Ivan the Terrible

Ivan IV Vasilyevich (25 August 1530 - 28 March [O.S. 18 March] 1584), also known as Ivan the Terrible, was a Russian emperor, reigned as Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and as Russia's first Tsar from 1547 to 1584.

Ivan was the Rurikid ruler of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, Vasili III. When he was three years old, his father died, and he was named grand prince. The "Chosen Council," a group of reformers, rallied around the young Ivan, declaring him tsar (emperor) of All Rus' in 1547 at the age of 16, establishing the Tsardom of Russia with Moscow as the dominant state. Ivan's reign was marked by Russia's transformation from a medieval state to an empire under the tsar, but at a huge cost to its people and the country's broader, long-term economy.

During his youth, the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan were conquered. After consolidating his power, Ivan dismissed the "Chosen Council" advisers and launched the Livonian War, which ravaged Russia and resulted in the loss of Livonia and Ingria but allowed him to establish greater autocratic control over Russia's nobility, which he violently purged with the Oprichnina. The Massacre of Novgorod and the Tatar burning of Moscow marked the final years of Ivan's reign.

Contemporary accounts of Ivan's complex personality are contradictory. He was described as intelligent and devout, but prone to paranoia, rage, and episodic bouts of mental instability that worsened as he aged. He murdered his eldest son and heir, Ivan Ivanovich, in a fit of rage, and he may have also caused the miscarriage of the latter's unborn child. This left his younger son, the politically ineffective Feodor Ivanovich, to inherit the throne, a man whose rule and subsequent childless death directly resulted in the end of the Rurikid dynasty and the start of the Time of Troubles.