Fearful Majesty - The Life and Reign of Ivan the Terrible

IVAN THE TERRIBLE: The name evokes the legend of a cruel and dangerously insane tyrant. Fearful Majesty explores that legend and exposes the man, his nature, and his time. Benson Bobrick has written the most complete and vivid account to date of Russia under its first world-class leader.

Under Ivan's rule, Russia saw the conquest of the Tartar khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan, the creation of a national church, the consolidation of the Russian state, and its emergence as a world power. Early in his reign, the epithet grozny ("the terrible") became attached to his name with the reverence due our own "terrible swift sword" in "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Arrogant, handsome, a gifted orator and theologian, Tsar Ivan IV enjoyed as full and varied an education as any Renaissance prince and ruled as an absolute monarch with divine power. His refusal to accept the pope's offer to legitimize his reign checked the Vatican's influence. His alliance with Elizabeth Tudor established a vital link to Western culture, technology, and commerce.

Yet Ivan is also the ruler whose policies first cast Russia in the role of "Evil Empire" to the West—and when faced with an embargo on Western armaments and technology, was not above hostage-taking and blackmail to compel Queen Elizabeth to continue her illicit shipments to his realm. Throughout his reign, Ivan's cruel and unbalanced genius would erupt in a tyranny so violent that it threatened to destroy, his bloodline, his court, his church, his country. His was a reign of paradox, of rage and pride - of fearful majesty.