Why did Ivan the Terrible kill his son Ivan? Did Ivan the Terrible kill his son?

In the royal chambers on July 3, 1583, one of the most mysterious and incomprehensible murders of the sixteenth century happened. The son of Ivan the Terrible, Ivan Ivanovich, was killed by his own father. In a fit of anger, the king poked his offspring that there was strength in his temple. The blow was accurate and strong - the tsarevich died on the spot. It's also amazing what kind of son Ivan the Terrible killed! The most beloved, the eldest, the one with high hopes, for his second descendant, Fedor, was not ready to rule the country from the very beginning.

Over the past more than four hundred and fifty years, history has grown in many legends, different versions of what happened. Until now, the exact date of death of the Crown Prince has not been established. Some researchers suggest that the tragedy occurred as far back as 1581, in November, others call 1582, and still others, most of whom still adhere to the July 3, 1583 date. By and large, the figures are not so important, the main task is to understand why Ivan the Terrible killed his son, and whether he killed him at all? Let's try to understand.

First version. Political

Nikolay Karamzin in his "History" voiced that the stumbling block between father and son was politics. Filled with noble jealousy the prince came to the parent and demanded to free Pskov, expel the enemy, restore the honor of the Russian Empire. In anger, John shouted that his son, along with the boyars, wanted to overthrow him from the throne, and raised his hand. Boris Godunov tried to hold it, but the tsar inflicted several wounds on his nobleman with a sharp rod, and then struck the crown prince with force. He fell, sweating with blood. The death of Ivan - the son of Ivan the Terrible - came instantly. It is noteworthy that this version, which Karamzin considered to be true, was originally put forward by Antonio Possevino, a papal legate, which, it must be admitted, was, if not the most interested witness, certainly not independent. Therefore, the reliability of such a statement is very doubtful, especially since it is not confirmed by any other evidence. Then why did Ivan the Terrible kill his son? Go ahead.

The second version. Life

Only officially Tsar John Vasilievich was married at least seven times. As you know, an apple from an apple tree falls not far. So the young czarevich tried to keep up with his father. His first wife was the daughter of Saburov, Evdokia Bogdanov, after an unsuccessful marriage she was forcibly tonsured into a nun. The second wife, Feodosia Mikhailova, daughter of Solov, suffered the same fate - she finished her life in a monastery. By 1583 Ivan was married to the daughter of the youngest of the Sheremetyev brothers, Elena. One morning, John Vasilievich saw the pregnant wife of the prince in an unseemly kind: her belt was not tied, and it was not necessary to walk openly to a married woman. The king was angry and hung a pair of good slaps to his daughter-in-law. Elena fell and hit, and already the next night she lost her baby. Immediately the Cesarevitch ran into the wards and began to reproach his father, he stood up for his wife, for which he received a staff in his temple. It turns out that this is why Ivan the Terrible killed his son! However, not everything is clear here either. The author of this version was the same Antonio Possevino, who was profitable to expose the ruler as a ruthless suicide, in order to legitimize the European Inquisition. So what happened after all?

The third version. Love

The Russian Tsar was very eager for the female sex and, according to testimonies, did not miss a single skirt. Once, somewhere in the wards, he met Elena, the wife of the Tsarevich Ivan, whom we had already talked about, and began to force her to cohabitation. It is not known for certain whether John Vasilievich eventually became a daughter-in-law (a man who shared a woman and his son in Russia long ago), but the young princess told her husband about harassment, and he decided to find out the relationship with his father. What this is all over, we know. The son of Ivan the Terrible, Ivan, fell with a broken temple, and his wife after some time was sent to a monastery. But was this really the case?

The fourth version. Disproving

Historians who lived much later than John Vasilyevich and his offspring, were thinking: "Did Ivan the Terrible kill his son?" Perhaps this is just an interesting legend? In other words, misinformation and slander? Indeed, at the present time the mere fact of a suicide is very doubtful. To understand why we should doubt, we turn to the years 1883-1885 - the time when, from the brush of the famous Russian artist Ilya Repin, the work of art "Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on November 16, 1581" appeared.

Painting "Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son"

It was under this name that the canvas became known to the public at large, depicting how the Russian tsar inflicted a death blow on the tsarevich. On the covered red carpets in the semi-darkness of the chambers lies an abandoned rod beside the overturned throne, and in the center of the chambers are illuminated two figures: the father who has just committed an irate impulse irreparable, and the son dying in his arms. Despair, immeasurable love and horror express the face of John Vasilievich, he convulsively embraces the prince, tries to stop the blood, clamped the wound on his head, and the son, forgiving his father, falls on his chest. The elderly appearance of the Tsar, with its exaggerated features, looks both miserable and frightening in his lostness. The face of Ivan in comparison with him is more "alive", spiritualized, human. Pity for the father overwhelms the prince, he feels a sense of forgiveness, it raises him above all unworthy small passions that have caused his death, purify the soul. This is what the picture "Ivan the Terrible kills his son" shows.

The fate of Repin's work

Now the canvas is stored in Moscow, in the Tretyakov Gallery. A group of Orthodox activists and historians in 2013 asked to remove it from there, as it offends the patriotic feelings of Russians. The request was denied. I must say, these are not the first attacks on the picture. When it was first introduced to the general public at the 13th traveling exhibition, the whole of Petersburg was agitated. The spectators literally besieged the building where the canvas hung. There were fierce arguments: the intelligentsia and the progressive youth enthusiastically enthusiastically, while the other Petersburgers were indignant: "Is it possible to show a suicide?" Among those who did not like the work, was the Emperor Alexander III, as a result, on April 1, 1885, he was banned Display. This was the first picture that was censored in the Russian Empire. However, three months later, on the petition of artist A. Bogolyubov close to the court, the ban was lifted.

Was there a murder?

At this exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1885, the painting "Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son" was seen by the outstanding Russian thinker and Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev. He was outraged by her plot, because, in his opinion, fiction was issued for the fact. Pobedonostsev wrote to Alexander III a letter in which he said that this work of painting can not be called historical, because the depicted moment is purely fantastic. How so? We have always been told about the murder of Ivan Tsesarevich Ivan as an indisputable fact, even in school textbooks it is written about this as an example of how cruelty the Russian autocracy was. It was not entirely clear why Ivan the Terrible killed his son. And no one thought about how such information got into historical literature.

Dramatic event

In 1913 something strange happened in the Tretyakov Gallery. When Ilya Repin's painting "Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan were born on November 16, 1581", the icon painter Abram Balashov shouted: "Too much blood!" Then he pounced on the picture with a knife and cut it. Then Repin came to Moscow and together with Igor Grabar, his former pupil and well-known restorer, was engaged in restoration. In the press, an attempt on the painting's work received a great resonance, there was even arranged a dispute on the topic of how a simple people treat the image of the tsar. Repin was suddenly accused of deliberately provoking people for aggression and in not understanding the situation that had developed in Russia. The artist was confused and very annoyed. He left Moscow in frustrated feelings and decided that he would never come to this city again.

What did the tsarevich die from?

Metropolitan of Ladoga and St. Petersburg John in his book "Autocracy of the Spirit" denied the fact of the murder and said that the death of his son Ivan the Terrible came because of a serious illness. And it is true that in the surviving historical documents there is not a word about suicide. But there were numerous factors proving that the tsarevich died as a result of poisoning. V. Manyagin in his 2003 work "The Leader of the Militant Church" wrote that Ivan was poisoned with poison - a poison that causes painful death if taken in the amount of 0.18 grams.

Exhumation

In the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin in 1963, four tombs were uncovered: the commander of Skopin-Shuisky, the Tsarevich Ivan, the Tsar John Vasilyevich, the Tsar Feodor Ioannovich. During the study of the remains, scientists found that in all four skeletons there is approximately equal amount of arsenic, and it does not exceed the norm. However, in the bones of the Tsarevich Ivan and Tsar John Vasilievich, the presence of mercury in a dose significantly exceeding the permissible norm was detected. Some historians have argued that this is not a poisoning, but the consequences of treatment with syrups of mercury ointments. But as a result of the research, syphilitic changes in the remains of representatives of the royal family were not detected.

New facts

In the 1990s, the burial place of the great Moscow tsars and princesses was studied. As a result, it was discovered that Elena Glinskaya, the mother of Ivan the Terrible, who died in 1538, and Anastasia Romanova, his first wife, who died in 1560, were poisoned with mercury. That is, the royal family has been a victim of poisonings for several decades. The data of these and other studies led to the conclusion that the murder of Ivan the Terrible's son by his own father is fiction, in fact he was poisoned, in favor of this is the fact that in his remains the poison content exceeds the permissible norm by many times. Thus, the science version of the suicide strongly refutes.