Speaker 1: Oh yeah, all right, take it easy, baby, take it,
Speaker 1: make it last all night.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, of course, different song. Yeah, that's going with
Speaker 2: slow ride.
Speaker 1: Let's see here.
Speaker 2: We should roast each other again. Apparently that was kind Okay.
Speaker 1: Look, I mean that's fine and all, but A, it's
Speaker 1: got it. You can't force it. No, it sounds bad.
Speaker 1: And B I could do it every other episode. If
Speaker 1: it came up in every episode, I would start to
Speaker 1: get I wouldn't enjoy doing the show. It's hard for
Speaker 1: me to play playfully roast. Not even that it's like
Speaker 1: I can't take it, can't dish it out kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But just it's just I don't like it. That's fair, well,
Speaker 1: not even roasting. Roasting's fine if you're like teasing and stuff,
Speaker 1: but bickering, right, you know, I need everyone to agree
Speaker 1: with me at all times. No, that's not it.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have a tough, tough life.
Speaker 1: So far, it's been great because I've been right pretty
Speaker 1: much every single time, constantly forever.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for.
Speaker 2: A great God that you were right all the time.
Speaker 1: Thank you? Or else, Look, you'll know what happens.
Speaker 2: Oh ship am I married to I've in the terrible, Eli,
Speaker 2: the terrible? Is that what you would if you were
Speaker 2: a tzar? What would you call yourself?
Speaker 1: If I was a czar, I'd be Eli? Hmmm, I honestly,
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't give yourself your own tzar nickname?
Speaker 2: You know, I guess that's true.
Speaker 1: So what is that? What am I? Eli? The ambivalence?
Speaker 2: Well, in that moment, you're quite a caretaker. Oh maybe Eli,
Speaker 2: the amiable. Oh okay, that would be a cute name
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: Doesn't exactly strike fear into the hearts of my enemies.
Speaker 2: What maybe you are presiding over an unprecedented era of peace.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you. Let me tell you I'd better
Speaker 1: be because I would fare much better in that world.
Speaker 2: That sounds great and more time, because.
Speaker 1: They would be like, sir, the British are attacking, and
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I don't like bickering. Can we just
Speaker 1: move past this? Can we just pretend this fight never happened.
Speaker 1: I'd much rather just give each other the silent treatment
Speaker 1: for an hour and then we just continue on with
Speaker 1: our day as if none of this ever happened. So
Speaker 1: they also hate.
Speaker 2: That, I know you would. Yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't know. Well, what would you call
Speaker 2: me you?
Speaker 1: Oh, you'd be Diana, the overworked.
Speaker 2: Oh I feel like as bizarre. I should be taken
Speaker 2: it easy.
Speaker 1: You should, but you would not. You would. They'd be like, uh, sorryna, Diana,
Speaker 1: it's time. Everything is fine, the country's at peace, the
Speaker 1: economy is doing well. And you'd be like, I need
Speaker 1: a few more projects.
Speaker 2: Please, let's build a cathedral.
Speaker 1: Like we have so many cathedrals.
Speaker 2: Well, build another one. We'll put a couple of little
Speaker 2: stages in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cabaret to a theater show exactly.
Speaker 2: The cathedral cabaret. Actually would totally do a cathedral cabaret.
Speaker 2: That sounds great. Oh no, anybody with the cathedral, reach out.
Speaker 1: There we go. Here comes the next six months of
Speaker 1: our lives.
Speaker 2: Somehow, I'm sorry I planned a cabaret.
Speaker 1: Well, when you plan a cabaret, we plan a cabaret.
Speaker 2: Thank you, babe. That's where the partnership is about.
Speaker 1: No, I'm just saying that's how it is. I'm not
Speaker 1: volunteering that.
Speaker 2: I thought you were trying to be supportive.
Speaker 1: No, No, it's a I don't have a choice.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because.
Speaker 1: I'm innately so supportive because I'm Eli the amiable. Well,
Speaker 1: there's only one Tzar I want to talk about today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too, the czar who's been living in our
Speaker 3: hearts for the last week or so, Ivan the Fourth,
Speaker 3: also known as Ivan the Terrible.
Speaker 1: If you joined us in the last episode, and I
Speaker 1: don't know why you wouldn't have, if you're here now,
Speaker 1: we learned that Ivan the Fourth was named ruler of
Speaker 1: Russia at just three years old when his father died,
Speaker 1: but he was raised by the Shwisky family of boyars,
Speaker 1: who took control of Russia after probably poisoning his mother,
Speaker 1: Elena Glinskaya. When Ivan was sixteen, he crowned himself the
Speaker 1: first Czar of Russia and started cutting off the boyar's power,
Speaker 1: mostly by cutting off their heads. Effective but he married
Speaker 1: honest Assiya Romanov, who loved him and helped him be
Speaker 1: a great ruler by cooling his horrible temper. But when
Speaker 1: she died at twenty nine years old, Ivan was certain
Speaker 1: that the Boyars had poisoned her as well. Now he
Speaker 1: would marry again and again and again, taking a total
Speaker 1: of eight wives in his life. None of them, however,
Speaker 1: fared too well, and ultimately neither did Russia. So let's
Speaker 1: hear about the Tsar's next seven wives and how this
Speaker 1: guy went from being Ivan the Fine to Ivan the
Speaker 1: not so good, all the way down to Ivan the terrible.
Speaker 2: Let go, Hey, let friends come listen. Well, Eli and
Speaker 2: Diana got some stories to tell. There's no match making
Speaker 2: a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relation, ships, a love.
Speaker 2: There might be any type of person at all, and
Speaker 2: abstract concept or a concrete wall. But if there's a
Speaker 2: story where the second glance, so ridiculous romance a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: The boy Yards, if you remember from part one, are
Speaker 1: basically the ruling class of nobility in Russia, and they've
Speaker 1: always held a lot of power. They had poisoned Ivan's mother,
Speaker 1: and they likely poisoned on Us the Sea, Ivan's first wife,
Speaker 1: and after this, Ivan had multiple people jailed and executed.
Speaker 1: But Ivan didn't really work with a lot of evidence
Speaker 1: when he was accusing the Boyars of doing all these
Speaker 1: evil things. And while yes, some of these Boyars were
Speaker 1: rich schemers working to secure their own power, Ivan's hatred
Speaker 1: of them as a whole wasn't really very focused, and
Speaker 1: it even started to spill over into the civilian population.
Speaker 1: But you know what, all of that can go on
Speaker 1: hold because Ivan Vassilievitch was now Moscovie's number one most
Speaker 1: eligible bachelor.
Speaker 2: Ladies, ladies, lady.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: The first idea for Ivan to remarry was Katarzhina Yagyelunka,
Speaker 2: a Polish princess, and at the time of anest Dosia's death,
Speaker 2: Ivan was fighting a major war between Russia and basically everyone,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, the Polish, the Swedish, the Danes, and
Speaker 2: the Cossacks in the south. So if a marriage made
Speaker 2: an ally out of Poland, it was a pretty good
Speaker 2: idea classic reason for his art to get married.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we're at war, but I married one of
Speaker 1: your daughters, so now we're not at warning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything you're mad about it's over now now. I
Speaker 2: haven't thought it made sense, and Katarzina's brother was into it,
Speaker 2: but Katarzina herself was apparently crying her eyes out at
Speaker 2: the idea. But then another woman was presented to Ivan
Speaker 2: in fifteen sixty one, Mariya Temryokovna. She was the daughter
Speaker 2: of a prince from Kebardia, an independent country located near
Speaker 2: what is the border of Russia and Georgia today, so
Speaker 2: this would ally region that could help them fend off
Speaker 2: the Cossacks in the south. So another good, powerful alliance.
Speaker 1: Isn't that so interesting? I mean, these the Kabardians weren't
Speaker 1: fighting with the Russians at a time, but they would
Speaker 1: have been strong allies. But even thinking back to him
Speaker 1: trying to marry out of a war with Poland, it
Speaker 1: just so clearly to me shows how desperately they both
Speaker 1: want the war to end and they just need any excuse.
Speaker 2: I agree, you know, it's not like today that like
Speaker 2: Putin would be like, oh right, Ukraine, send me one
Speaker 2: of your lady and we'll solve this the old fashioned way.
Speaker 2: Like that shit don't work anymore.
Speaker 1: So Maria Temriyukovna's father presented her to Ivan the fourth,
Speaker 1: and Ivan went absolutely gaga for this lady. She was
Speaker 1: maybe the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and he
Speaker 1: suddenly is like kata Argina, who I don't even care
Speaker 1: that girl's crying anyway, I'm not gonna marry her. Maria
Speaker 1: was gorgeous, she was rich, she was royalty from a
Speaker 1: foreign country that would make a great partner to Russia.
Speaker 1: There was really only one problem. Maria was a Sunni Muslim.
Speaker 1: Now Russian folklore says that on her deathbed, Ivan's first wife, Anastasia,
Speaker 1: had told Ivan, whatever you do, you've got to marry
Speaker 1: a Christian.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, final words, right.
Speaker 1: I mean they were Orthodox and Catholics, and they were
Speaker 1: pretty strict about, you know, keeping it in the family,
Speaker 1: so to speak. So Ivan is thinking like, oh boy, well,
Speaker 1: my ex wife did specifically warn me about this. But
Speaker 1: on the other hand, this lady is super hot.
Speaker 5: She's fine, absolutely spotty, attid, malicious, like I am in
Speaker 5: with this woman.
Speaker 2: I love the idea of the Tzar. Ivan like bumpin'
Speaker 2: yeah at aliens. So he decided Maria is the one,
Speaker 2: and they married on August twenty first, just four days
Speaker 2: before Ivan's thirty first birthday. But it was quickly clear
Speaker 2: that nobody liked Maria. She was seen as manipulative and vindictive.
Speaker 2: She refused to respect local customs, and she is very
Speaker 2: rude to her step children, Ivan surviving sons, Ivan Junior
Speaker 2: and Theodor, as opposed to Ana Sessia. Maria seemed to
Speaker 2: encourage Ivan's ruthlessness, but actually Ivan didn't like her much himself,
Speaker 2: and that just added to his general anger and paranoia.
Speaker 2: They had one son together in fifteen sixty three, named Vasili,
Speaker 2: but he died just a few months later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now Ivan already basically trusted no one. We know this.
Speaker 1: But the war also was not going well, and Russia
Speaker 1: was struggling with drought and famine. Peasants were angry, they
Speaker 1: were quitting their jobs, dogs and cats were living together,
Speaker 1: just mass hysteria. And then in fifteen sixty four, Ivan's
Speaker 1: good friend, close advisor, and military leader Andrey Krebsky suddenly
Speaker 1: defected and joined the Lithuanians. And he cited Ivan's growing
Speaker 1: distrust of everyone, and he was worried about all these
Speaker 1: repressive ideas that the Czar was forming. Krebski led a
Speaker 1: Polish Lithuanian force against his own people, the Russians, and
Speaker 1: he decimated them in several battles.
Speaker 2: Or kicked him to the Krebski Keurbsk, I love it.
Speaker 1: So at this point, you know, Ivan's been betrayed again.
Speaker 1: The boyars are acting crazy, the clergy was embezzling, the
Speaker 1: peasants were restless. So Ivan the Fourth just left, He
Speaker 1: packed his bags, He grabbed his wife Maria, and he
Speaker 1: left Moscow without telling anybody for Alexandrov, and he sent
Speaker 1: a letter back to the Boyars in Moscow and said,
Speaker 1: y'all suck, I'm gonna quit.
Speaker 2: Damn Yeah, nobody wants to work anymore. Well, the Boyar
Speaker 2: court had always been locked in a battle with Ivan,
Speaker 2: but they took a look at the state of Muscovie,
Speaker 2: particularly the desperate and furious peasant class, and realized they
Speaker 2: were one hundred percent shit out a lukski uh. They
Speaker 2: wanted all this power over the Zar, but they realized
Speaker 2: that if he was fully gone, they had basically no
Speaker 2: power at all. It can't be the power behind the
Speaker 2: throne if there's no one on the.
Speaker 1: Throne right exactly.
Speaker 2: So they followed him to Alexandrov and they begged him
Speaker 2: to come back in rule Russia. And he said, okay,
Speaker 2: but on one condition, I get absolute power. I want
Speaker 2: to be able to condemn and execute people. I decide
Speaker 2: our traders, and I want to confiscate their land, and
Speaker 2: I don't want them no interference from yell Boyars or
Speaker 2: the church. Woww. Some historians say that Maria Temryokovna herself
Speaker 2: gave Ivan this idea she sounds like she could easily
Speaker 2: come up with it, but of course common to blame
Speaker 2: a lady for some shitta guy does the boy. Our
Speaker 2: delegation looked at each other awkwardly, turned back to Ivan
Speaker 2: and they said, yeah, man, whatever you want. And thus
Speaker 2: began the Abridge Nina, one of the darkest and scariest
Speaker 2: periods in Russian history, right.
Speaker 1: The Abridge Nina was this huge territorial state within the
Speaker 1: borders of Russia, where Ivan had absolute power and control
Speaker 1: and could execute people at will if he felt like
Speaker 1: they were being disloyal. So it's a large chunk of land.
Speaker 1: It encompassed all the major cities, you know, not Siberia,
Speaker 1: but the populous part. At will. He could confiscate land
Speaker 1: of people he felt like were traders, and he could
Speaker 1: kick their families out to go live in the Zim's Gena,
Speaker 1: which was the Russian land outside the Opportunita, so the
Speaker 1: place you didn't want to be. To enforce this brutal
Speaker 1: new rain, he formed a guard called the Oprichnik. The
Speaker 1: Oprechnik was basically Ivan's private personal army. They were a
Speaker 1: thousand hand picked super soldiers who dressed in all black
Speaker 1: and rode black horses. Tied to their saddles was a
Speaker 1: severed wolf's head, which symbolized the Oprechnick sniffing out the
Speaker 1: Tsar's enemies and the hounds of Hell nipping at their heels.
Speaker 1: Ivan himself off and rode at the front of the horde,
Speaker 1: and he affixed iron jaws to his wolf's head that
Speaker 1: would open and snap shut as his horse gallon.
Speaker 2: All Right, I can't approve of a brutal private army, right,
Speaker 2: but the vibes are incredible metal Again, I feel like
Speaker 2: an opeh album is about to start.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't like severed wolf's heads, but no, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was like a movie. I'd be like, these guys
Speaker 1: are terrifying and kind of awesome, Like, you know, I
Speaker 1: definitely dresses this for Dragon Con if this was just
Speaker 1: a fantasy.
Speaker 2: Of course, of course, of course it is.
Speaker 1: That's very very ring rate vibes, very true.
Speaker 2: But I mean that's sort of like such an interesting
Speaker 2: thing about historic armies and stuff is that they're like
Speaker 2: you have to defeat them, you know, kind of they're
Speaker 2: morale first, that's the first thing. So if you have
Speaker 2: the right look or like even like the rebel yell
Speaker 2: or whatever, like there's just so many armies that had
Speaker 2: their little thing that was like, let us freak them
Speaker 2: out before we ever strike a single blow.
Speaker 1: Striking fear into the hearts of your enemies. Key in
Speaker 1: all things. I remember in uh, speaking of movies, I
Speaker 1: remember in the film Little Giants in the early nineties
Speaker 1: with Rick Moranish and playing a football coach. I'm getting there.
Speaker 1: It was all, you know. It was like a ragtag
Speaker 1: group of misfits playing football, little little pee wee football,
Speaker 1: and one of the kids had real bad tummy troubles,
Speaker 1: so we always had He was always taking alka seltzer
Speaker 1: and when they were trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: intimidate the other team because they are all little nerds,
Speaker 1: he told them all to put an alka seltzer tab
Speaker 1: in their mouth and they all started foaming at the mouth.
Speaker 1: So they all pot one in their mouth while they're
Speaker 1: all lining up to play football, and the other kids
Speaker 1: freak out because all the whole team full of nerds
Speaker 1: is all foaming at the mouth, like do.
Speaker 2: You have rabies? That's a really big problem.
Speaker 1: It's great. So just like the old preach nig Giants.
Speaker 2: Like Little giants being the natural air of the operation.
Speaker 1: I wish that line had been in the movie. Like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I remember the Preachnick Rick Maris is like, no, we
Speaker 1: can't carry around severed wolf heads onto the football.
Speaker 2: Field, but we can learn a lesson about intimidation.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: On their acceptance, recruits to the Opreachnik swore loyalty to Ivan,
Speaker 2: his sons, his wife Maria, and also swore quote not
Speaker 2: to eat or drink with the zem's Gina and not
Speaker 2: to have anything in common with them. Now, these guys
Speaker 2: terrorized the Russian civilian population. They executed anyone who was
Speaker 2: suspected to be disloyal to Ivan, who had declared himself
Speaker 2: the quote hand of God.
Speaker 1: Always a good sign and a leader.
Speaker 2: Okay. Citizens were terribly treated. They were quarter boiled, impaled,
Speaker 2: or even roasted over an open fire. If Ivan declared
Speaker 2: them treeson is oh God. If their families were lucky,
Speaker 2: they were exiled. Often they were killed too. Now you'd
Speaker 2: think this would be all about controlling people through fear,
Speaker 2: right striking terror into the hearts of the populace.
Speaker 1: Right, Like I'm going to go around and murder some
Speaker 1: folks so that nobody acts up like, that's my real reason, right,
Speaker 1: right exactly.
Speaker 2: But because Ivan was what modern psychologists call loopier than
Speaker 2: a cross eyed cowboy. Yes, as a soup sandwich.
Speaker 1: Yeah, crazier than a cat in a room full of
Speaker 1: rocking chairs.
Speaker 2: That boy's cheese lit all the way off his cracker.
Speaker 1: They're all the clinical modern diagnos.
Speaker 2: Le yes, So a lot of the time, you know,
Speaker 2: he's just imagining trees and his behavior. Hen't have proof
Speaker 2: for any.
Speaker 1: Of this, Yeah, no, but he really believes it.
Speaker 2: Of course, he's just like steriously paranoid. And of course
Speaker 2: if you had a problem with how he was doing things,
Speaker 2: you were next in line for whatever torture he could
Speaker 2: come up with. So it's just like no criticism, no
Speaker 2: looking at him the wrong way anything. No one just
Speaker 2: set him off.
Speaker 1: No one could stand off to the side and say,
Speaker 1: I don't Yeah, this guy sucks, but he didn't actively
Speaker 1: commit treason. Are you sure we should boil him alive?
Speaker 1: Because Ivan would just turn and say, oh, I guess
Speaker 1: you're a trader too, So add him.
Speaker 2: To the pot, another one for the pot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh, brutal. And that's it's so much harder when
Speaker 1: these people really believe it, you know, like, it's one
Speaker 1: thing if someone's aggressively manipulative and knows that they're lying
Speaker 1: to everyone, But when you have someone who's so crazy
Speaker 1: they believe their own crazy theories, well and it get scared.
Speaker 2: Yet it must be said, he has a lot of
Speaker 2: reason to believe them, because it's not like people ain't
Speaker 2: been poisoning people all around him and stuff. Absolutely, so
Speaker 2: he does have some things that he is clearly blown
Speaker 2: off to a very very upsetting paranoid bubble that he's
Speaker 2: right right.
Speaker 1: What he needs is someone to talk to. I mean,
Speaker 1: he needs a therapist, and honest, I mean honestly, that
Speaker 1: might be part of what him and honest to see
Speaker 1: his marriage. You know why that was so beneficial because
Speaker 1: it may have been we don't know, but it may
Speaker 1: have been a situation where he sat down and was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I think everyone is out to get me.
Speaker 1: This guy looked at me funny when I walked down
Speaker 1: the hall, and she was like, honey, sometimes people just
Speaker 1: look at you funny, like yours are You're the most
Speaker 1: important guy in the room. And he's like, oh, you're right,
Speaker 1: you're right, okay. So that he was able to discern
Speaker 1: more who was a real threat and who he was
Speaker 1: just getting feeling a little paranoid about. But once she
Speaker 1: got poisoned, all bets are off. Everyone could have been
Speaker 1: out to get him, and no one was there to
Speaker 1: suggest that he was overreacting. So all this to say,
Speaker 1: Ivan had become a ruthless, brutal monster and an all
Speaker 1: powerful dictator during his marriage to Maria, just even more
Speaker 1: than before, of course, So let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: and we will get into the consequences of his actions
Speaker 1: for both him and his wife right after this.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone, Do I sound like Count Chocula? It
Speaker 2: was a little Chocula, Yeah, welcome back.
Speaker 1: Not the Count. I love it all right. So it
Speaker 1: was far from Maria Tenbrinokovna's fault that her husband Ivan
Speaker 1: was the terrible, but she did seem to encourage it,
Speaker 1: and of course she was no peach herself, and while
Speaker 1: he might have listened to her when she suggested that
Speaker 1: he start the opportunina, he also regretted marrying her. She
Speaker 1: was hated by her subjects and the courts alike, as
Speaker 1: well as by Ivan's whole family, and we can't say
Speaker 1: that this wasn't xenophobia or some sort of bigotry against
Speaker 1: whether she was Muslim. You know, if this was a
Speaker 1: racist thing, you know, hard to say. But what history
Speaker 1: suggests to us is that she was pretty rotten herself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so maybe it was not a total shock when on
Speaker 1: September first of fifteen sixty nine, eight years after their marriage,
Speaker 1: Maria Timriyokovna died of poisoning. Again, rumors went around that
Speaker 1: Ivan himself actually poisoned her, but Ivan not only denied that,
Speaker 1: but he had several nobles executed who he blamed for
Speaker 1: her death.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I'm doubt he's going to be like,
Speaker 2: I did it, no right, And he's like I did
Speaker 2: it and a bunch of y'all are going to pay
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 1: Proof that I didn't is that I killed a bunch
Speaker 1: of other people for doing it, So it must have
Speaker 1: been them. I mean, no, I will say that historians
Speaker 1: generally agree that he was not the one behind it
Speaker 1: this time. It wouldn't make have made a lot of
Speaker 1: sense for him, but that's true.
Speaker 2: That Well, raise your hand if you think I've been
Speaker 2: calmed down after that, I don't see any hands. Well,
Speaker 2: I'll give you a hint The next thing to happen
Speaker 2: was something called the Massacre of Novagrad. Oh boy, so
Speaker 2: in fifteen seventy, Ivan believed Novagrad, Russia's second largest city,
Speaker 2: was planning on defecting tow the Lithuanians, and we know
Speaker 2: we don't like that. So he rode to the city,
Speaker 2: sending the bodies of dead clergymen ahead of him. He
Speaker 2: constructed a barrier around the city so no one could escape,
Speaker 2: and then he and the Opachnik performed the most brutal
Speaker 2: attack in their existence, with estimates between two thousand and
Speaker 2: fifteen thousand casualties. Merchants were tortured, nobles were roasted with
Speaker 2: what one chronicler called a quote clever fire making device,
Speaker 2: which just sounds like a fifteen hundreds like flamethrower. Women
Speaker 2: and children were tied up and thrown into the frozen river,
Speaker 2: where they would be trapped under the eye drowned. God,
Speaker 2: that sounds horrible.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh, and then they had boatmen riding around
Speaker 1: with spears to make sure they got anyone who didn't drown.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, those who confessed to treason after torture were dragged
Speaker 2: behind sleds across town, and then peasants' homes were looted
Speaker 2: and destroyed, and if they survived his attack, many starved
Speaker 2: or froze later because they had nowhere to live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a whole lot of history about the massacre
Speaker 1: of Novgrod, if anyone's interested in Russian history, there's i mean,
Speaker 1: just books dedicated to just this event. Of course, all
Speaker 1: we have time for is a paragraph, but it's wild,
Speaker 1: very upsetting. Well, the next year, in fifteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: another fire broke out in Moscow. Damn these fires, third
Speaker 1: one and this time it was definitely deliberate, because see
Speaker 1: the Crimean and Ottoman forces had come to attack Moscow
Speaker 1: and they set the suburbs on fire and it's huge,
Speaker 1: which wind came in and it blew the fire into
Speaker 1: the city. In six hours, the palace, the oprichnin the headquarters,
Speaker 1: and the suburbs had completely burned down. WHOA. People were fleeing.
Speaker 1: They rushed into stone cathedrals, and a lot of those
Speaker 1: cathedrals collapsed, either from the heat of the fire or
Speaker 1: just from the sheer number of people shoving their way
Speaker 1: into them. Other people jumped into the river and many
Speaker 1: of them drowned. The gunpowder storage room at the Kremlin exploded.
Speaker 1: Casualties were estimated to be between sixty thousand and two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people. Afterwards, Ivan ordered bodies found in the
Speaker 1: streets to be thrown into the river, but there were
Speaker 1: so many that it caused flooding.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Historian James Horsey wrote that it took more than
Speaker 1: a year to clean out all the bodies. You know,
Speaker 1: the smell was like, oh my god, just horrible. After this,
Speaker 1: the Oprichnina was disbanded and the lands of the Oprichnina
Speaker 1: and the Zemschena were reunified under one new Boyar council
Speaker 1: that Ivan helped pick out. Now, historians think Ivan might
Speaker 1: have found the country being divided into two sections was
Speaker 1: just too ineffective while the country was dealing with this
Speaker 1: big war that they were losing. Maybe Ivan felt like
Speaker 1: he'd achieved his goal by striking fear into everyone's hearts,
Speaker 1: so his opposition wasn't going to be so you know,
Speaker 1: it's going to be easier to put down. So he
Speaker 1: got rid of the Obergnina, the Oberjnik. They were done now,
Speaker 1: And they generally think that he recognized it wasn't doing
Speaker 1: anything good for him at this point, but he wanted
Speaker 1: to look like it was a success. So he was
Speaker 1: just kind of like, we're done with this now, great
Speaker 1: job me. It worked exactly like I wanted to and
Speaker 1: now I can get rid of it.
Speaker 2: He unraveled that big mission, accomplished exactly right, palace.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, by now, I think you'll probably know the patterns,
Speaker 1: so you know what's coming next, because it goes Ivan's
Speaker 1: wife gets poisoned, a bunch of people get executed, and
Speaker 1: then there's a big fire, and then it's time for
Speaker 1: another beauty pageant.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: It was time for Ivan to get a new bride,
Speaker 1: since now what three have been poisoned.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody that had to show up was like, well,
Speaker 2: I guess I'm gonna be poisoned.
Speaker 1: I remember in part No.
Speaker 2: One year or two or thirteen. But it's gonna happen,
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: I remember in part one we said that some of
Speaker 1: the girls were probably excited to go in and take
Speaker 1: part in this beauty pageant because marrying this are was
Speaker 1: so cool. And by now it's probably like, oh god,
Speaker 1: it's like American idol, Like I hope I get second place,
Speaker 1: because then I'm not locked into this horrible contract. But
Speaker 1: maybe I'll get a good record deal. I love that. Actually,
Speaker 1: actually this is not far from the truth, because sometimes
Speaker 1: the uh, the runners up in the beauty pageant would
Speaker 1: end up marrying other nobles. Sure, one of them even
Speaker 1: went to one of Ivan's sons. No, I could second
Speaker 1: place was probably not bad.
Speaker 2: Well, I actually I remember, did you ever see the
Speaker 2: Man in the Iron Mask?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Wow, yeah, yeah, way back when.
Speaker 2: I just remember when Louis the shitty one was like
Speaker 2: starting to hit on that girl and she starts to
Speaker 2: get really worried. And I remember when I watched it.
Speaker 2: Of course it was when it came out. I was
Speaker 2: younger and everything, and I was like, oh, well, why
Speaker 2: she was so worried. It's great the king likes her,
Speaker 2: you know, she's set for life. But actually everybody knew
Speaker 2: that it was really not great, right, be either too
Speaker 2: favored or too disfavored by the ruler, Like you want
Speaker 2: to be nice in the middle somewhere where he likes you,
Speaker 2: and then he forgets you.
Speaker 1: Relatively exactly true with a lot of bosses, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, like I want you to like me and
Speaker 1: then not think of me when you're making decisions. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, once again, young women are called from across Land,
Speaker 2: and in October fifteen, seventy one out of twelve finalists,
Speaker 2: Ivan gave the rose to Marfa Sobachina. He arranged their
Speaker 2: marriage and this time they would stay in an impenetrable fortress,
Speaker 2: which Ivan had filled with only loyalists. Absolutely no one
Speaker 2: was going to get to his third wife, Marfa. And
Speaker 2: she's dead.
Speaker 1: Oh no, what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, only sixteen days after their wedding, Marfa died of
Speaker 2: a mysterious ailment. God. Now, it was rumored and is
Speaker 2: probably true, that Marfa's own mother accidentally poisoned her with
Speaker 2: a potion that was meant to increase her fertility. So
Speaker 2: that's really tragic because you know, Marfa's mom is like,
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to set you up for success, right
Speaker 2: in your very scary marriage to the worst man in
Speaker 2: the world, and she accidentally kills her own kid. That's
Speaker 2: so sad.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know we mentioned in the last episode a
Speaker 2: lot of meta distance back then used mercury and other toxins,
Speaker 2: so it's likely that, you know, Marfa just took too
Speaker 2: much of a bad thing in order to try to
Speaker 2: be the mother you know, of the heir to the
Speaker 2: to the czar, and like secure her position for life. Right,
Speaker 2: but that is really sad, it is I feel really
Speaker 2: bad for Marfa's mom.
Speaker 1: Oh, all of them. Well, you know, at least Ivan,
Speaker 1: we know calmly and quietly accepted the death of his wife,
Speaker 1: and he spent a few weeks in quiet morning. Are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? Of course not. No, he went absolutely nuts.
Speaker 1: I mean, his his impregnable fortress had been impregnant, so pregnant, impregnant,
Speaker 1: somebody impregnant it so it once again, Ivan got super
Speaker 1: paranoid that everyone he trusted was out to get him,
Speaker 1: and he immediately executed twenty people, including his previous wife's brother,
Speaker 1: Mikhail Timryukovna, and much of Marfa's own family. Now this time,
Speaker 1: Ivan decided that he better get married real quick before
Speaker 1: another fire broke out, and he just went ahead and picked.
Speaker 1: Speaking of runners up, Anna Koltovskaya. She was an eighteen
Speaker 1: year old girl and she had also been in the
Speaker 1: last beauty pageant. But the Orthodox Church had a real
Speaker 1: problem with Ivan going into a fourth marriage. In fact,
Speaker 1: their rule was quote the first marriage is law, the
Speaker 1: second an extraordinary concession. The third is a violation of law.
Speaker 1: The fourth is an impiet a state similar to that
Speaker 1: of the animals.
Speaker 2: Damn, So even though they're not alive.
Speaker 1: Yep, they said you get three marriages. I imagine they're like,
Speaker 1: if you're getting married a fourth time, God doesn't want
Speaker 1: you to be married?
Speaker 2: You know, I guess, so, I guess you could.
Speaker 1: I got hint. This is the official stance of the church. Hint.
Speaker 2: Well, Ivan, we know is not the kind of guy
Speaker 2: to say, well, rules a rule. But he did throw
Speaker 2: the clergy a bone here. He did not roast them
Speaker 2: all like marshmallows with a medieval flamethrower.
Speaker 1: Oh good for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some real growth growth and with iron right now.
Speaker 2: He actually told them, you know, look, my third wife
Speaker 2: died in practically zero days. We never got a chance
Speaker 2: to consummate the marriage. That one don't count, okay, but
Speaker 2: count count me.
Speaker 1: Four wives.
Speaker 2: He organized a meeting at the Church of Assumption and
Speaker 2: he gave this heartfelt speech about all the loss he'd
Speaker 2: endured and his struggle to find a bride, and it
Speaker 2: reportedly moved the clergy to tears. So they said he
Speaker 2: could marry her, but he would have to do penance
Speaker 2: for a year. And so they married in April of
Speaker 2: fifteen seventy two, and they took their honeymoon and sunny.
Speaker 1: Noma Gorod, Oh.
Speaker 2: The city that he had decimated two years earlier. Wow,
Speaker 2: it's lovely this time of year. Right, Yes, Anna, I'd
Speaker 2: love to take you to this beautiful cathedral, but sort
Speaker 2: of burned it.
Speaker 1: Down, although we give you a tour of town. That's
Speaker 1: what I said, the guy with forty spears.
Speaker 2: This is the river that has so many women and
Speaker 2: children in it.
Speaker 1: Oh, you can still smell the barbecue. Oh God, what
Speaker 1: a weird choice for honeymoon.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess its many options.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, is this honeymoon a threat?
Speaker 2: Maybe?
Speaker 1: Are you transcend a message here? Well? Okay, So at
Speaker 1: this point in history, with the opperach Nina disbanded, uh,
Speaker 1: the war going on and not great. There aren't a
Speaker 1: ton of big events over the next few years in
Speaker 1: terms of the story we're telling, And according to Natalia
Speaker 1: Pushkareva's book Women Inrussian History on the Koltovskaya did have
Speaker 1: a good influence on Ivan for a while. Russian sorenas
Speaker 1: are not allowed to associate with common folk, including their
Speaker 1: own families. So it was pretty customary that when a
Speaker 1: woman marries as Are, her family would be moved to
Speaker 1: the court and given noble titles so that she could
Speaker 1: still associate.
Speaker 2: With them, which we've seen before oh many times. I'm
Speaker 2: particularly thinking about ancient China episodes that we've done where
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, you know, she marries the emperor and
Speaker 2: her whole family gets lifted up. So as part of
Speaker 2: the reason, the families are like pushing their daughters to
Speaker 2: these parts that they're like, it's not even about you, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's about me.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, honest family did not fit in well at court,
Speaker 1: so they had a hard time making allies, and after
Speaker 1: two years, Ivan and Anna had not been able to
Speaker 1: conceive a child, so Ivan supposedly started to get kind
Speaker 1: of bored with her and he sent her off to
Speaker 1: live in a convent. She took the name Daria and
Speaker 1: lived out her days there without ever getting poisoned. She
Speaker 1: actually outlived Ivan himself. Oh so we're gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: and call this one a win for Anna.
Speaker 4: Yeahza, the best you can hope for is going off
Speaker 4: to live as a nun and having a long somewhat
Speaker 4: comfortable life without getting poisoned or stabs.
Speaker 2: I mean as comfortable as nuns are. I mean, you know, well,
Speaker 2: within the year, I've been decided to go for a
Speaker 2: fifth wife. Historian Nikolay Karamzine wrote, quote, the czar, no
Speaker 2: longer observing even the slightest decency, no longer seeking the
Speaker 2: blessing of the bishops without any church permission, married Anna
Speaker 2: Vasiltchikhova in fifteen seventy five.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he wasn't even pretending anymore, right, And anyone
Speaker 2: who defied him or was like, hey, you're not supposed
Speaker 2: to do that, and they pretty much faced torture and execution,
Speaker 2: so nobody challenged it. He got his fifth wife, no problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a sad existence, though, God I no one
Speaker 1: ever spoke to him at all. Is they're just like,
Speaker 1: you say the wrong thing, You're dead?
Speaker 2: I mean, isn't that sort of the I mean not
Speaker 2: just the only one. But one of the tragedies of
Speaker 2: being a very paranoid person is that you end up
Speaker 2: pushing so many people away that you like are lonely,
Speaker 2: and you can't help but feel like everybody hates you
Speaker 2: because you made them hate you. Like you made them
Speaker 2: specifically withdraw from you.
Speaker 1: It becomes a spiral.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and kind of a self fulfilling one.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, nobody challenged this marriage, and Ivan and Anna
Speaker 2: had a small wedding ceremony with just immediate family and
Speaker 2: very little is known about her background or their marriage.
Speaker 2: But similarly to his last Ana, this one was shipped
Speaker 2: off to a monastery after two years. But unlike the
Speaker 2: last Ana, it's believed that she died violently at the convent,
Speaker 2: and rumors started to be spread that Ivan himself had
Speaker 2: her killed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's getting to the point where, you know,
Speaker 1: nobody wrongs him and he doesn't leave any loose ends anywhere.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, I'm getting rid of this wife that
Speaker 1: I was with for two years, but what if she talks,
Speaker 1: what if she starts plotting revenge against me? Whatever? And
Speaker 1: so he sent somebody in there to uh, I think
Speaker 1: stabber a bunch of times.
Speaker 2: Maybe the first Anna just took like a vow of
Speaker 2: silence or something, and he's not to worry about it.
Speaker 1: Just caught him in a good mood, right, maybe.
Speaker 2: Or she changed her name and he's like, what it
Speaker 2: was her name again?
Speaker 1: Whatever?
Speaker 2: I don't know anyway, look for if you find.
Speaker 1: Now. At this point, Bush Garreva writes, quote, even people
Speaker 1: at court could not keep track of the series of
Speaker 1: women who appeared and disappeared beside the Czar's throne. Ivan
Speaker 1: would take women in, but he had a hard time
Speaker 1: actually caring about anyone, and they and their families generally
Speaker 1: weren't treated well, And of course things didn't end too well. Again,
Speaker 1: I really just think that he was looking to recapture
Speaker 1: that feeling that he had with Anastasia. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: didn't know how to find it. He was too far
Speaker 1: away from the person he was back then and he
Speaker 1: couldn't be that anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then came Vasalisa Melentieva, his sixth wife, or was she.
Speaker 1: There's a bit of a mystery here, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: get back to that miss Damsel right after this break.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everybody.
Speaker 1: Some historians think that Vasalisa Melentieva was Ivan the Terrible's
Speaker 1: sixth wife, but others suggest she might not have existed
Speaker 1: at all. Most of her story comes from a book
Speaker 1: by Alexander Sula Katzev, who was notorious for writing fake
Speaker 1: histories in the nineteenth century damn misinformation right way back
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds. This guy was doing it right up.
Speaker 5: He was just like the original clickbait. He's like whatever, right, right,
Speaker 5: crazy story? People buy it, who cares, and then they
Speaker 5: believe it journalistic integrity. But of course, Nikolai Karamzine and
Speaker 5: more modern researchers did find documents that confirm that Vasilisa
Speaker 5: was at least real and did have a special relationship
Speaker 5: with Ivan. So it's possible that she was simply a
Speaker 5: concubine if not his actual sixth wife.
Speaker 2: Ah, okay, okay, So maybe no marriage here, Yeah, hard
Speaker 2: to see he was there.
Speaker 1: Some definitely think that there was a marriage, and some
Speaker 1: think there probably wasn't.
Speaker 2: Well. The story goes that her husband, Nikita, worked in
Speaker 2: the Tsar's court, and Ivan had him poisoned and brought
Speaker 2: Bessilissa to live with him instead.
Speaker 1: Ah. The old switcheroo call.
Speaker 2: That she was, according to Pushkareva quote, such a beauty
Speaker 2: that none of the maidens at the bridal pageant could
Speaker 2: match her. This keeps happening, Yeah, beauties constantly right, And
Speaker 2: allegedly Ivan was pretty happy with her. She was a
Speaker 2: bit older than his other brides, and she was kind
Speaker 2: of like Anastasia. She was sweet and calming. But a
Speaker 2: few months in Ivan's marital luck ran out again and
Speaker 2: he discovered Vasilisa was having an affair with a prince
Speaker 2: named dev letel No, which is just absolutely the dumbest
Speaker 2: thing she could have done, right, like this little last
Speaker 2: guy I would cheat on. So I've been forced Vasilisa
Speaker 2: to watch as he had her lover impales, and then
Speaker 2: he exiled her to a convent as well, and then
Speaker 2: she allegedly died mysteriously later that year, and some think
Speaker 2: it's possible that Ivan had her killed as well.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of wondering about the validity of this
Speaker 1: story for a couple of reasons. One, like you said,
Speaker 1: who would bait this man into having any reason to
Speaker 1: be mad at you? I mean, at the same time,
Speaker 1: how could she possibly be happy with him? So maybe
Speaker 1: that was she just really loved this guy, and she
Speaker 1: was like, I can't not be with you because my
Speaker 1: husband is literally one of the worst people in history.
Speaker 1: That's true, so I see that. But also it does
Speaker 1: seem like I would just be on eggshells the entire time.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be runing around, cheating or anything like that.
Speaker 2: I know, although maybe you're right, and she's like, it's
Speaker 2: only a matter of time before he turns on me. Anyways,
Speaker 2: CONGRATU while.
Speaker 1: I can that's true. I guess maybe my bigger question
Speaker 1: is Devlatev. Who would be that stupid to cheat with IV?
Speaker 1: In the Terrible Spike, I.
Speaker 2: Was about to say this thing if she was like,
Speaker 2: I'm ready, I.
Speaker 1: Don't keep it. I don't care if you're a twelve.
Speaker 1: I am sorry, but your husband is literally the most
Speaker 1: frightening person in a country with a history full of
Speaker 1: frightening people.
Speaker 2: Seriously, he's going to roast me over an open fire,
Speaker 2: like I'm not gonna know.
Speaker 1: But my other reason I'm not sure if I buy
Speaker 1: this is because some of the other elements seem to
Speaker 1: be mashed up from previous stories, right, like the fact
Speaker 1: that he sent her to a convent and she died there.
Speaker 1: You know that she was very calming to him. I
Speaker 1: even literally saw the same painting labeled on two different websites,
Speaker 1: one as Ivan and Vasilissa and one as Ivan and Anastasia,
Speaker 1: So it seems like the parts of their stories are
Speaker 1: getting crossed over to Okay, it's hard to say. We
Speaker 1: just don't know. It's the fifteen hundreds. There's not a
Speaker 1: lot of really good records.
Speaker 2: Right, Apparently you got guys out here just writing.
Speaker 1: I believe well. Ivan's seventh marriage is also disputed, and
Speaker 1: little is known about this one, maybe even less. Her
Speaker 1: name was Maria Dolgurukaya, and he supposedly married her in
Speaker 1: the year fifteen eighty, although some people write their story
Speaker 1: as as her being his fifth wife in between the
Speaker 1: two anas. Now, if Maria Dolgurukaya existed, the legend says
Speaker 1: that she was engaged to Ivan but had an affair
Speaker 1: before their wedding. Ivan discovered after their wedding night that
Speaker 1: she was not a virgin, and he ordered his guard
Speaker 1: to drown her in the frozen river. That's all we
Speaker 1: really know about that story. This one maybe even less
Speaker 1: likely to be real, but it tracks. I don't not
Speaker 1: believe it, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I mean, I guess he wanted a personality where
Speaker 2: you could believe any number of horrible things about him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I guess you win, Ivan, Great.
Speaker 1: Job, all right. Well, before we get to Ivan's eighth
Speaker 1: and final wife, let's do a quick recap at Sarina summary.
Speaker 1: Sarna summary. Number one Anastasia Romanov. They have two surviving
Speaker 1: sons together at this point, lil Ivan Junior and Feodor.
Speaker 1: They were together for thirteen years before she got poisoned
Speaker 1: by the boyars.
Speaker 2: Number two Maria hemrio Kovna, who also got poisoned, maybe
Speaker 2: by Ivan, probably by boyars after eight years of marriage.
Speaker 1: Number three Marfa Soobatina, who died sixteen days after their wedding,
Speaker 1: probably accidentally poisoned by her mother.
Speaker 2: Number four Anna Koltovskaya, married for two years before he
Speaker 2: got bored with her and shipped her to a monastery.
Speaker 2: She's still alive in the story, not in her life.
Speaker 1: Number five Anna Vasilchikova, also married for two years before
Speaker 1: getting sent off to a monastery where she was killed.
Speaker 2: Number six Vasilissa Melentieva, they were married for a few
Speaker 2: months before I even discovered she was cheating, had her
Speaker 2: boyfriend impaled in front of her. She's sent off to
Speaker 2: a monastery where she was also killed.
Speaker 1: And number seven Maria Dolgurukaya, who cheated before they got
Speaker 1: married and she got dropped. So just a super list
Speaker 1: of Sarinas.
Speaker 2: What a super summary.
Speaker 1: They all did stupendously.
Speaker 2: I don't know, some of them did stupid shit, but
Speaker 2: that brings us to Zarina number eight, Maria Nagaya. This
Speaker 2: woman and this marriage both definitely did exist, so no
Speaker 2: questions here. They married in the year fifteen eighty one,
Speaker 2: but this was also the year of one of Ivan's
Speaker 2: most terrible acts in a long time. Ivan had actually
Speaker 2: been trying to make amends for his uprich Nina years
Speaker 2: by making massive donations to monasteries. He would visit other
Speaker 2: towns and pray at their churches for his victims, and
Speaker 2: Russia had been weakened under his strict and violent rule,
Speaker 2: and the war wasn't going well either. Ivan's son, Ivan Junior,
Speaker 2: had been married three times since he was twelve years old.
Speaker 2: The first two wives did not produce children quickly, so
Speaker 2: Ivan Senior had them each shipped off to convents, so
Speaker 2: the two Ivan's relationship was pretty strained.
Speaker 1: Ivan Junior's third wife was Yolena Sharremiteva, and she was
Speaker 1: found to be pregnant in October of fifteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: and everyone was thrilled. Ivan Junior course was in line
Speaker 1: to be Ivan the Fifth, the next Czar of Russia,
Speaker 1: and he already had his family lined up and ready
Speaker 1: to go. He was going to have an heir himself.
Speaker 1: But on November fifteenth, fifteen eighty one, Ivan the Terrible
Speaker 1: saw his daughter in law, Yelena, wearing what he saw
Speaker 1: as immodest clothing, and he started to beat her. Ivan
Speaker 1: Junior ran in hearing his wife's screams, and he stopped
Speaker 1: his father, shouting at him, quote, you sent my first
Speaker 1: wife to a convent, did the same with my second,
Speaker 1: and now you strike the third, causing the death of
Speaker 1: the son she holds in her womb. And indeed Yelena
Speaker 1: suffered a miscarriage just shortly after.
Speaker 2: This damn Iivan Yeah. On the next day, Ivan Junior
Speaker 2: confronted his father. They had already been fighting over Ivan
Speaker 2: the fourth military failures, and Ivan Junior had tried to
Speaker 2: raise his own army to save the besieged city of Puskov.
Speaker 2: So when Ivan Junior shouted at his father for beating
Speaker 2: his wife, the czar changed the subject and accused him
Speaker 2: of inciting a rebellion by raising his own forces. Ivan
Speaker 2: Junior denied it, but he insisted the city be liberated,
Speaker 2: at which point Ivan the Terrible lost his temper and
Speaker 2: struck his son over the head with his scepter. Ivan
Speaker 2: Junior collapsed to the ground, bleeding from the head, barely conscious.
Speaker 2: His father immediately threw himself down on the ground and
Speaker 2: cradled his son, crying, quote, May I be damned, I've
Speaker 2: killed my son. I've killed my son. The younger Ivan
Speaker 2: regained consciousness briefly and reportedly said quote, I die as
Speaker 2: a devoted son and most humble servant. His father prayed
Speaker 2: over his bedside for the next few days, but on
Speaker 2: November nineteenth, young Ivan, heir to the Russian throne, died
Speaker 2: at twenty seven years old. This again, Ivan's just he
Speaker 2: can't hold on to his temper at all. He's just
Speaker 2: like he doesn't really have a focus for any of
Speaker 2: his violence.
Speaker 1: Really, this is like the most tragic part to me
Speaker 1: because you see especially him like collapsing to the ground. That, yeah,
Speaker 1: his his reactions are out of his own control, right.
Speaker 1: He has these violent outbursts that I don't think he
Speaker 1: knows he's doing until he's done them. Obviously, no excuse,
Speaker 1: but it's just it makes he's so much more than
Speaker 1: just an awful person. He's really got mental health issues.
Speaker 1: I think, and most historians say that as well, that
Speaker 1: he was not a sane a fully sane person in
Speaker 1: control of his own faculties right like he was losing
Speaker 1: it or had lost it long ago. The guy really
Speaker 1: needed some some therapy and maybe some medications. He certainly
Speaker 1: didn't need to have this kind of power.
Speaker 2: No, it's only making him a billion times worse.
Speaker 1: This scepter that he hit his son with, he cared
Speaker 1: around for that purpose. He would beat people with it
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 2: Of course, what else do you do with this scepter?
Speaker 1: I guess and his son just like challenged him once, like,
Speaker 1: just stood up to him, and his immediate reaction, without thinking,
Speaker 1: without even knowing who was in front of him, was
Speaker 1: to swing that thing and bash him over the head
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like very knee jerk.
Speaker 1: Yes. Now. Ivan didn't really care much for his eighth wife,
Speaker 1: Maria Nagaya, but she bore him a son the next year,
Speaker 1: fifteen eighty two, and they named him Dimitri, and this
Speaker 1: is believed to be what saved her from being exiled
Speaker 1: or worse. But later that year Ivan sent a letter
Speaker 1: off to our old friend Queen Elizabeth the First of
Speaker 1: England two and he said, Hey, I want to marry
Speaker 1: your relative Mary Hastings and create an alliance between our
Speaker 1: two nations. Russia had only formed their first trade connections
Speaker 1: with England in the last few decades, and he saw
Speaker 1: them as a very powerful ally, you know, for blanking
Speaker 1: Middle Europe. Sure, he said in his letter that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that I'm married, but you know what, I
Speaker 1: will totally ditch my wife if you agreed to me
Speaker 1: marrying your cousin.
Speaker 2: Well, Elizabeth pretty much did not respond to this letter,
Speaker 2: maybe because ten years earlier I even had exchanged two
Speaker 2: other letters with her. One offered some political proposal, and
Speaker 2: when she rejected him, he wrote the second letter, which
Speaker 2: basically said, Wow, I thought you were a good ruler,
Speaker 2: but I guess your country is actually ruled by merchants
Speaker 2: that only care about prophets quote and you flower in
Speaker 2: your maidenly a state like a maid.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: That ain't the way to go with Queen Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Yeah no, it's the first letter, no
Speaker 1: mention of her being a queen, and his second one
Speaker 1: he's like, wow, well this is what happens when women rule,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Like jeez, dude, your dumb female brain. Uh huh, can't
Speaker 2: grasp the intricacies and my perfect proposal.
Speaker 1: I guess you're just flouncing around in your gardens, you know,
Speaker 1: doing curtsies and watching the notebook.
Speaker 2: And Queen Elizabeth is like, meanwhile, how many fires have
Speaker 2: we had?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Seriously, after your Queen Elizabeth read this letter, she kind
Speaker 2: of it, probably took a breath right, got her temper
Speaker 2: together because that was something she could do. And she
Speaker 2: wrote back, yeah, that is not how it goes over here.
Speaker 2: She wrote, quote, we rule ourselves with the honor befitting
Speaker 2: a virgin queen appointed by God, and no sovereign, thanks
Speaker 2: to God, has more obedient subjects. So she's like, you
Speaker 2: know all that disloyalty you're dealing with, I know nothing
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Second, oh, I'm sorry. I have my shit together
Speaker 1: over here.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: You're out here begging for a wife when you're already married,
Speaker 1: just so you can hold your country together.
Speaker 2: Okay, my best he's over here not getting married quick
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: I got three dudes on hold, I got.
Speaker 2: Men on men on men, but none on me.
Speaker 1: Well, fortunately before any poor english woman was sent off
Speaker 1: to marry Ivan the Terrible, he died of a stroke
Speaker 1: in fifteen eighty four while playing chess with a friend,
Speaker 1: and across Russia there was much rejoicing ding Dong. Well,
Speaker 1: or there might have been, except there wasn't really a
Speaker 1: great air in place, because he had killed his eldest
Speaker 1: son Ivan. His younger son, Feodor was next in line,
Speaker 1: and he was named Zar pretty quickly. But this guy
Speaker 1: was really quiet. He was kind of sickly, and he
Speaker 1: was just this sweet, good natured little kid who had
Speaker 1: pretty much no interest in politics. They said that he
Speaker 1: liked to visit churches and he would ask them to
Speaker 1: ring the bells and they got there because he just
Speaker 1: liked to hear the bells ring. That he was actually
Speaker 1: nicknamed Theodora, the bell ringer. And I just picture this
Speaker 1: guy is like and he likes to sit down and
Speaker 1: play with the bunnies, you know, chasing around butterflies. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess he he's a lot more like honest
Speaker 2: to see you, yea, his.
Speaker 1: Mother and him for sure. And of course he was
Speaker 1: but only three years old himself when his mother died.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so yeah, so he grew up just kind
Speaker 1: of like can I just stay out of it please?
Speaker 2: I know, well, I would, That's definitely would be me.
Speaker 2: I'd be like, I'm just seeing y'all's drama. It's very exhausted.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go sit over here, listen to some bells,
Speaker 2: reading my books.
Speaker 1: Reading my books under the bell tell it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you think of it. He's the spare, right,
Speaker 1: So Ivan probably put all of his like fatherness into
Speaker 1: Ivan Junior, like I'm gonna do tryna be a man
Speaker 1: son because you'll be czar one day, not thinking that,
Speaker 1: you know, the other way would go, and little Fyodor
Speaker 1: is just like, Okay, well, I'm just gonna go be
Speaker 1: sweetie man.
Speaker 2: That's another thing I think is so weird, how many
Speaker 2: times in history that they've had to resort to the
Speaker 2: spare right, And even so people are like, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to spend any time in the spare, you know, Like,
Speaker 2: but what if he does have to? I mean, you
Speaker 2: should should both know what to do.
Speaker 1: Well. So everyone was kind of expecting Fyodor to not
Speaker 1: really rule for very long because he was kind of
Speaker 1: weak and he was kind of sick. The next in
Speaker 1: line might have been Ivan and Maria's son Dmitri from
Speaker 1: his last marriage, but in fifteen ninety one, at only
Speaker 1: eight years old. Dmitri died under mysterious circumstances.
Speaker 2: And Boris Goldenov was the boyar who was effectively running
Speaker 2: the country while Fyodor was you know, checked out listening
Speaker 2: to the bells and stuff. And Maria Nagaya and her
Speaker 2: brothers supported a theory that Boris had Dmitri killed to
Speaker 2: strengthen his own power. Sure, but the modern scholars tend
Speaker 2: to think Boris was not involved. So the most likely
Speaker 2: theory is that Dmitri was playing a game called Sviika
Speaker 2: where boys would throw this sharp spear into the ground.
Speaker 2: But then he had a seizure which he was prone to,
Speaker 2: and he fell down in such a way that the
Speaker 2: spear cut his neck.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: What a freak.
Speaker 1: Accident, A total freak accident. That's the more accepted theory
Speaker 1: about what happened.
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: But when Czar Fyodor died in fifteen ninety eight without
Speaker 1: an air it kicked off what's known in Russian history
Speaker 1: as the time of Troubles, where in three different men
Speaker 1: at different times claimed to be Dmitri, all grown up like.
Speaker 1: There was this huge cult of people who believed that
Speaker 1: Dmitri actually survived. So there's false Dmitri one, two and
Speaker 1: three they call him, and these three guys that stepped
Speaker 1: up and actually did rule Russia of them for a time.
Speaker 1: It was chaotic. I mean, no one knew who was
Speaker 1: in charge. This is a whole other, a whole other show.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is Russian history that deserves
Speaker 1: like a ten part series just on the false Dmitries
Speaker 1: and the time of troubles at things. But the summary
Speaker 1: is that things were rough for quite a few years,
Speaker 1: almost two decades.
Speaker 2: I love I love that they named it the time
Speaker 2: of troubles, unlike all the other times previously. Well, they're
Speaker 2: not troubled.
Speaker 1: I mean that tells you right there just how bad
Speaker 1: it was. They're like those were normal times. These are
Speaker 1: trouble times.
Speaker 2: All the fires, massacres, so on normal ship. This is trouble.
Speaker 1: Russian bar very low. Well, to make a long story short,
Speaker 1: In sixteen thirteen, I'm in the terribles government that he
Speaker 1: set up. The Zemski Sabor elected a relative of his
Speaker 1: first wife, Anastacia, to be the next Czar of Russia.
Speaker 1: His name was Michael Romanov. Because remember back when Ivan
Speaker 1: and honest Thesia were married people scoffed at the Romanov family.
Speaker 1: They thought they were not very important. But now the
Speaker 1: Romanovs would go on to rule Russia for the next
Speaker 1: three hundred years.
Speaker 2: How crazy fail that? I mean, they basically had to
Speaker 2: be like, I don't know, you sort of involved in
Speaker 2: the family, I guess, I mean, certainly again, they end
Speaker 2: up like holding on to power for so.
Speaker 1: Long, right, definitely again another dense history if you study
Speaker 1: the time of troubles in Russias more than I had
Speaker 1: time to get into. But but yeah, I know I
Speaker 1: love that. That. I mean, Ivan just destabilized things so
Speaker 1: badly on his way out that they had to completely
Speaker 1: switch lines. His dynasty was the Rurics, and they had
Speaker 1: ruled Russia for quite a long time and no one
Speaker 1: thought they would ever go. But I haven't wiped out
Speaker 1: that and started the Romanov dynasty, who, of.
Speaker 2: Course, three hundred years later lost power very spectacularly, right, And.
Speaker 1: Then we got up pretty solid Fox Animation Studios musical
Speaker 1: movie out of it with Kelsey Grammar. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: forget that. And the name Anastasia just cringed.
Speaker 2: That's not how you say it, right, Well, I guess
Speaker 2: we also say Romanov is also wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but who knows Russians. Let us know Russians, let
Speaker 1: us know what a story. Even the Terrible again a
Speaker 1: name you hear floating through their history, like he was
Speaker 1: one of the bad guys henchmen in I think Night
Speaker 1: at the Museum two, like the Pharaoh who was like
Speaker 1: taken over. He enlisted Ivan the Terrible and Napoleon and
Speaker 1: like uh al Capone, I think, to help him take
Speaker 1: over the museum. Yeah, exactly. So Ivan's got this historical
Speaker 1: image of being terrible, and of course remember his name
Speaker 1: does not really mean that, but he also is terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so really quite a quite a character, and just a
Speaker 1: brutal history here with these poor eight you know, between
Speaker 1: six and eight official wives and probably many other women
Speaker 1: who well.
Speaker 2: That's what my question is, all these women that they
Speaker 2: were like we can't even keep track. Yeah, in that
Speaker 2: part of the story, I was like, well what happened
Speaker 2: to them?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Like I imagine he was just like all right, one night stand.
Speaker 2: Well maybe he's like a mina of Nigeria and he's like,
Speaker 2: I'll just one night stand and then you did.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember in part one he grew up as
Speaker 1: a as a young teenage boy, he had a supposedly
Speaker 1: a different woman every night. Oh yeah, so he was
Speaker 1: probably very used to being able to sleep with a
Speaker 1: woman anytime you wanted, and there was just women at
Speaker 1: his disposal at all times. Would further makes me think
Speaker 1: that Ivan's real goal was to find another honest to
Speaker 1: see you, find someone who made him happy in that
Speaker 1: way that he was, but he again was just too
Speaker 1: far gone to ever feel that way again, no matter
Speaker 1: who came in.
Speaker 2: I think that's true. I mean, you know, this is
Speaker 2: this a terrible guy, but I kind of feel sorry
Speaker 2: for him. I feel like there's a lot of There
Speaker 2: must be a lot of that throughout history, is I
Speaker 2: think we've run into a few times, but especially historians
Speaker 2: must often read about particularly leaders where they're like, this
Speaker 2: guy is not well right, you know, like if it
Speaker 2: had been different, you know, someone would have been like,
Speaker 2: let's let's maybe get somebody a little more like stable
Speaker 2: and the throne. This guy is crazy, but they didn't
Speaker 2: really have, i mean any any tools to address that.
Speaker 2: And then of course when we did know kings were
Speaker 2: crazy in England, they were just like, well put them
Speaker 2: in a room by himself. But he's still going to
Speaker 2: be king. I don't know, we can't can't change it.
Speaker 2: It's just so strange. Well, I think you've done a
Speaker 2: fine job making us feel sorry for a terrible guy.
Speaker 1: Always. My goal is, like, you know, who's looking out
Speaker 1: for the murderous white guys? You know we deserve a
Speaker 1: little more respect, don't we we?
Speaker 2: I am I going to be poisoned? Or since you're
Speaker 2: a monastery, yeah, prepare myself.
Speaker 1: No, I would send myself to a monastery before you.
Speaker 1: I think, okay, good, all those nuns, am I right?
Speaker 2: No, I don't think it's going to turn out the
Speaker 2: way you play you're planning. I like that about our
Speaker 2: show sometimes because you're able to just look at them
Speaker 2: as a person, yeah, throughout there, from their romantic relationships
Speaker 2: and stuff, and be like, regardless of all the terrible
Speaker 2: things they're doing, there's just a person in here that
Speaker 2: is is I don't know, chafing at a lot of
Speaker 2: things in their life, like his mom being poisoned and stuff,
Speaker 2: and he's also so clearly not mentally well and just
Speaker 2: I don't know's you can kind of have some sympathy
Speaker 2: for that actual person, even though I have very little
Speaker 2: sympathy for the ruler and the terrible.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, I was gonna say it goes back to
Speaker 1: this thing I say to you often when I'll say
Speaker 1: I'm sorry and you say you've got nothing to be
Speaker 1: sorry for it, and I said, well, I'm not apologizing,
Speaker 1: I'm sympathizing, you know. And that's the difference between those
Speaker 1: two sories. And it's like I can feel sorry for
Speaker 1: Ivan and everything he'd been through and what led him
Speaker 1: to being a monster without apologizing for his behavior at all. Right, no, one,
Speaker 1: there is no apology for that, but there can be sympathy.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean, oh, it's okay. Come on, let's
Speaker 1: get you a hot bowl of soup and get you
Speaker 1: inside and give you a nice comfy bed and you'll,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll just we'll just find you a good
Speaker 1: wife and then all will be forgiven. No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: You're a monster who murdered and tortured people horribly, and
Speaker 1: you deserve nothing but the worst. But also it sucks
Speaker 1: that you the circumstances that led you to become that
Speaker 1: are are awful and shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's true. I feel like that's sort
Speaker 2: of when you're psychologically talking about you know, some some
Speaker 2: terrible criminal and people are like, stop sympathizing with them,
Speaker 2: they did horrible things, and it's like, that's true. I
Speaker 2: don't you know, you don't want to sympathize with the
Speaker 2: criminal over the victims, right, you know? Or something like that,
Speaker 2: But we do. I think as people were so fascinated by,
Speaker 2: like what makes you do something like that? What makes
Speaker 2: you into a type of person who can go so
Speaker 2: hard against social moras and morals? Yea of like just
Speaker 2: not torturing and murdering a bunch of people. Like what
Speaker 2: turns you into that person? Is kind of a draw,
Speaker 2: is such a curiosity.
Speaker 1: I think we lose sight a little bit of why
Speaker 1: we want to know that. I think there's an instinct
Speaker 1: that's true that that makes us want to dig into that.
Speaker 1: It's the reason true crime is so popular and stuff.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason we probably feel that way
Speaker 1: is because we want to be active and proactive about
Speaker 1: stopping those from happening. But we get a little more
Speaker 1: excited about the details and we're just like I just
Speaker 1: want to know it. I just want to eat it,
Speaker 1: and not like I want to do something about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's really what it comes down to, is
Speaker 1: if we're looking so hard at why people are the
Speaker 1: way they are, why people do terrible things that we
Speaker 1: could not imagine, because well, you know, maybe we find
Speaker 1: out that Ivan was that way because people were horrible
Speaker 1: to him as a child, and maybe we should treat
Speaker 1: children better and not poison their mothers. You know, if
Speaker 1: that's all we take from this, I think it's a
Speaker 1: good lesson, is don't poison children's mothers.
Speaker 2: I find that to be a good lesson as well.
Speaker 1: Classic lesson could have avoided all of this. Who knows
Speaker 1: what Russia would be like today if the boy ours
Speaker 1: hadn't done all that, right, or if they just.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if they let honest Sosia live, right, maybe Ivan
Speaker 2: would still be himself, you know, but not so bad
Speaker 2: right right, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe things would have gotten worse. There's that theory too,
Speaker 1: that we were in the best possible timeline.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a theory.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's not great. It's not a great thing,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I like it. Sometimes I'm like, well, this sucks,
Speaker 1: but all other options were worse. Even though I think
Speaker 1: they were better, they are actually worse.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say too that. I think what's part
Speaker 2: part of us trying to figure out why someone is
Speaker 2: the way they are being such a draw is that
Speaker 2: we get really frustrated if we find out that they
Speaker 2: just are like that because some people are born with
Speaker 2: the violent, violent tendency. There's nothing that necessarily makes them
Speaker 2: that way. I think we talked about it, like Sid
Speaker 2: and Nancy, there was really nothing to point to that
Speaker 2: was like this is the turning point where they said,
Speaker 2: I'm you know, I'm broken now. But they were just
Speaker 2: kind of had that impulse in them. And there's something
Speaker 2: really scary about that that you can just be born
Speaker 2: with that and not have any choice once whatsoever, and
Speaker 2: that nothing could have done, no one could have done
Speaker 2: anything differently. That's always really hard to accept.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can't not damage people too, that's so right.
Speaker 1: You can't be perfect to everyone around you all the time,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna cause some harm, You're gonna cause some
Speaker 1: lasting trauma, you know, just passively, right, So just try
Speaker 1: not to do it actively. But yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think some people there's not a lot of answers
Speaker 1: why do the things they do.
Speaker 2: But for Ivan, maybe for Ivan there seems to be
Speaker 2: at least some answers, some triggers in there yet full answers.
Speaker 2: There's some triggers yet, but yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: hope you all liked this episode, these two episodes too,
Speaker 2: learning about Ivan the Terrible and feeling some sympathy for
Speaker 2: this horrible.
Speaker 1: Monster, or at least for his wives, or at.
Speaker 2: Least for his wives. He deserves some real sympathy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, yeah, thanks so much for tuning in for
Speaker 1: this one. We would love to hear your thoughts, you know,
Speaker 1: tell us about the terrible marriages you've had. We'll read
Speaker 1: those on air too.
Speaker 2: I know. Leading it sent to any monastery.
Speaker 1: Hopefully not, or maybe you did and it turned out
Speaker 1: great for you, like the first Anah Yeah us an email.
Speaker 1: We ridict Romance at gmail dot.
Speaker 2: Com, Crater, We're on Instagram. I'm at playing to Mike.
Speaker 1: Boone and I'm at O Grade. It's Eli and.
Speaker 2: The show is at ridict Romance.
Speaker 1: Thank you again so much for tuning in today spending
Speaker 1: your time with us. Hope you love this episode and
Speaker 1: we've got many more coming your way.
Speaker 2: Can't wait to talk to you soon. Love you, Bob Bay,
Speaker 2: so long, friends, it's time to go. Thanks for listening
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