What Made Ivan so Terrible? | The Life & Times of Ivan IV

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Footnotes:

00:32 - And just like Charlemagne had the Pope crown him for that extra legitimacy, Ivan went and got himself re-crowned by the Patriarch of Constantinople. But at least he didn't have the nerve to change his duchy's name to "The Holy Eastern Roman Empire".

00:37 - No, seriously, I can't figure out how Ivan went from being a neglected infant to the most powerful and exalted Prince of Moscow to date. Just a year earlier, his maternal grandmother had her two sons more or less running the show, and then suddenly it's Tsar time. People probably got on board with the idea because it put Russia on par with other great powers, but it's still unclear whose idea it was originally.

1:10 In brief, Ivan III made some rules about judicial bribery that weren't strictly followed, so Ivan IV enforced them harder in his Sudebnik (law code) of 1550 and also made this system where local representatives could take part in legal precedings. Look up the Sudebnik of 1550 for more info.

3:58 Now he didn't kill the whole town in the way that Innocent III did to Beziers, but he did kill a few thousand people, so it was more people than most people get to kill, but for reference the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre was almost certainly worse.

5:11 That music, of all things, was also the content of the first Soviet-produced CD.

5:18 For those wondering, it was a stroke, and supposedly he did die while playing chess with a friend.


Music:

00:00 Tchaikovsky - Festival Coronation March

00:43 The Romanovs - Kiss

00:50 Gray River Fort (Traditional Russian Folk Music)

2:58 Gray River Fort (Traditional Russian Folk Music)

3:44 Neil Innes - Score to Monty Python and the Holy Grail

3:46 Gray River Fort (Traditional Russian Folk Music)

4:51 Gray River Fort (Traditional Russian Folk Music)

5:02 Ivan the Terrible - Rodion Shchedrin Stikhira No 1

5:22 The Romanovs - Kiss

5:38 Tale of the Firebird (Traditional Russian Folk Music)