In questo giorno del 1581, Ivan il Terribile uccide suo figlio in un impeto di rabbia, portando al Tempo dei Torbidi in cui la Russia soffrì di carestie di massa e molteplici sconfitte militari.

One of the most powerful paintings in Russian history, Russian-Ukrainian realist artist Ilya Repin illustrates depicts the grief-stricken Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible cradling his dying son, the Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich, shortly after Ivan the Terrible had dealt a fatal blow to his son’s head in a fit of anger. The painting portrays the anguish and remorse on the face of the elder Ivan and the shock and heartbreak of the dying Tsarevich, shedding a tear at the unexpected betrayal and shock of having been killed at his father’s hands.

Some sources claim Ivan Ivanovich’s relationship with his father began to deteriorate during the later stages of the Livonian War. Angry with his father for his military failures, Ivan demanded to be given command of some troops to liberate besieged Pskov.

On 19 November 1581, the elder Ivan chastised the tsarevich’s wife Yelena Sheremeteva for being unsuitably dressed, considering her advanced pregnancy, leading to an altercation between the two Ivans. Ivan Ivanovich was killed by his father in a fit of rage, with the argument ending after the elder Ivan fatally struck his son in the head with his pointed staff. Yelena also suffered a miscarriage within hours of the incident.

Ivan’s death had grave consequences for Russia, since it left no competent heir to the throne. After the tsar’s death in 1584, his unprepared son Feodor I succeeded him as tsar. Feodor was a pious man of retiring disposition and possibly suffered from mental disability. He took little interest in politics. After Feodor’s death, Russia entered a period of political uncertainty known as the Time of Troubles.

It was a period of deep social crisis and lawlessness following the death of Feodor I, a weak and possibly intellectually disabled ruler who died without an heir. His death ended the Rurik dynasty, leading to a violent succession crisis with numerous usurpers and false Dmitrys (impostors) claiming the title of tsar. Russia experienced the famine of 1601–1603, which killed almost a third of the population, within three years of Feodor’s death. Russia was also occupied by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Polish–Russian War and lost Smolensk.

The Time of Troubles ended with the election of Michael Romanov as tsar by the Zemsky Sobor of 1613, establishing the Romanov dynasty.

The Painting, *Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581* was painted by Ilya Repin made between 1883 and 1885.

> I painted in tears, I was tortured, I tormented myself, I corrected again and again what I had painted, I hid it, in a sickly disappointment, no longer believing in my strength, I erased what I had painted. I had already erased, and I was attacking the canvas again. Every minute was terrible to me. I was disappointed with this painting, I hid it. And it made the same impression on my friends. But something pushed me towards it, and again I was working on it.

Repin combined Ivan the Terrible’s killing of his son with the then-topical assassination of Alexander II (in 1881).

The very conservative Attorney General of the Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev told Alexander III of his “repulsion” and perplexity about the painting, which did not please the Tsar and his entourage, and on 1 April 1885, viewings of the painting were forbidden. It was the first painting to be censored in the Russian Empire, and Pavel Tretyakov, who bought it, was told “not to expose it, and more generally not to allow it to be brought to the attention of the public by any other means”.

The Painting was vandalised in 1913 and 2018 by members of the public who disagreed with the subject matter.

In October 2013, a group of Orthodox historians and activists, led by Vassili Boiko-Veliki, an apologist and supporter of the canonization of Tsar Ivan, addressed the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky to ask him to remove the canvas from the Tretyakov Gallery on the grounds it offends the patriotic feelings of Russians.

Not OC, copypasta’d from the following Wikipedia articles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsarevich_Ivan_Ivanovich_of_Russia#Death

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_Troubles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible_and_His_Son_Ivan

… and then it got worse.

btw. Zelensky ‘played’ this painting scene in his[ “Servant of the People”](https://youtu.be/iAczzmqu4wk?si=4lbeVltQm_Ww9r42&t=182) tv series where, as the president of Ukraine, he has a vision of speaking with tsar Ivan

here this scene [with english subtitles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh_LUsPe79E) but without the last 20 seconds

Just a Russian doing Russian things.

Has Russia ever had a *good* era? Just seems like at no point in time would be happy to be a Russian.

Early 70s under Brezhnev seems like the best they ever had it but would exactly call it a Golden Age.

Father of the Year. Typical russian.

What a sad sight

Those eyes will haunt you. I’m out of here.

Technically speaking, we don’t know if this actually happened. Ivan the Terrible killing his son is basically an urban legend with literally no sources or physical evidence for it having happened.

Doesn’t mean this _didn’t happen_, but his body was exhumed centuries later and found to have been flooded with contents of mercury (and to a lesser extent, arsenic), while also having no cranial fractures or evidence of trauma (i.e., being beaten to death with the royal scepter). So it’s arguably much more likely the young Ivan died from poisoning from mercury and arsenic.

This also doesn’t necessarily mean young Ivan might have been poisoned maliciously (it could mean that, but it is not for certain), as his mother died of literally the same thing. For some reason, people in the past used mercury in a slew of products, from medicines to cosmetics, and ended up being poisoned by it over time, when done so consistently. So Ivan may have been inadvertently poisoned by some regular medicines he’d been taking, or something like that.

And he also might very-well have been deliberately poisoned too, since that was pretty common as well (and would explain the arsenic).

Well that’s not very nice. In fact, I think he sounds pretty Terrible.

History repeats itself, because the young generations carry the genes of the old ones…