Ivan III of Russia
Ivan III Vasilyevich, also known as Ivan the Great, was Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1462 until his death in 1505. Ivan served as the co-ruler and regent for his blind father Vasily II before he officially ascended the throne.
He multiplied the territory of his state through conquest, purchase, inheritance and the seizure of lands from his dynastic relatives, and laid the foundations of the centralized Russian state. He also renovated the Moscow Kremlin and introduced a new legal code. Ivan is credited with ending the dominance of the Tatars over Russia; his victory over the Great Horde in 1480 formally restored its independence.
Ivan began using the title tsar, and used the title tentatively until the Habsburgs recognized it. While officially using "tsar" in his correspondence with other monarchs, he was satisfied with the title of grand prince at home.
Through marriage to Sophia Palaiologina, Ivan made the double-headed eagle Russia's coat of arms, and adopted the idea of Moscow as the third Rome. His 43-year reign was the second-longest in Russian history, after that of his grandson Ivan IV.
Early life
Ivan Vasilyevich was born on 22 January 1440 into the family of Vasily II, the grand prince of Moscow, and Maria of Borovsk, the daughter of an appanage prince and a granddaughter of Vladimir the Bold.The first time Ivan is called heir and grand prince in treaties between his father and other Russian princes is in a treaty with Ivan Vasilyevich of Suzdal dating from 1448 or 1449. The title of grand prince is not included in a treaty with Casimir IV of Poland dating from 13 August 1449, but appears again in treaties with Vasily Yaroslavich of Serpukhov in the early 1450s.
Ivan had four brothers: Yury, Andrey Bolshoy, Boris, and Andrey Menshoy. In the same will that Vasily II had given Ivan III the grand principality, his brothers were awarded appanages. Yury was given Dmitrov, Mozhaysk and Serpukhov, Andrey Bolshoy was given Uglich, Bezhetsk and Verkh and Zvenigorod, Boris was given Volokolamsk, Rzhev and Ruza, while Andrey Menshoy was given Vologda.
Reign
Territorial expansion and centralization
Ivan's rule is marked by vastly expanding the territory and his control of Muscovy. As part of the successful "gathering of the Russian lands", Ivan brought the independent duchies of different Rurikid princes under the direct control of Moscow, leaving the princes and their posterity without royal titles or land inheritance. It was during Ivan's reign that the emergence of a centralized Russian state occurred following a period of feudal fragmentation, with Moscow at its center.Following a war with the Novgorod Republic in 1456, due to Novgorod's support of the rebellious Dmitry Shemyaka against Vasily II in his civil war, Moscow began to gradually seize land in the northern territories that were formerly under Novgorodian control for the next decade and half due to a desire for luxury furs in the area. This led to a struggle with Novgorod for the Russian fur trade, and thus, an economic rivalry for fur, land and trade ports. Some Novgorodian boyars were opposed to Moscow as a result, while others pursued a pro-Moscow policy in the hopes that good relations could reduce disruption in east-west trade, while Novgorod was also dependent on the Russian lands to its southwest for important imports such as grain. Some Novgorodians were also attracted to Moscow due to it being the center of Russian Orthodoxy as opposed to Lithuania, where Catholicism was dominant and its culture was being increasingly polonized, though some Novgorodian clergy adopted a pro-Lithuanian policy for political reasons due to fears that embracing the grand prince of Moscow would eventually lead to the end of Novgorod's independence.
File:LebedevK UnichNovgrodVecha.jpg|250px|thumb|Ivan's destruction of the Novgorod veche, painting by Klavdy Lebedev
By 1470, with the pro-Lithuanian faction being dominant, the Novgorodian boyars questioned Ivan's sovereignty over the city-state as their prince. Novgorod negotiated with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and requested Casimir IV to send them a prince. This led to Mikhailo Olelkovich, Ivan's cousin, being accepted as the new prince, though he would step down as prince shortly after. Ivan saw the actions of Novgorod as a cause for war, and he also called it an act of apostasy from Orthodoxy. Ivan led his troops to Novgorod where his army defeated the Novgorodians at the Battle of Shelon on 14 July 1471. Ivan then had the four leaders of the anti-Moscow faction in Novgorod executed, including the son of Marfa Boretskaya, an influential boyar woman who had played a leading role in the faction. In a peace treaty signed on 11 August 1471, Novgorod agreed to abandon its overtures to Lithuania and to cede a considerable portion of its northern territories, while paying a war indemnity of 15,500 rubles. Novgorod also had to recognize Moscow's claims to territories to the east of the Northern Dvina which they had been struggling over. Ivan took a promise of allegiance from Novgorod, but left its system of government in place.
For the next six years, pro-Moscow and anti-Moscow factions in Novgorod competed with one another. Ivan visited Novgorod several times during this period, persecuting a number of pro-Lithuanian boyars and confiscating their lands. In 1477, two Novgorodian envoys, claiming to have been sent by the archbishops and the entire city, addressed Ivan in public audience as gosudar instead of the usual gospodin. Ivan at once seized upon this as a recognition of his sovereignty, and when the Novgorodians repudiated the envoys and swore openly in front of the Moscow ambassadors that they would turn to Lithuania again, he marched against them. Surrounded by Ivan's army, Novgorod ultimately recognized Ivan's direct rule over the city and its vast hinterland in a document signed and sealed by Archbishop Feofil of Novgorod on 15 January 1478.
Ivan dispossessed Novgorod of more than four-fifths of its land, keeping half for himself and giving the other half to his allies. Subsequent revolts were punished by the removal en masse of the richest and most ancient families of Novgorod to Moscow, Vyatka, and other cities. Many merchants, landholders, and boyars were replaced with loyalists who came from Moscow. The Novgorod veche and its elected offices were also abolished. Archbishop Feofil was also removed to Moscow for plotting against the grand prince. The rival republic of Pskov owed the continuance of its own political existence to the readiness with which it assisted Ivan against its old enemy. The acquisition of Novgorod alone nearly doubled the size of his realm. Soon after the formal annexation of Novgorod, Ivan assumed the title of sovereign of all Russia ; the title reflected his achievements in uniting the Russian lands but also implied claims to other territories inhabited by the East Slavs which were under the control of the Lithuanian grand dukes, and would later lead to conflict with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
File:Bogolubskaya s predstoyashimi detail 02.jpg|thumb|left|Variant of the Theotokos of Bogolyubovo showing Metropolitan Jonah, Vasily II and Ivan III leading the classes of society, early 16th century
Other principalities were eventually absorbed by conquest, purchase, or marriage contract: the Principality of Yaroslavl in 1463, Rostov in 1474, Tver in 1485, and Vyatka 1489. Ivan also increased Moscow's dominance over Pskov, with his son and successor Vasily III formally annexing it in 1510. Prince Mikhail Andreyevich of Vereya, who had been awarded an appanage by Vasily II, was pressured in 1478 into giving Belozersk to Ivan, who received all of Mikhail's land on his death in 1486. Some princes from the Upper Oka region, who had been under Lithuanian rule, left Lithuanian service and joined the Muscovite court in the 1480s, including the Vorotynskys, Odoyevskys, Gorchakovs, and others. A peace treaty signed on 5 February 1494 legalized the acquisitions. Moscow also subjugated several Finno-Ugric tribes to the east of Vyatka in the late 15th century, some of whom had fled eastward as far as the Ob River, but by 1500, they were all paying tribute.
Ivan III also conducted a series of military campaigns against the principalities of Yugra, pushing eastward. Following the second campaign in 1483, Yugra was included in the title of the grand prince, and the princes of Yugra swore allegiance to Ivan.
Whereas his father Vasily II followed the custom of dividing the realm between his sons, seeing this as a cause for weakness and instability, Ivan consolidated his exclusive control over Muscovy during his reign. Ivan's refusal to share his conquests with his brothers, and his subsequent interference with the internal politics of their inherited principalities, involved him in several wars with them, from which, though the princes were assisted by Lithuania, he emerged victorious. Finally, Ivan's new rule of government, formally set forth in his last will to the effect that the domains of all his kinsfolk, after their deaths, should pass directly to the reigning grand prince instead of reverting, as hitherto, to the princes' heirs, put an end once and for all to these semi-independent princelings.
Ivan had four brothers. The eldest, Yury, died childless on 12 September 1472. He only had a draft of a will that said nothing about his land. Ivan seized the land, much to the fury of the surviving brothers, whom he placated with some land. Boris and Andrey Bolshoy signed treaties with Vasily in February and September 1473. They agreed to protect each other's land and not to have secret dealings with foreign states; they broke this clause in 1480, fleeing to Lithuania. It is unknown whether Andrey Menshoy signed a treaty. He died in 1481, leaving his lands to Ivan. In 1491, Andrey Bolshoy was arrested by Ivan for refusing to aid the Crimean Khanate against the Golden Horde. He died in prison in 1493, and Ivan seized his land. In 1494, Boris, the only brother able to pass his land to his sons, died. However, their land reverted to the tsar upon their deaths in 1503 and 1515 respectively.