Ivan the Terrible [Hardcover]

Professor Isabel de Madariaga (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 16, 2005

Ivan IV, “the Terrible” (1533–1584), is one of the key figures in Russian history, yet he has remained among the most neglected. Notorious for pioneering a policy of unrestrained terror—and for killing his own son—he has been credited with establishing autocracy in Russia. This is the first attempt to write a biography of Ivan from birth to death, to study his policies, his marriages, his atrocities, and his disordered personality, and to link them as a coherent whole.
Isabel de Madariaga situates Ivan within the background of Russian political developments in the sixteenth century. And, with revealing comparisons with English, Spanish, and other European courts, she sets him within the international context of his time. The biography includes a new account of the role of astrology and magic at Ivan’s court and provides fresh insights into his foreign policy. Facing up to problems of authenticity (much of Ivan’s archive was destroyed by fire in 1626) and controversies which have paralyzed western scholarship, de Madariaga seeks to present Russia as viewed from the Kremlin rather than from abroad and to comprehend the full tragedy of Ivan’s reign.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. De Madariaga accomplishes a lot in this significant biography of the 16th-century Russian czar, contextualizing his life without minimizing his brutality. From a compendious knowledge of both primary and secondary sources, de Madariaga shows how Ivan increased his power in an attempt to assert his authority in a vast land still ruled by local princes. He also expanded Russian control to new areas, particularly western Siberia. She doesn't neglect his abuses of power. But the needs of ruling an enormous, divided country don't explain that brutality—both in extracting money from the peasantry to pay for his lengthy wars and in the capricious violence he inflicted on those he suspected of treason. Here de Madariaga admits the role of psychopathology. Nor does the author (Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great), a professor emeritus of Russian studies at the University of London, neglect other aspects of Ivan's reign. She deftly describes the active role that religion, magic and astrology played in Ivan's life and court. In fact, Ivan's belief that violence was necessary to purify himself and his people drove many of his actions, she argues. The book is written for scholars and students, but general readers willing to plow through the dry prose will be amply rewarded with what is likely to become the definitive work on Ivan for some time. Illus., maps not seen by PW. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The authoritative historians of Ivan IV have been Russian scholars, and de Madariaga explains that her biography assesses the persuasiveness of their differing interpretations of his personality and the significance of his reign. Though possessing this academic purpose, de Madariaga embeds it in a narrative of Ivan's life (1530-84) that will be of interest to general readers. Enthroned when a boy, Ivan inherited a complicated set of titles and a government dominated by landowning magnates, the boyars. His decimation of the boyars, often performed personally and with imaginative sadism, endowed Ivan with his fearsome reputation; some historians, notably in the Soviet period, considered Ivan's bloodbaths as a ghastly but modernizing passage to a centralized Russian state. More realistically, de Madariaga describes the victims of Ivan's capricious wrath in the context of his superstitions and paranoia about treason. Regarding Ivan as more rational--though hardly humanitarian in foreign affairs, de Madariaga evenly relates his diplomacy and near-continual warfare. Considering him as basically a historical horror, de Madariaga's expertly presented Ivan the Terrible measures up to the moniker. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 526 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (August 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300097573
• ISBN-13: 978-0300097573
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,395,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Definitely not Lite Reading, December 9, 2005

By 

Andrew Freborg (Stow, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ivan the Terrible (Hardcover)

Engaging and comprehensive history of Russian Tsar Ivan IV (Terrible). The prose is very dense, and at times the information flow feels almost overwhelming - sometimes making me feel as if I should be taking notes :-) Scholarly and well done work about an extremely intriging individual and period in Russia. For a general audience, perhaps a more narrative prose style would be more accessible -- but an excellent work.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to Read Biography of Ivan the Terrible, March 5, 2006

By 

C. Baker "cbaker" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ivan the Terrible (Hardcover)

This biography of the 16th century Russian Tsar Ivan IV, or Ivan the Terrible is a certainly a well thought out and deep exploration of the life and reign of this eccentric and terrible autocrat.

That said, it is a very academic treatment and the organization and prose make it an extremely difficult read for the layperson. I have read a lot of Russian history, including very academic works, and I found this biography a real chore to read and understand. Unless you have a very good background in Russian history, I would not recommend this biography.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Count Dracula and Ivan the Terrible - Evil Twins?, September 29, 2005

By 

takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Ivan the Terrible (Hardcover)

There are some people that you can read about again and again: Henry VIII; Mary, Queen of Scots; Elizabeth I; Richard III; Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart. Ivan the Terrible is one of these fascinating characters.

Author Isabel de Madariaga has written an energetic new biography of Ivan IV. All your favorite Ivan stories are here: how he snapped after the death of his first wife, how he created the group that evolved into the KGB, how he killed his own son. But wait, there's more!

De Madariaga raises a question I haven't read anywhere else - that Ivan may have been influenced by the tale of Vlad Tepes Dracul, a Wallachian ruler who inspired the tale of Dracula. She details how Ivan very likely was familiar with the story. In fact, she finds evidence that Ivan would have read (or had heard - we don't actually know if he was literate) a version of Vlad the Impaler that excused his cruelty as being for the sake of his subjects.

In any case, Ivan certainly was terrible, although he was called that not for his behavior, but for his position as ruler of all of Russia. "Terrible" in this case meant "awe-inspiring" rather than cruel. As it happened though, the name fits no matter how you look at it.