Review of the Book: Ch.J. Halperin. Ivan the Terrible: Free to Reward and Free to Punish
In Ivan the Terrible: Free to Reward and Free to Punish, Charles Halperin brings together his many years of research, study, and reflection on Ivan IV, a ruler who presided over important and lasting reforms in Russia in the mid-sixteenth century and led the conquest of the Volga khanates of Kazan a...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, Marjani Institute of History
2020-06-01
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| Series: | Золотоордынское обозрение |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://goldhorde.ru/en/stati2020-2-11/ |
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| Summary: | In Ivan the Terrible: Free to Reward and Free to Punish, Charles Halperin brings together his many years of research, study, and reflection on Ivan IV, a ruler who presided over important and lasting reforms in Russia in the mid-sixteenth century and led the conquest of the Volga khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. Ivan is known for much more, however, as his reign also involved large-scale, often savage attacks on his own subjects, carried out through the mechanism of the variously defined and understood oprichnina. Historians have been prolific in their work on this most (in)famous of Russian tsars. This book is an important addition to the voluminous and still growing historiography on Ivan. As much a study of Muscovite society, economy, politics, and culture in Ivan’s time as of the tsar himself, it situates him firmly in the Muscovy that had evolved in the century leading to his accession to the throne, a century of expansion and profound change affecting all segments and aspects of society. For Halperin, the attendant and deepening social tensions and malaise provide the context for understanding Ivan as a complex ruler and human being who was challenged by his times and responsibilities. They also, as Halperin persuasively argues, help explain the complicity of so many Muscovites alongside the ruler in the unleashing of “mass terror”, which, in this book, is seen not as the product of Ivan’s sick mind or thirst for unlimited power, but as an expression of “social pathology” run rampant, beyond the intentions of a tsar whose actions prepared the soil for such violence. |
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| ISSN: | 2308-152X 2313-6197 |