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Speaker 1

02:00

Calm things down. Murder, which he did so by sacking the city. Also in case you're wondering, the Aprichniki were disbanded in 1572 after it turned out that they were only good at repressing people but terrible at fighting competent enemies. Much of Ivan's efforts hereafter were dedicated to neutering the nobility further and centralising his power.

Speaker 1

02:16

There were limits to how far he was willing to go and so in 1575, again, he abdicated. And it was Simeon, Ivan's close friend, who took up the position as acting ruler. Simeon then, totally of his own free will, decided to seize masses of land from the church before Ivan returned in 1576. Ivan condemned the seizure of these valuable church lands as unchristian, but not enough to give them back, obviously.

Speaker 1

02:37

By the way, during this entire period, Russia was fighting a costly war called the Livonian War against all of these countries. This was because Ivan wanted to incorporate Livonia into Russia. Russia lost. Something else of note happened.

Speaker 1

02:48

When Ivan was mistreating his son's wife, the 2 got into an argument. The question of loyalty came up and Ivan's son was like, what are you going to do, beat me to death with a scepter? Turns out, yes. In the end, Ivan's reputation as the terrible father was ruined.