1. Sovereign

The Moscow sovereign Ivan III Vasilievich received the nickname Great from historians. Karamzin put him even higher than Peter I, for Ivan III did a great state deed without resorting to violence against the people.

This is generally explained simply. The fact is that we all live in a state founded by Ivan III. When in 1462 he ascended the Moscow throne, the Moscow principality was still surrounded by Russian appanage possessions from everywhere: the lord of Veliky Novgorod, the princes of Tver, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Ryazan. Ivan Vasilyevich subjugated all these lands either by force or by peace agreements. So at the end of his reign, in 1505, Ivan III had on all the borders of the Muscovite state already only heterodox and foreign neighbors: Swedes, Germans, Lithuania, Tatars.
This circumstance naturally changed the whole policy of Ivan III. Previously, surrounded by the same as himself, specific lords, Ivan Vasilyevich was one of the many specific princes, even if the most powerful. Now, having destroyed these possessions, he has become a single sovereign of an entire people. In short, if at first his policy was specific, then it became national.
Having become the national sovereign of the entire Russian people, Ivan III adopted a new direction in the external relations of Russia. He threw off the last remnants of dependence on the Golden Horde Khan. He also went on the offensive against Lithuania, from which Moscow until then had only defended itself. He even claimed all those Russian lands that the Lithuanian princes had owned since the second half of the 13th century. Calling himself "the sovereign of all Russia", Ivan III meant not only northern, but also southern and western Russia, which he considered it his duty to annex to Moscow. In other words, having completed the gathering of Russian specific principalities, Ivan III proclaimed the policy of gathering the Russian people.
This is the important historical significance of the reign of Ivan III, who can rightly be called the creator of the national Russian state - Muscovite Russia.

2. Man

The first Russian tsar and "sovereign of all Russia" Ivan III had a sharp temper - he could take off the head of a noble boyar simply because he was "clever". It was with such an accusation that in 1499 the close boyar of the sovereign Semyon Ryapolovsky ascended the scaffold. No wonder the people called Ivan III the Terrible (however, in history this nickname was assigned to the grandson of Ivan III and his full namesake - Ivan IV Vasilyevich. So do not mix it up). In the last years of the life of Ivan III, his person acquired in the eyes of his subjects an almost divine grandeur. Women, they say, fainted from one of his angry looks. The courtiers, under fear of disgrace, had to entertain him during leisure hours. And if, in the midst of this hard fun, Ivan III happened to doze off in an armchair, everyone around froze - sometimes for whole hours. No one dared to cough or stretch their stiff limbs, so that, God forbid, not to wake the great sovereign.
However, such scenes are explained more by the servility of the courtiers than by the character of Ivan III himself, who by nature was not at all a gloomy despot. Boyar Ivan Nikitich Bersen, recalling his sovereign, later said that Ivan III was kind and affectionate to people, and therefore God helped him in everything. In the State Council, Ivan III loved the "meeting", that is, an objection against himself, and never punished if a person spoke a matter. In 1480, during the invasion of Russia by Khan Akhmat, Ivan III left the army and returned to Moscow. The aged Rostov Archbishop Vassian, angry with the sovereign for this, began, according to the chronicler, "to speak evil to him", calling him a runner and a coward. Ivan III with a humble air endured the reproaches of an angry old man.
In his aesthetic tastes, Ivan III was a fine connoisseur of art, including Western European art. He was the first of the Moscow sovereigns to widely open the gates of the Kremlin to the leaders of the Italian Renaissance. Under him, outstanding Italian architects worked in Moscow, who created the very Kremlin palaces and temples that we still admire. And miniatures appeared in the Moscow chronicles, copying fragments of engravings by the great German artist Dürer.
In general, Ivan III Vasilyevich was not a bad person.

3. The end of the liberties of the Lord of Veliky Novgorod

In the second half of the 15th century, Novgorod was increasingly losing its former independence. Two parties were formed in the city: one stood for an agreement with Lithuania, the other for an agreement with Moscow. Mostly the common people stood for Moscow, for Lithuania - the boyars, led by the posadnik Boretsky. At first, the Lithuanian party took over in Novgorod. In 1471, on behalf of Novgorod, Boretsky concluded an alliance treaty with the Lithuanian Grand Duke and at the same time the King of Poland, Casimir. Casimir promised to defend Novgorod from Moscow, to give the Novgorodians his governor and to observe all the liberties of Novgorod in the old days. In fact, Boretsky's party committed national treason by surrendering to the patronage of a foreign sovereign, besides a Catholic.
This is exactly how Moscow viewed the case. Ivan III wrote to Novgorod, urging the Novgorodians to get behind Lithuania and the Catholic king. And when the exhortations did not work, the Moscow sovereign began preparations for war. The campaign against Novgorod was given the appearance of a campaign against heretics. Just as Dmitry Donskoy armed himself against the godless Mamai, so, according to the chronicler, the faithful Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich went against these apostates from Orthodoxy to Latinism.
Very much hoping for Lithuanian help, the Novgorod boyars forgot to create their own combat-ready army. This oversight became fatal for them. Having lost two foot ratis in battles with the advanced detachments of the Moscow army, Boretsky hastily put on horses and moved against Ivan III forty thousand of all the rabble, which, according to the chronicle, had never even been on a horse. Four thousand well-armed and trained Moscow warriors turned out to be enough to utterly smash this crowd in the battle on the Shelon River, putting 12 thousand on the spot.
Posadnik Boretsky was captured and executed as a traitor along with his accomplices. And Ivan III announced to the Novgorodians his will: in order to be in Novgorod the same state as in Moscow, I vow not to be, not to be a posadnik, but to reign according to Moscow custom.
The Novgorod Republic finally ceased to exist seven years later, in 1478, when, by order of Ivan III, the veche bell was taken to Moscow. However, at least a hundred years passed before the Novgorodians resigned themselves to the loss of their liberty and began to call their Novgorod land - Rus, and themselves - Russians, like the rest of the inhabitants of the Muscovite state.

4. Autocrat of all Russia

Ivan Vasilyevich was married twice. His first wife was the sister of his neighbor, the Grand Duke of Tver, Marya Borisovna. Upon her death in 1467, Ivan III began to look for another wife, farther and more important. At that time, a royal orphan lived in Rome - the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Sophia Paleolog (I recall that in 1453 the Turks conquered Constantinople). Through the mediation of the Pope, Ivan III ordered the Byzantine princess from Italy and married her in 1472.
Finding himself next to such a noble wife, Ivan III began to disdain the cramped and ugly Kremlin environment in which his ancestors lived. Following the princess, craftsmen were sent from Italy to build Ivan a new Assumption Cathedral, the Palace of Facets and a stone palace on the site of the former wooden choirs. At the same time, a new one began at the Moscow court - a strict and solemn ceremonial modeled on the Byzantine one.
Feeling like heir to the Byzantine state, Ivan III began to write his title in a new way, again in the manner of the Greek kings: other lands."
Sophia Paleolog was an unusually plump woman. However, she had an extremely subtle and flexible mind. She was credited with a great influence on Ivan III. They even said that it was she who prompted Ivan to throw off the Tatar yoke, because she was ashamed to be the wife of a Horde tributary.

5. Overthrow of the Horde yoke

It happened without high-profile victories, somehow routinely, almost by itself. However, first things first.

At the beginning of the reign of Ivan III, not one, but three independent Tatar hordes existed along the borders of Russia. Exhausted by strife, the Golden Horde was living out its days. In the 1420s-30s, Crimea and Kazan broke away from it, where special khanates with their own dynasties arose. Taking advantage of disagreements among the Tatar khans, Ivan III gradually subjugated Kazan to his influence: the Kazan khan recognized himself as a vassal of the Moscow sovereign. Ivan III had a strong friendship with the Crimean Khan, since both of them had a common enemy - the Golden Horde, against which they were friends. As for the Golden Horde itself, Ivan III stopped all relations with it: he did not give tribute, did not go to bow to the khan, and once even threw him to the ground and trampled on the khan's letter.
The weak Golden Horde Khan Akhmat tried to act against Moscow in alliance with Lithuania. In 1480, he led his army to the Ugra River, to the border areas between Moscow and Lithuania. But Lithuania already had a lot of trouble. Akhmat did not wait for Lithuanian help, and the Moscow prince met him with a strong army. A months-long “standing on the Ugra” began, as the opponents did not dare to engage in open battle. Ivan III ordered to prepare the capital for a siege, and he himself came from the Ugra to Moscow, fearing not so much the Tatars as his brothers - they were in a quarrel with him and inspired Ivan III with suspicion that they would change at the decisive moment. The prudence and slowness of the prince seemed cowardly to the Muscovites. The clergy conjured Ivan III not to be a "runner", but to stand bravely against the enemy.
But the decisive battle never happened. Having stood on the Ugra from summer to November, Akhmat with the onset of frosts went home. Soon he was killed in another strife, his sons died in the fight against the Crimean Khanate, and in 1502 the Golden Horde ceased to exist.

So the Horde yoke fell, which weighed over Russia for two and a half centuries. But the troubles from the Tatars for Russia did not stop there. Crimeans, Kazanians, as well as smaller Tatar hordes, constantly attacked the Russian borderlands, burned, ravaged dwellings and property, took away people and cattle with them. The Russian people had to fight this incessant Tatar robbery for about three more centuries.

6. Sovereign flight of the Russian eagle

The outlandish bird appeared in the Russian state symbols not by chance. Since ancient times, it has adorned the coats of arms and banners of many great powers, including the Roman Empire and Byzantium. In 1433, the double-headed eagle was also established in the coat of arms of the Habsburgs, the ruling dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire, who considered themselves successors to the power of the Roman Caesars. However, Ivan III, who was married to the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Sophia Palaiologos, also claimed this honorary relationship, and after the overthrow of the Horde yoke, he took the title of "autocrat of all Russia." It was then that a new genealogy of Moscow sovereigns appeared in Russia, allegedly descending from Prus, the legendary brother of Emperor Octavian Augustus.
In the mid-80s of the XV century, Emperor Frederick III of Habsburg offered Ivan III to become a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire, promising to grant him the royal title in return, but received a proud refusal: against the kingdom, just as we didn’t want it from anyone before, we don’t want it now.” To emphasize his equal honor to the emperor, Ivan III adopted a new state symbol of the Moscow state - a double-headed eagle. The marriage of the Moscow sovereign with Sophia Palaiologos made it possible to draw a line of succession of a new coat of arms independent of the West - not from the "first" Rome, but from the Rome of the "second" - Orthodox Constantinople.
The oldest image of a double-headed eagle in Russia is imprinted on the wax seal of Ivan III, which was attached to a letter of 1497. Since then, the sovereign eagle marks the state and spiritual sovereignty of Russia.

7. Western influences

The first sovereign of all Russia, Ivan III Vasilyevich, is also called by some historians the first Russian Westernizer, drawing a parallel between him and Peter I.

Indeed, under Ivan III, Russia advanced by leaps and bounds. The Mongol-Tatar yoke was thrown off, specific fragmentation was destroyed. The high status of the Moscow sovereign was confirmed by the adoption of the title of sovereign of all Russia and the prestigious marriage to the Byzantine princess Sophia Paleolog. In a word, Russia has become a full-fledged sovereign state. But national self-assertion had nothing in common with national isolation. On the contrary, it was Ivan III who, like no one else, contributed to the revival and strengthening of Moscow's ties with the West, with Italy in particular.
Ivan III kept visiting Italians with him in the position of court "masters", entrusting them with the construction of fortresses, churches and chambers, casting cannons, minting coins. The names of these people are preserved in the annals: Ivan Fryazin, Mark Fryazin, Anthony Fryazin, etc. These are not namesakes and not relatives. It’s just that the Italian masters in Moscow were called by the common name “fryazin” (from the word “friag”, that is, “franc”). The outstanding Italian architect Aristotle Fioravanti, who built the famous Assumption Cathedral and the Palace of Facets in the Moscow Kremlin (so called on the occasion of finishing it in the Italian style - with faces), was especially famous among them. In general, under Ivan III, the Kremlin was rebuilt and decorated anew by the labors of the Italians. Back in 1475, a foreigner who visited Moscow wrote about the Kremlin that "all the buildings in it, not excluding the fortress itself, are wooden." But twenty years later, foreign travelers began to call the Moscow Kremlin in a European way “castle”, due to the abundance of stone buildings in it. So, through the efforts of Ivan III, the Renaissance flourished on Russian soil.
In addition to the masters, ambassadors from Western European sovereigns often appeared in Moscow. And, as was evident from the example of Emperor Frederick, the first Russian Westerner knew how to talk with Europe on an equal footing.

8. Heresy of the “Judaizers”

In the 15th century, flakes of human ash flew over Western Europe. It was the time of the most cruel persecution of witches and heretics. According to the most conservative estimates, the number of victims of the Inquisition is in the tens of thousands. In Castile alone, the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada burned about 10,000 people. Unfortunately, Russia, too, has not escaped the general craze. Under Ivan III, fiery performances were also staged in our country, although they were not so large-scale.
The heresy of the “Judaizers” was brought into Russia from outside. In 1470, the Novgorodians, straining their last efforts to defend their independence from Moscow, invited the Orthodox Prince Alexander Mikhailovich of Kyiv, in agreement with the Polish king. In the retinue of the prince arrived in Novgorod, the life-medical Jew Skhariya and two of his compatriots well-read in theology. It all started with them. In disputes with Russian priests, visiting supporters of the Torah (that is, the Old Testament) put forward a simple syllogism: they appealed to the words of Christ that he "came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it." From this followed the conclusion about the primacy of the Old Testament over the New, Judaism over Christianity. The wretched thought of the Novgorod priests went mad on this syllogism. Only a year spent three learned Jews in Novgorod, but that was enough for their conversations to pierce deeply into the souls of the Novgorod priests. They began to profess a strange mixture of Judaism and Christianity, for which they received their name "Judaizers."
The sect of the Judaizers was well concealed. Therefore, the Novgorod archbishop Gennady did not immediately succeed in bringing the heretics to clean water. In the end, one of the “Judaizers,” priest Naum, broke down and repented, and he reported on the doctrine and cult of his co-religionists. A church inquiry has begun. On the issue of punishing those guilty of heresy, opinions in the Russian Church were divided. Part of the clergy urged to act on heretics with one spiritual exhortation, without physical punishment. But those who stood for physical execution won. And it was a foreign example that inspired them. In 1486, the ambassador of the Austrian emperor passed through Novgorod. He told Archbishop Gennady about the Spanish Inquisition and met with great sympathy from him.
Gennady gave the heretics a special torture in the style of the Spanish Inquisition. The people of Gennady put the arrested back on horseback, put on their heads birch bark caps with bast brushes and with the inscription: "This is the satanic army." When the cavalcade arrived at the town square, the jester's helmets were lit on the heads of the heretics. Moreover, some of them were still beaten in public, and several people were burned alive.
This action became the first inquisitorial experience of the Russian Orthodox Church. To the credit of the Russian clergy, it should be noted that he quickly managed to overcome this shameful temptation. So, unlike the Catholic Inquisition, our domestic church tribunals have not become a permanent phenomenon, and their victims are numbered in units.

9. Russia under Ivan III

By the time of the reign of Ivan III Vasilyevich and his son Vasily III are the first detailed notes of foreigners about Russia, or about Muscovy, if you follow their terminology.

The Venetian Josaphat Barbaro, a merchant, was struck primarily by the well-being of the Russian people. Noting the richness of the Russian cities he saw, he wrote down that, in general, all of Russia "is abundant in bread, meat, honey and other useful things."
Another Italian, Ambrogio Cantarini, emphasized the importance of Moscow as an international trade center: "The city," he writes, "during the whole winter gathers many merchants from Germany and Poland." He also left in his notes an interesting verbal portrait of Ivan III. According to him, the first sovereign of all Russia was "tall, but thin, and in general a very handsome person." As a rule, Cantarini continues, and the rest of the Russians are "very beautiful, both men and women." As a true Catholic, Cantarini did not fail to note the unfavorable opinion of Muscovites about the Italians: “They believe that we are all dead people,” that is, heretics.
Another Italian traveler, Alberto Campenze, compiled for Pope Clement VII an interesting note “On the affairs of Muscovy”. He mentions the well-established by the Muscovites border service, the ban on the sale of wine and beer (except for holidays). The morality of the Muscovites, according to him, is beyond praise. “To deceive each other is revered by them as a terrible, heinous crime,” writes Campenze. - Adultery, violence and public debauchery are also very rare. Unnatural vices are completely unknown, and perjury and blasphemy are not heard at all.
As you can see, the vices of the West were out of fashion in Moscow in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. However, the overall progress very soon touched this side of Moscow life.

10. End of reign

The end of the reign of Ivan III was overshadowed by family and court intrigues. After the death of his son from the first marriage of Ivan the Young, the sovereign believed to transfer all power to his offspring - his grandson Dimitri, for which in 1498 he performed the first wedding ceremony in Russian history to the kingdom, during which barmas and the cap of Monomakh were assigned to Dimitri .
But then the supporters of another heir took over - Vasily, the son from the sovereign's second marriage to Sophia Paleolog. In 1502, Ivan III "put disgrace" on Demetrius and his mother, Grand Duchess Elena, and Vasily, on the contrary, was granted the great reign.
It remained to find a worthy wife for the new heir.
Ivan III considered the crown and barms of Monomakh to be equal in dignity to the royal and even imperial crowns. Having married himself with a second marriage to the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Princess Sophia Paleolog, he also looked for brides of royal origin for his children.
When it was time for his eldest son Vasily to marry from his second marriage, Ivan Vasilyevich, without deviating from his rules, began wedding negotiations abroad. However, everywhere he turned, he had to listen to an unusual refusal for his ear. The daughter of Ivan III, Elena, married to the Polish king, in a letter to her father explained the failure by the fact that in the West they do not like the Greek faith, considering the Orthodox non-Christians.
There was nothing to do, I had to intermarry with one of my slaves. The sovereign's heart, which suffered from such humiliation, was consoled by clever courtiers, who pointed to examples from Byzantine history, when emperors chose their wives from girls gathered at court from all over the state.
Ivan Vasilyevich perked up. The essence of the matter, of course, did not change, but the sovereign's honor was saved! In this way, it so happened that at the end of the summer of 1505, Moscow was crammed full of beauties, trembling from the proximity of extraordinary happiness - the Grand Duke's crown. Not a single modern beauty contest can compare in scale with those bridesmaids. There were neither many nor few girls - one and a half thousand! The midwives meticulously inspected this lovely herd, and then those recognized as fit to continue the sovereign family appeared before the no less discriminating gaze of the groom. Vasily liked the girl Solomonia, the daughter of the noble Moscow boyar Yuri Konstantinovich Saburov. On September 4 of the same year, a wedding was played. Since then, this, so to speak, herd way of marriage became a custom among the Moscow sovereigns and lasted almost two hundred years, until the reign of Peter I.
Wedding celebrations were the last joyful event in the life of Ivan Vasilyevich. A month and a half later, he died. Vasily III freely took the paternal throne.

The eldest son of Vasily II Vasilyevich the Dark took part in the internecine war of 1452. Due to the blindness of his father by Vasily Kosym, Ivan III was early involved in the process of governing the state (since 1456). Grand Duke of Moscow since 1462. Continuing the policy of expanding the territories of the Moscow principality, Ivan III, with fire and sword, and sometimes through diplomatic negotiations, subjugated the principalities: Yaroslavl (1463), Rostov (1474), Tver (1485), Vyatka land (1489), etc. In 1471 made a trip to Novgorod and defeated opponents in the Battle of Shelon, and then in 1478 finally destroyed the independence of the Novgorod Republic, subordinating it to Moscow. During his reign, Kazan also became loyal to the Moscow prince, which was an important achievement of his foreign policy.

Ivan III, having entered the great reign, for the first time since the time of the Batu invasion, refused to go to the Horde to receive a label. In an attempt to re-subjugate Russia, which had not paid tribute since 1476, Khan Akhmat in 1480 moved a large army against the Moscow principality. At this moment, the forces of Moscow were weakened by the war with the Livonian Order and the feudal rebellion of the younger brothers of the Grand Duke. In addition, Akhmat enlisted the support of the Polish-Lithuanian king Casimir. However, the forces of the Poles were neutralized thanks to the peace treaty between Ivan III and the Crimean Khan Mengli Giray. After Akhmat's attempt to force the river. Ugra in October 1480, accompanied by a 4-day battle, "standing on the Ugra" began. "Ugorshchina", during which the forces of the parties were located on different banks of the Oka tributary, ended on November 9-11, 1480 with the flight of the enemy. Thus, the victory on the river. Ugra marked the end of the 240-year Mongol-Tatar yoke.

No less important was the success in the wars with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1487-1494; 1500-1503), thanks to which many western lands went to Russia.

As a result of victories over external enemies, Ivan III was able to destroy most of the destinies and thereby greatly strengthen the central power and the role of Moscow.

Moscow, as the capital of a new large state, was greatly transformed during the reign of Ivan III: a new Assumption Cathedral was erected and a new Archangel Cathedral was laid, the construction of a new Kremlin, the Faceted Chamber, and the Annunciation Cathedral began. An important role in the construction of the renovated capital was played by Italian foreign craftsmen. For example, Aleviz Novy, Aristotle Fioravanti.

The new large state, which became the Moscow principality under Ivan III, needed a new ideology. Moscow as a new center of Christianity was presented in Metropolitan Zosima's Narration of Paschalia (1492). The monk Philotheus proposed the formula "Moscow is the third Rome" (already after the death of Ivan III). The basis of this theory was the fact that the Muscovite state (after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453) remained the only independent Orthodox state in the world, and the sovereign who headed it was the only intercessor of all Orthodox Christians on earth. Ivan III also had formal reasons to consider himself the heir of Byzantium, since he was married by a second marriage to the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Sophia (Zoya) Paleolog.

The strengthening of the central government made it necessary to create new organs of state administration - orders. At the same time, the legislative code of united Russia appeared - the Sudebnik of 1497, which, unfortunately, has come down to us in only one copy. In order to enlist the support of service people, the Grand Duke guaranteed their economic well-being by regulating the transfer of peasants from one owner to another: the peasants received the right to transfer only once a year - a week before the autumn St. George's Day (November 26) and a week after.

The reign of Ivan III is also associated by modern historians with the beginning of the Europeanization process, which ensured the country's defense capability and economic prosperity.

550 years have passed since the accession to the throne of the first sovereign of all Russia, Ivan III, to whom it is high time to erect a monument in the capital of our Motherland. Alas, this significant anniversary date fell out of sight of most media. But in vain! Dmitry Donskoy and Ivan III, great-grandfather and great-grandson, two great Moscow princes, whose reign is only one century apart. They lived and acted in different conditions, but they moved Moscow in the same direction - the gathering of Russian lands and liberation from the Horde dependence.

TOTAL
It was October 1505 from the Nativity of Christ (or, as it was then believed in Russia, 7014 years from the creation of the world) ... In the bedchamber of the wooden grand-ducal tower of the Moscow Kremlin, the life of an old, semi-paralyzed person was gradually fading away. Behind the wall, the construction of a new palace continued, which was built on his orders from brick under the guidance of Italian architects, but the sovereign of all Russia Ivan III Vasilyevich was no longer destined to move and live in it. The last act of his tireless state activity, recorded by the chroniclers on May 21, 1505, was the order to dismantle the old Archangel Cathedral and the Church of St. John of the Ladder in the Kremlin and lay new churches in their place.
In 1462, he began his tenure on the Moscow Grand Duke's throne with construction work, and they also completed his life path, erecting not only fortresses and churches, but also the framework of a unified Russian state, whose outstanding builder can rightfully be called Ivan III.
The unification of the largest Russian lands around Moscow and the overthrow of the Horde yoke - these are just two of the most important tasks that he managed to successfully solve in 43 years of his reign. How many other not so large-scale, but no less remarkable events did they contain?!

Blessed
great reign
Ivan, born on January 22, 1440, was the second son of Grand Duke Vasily II Vasilyevich of Moscow and his wife Maria Yaroslavna, daughter of the appanage prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich Yaroslavetsky. His childhood years coincided with the most dramatic stage of the feudal war.
The vicissitudes of a fierce struggle for power could not but leave an imprint on the emerging character of the heir to Ivan Vasilyevich, who in his mature years combined statesmanship, prudence, perseverance in carrying out assigned tasks with cruelty, deceit, and suspicion.
Vasily II Vasilyevich died on March 27, 1462, indicating in a spiritual letter (testament) drawn up a little earlier: “And I bless my eldest son, Ivan, with my fatherland, with a great reign.” Unlike his predecessors on the Moscow grand-ducal throne, Ivan III did not have to go to the Golden Horde to humiliate himself, but, judging by indirect data, the khan's label for a great reign was nevertheless delivered to him from there. Moscow was still dependent on the Horde and was forced to pay tribute to it.
Gradually strengthening his power and power, Ivan III Vasilyevich mercilessly cracked down on people he did not like.
Meanwhile, in Veliky Novgorod, an anti-Moscow boyar group was increasingly raising its head, led by the noblewoman Marfa, the widow of the posadnik Isaac Boretsky, and their sons. Only nominally recognizing the grand duke's power, the Novgorod boyars strove to fully preserve their internal independence, to live "in the old days", putting forward posadniks and thousands from their midst, leading the veche. They preferred the order of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland, where the cities had self-government and enjoyed privileges. The Lithuanian party headed for a break with Moscow, inviting the former Kyiv prince Mikhail Olelkovich (Orthodox by religion) from Lithuania in 1470, and then, in the early spring of the following year, preparing an agreement on the transition of Novgorod the Great under the rule of the Polish king and Grand Duke of Lithuania Casimir IV.
These separatist actions overflowed the patience of Ivan Vasilyevich, who began to prepare an invasion of Novgorod land. Moscow's strategic plan was to strike two blows - in the direction of Novgorod itself and in its northern possessions. The final outcome of the war was decided by the July 14, 1471 battle on the river. Shelon, where the Novgorod trade and craft militia, which included cavalry and infantry, suffered a crushing defeat. Ordinary citizens were not very eager to fight for the alien interests of the boyars.

Marriage with Zoya Paleolog
The following year, after the victory over Novgorod, the widowed Grand Duke of Moscow remarried. Zoya Palaiologos, the daughter of the despot (ruler) of the province of Morea in the Peloponnese, Thomas Palaiologos, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine IX, became his chosen one. The Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople in 1453 and seven years later the Morea. The orphaned Zoya lived with her two brothers in Rome at the papal court. Her portrait, brought by ambassadors to Moscow, made an impression on the groom, who, even more than appearance, was impressed by the family ties of the dowry bride with the Byzantine imperial house. Marrying Zoya to Ivan III, the papal throne hoped through this marriage to spread the influence of the Catholic Church in Russia and involve it in an active struggle against the Ottoman Empire, which threatened European states.
The hopes of the Roman pope and his entourage, however, turned out to be groundless. Subsequently, Ivan III Vasilyevich sometimes listened to the advice of his Greek wife, for example, inviting Italian architects and other masters to Muscovy, but her influence on her husband should not be exaggerated. The husband more than once put Sofya Fominishna (as they began to call Zoya in Russia) in her proper place.
Ivan III finally put an end to the independence of Veliky Novgorod, whose boyars still clung to the "old times", looking (however, unsuccessfully) towards Lithuania. At the end of November 1477, the Moscow regiments surrounded the ancient veche city on the banks of the Volkhov. The Grand Duke himself arrived with the army, stopping at Gorodishche, in the vicinity of Novgorod. On his behalf, at the negotiations that had begun, the Novgorod representatives were presented with Moscow’s stringent demands: “I can’t even ring a bell in our fatherland in Novgorod. The mayor should not be. And we keep our state ... And which are our lands, the great princes, for you, otherwise it would be ours.
Seeing that the forces were unequal, and fearing an imminent defeat, in mid-January 1478 Novgorod the Great capitulated. He had to sacrifice all his liberties.
The Novgorodian psychological type of a Russian person, which developed under the conditions of the veche system, a vast territory, the colonization of the northern spaces of Eastern Europe, and constant contacts with the Catholic West, of course, differed from the Moscow one. The originality of the Moscow psychological type was determined by closer ties with the Golden Horde, the despotic system of grand ducal power, and an orientation mainly to internal resources.

Overthrow
Horde yoke
In the spring of 1480, the Moscow embassy managed to conclude an alliance agreement with the Crimean Khan Mengli Giray, an implacable opponent of Akhmat Khan. The decisive clash between the latter and Moscow had gradually been brewing since the second half of the 1970s. XV century, when she refused to pay tribute to the Great Horde - the main core of the Golden Horde, which broke up into a number of khanates (Kazan, Crimean, etc.). Khan Akhmat was an excellent commander, and the campaign of his large army, which began in the spring of 1480, posed a huge threat to the future of Russia.
The battles of the Russian regiments with the advanced detachments of the Horde rati began in October 1480 on the river. Ugra, a tributary of the Oka. During the "Standing on the Ugra", the Moscow army, perhaps for the first time, actively used light field artillery - cannons (squeaked). Shooting from the bows and squeakers of the enemy, the Russians held firm and did not allow the Horde cavalry to cross to the opposite left bank of the Ugra. Meanwhile, early winter was approaching, frost fettered the rivers with ice, which ceased to be a serious obstacle for the Tatar cavalry. Leaving guard detachments on the Ugra, the Grand Duke ordered the main forces to withdraw in a northern direction, to Borovsk, to more advantageous positions in order to prepare for the continuation of the struggle. But, realizing its futility, Akhmat Khan ordered his exhausted army to retreat back to the steppe. Returning with relief to Moscow, Ivan Vasilievich hardly immediately realized that the victory achieved meant the overthrow of the Horde yoke. However, as a relic of tribute, Moscow continued to send gifts (“commemoration”) to the Horde until the beginning of the 16th century, and to the Crimean Khanate in the next century.
During the "Standing on the Ugra", as in other military campaigns, the Grand Duke acted primarily in the role of commander in chief. Unlike his predecessors, who were both rulers and commanders, he did not participate in battles with weapons in his hands, but provided the overall strategic leadership of military operations, entrusting the command of the regiments and the adoption of tactical decisions to experienced and proven governors.
Solving matters of national importance, Ivan Vasilyevich forgot about kindred feelings. Only with his beloved brother Yuri Dmitrovsky did he have truly fraternal ties, however, they could weaken if he lived longer.

Construction
new Kremlin
By the beginning of the reign of Ivan III, the Kremlin walls and towers, erected in 1366-1367 from white limestone near Moscow and survived the siege of the Golden Horde Khan Tokhtamysh (1382) and the Tatar prince Mazovsha (1452), several fires, were pretty dilapidated. Significant damage was also caused to them by a strong hurricane that swept over Moscow in 1460. In places, wooden structures stood out against the background of damaged white stone. That is why, having taken the throne in 1462, Ivan III Vasilyevich first of all took care of strengthening and repairing the white-stone Kremlin.
In 1472, Metropolitan Philip of Moscow decided to build in the center of the Kremlin on the site of the old, dilapidated new stone Assumption Cathedral. The initiative of the head of the church was later supported by Ivan III. It was time to reflect the growing power of the Muscovite state in stone. The temple, erected to the vaults, suddenly collapsed in May 1474 due to incorrect construction calculations and poor quality mortar, and for its construction Ivan III had to invite the famous Bolognese master Aristotle Fioravanti from Italy. For the model in the construction of the main temple of the Moscow Kremlin (and the entire Russian state), he was ordered to take the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir. The new Assumption Cathedral in Moscow, built of brick and stone, was solemnly consecrated in August 1479 with the participation of Ivan III.

TITLE AND LAWS
The increase in the authority and power of the Muscovite state was also reflected in the title of Ivan III. The preamble of the treaty of Veliky Novgorod and Pskov with the bishop of Yuryev (January 13, 1474) contained a mention not only of their symbols - the cathedrals of St. Sophia and St. Trinity, but also the phrase "the health of our master and sovereign of our Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich, Tsar of All Russia, and the health of our master and sovereign of our Grand Duke Ivan Ivanovich, Tsar of All Russia."
The Grand Duke of Moscow strove to imitate the emperors of the mighty Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, from whose seals he borrowed the image of a double-headed eagle around 1490. The same heraldic symbol was used in Byzantium. A red wax seal, made by one of the Western European masters, is attached to one of the grand ducal letters of 1497: on its front side, the ruler is symbolically depicted in the form of a horseman slaying a dragon with a spear, and on the reverse side, a double-headed eagle with outstretched wings.
In the same 1497, the first set of laws of a single state appeared in Russia - the Code of Laws of Ivan III, which introduced uniformity of judicial and procedural norms in all lands: the same procedure for considering disputes, the same punishments for committing criminal offenses, as well as for receiving bribes ("promises"). By the way, for the most serious and repeated theft of property, for the first time in the history of all-Russian legislation, a criminal could be sentenced to death. However, Ivan Vasilyevich sometimes executed on charges of political treason, and less often, however, for heretical views. The court under him was administered by the boyars and okolnichy.
The Sovereign of All Russia Ivan III died as a secular man on Monday, October 27, 1505, after sitting on the Moscow Grand Duke's throne for 43 years and 7 months and going down in the history of our state as its longest de facto ruler. Few people know that even before the grandson of Ivan IV, Ivan III Vasilyevich received the nickname "Grozny". But the epithet "Great" seems more fair to him.

1505 - Death of Ivan III

The marriage of Ivan III to Sofya Paleolog and the birth of Prince Vasily from them led to an aggravation of relations in Ivan's large family. The heir to the throne was then considered the eldest son of the Grand Duke Ivan Molodoy, married to the daughter of the sovereign of Moldavia, Elena Stefanovna Voloshanka. But in 1490 Ivan the Young died unexpectedly. People said that he was plagued by Ivan's new wife, Sofya Paleolog, who hated her stepson and his wife, and kept busy about the future of her son Vasily. But here she failed. Ivan III, after the death of Ivan the Young, declared not Vasily the heir, but his grandson Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Young. Sophia Paleolog was even in disgrace, and Ivan III ordered her supporters to be brutally executed. Ivan III did not limit himself to declaring 15-year-old Dmitry as his heir, but made him his co-ruler (as Vasily II the Dark once did with him). The young man was crowned king according to the Byzantine rite with the cap of Monomakh, which Ivan III himself laid on his head. After this ceremony, Dmitry became a full-fledged co-ruler of his grandfather.

But not everything went smoothly. Prominent boyars opposed the plans of Ivan III to rule together with his grandson, the executions of those who were dissatisfied began. However, soon the autocratic Ivan III - for some now unknown reasons - changed his mind. He forgave Sophia, “he gave her dislike,” the chronicler wrote politely, “and began to live with her as before.” The crowned Grand Duke Dmitry and his mother Elena were in disgrace, they were put in prison. Elena was killed there. But it is even more strange that this murder took place after the death of Sophia. Both princesses, who hated each other during their lifetime, were buried side by side in the Kremlin Church of the Ascension. In 1509, already under Vasily III, Dmitry also died “in need and in prison”.

By the end of his life, Ivan III became intolerant of others, unpredictable, unjustifiably cruel, he indiscriminately executed his friends and enemies. As the German envoy Herberstein wrote, women were especially afraid of Ivan III: with just a glance, he could plunge a woman into unconsciousness. “During dinners, he mostly indulged in such drunkenness that he was overcome by sleep, while all those invited, meanwhile, sat stricken with fear and were silent. Upon waking up, he usually rubbed his eyes and then only began to joke and show gaiety towards the guests. His changing will has long since become law. When the envoy of the Crimean Khan asked him why Ivan overthrew his hitherto beloved grandson Dmitry, Ivan answered like a real autocrat: “Am I not free, the great prince, in my children and in my reign? To whom I want, I will give reign! In the year of the death of Grand Duchess Sophia (1503), Ivan III fell seriously ill. He was blind in one eye, lost control of his hand - a sure sign of extensive brain damage. On October 27, 1505, the formidable Grand Duke died. According to his will, power passed to his 26-year-old son Vasily III.

But Khan of the Golden Horde Akhmat, who had been preparing for war with Ivan III since the beginning of his reign, entered the Russian borders with a formidable militia. Ivan, having gathered a 180,000th army, set out to meet the Tatars. The advanced Russian detachments, having overtaken the khan at Aleksin, stopped in his sight, on the opposite bank of the Oka. The next day, the khan took Aleksin by storm, set him on fire and, crossing the Oka, rushed to the Moscow squads, which at first began to retreat, but having received reinforcements, they soon recovered and drove the Tatars back beyond the Oka. Ivan expected a second attack, but Akhmat took to flight at nightfall.

Ivan III's wife Sophia Paleolog. Reconstruction from the skull of S. A. Nikitin

In 1473, Ivan III sent an army to help the Pskovites against the German knights, but the Livonian master, frightened by the strong Moscow militia, did not dare to go into the field. Long-standing hostile relations with Lithuania, which threatened close ones with a complete break, have also ended in peace for the time being. The main attention of Ivan III was turned to securing the south of Russia from the raids of the Crimean Tatars. He took the side of Mengli Giray, who rebelled against his older brother, Khan Nordaulat, helped him establish himself on the Crimean throne and concluded a defensive and offensive treaty with him, which was maintained on both sides until the end of the reign of Ivan III.

Marfa Posadnitsa (Boretskaya). Destruction of the Novgorod veche. Artist K. Lebedev, 1889)

Standing on the river Ugra. 1480

In 1481 and 1482, the regiments of Ivan III fought Livonia in revenge on the knights for the siege of Pskov, and made great devastation there. Shortly before and shortly after this war, Ivan annexed the principalities of Vereiskoe, Rostov and Yaroslavl to Moscow, and in 1488 conquered Tver. The last prince of Tver, Mikhail, besieged by Ivan III in his capital, unable to defend it, fled to Lithuania. (For more details, see the articles Unification of Russian lands under Ivan III and Unification of Russian lands by Moscow under Ivan III.)

A year before the conquest of Tver, Prince Kholmsky, sent to subdue the rebellious Kazan Tsar, Alegam, took Kazan by storm (July 9, 1487), captured Alegam himself, and enthroned the Kazan prince Makhmet-Amin, who lived in Russia under the patronage of Ivan.

The year 1489 is memorable in the reign of Ivan III with the conquest of the lands of Vyatka and Arskaya, and 1490 with the death of Ivan the Young, the eldest son of the Grand Duke, and the defeat of the heresy of the Judaizers (Skharieva).

Striving for governmental autocracy, Ivan III often used unjust and even violent measures. In 1491, for no apparent reason, he imprisoned his brother, Prince Andrei, in prison, where he later died, and took his inheritance for himself. The sons of another brother, Boris, were forced by Ivan to cede their destinies to Moscow. Thus, on the ruins of the ancient appanage system, Ivan created the power of a renewed Russia. His fame spread to foreign countries. German emperors, Friedrich III(1486) and his successor Maximilian, sent embassies to Moscow, like the Danish king, the Jagatai Khan and the Iberian king, and the Hungarian king Matvey Korvin entered into family ties with Ivan III.

Unification of North-Eastern Russia by Moscow 1300-1462

In the same year, Ivan III, irritated by the violence that the people of Novgorod suffered from the Revelians (Tallinnians), ordered that all Hanseatic merchants living in Novgorod be imprisoned, and their goods taken to the treasury. With this, he forever terminated the trade connection of Novgorod and Pskov with the Hansa. The Swedish war, which boiled up soon after, was successfully waged by our troops in Karelia and Finland, but ended, nevertheless, in a hopeless peace.

In 1497, new unrest in Kazan prompted Ivan III to send a governor there, who, instead of Tsar Mahmet-Amin, unloved by the people, elevated his younger brother to the throne and took an oath of allegiance to Ivan from Kazan.

In 1498, Ivan experienced severe family troubles. At the court, a gathering of conspirators was open, mostly from prominent boyars. This boyar party tried to quarrel with Ivan III, his son Vasily, suggesting that the Grand Duke intended to transfer the throne not to him, but to his grandson Dmitry, the son of the deceased Ivan the Young. Having severely punished the guilty, Ivan III became angry with his wife Sophia Paleolog and Vasily, and in fact appointed Dmitry as heir to the throne. But having learned that Vasily was not as guilty as was presented by the adherents of Elena, the mother of the young Dmitry, he declared Vasily the Grand Duke of Novgorod and Pskov (1499) and reconciled with his wife. (For more details, see the article The heirs of Ivan III - Vasily and Dmitry.) In the same year, the western part of Siberia, known in the old days under the name of the Yugra Land, was finally conquered by the governors of Ivan III, and from that time our grand dukes took the title of sovereigns of the Yugra land.

In 1500, quarrels with Lithuania resumed. The princes of Chernigov and Rylsky entered the citizenship of Ivan III, who declared war on the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Alexander, for forcing his daughter (his wife) Elena to accept the Catholic faith. In a short time, the governors of Moscow, almost without a fight, occupied the whole of Lithuanian Rus, almost to Kyiv itself. Alexander, who had hitherto remained inactive, armed himself, but his squads were completely defeated on the banks. buckets. Khan Mengli Giray, an ally of Ivan III, at the same time devastated Podolia.

The following year Alexander was elected king of Poland. Lithuania and Poland reunited. Despite this, Ivan III continued the war. On August 27, 1501, Prince Shuisky was defeated at Siritsa (near Izborsk) by the master of the Livonian Order, Plettenberg, an ally of Alexander, but on November 14, Russian troops operating in Lithuania won a famous victory near Mstislavl. In revenge for the failure at Siritsa, Ivan III sent a new army to Livonia, under the command of Schenya, who devastated the environs of Derpt and Marienburg, took many prisoners and utterly defeated the knights under Helmet. In 1502, Mengli-Girey exterminated the remnants of the Golden Horde, for which he almost quarreled with Ivan, since the strengthened Crimean Tatars now claimed to unite all the former Horde lands under their own rule.

Shortly thereafter, Grand Duchess Sophia Paleolog died. This loss had a strong effect on Ivan. His health, hitherto strong, began to fail. Anticipating the nearness of death, he wrote a will, by which he finally appointed Vasily as his successor. . In 1505, Mahmet-Amin, who again occupied the Kazan throne, decided to secede from Russia, robbed the ambassador of the grand duke and merchants who were in Kazan, and killed many of them. Not stopping at this villainy, he invaded Russia with 60,000 troops and laid siege to Nizhny Novgorod, but the voivode Khabar-Simsky, who was in charge there, forced the Tatars to retreat with damage. Ivan III did not have time to punish Mahmet-Amin for treason. His illness quickly intensified, and on October 27, 1505, the Grand Duke died at the age of 67. His body was buried in Moscow, in the Archangel Cathedral.

During the reign of Ivan III, the power of Russia, fastened by autocracy, quickly developed. Paying attention to its moral development, Ivan called people from Western Europe who were skilled in arts and crafts. Trade, despite the break with the Hansa, was in a flourishing state. During the reign of Ivan III, the Assumption Cathedral was built (1471); The Kremlin is surrounded by new, more powerful walls; the Faceted Chamber was erected; a foundry and a cannon yard were set up and coinage improved.

A. Vasnetsov. Moscow Kremlin under Ivan III

Russian military affairs also owe a lot to Ivan III; all the chroniclers unanimously praise the device they gave to the troops. During his reign, they began to distribute even more lands to the boyar children, with the obligation to put up a certain number of warriors in wartime, and ranks were instituted. Not tolerating the locality of the voevoda, Ivan III severely stabbed those responsible for it, despite their rank. With the acquisition of Novgorod, cities taken from Lithuania and Livonia, as well as the conquest of the lands of Yugra, Arsk and Vyatka, he significantly expanded the boundaries of the principality of Moscow and even tried to give his grandson Dmitry the title of king. With regard to the internal structure, it was important to issue laws, known as Sudebnik Ivan III, and the institution of city and zemstvo government (like the current police).

Many contemporary Ivan III and new writers call him a cruel ruler. Indeed, he was strict, and the reason for this must be sought both in the circumstances and in the spirit of that time. Surrounded by sedition, seeing disagreement even in his own family, still not firmly established in the autocracy, Ivan was afraid of treason and often punished the innocent, along with the guilty, on one baseless suspicion. But for all that, Ivan III, as the creator of the greatness of Russia, was loved by the people. His reign turned out to be an unusually important era for Russian history, which rightly recognized him as the Great.