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Ivan III (1440-1505) was Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1462 until his death.

During Ivan's reign, the Russian state was consolidated, Russian territory tripled in size, trade expanded, and Western contacts shaped society. Tatar rule formally ended and Ivan elevated the principality to a sovereign nation, leading to him to be called "Ivan the Great". Ivan died on 27 October 1505, and was succeeded by his son, Vasily III.

#ivan III #Ivan the Great #tsar of Russia #Иван Васильевич #Иван Великий #Ivan III Vasilyevich #Иван III Васильевич #Sovereign of all Russia

Russian-Ukraine War Part 4: The Birth of Russia

So Russia is big. It's like one of their defining traits, vodka, art, brutality, colonialism, communism, and being massive. But did you know that once Russia was once…not so big? Let's do some history.

So the Mongolian Empire was a brutal genocidal engine of conquest but if you survived the initial invasion, it wasn’t so bad by the standard of brutal imperialists, the Mongols were big on religious tolerance, cultural integration and above all trade. So the Russians found themselves suddenly connected to Central and East Asia through their Mongol overlords, and Russia for the first time in Russian history, it is as connected to East Asia as it is to Europe.

The Mongolian Empire was great at conquest but struggled a lot with the ruling, and it probably won’t surprise you that it broke into 4 smaller states shortly after the death of Genghis Khan, located in the Middle East, China, Mongolia and Russia Respectively. The one that concerns us is the Golden Hoard, the Russian based Mongolian state, who were called “Tatars” by the locals.

The Golden Hoard wasn’t an Empire that spent most of their time breathing down your neck and setting major policies in their capital, instead they ruled indirectly via tributary states. They would basically allow your kingdom to exist and kinda do its own thing as long as you paid your taxes, and one special boy kingdom was allowed the honor of collecting the taxes. The special boy of our story is the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which will overtime be upgraded to the Principality of Moscow, to the Grand Principality of Moscow as they steadily get more and more powerful, using the privileges they got as the Mongol’s special boys to eventually grow their military and economy.

Eventually they were able to push back the Mongols (assisted by the Golden Hordes constant civil wars), and by the time of Ivan the III aka Ivan the Great, the state was independent and a massive nation. Ivan III is kinda seen as the first independent Ruler of Russia, where Russia exists in its own right and not just as a Mongolian Tributary state. Ivan’s grandson, Ivan the IV, aka Ivan the Vasilyevich, aka Ivan Grozny, aka Ivan the Terrible eventually decided that the Title of Grand Prince wasn’t quite good enough and so it was he who formally turned the state into an Empire, giving himself the title of Tsar, after brutally conquering all the people around him. And so the Russian Empire was born between Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible, go figure.

(Ivan the Terrible, Very stable man)

So Ok, Russia is an independent Empire, but under Ivan the IV it becomes more than that, it becomes the Orthodox State. Let me walk back a bit. Christianity first super huge split was in 1054, where the Eastern Greek Speaking Orthodox Church broke apart from the Western Latin Speaking Roman Catholic Church. The Catholics have the Pope, who manage to establish himself as a religious power greater than even Kings, while the east had the Patriarch, whose power was limited by the Emperor? What Emperor you say? Well time to talk about the Byzantine Emperor

Patriarch (left) Pope (right)

So the Byzantines are the dominant supreme cultural power of the East right? Well by the time of the Mongols, not so much. The great city of Constantinople was sacked in 1204 by the 4th Crusade, in one of the greatest own goals in history, and the Empire was in a state of decline ever since. And I mean actual decline, not Edward Gibbon (your decline is almost a thousand years) decline, which was pretty upsetting for the Rus, the other great Orthodox power (Ok I see you Bulgaria and Romania, you’ll get your own episodes another time calm down), and as Byzantine declined, Muscovy keep taking on more and more of the role as “big Orthodox power of the east”. But the striking blow came when Constantinople fell in 1453 to the Ottoman Empire under Mehmed the II aka Mehmed the Conqueror, bringing a final end to the Byzantine empire…ok there were a few splinter states but Mehmet gets them 20 years later so once and for all Byzantines are gone.

(Mehmet II preparing to destroy Byzantinium)

SO I cannot empathizes enough how much of a blow this is to the Orthidox World. The Byzantine Empire was THE Orthidox power for over a thousand years, it was the center of the Orthidox world.Consantinople had been the center of the Orthodox church since Constantine himself, it's like Rome turning Muslim or Mecca Christian, like this is a theological crisis. However, the Grand Principality of Moscow was eager to take on the role of center of the Orthodox Church, and Ivan the Great started to call Moscow “The Third Rome” to succeed the Byzantines as the Byzantines had “succeed” the Romans (despite being Roman…look i never said it is smart). This is why Russia’s coat of Arms is the two headed eagle of the Byzantines. His grandson Ivan Grozny unified the Principality into a strong centralized autocratic state through the power of brutal oppression and secret police, creating the Russian Empire. Later the Patriarch would relocate there, effectively the closest thing to the head of the Orthodox church, making Moscow the new center of the Orthodox faith.

As the "Third Rome" Russia wasn't just an Empire, it had a divine mandate to take territory and spread the Orthidox Faith. The notion of this Russian style Manifest Destiny is going to come up again in this series, and it has never completely left the Russian National identiy.

Ivan took the title of Tsar which means Caesar as in Emperor. As an Empire rather than a Principality, the “Divine Mandate” of Russia became to serve as the protector of the Orthodox Church, to reunify the old Kievan Rus, and restore Constantinople. Like most empires, including the Mongol, the Russian Empire is based on the notion that they have a divine right to rule over everybody else. This dream was put aside for the Time of Troubles, a civil war so horrific that it makes Game of Thrones look peaceful, but after that confusion Russia was ready to go (this is where the Royal family goes from Ruik to Romanov) This is not going to be an extensive look at all of Tsarist Russia, just the stuff which I think is important to understand for Ukraine. Colonization, the Tsar and Serfdom.