Fearful Majesty

by Benson Bobrick

  The Church Militant icon.

  This icon (today in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow) made a handsome supplement to the canopied throne carved for Ivan out of walnut and lime-wood, and covered with gilded bas-reliefs depicting the life of Vladimir Monomakh. Related iconography adorned the Kremlin palace and cathedrals. In particular, the frescoes in the Golden Hall or throne room of the palace, executed under the personal direction of Sylvester as part of the great work of restoration after the Moscow fire, depicted young Ivan “as a righteous judge and fearless warrior,” generous to the poor, like the Biblical conqueror Joshua in his conquests (vividly portrayed) and Solomon in his wisdom. On the wall opposite his throne was placed the legend of the Indian prince Josaphat and the hermit Barlaam (a Byzantine Christian romance based on the life of Buddha) showing Barlaam (probably a portrait of Sylvester) in sacerdotal robes exhorting the young ruler to follow the true way.

  THE TRULY COURAGEOUS way at least might have been to stay in Kazan. But as a family man, national hero, and monarch who now had a male heir,* Ivan was disposed to relish his triumph without being reminded of new challenges and hard work ahead. He set off for Trinity Monastery to have Dmitry baptized – though not by Makary, perhaps signifying a continuing chill in their relations – while ordering a plenary session of the Duma in his absence “to deliberate on the affairs of Kazan and to go further into the question of kormlenie.” According to Viskovaty, the first item got short shrift, as the boyars neglected to tackle problems having to do with pacification of the khanate. Meanwhile, as Adashev had feared, the tribes in the Kazan region on both sides of the Volga rebelled. The Votyaks and Cheremis refused to pay tribute, and on two occasions in the spring of 1553, Russian troops sent against them were massacred. Prince Semeon Lobanov-Rostovsky, a powerful noble, spoke for many when he remarked: “The tsardom has been impoverished by the Kazan campaign, and it will not be possible to hold Kazan anyway.”23 In their deliberations, the boyars concentrated on how to recoup their losses. Their ingenuity in this regard, however, was abruptly interrupted by an event that shook the tsardom to its core.

  * * *

  * Two daughters, Anne and Marie, had been born to Ivan and Anastasia in 1549 and 1551, respectively. Anne had died in 1550. Marie would die in 1554.

  * * *

  11

  The Crisis of 1553

  LATER IN HIS career, with a world of experience behind him, Ivan would have occasion to expound on “the varyable and daingerous estate of princes and that as well as the meanest they are subject unto change, which caused us to suspect owre own magnificence.”1 But in 1553, though he knew something of variability and danger, he could not have known how much there was to suspect. And unfortunately, what he was about to learn he would never forget.

  In early March, he developed a fever that progressed so rapidly it was feared he would die. Within a few days “he hardly recognized those around him.”2 During a lucid interval, Viskovaty gently but firmly reminded him of his will, and Ivan amended it to designate the infant tsarevich, Dmitry, as heir. Viskovaty authenticated the document with his signature, but advised the tsar to oblige the nobility, and especially his cousin Vladimir Staritsky (whose father, it will be remembered, had died in prison under Elena), to swear allegiance to the child. To Ivan’s anguished astonishment, a significant number refused. The result was turmoil.

  Some who demurred did so (as they thought) for the sake of the state, which they doubted could survive another long minority; others, because they detested the comparatively lowborn Zakharins, Ivan’s in-laws, who would presumably emerge as regents; still others yearned to see the dynasty fall. Ivan’s deaf-mute brother Yury was not considered a realistic candidate. But many regarded Ivan’s cousin Vladimir Staritsky, energetically promoted by his mother, Evfrosinia, as acceptable, because he in part seemed incapable of authoritarian rule.

  Viskovaty, Adashev, and seven members of the Duma’s Privy Council* (including Prince Dmitry Paletsky, whose daughter was married to Ivan’s brother, Yury) promptly swore allegiance to the tsarevich. Two other members of the Council† pleaded indisposition but were apparently in touch with Evfrosinia, while Paletsky, despite his pledge, secretly indicated to Vladimir that he would not oppose his accession – provided his daughter and son-in-law were assured of an appanage estate. In the words of Viskovaty, whose handwritten interpolations in one of the Chronicles preserve an extraordinary record of the crisis, Paletsky had begun negotiating with Vladimir “as with one who would be tsar.”3‡ Other powerful nobles joined the rebel camp,§ but the unseemly haste with which the Staritskys endeavored to consolidate their advantage provoked a reaction. As they openly began to canvass for support, and even to distribute money to military servitors as a down payment for their loyalty, those devoted to Ivan – who were understandably convinced that a legitimate regency was preferable to a weak, illegitimate monarchy – began to close ranks. Literally constituting a bodyguard, they refused to allow Vladimir into the presence of the tsar.

  In a stunning development on March 11, Sylvester intervened on Staritsky’s behalf. “Why do you not let Prince Vladimir go to the tsar?”4 he said to Ivan’s protectors. “He wishes more good to him than you do.” Though speaking as if to reconcile the different factions, he had reason to fear a regency, for his power over the tsar had incurred the antipathy and jealous resentment of Anastasia and the whole Zakharin camp.

  On the morning of March 12, the tsar rallied and insisted that each member of the Duma publicly repeat the loyalty oath before the Privy Council. Prince Ivan Shuysky (the son of the hated Vasily Shuysky of Ivan’s minority) protested, and Adashev’s father, Fyodor, recently promoted to boyar, complicated the situation further by declaring, “We are ready to kiss the cross to thee, sovereign, and to thy son, Dmitry, but we refuse to serve the Zakharins…. Thy son is still in swaddling clothes… and we have already suffered much from the boyars during thy minority.”5 In other words he did not regard the Zakharins as strong enough to hold the boyar factions in check. At this point, in a reprise of the deathbed scene of Vasily III, “there was great trouble and noise and much debate among the boyars, for they did not wish to serve a babe.” As each party argued its cause, “there was shouting and cursing.”6

  Ivan now summoned all his remaining strength to take control. He told the dissidents: “If you do not swear allegiance to my son, Dmitry, that means you have some other sovereign,”7 and told Fyodor Adashev and his adherents: “I order you to serve my son, not the Zakharins, according to your conscience.” Next he urged those who had shown themselves unequivocal in their support to flee abroad if necessary with his wife and child to save them; and finally, he reminded the Zakharins, who had been intimidated by the boyars and may have felt themselves somewhat denigrated by the tsar, that their interests coincided with his own: “And you, why are you so downcast, or are you hoping that the boyars may spare you? The boyars will discard you first of all. You must die for my son and for his mother, and you must not allow the boyars to insult my wife.”8

  Ivan’s masterful performance crushed the incipient rebellion. Most of the boyars meekly filed into the antechamber to take their oath (administered by Prince Vladimir Vorotynsky, with Viskovaty holding the cross), though Prince Ivan Turontay-Pronsky, a Staritsky partisan, resisted, and Staritsky himself at first refused. He was hauled before the tsar, who told him: “I don’t know what will become of you. And I’m not interested,”9 and turning to his loyalists, sighed: “I am unable to do anything myself. Let your deeds be in the spirit of your oath.” Viskovaty and Vorotynsky bluntly told the prince that unless he swore allegiance he would never leave the palace alive. But though Vladimir acquiesced, his mother Evfrosinia later declined three times to append the family seal to his bond. She cursed at Viskovaty and said: “What kind of bond is it, if it is an unwilling one?”10 And “from this time there was great enmity between the sovereign and Prince Vladimir,”¶ wrote a contemporary, “and among the boyars there was confusion and
turbulence; and heavy days came upon the realm.”

  * * *

  * Prince Ivan Mstislavsky, Prince Vladimir Vorotynsky, Ivan Sheremetev, Mikhail Morozov, Prince Dmitry Paletsky, and Daniel and Vasily Zakharin.

  † Prince Dmitry Kurlyatev (who was close to Sylvester) and the treasurer Nikita Funikov.

  ‡ The interpolations occur in the Tsarstvennaya Kniga, or Book of the Tsar, and include the celebrated description of Sylvester as all-powerful (quoted earlier). Though generally attributed to Viskovaty, one outstanding Soviet scholar, Ruslan Skrynnikov, believes the author to be Ivan himself. A certain caustic restraint in their style makes this unlikely, as does thelr relatively omniscient point of view. Moreover, The Tsarstvennaya Kniga was largely compiled under Viskovaty’s direction during his tenure as keeper of the state archives, and according to the distinguished scholar Nikolay Andreyev, “the technical directions for the binders are written in the same hand.”

  § Including Prince Semeon Lobanov-Rostovsky, Prince Peter Shchenyatev, Prince Ivan Turontay-Pronsky, Prince Peter Serebryany, and Prince Semeon Mikulinsky.

  ¶ Twice in the following year, in April and May of 1554, Vladimir had to sign supplementary bonds, each with a special clause directed against intrigue by his mother.

  * * *

  12

  Vassian Toporkov Versus Maxim the Greek

  IVAN NEVER RECOVERED from his revelations. He had discovered how faction-ridden the ruling circles remained; that some of his closest friends and associates hated his family; and that not every member of the “chosen” council had been prepared to choose him. Whom could he really trust? What difference had it made that he was now a crowned tsar and conquering hero, celebrated in Muscovite propaganda as “coequal with the apostles,” if in his hour of need so many had hastened to desert him, perhaps even to plot his death? A sudden illness in a monarch is always a suspicious occurrence, especially if he has thrown his weight behind reforms. Indeed, though much of the opposition to Ivan’s testament was “loyal,” there were some – Lobanov-Rostovsky, for example – who were genuine rebels to the crown. In the following year he was arrested for passing state secrets to the Lithuanians and condemned by the Duma to death. Brought to the block, he was apparently reprieved at the last moment and remanded to a dungeon in the North.* Other partisans of Vladimir were likewise tried and convicted, but the dissident circle as a whole was too varied to confront. A quarter century later, with anger still fresh, Ivan would charge: “I was born to rule by the grace of God.… I grew up on the throne. What qualifications did Prince Vladimir have to be sovereign? Where did he stand in the order of succession? His only claim was treacherous support.”1 And this was basically true.

  The tsar had barely recovered his strength when in May (with fateful resolve) he kept a vow made before the Kazan campaign to make a pilgrimage of thanksgiving with his family to the White Lake Monastery in northern Russia. En route he paused at Trinity Monastery, where he conversed with Maxim the Greek.

  Maxim (born Michael Trivolis in 1475) was a man of truly Renaissance education. Muscovy had probably never seen his like. Before entering Russian service, he had studied philosophy, rhetoric, and classical literature in the great universities of Italy, and had worked in Venice for Aldus Manutius in the publication of Greek manuscripts. In Florence, at the Platonic Academy of Lorenzo de’ Medici, he had mingled with the leading humanists of the age, including Michelangelo. Of a powerfully religious bent, he also came under the influence of Girolamo Savonarola, the Dominican friar and radical Church reformer burned at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence in 1498. Maxim became a Dominican monk himself, in emulation of his hero, but in 1505 converted to Greek Orthodoxy and withdrew to the monastery of Vatopedi on Mt. Athos where he blissfully immersed himself for a decade in the manuscript collections of two Byzantine emperors. However, not even Vatopedi’s remote seclusion guaranteed sanctuary from the world, and in 1516 emissaries from Grand Prince Vasily III had come to the Holy Mountain in search of a scholar equipped to translate the Greek commentary on the Psalter into Russian. Maxim was enlisted, arrived in Moscow in March 1518, and “took control of the splendid collection of Greek manuscripts preserved in the Kremlin library.”2 Though he discharged his commission superbly under difficult conditions (his imperfect Russian obliged him to rely heavily at first on collaborators), a former disciple of Savonarola was not likely to keep silent about ecclesiastical corruption. He spoke out, and in sometimes violent rhetoric worthy of his mentor accused the clergy of preying upon the poor “like some sort of bloodsucking beast, and from the dry bones attempting to suck out the marrow, like dogs and ravens.”3

  This did not go over well with the Josephians, but during his Non-Possessor phase Vasily III had tolerated Maxim’s outspoken views. In the 1520s, however, the grand prince underwent a change of heart, retired his progressive metropolitan, Varlaam, and replaced him with Daniel, who immediately launched a witch-hunt. In the winter of 1524-5 Maxim and two like-minded acquaintances, Fyodor Zhareny and Ivan Bersen-Beklemishev, were arrested and tried for treason. Bersen, a boyar who had recently been expelled from the Duma for speaking his mind too freely, and Zhareny, his confidant, both admitted to subversive conversations, but Bersen also testified that Zhareny had told him he’d been promised clemency if he slandered Maxim at his trial. In the middle of this inconvenient revelation the official transcript breaks off. Shortly thereafter Bersen was beheaded and Zhareny had his tongue cut out.

  Russia’s first political show-trial came to an ignominious end.

  A modern icon representation of Maxim the Greek.

  In May, Maxim was tried anyway and condemned for grammatical mistakes in his liturgical translations, on the grounds that they were heretical adulterations of the text. He was also condemned for having attempted the translations in the first place – the mission for which he had been drafted – because it implied that the original translations were faultly, even though “our saints prayed according to these books and were saved.” His opposition to monastic wealth was similarly denounced because “our sainted martyrs did not oppose it.”4 Helpless to repudiate such charges, Maxim was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Volokolamsk Monastery, where he was cruelly tortured, laden with chains, denied books and writing materials, and given a government informer as a cellmate.

  Arraigned again in 1531 for having had “evil thoughts about the grand prince” and for not reporting a subversive conversation he had had with the Turkish ambassador (a fellow Greek), he was relocated to the Otroch Monastery in Tver.†

  Over the years, however, Maxim had gradually been vindicated. At Otroch he had once again been allowed to read and write;‡ and one of his disciples, Isaak Sobaka, condemned in 1531 for no other reason than that he had served as Maxim’s scribe, re-emerged under Metropolitan Joasaf as abbot of the Simonov Monastery in Moscow, and later as head of the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin. In 1546, the patriarch of Constantinople appealed for Maxim’s release; and in 1548 Makary himself told him: “Though we cannot help thee, we devotedly kiss thy bonds as if thou wert one of the saints.” In 1551, his long imprisonment came to an end upon his transfer to Trinity Monastery, where under Artemy, the Non-Possessor abbot, he received friends and disciples, including Prince Andrey Kurbsky, to whom he taught the rudiments of Greek. In that year Maxim’s unimpeachable corrections in the liturgical texts gained official acceptance and were adopted without fanfare by the Stoglav Council. Everyone seemed to realize that this was a man whose name would not die.

  Maxim’s personal contact with Ivan had been slight. Some years before he had sent him a rather patronizing letter on the principles of good government (in which he spoke to him as though he were a newly converted barbarian), and perhaps Ivan now wanted to show Maxim what a great Christian he was. Ushered into his cell, he finally met the remarkable old man, now seventy-eight, crippled by arthritis and almost blind.

  Ivan told him about the pilgrimage he was about to undertake. To
his chagrin, Maxim criticized it as useless: “God is everywhere, He accomplishes all things. He sees all things with his sleepless eye,”5 and urged the tsar instead to demonstrate his piety by looking after the widows and orphans of those who had fallen at Kazan – as in fact he had promised to do. Indignantly, Ivan brushed the proposal aside. Maxim waxed prophetic: “If you neglect them and continue on this journey, your son shall die and not return alive.” Kurbsky, Mstislavsky, Adashev, and Ivan’s own confessor, Andrey, were all reportedly witness to this exchange.

  Defiantly proceeding north, Ivan stopped at the Pesnoshsky Monastery of St. Nicholas, where he sought out a very different sort of Elder, Vassian Toporkov, formerly bishop of Kolomna and one-time protégé of Metropolitan Daniel. Though Toporkov was a Josephian, even Makary detested him, and upon his accession to the metropolitanate had dismissed him for “cunning and cruelty.”6 Whatever his offenses, his surname (meaning “little ax”) was said to be apt. Ivan, brooding over the recent succession crisis, asked him: “How can I rule well and hold my magnates in obedience?” – a not inherently ignoble question. According to Kurbsky, Vassian replied: “If you wish to be an autocrat, you cannot have councilors around you wiser than yourself or you will have to obey them.”7 Ivan took this in. In Kurbsky’s punning remark, it became “a big ax to cut down glorious men.”8

  Toporkov’s twisted advice unfortunately combined in an ambiguous way with the sound and sensible counsel (to which Ivan was later devoted) once given by Metropolitan Nicephorus to Vladimir Monomakh: “Attend to all matters yourself. Rely not upon your steward or your servant. When you set out to war, depend not upon your captains. Post the sentries yourself, and only after you have posted them at night at every important point around your troops, then take your rest. But arise early. Do not put off your accoutrements without a quick glance about you, for a man may perish through carelessness in the twinkling of an eye.”9