Oh yeah, all right, take it easy, baby, take it, make it last all night.
Oh yeah, of course, different song. Yeah, that's going with slow ride.
Let's see here.
We should roast each other again. Apparently that was kind Okay.
Look, I mean that's fine and all, but A, it's got it. You can't force it. No, it sounds bad. And B I could do it every other episode. If it came up in every episode, I would start to get I wouldn't enjoy doing the show. It's hard for me to play playfully roast. Not even that it's like I can't take it, can't dish it out kind of thing. But just it's just I don't like it. That's fair, well,
not even roasting. Roasting's fine if you're like teasing and stuff, but bickering, right, you know, I need everyone to agree with me at all times. No, that's not it.
I'm gonna have a tough, tough life.
So far, it's been great because I've been right pretty much every single time, constantly forever.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Yeah, thank you for.
A great God that you were right all the time.
Thank you? Or else, Look, you'll know what happens.
Oh ship am I married to I've in the terrible, Eli, the terrible? Is that what you would if you were a tzar? What would you call yourself?
If I was a czar, I'd be Eli? Hmmm, I honestly, I mean, you can't give yourself your own tzar nickname?
You know, I guess that's true.
So what is that? What am I? Eli? The ambivalence?
Well, in that moment, you're quite a caretaker. Oh maybe Eli, the amiable. Oh okay, that would be a cute name for you.
Doesn't exactly strike fear into the hearts of my enemies.
What maybe you are presiding over an unprecedented era of peace.
Let me tell you. Let me tell you I'd better be because I would fare much better in that world.
That sounds great and more time, because.
They would be like, sir, the British are attacking, and I'd be like, I don't like bickering. Can we just move past this? Can we just pretend this fight never happened. I'd much rather just give each other the silent treatment for an hour and then we just continue on with our day as if none of this ever happened. So they also hate.
That, I know you would. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Well, what would you call me you?
Oh, you'd be Diana, the overworked.
Oh I feel like as bizarre. I should be taken it easy.
You should, but you would not. You would. They'd be like, uh, sorryna, Diana, it's time. Everything is fine, the country's at peace, the economy is doing well. And you'd be like, I need a few more projects.
Please, let's build a cathedral.
Like we have so many cathedrals.
Well, build another one. We'll put a couple of little stages in there.
Yeah, cabaret to a theater show exactly.
The cathedral cabaret. Actually would totally do a cathedral cabaret. That sounds great. Oh no, anybody with the cathedral, reach out.
There we go. Here comes the next six months of our lives.
Somehow, I'm sorry I planned a cabaret.
Well, when you plan a cabaret, we plan a cabaret.
Thank you, babe. That's where the partnership is about.
No, I'm just saying that's how it is. I'm not volunteering that.
I thought you were trying to be supportive.
No, No, it's a I don't have a choice.
Oh yeah, because.
I'm innately so supportive because I'm Eli the amiable. Well, there's only one Tzar I want to talk about today.
Yeah, me too, the czar who's been living in our hearts for the last week or so, Ivan the Fourth, also known as Ivan the Terrible.
If you joined us in the last episode, and I don't know why you wouldn't have, if you're here now, we learned that Ivan the Fourth was named ruler of Russia at just three years old when his father died, but he was raised by the Shwisky family of boyars, who took control of Russia after probably poisoning his mother, Elena Glinskaya. When Ivan was sixteen, he crowned himself the first Czar of Russia and started cutting off the boyar's power,
mostly by cutting off their heads. Effective but he married honest Assiya Romanov, who loved him and helped him be a great ruler by cooling his horrible temper. But when she died at twenty nine years old, Ivan was certain that the Boyars had poisoned her as well. Now he would marry again and again and again, taking a total of eight wives in his life. None of them, however,
fared too well, and ultimately neither did Russia. So let's hear about the Tsar's next seven wives and how this guy went from being Ivan the Fine to Ivan the not so good, all the way down to Ivan the terrible.
Let go, Hey, let friends come listen. Well, Eli and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no match making a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relation, ships, a love. There might be any type of person at all, and abstract concept or a concrete wall. But if there's a story where the second glance, so ridiculous romance a production of iHeartRadio.
The boy Yards, if you remember from part one, are basically the ruling class of nobility in Russia, and they've always held a lot of power. They had poisoned Ivan's mother, and they likely poisoned on Us the Sea, Ivan's first wife, and after this, Ivan had multiple people jailed and executed. But Ivan didn't really work with a lot of evidence when he was accusing the Boyars of doing all these
evil things. And while yes, some of these Boyars were rich schemers working to secure their own power, Ivan's hatred of them as a whole wasn't really very focused, and it even started to spill over into the civilian population. But you know what, all of that can go on hold because Ivan Vassilievitch was now Moscovie's number one most eligible bachelor.
Ladies, ladies, lady.
Well.
The first idea for Ivan to remarry was Katarzhina Yagyelunka, a Polish princess, and at the time of anest Dosia's death, Ivan was fighting a major war between Russia and basically everyone, Oh my god, the Polish, the Swedish, the Danes, and the Cossacks in the south. So if a marriage made an ally out of Poland, it was a pretty good idea classic reason for his art to get married.
Oh yeah, we're at war, but I married one of your daughters, so now we're not at warning.
Yeah, everything you're mad about it's over now now. I haven't thought it made sense, and Katarzina's brother was into it, but Katarzina herself was apparently crying her eyes out at the idea. But then another woman was presented to Ivan in fifteen sixty one, Mariya Temryokovna. She was the daughter of a prince from Kebardia, an independent country located near what is the border of Russia and Georgia today, so this would ally region that could help them fend off
the Cossacks in the south. So another good, powerful alliance.
Isn't that so interesting? I mean, these the Kabardians weren't fighting with the Russians at a time, but they would have been strong allies. But even thinking back to him trying to marry out of a war with Poland, it just so clearly to me shows how desperately they both want the war to end and they just need any excuse.
I agree, you know, it's not like today that like Putin would be like, oh right, Ukraine, send me one of your lady and we'll solve this the old fashioned way. Like that shit don't work anymore.
So Maria Temriyukovna's father presented her to Ivan the fourth, and Ivan went absolutely gaga for this lady. She was maybe the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and he suddenly is like kata Argina, who I don't even care that girl's crying anyway, I'm not gonna marry her. Maria was gorgeous, she was rich, she was royalty from a foreign country that would make a great partner to Russia. There was really only one problem. Maria was a Sunni Muslim.
Now Russian folklore says that on her deathbed, Ivan's first wife, Anastasia, had told Ivan, whatever you do, you've got to marry a Christian.
Oh my god, final words, right.
I mean they were Orthodox and Catholics, and they were pretty strict about, you know, keeping it in the family, so to speak. So Ivan is thinking like, oh boy, well, my ex wife did specifically warn me about this. But on the other hand, this lady is super hot.
She's fine, absolutely spotty, attid, malicious, like I am in with this woman.
I love the idea of the Tzar. Ivan like bumpin' yeah at aliens. So he decided Maria is the one, and they married on August twenty first, just four days before Ivan's thirty first birthday. But it was quickly clear that nobody liked Maria. She was seen as manipulative and vindictive. She refused to respect local customs, and she is very rude to her step children, Ivan surviving sons, Ivan Junior
and Theodor, as opposed to Ana Sessia. Maria seemed to encourage Ivan's ruthlessness, but actually Ivan didn't like her much himself, and that just added to his general anger and paranoia. They had one son together in fifteen sixty three, named Vasili, but he died just a few months later.
Yeah, now Ivan already basically trusted no one. We know this. But the war also was not going well, and Russia was struggling with drought and famine. Peasants were angry, they were quitting their jobs, dogs and cats were living together, just mass hysteria. And then in fifteen sixty four, Ivan's good friend, close advisor, and military leader Andrey Krebsky suddenly defected and joined the Lithuanians. And he cited Ivan's growing distrust of everyone, and he was worried about all these
repressive ideas that the Czar was forming. Krebski led a Polish Lithuanian force against his own people, the Russians, and he decimated them in several battles.
Or kicked him to the Krebski Keurbsk, I love it.
So at this point, you know, Ivan's been betrayed again. The boyars are acting crazy, the clergy was embezzling, the peasants were restless. So Ivan the Fourth just left, He packed his bags, He grabbed his wife Maria, and he left Moscow without telling anybody for Alexandrov, and he sent a letter back to the Boyars in Moscow and said, y'all suck, I'm gonna quit.
Damn Yeah, nobody wants to work anymore. Well, the Boyar court had always been locked in a battle with Ivan, but they took a look at the state of Muscovie, particularly the desperate and furious peasant class, and realized they were one hundred percent shit out a lukski uh. They wanted all this power over the Zar, but they realized that if he was fully gone, they had basically no power at all. It can't be the power behind the throne if there's no one on the.
Throne right exactly.
So they followed him to Alexandrov and they begged him to come back in rule Russia. And he said, okay, but on one condition, I get absolute power. I want to be able to condemn and execute people. I decide our traders, and I want to confiscate their land, and I don't want them no interference from yell Boyars or the church. Woww. Some historians say that Maria Temryokovna herself gave Ivan this idea she sounds like she could easily come up with it, but of course common to blame
a lady for some shitta guy does the boy. Our delegation looked at each other awkwardly, turned back to Ivan and they said, yeah, man, whatever you want. And thus began the Abridge Nina, one of the darkest and scariest periods in Russian history, right.
The Abridge Nina was this huge territorial state within the borders of Russia, where Ivan had absolute power and control and could execute people at will if he felt like they were being disloyal. So it's a large chunk of land. It encompassed all the major cities, you know, not Siberia,
but the populous part. At will. He could confiscate land of people he felt like were traders, and he could kick their families out to go live in the Zim's Gena, which was the Russian land outside the Opportunita, so the place you didn't want to be. To enforce this brutal new rain, he formed a guard called the Oprichnik. The Oprechnik was basically Ivan's private personal army. They were a thousand hand picked super soldiers who dressed in all black
and rode black horses. Tied to their saddles was a severed wolf's head, which symbolized the Oprechnick sniffing out the Tsar's enemies and the hounds of Hell nipping at their heels. Ivan himself off and rode at the front of the horde, and he affixed iron jaws to his wolf's head that would open and snap shut as his horse gallon.
All Right, I can't approve of a brutal private army, right, but the vibes are incredible metal Again, I feel like an opeh album is about to start.
It's like, I don't like severed wolf's heads, but no, yeah, this was like a movie. I'd be like, these guys are terrifying and kind of awesome, Like, you know, I definitely dresses this for Dragon Con if this was just a fantasy.
Of course, of course, of course it is.
That's very very ring rate vibes, very true.
But I mean that's sort of like such an interesting thing about historic armies and stuff is that they're like you have to defeat them, you know, kind of they're morale first, that's the first thing. So if you have the right look or like even like the rebel yell or whatever, like there's just so many armies that had their little thing that was like, let us freak them out before we ever strike a single blow.
Striking fear into the hearts of your enemies. Key in all things. I remember in uh, speaking of movies, I remember in the film Little Giants in the early nineties with Rick Moranish and playing a football coach. I'm getting there.
It was all, you know. It was like a ragtag group of misfits playing football, little little pee wee football, and one of the kids had real bad tummy troubles, so we always had He was always taking alka seltzer and when they were trying to figure out how to intimidate the other team because they are all little nerds, he told them all to put an alka seltzer tab in their mouth and they all started foaming at the mouth.
So they all pot one in their mouth while they're all lining up to play football, and the other kids freak out because all the whole team full of nerds is all foaming at the mouth, like do.
You have rabies? That's a really big problem.
It's great. So just like the old preach nig Giants.
Like Little giants being the natural air of the operation.
I wish that line had been in the movie. Like, okay, well, I remember the Preachnick Rick Maris is like, no, we can't carry around severed wolf heads onto the football.
Field, but we can learn a lesson about intimidation.
Well.
On their acceptance, recruits to the Opreachnik swore loyalty to Ivan, his sons, his wife Maria, and also swore quote not to eat or drink with the zem's Gina and not to have anything in common with them. Now, these guys terrorized the Russian civilian population. They executed anyone who was suspected to be disloyal to Ivan, who had declared himself the quote hand of God.
Always a good sign and a leader.
Okay. Citizens were terribly treated. They were quarter boiled, impaled, or even roasted over an open fire. If Ivan declared them treeson is oh God. If their families were lucky, they were exiled. Often they were killed too. Now you'd think this would be all about controlling people through fear, right striking terror into the hearts of the populace.
Right, Like I'm going to go around and murder some folks so that nobody acts up like, that's my real reason, right, right exactly.
But because Ivan was what modern psychologists call loopier than a cross eyed cowboy. Yes, as a soup sandwich.
Yeah, crazier than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
That boy's cheese lit all the way off his cracker.
They're all the clinical modern diagnos.
Le yes, So a lot of the time, you know, he's just imagining trees and his behavior. Hen't have proof for any.
Of this, Yeah, no, but he really believes it.
Of course, he's just like steriously paranoid. And of course if you had a problem with how he was doing things, you were next in line for whatever torture he could come up with. So it's just like no criticism, no looking at him the wrong way anything. No one just set him off.
No one could stand off to the side and say, I don't Yeah, this guy sucks, but he didn't actively commit treason. Are you sure we should boil him alive? Because Ivan would just turn and say, oh, I guess you're a trader too, So add him.
To the pot, another one for the pot.
Yeah, uh, brutal. And that's it's so much harder when these people really believe it, you know, like, it's one thing if someone's aggressively manipulative and knows that they're lying to everyone, But when you have someone who's so crazy they believe their own crazy theories, well and it get scared.
Yet it must be said, he has a lot of reason to believe them, because it's not like people ain't been poisoning people all around him and stuff. Absolutely, so he does have some things that he is clearly blown off to a very very upsetting paranoid bubble that he's right right.
What he needs is someone to talk to. I mean, he needs a therapist, and honest, I mean honestly, that might be part of what him and honest to see his marriage. You know why that was so beneficial because it may have been we don't know, but it may have been a situation where he sat down and was like, oh my god, I think everyone is out to get me. This guy looked at me funny when I walked down the hall, and she was like, honey, sometimes people just look at you funny, like yours are You're the most
important guy in the room. And he's like, oh, you're right, you're right, okay. So that he was able to discern more who was a real threat and who he was just getting feeling a little paranoid about. But once she got poisoned, all bets are off. Everyone could have been out to get him, and no one was there to
suggest that he was overreacting. So all this to say, Ivan had become a ruthless, brutal monster and an all powerful dictator during his marriage to Maria, just even more than before, of course, So let's take a quick break and we will get into the consequences of his actions for both him and his wife right after this.
Welcome back everyone, Do I sound like Count Chocula? It was a little Chocula, Yeah, welcome back.
Not the Count. I love it all right. So it was far from Maria Tenbrinokovna's fault that her husband Ivan was the terrible, but she did seem to encourage it, and of course she was no peach herself, and while he might have listened to her when she suggested that he start the opportunina, he also regretted marrying her. She was hated by her subjects and the courts alike, as well as by Ivan's whole family, and we can't say that this wasn't xenophobia or some sort of bigotry against
whether she was Muslim. You know, if this was a racist thing, you know, hard to say. But what history suggests to us is that she was pretty rotten herself. Yeah, so maybe it was not a total shock when on September first of fifteen sixty nine, eight years after their marriage, Maria Timriyokovna died of poisoning. Again, rumors went around that Ivan himself actually poisoned her, but Ivan not only denied that, but he had several nobles executed who he blamed for her death.
Well, I mean, I'm doubt he's going to be like, I did it, no right, And he's like I did it and a bunch of y'all are going to pay for it.
Proof that I didn't is that I killed a bunch of other people for doing it, So it must have been them. I mean, no, I will say that historians generally agree that he was not the one behind it this time. It wouldn't make have made a lot of sense for him, but that's true.
That Well, raise your hand if you think I've been calmed down after that, I don't see any hands. Well, I'll give you a hint The next thing to happen was something called the Massacre of Novagrad. Oh boy, so in fifteen seventy, Ivan believed Novagrad, Russia's second largest city, was planning on defecting tow the Lithuanians, and we know we don't like that. So he rode to the city,
sending the bodies of dead clergymen ahead of him. He constructed a barrier around the city so no one could escape, and then he and the Opachnik performed the most brutal attack in their existence, with estimates between two thousand and fifteen thousand casualties. Merchants were tortured, nobles were roasted with what one chronicler called a quote clever fire making device,
which just sounds like a fifteen hundreds like flamethrower. Women and children were tied up and thrown into the frozen river, where they would be trapped under the eye drowned. God, that sounds horrible.
Oh yeah, oh, and then they had boatmen riding around with spears to make sure they got anyone who didn't drown. Oh my god. Yeah.
Well, those who confessed to treason after torture were dragged behind sleds across town, and then peasants' homes were looted and destroyed, and if they survived his attack, many starved or froze later because they had nowhere to live.
Yeah, there's a whole lot of history about the massacre of Novgrod, if anyone's interested in Russian history, there's i mean, just books dedicated to just this event. Of course, all we have time for is a paragraph, but it's wild, very upsetting. Well, the next year, in fifteen seventy one,
another fire broke out in Moscow. Damn these fires, third one and this time it was definitely deliberate, because see the Crimean and Ottoman forces had come to attack Moscow and they set the suburbs on fire and it's huge, which wind came in and it blew the fire into the city. In six hours, the palace, the oprichnin the headquarters, and the suburbs had completely burned down. WHOA. People were fleeing.
They rushed into stone cathedrals, and a lot of those cathedrals collapsed, either from the heat of the fire or just from the sheer number of people shoving their way into them. Other people jumped into the river and many of them drowned. The gunpowder storage room at the Kremlin exploded. Casualties were estimated to be between sixty thousand and two
hundred thousand people. Afterwards, Ivan ordered bodies found in the streets to be thrown into the river, but there were so many that it caused flooding.
Oh my god.
Yeah. Historian James Horsey wrote that it took more than a year to clean out all the bodies. You know, the smell was like, oh my god, just horrible. After this, the Oprichnina was disbanded and the lands of the Oprichnina and the Zemschena were reunified under one new Boyar council that Ivan helped pick out. Now, historians think Ivan might have found the country being divided into two sections was just too ineffective while the country was dealing with this
big war that they were losing. Maybe Ivan felt like he'd achieved his goal by striking fear into everyone's hearts, so his opposition wasn't going to be so you know, it's going to be easier to put down. So he got rid of the Obergnina, the Oberjnik. They were done now, And they generally think that he recognized it wasn't doing anything good for him at this point, but he wanted to look like it was a success. So he was just kind of like, we're done with this now, great
job me. It worked exactly like I wanted to and now I can get rid of it.
He unraveled that big mission, accomplished exactly right, palace.
Right.
Well, by now, I think you'll probably know the patterns, so you know what's coming next, because it goes Ivan's wife gets poisoned, a bunch of people get executed, and then there's a big fire, and then it's time for another beauty pageant.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
It was time for Ivan to get a new bride, since now what three have been poisoned.
You know, everybody that had to show up was like, well, I guess I'm gonna be poisoned.
I remember in part No.
One year or two or thirteen. But it's gonna happen, I know.
I remember in part one we said that some of the girls were probably excited to go in and take part in this beauty pageant because marrying this are was so cool. And by now it's probably like, oh god, it's like American idol, Like I hope I get second place, because then I'm not locked into this horrible contract. But maybe I'll get a good record deal. I love that. Actually, actually this is not far from the truth, because sometimes the uh, the runners up in the beauty pageant would
end up marrying other nobles. Sure, one of them even went to one of Ivan's sons. No, I could second place was probably not bad.
Well, I actually I remember, did you ever see the Man in the Iron Mask?
Yeah? Wow, yeah, yeah, way back when.
I just remember when Louis the shitty one was like starting to hit on that girl and she starts to get really worried. And I remember when I watched it. Of course it was when it came out. I was younger and everything, and I was like, oh, well, why she was so worried. It's great the king likes her,
you know, she's set for life. But actually everybody knew that it was really not great, right, be either too favored or too disfavored by the ruler, Like you want to be nice in the middle somewhere where he likes you, and then he forgets you.
Relatively exactly true with a lot of bosses, I think, you know, like I want you to like me and then not think of me when you're making decisions. Yeah.
So, once again, young women are called from across Land, and in October fifteen, seventy one out of twelve finalists, Ivan gave the rose to Marfa Sobachina. He arranged their marriage and this time they would stay in an impenetrable fortress, which Ivan had filled with only loyalists. Absolutely no one was going to get to his third wife, Marfa. And she's dead.
Oh no, what.
Yeah, only sixteen days after their wedding, Marfa died of a mysterious ailment. God. Now, it was rumored and is probably true, that Marfa's own mother accidentally poisoned her with a potion that was meant to increase her fertility. So that's really tragic because you know, Marfa's mom is like, I'm just trying to set you up for success, right in your very scary marriage to the worst man in the world, and she accidentally kills her own kid. That's so sad.
Yeah.
And you know we mentioned in the last episode a lot of meta distance back then used mercury and other toxins, so it's likely that, you know, Marfa just took too much of a bad thing in order to try to be the mother you know, of the heir to the to the czar, and like secure her position for life. Right, but that is really sad, it is I feel really bad for Marfa's mom.
Oh, all of them. Well, you know, at least Ivan, we know calmly and quietly accepted the death of his wife, and he spent a few weeks in quiet morning. Are you kidding me? Of course not. No, he went absolutely nuts. I mean, his his impregnable fortress had been impregnant, so pregnant, impregnant, somebody impregnant it so it once again, Ivan got super paranoid that everyone he trusted was out to get him, and he immediately executed twenty people, including his previous wife's brother,
Mikhail Timryukovna, and much of Marfa's own family. Now this time, Ivan decided that he better get married real quick before another fire broke out, and he just went ahead and picked. Speaking of runners up, Anna Koltovskaya. She was an eighteen year old girl and she had also been in the last beauty pageant. But the Orthodox Church had a real problem with Ivan going into a fourth marriage. In fact, their rule was quote the first marriage is law, the
second an extraordinary concession. The third is a violation of law. The fourth is an impiet a state similar to that of the animals.
Damn, So even though they're not alive.
Yep, they said you get three marriages. I imagine they're like, if you're getting married a fourth time, God doesn't want you to be married?
You know, I guess, so, I guess you could.
I got hint. This is the official stance of the church. Hint.
Well, Ivan, we know is not the kind of guy to say, well, rules a rule. But he did throw the clergy a bone here. He did not roast them all like marshmallows with a medieval flamethrower.
Oh good for him.
Yeah, some real growth growth and with iron right now. He actually told them, you know, look, my third wife died in practically zero days. We never got a chance to consummate the marriage. That one don't count, okay, but count count me.
Four wives.
He organized a meeting at the Church of Assumption and he gave this heartfelt speech about all the loss he'd endured and his struggle to find a bride, and it reportedly moved the clergy to tears. So they said he could marry her, but he would have to do penance for a year. And so they married in April of fifteen seventy two, and they took their honeymoon and sunny.
Noma Gorod, Oh.
The city that he had decimated two years earlier. Wow, it's lovely this time of year. Right, Yes, Anna, I'd love to take you to this beautiful cathedral, but sort of burned it.
Down, although we give you a tour of town. That's what I said, the guy with forty spears.
This is the river that has so many women and children in it.
Oh, you can still smell the barbecue. Oh God, what a weird choice for honeymoon.
I mean, I guess its many options.
I'd be like, is this honeymoon a threat?
Maybe?
Are you transcend a message here? Well? Okay, So at this point in history, with the opperach Nina disbanded, uh, the war going on and not great. There aren't a ton of big events over the next few years in terms of the story we're telling, And according to Natalia Pushkareva's book Women Inrussian History on the Koltovskaya did have a good influence on Ivan for a while. Russian sorenas are not allowed to associate with common folk, including their
own families. So it was pretty customary that when a woman marries as Are, her family would be moved to the court and given noble titles so that she could still associate.
With them, which we've seen before oh many times. I'm particularly thinking about ancient China episodes that we've done where they're like, oh, you know, she marries the emperor and her whole family gets lifted up. So as part of the reason, the families are like pushing their daughters to these parts that they're like, it's not even about you, Yeah, it's about me.
But unfortunately, honest family did not fit in well at court, so they had a hard time making allies, and after two years, Ivan and Anna had not been able to conceive a child, so Ivan supposedly started to get kind of bored with her and he sent her off to live in a convent. She took the name Daria and lived out her days there without ever getting poisoned. She actually outlived Ivan himself. Oh so we're gonna go ahead and call this one a win for Anna.
Yeahza, the best you can hope for is going off to live as a nun and having a long somewhat comfortable life without getting poisoned or stabs.
I mean as comfortable as nuns are. I mean, you know, well, within the year, I've been decided to go for a fifth wife. Historian Nikolay Karamzine wrote, quote, the czar, no longer observing even the slightest decency, no longer seeking the blessing of the bishops without any church permission, married Anna Vasiltchikhova in fifteen seventy five.
Wow.
So yeah, he wasn't even pretending anymore, right, And anyone who defied him or was like, hey, you're not supposed to do that, and they pretty much faced torture and execution, so nobody challenged it. He got his fifth wife, no problem.
Yeah, what a sad existence, though, God I no one ever spoke to him at all. Is they're just like, you say the wrong thing, You're dead?
I mean, isn't that sort of the I mean not just the only one. But one of the tragedies of being a very paranoid person is that you end up pushing so many people away that you like are lonely, and you can't help but feel like everybody hates you because you made them hate you. Like you made them specifically withdraw from you.
It becomes a spiral.
Yeah, and kind of a self fulfilling one.
Yeah.
So yeah, nobody challenged this marriage, and Ivan and Anna had a small wedding ceremony with just immediate family and very little is known about her background or their marriage. But similarly to his last Ana, this one was shipped off to a monastery after two years. But unlike the last Ana, it's believed that she died violently at the convent, and rumors started to be spread that Ivan himself had her killed.
Yeah. Yeah, he's getting to the point where, you know, nobody wrongs him and he doesn't leave any loose ends anywhere. He's like, oh, I'm getting rid of this wife that I was with for two years, but what if she talks, what if she starts plotting revenge against me? Whatever? And so he sent somebody in there to uh, I think stabber a bunch of times.
Maybe the first Anna just took like a vow of silence or something, and he's not to worry about it.
Just caught him in a good mood, right, maybe.
Or she changed her name and he's like, what it was her name again?
Whatever?
I don't know anyway, look for if you find.
Now. At this point, Bush Garreva writes, quote, even people at court could not keep track of the series of women who appeared and disappeared beside the Czar's throne. Ivan would take women in, but he had a hard time actually caring about anyone, and they and their families generally weren't treated well, And of course things didn't end too well. Again, I really just think that he was looking to recapture that feeling that he had with Anastasia. Yeah, and he
didn't know how to find it. He was too far away from the person he was back then and he couldn't be that anymore.
Yeah.
But then came Vasalisa Melentieva, his sixth wife, or was she. There's a bit of a mystery here, and we're gonna get back to that miss Damsel right after this break.
Welcome back, everybody.
Some historians think that Vasalisa Melentieva was Ivan the Terrible's sixth wife, but others suggest she might not have existed at all. Most of her story comes from a book by Alexander Sula Katzev, who was notorious for writing fake histories in the nineteenth century damn misinformation right way back in the eighteen hundreds. This guy was doing it right up.
He was just like the original clickbait. He's like whatever, right, right, crazy story? People buy it, who cares, and then they believe it journalistic integrity. But of course, Nikolai Karamzine and more modern researchers did find documents that confirm that Vasilisa was at least real and did have a special relationship with Ivan. So it's possible that she was simply a concubine if not his actual sixth wife.
Ah, okay, okay, So maybe no marriage here, Yeah, hard to see he was there.
Some definitely think that there was a marriage, and some think there probably wasn't.
Well. The story goes that her husband, Nikita, worked in the Tsar's court, and Ivan had him poisoned and brought Bessilissa to live with him instead.
Ah. The old switcheroo call.
That she was, according to Pushkareva quote, such a beauty that none of the maidens at the bridal pageant could match her. This keeps happening, Yeah, beauties constantly right, And allegedly Ivan was pretty happy with her. She was a bit older than his other brides, and she was kind
of like Anastasia. She was sweet and calming. But a few months in Ivan's marital luck ran out again and he discovered Vasilisa was having an affair with a prince named dev letel No, which is just absolutely the dumbest thing she could have done, right, like this little last
guy I would cheat on. So I've been forced Vasilisa to watch as he had her lover impales, and then he exiled her to a convent as well, and then she allegedly died mysteriously later that year, and some think it's possible that Ivan had her killed as well.
So I'm kind of wondering about the validity of this story for a couple of reasons. One, like you said, who would bait this man into having any reason to be mad at you? I mean, at the same time, how could she possibly be happy with him? So maybe that was she just really loved this guy, and she was like, I can't not be with you because my husband is literally one of the worst people in history. That's true, so I see that. But also it does seem like I would just be on eggshells the entire time.
I wouldn't be runing around, cheating or anything like that.
I know, although maybe you're right, and she's like, it's only a matter of time before he turns on me. Anyways, CONGRATU while.
I can that's true. I guess maybe my bigger question is Devlatev. Who would be that stupid to cheat with IV? In the Terrible Spike, I.
Was about to say this thing if she was like, I'm ready, I.
Don't keep it. I don't care if you're a twelve. I am sorry, but your husband is literally the most frightening person in a country with a history full of frightening people.
Seriously, he's going to roast me over an open fire, like I'm not gonna know.
But my other reason I'm not sure if I buy this is because some of the other elements seem to be mashed up from previous stories, right, like the fact that he sent her to a convent and she died there. You know that she was very calming to him. I even literally saw the same painting labeled on two different websites, one as Ivan and Vasilissa and one as Ivan and Anastasia, So it seems like the parts of their stories are getting crossed over to Okay, it's hard to say. We
just don't know. It's the fifteen hundreds. There's not a lot of really good records.
Right, Apparently you got guys out here just writing.
I believe well. Ivan's seventh marriage is also disputed, and little is known about this one, maybe even less. Her name was Maria Dolgurukaya, and he supposedly married her in the year fifteen eighty, although some people write their story as as her being his fifth wife in between the two anas. Now, if Maria Dolgurukaya existed, the legend says that she was engaged to Ivan but had an affair
before their wedding. Ivan discovered after their wedding night that she was not a virgin, and he ordered his guard to drown her in the frozen river. That's all we really know about that story. This one maybe even less likely to be real, but it tracks. I don't not believe it, you.
Know, I mean, I guess he wanted a personality where you could believe any number of horrible things about him. Yeah, so I guess you win, Ivan, Great.
Job, all right. Well, before we get to Ivan's eighth and final wife, let's do a quick recap at Sarina summary. Sarna summary. Number one Anastasia Romanov. They have two surviving sons together at this point, lil Ivan Junior and Feodor. They were together for thirteen years before she got poisoned by the boyars.
Number two Maria hemrio Kovna, who also got poisoned, maybe by Ivan, probably by boyars after eight years of marriage.
Number three Marfa Soobatina, who died sixteen days after their wedding, probably accidentally poisoned by her mother.
Number four Anna Koltovskaya, married for two years before he got bored with her and shipped her to a monastery. She's still alive in the story, not in her life.
Number five Anna Vasilchikova, also married for two years before getting sent off to a monastery where she was killed.
Number six Vasilissa Melentieva, they were married for a few months before I even discovered she was cheating, had her boyfriend impaled in front of her. She's sent off to a monastery where she was also killed.
And number seven Maria Dolgurukaya, who cheated before they got married and she got dropped. So just a super list of Sarinas.
What a super summary.
They all did stupendously.
I don't know, some of them did stupid shit, but that brings us to Zarina number eight, Maria Nagaya. This woman and this marriage both definitely did exist, so no questions here. They married in the year fifteen eighty one, but this was also the year of one of Ivan's most terrible acts in a long time. Ivan had actually been trying to make amends for his uprich Nina years
by making massive donations to monasteries. He would visit other towns and pray at their churches for his victims, and Russia had been weakened under his strict and violent rule, and the war wasn't going well either. Ivan's son, Ivan Junior, had been married three times since he was twelve years old. The first two wives did not produce children quickly, so Ivan Senior had them each shipped off to convents, so the two Ivan's relationship was pretty strained.
Ivan Junior's third wife was Yolena Sharremiteva, and she was found to be pregnant in October of fifteen eighty one, and everyone was thrilled. Ivan Junior course was in line to be Ivan the Fifth, the next Czar of Russia, and he already had his family lined up and ready to go. He was going to have an heir himself. But on November fifteenth, fifteen eighty one, Ivan the Terrible saw his daughter in law, Yelena, wearing what he saw
as immodest clothing, and he started to beat her. Ivan Junior ran in hearing his wife's screams, and he stopped his father, shouting at him, quote, you sent my first wife to a convent, did the same with my second, and now you strike the third, causing the death of the son she holds in her womb. And indeed Yelena suffered a miscarriage just shortly after.
This damn Iivan Yeah. On the next day, Ivan Junior confronted his father. They had already been fighting over Ivan the fourth military failures, and Ivan Junior had tried to raise his own army to save the besieged city of Puskov. So when Ivan Junior shouted at his father for beating his wife, the czar changed the subject and accused him
of inciting a rebellion by raising his own forces. Ivan Junior denied it, but he insisted the city be liberated, at which point Ivan the Terrible lost his temper and struck his son over the head with his scepter. Ivan Junior collapsed to the ground, bleeding from the head, barely conscious. His father immediately threw himself down on the ground and cradled his son, crying, quote, May I be damned, I've
killed my son. I've killed my son. The younger Ivan regained consciousness briefly and reportedly said quote, I die as a devoted son and most humble servant. His father prayed over his bedside for the next few days, but on November nineteenth, young Ivan, heir to the Russian throne, died at twenty seven years old. This again, Ivan's just he can't hold on to his temper at all. He's just like he doesn't really have a focus for any of his violence.
Really, this is like the most tragic part to me because you see especially him like collapsing to the ground. That, yeah, his his reactions are out of his own control, right. He has these violent outbursts that I don't think he knows he's doing until he's done them. Obviously, no excuse, but it's just it makes he's so much more than just an awful person. He's really got mental health issues.
I think, and most historians say that as well, that he was not a sane a fully sane person in control of his own faculties right like he was losing it or had lost it long ago. The guy really needed some some therapy and maybe some medications. He certainly didn't need to have this kind of power.
No, it's only making him a billion times worse.
This scepter that he hit his son with, he cared around for that purpose. He would beat people with it all the time.
Of course, what else do you do with this scepter?
I guess and his son just like challenged him once, like, just stood up to him, and his immediate reaction, without thinking, without even knowing who was in front of him, was to swing that thing and bash him over the head with it.
Yeah, it's like very knee jerk.
Yes. Now. Ivan didn't really care much for his eighth wife, Maria Nagaya, but she bore him a son the next year, fifteen eighty two, and they named him Dimitri, and this is believed to be what saved her from being exiled or worse. But later that year Ivan sent a letter off to our old friend Queen Elizabeth the First of England two and he said, Hey, I want to marry your relative Mary Hastings and create an alliance between our
two nations. Russia had only formed their first trade connections with England in the last few decades, and he saw them as a very powerful ally, you know, for blanking Middle Europe. Sure, he said in his letter that, yeah, I know that I'm married, but you know what, I will totally ditch my wife if you agreed to me marrying your cousin.
Well, Elizabeth pretty much did not respond to this letter, maybe because ten years earlier I even had exchanged two other letters with her. One offered some political proposal, and when she rejected him, he wrote the second letter, which basically said, Wow, I thought you were a good ruler, but I guess your country is actually ruled by merchants that only care about prophets quote and you flower in your maidenly a state like a maid.
Wow.
That ain't the way to go with Queen Elizabeth.
Oh my god. Yeah no, it's the first letter, no mention of her being a queen, and his second one he's like, wow, well this is what happens when women rule, isn't it.
Like jeez, dude, your dumb female brain. Uh huh, can't grasp the intricacies and my perfect proposal.
I guess you're just flouncing around in your gardens, you know, doing curtsies and watching the notebook.
And Queen Elizabeth is like, meanwhile, how many fires have we had?
Right?
Seriously, after your Queen Elizabeth read this letter, she kind of it, probably took a breath right, got her temper together because that was something she could do. And she wrote back, yeah, that is not how it goes over here. She wrote, quote, we rule ourselves with the honor befitting a virgin queen appointed by God, and no sovereign, thanks to God, has more obedient subjects. So she's like, you know all that disloyalty you're dealing with, I know nothing of it.
Yeah. Second, oh, I'm sorry. I have my shit together over here.
All right.
You're out here begging for a wife when you're already married, just so you can hold your country together.
Okay, my best he's over here not getting married quick for me.
I got three dudes on hold, I got.
Men on men on men, but none on me.
Well, fortunately before any poor english woman was sent off to marry Ivan the Terrible, he died of a stroke in fifteen eighty four while playing chess with a friend, and across Russia there was much rejoicing ding Dong. Well, or there might have been, except there wasn't really a great air in place, because he had killed his eldest son Ivan. His younger son, Feodor was next in line, and he was named Zar pretty quickly. But this guy
was really quiet. He was kind of sickly, and he was just this sweet, good natured little kid who had pretty much no interest in politics. They said that he liked to visit churches and he would ask them to ring the bells and they got there because he just liked to hear the bells ring. That he was actually nicknamed Theodora, the bell ringer. And I just picture this guy is like and he likes to sit down and play with the bunnies, you know, chasing around butterflies. Yeah, exactly.
Well, I guess he he's a lot more like honest to see you, yea, his.
Mother and him for sure. And of course he was but only three years old himself when his mother died. Oh wow, so yeah, so he grew up just kind of like can I just stay out of it please?
I know, well, I would, That's definitely would be me. I'd be like, I'm just seeing y'all's drama. It's very exhausted. I'm gonna go sit over here, listen to some bells, reading my books.
Reading my books under the bell tell it. I mean, you know, you think of it. He's the spare, right, So Ivan probably put all of his like fatherness into Ivan Junior, like I'm gonna do tryna be a man son because you'll be czar one day, not thinking that, you know, the other way would go, and little Fyodor is just like, Okay, well, I'm just gonna go be sweetie man.
That's another thing I think is so weird, how many times in history that they've had to resort to the spare right, And even so people are like, I'm not going to spend any time in the spare, you know, Like, but what if he does have to? I mean, you should should both know what to do.
Well. So everyone was kind of expecting Fyodor to not really rule for very long because he was kind of weak and he was kind of sick. The next in line might have been Ivan and Maria's son Dmitri from his last marriage, but in fifteen ninety one, at only eight years old. Dmitri died under mysterious circumstances.
And Boris Goldenov was the boyar who was effectively running the country while Fyodor was you know, checked out listening to the bells and stuff. And Maria Nagaya and her brothers supported a theory that Boris had Dmitri killed to strengthen his own power. Sure, but the modern scholars tend to think Boris was not involved. So the most likely theory is that Dmitri was playing a game called Sviika where boys would throw this sharp spear into the ground.
But then he had a seizure which he was prone to, and he fell down in such a way that the spear cut his neck.
Right.
What a freak.
Accident, A total freak accident. That's the more accepted theory about what happened.
That's crazy.
But when Czar Fyodor died in fifteen ninety eight without an air it kicked off what's known in Russian history as the time of Troubles, where in three different men at different times claimed to be Dmitri, all grown up like. There was this huge cult of people who believed that Dmitri actually survived. So there's false Dmitri one, two and three they call him, and these three guys that stepped up and actually did rule Russia of them for a time. It was chaotic. I mean, no one knew who was
in charge. This is a whole other, a whole other show. I mean, this is this is Russian history that deserves like a ten part series just on the false Dmitries and the time of troubles at things. But the summary is that things were rough for quite a few years, almost two decades.
I love I love that they named it the time of troubles, unlike all the other times previously. Well, they're not troubled.
I mean that tells you right there just how bad it was. They're like those were normal times. These are trouble times.
All the fires, massacres, so on normal ship. This is trouble.
Russian bar very low. Well, to make a long story short, In sixteen thirteen, I'm in the terribles government that he set up. The Zemski Sabor elected a relative of his first wife, Anastacia, to be the next Czar of Russia. His name was Michael Romanov. Because remember back when Ivan and honest Thesia were married people scoffed at the Romanov family. They thought they were not very important. But now the Romanovs would go on to rule Russia for the next three hundred years.
How crazy fail that? I mean, they basically had to be like, I don't know, you sort of involved in the family, I guess, I mean, certainly again, they end up like holding on to power for so.
Long, right, definitely again another dense history if you study the time of troubles in Russias more than I had time to get into. But but yeah, I know I love that. That. I mean, Ivan just destabilized things so badly on his way out that they had to completely switch lines. His dynasty was the Rurics, and they had ruled Russia for quite a long time and no one thought they would ever go. But I haven't wiped out that and started the Romanov dynasty, who, of.
Course, three hundred years later lost power very spectacularly, right, And.
Then we got up pretty solid Fox Animation Studios musical movie out of it with Kelsey Grammar. Oh yeah, I forget that. And the name Anastasia just cringed.
That's not how you say it, right, Well, I guess we also say Romanov is also wrong.
Yeah, but who knows Russians. Let us know Russians, let us know what a story. Even the Terrible again a name you hear floating through their history, like he was one of the bad guys henchmen in I think Night at the Museum two, like the Pharaoh who was like taken over. He enlisted Ivan the Terrible and Napoleon and like uh al Capone, I think, to help him take over the museum. Yeah, exactly. So Ivan's got this historical image of being terrible, and of course remember his name
does not really mean that, but he also is terrible. Yeah, so really quite a quite a character, and just a brutal history here with these poor eight you know, between six and eight official wives and probably many other women who well.
That's what my question is, all these women that they were like we can't even keep track. Yeah, in that part of the story, I was like, well what happened to them?
Yeah?
Like I imagine he was just like all right, one night stand. Well maybe he's like a mina of Nigeria and he's like, I'll just one night stand and then you did.
Yeah. I remember in part one he grew up as a as a young teenage boy, he had a supposedly a different woman every night. Oh yeah, so he was probably very used to being able to sleep with a woman anytime you wanted, and there was just women at
his disposal at all times. Would further makes me think that Ivan's real goal was to find another honest to see you, find someone who made him happy in that way that he was, but he again was just too far gone to ever feel that way again, no matter who came in.
I think that's true. I mean, you know, this is this a terrible guy, but I kind of feel sorry for him. I feel like there's a lot of There must be a lot of that throughout history, is I think we've run into a few times, but especially historians must often read about particularly leaders where they're like, this guy is not well right, you know, like if it had been different, you know, someone would have been like, let's let's maybe get somebody a little more like stable
and the throne. This guy is crazy, but they didn't really have, i mean any any tools to address that. And then of course when we did know kings were crazy in England, they were just like, well put them in a room by himself. But he's still going to be king. I don't know, we can't can't change it. It's just so strange. Well, I think you've done a fine job making us feel sorry for a terrible guy.
Always. My goal is, like, you know, who's looking out for the murderous white guys? You know we deserve a little more respect, don't we we?
I am I going to be poisoned? Or since you're a monastery, yeah, prepare myself.
No, I would send myself to a monastery before you. I think, okay, good, all those nuns, am I right?
No, I don't think it's going to turn out the
way you play you're planning. I like that about our show sometimes because you're able to just look at them as a person, yeah, throughout there, from their romantic relationships and stuff, and be like, regardless of all the terrible things they're doing, there's just a person in here that is is I don't know, chafing at a lot of things in their life, like his mom being poisoned and stuff, and he's also so clearly not mentally well and just I don't know's you can kind of have some sympathy
for that actual person, even though I have very little sympathy for the ruler and the terrible.
Exactly. Yeah, I was gonna say it goes back to this thing I say to you often when I'll say I'm sorry and you say you've got nothing to be sorry for it, and I said, well, I'm not apologizing, I'm sympathizing, you know. And that's the difference between those two sories. And it's like I can feel sorry for Ivan and everything he'd been through and what led him to being a monster without apologizing for his behavior at all. Right, no, one, there is no apology for that, but there can be sympathy.
And that doesn't mean, oh, it's okay. Come on, let's get you a hot bowl of soup and get you inside and give you a nice comfy bed and you'll, you know, we'll just we'll just find you a good wife and then all will be forgiven. No, absolutely not. You're a monster who murdered and tortured people horribly, and you deserve nothing but the worst. But also it sucks that you the circumstances that led you to become that are are awful and shouldn't have happened.
Yeah, I think that's true. I feel like that's sort of when you're psychologically talking about you know, some some terrible criminal and people are like, stop sympathizing with them, they did horrible things, and it's like, that's true. I don't you know, you don't want to sympathize with the criminal over the victims, right, you know? Or something like that, But we do. I think as people were so fascinated by,
like what makes you do something like that? What makes you into a type of person who can go so hard against social moras and morals? Yea of like just not torturing and murdering a bunch of people. Like what turns you into that person? Is kind of a draw, is such a curiosity.
I think we lose sight a little bit of why we want to know that. I think there's an instinct that's true that that makes us want to dig into that. It's the reason true crime is so popular and stuff. And I think the reason we probably feel that way is because we want to be active and proactive about stopping those from happening. But we get a little more excited about the details and we're just like I just want to know it. I just want to eat it, and not like I want to do something about it. Yeah.
I think that's really what it comes down to, is if we're looking so hard at why people are the way they are, why people do terrible things that we could not imagine, because well, you know, maybe we find out that Ivan was that way because people were horrible to him as a child, and maybe we should treat children better and not poison their mothers. You know, if that's all we take from this, I think it's a good lesson, is don't poison children's mothers.
I find that to be a good lesson as well.
Classic lesson could have avoided all of this. Who knows what Russia would be like today if the boy ours hadn't done all that, right, or if they just.
Yeah, if they let honest Sosia live, right, maybe Ivan would still be himself, you know, but not so bad right right, I don't know.
Maybe things would have gotten worse. There's that theory too, that we were in the best possible timeline.
Oh that's a theory.
Yeah. Yeah, it's not great. It's not a great thing, but sometimes I like it. Sometimes I'm like, well, this sucks, but all other options were worse. Even though I think they were better, they are actually worse.
I was gonna say too that. I think what's part part of us trying to figure out why someone is the way they are being such a draw is that we get really frustrated if we find out that they just are like that because some people are born with the violent, violent tendency. There's nothing that necessarily makes them that way. I think we talked about it, like Sid and Nancy, there was really nothing to point to that was like this is the turning point where they said,
I'm you know, I'm broken now. But they were just kind of had that impulse in them. And there's something really scary about that that you can just be born with that and not have any choice once whatsoever, and that nothing could have done, no one could have done anything differently. That's always really hard to accept.
Yeah, and you can't not damage people too, that's so right. You can't be perfect to everyone around you all the time, and you're gonna cause some harm, You're gonna cause some lasting trauma, you know, just passively, right, So just try not to do it actively. But yeah, I think you're right. I think some people there's not a lot of answers why do the things they do.
But for Ivan, maybe for Ivan there seems to be at least some answers, some triggers in there yet full answers. There's some triggers yet, but yeah, I don't know. I hope you all liked this episode, these two episodes too, learning about Ivan the Terrible and feeling some sympathy for this horrible.
Monster, or at least for his wives, or at.
Least for his wives. He deserves some real sympathy.
Yeah, sure, yeah, thanks so much for tuning in for this one. We would love to hear your thoughts, you know, tell us about the terrible marriages you've had. We'll read those on air too.
I know. Leading it sent to any monastery.
Hopefully not, or maybe you did and it turned out great for you, like the first Anah Yeah us an email. We ridict Romance at gmail dot.
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