Historical portrait of Elena Glinskaya. Place in history

Elena Glinskaya became queen through the public humiliation of the election procedure.

We do not know exactly how Vasily III chose his second wife, but it is known that he chose the first from 1,500 applicants from all over Rus'. Their son, Ivan the Terrible, chose a wife from 2000 young ladies, and 24 contenders who got into the “final” had their last conversation with the tsar already naked so that he could carefully consider them. The royal brides also passed a urine test - court physicians judged the health of the future queen by its color.

But for the Glinsky family, who fled Lithuania after the rebellion, the marriage with the Moscow ruler was so important that they didn’t have to choose - 18-year-old Elena won the “competition” and married the 47-year-old Tsar Vasily. Soon she bore him two sons - Ivan, the future Terrible, and his younger brother Yuri, who was born demented.

In 1533, Tsar Vasily III dies, leaving a board of trustees of seven regents to look after the minor heir (it was about them that the term Seven Boyars was coined, which later firmly stuck to the rulers of the Time of Troubles). It did not last even a month - Elena Glinskaya made a coup, removing the regents from power. So she became the second ruler of the Russian state after Princess Olga.

Elena was born, raised and raised in Lithuania, she did not know Moscow customs and traditions, so both the boyars and the common people quickly disliked her. But she was beautiful: quite tall for her time (165 cm), well-built and red-haired.

The only support for the new tsarina was her lover, one of the first influential Russian favorites - Prince Ivan Ovchin Telepnev-Obolensky, the voivode, who made a rapid career during the reign of her husband, and rumors circulated around Moscow that the real father of Tsarevich Ivan was not the old tsar, and the young governor. They stopped hiding their relationship almost immediately after the death of Vasily III. They, in addition to love, were united by the struggle for survival: both understood that they could only stay in power together, and individually they would die immediately.

And the struggle for power had to be serious. First of all, Ovchina and Glinskaya destroyed the eldest of the brothers of the late Vasily, Prince Yuri Dmitrovsky. He was accused of preparing to seize power, thrown into prison and starved to death. The second brother of the tsar, Prince Andrei Staritsky, was sent into exile, where he also did not live long. Elena's uncle, Prince Mikhail Glinsky, somehow pointed out her debauchery (she nevertheless openly cohabited with a married man) - and also ended up in prison.

The suddenly beheaded parties of nobles and courtiers, instead of uniting against Ovchina and Glinskaya, were wasting their time in senseless intrigues that the young queen skillfully provoked.

In just a year, Glinskaya, having no serious support in Moscow society, was able to seriously strengthen her position, although from the outside it still seemed that her power was fragile. This was a serious mistake of the Lithuanians, who decided next year to regain the Smolensk lands lost by the truce of 1522.

In August 1534, two detachments of Lithuanians invaded the territory of the Moscow Principality. The first took Radogoshch, the second tried to take Smolensk, but the attack was repulsed. Having plundered the villages, the Lithuanians left. After the retreat from Smolensk, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund I made a big mistake by disbanding the army home.

Prince Ivan Ovchina immediately invaded the remaining defenseless territory, and made a devastating raid on it, bypassing all the fortresses and fortifications, and burning and plundering all the villages and towns. This retaliatory strike undermined the Lithuanian economy, and by the end of the first campaign, Sigismund realized that he would not be able to cope with the war, which he himself had started. The Lithuanians turned to the Poles for help.

In the summer of 1535 they besieged Starodub. At this time, another Crimean raid falls on the Ryazan lands, and the Russian army is transferred there, leaving the defenders of Starodub without hope of help. The garrison of the fortress was commanded by Fyodor Ovchina, the brother of Glinskaya's favorite. He demonstrated such steadfastness in defending the fortress that the whole war was named after this heroic defense - Starodubskaya.

Fedor fought off numerous attacks by the Poles until they used a new weapon - they blew up part of the wall with mines. Sheepskin and his warriors knocked the Poles out of the gap in the wall twice, until the best of them died in battle. Then the attackers broke into the fortress and staged a terrible massacre there, sparing practically none of the defenders. Poles burned the fortress littered with corpses.

Years later, Ivan the Terrible in his correspondence recalled Starodub:

- And they took the city, and our governor, and the children of the boyars with their wives and children, many were caught and slaughtered like sheep ...

Further, according to the plan, the Poles were going to attack another Bryansk city - Pochep, but then Elena Glinskaya showed her character. She ordered the Pochepovites to be resettled in Bryansk, and the city itself to be burned so that the Poles and Lithuanians would not be able to gain a foothold here.

Such a turn as the burning of their own cities by the Russians was not envisaged by any plan of the Poles. In confusion, they nevertheless occupied the remains of Pochep, but after standing for several days on the ashes, they retreated. After that, King Sigismund began peace negotiations with Elena Glinskaya.

The young queen showed that she could breed not only her own courtiers, but also the rulers of neighboring states - Sigismund signed an agreement on favorable terms for Moscow, returning the Smolensk lands and giving Zavolochye.

This success was not accidental - in the fifth year of her reign, Elena Glinskaya already definitely demonstrated the abilities of an outstanding ruler. Later, with no less diplomatic success, she negotiated with the Crimean and Kazan Khanates, carried out economic reform (a single currency, silver money, was introduced on the territory of the Moscow Principality for the first time in history), built the Kitaigorod wall with towers in Moscow ...

By all appearances, Moscow had found a great queen-reformer, who, on the one hand, had experience in Western life and therefore saw well that it was in the Muscovite state that it needed reforms, and on the other hand, had a tough enough character to achieve the realization of its ideas. Elena Glinskaya clearly claimed the role of a kind of Peter the Great in a skirt 200 years before the real Peter ...

On April 3, 1538, thirty-year-old Elena Glinskaya became ill, she went up to her chambers and took to her bed. On the morning of April 4, the Grand Duchess passed away.

Already in our time, her remains were examined, and an abnormally high content of mercury was found in her hair. Elena Glinskaya was poisoned with sublimate, the most common poison at that time. Rumors of poisoning circulated immediately after death. Rumor attributed the atrocity to the boyar family of the Shuiskys, who began to clear their way to power.

Elena Vasilievna Glinskaya

Elena Vasilievna Glinskaya, the daughter of the Lithuanian prince Vasily Lvovich Glinsky and his wife Anna, the niece of the Lithuanian magnate Mikhail Lvovich Glinsky, was born around 1508 (the exact date of birth is not known).

In 1526, the young beauty Elena became the second wife of the Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus'. By his first marriage, he was married to Solomonia from the ancient and noble family of the Saburovs, with whom the tsar decided to divorce, because of her alleged infertility, and ordered Solomonia to be tonsured as a nun. Vasily III chose Elena Glinskaya as his wife not only for political reasons. According to historians, the swiftness of the divorce and the wedding itself testified that the Russian Tsar liked the young princess very much.

Elena, in comparison with Solomonia, according to the Moscow boyars, was "rootless". But she was beautiful, young, brought up in a European way, well educated (she knew German and Polish, spoke and wrote Latin), which made her stand out sharply from among Russian women, besides, she was much younger than the sovereign. Under her influence, Vasily began to adopt some European customs, dressed in a fashionable Polish kuntush and even shaved off his beard, which, according to contemporaries, was a violation of centuries-old Russian traditions (and the new wife of the tsar was blamed for this).

In 1530, the long-awaited son was born to the princely couple (in the future - Ivan the Terrible), and later the son Yuri, who, as it turned out later, was sickly and weak-minded. But family happiness was short-lived, in the autumn of 1533 Vasily III caught a cold while hunting and fell seriously ill. On his deathbed, he blessed his son Ivan for a great reign and handed him the "scepter of great Rus'", and he ordered his "wife Olena with boyar advice" "to hold the state under his son until his son matures."

Although, according to the will of her late husband, Elena was supposed to govern the state together with the Duma of the boyars, she was in no hurry to fulfill this. After the death of her husband, Elena almost immediately carried out a coup, removing her son's appointed guardians (regents) from power and becoming the ruler of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. She energetically suppressed several boyar conspiracies and successfully began the fight against real and potential opponents (she imprisoned her rival uncle M. Glinsky, as well as her brother Vasily III, Prince Yuri of Dmitrovsky and Prince Andrei of Staritsky). A strong temper and ambition helped her to defend her position, and her favorite, Prince I.F., also played a significant role in this. Ovchin-Telepnev-Obolensky, who during the years of Elena's reign took an active part in many state affairs.

The real power in the state for five years was in the hands of Elena Glinskaya as a regent under the minor heir Ivan IV. In fact, all this time she ruled the Russian state autocratically, having managed to do a lot during this time.

In the field of foreign policy, the actions of the Grand Duchess were firm and consistent. As a result of a series of victories over the Lithuanian king Sigismund I, the government of Glinskaya in 1536 achieved a truce with Lithuania that was beneficial for Russia with the neutrality of Sweden. A year later, a peace treaty was concluded with Sweden on free trade and benevolent neutrality. It was under Princess Elena that friendly relations between Moscow and Livonia and Moldavia were established. Moreover, Glinskaya herself negotiated and, on the advice of the faithful boyars, made decisions.

The internal policy of Elena Vasilievna was also very active and was focused on strengthening the grand ducal power, while she mercilessly cracked down on her opponents. During the reign of Glinskaya, a successful struggle was waged against the growth of monastic land ownership, tax and judicial privileges of the church were limited, etc. The reorganization of local self-government has also begun.

One of the most important moments of Glinskaya's domestic policy is the monetary reform in 1535, which eliminated the rights of specific princes to mint their own coins, and as a result of which a single monetary system was introduced on the territory of Rus'. It was based on a silver ruble, equal to 100 kopecks. All the old silver coins were ordered to be poured into new ones, on which the prince was depicted on horseback with a spear in his hand. This money became known as pennies. The reform was a significant step towards stabilizing and revitalizing the Russian economy.

Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya, whose life spanned a short 30 years (1508-1538), is mostly remembered as the mother of Ivan the Terrible. Meanwhile, she was already an extraordinary woman - for example, Mikhail Lomonosov noted that Elena Glinskaya showed herself to be a skillful and wise ruler ...

The Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III was married by his first marriage to Solomonia Saburova. The choice of wife was taken seriously - a census of brides was announced. 500 girls were delivered to the court.

The "wrong" wife

They are being looked at. Moreover, according to an informed foreigner, "with such thoroughness that it is allowed to feel and explore even more intimate." True, it is not the groom who is groping, but his confidants.

No matter how much they felt, they still miscalculated. The marriage was childless. They lived together for 20 years, but no children.

According to the chronicler, Vasily III began to cry. Who does he say I look like? It does not look like birds, for they are prolific. And it does not look like animals, for they are prolific. And it does not look like the earth, for it is fruitful.

The boyars understood that in this way the prince could list for a hundred years who he does not look like, and they said: "The barren fig tree is cut down and removed from the grapes."

The clergy naturally opposed divorce. Then Vasily opened a criminal case against his wife. On charges of witchcraft. She, they say, sprinkled charmed water on his "ports".

Solomonia was ordered to take the veil as a nun. She did not want. A certain Ivan Shigona slapped her on the face. Solomonia asked on whose orders he was beating her. “By order of the sovereign,” Shigona answered. A week later she was sheared, and Shigona made a dizzying career.

Vasily III took Elena Glinskaya as his wife. Quite a strange choice. Glinsky - princes from, although they came from the Tatars. Elena's uncle - Mikhail Glinsky - is an outstanding adventurer. He lived in Europe for a long time and served everyone there. Then he quarreled with King Sigismund and revolted. Fled to Moscow.

Here he was promised to give Smolensk as a fiefdom, but they did not. Glinsky went over to the side of Sigismund. He was caught and put in jail. He spent 13 of his 20 years in prison.

When Glinsky fled to Moscow, he took his niece Elena with him. On it, Vasily III stopped his choice. On the one hand, she was a foreigner. In addition, from the family of the "enemy of the people." On the other hand, the girl was sweet and unusual, because she was brought up in a European way.

Beard for love

Vasily III fell in love with his wife. At the time of the wedding, Vasily was 47 years old, and the beautiful Elena -18. It is not for nothing that the chronicler directly says that the sovereign was seduced by the beauty of her face and figure (he married “for the beauty of her face and the goodness of her age”), and for her sake he did the unheard of - he shaved off his beard. Until now, the princes of Moscow have not yet made such sacrifices. No wonder the Belozersky monks called this marriage fornication. 4 years after the wedding, Elena and Vasily had an heir, the future Tsar of All Rus', Ivan IV. Now Vasily III at once became like a bird, and an animal, and the earth - for they are prolific.

But he did not allow his wife to go to state affairs. And then he died altogether. And before his death, he appointed guardians over his young son Ivan, the future Terrible. Among the guardians, the main role was played by Mikhail Glinsky and Andrei Staritsky, the younger brother of Vasily III.

The caregivers had enough to do. Vasily III had another brother - Yuri. Everyone thought that he would raise a rebellion, so that, as they say, he himself reigns and all the children rule. So he was captured and put in jail. Where, after 2 years, he died "a suffering death, smooth need."

Order in connection with this has not increased. “The boyars there almost cut each other with knives,” Polish observers reported. Prince Ivan Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky spoke out against the guardians. He was a talented commander and favorite of Elena Glinskaya. It was rumored that it was Ovchina who was the real father of Ivan the Terrible, but this is unlikely.

Elena had to choose between the favorite and her uncle, Mikhail Glinsky. She, of course, chose a favorite. And my uncle was put in jail and killed.

But there was still Andrei Staritsky, the beloved brother of the late sovereign. He retired to Staritsa and waited for disgrace. All the while demonstrating loyalty. He sent all his troops to the sovereign service in Moscow.

Well, a fool, - Elena and Sheepskin reasoned. And they moved the troops to Staritsa.

Andrei fled to Novgorod. On the way, he could have escaped to Lithuania, but he decided to rebel against the usurpers of Novgorod - Elena and Ovchina. Of course, without success.

Andrew was promised forgiveness. He believed and showed up in Moscow, where he was "imprisoned to death." They put some kind of “iron hat” on him. Probably something like the French "iron mask". In general, for six months he was killed.

sole throne

Elena Glinskaya became the sole ruler. Naturally, together with Sheepskin. For 4 years, she even did something useful. For example, introduced a single penny coin for the whole country.

The Novgorod money was taken as a sample, on which a horseman with a spear was depicted. On the Moscow coin - "saber" - the rider was with a saber. Note that we settled on the Novgorod money. Because Moscow is always of poor quality. But for some reason Moscow always wins.

And in general, Elena had a strong character, she knew how to win. So, the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund I was deceived in his calculations on internal unrest and the impotence of a state led by a woman: in 1534 he started a war against Russia and lost it. Elena achieved from Sigismund a peace favorable to the Muscovite state (according to the truce of 1536-1537, Chernigov and Starodub lands remained part of Muscovy, and Gomel and Lyubech remained with historical Lithuania). In turn, Elena obliged Sweden not to help the Livonian Order and Lithuania.

In 1538, 30-year-old Elena died. Perhaps she was poisoned. Sheepskin, of course, did not fare well: "... killing him with iron and iron burden, and exiling his sister Agrafena to Kargopol and there she was tonsured in blueberries."

The boyars rejoiced. But not for very long. Until Ivan the Terrible grew up. Who, of course, was a great reformer. Before him, the political process was of some kind of sluggish nature - they imprisoned and starved to death. Grozny gave the process dynamism. Immediately executed, without unnecessary formalities.

Guest workers of Moscow Rus'

The internal policy of Elena Glinskaya was quite active. Like Princess Olga, who founded many new settlements in the 10th century, Elena Vasilievna ordered the construction of cities on the Lithuanian borders. She restored Ustyug and Yaroslavl, and in Moscow in 1535, the builder Pyotr Fryazin laid the stone Kitaygorod wall. During the reign of Glinskaya, an attempt was made to change the system of local government, which anticipated the future reforms of Ivan IV.

As a result, emigrants from other countries, seduced by the opportunity to earn money, went to Muscovy. For example, only 300 families left Lithuania. However, the largest event in Glinskaya's domestic policy was the monetary reform of 1535, which led to the unification of monetary circulation in the country and overcoming the consequences of fragmentation.

Studies of the remains of the princess indicate poisoning with mercury as the cause of her death. However, most Russian historians believe that Elena was not poisoned, because her son Ivan the Terrible never wrote anywhere that his mother died a violent death. And if Grozny had even the slightest suspicion of this, you can be sure that he would definitely get to the bottom of the truth.

Glinskaya rested in the Ascension Convent in the Moscow Kremlin. In the 1990s, her appearance was reconstructed. The face of the princess had soft features. She was quite tall for women of that time - about 165 centimeters. In a word - a real queen!

480 years ago, on April 4, 1538, the Grand Russian Princess Elena Glinskaya, wife of Vasily III and mother of Ivan Vasilyevich, suddenly died. The boyar rule, difficult for the Russian state, began.

Elena Glinskaya

The daughter of Prince Vasily Lvovich from the Lithuanian family of the Glinskys and his wife Anna Yakshich, who was from Serbia, the daughter of a Serbian governor. She was born around 1508 (the exact date of birth is not known).

Elena's uncle, Prince Mikhail Lvovich, was a major statesman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia. After the defeat of the Glinsky rebellion, he fled with his relatives to Moscow. Among the refugees was young Elena. According to legend, the Glinskys descended from Mamai, "whom Dmitry Ivanovich beat on the Don." Prior to their exile, the Glinskys owned cities and lands on the territory of present-day Left-Bank Ukraine.

In 1526, Elena became the second wife of Vasily III, Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus'. By his first marriage, he was married to Solomonia from the ancient and noble family of the Saburovs. But the sovereign decided to divorce her, because of her infertility. After twenty years of marriage, Solomonia never gave birth. Basil was very concerned about this fact, as he opposed his brothers or their possible sons becoming contenders for the throne. The decision to divorce was supported by the Boyar Duma and part of the clergy.

In 1525, with the approval of Metropolitan Daniel, Vasily III divorced Solomonia. Such a divorce with the forced exile of the wife to the monastery was the first in Rus'. In November 1525, Solomonia was tonsured at the Moscow Mother of God-Nativity Monastery under the name Sophia. Later, Solomonia was transferred to the Intercession Monastery in the city of Suzdal, which she had previously supported as a Grand Duchess. There is a legend that Solomonia was pregnant during the tonsure and already in the monastery she gave birth to a boy, George.

Vasily chose Elena Glinskaya as his wife not only for political reasons. According to historians, the swiftness of the divorce and the wedding itself testified that the Russian sovereign liked the young princess very much. Chronicles call the only reason why the Grand Duke chose Elena: "beauty for the sake of her face and good looks." The prince fell in love with a young and intelligent beauty. Elena, in comparison with Solomonia, according to the Moscow boyars, was rootless. Among Elena's opponents were Simeon Kurbsky and relatives of the Grand Duchess Solomonia - the Saburovs, the Godunovs. But she was beautiful, young, brought up in a European way, well educated (she knew German and Polish, spoke and wrote Latin), which made her stand out sharply from among Russian women. For the sake of a beautiful young wife, Prince Vasily himself “younger”, even shaved his beard (which was not welcomed in Rus' then). In 1530, the long-awaited son Ivan (in the future - Ivan the Terrible) was born to the princely couple, and later the son Yuri, who, as it turned out later, was sickly.

It is worth noting that in Rus' already during this period an elite opposition was taking shape to the course of sovereigns to strengthen autocratic power. Vasily III continued the line of his father Ivan III to strengthen the central (autocratic) power. Not everyone liked it. The top of the Russian aristocracy was Shuisky, Kurbsky, Kubensky, Rostov, Mikulinsky, Vorotynsky and others. Until relatively recently, their ancestors were independent princes - Suzdal, Yaroslavl, Rostov, Tver, etc. The rulers of independent states. Moreover, they came from the older branches of the Rurik family, and the Moscow grand dukes - from the younger. There were also persons related by kinship with the Grand Duke himself. So, a noble defector from Lithuania, Prince Belsky, Ivan III married his sister's daughter; the baptized Kazan prince Peter was married to the sister of Vasily III, and Mstislavsky, a native of Lithuania, was married to his niece. The Grand Duke also had four brothers: Yuri Dmitrovsky, Simeon Kaluga, Dmitry Uglichsky and Andrey Staritsky. According to the will of Ivan III, they received specific principalities. Two of them, Simeon and Dmitry, by the 1520s. left for another world, but Yuri and Andrei retained vast possessions, their own courts and troops. As the closest relatives of the sovereign, they were forgiven what was not forgiven to others. However, they were dissatisfied, they wanted more - power, land, wealth. If Tsar Vasily had been left without an heir, then Yuri Dmitrovsky or Andrey Staritsky would have taken the Moscow throne.

Many representatives of the aristocracy considered their position to be not much lower than the sovereign, they were dissatisfied with the current situation, they were not averse to “correcting” it. They behaved independently, often failed the instructions of the sovereign. But the high position allowed them to avoid the deserved punishment. The main temptation for a number of representatives of the aristocracy was a return to the former order of feudal fragmentation or to introduce orders similar to the Polish or Lithuanian ones. There, the magnates could dictate their will to the monarchs and rule uncontrollably in their domains. They envied the willfulness and independence of the Polish-Lithuanian aristocracy, their "freedoms". It is clear that the western neighbors of Rus' and Rome tried to use these sentiments to subjugate the Russian land, destroy the "Orthodox heresy" and seize Russian wealth. That is, the situation was rather shaky. Illness, death, the absence of an heir could immediately destroy the autocracy and the centralized state that was taking shape in Rus', serve as the beginning of internecine strife and unrest. And all this in very difficult foreign policy conditions, when Rus' was surrounded by strong enemies in all strategic directions.

Vasily severely suppressed the tendencies towards the renewal of the fragmentation of Rus'. He finally deprived Pskov of independence. The reason was the complaints of the local poor about the oppression of the nobility and the rich, who crushed the veche democracy. In turn, the local nobility and merchants complained about the Grand Duke's governor. Vasily ordered to cancel the veche. The veche bell was removed and sent to Novgorod. Vasily arrived in Pskov and treated him in the same way as his father did with the Novgorod Republic in 1478. 300 of the most noble families of the city were resettled in Moscow lands, and their villages were given to Moscow service people.

Then came the turn of the Ryazan land. Ryazan has long been listed as Moscow's "handmaids". There, under the young prince Ivan, his mother ruled, who obeyed Moscow and received her support. But the boy grew up and decided to enter into an alliance with the Crimean Khanate. This led to a new civil strife, the collapse of the defensive system in the south, opened the way for the Crimean robbers into the depths of Rus'. In 1517, Vasily called the Ryazan prince Ivan Ivanovich to Moscow and ordered him to be taken into custody. They guarded him poorly, so he fled to Lithuania. Ryazan inheritance was liquidated.

In 1523, Vasily Shemyakin, the specific prince of Seversk, was arrested, caught in a secret connection and correspondence with Lithuania. For various reasons, Chernigov, Rylsk and Starodub princes were deprived of their sovereign rights. The processes of centralization of the Russian state were natural, but increased the number of those dissatisfied with Moscow's policies. Opposition moods persisted in Novgorod and Pskov, despite the defeat of the local boyars. The local nobility, including the new one, and the merchants remembered the former "freedoms". Foreigners sought connections with them, tried to use them to their advantage.

Sovereign Vasily and the people who supported him, including part of the clergy, decided to take emergency measures in order to maintain autocratic power and not give the throne to Yuri or Andrei. Hence such an extraordinary and unprecedented decision - a divorce from his wife.

Vasily's family happiness was short-lived; in the fall of 1533, the sovereign caught a cold while hunting and fell seriously ill. On his deathbed, he blessed his son Ivan for a great reign and handed him the "scepter of great Rus'", and he ordered his "wife Olena with boyar advice" "to hold the state under his son until his son matures." Obviously, Vasily was very much afraid for the fate of his wife and son. Before his death, he forced the brothers to repeat the oath to Prince Ivan (the first time he took an oath from them in 1531). He urged the boyars to "keep watchful" of his son and state. He especially asked Mikhail Glinsky for the child and Elena "to shed her blood." Vasily felt a threat to his son and autocracy.

1526 Vasily III, Grand Duke of Moscow, introduces his bride, Elena Glinskaya, into the palace. Painting by Claudius Lebedev

Helena's reign

The regency council under the child-sovereign included Andrei Staritsky, boyar Zakharyin-Yuriev, princes Mikhail Glinsky, Vasily and Ivan Shuisky, Mikhail Vorontsov and governor Tuchkov. Obviously, Emperor Vasily wanted to unite representatives of various boyar clans in the council. However, intrigue began almost immediately.

The first conspiracy was organized by Yuri Dmitrovsky. Vasily did not trust his brother, an accomplice in the old Shuisky conspiracy, and did not even include him in the regency council. The conspirators believed that the oath to the Grand Duke was invalid. Andrei Shuisky joined the conspiracy. But the plot was exposed. At the beginning of 1534, Prince Yuri with his boyars and Andrei Shuisky were arrested. Two years later he died in prison, his lot was liquidated. The boyars did not protest against the imprisonment of their brother, as did his brother Andrey Staritsky. He was on the winning side. Now the role of the closest candidate for the throne passed to him. Moreover, he still wanted to profit at the expense of his brother's lot. However, Elena refused to grant his request. In compensation, she gave Andrei a large number of gifts.

We know little about Elena Glinskaya. The chroniclers gave extremely sparse descriptions of Russian figures, usually recording only events. From them we know only about the beauty of the princess. But the facts of her reign indicate that she was also very smart. It is not surprising that she became the first real ruler of the Russian state after Grand Duchess Olga. Probably, Grand Duke Vasily, dying, did not think about such a possibility. Therefore, he tried to strengthen his wife and son with regents, relatives and the church. But she became a real ruler and handled the burden of power quite well. The hostile relations that developed between the regency council and the Boyar Duma, as well as various boyar groups, played in its favor. The Duma was a legal, well-established body, and the boyars painfully accepted the rise of the seven guardian regents appointed at the bedside of the dying. Helena played on these contradictions by pursuing her decisions.

In addition, the princess found herself a reliable military support. Her favorite was Ivan Fedorovich Ovchina Telepnev-Obolensky. An experienced commander who distinguished himself in battles with Lithuania, Crimea and Kazan. So, in 1530, Prince Obolensky was appointed the first governor of the regiment of the right hand in the equestrian army during a campaign against the Kazan Khanate under the command of the boyar Prince Mikhail Glinsky. He punched a hole in the city wall, the first to burst into the suburbs of the capital of the khanate. Only the criminal inaction of the chief governors saved Kazan from falling. In 1533, during the next Crimean invasion, Prince Telepnev-Obolensky once again distinguished himself and the Grand Duke granted him the highest rank of equestrian and sent him to the province in Kolomna. His sister Agrippina (Agrafena) Chelyadnina became the mother (teacher) of Prince Ivan (the future tsar). After the death of the Grand Duke, the still young princess and the dashing commander, who always commanded the advanced units in the war, was in the thick of things, agreed.

Interestingly, the mother of Ivan the Terrible, as well as himself, tried harder to denigrate foreigners, domestic Western liberals, starting with the Freemason-historian Karamzin. They accused Yuri Dmitrovsky and Andrey Staritsky of persecuting "innocent" people. They inflated the "criminal relationship" of Elena with Prince Ivan Fedorovich. However, in that era, this connection was not "criminal." The woman, a widow, needed support and help, and received it. Therefore, the church, which at that time was not afraid to say its word, did not protest. In addition, there is no evidence that the empress gave her favorite fiefdoms, awards and money. Moreover, Obolensky did not even become the chief governor. He conceded the command of the representative of the oldest and most noble families, as it was, and was content with the secondary position of the commander of the advanced regiment.

Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya. Sculptural reconstruction based on the skull of S. A. Nikitin

To be continued…

Elena Glinskaya was the second wife of Vasily III and the mother of Ivan the Terrible. After the death of her husband, due to her son's infancy, she acted as a regent and in fact (in 1533 - 1538) ruled Russia with the assistance of the Boyar Duma. This period saw the war with Lithuania and the most important internal monetary reform, which had a beneficial effect on the economic development of the country.

Marriage with Vasily III

Born in 1508, Elena Glinskaya belonged to a princely family. Her relatives fled from Lithuania to Russia. Prior to that, the Glinskys owned lands and cities in Left-Bank Ukraine.

Elena went down in history as the second wife of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III. The family life of this ruler was dramatic. His first marriage to Solomonia Saburova was unsuccessful. For unknown reasons, the wife could not become pregnant and give the sovereign an heir. Vasily did not want dynastic problems and decided to enter into a second marriage. Solomonia was sent to a monastery. The prince married Elena, a girl from the eminent Glinsky family.

Birth of Ivan the Terrible

Many close associates of Vasily, and especially church leaders, did not approve of the illegal divorce and a new wedding. Religious people accused the sovereign of fornication. Some were repressed. Soon after the wedding, in 1530, the mother of Ivan the Terrible gave birth to a child. Interestingly, many years later, when the heir became a bloodthirsty tyrant, the monks and philosophers again remembered the illegality of marriage. The fugitive dissident prince Andrei Kurbsky spoke about the same: Ivan was conceived through a violation of heavenly law, which was the reason for his incredible cruelty.

However, neither Vasily nor his second wife lived to see those dark times. Their life together was not long, but quite happy. Interestingly, the Glinskys considered themselves descendants of Mamai, defeated by Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo field. Surely Vasily knew about this, choosing his wife. It turned out that his children were to become descendants of both Mamai and Donskoy. Moreover, the mother of Ivan the Terrible gave birth to not one boy, but two. The second was Yuri (1532 - 1563). True, this child showed signs of mental illness from an early age. In fact, he was incompetent, although formally he was considered an important figure in the era of Grozny.

Beginning of the regency

Grand Duke Vasily III died suddenly (due to a mysterious illness) in 1533. His heir, Ivan, was three years old and unable to rule. Under these conditions, Glinskaya Elena Vasilyevna became regent. The last woman to hold leadership positions in the Russian state was Princess Olga, who lived in the 10th century.

All sorts of courtiers tried to take advantage of Elena's inexperience. It is known that at the beginning of her reign, the uncle of Ivan the Terrible, Prince Yuri Dmitrovsky, became a victim of accusations of treason. He was put in prison, where he soon died. A similar fate was shared by another brother of Vasily III, Andrei.

Monetary reform

The most important event of the regency was the monetary reform of Elena Glinskaya. It was the first centralized transformation of its kind in national history. The innovation was prepared by Vasily III. However, he died prematurely, and the need for change remained, so the wife of the deceased, Elena Glinskaya, took over.

The reform would not have happened if it were not for the events that preceded it. Continuing the policy of his father Ivan III, Vasily III annexed Pskov, Ryazan, Novgorod-Seversky and some other cities to the Moscow principality. Some of them lived independently, others belonged to Lithuania. After the unification, the scattered lands needed the introduction of a common currency, since before that each region had its own money. The difference in coins interfered with trade, and hence the development of the economy.

Prerequisites for innovation

Another problem was that some specific principalities retained the regalia (exclusive right) to mint money. All this was considered a relic of the past by Elena Glinskaya. There was no reform for a long time, its necessity was just in the air. The government was already late. The fact is that it was at that time that trade was booming with both Western and Eastern countries.

The mismatch of denominations led to errors in calculations and losses. Moreover, counterfeiters took advantage of the mess. In the markets, it was easy to stumble upon fake money. The perpetrators were difficult to trace. And even if someone was executed, it did not reduce the number of cases of financial crimes. The monetary reform of Elena Glinskaya was designed to block the possibility of mixing - replacing precious metals in coins with cheaper ones, which was used by scammers throughout the country.

Optimal solution

Vasily III led an active foreign policy. Fighting with Lithuania and the Tatars, he periodically resorted to damaging his own money, lowering their weight. In other words, when the treasury was in trouble, cheap metals were minted. And although Glinskaya herself abandoned such a practice, the consequences of previous manipulations still affected trade. Her government was faced with the task of determining the optimal level of silver in coins, at which the economy would stabilize and the outflow of quality money from the country would stop.

In addition, ignoring the problem could lead to a popular revolt. The population, dissatisfied with the turmoil in trade and impoverishment, became vulnerable to an outbreak of rebellion. This happened in national history, however, later. For example, in the 17th century, under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, there was a copper riot. The essence of the monetary reform of Elena Glinskaya was to stabilize the circulation of money.

Reform implementation

At the beginning of 1535, a decree spread throughout Moscow on the need to replace the old money. Historians have calculated that the planned devaluation during the transition was 15% (the weight of new coins decreased so much, for which a single standard was drawn up, which amounted to 1/3 gram). There were also "polushki". So they began to call coins weighing 1/6 gram (they were intended for small calculations).

The annexed specific principalities were deprived of the opportunity to mint their own money. Some exception was made only for Veliky Novgorod. The fact is that this city played an important role in Russia's trade with Europe. Merchant ties with the Old World there were long-standing and strong. Too abrupt changes could interfere with trade, so Novgorod was allowed to mint special coins of double weight, which were actively used in Novgorod markets.

The ability to compromise was important, Elena Glinskaya understood. Reforms, however, were carried out decisively. Very quickly, the country got rid of obsolete money. Novgorod coins (Novgorodki) received a new recognizable image (horseman with a spear), which is why they began to be called kopecks. Moscow received the label "saber" - because of the characteristic drawings of horsemen with sabers.

Results

The key significance of the reforms of Elena Glinskaya was that the innovations actually eliminated the former division of money circulation within Russia into Novgorod and Moscow. Differences still remained in the documents, but they disappeared already in the 17th century. Elena Glinskaya contributed to all this. The reforms also made the Moscow monetary system decimal. For example, 1 ruble consisted of 100 Novgorod. It is believed that Russia was the first country where they began to apply a similar principle, which later appeared in other European countries.

What is the reason for the monetary reform of Elena Glinskaya? In the need to get rid of the barriers that hinder the development of the economy. What is their consequence? The reforms helped not only the economy, trade and economy, but also the process of centralization. Russia, united around Moscow, was now one country also in the field of financial relations. It no longer mattered where a person came from - from Moscow, Ryazan, Tver or any other city - all residents began to use the same money. Also, Russian foreign trade with neighboring countries has significantly intensified.

The fate of Glinskaya's transformations

All reforms during the reign of Elena Glinskaya were carried out as quickly and efficiently as possible. On the one hand, this suggests that the transformation plan was drawn up under Vasily III, and on the other hand, that the wife of the Grand Duke was in the know and was able to quickly take matters into her own hands in a difficult situation and finish her husband’s undertaking .

The standards introduced by Elena Glinskaya survived untouched until the Time of Troubles. At the beginning of the 17th century, Polish and Swedish interventionists undertook their own innovations in part of the territory of Russia. When the Romanovs came to power, financial chaos again reigned in the country. These problems were resolved after the next monetary reform of Alexei Mikhailovich.

Foreign policy

In foreign policy, Glinskaya Elena Vasilievna remained true to the course set by her late husband. King of Poland and Prince of Lithuania Sigismund I, having learned about the death of Basil, began to prepare for war. The last conflict of neighbors ended in 1522 with the victory of Moscow, many border lands were annexed to it, including Smolensk and some other cities. Sigismund hoped that Elena and the Boyar Duma would be mired in internal unrest and would not be able to resist his onslaught. He demanded that Russia return the lands lost in the last war. The ultimatum was rejected. Then a new war began. She walked in 1534 - 1537.

The campaign continued with mixed success. Sigismund failed to capture Smolensk. The Russians built the fortress of Sebezh to defend the border environs, but they never took Gomel. The Poles in a new offensive entered Gomel and laid siege to Starodub. After the Crimean Tatars attacked the Ryazan lands, Elena had to transfer part of her forces there. Finally, the enemy captured and burned Starodub. The authorities had to evacuate the residents of neighboring Pochep. The fortress was burned, and Sigismund got only the ashes.

The Lithuanians, meanwhile, opened a new front and attacked Sebezh in the modern Pskov region. The siege failed. Failure allowed the Russian army to seize the initiative. She reached Vitebsk. Since neither side was able to seize a decisive advantage, in 1537 a compromise peace was concluded in Moscow. Lithuania received the Gomel volost, Russia retained Velizh, Sebezh and Zavolochye.

sudden death

Soon after the beginning of the regency, Elena began an affair with one of the nobles - Ivan Telepnev. This connection was not liked by other boyars and commoners. The general population treated the regent badly also because of her Lithuanian roots. Uncle Mikhail Glinsky criticized her for her connection with Telepnev. He was sent to prison and died there.

Elena herself also did not live long. She died suddenly on 4 April 1538 at the age of only 30. The princess was buried in the Ascension Monastery. She never waited for the moment when her son Ivan would grow up. The heir was still a child, so power passed to the impersonal Boyar Duma. Collective government failed. The aristocrats were constantly intriguing against each other. Regular reprisals further spoiled the character of the future Ivan the Terrible.

Thus ended the reign of Elena Glinskaya. The reforms and results of her regency were positive, but the princess never achieved universal popular love, remaining almost unnoticed in Russian history.