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Mid-sixteenth century
Russia - formerly known as Muscovy.
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Its leader, Ivan IV,
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rules using terror and violence.
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Ivan was, by far,
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the most bloodthirsty ruler
that country has had to endure.
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Also known
as Ivan the Terrible,
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he tears his enemies limb from limb
and feeds them to the dogs.
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Not even
those closest to the Tsar
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can escape his killer instincts.
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The tale is he killed his own son.
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This is the absolute example
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of the rage taking over.
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But questions arise:
was this tyrant truly evil
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or did madness
motivate his murderous ways?
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Even people at the time
were saying,
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'We don't really think
you need to be this paranoid.'
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Did Ivan the Terrible
die naturally, or was he poisoned?
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Using
groundbreaking AI imagery
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to show his world as never before,
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we examine the myths
that launched the mystery?
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Can new evidence help reevaluate
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the Tsar's brutal reputation?
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As a child he was abused
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by the people
charged with taking care of him.
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Rulers come and go,
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but what legacy
will the sands of time leave behind?
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Ivan the Terrible: is he truly...
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a Killer King?
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For five centuries,
Ivan IV has cast a long shadow
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over the story of Russia.
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He's always been a figure
of fascination ever since his time.
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Back in his bloody day,
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no-one was safe
from his arbitrary assassinations.
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A list
Ivan drew up himself
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of executions he ordered
shows just how common.
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He put together a list that has
some 3,000 names on it.
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He trampled on,
and completely disregarded,
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a lot of the previous rule of law.
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He ordered
the executions of hundreds,
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possibly thousands of people
on an industrial scale.
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One town, Novgorod,
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would suffer his rage
like no other.
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It spread to the whole
of the town: nobody was safe.
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10,000 would die.
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It takes hundreds of years after he
had ordered the death of so many
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that he acquires the title
Ivan the Terrible.
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But is the judgement of history
truly fair, accurate and balanced?
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Perhaps, in a literal sense,
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Ivan IV was
not so terrible after all?
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Dr Monica White is a Russian
and Slavic Studies academic
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at Nottingham University in England.
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The word that
gets translated as 'terrible'
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is a not very accurate translation
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of a Russian word,
which is 'Grozny'.
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A better way to translate it
into modern English
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would be something like 'the dread'.
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And the thing about that
is it was not considered...
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negative at the time,
so there are...
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some writings which address Ivan,
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urging him to rule
in a 'Grozny' way:
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in a sort of awe-inspiring way.
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And this was the idea
that the ruler should be strong
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and...
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not put up with any messing around.
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Ivan IV:
a strong leader...
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or a torturing, merciless
Killer King?
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The man himself can tell us with
words written by his own fair hand.
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What we know
is what Ivan recounted
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in letters that he wrote later
to a political enemy called Kurbsky.
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In 1564, General Kurbsky
had defected from Russia,
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criticising Ivan's murderous regime.
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The Tsar responds
with poison pen letters.
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Ivan was trying to justify
a lot of his actions
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and talk about how put upon he was.
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What truth
can be established
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about Ivan the Terrible?
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What actually shaped him?
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As the shifting sands of history
are washed away,
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what is the true picture of a man
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whose creation
of an army to serve him,
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and his ambitions
to expand ever westward,
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might be seen
as laying down a marker
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for future Russian leaders?
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It seems the seeds
of Ivan's brutal reign...
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are sown in an abusive childhood.
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Everything was
unbefitting my tender years.
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They began to feed us
as though we were foreigners
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or the most wretched menials.
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What sufferings
did I endure through...
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lack of clothing or hunger?
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As a young boy,
Prince Ivan and his brother Georgi
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had been imprisoned
in the palace tower.
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The modern definitions
of child abuse,
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I'm sure would apply to him.
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Emotional abuse,
possibly physical abuse,
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I think is almost certain
to have happened.
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Ivan's only possible response
to this
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would have been
to completely desensitise himself
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to any traces of human feeling,
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any traces of sentiment at all.
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And we see this emerging...
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in the acts
that he then reputedly carries out.
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There are tales of Ivan
throwing cats,
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throwing dogs out of tower windows
to see what happens.
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This is somebody
who has been completely...
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desensitised
to any normal human emotion,
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even at a very young age.
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The abuse is
not meted out by Ivan's parents...
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but by a shady noble elite
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entrusted to watch over him:
the Boyars.
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The Boyars were
the highest rank of the nobility.
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The Boyars were
all from very ancient families
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who could trace their roots
back centuries.
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Ivan's father,
Vasili III, had died in 1533.
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The Boyars were brought in
to advise the young Prince
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as he inherited the throne.
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They had to set up
a regency council.
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His mother was still alive,
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and she seems to have been fairly
powerful within the regency council.
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But she was not the only factor.
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So the Boyars were
continually jockeying for control
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over this very young Prince.
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Ivan was a bit of a prisoner
of this power struggle
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Dr Anton Hauk is an expert
on medieval Slavic History.
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Five years later,
as the Boyars vie for control,
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young Ivan was dealt another blow.
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Thus by God's will did it
come to pass that our mother,
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the pious Tsaritsa Elena,
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went from the earthly kingdom
to the heavenly.
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And we and our brother Georgiy
remained as orphans,
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receiving no human care
from any quarter.
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He was in a very vulnerable state,
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and especially after their mother
died, he was only eight years old.
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He felt responsible
for his disabled younger brother.
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And he had these
very powerful men...
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making his life miserable.
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Whilst the Prince
is too young to rule,
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the Boyars become de facto leaders.
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He accuses them
of mismanaging his affairs.
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What of the treasures
inherited by me from my father?
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With their cunning scheme,
they seized it all.
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They took it all for themselves
for their own profit.
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To add to his rage,
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young Ivan learns
that his mother was poisoned.
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Rumours reveal the perpetrator
is one of the Boyars:
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Prince Andrey Shuysky.
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This death happened
under suspicious circumstances.
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At the time, Muscovy was
part of a culture of high intrigue,
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high stakes and a lot of violence.
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It was the kind of environment
where people...
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would have poisoned each other.
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So what we've got with Ivan
is somebody who...
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is suffering these incredible losses
as a very young child.
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The idea that it was
done deliberately
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will have engendered within him
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an absolute hatred of humanity.
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These acts seem to have been done...
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by the very people
that he was now dependent upon
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as his caregivers,
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will have had
an enormous psychological effect
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on this very small boy,
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making him feel...
unsafe, threatened.
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Making him, I think,
not to depend upon anyone.
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As Ivan hits his teens,
he wreaks his revenge
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on his tormentor-in-chief,
Prince Andrey Shuysky.
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The Shuysky family
had been controlling affairs
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for all of Ivan's childhood,
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and Ivan was now a little bit older.
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He was asserting more control,
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and he seems to have been
very fed up with this family
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ordering him around
and not treating him very well.
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We know that Andrey
was thrown to the dogs.
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A more brutal, painful,
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excruciating murder.
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I think this ordering
of the execution at the age of 13
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was absolutely a definitive act.
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It happened
at the psychological stage
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at which people are
beginning to form their identities.
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And I think this act represents
an absolute choice
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on the part of Ivan
to not trust anyone
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to fight against his destiny,
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rather than to passively accept it
in a victim-type role.
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The young teen
has had his first taste of blood.
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Now he's hungry for more.
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Then we have
another tale of Buturlin,
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somebody who, in the court,
who said an impolite word,
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Ivan ordered his tongue
to be cut out.
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We know that we're talking about
times that were barbaric.
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But nonetheless,
they are incredibly sadistic acts.
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The first signs
of mental illness...
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or a simple but brutal
assertion of power?
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They are about Ivan
trying to obliterate...
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...the vulnerable, sensitive
little boy who lost his parents,
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who felt so exposed and powerless.
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They are him trying to show,
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to himself as much as to the world,
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that that little boy
no longer exists:
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that he is now Ivan the Terrible.
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The treachery
of the Boyar nobility
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has left mental scars
on the teenage Prince.
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We hear of episodes of Ivan
banging his head against the wall,
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foaming at the mouth,
being silent and still for hours.
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There is no doubt
that his thinking was psychotic
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in the sense of being divorced
from reality in some way.
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Now, this is all consistent
with this idea
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of the emotions producing...
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a very abnormal human state.
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With his coming of age
at 16, Ivan can get his revenge
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when he's finally crowned Tsar
and Grand Prince of all Moscow.
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The brakes are off on his power.
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He was the first ruler of Moscow
to be crowned Emperor, or Tsar.
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He very much felt like there was
nothing he could do that was wrong.
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One thing that tends
to get overlooked...
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is Ivan's belief
in his divine right:
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that he was appointed by God,
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and that nobody could tell him
what to do.
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Maybe that feeling was strengthened
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because of his years
of being so powerless
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He took his role
as God's anointed very seriously.
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In his own writings, he refers
to his subjects as his slaves,
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and anything
he might do to them is fine,
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because he is appointed by God.
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It does go some way
toward explaining how he acted.
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The young Tsar's first
mission is to see off his old enemy.
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He was able to shake off
the Boyars
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and bring in inner circle.
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And these were new people whom
Ivan brought in to start his reign.
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00:15:01,240 --> 00:15:04,000
And he came in with a lot
of ambition and a lot of energy
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00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:06,760
despite his traumatised childhood.
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He set about very energetically
putting things in place.
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On the throne,
Ivan could be a very successful,
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00:15:15,040 --> 00:15:18,840
very productive,
constructive leader.
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A new law code,
reform in the Orthodox Church
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00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:27,560
to raise the level of education
and morality of the clergy.
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The reforms were
intended to benefit...
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large swathes of the country,
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and mostly, people seem
to have gone along with it
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and supported all of what
he was trying to do.
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00:15:42,560 --> 00:15:44,520
But just a year
into Ivan's reign
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00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:46,680
comes his first real test:
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00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:51,400
a huge fire sweeps Moscow,
killing 4,000 of his subjects.
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The finger points at the young
Tsar's family using witchcraft,
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and there's a mass uprising
on the streets of the capital.
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00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:23,560
He was showing signs
of being vengeful
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and possibly paranoid.
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00:16:26,120 --> 00:16:28,000
But in the early years,
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he was surrounded
by a pretty positive...
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and supportive group of people, who
might have made up a bit for that.
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The promise of marriage
250
00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:41,360
also seems to temper
Ivan's vengeance.
251
00:16:41,520 --> 00:16:44,680
He selects his bride-to-be,
Anastasia Romanova,
252
00:16:44,840 --> 00:16:46,920
from 1,500 hopefuls.
253
00:16:57,040 --> 00:17:01,280
It seems that the marriage
was a happy one,
254
00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:06,240
and he personally chose her rather
than it being an arranged marriage.
255
00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:10,800
A lot of historians draw on court
chronicles that were being kept.
256
00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:25,400
But in
his first decade of rule,
257
00:17:25,560 --> 00:17:28,160
Ivan rides high
on a wave of popularity,
258
00:17:28,320 --> 00:17:31,720
one which also sees him create
Russia's first standing army -
259
00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:35,840
the Streltsy - which provided Ivan
with a bodyguard...
260
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:37,760
and more.
261
00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:39,800
Ivan had some
early military successes,
262
00:17:39,960 --> 00:17:44,120
conquering Kazan and Astrakhan
to the southeast of Muscovy.
263
00:17:44,280 --> 00:17:47,960
This was a huge success.
It was really celebrated in Moscow.
264
00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:52,120
Anastasia produces
two potential heirs to the throne:
265
00:17:52,280 --> 00:17:54,640
Ivan junior, and later Feodor.
266
00:17:54,800 --> 00:17:57,800
During his marriage to Anastasia,
267
00:17:57,960 --> 00:18:00,440
there was a period of relative calm.
268
00:18:02,160 --> 00:18:05,160
And then she is suddenly murdered...
269
00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:08,560
...in suspicious circumstances.
270
00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:12,800
Rumours swirl around
the palace of yet another poisoning.
271
00:18:12,960 --> 00:18:15,240
To have her taken away from him,
272
00:18:15,400 --> 00:18:17,560
in what appears to be...
273
00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:20,560
very similar circumstances
as his mother,
274
00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:25,040
would have triggered his paranoia,
his hatred once again,
275
00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:27,240
but this time, to a new level.
276
00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:31,200
It will have unleashed
a new level of terror
277
00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:36,320
After remarrying
a year later,
278
00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:41,400
what will happen next gives rise to
one of Ivan's most infamous legends.
279
00:18:41,560 --> 00:18:46,400
By now, those he had loved had died
more than they had survived.
280
00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:50,560
Is he forever deeply damaged
as events unfold?
281
00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:55,880
The cathedral on Red Square -
called St Basil's, popularly -
282
00:18:56,040 --> 00:18:58,280
it was built to commemorate
the victory in Kazan.
283
00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:02,600
Ivan was so moved by the beauty
of the cathedral
284
00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:06,400
and wanted in to ensure
that it couldn't be replicated.
285
00:19:06,560 --> 00:19:09,000
There is a rumour
or legend that...
286
00:19:09,160 --> 00:19:11,680
Ivan blinded the Architect...
287
00:19:13,560 --> 00:19:17,760
...so that he couldn't create
anything else so amazing.
288
00:19:19,160 --> 00:19:21,000
I think, psychologically,
289
00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:25,320
Ivan would have been
very troubled by the emotion,
290
00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:27,640
by this hint of humanity,
291
00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:30,960
that the beauty of the cathedral
sparked within him.
292
00:19:31,120 --> 00:19:33,800
And he needed
to eradicate it immediately,
293
00:19:33,960 --> 00:19:36,040
because any sense of this
294
00:19:36,200 --> 00:19:38,720
fights against his power,
reduces his power.
295
00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:41,560
It's much more about obliterating
296
00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:44,880
his own vulnerability at all costs.
297
00:19:45,040 --> 00:19:48,360
But this notorious
Ivan the Terrible tale
298
00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:50,760
has been dissected by historians.
299
00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:55,200
To them, his actions are par
for the medieval Russian course.
300
00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:13,680
These kinds of stories seem
to have circulated at that time,
301
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:18,520
but there's no specific evidence
about it in that case.
302
00:20:20,360 --> 00:20:24,880
The tide now starts to
turn against the once-popular Tsar.
303
00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:30,320
In 1564,
Ivan was feeling very paranoid,
304
00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:32,440
feeling like everyone
was against him.
305
00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:37,360
Earlier Ivan began to have ideas
about looking to the West,
306
00:20:37,520 --> 00:20:40,800
and getting, especially,
a foothold into the Baltics.
307
00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:42,400
But that didn't go so well.
308
00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:46,360
Ivan, like many
Russian leaders before and since,
309
00:20:46,520 --> 00:20:48,400
had begun looking westwards,
310
00:20:48,560 --> 00:20:50,680
greedily eyeing the lands of others.
311
00:20:50,840 --> 00:20:52,840
He'd set his sights on Livonia:
312
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:55,280
now present-day Latvia and Estonia.
313
00:20:56,800 --> 00:20:59,480
Livonia was
an old crusader state
314
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:01,920
that Ivan thought
he could just swoop in
315
00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:03,760
and more or less take it over,
316
00:21:03,920 --> 00:21:07,280
and then have a great bit
of Baltic coastline to use for ports
317
00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:11,320
that were ice-free year-round,
which Muscovy didn't have.
318
00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:13,920
Livonia itself
was not a strong state,
319
00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:16,240
but it had strong neighbours,
320
00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:18,200
including Sweden and Poland.
321
00:21:18,360 --> 00:21:20,360
And they were not keen on...
322
00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:22,720
having Muscovy show up next door.
323
00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:24,800
So it...
324
00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:27,320
turned into a real mess.
325
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:41,280
The Livonian War
was going badly.
326
00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:43,680
It got bogged down very quickly,
327
00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:45,640
became a bit of a quagmire.
328
00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:49,640
Things just seemed to be
going from bad to worse.
329
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:51,840
He blamed the Boyars.
330
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:53,720
And he...
331
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:57,480
pulled a move that has caused
a lot of controversy since then.
332
00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:00,440
It is December 1564
333
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:04,160
when the embattled Tsar
makes a high-stakes gamble.
334
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:16,520
Ivan flees 80 miles
north to Alexandrov,
335
00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:19,320
leaving no-one in charge
at the capital.
336
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:22,000
In a typically calculated move,
337
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:25,760
he has created a power vacuum
at the heart of the country.
338
00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:37,280
He declared that he was
leaving the throne:
339
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:39,240
because the Boyars
were so treacherous,
340
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:42,840
he couldn't deal with them any more,
and he had had enough.
341
00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:47,960
But the wily Tsar
has another trick up his sleeve.
342
00:22:48,120 --> 00:22:51,440
Ivan floods Moscow's streets
with his loyal fanbase
343
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:54,760
and pays them to rally the crowds
demanding his return.
344
00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:05,720
The fact that he's sending out
these people
345
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:07,600
to try and engender sympathy,
346
00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:11,480
to try and generate some
positive emotion towards him:
347
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:14,080
psychologically speaking,
this is very interesting,
348
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:16,040
because these are all indications...
349
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:19,520
of a touch
of vulnerability remaining.
350
00:23:20,360 --> 00:23:22,480
This was
a very calculated move.
351
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:26,160
He knew that the court
would be so horrified and shocked
352
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:28,760
that they would
then beg him to come back...
353
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:32,640
which he did...
but on certain conditions.
354
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:37,520
He wanted to implement
a new legal framework,
355
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:40,320
which allowed him
to root out traitors:
356
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:44,320
effectively establish
his own secret police force.
357
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:48,360
This elite force,
the oprichniki,
358
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:51,080
would answer to Ivan and Ivan alone.
359
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:54,480
They would grow to become
his own personal death squad,
360
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,840
used to strike fear into any enemy.
361
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:02,120
Which makes the evil that he was
then able to perpetrate
362
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:05,120
all the more... terrifying.
363
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:18,600
Ivan the Terrible
has a sinister band of enforcers,
364
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:22,120
the oprichniki,
to seek out his enemies.
365
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:44,960
Ivan seems to have been
really fascinated by monastic life.
366
00:24:45,120 --> 00:24:47,920
And a lot of elements
of the oprichniki
367
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:50,640
were weird imitations,
368
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:52,800
including their black costume.
369
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:56,040
They would dine communally
370
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:59,640
and have someone acting kind of
in the role of the abbot.
371
00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:03,280
They must pledge
absolute loyalty to him
372
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,960
and renounce their families,
their relatives,
373
00:25:07,120 --> 00:25:09,440
their lives beyond that entirely.
374
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:15,160
And then the symbols that they
had with them were the broom,
375
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:18,800
to sweep out...
any kind of sedition.
376
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:20,880
And the dog's head.
377
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,720
The canine head
is attached to their horses
378
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,760
as the oprichniki
prepare their missions of terror.
379
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:30,040
I've heard different explanations
for the dog's head,
380
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:31,960
and one is that it shows
381
00:25:32,120 --> 00:25:35,160
that they were the loyal
guard dogs of the sovereign.
382
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:40,320
Another is that it symbolised
the bite of the Oprichnina.
383
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:46,160
Ivan took a lot of the most central
and productive land
384
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:48,560
and called it the Oprichnina.
385
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:52,280
So that became a state within
a state, I guess you could say,
386
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,160
which had its own institutions,
and its own secret police.
387
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:58,280
Certainly a forerunner
of the Tsar's Okhrana,
388
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:02,680
and then Lenin's Cheka, their job
was to root out the enemy within:
389
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,200
traitors, real or imagined.
390
00:26:05,360 --> 00:26:07,840
Their job was to go
and find traitors,
391
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:12,480
and Ivan seems to be
feeding names to them.
392
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,080
Ivan gives his mobsters
a licence to kill,
393
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:19,320
and to assassinate anyone
who stands in his way.
394
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:27,920
We have tales of people
fleeing villages for their lives,
395
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:30,640
and that terror would have
spread like a wildfire.
396
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:34,040
So his main
psychological mechanism...
397
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:36,840
of maintaining his power was terror.
398
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:41,240
Terror is the one emotion...
399
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:44,400
that Ivan knows only too well,
400
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:46,760
because this is the one emotion
401
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:51,360
that I think will have dominated his
emotional landscape as a young boy.
402
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:54,120
Thousands
of innocent subjects
403
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:56,280
are caught up in the slaughter.
404
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:58,560
But it's Ivan's old enemy
the Boyars
405
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,480
who bear the brunt
of his brutal landgrab.
406
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,600
The Boyars were given other lands
407
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:08,440
that were further away
and less desirable.
408
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:13,520
And if a Boyar land was in the
Oprichnina, the Boyar had to move,
409
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,720
and then his land would be
taken over by an oprichnik.
410
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:19,520
The fury, the hatred,
the paranoia:
411
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:24,400
these are phenomenally exhausting
emotions for any human being,
412
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:28,800
however desensitised
they have become.
413
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:31,800
They are absolutely draining.
414
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:36,240
But Ivan's paranoia
is not just imaginary.
415
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,960
In 1567, he uncovers
a Boyar plot
416
00:27:41,120 --> 00:27:43,240
in collusion with
the King of Poland,
417
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:45,840
Sigismund II, to overthrow him.
418
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:13,560
A lot of the executions
were about humiliating the victim.
419
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,320
You know, dismembering,
prolonged torture,
420
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:20,360
and also denying them
a Christian burial,
421
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:24,480
which was, in some ways,
worse for someone at the time.
422
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:28,760
So he was definitely fascinated
with torture and humiliation
423
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:30,800
more than the body count.
424
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,280
Ivan's unrelenting
barbarity soon causes a rift
425
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:37,280
with the head
of the Orthodox Church.
426
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:39,680
The Metropolitan of Moscow,
Philip II,
427
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:43,080
bravely squares up to the Tsar.
428
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:58,720
And so Philip kept speaking out,
429
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:00,840
and the rest of the clergy
430
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:03,480
did not back him up
because they were terrified.
431
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:18,400
For Ivan,
432
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,360
who believed he had been deprived
of anyone he had ever loved,
433
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,240
the idea that God
was now disappointed in him
434
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,320
was too much to bear.
435
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,080
And Ivan finally decided
he had had enough.
436
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,560
It prompted him
to exile the leader of his church,
437
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,120
whom he had known
since he was a boy, and then,
438
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:39,480
once he was safely out of sight,
to have him assassinated.
439
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:46,160
Philip's assumption that he could
rely on his childhood friendship
440
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:49,920
to protect him was the big mistake.
441
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,040
He misunderstood:
he failed to realise that...
442
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:55,840
Ivan was not somebody who...
443
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,280
has any comprehension...
444
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,680
of loyalty or honour at all.
445
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,000
He trusts no-one.
446
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:07,120
He would've been the first to say
that the church also has corruption,
447
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:09,040
and the church
also needs correction:
448
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:10,960
who better to do it than me?
449
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:21,080
With the fear
of more rebellion,
450
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:24,000
within the year,
Ivan plans another violent purge.
451
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:28,480
But this requires bloodshed
on a scale never before seen.
452
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:34,200
Novgorod had been a very
independent city in the far north.
453
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:38,560
It was also the second-largest city
in the country, in Muscovy.
454
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,560
Ivan supposedly
heard rumours that...
455
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:58,280
the Novgorod elite
was plotting against him.
456
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:01,960
And not just plotting against him
457
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:05,560
but planning to replace him with his
cousin Prince Vladimir Andreyevich.
458
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:09,640
The brutal dictator
has a terrifying solution.
459
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:14,480
He went up there
with a whole army of the oprichniki
460
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:18,040
and spent about six weeks
just massacring...
461
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:19,920
anything that moved
462
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:53,400
Even the city's churches
are no longer safe.
463
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,600
All of the church's property
was confiscated,
464
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,600
all of the movable wealth
was taken back to Moscow:
465
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:20,560
so any wealth,
any independence,
466
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:23,720
any separate culture
was expropriated.
467
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:28,240
Ivan was able
to maintain his fury:
468
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:30,400
to maintain this tyranny,
469
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,680
for weeks on end
and with no exceptions.
470
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:36,080
It speaks again to the way
471
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:40,320
that his character
was formed so early.
472
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:42,840
It wasn't just
a facet of his personality,
473
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:45,360
it was his whole being.
474
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:49,920
Before that time, you know,
Muscovy had rule of law,
475
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:52,720
so what he did was not normal.
476
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:57,080
But this is not the end
of Ivan IV's bloodletting.
477
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:02,640
These abnormally
out-of-control episodes of rage,
478
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:05,400
and this being
divorced from reality,
479
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:09,840
produces somebody
who is not fully in control.
480
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:21,120
Now having ruled Russia
for over two decades,
481
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:24,600
an increasingly unstable Tsar
is lashing out,
482
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:26,920
even to those closest to him.
483
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:29,920
On a whim,
Ivan disbands his loyal oprichniki
484
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:32,080
and executes its leaders.
485
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:34,520
He then marries for a third time,
486
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:38,440
but his wife Marfa
mysteriously dies of poisoning...
487
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:40,480
just days after their wedding.
488
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:42,920
The only
psychological response to that
489
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,320
is to develop
an ever-ready state of vigilance:
490
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:49,320
a state of almost complete paranoia.
491
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:51,640
You have to be suspicious.
492
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,960
You have to be alert to the next
thing that could come to hit you.
493
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:59,400
As Ivan's court
descends into chaos,
494
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:04,720
in 1575, the mercurial Tsar
makes another strange move.
495
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:07,880
He puts a Tatar Prince
on his throne
496
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:11,080
from one of Muscovy's
largest Turkic minorities:
497
00:34:11,240 --> 00:34:13,440
Simeon Bekbulatovich.
498
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:16,880
It's a very
mysterious episode.
499
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:21,560
This was another occasion when
Ivan apparently abdicated power.
500
00:34:21,720 --> 00:34:26,240
The vacuum that's left of some of
the barbaric acts he's carried out
501
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:30,120
will have just left him
an empty shell of a man.
502
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:32,680
He was tired,
503
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:35,280
and felt he had run out of ideas,
504
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:37,840
and couldn't carry on.
505
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,480
Also, he may have
just been going a bit crazy.
506
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:44,520
A tired
Ivan the Terrible
507
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:47,280
hasn't lost his capacity
for violence.
508
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:51,080
Legend has it that he then marries
and is widowed a further two times
509
00:34:51,240 --> 00:34:52,960
in as many years,
510
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,040
with his seventh wife,
Maria Dolgorukaya,
511
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:58,280
dispatched by drowning.
512
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:03,120
This eradication...
513
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:07,360
what appears to be murder,
is a definitive act.
514
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:12,040
But modern-day
historians question whether...
515
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,880
wife Maria is, in fact, just a myth:
516
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:19,720
a character created in later
centuries by the Russian Empire.
517
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:33,480
Ivan's marriage
allegedly legitimises later claims
518
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:38,720
that medieval Rus combined Kyiv Rus,
AKA modern-day Ukraine,
519
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:41,400
as one kingdom with Russia.
520
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:45,640
Ivan's mythical wife Maria
is said to be the descendant
521
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:48,760
of Yury Dolgoruky -
the Grand Prince of Kyiv,
522
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:51,280
who also founded Moscow.
523
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:53,840
He's believed to be
buried here in Kyiv,
524
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:56,640
and the legend has been used
through the centuries
525
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:59,120
to support expansion from Muscovy,
526
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:01,320
AKA Russia, to the West.
527
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:10,520
But myth or legend, a brutal
miscalculation by the tyrant in 1581
528
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:12,800
would rock his entire dynasty.
529
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:16,760
The most popular account,
530
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,040
which comes from the English envoy
at the court,
531
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:24,680
is that Ivan encountered
his daughter-in-law.
532
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:27,040
She was pregnant
and not dressed properly,
533
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:31,080
and he started berating her,
possibly hit her.
534
00:36:31,240 --> 00:36:33,840
Her husband came to her defence,
535
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,960
and the father and son
started fighting.
536
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:43,840
And Ivan hit his son.
537
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,360
It ended up being
a fatal blow to the head.
538
00:36:50,720 --> 00:36:53,040
There's some accounts of
the time of...
539
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:55,440
him being absolutely...
540
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:57,640
inconsolable with grief.
541
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:01,920
My sense is
that this will have been...
542
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:06,480
a murder committed not
almost in a fully conscious state:
543
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:10,240
this is the absolute example of...
544
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:12,520
the rage taking over.
545
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:17,160
And the moment the act is done,
the sense of normality creeps in.
546
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:21,240
But did the Moscow tyrant
really kill his eldest son?
547
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,760
To some historians,
it's a mere fable.
548
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:26,920
His oldest son, Ivan Ivanovich,
549
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:31,160
definitely did die in 1581.
550
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:33,240
It's possible that Ivan killed him.
551
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:35,200
And there are a number of accounts
from the time
552
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:37,280
that say Ivan killed him.
553
00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:40,640
But there are also very different
accounts of what happened.
554
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:43,800
The accusation perhaps
came from the Tsar's enemies
555
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:47,760
as a ruse to add
to his already terrible reputation.
556
00:38:08,240 --> 00:38:10,520
Whatever happened
to the younger Ivan
557
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:14,040
was in the very inner
private apartments
558
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:16,440
of the imperial family,
559
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:20,280
and nobody else was around,
and so...
560
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:24,800
there's no actual firm evidence...
one way or the other.
561
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:38,200
Wracked with grief
and guilt in his twilight years,
562
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:41,480
the tyrant makes
a final unexpected gesture.
563
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:45,880
Ivan put together a memorial list
564
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:49,680
of... maybe not all, but quite
a large number of his own victims.
565
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:54,080
He seems to have been overcome
with guilt about this.
566
00:38:54,240 --> 00:38:59,120
He wanted the church to pray for the
souls of the people he had killed.
567
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:01,440
We're looking
at huge numbers of people.
568
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:06,520
But nothing can save Ivan
the Terrible from the inevitable.
569
00:39:08,240 --> 00:39:10,640
On 28th March 1584,
570
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:14,080
he dies of a stroke...
whilst playing chess.
571
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:19,320
Or did he?
572
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:24,040
He was exhumed in the 1960s
by Soviet archaeologists, and...
573
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:27,560
they found a very high level
of mercury in his bones.
574
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:47,160
There could be a less
cloak-and-dagger explanation.
575
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:49,600
It might have been
from medicine that he was taking,
576
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,280
because his spine had a deformity,
577
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:54,320
which probably caused a lot of pain.
578
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:57,800
And he may have been taking
medicine with mercury in it.
579
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:01,160
High levels of mercury may have
caused him to act erratically,
580
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:03,560
and people wouldn't have
understood that at the time.
581
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:09,680
The Tsar's mysterious demise
582
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:11,880
continues to cause
debate and intrigue.
583
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:16,520
Even in 2024, Ivan went viral
when scientists from Brazil
584
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:19,960
recreated his face
using measurements of his skull
585
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:23,880
and the latest in forensic
facial reconstruction software.
586
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:27,960
There are no firm conclusions
on how the dictator died.
587
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:30,840
But there is no doubt
about the mess...
588
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,240
that he created of his country.
589
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:38,320
Muscovy was not in a great state
at that time, for various reasons.
590
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,280
They had negotiated an end
to the Livonian War
591
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:44,480
but not on favourable terms.
592
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:47,960
They had had to make
some territorial concessions.
593
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:49,960
They just used up
a lot of resources.
594
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:52,560
They had to do a lot
of extraordinary taxation
595
00:40:52,720 --> 00:40:57,680
to fund the war, so all of that
had come off of people's incomes.
596
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:00,520
And the country
had completely exhausted itself.
597
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:03,040
And then he left
a succession crisis,
598
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:07,120
because he had killed
his oldest and only capable son.
599
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:11,680
There's something ironic about
the fact that at his own hands...
600
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:16,120
that his significance,
his place in history is killed.
601
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:21,960
Ivan's younger son Feodor
cannot step up to the plate.
602
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:24,240
He wasn't capable of ruling,
603
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,880
and it's not entirely clear why not.
604
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:31,360
He may have had
some kind of learning disability.
605
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:36,520
So the real ruling ended up being
done by Feodor's brother-in-law,
606
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:38,680
who was called Boris Godunov,
607
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:42,080
who was doing the real ruling
behind the throne.
608
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:46,560
Fourteen years later,
Prince Feodor mysteriously dies,
609
00:41:46,720 --> 00:41:50,320
severing the final link between
Ivan's Rurik dynasty
610
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:52,480
and the Russian throne.
611
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:58,040
One of the many, many terrible
things about... Ivan and his legacy
612
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:00,040
is that through his actions,
613
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:03,240
he brought an end
to his own princely line.
614
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:05,880
It was one of the most
successful dynasties
615
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:09,760
that had been in power for 700 years
or so in that part of the world.
616
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:16,320
Despite
the bulging case file of killings,
617
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:19,960
it seems Ivan IV is soon forgiven.
618
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:22,120
The country
was absolutely bereft.
619
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:26,640
It's hard to describe how attached
the people of Muscovy
620
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:29,080
was to this particular family.
621
00:42:29,240 --> 00:42:31,120
It wasn't just that
they could go find another...
622
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:33,360
a Boyar family or something,
and bring them in.
623
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:36,280
It had to be this particular family.
624
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:39,120
The revolving door
of leaders that follows
625
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:43,200
plunges Russia into an era coined
the 'Time of the Troubles':
626
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:47,760
reportedly even more chaotic than
the reign under Ivan the Terrible.
627
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:51,080
There are thousands
on his death list,
628
00:42:51,240 --> 00:42:54,680
but does Ivan deserve
his nickname and reputation?
629
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:58,160
I think among his contemporaries
in Europe,
630
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:03,080
Ivan was by far the worst
and most bloodthirsty ruler...
631
00:43:03,240 --> 00:43:05,000
that country has had to endure.
632
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:07,160
So... plain bad?
633
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,080
Or was this Killer King just mad?
634
00:43:10,240 --> 00:43:13,720
How will the sands of time
treat his legacy?
635
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:17,560
That paranoia...
even people at the time were saying,
636
00:43:17,720 --> 00:43:20,200
'We don't really think
you need to be this paranoid.'
637
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:26,600
Someone who was capable of
committing horrific, barbaric acts:
638
00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:31,000
I'm often asked, 'Are they mad?
Are they bad or just misunderstood?'
639
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:33,880
For me, Ivan the Terrible...
640
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:36,640
fits most closely the mad.
641
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:40,840
People have diagnosed him
with paranoid schizophrenia,
642
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:44,120
some modern label:
I don't think that works very well.
643
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:47,880
He would have seen his repressions
of the people as...
644
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:50,600
him doing his job to...
645
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:53,560
raise the moral standards
of the country.
646
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:47,080
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