Ivan IV Vasilyevich, commonly known as Ivan the Terrible, was Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1533, and Tsar of all Russia, from 1547 until his death in 1584. He was the first Russian monarch to be crowned as tsar.
Ivan III Vasilyevich, also known as Ivan the Great, was Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1462 until his death in 1505. Ivan served as the co-ruler and regent for his blind father Vasily II before he officially ascended the throne.
Oprichnik was the designation given to a member of the Oprichnina, a bodyguard corps established by Tsar Ivan the Terrible to govern a division of Russia from 1565 to 1572.
The Time of Troubles, or Smuta, was a period of political crisis in the Tsardom of Russia which began in 1598 with the death of Feodor I, the last of the Rurik dynasty, and ended in 1613 with the accession of Michael I of the House of Romanov.
Simeon Bekbulatovich was a Russian statesman of Tatar origin who briefly served as the figurehead ruler of Russia from 1575 to 1576. He was a descendant of Genghis Khan.
The oprichnina was a state policy implemented by Tsar Ivan the Terrible in Russia between 1565 and 1572. The policy included mass repression of the boyars, including public executions and confiscation of their land and property. In this context it can also refer to:
Job, also known as Job of Moscow, was the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. He is venerated as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church. He was the Metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus' from 1587 to 1589. He was the seventeenth Metropolitan in Moscow to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as had been the norm. In 1589, Jeremias II, the Patriarch of Constantinople, regularized Job's canonical status and raised him to the status of patriarch.
The Chelyadnin family (Челяднины) were an old and influential Russian boyar family who served the Grand Princes of Moscow in high and influential positions. They were descended from Ratsha, court servant (tiun) to Prince Vsevolod II of Kiev.
Vasily Yakovlevich Shchelkalov and Andrey Yakovlevich Shchelkalov were two influential diplomats and heads of the Posolsky Prikaz during the reigns of Ivan the Terrible, Feodor I, and Boris Godunov in Russia.
Saint Philip II of Moscow was the Metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus' from 1567 to 1568. He was the thirteenth Metropolitan of Moscow to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as had been the norm.
The Belsky or Belski family was a Ruthenianized princely family of Gediminid origin in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It later defected to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and played a key role during the regency of Ivan IV of Russia. The family started with Ivan Vladimirovich, son of Vladimir Olgerdovich and grandson of Algirdas, and ended with Ivan Dmitrievich Belsky in 1571. The Belsky name was derived from their principal possession of Bely, Tver Oblast.
Andrei Ivanovich Kobyla was a boyar and the earliest-known agnatic ancestor of the Romanov dynasty of Russian tsars and many Russian noble families.
The massacre of Novgorod was an attack launched by Ivan the Terrible's oprichniki on the city of Novgorod, Russia, in 1570. Although initially an act of vengeance against the perceived treason of the local Orthodox church, the massacre quickly became possibly the most vicious in the brutal legacy of the oprichnina, with casualties estimated between two thousand to fifteen thousand and innumerable acts of extreme, violent cruelty. In the aftermath of the attack, Novgorod lost its status as one of Russia's leading cities, crippled by decimation of its citizenry combined with Ivan's assault on the surrounding farmlands.
The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Muscovy, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721.
Heinrich von Staden (1542–?) was a self-proclaimed "adventurer in Muscovy" and wrote of his accounts at the court of Ivan IV of Russia from 1578 to 1582.
Anthony was the Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus' from 1572 to 1581. He was the fifteenth Metropolitan in Moscow to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as had been the norm.
The tsar’s residence in the Alexandrovskaya village is an old Russian fortress which served as the actual capital of the oprichnina in the Moscow state from 1564 until 1581. It was situated on the current territory of the city of Alexandrov, Vladimir Oblast.
Novgorodian Land was one of the largest historical territorial–state formations in Russia, covering its northwest and north. Novgorod Land, centered in Veliky Novgorod, was in the cradle of Kievan Rus' under the rule of the Rurikovich dynasty and one of the most important princely thrones of the era. During the collapse of Kievan Rus' and in subsequent centuries, Novgorod Land developed as the Novgorod Republic: an autonomous state with republican forms of government under the suzerainty of the great princes of Vladimir-Suzdal. During the period of greatest development, it reached north to the White Sea, and in the east it spread beyond the Ural Mountains. It had extensive trade relations within the framework of the Hanseatic League and with the rest of Rus'. Muscovy conquered the Novgorod Republic in 1478, and annexed it in 1578, although Novgorod Land continued to exist as an administrative unit until 1708.
Prince Vasily Vasilievich Golitsyn was a Russian commander, nobleman and governor. Golitsyn was a prominent figure during the Time of Troubles between 1587 and 1613.
The Zemsky Sobor of 1613 was a meeting of representatives of the Estates of the realm of the Tsardom of Russia, held for the election of Tsar after the expulsion of the Polish-Lithuanian Occupiers at the end of the Time of Troubles. It was opened on 16 January 1613 in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. On 3 March 1613, the Sobor elected Mikhail Romanov as Tsar, establishing the House of Romanov as the new Russian monarchs. The coronation of Michael I is widely considered to be the end of the time of troubles.
