The grand prince's growing power and prestige led him logically to a final break with the Mongols. This definitive lifting of the Mongol yoke, however, represented something of an anticlimax compared to the catastrophe of the Mongol invasion or the epic battle of Kulikovo. Ivan III became grand prince without being confirmed by the khan and, following the practice of his father Basil II, he limited his allegiance to the Golden Horde to the sending of "presents" instead of the regular tribute, finally discontinuing even those. Mongol punitive expeditions in 1465 and 1472 were checked in the border areas of the Muscovite state. Finally in 1480, after Ivan III publicly renounced any allegiance to the Golden Horde, Khan Ahmad decided on an all-out effort against the disobedient Russians. He made an alliance with Casimir IV of Lithuania and Poland and invaded Muscovite territory. Ivan III, in turn, obtained the support of Mengli-Geray, the Crimean khan, and disposed his forces so as to block the Mongol advance and above all to guard river crossings. The main Mongol and Muscovite armies reached the opposite banks of the Ugra river and remained there facing each other. The Mongols had failed to cross the river before the Muscovites arrived, and they did not receive the expected Lithuanian and Polish help because these countries had to concentrate on beating back the Crimean Tartars who had made a large raid into Lithuania. Strangely enough, when the river froze, making it possible for the cavalry of the
Golden Horde to advance, and the Russians began to retreat, the Mongols suddenly broke camp and rushed back into the steppe. Apparently they were frightened by an attack on their home base of Sarai that was staged by a Russian and Tartar detachment. In any case, Khan Ahmad's effort to restore his authority in Russia collapsed. Shortly after, he was killed during strife in the Golden Horde, and around 1500 the Horde itself fell under the blows of the Crimean Tartars.
Another important event in Ivan Ill's reign was his marriage in 1472 to a Byzantine princess, Sophia, or Zoe, Paleologue. The marital alliance between the grand prince of Moscow and a niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, who had perished on the walls of Constantinople in the final Turkish assault, was sponsored by the Vatican in the hope of bringing Russia under the sway of the pope and of establishing a broad front against the Turks. These expectations failed utterly, yet for other reasons the marriage represented a notable occurrence. Specifically, it fitted well into the general trend of elevating the position of the Muscovite ruler. Ivan III added the Byzantine two-headed eagle to his own family's St. George, and he developed a complicated court ceremonial on the Byzantine model. He also proceeded to use the high titles of tsar and autocrat and to institute the ceremony of coronation as a solemn church rite. While autocrat as used in Moscow originally referred to the complete independence of the Muscovite sovereign from any overlord, and thus to the termination of the Mongol yoke, the word itself - although translated into the Russian - and the attendant concept of power and majesty were Greek, just as tsar stemmed from the Roman, and hence Byzantine, caesar. Ivan III also engaged in an impressive building program in Moscow, inviting craftsmen from many countries to serve him. In 1497 he promulgated for his entire land a code of law which counted the Russian Justice and the Pskov Sudebnik among its main sources. It may be added that legends and doctrines emphasizing the prestige of Moscow and its ruler grew mainly in Ivan Ill's reign, and in that of his successor. They included the stories of the bringing of Christianity to Russia by St. Andrew the apostle, the descent of the Muscovite princes from the Roman emperors and the significance of the regalia of Constantine Monomakh, and even the rather well-developed doctrine of Moscow the Third Rome. Apparently, the Muscovite ruler took the attitude of a distant superior toward his collaborators, especially after his Byzantine marriage. Or, at least, so the boyars complained for years to come.
Although Ivan III asserted his importance and role as the successor to the Kievan princes, he refused to be drawn into broader schemes or sacrifice any of his independence. Thus he declined papal suggestions of a union with Rome and of a possible re-establishment, in the person of the Muscovite ruler, of a Christian emperor in Constantinople. And when the Holy
Roman Emperor offered him a kingly crown, he answered as follows: "We pray God that He let us and our children always remain, as we are now, the lords of our land; as to being appointed, just as we had never desired it, so we do not desire it now." Ivan III has been called the first national Russian sovereign.
Ivan III was succeeded by his son Basil III, who ruled from 1505 to 1533. The new reign in many ways continued and completed the old. Basil III annexed virtually all remaining appanages, such as Pskov, obtained in 1511, and the remaining part of Riazan, which joined the Muscovite state in 1517, as well as the principalities of Starodub, Chernigov-Seversk, and the upper Oka area. The Muscovite ruler fought Lithuania, staging three campaigns aimed at Smolensk before that town was finally captured in 1514; the treaty of 1522 confirmed Russian gains. Continuing Ivan Ill's policy, he exercised pressure on the khanate of Kazan, advancing the Russian borders in that direction and supporting a pro-Russian party which acted as one of the two main contending political factions in the turbulent life of the city and the state. Profiting from the new standing of Muscovite Russia, Basil III had diplomatic relations with the Holy Roman Empire - the ambassador of which, Sigismund von Herberstein, left an important account of Russia, Rerum moscovitarum commentarli - with the papacy, with the celebrated Turkish sultan Suleiman I, the Magnificent, and even with the founder of the great Mogul empire in India, Babar. Ironically, in the case of this last potentate, of whom next to nothing was known in Moscow, the Russians behaved with extreme caution not to pay excessive honors to his empire and thus to demean the prestige of their ruler. Invitations to foreigners to enter Russian service continued. It was in the reigns of Ivan III and Basil III that a whole foreign settlement, the so-called German suburb, appeared in Moscow.
In home affairs too Basil III continued the work of his father. He sternly ruled the boyars and members of former appanage princely families who had become simply servitors of Moscow. In contrast to the practice of centuries, but in line with Ivan Ill's policy, the abandonment of Muscovite service in favor of some other power - which in effect came to mean Lithuania - was judged as treason. At the same time the obligations imposed by Moscow increased. These and other issues connected with the transition from appanages to centralized rule were to become tragically prominent in the following reign.
Incidentally, it was Basil III who forbade his merchants to attend the Kazan fair and established instead a fair first in Vasilsursk and soon after near the monastery of St. Macarius where the Vetluga flows into the Volga; the new fair was transferred in 1817 to Nizhnii Novgorod to become the most famous and important annual event of its kind in modern Russia.
Why Moscow Succeeded