How Ivan the Terrible lost his last chess game: What happened in the Kremlin on the day the tsar passed away

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Tsar Ivan the Terrible passed away at the chessboard, perhaps unaware of who was actually playing the main game. What happened to the autocrat, buried under the name of Jonah, on March 18, 1584, is a worthy plot not only for history books, but also for detectives.

A natural ending to the life of an autocrat and tyrant?

The board of Ivan Vasilievich knew two stages. During the first, a statesman and a reformer reigned, who from his youth made weighed and thoughtful decisions about governing the country. Ivan received the title of Grand Duke at the age of three, when his father, Vasily III, dying, managed to appoint a council called the Seven Boyarshchina for his minor successor - long before the Seven Boyarshchyna that would take over the management of the state during the Time of Troubles of 1610-1612. With the death of Grand Duke Vasily in 1533, the influence of Ivan's mother, Elena Glinskaya, her relatives and favorite of Ivan Ovchina Telepnev-Obolensky, increased even more.

However, they quickly got rid of the mother-regent of the new sovereign - in 1538 she died, apparently, having been poisoned by the boyars. The favorite of the princess died in prison. His sister, Agrippina Fedorovna, was assigned by a nanny to the young ruler and spent most of her life next to the future king.

Grand Duke John ruled with the help of the boyars. At the age of sixteen, he made two important decisions: to marry the kingdom and choose a bride for himself. And if the second was a common thing, just summon the girls for a review, then the adoption of the title of tsar marked a new era in the history of the Russian state. The king in the eyes of foreigners was equated with the emperor, while the grand duke was called the grand duke. In addition, more and more church leaders put forward the idea of the divine nature of power, Moscow thus adopted the traditions of Constantinople, which was still a recent stronghold of Orthodoxy, defeated by the Ottomans.

At seventeen, Ivan was already a tsar and a husband, he took up the zemstvo and lip reforms, adopted a collection of laws - the Code of Law, made several campaigns to Kazan and expanded the territory of the Russian kingdom. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the tsar was of strong build, healthy, good-looking, distinguished by an unusually large growth for that time - about 180 cm, apparently, 1560 became a turning point in Ivan's character, when the queen, Anastasia Zakharyina-Yurieva, died. This loss greatly affected the personality of the king, moreover, everything indicated that John's wife was poisoned. There was a special story with poisons in the royal family - at least two of Ivan's wives died from poisoning. There is a version that fearing for his own life and health, Ivan the Terrible for many years took small amounts of arsenic, developing resistance to poison. His son Ivan, who died either from the hands of a distraught parent, or for another reason, practiced a similar practice.

Be that as it may, Grozny began to rage for the most part in the second half of his reign, burying his first wife. From the notes of the tsar's contemporaries it is known that John was not only prone to extraordinary cruelty, but also indulged in debauchery. This was combined with periods of repentance and atonement for sins - the tsar considered himself a sincere believer in God, surrounded himself with holy fools and, by the way, was very afraid of them.

What disease did Ivan the Terrible suffer from?

The end of the winter of 1584 for the already sick and weakening tsar was also marked by a bad omen: a comet appeared in the sky over Moscow, and Ivan the Terrible took this event at his own expense. Magi and sorcerers, as they say, from the northern lands, were called to the court to give the king an answer to the question about the fate of the king. It is curious that for some reason the sorcerers indicated to the king the exact date of his death - March 18.

By that time, the king could not walk for a long time - he was inflicted with severe pain by growths on the bones, osteophytes, discovered in modern times during an examination of the remains. The king smelled foul, and there were ulcers on his body. On March 10, due to the poor health of the ruler, the meeting with the Lithuanian ambassador was canceled. It seemed that the end was already near, but no - in the following days, forces returned to Ivan, to such an extent that he ordered the sorcerers to declare that if the prophecy did not come true, they would be burned alive. March 18 came. In the morning Ivan ordered to bring him a spiritual testament. The tsar wrote and refined his last will many times, for various reasons - during his serious illness in 1553, after the deaths of queens or tsar's sons, the conquest of new lands, during his abdication in favor of Khan Simeon Bekbulatovich in 1575. After working on the will, the tsar went to the bathhouse, where he spent more than three hours. Feeling cheerful and "refreshed", the tsar ordered the chess set to be served. Boyar Rodion Birkin was to be a partner in the game, and next to the tsar were his favorites: oprichnik Bogdan Belsky and boyar Boris Godunov, whose sister was married to the heir to the throne, Fyodor. Placing pieces on the chessboard, the king held the king in his hand and suddenly "fell backwards." In the confusion that arose, they began to look for vodka, medicines, the doctor was called, but after a while the king died.

According to some reports, after the death of the tsar, his confessor, Theodosius Vyatka, appeared to the body, having performed over the tsar, contrary to the canons, but, apparently, according to the old will of the deceased, the rite of tonsure as a monk. They buried John already in monastic vestments under the name received during the tonsure - Jonah.

The assassination of the king and the transfer of power to an obedient heir?

How the day of March 18, 1584 was formed, is known from the memoirs of Jerome Horsey, an English diplomat at the Russian court. They caused a number of ambiguous interpretations in connection with the translation. For example, there is no unequivocal opinion about the translation "was strangled", although it is believed that Horsey directly hinted that the king was killed, first giving him poison, and then strangling him.

In general, the suddenness of the tsar's death immediately gave rise to rumors about a violent death - especially since after the tsar fell into unconsciousness, Godunov and Belsky remained alone for some time. An examination of the tsar's remains, carried out in 1963, showed that the cartilaginous tissues of the throat were not damaged, that is, if John was strangled, it was not with his bare hands, but, for example, with a pillow. As for the initial version - about poisoning - the norms were not exceeded in terms of arsenic content in bones and in burial, but the amount of mercury was twice exceeded. It would seem that the conclusion was that the king was poisoned with mercury-containing poison, but we must not forget that in those days this element was part of popular medicines, including those used in the treatment of syphilis. The habit of shaving your head may have been attributed to hair loss, a symptom of chronic mercury poisoning.

Did the king receive poison in the form of medicine from his doctor, or was he a victim of a deception, and the poison fell to him from one of his entourage? The fact that several representatives of the royal family were killed in this way is indirectly in favor of poisoning the king with poison - and indeed the popularity of this kind of reprisals in that era was very high - the development of the pharmaceutical business, and the fashion for inviting chemists and healers because of borders. The death of Ivan the Terrible launched a series of fairly organized and well-coordinated actions on the part of his former confidants. On the same night, Tsarevich Dmitry, along with his mother and relatives - the Nagimi boyars - was sent to a distant patrimony in Uglich. The Kremlin gates were locked; Godunov, now elevated to the position of a tsarist brother-in-law, put a rifleman in the gun. The treasury was sealed. The transfer of power to Fyodor Ioannovich, despite the obvious discrepancy between the heir to his crowned role and the rumors that appeared about the violent death of the sovereign, was made without any confusion. Belsky, who at first stood at the helm under the new ruler, was later ousted by Godunov and his supporters and sent into exile in Nizhny Novgorod.

According to the reconstruction of the external appearance of Ivan the Terrible, and according to the descriptions of his contemporaries, the tsar at the end of his life looked like a completely decrepit old man. Which is not quite usual, because at the time of his death he was only 53 years old; Boris Godunov, who died at the same age, was not perceived as an old person at all. What is it, traces of an immoderate and cruel life or a consequence of the use of some kind of chemical preparations? The question remains open.

Read about how the rulers of the ancient past died. here.