In the mid-1540s, there was a turning point in the eastern policy of the Russian state. The era of boyar rule in Moscow, which shifted the main attention and energy to the struggle for power, has ended. This put an end to the doubts of the Moscow government regarding the Kazan Khanate. The Kazan government of Safa-Girey (Kazan Khan in 1524-1531, 1536-1546, July 1546 - March 1549) actually pushed Moscow State to decisive action. Safa-Girey stubbornly clung to the alliance with the Crimean Khanate and constantly violated peace agreements with Moscow. The Kazan princes regularly carried out predatory raids on the Russian border lands, receiving significant income by selling people into slavery. An endless war continued on the border between the Muscovite kingdom and the Kazan Khanate. The strengthened Moscow could no longer ignore the hostility of the Volga state, the influence of the Crimea (and through it the Ottoman Empire) on it and put up with the raids of the Tatars.

The Kazan Khanate had to be “forced to peace.” The question arose - how to do this? The previous policy of supporting the pro-Russian party in Kazan and placing Moscow’s henchmen on the throne actually failed. Usually, as soon as Moscow placed “its khan” on the throne of Kazan, he quickly got used to it and began to pursue a policy hostile to Russia, focusing on the Crimea or the Nogai Horde. At this time, Metropolitan Macarius had a great influence on the policy of the Russian state, who initiated many of the enterprises of Ivan IV. Gradually, in his circle around the metropolitan, the idea of ​​a forceful solution to the issue began to emerge as the only means of stopping the Tatar incursions into the eastern regions of the state. At the same time, the complete conquest and subjugation of Kazan was not initially envisaged. Kazan was supposed to maintain autonomy in internal affairs. Already during the fighting of 1547-1552. these plans were adjusted.

Kazan campaigns of Ivan IV (1545-1552)

Several Kazan campaigns of Emperor Ivan Vasilyevich are known, in most of which he took personal part. This circumstance emphasized the importance attached to these campaigns by the sovereign and his immediate circle. Almost all operations were carried out in winter, when the Crimean Khanate usually did not conduct campaigns against Rus', and the main forces could be southern borders transfer to the Volga. In 1545, the first campaign of Moscow troops against Kazan took place. The operation had the character of a military demonstration with the aim of strengthening the Moscow party, which at the end of 1545 managed to expel Khan Safa-Girey from Kazan. In the spring of 1546, a Moscow protege, the Kasimov prince Shah-Ali, was placed on the Kazan throne. However, soon Safa-Girey, with the support of the Nogais, managed to regain power; Shah-Ali fled to Moscow.

In February 1547, troops were sent “to Kazan places” under the command of governors Alexander Gorbaty and Semyon Mikulinsky. The regiments under their command were sent from Nizhny Novgorod in response to an appeal for help from the Cheremis (Mari) centurion Atachik (Tugai) “and his comrades,” who declared their desire to serve the Grand Duke of Moscow. The tsar himself did not participate in the campaign, as he was busy with wedding matters - he married Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina-Yuryeva. The Russian army reached the mouth of Sviyaga and fought many Kazan places, but then returned to Nizhny Novgorod.

The next operation was led by the king himself. In November 1547, troops led by Dmitry Belsky were transferred from Moscow to Vladimir, and on December 11, the sovereign himself left the capital. Infantry regiments and artillery (“outfit”) were concentrated in Vladimir. The troops were supposed to go from Vladimir to Nizhny Novgorod, and then to Kazan. At Meshchera, a second army was being prepared for a campaign under the command of governor Fyodor Prozorovsky and Shah-Ali. It included horse regiments. Due to the unusual warm winter the exit of the main forces was delayed. The artillery was brought to Vladimir, with great effort due to rain and poor roads, only on December 6th. But the main forces reached Nizhny Novgorod only at the end of January, and only on February 2 the army went down the Volga, to the Kazan border. Two days later, due to a new warming, the army suffered heavy losses - most of the siege artillery fell into the river, many people drowned, and the troops had to stop on Rabotka Island. The loss of artillery, which sank in the Volga at the very beginning of the campaign, did not promise success for the planned enterprise. This circumstance forced the tsar to return to Nizhny Novgorod, and then to Moscow. However, part of the army, having united on February 18 on the Civil River with Shah Ali's cavalry regiments, moved on. In the battle on the Arsk field, the soldiers of the Advanced Regiment of Prince Mikulinsky defeated the army of Safa-Girey and the Tatars fled beyond the walls of the city. However, the Russian military leaders did not dare to launch an assault without siege artillery and, after standing for a week at the walls of Kazan, retreated to their own borders.

The Tatars organized a retaliatory attack. A large detachment under the command of Arak attacked the Galician lands. The Kostroma governor, Zakhary Yakovlev, organized the pursuit, overtook and defeated the enemy, burdened with fullness and booty, on Gusevoye Field, on the Ezovka River.

In March, Moscow received news of the death of the irreconcilable enemy of the Russian state, Khan Safa-Girey. According to the official version, the ruler “killed himself drunk in the palace.” The Kazan embassy was unable to obtain a new “tsar” from Crimea. As a result, the two-year-old son of the deceased khan, Utyamish-Girey (Utemysh-Girey), was proclaimed khan, on whose behalf his mother Queen Syuyumbike began to rule. This was reported to Moscow by the Cossacks, who intercepted the Kazan ambassadors in the “Field”. The Russian government decided to take advantage of the dynastic crisis that had arisen in the Kazan Khanate and conduct a new military operation. Back in the summer, advanced forces were sent under the command of Boris Ivanovich and Lev Andreevich Saltykov. The main forces in the late autumn of 1549 were busy - guarding southern border.

Winter campaign 1549-1550 was prepared very thoroughly. The regiments gathered in Vladimir, Shuya, Murom, Suzdal, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Rostov and Yuryev. On December 20, artillery was sent from Vladimir to Nizhny Novgorod under the command of governors Vasily Yuryev and Fyodor Nagoy. The Tsar, having received the blessing of Metropolitan Macarius, set out with his regiments for Nizhny Novgorod. On January 23, 1550, the Russian army headed down the Volga to Kazan land. Russian regiments were near Kazan on February 12, the Tatars did not dare to give battle under the walls of the city. Preparations began for the assault on the well-fortified city. However, weather conditions again had a decisive influence on the failure of the operation. According to the chronicles, the winter was very warm, slushy, and heavy rains did not allow conducting a proper siege, organizing a heavy bombardment of the fortress, and securing the rear. As a result, the troops had to be withdrawn.

Preparing for a new trip. Political situation in the Kazan Khanate and negotiations with Moscow

The Russian command came to the conclusion that the main reason unsuccessful trips 1547-1550 hidden in the inability to establish a good supply of troops, the lack of a strong rear support base. Russian troops were forced to operate in enemy territory, far from their cities. It was decided to build a fortress at the confluence of the Sviyaga River with the Volga, not far from Kazan. By turning this fortress into a large base, the Russian army could control the entire right bank of the Volga (“Mountain Side”) and the closest approaches to Kazan. The main material for the walls and towers, as well as living quarters and two temples of the future Russian stronghold, was prepared in the winter of 1550-1551 on the Upper Volga in the Uglitsky district in the ancestral home of the Ushaty princes. The work was carried out by clerk Ivan Vyrodkov, who was responsible not only for the manufacture of the fortress, but also for its delivery to the mouth of Sviyaga.

Simultaneously with this complex engineering operation, a number of military measures were carried out, which were supposed to cover the fortification work on Round Mountain. Prince Peter Serebryany received an order in the spring of 1551 to lead the regiments and go “in exile to the Kazan settlement.” At the same time, the Vyatka army of Bakhtear Zyuzin and the Volga Cossacks were supposed to take over the main transportation along the main transport arteries of the Kazan Khanate: the Volga, Kama and Vyatka. To help Voivode Zyuzin, a 2.5 thousand detachment of foot Cossacks led by atamans Severga and Elka was sent from Meshchera. They had to go through the “Wild Field” to the Volga, make ships and fight the Kazan places up the river. The actions of the Cossack detachment were successful. Other detachments of service Cossacks operated in the Lower Volga. Nuradin of the Nogai Horde Izmail complained to the Moscow sovereign about their actions, saying that the Cossacks “took both banks from the Volga and took away our freedom and our uluses are fighting.”

The army of Prince Serebryany set out on a campaign on May 16, 1551 and was already at the walls of Kazan on the 18th. The attack of Russian soldiers was unexpected for the Kazan Tatars. Voivode Serebryany's warriors burst into the settlement and, taking advantage of the surprise of the blow, inflicted great damage on the enemy. Then the Kazan people were able to seize the initiative and push the Russian soldiers back to their ships. Silver's army retreated and set up camp on the Sviyaga River, awaiting the arrival of the army under the command of Shah Ali and the delivery of the main structures of the fortress. The huge river caravan, which was organized to deliver materials to the fortress, left in April and arrived at the site at the end of May.

In April, an army was sent from Ryazan to “Pole” under the command of governor Mikhail Voronoi and Grigory Filippov-Naumov. The army was supposed to interrupt communications between Kazan and the Crimean Khanate. The activity of the Russian troops stunned the Kazan government and diverted attention from the construction of the Sviyazhsk fortress, which began on May 24. The fortress was erected in four weeks, despite the mistake of the designers, who were mistaken in the length of the walls by almost half. Russian soldiers corrected this deficiency. The fortress was called Ivangorod of Sviyazhsk.

The construction of a strong fortress in the center of the possessions of the Kazan Khanate demonstrated the strength of Moscow and contributed to the transition of a number of Volga peoples - the Chuvash and the mountain Mari - to the side of the Russians. Complete blockade waterways Russian troops complicated the internal political situation in the Kazan Khanate. In Kazan, dissatisfaction was brewing with the government, composed of Crimean princes led by Ulan Koshchak, the main adviser to Princess Syuyumbike. The Crimeans, seeing that things smelled like something was cooking, decided to run away. They collected their property, plundered what they could and fled the city. However, the Crimean detachment, which numbered about 300 people, failed to escape. There were strong Russian outposts at all transports. Looking for safe way The Crimeans significantly deviated from the original path and reached the Vyatka River. Here the Vyatka detachment of Bakhtear Zyuzin and the Cossacks of the atamans Pavlov and Severga stood in ambush. During the crossing, the Tatar detachment was attacked and destroyed. Koshchak and forty prisoners were taken to Moscow, where “the sovereign ordered them to be executed by death for their hardness of heart.”

The new Kazan government was headed by the Oglan Khudai-Kul and Prince Nur-Ali Shirin. They were forced to negotiate with Moscow and agree to accept Shah-Ali (“King of Shigaley”) as Khan, who was pleasing to Moscow. In August 1551, Kazan ambassadors agreed to extradite Khan Utyamysh-Girey and his mother Queen Syuyumbike to Moscow. Utyamysh was baptized in the Chudov Monastery, he received the name Alexander and was left to be raised at the Moscow court (he died at the age of twenty). After some time, Syuyumbike was given in marriage to the Kasimov ruler Shah Ali. In addition, the Kazan embassy recognized the annexation of the “Mountain” (western) side of the Volga to the Russian state and agreed to prohibit the slavery of Christians. On August 14, 1551, a kurultai was held on a field at the mouth of the Kazanka River, where the Tatar nobility and Muslim clergy approved the agreement concluded with Moscow. On August 16, the new khan solemnly entered Kazan. Representatives of Moscow also came with him: boyar Ivan Khabarov and clerk Ivan Vyrodkov. The next day, the Kazan authorities handed over 2,700 Russian prisoners to them.

However, the reign of the new Tatar king was short-lived. The new khan could only protect himself and his few supporters by introducing a significant Russian garrison into the city. However, despite his precarious position, Shah Ali agreed to bring only 300 Kasimov Tatars and 200 archers to Kazan. Shah Ali's government was extremely unpopular. The extradition of Russian captives and Moscow’s refusal to fulfill the khan’s request to return the inhabitants of the Mountain Side to the rule of Kazan caused even greater irritation of the Tatar nobility. The Khan tried to suppress the opposition by force, but the repressions only worsened the situation (the Khan had no power behind him to be afraid of).

In connection with the situation in the Kazan Khanate in Moscow, where they closely monitored the developments, they began to lean toward a radical solution: removing Shah Ali from Kazan and replacing him with a Russian governor. This idea was promoted by part of the Kazan nobility. The unexpected actions of the Khan, who learned about the decision of the Moscow government, changed the situation for the worse. He decided to leave the throne without waiting for an official decision and left Kazan. On March 6, 1552, the Kazan Khan, under the pretext of a fishing trip, left the city and went to the Sviyazhsk fortress. He took several dozen princes and murzas with him as hostages. Soon after this, Russian governors were sent to Kazan, but they failed to enter the city. On March 9, under the leadership of the princes of Islam, Kebek and Murza Alikei Narykov, an uprising began in the city. Power in Kazan was seized by supporters of continuing the war with the Russian state, led by Prince Chapkun Otuchev. Many Russians who were in the city were taken by surprise and captured. The approaching Russian detachment could no longer change the situation; the Russian governors entered into negotiations and then were forced to retreat. At the same time, there were no hostilities, the settlement was not burned, and the Russian governors still hoped to resolve the matter peacefully.

The new Kazan government invited the Astrakhan prince Yadigar-Muhammad (Ediger), who was accompanied by a detachment of Nogais, to the throne. The Kazan Tatars resumed hostilities, trying to return the Mountain Side to their rule. Moscow decided to begin preparing a new campaign and resumed the blockade of the river routes of Kazan.

Kazan campaign June-October 1552. Capture of Kazan

Preparations for the campaign began in early spring. At the end of March - beginning of April, siege artillery, ammunition and provisions were transported to the Sviyazhsk fortress from Nizhny Novgorod. In April–May 1552, an army of up to 150 thousand people with 150 guns was formed in Moscow and other Russian cities. By May, the regiments were concentrated in Murom - the Ertoul Regiment (mounted reconnaissance regiment), in Kolomna - the Big Regiment, the Left Hand Regiment and the Advanced Regiment, and Kashira - the Right Hand Regiment. Part of the troops gathered in Kashira, Kolomna and other cities advanced to Tula and repelled the attack of the Crimean troops of Devlet-Girey, who tried to thwart Moscow’s plans. The Crimean Tatars only managed to delay the advance of the Russian army for four days.

On July 3, 1552, the campaign began. The troops marched in two columns. Through Vladimir, Murom to the Sura River, to the mouth of the Alatyr River there were the Guard Regiment, the Left Hand Regiment and the Sovereign Regiment led by Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich. The Big Regiment, the Right Hand Regiment and the Advanced Regiment under the command of Mikhail Vorotynsky were moving through Ryazan and Meshchera to Alatyr. At Boroncheev Settlement beyond the river. The stern columns united. On August 13, the army reached Sviyazhsk, and on the 16th it began crossing the Volga, which lasted three days. On August 23, a huge army approached the walls of Kazan.

The enemy managed to prepare well for a new war and fortified the city. The Kazan Kremlin had a double oak wall filled with rubble and clayey silt and 14 stone “strelnitsa” towers. The approaches to the fortress covered the river beds. Kazanka - from the north and the river. Bulaka - from the west. On other sides, especially from the Arsk field, convenient for carrying out siege operations, there was a ditch that reached 6-7 meters wide and up to 15 meters deep. Most vulnerabilities there were gates - there were 11 of them, although they were protected by towers. On the city walls, warriors were protected by a parapet and wooden roof. In the city itself there was a citadel, which was located in the northwestern part of the city, on a hill. The “royal chambers” were protected from the rest of the city by deep ravines and a stone wall. The city was defended by 40 thousand. garrison, which included not only all available soldiers, but also the entire male population of Kazan, including 5 thousand. a contingent of mobilized eastern merchants. In addition, the Tatar command prepared an operational base for conducting combat operations outside the city walls, in the rear of the besieging enemy army. 15 versts from the river. Kazanka, a fort was built, the approaches to which were reliably covered by abatis and swamps. He was supposed to become a support for 20 thousand. cavalry army Tsarevich Yapanchi, Shunak-Murza and Arsky (Udmurt) Prince Yevush. This army was supposed to make surprise attacks on the flanks and rear of the Russian army.

However, these measures did not save Kazan. The Russian army had great superiority in forces and used latest methods conducting combat operations unfamiliar to the Tatars (construction of underground mine galleries).

The battle for the city began as soon as Russian troops approached Kazan. Tatar warriors attacked the Ertoul regiment. The moment for the strike was chosen very well. The Russians had just crossed the Bulak River and were climbing the steep slope of the Arsk field. Other Russian troops were on the other side of the river and could not immediately take part in the battle. The Tatars who left the fortress from the Nogai and Tsarev gates struck the Russian regiment. The Kazan army consisted of 10 thousand foot and 5 thousand horse soldiers. The situation was saved by the Cossacks and archers who reinforced the Ertoul regiment. They were on the left flank and opened heavy fire on the enemy, the Kazan cavalry was mixed up. At this time, reinforcements arrived and increased the firepower of the Ertoul regiment. The Tatar cavalry was completely upset and fled, crushing their infantry formations. The first clash ended in Russian victory.

Siege. The city was surrounded by long trenches, trenches and tours, and a stockade was built in a number of places. On August 27, artillery shelling of Kazan began. The artillery fire was supported by archers, repelling enemy attacks and preventing enemies from being on the walls. Among the “attack” there were “great” guns with names: “Ring”, “Nightingale”, “Flying Serpent”, Ushataya” and others.

Initially, the siege was complicated by the actions of Yapanchi's troops, who carried out their attacks according to a sign from the fortress - they raised a large banner on one of the towers. The first raid was carried out on August 28, the next day the attack was repeated and was accompanied by a sortie of the Kazan garrison. The actions of Yapanchi's troops were too serious a threat to ignore. A military council was assembled and it was decided to send 45 thousand troops under the command of governors Alexander Gorbaty and Peter Serebryany against the Yapanchi army. On August 30, the Russian commanders, with a feigned retreat, lured the Tatar cavalry to the Arskoe field and surrounded the enemy. Most of the enemy army was destroyed, the field was simply littered with enemy corpses. Only part of the enemy army was able to break out of the encirclement and take refuge in their fort. The enemies were pursued to the Kinderi River. From 140 to 1 thousand Yapanchi warriors were captured and executed in front of the city walls.

On September 6, the army of Gorbaty and Serebryany set out on a campaign to the Kama, receiving the task of burning and ravaging the Kazan lands. The Russian army stormed the fort on Vysokaya Gora, most of the defenders were killed. According to the chronicle, in this battle all Russian military leaders dismounted and took part in the battle. As a result, the main base of the enemy, who carried out attacks on the Russian rear, was destroyed. Then the Russian troops marched more than 150 miles, destroying local villages and reaching the Kama River, they turned around and returned to Kazan in victory. The Kazan Khanate suffered the fate of the Russian lands when they were ravaged by Tatar troops. The enemy was dealt a strong blow, protecting the Russian army from a possible attack from the rear. During the ten days of the campaign, Russian soldiers destroyed 30 forts, captured 2-5 thousand prisoners and many heads of livestock.

After the defeat of Yapanchi's army, no one could interfere with the siege work. The Russian batteries were getting closer and closer to the walls of the city, their fire became more and more destructive. Opposite the Tsar's Gate, a large 13-meter siege tower was prepared, which was higher than the enemy walls. 10 large and 50 small cannons (squeakers) were installed on it, which from the height of this structure could fire at the streets of Kazan, causing big damage defenders. In addition, on August 31, who was on state service"Nemchin" Rozmysel and his Russian students, trained in siege warfare, began to dig under the walls to lay mines. The first charge was placed under the Kazan secret water source in the Daurova tower of the fortress. On September 4, 11 barrels of gunpowder were placed in the underground gallery. The explosion not only destroyed the secret passage to the water, but also severely damaged the city fortifications. Then the Nur-Ali Gate (“Ant Gate”) was destroyed by an underground explosion. The Tatar garrison was barely able to repel the Russian attack that had begun and build a new line of defense.

Efficiency underground war was obvious. The Russian command decided to continue destroying enemy fortifications and shelling the city, refraining from a premature assault, which could lead to big losses. At the end of September, new mines were prepared, the explosions in which were supposed to be the signal for a general assault on Kazan. The tours were moved to almost all the gates of the fortress; only a ditch remained between the fortress wall and them. In those areas where the assault operations were going to take place, the ditches were filled with earth and forest. Also, many bridges were built across the moat.

Storm. On the eve of the decisive assault, the Russian command sent Murza Kamaya to the city (there was a significant Tatar contingent in the Russian army) with an offer of surrender. It was decisively rejected: “We don’t hit with our foreheads! Rus' is on the walls and towers, we’ll put up another wall, and we’ll all die or sit out.” Early in the morning of October 2, preparations for the attack began. Around 6 o'clock in the morning the shelves were placed in predetermined places. The rear was protected by large cavalry forces: the Kasimov Tatars were sent to the Arskoye field, other regiments stood on the Galician and Nogai roads, against the Cheremis (Mari) and Nogais, small forces that operated in the vicinity of Kazan. At 7 o'clock explosions occurred in two tunnels; 48 barrels of gunpowder were placed in them. Sections of the wall between the Atalykov Gate and the Nameless Tower, and between the Tsarev and Arsky Gates were blown up.

The fortress walls on the side of the Arsk field were almost completely destroyed, Russian soldiers burst into the gaps. The first line of attackers included 45 thousand archers, Cossacks and “boyar children”. The attackers entered the city quite easily, but fierce battles broke out in the narrow streets of Kazan. Hatred had been accumulating for decades, and the townspeople knew that they would not be spared, so they fought to the last. The most durable centers of resistance turned out to be the main mosque of the city on the Tezitsa ravine and the “royal chambers”. At first, all attempts to break into the inner citadel, separated from the city by a ravine, failed. The Russian command had to bring fresh reserves into battle, which finally broke the enemy’s resistance. Russian soldiers made their way through the mosque, all its defenders, led by the Supreme Seyid Kol-Sharif (Kul-Sharif), fell in battle. The last battle took place on the square in front of the Khan's palace, where the defense was held by 6 thousand Tatar soldiers. Khan Yadigar-Muhammad was captured (he was baptized with the name Simeon and received Zvenigorod as an inheritance). All other Tatar warriors fell in battle, and no prisoners were taken. Few men survived; those who were able to escape from the walls crossed Kazanka under fire and made their way into the forests. In addition, a strong pursuit was sent, which caught and destroyed a significant part of the last defenders of the city.

After the suppression of resistance, Tsar Ivan the Terrible entered the city. He examined Kazan and ordered the fires to be put out. He “took” for himself the captive Kazan “tsar”, banners, cannons and the reserves of gunpowder available in the city, the rest of the property was given to ordinary warriors. On the Royal Gate, with the permission of the Tsar, Mikhail Vorotynsky erected an Orthodox cross. The remaining part of the city's population was resettled outside its walls, to the shores of Lake Kaban.

On October 12, the Tsar left Kazan, Prince Gorbaty was appointed its governor, and under his command remained the governors Vasily Serebryany, Alexei Pleshcheev, Foma Golovin, Ivan Chebotov and clerk Ivan Bessonov.

Consequences

The Russian state included vast territories of the Middle Volga region and a number of peoples (Tatars, Mari, Chuvash, Udmurts, Bashkirs). Russia received an important economic center - Kazan, control over the trade artery - the Volga (its establishment was completed after the fall of Astrakhan).

In the Middle Volga region the hostile Ottoman-Crimean factor was finally destroyed. WITH eastern borders the threat of constant invasion and removal of the population into slavery has been removed.

The way was opened for the Russians to further advance to the south and east: to the lower reaches of the Volga (Astrakhan), beyond the Urals.

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The period of the reign of Ivan IV is known in history as a time of expansion of state borders and an increase in the territory of the Russian state. An aggressive foreign policy led to numerous wars with its neighbors - the Astrakhan and Kazan khanates, Livonia and Sweden. Not all campaigns were successful, but the increased combat capability of the Russian army thanks to the reforms helped the new kingdom to establish itself in the political arena.

After the collapse of the Golden Horde, the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates became Rus''s closest neighbors. Its favorable location - on the Volga trade route - created a constant threat to Rus''s foreign trade. Endless border skirmishes and the destruction of border settlements forced Ivan IV to decide to conquer the Kazan Khanate.

The first Kazan campaign took place in the winter of 1547. However, the tsarist army did not even reach Kazan - due to a thaw, while crossing the Volga in the vicinity of Nizhny Novgorod, part of the army and almost all the cannons drowned. The hike had to be completed.

The second Kazan campaign turned out to be more successful. Despite the fact that Kazan still remained in the hands of the Tatars, part of the territories of the Khanate was still subjugated. The second campaign turned out to be longer than the first - it took place from the autumn of 1549 to the spring of 1550. As a result, not far from Kazan, on the orders of the tsar, the Sviyazhsk fortress was erected. It became a stronghold for the subsequent, victorious campaign.

The first two attempts to solve problems with raiding neighbors by military means showed the weakness and insolvency of the Russian army. It was these campaigns that became the impetus for understanding the need for military reforms.

The third Kazan campaign began in the summer of 1552. The 150,000-strong tsarist army approached Kazan well-prepared and armed. With 150 large cannons and a good engineering team, the army was ready for the siege of Kazan.

Several tunnels were made under the high walls of the Kazan Kremlin, into which sappers placed barrels filled with gunpowder. The explosions made holes in the walls - and as a result of a long and difficult assault, Kazan was taken, and Khan Ediget-Magmet was captured.

In honor of the capture of Kazan, construction of the Intercession Cathedral began in Moscow, now better known as St. Basil's Cathedral. The icon painted in honor of this event, “Blessed is the army of the heavenly king,” which is kept in the Tretyakov Gallery, has also survived to this day.

However, the capture of Kazan did not mean the complete destruction and ruin of the Kazan Khanate. A far-sighted politician, Ivan the Terrible tried to preserve the governing structure of the occupied lands. Prince Gorbaty-Shuisky was appointed governor of Kazan, and Vasily Serebryany was appointed his assistant. The tsar invited all the Tatar nobility to his service, promising to maintain their previous statuses. This decision not only made it possible not to leave in Kazan large army to strengthen power, but also helped the new lands to organically join the Russian state.

This policy had another important consequence - after the Kazan campaign, the Siberian Khan Ediger voluntarily asked to be “under the arm” of the king, agreeing to become a tributary of Rus'.

Astrakhan campaigns

After the successful capture of Kazan, Ivan the Terrible decided to eliminate the second threat - from the Astrakhan Khanate. The Khanate controlled the lower part of the Volga, posing a threat to both foreign trade and the border lands of Rus'.

The first Astrakhan campaign took place in 1554. The detachment of the Astrakhan Khan that came out to meet the Russian army was completely defeated, as a result, the capital of the Khanate was taken without a fight. But at that time, Tsar Ivan IV considered it inappropriate to annex the lands of the Khanate. With the active support of Rus', Dervish Ali became the new khan, promising to remain faithful to Ivan the Terrible.

However, the new khan did not keep his promises and a year later openly went over to the side of the Crimean khan, who supported the Ottoman Empire, the eternal enemy of Rus'. Tsar Ivan the Terrible in 1556 decided on a second campaign.

The Russian army, reinforced by the Don Cossacks, again completely defeated the army of the Astrakhan Khan. Astrakhan was again surrendered without a fight - the city had no defenders left. This campaign subjugated the Khanate of Rus', adding new lands to the territory of the kingdom.

Results of the first campaigns

As a result of the first victorious campaigns - Kazan and Astrakhan - the territory of the Russian kingdom expanded significantly, and the influence of Ivan the Terrible extended all the way to the Caucasus Mountains. In 1559, the Cherkasy and Pyatigorsk princes asked Ivan IV to protect their principalities from the encroachments of the Crimean Khan; Thus, the king’s zone of influence extended to part of the Caucasus.

In addition to the foreign policy consequences, the success of the first campaigns had a great influence on domestic policy. The authority of Ivan IV grew enormously, strengthening the power of the young tsar. In addition, Orthodoxy began to quickly spread in the captured and annexed lands - the tsar paid great attention to issues of faith.

results foreign policy Ivan IV the Terrible - annexed areas are highlighted in yellow

Goals and objectives

Foreign policy of Ivan IV the Terrible was aimed at strengthening the position of the state, and its main tasks are listed briefly below:

• Strengthening the position of the Russian kingdom in Europe, gaining access to the Baltic Sea
• Elimination of the threat of raids from the South and Southeast (Crimean, Astrakhan, Kazan Khanates)
• Expanding influence to the East and Northeast

Main directions

East direction- the annexation of the Kazan Khanate in 1552, the Astrakhan Khanate in 1556 and Ermak’s campaign in Siberia made it possible not only to secure Russian kingdom from the devastating raids of nomadic tribes that lasted several centuries, but also significantly expanded its territory.

Western direction— The Livonian War of 1558-1583 was supposed to bring Ivan the Terrible ample opportunities for trade through the Baltic Sea, but the difficult internal political and economic situation, as well as the cohesion of European monarchs, virtually nullified all the successes of the Russian kingdom at the beginning of the conflict.

South direction— the conflict in the Crimean Khanate, which lasted for several centuries, was a significant problem, distracting troops and causing economic damage to the southern regions. As a result of the defeat of the Crimean army of Devlet-Girey in 1772, the Crimean Khanate stopped raiding for the next 20 years.

Briefly about the content of the main events of Russian foreign policy in the second half of the 16th century

Kazan campaigns (1547-1552)

Map of the Kazan campaigns of Ivan IV the Terrible

First Kazan campaign(winter 1547-1548) did not bring results - without siege artillery, the Russian army could not take Kazan by storm, behind whose walls numerous defenders took refuge.

Second Kazan campaign(autumn 1549 - spring 1550) also did not bring victory; the Sviyazhsk fortress was erected as a stronghold in the further confrontation between the Russian kingdom and the Kazan Khanate at the confluence of the Sviyaga River with the Volga.

Before third Kazan campaign Ivan the Terrible significantly strengthened the army and increased the number of artillery. In 1551, an agreement was concluded on neutrality in the conflict of the Nogai Horde.

In the summer of 1552, a 150,000-strong army, equipped with 150 large and medium artillery pieces, advanced to Kazan. On August 23, 1552, Russian troops besieged Kazan in a tight ring. The taxation line reached 7 km.

Scheme of the siege of Kazan by the troops of Ivan the Terrible

After a long siege, during which the Russians practically captured the city several times, the decisive assault was scheduled for October 2. By the evening of October 2, 1552, the capital of the Volga Tatars fell. On October 11, the Russian army marched back to Moscow, leaving a garrison in Kazan led by A. B. Gorbaty-Shuisky.

As a result of the Kazan campaigns:

• The Kazan Khanate was completely destroyed,
• The Middle Volga region was annexed to Russia,
• prerequisites arose for Russian settlers to explore the Volga region, further advance to the Urals and Siberia, and expand trade relations with the Caucasus and the countries of the East.

Astrakhan campaigns (1554 - 1556)

The first Astrakhan campaign of 1554 was committed under the command of the governor Prince Yuri Pronsky-Shemyakin. Ivan the Terrible decided to take advantage of the request for help from the Nogai Murza Ismail to replace the pro-Crimean Khan of Astrakhan Yamgurchey. After the defeat of the main detachment of Astrakhan, Astrakhan was taken without a fight. As a result, Khan Dervish-Ali was brought to power, promising support to Moscow.

Second Astrakhan campaign(spring 1556 - August 26, 1556) was provoked by the betrayal of Khan Dervish-Ali, who went over to the side of the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire. In a direct clash, the Don Cossacks defeated the Khan's army near Astrakhan, after which Astrakhan was retaken without a fight in July.

Map of the Astrakhan campaigns of Ivan IV the Terrible

As a result of the rapid and relatively “bloodless” (compared to the Kazan Khanate) subordination of the Astrakhan Khanate, the position of the Russian Kingdom in the region strengthened and the remnants of the Golden Horde Empire agreed to a vassal position:

• In 1557, the Nogai Horde, whose territory was located in the interfluve of the river, recognized its dependence on Russia. Bulak and Yaik, and also partially on the right (trans-Ural) bank of the Yaik.
• In the fall of 1557, without a fight, the territory of modern Bashkiria, located in the basins of the Belaya and Ufa rivers, was also included in Russia.
• Since 1560, the Russian border in the east began to run along the river. Ural (Yaik), and in the south (southeast) - along the river. Terek.

Livonian War (1558 - 1583)

Map of the Livonian War by Ivan IV the Terrible

The war began with the attack of the Russian Empire on Livonia in January 1558. At the first stage of the war, Russian troops achieved significant success, conquering Narva, Dorpat and a number of other cities and castles. In 1563, Polotsk was taken, but it was not possible to build on the success, since in 1564 the Russian units were defeated in the Battle of Chashniki. Soon after this, the oprichnina was introduced (1565-1572). In 1569, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania united with the Kingdom of Poland in single speech Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Following the unsuccessful siege of Revel by Russian troops (1577), the troops of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth returned Polotsk and unsuccessfully besieged Pskov. The Swedes took Narva and unsuccessfully besieged Oreshek.

The war ended with the signing of the Yam-Zapolsky (1582) and Plyussky (1583) truces. Russia lost all the conquests made as a result of the war, as well as lands on the border with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the coastal Baltic cities (Koporye, Yama, Ivangorod). The territory of the former Livonian Confederation was divided between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden and Denmark.

As a result of the Livonian War The Livonian Order ended its existence, the war contributed to the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire led to economic decline.

Crimean-Turkish campaigns

Crimean-Turkish campaign against Astrakhan

In 1569, the Turkish Sultan Selim II decided to join forces with the Crimean Khanate for a joint campaign against Astrakhan - the capture of this large shopping center, which is a key point of defense of the Russian kingdom in the region, was supposed to be preparation for laying a canal on the Volgodonsk portage (land route for ships) between the Black and Caspian Seas.

Approaching Astrakhan, 20 thousand Turks and 50 thousand Crimean Tatars began a siege on September 16, 1569. To help the besieged, Ivan IV the Terrible sent 30 thousand people under the command of Vasily Serebryany, as well as Zaporozhye Cossacks sent by the Polish king under the leadership of Prince Mikhail Vishnevetsky.

As a result of the coordinated actions of the Astrakhan garrison, under the leadership of Peter Serebryanny, as well as the Cossacks and Russian troops who came to the aid, the Turks and Crimeans were inflicted a crushing defeat.

In the spring of 1570, the ambassadors of Ivan the Terrible concluded a non-aggression treaty in Istanbul, which restored good neighborly relations between the Sultan and the Tsar.

Russian-Crimean War (1571-1572)

After Ivan the Terrible captured the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, Devlet I Giray vowed to return them. In 1563 and 1569, together with Turkish troops Devlet I Giray made two unsuccessful campaigns against Astrakhan. Beginning in 1567, the activity of the Crimean Khanate began to increase, campaigns were carried out every year. In 1570, the Crimeans, having received almost no resistance, subjected the Ryazan region to terrible devastation.

In 1571, Devlet Giray launched a campaign against Moscow. Having deceived Russian intelligence, the khan crossed the Oka near Kromy, and not at Serpukhov, where the tsarist army was waiting for him, and rushed to Moscow. Ivan left for Rostov, and the Crimeans set fire to the outskirts of the capital, not protected by the Kremlin and Kitai-Gorod. In the subsequent correspondence, the tsar agreed to cede Astrakhan to the khan, but he was not satisfied with this, demanding Kazan and 2000 rubles, and then announced his plans to seize the entire Russian state.

In 1572, the khan began new trip towards Moscow, which ended with the destruction of the Crimean-Turkish army in the Battle of Molodi. The death of a selected Turkish army near Astrakhan in 1569 and the defeat of the Crimean horde near Moscow in 1572 put a limit to Turkish-Tatar expansion in Eastern Europe.

Results and results

• Conquest of the Astrakhan and Kazan Khanates.
• Recognition of the vassal status of the Nogai Horde
• Expansion to the east after Ermak's campaign in Siberia
• The total area of ​​the country has doubled.
• Reflection of the Crimean Khan's campaign against Moscow in 1572 - for the next 20 years the Crimean Khanate did not disturb the Russians
• Failure in the Livonian War - all gains during the fighting had to be returned, the protracted conflict caused serious damage to the economy.

Wars of Ivan IV - Lecture on history

Wars of Ivan IV

Ivan the Terrible, a contemporary of Elizabeth of England, Philip II of Spain and William of Orange, had to solve military, administrative and international problems similar to the goals of the creators of the new European powers, but in a much more difficult situation. He surpasses them all in his talents as a diplomat and organizer.

Part of the aristocracy and the Pope persistently demanded to enter into a fight with the Turkish Sultan Suleiman the First, who had 30 kingdoms and 8 thousand miles of coastline under his control.

The king's artillery was varied and numerous. "TO Russian artillerymen always have at least two thousand guns ready for battle…” - his ambassador John Cobenzl reported to Emperor Maximilian II. What was most impressive was the heavy artillery. The Moscow Chronicle writes, without exaggeration: “... large cannons have twenty pounds of cannonballs, and some cannons have a little lighter.” The largest howitzer in Europe, the Kashpirova Cannon, weighing 1,200 pounds and caliber 20 pounds, brought terror and took part in the siege of Polotsk in 1563. Also, “one more feature of Russian artillery of the 16th century should be noted, namely its durability,” writes modern researcher Alexey Lobin. " The guns, cast by order of Ivan the Terrible, were in service for several decades and took part in almost all the battles of the 17th century.».

Kazan campaigns

In the first half of the 16th century, mainly during the reign of khans from the Crimean Girey family, the Kazan Khanate waged constant wars with Muscovite Russia. In total, the Kazan khans made about forty campaigns against Russian lands, mainly in the outlying regions of Nizhny Novgorod, Vyatka, Vladimir, Kostoroma, Galich, Murom, Vologda. “From the Crimea and from Kazan to half the earth it was empty,” the tsar wrote, describing the consequences of the invasions.

Trying to find peaceful means of settlement, Ivan the Terrible supported the Kasimov ruler Shah Ali, loyal to Rus', who, having become the Kazan Khan, approved the project of a union with Moscow. But in 1546, Shah Ali was expelled by the Kazan nobility, who elevated Khan Safa-Girey from a dynasty hostile to Rus' to the throne. After this, Ivan IV decided to take active action and eliminate the threat posed by Kazan. " From now on, - the historian points out, - Moscow has put forward a plan for the final destruction of the Kazan Khanate».

In total, Ivan IV led three campaigns against Kazan.

First trip(winter 1547/1548). The Tsar left Moscow on December 20; due to an early thaw, 15 versts from Nizhny Novgorod, siege artillery and part of the army went under the ice on the Volga. It was decided to return the king from the crossing back to Nizhny Novgorod, while the main commanders with part of the army that managed to cross reached Kazan, where they entered into battle with the Kazan army. As a result, the Kazan army retreated behind the walls of the wooden Kremlin, which the Russian army did not dare to storm without siege artillery and, after standing under the walls for seven days, retreated. On March 7, 1548, the tsar returned to Moscow.

Second trip(autumn 1549 - spring 1550). In March 1549, Safa-Girey suddenly died. Having received a Kazan messenger asking for peace, Ivan IV refused him and began to gather an army. On November 24, he left Moscow to lead the army. United in Nizhny Novgorod, the army moved to Kazan and on February 14 was at its walls. Kazan was not taken; however, when the Russian army retreated near Kazan, at the confluence of the Sviyaga River into the Volga, it was decided to build a fortress. On March 25, the Tsar returned to Moscow. In 1551, in just 4 weeks, a fortress was assembled from carefully numbered components, which received the name Sviyazhsk; it served as a stronghold for the Russian army during the next campaign.

Third trip(June-October 1552) - ended with the capture of Kazan. A Russian army of 150,000 took part in the campaign; the armament included 150 cannons. The Kazan Kremlin was taken by storm. Khan Ediger-Magmet was handed over to the Russian governors. The chronicler recorded: “ The sovereign did not order for himself to take even a single coin (that is, not a single penny), nor captivity, only the single king Ediger-Magmet and the royal banners and city cannons" I. I. Smirnov believes that “ The Kazan campaign of 1552 and the brilliant victory of Ivan IV over Kazan not only meant a major foreign policy success for the Russian state, but also contributed to the strengthening of the tsar’s foreign policy positions».

In defeated Kazan, the tsar appointed Prince Alexander Gorbaty-Shuisky as Kazan governor, and Prince Vasily Serebryany as his comrade.

After the establishment of the episcopal see in Kazan, the tsar and the church council by lot elected Abbot Gury to it in the rank of archbishop. Gury received instructions from the tsar to convert Kazan residents to Orthodoxy solely at the own request of each person, but “unfortunately, such prudent measures were not followed everywhere: the intolerance of the century took its toll...”

From the first steps towards the conquest and development of the Volga region, the tsar began to invite to his service all the Kazan nobility who agreed to swear allegiance to him, sending “ in all the uluses, black people received dangerous yasak letters so that they would go to the sovereign without fear of anything; and whoever did it recklessly, God took revenge on him; and their sovereign would grant them, and they would pay tribute, just like the former Kazan king" This nature of the policy not only did not require the preservation of the main military forces of the Russian state in Kazan, but, on the contrary, made Ivan’s solemn return to the capital natural and expedient.

Immediately after the capture of Kazan, in January 1555, the ambassadors of Khan Ediger asked the king to “ He took the entire Siberian land under his own name and stood up (defended) from all sides and laid his tribute on them and sent his man to whom to collect the tribute».

The conquest of Kazan was of enormous importance for folk life. Kazanskaya Tatar horde united under her rule a complex foreign world into one strong whole: the Mordovians, the Cheremis, the Chuvash, the Votyaks, the Bashkirs. Cheremisy beyond the Volga, on the river. Unzhe and Vetluga, and the Mordovians beyond the Oka delayed the colonization movement of Rus' to the east; and the raids of the Tatars and other “languages” on Russian settlements terribly harmed them, ruining farms and taking many Russian people to the “full”. Kazan was a chronic sore of Moscow life, and therefore its capture became a national triumph, sung in folk song. After the capture of Kazan, within just 20 years, it was turned into a large Russian city; in different points of the foreign Volga region, fortified cities were erected as a support for Russian power and Russian settlement. The masses of the people, without hesitation, reached out to the rich lands of the Volga region and to forested areas middle Urals. Vast expanses of valuable land were pacified by the Moscow authorities and developed by people's labor. This was the meaning of the “Capture of Kazan”, sensitively guessed by the people's mind. The occupation of the lower Volga and Western Siberia was a natural consequence of the destruction of the barrier that the Kazan kingdom was for Russian colonization.

Platonov S.F. Complete course of lectures on Russian history.

The conquest of Kazan was not a consequence of the young tsar’s personal love of fame and was not a consequence of great aspirations, but not understandable to everyone, such as, for example, the desire to conquer the Baltic regions; the conquest of the Kazan kingdom was a necessary and sacred feat in the eyes of every Russian person... (for) this feat was accomplished for... the protection of Russian regions, for the liberation of Christian captives.

Soloviev S.M. Russian history...

Astrakhan campaigns

Early 1550s Astrakhan Khanate was an ally of the Crimean Khan, controlling the lower reaches of the Volga.

Before the final subjugation of the Astrakhan Khanate under Ivan IV, two campaigns were carried out:

Campaign of 1554 was committed under the command of governor Yu. I. Pronsky-Shemyakin. In the battle of the Black Island, the Russian army defeated the lead Astrakhan detachment. Astrakhan was taken without a fight. As a result, Khan Dervish-Ali was brought to power, promising support to Moscow.

Campaign of 1556 was associated with the fact that Khan Dervish-Ali went over to the side of the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire. The campaign was led by governor N. Cheremisinov. First, the Don Cossacks of Ataman L. Filimonov’s detachment defeated the Khan’s army near Astrakhan, after which in July Astrakhan was retaken without a fight. As a result of this campaign, the Astrakhan Khanate was subordinated to Muscovite Rus'.

Later, the Crimean Khan Devlet I Giray made attempts to recapture Astrakhan.

After the conquest of Astrakhan Russian influence began to extend to the Caucasus. In 1559, the princes of Pyatigorsk and Cherkassy asked Ivan IV to send them a detachment to protect against the raids of the Crimean Tatars and priests to maintain the faith; the tsar sent them two governors and priests, who renovated the fallen ancient churches, and in Kabarda they showed extensive missionary activity, baptizing many into Orthodoxy.

In the 1550s, the Siberian Khan Ediger and Bolshiye Nogai became dependent on the king.

War with Sweden 1554-1557

The war was caused by a dispute over border territories.

In April 1555, the Swedish flotilla of Admiral Jacob Bagge passed the Neva and landed an army in the area of ​​​​the Oreshek fortress. The siege of the fortress did not bring results; the Swedish army retreated.

In response, Russian troops invaded Swedish territory and on January 20, 1556 defeated a Swedish detachment near the Swedish city of Kivinebb. Then there was a clash at Vyborg, after which this fortress was besieged. The siege lasted 3 days, Vyborg held out.

As a result, in March 1557, a truce was signed in Novgorod for a period of 40 years (came into force on January 1, 1558). The Russian-Swedish border was restored along the old line, defined by the Orekhov Peace Treaty of 1323. According to the treaty, Sweden returned all Russian prisoners along with the captured property, while Rus' returned Swedish prisoners for ransom.

Livonian War

The Tsar understood that without a navy it was impossible to return the Russian Baltic lands, waging a war with Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Hanseatic cities, which had armed forces at sea and dominated the Baltic. In the very first months of the Livonian War, the Tsar tried to create a privateer fleet, attracting Danes to Moscow service, turning sea and river vessels into warships. At the end of the 70s, Ivan Vasilyevich began building his own navy in Vologda and tried to transfer it to the Baltic. The plan was not destined to come true. But even this attempt caused serious concerns among the maritime powers.

In 1547, the king instructed the Saxon Schlitte to bring artisans, artists, doctors, pharmacists, typographers, people skilled in ancient and modern languages, even theologians. However, after protests from Livonia, the Senate of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck arrested Schlitte and his men (see Schlitte Affair).

In the spring of 1557, on the banks of Narva, Tsar Ivan established a port: “The same year, July, a city was established from the German Ust-Narova River Rozsene by the sea for a shelter for sea ships,” “The same year, April, the king sent and Grand Duke the okolnichy prince Dmitry Semenovich Shastunov and Pyotr Petrovich Golovin and Ivan Vyrodkov to Ivangorod, and ordered a city to be built on Narova below Ivangorod at the mouth of the sea for a ship shelter...” However, the Hanseatic League and Livonia do not allow European merchants to enter the new Russian port, and they continue to go, as before, to Revel, Narva and Riga.

The Posvolsky Treaty of September 15, 1557 between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Order, which created a threat to the establishment of Lithuanian power in Livonia, played a significant role in Ivan IV’s choice of direction of military action.

The agreed position of the Hansa and Livonia to prevent Moscow from engaging in independent maritime trade leads Tsar Ivan to the decision to begin the fight for wide access to the Baltic.

During the war, the Muslim regions of the Volga region began to supply the Russian army with “many three hundred thousand battles,” well prepared for the offensive.

The situation of Russian spies on the territory of Lithuania and the Livonian Order in 1548-1551. described the Lithuanian publicist Michalon Litvin:

There are already a great many Moscow defectors who often appear among us, they secretly convey our plans to theirs. The Livonians kill such people, although the Muscovites did not occupy any of their lands, but are always bound to them by eternal peace and a treaty of [good] neighborliness. Moreover, in addition to the murdered person’s property, the murderer receives a certain amount of money from the government.

Mikhalon Litvin. About the morals of the Tatars, Lithuanians and Muscovites

Growth of the Russian state under Ivan IV

In January 1558, Ivan IV began the Livonian War to take possession of the coast. Baltic Sea. Initially, military operations developed successfully. Despite the raid on the southern Russian lands by a hundred-thousand-strong Crimean horde in the winter of 1558, the Russian army carried out active offensive operations in the Baltic states, took Narva, Dorpat, Neuschloss, Neuhaus, and defeated the order's troops at Tiersen near Riga. In the spring and summer of 1558, the Russians captured the entire eastern part of Estonia, and by the spring of 1559, the army of the Livonian Order was completely defeated, and the Order itself virtually ceased to exist. At the direction of Alexei Adashev, Russian governors accepted the truce proposal coming from Denmark, which lasted from March to November 1559 and began separate negotiations with Livonian urban circles on the pacification of Livonia in exchange for some concessions in trade from German cities. At this time, the lands of the Order came under the protection of Poland, Lithuania, Sweden and Denmark.

On August 31, 1559, the Master of the Livonian Order Gotthard Ketteler and the King of Poland and Lithuania Sigismund II Augustus concluded an agreement in Vilna on the entry of Livonia under the protectorate of Poland, which was supplemented on September 15 by an agreement on military assistance Livonia, Poland and Lithuania. This diplomatic action served as an important milestone in the course and development of the Livonian War: the war between Russia and Livonia turned into a struggle between the states of Eastern Europe for the Livonian inheritance.

In 1560, at the Congress of Imperial Deputies of Germany, Albert of Mecklenburg reported: “ The Moscow tyrant begins to build a fleet on the Baltic Sea: in Narva he turns merchant ships belonging to the city of Lübeck into warships and transfers control of them to Spanish, English and German commanders" The congress decided to address Moscow with a solemn embassy, ​​to which to attract Spain, Denmark and England, to offer eternal peace to the eastern power and stop its conquests.

About the reaction European countries Professor of St. Petersburg University, historian S. F. Platonov writes:

Grozny's performance in the struggle for the Baltic Sea... amazed central Europe. In Germany, the “Muscovites” seemed to be a terrible enemy; the danger of their invasion was outlined not only in the official communications of the authorities, but also in the extensive flying literature of leaflets and brochures. Measures were taken to prevent Muscovites from accessing the sea and Europeans from entering Moscow and, by separating Moscow from the centers of European culture, to prevent it political strengthening. In this agitation against Moscow and Grozny, many false things were invented about Moscow morals and the despotism of Grozny...

Platonov S. F. Lectures on Russian history...

In January 1560, Grozny ordered the troops to go on the offensive again. The army under the command of princes Shuisky, Serebryany and Mstislavsky took the fortress of Marienburg (Aluksne). On August 30, the Russian army under the command of Kurbsky took Fellin. An eyewitness wrote: “ An oppressed Estonian would rather submit to a Russian than to a German" Throughout Estonia, peasants rebelled against the German barons. The possibility of a quick end to the war arose. However, the king's commanders did not go to capture Revel and failed in the siege of Weissenstein. Alexei Adashev (voivode of a large regiment) was appointed to Fellin, but he, being a thin-born man, was mired in parochial disputes with the voivodes above him, fell into disgrace, was soon taken into custody in Dorpat and died there of fever (there were rumors that he poisoned himself, Ivan the Terrible even sent one of his nearby nobles to Dorpat to investigate the circumstances of Adashev’s death). In connection with this, Sylvester left the court and took monastic vows at the monastery, and with that their smaller confidants also fell - the end came to the Izboan Rada.

During the siege of Tarvast in 1561, Radziwill convinced the governors Kropotkin, Putyatin and Trusov to surrender the city. When they returned from captivity, they spent about a year in prison, and Grozny forgave them.

In 1562, due to the lack of infantry, Prince Kurbsky was defeated by Lithuanian troops near Nevel. On August 7, a peace treaty was signed between Russia and Denmark, according to which the tsar agreed with the annexation of the island of Ezel by the Danes.

On February 15, 1563, the Polish-Lithuanian garrison of Polotsk surrendered. Here, on the orders of Ivan the Terrible, Thomas, a preacher of reformation ideas and an associate of Theodosius Kosy, was drowned in an ice hole. Skrynnikov believes that the massacre of Polotsk Jews was supported by the abbot of the Joseph-Volokolamsk monastery, Leonid, who accompanied the tsar. Also, by order of the tsar, the Tatars, who took part in the hostilities, killed the Bernardine monks who were in Polotsk. The religious element in the conquest of Polotsk by Ivan the Terrible is also noted by Khoroshkevich.

« The prophecy of the Russian saint, the wonderworker Peter Metropolitan, about the city of Moscow, that his hands would rise up against the shoulders of his enemies, was fulfilled: God poured out unspeakable mercy on us unworthy, our patrimony, the city of Polotsk, was given to us into our hands"- wrote the tsar, pleased that “all the wheels, levers and drives of the power mechanism he had debugged acted accurately and clearly and justified the intentions of the organizers.”

In response to the proposal of the German Emperor Ferdinand to conclude an alliance and join forces in the fight against the Turks, the Tsar declared that he was fighting in Livonia practically for his own interests, against the Lutherans. The Tsar knew what place the idea of ​​the Catholic Counter-Reformation occupied in Habsburg policy. By speaking out against “Luther’s teaching,” Ivan the Terrible touched a very sensitive chord in Habsburg politics.

As soon as Lithuanian diplomats left Rus', hostilities resumed. On January 28, 1564, the Polotsk army of P.I. Shuisky, moving towards Minsk and Novogrudok, was unexpectedly ambushed and was completely defeated by the troops of N. Radziwill. Grozny immediately accused the governors M. Repnin and Yu. Kashin (heroes of the capture of Polots) of treason and ordered them to be killed. In this regard, Kurbsky reproached the tsar for shedding the victorious, holy blood of the governor “in the churches of God.” A few months later, in response to Kurbsky’s accusations, Grozny directly wrote about the crime committed by the boyars.

In 1565, Augustus of Saxony stated: “ The Russians are quickly building a fleet, recruiting skippers from everywhere; when the Muscovites improve in maritime affairs, it will no longer be possible to cope with them...».

The division of the reign of Ivan the Terrible into two different eras included at the same time an assessment of the personality and activities of Ivan the Terrible: it served as the main basis for belittling him historical role, to include him among the greatest tyrants. Unfortunately, when analyzing this issue, most historians focused their attention on changes in the internal life of the Moscow state and paid little attention to the international situation in which (it) found itself during... the reign of Ivan IV. Severe critics seemed to have forgotten that the entire second half of the reign of Ivan the Terrible took place under the sign of continuous war, and, moreover, the most difficult war that the Great Russian state had ever waged.

Whipper R. Yu. The indicated essay.

The war was lost.

Cultural activities

Ivan IV went down in history not only as a conqueror. He was one of the most educated people of his time, had a phenomenal memory and theological erudition. He is the author of numerous letters (including to Kurbsky, Elizabeth I, Stefan Batory, Johan III, Vasily Gryazny, Jan Chodkiewicz, Jan Rokite, Prince Polubensky, to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery), the stichera for the Presentation of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, the canon to the Archangel Michael (under the pseudonym Parfeniy the Ugly).

The Tsar contributed to the organization of book printing in Moscow and the construction of St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square. According to contemporaries, Ivan IV was “ a man of wonderful reasoning, in the science of book teaching he is content and very talkative" He loved to travel to monasteries and was interested in describing the lives of the great kings of the past. Ivan inherited from his grandmother the most valuable library of the Morean despots, which included ancient Greek manuscripts; what he did with her is unknown: according to some versions, she died in one of the Moscow fires, according to others, she was hidden by the tsar. Ivan IV was a good speaker.

Oprichnina

A fall Elected Rada is assessed by historians differently. According to V.B. Kobrin, this was a manifestation of the conflict between two programs for the centralization of Russia: through slow structural reforms or rapidly, by force. Historians believe that the choice of the second 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, 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 on the limitation of their patrimonial rights, which equated them even more than before with the local nobility. As a result, in the early 1560s. Among the nobility there is a desire to flee from Tsar Ivan abroad. Thus, I. D. Belsky tried to escape abroad twice and was twice forgiven; Prince V. M. Glinsky and Prince I. V. Sheremetev were caught 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 later the governor of Starodub, Prince 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.

In 1563, the clerk of Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky, Savluk Ivanov, who was imprisoned by the prince for something, filed a denunciation of the latter’s “great treasonous deeds,” which immediately found a lively response from Ivan. The clerk claimed, in particular, that Staritsky warned the Polotsk governors about the tsar’s intention to besiege the fortress. The tsar forgave his brother, but deprived him of part of his inheritance, and on August 5, 1563, Princess Efrosinya Staritskaya ordered to be tonsured a nun at the Resurrection Monastery on the river. Sheksne. At the same time, the latter was allowed to keep with her the servants, who received several thousand quarters of land in the vicinity of the monastery, and nearby noblewoman-advisers, and were also allowed to travel to Bogomolye to neighboring monasteries and embroidery. Veselovsky and Khoroshkevich put forward a version of the princess’s voluntary tonsure as a nun.

In 1564, the Russian army was defeated on the river. Ole. There is a version that this was the impetus for the start of the executions of those whom Grozny considered to be the culprits of the defeat: cousins ​​were executed - the princes Obolensky, Mikhailo Petrovich Repnin and Yuri Ivanovich Kashin. It is believed that Kashin was killed for refusing to dance at a feast in a buffoon mask, and Dmitry Fedorovich Obolensky-Ovchinina - for reproaching Fedor Basmanov for his homosexual relationship with the tsar; the famous governor Nikita Vasilyevich Sheremetyev was executed for a quarrel with Basmanov.

At the beginning of December 1564, according to Shokarev’s research, an armed rebellion was attempted against the king, in which Western forces took part: “ Many noble nobles gathered a considerable party in Lithuania and Poland and wanted to go against their king with arms».

In 1565 Grozny announced the introduction of the Oprichnina in the country. The country was divided into two parts: “To the Sovereign's Grace Oprichnin” and the zemstvo. The Oprichnina included mainly the northeastern Russian lands, where there were few patrimonial boyars. The center of Oprichnina became the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, the new residence of Ivan the Terrible, from where on January 3, 1565, messenger Konstantin Polivanov delivered a letter to the clergy, the Boyar Duma and the people about the Tsar’s abdication of the throne. Although Veselovsky believes that Grozny did not declare his renunciation of power, the prospect of the departure of the sovereign and the onset of a “sovereign time”, when nobles could again force city merchants and artisans to do everything for them for nothing, could not help but excite Moscow townspeople.

The decree on the introduction of the Oprichnina was approved by the highest bodies of spiritual and secular power - the Consecrated Cathedral and the Boyar Duma. There is also an opinion that this decree was confirmed by the decision of the Zemsky Sobor. However, according to other sources, members of the 1566 Sobor sharply protested against the oprichnina, filing a petition for the abolition of the oprichnina for 300 signatures; all the petitioners were immediately put in prison, but quickly released (as R. G. Skrynnikov believes, thanks to the intervention of Metropolitan Philip; 50 were subjected to trade execution, several had their tongues cut, three were beheaded.

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. Each oprichnik swore an oath of allegiance to the tsar and pledged not to communicate with the zemstvo. 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, “yard 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 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. The remaining 1,200 guardsmen are divided into four orders, namely: Bed, in charge of maintaining the palace premises and household items of the royal family; Armored, that is, weapons; Konyushenny, which was in charge of the huge horse farm of the palace and the royal guard, and Sytny, the food store.

Being the oprichnina abbot, the tsar performed all monastic duties. 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 read aloud during the common meal. Holy Bible. Overall, the Divine Service took about 9 hours a day.

Moreover, 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».

With the help of the guardsmen, who were exempt from judicial responsibility, John IV forcibly confiscated the boyar and princely estates, transferring them to the noble guardsmen. The boyars and princes themselves were given estates in other regions of the country, for example, in the Volga region.

For the ordination of Metropolitan Philip, which took place on July 25, 1566, he prepared and signed a letter, according to which Philip promised “not to interfere in the oprichnina and royal life and, upon appointment, because of the oprichnina ... not to leave the metropolis.”

The introduction of the oprichnina was marked by mass repressions: executions, confiscations, disgraces. In 1566, some of the disgraced were returned, but after the Council of 1566 and demands for the abolition of the oprichnina, the terror resumed. Opposite the Kremlin on Neglinnaya (on the site of the current Russian State Library) a stone Oprichnina courtyard was built, where the Tsar moved from the Kremlin.

At the beginning of September 1567, Ivan the Terrible summoned the English envoy Jenkinson and through him conveyed to Queen Elizabeth I a request for asylum in England. This was due to the news of a conspiracy in the zemshchina, which aimed to overthrow him from the throne in favor of Vladimir Andreevich. The basis was the denunciation of Vladimir Andreevich himself; R. G. Skrynnikov recognizes that the question of whether the “Zemshchina”, outraged by the oprichnina, really formed a conspiracy, or whether it all came down to just careless opposition-type conversations, is fundamentally insoluble. A number of executions followed in this case. The equestrian boyar Ivan Fedorov-Chelyadnin, extremely popular among the people for his incorruptibility and judicial integrity, would also be attracted to him (not long before he proved his loyalty to the tsar by handing over a Polish agent sent to him with letters from the king). Chelyadnin-Fedorov was exiled to Kolomna. Metropolitan Philip's public speech against the tsar is connected with these events: on March 22, 1568, in the Assumption Cathedral, he refused to bless the tsar and demanded that the oprichnina be abolished. The first result was that the guardsmen beat the Metropolitan's servants to death with iron sticks; then a trial was initiated against the metropolitan in the church court. Philip was defrocked and exiled to the Tver Otroch Monastery. In the summer of the same year, Chelyadnin-Fedorov was accused of allegedly planning to overthrow the tsar with the help of his servants. Fedorov and 30 people recognized as his accomplices were executed. In the Tsar's Synodikon disgraced (a memorial book compiled towards the end of Ivan the Terrible's life) it is written on this occasion: Finished by: Ivan Petrovich Fedorov; Mikhail Kolychev and his three sons were executed in Moscow; by city - Prince Andrei Katyrev, Prince Fyodor Troekurov, Mikhail Lykov and his nephew". Their estates were destroyed, all the servants were killed: “369 people were finished and the total was finished on July 6th (1568)”. According to R. G. Skrynnikov, “The repressions were generally chaotic. They indiscriminately grabbed Chelyadnin’s friends and acquaintances, surviving supporters of Adashev, relatives of exiled nobles, etc. They beat everyone who dared to protest against the oprichnina.” The overwhelming majority of them were executed without even the appearance of a trial, based on denunciations and slander under torture. The Tsar personally stabbed Fedorov with a knife, after which the guardsmen cut him up with their knives. In 1569, the tsar committed suicide with his cousin: he was accused of intending to poison the tsar and executed along with his servants; his mother Euphrosyne Staritskaya was drowned with 12 nuns in the Sheksna River. At the end of the same year, the tsar began a campaign against Novgorod, the reason for which was a denunciation filed by a certain vagabond, the Volynian Peter, who had been punished for something in Novgorod, and who accused the Novgorodians, led by Archbishop Pimen, of intending to place Prince Vladimir Staritsky on the throne and hand over Novgorod and Pskov to the Polish king. V. B. Kobrin believes that “the denunciation was frankly ridiculous and contradictory,” since two incompatible aspirations were attributed to the Novgorodians. Having moved to Novgorod in the fall of 1569, the guardsmen staged massacres and robberies in Tver, Klin, Torzhok and other oncoming cities. In the Tver Otrochiy Monastery in December 1569, Malyuta Skuratov personally strangled Metropolitan Philip, who refused to bless the campaign against Novgorod

According to historian G.P. Fedotov, “It is natural to assume that Malyuta had another secret order or guessed the royal thought well. Otherwise, he probably would not have dared to do what he did, or he could not have gone unpunished.” The main version of the murder of the Metropolitan is his life, XVI century

The army, according to Zimin, numbered 15 thousand people, including 1,500 archers. K. Valishevsky mentions that Ivan himself arrived after the advance detachment with five hundred of his guard.

On January 2, advanced detachments led by V. G. Zyuzin approached Novgorod and cordoned off the city with outposts, sealed the treasury in monasteries, churches and private houses, arrested and put monks, priests and prominent Novgorodians on the right. On January 6, Ivan himself appeared near the city.

On January 8, during a meeting of the oprichnina army with the Novgorod clergy on the Great Bridge over the Volkhov, the tsar accused Archbishop Pimen of treason. The latter was arrested and imprisoned. (Subsequently, the oprichnina squire Afanasy Vyazemsky was accused of trying to warn Pimen about the arrest, was subjected to trade execution and exiled to Gorodetsky Posad on the Volga, where he died.)

Executions followed, continuing until 13 February. Many townspeople, including women and children, were executed using various forms of torture. According to the Russian story about the defeat of Novgorod, which coincides in most details with the German report, Ivan ordered the Novgorodians to be doused with an incendiary mixture and then, burned and still alive, to be thrown into the Volkhov; others were dragged behind sleighs before drowning; “And their wives, male and female babies,” he commanded, “I will take them by the hand and by the nose back, the babies to their mothers and the elm, and from a great height the sovereign commanded to throw them into the water.” The priests and monks, after various abuses, were clubbed to death and thrown there. Contemporaries report that Volkhov was filled with corpses, and a living legend about this was preserved even in the 19th century.

Private houses and churches were robbed, property and food of Novgorodians were destroyed. Detachments of guardsmen, dispersed over 200-300 km, committed robberies and murders throughout the area. The number of deaths is unknown, modern scientists estimate them from 4-5 (R. G. Skrynnikov) to 10-15 (V. B. Kobrin) thousand, with a total population of Novgorod of 30 thousand.

In Pskov, the Tsar personally killed the abbot of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, Cornelius. The Third Pskov Chronicle tells about the murder of the monk, mentions Andrei Kurbsky, as well as “The Tale of the Beginning and Foundation of the Pechersk Monastery” (late 16th century), which reads “ From this corruptible life he was sent by the earthly king to the Heavenly King into an eternal home" In the tsar's "synodical disgraced" Cornelius was marked first on the list of persons executed in Pskov.

A continuation of the oprichnina’s activities was the “search” for the Novgorod treason, which was carried out throughout 1570, and many prominent oprichniki were also involved in the case. 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 investigation of the treason case of 1570 on the Novgorod Bishop Pimen and on the Novgorod clerks and clerks, as they with the (Moscow) boyars ... wanted to give Novgorod and Pskov to the Lithuanian king. ... and Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich ... they wanted to put Prince Volodimer Ondreevich on the state by evil murder... in that case, from torture, many spoke about that treason against the Novgorod Archbishop Pimin and on his advisers and on themselves, and in that case many were executed by death, various executions , and others were sent to prisons... Yes, here is a list of what it is to be executed by death, and what kind of execution, and what it is to release... ».

In total, 300 people were accused. On July 25, 1570, a mass execution took place in Moscow on Poggana Luzha: 184 people were pardoned and released on bail, the rest were executed by various tortures: for example, the famous diplomat printer Viskovaty, accused of maintaining connections with the Polish king (the Poles themselves laughed at this statement), was cut alive into small pieces, treasurer Funikov was killed, alternately doused with boiling water and cold water. At the same time, Archbishop Pimen, supposedly the center of the entire conspiracy, was merely sent into exile. Some of the initiators of the oprichnina also fell under the millstone of terror, in particular Alexey Basmanov, who was considered its initiator, and his son Fyodor, Grozny’s lover in “supernatural fornication” (in the words of the Tsar himself) - Fyodor was forced to cut off his father’s head with his own hands

The exact number of people killed in the Novgorod pogrom is controversial. The figures cited by contemporaries are exaggerated and higher than the number of the population of Novgorod itself (30 thousand). The Tsar’s record in the Synodikon of the Disgraced from the Kirillo-Belozeprsky Monastery has been preserved: “According to the Malyutinsky Nougorodtska parcels (tasks), one thousand four hundred and ninety people were removed from deceased Orthodox Christians, and fifteen people were shot from arquebuses, and you, Lord, weigh their names yourself.”. The recording is believed to be based on Skuratov's documentary report. R. G. Skrynnikov added to this number the named Novgorodians and concluded that the synodikon listed 2170-2180 victims of the Novgorod pogrom, noting that the reports could not be complete and many acted “independently of Skuratov’s orders,” and allowing a general figure 4-5 thousand victims. V. B. Kobrin considers these figures to be greatly underestimated, emphasizes that Malyuta’s detachment was only one of many detachments, and estimates the death toll at 10-15 thousand, with a total population of Novgorod of 30 thousand. 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 the plague epidemic that was raging at that time.. As a result, according to the chronicle, in a common grave opened in September 1570, where the victims who emerged were buried Ivan the Terrible, as well as those who died from hunger and disease, counted 10 thousand corpses. V. B. Kobrin believes that this grave was not necessarily the only burial place of the dead.

In 1571 Rus' was invaded Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey. At the same time, the oprichnina demonstrated its complete lack of combat capability: the oprichnina simply did not show up for the war, so there were only one regiment of them (against five zemstvo regiments). Moscow was burned. As a result, during the new invasion in 1572, the oprichnina troops were already united with the zemstvo troops; in the same year, the tsar completely abolished the oprichnina and banned its very name, although in fact under the name “ sovereign's court“The oprichnina lasted until his death.

End of the reign

In September 1568, the king's ally Eric XIV was overthrown from the throne. Grozny could only vent his anger at this diplomatic failure by arresting the ambassadors sent by the new Swedish king Johan III announced the termination of the 1567 treaty, but this did not help change the anti-Russian nature of Swedish foreign policy. The Great Eastern Program aimed to capture and incorporate into the Kingdom of Sweden not only those lands in the Baltic states that were occupied by Russia, but also Karelia and the Kola Peninsula.

In 1569, through her ambassador Thomas Randolph, Elizabeth I made it clear to the Tsar that she was not going to intervene in the Baltic conflict. In response, the tsar wrote to her that her trade representatives “do not think about our sovereign heads and the honor and profit of the land, but are looking only for their own trade profits,” and canceled all the privileges previously granted to the Moscow Trading Company created by the British.

On September 6, 1569, Maria Temryukovna died. IN Council verdict In 1572 it was recorded that she was “poisoned by the enemy’s malice.”

In May 1570, the king signed a truce with King Sigismund for a period of three years, despite great amount mutual claims. The proclamation of the Livonian kingdom by the king delighted both the Livonian nobility, who received freedom of religion and a number of other privileges, and the Livonian merchants, who received the right to free duty-free trade in Russia, and in return allowed foreign merchants, artists and technicians to enter Moscow. On December 13, the Danish king Frederick entered into an alliance with the Swedes, as a result of which the Russian-Danish alliance did not take place.

As a result of the April Crimean Tatar raid of 1571, agreed with the Polish king, the southern Russian lands were devastated, tens of thousands of people died, more than 150 thousand Russians were taken into slavery; with the exception of the stone Kremlin, all of Moscow was burned. John, a week before the khan crossed the Oka, left the army and went deep into the country to collect the reluctant guardsmen; upon news of the invasion, he fled from Serpukhov to Bronnitsy, from there to the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, and from the settlement to Rostov, as his predecessors Dmitry Donskoy and Vasily I Dmitrievich did in similar cases. The winner sent him an arrogant letter:

I burn and waste everything because of Kazan and Astrakhan, and I apply the wealth of the whole world to dust, hoping for the majesty of God. I came against you, I burned your city, I wanted your crown and head; but you didn’t come and didn’t stand against us, and you still boast that I’m the sovereign of Moscow! If you had shame and dignity, you would come and stand against us.

Ivan answered the humble petitioner:

If you are angry for the refusal to Kazan and Astrakhan, then we want to give up Astrakhan to you

He went out to the Tatar ambassadors in a homespun, telling them: “Do you see me, what am I wearing? This is how the king (khan) made me! Still, he captured my kingdom and burned the treasury, and I have nothing to do with the king.” At the request of Devlet-Girey, he handed over Murza for reprisal, who crossed over to Russia and converted to Orthodoxy. However, Devlet-Girey was not satisfied with Astrakhan, demanding Kazan and 2000 rubles, and the next summer the invasion was repeated. A 120,000-strong Crimean-Turkish horde moved to decisively defeat the Russian state. However, in the Battle of Molodi, the enemy was destroyed by a 60,000-strong Russian army under the leadership of governor M. Vorotynsky - 5-10 thousand returned to Crimea (see Russian-Crimean War of 1571-1572). The death of the selected Turkish army near Astrakhan in 1569 and the defeat of the Crimean horde near Moscow in 1572 put a limit to Turkish-Tatar expansion in Eastern Europe.

The winner at Molodi, Vorotynsky, the very next year, was accused by a slave of intending to bewitch the Tsar and died from torture, and during the torture the Tsar himself raked up the coals with his staff.

The main condition for consent to his election as the Polish king was the concession of Poland to Livonia in favor of Russia, and as compensation he offered to return “Polotsk and its suburbs” to the Poles. But on November 20, 1572, Maximilian II concluded an agreement with Grozny, according to which all ethnic Polish lands (Greater Poland, Mazovia, Kuyavia, Silesia) went to the empire, and Moscow received Livonia and the Principality of Lithuania with all its possessions - that is, Belarus, Podlasie, Ukraine , so the noble nobility hastened to elect a king and elected Henry of Valois.

On January 1, 1573, Russian troops under the command of Grozny took Paida, and Skuratov died in this battle.

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In the 2nd half of the 15th century. The decisive stage of the struggle for the final liberation of Rus' from Horde dependence had begun. In 1472, Ivan III refused to pay tribute to the Horde. Khan Akhmat decided to “teach a lesson” to Rus' and restore the complete dominance of the Horde over the Russian lands. In the summer of the same year, he led an army to Moscow, choosing the path through Aleksin - from the “Lithuanian border”. The inhabitants of Aleksin bravely met the enemy. On July 30, the Horde built a sign (stack) of logs near the walls of the city and lit it. The townspeople showed true heroism, defended Aleksin, “not giving in to the hands of a foreigner, but burning everything with their wives and children in the city.” On July 31, the city fell, and the day before the Russian messenger, having galloped 150 km on replacement horses, was in Moscow. Russian detachments from Vereya and Serpukhov urgently advanced to the fords of the Oka, where the Horde were already approaching. The main forces of the enemy observed in amazement on the left bank “many regiments of the Grand Duke... the armor on them was pure, like shining silver and the weapons were excellent.” This stunned Akhmat’s warriors and forced the latter to abandon further attempts to “ferment” Oka and retreat.

In 1480, Khan Akhmat, having secured the support of the Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland Casimir IV, moved an army of 100-150 thousand people to Rus'. Ivan III knew about these negotiations of the khan and prudently divided the Russian army into parts. He concentrated the greatest number at the Lithuanian borders, forestalling the opportunity for the Horde and Lithuanians to unite and covering Moscow from the Lithuanian side. Casimir IV was unable to come to the aid of Akhmat, since Moscow's ally, Khan of the Crimean Horde Mengli-Girey, invaded Podolia.

The Russian command promptly detected the movement of Akhmat's troops. The Russian forces (about 100 thousand people) concentrated on the left bank of the Ugra, built abatis nearby, and placed heavy squeaks and mattresses behind the fortifications. Squeakers with light hand grips and archers were moved to the forefront. At a distance from the coast, the Russian cavalry was located, which, maneuvering along the bank of the Ugra, could provide assistance in threatened areas.

On October 8, 1480, Akhmat’s troops tried to break through the Russian defensive line, but were met by friendly fire from the field squad’s arquebuses and handguns. A contemporary noted that the squealing fire inflicted significant losses on the enemy, and that the damp strings of the Tatar bows reduced their range and did not cause harm to the Russians. For four days the Russian troops fought off the onslaught of the Horde. The use of firearms in the field and in battle determined the superiority of the Russian army. Ultimately, the Horde did not dare to take more decisive actions and began to retreat. In the period from November 8 to 11, the enemy left the banks of the Ugra. Russian patrols pursued his retreating army to the borders of the Moscow principality. The “Standing on the Ugra” ended the 240-year Horde yoke.

The acquisition of independence by Russia was of great political importance. In 1485, the Tver Principality finally became part of the Russian state. Ivan III with full right began to call himself “Sovereign of All Rus'” (on the grand ducal seals - Russia). The Lithuanian rulers were the first to officially recognize this. In 1494, the Verkhovsky principalities (Vorotynskoye, Odoevskoye, Belevskoye, etc.) moved away from Lithuania “to Rus',” and Ryazan and Pskov were practically ruled by Moscow. At the turn of the XV-XVI centuries. The international position of the Russian state has changed. The borders of Rus' were in direct contact with Lithuania, Poland and Sweden. The Moscow state entered the arena of world politics.

Much attention Ivan III devoted to ensuring the security of the northwestern and western borders of the Moscow state. The fortresses of Yam and Koporye were built. The task of returning Russian lands captured by the Livonian Order and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was being solved. The first blow was dealt to Livonia, which was forced to sign a truce in 1482. In 1492, opposite the city of Narva, on the right bank of the river, a new Russian fortress was founded - Ivangorod (in honor of Ivan III), which acquired the status of a new commercial port on the shores of the Baltic.

Success in the war with Livonia contributed to the beginning of an armed struggle with Lithuania for the return of the Russian Chernigov and Smolensk lands. Military actions in 1500-1503. turned out well for Moscow. Russian regiments between the Oka and Dnieper rivers occupied the cities of Mtsensk, Mosalsk, Bryansk, Putivl and a number of others, and after capturing Dorogobuzh they began to threaten Smolensk. This forced the Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander to move a strong army (40 thousand people) under the command of the Grand Hetman Prince Konstantin Ostrogsky against the Moscow regiments. Ivan III sent an army to Dorogobuzh under the command of Prince Daniil Shchenya. The battle took place on July 14, 1500 on the Vedrosha River. The united Russian army (about 40 thousand people) encamped along the Moscow road on the Mitkovo field, 5 km west of Dorogo-buzh, on the eastern bank of the Vedrosha, where the Big Regiment took up positions. His right flank covered the Dnieper, and his left flank abutted against a dense forest. The guard regiment was sent into an ambush and took refuge in the forest. Shchenya's plan is to deliberately retreat the Advanced Regiment that crossed the river, lure the lot army to the Mitkovo Field, force a battle on it, and then encircle and destroy the enemy with a blow from the Siege Regiment.

the 14 th of July Lithuanian army met on the Moscow road with the Advanced Regiment of Russian troops and attacked it on the move. The Russian Fridays, having started a battle, retreated across the river. The enemy got carried away with the pursuit and, having crossed the river, collided with the main forces of the Puss. A large regiment started a battle and withstood almost six hours of battle. When the Lithuanians exhausted all reserves, at the command of Shchenya, the Ambush Regiment entered the battle. His blow to the enemy's flank and rear was devastating. At the same time, Russian soldiers destroyed the bridge across the river. The Lithuanian army, having lost 8 thousand people killed, surrendered. For the first time in the history of Russian-Lithuanian military clashes, Lithuania completely lost a large army. Almost all the Lithuanian governors, led by Ostrogsky himself, were captured. The victory at Vedrosh was of great military and political significance. The peace concluded in 1503 assigned to Moscow the cities of Chernigov, Starodub, Novgorod-Seversky, Putivl, Rylsk and 14 others.

Grand Duke Vasily III(reigned 1505-1533) continued his father’s policies during the hostilities of 1507-1508, 1512-1522. his troops managed to inflict a number of defeats on the Lithuanians. Basil III set the goal of returning Smolensk, captured in 1404 by Lithuania. In July 1514, he approached Smolensk with an army of 80 thousand warriors, pulled 300 guns of various calibers under the walls of the fortress. On July 29, a powerful artillery bombardment began. He made a terrifying impression on the defenders of the fortress. On the third day the cannonade stopped. The Lithuanian governor Yuri Sologub decided to capitulate. So skillfully organized artillery fire “opened” the gates of Smolensk. Almost all Russian lands were reunited with the Moscow state. The border between Rus' and Lithuania was established. The Russian state returned to the banks of the Dnieper, and its border was 50-80 km from Kyiv.