#anna koltovskaya

To anonymous wholeft the ask in my inbox about Ivan the Terrible, Henry VIII and Richard III, and their controversies, and how those match. I tried to make a long reply to your ask, but tumblr doesn’t allow long replies, I didn’t manage to post it and in the process deleted your ask by accident and didn’t manage to print screen it. *Facepalm*. I’m making separate posts as reply to your ask as I promised.

As for your question. Well, my blog is dedicated to women in Russian history, so I prefer asks about them, naturally, but I’ll try to answer your question here, especially since you asked about the wives as well. Also it’s a bit difficult to make such comparisons between those monarchs - different countries, different cultures, traditions, mentality, etc. Plus, while Henry VIII andIvan IV the Terrible were indeed contemporaries (Ivan was crowned in January 1547, while Henry VIII died in January 1547), Richard III died 45 years before Ivan was even born. As for controversies, indeed all of these rulers are controversial one way or another, and there are some similarities between them but also big differences. I’ll try to make a break down of those in an accessible manner.

Ivan IV and Henry VIII-Part 1

a)The moniker. First of all you should note the English word “terrible” is usually used to translate the Russian word Грозный (Grozny) in Ivan’s nickname, but that is a somewhat-archaic translation. The Russian word Грозный reflects the older English usage of terrible as in “inspiring fear or terror; dangerous; powerful; formidable”. It does not convey the more modern connotations of English “terrible” such as “defective” or “evil”. Just to get it out of the way.

b)The wives. While you asked me about the wives issue, yes, Ivan is similar to Henry VIII in regards that he had multiple wives throughout his life as Henry VIII had, there were quite different reasons for it. Henry VIII was trying to have a legitimate son and heir. Then he tried to replace wife, who died after finally giving him son, so he could have even more sons. Ivan had two sons by his first wife, and he actually wasn’t that desperate for more heirs, like Henry was (although of course the more sons the better). His constant remarriages after the death of his first wife, Anastasia Romanovna, happened either due to some boyars (nobles) at first thinking that Tsar absolutely needs a wife besides him and that wife could have a soothing influence on Ivan, as Anastasia had a very positive influence on him and his reign in general (Ivan really went off the rails after Anastasia’s death), or due to his unstable temper, or due to some political reasons. Ivan’s second marriage was a political match to Circassian  Princess, whose beauty he also appreciated. They were married for 8 years and then she died. His third wife fell ill and died just after two weeks after the wedding. His fourth wife was a barely legal match as Russian church allowed only 3 marriages in one’s lifetime and refused to give the blessing initially. Ivan had to plea with them on the grounds that his third marriage was not consummated. Then the church finally agreed. Basically, under Russian laws only these 4 women were considered Ivan’s true legal wives and Tsaritsas. All other women he “married” were not actually considered as real canonical wives/Tsaritsas by the church, but were seen more like elevated mistresses/concubines or uncanonical wives at best. Also despite Ivan’s ruthless and unpredictable character, he actually never executed his wives, unlike Henry VIII.Ivan’s three canonical wives (Anastasia Romanovna, Maria Temryukovna, Marfa Sobakina) all died by themselves (in case of Anastasia it’s the most accepted version that she was poisoned by her court enemies), his 4th (canonical) wife (Anna Koltovskaya) and 5th (uncanonical) wife (Anna Vasilchikova) were sent to the monastery. His 6th and last (uncanonical) wife (Maria Nagaya) outlived him. There were also attempts to attribute or invent two more uncanonical wives for Ivan, and that’s why you’d see Ivan mentioned having seven or eight wives, but these were highly questionable and disputed instances, based on unsupported sources, many not even contemporary ones, and now it’s mostly  believed by Russian historians those two women simply didn’t even exist.

Continue reading:
Ivan IV and Henry VIII- Part 2
Ivan IV and Richard III - Part 1
Ivan IV and Richard III - Part2