Russia: Political History and Notable Figures

1325 - 1340 - Ivan (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

  • He was Prince of Moscow

  • He was born with the last name of Danilovitch

  • He was nicknamed “Moneybags” (“Kalita” in Russian)

• Under his reign,

  • The grand ducal palace called the Kremlin was constructed

• He helped suppress the suicidal revolt against the Tartars of his predecessor Alexander of Tver

• He served as the Tartars’ trusted tax collector throughout Kievan Rus territory, adding his own percentage

  • Most people benefited, even if the price of relative peace was the namesake’s threats as well as penal taxation

  • Under his reign, the Rus tribes were still a series of separate kingdoms paying taxes to the Tartars

• He manipulated

  • Russia’s absentee Mongol masters

  • His countrymen’s wealth

• He set a precedent of local self-government

1340 - 1353 - Simeon of Moscow (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

• He continued his father and predecessor’s policies to increase the power and prestige of the state

1359 - 1389 - Dmitri Donskoy (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

  • He was Grand Duke

• He and his forces defeated Mamai and his Mongolian forces in the Battle of Kulikovo

• He was succeeded by his son

1389 - 1425 - Vasily (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

  • He was Grand Prince of Moscow and Vladimir

  • He succeeded his father

  • Upon assumption to the throne, Tuqtamish of the Golden Horde recaptured Moscow and renewed the Tartar yoke, despite his father’s victory against the Mongols

1425 - 1462 - Vasily II (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

  • He was Grand Prince of Moscow

  • He successfully fought over the throne with Dmitri Shemyaka during the Muscovite War of Succession

1445 - 1447 - Dmitri Shemyaka (All Facts)

• Grand Prince of Moscow

  • He unsuccessfully maintained the throne with Vasily II during the Muscovite War of Succession

1462 - 1505 - Ivan III (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

  • He was the Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia

  • He asserted his rights as titular prince of Novgorod (one of the oldest of Russian towns with wide authority over northern Russia)

  • He was nicknamed “the Great”

• He forced Novgorod to renounce its relations with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

  • After an attempted revolt, he removed 8,000 of the leading families to his own domain and replaced them with merchants from Moscow (Muscovy)

• He declared Russia totally independent from the Golden Horde

  • Up to that point, the Golden Horde occupied Russia for 200 years

  • He defended Russia from Tartar attacks

  • He refused to continue paying the tribute money demanded from him and his people by Khan Akhmat and the Mongols

  • Muscovite rulers thereafter continued to buy off or repel Tartar invaders, but no longer accepted the patent from the khans