Muscovy's growing involvement in international affairs and the greater complexity of its social and administrative structures put increasing strain on the limited political resources of the monarchy. By the mid-1560s, Ivan's fears of court feuds and his failures in Western policy were added to his constant trepidation about his family.[109] In his search for security, Ivan left Moscow with his family and took up residence at Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda, north-east of
Moscow, in December 1564. Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda, which was founded by Vasilii III, was the largest grand-princely residence in the countryside. It was designed as an isolated fortified stronghold and as a place of pilgrimage. The site included a cathedral, one of the biggest in the country, and a palace with late Gothic architectural features. Despite the Western borrowings, the overall design ofthe residence was archaic even for the times of Vasilii III.[110] Ivan IV thus chose for his refuge a very conservative spatial environment. Having settled at Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda, he accused his old court of treason and the clerics of covering up for the traitors. The tsar demanded the right to punish his enemies. He divided the territory of his realm, his court and the administration into two: the oprichnina (from 'oprich", 'separate') under the tsar's personal control; and the zemshchina (from 'zemlia', 'land'), officially under the rule of those boyars who stayed in Moscow.
The ideology of the oprichnina was never fully articulated. Ivan surely capitalised on the political ideas of the 1550s about anarchy prevailing during the boyar rule.[111] It is also very probable that the concept of the divine nature of Ivan's power, which received its final shape in the early 1560s, also played a major part in the formation of the oprichnina. The official chronicle stresses that God guided Ivan on his way out of Moscow.[112] Priscilla Hunt interprets the semiotic behaviour of Ivan during the oprichnina as an extreme manifestation of the official ideology of sacred kingship. According to Hunt, the cult of Holy Wisdom, which embodied the severity and meekness of Christ, was particularly relevant to Ivan's policy in the 1560s.[113] Ivan indeed paid special attention to his campaigns against places that sported cathedrals dedicated to the cult, in particular against Polotsk in 1562 and Novgorod in 1570. The official propaganda and court rituals presented these campaigns as acts of restoring Orthodoxy in the towns and protecting their holy churches from heretics and traitors.[114]
The idea that Ivan acted as an exclusive judge, treating his subjects with awe and mercy, like God, may explain why the oprichnina policy was a peculiar combination of bloody terror and acts of public reconciliation. During the oprichnina, numerous executions, which, according to the incomplete official records, took the lives of more than 3,000 people, were often followed by amnesties. The mass exile of around 180 princes and cavalrymen to Kazan' and the confiscation of their lands (1565) were counterbalanced when they were pardoned and their property was partially restored. In 1566, in the middle ofthe oprichnina terror, the tsar convened a large gathering, the so-called 'Assembly of the Land' (zemskii sobor), of his elite servitors, provincial cavalrymen, the clergy and the merchants to discuss whether he should continue the Livonian war. Many scholars see this meeting as an 'estate-representative' institution, on the lines of a Western Parliament, which provided representation for various social groups. Others note that the participants did not represent their local communities or estates (sosloviia) because there were no elections to the assembly.[115] Judging by the surviving document of the meeting, its members indeed saw themselves primarily as servitors of the tsar rather than delegates of constituencies. They interacted with the monarchy in a rather traditional manner by expressing support for the policy of the ruler and swearing an oath of allegiance to him, like many courtiers had done before.[116]
The oprichnina has received various interpretations in the literature. Some historians have seen it as a conscious struggle among certain social groups, others suggest that it was an irrational outcome of Ivan's mental illness. Hunt and A. L. Iurganov offer cultural explanations of the oprichnina which do not exclude the possibility that Ivan's personality deeply affected his policy. Since the oprichnina involved a peculiar symbolism that alluded to the tsar and his oprichniki as punitive instruments of divine wrath, Iurganov explains the oprichnina in terms of possible eschatological expectations and imitations of biblical descriptions of the Heavenly Kingdom.[117] This interpretation is in accord with the complex symbolism of a military banner ordered by Ivan shortly before the oprichnina,in 1559 / 60. The images of Christ, the Archangel Michael and St John the Apostle, and quotations from the Book of Revelation that are reproduced in the banner allude to the tsar waging the final battle with cosmic evil (see
Plate 13).75 Judging by a contemporary provincial chronicle which parallels the rule of Ivan with an apocalyptic kingdom, such eschatological imagery may have found a response among Ivan's cultured subjects.76
The oprichnina affected various local communities in different ways. The authorities deported non-oprichnina servitors from the oprichnina lands and granted their estates to the oprichniki, but the extent of these forced resettlements remains unclear. Despite such relocations, the oprichnina did not deprive provincial cavalrymen of room for manoeuvre. It might take the authorities a year and a half to begin relocating cavalrymen from a region included in the oprichnina. During this period many local cavalrymen managed to obtain tax exemptions from the central authorities and to secure possession of desirable lands in their new places of residence. Furthermore, some of them did not go to specified destinations, but to places chosen because of ties of kinship (dlia rodstva). In these cases, the authorities accepted their wishes.77 The zemshchina territories bore the heavy financial burden of funding the organisation and actions of the oprichnina; some zemshchina communities were pillaged and devastated. In early i570, the tsar and his oprichniki sacked Novgorod, where they slaughtered between 3,000 and 15,000 people. At the same time, the lower-ranking inhabitants of Moscow escaped Ivan's disgrace and forced resettlements. For taxpayers in the remote north, the establishment of the oprichnina mostly meant a change of payee.
The tsar abolished the oprichnina in 1572 after its troops proved to be ineffective during a devastating Tatar raid on Moscow. Nevertheless, he returned to the practice of dividing his court during the 'rule' of Simeon Bekbulatovich in the mid-i570s. This episode shows how the growing complexity of the ethnic composition of the tsar's court affected Ivan's dynastic policy. The increasing involvement of Muscovy in Eastern diplomacy resulted in the growing presence of Tatar servitors in Muscovy. Starting from the times of Vasilii III, Tatar dignitaries descending from Chingis Khan (Chingisids) occupied very prominent positions at the court of the grand prince of Moscow. In accordance with the traditional Muscovite practice, these elite Tatar servitors received the title of tsar. Thanks to their mobility and military skill, Tatar forces led by the
109
On the role of foreign policy in the establishment of the
110
V V Kavel'makher, 'Gosudarev dvor v Aleksandrovskoi slobode. Opyt rekonstruktsii', in Iakob Ul'feldt,
111
Accusations against boyars who disobeyed Ivan during his minority are prominent in the official account of the establishment of the
113
See Priscilla Hunt, 'Ivan IV's Personal Mythology of Kingship', SR 52 (1993): 769-809. Hunt believes that the concept of the tsar's power derives directly from Makarii's views, but the process of the formation of this concept could have been multi-phased.
114
On the Polotsk campaign, see Sergei Bogatyrev, 'Battle for Divine Wisdom. The Rhetoric of Ivan IV's Campaign against Polotsk', in Eric Lohr and Marshall Poe (eds.),
115
For the historiography of the 1566
116
117
A. L. Iurganov 'Oprichnina i strashnyi sud',