Boris Akunin

Between Asia and Europe. Story Russian state. From Ivan III to Boris Godunov

Illustrations provided by Shutterstock, RIA Novosti, MIA Rossiya Segodnya, Diomedia, Fotodom and free sources are used in the design

Reviewers:

B. N. Morozov (Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

L. E. Morozova (Institute of Russian History RAS)

S. Yu. Shokarev (Historical and Archival Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities)

© B. Akunin, 2016

© AST Publishing House LLC, 2016

Preface to the third volume

Volume one described earlier Russian state, which appeared at the end of the 9th century, existed for several centuries and fell apart. main reason The failure of this "first attempt", in short and simplistic, was that the reason for which this state arose disappeared. It was formed on a key segment of the great merchant route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" - along the rivers connecting the Black Sea with the Baltic. As long as this commercial highway retained its importance, Kievan Rus prospered, grew rich and expanded, in modern terms, due to the benefits of "transit service" and participation in the Byzantine-European trade turnover. When the river route began to wither due to the opening of new trade routes and the weakening of Byzantium, it turned out that the Russian central authority is too weak, and internal inter-regional ties are not sufficiently developed to keep such a large territory within one political system. It became more profitable for local rulers to exist independently than to share income with the Grand Duke of Kyiv, and he did not have enough means to cope with the centrifugal movement. An extensive, but loosely stitched state, covering a significant part of Eastern Europe, in the XII century, it broke up into many medium and small principalities, which occasionally united in the face of external danger, but more often fought among themselves. However, they still continued to be called "Rus", retained one language, a common culture, a single church organization and were ruled by relatives - members of the Rurik dynasty. By the time of the catastrophe of 1237, the Russian state as such had long since ceased to exist, but the country still survived.

The second volume told how, due to the intervention of an external force - Mongol invasion- the country also disappeared for a while. Russia lost its independence and split into two parts, each of which later went its own historical path. The eastern half became first a province of the Horde, and then a protectorate of the Horde; the western one fell under the rule of the Lithuanian grand dukes and Polish kings. For more than two hundred years, from the middle of the 13th century to the middle of the 15th century, there was no sovereign Russian state.

However, as the weakening great empire Genghis Khan, due to a number of objective, but even more random factors, in the northeast former country began to strengthen one of the small principalities - Moscow. Very slowly, over a century and a half, overcoming the resistance of their neighbors and flexibly adapting to the changing situation within the Horde, the Moscow rulers ensured that their leadership became undeniable, and the supremacy of the Tatar Khan turned into an empty formality. By the time of the death of Vasily II and the reign of his son Ivan III (1462), all the prerequisites for the revival of a large state were ripe in the eastern half of Russia - second Russian state.

Starting work on the Russian History, I deliberately refused to build any concept. I have no such temptation now. As before, I am not going to prove anything to readers, I do not want to convince them of the correctness of my particular view of history. I just want to go through the whole chain of events to see how the Russian state developed and try to understand why it managed to cope with some tasks and failed to cope with others; at what moments the state power acted in the interests of the country and the people, and when it harmed them; in general - what is "benefit" and "harm" in relation to the country at each historical stage. And yet, even with such a deliberately unscientific, non-methodological way of presentation, it is hard not to notice that over the course of a thousand-year history, the alternation of motion vectors has repeatedly occurred. The country, geographically located at the junction of Western and Eastern civilizations, led either towards the West, then towards the East. These transitions from conditional Europe to conditional Asia and back are so obvious that few serious historians dispute the historical "two-component" nature of Russian statehood.

Between Asia and Europe. History of the Russian state. From Ivan III to Boris Godunov

History of the Russian state - 3

Illustrations provided by Shutterstock, RIA Novosti, MIA Rossiya Segodnya, Diomedia, Fotodom and free sources are used in the design

Reviewers:

B. N. Morozov (Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

L. E. Morozova (Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences)...

S. Yu. Shokarev (Historical and Archival Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities)

* * *

Preface to the third volume

The first volume described the early Russian state, which appeared at the end of the 9th century, existed for several centuries and collapsed. The main reason for the failure of this "first attempt", to put it briefly and simply, was that the reason for which this state arose disappeared. It was formed on a key segment of the great merchant route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" - along the rivers connecting the Black Sea with the Baltic. While this commercial highway retained its importance, Kievan Rus prospered, grew rich and expanded, in modern terms, due to the benefits of "service transit" and participation in the Byzantine-European trade. When the river route began to decline due to the opening of new trade routes and the weakening of Byzantium, it turned out that the Russian central government was too weak, and internal inter-regional ties were not sufficiently developed to keep such a large territory within one political system. It became more profitable for local rulers to exist independently than to share income with the Grand Duke of Kyiv, and he did not have enough means to cope with the centrifugal movement. The vast but loosely knit state, covering a significant part of Eastern Europe, in the 12th century broke up into many medium and small principalities, which occasionally united in the face of external danger, but more often fought among themselves. However, they still continued to be called "Rus", retained one language, a common culture, a single church organization and were ruled by relatives - members of the Rurik dynasty. By the time of the catastrophe of 1237, the Russian state as such had long since ceased to exist, but the country still survived.

The second volume told about how, due to the intervention of an external force - the Mongol invasion - the country also disappeared for a while. Russia lost its independence and split into two parts, each of which later went its own historical path. The eastern half became first a province of the Horde, and then a protectorate of the Horde; the western one fell under the rule of the Lithuanian grand dukes and Polish kings. For more than two hundred years, from the middle of the 13th century to the middle of the 15th century, there was no sovereign Russian state.

Boris Akunin

History of the Russian state.

From the origins to the Mongol invasion.

Part of Europe

The design uses illustrations provided by Fotobank, Shutterstock, as well as from the author's archive and free sources.

© B. Akunin, 2013

© AST Publishing House LLC

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

© Electronic version of the book prepared by Litres (www.litres.ru)

Before you decide whether it makes sense for you to read this essay, I must warn you about its features.

I write for people who do not know Russian history well and who want to understand it. I myself am the same. All my life I was interested in history, received a historical education, wrote several dozen historical novels nevertheless, one day I realized that my knowledge consists of separate fragments that do not add up well to the big picture. I didn't have a clear idea of ​​how and why Russia turned out the way it did. And I realized that in order to answer such a brief question, I would first have to read tens of thousands of pages, and then write several thousand pages.

I'm not building any concept. I have not it. Any historian who creates his own theory cannot resist the temptation to stick out the facts convenient for him and to silence or question everything that does not fit into his logic. I have no such temptation.

In addition, I am a resolute opponent of ideologized history. Both self-praising and self-deprecating lines, which are abundantly presented in the works of Russian historians, are equally uninteresting to me. I want to know (or calculate) how it really was. I don't have a preconceived notion. There are questions and there is a desire to find answers to them.

This is not the history of the country, but of the state, that is, political history: state building, management mechanisms, the relationship between people and power, social evolution. Culture, religion, economy, I touch only to the extent that they are connected with politics.

Russia is first and foremost a state. It is not identical to the country, and at some moments of history it was even hostile to it, but it was the state of the state that invariably determined the vector of evolution (or degradation) of all spheres of Russian life. The state is the cause of both Russian troubles and Russian victories.

Trying to understand what is right and wrong in our thousand-year-old state (and why) - that is what this work is ultimately started for.

Preface to the first volume

The origins of any national history, if it lasts for many centuries, are reminiscent of pre-dawn twilight. First, some indistinct noises come from the darkness, ghostly silhouettes appear, obscure movements are guessed. And only with time, very slowly, events and human figures become clear. The information that has come down to posterity is vague, fragmentary, and often contradictory or simply implausible.

Because of this, many historians are tempted to add harmony and logic to the story of ancient times, to "explain" what happened, and hypotheses and conjectures are given the appearance of an established fact. I also had such a temptation, but I tried to overcome it. That is why in this volume there are very often turnovers “apparently”, “probably”, “presumably” - as a sign that this information is a reconstruction. To essays on history Ancient Russia, where the authors confidently operate with dates, facts, figures and names, should be treated with caution.

After studying very few sources and very numerous interpretations of these sources, I became convinced that none of the historians knows exactly when, by whom and under what circumstances the first Russian state was created and built. Textbooks often give dubious dating of events, and the events themselves, on closer examination, sometimes turn out to be a retelling of myths. Numerous absurdities of "canonical" historiography, which began to take shape as early as the eighteenth century, prompted some researchers to the other extreme - the rejection of traditional chronology and the advancement of various hypotheses that turn the whole story upside down. The more temperamental the author, the more revolutionary his version looks.

The text brought to your attention is completely non-revolutionary and non-temperamental. The main method is the notorious "Occam's razor": everything superfluous (and unreliable) is cut off; only the facts that are considered by most historians to be verified, or at least the most probable, remain. If there are any doubts, this must be discussed.

The country that we call Ancient Russia was so different from Russia of the post-Mongolian era that through the thickness of the past centuries it seems to us some kind of perished, the legendary Atlantis. Therefore, I considered it expedient, as a supplement, to add to the presentation political history a purely everyday descriptive chapter "Life in Ancient Russia". The chronicles recorded only memorable events, that is, extraordinary, out of the normal course of life. If we confine ourselves to retelling the chronicles, one might get the feeling that the whole early history consisted of wars, epidemics, crop failures, change of rulers and the construction of large churches and fortresses. The insertion, although it breaks out of the general line of the narrative and goes beyond the scope of the title task, will give the reader some idea of ​​​​how and how the ancient Russian people lived.

The peculiarity of the historiography of the Kyiv period is that there are very few sources of information - at least written ones. There is, in fact, only one fundamental one: The Tale of Bygone Years, a chronicle that has been preserved not in its original form, but in two different options later time. Coinciding fragments of these two variants are considered to be the protograph, that is, the original text. But he, apparently, corresponded and changed under the influence of the political situation. The chronicler sets out the events of the ninth and tenth centuries very approximately, and in places clearly erroneously, inserting legends and tales, obviously drawn from folklore. There are also big gaps. Only from the eleventh century does the narrative turn from a set of legends and pious parables into a proper historical chronicle, and dating becomes confident, often with the addition of not only the year, but also the number. However, when describing recent incidents, the author is unbiased, setting out the "Kyiv" interpretation of political collisions and clearly flattering Vladimir Monomakh (perhaps the initiator or even the customer of the editorial board that has come down to us), which forces one to treat many statements and descriptions with a certain skepticism. Alternative chronicles, including regional ones (Novgorod, Galicia-Volyn), appear only at the end of the described period and cannot significantly complement the picture.

In addition to the meager chronicle heritage, historians studying Ancient Russia have a code of laws of the 11th century, known as the Russian Truth, but it also survived only in later, modified versions and, moreover, does not contain a story about events. Some additional information are found in foreign chronicles, Byzantine and Western European, but they are often distorted or frankly biased and very fragmentary - obviously, the life of a distant country did not interest foreign chroniclers too much. Russia was of undoubted interest to the Varangians, who for more than three centuries sailed to the East Slavic lands to hire, trade or rob, so a lot of interesting information was preserved in Scandinavian sagas However, these tales, of course, cannot be used as a reliable source.

Finally, there are notes of travelers who visited Russia. These testimonies sometimes help clarify or double-check some facts, but foreigners are poorly versed in Russian realities, distort names, and sometimes write obvious fables.

Some information about political history can be gleaned from archaeological finds, although sometimes they do not so much provide answers as raise new questions.

That, in fact, is the entire knowledge base with which historians have to work. Therefore, it is not surprising that the so-called official history» Ancient Russia is largely a consensus (that is, recognized by the majority) reconstruction of what most likely happened. And on many issues there is no consensus at all.

Was there really Rurik? Did the Slavs invite the Varangians? Who are these "Varangians-Rus" anyway? Did Oleg nail a shield to the gates of Tsaregrad? History does not have a categorical answer to all these and many other questions - only assumptions.

You will not find answers to controversial questions in my essay either. I did not set myself such a task, but was guided by the principle of D.I. Ilovaisky, who wrote in the nineteenth century: whole history any people, it would be unfair to require accurate independent research on all issues of secondary or tertiary importance that he encounters in the consistent progress of his work. But he has no right to evade the solution of questions of paramount importance.

Illustrations provided by Shutterstock, RIA Novosti, MIA Rossiya Segodnya, Diomedia, Fotodom and free sources are used in the design

Reviewers:

B. N. Morozov (Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

L. E. Morozova (Institute of Russian History RAS)

S. Yu. Shokarev (Historical and Archival Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities)

© B. Akunin, 2016

© AST Publishing House LLC, 2016

* * *

Preface to the third volume

The first volume described the early Russian state, which appeared at the end of the 9th century, existed for several centuries and collapsed. The main reason for the failure of this "first attempt", to put it briefly and simply, was that the reason for which this state arose disappeared. It was formed on a key segment of the great merchant route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" - along the rivers connecting the Black Sea with the Baltic. While this commercial highway retained its importance, Kievan Rus prospered, grew rich and expanded, in modern terms, due to the benefits of "service transit" and participation in the Byzantine-European trade. When the river route began to decline due to the opening of new trade routes and the weakening of Byzantium, it turned out that the Russian central government was too weak, and internal inter-regional ties were not sufficiently developed to keep such a large territory within one political system. It became more profitable for local rulers to exist independently than to share income with the Grand Duke of Kyiv, and he did not have enough means to cope with the centrifugal movement. The vast but loosely knit state, covering a significant part of Eastern Europe, in the 12th century broke up into many medium and small principalities, which occasionally united in the face of external danger, but more often fought among themselves. However, they still continued to be called "Rus", retained one language, a common culture, a single church organization and were ruled by relatives - members of the Rurik dynasty. By the time of the catastrophe of 1237, the Russian state as such had long since ceased to exist, but the country still survived.

The second volume told about how, due to the intervention of an external force - the Mongol invasion - the country also disappeared for a while. Russia lost its independence and split into two parts, each of which later went its own historical path. The eastern half became first a province of the Horde, and then a protectorate of the Horde; the western one fell under the rule of the Lithuanian grand dukes and Polish kings. For more than two hundred years, from the middle of the 13th century to the middle of the 15th century, there was no sovereign Russian state.

However, as the great empire of Genghis Khan weakened, due to a number of objective, but to an even greater extent random factors, one of the small principalities, Moscow, began to strengthen in the northeast of the former country.

Very slowly, over a century and a half, overcoming the resistance of their neighbors and flexibly adapting to the changing situation within the Horde, the Moscow rulers ensured that their leadership became undeniable, and the supremacy of the Tatar Khan turned into an empty formality. By the time of the death of Vasily II and the reign of his son Ivan III (1462), all the prerequisites for the revival of a large state were ripe in the eastern half of Russia - second Russian state.

Starting work on the Russian History, I deliberately refused to build any concept. I have no such temptation now. As before, I am not going to prove anything to readers, I do not want to convince them of the correctness of my particular view of history. I just want to go through the whole chain of events to see how the Russian state developed and try to understand why it managed to cope with some tasks and failed to cope with others; at what moments the state power acted in the interests of the country and the people, and when it harmed them; in general - what is "benefit" and "harm" in relation to the country at each historical stage. And yet, even with such a deliberately unscientific, non-methodological way of presentation, it is hard not to notice that over the course of a thousand-year history, the alternation of motion vectors has repeatedly occurred. The country, geographically located at the junction of Western and Eastern civilizations, led either towards the West, then towards the East. These transitions from conditional Europe to conditional Asia and back are so obvious that few serious historians dispute the historical "two-component" nature of Russian statehood.

The swings of this geopolitical pendulum are also reflected in the titles of the volumes.

The first was called "Part of Europe" - because until the middle of the XIII century, Russia remained in line with common European history (if Byzantium is included in that).

The second volume had to be called “Part of Asia”, because Russia, at least its eastern half, became part of the Asian (Mongolian) state and began to exist according to completely different principles.

This volume is called "Between Asia and Europe". Russia is restoring independence, moving on to independent development, but so far it is much closer to the East than to the West - primarily in its state system, inherited from the Horde and largely copying it.

This is natural. Russian rulers did not see and did not know states more powerful than the Golden Horde. Byzantium, the former teacher of the Kyiv grand dukes, fell into insignificance, and in 1453 ceased to exist altogether. New giant - Ottoman Empire, was a military power that also largely borrowed the structure of the Genghisid kingdoms. Military Horde type state organization based on simple, clear and convenient principles. The main core is the absolute, deified power of the sovereign; government is carried out not according to a single law for all, but according to the august will of the monarch; all subjects, from the first nobleman to the last slave, are considered servants of the state - that is, the sovereign; tough vertical structure if necessary, ensures the rapid mobilization of military and economic resources.

Truth, Golden Horde crumbled before the eyes of the Moscow rulers, but this happened, according to contemporaries, due to the weakening of the khan's power and the willfulness of the Horde nobility. The Russian rulers drew from this a conclusion that seemed obvious: the more totalitarian control from above, the stronger the power. This is how a paradox arises, which will later become one of the main collisions. Russian history. Remaining in its structure, principles of organization, ideology as a state of the "Horde" warehouse, Russia will strive to occupy an important, and if possible, a dominant place in the European political system.

The fact is that simultaneously with the creation of a new Russian state under Ivan III, the energy center of history begins to gradually move from East to West. At the first stage of the described period, Asia, represented by the Ottoman Empire, is still advancing and pushing Europe, but by the end of the 16th century, the outstripping development of the latter becomes more and more obvious. The renewed Russian state, whose ties were traditionally oriented towards the East, has to deal more and more with the West. Europe is getting closer more important; economic, technological and cultural interests make Russia turn to face it.

The next, fourth volume, dedicated to Russia of the 17th century, will be called “Between Europe and Asia” - by that time the Muscovite state will drift even further in a westerly direction, increasingly distancing itself from the East.

The third volume covers the events from 1462 to 1605, that is, from the moment of the actual liberation of Russia from foreign domination to the great Troubles - a new loss of independence as a result of an internal crisis and enemy invasion. My original intention was to call the volume Second Attempt. This, in fact, was the second attempt to create a large centralized state, which started powerfully, but led to a sad ending. Sovereignty was again lost, but now in a collision with the West, and not with the East. Although the collapse was less catastrophic than in the 13th century, and independence was restored a few years later, it still seems very important to understand: why successes were followed by defeats? What in the "second" Russian state was initially - or eventually became - the cause of such fragility?

It is this line that will be the leading one in this volume. My assumptions and conclusions, as usual, I will collect in the final chapter. By that time, the reader, having already familiarized himself with the facts, will surely form his own point of view, which, perhaps, will not coincide with the author's.

The epochs of Russian history, with its movements from one civilizational space to another, are so different from each other that in each volume it is necessary to change the principle of narration, adapting it to the peculiarities of this period. Structurally, the third volume differs significantly from both the first and the second.

I have already written before that I am very interested in the long-standing dispute about the role of the individual in history. It is clear that this role varies greatly depending on the form state structure. Under a democratic republic or a limited monarchy, it is, of course, substantially less than under absolutism or under a military-dictatorial regime. If - usually due to completely objective reasons - a regime of unlimited power of one person is established in the country, then the factor is completely subjective, the personal qualities of the ruler, acquires hypertrophied significance.

Such a concentration of autocracy, which occurred in the period described, has never happened in Russia before. In these times, when, in the words of S. Solovyov, "the state was still so young," the personality of the Autocrat determined the policy of the country, and therefore its fate. The character of the monarch, the weak and strong features of his nature, the state of health, the events of family and private life left their mark on the entire era. It would not be a great exaggeration to say that the principle was in effect: what is the sovereign, such is the state. That is why, in the period covered by this volume, it is easier to describe political events, social and economic changes not from the objective to the subjective, but vice versa, from the personal to the public.

For the storyteller, this is very convenient. The history of the "second attempt" is easily divided into four time, according to the number of Russian rulers, and each of these times has a distinct individuality of its own. The first three sections - "The Time of Ivan III (1462-1505)", "The Time of Vasily III (1505-1533)" and "The Time of Ivan IV (1533-1584)" - I called the names of the monarchs; the fourth, “The Time of Boris Godunov (1584-1605)”, is the name of the actual head of state, although Tsar Fedor I was on the throne from 1584 to 1598.

Each part begins with a chapter dedicated to the personality of the ruler. Without this, much in the life of the state would remain incomprehensible.

Then the thematic chapters follow, the formation and selection of which again depend on individual characteristics rule: the more rational and consistent the lord, the more harmonious the narrative (as, for example, in the description of the era of Ivan III) - and vice versa, with such a restless monarch as Ivan IV, the story about the life of the state also turns out to be “jumping”.

Time of Ivan the Third (1462–1505)

(© RIA Novosti)

The history of Ivan III, a purposeful and persistent ruler, is very easy to divide into chronological and thematic chapters, since Ivan Vasilyevich usually did not take on a new state task without finishing the previous one. The Grand Duke always knew for sure what he wanted and by what means he would achieve it. He undoubtedly possessed outstanding strategic thinking, he built his plans for a long time and for a long time, and these plans, even the most difficult ones, were always realistic.

The background of all the activities of Ivan III were efforts to transform the conglomerate of heterogeneous, differently organized Russian regions into single state; to create a power pyramid topped with the figure of an absolute monarch. The sovereign carried on this work painstakingly, patiently and unceasingly from the first to the last day of his long reign. Ivan was the true architect of the "second" Russian state. The chapter “The Sovereign of Moscow” is devoted to the work of Ivan III on the construction of a rigidly centralized, autocratic body of power.

Then, in chronological order, there are chapters that describe the three great campaigns carried out by Ivan III: Novgorod, Tatar and Lithuanian. It was they who laid the foundation of the great kingdom and determined the future of the country. The sovereign, of course, in all the years had to simultaneously deal with Novgorod, Tatar, and Lithuanian affairs, however, being a methodical person, at each stage he considered only one of these areas to be a priority.

The problem of Novgorod as a whole was resolved by 1480; the Tatar problem - by 1487, and later, until the end of his life, Ivan was mainly occupied with Lithuania. The story is structured accordingly.

Three more chapters are devoted to topics without which the story of this important period of Russian history would be incomplete: changes in the internal life of the country, the formation of Russian foreign policy and the relationship between the secular authorities and the church.

However, first of all, let's get acquainted with a living person who was destined to carry out the grandiose task of reviving the Russian state.

Ivan III Vasilyevich in life

State family man

The heir and successor of the undistinguished Vasily II was born on January 22, 1440. According to the calendar, this was the day of memory of the Apostle Timothy, and the "direct", that is, the prince's baptismal name was Timothy. According to ancient tradition, he also received another heavenly patron, John Chrysostom, in whose honor he was named Ivan. Under this second name, he remained in history. Timothy-Ivan's mother, Maria Yaroslavna, came from the Serpukhov branch of the Moscow princely house. The boy was a quarter Lithuanian, the great-grandson of the great Vitovt.

Five more children of Vasily II survived to adulthood: Yuri Molodoy, Andrei Bolshoi, Boris, Andrei Menshoi and Anna.

In the life of every monarch, family and state are intertwined, family and marriage ties are not a private matter, and Ivan III put the state interest in the first place and, it seems, always took precedence over personal feelings - in this he favorably differed from many subsequent Russian rulers. Ivan Vasilievich was never just a family man - husband, brother, father, grandfather; he was government family man. We must keep this in mind all the time, evaluating his actions in relation to relatives and, in particular, to siblings, whom Ivan, if the state necessity required, treated like enemies.

The prince's childhood was disturbing.

He was only five years old when the careless Vasily Vasilyevich ended up in Tatar captivity, almost destroying the Moscow principality. AT next year more turbulent times have come. returned from captivity Grand Duke was deposed from the throne by his cousin Dmitry Shemyaka, blinded and imprisoned. The little heir was taken away, but then handed over to the enemies, and he shared his imprisonment with his father. Then the deposed Vasily, who received the nickname "Dark" for his blindness, was sent with his family to reign in the provincial Vologda, where the blind man began to prepare for a new civil war. To enlist the support of the Tver prince Boris Alexandrovich, he promised to marry the seven-year-old Ivan to the Tver princess Maria, who was even younger.

Shortly after returning to the throne, the blind Vasily proclaimed his young son co-ruler, so that Ivan was titled Grand Duke from 1449. It is difficult to say at what age he began to be involved in the discussion of state affairs, but it happened very early. Already at the age of twelve he participated in a military expedition (against Shemyaka); returning from the campaign, Ivan married Maria Borisovna - that is, he formally became an adult.

Vasily the Dark and his son Ivan. V. P. Vereshchagin

Vasily the Dark made a nine-year-old child his co-ruler in order to avoid the usual for that time internecine succession war in the future - the younger brothers, an eternal source of danger, had to get used to the special position of the elder. However, this measure, taken in the name of state stability, turned out to be wise in yet another sense: in 1460, it saved the Grand Duke from death.

At enmity with Novgorod, which gave shelter to the stubborn Shemyaka, the Grand Duke eventually bowed the merchant republic to obedience. He took away part of the land from her, took a large contribution, and after a while, with his characteristic carelessness, he appeared in a city that hated him with a small retinue, and even accompanied by two sons, Yuri the Young and Andrei the Great.

Novgorodians decided to take advantage of such a convenient opportunity and kill their offender along with the princes, thereby plunging Moscow into confusion and chaos. But the Novgorod archbishop Jonah dissuaded the conspirators, saying that it was pointless to kill the sovereign, since his eldest son Ivan remained in Moscow and would be able to keep power in his hands.

From this it follows that at the age of twenty Ivan Vasilievich was co-ruler not only nominally, but also in fact - and the whole country knew about it.

That is why Ivan's reign after the death of his father (March 27, 1462) happened without any complications, and he felt so confident on the throne that he did not even bother - for the first time in Moscow history - to ask for a label from the khan. It is this historical moment (and not the year 1480, as is commonly believed), perhaps, that the era of Tatar rule over Russia should be completed. At the same time, a “second” sovereign state was actually born.

Once and for all, there was no definite order of succession to the throne in Russia, and every time after the death of the previous Grand Duke, discord arose between the applicants, who in former times often turned to an external force - the Tatars for support. But for an independent country, the issue of dynastic succession was of paramount importance - especially in the system of autocratic power that Ivan III built all his life. AT last period his reign, due to the uncertainty of the order of succession in the country, a serious crisis will occur. To understand its origins, we will have to consider in detail the matrimonial life of Ivan Vasilyevich.

So, in 1452, fulfilling his obligations to his ally, Vasily the Dark married the heir to the Tver princess Maria. The marriage was political, state: thanks to him, Tver, the former rival of Moscow, became its satellite.

Very early, almost fourteen years old, Maria gave birth to young Ivan's son, who was called "Ivan the Young". In 1470, repeating the successful reception of his parent, the sovereign made the heir co-ruler.

But by this time the Grand Duke had become a widower (Maria Borisovna died in 1467) and was preparing to marry again.

The story of the second marriage of Ivan Vasilyevich is so interesting and had such important consequences for the Russian state that it deserves a detailed story.

By this time, the position of Ivan, the owner of a strong and rich state, had changed very much compared to 1447, when betrothal to the Tver princess was considered a great success. There were no brides in Russia equal in status to such a groom, so it was desirable to find a new spouse outside the country, in foreign crowned houses. The problem was that Catholicism was established almost everywhere in Europe, and it was difficult to find an Orthodox princess.

In 1468, a crafty Italian, who in Russia was called Ivan Fryazin (his real name was Gian Battista della Volpe), invited to Moscow to set up coinage, offered to arrange the marriage of the dowager Ivan with the Byzantine princess Zoya Paleolog. By that time, the Greek empire had already fallen for a decade and a half, but the prestige of the title of basileus was very high. Zoya's father, however, was never a basileus - he was the brother of the last emperor, but he inherited this title, that is, he was magnificently called Caesar in exile, but he had neither possessions nor means of subsistence. (His heir Andrei Paleolog subsequently traded the imperial title, trying to seduce his son-in-law Ivan, but he did not like to throw money away and refused. He did the right thing, because the unscrupulous Byzantine managed to sell his caesarate to three different princes at different times.)

Thomas Palaiologos, Despot of Morea, father of Zoe. From a fresco by Pinturicchio

Thus, the party was not so brilliant, especially since by 1468 Zoya was orphaned. Her two previous suitors, the son of the Marquis of Mantua and the seedy king of Cyprus, on reflection, refused such a bride. Zoya was a dowry and lived at the expense of the pope, out of mercy and rather meagerly. Paul II was glad to get rid of this burden, especially since the cunning Volpe promised the pontiff that in this way it would be possible to introduce Muscovy to Catholicism. (The princess, born in Orthodoxy, in Rome, of course, converted to the Latin or, at least, Uniate faith, which “Ivan Fryazin” did not tell the Russians about.) In Rome, they hoped to connect Muscovy to the anti-Turkish coalition - the Ottoman Empire was for the Holy Seen as the main enemy and constant threat.