“The Exceptional Tyrant: Ivan the Terrible”

Even historians who disagree on the nature of Muscovite political culture agree that Tsar Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV) (b. 1530, r. 1533–1584) was a tyrant, either as the personification of Muscovite authoritarianism or an exception to the Muscovite political culture of consensus. This article examines Ivan IV’s categorization as a tyrant within the context of which rulers are designated tyrants in world and Russian history; the changing meaning of the concept of “tyrant;” and the typologies of tyrants proposed by political scientists. Despite the often-subjective nature of applications of the term “tyrant,” historical studies and political science analyses offer valuable insights into the problem of Ivan IV as a tyrant. The ubiquity of tyrants impugns the credibility of arguing that Ivan IV was an exception as the only tyrant in Muscovite history. The variety of “tyrannical” behavior undermines the notion that to be a Russian tyrant a ruler had to imitate Ivan IV’s version of a tyrant, which drew upon his exceptionally charismatic and semiotic actions. The types of tyrant suggest that the supposed “continuity” of tyrants in Russian history may obscure more significant differences than similarities among Ivan IV’s successors. Rather than fixate on whether Ivan IV “was” or “was not” a tyrant, it is more productive to focus on Ivan IV’s behaviour as sometimes that of a tyrant, and sometimes not, and to explore the different perceptions of Ivan IV as a tyrant by different segments of Muscovite society, defined geographically or socially.