By: Sneha Sagi
Objective: Describe the concept of “Gathering of Land”
Who?
What happen?
- The grand prince of Moscow
- Known as Ivan the Great (reigned 1462- 1505)
What happen?
- He refused to acknowledge the Khan's rule and supremacy. In effect he declared Russian Independence from Mongol rule. This dramatic gesture was a turning point in Russian History.
- Soon the policy of "gathering the Russian land" was started, Princes of Moscow started to expand their holdings from their base around the small town of Moscow. They acquired new territories by war, marriage, and even through purchase.
- The territorial acquisitions tripled in size as he brought Russian-speaking people under his rule.
- Novgorod was his most important addition to his territories. It was a prosperous trading city and a hub of the lucrative fur trade. Before absorbed into his state Novgorod governed its own affairs through a council. The city's merchants had strong ties to Poland and Lithuania which were to the West. Ivan didn't want his neighbors to get powerful so he ended the city's independence even after an uprising in 1478.
- To strengthen his hold over his territorial acquisitions he recruited peasants and offered then freedom to settle on recently conquered lands. These people helped expand the empire. They were know as cossacks which means free men in Turkish.
- Examples- In the steepelands in the South, the cossacks conquered the Volga River valley and moved across the Ural Mountains into Siberia.
^Modern day Moscow
Influence from the Byzantine
- He drew inspiration while expanding the boundaries of the Muscovite state and providing a strong bureaucracy from the Byzantine Empire.
- He wanted to use the Byzantine legacy for his own purposes. He did so by marrying Sophia Palaeologus who was the niece of the last Byzantine emperor.
- He called himself tsar otherwise known as czar, this was a Russianized form of the term caesar. Caesar was a term the Byzantine rulers used to show imperial status.
- He also used the Byzantine double-headed eagle as the symbol of his authority and adopted the pomp to glorify his capital. He also rebuild the Kremlin, which was a fortress at the center of Moscow, under the influence of his wife.
- Like Byzantine Emperors, Ivan III ruled as both the head of the state and the head if the church. He had absolute rule. He claimed to derive his authority directly from God. By establishing this claim, he sometimes put the secular government at odds with organized religions because it made people believe that the authority of the ruler was greater than the authority of the church. There was usually never any conflict though. As the empire grew so did the influences of the Russian Orthodox church. Both worked harmoniously together, the Orthodox clergy agreed that God appointed the tsar to rule.
- Orthodox monks referred to Moscow as the "third Rome," the first Rome was conquered by Germanic invaders and the second Rome was toppled by the Ottoman Turks.
^Byzantine Empire
Start to the Times of Trouble
- The tsarist court soon encountered opposition to its policies towards centralization and expansion. The biggest opponents were the powerful boyars. Boyars are like lords. The rulers of minor principalities who were facing absorption into the Muscovite state were also opponents.
- Resistance climaxed tremendously during the reign of Ivan II's grandson, Ivan IV. He was soon known as Ivan the Terrible for his response to the situation and his cruelty.
For more information
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aqHhk1iXno