480 years ago, on April 4, 1538, the Grand Russian Princess Elena Glinskaya, wife of Vasily III and mother of Ivan Vasilyevich, suddenly died. The boyar rule, difficult for the Russian state, began.
Elena Glinskaya
The daughter of Prince Vasily Lvovich from the Lithuanian family of the Glinskys and his wife Anna Yakshich, who was from Serbia, the daughter of a Serbian governor. She was born around 1508 (the exact date of birth is not known).
Elena's uncle, Prince Mikhail Lvovich, was a major statesman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia. After the defeat of the Glinsky rebellion, he fled with his relatives to Moscow. Among the refugees was young Elena. According to legend, the Glinskys descended from Mamai, "whom Dmitry Ivanovich beat on the Don." Before the exile, the Glinskys owned cities and lands in the territory of the present Left-bank Ukraine.
In 1526, Elena became the second wife of Vasily III, Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus'. By his first marriage, he was married to Solomonia from the ancient and noble family of the Saburovs. But the sovereign decided to divorce her, because of her infertility. After twenty years of marriage, Solomonia never gave birth. Basil was very concerned about this fact, as he opposed his brothers or their possible sons becoming contenders for the throne. The decision to divorce was supported by the Boyar Duma and part of the clergy.
In 1525, with the approval of Metropolitan Daniel, Vasily III divorced Solomonia. Such a divorce with the forced exile of the wife to the monastery was the first in Rus'. In November 1525, Solomonia was tonsured at the Moscow Mother of God-Nativity Monastery under the name Sophia. Later, Solomonia was transferred to the Intercession Monastery in the city of Suzdal, which she had previously supported as a Grand Duchess. There is a legend that Solomonia was pregnant during the tonsure and already in the monastery she gave birth to a boy, George.
Vasily chose Elena Glinskaya as his wife, not only political reasons. According to historians, the swiftness of the divorce and the wedding itself testified that the Russian sovereign liked the young princess very much. Chronicles are called the only reason, according to which Grand Duke chose Elena: "beauty for the sake of her face and good looks." The prince fell in love with a young and intelligent beauty. Elena, in comparison with Solomonia, according to the Moscow boyars, was rootless. Among Elena's opponents were Simeon Kurbsky and relatives of the Grand Duchess Solomonia - the Saburovs, the Godunovs. But she was beautiful, young, brought up in a European way, well educated (she knew German and Polish languages, spoke and wrote in Latin), which sharply stood out from the environment of Russian women. For the sake of a beautiful young wife, Prince Vasily himself “younger”, even shaved his beard (which was not welcomed in Rus' then). In 1530, the long-awaited son Ivan (in the future - Ivan the Terrible) was born to the princely couple, and later the son Yuri, who, as it turned out later, was sickly.
It is worth noting that in Rus' already during this period an elite opposition was taking shape to the course of sovereigns to strengthen autocratic power. Vasily III continued the line of his father Ivan III to strengthen the central (autocratic) power. Not everyone liked it. The top of the Russian aristocracy was Shuisky, Kurbsky, Kubensky, Rostov, Mikulinsky, Vorotynsky and others. Until relatively recently, their ancestors were independent princes - Suzdal, Yaroslavl, Rostov, Tver, etc. The rulers of independent states. Moreover, they came from the older branches of the Rurik family, and the Moscow grand dukes - from the younger. There were also persons related by kinship with the Grand Duke himself. So, a noble defector from Lithuania, Prince Belsky, Ivan III married his sister's daughter; the baptized Kazan prince Peter was married to the sister of Vasily III, and Mstislavsky, a native of Lithuania, was married to his niece. The Grand Duke also had four brothers: Yuri Dmitrovsky, Simeon Kaluga, Dmitry Uglichsky and Andrey Staritsky. According to the will of Ivan III, they received specific principalities. Two of them, Simeon and Dmitry, by the 1520s. left for another world, but Yuri and Andrei retained vast possessions, their own courts and troops. As the closest relatives of the sovereign, they were forgiven what was not forgiven to others. However, they were dissatisfied, they wanted more - power, land, wealth. If Tsar Vasily had been left without an heir, then Yuri Dmitrovsky or Andrey Staritsky would have taken the Moscow throne.
Many representatives of the aristocracy considered their position to be not much lower than the sovereign, they were dissatisfied with the current situation, they were not averse to “correcting” it. They behaved independently, often failed the instructions of the sovereign. But the high position allowed them to avoid the deserved punishment. The main temptation for a number of representatives of the aristocracy was a return to the former order of feudal fragmentation or to introduce orders similar to the Polish or Lithuanian ones. There, the magnates could dictate their will to the monarchs and rule uncontrollably in their domains. They envied the willfulness and independence of the Polish-Lithuanian aristocracy, their "freedoms". It is clear that the western neighbors of Rus' and Rome tried to use these sentiments to subjugate the Russian land, destroy the "Orthodox heresy" and seize Russian wealth. That is, the situation was rather shaky. Illness, death, the absence of an heir could immediately destroy the autocracy and the centralized state that was taking shape in Rus', serve as the beginning of internecine strife and unrest. And all this in very difficult foreign policy conditions, when Rus' was surrounded by strong enemies in all strategic directions.
Vasily severely suppressed the tendencies towards the renewal of the fragmentation of Rus'. He finally deprived Pskov of independence. The reason was the complaints of the local poor about the oppression of the nobility and the rich, who crushed the veche democracy. In turn, the local nobility and merchants complained about the Grand Duke's governor. Vasily ordered to cancel the veche. The veche bell was removed and sent to Novgorod. Vasily arrived in Pskov and treated him in the same way as his father did with the Novgorod Republic in 1478. 300 of the most noble families of the city were resettled in Moscow lands, and their villages were given to Moscow service people.
Then came the turn of the Ryazan land. Ryazan has long been listed as Moscow's "handmaids". There, under the young prince Ivan, his mother ruled, who obeyed Moscow and received her support. But the boy grew up and decided to enter into an alliance with the Crimean Khanate. This led to a new civil strife, the collapse of the defensive system in the south, opened the way for the Crimean robbers into the depths of Rus'. In 1517, Vasily called to Moscow Ryazan prince Ivan Ivanovich and ordered him to be taken into custody. They guarded him poorly, so he fled to Lithuania. Ryazan inheritance was liquidated.
In 1523, Vasily Shemyakin, the specific prince of Seversk, was arrested, caught in a secret connection and correspondence with Lithuania. For various reasons, Chernigov, Rylsk and Starodub princes were deprived of their sovereign rights. The processes of centralization of the Russian state were natural, but increased the number of those dissatisfied with Moscow's policies. Opposition moods persisted in Novgorod and Pskov, despite the defeat of the local boyars. The local nobility, including the new one, and the merchants remembered the former "freedoms". Foreigners sought connections with them, tried to use them to their advantage.
Sovereign Vasily and the people who supported him, including part of the clergy, decided to take emergency measures in order to maintain autocratic power and not give the throne to Yuri or Andrei. Hence such an extraordinary and unprecedented decision - a divorce from his wife.
Vasily's family happiness was short-lived; in the fall of 1533, the sovereign caught a cold while hunting and fell seriously ill. On his deathbed, he blessed his son Ivan for a great reign and handed him the "scepter of great Rus'", and he ordered his "wife Olena with boyar advice" "to hold the state under his son until his son matures." Obviously, Vasily was very much afraid for the fate of his wife and son. Before his death, he forced the brothers to repeat the oath to Prince Ivan (the first time he took an oath from them in 1531). He urged the boyars to "keep watchful" of his son and state. He especially asked Mikhail Glinsky for the child and Elena "to shed her blood." Vasily felt a threat to his son and autocracy.
1526 Vasily III, Grand Duke of Moscow, introduces his bride, Elena Glinskaya, into the palace. Painting by Claudius Lebedev
Helena's reign
The regency council under the child-sovereign included Andrei Staritsky, boyar Zakharyin-Yuriev, princes Mikhail Glinsky, Vasily and Ivan Shuisky, Mikhail Vorontsov and governor Tuchkov. Obviously, Emperor Vasily wanted to unite representatives of various boyar clans in the council. However, intrigue began almost immediately.
The first conspiracy was organized by Yuri Dmitrovsky. Vasily did not trust his brother, an accomplice in the old Shuisky conspiracy, and did not even include him in the regency council. The conspirators believed that the oath to the Grand Duke was invalid. Andrei Shuisky joined the conspiracy. But the plot was exposed. At the beginning of 1534, Prince Yuri with his boyars and Andrei Shuisky were arrested. Two years later he died in prison, his lot was liquidated. The boyars did not protest against the imprisonment of their brother, as did his brother Andrey Staritsky. He was on the winning side. Now the role of the closest candidate for the throne passed to him. Moreover, he still wanted to profit at the expense of his brother's lot. However, Elena refused to grant his request. In compensation gave to Andrey a large number of gifts.
We know little about Elena Glinskaya. The chroniclers gave extremely sparse descriptions of Russian figures, usually recording only events. From them we know only about the beauty of the princess. But the facts of her reign indicate that she was also very smart. It is not surprising that she became the first real ruler of the Russian state after Grand Duchess Olga. Probably, Grand Duke Vasily, dying, did not think about such a possibility. Therefore, he tried to strengthen his wife and son with regents, relatives and the church. But she became a real ruler and handled the burden of power quite well. The hostile relations that developed between the regency council and the Boyar Duma, as well as various boyar groups, played in its favor. The Duma was a legal, well-established body, and the boyars painfully accepted the rise of the seven guardian regents appointed at the bedside of the dying. Helena played on these contradictions by pursuing her decisions.
In addition, the princess found herself a reliable military support. Her favorite was Ivan Fedorovich Ovchina Telepnev-Obolensky. An experienced commander who distinguished himself in battles with Lithuania, Crimea and Kazan. So, in 1530, Prince Obolensky was appointed the first governor of the regiment of the right hand in the equestrian army during a campaign against the Kazan Khanate under the command of the boyar Prince Mikhail Glinsky. He punched a hole in the city wall, the first to burst into the suburbs of the capital of the khanate. Only the criminal inaction of the chief governors saved Kazan from falling. In 1533, during the next Crimean invasion, Prince Telepnev-Obolensky once again distinguished himself and the Grand Duke granted him the highest rank of equestrian and sent him to the province in Kolomna. His sister Agrippina (Agrafena) Chelyadnina became the mother (teacher) of Prince Ivan (the future tsar). After the death of the Grand Duke, the still young princess and the dashing commander, who always commanded the advanced units in the war, was in the thick of things, agreed.
Interestingly, the mother of Ivan the Terrible, as well as himself, tried harder to denigrate foreigners, domestic Western liberals, starting with the Freemason-historian Karamzin. They accused Yuri Dmitrovsky and Andrey Staritsky of persecuting "innocent" people. They inflated the "criminal relationship" of Elena with Prince Ivan Fedorovich. However, in that era, this connection was not "criminal." The woman, a widow, needed support and help, and received it. Therefore, the church, which at that time was not afraid to say its word, did not protest. In addition, there is no evidence that the empress gave her favorite fiefdoms, awards and money. Moreover, Obolensky did not even become the chief governor. He conceded the command of the representative of the oldest and most noble families, as it was, and was content with the secondary position of the commander of the advanced regiment.
Regency of Elena Glinskaya
After the death at the beginning of the winter of 1533, Prince Vasily III, power passes to his little son Ivan. However, the actual ruler of the state was the active and wise mother of the three-year-old Ivan the Fourth, Elena Glinskaya, together with her favorite, Prince Telepnev-Obolshensky.
During the period of the Glinskaya regency, the main standard-bearers of the boyar reaction were the brothers of Vasily the Third - princes Andrei Ivanovich Staritsky and Yuri Ivanovich Dmitrovsky, who sought to take advantage of the weakening of the centralization of the state in order to strengthen their own positions in the specific principalities. However, the government headed by Elena Glinskaya took certain measures against them. Already a week after the death of Vasily the Third, Yuri was thrown into prison, where he died. Andrei Ivanovich tried to organize a rebellion in 1537, but was also captured by the governors of Glinskaya. He also died in prison like his brother.
Regularly fighting the princely opposition, the Glinskaya government continued to centralize the administrative apparatus. In this policy, this direction found its support in wide circles of the nobility, with the support of many cities. The reduction of the privileges of spiritual feudal lords also continued. As a result of the monetary reform, carried out from 1535 to 1538, a common monetary system was established in the state.
The rapidly growing role of cities as centers of developing trade, as well as the need to defend the state from third-party attacks, was fully reflected domestic politics Elena Glinskaya, which was based on urban planning. The most populated territory of Moscow during this period was surrounded by stone. During 1534-1538, the construction of stone buildings in many large Russian cities also unfolded.
Historians also note the fact that at the end of the reign of Elena Glinskaya, the so-called lip reform began, and the first lip letters date back to 1539. The essence of this reform was reduced to the fact that the most important criminal cases that concerned "slave people" were now removed from the order of volosts and governors and transferred to the county nobility, whose elected representatives were at the head of local punitive bodies.
This reform was carried out not throughout the country, but in some districts or "lips" on the complaints of the local nobility or townspeople.
The regency of Elena Glinskaya under her son, Ivan the Terrible, lasted from 1533 to 1538. During this time, she managed to carry out several significant reforms, strengthen autocratic power and led the actions of the Russian troops in the war with Lithuania (1534-1537).
Elena Glinskaya was the second wife of Prince Vasily 3, whom he died in 1533. The death of the ruler turned out to be very mysterious: the prince received a leg wound while hunting, blood poisoning began, which they could no longer stop. Before his death, Vasily 3 left the regency council of trustees (a seven-member commission), consisting of the 7 most influential boyars of Russia. The Council was supposed to rule until the age of Ivan the Terrible. It is important to note here that the Council was supposed to rule, and not Glinskaya, whom Vasily 3 married, as chronicles say, only because of her beauty. However, it was this woman who took power in Russia into her own hands for 5 years.
At the time of his father's death, Ivan the Terrible was 3 years old. This meant that the Regency Council had to actually lead the country for 12 years. However, the Council split and a struggle for sole power began within it. Elena Glinskaya, the mother of Ivan 4, won this fight.
Elimination of rivals
The main task at the initial stage of Glinskaya's regency was to eliminate any competitors who could encroach on the legitimacy of her son's power. These were both relatives of Vasily 3 and influential boyars. Basically, the struggle for power was fought between three groups of boyar families: Glinsky, Shuisky and Belsky. However, at the initial stage, the specific princes posed a great danger.
The elimination of possible rivals in the struggle for power for Elena Glinskaya was reduced to the fight against:
- Prince Yuri Dmitrovsky. Before the birth of Ivan the Terrible, it was he who was considered the successor to the Grand Duke's throne. The boyars from the seventh commission feared that Yuri would declare his rights to the throne of Moscow, so Ivan 4 was crowned in just 2 days. In December 1533, Yuri Dmitrovsky was taken into custody. In 1536 he died of starvation.
- Mikhail Glinsky, uncle of Elena Glinsky. It is believed that he did not get along with Obolensky, Elena's favorite, after which he entered into a conspiracy with the Belskys against his niece. In 1534 Mikhail was arrested. In the same year he died in custody. The Belskys began to lose their influence.
- Prince Andrei Staritsky, younger brother of Ivan 3 and Yuri Dmitrovsky. After the death of Yuri in 1536, Andrei Staritsky fled from Staritsa. He planned to raise an army to fight the boyars who had killed his brother. Obolensky persuaded him to come to Moscow and negotiate with Elena Glinskaya. There Andrei was arrested in 1537, accused of rebellion and executed in December 1537.
The regency of Elena Glinskaya thus eliminated all the main competitors in the struggle for power. A young girl who was not taken seriously by anyone, quite skillfully ruled the country, protecting her son.
Elena Glinskaya understood that it was necessary to continue the policy of her husband, strengthening the autocratic power, depriving the specific principalities of any independence. In general, the internal policy of Elena Glinskaya during her regency consists of 3 directions:
- Reforms to strengthen the central government. Objectively, these reforms made Rus' stronger.
- Standardization of all measures. Imagine what a mess it was when each principality had its own measures.
- Building new cities and strengthening the defenses of old ones. First of all, Moscow was fortified, where the stone walls of Kitay-gorod were built. New cities were built in the south and west. The largest cities: Sebezh, Pronik, Balakhna and others.
| Name and date of the event | Reasons for holding | The essence of the reform | Significance and consequences |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monetary reform (1535) | Strengthening the central government. Limitation of the power of specific principalities. |
Specific principalities were forbidden to mint money. A "Mint" was created in Moscow, which minted money for the whole of Rus'. |
The specific principalities lost their economic independence and became heavily dependent on Moscow. |
| Lip reform (1537) | Limiting the power of governors |
The position was introduced labial warden, who was in charge of criminal cases in the region. |
The governors lost their power, there was less arbitrariness. |
Monetary reform
The monetary reform forbade the specific principalities to mint their own money. During the period of fragmentation, each principality issued its own money. After 1535, such money was recognized as "spoiled" and withdrawn from circulation. A "Mint" was created in Moscow, which minted a single money for Rus'. On the reverse side of this money was written "The Grand Duke of All Rus', Ivan."
The monetary unit in Rus' was the ruble, consisting of 100 kopecks. In everyday life, there were mainly 3 units of money:
- Kopek. This is the largest monetary form in Rus'. The coin depicted a horseman with a spear. Hence the name.
- Money = 0.5 kopecks.
- Polushka = 0.25 kopecks.
Other monetary names of this era: half (50 kopecks), hryvnia (10 kopecks), altyn (3 kopecks). A unified system of measures (length, weight) was also introduced. All this was done to streamline the issuance of money, which ultimately strengthened the central government in Russia.
lip reform
In times of specific fragmentation, the governors had unlimited power. IN major cities princes ruled, and in small towns and villages - governors. Therefore, people often suffered from their arbitrariness. Elena Glinskaya decided to limit the power of the governors, shifting their key functions to other people. For these purposes, the post of labial headman was introduced, who received judicial functions and partly voivodship functions.
Theoretically, it was assumed that the noblemen and black-haired peasants should be the headmen. In reality, these positions were occupied exclusively by local boyars and their children. This transferred the fullness of power from the hands of the governors to the hands of the boyars. However, the boyars-headmen controlled the lands from which they fed themselves, so the arbitrariness became much less.
Foreign policy
Foreign policy under the reign of Elena Glinskaya, she completely continued the policy of her husband, Vasily 3. During the years of her reign, friendly relations with Moldova, Sweden, the princes of the Astrakhan and Nogai khanates were strengthened, a peace treaty was signed with Livonia.
The most important event of the period of Glinskaya's regency was the war with Poland and Lithuania in 1534-1537. Taking advantage of the death of Vasily 3, and seeing the struggle of boyar groups for power, the Polish king and the Lithuanian prince declared war on Russia in September 1534. Lithuanian troops managed to capture Gomel and Starodub, after which they linked up in the siege of Chernigov. The Russian army advanced on enemy territory to Volno, simultaneously founding 2 border cities of Zavolochye and Sebezh. The advance of the Russian army deep into Lithuania forced Sigismund 1 to start peace negotiations. It is obvious that the calculation of the weakness of Elena and the boyar families in the management of Russia did not materialize. The peace treaty between Russia and Lithuania was signed in 1537. Russia kept the cities built during the war in the border areas. Lithuania received Gomel. Thus the war ended with minor concessions on both sides.
End of reign
The regency of Elena Glinskaya lasted less than 5 years. On April 3, 1538, she died at the age of 30. A young and healthy woman suddenly dies. Most likely she was poisoned. It was one of the most common deaths among the rulers of that time.
After the death of Elena Glinskaya, the boyar stage of government began, which lasted until the accession to the throne of Ivan the Terrible in 1547.
Grand Duchess of Moscow. Vasily's second wife III Ivanovich(since 1526), mother of Ivan IV the Terrible. In 1533-1538 she was the de facto ruler of the state.
Elena Glinskaya was born in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania approximately in 1508 (the exact date has not been established).
Russia at a turning point
To understand the meaning of the figure of Elena Glinskaya in national history, you must first refer to the time in which she lived.
The family affairs of Vasily III did not go very well either. He was married to Solomonia Saburova, a representative of a noble boyar family, but the marriage turned out to be childless, which is absolutely unacceptable in the monarchist tradition. This threatened not so much the Rurik dynasty, which ruled the country since its foundation in 882, as its Moscow grand-princely branch, the Kalitichi (coming from). Therefore, in 1525, Vasily was forced to divorce and the unfortunate Solomonia, as she did not resist, was imprisoned in a monastery, forcing her to take monastic vows “for the sake of barrenness”. This was the first official divorce of a monarch in Russian history. Then this method will be actively used, but for the beginning of the 16th century, divorce is, of course, a unique case.
As usual, they began to look for a bride and found. She was 18-year-old Elena Glinskaya. In chronicles it is recorded that the new Grand Duchess was chosen "beautiful for the sake of her face and good-looking for her age, and especially for the sake of chastity." However, the Middle Ages is the Middle Ages, and this marriage also had political overtones, it showed that Russia had an interest in the previously lost Western Russian lands.
Glinsky
The Glinskys are a branched boyar family, possibly of Tatar origin, almost direct descendants of Mamai, who served either the Polish king or the Lithuanian Grand Duke. By Moscow standards, the Glinskys were considered to be of poor birth, because Mamai was not a Genghisid, and therefore he never became a khan, remaining only a temnik (the fact is hypothetical, no sources proving or refuting it have been found). The Glinskys would never have been able to make a career at the grand ducal Kremlin court. Upstarts were not liked there. And a noble origin in the era of the dominance of parochialism determined the social position of a person with absolute accuracy.
The most prominent representative of this family was the boyar Mikhail Glinsky. He was a typical adventurer and landsknecht - a figure in great demand during the period of numerous unrest that swept Europe at that time. He served many European kings, became a Catholic, did not "work well" with his overlord - the Polish king Sigismund, raised a rebellion against him, and in 1508, together with his brothers, fled to Moscow, to serve Vasily III. And here luck smiled at Mikhail Glinsky. He managed to give his niece Elena Vasilievna in marriage to the Grand Duke of Moscow and All Rus' Vasily III. However, this success turned out to be short-lived, and short-sightedness and adventurism soon led Glinsky to imprisonment and death.
Elena Glinskaya - ruler
Almost nothing is known about her life before marriage. And during the period of marriage with Vasily III, she also did not show herself clearly. It is known that the couple did not have children for a long time. The first child was born only in 1530 and was named after his grandfather - Ivan. The second son, Yuri, was born three years later, but turned out to be weak-minded and, unlike his older brother, did not leave any trace in history. In the same year, Grand Duke Vasily III died, leaving the throne to a 3-year-old heir and the regency council.
The history of Elena Glinskaya's coming to power is not entirely clear and unambiguous. The Resurrection Chronicle reports that Vasily III blessed his son Ivan "on the state" and handed him the "scepter of Great Rus'", and ordered his "wife Olena" to keep the state "under his son" until he matured. Subsequently, already in the sources of the 1550s, an interpretation appears, according to which Elena Glinskaya is the legitimate heiress of Vasily III. The influence of Ivan the Terrible is clearly visible here. He loved his mother very much, acutely felt early orphanhood, and her figure for him had a certain halo of holiness.
But there is also a less complimentary version of Elena Glinskaya's coming to power. The Pskov chronicler points out that Vasily III "ordered a great reign to his great son Ivan and called him the Grand Duke himself in his life and ordered him to protect his few boyars for up to fifteen years." In other words, Vasily III endowed not Elena and not the Boyar Duma with regency functions, but a small council of boyars. Who joined the regency council of 1533 is not exactly known. Sources differ in their testimonies, and the text of the will of Vasily III has not been preserved. The executors were 7 boyars from the old Moscow nobility, the most influential of which were Mikhail Glinsky, Dmitry Belsky, Ivan Shuisky, Mikhail Tuchkov.
As usual, after the death of the ruling monarch, the executors immediately entered into a struggle among themselves for power. The Boyar Duma also expressed dissatisfaction. The Duma opposition was led by the boyar Ovchin-Telepnev-Obolensky, a favorite of Elena Glinskaya. He actually brought her to power, as the Pskov chronicler points out, illegally.
However, in her claims to power, Elena Glinskaya was not so wrong. It is necessary to take into account the mentality of a medieval society, conservative and based on tradition, a precedent. If it was so with grandfathers and fathers, so it should be with us. This maxim had an absolute right to regulate social relations at that time.
The unwritten rule that it is the mother who becomes regent has already been applied in Russian history, when, after her death in 945 Kyiv prince, his mother, the princess, became regent for the young prince. There is an example that is closer to the time under consideration. When he died, the power as regent was given to his wife Sofya Vitovtovna, the mother of the future ruler of the country.
After coming to power, Elena Glinskaya began persecution, showing her natural hard and despotic character, which her son Ivan the Terrible would inherit. Dmitry Belsky was removed in a gentle way, but she put her uncle on a chain in the fortress, where he soon died. The period of her reign was short, until 1538.
Elena Glinskaya - reforms
She showed herself to be a statesman. Elena Glinskaya carried out a very important monetary reform, combining the 2 monetary systems that existed before in the state - Moscow and Novgorod. The step is correct. IN single state should be a single coin. Then they began to mint the most famous Russian coin, which still exists today, a penny. It got its name because of the chasing on one side of the image of a horseman with a spear, George the Victorious, who was considered the patron of the Moscow ruling house. The results of this reform can only be assessed positively.
The second reformist step of Elena Glinskaya is a change in the system of local government. This was required in order, firstly, to suppress the still smoldering separatism of the boyars with their patrimonial right, and secondly, speaking modern language to reduce the crime situation in the country. For this purpose, a lip - a district was introduced, at the head were elected lip elders from among the local service nobles. The government has shown who it will rely on in the event of a boyar rebellion.
The boyars hated Elena Glinskaya. Having eliminated her favorite Ovchin-Telepnev-Obolensky, they rightly believed that they would weaken the power of the ruler. And so it happened.
It is known that in 1538, the year of her death, Elena Glinskaya was ill a lot. She died quite a young 30-year-old woman. Her death gave rise to rumors of poisoning, which Ivan the Terrible later supported, blaming the boyars for his unhappy childhood. Elena Glinskaya was buried in the tomb of Russian queens - the Ascension Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. In the late 1920s, this temple was blown up, and the remains of the queens were transferred to
Registration number 0234353 issued for the work:
Vasily III died when his son, the future sovereign - Ivan IV was only three years old. His mother Elena Glinskaya (1533-1538) was declared regent under the young Ivan.
As a woman, Elena was very beautiful. The reconstruction of Elena's appearance based on the remains that have come down to us made it possible to establish that for women of her time Elena was tall (approximately 165 cm), had a slender proportional figure, her hair was red like copper, and her facial features were thin, regular and soft. By her nature, Elena was not an evil, cheerful, sociable woman, she was engaged in charity work. In addition, she was very smart and educated in a European way, she knew Polish and German languages spoke and wrote in Latin. However, despite the many attractive features of her character, Elena was not popular among the people, due to her European origin and an extramarital love affair with Prince Ivan Fedorovich Ovchin-Telepnev-Obolensky.
DI. Ilovaisky believed that the reign of Elena Glinskaya was not marked by any important events in domestic and foreign policy. This opinion of a respected historian seems to me not entirely correct. Elena ruled for not a full five years, but managed to do a lot during this time. Continuing the policy of her husband, Elena led a successful struggle against the separatism of the specific princes and boyars. In 1533, Elena Glinskaya liquidated the inheritance of the Dmitrovsky prince Andrei Yurievich, and in 1537 the inheritance of the old man Andrei Shuisky. Thus, the last two independent large principalities, Dmitrov and Starodub, became part of the Muscovite state.
Of the state events held at the initiative of Elena Glinskaya, the main ones were the lip and monetary reforms.
The monetary reform was carried out in 1535. Numerous cut and counterfeit silver coins were poured into new ones. The basis of the monetary system was the silver ruble, and the main payment unit was the kopeck, which got its name from the horseman with a spear depicted on it. The reform unified the monetary systems of economically weakly interconnected regions, primarily Moscow and Novgorod. The right to walk on the territory of Russia received only a penny, money and half a penny. For the first time in the history of Russia, a unified monetary system was introduced, which looked like this: 1 ruble was 100 kopecks, half a ruble was 50 kopecks, half a fifty was 25 kopecks, hryvnia was 10 kopecks. Altyn 3 kopecks. 1 kopeck 2 money or 4 pennies.
The lip reform consisted in the reorganization of local self-government. Receiving numerous reports of the abuse of governors and volostels, Elena began to withdraw from their jurisdiction the most important criminal cases of robbery and theft, and transfer them to the labial elders, elected from representatives of the nobility and boyars. Having concentrated the main part of criminal cases in their hands, the labial elders received the status of district judges.
Also noteworthy is the town-planning activity of Elena, which was carried out by her in order to protect the western and eastern borders of the Moscow state. When it was built, the proud Buigorod, Mokshan, Pronsk, the fortresses of Balakhna, Velizh, Sebezh, Temnikov and Zavolochye, Vladimir, Tver, Yaroslavl, burned out by fires, were rebuilt. Vologda, Novgorod and Ustyug were fortified. In 1535, on the orders of Glinskaya, in Moscow, the Italian Pyotr Fryazin was built, China is proud, defending trade and settlements.Built proudly Elena strengthened and populated by Russian immigrants from Lithuania.
The foreign policy of the Grand Duchess was also distinguished by firmness, activity, consistency, and at the same time was very successful. The main foreign policy event of the reign of Elena Glinskaya was the Starodub War (1534-1537). In 1534, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund I, deciding to take advantage of the infancy of Ivan IV, presented Moscow with an ultimatum demanding to return to the borders of 1508. The ultimatum was decisively rejected and Sigismund began hostilities. The war continued with varying success. In its course, neither side was able to achieve decisive success. As a result, Lithuania and Russia signed a truce on February 18, 1537, according to which Russia ceded the Gomel volost to Lithuania, but retained Zavolochye and Sebezh. Of other foreign policy agreements relating to the reign of Helen, it should be noted the truce concluded in 1535 with Livonia for a period of seventeen years, as well as the signing for a period of sixty years with Sweden, also signed in 1537, according to which Sweden pledged not to help either Lithuania or Livonian Order in case of their war with Russia. Under Elena, diplomatic relations were established with the Moldavian ruler Peter Stefanovich, the Astrakhan king Abdyl-Rahman and the Nogai princes. Noteworthy is the fact that Elena Glinskaya herself negotiated and made decisions on her own.
The policy pursued by Elena Glinskaya was of great progressive importance, since it contributed to the centralization and strengthening of the Russian state. In 1558, Elena Glinskaya died unexpectedly at a very young age. It is not known exactly how old she was at the time of her death. Anthropologists studying the remains of Elena in the female necropolis of the Moscow Kremlin determined that the princess was approximately 25-27 years old. They believe that Elena Glinskaya was born around 1510. There were rumors that Elena was poisoned by the boyars. The Austrian diplomat Sigismund von Herberstein wrote about this in his "Notes on Muscovy". This version was confirmed four hundred years later, after the head of the spectral laboratory of the forensic medical examination of the city of Moscow, Tamara Makarenko, in 1999, having made a spectral analysis of Elena Glinskaya's hair, found that the concentration of mercury salts in them exceeded the permissible norm by a thousand times! So the version of the poisoning of Elena Glinskaya received its practical confirmation.