Oprichnina
Encyclopedia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n history between Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
Ivan the Terrible's 1565 initiation and his 1572 disbanding of a domestic policy
Domestic policy
Domestic policy, also known as public policy, presents decisions, laws, and programs made by the government which are directly related to all issues and activity within the country....
of secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
, mass repressions
Political repression
Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....
, public executions, and confiscation of land from Russian aristocrats
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
. The six thousand political police enforcing the policy were called oprichnik
Oprichnik
An oprichnik was a member of an organization established by Tsar Ivan the Terrible to govern the division of Russia known as the Oprichnina ....
i, and the term oprichnina also applies to the secret police organization and to the territory in which, during that period, the Tsar ruled directly and in which his oprichniki operated.
The term oprichnina, which Ivan coined for this policy, derives from the Russian word oprich .
Causes
In 1558, Tsar Ivan IV started the Livonian warLivonian War
The Livonian War was fought for control of Old Livonia in the territory of present-day Estonia and Latvia when the Tsardom of Russia faced a varying coalition of Denmark–Norway, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Union of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland.During the period 1558–1578,...
after the Livonian Confederation
Livonian Confederation
Terra Mariana was the official name for Medieval Livonia or Old Livonia which was formed in the aftermath of the Livonian Crusade in the territories comprising present day Estonia and Latvia...
refused to pay tribute to Russia. A broad coalition, which included Poland, Lithuania and Sweden, were drawn into the war against Russia. The war became drawn-out and expensive. Raids by Crimean Tatars, Polish and Lithuanian invasions, famines, a trading blockade and escalating costs of war ravaged Russia.
In 1564, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, who had defected to the Lithuanians, led the Lithuanian army against Russia, devastating the Russian region of Velikiye Luki
Velikiye Luki
Velikiye Luki is a town on the meandering Lovat River in the southern part of Pskov Oblast, Russia. It is the second largest town in Pskov Oblast; population: The town is served by the Velikiye Luki Airport....
.
Tsar Ivan began to suspect that other aristocrats were also ready to betray him. V.O. Klyuchevskii and S.B. Veselovskii explained the oprichnina in terms of Ivan’s paranoia and denied larger social aims for the oprichnina. However, historian Sergei Fyodorovich Platonov argued that Ivan IV intended the oprichnina as a suppression of the rising boyar aristocracy. Professor Isabel de Madariaga has expanded this idea to explain the oprichnina as Ivan’s attempt to subordinate all independent social classes to the autocracy.
Creation
On December 3, 1564, Ivan IV departed Moscow on pilgrimage. While such journeys were routine for the throne, Ivan neglected to set the usual arrangements for rule in his absence. Moreover, an unusually large personal guard, a significant number of boyars, and the treasury accompanied him.After a month of silence, Ivan finally issued two letters from his fortifications at Aleksandrova Sloboda on January 3. The first addressed the elite of the city and accused them of embezzlement and treason. Further accusations concerned the clergy and their protection of denounced boyars. In conclusion, Ivan announced his abdication. The second letter addressed the population of Moscow and claimed “he had no anger against” its citizenry. Divided between Sloboda and Moscow, the boyar court was unable to rule in absence of Ivan and feared the wrath of the Muscovite citizenry. A boyar envoy departed for Aleksandrova Sloboda to beg Ivan to return to the throne.
Ivan IV agreed to return on condition that he may persecute treason outside legal limitations. He demanded that he execute and confiscate the land of traitors without interference from the boyar council or church. To pursue his investigations, Ivan decreed the creation of the oprichnina (originally a term for land left to a noble widow, separate from her children's land). He also raised a levy of 100,000 rubles to pay for the oprichnina
Organization
The oprichnina consisted of a separate territory within the borders of Russia, mostly in the territory of the former Novgorod RepublicNovgorod Republic
The Novgorod Republic was a large medieval Russian state which stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Ural Mountains between the 12th and 15th centuries, centred on the city of Novgorod...
in the north. This region included many of the financial centers of the state, including the salt region of Staraia Russa and prominent merchant towns. Ivan held exclusive power over the oprichnina territory. The Boyar Council ruled the zemshchina ('land'), the second division of the state. Until 1568, the oprichnina relied upon many administrative institutions under zemshchina jurisdiction. Only when conflict between the zemshchina and oprichnina reached its peak did Ivan create independent institutions within the oprichnina.
Ivan also stipulated the creation of a personal guard known as the oprichniki. Originally it was a thousand strong. The noble oprichniki Aleksei Basmanov and Afanasy Viazemsky oversaw recruitment. Nobles and townsmen free of relations to the zemshchina or its administration were eligible for Ivan’s new guard. Henri Troyat has emphasized the lowly origin of the oprichnina recruits. However, historian V.B. Kobrin has contested that a shift to the lower classes constituted a late development in the oprichnina era. Many early oprichniki had close ties to the princely and boyar clans of Russia.
Territorial divisions under the oprichnina led to mass resettlement. When the property of zemshchina nobles fell within oprichnina territory, oprichniki seized their lands and forced the owners onto zemshchina land. The oprichnina territory included primarily service estates. S.B. Veselovskii and A.A. Zimin have argued that this division left heredity landownership largely unaffected. However, Platonov and other scholars have posited that resettlement aimed to undermine the power of the landed nobility. Pavlov has cited the relocation of zemshchina servicemen from oprichnina territories onto heredity estates as a critical blow to the power of the princely class. The division of hereditary estates diminished the influence of the princely elites in their native provinces. The worst affected was the province of Suzdal
Suzdal
Suzdal is a town in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, situated northeast of Moscow, from the city of Vladimir, on the Kamenka River. Population: -History:...
which lost 80% of its gentry.
The oprichniki enjoyed social and economic privileges under the oprichnina. While zemshchina boyars lost both heredity and service land, the oprichniki retained heredity holdings that fell in zemshchina land. Moreover, Ivan granted the oprichnina the spoils of a heavy tax levied upon the zemshchina nobles. The rising oprichniki owed their allegiance to Ivan, not heredity or local bonds.
Operations
The first wave of persecutions targeted primarily the princely clans of Russia, notably the influential families of Suzdal’. Ivan executed, exiled, or tonsured prominent members of the boyar clans on questionable accusations of conspiracy. 1566 saw the oprichnina extended to eight central districts. Of the 12,000 nobles there, 570 became oprichniks, the rest were expelled. They had to make their way to the zemschina in mid winter, peasants who helped them were executed. In a show of clemency, Ivan recalled a number of nobles to Moscow. The Tsar even called upon zemshchina nobles for a Zemskii sobor concerning the Livonian War. Ivan posed the question of whether Russia should surrender the Livonian territories to recently victorious Lithuania or maintain the effort to conquer the region. The body approved war measures and advanced emergency taxes to support the draining treasury.However, the sobor also forwarded a petition to end the oprichnina. The Tsar reacted with a renewal of the oprichnina terror. Ivan ordered the immediate arrest of the petitioners and executed the alleged leaders of the protest. Further investigations tied Ivan Federov, leader of the zemshchina duma, to a plot to overthrow Ivan; Federov was removed from court and executed shortly thereafter.
The overthrow of King Erik XIV of Sweden and the death of Ivan’s second wife exacerbated Ivan’s suspicions. His attention turned to the northwestern city of Novgorod. The second-largest city in Russia, Novgorod housed a large service nobility with ties to some of the condemned boyar families of Moscow. Despite the sack of the city under Ivan III, Novgorod maintained a political organization removed from Russia’s central administration. Moreover, the influence of the city in the northeast had increased as the city fronted the military advance against the Lithuanian border. The treasonous surrender of the border town Izborsk
Izborsk
Izborsk is a rural locality in Pechorsky District of Pskov Oblast, Russia. It contains one of the most ancient and impressive fortresses of Western Russia....
to Lithuania also caused Ivan to question the faith of border towns.
Ivan IV and an oprichniki detachment instituted a month-long terror in Novgorod. The oprichniki raided the town and conducted executions among all classes. As the Livonian campaign constituted a significant drain on state resources, Ivan targeted ecclesiastical and merchant holdings with particular fervor. After Novgorod, the oprichniki company turned to the adjacent merchant city Pskov
Pskov
Pskov is an ancient city and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, Russia, located in the northwest of Russia about east from the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Population: -Early history:...
. The city received relatively merciful treatment. The oprichniki limited executions and focused primarily upon the seizure of ecclesiastical wealth. According to a popular apocryphal account, a mad religious ascetic prophesied the fall of Ivan and thus motivated the deeply religious Tsar to spare the city. Alternatively, Ivan may have felt no need to institute a terror in Pskov due to his prior sack of the city in wake of the Izborsk treason. The dire financial condition of the state and the need to bolster the war treasury likely inspired the second raid.
Ivan IV maintained the heightened terror as he returned to Moscow. A series of particularly brutal open-air executions were held in Moscow’s Pagan Square. The persecutions began to target the oprichnina leadership itself. The tsar had already refused Basmanov and Viazemsky participation in the Novgorod campaign. Upon his return, Ivan condemned the two to prison, where they died shortly thereafter. Pavlov links Ivan’s turn against the higher echelons of oprichniki to the increasing number of the lower-born among their ranks. Ivan may have reacted to the apparent discontent among the princely oprichniki over the brutal treatment of Novgorod. Furthermore, class disparity may have set the lower recruits against the princely oprichniki. As Ivan already suspected the older oprichniki on the issue of Novgorod, the lower-born recruits may have advanced the new persecutions to increase their influence in the oprichnina hierarchy.
Disbandment
1572 saw the fall of the oprichnina state structure. The zemshchina and oprichnina territories were reunited and placed under rule of a reformed Boyar Council, which included members from both sides of the divided apparatus.Scholars have cited diverse factors to explain the dissolution of the oprichnina. The Crimean Tartars burnt Moscow in 1571 (Russo-Crimean War (1571)). The success of the Tartars may have shaken the Tsar’s faith in the effectiveness of the oprichnina. Ivan may have found state division ineffective in a period of war and its significant social and economic pressures. Alternatively, Ivan may have deemed the oprichnina a success; the weakening of the princely elite achieved, the Tsar may have felt that the terror had simply outlived its usefulness.
Legacy
Ivan Lazhechnikov
Ivan Lazhechnikov
Ivan Ivanovich Lazhechnikov , September 25, 1792 – July 8, 1869, was a Russian writer.-Biography:Lazhechnikov was born into the family of a rich merchant in Kolomna in 1792. He received a well-rounded education from private tutors at home...
wrote the tragedy The Oprichniki , on which Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
based his opera The Oprichnik
The Oprichnik (opera)
The Oprichnik or The Guardsman is an opera in 4 acts, 5 scenes, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to his own libretto after the tragedy The Oprichniks by Ivan Lazhechnikov . The subject of the opera is the oprichniks...
. In turn, Tchaikovsky's opera inspired a 1911 painting by Apollinary Vasnetsov
Apollinary Vasnetsov
Apollinary Mikhaylovich Vasnetsov , 1856, the village of Riabovo, Vyatka province - January 23, 1933, Moscow) was a Russian painter and graphic artist whose elder brother was the more famous Viktor Vasnetsov. He specialized in scenes from the medieval history of Moscow.Vasnetsov was a painter and a...
, depicting a city street and people fleeing in panic at the arrival of the oprichniki.
Further reading
- Walter Leitsch. "Russo-Polish Confrontation" in Taras Hunczak, ed. "Russian Imperialism". Rutgers University Press. 1974, p. 140
- Oleg GordievskyOleg GordievskyOleg Antonovich Gordievsky , CMG , is a former Colonel of the KGB and KGB Resident-designate and bureau chief in London, who was a secret agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service from 1974 to 1985.-Early career:Oleg Gordievsky attended the Moscow State Institute of International...
and Christopher Andrew (1999). KGB: The Inside Story of its intelligence operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (Russian language edition, Moscow, Centerpoligraph, ISBN 5-227-00437-4, page 21)
External links
- The New York Times Book Review - A Dystopian Tale of Russia’s Future (2011/03/13)