1
00:00:00,840 --> 00:00:05,200
Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim

2
00:00:05,240 --> 00:00:08,480
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Mankey listener discretion advised.

3
00:00:10,480 --> 00:00:11,480
Speaker 2: Hey guys, this is.

4
00:00:11,480 --> 00:00:14,160
Speaker 1: Danas Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. If you want

5
00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:17,440
Speaker 1: to support the show, we are on Patreon at patreon

6
00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:22,320
Speaker 1: dot com slash Noble Blood Tales. I upload episode scripts

7
00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:25,480
Speaker 1: every week. Every month I do a bonus episode where

8
00:00:25,480 --> 00:00:28,639
Speaker 1: I talk to someone about a historical period piece movie.

9
00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:31,479
Speaker 1: This month July I talk to my sister about the

10
00:00:31,840 --> 00:00:35,760
Speaker 1: Cough Terrible movie The Other Bolin Girl. And on the

11
00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:40,280
Speaker 1: Patreon every season we have a brand new exclusive sticker club.

12
00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:41,840
Speaker 2: So yeah, thank you so much.

13
00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:45,159
Speaker 1: Obviously the best support for the show is just listening,

14
00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:57,880
Speaker 1: So thank you so much. Let's get into it. If

15
00:00:57,920 --> 00:01:01,760
Speaker 1: you were a tourist traveling in Russia on May twenty fifth,

16
00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:05,520
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, and you happened to be walking through Moscow's

17
00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:10,800
Speaker 1: Tretchikov Gallery, you would have heard a terrible sound, first

18
00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:15,440
Speaker 1: the tearing of a metal pole away from its security barrier,

19
00:01:16,200 --> 00:01:20,800
Speaker 1: then the shattering of glass guard. Someone would have screamed.

20
00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:25,120
Speaker 1: The smell of vodka was hovering in the air. It

21
00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:30,080
Speaker 1: was eight pm outside, it was just growing dark. Amidst

22
00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:34,720
Speaker 1: the chaos came the sound of a canvas being slashed once,

23
00:01:35,319 --> 00:01:40,800
Speaker 1: then twice, then a third time. The ruined painting was

24
00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:46,080
Speaker 1: called Ivan the Terrible and his Son, considered the Mona

25
00:01:46,160 --> 00:01:50,280
Speaker 1: Lisa of the Tretchikov by its most ardent curators. The

26
00:01:50,320 --> 00:01:54,920
Speaker 1: painting was painted in eighteen eighty five by Ilyaureppin, the

27
00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:58,920
Speaker 1: master of late nineteenth century Russian realism.

28
00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:00,080
Speaker 2: If the painting his.

29
00:02:00,160 --> 00:02:05,200
Speaker 1: Title conjures images of a loving father cradling his child,

30
00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:11,480
Speaker 1: think again. We're closer to Saturn devouring his son territory.

31
00:02:11,560 --> 00:02:17,320
Speaker 1: Here in the painting, Tsar Ivan has haunted eyes. He's

32
00:02:17,440 --> 00:02:20,880
Speaker 1: cradling a man with a bleeding head, wound and a

33
00:02:20,960 --> 00:02:26,160
Speaker 1: limp body. Ivan is looking out over the younger man's head,

34
00:02:26,200 --> 00:02:30,000
Speaker 1: wide eyed, with a look that clearly says, oh God,

35
00:02:30,120 --> 00:02:30,800
Speaker 1: what now?

36
00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:31,919
Speaker 2: That man?

37
00:02:32,360 --> 00:02:37,600
Speaker 1: Ivan is known to history as the Terrible. He was

38
00:02:37,639 --> 00:02:42,280
Speaker 1: the first Tsar of Russia, crowned in fifteen forty seven.

39
00:02:43,040 --> 00:02:47,920
Speaker 1: He remade Russia. He was married at least seven times.

40
00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:54,119
Speaker 1: He brutally murdered thousands, But among those countless massacres, one

41
00:02:54,240 --> 00:03:00,639
Speaker 1: murderer stands out as especially horrifying. The painting all has

42
00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:07,080
Speaker 1: an unofficial name, Ivan the Terrible killing his son the

43
00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:10,920
Speaker 1: philicidal image is too much horror for some to bear.

44
00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:14,960
Speaker 1: The man who slashed the painting in twenty eighteen, who

45
00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:18,400
Speaker 1: would confess to getting drunk on vodka in the museum

46
00:03:18,480 --> 00:03:23,680
Speaker 1: cafe and then being quote overwhelmed by something, was not

47
00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:28,640
Speaker 1: the first to deface the painting. A century earlier, the

48
00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:32,800
Speaker 1: painting was defaced for the first time, also with three

49
00:03:33,080 --> 00:03:37,840
Speaker 1: slash marks. What were the vandals responding to in this

50
00:03:37,960 --> 00:03:41,720
Speaker 1: particular work of art, What did they hate so much

51
00:03:41,800 --> 00:03:45,120
Speaker 1: that they had to rip paint from canvas, remove the

52
00:03:45,160 --> 00:03:49,920
Speaker 1: depravity from sight? And why is it that both times

53
00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:55,720
Speaker 1: these vandals guided their hands by inches centimeters so that

54
00:03:55,800 --> 00:03:59,560
Speaker 1: they tore through the sleeve and the collar, the tip

55
00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:01,440
Speaker 1: of the and the ear.

56
00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:02,760
Speaker 2: Of the painting subject.

57
00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:07,080
Speaker 1: But they never removed a single flake of paint from

58
00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:14,080
Speaker 1: Ivan's haunted eyes. Perhaps it's because Ivan, looking wide eyed

59
00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:19,279
Speaker 1: to the future, is experiencing double panic, not only a

60
00:04:19,320 --> 00:04:22,600
Speaker 1: phylicide of his son by the first wife, the one

61
00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:26,160
Speaker 1: that he loved best, but also the horror of a

62
00:04:26,200 --> 00:04:32,120
Speaker 1: succession crisis. So many rulers throughout history prayed for a

63
00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:36,760
Speaker 1: male successor divorcing or banishing or beheading their wives in

64
00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:41,880
Speaker 1: order to get one. But Ivan brought his fate upon himself.

65
00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:47,839
Speaker 1: Ivan the Terrible, First Czar of Russia had just murdered

66
00:04:48,279 --> 00:04:53,279
Speaker 1: by his own hand his one and only competent male heir.

67
00:04:54,760 --> 00:05:06,960
Speaker 1: I'm Danish schwartz and this is noble blood. Two hundred

68
00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:10,360
Speaker 1: years before Catherine the Great and the Romanov dynasty would

69
00:05:10,360 --> 00:05:13,800
Speaker 1: ascend to the Russian throne, before there were even official

70
00:05:13,920 --> 00:05:18,599
Speaker 1: Russian czars, a different Russian dynasty was dealing with a

71
00:05:18,640 --> 00:05:24,280
Speaker 1: succession crisis. It was August fifteen thirty and the nineteenth

72
00:05:24,320 --> 00:05:27,560
Speaker 1: ruler of the Ruric dynasty was waiting to find out

73
00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:30,800
Speaker 1: whether the child being born to his wife was male

74
00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:35,560
Speaker 1: or female. Vasily the third Ivanovitch was fifty one.

75
00:05:35,520 --> 00:05:37,720
Speaker 2: Years old and childless.

76
00:05:38,120 --> 00:05:41,479
Speaker 1: He was Grand Prince of Moscow, the area that would

77
00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:44,440
Speaker 1: later become the Tsardom of Russia, and the woman in

78
00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:48,960
Speaker 1: labor was his second wife. This felt like his last chance.

79
00:05:49,760 --> 00:05:53,200
Speaker 1: His first wife, Salamonia, had given him no male heirs

80
00:05:53,279 --> 00:05:57,320
Speaker 1: after twenty one years of marriage, so he divorced her

81
00:05:57,839 --> 00:06:03,240
Speaker 1: despite the controversy and has her shipped off to a monastery. Coincidentally,

82
00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:06,359
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth in England was dealing with a similar

83
00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:09,400
Speaker 1: lack of male heirs after a twenty plus year marriage

84
00:06:09,440 --> 00:06:13,960
Speaker 1: at the exact same time, but back in Russia, post divorce,

85
00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:20,440
Speaker 1: Vassili remarried the much younger Elena Glinskaya, only twenty years old,

86
00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:24,400
Speaker 1: less than half of her new husband's age. She had

87
00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:27,960
Speaker 1: literally not yet been born when Vassili and his first

88
00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:32,359
Speaker 1: wife had gotten married, and now Elena was in labor.

89
00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:36,159
Speaker 1: The fate of the dynasty now rested upon the sex

90
00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:37,320
Speaker 1: of the child that.

91
00:06:37,279 --> 00:06:37,880
Speaker 2: She would have.

92
00:06:38,760 --> 00:06:43,520
Speaker 1: Young Elena breathed heavily, sweat glistening on her forehead, and

93
00:06:43,640 --> 00:06:47,479
Speaker 1: she pushed for the final time, and then there was

94
00:06:47,560 --> 00:06:51,359
Speaker 1: a sigh of relief in the room. The child was

95
00:06:51,400 --> 00:06:55,560
Speaker 1: a boy, to be named Ivan. The crisis was averted.

96
00:06:56,000 --> 00:07:00,839
Speaker 1: The Ruric dynasty, thus far, nineteen generations long, male heir

97
00:07:00,920 --> 00:07:07,760
Speaker 1: to male heir remained intact. Ivan's father died when he

98
00:07:07,839 --> 00:07:12,200
Speaker 1: was only three, leaving Ivan and a younger brother, Yuri behind.

99
00:07:12,840 --> 00:07:16,160
Speaker 1: In early Russia, the older son was destined to become

100
00:07:16,200 --> 00:07:19,559
Speaker 1: the ruler, but there was extra pressure in Ivan's case,

101
00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:24,840
Speaker 1: not quite a typical air and despair situation, because Yuri

102
00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:29,600
Speaker 1: might have been disabled, but he wasn't considered competent at

103
00:07:29,600 --> 00:07:33,480
Speaker 1: the time to rule. Ivan was named Grand Prince of

104
00:07:33,560 --> 00:07:37,160
Speaker 1: Moscow as a toddler, not exactly an age when most

105
00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:42,400
Speaker 1: people generally showed an interest in taxation or international relations.

106
00:07:42,960 --> 00:07:46,840
Speaker 1: His mother, Elena ruled for him with such power and

107
00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:51,280
Speaker 1: ambition that she actually inspired a rebellion against her in

108
00:07:51,360 --> 00:07:55,200
Speaker 1: fifteen thirty seven, and then died the following year at

109
00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:58,880
Speaker 1: the age of thirty in what has long been speculated

110
00:07:58,920 --> 00:08:03,240
Speaker 1: to have been a poison. Some historians are almost certain

111
00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:07,120
Speaker 1: of it. Others say that the background amounts of arsenic

112
00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:10,880
Speaker 1: and mercury found in her exhumed corpse may just have

113
00:08:10,920 --> 00:08:14,560
Speaker 1: been the normal amount of poisons in a sixteenth century

114
00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:19,720
Speaker 1: Muscovite bloodstream. Either way, Ivan was both the holder of

115
00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:23,920
Speaker 1: the most powerful title of Russia and an orphan by

116
00:08:23,920 --> 00:08:28,400
Speaker 1: the age of eight years old. His youth meant that

117
00:08:28,440 --> 00:08:31,640
Speaker 1: the ruling classes of Russia had almost ten years to

118
00:08:31,680 --> 00:08:35,240
Speaker 1: fill with their own violent power struggles before the young

119
00:08:35,280 --> 00:08:39,400
Speaker 1: prince could rise to any meaningful throne. A lot of

120
00:08:39,559 --> 00:08:44,559
Speaker 1: bloody and complicated political machinations followed, but the important thing

121
00:08:44,640 --> 00:08:47,440
Speaker 1: to know is that they all involved a group of

122
00:08:47,440 --> 00:08:50,600
Speaker 1: people called the Boyars, a ruling class of a.

123
00:08:50,559 --> 00:08:52,000
Speaker 2: Couple hundred families.

124
00:08:52,559 --> 00:08:55,120
Speaker 1: They were basically ruling Russia in this time, and they

125
00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:59,040
Speaker 1: were responsible for raising the child Ivan and his brother.

126
00:08:59,800 --> 00:09:03,679
Speaker 1: A letter to his friend andre Krubsky, a grown Ivan

127
00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:06,720
Speaker 1: would look back at this time, writing that the Boyar's

128
00:09:06,800 --> 00:09:10,719
Speaker 1: quote were bent on acquiring wealth and glory and were

129
00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:14,640
Speaker 1: quarreling with each other. And what have they not done

130
00:09:14,679 --> 00:09:17,920
Speaker 1: me and my brother Yuri of blessed memory? They brought

131
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:21,240
Speaker 1: up like vagrants and children of the poorest. What have

132
00:09:21,320 --> 00:09:23,959
Speaker 1: I not suffered for want of garments and food?

133
00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:25,360
Speaker 2: End? Quote?

134
00:09:26,520 --> 00:09:30,200
Speaker 1: At the age of eight, Ivan had already lost his parents,

135
00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:34,079
Speaker 1: and now he felt himself and his little brother mistreated

136
00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:37,240
Speaker 1: by the grown ups who were left behind. It was

137
00:09:37,320 --> 00:09:39,880
Speaker 1: the start of a grudge against the Boyars that he

138
00:09:39,920 --> 00:09:42,920
Speaker 1: would hold for the rest of his life. It was

139
00:09:42,960 --> 00:09:46,920
Speaker 1: also perhaps the start of his education in the bloody

140
00:09:46,960 --> 00:09:52,280
Speaker 1: mechanics of murder, warfare, and destruction. But as much as

141
00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:55,880
Speaker 1: the Boyars fought for positioning back when Vasili the third

142
00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:59,400
Speaker 1: had been alive, he had clearly wanted his son Ivan

143
00:09:59,520 --> 00:10:03,600
Speaker 1: to be his successor. Vasili had even gotten a child

144
00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:07,840
Speaker 1: sized helmet made for his little firstborn son, featuring all

145
00:10:07,960 --> 00:10:13,079
Speaker 1: the adult regalia of a future ruler. So on January sixteenth,

146
00:10:13,360 --> 00:10:18,400
Speaker 1: fifteen forty seven, seventeen year old Ivan was crowned not

147
00:10:18,679 --> 00:10:22,720
Speaker 1: only Prince of Moscow like his father, but Tsar of

148
00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:26,960
Speaker 1: all russ It was the first time any Russian ruler

149
00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:31,520
Speaker 1: had been called tzar, a word derived from the Latin caesar.

150
00:10:32,240 --> 00:10:34,520
Speaker 1: It was a reference to the titles of the Old

151
00:10:34,559 --> 00:10:38,920
Speaker 1: Testament kings and Byzantine emperor, but above all it suggested

152
00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:44,679
Speaker 1: a rule ordained by God. This God ordained teenager Ivan

153
00:10:44,840 --> 00:10:48,960
Speaker 1: had in the meantime been spending a decent amount of

154
00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:53,360
Speaker 1: his adolescence trying to find a foreign wife and failing,

155
00:10:54,200 --> 00:10:58,000
Speaker 1: I just don't trust their foreign temperaments, he would decide,

156
00:10:58,040 --> 00:11:02,000
Speaker 1: only after he had almost certainly been turned down. But

157
00:11:02,040 --> 00:11:05,199
Speaker 1: don't feel too bad for Ivan. Here he would make

158
00:11:05,320 --> 00:11:09,280
Speaker 1: up for the romantic failures of his teenage years with

159
00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:11,080
Speaker 1: a long list of wives.

160
00:11:11,160 --> 00:11:11,439
Speaker 2: Later.

161
00:11:12,160 --> 00:11:16,520
Speaker 1: The first of these, Anastasia Romanovna, he married one month

162
00:11:16,679 --> 00:11:21,000
Speaker 1: after his coronation. Russian names are very similar, but don't

163
00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:26,280
Speaker 1: confuse this Anastasia with the much more famous Anastasia Romanov

164
00:11:26,679 --> 00:11:30,360
Speaker 1: who comes along during the Russian Revolution we are still

165
00:11:30,400 --> 00:11:34,640
Speaker 1: squarely in the sixteenth century. Here back to Ivan and

166
00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:39,600
Speaker 1: his first wife, Anastasia. They were both seventeen. Anastasia was

167
00:11:39,600 --> 00:11:43,000
Speaker 1: from a powerful Russian family and had been chosen from

168
00:11:43,040 --> 00:11:46,760
Speaker 1: as many as fifteen hundred potential wives brought to the

169
00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:51,600
Speaker 1: Kremlin for the Czar to examine, And although he'd wanted

170
00:11:51,720 --> 00:11:55,720
Speaker 1: a foreign wife earlier in his life, presumably to bolster

171
00:11:55,840 --> 00:12:01,040
Speaker 1: his global power, by all accounts, Ivan loved Anastatia. Their

172
00:12:01,080 --> 00:12:06,080
Speaker 1: marriage was happy, maybe even blissful. They had six children together.

173
00:12:06,720 --> 00:12:11,160
Speaker 1: They seemed to balance each other's temperaments. Ivan was excitable,

174
00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:15,960
Speaker 1: Anastasia affable but calm, and able to pacify her husband's

175
00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:21,239
Speaker 1: darkest tempers. Legends and stories and movies now view Anastasia

176
00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:26,560
Speaker 1: as the one great true love of Ivan's life, but

177
00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:31,640
Speaker 1: he couldn't have her forever. In fifteen sixty, in Unlucky,

178
00:12:31,760 --> 00:12:38,160
Speaker 1: thirteen years after their wedding, Anastasia died. Ivan was grief stricken.

179
00:12:38,920 --> 00:12:43,840
Speaker 1: Modern historians see his mental health faltering here. Emotionally, he

180
00:12:43,960 --> 00:12:47,959
Speaker 1: seemed to fall apart. He grew paranoid that the boy AARs,

181
00:12:48,040 --> 00:12:52,000
Speaker 1: those old hated enemies of his youth, had poisoned his wife,

182
00:12:52,679 --> 00:12:56,960
Speaker 1: perhaps in a misguided effort to poison him. Who knows,

183
00:12:57,120 --> 00:13:00,240
Speaker 1: maybe they had had a hand in murdering his mother too,

184
00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:05,560
Speaker 1: who internally Ivan vowed to take revenge and what was

185
00:13:05,640 --> 00:13:10,000
Speaker 1: left of his beloved wife. Of their six children, only

186
00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:15,960
Speaker 1: two survived. Ivan Ivanovitch born fifteen fifty four and six

187
00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:18,560
Speaker 1: years old at the time of his mother's death, and

188
00:13:18,640 --> 00:13:23,320
Speaker 1: Fyodor three years younger. Just a note for listeners that yes,

189
00:13:23,600 --> 00:13:27,800
Speaker 1: both our Ivan the Terrible and his son are named Ivan.

190
00:13:28,280 --> 00:13:30,440
Speaker 1: Must have been great for the guy's ego, but I

191
00:13:30,480 --> 00:13:33,160
Speaker 1: know it can be hard to keep track of I'll

192
00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:37,160
Speaker 1: be calling Ivan the Terrible Ivan and his son Ivan

193
00:13:37,280 --> 00:13:43,319
Speaker 1: Ivanovitch to help us keep it straight. Ivan Ivanovitch's younger brother, Fyodor,

194
00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:47,800
Speaker 1: was considered slow at the time. Perhaps today we might

195
00:13:47,880 --> 00:13:51,720
Speaker 1: call him developmentally disabled. But what we know is he

196
00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:56,440
Speaker 1: was not considered competent to rule, and if God forbid

197
00:13:56,559 --> 00:13:59,520
Speaker 1: something should happen to his older brother, it meant that

198
00:13:59,559 --> 00:14:04,120
Speaker 1: the dying ynasty was in a precarious situation. If this

199
00:14:04,280 --> 00:14:06,800
Speaker 1: family dynamic sounds familiar.

200
00:14:06,320 --> 00:14:07,720
Speaker 2: To you, you're right.

201
00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:11,680
Speaker 1: The older Ivan and his younger brother Yuri were in

202
00:14:11,720 --> 00:14:14,480
Speaker 1: a very similar position when their own mother died.

203
00:14:15,240 --> 00:14:16,080
Speaker 2: As we'll see.

204
00:14:16,160 --> 00:14:19,960
Speaker 1: Ivan's life would come to replicate his father's life in

205
00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:24,600
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, though with more tragic ends. In

206
00:14:24,640 --> 00:14:28,520
Speaker 1: any case, Fyodor was not considered competent, and so the

207
00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:33,160
Speaker 1: young Ivan Ivanovitch was Big Ivan's clear hope as heir

208
00:14:33,240 --> 00:14:37,520
Speaker 1: to the dynasty, his only hope, it seemed. When the

209
00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:40,920
Speaker 1: young boy was just three years old, his father Ivan

210
00:14:41,120 --> 00:14:45,480
Speaker 1: gave him a mini helmet emblazoned with double headed eagles,

211
00:14:46,040 --> 00:14:49,160
Speaker 1: just like the one Ivan's own father had given him.

212
00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:53,400
Speaker 1: It was on Ivan Ivanovitch the entire future of the

213
00:14:53,440 --> 00:14:54,480
Speaker 1: tsardom rested.

214
00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:55,480
Speaker 2: His father.

215
00:14:55,680 --> 00:14:59,200
Speaker 1: Ivan was first Tsar of Russia, and he was going

216
00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:07,400
Speaker 1: to need a second. Ivan's rule was bloody. He got

217
00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:10,360
Speaker 1: that name the Terrible from somewhere, after all.

218
00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:12,680
Speaker 2: Although it is a little bit of.

219
00:15:12,600 --> 00:15:16,600
Speaker 1: A misnomer to modern ears, the Terrible may have also

220
00:15:16,640 --> 00:15:21,040
Speaker 1: been a signifier more like the awesome awe inspiring in

221
00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:25,480
Speaker 1: his great power. Terrible, let's not forget, is a hair's

222
00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:31,600
Speaker 1: breadth from terrific. After his wife Anastasia's death, Ivan embarked

223
00:15:31,640 --> 00:15:35,640
Speaker 1: on the Livonian War, a long and losing battle for

224
00:15:35,800 --> 00:15:39,960
Speaker 1: a route to the Baltic Sea. Around fifteen sixty four.

225
00:15:40,480 --> 00:15:43,280
Speaker 1: In what a modern person might view as a bit

226
00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:47,360
Speaker 1: of a temper tantrum. He threatened to abdicate in fifteen

227
00:15:47,440 --> 00:15:52,000
Speaker 1: sixty five, five years after Anastasia's death, he decided not

228
00:15:52,120 --> 00:15:55,720
Speaker 1: to abdicate after all. Instead, he would have a bit

229
00:15:55,880 --> 00:16:00,680
Speaker 1: of twisted fun. Ivan separated himself from the dayDay life

230
00:16:00,720 --> 00:16:05,200
Speaker 1: of Russia, left Moscow and installed himself in a private

231
00:16:05,280 --> 00:16:09,920
Speaker 1: court called the Oprichnina. The name can still strike fear

232
00:16:10,080 --> 00:16:14,760
Speaker 1: into a Russian heart. From his Oprichnina, Ivan could massacre

233
00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:18,880
Speaker 1: whomever he wanted, and who he wanted, who he had

234
00:16:18,920 --> 00:16:22,160
Speaker 1: wanted ever since he was a child, were the boyars.

235
00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:26,560
Speaker 1: Ivan is said to have sent memorials of over three

236
00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:31,960
Speaker 1: thousand executed boyars to monasteries around the country. He directed

237
00:16:32,040 --> 00:16:35,960
Speaker 1: massacres in a reign of terror that lasted seven years.

238
00:16:36,680 --> 00:16:40,680
Speaker 1: Perhaps the worst was the massacre at Novgorod, in which

239
00:16:40,720 --> 00:16:46,600
Speaker 1: his forces brutally murdered thousands for no obvious reason. Was

240
00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:52,640
Speaker 1: Ivan acting out of grief, revenge, paranoia, pure politics, the

241
00:16:52,840 --> 00:16:57,120
Speaker 1: a moral privileged syndrome of so many young princes destined

242
00:16:57,160 --> 00:16:59,760
Speaker 1: to rule from the time that they were born. We

243
00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:05,040
Speaker 1: don't know the Oprichnina's official goals and dogma were never

244
00:17:05,320 --> 00:17:10,119
Speaker 1: totally clear. Documents from the period were destroyed in a fire,

245
00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:13,520
Speaker 1: so Ivan's motives are one of many things that we

246
00:17:13,600 --> 00:17:16,560
Speaker 1: have to guess about. I do want to say this

247
00:17:17,119 --> 00:17:22,000
Speaker 1: Aprichnina has a really weird literal translation. While a lot

248
00:17:22,040 --> 00:17:25,320
Speaker 1: of sources define it as a private court, and the

249
00:17:25,359 --> 00:17:28,880
Speaker 1: Cambridge History of Russia notes that its etymology is from

250
00:17:29,240 --> 00:17:34,639
Speaker 1: opriche separate, the historian Edward L. Keenan notes that the

251
00:17:34,760 --> 00:17:39,280
Speaker 1: term actually had a specific meaning in Ivan's time. It

252
00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:43,240
Speaker 1: was the legal term for the so called widows might

253
00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:47,960
Speaker 1: that is, the widow's portion the property left over for

254
00:17:48,119 --> 00:17:52,199
Speaker 1: the widow of a deceased member of the Moscow Cavalry.

255
00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:56,239
Speaker 1: I can't emphasize enough what a bizarre term this is

256
00:17:56,520 --> 00:18:00,760
Speaker 1: for the headquarters of a violent czar of Russia. As

257
00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:05,320
Speaker 1: Keenan says, quote, Russian historians have been very reluctant to

258
00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:09,840
Speaker 1: let the term mean what it means. This reluctance is

259
00:18:09,920 --> 00:18:12,800
Speaker 1: the reason why we have to use the untranslated term

260
00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:16,960
Speaker 1: in English, much to the chagrin of undergraduate history majors

261
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:23,200
Speaker 1: end quote. I think Ivan was weirdly possibly declaring himself

262
00:18:23,320 --> 00:18:27,320
Speaker 1: a widow. He was taking the revenge he felt was

263
00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:31,080
Speaker 1: owed him as a widow. It's a strange bit of

264
00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:35,080
Speaker 1: gender bending for a guy who was so brutally using

265
00:18:35,119 --> 00:18:38,760
Speaker 1: his masculine forces as head of state, but it's also

266
00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:43,879
Speaker 1: an important insight, possibly into his mental state. To me,

267
00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:47,560
Speaker 1: it lends some credence to the story that Ivan really

268
00:18:47,560 --> 00:18:51,320
Speaker 1: did love his first wife, Anastasia, and that he really

269
00:18:51,520 --> 00:18:54,919
Speaker 1: was in mourning over her to the point of madness.

270
00:18:55,760 --> 00:18:59,879
Speaker 1: So was it the brutal, bizarreness of Ivan's political vision

271
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:03,560
Speaker 1: that would eventually cause him to quarrel with his own son,

272
00:19:04,320 --> 00:19:09,600
Speaker 1: or was it something else, because Ivan wasn't otherwise acting

273
00:19:09,920 --> 00:19:13,480
Speaker 1: like much of a morning widower. In fact, he got

274
00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:18,400
Speaker 1: married again almost immediately after Anastasia's death, to a beautiful

275
00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:23,560
Speaker 1: Cherkisian princess named Maria. Ivan was thirty one at the time,

276
00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:27,000
Speaker 1: but his bride was the same age as Anastasia had

277
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:31,760
Speaker 1: been at their wedding, only seventeen. As Taylor Swift would

278
00:19:31,840 --> 00:19:36,320
Speaker 1: later say, I'll get older, but your lovers stay my age.

279
00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:41,280
Speaker 1: The Tsaritza Maria died eight years later in fifteen sixty nine,

280
00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:46,080
Speaker 1: at age twenty five. From then on, Ivan gave his

281
00:19:46,359 --> 00:19:50,920
Speaker 1: little son no dearth of stepmothers. He married five more

282
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:56,080
Speaker 1: times between fifteen seventy and fifteen eighty. His third wife, Marfa,

283
00:19:56,200 --> 00:20:00,199
Speaker 1: died within days of their wedding. His fourth, fifth, and

284
00:20:00,440 --> 00:20:04,640
Speaker 1: seventh wives were sent away to monasteries, just like Ivan's

285
00:20:04,680 --> 00:20:08,840
Speaker 1: own father's first wife had been. So little is known

286
00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:12,800
Speaker 1: about the sixth wife that historians are not entirely in

287
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:17,000
Speaker 1: agreement that she existed at all. It was one year

288
00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:22,960
Speaker 1: into Ivan's sixth or possibly seventh marriage, November fifteen eighty one,

289
00:20:23,800 --> 00:20:26,840
Speaker 1: when his son raced into the room to find his

290
00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:32,359
Speaker 1: father in a paroxyism of violence. Tsarevich ivan Ivanovitch was

291
00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:34,680
Speaker 1: twenty seven years old at this point.

292
00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:36,280
Speaker 2: Looking at his.

293
00:20:36,320 --> 00:20:39,639
Speaker 1: Air running toward him, Ivan the Terrible must have seen

294
00:20:39,720 --> 00:20:42,960
Speaker 1: a chip off the old block. His son had already

295
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:46,360
Speaker 1: been married three times by this point, his first two

296
00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:50,920
Speaker 1: wives had already been sent off to the monastery. Someday,

297
00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:56,560
Speaker 1: like Ivan, this son would rule Russia. But Ivan Ivanovitch

298
00:20:56,800 --> 00:21:00,679
Speaker 1: wasn't running for no reason. Ivan Ivanovitch which his third

299
00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:03,480
Speaker 1: wife had been running ahead of him into that fateful

300
00:21:03,600 --> 00:21:07,080
Speaker 1: room where her father in law was. Her name was

301
00:21:07,160 --> 00:21:11,760
Speaker 1: Yolena Sharamityeva, and she was pregnant possibly with the future

302
00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:16,200
Speaker 1: heir to the throne, the continuation of Ivan's line. Her father,

303
00:21:16,359 --> 00:21:21,000
Speaker 1: the Czar, had come upon her wearing gasp, only her

304
00:21:21,119 --> 00:21:26,040
Speaker 1: underwear in the fifteen hundred. The underwear was likely even

305
00:21:26,119 --> 00:21:30,240
Speaker 1: more modest than what women wear today, but it didn't matter.

306
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:34,760
Speaker 1: Ivan had gone berserk. He lashed out at her, dealing

307
00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:37,840
Speaker 1: her a blow to the stomach, such a blow that

308
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:41,520
Speaker 1: he threatened the fetus's life the life of his own

309
00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:47,280
Speaker 1: possible grandchild. Hearing the shouts, Ivan Ivanovitch raced in to

310
00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:51,240
Speaker 1: protect his pregnant wife. You thrust my first wife into

311
00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:54,080
Speaker 1: a nunnery for no good reason, the young man yelled

312
00:21:54,080 --> 00:21:57,359
Speaker 1: at his father. He was beside himself in a frenzy.

313
00:21:57,840 --> 00:21:59,840
Speaker 1: You did the same thing to my second, and now

314
00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:02,879
Speaker 1: you strike my third, causing the sun in her womb

315
00:22:02,880 --> 00:22:08,080
Speaker 1: to perish. Hot Headed Ivan the Terrible, unmoored by pain

316
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:12,560
Speaker 1: or grief or decades of violence, or perhaps just insane,

317
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:19,480
Speaker 1: or perhaps just blindingly, thoughtlessly idiotically angry, turned on his son.

318
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,040
Speaker 1: Did the boy think he was the only one who

319
00:22:22,119 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 1: had lost a beloved wife? Did he think he was

320
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:28,080
Speaker 1: the only one who had lost children? Ivan the Terrible

321
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:32,160
Speaker 1: couldn't control his rage. He had killed so many by

322
00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:36,960
Speaker 1: this point, so thoughtlessly, so easily before. It wasn't any

323
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:41,800
Speaker 1: harder this time. The pointed staff was already in his hand.

324
00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:46,680
Speaker 1: He lunged forward, extended the rod, and struck his son

325
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:51,479
Speaker 1: in the head. Immediately, the rage drained out of Ivan.

326
00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:56,760
Speaker 1: His son, his one chosen air, lay bleeding on the floor.

327
00:22:57,359 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 2: What have I done? He must have been thinking.

328
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:02,919
Speaker 1: His little son, who had once been given a child

329
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 1: sized helmet, was now moments from death. Oh God, no,

330
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:13,480
Speaker 1: or maybe it didn't happen that way at all. That's

331
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:18,120
Speaker 1: the story that's been told down the centuries, usually spoken

332
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:21,639
Speaker 1: with barely controlled glee at all of the sordid details.

333
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:26,560
Speaker 1: The chivalrous son defending his wife, the near naked pregnant

334
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 1: daughter in law, the evil that Ivan had done to

335
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:33,199
Speaker 1: so many families over the years. Finally arriving at his

336
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:37,439
Speaker 1: own home by his own hand. It all feels ready

337
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 1: made for a legend, or a soap opera, or a

338
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:44,960
Speaker 1: painting or an episode of a podcast.

339
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 2: But is it true?

340
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:50,480
Speaker 1: As I was writing the story, I looked back to

341
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:54,800
Speaker 1: see when in August the murder had taken place. After all,

342
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:58,680
Speaker 1: Allegedly it had been so hot that the pregnant Milena

343
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 1: was lounging in her underwear. Then I remembered that this

344
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:08,640
Speaker 1: happened in November in Russia. It would have been unusual

345
00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:11,639
Speaker 1: for Ivan to rush right past his daughter in law's

346
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 1: ladies in waiting in order to be able to catch

347
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 1: her in some scandalous state in the first place. Also,

348
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:22,160
Speaker 1: by this point, Ivan was suffering from a degenerative spinal

349
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 1: condition that, by most accounts, severely inhibited his movement. Could

350
00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: he have physically overpowered his much younger, able bodied son.

351
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,919
Speaker 1: Of course, it's completely believable that a bloodthirsty Czar of

352
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: Russia who had used his position to murder so many

353
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:45,679
Speaker 1: could have conceivably murdered his own. That a man with

354
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:50,200
Speaker 1: a long history of violent instability might have been unable

355
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,400
Speaker 1: to restrain his temperer. That a man who had sent

356
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 1: countless wives off to nunneries and whose other wives had

357
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:01,399
Speaker 1: died of mysterious poisonings might to assault a pregnant woman.

358
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 1: But might the story have been something else? Was it

359
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 1: instead a political dispute, a father son disagreement over the

360
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 1: best course of military action or governance? An Ivan who

361
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: stood with a rod in his hand as his pompous son,

362
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 1: a son who had always had a father, who hadn't

363
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: been orphaned and hadn't been mistreated at the age of eight,

364
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:29,800
Speaker 1: dared to criticize him over losing the Livonian War, dared

365
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,880
Speaker 1: to say he wanted troops under his own command, as

366
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 1: though his father didn't know what he was doing. Or

367
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:40,640
Speaker 1: was the death of Ivan Ivanovitch a smaller and more

368
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: domestic and less violent tragedy. A letter from Ivan a

369
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:48,879
Speaker 1: few weeks before said that he couldn't travel because of

370
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:53,880
Speaker 1: his son's illness. Perhaps Ivan Ivanovitch was simply struck down

371
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:57,480
Speaker 1: by ill health, though I want to add, who's to

372
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:00,879
Speaker 1: say that the younger Ivan wasn't sick when his father

373
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:06,359
Speaker 1: killed him. Maybe Ivan just conveniently sped the inevitable with violence.

374
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 1: Even the letter suggesting an illness only has one dubious source.

375
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 1: One of the reasons Ivan's reign is so fascinating is

376
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: that most of the primary documents have been destroyed. We

377
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: will never know what happened on that night between the

378
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 1: young heir and his father, but what we do know

379
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: is that Ivan Ivanovitch, the only competent successor to Ivan

380
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:37,919
Speaker 1: the Terrible's enormous legacy was dead. A lot happened in

381
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:41,160
Speaker 1: Russia after the death of the air but most important

382
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 1: for our story, just two and a half years after

383
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: the death of his son, Ivan the Terrible died too.

384
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 1: His less competent younger son, Ivanovitch's younger brother, Fyodor, took over.

385
00:26:55,520 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: In fifteen ninety eight. At forty one, Feodor died childless,

386
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: ending the Ruric dynasty after twenty one generations. Fyodor's death

387
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: threw Russia into the Infamous Time of Troubles, a violent

388
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:15,639
Speaker 1: power struggle that lasted fifteen years and saw a famine

389
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: that killed nearly a third of population that time, concluded

390
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: in sixteen thirteen with the instatement of the Romanov dynasty,

391
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: which would go on to include Catherine the Great and

392
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 1: continue until the Bolshevik Revolution in nineteen seventeen, when the

393
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:39,120
Speaker 1: last Romanov rulers were unseated and all of the dynasty's

394
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 1: heirs were killed, including that young girl with the same

395
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 1: name as Ivan the Terrible's beloved first wife, Anastasia. But

396
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 1: Ivan's death wasn't the end of Ivan's legacy. Even the

397
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 1: end of the Russian monarchy wasn't the end of his legacy.

398
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:01,680
Speaker 1: Three hundred years after Ivan's death. In eighteen eighty five,

399
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: a Russian painting at the Itinerant exhibition caused such a

400
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 1: stir that the police needed to be called in. The

401
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 1: painting was Ivan the Terrible and his Son Ivan, by

402
00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 1: the contemporary master Ilia Rippine. In nineteen thirteen, the painting

403
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 1: was vandalized for the first time, after which, legend has it,

404
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: the curator was so mad with himself for not protecting

405
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:33,479
Speaker 1: the painting that he threw himself under a train. Is

406
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:35,440
Speaker 1: the story true? Who knows?

407
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:36,159
Speaker 2: It?

408
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 1: Strikes me as appealingly Russian, straight out of Anna Karenina.

409
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 2: What is true? Is this?

410
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: The story of Ivan and his Son has become a

411
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 1: kind of political lightning rod, a case study in controlling

412
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: a narrative. It's striking that both Stalin and Putin have

413
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 1: tried to rehabilitate Ivan's image, as if he were just

414
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 1: a strong masculine leader doing what needed to be done

415
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 1: in a difficult role. Stalin even edited history books to

416
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 1: be gentler towards Ivan. It's striking that in twenty fifteen

417
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: a museum near the Kremlin put on a popular exhibition

418
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: that basically renamed Ivan the Terrible, Ivan the not so Bad,

419
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: And it's striking that in twenty eighteen a man came

420
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 1: to the museum with no particular plan, but of all

421
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 1: the paintings in the gallery, when he held the metal

422
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: rod of the security poll in his hand, he chose

423
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 1: to lunge and strike at just that one. That's the

424
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 1: story of the philocidal end of Ivan the Terrible's family dynasty.

425
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 1: But stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear

426
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 1: about but one last way the famous painting has been

427
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 1: recreated today. Ill European's infamous painting showed up again recently

428
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: in a pretty suddenly relevant piece of pop culture, Servant

429
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: of the People, a TV comedy starring Vladimir Zelensky, the

430
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:31,959
Speaker 1: current President of Ukraine. In the show, Zelensky played the

431
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: President of Ukraine for three seasons before his actual election.

432
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: But that's not where the uncanniness ends. In the season

433
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 1: one finale, he meets a fantastical Ivan the Terrible, all

434
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 1: dressed up in sixteenth century garb. Zelensky's character and Ivan argue,

435
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: Russia will come free you, says Ivan. Zelensky says Ukraine

436
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 1: doesn't need freeing by the Russians. It wants to join Europe.

437
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 1: Ivan gets confused, then upset, then angry. Finally, in a

438
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: fit of rage, he pushes Zelenski, who falls arms played,

439
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 1: and then, in a move right out of art history,

440
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: Ivan iiO falls to his knees, gathers a limp Zelensky

441
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:22,239
Speaker 1: in his arms, opens his eyes wide, and howls. It

442
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 1: is an unmistakable exact replica of the famous painting. If

443
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 1: you have Netflix, you can see it in the show

444
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: Servant of the People, season one, episode twenty three, at

445
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: about the eight minute twenty four second mark. It's probably

446
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 1: relevant to pause here and say that a European, although

447
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 1: widely known as perhaps the greatest painter in the Russian

448
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: National School of Art, was actually Ukrainian and in servant

449
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 1: of the People's version of the painting, Zelenski and Ukraine

450
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 1: are cast as the Sun killed by the murderous leader

451
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: of Russia, all the way back in twenty fifteen, seven

452
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: years before the tragic current war happening today. Noble Blood

453
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild

454
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 1: from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz.

455
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, Hannah'swick, Mira Hayward,

456
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 1: Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is produced by

457
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: rema Il Kayali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive

458
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more

459
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

460
00:32:56,120 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. The Doctor