large-scale “boyar conspiracies” in the era of Ivan the Terrible is based on statements emanating from Ivan the Terrible himself. Ultimately, this school notes that although the oprichnina objectively resolved (albeit through barbaric methods) some pressing tasks, primarily strengthening centralization, destroying the remnants of the appanage system and the independence of the church, it was, first of all, a tool for establishing the personal despotic power of Ivan the Terrible.

According to V.B. Kobrin, the oprichnina objectively strengthened centralization (which “the Elected Rada tried to do through the method of gradual structural reforms”), put an end to the remnants of the appanage system and the independence of the church. At the same time, oprichnina robberies, murders, extortion and other atrocities led to the complete ruin of Rus', recorded in the census books and comparable to the consequences of an enemy invasion. The main result of the oprichnina, according to Kobrin, is the establishment of autocracy in extremely despotic forms, and indirectly also the establishment of serfdom. Finally, oprichnina and terror, according to Kobrin, undermined the moral foundations of Russian society, destroyed self-esteem, independence, and responsibility.

Only a comprehensive study of the political development of the Russian state in the second half of the 16th century. will allow us to give a substantiated answer to the question about the essence of the repressive regime of the oprichnina from the point of view of the historical destinies of the country.

In the person of the first Tsar Ivan the Terrible, the historical process of the formation of the Russian autocracy found an executor who was fully aware of his historical mission. In addition to his journalistic and theoretical speeches, this is clearly evidenced by the precisely calculated and completely successfully carried out political action of establishing the oprichnina.

Attempts to “revive” the oprichnina

Activists of the Eurasian Youth Union, who appeared in 2005 and opposed attempts to carry out an Orange Revolution in Russia, called themselves “new guardsmen”. The ideologist of the “new oprichnina” Alexander Dugin interpreted the oprichnina image of “dog heads” (“cynocephaly”) as a defense of the ideal of the “great Eurasian project” against wolves (including those in “sheep’s clothing”) attacking Holy Rus'.

Another form of revival of the oprichnina was the “Oprichnina Brotherhood” of Shchedrin-Kozlov, which perceived the oprichnina as a parallel (separate, internal) church with a tsar-high priest, a kind of “Orthodox Freemasonry”. This organization is sometimes classified as a pseudo-Orthodox sect, where icons of Ivan the Terrible and Gregory Rasputin are venerated.

Oprichnina in works of art

• “The Oprichnik” is an opera by P. I. Tchaikovsky based on the tragedy of the same name by I. I. Lazhechnikov.
• “The Day of the Oprichnik” and “The Sugar Kremlin” are fantastic works by V. G. Sorokin.
• “The Tsar” is a historical film by Pavel Lungin from 2009.
• “Prince Silver” - historical novel by A. K. Tolstoy
• “By Tsar’s Order” - story by L. A. Charskaya

Notes

1. Oprichnina// Great Soviet Encyclopedia .
2. V. S. Izmozik. Gendarmes of Russia. - Moscow: OLMA-PRESS, 2002. - 640 p. - ISBN 5-224-039630.
3. “Textbook “History of Russia”, Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov Faculty of History, 4th edition, A. S. Orlov, V. A. Georgiev, N. G. Georgieva, T. A. Sivokhina">
4. Yegor Gaidar Foundation “Oprichnina: terror or reform?” Public conversation with the participation of historians Vladislav Nazarov and Dmitry Volodikhin
5. Russia in the time of Ivan the Terrible. - M., 1982. - P. 94-95.
6. Skrynnikov R. G. Decree. Op. - P. 66.
7. Zimin A. A., Khoroshkevich A. L. Russia in the time of Ivan the Terrible. - M., 1982. - P. 95.
8. Kostomarov N. The personality of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. - M., 1990.
9. Kobrin V. B. Ivan groznyj . - M., 1989.
10. Kobrin V. B. Ivan groznyj . - M., 1989.
11. Skrynnikov R. G. Ivan groznyj. - P. 75.
12. Sat. RIB. T. XXXI. - pp. 114-115.
13. Skrynnikov R. G. Decree. Op. - P. 78.
14. Valishevsky K. Decree, op. - P. 252-253.
15. Zimin A. A., Khoroshkevich A. L. Decree, op. - pp. 99-100.
16. PSRL. T. 13. - P. 258.
17. Kurbsky A. M. Tales. - P. 279.
18. Skrynnikov R. G. Ivan groznyj. - pp. 86-87.
19. Veselovsky S. B. Research on the history of the oprichnina. - P. 115.
20. Khoroshkevich A. L. Russia in the system of international relations of the mid-16th century. - P. 348.
21. Skrynnikov R. G. Decree. Op. - P. 79.
22. Skrynnikov R. G. Ivan groznyj . - M.: AST, 2001.
23. , - T. 6. - Ch. 
24. 4. . Kostomarov N. I.
25. Kobrin V. B. Russian history in the biographies of its main figures. 
26. Chapter 20. Tsar Ivan Vasilievich the Terrible Ivan groznyj .