Ivan the Terrible in Russian Historical Memory since 1991
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Tsar Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV, 1533-1584) is one of the most controversial rulers in Russian history, infamous for his cruelty. He was the first Russian ruler to use mass terror as a political instrument, and the only Russian ruler to do so before Stalin. Comparisons of Ivan to Stalin only exacerbated the politicization of his image. Russians have never agreed on his role in Russian history, but his reign is too important to ignore. Since the abolition of censorship in 1991 professional historians and amateurs have grappled with this problem. Some authors have manipulated that image to serve political and cultural agendas. This book explores Russia’s contradictory historical memory of Ivan in scholarly, pedagogical and political publications.
“Halperin’s book presents a very detailed analysis of the historiography of a polemical and politicized image of the Tsar Ivan the Terrible in Russia. He employs numerous historical sources from a variety of fields in his analysis and provides a far more nuanced portrayal of Ivan the Terrible than is found in previous works. This work is a valuable source for any researcher who deals with Ivan the Terrible and his legacy in any period of Russian history.”
– Ayse Dietrich, Middle East Technical University, Department of History and Eurasian Studies, International Journal of Russian Studies
“Halperin provides a comprehensive account of the image of Ivan the Terrible in today’s Russia, scholarly research, popular books, school textbooks, and film. With an expert hand he guides the reader through learned discussions and bizarre social movements alike. The result is a fascinating story that is highly informative and often entertaining about a major part of Russia’s conception of its past.”
—Paul Bushkovitch, Reuben Post Halleck Professor of History, Yale University
“In this extraordinarily capacious survey of contemporary treatments of Ivan the Terrible, Halperin expertly describes and critiques the field of competing stances on this figure. Successive chapters examine apologists who have sought to canonize Ivan as a saint or to found a ‘new oprichnina’ on the model of his legendarily violent servitors, critics who represent Ivan as an enthroned maniac and precursor of Stalinist violence, historiography, film, popular history, and much else. As Halperin shows, the historical image of Ivan, propelled by prior traditions and catalyzed by post-Soviet social transformations, has become a central bell weather in Russian historical culture. Halperin’s book makes an important contribution to post-Soviet history and memory studies.”
—Kevin M. F. Platt, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania
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