Table: wives of Ivan the Terrible
| Anastasia Zakharyina-Yuryeva | February 1547 - August 1560 | Anna, Maria, Dmitry, Ivan, Evdokia, Fedor. | |
| 2 | Maria Cherkasskaya | August 1561 - September 1569 | Basil |
| 3 | Marfa Sobakina | October - November 1571 | No |
| 4 | Anna Koltovskaya | 1572 | No |
| 5 | Maria Dolgorukaya | November 1573 | No |
| 6 | Anna Vasilchikova | 1575 | No |
| 7 | Vasilisa Melentyeva | 1575 | No |
| 8 | Maria Nagaya | September 1580 - 1584 | Dmitriy |
Regarding 2 of the 8 wives, historians express doubts that these were official wives. We are talking about Anna Vasilchikova and Vasilisa Melentyeva, who, rather, can be called not wives, but mistresses. The fact is that these women appeared in the life of Ivan the Terrible without a wedding (even without secret ceremonies) and even without a magnificent wedding feast. They simply appeared out of nowhere, and very soon they disappeared there.
An important feature is that all the wives of Ivan the Terrible were chosen at “bride shows”. A “beauty contest” was organized, in which thousands of girls often took part, from which the king chose one for himself.
Anastasia Zakharyina-Yuryeva
At the age of 16, Ivan the Terrible married for the first time. Early marriages were common in that era, since it was believed that a person does not become an adult upon reaching a certain age, but only by the fact of marriage. It was believed that a person without a family is incomplete. That is why, 2 weeks after the crowning, Ivan the Terrible got married. A show was organized for the king, in which, according to the chronicles, 1,500 girls took part. The most beautiful girls were identified locally, who then went to Moscow, where the Tsar chose one of them. His choice fell on Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina-Yuryeva. Anastasia was the only wife of Ivan 4, who had a beneficial influence on him, and with whom the Tsar truly experienced family happiness. The remaining wives of Ivan Vasilyevich 4 had much less influence on the ruler, and often awakened his worst sides in him. To emphasize the importance of Anastasia in the formation of the personality of Ivan the Terrible, it is enough to quote quotes from several famous historians.
Ivan Vasilyevich enjoyed the true happiness of family life with Anastasia. He loved his wife dearly and revered her many virtues.
N.M. Karamzin
The opinion of a Western historian on this matter is also important.
Anastasia was a wise queen, with a huge number of virtues and piety. She was respected not only by her husband, but also by all the courtiers. Despite the fact that Ivan IV was young and hot-tempered, Anastasia controlled him with amazing ease, meekness and intelligence.
Jerome Horsey
Ivan the Terrible and Anastasia Zakharyina-Yuryeva had 6 children:
- Anna (born August 10, 1549) - died in infancy.
- Maria (born March 17, 1551) - died in infancy.
- Dmitry (born October 1552) - Died June 4, 1553. It is officially believed that he drowned on the shores of Lake Seversky, but most historians agree that it was a murder. It’s hard to imagine that in front of his parents and nanny, a child rolled into the water and simply drowned.
- Ivan (born March 28, 1554) - died in the fall of 1581. This is the same son for whose murder Ivan the Terrible is still accused.
- Evdokia (born February 26, 1556) - died in the third year of life.
- Fedor (born May 11, 1557) - was born frail and weak-minded. Died January 7, 1598.
In 1559, Anastasia became seriously ill. The official version is that the queen's body was exhausted because she gave birth too often (on average, one birth every two years). This version, of course, can be accepted, but it is important to remember that in the 16th century giving birth to 6 children in 13 years of marriage was an absolutely normal phenomenon. There were large families then, and many families had 10, even 15 children. Peasant women also gave birth, but none of them died from weakening of the body due to childbirth. And Anastasia’s living conditions were much better than those of the peasants. Therefore, the official version can be accepted, but it cannot be used as unambiguous and indisputable.
The main fact is that it was at the moment of the onset of Anastasia’s illness that she had a serious rift with her husband. In fact, from this time on, Anastasia and Ivan the Terrible live their own lives and practically do not intersect.
On August 7, 1560, Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina-Yuryeva died. Ivan Vasilyevich convened all skilled doctors to establish the cause of the queen’s death. The doctors were unable to do this. Most historians agree that it was poisoning.
Maria Cherkasskaya
The second wife of Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible was Maria Cherkasskaya. The wedding took place on August 21, 1561. This was the daughter of the Circassian (Kabardian) Prince Temryuk and Princess Kucheney. For her wedding with the Moscow Tsar, she converted to Orthodoxy and received the name Maria Temryukovna Cherkasskaya. But this was, so to speak, the second option. Initially, Ivan the Terrible planned to marry Anna Jagiellonian, the sister of the Polish king. This union was possible, but the Polish king demanded Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk and Seversk land for his sister. But the Russian kingdom did not agree to such conditions, and then they began to look for a new wife for the king “among their own.”
It is unknown who informed Ivan the Terrible that the Cherkassy prince had a very beautiful daughter, but already in June 1561, Prince Cherkassy and his daughter arrived in Moscow. She was a very beautiful, young and slender girl. Chronicles write that almost after the first meeting of Ivan Vasilyevich and Maria, a decision was made about the wedding. But before that, on July 20, 1561, Princess Kuchenei converted to Orthodoxy. In Orthodoxy, she was given a name in honor of Mary Magdalene, a holiday that was celebrated in the near future.
Maria was the complete opposite of Anastasia, the first wife of Ivan the Terrible. Maria was a representative of the Caucasian peoples. She was a hot woman who loved adventure. She was not distinguished by wisdom, and her main task in the role of the tsar’s wife was the rise of the Cherkassy princes on Russian soil.
From this marriage Ivan the Terrible had children: Vasily (March 1563 - May 1563) - the child lived less than 2 months. The next death of his son was a terrible blow for Ivan the Terrible, who lost interest in his wife and showed no more interest in her.
Maria Cherkasskaya died mysteriously and suddenly on September 1, 1569. The cause of death is also unknown, but the young and healthy girl immediately became helpless and powerless, after which she died suddenly. Most likely she was poisoned.
Maria Temryukovna (Circassian Princess Kuchenei)
years of life 1545 – 1569
married 08/21/1561 – 09/06/1569
Second wife of Ivan the Terrible, daughter of Prince Temryuk. Before baptism she bore the name Kuchenei. She gave birth to her only child (son) in 1563 - he died at the age of two months. This was the only dynastic marriage of his legal marriages - in other cases, the choice of the chosen one was carried out by viewing the brides.
The tsar began his search for his next bride a little more than a week after the death of his first wife Anastasia Romanovna, with whom, according to contemporaries, he lived for thirteen happy years, and at whose funeral he sobbed terribly. At first, Tsar Ivan intended to marry the sister of the Polish king Catherine, but he demanded in exchange for this several Russian regions - Smolensk, Novgorod, Pskov. Considering that the Polish bride was not worth such expenses, the tsar abandoned this intention. Then his attention turned to the Caucasus. There the Circassian princess was chosen.
This marriage was strikingly different from the previous one. Having a wild disposition and incredibly cruel, she, according to contemporaries, pushed her husband to more and more bloody savages. It is she who is credited with the idea of creating the oprichnina.
However, the king was not long captivated by the beauty of the Circassian princess. Very soon his feelings for her cooled down, and he plunged headlong into shameless fornication.
Maria Temryukovna died suddenly in September 1569. As in the case of his first wife, the king was sure that Maria had been poisoned, which could not but cause in him another attack of frenzied animal rage, and, as a result, another wave of terror.
Marfa Sobakina
The wedding between Ivan the Terrible and Marfa Sobakina took place on October 28, 1571 in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. Many people find a catch in this, since the wedding did not take place in Moscow, but there is a completely rational explanation for this. The fact is that on May 24, 1571, Moscow was burning, and it was impossible to prepare it for the royal wedding. This marriage lasted only 2 weeks. Already on November 14, 1571, Marfa Sobakina dies. Again we see the same picture - a young and healthy girl suddenly becomes sick and dies.
Before the wedding, Ivan the Terrible held a traditional bride's viewing, where, together with the doctor, he selected the ideal couple for himself. His choice fell on Marfa Sobakina. After this, the girl was examined by the king’s personal doctor, the Dutchman Elizeus Bomelius. The bride was healthy. Before the wedding, she had some health problems, but the king and the doctor considered them minor and the decision was made to have the wedding.
Ivan the Terrible himself immediately declared publicly that Marfa had been poisoned. If earlier there were no repressions after the death of Maria Cherkassy, now the executions began very quickly. Among those executed was the brother of Ivan the Terrible’s second wife, Mikhail Cherkassky.
A. A. Bushkov.
Anna Koltovskaya
A few months after Martha's death, Ivan the Terrible decided to marry again. But this time the choice fell on Anna Koltovskaya. But there was a problem - the church allowed only three marriages, and this marriage was supposed to be the fourth before the king. Theoretically, the problem was solved simply, since the king’s third marriage could be declared invalid, because there was no physical confirmation of the marriage. Of course, the cathedral did not look for facts confirming the marriage, or declaring it invalid, but on April 29, 1572, the church still gave the green light to the king’s fourth wedding.
Penance was imposed on the king by the church. In the first year he was forbidden to attend church on all days except Easter. In the second year, he was allowed to be present in church, but only with sinners, who had to kneel throughout the service. Only in the third year could he be in church on an equal basis with everyone else. But this punishment had a caveat - if the tsar goes to war against enemies and adherents of other faiths in neighboring states, then the church can cancel its own penance.
B.N. Florya, biographer of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich
There is no official wedding date between Ivan the Terrible and Anna Koltovskaya. The only known common wording is that this wedding took place after April 29, 1572, when the church allowed the king to perform his 4th marriage. Anna, according to most historians, combined the beauty of Maria Cherkasskaya and the virtue of Anastasia Zakharyina-Yuryeva. It was under this wife that Ivan the Terrible abolished the oprichnina in 1572. Immediately after the wedding, Anna really became the second person in the state, since Ivan the Terrible devoted all his time to his wife. In just a few months, Anna became very popular among the people, but she was terribly hated by the boyars. As a result, Prince Vorotynsky staged an intrigue worthy of Shakespeare, and as a result of which Ivan the Terrible’s fourth marriage broke up. The intrigue was as follows. Prince Vorotynsky had a nephew, Boris Romodanovsky. He was a 19-year-old boy who looked like a girl. The uncle persuaded his nephew to wear a woman’s dress and enter Anna Koltovskaya’s chambers under the guise of the hawthorn Irina. Prince Vorotynsky explained this to his nephew that by doing so he would be able to get to know the queen and increase his influence at court. In fact, the idea was different - Ivan the Terrible was supposed to find “Irina” in the royal chambers. And so it happened. As a result, the tsar suspected his wife of adultery, and Boris Romodanovsky was killed by the tsar with a blow to the head from a staff.
First, Anna was taken to the Resurrection Monastery in the village of Goritsy (present-day Vologda region), and about a year later, by order of the tsar, she was tonsured as a nun under the name Daria. After this, she was promoted to schema nun. These monks are dressed all in black, with skulls on their chests and on their headdress. They give up all the joys of life and spend time completely alone until their last day. After this, sister Daria (Anna) was transferred to an underground cell, where she lived completely alone.
Anna Alekseevna Koltovskaya
The fourth wife of Ivan the Terrible was the daughter of the nobleman Koltovsky. She was orphaned early and was raised in the house of Andrei Kurbsky. After the death of Marfa Sobakina, there was no viewing of brides. Anna Koltovskaya's candidacy was confirmed immediately after the funeral of the Tsar's third wife. According to the laws of that time, the ruler did not have the right to marry a fourth time. But since Martha died two weeks after the wedding and her husband “did not allow her virginity,” the higher clergy made an exception.
The tsar’s family life did not work out this time either. Six months after the wedding, Ivan the Terrible sent his wife to a monastery. There is no exact information about what caused this act. The king could imprison him in a monastery for two reasons: as a result of betrayal or due to his wife’s infertility. Ivan the Terrible had no reason to suspect his young wife of treason. He could not blame her for infertility, because he had only lived with her for six months. The king probably quickly fell out of love with Anna.
The fourth wife of Ivan the Terrible spent several years in Suzdal, but during her life she changed monasteries several times. In 1624 she became abbess. Anna Koltovskaya died in 1626.
Maria Dolgorukaya
After the massacre of his fourth wife, Ivan the Terrible began to think about a new marriage. This time he chooses a 17-year-old girl, Maria Dolgorukaya. Ivan the Terrible understood that the church would not allow him to get married for the fifth time, so he decided to hold a secret ceremony. Here's what one historian writes about it.
According to the canons of the Russian Orthodox Church, no Christian has the right to get married more than 3 times. This time the decrepit old man took a liking to a 17-year-old girl, Princess Maria. Ivan the Terrible understood that no cathedral would allow him to get married for the fifth time, so he agreed with Archpriest Nikita, who had previously served as a guardsman, that he would marry the Tsar and his new wife in the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, where he was rector.
B.N. Florya, biographer of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich
All the wives of Ivan the Terrible were different, but the fifth marriage turned out to be worse than all the previous ones. A feast on the occasion of this wedding in Moscow took place in November 1573. The next morning after the wedding, Ivan the Terrible came out of his chambers very gloomy and ordered the horses to be saddled. The Tsar and Tsarina gathered at the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda pond. There is no more or less serious narrative about further events in any chronicle. It is only known that Maria Dolgorukaya drowned in this pond. Here is what one of Ivan Vasilyevich’s biographers writes about this 4.
The day after the wedding, the young woman was tied to a cart, the horses were spurred, and they carried her to a pond where she drowned. The Church, which was literally paralyzed by the horror of the events taking place, was unable to either condemn the murder or prohibit the king from conducting endless marriages.
Henri Troyat, biographer of Ivan the Terrible
This story is vague and confusing, without a single fact. That is why some historians say that no Maria Dolgorukaya existed at all. Now it is no longer possible to establish this, but official history says that Maria was the 5th wife of Ivan the Terrible. Of course, this marriage was formal, concluded in a secret ceremony, lasting only one night, but it was a marriage.
Anna Vasilchikova
Ivan the Terrible continued to lead a riotous lifestyle, creating a real harem in the palace of Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. Very quickly he got tired of this harem, and the king began to look for something else. According to one of the legends, Ivan Vasilyevich came to visit his favorite Peter Vasilchikov, where he met his daughter Anna, who was 17 years old at that time and who was distinguished by her beauty. The king demanded that Anna come to his palace the next day, but was refused by her father. Then Ivan the Terrible declared that he was ready to marry the girl.
There are no facts indicating that the marriage between Ivan the Terrible and Anna Vasilchikova was official. There is no information that they got married, but it is known for certain that no one called the girl a queen. Most historians agree that she was a “concubine” and not a wife. If the absence of a wedding can be explained by the fact that the church could not allow this marriage, then the fact that there was no wedding feast is indicative of this story. True, there are two different opinions on this matter. Most historians say that there was no wedding, just like there was no wedding, while another part of historians say that there was a wedding, but it was small, with only a few people present.
The new wife of Ivan the Terrible enjoyed the patronage of the boyar Vasily Umny-Kolychev, who largely contributed to the formation of this union. After Kolychev, as chairman of the government, made a number of mistakes, Ivan the Terrible removed him from himself, and this inevitably affected Anna. As a result, the girl was sent to a monastery against her will. She was forcibly tonsured as a nun under the name Daria and sent to the Suzdal Intercession Monastery, where she very soon died. The causes of death are unknown. But once again we see that a young healthy girl dies just a few years after meeting the king.
All modern historians agree that Anna Vasilchikova died at the end of 1576 or at the beginning of 1577. Proof of this are state contributions to various monasteries about Anna’s soul on the part of Ivan Vasilyevich.
A.A. Yurganov, historian
Speaking about contributions to monasteries, the following document of that era should be noted. This document indicates the wives of Ivan the Terrible, as well as the amount of contribution to the monastery according to their souls:
- Anastasia Zakharyina-Yuryeva -1000 rubles
- Maria Cherkasskaya - 1500 rubles
- Marfa Sobakina - 700 rubles
- Anna Vasilchikova - 850 rubles.
Biography of Ivan IV
The biography of Ivan the Terrible recalls that this tsar was known throughout the world as a tyrant, a cruel despot and an unbalanced person.
Ivan the Terrible was a descendant of Rurik, the first chronicle prince in ancient Rus'.
When learning interesting facts about Ivan the Terrible, it is worth saying that it was he who opened many church schools throughout the state. This king was a fairly educated person, and therefore he wanted the people to get out of widespread illiteracy.
Ivan the Terrible is considered the first Russian Tsar who was crowned king by the church.
During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, Russia became a strong power. She was able to increase her own size thirty times.
The childhood of the future king
The childhood of Ivan the Terrible cannot be called carefree and joyful. Intrigues constantly wove around him and there was an active struggle for rule among the representatives of the nobility who were part of the boyar government. Ivan the Terrible and his brother Yuri were regularly starved, humiliated, and killed their comrades.
For ceremonial receptions, the future king was dressed in luxurious outfits and lifted to the skies, but after they were over, they completely forgot about the boy, leaving him to his own devices.
In his youth, Ivan the Terrible became very interested in literature. It happened that he would sit in the library both day and night.
The first manifestations of cruelty
When Tsar Ivan the Terrible ascended the throne, he surrounded himself with people who shared his passion for violent acts. So he recreated the army with guardsmen, who exhausted and executed people on the orders of the king. Ivan the Terrible assumed that his torture and other acts of violence were a form of entertainment to which both he and his entourage were devoted.
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Usually the victims of the tsar's disfavor were the boyars and their families. People suspected of treason were placed in the square in front of the king and the assembled crowd, chained to a vat of water. After this, the cauldron was sent to the fire and the person was slowly boiled alive.
Beginning of reign
On January 16, 1547, Ivan the Terrible began to rule the country independently. At the age of 17, the king was married to rule by Metropolitan Macarius. For the first time, the Grand Duke of Rus' was then named Tsar.
When Ivan the Terrible received power without a regency council, he decided that his torment was over, and from that moment on he would become the main man in the country with absolute power over others. The reality was different from his assumptions, and very soon the young man realized this. In the summer of 1547 there was a drought, and on June 21 a strong storm broke out. Then one of the churches caught fire and, due to strong winds, the fire spread throughout Moscow. The fires continued from June 21-29.
As a result, 80,000 people were left homeless.
Reforms of Ivan the Terrible
Due to his own thoughtfulness, Tsar Ivan the Terrible carried out several reforms necessary for the country during his reign. As interesting facts about the reign of Ivan the Terrible say, he established an estate-representative monarchy and redistributed powers among the rulers of small territorial units.
This king also organized the Streltsy army and formed a system of orders. He also created a new set of laws - the Code of Law.
Oprichnina
Since 1565, the period of oprichnina arose. The guardsmen, who were the personal army of Ivan the Terrible, carried out violent punishments on the guilty and the innocent.
Ivan the Terrible was disappointed in the oprichnina after the attack of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey. The army, which loved to rob and kill the defenseless, could not oppose anything to the strength of the Khan's army. A huge part of the “sovereign army” did not show up for the war at all.
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Tsar's policy
The first years of this king's reign were marked by significant victories. Then Astrakhan and Kazan were taken. But these successes intoxicated Ivan the Terrible, and therefore in 1558 he decided to attack the Livonian Order. At this moment, the tsar underestimated the enemy: Rus' was drawn into a protracted conflict, but it emerged from it having lost part of its territories.
Already closer to the end of the reign of this king, the lands of Siberia were developed.
Last years
Shortly before his death, Ivan the Terrible became very ill. Due to the development of osteophytes, the king could not always move without assistance.
Family and Children
Ivan the Terrible was married 6 times. This is evidenced by interesting facts.
His first wife, Anastasia Darina-Koshkina, was chosen by Ivan the Terrible from 1,500 Russian beauties. At the age of 28, Anastasia died, and the Tsar was painfully worried about the death of his beloved wife.
The tsar had no children from his second marriage to the Kabardian princess Maria Temryukovna, and therefore he decided to marry a third time - to Marfa Sobakina. The new wife died less than a month after the wedding.
The fourth marriage of Ivan the Terrible to Anna Koltovskaya also did not last long. A year after the marriage, the woman was tonsured and sent to a monastery.
When Ivan the Terrible married for the fifth time, his chosen one was Anna Vasilchikova. She died 4 years later.
And only the sixth wife of Ivan the Terrible, Maria Nagaya, 2 years later gave birth to his son, who was named Dmitry. This is what concerns the children that Ivan the Terrible had.
Vasilisa Melentyeva
Vasilisa Melentyeva had exactly the same grounds for her rights to the title of wife of Ivan the Terrible as Anna Vasilchikova. Historians call both women “wife.” This word was used to call common-law wives, as it is now fashionable to say. If we more fully describe the whole essence that was hidden behind the term, then this was not just a common-law wife, but a mistress. It was in this role that Vasilisa Melentyeva and Anna Vasilchikova played.
Around 1575, the widow Vasilisa became the king’s sixth wife, or rather not a wife, but a “groom.” Respecting the reputation of the monarch, Ivan Vasilyevich received prayerful permission to cohabit with Vasilisa, who captivated the king with her beauty.
Professor R.G. Skrynnikov
After the death of little Skuratov, another person began to rise near Ivan the Terrible - Melenty. It was his wife who was noticed by Ivan the Terrible and ordered to be taken to his palace. This order of the king was violated, and Melentius and Vasilisa himself referred to illness. The royal doctor was sent to them. After some time, Melenty dies for mysterious reasons, and Vasilisa is “passed over” to the king. Almost all historians note that the sixth marriage of Ivan 4 was happy, but not long. A few months later, Ivan the Terrible held a meeting with the Swedish ambassador, at which issues regarding mutual claims on the Baltic Sea coast were discussed. After the meeting, Ivan the Terrible got up and left. He headed to the women's quarters, to Vasilisa's chambers. The door to it was closed, the king ordered the door to be knocked down and the room searched. A certain young man was found in the room, whose identity has not yet been established by historians, and, most likely, will never be established. Convicted of treason, Vasilisa Melentyeva was forcibly sent to a monastery. There is no information about which monastery, and under what name, since different historians put forward different theories, but there is no actual evidence that this woman was sent to one or another monastery.
Maria Nagaya
Before considering the features of this marriage, I think it is important to quote one of the historians.
In September 1580, the tsar entered into a 7th or 8th more or less legal marriage with Maria Naga, the daughter of the boyar Fyodor Fedorovich.
Kazimir Waliszewski, historian
I draw your attention to the wording “more or less legal marriage”. Despite all the paradoxicalness, the formulation is very precise and eloquent. Historians are still arguing about how many wives Ivan the Terrible had, how many of them were legal, how many were official, how many were unofficial. Therefore, Kazimir Valishevsky expresses a fairly precise definition that in total Ivan the Terrible had 8 more or less legal wives.
Most historians agree that Maria Nagaya was assigned to the king by her uncle Athanasius Nagim. The wedding took place on September 6, 1580. To understand the essence of this marriage, one must take into account that Maria was a young girl, and Ivan the Terrible by this time was an old man. Therefore, after just a few months, they began to move away from each other. However, on October 10, 1582, Maria gave birth to Ivan the Terrible’s son, who was named Dmitry. Like most of Ivan Vasilyevich’s children, the child grew up sickly and frail. However, this was the heir to the throne. It was this child that restored the relationship between Ivan the Terrible and Maria Nagaya, since the already old and sickly Ivan Vasilyevich understood that this woman was the mother of his child and the heir to the Russian throne. In fact, everything happened a little differently. In 1584, Ivan the Terrible dies, and in 1591, Tsarevich Dmitry is killed in Uglich, the so-called Uglich affair. Maria Nagaya herself died in 1612.
These were the wives of Ivan the Terrible, of whom, according to the official version, there were 8, but in relation to two the term “wife” is used, that is, mistress, and in relation to Maria Dolgoruky, the marriage with whom lasted only one night, many historians doubt that this the woman really existed.
Personal life of Ivan the Terrible: women, children, heirs
During his life, Ivan IV had eight legal and illegitimate wives, the existence of two of them is questioned by historians. The first was Anastasia from the Zakharyin-Yuryev family. He chose her during a brideshow and got married at the age of 17. The young wife knew how to calm her hot-tempered husband, which had a positive effect on his reign. Of the six children of the crowned couple, two survived - Ivan and Fyodor, who became the last tsar from the Rurik dynasty. After 13 years of marriage, in 1560 the queen became a victim of poisoning.
Ivan the Terrible's first wife Anastasia
The tsar's second wife was the 15-year-old Kabardian princess Maria. Their wedding took place in 1561. Their only son, Vasily, was born two years later and lived only 2 months. The marriage to a beauty from the Caucasus disappointed the ruler; she could not replace his beloved Anastasia. She died in 1569.
Maria - the second wife of Ivan the Terrible
The sovereign's third chosen one, noblewoman Marfa Sobakina, unexpectedly fell ill before her wedding in 1571. The celebration was not cancelled, but 15 days after the marriage the new queen died.
Marfa Sobakina
The church, which was strict on this issue, could not allow a fourth marriage. But the formidable ruler said that his third union was not real - due to the young woman’s ill health, he was not close to her. And in the spring of 1572, another legal wife of the autocrat appeared - Anna Koltovskaya. For some unknown reason, in the fall he sent her to a monastery.
The church did not recognize the tsar's next wife. In 1573, he took the 14-year-old Princess Maria Dolgorukaya as his life partner. Her fate turned out to be especially tragic - when on the first night the king discovered that he had got her no longer a virgin, he ordered the unfortunate woman to be tied to a cart with a horse and sent into the river, where she drowned. Many experts believe that this wife did not exist in reality, the legend about her was made up.
Ivan the Terrible sentences Maria Dolgorukaya to death
In 1575, Ivan IV made a new attempt to create a family - he married Anna Vasilchikova without church blessing. A year later, the autocrat's annoying passion was awaiting monastic tonsure.
Researchers also question the existence of another chosen one named Vasilisa Melentyeva. But there is information that the tsar was close to her after he lost interest in Vasilchikova. After a couple of months of living in a marriage unconsecrated by the church, the woman shared the fate of her two previous wives - she found herself tonsured as a nun.
Vasilisa Melentyeva
In 1580 the monarch married for the last time. His partner was 27-year-old Maria, the daughter of the okolnichy (second court rank after the boyar) Nagogo-Fedets. She gave birth to her husband's son Dmitry in 1582, who died at the age of 8. For neglecting her child, she was also sent to atone for her sins in a monastery.
According to the official version, the boy died as a result of an accident - he fatally wounded himself in the neck with a knife during an attack of epilepsy, according to the unofficial and unlikely version - he was killed on the orders of Boris Godunov. From the point of view of the church, the boy was an illegitimate son and could not lay claim to the throne.
Boris Godunov
The powerful ruler, who aspired to absolute power, often showed aggression and rage, but at times he was aware of his sinfulness. Allegedly, during one of the outbursts of indignation, he, gripped by the fear of betrayal from the “inner circle,” killed his eldest son Ivan. This episode - the despair and repentance of the father and the humility of his dying son who forgave him - is depicted in the famous painting by Ilya Repin. Although a number of modern historians claim that the plot of the picture is fictitious, Ivan IV did not kill his son. An analysis of the remains of Ivan Ioannovich in the 20th century showed a 32-fold increase in the content of heavy metals.
