Skip to content
Wellsprings
Ivan IV the Terrible

Ivan IV the Terrible

1530 CE1584 CE · Kolomenskoye, near Moscow

Ivan IV the Terrible (1530–1584) was Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 and in 1547 became the first ruler formally crowned Tsar of all Russia. His reign saw major territorial expansion, including the conquest of the Tatar khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan and the beginning of Russian expansion into Siberia, along with legal and administrative reforms. From 1565 he established the oprichnina, a separate domain under his personal control whose agents, the oprichniki, carried out mass executions, land seizures, and terror against the boyar nobility and whole towns. The most notorious episode was the 1570 massacre of Novgorod, in which his forces killed thousands of the city's inhabitants on suspicion of treason.

See Ivan IV the Terrible’s journey on the map →

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the map →

Stop 1 of 61530Grand Prince'S Heir

Kolomenskoye, near Moscow

What they did here

Ivan was born at the royal estate of Kolomenskoye near Moscow, son of Grand Prince Vasili III. He became grand prince at age three on his father's death.

See other sages who lived in Kolomenskoye, near Moscow

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Ivan IV the Terrible’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works

No works attributed in the corpus yet.