Question by Nick V: How did Ivan IV get to be tsar?
Since he was the first,and yet I can’t find anything about this.
Answers and Views:
Answer by Sybaris
Ivan (1530-1584) was the first child of Grand Prince Vasily III of Muscovy (the official name of the Russian state at that time) and his second wife, Elena Glinskaya. Vasily died in 1533, leaving Ivan fatherless and nominally grand prince. Although Elena became regent, her power was continually challenged by the boyars (nobles). She died suddenly in 1538, apparently from poisoning, leaving eight-year-old Ivan an orphan. Until Ivan was 17, when he was officially crowned, feuding boyars fought each other for control of Muscovy.
In 1547 the head of the Russian Orthodox Church arranged an elaborate coronation for Ivan that added the title tsar (from the Roman imperial title caesar) to the traditional title of grand prince. Ivan was the first Russian prince to take that title, which was intended to convey the exalted image of the ruler as the representative of God. The idea that a Russian monarch derived the right to rule directly from God was developed in the early 1500s by the Russian Orthodox abbot Joseph of Volokolamsk, who advocated the divine right of kings.
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