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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
The seventeenth-century chronicles record an interesting event under the year 1574:
At that time Tsar Ivan Vasil'evich enthroned Simeon Bekbulatovich as tsar in Moscow and crowned him with the crown of the tsars, and called himself [simply] Ivan of Moscow; he left the city and lived in Petrovka. All the offices of tsardom he passed to Simeon, and himself rode simply, like a boyar with shafts, and whenever he comes to Tsar Simeon, he sits at a distance from the Tsar’s place, together with the boyars.
That such an event did in fact take place, we have the testimony of contemporary witnesses, the English envoy Danyell Silvester and the imperial envoy Daniel Printz a Bucchau, as well as official documents which have been preserved from the time of Simeon’s reign as tsar.
1 Sokrashchennyi Vremennik do i6gig.,” Dokumenty po istorii XV-XVIl w. (Moscow, 1955), p. 148 (“Materialy po istorii SSSR,” Vol. II).
2 Bogoushevsky, N. C. de, “The English in Muscovy during the sixteenth century,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, VII (London, 1878), 106–8.Google Scholar
3 Printz, Moscoviae ortus et progressus (first published in 1668); Russian translation by I. A. Tikhomirov in Chteniia v obschestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh (Moscow), No. 3-4. 1876, p. 29 (subsequent citations of Printz refer to the Russian translation).
4 On these documents see Sadikov, P. A., Ocherki po istorii oprichniny (Moscow, 1950), pp. 117; 129Google Scholar; 145 and n. 1; 164; 376, n. 3; 380, n. 1.
5 Poslaniia Ivana Groznogo, ed. D. S. Likhachev and la. S. Lur'e (Moscow and Leningrad, 1951), p. 195.
6 Printz, p. 29.
7 Sadikov presents all hitherto existing views concerning the episode on pp. 41-45 and 71-72 of his monograph cited in note 4 above.
8 See two recent monographs by Zimin, A. A. : Reformy Ivana Groznogo (Moscow, 1960)Google Scholar and Oprichnina Ivana Groznogo (until 1572) (Moscow, 1964).
9 Poslaniia Ivana Groznogo, p. 195.
10 Sadikov, p. 32.
11 Bogoushevsky, p. 106; Printz, p. 29.
12 On Elena Glinskaia's genealogy see Jozef, Wolff, Kniaziowie Litewsko-ruscy od konca czternastego wieku (Warsaw, 1895), PP. 77–86.Google Scholar
13 See, for example, Herberstein, Siegismund zu, Reise zu den Moskowitern 1526, ed. Traudl Seifert (Munich, 1966), pp. 81–82 Google Scholar. For discussion of this interesting problem see W., Barthold, Istoriia izucheniia Vostoka v Europe i Rossii (2d ed.; Leningrad, 1925), p. 172 Google Scholar; and G., Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia (New Haven, 1953), p. 1953 Google Scholar. In this connection one piece of information given by Printz deserves our special attention. He writes that the rebelling Muscovites planned to dethrone Ivan the Terrible and invite as their ruler the Crimean khan (Printz, p. 22).
14 On Simeon's genealogy see Vel'iaminov-Zernov, V. V., Izsledovaniia o kasimovskikh tsariahh i tsarevichakh, II (St. Petersburg, 1864), 9–11.Google Scholar
15 On Simeon's activity see Lileev, N. V., Simeon Bekbulatovich khan Kasimovskii, velikii kniaz’ vseia Rusi, vposledstvii velikii kniaz’ Tverskoi, ij6y-i6i6 gg. : Istoricheskii ocherk (Tver, 1891), pp. 1–123 Google Scholar; and Vel'iaminov-Zernov, pp. 1-26.
16 Safargaliev, “Razpad Zolotoi Ordy,” in Mordovskii Gosudarstvennyi universitet, Uchenye zapiski, II (Saransk, 1960), 255-57.
17 On genealogical problems of this line see Tiesenhausen, W. de, ed. and trans., Sbornik materialov otnosiashchikhsia k istorii Zolotoi Ordy, II (Moscow and Leningrad, 1941), pp. 59–63.Google Scholar
18 Dukhovnye i dogovornye gramoty velikikh i udel'nykh kniazei XIV-XV w., ed. S. V. Bakhrushin and L. V. Cherepnin (Moscow and Leningrad, 1950), p. 365.
19 On the special position of the Chronograph of 1512 in Muscovite historiography see Hildegard Schaeder, Moskow das dritte Rom (2d ed.; Darmstadt, 1963), pp. 65-81.
20 See D'iakonov, M., Ocherki obshchestvennogo i gosudarstvennogo stroia drevnei Rusi (4th ed.; St. Petersburg, 1912), p. 388.Google Scholar
21 It should be remembered that since 1267 the metropolitans of Kiev had concurrently acknowledged two sovereigns : the Byzantine emperor and the khaghan of the Golden Horde.
22 For more on this see Priselkov, M. D., Istoriia russkogo letopisaniia XI-XV w. (Leningrad, 1940), pp. 128–64.Google Scholar
23 E., Golubinskii, Istoriia russkoi tserkvi, Vol. II, Part 1 (Moscow, 1900)Google Scholar, passim, esp. pp. 5*6, 532.
24 On this see Moshin, V, “O periodizatsii russko-iuzhnoslavianskikh literaturnykh sviazei X-XV w.,” Russkaia literdtura XI-XVIII vekov sredi slavianskikh literatur (Moscow, 1963), pp. 97–106 Google Scholar; and Schaeder, pp. 1-51.
25 Schaeder, pp. 112-16.
26 Ibid., pp. 198-215.
27 On the role of trade in the Golden Horde see Vernadsky, pp. 342-44.
28 Quoted after Barthold, p. 176.
29 Schaeder, pp. 93-103.
30 One cannot deny a sense of humor to the Muscovites in calling the Uzbek hat (see Vernadsky, p. 386) the hat of Monomakh.
31 See opinious expressed by Herberstein, pp. 80-84, and Fletcher, Giles (1591), Of the Russe Commonwealth (Cambridge, Mass., 1966)Google Scholar, 19 a.b. See also Schaeder, pp. 104-12.
32 The long official title of the first Muscovite tsar (Ivan the Terrible)—as represented on the tsar's great seal—carries the word “tsar” only with regard to Kazan and Astrakhan; see E. I., Kamentseva and N. V., Ustiugov, Russkaia sfragistika i geral'dika (Moscow, 1963), p. 115 Google Scholar
33 Golubinskii, II, Part 2 (Moscow, 1911), 23.
