Customer Reviews

Ivan the Terrible

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3 star:		(1)
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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.

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.

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.

Don't pick up this volume with the hope of entertaining reading. Only buy this book if you are doing serious research on Ivan or Russia in the time of the first Tsar. While I stuck with it to the finish (I almost never quit a book), it was far more challenging than I bargained for. The author throws around Russian names and terms like her readers are graduate level students in Russian history. I was looking for something in the vein of Peter the Great and ended up with a college textbook.

De Madariaga presents the reader with an intriguing interpretation of the life of Ivan IV. The material found in this book isn't going to turn the historical community on its head (there is no new archival research here), but this is nevertheless a very thoroughly researched undertaking.

The author does an admirable job of trying to establish the facts surrounding an individual who not only lived in a time when written records were generally scarce, but who actively attempted to obscure the truth and rewrite history in the Chronicles. What the reader is left with is what is generally a balanced assessment of Ivan IV. This is, to say the least, quite an accomplishment, given the centuries of exaggerations, lies, and ideological embellishment, that stretches from the contemporary European propaganda to Russian Imperial historians to their Soviet successors. Thus, we not only see the man who arrests, tortures, kills and destroys, but a person intensely devoted to the Orthodox faith (as insanely paradoxical as they come). Moreover, what de Madariaga continually does is remind the reader of the context of Ivan's world and his peers; in many ways, despite what period writings may say or our modern value systems may despise, Ivan fit in quite well with the rulers of his day.

Nevertheless, as is most evident in the concluding chapter, de Madariaga is not an Ivan apologist. Ultimately, she finds Ivan to have been a disaster in every sense of the word. He may have significantly expanded Russian lands, but at the price of the wholesale destruction of his original dominion. By the time he died, he had driven the economy into the ground, absolutely obliterated a once thriving agricultural sector, dealt a heavy blow to the aristocracy, killed the only viable heir to the throne, achieved nothing in the diplomatic arena (except to alienate all those around him), and made a significant dent in the Russian population (and this is to only speak of the material aspect of the population, to say nothing of the hideous moral aspects). And to this end, de Madariaga justly credits him with the responsibility for the ensuing years of turmoil experienced in the Time of Troubles.

De Madariaga succeeds in producing a piece that is certainly academic in its demeanor, but for the most part, accessible to the lay reader. The language can get a bit dry (and obscure: tergiversation? contumely? quondam?) and there are occasions where the book drags a bit, but ultimately its worth reading. A few final minor gripes. There are points where de Madariaga goes a bit off course. On a few occasions, she addresses the literacy, or lack thereof, of Ivan. Her argument is, and I am not overly simplifying this: other scholars can't prove that he was illiterate, and learning to read isn't really that hard, so we should assume he was literate! The fact of the matter is, there is no way of telling; this however is irrelevant in the broader picture. Simply stating that his literacy is in question and then moving on to point out that this was an individual who was certainly intelligent and educated (someone who knew a great deal about a wide range of religious and classical works) would have been preferable. Finally, there is one other fault with the book, though this is on the supplementary material. The maps are inadequate, randomly spaced throughout the book, and in one instance downright awful (I'm hoping this is a printing error; the sea is the same color the land?!?!). It would certainly be helpful if another map, showing the change of the borders during Ivan's reign, was provided, as well as a rudimentary family tree.

With all this being said, none of these shortcomings should dissuade an individual interested in pre-Petrine history, Ivan IV, or even the casual reader if he is so inclined, from reading this book.

This work is a thorough history of Russia during the mid-16th century. The author presents a balanced view of the source material, emphasizing what is known, why it is known, and what is not known, about a critical formative period of Russia. That said, it is not a book for a beginner. It presupposes an understanding of Russian history and institutions, as well as some knowledge of the Russian language.
One addition that would have been helpful would have been a set of "family trees" for the main princely and boyar families. The numerous Bel'skys, Shuiskys, not to mention the ubiquitous Iur'ev-Zakhar'ins (the later Romanovs) become very confusing. In addition, the author frequently refers to individuals by their initials, where the full name and patronymic would have been helpful.

I'm usually pretty forgiving about the writing in books about history, and I particularly enjoy reading Russian history, but this book was just too much for me! When reading a book becomes a chore I know that it's not written in an average reader friendly style. One of the other reviewers states that the book was more of a textbook than a biography, and I couldn't agree more with that assessment. Too many names, too many unusual terms, and no real continuity to the history made for a very confusing book about what should have been a very interesting subject.

I was very enthusiastic about getting to this book. I have a degree in Soviet History and wanted to learn more about this character. Like other reviewers, I just could not get into this book. The writing style was dry as a bone and this chore was left undone. Nice cover but I'd steer clear of this failed attempt to portray a fascinating figure in Russian History.

I decided to read more about Ivan the IV after reading the Domostroi. At first I was skeptical, seeing the reviews on this site... but after reading a page in the book store I thought I would be capable of understanding the prose.

Aside from a few Russian words I didn't understand (although the context was fairly clear nonetheless), I didn't have a problem following the text: I will admit to breaking out the ol' dictionary a number of times, but that's no reason to not read a book. There are a lot of names tossed around, but rarely is a name discussed that is without 1) a prior description earlier in the text, and/or 2) a context in the discussion itself to help you appreciate the relevance of the person.

I also chose Madariaga's because every other book was reviewed as being inadequate academically speaking.

I love Russian history and was hoping to find a book that dealt less with speculation of Ivans reign and more with the truth. Most historians tend to demonize Ivan based on little evidence, most of the evidence we have comes from letters written during his reign by a host of people, since I have read most of them I am not sure why I expected to find any kind of new information. She does a good job ignoring many details of what Ivan was faced with and instead decides to chalk everything up to, he was a maniac. Not a strong leader who was surrounded by enemies in and out of his own country, with several attempts made on his life due to the reforms he put in place, namely the Oprichnina. There are a handful of books I have found that can shed a much better light than this one, The Third Rome, Reinterpreting Russian History, and A History Of Russia Vol.1.