Ivan the Terrible, the Czar and Grand Prince of Russia, Wouldn’t Earn His Violent Nickname Until Years After His Reign

Ivan IV Vasilyevich was just a teenager when he was crowned czar and grand prince of all Russia on January 16, 1547. Today, Ivan is better known as Ivan the Terrible, though the name wouldn’t be attached to him until much later. 

Ivan ruled as Russia’s first-ever czar for nearly four decades. He transformed Russia, centralizing it administratively and culturally. Early on, Ivan instituted several reforms, strengthening the church and reorganizing the military. And during his reign, the Russian Army also successfully secured the Volga River, and thereby the trade route to the Caspian Sea.  

However, Ivan’s policies would also cost many lives, and he brought Russia to economic crisis through an unsuccessful war before setting it up for the Times of Troubles.  

A large part of what earned Ivan his brutal reputation—and later his nickname—was his bloody oprichnina, which he wouldn’t enact until relatively late in his reign. The oprichnina was the creation of a “state within a state” under Ivan’s direct control. The oprichniki, members of the new court largely picked from the lower, carried out the executions of thousands of people, a violent act on the upper echelons of the aristocracy of the time. Their brutal actions, meted out under Ivan's direction. were meant to quash dissent in the country, allowing the czar to remain in control.   

Ivan’s use of mass terror against his own people lasted from 1565 to 1572. During the period “he drowned Russia, or Muscovite Rus as it was then known, in blood,” as historian Michael Khodarkovsky tells How Stuff Works. 

Despite his well-known nickname, Ivan did not take on the “terrible” moniker during his lifetime. Indeed, historian Edward Keenan notes that it took until almost two centuries after his death in 1584 for the name to stick, though even by the early 17th century “Ivan is well-established in native sources as an unpleasant fellow.” 

The retrospective nickname grew out of the convergence of this dynamic with several others, writes Keenan, including an anti-Ivan bent in sensationalist 16th-century pamphlets and the 18th-century practice of “assigning bynames to dynasts.” 

Though Ivan has become commonly known as Ivan the Terrible, there has never been total agreement about his legacy. Some argue that the moniker is not as derogatory as it would seem, since the original Russian word translated as “terrible” comes closer to meaning “inspiring awe or fear.”  

Either way, writes historian Charles J. Halperin, who has authored three books about the sovereign, Ivan was “the most controversial ruler in Russian history, surpassing Peter the Great, Lenin, even Stalin.” 

Not long after his death, some held a positive impression of his rule, thinking of him as a just ruler who allied himself with the people rather than the aristocracy. Joseph Stalin lauded Ivan as a strong ruler, which he used to justify his own harsh policies. Not long ago, the debate sprang back up again when the Russian town of Oryol erected a statue of Ivan in 2016 — though there was significant backlash. The decision to erect the statue could convey as much about the current regime’s views of national power and state control, observers suggested at the time.  

“His reign was politicized in his own time and has been ever since,” Halperin writes.

Teresa Nowakowski | | READ MORE

Teresa Nowakowski is a print and multimedia journalist based in Chicago. They cover history, arts and culture, science, travel, food and other topics.