435 years ago, on March 28, 1584, the Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible died. Even during the years of his life in the West, they began to create a black myth about the "bloody tyrant Grozny." The smear campaign was continued by Westernizers and liberals in the Russian Empire, and then in the Russian Federation.
As a result, the image of a cruel despot was created ("Black myth" about the first Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible; Information war of the West against Ivan the Terrible), who even killed his own son, a "bloody monster" The Russian kingdom only suffered heavy losses and, as a result, caused the Troubles, which almost destroyed Russia.
However, objective studies show that it was Ivan Vasilyevich who completed the process of restoring the core of the Russian empire, which collapsed as a result of feudal disintegration, separatism and elite selfishness of the boyar-princely elite. As a result of several victorious wars, Ivan the Terrible doubled the territory of the state, annexed the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates (Volga region), territories in the North Caucasus and Western Siberia to the Russian kingdom. Moscow became the only heir to two imperial traditions at once - Byzantine and Russian-Horde. The Russian kingdom under Ivan the Terrible became a new embodiment of the ancient northern tradition, which goes through the centuries from Hyperborea, the country of the Aryans, Great Scythia to the ancient Russian empire of the Rurikovichs (the Falcon dynasty), the Moscow kingdom, the Russian Empire and the Red Empire (USSR).
Thus, under Ivan the Terrible, the main core of the empire was restored. During his reign, the Russian state moved south, to the Caucasus and the Caspian, and to the southeast and east, to the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia. With one powerful blow to Russia-Russia, the entire Volga region (Kazan and Astrakhan), the entire ancient Volga trade route, was returned and the path beyond the Urals was opened (Ermak's campaign). The indigenous population of the great steppe, Caucasians - the descendants of the ancient Scythians - Alans - Sarmatians, "Cossacks" returned under the rule of a single Russian center of power. After that, the "Cossacks" became the vanguard of the Russian state, quickly and re-assimilating the lands of the ancient northern civilization - the vastness of Northern Eurasia. So, under Ivan Vasilievich, Russia became the heir to the Horde Empire and Great Scythia - the Eurasian empire, which from ancient times stretched from the banks of the Danube and the Carpathian Mountains in the west to the borders of Japan and China in the east, from the Arctic Ocean in the north and India in the south. At the same time, Russia became the heir to the Byzantine tradition, claiming a leading role in the Eastern Christian and Slavic world, Constantinople-Constantinople and St. Sophia.
The results of the reign of Ivan IV were truly grandiose. The territory of Russia has doubled, from 2.8 million to 5.4 million square meters. km. The Middle and Lower Volga regions, the Urals, Western Siberia were annexed, the forest-steppe and steppe lands of the former Wild Field - the Black Earth Region - were developed. The Russians were entrenched in the North Caucasus. The Russian kingdom became the largest state in Europe. There were severe wars, campaigns and raids, epidemics, the hijacking of people in the steppes, but the population of Russia grew, and its growth, according to various estimates, amounted to 30-50%. Russia did not die out, as in the late XX - early XXI centuries.
Russia failed to crush the predatory nest in the Crimea - the Crimean Khanate. However, the Ottoman Empire was then at the peak of its military and economic power, and Moscow would not have been able to take Crimea. Failed to break the road to the Baltic. But then the great powers of the West united against Russia - Rzeczpospolita, Sweden, behind which stood the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic throne. Hungarian troops, German, Italian, British and Scottish mercenaries fought against the Russian army. The battle for Livonia, which began primarily from economic interests, resulted in a civilizational confrontation. The war of the West against Russia-Russia. At the same time, Russia then withstood the blow of the united forces of the West. It was then in the West, in the course of the information war, that archetypes-images of European views on Russians were created as bearded, cruel barbarians, eternal aggressors, enemies of the entire “free world”. And it was then that the Russian ruler, the tsar, began to be shown as a "bloody tyrant, despot" who rules his slave subjects using the most cruel methods. These images have become entrenched and have been defining Russia's relations with the West for several centuries. That image of "Russian barbarians" was born, which was then used by Napoleon and the British, Hitler and American ideologists.
Subsequent generations of Russian rulers and statesmen will use the methods of the government of Ivan Vasilyevich, they will move the regiments and detachments of the Cossacks to the same place where the formidable tsar sent them. Russia will fight with Poland in order to return the southern and western Russian lands, the territory of the former Kievan Rus. These lands were more fertile, richer, and gave good harvests than the lands of Northern Russia. The climate there was milder and warmer. Russia needed a granary. And it had to be taken away from the Commonwealth. It was also vital to weaken Poland. Then it was the main "battering ram" of the West, its "command post" in Rome, directed against the Russian civilization. It was necessary to punch a road to the Baltic in order to get a direct trade route through the Baltic Sea to the West, to Northern Germany, Holland, France and England.
In the future, the technique of Ivan the Terrible will be used to advance to the south, pacify hostile steppe dwellers and highlanders by creating notch lines, fortified lines. Russia needed the fertile, fertile lands of the south to develop its economy. The Russian Cossacks will strengthen, expand and defend the Russian state. They will go through all of Siberia, reach the shores of the Great Ocean, jump further to Alaska. They will liberate the Northern Black Sea region from the enemy - the Azov region, the Dnieper region, Transnistria and the Danube region, the Crimean peninsula and the Kuban, develop the Caucasus and the Caspian. From the Ural and Orenburg villages they will move to Turkestan.
Ivan Vasilyevich showed the basis for the harmonious development of Russian civilization, state, people and power - the zemstvo system of self-government. During the Time of Troubles, it is she who will save the Russian statehood and the people from destruction. All the institutions of power, the entire vertical of power will be destroyed and disintegrated, but the horizontal zemstvo structures (councils of that time) will interact with each other, form militias, regiments, and supply them. And in peacetime, the potential of the zemstvo system will allow Russia to recover from the consequences of the Time of Troubles, to develop the country and its economy.
For the sake of preserving the state, eliminating the boyar-princely willfulness, separatism, which threatened Russia with innumerable calamities, a new collapse of the princely estates and lands, the oprichnina system was used. Ivan the Terrible simultaneously solved several problems: he extinguished the conspiracies and intrigues of the then Russian elite, ready to tear Russia apart for the sake of their personal and narrow-group interests; solved the personnel issue - "too many people"; tried to create the nucleus of a new army; created a "new economy". For the sake of preserving the state, Ivan Vasilyevich resorted to tough measures. Historians of the era of Ivan the Terrible report about 4-6 thousand executed during half a century of his reign. These are not only "political" criminals - traitors, but also criminals. For comparison, in Paris on St. Bartholomew's Night (August 24, 1572), about 2,000 people were killed, and thousands of people were killed throughout France. French Catholics and French Huguenots (Protestants) waged the most brutal wars, staged the most brutal massacres, slaughtered each other in thousands.
The most severe laws were in England against beggars and vagrants - the so-called. "Bloody legislation". Peasants, driven out of the land as a result of fencing and forced to beggar, were hanged under the law "On the fight against vagrancy". Only under Henry VIII (reigned from 1509 to 1547) in 15 years more than 70 thousand "stubborn beggars", including women and children, were executed. Under Elizabeth I (ruled from 1558 to 1603), about 89 thousand people were executed. However, these rulers are considered "great" in England. Napoleon Bonaparte ravaged France in endless wars, almost all healthy men of military age were killed or maimed. But he is an idol, a hero of the French. There are a great many such examples. However, the Western rulers are “great”, and Grozny is a “bloody tyrant and murderer”. The usual policy of double standards, denigrating objectionable statesmen, repainting white in black and black in white. The masters of the West write history for themselves, they don't need the truth. The information war continues, because the Russian civilization and the Russian people still exist on Earth.
The Russian people have kept the bright memory of Ivan Vasilievich. As about the tsar-father, the defender of Light Russia and the people both from external enemies and from internal ones, from the arbitrariness of the oppressor boyars and thieves-covetous people. Indeed, under Ivan the Terrible, the interests of the government and the people were not separated from each other. The state and the people were united. The tsarist government was creating, building, not destroying, “optimizing”. The Russian kingdom was covered with a network of schools, post stations, 155 new cities and fortresses were founded. The tsar left Russia not ruined and poor, but rich, and gave his son a large treasury. For the safety of the people, the border was covered with a system of notch lines, lines, fortifications, small fortresses and outposts. And outside the Russian borders, on the outer approaches, a system of forward defense is being formed - the Cossack troops. Zaporizhzhya army, Don, Volga, Yaitskoe (Ural), Orenburg, Siberian Cossacks. The Cossacks became the shield and sword of the Russian kingdom. Also, Ivan the Terrible carried out a military reform, created a regular army.
In addition, Ivan Vasilievich was one of the most educated people of the era, had a phenomenal memory, loved history and contributed to the development of book printing. Russia was going through a period of flourishing of art and architecture.
The great sovereign of all Russia Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible was a wise and decisive ruler. Therefore, he is so hated by the external and internal enemies of Russia-Russia and the Russian people. By their collective efforts, they formed such a "public opinion" about the "bloody ghoul Grozny" that in 1862, when the epoch-making monument "Millennium of Russia" was created in Novgorod, the figure of Ivan Vasilyevich was not on it! There are sculptures of poets, writers, some minor statesmen, and the first Russian Tsar-Emperor, who "arranged" the Fatherland, recreated the core of the Russian Empire, is absent. They decided that they did not deserve it. In liberal pro-Western journalism in Russia, this opinion still dominates.
