0:00

Oh yeah, all

0:02

right, take it easy, baby, take

0:05

it, make

0:07

it last all night.

0:08

Oh yeah, of course, different song. Yeah,

0:11

that's going with slow ride.

0:13

Let's see here.

0:16

We should roast each other again. Apparently that was kind

0:18

Okay.

0:19

Look, I mean that's fine and all, but A, it's

0:21

got it. You can't force it. No, it sounds

0:23

bad. And B I could do

0:25

it every other episode.

0:27

If it came up in every episode, I would start to get I wouldn't

0:30

enjoy doing the show. It's

0:32

hard for me to play playfully

0:34

roast. Not even that it's like I can't

0:36

take it, can't dish it out kind of thing. But

0:39

just it's just I don't like it. That's

0:42

fair, well, not even roasting. Roasting's fine

0:44

if you're like teasing and stuff,

0:46

but bickering, right, you know, I

0:49

need everyone to agree with me at all times.

0:53

No, that's not it.

0:54

I'm gonna have a tough, tough life.

0:57

So far, it's been great because I've been right pretty

0:59

much every single time, constantly

1:01

forever.

1:02

Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

1:03

Yeah, thank you for.

1:04

A great God that you were right all the time.

1:07

Thank you? Or else, Look,

1:09

you'll know what happens.

1:10

Oh ship am I married to I've

1:13

in the terrible, Eli,

1:15

the terrible? Is that what you would

1:17

if you were a tzar? What would you call yourself?

1:19

If I was a czar, I'd be Eli?

1:22

Hmmm, I honestly,

1:32

I mean, you can't give yourself your

1:34

own tzar nickname?

1:35

You know, I guess that's true.

1:38

So what is that? What am I? Eli? The ambivalence?

1:41

Well, in that moment, you're

1:46

quite a caretaker. Oh

1:48

maybe Eli, the amiable. Oh

1:51

okay, that would be a cute name for you.

1:53

Doesn't exactly strike fear into the hearts of my enemies.

1:55

What maybe you are presiding over

1:57

an unprecedented era of peace.

1:59

Let me tell you. Let me tell you I'd

2:02

better be because

2:04

I would fare much better in that world.

2:06

That sounds great and more time, because.

2:09

They would be like, sir, the British

2:11

are attacking, and I'd be like, I don't

2:13

like bickering. Can

2:16

we just move past this? Can we just pretend this fight

2:18

never happened. I'd

2:20

much rather just give

2:22

each other the silent treatment for an hour and

2:25

then we just continue on with our day as if none of this

2:27

ever happened. So they also

2:29

hate.

2:29

That, I know you would. Yeah, I don't know.

2:32

I don't know. I don't know.

2:34

Well, what would you call me you?

2:36

Oh, you'd be Diana, the overworked.

2:39

Oh I feel

2:41

like as bizarre. I should be taken it easy.

2:43

You should, but you would not. You

2:46

would. They'd be like, uh,

2:49

sorryna, Diana, it's

2:51

time. Everything is fine, the

2:53

country's at peace, the economy is doing

2:55

well. And you'd be like, I need a few more projects.

2:57

Please, let's build

3:00

a cathedral.

3:01

Like we have so many cathedrals.

3:03

Well, build another one. We'll

3:05

put a couple of little stages in

3:08

there.

3:08

Yeah, cabaret to a theater show exactly.

3:12

The cathedral cabaret. Actually

3:15

would totally do a cathedral cabaret. That sounds great.

3:18

Oh no, anybody with the cathedral, reach out.

3:22

There we go. Here comes the next six months of

3:24

our lives.

3:25

Somehow, I'm

3:28

sorry I planned a cabaret.

3:30

Well, when you plan a cabaret,

3:32

we plan a cabaret.

3:35

Thank you, babe. That's where the partnership is

3:37

about.

3:37

No, I'm just saying that's how it is. I'm not volunteering

3:40

that.

3:41

I thought you were trying to be supportive.

3:42

No, No, it's a I don't have a choice.

3:44

Oh yeah, because.

3:45

I'm innately so supportive because I'm Eli

3:48

the amiable. Well,

3:50

there's only one Tzar I want to talk about today.

3:53

Yeah, me too, the czar who's been living

3:55

in our hearts for the last week or so,

4:00

Ivan the Fourth, also known

4:02

as Ivan the Terrible.

4:04

If you joined us in the last episode,

4:07

and I don't know why you wouldn't have, if you're here

4:09

now, we learned that

4:11

Ivan the Fourth was named ruler of Russia at

4:13

just three years old when his father

4:16

died, but he was raised

4:18

by the Shwisky family of boyars,

4:20

who took control of Russia after

4:22

probably poisoning his mother, Elena

4:24

Glinskaya. When Ivan was sixteen,

4:27

he crowned himself the first Czar

4:29

of Russia and started cutting off the boyar's

4:32

power, mostly by cutting off their heads.

4:34

Effective but he married honest

4:37

Assiya Romanov, who loved

4:39

him and helped him be a great ruler by cooling

4:42

his horrible temper. But when

4:44

she died at twenty nine years old, Ivan

4:46

was certain that the Boyars had poisoned

4:48

her as well. Now he would marry

4:51

again and again and again,

4:54

taking a total of eight wives

4:56

in his life. None of them,

4:58

however, fared too well, and ultimately

5:01

neither did Russia. So let's

5:03

hear about the Tsar's next seven

5:05

wives and how this guy went from

5:08

being Ivan the Fine to Ivan

5:10

the not so good, all the way down

5:12

to Ivan the terrible.

5:14

Let go, Hey, let friends

5:16

come listen. Well, Eli

5:18

and Diana got some stories to tell. There's

5:20

no match making a romantic tips.

5:23

It's just about ridiculous relation, ships,

5:26

a love. There might be any type of person at

5:28

all, and abstract concept or a

5:30

concrete wall. But if there's a story

5:32

where the second glance, so

5:35

ridiculous romance a production

5:37

of iHeartRadio.

5:40

The boy Yards, if you remember from

5:42

part one, are basically the ruling class

5:44

of nobility in Russia, and they've always

5:46

held a lot of power. They

5:48

had poisoned Ivan's mother, and

5:51

they likely poisoned on Us the Sea,

5:53

Ivan's first wife, and after

5:55

this, Ivan had multiple

5:57

people jailed and executed.

6:00

But Ivan didn't really work with a lot

6:02

of evidence when he was accusing the Boyars

6:04

of doing all these evil things. And while yes,

6:07

some of these Boyars were rich schemers

6:09

working to secure their own power, Ivan's

6:12

hatred of them as a whole wasn't really

6:14

very focused, and it even started to spill

6:16

over into the civilian population.

6:19

But you know what, all of that can

6:22

go on hold because Ivan Vassilievitch

6:25

was now Moscovie's number one

6:27

most eligible bachelor.

6:30

Ladies, ladies, lady.

6:33

Well.

6:33

The first idea for Ivan to remarry was

6:36

Katarzhina Yagyelunka,

6:38

a Polish princess, and at

6:40

the time of anest Dosia's death, Ivan

6:43

was fighting a major war between Russia

6:46

and basically everyone, Oh

6:48

my god, the Polish, the Swedish, the Danes,

6:50

and the Cossacks in the south. So

6:53

if a marriage made an ally out of

6:55

Poland, it was a pretty good idea classic

6:58

reason for his art to get married.

7:00

Oh yeah, we're at war, but I married one

7:02

of your daughters, so now we're not at warning.

7:03

Yeah, everything you're mad about it's over

7:06

now now. I haven't thought it made sense,

7:08

and Katarzina's brother was into it,

7:10

but Katarzina herself was

7:12

apparently crying her eyes

7:15

out at the idea. But then

7:17

another woman was presented to Ivan

7:19

in fifteen sixty one, Mariya

7:22

Temryokovna. She was

7:24

the daughter of a prince from Kebardia,

7:26

an independent country located near what is

7:28

the border of Russia and Georgia today,

7:31

so this would ally region that could help

7:33

them fend off the Cossacks in the south. So another

7:36

good, powerful alliance.

7:38

Isn't that so interesting? I mean, these the Kabardians

7:40

weren't fighting with the Russians at a time, but they would

7:42

have been strong allies. But even thinking back

7:45

to him trying to marry out of a war

7:47

with Poland, it just so clearly

7:49

to me shows how desperately they both want

7:52

the war to end and they just need any excuse.

7:54

I agree, you know, it's not like today that

7:56

like Putin would be like, oh right, Ukraine,

7:58

send me one of your lady and

8:01

we'll solve this the old fashioned way. Like that

8:03

shit don't work anymore.

8:06

So Maria Temriyukovna's father

8:08

presented her to Ivan the fourth,

8:10

and Ivan went absolutely

8:14

gaga for this lady. She

8:16

was maybe the most beautiful woman

8:19

he'd ever seen, and he suddenly

8:21

is like kata Argina, who I

8:23

don't even care that girl's crying anyway, I'm

8:26

not gonna marry her. Maria

8:28

was gorgeous, she was rich, she

8:30

was royalty from a foreign country that would

8:33

make a great partner to Russia. There

8:35

was really only one problem. Maria

8:38

was a Sunni Muslim. Now

8:41

Russian folklore says that on her

8:43

deathbed, Ivan's first wife,

8:45

Anastasia, had told Ivan,

8:48

whatever you do, you've

8:50

got to marry a

8:52

Christian.

8:54

Oh my god, final words, right.

8:56

I mean they were Orthodox and

8:59

Catholics, and they were pretty strict about,

9:01

you know, keeping it in the family, so

9:04

to speak. So Ivan is thinking

9:06

like, oh boy, well, my ex wife did

9:08

specifically warn me about this.

9:10

But on the other hand, this

9:12

lady is super hot.

9:14

She's fine, absolutely

9:16

spotty, attid, malicious, like I

9:18

am in with this woman.

9:20

I love the idea of the Tzar. Ivan like

9:23

bumpin' yeah

9:25

at aliens. So

9:28

he decided Maria is the one, and

9:30

they married on August twenty first, just

9:32

four days before Ivan's thirty

9:34

first birthday. But it

9:37

was quickly clear that nobody

9:40

liked Maria. She was seen

9:42

as manipulative and vindictive.

9:45

She refused to respect local customs,

9:47

and she is very rude to her step

9:50

children, Ivan surviving sons, Ivan

9:52

Junior and Theodor, as

9:54

opposed to Ana Sessia. Maria

9:56

seemed to encourage Ivan's ruthlessness,

9:59

but actually Ivan didn't like her much himself,

10:01

and that just added to his general anger

10:04

and paranoia. They had one son together

10:06

in fifteen sixty three, named Vasili,

10:08

but he died just a few months later.

10:10

Yeah, now Ivan already

10:13

basically trusted no one. We know this. But

10:16

the war also was not going well, and

10:18

Russia was struggling with drought and

10:20

famine. Peasants were angry,

10:23

they were quitting their jobs, dogs and cats

10:25

were living together, just mass hysteria.

10:27

And then in fifteen sixty four,

10:30

Ivan's good friend, close advisor,

10:32

and military leader Andrey

10:34

Krebsky suddenly defected

10:37

and joined the Lithuanians. And

10:40

he cited Ivan's growing distrust

10:42

of everyone, and he was worried about all

10:44

these repressive ideas that the Czar

10:47

was forming. Krebski led

10:49

a Polish Lithuanian force against

10:51

his own people, the Russians, and he decimated

10:54

them in several battles.

10:56

Or kicked him to the Krebski Keurbsk,

11:00

I love it.

11:02

So at this point, you know, Ivan's been

11:04

betrayed again. The boyars are acting

11:07

crazy, the clergy was embezzling,

11:09

the peasants were restless. So Ivan

11:11

the Fourth just left,

11:14

He packed his bags, He grabbed his

11:16

wife Maria, and he left

11:19

Moscow without telling anybody for

11:21

Alexandrov, and he sent a letter

11:23

back to the Boyars in Moscow and said,

11:26

y'all suck, I'm gonna quit.

11:28

Damn Yeah, nobody wants to

11:30

work anymore. Well, the

11:32

Boyar court had always been locked in a battle

11:34

with Ivan, but they took a look at the state

11:36

of Muscovie, particularly the desperate

11:38

and furious peasant class, and realized

11:41

they were one hundred percent shit out a lukski

11:44

uh. They wanted all this power over the Zar, but

11:47

they realized that if he was fully gone, they

11:49

had basically no power at

11:51

all. It can't be the power behind

11:53

the throne if there's no one on the.

11:54

Throne right exactly.

11:56

So they followed him to Alexandrov and they

11:58

begged him to come back in rule Russia.

12:01

And he said, okay, but on

12:03

one condition, I get absolute

12:06

power. I want to be able to condemn

12:09

and execute people. I decide our traders,

12:11

and I want to confiscate their land, and I don't

12:13

want them no interference from yell

12:15

Boyars or the church.

12:18

Woww. Some historians say that

12:20

Maria Temryokovna herself

12:22

gave Ivan this idea she sounds

12:25

like she could easily come up with it, but of

12:27

course common to blame a lady

12:29

for some shitta guy does the boy. Our

12:32

delegation looked at each other awkwardly, turned

12:34

back to Ivan and they said, yeah, man, whatever

12:37

you want. And thus began

12:39

the Abridge Nina, one of the darkest

12:42

and scariest periods in Russian

12:44

history, right.

12:45

The Abridge Nina was this huge territorial

12:48

state within the borders of Russia,

12:50

where Ivan had absolute

12:52

power and control and could

12:55

execute people at will if

12:57

he felt like they were being disloyal. So

13:00

it's a large chunk of land. It encompassed

13:02

all the major cities, you know, not Siberia,

13:05

but the populous part. At

13:08

will. He could confiscate land of

13:10

people he felt like were traders, and he could

13:12

kick their families out to go live in

13:14

the Zim's Gena, which was the Russian

13:17

land outside the Opportunita, so the place

13:19

you didn't want to be. To

13:21

enforce this brutal new rain, he

13:24

formed a guard called the Oprichnik.

13:27

The Oprechnik was basically Ivan's

13:29

private personal army. They

13:32

were a thousand hand picked super

13:34

soldiers who dressed in all

13:36

black and rode black horses.

13:39

Tied to their saddles was a severed

13:41

wolf's head, which symbolized the

13:43

Oprechnick sniffing out the Tsar's enemies

13:46

and the hounds of Hell nipping at their

13:48

heels. Ivan himself

13:51

off and rode at the front of the horde,

13:53

and he affixed iron jaws to

13:55

his wolf's head that would open and

13:57

snap shut as his horse gallon.

14:01

All Right, I can't approve

14:03

of a brutal private army, right,

14:05

but the vibes are incredible

14:07

metal Again,

14:10

I feel like an opeh album is about to start.

14:13

It's like,

14:17

I don't like severed wolf's heads,

14:19

but no, yeah, this was

14:21

like a movie. I'd

14:24

be like, these guys are terrifying and kind of awesome,

14:26

Like, you know, I definitely dresses this for Dragon

14:28

Con if this was just a fantasy.

14:30

Of course, of course, of course it is.

14:32

That's very very ring rate vibes, very

14:35

true.

14:35

But I mean that's sort of like such an interesting thing

14:37

about historic armies and stuff is that they're

14:39

like you have to defeat them, you know, kind

14:42

of they're morale first, that's

14:44

the first thing. So if you have the right

14:47

look or like even like the rebel

14:49

yell or whatever, like there's just so many

14:51

armies that had their little thing that was like, let

14:53

us freak them out before we

14:56

ever strike a single blow.

14:57

Striking fear into the hearts of your enemies.

15:00

Key in all things. I remember in

15:02

uh, speaking of movies,

15:05

I remember in the film Little

15:08

Giants in the early nineties

15:10

with Rick Moranish and

15:12

playing a football coach. I'm

15:18

getting there. It

15:20

was all, you know. It was like a ragtag group of misfits

15:23

playing football, little little pee wee football,

15:26

and one of the kids had real

15:29

bad tummy troubles, so we always

15:31

had He was always taking alka seltzer and

15:33

when they were trying to figure out how to intimidate

15:35

the other team because they are all little nerds,

15:38

he told them all to put an alka seltzer tab in

15:40

their mouth and they all started foaming at the mouth.

15:44

So they all pot one in their mouth while they're all lining

15:46

up to play football, and the other kids freak

15:48

out because all the whole team full of nerds

15:51

is all foaming at the mouth, like do.

15:53

You have rabies? That's a really big

15:55

problem.

15:56

It's great. So just like

15:58

the old preach nig Giants.

16:04

Like Little giants being the natural air of the

16:06

operation.

16:09

I wish that line had been in the movie. Like, okay,

16:11

well, I remember the Preachnick Rick

16:17

Maris is like, no, we can't carry around severed

16:19

wolf heads onto the football.

16:21

Field, but

16:23

we can learn a lesson about intimidation.

16:26

Well.

16:26

On their acceptance, recruits to

16:28

the Opreachnik swore loyalty

16:30

to Ivan, his sons, his

16:33

wife Maria, and also

16:35

swore quote not to eat

16:37

or drink with the zem's Gina and

16:40

not to have anything in common with

16:42

them. Now, these guys terrorized

16:45

the Russian civilian population. They

16:47

executed anyone who was suspected

16:49

to be disloyal to Ivan, who had declared

16:51

himself the quote hand of

16:53

God.

16:55

Always a good sign and a leader.

16:56

Okay. Citizens were terribly

16:58

treated. They were quarter boiled,

17:02

impaled, or even roasted

17:04

over an open fire. If Ivan

17:06

declared them treeson is oh God. If

17:09

their families were lucky, they were exiled.

17:11

Often they were killed too. Now

17:13

you'd think this would be all about controlling

17:16

people through fear, right striking

17:18

terror into the hearts of the populace.

17:20

Right, Like I'm going to go around and murder some folks

17:22

so that nobody acts up like, that's my real

17:24

reason, right, right exactly.

17:26

But because Ivan was what modern

17:28

psychologists call loopier than

17:30

a cross eyed cowboy.

17:35

Yes, as a soup sandwich.

17:38

Yeah, crazier than a cat in a room full of

17:40

rocking chairs.

17:41

That boy's cheese lit all the way off his cracker.

17:43

They're all the clinical modern

17:46

diagnos.

17:48

Le yes, So a lot of the time,

17:50

you know, he's just imagining trees

17:52

and his behavior. Hen't have proof for any.

17:55

Of this, Yeah, no, but he really believes it.

17:57

Of course, he's just like steriously paranoid.

18:00

And of course if you had a problem with how

18:02

he was doing things, you were next in line

18:05

for whatever torture he could come up with. So it's

18:07

just like no criticism, no looking

18:09

at him the wrong way anything. No one

18:12

just set him off.

18:13

No one could stand off to the side and say, I

18:16

don't Yeah, this guy

18:18

sucks, but he didn't actively commit treason.

18:20

Are you sure we should boil him alive? Because

18:22

Ivan would just turn and say, oh, I guess you're

18:25

a trader too, So add him.

18:26

To the pot, another one for the pot.

18:28

Yeah, uh, brutal.

18:31

And that's it's so much harder

18:34

when these people really believe

18:36

it, you know, like, it's

18:38

one thing if someone's aggressively

18:41

manipulative and knows

18:43

that they're lying to everyone, But

18:45

when you have someone who's so crazy they believe their own

18:47

crazy theories, well and it

18:50

get scared.

18:50

Yet it must be said, he has a lot of reason

18:52

to believe them, because it's not like people

18:55

ain't been poisoning people all around him and

18:57

stuff. Absolutely, so he does

18:59

have some things that he is clearly

19:02

blown off to a very very

19:04

upsetting paranoid bubble that he's right

19:07

right.

19:07

What he needs is someone to talk to. I

19:09

mean, he needs a therapist, and honest, I mean

19:11

honestly, that might be part of what

19:14

him and honest to see his marriage. You know

19:16

why that was so beneficial because it

19:18

may have been we don't know, but it may have been a

19:20

situation where he sat down and was like, oh

19:23

my god, I think everyone is out to get me.

19:25

This guy looked at me funny when I walked down the hall,

19:28

and she was like, honey, sometimes people

19:30

just look at you funny, like yours are You're the

19:32

most important guy in the room. And he's like, oh,

19:34

you're right, you're right, okay. So that he was

19:36

able to discern more who was a real threat

19:39

and who he was just getting feeling a little

19:41

paranoid about. But once she got poisoned, all

19:44

bets are off. Everyone could have been out to get

19:46

him, and no one was there to suggest

19:49

that he was overreacting. So

19:51

all this to say, Ivan had

19:53

become a ruthless, brutal monster

19:55

and an all powerful dictator

19:58

during his marriage to Maria, just

20:00

even more than before, of course, So

20:02

let's take a quick break and we will get into

20:05

the consequences of his actions for

20:07

both him and his wife right

20:09

after this.

20:14

Welcome back everyone, Do

20:16

I sound like Count Chocula? It was

20:18

a little Chocula, Yeah, welcome

20:21

back.

20:23

Not the Count. I love it all

20:26

right. So it was far from

20:28

Maria Tenbrinokovna's fault

20:30

that her husband Ivan was the

20:33

terrible, but she did seem

20:35

to encourage it, and of course she was no peach

20:37

herself, and while

20:39

he might have listened to her when she suggested

20:42

that he start the opportunina, he

20:44

also regretted marrying her. She

20:47

was hated by her subjects and

20:49

the courts alike, as well as by Ivan's

20:51

whole family, and we can't say that

20:53

this wasn't xenophobia

20:56

or some sort of bigotry against whether

20:59

she was Muslim. You know, if this was a

21:01

racist thing, you know, hard to

21:03

say. But what history

21:05

suggests to us is that she was pretty

21:07

rotten herself. Yeah, so maybe

21:10

it was not a total shock when on

21:12

September first of fifteen sixty

21:14

nine, eight years after their marriage,

21:17

Maria Timriyokovna died

21:19

of poisoning. Again,

21:22

rumors went around that Ivan himself

21:25

actually poisoned her, but Ivan not

21:27

only denied that, but he had several

21:29

nobles executed who he

21:31

blamed for her death.

21:33

Well, I mean, I'm doubt he's going to be

21:35

like, I did it, no right,

21:37

And he's like I did it and a bunch

21:39

of y'all are going to pay for it.

21:41

Proof that I didn't is that I killed a bunch

21:43

of other people for doing it, So it must have been them. I

21:46

mean, no, I will say that historians generally

21:48

agree that he was not the one behind

21:50

it this time. It wouldn't make have made a lot of sense for

21:52

him, but that's true.

21:53

That Well, raise your hand

21:56

if you think I've been calmed down after

21:58

that, I don't see

22:00

any hands. Well,

22:03

I'll give you a hint The next thing to happen

22:05

was something called the Massacre of

22:07

Novagrad. Oh boy, so

22:10

in fifteen seventy, Ivan believed

22:12

Novagrad, Russia's second largest

22:14

city, was planning on defecting tow the

22:17

Lithuanians, and we know we don't

22:19

like that. So he rode to the city, sending

22:22

the bodies of dead clergymen ahead

22:24

of him. He constructed a

22:26

barrier around the city so no one could escape,

22:29

and then he and the Opachnik performed

22:31

the most brutal attack in

22:34

their existence, with estimates

22:36

between two thousand and fifteen

22:39

thousand casualties. Merchants

22:42

were tortured, nobles

22:44

were roasted with what one chronicler

22:46

called a quote clever fire

22:48

making device, which just sounds

22:50

like a fifteen hundreds like flamethrower. Women

22:54

and children were tied up and

22:56

thrown into the frozen river, where

22:58

they would be trapped under the eye drowned.

23:01

God, that sounds horrible.

23:03

Oh yeah, oh, and then they had boatmen riding

23:06

around with spears to make sure they got anyone who

23:08

didn't drown. Oh my god.

23:10

Yeah.

23:11

Well, those who confessed to treason after

23:13

torture were dragged behind sleds

23:16

across town, and then peasants'

23:18

homes were looted and destroyed, and

23:20

if they survived his attack, many starved

23:22

or froze later because they had nowhere to

23:24

live.

23:25

Yeah, there's a

23:27

whole lot of history about the massacre

23:30

of Novgrod, if anyone's interested in Russian

23:32

history, there's i mean, just books dedicated

23:34

to just this event. Of course,

23:36

all we have time for is a paragraph, but it's

23:39

wild, very upsetting. Well,

23:42

the next year, in fifteen seventy

23:44

one, another fire broke

23:46

out in Moscow. Damn these fires,

23:49

third one and this time it was

23:51

definitely deliberate, because see the Crimean

23:53

and Ottoman forces had come to attack

23:56

Moscow and they set the suburbs

23:58

on fire and it's huge, which wind

24:00

came in and it blew the fire into

24:02

the city. In six

24:05

hours, the palace, the

24:07

oprichnin the headquarters, and

24:09

the suburbs had completely burned

24:11

down. WHOA. People were fleeing.

24:14

They rushed into stone cathedrals,

24:16

and a lot of those cathedrals collapsed, either

24:19

from the heat of the fire or just from the sheer

24:21

number of people shoving their way into them.

24:23

Other people jumped into the river and

24:26

many of them drowned. The gunpowder

24:28

storage room at the Kremlin exploded.

24:31

Casualties were estimated to be between

24:33

sixty thousand and two hundred

24:36

thousand people. Afterwards,

24:39

Ivan ordered bodies found in the streets

24:41

to be thrown into the river, but there

24:43

were so many that it caused

24:45

flooding.

24:46

Oh my god.

24:47

Yeah. Historian James Horsey wrote

24:49

that it took more than a year to

24:52

clean out all the bodies. You

24:54

know, the smell was like, oh my god,

24:58

just horrible. After this,

25:00

the Oprichnina was disbanded

25:03

and the lands of the Oprichnina

25:05

and the Zemschena were reunified

25:08

under one new Boyar council that Ivan

25:10

helped pick out. Now, historians

25:12

think Ivan might have found the country

25:15

being divided into two sections was just

25:17

too ineffective while the country was

25:19

dealing with this big war that they were losing.

25:23

Maybe Ivan felt like he'd achieved

25:25

his goal by striking fear into everyone's

25:27

hearts, so his opposition wasn't going to be so

25:29

you know, it's going to be easier to put down. So

25:32

he got rid of the Obergnina, the Oberjnik.

25:34

They were done now, And they generally

25:36

think that he recognized it wasn't

25:38

doing anything good for him at this point, but

25:40

he wanted to look like it was a success.

25:43

So he was just kind of like, we're done with this

25:45

now, great job

25:48

me. It worked exactly like I wanted

25:50

to and now I can get rid of it.

25:51

He unraveled that big mission, accomplished

25:54

exactly right,

25:58

palace.

26:01

Right.

26:02

Well, by now, I think you'll probably

26:04

know the patterns, so you know what's coming next,

26:07

because it goes Ivan's wife gets poisoned,

26:09

a bunch of people get executed, and then there's

26:12

a big fire, and then it's

26:14

time for another beauty pageant.

26:16

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

26:18

It was time for Ivan to get a new

26:20

bride, since now what three

26:23

have been poisoned.

26:24

You know, everybody that had to show up was

26:26

like, well, I guess I'm gonna be poisoned.

26:29

I remember in part No.

26:30

One year or two or thirteen. But it's gonna

26:32

happen, I know.

26:33

I remember in part one we said that some

26:35

of the girls were probably excited to go

26:37

in and take part in this beauty pageant

26:39

because marrying this are was so cool. And

26:41

by now it's probably like, oh god, it's like American

26:44

idol, Like I hope I get second place, because

26:46

then I'm not locked into this horrible contract. But

26:48

maybe I'll get a good record deal. I

26:52

love that. Actually, actually this is not

26:54

far from the truth, because sometimes

26:57

the uh, the runners up in

26:59

the beauty pageant would end up marrying other

27:02

nobles. Sure, one of them even went

27:04

to one of Ivan's sons. No,

27:06

I could second place was probably

27:08

not bad.

27:10

Well, I actually I remember, did you ever see

27:12

the Man in the Iron Mask?

27:14

Yeah? Wow, yeah, yeah, way back when.

27:16

I just remember when Louis the

27:18

shitty one was like starting

27:20

to hit on that girl and she starts

27:22

to get really worried. And I remember when I watched

27:24

it. Of course it was when it came out. I was younger

27:27

and everything, and I was like, oh, well, why she was so worried.

27:29

It's great the king likes her, you know, she's set

27:31

for life. But actually everybody knew

27:33

that it was really not great, right,

27:35

be either too favored or too disfavored

27:38

by the ruler, Like you want to be nice in the

27:40

middle somewhere where he likes

27:42

you, and then he forgets you.

27:43

Relatively exactly

27:47

true with a lot of bosses, I think, you know,

27:50

like I want you to like me and then

27:52

not think of me when you're making decisions.

27:55

Yeah.

27:56

So, once again, young women are

27:58

called from across Land, and

28:01

in October fifteen, seventy one out of

28:03

twelve finalists, Ivan

28:05

gave the rose to Marfa Sobachina.

28:09

He arranged their marriage and this

28:12

time they would stay in an impenetrable

28:14

fortress, which Ivan had filled with only

28:17

loyalists. Absolutely no one

28:19

was going to get to his third wife, Marfa.

28:22

And she's dead.

28:23

Oh no, what.

28:27

Yeah, only sixteen days after their

28:29

wedding, Marfa died of a mysterious

28:32

ailment. God. Now,

28:34

it was rumored and is probably true,

28:37

that Marfa's own mother

28:40

accidentally poisoned her with a

28:42

potion that was meant to increase her fertility.

28:45

So that's really tragic because you know, Marfa's mom

28:48

is like, I'm just trying to set you up for success, right

28:50

in your very scary marriage

28:52

to the worst man in the world, and she accidentally

28:55

kills her own kid. That's so sad.

28:56

Yeah.

28:57

And you know we mentioned in the last episode a lot

28:59

of meta distance back then used mercury

29:02

and other toxins, so it's

29:04

likely that, you know, Marfa just took too

29:06

much of a bad thing in order to try to

29:08

be the mother you know, of the heir to the

29:10

to the czar, and like secure

29:12

her position for life. Right, but

29:15

that is really sad, it is I feel really

29:17

bad for Marfa's mom.

29:18

Oh, all of them. Well, you

29:20

know, at least Ivan, we know calmly

29:23

and quietly accepted the death of his wife,

29:25

and he spent a few weeks in quiet

29:27

morning. Are you kidding

29:29

me? Of course not. No, he

29:32

went absolutely nuts.

29:34

I mean, his his impregnable fortress

29:37

had been impregnant, so

29:40

pregnant, impregnant, somebody impregnant

29:43

it so it once again,

29:46

Ivan got super paranoid that everyone

29:48

he trusted was out to get him, and

29:50

he immediately executed twenty

29:53

people, including his previous

29:56

wife's brother, Mikhail Timryukovna,

29:59

and much of Marfa's own

30:01

family. Now this time, Ivan

30:04

decided that he better get married real quick

30:06

before another fire broke out, and

30:09

he just went ahead and picked. Speaking of

30:11

runners up, Anna Koltovskaya.

30:14

She was an eighteen year old girl and she had also

30:16

been in the last beauty pageant. But

30:18

the Orthodox Church had a

30:21

real problem with Ivan

30:23

going into a fourth marriage. In fact,

30:25

their rule was quote the first

30:28

marriage is law, the second

30:30

an extraordinary concession. The

30:33

third is a violation of law.

30:35

The fourth is an impiet

30:38

a state similar to that of

30:41

the animals.

30:42

Damn, So even though they're not alive.

30:45

Yep, they said you get

30:47

three marriages. I imagine they're like, if

30:49

you're getting married a fourth time, God

30:51

doesn't want you to be married?

30:53

You know, I guess, so, I guess you

30:55

could.

30:55

I got hint. This is the official stance

30:58

of the church. Hint.

31:01

Well, Ivan, we know is not the

31:04

kind of guy to say, well, rules

31:06

a rule. But he did throw

31:08

the clergy a bone here. He did not roast

31:11

them all like marshmallows with a medieval

31:13

flamethrower.

31:14

Oh good for him.

31:14

Yeah, some real growth growth

31:17

and with iron right now. He actually told

31:19

them, you know, look, my third wife

31:22

died in practically zero days.

31:24

We never got a chance to consummate the marriage.

31:27

That one don't count, okay,

31:31

but count count

31:34

me.

31:36

Four wives.

31:41

He organized a meeting at the Church of

31:43

Assumption and he gave this heartfelt

31:46

speech about all the loss

31:48

he'd endured and his struggle to find

31:50

a bride, and it reportedly

31:52

moved the clergy to tears.

31:56

So they said he could marry her, but

31:58

he would have to do penance for a year. And

32:01

so they married in April of fifteen seventy

32:03

two, and they took their honeymoon and sunny.

32:07

Noma Gorod, Oh.

32:09

The city that he had decimated two years

32:11

earlier. Wow, it's lovely

32:13

this time of year. Right, Yes, Anna,

32:15

I'd love to take you to this beautiful cathedral,

32:18

but sort of burned

32:20

it.

32:20

Down, although

32:23

we give you a tour of town. That's what

32:25

I said, the guy with forty spears.

32:28

This is the river that has so many

32:30

women and children in it.

32:32

Oh, you can still smell the barbecue.

32:34

Oh God, what

32:37

a weird choice for honeymoon.

32:39

I mean, I guess its many options.

32:41

I'd be like, is this honeymoon a threat?

32:43

Maybe?

32:43

Are you transcend a message here? Well?

32:46

Okay, So at this point in history, with the opperach

32:48

Nina disbanded, uh, the war going

32:50

on and not great. There aren't

32:52

a ton of big events over the next

32:54

few years in terms of the story we're telling, And

32:57

according to Natalia Pushkareva's book

32:59

Women Inrussian History on the

33:01

Koltovskaya did have a good influence

33:03

on Ivan for a while. Russian

33:06

sorenas are not allowed to associate

33:08

with common folk, including their

33:10

own families. So it

33:13

was pretty customary that when a woman marries

33:15

as Are, her family would

33:17

be moved to the court and given noble titles

33:19

so that she could still associate.

33:21

With them, which we've seen before oh

33:23

many times. I'm particularly thinking about

33:26

ancient China episodes that we've done where they're

33:28

like, oh, you know, she marries the emperor

33:30

and her whole family gets lifted up.

33:33

So as part of the reason, the families are like pushing their

33:35

daughters to these parts that they're

33:37

like, it's not even about you, Yeah,

33:39

it's about me.

33:40

But unfortunately, honest

33:42

family did not fit in well

33:45

at court, so they had a hard time making

33:47

allies, and after two years,

33:49

Ivan and Anna had not been able to conceive

33:52

a child, so Ivan

33:54

supposedly started to get kind of bored with her

33:57

and he sent her off to live in a

33:59

convent. She took the name Daria

34:02

and lived out her days there without

34:04

ever getting poisoned. She

34:07

actually outlived Ivan himself.

34:09

Oh so we're gonna go ahead and call this

34:11

one a win for Anna.

34:13

Yeahza, the

34:17

best you can hope for is going off to

34:19

live as a nun and having a long somewhat

34:22

comfortable life without getting poisoned

34:24

or stabs.

34:24

I mean as comfortable as nuns are. I mean, you

34:26

know, well, within the year, I've been decided

34:28

to go for a fifth wife. Historian

34:32

Nikolay Karamzine wrote, quote,

34:34

the czar, no longer observing

34:36

even the slightest decency,

34:39

no longer seeking the blessing of the bishops

34:42

without any church permission, married

34:44

Anna Vasiltchikhova in fifteen

34:47

seventy five.

34:48

Wow.

34:48

So yeah, he wasn't even pretending anymore, right,

34:51

And anyone who defied him or was like,

34:53

hey, you're not supposed to do that, and they

34:55

pretty much faced torture and execution, so

34:58

nobody challenged it. He got his fifth

35:00

wife, no problem.

35:01

Yeah, what a sad existence,

35:03

though, God I no one ever spoke to

35:05

him at all. Is they're just like, you say the

35:07

wrong thing, You're dead?

35:08

I mean, isn't that sort of the I mean

35:11

not just the only one. But one of the

35:13

tragedies of being a very paranoid person

35:16

is that you end up pushing so many people away

35:18

that you like are lonely, and you

35:20

can't help but feel like everybody hates

35:22

you because you made them hate you. Like

35:24

you made them specifically withdraw

35:26

from you.

35:27

It becomes a spiral.

35:29

Yeah, and kind of a self fulfilling one.

35:31

Yeah.

35:31

So yeah, nobody challenged this marriage,

35:34

and Ivan and Anna had a small wedding

35:36

ceremony with just immediate family and

35:39

very little is known about her background

35:41

or their marriage. But similarly

35:44

to his last Ana, this one

35:46

was shipped off to a monastery after two years.

35:49

But unlike the last Ana, it's believed

35:51

that she died violently at the

35:53

convent, and rumors started

35:55

to be spread that Ivan himself had

35:58

her killed.

35:58

Yeah.

36:02

Yeah, he's getting to the point where, you

36:04

know, nobody wrongs him and he doesn't

36:07

leave any loose ends anywhere. He's

36:09

like, oh, I'm getting rid of this wife that I was with

36:11

for two years, but what if she talks, what if

36:13

she starts plotting revenge against me? Whatever?

36:16

And so he sent somebody in there to uh,

36:19

I think stabber a bunch of times.

36:21

Maybe the first Anna just took like

36:23

a vow of silence or something, and he's not

36:25

to worry about it.

36:26

Just caught him in a good mood, right, maybe.

36:28

Or she changed her name and he's like, what it was her

36:30

name again?

36:31

Whatever?

36:32

I don't know anyway, look for if you

36:33

find.

36:36

Now. At this point, Bush Garreva writes,

36:38

quote, even people at court

36:41

could not keep track of the series of women

36:43

who appeared and disappeared beside the Czar's

36:45

throne. Ivan would take

36:47

women in, but he had a hard time actually

36:50

caring about anyone, and

36:52

they and their families generally weren't treated

36:54

well, And of course things didn't end too well.

36:57

Again, I really just think that he

36:59

was looking to recapture

37:01

that feeling that he had with Anastasia.

37:04

Yeah, and he didn't know how to find it. He was too

37:06

far away from the person he was back then and

37:08

he couldn't be that anymore.

37:09

Yeah.

37:11

But then came Vasalisa

37:14

Melentieva, his sixth

37:16

wife, or was

37:18

she. There's a bit of

37:20

a mystery here, and we're gonna get back

37:22

to that miss Damsel right after

37:25

this break.

37:29

Welcome back, everybody.

37:31

Some historians think that Vasalisa

37:34

Melentieva was Ivan the Terrible's

37:36

sixth wife, but others suggest

37:39

she might not have existed at all.

37:42

Most of her story comes from a book by

37:44

Alexander Sula Katzev, who

37:47

was notorious for writing fake histories

37:49

in the nineteenth century damn misinformation

37:52

right way back in the eighteen hundreds. This guy was

37:54

doing it right up.

37:56

He was just like the original clickbait.

37:58

He's like whatever, right, right, crazy story?

38:00

People buy it, who cares, and then they believe

38:02

it journalistic integrity. But of

38:05

course, Nikolai Karamzine and more

38:08

modern researchers did find documents

38:10

that confirm that Vasilisa was

38:12

at least real and did have a special

38:14

relationship with Ivan. So it's

38:17

possible that she was simply a concubine

38:19

if not his actual sixth wife.

38:22

Ah, okay, okay, So maybe

38:24

no marriage here, Yeah, hard to see he was there.

38:26

Some definitely think that there was a marriage, and

38:28

some think there probably wasn't.

38:30

Well. The story goes that her husband,

38:32

Nikita, worked in the Tsar's court,

38:35

and Ivan had him poisoned and

38:37

brought Bessilissa to live with him instead.

38:39

Ah. The old switcheroo call.

38:42

That she was, according to Pushkareva

38:45

quote, such a beauty that

38:47

none of the maidens at the bridal pageant

38:49

could match her. This

38:52

keeps happening, Yeah, beauties

38:54

constantly right, And allegedly Ivan

38:57

was pretty happy with her. She was a bit

38:59

older than his other brides, and she

39:01

was kind of like Anastasia. She was

39:03

sweet and calming. But

39:06

a few months in Ivan's

39:08

marital luck ran out again and

39:10

he discovered Vasilisa was

39:12

having an affair with a prince

39:15

named dev letel No,

39:17

which is just absolutely the dumbest

39:19

thing she could have done, right, like this little

39:21

last guy I would cheat on. So I've

39:23

been forced Vasilisa to watch as

39:26

he had her lover impales,

39:29

and then he exiled her to a convent

39:31

as well, and then she allegedly

39:33

died mysteriously later that year, and

39:36

some think it's possible that Ivan had her killed

39:38

as well.

39:39

So I'm kind of wondering about the

39:41

validity of this story for a couple of reasons.

39:44

One, like you said, who

39:46

would bait this man into

39:49

having any reason to be mad at you? I mean, at

39:51

the same time, how could she possibly

39:54

be happy with him? So maybe that was she just

39:56

really loved this guy, and she was like, I can't

39:58

not be with you because my husband is literally

40:00

one of the worst people in history. That's true,

40:03

so I see that. But also it does seem like I

40:06

would just be on eggshells the entire time.

40:08

I wouldn't be runing around, cheating or anything like that.

40:10

I know, although maybe you're right, and she's

40:12

like, it's only a matter of time before he turns

40:14

on me. Anyways, CONGRATU while.

40:16

I can that's true. I

40:19

guess maybe my bigger question is Devlatev.

40:21

Who would be that stupid to cheat

40:23

with IV? In the Terrible Spike, I.

40:25

Was about to say this thing if she

40:27

was like, I'm ready, I.

40:28

Don't keep it. I don't care if you're a twelve.

40:32

I am sorry, but your husband

40:34

is literally the most frightening person in a country

40:37

with a history full of frightening people.

40:38

Seriously, he's going to roast

40:41

me over an open fire, like I'm

40:43

not gonna know.

40:44

But my other reason I'm

40:46

not sure if I buy this is because some

40:48

of the other elements seem to be mashed

40:51

up from previous stories, right,

40:53

like the fact that he sent her to a convent and she

40:55

died there. You know that she

40:58

was very calming to him. I even literally

41:00

saw the same painting labeled

41:02

on two different websites, one as

41:04

Ivan and Vasilissa and one

41:06

as Ivan and Anastasia, So it

41:08

seems like the parts of their stories are

41:11

getting crossed over to Okay, it's

41:13

hard to say. We just don't know. It's

41:15

the fifteen hundreds. There's not a lot of really

41:17

good records.

41:18

Right, Apparently you got guys out here just writing.

41:20

I believe well.

41:23

Ivan's seventh marriage is also

41:25

disputed, and little is known about this

41:27

one, maybe even less. Her name

41:30

was Maria Dolgurukaya,

41:32

and he supposedly married her in the year fifteen

41:35

eighty, although some people write

41:37

their story as as

41:39

her being his fifth wife in between

41:41

the two anas. Now, if Maria

41:44

Dolgurukaya existed, the legend

41:46

says that she was engaged to Ivan but

41:48

had an affair before their wedding. Ivan

41:52

discovered after their wedding night that she was

41:54

not a virgin, and he ordered his guard

41:56

to drown her in the frozen river. That's

42:00

all we really know about that story. This

42:03

one maybe even less likely to be real,

42:06

but it tracks.

42:09

I don't not believe it, you.

42:11

Know, I mean, I guess he wanted

42:13

a personality where you could believe any number

42:15

of horrible things about him. Yeah, so

42:18

I guess you win, Ivan, Great.

42:20

Job, all right. Well,

42:23

before we get to Ivan's eighth and final

42:25

wife, let's do a quick recap

42:28

at Sarina summary. Sarna

42:31

summary. Number one Anastasia

42:34

Romanov. They have two surviving

42:36

sons together at this point, lil Ivan

42:39

Junior and Feodor. They

42:41

were together for thirteen years before she

42:43

got poisoned by the boyars.

42:45

Number two Maria hemrio

42:47

Kovna, who also got poisoned,

42:49

maybe by Ivan, probably by

42:52

boyars after eight years of marriage.

42:54

Number three Marfa Soobatina,

42:57

who died sixteen days after their wedding,

42:59

probably accidentally poisoned by her mother.

43:01

Number four Anna Koltovskaya,

43:04

married for two years before he got bored with

43:06

her and shipped her to a monastery. She's

43:08

still alive in the story, not in

43:10

her life.

43:11

Number five Anna Vasilchikova,

43:14

also married for two years before getting sent off to

43:16

a monastery where she was killed.

43:19

Number six Vasilissa Melentieva,

43:22

they were married for a few months before I even discovered

43:24

she was cheating, had her boyfriend impaled

43:26

in front of her. She's sent off to a monastery

43:29

where she was also killed.

43:31

And number seven Maria Dolgurukaya,

43:33

who cheated before they got married and she got

43:36

dropped. So just a super

43:38

list of Sarinas.

43:42

What a super summary.

43:43

They all did stupendously.

43:47

I don't know, some of them did stupid

43:50

shit, but

43:52

that brings us to Zarina number

43:54

eight, Maria Nagaya.

43:58

This woman and this marriage both definitely

44:00

did exist, so no questions

44:03

here. They married in the year fifteen

44:05

eighty one, but this was also

44:07

the year of one of Ivan's most terrible

44:10

acts in a long time. Ivan

44:13

had actually been trying to make amends for

44:15

his uprich Nina years by making

44:18

massive donations to monasteries.

44:21

He would visit other towns and pray

44:23

at their churches for his victims,

44:26

and Russia had been weakened under his

44:28

strict and violent rule, and the war

44:31

wasn't going well either. Ivan's

44:33

son, Ivan Junior, had been married three

44:35

times since he was twelve years old. The

44:38

first two wives did not produce children quickly,

44:40

so Ivan Senior had them each shipped

44:43

off to convents, so the two Ivan's

44:45

relationship was pretty strained.

44:48

Ivan Junior's third wife was

44:50

Yolena Sharremiteva, and

44:53

she was found to be pregnant in October

44:55

of fifteen eighty one, and everyone

44:57

was thrilled. Ivan Junior course

45:00

was in line to be Ivan the Fifth,

45:02

the next Czar of Russia, and

45:05

he already had his family lined up and ready

45:07

to go. He was going to have an heir himself. But

45:10

on November fifteenth, fifteen eighty

45:12

one, Ivan the Terrible saw

45:15

his daughter in law, Yelena, wearing

45:17

what he saw as immodest clothing,

45:20

and he started to beat her. Ivan

45:23

Junior ran in hearing his wife's

45:25

screams, and he stopped his

45:27

father, shouting at him, quote, you

45:30

sent my first wife to a convent,

45:32

did the same with my second, and now

45:34

you strike the third, causing the death

45:37

of the son she holds in her womb.

45:40

And indeed Yelena suffered

45:42

a miscarriage just shortly after.

45:44

This damn Iivan Yeah.

45:47

On the next day, Ivan Junior confronted his

45:49

father. They had already been fighting over

45:51

Ivan the fourth military failures, and

45:53

Ivan Junior had tried to raise his own army

45:56

to save the besieged city of Puskov.

45:59

So when Ivan Junior shouted at his father

46:01

for beating his wife, the czar changed

46:04

the subject and accused him of inciting

46:06

a rebellion by raising his own forces.

46:09

Ivan Junior denied it, but he insisted

46:11

the city be liberated, at which point

46:14

Ivan the Terrible lost his temper

46:16

and struck his son over the head with

46:18

his scepter. Ivan Junior

46:20

collapsed to the ground, bleeding from the

46:23

head, barely conscious. His

46:25

father immediately threw himself down

46:27

on the ground and cradled his son, crying,

46:30

quote, May I be damned,

46:32

I've killed my son. I've

46:34

killed my son. The

46:37

younger Ivan regained consciousness briefly

46:40

and reportedly said quote, I

46:42

die as a devoted son and

46:45

most humble servant. His

46:48

father prayed over his bedside for the next

46:50

few days, but on November nineteenth,

46:53

young Ivan, heir to the Russian

46:55

throne, died at twenty

46:57

seven years old. This

47:00

again, Ivan's just he

47:02

can't hold on to his temper at all. He's

47:04

just like he doesn't really have a focus

47:06

for any of his violence.

47:08

Really, this is like the most tragic part

47:10

to me because you see especially him

47:12

like collapsing to the ground. That, yeah, his

47:15

his reactions are out of his own control, right.

47:18

He has these violent outbursts

47:21

that I don't think he knows he's doing until

47:23

he's done them. Obviously, no excuse,

47:25

but it's just it makes he's

47:29

so much more than just an awful

47:31

person. He's really got mental

47:33

health issues. I think, and most historians

47:36

say that as well, that he was not a sane

47:38

a fully sane person in control of his own faculties

47:41

right like he was losing it or

47:44

had lost it long ago. The

47:46

guy really needed some some therapy and

47:48

maybe some medications. He

47:51

certainly didn't need to have this kind of power.

47:53

No, it's only making him a

47:55

billion times worse.

47:57

This scepter that he hit his son with,

47:59

he cared around for that purpose. He would

48:01

beat people with it all the time.

48:03

Of course, what else do you do with this

48:05

scepter?

48:05

I guess and his son just like challenged

48:08

him once, like, just stood up to

48:10

him, and his immediate reaction, without thinking,

48:12

without even knowing who was in front of him, was

48:14

to swing that thing and bash him over the head with it.

48:16

Yeah, it's like very knee jerk.

48:18

Yes. Now. Ivan didn't

48:20

really care much for his eighth wife, Maria

48:23

Nagaya, but she bore him a son

48:25

the next year, fifteen eighty two, and

48:27

they named him Dimitri, and this is believed

48:29

to be what saved her from being exiled

48:32

or worse. But later that

48:34

year Ivan sent

48:36

a letter off to our old friend Queen

48:39

Elizabeth the First of England two

48:41

and he said, Hey, I

48:44

want to marry your relative Mary

48:47

Hastings and create an alliance

48:49

between our two nations. Russia

48:51

had only formed their first trade connections

48:54

with England in the last few decades,

48:56

and he saw them as a very powerful

48:58

ally, you know, for blanking Middle

49:00

Europe. Sure, he said in his letter

49:03

that, yeah, I know that I'm

49:05

married, but you know what, I will totally

49:07

ditch my wife if you agreed

49:10

to me marrying your cousin.

49:11

Well, Elizabeth pretty

49:13

much did not respond to this letter,

49:16

maybe because ten years earlier I

49:19

even had exchanged two other

49:21

letters with her. One offered

49:23

some political proposal, and when she

49:25

rejected him, he wrote the second letter,

49:28

which basically said, Wow, I

49:30

thought you were a good ruler, but I guess your country

49:32

is actually ruled by merchants that only

49:34

care about prophets quote

49:36

and you flower in your maidenly

49:39

a state like a maid.

49:41

Wow.

49:43

That ain't the way to go with Queen Elizabeth.

49:46

Oh my god. Yeah no, it's the first letter,

49:49

no mention of her being a queen, and his

49:51

second one he's like, wow, well this is what happens

49:53

when women rule, isn't it.

49:54

Like jeez, dude, your

49:57

dumb female brain. Uh huh, can't

49:59

grasp the intricacies

50:01

and my perfect proposal.

50:03

I guess you're just flouncing around in

50:05

your gardens, you know, doing curtsies

50:08

and watching the notebook.

50:11

And Queen Elizabeth is like, meanwhile, how many

50:13

fires have we had?

50:14

Right?

50:15

Seriously, after your Queen Elizabeth read

50:18

this letter, she kind of it,

50:20

probably took a breath right, got her

50:22

temper together because that was something she could

50:24

do. And she wrote

50:26

back, yeah, that is

50:28

not how it goes over here. She wrote, quote, we

50:31

rule ourselves with the honor befitting

50:34

a virgin queen appointed

50:36

by God, and no sovereign,

50:39

thanks to God, has more obedient

50:42

subjects. So she's

50:44

like, you know all that disloyalty you're

50:46

dealing with, I know nothing of

50:48

it.

50:48

Yeah. Second, oh,

50:52

I'm sorry. I have my shit together over here.

50:55

All right.

50:55

You're out here begging for a wife when you're

50:57

already married, just so you can hold your country together.

51:00

Okay, my best he's over here not

51:02

getting married quick for me.

51:05

I got three dudes on hold, I got.

51:09

Men on men on men, but none on me.

51:13

Well, fortunately before any

51:15

poor english woman was sent off to marry

51:17

Ivan the Terrible, he

51:19

died of a stroke in fifteen

51:22

eighty four while playing chess

51:24

with a friend, and across

51:27

Russia there was much rejoicing ding

51:29

Dong. Well, or

51:32

there might have been, except there

51:34

wasn't really a great air in place,

51:36

because he had killed his eldest son

51:38

Ivan. His younger son, Feodor

51:42

was next in line, and he was named Zar

51:44

pretty quickly. But this guy

51:46

was really quiet. He was kind of sickly,

51:49

and he was just this sweet, good natured

51:51

little kid who had pretty much

51:53

no interest in politics. They

51:55

said that he liked to visit churches and

51:58

he would ask them to ring the bells and

52:00

they got there because he just liked to hear the bells ring.

52:02

That he was actually nicknamed Theodora, the bell

52:04

ringer. And I just

52:06

picture this guy is like and he likes to

52:08

sit down and play with the bunnies, you know, chasing

52:13

around butterflies. Yeah, exactly.

52:16

Well, I guess he he's a lot

52:18

more like honest to see you, yea, his.

52:20

Mother and him for sure. And

52:23

of course he was but only three

52:25

years old himself when his mother died. Oh

52:28

wow, so yeah, so he grew up just kind

52:30

of like can I just stay out of it please?

52:32

I know, well, I would, That's definitely

52:34

would be me. I'd be like, I'm just seeing y'all's

52:36

drama. It's very exhausted.

52:38

I'm gonna go sit over here, listen

52:41

to some bells, reading

52:43

my books.

52:44

Reading my books under the bell tell it. I mean,

52:46

you know, you think of it. He's the spare, right,

52:48

So Ivan probably

52:50

put all of his like fatherness

52:53

into Ivan Junior, like I'm gonna

52:55

do tryna be a man son because you'll be czar one day,

52:57

not thinking that, you know, the other

53:00

way would go, and little Fyodor is just

53:02

like, Okay, well, I'm just gonna go be

53:04

sweetie man.

53:05

That's another thing I think is so weird, how many

53:07

times in history that they've had to resort

53:10

to the spare right, And even so people

53:12

are like, I'm not going to spend any time in the spare,

53:15

you know, Like, but what if he does have to? I mean, you

53:17

should should both know what to do.

53:20

Well. So everyone was kind of expecting

53:23

Fyodor to not really rule for very long

53:25

because he was kind of weak and he was kind of sick. The

53:28

next in line might have been Ivan and

53:30

Maria's son Dmitri from his last

53:32

marriage, but in fifteen ninety

53:34

one, at only eight years old.

53:37

Dmitri died under mysterious

53:39

circumstances.

53:42

And Boris Goldenov was the boyar

53:44

who was effectively running the country while

53:46

Fyodor was you know, checked out listening

53:49

to the bells and stuff. And

53:51

Maria Nagaya and her brothers supported

53:54

a theory that Boris had Dmitri

53:56

killed to strengthen his own power. Sure,

53:59

but the modern scholars tend to think Boris

54:01

was not involved. So the most

54:03

likely theory is that Dmitri was playing

54:06

a game called Sviika

54:08

where boys would throw this sharp spear

54:10

into the ground. But then he had

54:12

a seizure which he was prone to, and

54:15

he fell down in such a way that

54:17

the spear cut his neck.

54:19

Right.

54:20

What a freak.

54:21

Accident, A total freak accident. That's the more

54:23

accepted theory about what happened.

54:25

That's crazy.

54:27

But when Czar Fyodor

54:29

died in fifteen ninety eight without

54:31

an air it kicked off what's

54:33

known in Russian history as the

54:35

time of Troubles, where in

54:38

three different men at different

54:41

times claimed to be

54:43

Dmitri, all grown up like.

54:46

There was this huge cult of people who

54:48

believed that Dmitri actually

54:50

survived. So there's false Dmitri

54:53

one, two and three they call him, and these

54:55

three guys that stepped up and actually

54:58

did rule Russia of them for a

55:00

time. It was chaotic. I mean,

55:02

no one knew who was in charge. This

55:04

is a whole other, a whole

55:06

other show. I mean, this is this is Russian history

55:09

that deserves like a ten part series just

55:11

on the false Dmitries and

55:13

the time of troubles at things. But

55:16

the summary is that things were rough for

55:19

quite a few years, almost two decades.

55:21

I love I love that they named it the time of

55:23

troubles, unlike all the other times

55:26

previously. Well, they're

55:28

not troubled.

55:29

I mean that tells you right there just how

55:31

bad it was. They're like those

55:33

were normal times. These are trouble

55:35

times.

55:36

All the fires, massacres, so

55:38

on normal ship. This is trouble.

55:41

Russian bar very low. Well,

55:44

to make a long story short, In

55:46

sixteen thirteen, I'm in the terribles

55:49

government that he set up. The Zemski Sabor

55:51

elected a relative of his

55:54

first wife, Anastacia, to

55:56

be the next Czar of Russia.

55:58

His name was Michael Romanov.

56:02

Because remember back when Ivan and honest Thesia

56:04

were married people scoffed at

56:06

the Romanov family. They thought they were not very

56:09

important. But now the

56:11

Romanovs would go on to rule Russia

56:13

for the next three hundred

56:16

years.

56:17

How crazy fail

56:20

that? I mean, they basically

56:23

had to be like, I don't know, you

56:26

sort of involved in the family,

56:28

I guess, I mean, certainly again,

56:30

they end up like holding on to power for so.

56:32

Long, right, definitely again another

56:35

dense history if you study

56:37

the time of troubles in Russias more than I had

56:39

time to get into. But but

56:41

yeah, I know I love that. That. I mean, Ivan just

56:44

destabilized things so badly

56:46

on his way out that they had

56:48

to completely switch lines. His dynasty

56:51

was the Rurics, and they had

56:53

ruled Russia for quite a long time and

56:56

no one thought they would ever go. But I haven't

56:59

wiped out that and started the Romanov dynasty,

57:01

who, of.

57:02

Course, three hundred years later lost

57:04

power very spectacularly, right, And.

57:07

Then we got up pretty solid

57:09

Fox Animation Studios

57:12

musical movie out of it

57:15

with Kelsey Grammar. Oh

57:17

yeah, I forget that. And

57:21

the name Anastasia just

57:24

cringed.

57:27

That's not how you say it, right, Well, I guess

57:29

we also say Romanov is

57:32

also wrong.

57:33

Yeah, but who

57:35

knows Russians. Let us

57:37

know Russians, let us know what a

57:39

story. Even the Terrible again

57:42

a name you hear floating through their history, like

57:44

he was one of the bad

57:46

guys henchmen in I think Night at

57:48

the Museum two, like

57:51

the Pharaoh who

57:53

was like taken over. He enlisted

57:55

Ivan the Terrible and Napoleon and

57:58

like uh

58:00

al Capone, I think, to help him

58:02

take over the museum. Yeah,

58:05

exactly. So Ivan's got this historical

58:07

image of being terrible, and of course

58:10

remember his name does not really mean that, but

58:12

he also is terrible. Yeah,

58:14

so really quite

58:16

a quite a character, and just a brutal

58:19

history here with these poor

58:22

eight you know, between six and eight official

58:24

wives and probably many other women who

58:27

well.

58:27

That's what my question is, all these women that

58:29

they were like we can't even keep track. Yeah,

58:31

in that part of the story, I was like, well what happened

58:33

to them?

58:34

Yeah?

58:34

Like I imagine he was just like all right, one night

58:36

stand. Well maybe he's like a mina of Nigeria

58:39

and he's like, I'll just one night stand and

58:41

then you did.

58:41

Yeah. I remember in part one he

58:44

grew up as a as a young

58:46

teenage boy, he had a supposedly

58:48

a different woman every night. Oh yeah, so

58:51

he was probably very used to

58:53

being able to sleep with a woman anytime

58:55

you wanted, and there was just women at his

58:57

disposal at all times. Would further

59:00

makes me think that Ivan's

59:02

real goal was to find another

59:05

honest to see you, find someone who made

59:07

him happy in that way that he was, but

59:09

he again was just too far gone

59:12

to ever feel that way again, no matter who came

59:14

in.

59:14

I think that's true. I mean, you know, this

59:16

is this a terrible guy, but I kind

59:19

of feel sorry for him. I feel like there's a lot of There

59:21

must be a lot of that throughout history, is

59:24

I think we've run into a few times, but

59:27

especially historians must often read

59:29

about particularly leaders where they're

59:31

like, this guy is not well right, you know,

59:33

like if it had been different, you

59:36

know, someone would have been like, let's let's

59:38

maybe get somebody a little more like stable

59:41

and the throne. This

59:43

guy is crazy, but

59:45

they didn't really have, i mean any

59:47

any tools to address that. And

59:50

then of course when we did know kings were

59:52

crazy in England, they were just like, well

59:54

put them in a room by himself.

59:57

But he's still going to be king. I don't know, we

59:59

can't can't change it.

1:00:01

It's just so strange. Well,

1:00:04

I think you've done a fine job making us

1:00:06

feel sorry for a terrible guy.

1:00:09

Always. My goal is, like, you

1:00:11

know, who's looking out for the murderous

1:00:14

white guys? You know we

1:00:16

deserve a little more respect, don't

1:00:18

we we?

1:00:20

I am

1:00:22

I going to be poisoned? Or since you're a monastery,

1:00:25

yeah, prepare myself.

1:00:26

No, I would send myself to a monastery before

1:00:28

you. I think, okay, good, all those

1:00:31

nuns, am I right?

1:00:34

No, I don't think it's going to turn out

1:00:36

the way you play you're planning. I

1:00:38

like that about our show sometimes because you're

1:00:40

able to just look at them as a person, yeah,

1:00:43

throughout there, from their romantic relationships

1:00:45

and stuff, and be like, regardless

1:00:47

of all the terrible things they're doing, there's

1:00:50

just a person in here that is

1:00:52

is I don't know, chafing at

1:00:54

a lot of things in their life, like

1:00:56

his mom being poisoned and stuff, and

1:00:59

he's also so clearly not mentally well

1:01:02

and just I don't know's you can kind of have some

1:01:04

sympathy for that actual person, even

1:01:06

though I have very little sympathy for the ruler

1:01:09

and the terrible.

1:01:10

Exactly. Yeah, I was gonna say it goes

1:01:12

back to this thing I say to you

1:01:14

often when I'll say

1:01:17

I'm sorry and you say you've got nothing to be sorry for

1:01:19

it, and I said, well, I'm not apologizing, I'm sympathizing,

1:01:21

you know. And that's the difference between those two sories. And

1:01:24

it's like I can feel sorry for

1:01:26

Ivan and everything he'd been through and what led

1:01:29

him to being a monster without apologizing

1:01:31

for his behavior at all. Right, no, one, there

1:01:33

is no apology for that, but there can

1:01:36

be sympathy. And that

1:01:38

doesn't mean, oh, it's okay. Come

1:01:40

on, let's get you a hot bowl of soup and get

1:01:43

you inside and give you a nice comfy bed

1:01:45

and you'll, you know, we'll just we'll just find you a

1:01:47

good wife and then all will be forgiven. No,

1:01:50

absolutely not. You're a monster

1:01:52

who murdered and tortured people horribly,

1:01:54

and you deserve nothing but the worst. But

1:01:57

also it sucks that you

1:02:00

the circumstances that led you to become that are

1:02:03

are awful and shouldn't have happened.

1:02:04

Yeah, I think that's true. I

1:02:06

feel like that's sort of when you're psychologically

1:02:09

talking about you know, some

1:02:11

some terrible criminal and people are like, stop

1:02:14

sympathizing with them, they did horrible things, and

1:02:16

it's like, that's true. I don't you know, you don't want to sympathize

1:02:19

with the criminal over the victims, right,

1:02:21

you know? Or something like that, But we

1:02:23

do. I think as people were so fascinated

1:02:25

by, like what makes you do something like that? What

1:02:27

makes you into a type of person who can

1:02:30

go so hard against social

1:02:33

moras and morals? Yea of

1:02:35

like just not torturing and murdering

1:02:38

a bunch of people. Like what turns

1:02:40

you into that person? Is kind of

1:02:42

a draw, is such a curiosity.

1:02:44

I think we lose sight a little bit of

1:02:46

why we want to know that. I think there's an instinct that's

1:02:48

true that that makes us want to

1:02:50

dig into that. It's the reason true crime is so popular

1:02:53

and stuff. And I think the reason we probably

1:02:55

feel that way is because we want to be active

1:02:57

and proactive about stopping those from

1:03:00

happening. But we get a little

1:03:02

more excited about the details and we're just like I just want

1:03:04

to know it. I just want to eat it, and

1:03:06

not like I want to do something about

1:03:09

it. Yeah. I think that's really what

1:03:11

it comes down to, is if we're looking so hard

1:03:13

at why people are the way they are, why

1:03:15

people do terrible things that we could not imagine,

1:03:18

because well, you know, maybe we find

1:03:20

out that Ivan was that way because people were horrible

1:03:22

to him as a child, and maybe we should treat children

1:03:25

better and not poison their mothers. You know,

1:03:27

if that's all we take from this, I

1:03:29

think it's a good lesson, is don't poison

1:03:31

children's mothers.

1:03:34

I find that to be a good lesson as well.

1:03:36

Classic lesson could have avoided

1:03:38

all of this. Who knows what Russia would be like today

1:03:41

if the boy ours hadn't done

1:03:43

all that, right, or if they just.

1:03:44

Yeah, if they let honest Sosia live, right,

1:03:47

maybe Ivan would still be himself, you

1:03:49

know, but not so bad right right, I

1:03:51

don't know.

1:03:52

Maybe things would have gotten worse. There's that theory too, that we

1:03:54

were in the best possible timeline.

1:03:56

Oh that's a theory.

1:03:58

Yeah. Yeah, it's not great. It's

1:04:01

not a great thing, but sometimes I like it. Sometimes

1:04:04

I'm like, well, this sucks, but all

1:04:07

other options were worse. Even though I think they were

1:04:09

better, they are actually worse.

1:04:11

I was gonna say too that. I think what's

1:04:14

part part of us trying to figure out why

1:04:16

someone is the way they are being such

1:04:18

a draw is that we get really

1:04:20

frustrated if we find out that they just are

1:04:23

like that because some people are born with

1:04:25

the violent, violent tendency.

1:04:27

There's nothing that necessarily makes them that

1:04:29

way. I think we talked about it, like Sid and Nancy,

1:04:32

there was really nothing to point to

1:04:34

that was like this is the turning point where they said,

1:04:37

I'm you know, I'm broken

1:04:39

now. But they were just kind

1:04:41

of had that impulse in them. And

1:04:43

there's something really scary about that that you

1:04:45

can just be born with that and not have

1:04:47

any choice once whatsoever, and that nothing could

1:04:49

have done, no one could have done anything differently. That's

1:04:52

always really hard to accept.

1:04:54

Yeah, and you can't not damage

1:04:56

people too, that's so right.

1:05:00

You can't be perfect to everyone around

1:05:02

you all the time, and you're gonna

1:05:04

cause some harm, You're gonna cause some lasting

1:05:06

trauma, you know, just passively, right,

1:05:09

So just try not to do it actively. But yeah,

1:05:12

I think you're right. I think some people there's

1:05:14

not a lot of answers why

1:05:17

do the things they do.

1:05:18

But for Ivan, maybe for

1:05:20

Ivan there seems to be at least some answers,

1:05:23

some triggers in there yet full answers.

1:05:25

There's some triggers yet, but yeah, I don't

1:05:28

know. I hope you all liked this episode, these two

1:05:30

episodes too, learning about Ivan the Terrible

1:05:32

and feeling some sympathy

1:05:34

for this horrible.

1:05:35

Monster, or at least for his wives,

1:05:38

or at.

1:05:38

Least for his wives. He deserves some real sympathy.

1:05:40

Yeah, sure, yeah, thanks so much

1:05:42

for tuning in for this one. We would love to

1:05:45

hear your thoughts, you know,

1:05:47

tell us about the terrible marriages

1:05:49

you've had. We'll

1:05:51

read those on air too.

1:05:52

I know. Leading it sent to any monastery.

1:05:55

Hopefully not, or maybe you did and it turned out

1:05:57

great for you, like the first Anah Yeah

1:06:00

us an email. We ridict Romance at gmail

1:06:02

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1:06:02

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1:06:04

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1:06:05

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1:06:07

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1:06:09

Thank you again so much for tuning in today

1:06:11

spending your time with us. Hope you love this episode

1:06:14

and we've got many more coming your way.

1:06:16

Can't wait to talk to you soon. Love you, Bob

1:06:18

Bay, so long, friends,

1:06:21

it's time to go. Thanks

1:06:23

for listening to our show. Tell

1:06:25

your friends, names, uncles, and dance to

1:06:28

listen to our show. Ridiculous Well means