Editing Ivan the Terrible (section)

== Personal life ==
=== Marriages and children ===
[[File:Grigory Sedov - Ivan the Terrible admiring Vasilisa Melentieva.jpg|thumb|280px|Tsar Ivan IV admires his sixth wife [[Vasilisa Melentyeva]]. 1875 painting by [[Grigory Sedov]].]]
[[File:Iván el Terrible y su hijo, por Iliá Repin.jpg|thumb|280px|''[[Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan]]''. 1885 painting by [[Ilya Repin]]]]
Ivan the Terrible had at least six (possibly eight) wives, although only four of them were recognised by the Church. Three of them were allegedly poisoned by his enemies or by rival aristocratic families who wanted to promote their daughters to be his brides.<ref name=rbth>{{cite news |author=Manaev, G. |url= https://www.rbth.com/history/329825-madness-of-3-russian-tsars|title=The madness of 3 Russian tsars, and the truth behind it|newspaper = Russia Beyond |publisher   = Russia Beyond the Headlines |date=7 January 2019|access-date=29 January 2020
}}</ref> He also had nine children.{{cn|date=January 2025}}

In 1580, his heir, [[Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich of Russia|Ivan Ivanovich]], married [[Yelena Sheremeteva]] from the [[Sheremetev]] noble family,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bushkovitch |first1=Paul |title=Succession to the Throne in Early Modern Russia: The Transfer of Power 1450–1725 |date=18 March 2021 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-47934-9 |page=99 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pAEbEAAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> which was a rare instance of the daughter of a boyar marrying into the dynasty.{{sfn|Martin|2012|p=158}}

On {{OldStyleDate|19 November|1581|9 November}}, Ivan chastised Yelena for being unsuitably dressed, considering her advanced pregnancy, leading to an altercation with his son Ivan Ivanovich.<ref name="Crummey"/> Historians generally believe that Ivan killed his son in a fit of rage,{{sfn|Perrie|Pavlov|2014|p=192}} with the argument ending after the elder Ivan fatally struck his son in the head with his pointed staff.<ref name=Zimin/> Yelena also suffered a miscarriage within hours of the incident.<ref name="Crummey">{{cite book |last1=Crummey |first1=Robert O. |title=The Formation of Muscovy 1300 - 1613 |date=6 June 2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-87200-9 |page=175 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MMwFBAAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> The event is depicted in the famous painting by [[Ilya Repin]], ''[[Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan]]''.{{cn|date=January 2025}}

==== Confirmed marriages ====
# [[Anastasia Romanovna]] (married 3 February 1547 – 7 August 1560; died):{{sfn|Martin|2012|p=160}}
#* Tsarevna Anna Ivanovna (10 August 1548{{spaced ndash}}20 July 1550)
#* Tsarevna Maria Ivanovna (17 March 1551{{spaced ndash}}young)
#* [[Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich of Russia (1552–1553)|Tsarevich Dmitri Ivanovich]] (October 1552{{spaced ndash}}26 June 1553)
#* [[Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich of Russia|Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich]] (28 March 1554{{spaced ndash}}19 November 1581)
#* Tsarevna Eudoxia Ivanovna (26 February 1556{{spaced ndash}}June 1558)
#* Tsar [[Feodor I of Russia]] (31 May 1557{{spaced ndash}}6 January 1598)
# [[Maria Temryukovna]] (married 21 August 1561 – 1 September 1569; died):{{sfn|Martin|2012|p=160}}
#* Tsarevich Vasili Ivanovich (21 March 1563{{spaced ndash}}3 May 1563)
# [[Marfa Sobakina]] (married 28 October 1571 – 13 November 1571; died){{sfn|Martin|2012|p=160}}
# [[Anna Koltovskaya]] (married 29 April 1572 – 31 May 1572; sent to monastery);{{sfn|Martin|2012|p=160}} this was the last of his church-authorized weddings and she was later canonized as Saint Daria.<ref>{{Cite web|title=ДАРИЯ|url=https://www.pravenc.ru/text/171388.html|access-date=20 August 2021|website=www.pravenc.ru}}</ref>
# [[Anna Vasilchikova]] (married between 7–30 January 1575 or September–October 1574; sent to monastery in August–September 1576)
# [[Maria Nagaya]] (6 September 1580; widow):{{sfn|Martin|2012|p=160}}
#* [[Dmitry of Uglich|Tsarevich Dmitri Ivanovich]] (19 October 1582{{spaced ndash}}15 May 1591); he was later [[Canonization|canonized]] as [[Saint]] [[Right-Believing]] [[Demetrius]] of [[Uglich]] and [[Moscow]], [[tsarevich]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Благоверный Дими́трий Угличский и Московский, царевич|url=https://azbyka.ru/days/sv-dimitrij-uglichskij-i-moskovskij|access-date=20 August 2021|website=azbyka.ru|language=ru}}</ref>

==== Unconfirmed marriages ====

# [[Vasilisa Melentyeva]] (?–1579) (existence disputed)
# [[Maria Dolgorukaya]] (1580) (existence disputed)
According to historian [[Simon Sebag Montefiore]], Ivan also began an affair with the courtier [[Fyodor Basmanov]]. When the magnate Dmitri Oblensky Ovchinin sneered to Basmanov that "We serve the tsar in useful ways, you in your filthy sodomitical dealings,” Ivan scalded and stabbed him to death.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sebag Montefiore |first=Simon |title=The world: a family history of humanity |date=2023 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |isbn=978-0-525-65953-2 |location=New York}}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=November 2024}}

=== Arts ===
Ivan was a poet and a composer of considerable talent. His Orthodox liturgical hymn, "Stichiron No. 1 in Honor of St. Peter", and fragments of his letters were set to music by the Soviet composer [[Rodion Shchedrin]]. The recording, the first Soviet-produced CD, was released in 1988 to mark the millennium of Christianity in Russia.<ref>{{cite web|title=Иван IV Грозный / Родион Константинович Щедрин – Стихиры (Первый отечественный компакт-диск)|url=http://www.intoclassics.net/news/2009-08-09-7942|work=intoclassics.net|date=9 August 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Kuzin|first=Viktor|title=Первый русский компакт-диск|url=http://www.rarity.ru/CONSALTING.htm|work=rarity.ru|access-date=20 August 2010|archive-date=23 November 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111123125830/http://www.rarity.ru/CONSALTING.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== Letters ===
{{See also|Andrey Kurbsky#Works attributed to Andrey Kurbsky}}
[[D. S. Mirsky]] (1958) called Ivan "a pamphleteer of genius".<ref>{{Cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Pys__ZDJN6QC&pg=PA21 | title = A History of Russian Literature: From Its Beginnings to 1900 | isbn = 978-0810116795 |author1=Mirsky, D. S.  |author2=Whitfield, Francis James | year = 1958| publisher = Northwestern University Press }}</ref> The exchange of letters attributed to Ivan and his former vassal [[Andrey Kurbsky]], who defected to Lithuania in 1564, is often said to be the only existing source on Ivan's personality that could provide crucial information on his reign, but Harvard professor Edward L. Keenan (1971) has argued that the letters are 17th-century forgeries.<ref>Keenan, Edward L. (1971) ''The Kurbskii-Groznyi Apocrypha: the 17th Century Genesis of the "Correspondence" Attributed to Prince A.M. Kurbskii and Tsar Ivan IV''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press</ref> That contention, however, has not been widely accepted (exceptions include [[Donald Ostrowski]] and [[Brian Boeck]]); most other scholars, such as John Fennell and [[Ruslan Skrynnikov]], have continued to argue for their authenticity.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2020|pp=190–191}} The most frequently cited argument by proponents of authenticity is the 1987 Morozov article on a manuscript, variously dated to 1594–95 or the 1620s,{{sfn|Ostrowski|2020|pp=198–199}} of the first Kurbskii letter to Ivan,{{sfn|Ostrowski|2020|pp=198–199}} which Martin (2007) asserted "has substantially strengthened the argument for the authenticity of the correspondence".{{sfn|Martin|2007|pp=365–366}} Skeptics point out that Morozov later acknowledged the 1620s as the date of composition, and that he never followed-up his preliminary findings with a separate study that he called for.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2020|pp=198–199}}