Ivan III the Great: Gathering the Russian Lands, 1462–1505

Ivan III, known as Ivan the Great, was Grand Prince of Moscow from 1462 to 1505. During his long reign he brought most of the independent Russian principalities under Moscow’s rule, annexed the great merchant republic of Novgorod, ended Moscow’s subordination to the Tatar khans and rebuilt the Kremlin with the help of Italian architects. Historians often regard him as the true founder of the Russian state.

Background

Since the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus in 1237–1240, the Russian principalities had been subject to the khans of the Golden Horde, paying tribute and receiving permission to rule from them. Over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the princes of Moscow, who collected the tribute for the khans, gradually became the most powerful among the Russian rulers. Their victory over a Tatar army at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380 showed that the Horde could be defeated, though its overlordship continued.

Ivan was born on 22 January 1440, the son of Grand Prince Vasily II, whose reign had been shaken by a long civil war. Vasily was blinded by his enemies in 1446, and the young Ivan became his father’s co-ruler while still a boy. When Vasily died in March 1462, Ivan succeeded him without any challenge.

Gathering the Russian lands

Ivan’s main achievement was the expansion of Moscow’s territory, often described as the “gathering of the Russian lands”. Yaroslavl and Rostov were absorbed in the 1460s and 1470s, Tver was annexed in 1485 and Vyatka in 1489.

The biggest prize was Novgorod, a wealthy trading republic in the north-west governed by its own assembly, the veche, and by powerful boyar families. Part of its elite, led by the widow Marfa Boretskaya, sought an alliance with Casimir IV, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Ivan treated this as treason. In 1471 his army defeated the Novgorodians at the Battle of the Shelon River, and Novgorod accepted Moscow’s authority.

In 1477–1478 Ivan marched on Novgorod again. The city surrendered in January 1478, the Novgorod Republic was abolished, and its veche bell, the symbol of its self-government, was taken to Moscow. Ivan confiscated large estates and deported many leading families, granting the land to his own servitors in return for military service. This system, known as pomestie, became a pillar of the later Russian state.

Ivan also fought two wars against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in 1487–1494 and 1500–1503. After his victory at the Vedrosha River in 1500, the truce of 1503 left Moscow with large territories in the west, including Chernigov and Bryansk.

Marriage to Sophia Palaiologina

After the death of his first wife, Maria of Tver, in 1467, Ivan married Sophia (originally Zoe) Palaiologina on 12 November 1472. She was a niece of Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor, who had died at the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and she had been raised in Rome under the protection of the papacy. The marriage was proposed under Pope Paul II, concluded under Pope Sixtus IV and promoted by Cardinal Bessarion, who hoped, in vain, to bring Moscow into union with the Catholic Church.

The marriage increased Moscow’s prestige. Court ceremony became more elaborate, and from the 1490s Ivan’s seal featured the double-headed eagle, a symbol associated with Byzantium. In diplomatic letters he sometimes used the title tsar, derived from the Latin Caesar, and called himself “sovereign of all Rus”.

Rebuilding the Kremlin

Ivan transformed the Moscow Kremlin into a symbol of royal power. In 1475 the Italian engineer and architect Aristotele Fioravanti, from Bologna, came to Moscow and built the Dormition Cathedral, completed in 1479, which became the main church of Russia and the place of coronations. Architects from Pskov built the Annunciation Cathedral in the 1480s.

Other Italians, including Marco Ruffo and Pietro Antonio Solari, built the Palace of Facets, a hall for receptions, between 1487 and 1491. From 1485 the old white stone walls were replaced by the red brick walls and towers that still stand today, including the Spasskaya Tower of 1491.

End of the Tatar yoke and later reign

By the 1470s the Golden Horde had broken into several khanates. Ivan stopped paying tribute to the Great Horde, the strongest successor. In 1480 Khan Akhmat marched against Moscow in alliance with Lithuania, while Ivan allied with the khan of Crimea, Mengli Giray. The two armies faced each other across the Ugra River for weeks, but Akhmat withdrew in November. The Great Stand on the Ugra River is traditionally taken as the end of the Tatar yoke.

In 1497 Ivan issued the Sudebnik, the first general law code of the Muscovite state, which set out court procedures and limited the right of peasants to leave their landlords to a period around St George’s Day in late autumn. His final years were troubled by a dispute over the succession between his grandson Dmitry, crowned co-ruler in 1498, and his son by Sophia, Vasily. In 1502 Ivan disgraced Dmitry and named Vasily heir. Ivan died on 27 October 1505 and was succeeded by Vasily III.

Moscow as the Third Rome

The idea that Moscow was the “Third Rome”, the successor of Rome and Constantinople as the centre of Orthodox Christianity, is often linked with Ivan III. In fact, its best-known statement comes from letters of the monk Philotheus of Pskov to Ivan’s son Vasily III in the early sixteenth century. During Ivan’s reign, however, Metropolitan Zosimus had already described Moscow as a new Constantinople in 1492, and the marriage to Sophia and the fall of Byzantium helped make such ideas possible.

Key people

• Ivan III (1440–1505): Grand Prince of Moscow, called the Great.
• Sophia Palaiologina (died 1503): Byzantine princess and Ivan’s second wife, mother of Vasily III.
• Aristotele Fioravanti: Italian architect and engineer who built the Dormition Cathedral.
• Marfa Boretskaya: Novgorodian noblewoman who led opposition to Moscow.
• Khan Akhmat: Ruler of the Great Horde, who withdrew from the Ugra in 1480.

Legacy

Ivan III’s reign changed the map of Eastern Europe. When he came to the throne, Moscow was one of several Russian principalities, surrounded by independent neighbours such as Tver, Novgorod and Pskov. By his death, almost all of the Russian lands outside Lithuania were ruled from Moscow, and his son Vasily III completed the process by annexing Pskov in 1510 and Ryazan around 1521.

Ivan also changed the nature of power in Moscow. The grand prince became a sovereign who demanded service from nobles rather than a first among equal princes. Foreign diplomats began to treat Moscow as a significant European power: embassies were exchanged with the Holy Roman Empire, Venice, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.

Historians differ on how much credit belongs to Ivan personally. Some stress his caution and patience, noting that he usually preferred diplomacy and pressure to open war. Others emphasise the role of his advisers, his wife and the long-term trends that favoured Moscow. Most agree, however, that his reign marks the transition from medieval Rus to the Muscovite state.

Timeline

• 1440, 22 January: Ivan is born.
• 1462, March: Ivan becomes Grand Prince of Moscow.
• 1471, 14 July: Moscow defeats Novgorod at the Shelon River.
• 1472, 12 November: Ivan marries Sophia Palaiologina.
• 1475–1479: Fioravanti builds the Dormition Cathedral.
• 1478, January: Novgorod is annexed.
• 1480, October–November: The Great Stand on the Ugra River.
• 1485: Tver is annexed; work on the new Kremlin walls begins.
• 1497: Ivan issues the Sudebnik law code.
• 1505, 27 October: Ivan III dies.

Why it matters

Ivan III turned Moscow from one Russian principality among several into the centre of a large, centralised state free from Tatar overlordship. His conquests, his Kremlin and his claim to Byzantine heritage shaped Russia’s political identity for centuries.