Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia by Isabel s> de Madariaga (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 335 poetics is convincing.It offersa fascinatingwindow onto how artisticlanguage conserveselementsof a formativepastwhile reactingto presentculturalissues. However, despite the author'scopious materialand wonderfulchoice of illustrations ,it remains questionablewhether his eclectic and thesis-drivenmethodology is adequate to reveal the 'innermostconcerns of inarticulatemasses'. On the other hand, the insightsTarasov has brought forth deeply enrich our understandingof the meaning and significanceof the mass-producedicon in imperial and revolutionaryRussia and its relation to Westernizing aesthetic norms from the mid-seventeenthcentury. FiveColleges, Amherst, MA PRISCILLAHuNr de Madariaga,Isabel.IvantheTerrible: FirstTsarofRussia.Yale UniversityPress, New Haven, CT and London, 2005. xxi + 484 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Glossary.Select bibliography.Index. 25s.00. LEOPOLD VON RANKE wrote some of his best work when he was over the age of eighty. Now much the same may be said of Isabel de Madariaga in her study of Ivan the Terrible. For the firstand lasting impressionmade by this book is of its thoroughnessand perspicacity.The authorappearsto have read criticallynearly everythingpublished about Ivan, and to have subjectedit all to searchinganalysis.Thus, each episode in the life of her subjectis given a full treatment. One can only admire the confident way in which she neatly picks her way througheach historiographicalthicket,usuallyfindinga clear conclusion . (An exception is the 'Keenan controversy', although she accepts the authenticity of the Ivan-Kurbskii correspondence on 'historical grounds' ratherthan 'linguisticand textual analysis' [p. xvi].) De Madariagadoes not shrinkfrom negative appraisalwhenever she considersit to be appropriate.Indeed, one historianonly seems to escape entirely from her probing analysis.This is N. M. Karamzin, 'intellectuallyhonest, if a romantic at heart' (p. 367)whose Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskogo is describedas 'invaluablenotjust for the simplicityand humanityof its moral approach,but also for the richness of the sources' (p. x). Indeed, some of the sources have since been lost, but the approach of a workproduced between I814 and I824 is inevitablydated. Its ideas on causation are elementary,its characterization is black and white. Thus, where too much under Karamzin's influence, the book reads in places like a Victorian cautionarytale. However, for the most part, the authorshowsher customaryacumen in her evaluationof the workof others which she supplements with insights of her own. She demonstrates impressiveknowledge of monarchs and modes of government from one end of Europe to the other, making suggestive comparisons with France and Germany in particular.Her account of the contacts between Ivan and Elizabeth of England is especiallyevocative.And she does not flinch frompointing to aspects of her subjectwhere not enough is known for any confident interpretation ,for example the oprichnina, the reasonsfor the creationand abolition of which she accepts as unknown. 336 SEER, 84, 2, 2006 Fellow historians(even those whose work is subjectedto negative criticism) will not be able to deny the book'spositive qualities.General readers,for the most part unconcernedwith academic debate, will probablyfind most interest in the life of Ivan himself,although they will need to recognize that this is riot a straightforward biography,more a studyof a complex man living in difficult times. While the author does not go as far as the dust-coverdescriptionof 'a staggeringlydegeneratemonsterwho was both an appallinglysadisticcriminal and a patheticallytragicvictim of power', she is far from accepting the evaluation purveyed by some Soviet scholarsof Ivan as a devoted nation-builder, especially since she gives emphasis to his self-identificationwith 'the idea of sacredviolence which opened the way for the Tsar'sbelief in the purificatory value of his cruelty'(p. 38I). She is inclined to believe that Ivan was literate, althoughpreparedto accept that he might have received the Word via ritualistic rote. As far as his physicalcondition is concerned, she finds the evidence fora vitaminB deficiencymore compellingthan thatfor spondylosis.A caref'ul assessmentof the amount of arsenicand mercurydiscoveredin his bones leads her to discount the possibilityof him being poisoned. Just occasionally,de Madariaga'sgrandmanner takesher over the top. For example, since she has not worked in a Russian archive, how can she be so sure that a sixteenth-centuryRussian manuscriptis not 'so difficult'to read (p. 44)?Moreover, one of the majorbees in her bonnet is fullyrevealedin the observationthat the word 'autocratic'belongs 'to the world of AliceThrough the Looking Glass'(p.447),presumablyin particularto Humpty Dumpty who insists thatwordsmeanjust what he saysthey mean...