The oprichnina
was a state policy implemented by Tsar Ivan the Terrible in Russia between
1565 and 1572. The policy included institution of secret police, massrepressions, public executions, and confiscation of land from Russian aristocrats. The six
thousand political police were called oprichniki, and the term oprichnina also applies to the secret
police organization, to the corresponding period of Russian history, and
to the territory in which, during that period, the Tsar ruled directly and in
which his oprichniki operated.
The term oprichnina,
which Ivan coined for this policy, derives from the Russian word oprich (apart
from, except).
In 1558, Tsar Ivan IV started the Livonian war after the Livonian
Confederation refused to
pay tribute to Russia. A broad coalition, which included Poland, Lithuania and Sweden, were drawn into the war against Russia. The war became
drawn-out and expensive. Raids by Crimean Tatars, Polish and Lithuanian
invasions, famines, a trading blockade and escalating costs of war ravaged
Russia.
In 1564, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, who had defected to the Lithuanians, led the Lithuanian army against Russia, devastating the Russian region of Velikiye Luki.
Tsar Ivan began to suspect that other aristocrats were also ready to betray
him.[3]
V.O. Klyuchevskii and S.B. Veselovskii explained the oprichnina in terms of
Ivan’s paranoia and denied larger social aims for the oprichnina.[4] However,
historianSergey Platonov argued that Ivan IV intended the oprichnina as a suppression of the
rising boyar aristocracy.[5] Professor
Isabel de Madariaga has expanded this idea to explain the oprichnina as Ivan’s
attempt to subordinate all independent social classes to the autocracy.[6
On December 3, 1564, Ivan IV departed Moscow on pilgrimage. While such journeys were routine for the throne, Ivan neglected to set
the usual arrangements for rule in his absence. Moreover, an unusually large
personal guard, a significant number of boyars, and the treasury accompanied
him.[7]
After a month of silence, Ivan finally issued two letters from his
fortifications at Aleksandrova Sloboda on January 3. The first addressed the
elite of the city and accused them of embezzlement and treason. Further
accusations concerned the clergy and their protection of denounced boyars. In
conclusion, Ivan announced his abdication. The second letter addressed the
population of Moscow and claimed “he had no anger against” its citizenry.
Divided between Sloboda and Moscow, the boyar court was unable to rule in
absence of Ivan and feared the wrath of the Muscovite citizenry. A boyar envoy
departed for Aleksandrova Sloboda to beg Ivan to return to the throne.[8]
Ivan IV agreed to return on condition that he may prosecute people for treason outside
legal limitations. He demanded that he execute and confiscate the land of
traitors without interference from the boyar council or church. To pursue his
investigations, Ivan decreed the creation of the oprichnina (originally a term
for land left to a noble widow, separate from her children's land). He also
raised a levy of 100,000 rubles to pay for the oprichnina[9]
The oprichnina consisted of a separate territory within the borders of
Russia, mostly in the territory of the former Novgorod Republic in the north. This region included many of the financial centers of
the state, including the salt region of Staraia Russa and prominent merchant
towns. Ivan held exclusive power over the oprichnina territory. The Boyar
Council ruled the zemshchina ('land'), the second division of the state. Until
1568, the oprichnina relied upon many administrative institutions under
zemshchina jurisdiction. Only when conflict between the zemshchina and
oprichnina reached its peak did Ivan create independent institutions within the
oprichnina.[10]
Ivan also stipulated the creation of a personal guard known as the
oprichniki. Originally it was a thousand strong. The noble oprichniki Aleksei Basmanov and Afanasy Viazemsky oversaw
recruitment. Nobles and townsmen free of relations to the zemshchina or its
administration were eligible for Ivan’s new guard.[11] Henri
Troyat has emphasized the lowly origin of the oprichnina recruits.[12] However,
historian Vladimir Kobrin has contested that a shift to the lower classes constituted a late
development in the oprichnina era. Many early oprichniki had close ties to the
princely and boyar clans of Russia.[13]
Territorial divisions under the oprichnina led to mass resettlement. When
the property of zemshchina nobles fell within oprichnina territory, oprichniki
seized their lands and forced the owners onto zemshchina land. The oprichnina
territory included primarily service estates. Stepan Veselovsky and Alexander Zimin have argued that this division left heredity landownership largely
unaffected. However, Platonov and other scholars have posited that resettlement
aimed to undermine the power of the landed nobility. Pavlov has cited the
relocation of zemshchina servicemen from oprichnina territories onto heredity
estates as a critical blow to the power of the princely class. The division of
hereditary estates diminished the influence of the princely elites in their
native provinces.[14] The worst affected was the province of Suzdal which lost
80% of its gentry.[15]
The oprichniki enjoyed social and economic privileges under the oprichnina.
While zemshchina boyars lost both heredity and service land, the oprichniki
retained hereditary holdings that fell in zemshchina land. Moreover, Ivan
granted the oprichnina the spoils of a heavy tax levied upon the zemshchina
nobles. The rising oprichniki owed their allegiance to Ivan, not heredity or
local bonds.[16]
The first wave of persecutions targeted primarily the princely clans of
Russia, notably the influential families of Suzdal’. Ivan executed, exiled, or
tortured prominent members of the boyar clans on questionable accusations of
conspiracy. 1566 saw the oprichnina extended to eight central districts. Of the
12,000 nobles there, 570 became oprichniks, the rest were expelled. They had to
make their way to the zemschina in mid winter, peasants who helped them were
executed.[17] In a show of clemency, Ivan recalled a number of nobles to Moscow.
The Tsar even called upon zemshchina nobles for a Zemskii sobor concerning the Livonian War. Ivan posed the question of whether
Russia should surrender the Livonian territories to recently victorious
Lithuania or maintain the effort to conquer the region. The body approved war
measures and advanced emergency taxes to support the draining treasury.
However, the sobor also forwarded a petition to end the oprichnina. The
Tsar reacted with a renewal of the oprichnina terror. Ivan ordered the
immediate arrest of the petitioners and executed the alleged leaders of the
protest. Further investigations tied Ivan Federov, leader of the zemshchina
duma, to a plot to overthrow Ivan; Federov was removed from court and executed
shortly thereafter.[18]
The overthrow of King Erik XIV of Sweden and the death of Ivan’s second wife exacerbated Ivan’s suspicions.
His attention turned to the northwestern city of Novgorod. The
second-largest city in Russia, Novgorod housed a large service nobility with
ties to some of the condemned boyar families of Moscow. Despite the sack of the
city under Ivan III, Novgorod maintained a political organization removed from
Russia’s central administration. Moreover, the influence of the city in the
northeast had increased as the city fronted the military advance against the
Lithuanian border. The treasonous surrender of the border town Izborsk to
Lithuania also caused Ivan to question the faith of border towns.
Ivan IV and an oprichniki detachment instituted a month-long terror in
Novgorod (the Massacre of Novgorod). The oprichniki raided the town and conducted executions among all
classes. As the Livonian campaign constituted a significant drain on state
resources, Ivan targeted ecclesiastical and merchant holdings with particular
fervor. After Novgorod, the oprichniki company turned to the adjacent merchant
city Pskov. The city
received relatively merciful treatment. The oprichniki limited executions and
focused primarily upon the seizure of ecclesiastical wealth. According to a
popular apocryphal account, a mad religious ascetic prophesied the fall of Ivan
and thus motivated the deeply religious Tsar to spare the city. Alternatively,
Ivan may have felt no need to institute a terror in Pskov due to his prior sack
of the city in wake of the Izborsk treason. The dire financial condition of the
state and the need to bolster the war treasury likely inspired the second raid.[19]
Ivan IV maintained the heightened terror as he returned to Moscow. A series
of particularly brutal open-air executions were held in Moscow’s Pagan Square.
The persecutions began to target the oprichnina leadership itself. The tsar had
already refused Basmanov and Viazemsky participation in the Novgorod campaign.
Upon his return, Ivan condemned the two to prison, where they died shortly
thereafter. Pavlov links Ivan’s turn against the higher echelons of oprichniki
to the increasing number of the lower-born among their ranks. Ivan may have
reacted to the apparent discontent among the princely oprichniki over the
brutal treatment of Novgorod. Furthermore, class disparity may have set the
lower recruits against the princely oprichniki. As Ivan already suspected the
older oprichniki on the issue of Novgorod, the lower-born recruits may have
advanced the new persecutions to increase their influence in the oprichnina
hierarchy.[20]
1572 saw the fall of the oprichnina state structure. The zemshchina and
oprichnina territories were reunited and placed under rule of a reformed Boyar
Council, which included members from both sides of the divided apparatus.[21]
Scholars have cited diverse factors to explain the dissolution of the
oprichnina. The Crimean Tartars burnt Moscow in 1571 during the Russo-Crimean
War, the oprichniki failing to offer serious resistance.
The success of the Tartars may have shaken the Tsar’s faith in the
effectiveness of the oprichnina. Ivan may have found state division ineffective
in a period of war and its significant social and economic pressures.
Alternatively, Ivan may have deemed the oprichnina a success; the weakening of
the princely elite achieved, the Tsar may have felt that the terror had simply
outlived its usefulness.[22]
Scholar Robert O. Crummey and Platonov have emphasized the social impact of
the mass resettlements under the oprichnina. The division of large estates into
smaller oprichnik plots subjected the peasants to a stricter landowning
dominion. Furthermore, a new itinerant population emerged as state terror and
the seizure of lands forced many peasants from their lands. The increase in
itinerants may have motivated the ultimate institutionalization of serfdom by
the Russian throne.[23]
Historian Isabel de Madariaga has emphasized the role of the oprichnina in
the consolidation of aristocratic power. Resettlement drastically reduced the
power of the heredity nobility. Oprichniki landowners who owed their loyalty to
the throne replaced an aristocracy that may have evolved independent political
ambitions.[24] Alternatively, Crummey has summarized the social effects of the
oprichnina as a failure. From this perspective, the oprichnina failed to pursue
coherent social motives and instead pursued a largely unfocused terror.
1.
Oleg Gordievsky and Christopher
Andrew (1999). KGB: The
Inside Story of its intelligence operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (Russian
language edition, Moscow, Centerpoligraph, ISBN 5-227-00437-4, page 21)
2. Jump up^ Walter
Leitsch. "Russo-Polish Confrontation" in Taras Hunczak, ed. "Russian
Imperialism". Rutgers University Press. 1974, p.140
4.
Jump up^ Andrei
Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible (London: Pearson Education
Limited, 2003), 123.
5. Jump up^ S.F.
Platonov, Ivan the Terrible, trans. Joseph L. Wieczynski (Gulf Breeze, FL:
Academic International Press, 1986), 101-102.
6.
Jump up^ Isabel De
Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia (London: Yale University
Press, 2005), 364-365, 368-370.
7.
Jump up^ Andrei
Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible (London: Pearson Education
Limited, 2003), 107.
8.
Jump up^ Isabel De
Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia (London: Yale University
Press, 2005), 176-178; Andrei Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible
(London: Pearson Education Limited, 2003), 112-113.
10. Jump up^ Andrei
Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible (London: Pearson Education
Limited, 2003), 109-111, 140.
11. Jump up^ Isabel De
Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia (London: Yale University
Press, 2005), 182-183; Andrei Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible
(London: Pearson Education Limited, 2003), 112-113.
12. Jump up^ Henri
Troyat, Ivan the Terrible, trans. E.P. Dutton (London: Phoenix Press,
2001), 129-130.
13. Jump up^ Andrei
Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible (London: Pearson Education
Limited, 2003), 113.
14. Jump up^ Andrei
Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible (London: Pearson Education
Limited, 2003), 143-145; S.F. Platonov, Ivan the Terrible, trans. Joseph L. Wieczynski
(Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1986), 130.
16. Jump up^ Andrei
Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible (London: Pearson Education
Limited, 2003), 113.
18. Jump up^ Isabel De
Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia (London: Yale University
Press, 2005), 202-208, 231-232; Andrei Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the
Terrible (London: Pearson Education Limited, 2003), 130-134.
19. Jump up^ Isabel De
Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia (London: Yale University
Press, 2005), 242-250; Andrei Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible
(London: Pearson Education Limited, 2003), 147-152.
20. Jump up^ Isabel De
Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia (London: Yale University
Press, 2005), 255-260; Andrei Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible
(London: Pearson Education Limited, 2003), 155-156, 161-162.
21. Jump up^ Isabel De
Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia (London: Yale University
Press, 2005), 282; Andrei Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible (London:
Pearson Education Limited, 2003), 166-167.
22. Jump up^ Isabel De
Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia (London: Yale University
Press, 2005), 278-279; Andrei Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible
(London: Pearson Education Limited, 2003), 162-167.
23. Jump up^ Robert O.
Crummey, “Ivan IV: Reformer or Tyrant?” in Reinterpreting Russian History, ed.
Daniel H. Kaiser and Gary Marker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994),
162-163; S.F. Platonov, Ivan the Terrible, trans. Joseph L. Wieczynski
(Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1986), 114-119.
24. Jump up^ Isabel De
Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia (London: Yale University
Press, 2005), 368-370.
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