The Russian and Swedish Empires 269Ivan the Terrible watching the beggars of Novgorod being tortured to death.
sparsely populated forest reaches of Siberia. Muscovy annexed the steppe
khanates of Astrakhan and Kazan at mid-century, reaching the borderlands
of China.
Ivan IV truly earned his sobriquet “the Terrible.” He was raised in a world
of violence marked by the bloody feuds of the Muscovite nobles, some of
whom poisoned his mother when he was eight years old. Five years later,
Ivan ordered a noble ripped apart by fierce dogs; as an adult, he had an arch
bishop sewn into a bearskin and thrown to hungry wolves. His goal was to
assure himself a reliable military force and revenue. His means was to create
a “service state” in which Muscovite nobles, the boyars, held their estates in
exchange for agreeing to serve in an administrative or military capacity, thus
receiving protection against peasant insurrections or other nobles. Allying
with a group of military retainers, Ivan decimated noble families he viewed
as too powerful or too slow to obey. Ivan alternated between moods of reli
gious fervor, drunken passion, and stormy brutality. After being defeated in
Lithuania in 1564, Ivan subjected his people to an eight-year reign of terror.
He killed his own son with a massive blow to the skull and routinely ordered
anyone who displeased him tortured to death.
Ivan’s death in 1584 led, almost unimaginably, to an even worse period
for Muscovy. The “Time of Troubles” (1598—1613) was a period of inter
mittent anarchy. Weak successors allowed nobles to regain control of the
now sprawling country. Polish armies took Moscow in 1605 and again five
years later. In 1613, the Assembly of Nobles elected the first tsar from the