Jagiellons were Lithuanian dynasty above all, descendants of Gediminas, and out of 4 Jagiellon realms it was the only one which was their hereditary land. Their position and authority of dynasty in Lithuania was stronger than in Poland. Poland in such case would simply follow Lithuania and would elect Grand Duke of Lithuania as King of Poland as usual.
A Son of Aragon - Henry VIII's Catholic Heir
- Thread starter Direwolf22
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- england henry 8th reformation tudor
Just because they are down now - doesn't mean they will always be so..
Austria will indeed focus more on the HRE without the Turks at the backdoor. Central Europe will be very different ITTL.
Russia next, then Austria. Then prep for the big war.
#17 The Last Tsar 1565-1577
The Last Tsar: 1565 - 1577
Ivan IV has been declared Grand Prince of Moscow in 1533 and nearly fifteen years took the title of Tsar. The early years of the young Ivan’s reign were relatively benign. He oversaw the revision and relative modernisation of the legal code - resulting in the Sudebnik of 1550. He expanded the influence and political rights of the nobility, established a standing Russian army and had strong and positive relations with the church. The first printing press was established in Moscow and St. Basil’s Cathedral was commissioned following his conquest of Kazan in 1552. This all began to change in the 1560s however as economic downturn and upheaval led to political repressment. His wife, the Tsarina Anastasia Romanov, died of suspected poison and one of the Tsar’s closest advisors Prince Andrei Kurbsky defected to the Lithuanians. Resentment amongst the nobility grew at the Tsar’s increasing autocratic behavior and paranoia - which was obviously then a self fulfilling prophecy. The domestic situation began to deteriorate as relations between the Tsar and the nobility got worse and worse - and on top of all of it there were foreign issues as well.
Eastern Europe in 1565 was at war. Seven years earlier, Ivan IV, Tsar of all the Russias, had invaded neighbouring Livonia in response to the growing political ties between Livonia and Poland-Lithuania. The Russians achieved many initial successes, aided in no small part by the local nobility and peasantry, many of whom were opposed to the ruling members of the Livonian Order. The Russians won notable victories in the early years, culminating in the Battle of Valga in late 1560. The result saw the dissolution of the Livonian Order, and its successor Duchies being placed under the protection of the Lithuanian Crown. Poland-Lithuania and Russia would continue skirmishing until a short truce came in effect in 1561. The truce was brought on by growing exhaustion from both sides and elements of the Lithuanian nobility becoming increasingly frustrated at Poland’s growing influence over their country - which of course would come to a head ten years later.[1]
Russians During the Livonian War
The cause of Ivan IV’s death has never properly been determined. The two most likely cases are either assassination (perhaps by members of the aristocracy or foreign agents) or sickness or disease[4]. Regardless the result of this news reaching Moscow, and its subsequent spread to the public was chaos. The public were devastated and stunned whilst the nobility panicked over the suddenly vacant throne and the political instability this could cause. Many however would also quietly breathe a sigh of relief. Ivan IV’s paranoia and distrust had seen many boyars lose influence and fear for their safety. With the Tsar dead, it might now be time to reassert themselves and try and regain some power. To that end the question now turned to the succession. Ivan has left two sons. The eldest was Dimitry, 13, who had grown distant from his father and had been left in Moscow when his father had left the city. The second was Ivan, still only 7 and had been with the Tsar in Aleksandrova. The Moscow based aristocracy, overcoming their initial shock, moved to crown Dimitry as Tsar: with the young man in Moscow crowned they could use him as a puppet and increase their own influence. Those elements loyal to the late Ivan IV who had gone with him to Aleksandrova however feared exactly this. Recognising that a boy Tsar in the hands of their political enemies in Moscow was a potential death sentence, and knowing that the former Tsar had no love for Dimitry, they decided to counter this move. The Aleksandrova faction published Ivan IV’s will (almost certainly forged) which disinherited Dimitry and named their young prince Tsar Ivan V. Both sides now prepared to enforce their puppet Tsar on the other. Before Civil War could break out in earnest however two events tipped what could’ve been a simple dynastic crisis into a full blown political disaster.
In August 1565, a third group of boyars, clergy and military leaders who had no love for the ruling dynasty or for the two forming cabals entered the game. They claimed that in fact neither of the two sons were the legitimate Tsars, as Ivan IV had abdicated the throne in December 1564 - an abdication never redacted. They instead formed their own power base in Novgorod, Russia’s third largest city, where they declared the former Tsar’s cousin and previous rallying point for the opposition Vladimir Andreyevich as their Tsar. Then Moscow burned. Ivan IV had always been very popular with the people of Moscow. His death, which rumour insisted to be by assassination, led to a wave of public anger. When the news of the will and the disinheritance of Dmitry arrived this anger turned to violence. Fully believing the legitimacy of this document the people of Moscow attempted to storm the Kremlin and pull down the “illegitimate” Tsar. In the ensuing chaos as the Moscow regime attempted to reimpose order, Dmitry was killed along with several leading boyars and the city was consumed by riot and fire. In one night of chaos the capital was burned and the most likely next Tsar was murdered. A huge power vacuum now emerged and the fight for the future of Russia would now begin in earnest.
1566 and 1567 would see Russia torn apart in Civil War. Any sense of national coherency evaporated as the nobility waged war on one another from the Baltic to the Volga. The fighting in Russia was different from those experienced by western European states in the preceding years. The War of the English Succession (1559-1563) and the ongoing civil war in France were domestic conflicts that took place within existing national states, both of whom had been in a unified existence of one sort or another for centuries. Russia on the other hand was mere decades old, many could remember a time when Moscow was merely just the largest of a collection of petty princedoms [5]. Consequently it is not surprising that as the fighting wore on the idea of “Russia” as a unified state, quickly unwravelled. Cities, regions and territories that been independent less than a century ago began to break free. The great cities of the north and west soon began to look to their own futures whilst the only recently acquired lands to the south and east rapidly became areas of lawlessness and anarchy. All the while the “Russian state” remained technically at war with the outside world. By 1568 it is easier to draw dividing lines between the three primary factions. The first were those who had crowned the young Ivan V. They had by now withdrawn from Aleksandrova to the more defensible and historically important city of Yaroslavl, which lay to the northeast of (what was left of) Moscow. The young Tsar (now 10) was serving as the rallying point for the so-called Legitimist faction; those loyal to the old ruling dynasty of Ivan IV. To their immediate west were the supports of Vladimir Andreyevich acting out of Novgorod. By this point they had secured Pskov and much of the northwest. The Andreyevich faction were aristocrats looking to replace the increasingly absolutist model of Ivan IV with a balance of power more favourable to the nobility. Though they were in a strong position they were also dealing with the fighting in Livonia (which had rapidly and decisively started to go against the Russians as their armies disintegrated) and Swedish moves to the north. The final group was an alliance of local aristocracy in the cities of Tver, Ryazan and Smolensk. This force had declared no Tsar following Dmitry’s death and instead was a collection of nobility who sought to enhance their own power at the expense of a unified Russian state. These ‘Confederate’ forces were a loose association of effectively independent city-states. War between the three forces dragged on and on for another two years, until the conflict again changed dramatically in 1570.
Whereas it is unknown if Ivan IV was assassinated or not still to this day, it is clear that his son the disputed Ivan V most definitely was. The twelve year old would be Tsar was poisoned in September 1570 by anti-Rurikid elements from the Confederate faction. His death would plunge the Legitimist faction into uncertainty before they settled on a replacement: Nikita Romanovich the brother-in-law of the late Ivan IV. Romanovich was declared “Prince of Yaroslavl” and began to rally his supporters who had been driven back in the uncertainty after the death of Ivan V. The war continued however to go against the Yaroslavl forces as both the Confederates and Andreyevite armies advanced. Their luck would soon change in the new year however.
Though the dynastic infighting handicapped Russia, it was foreign intervention that doomed it. In 1571 three foreign armies would invade the former Tsardom and break it forever: Sweden in the north, Lithuania from the west and a joint Ottoman-Crimean invasion in the south. The Swedes had for the last several years been engaged in a war against Denmark in the Baltic for supremacy in the region, and had thus been unable to intervene in Russia. The war however had ended in 1570 in relative stalemate. But now, free from western concerns, Eric XIV, King of Sweden, intervened in the east. Seeing a glorious chance to expand Sweden’s influence in the Baltic and permanently cripple any Russian threat, Eric XIV invaded in force. Swedish troops soon secured northern Livonia, Ingria and large areas of Karelia. They soon came into conflict with Andreyevite armies out of Novgorod. The fighting here would drag on for a few years. Following Sweden’s entry into the war, the newly sovereign Grand Duchy of Lithuania under its new Grand Duke Alexander II decided to expand its borders and assert its credentials as an independent power. Lithuanian armies moved into Russia in a bid to expand the reach of the Lithuanian crown and prevent one of the Russian factions from unifying the country. Lithuania took Smolensk in 1572 as well as making serious gains in the Ukraine. After defeating Confederate forces near Kolomna in 1573, Lithuanian forces sacked Moscow; what was left of that city fell into ruin, never again to rise to its former prominence. In the south the Ottomans under their new sultan Selim II and his ‘eastern’ agenda, crossed the Caucasus Mountains in 1573. Ottoman and Crimean Khanate forces soon restored order in the lawless lands of the Don and Volga basins. The Khanate of Crimea was able to regain huge areas of land lost in the previous decades and were only halted by a Confederate army on the banks of the Oka River in 1574. The Ottomans meanwhile secured the important hub at Astrakhan. Encountering little organised resistance the Ottomans soon expanded their influence up the Volga. Local Tatar groups, cossacks and the remnants of some of the old Steppe tribes became de facto Ottoman vassals as the Sultan’s envoys and advanced troops set up shop on the banks of the Volga. Their only serious challenges were from the various tribal hordes east of the Caspian and from the Urals which had plundered their way west during the Russian collapse and the occasional skirmish with the Lithuanians in the west.
By 1575 the advance of the invading armies had been stalled (more so due to logistics than opposition) and the fighting between the Russian factions had begun to slow. The Romanovich forces in Yaroslavl had rallied whilst the others were fighting Sweden and Lithuania and secured control over the north and east. The Andreyevite Novgorod faction had come to terms with Sweden. Recognising that they could form a useful southern buffer for Sweden, King Eric chose to support the Andreyevites in turn for them accepting Swedish gains in the Baltic and Karelia. The Confederates meanwhile had managed to hold the Lithuanians and Crimeans after 1574 and were now increasingly becoming focused on their own personal ambitions. In the east the Yaroslavl group were now also fighting against the newly refounded Khanate out of Kazan, which had been re-occupied in the chaos by Nogay tribal leaders, Tatars and other anti-Russian groups just over twenty years after they were driven out of the city and region. The fighting would drag on inconclusively into 1577 before a series of agreements ended the war.
The various gains by Sweden, Lithuania, the Ottomans and Crimea were all accepted as a matter of fact with no formal Russian state left to claim or resist them. None of the Russian successor states had been able to win a decisive victory over the others and in the end were forced to accept one another’s continuing existence. With no one man with enough influence or support to declare himself Tsar, four new independent ‘Principalities’ were declared ruled by four former boyars. The Principality of Novgorod was secured under Vladimir Andreyevich. Under Swedish protection, Andreyevich sought to reestablish the vibrant and independent Republic of Novgorod of the 15th Century, under his more autocratic rule of course. In the east the Principality of Yaroslavl was ruled by Nikita Romanov; whilst in the center two former Confederate leaders were declared Princes of Tver and of Ryazan. Former independent states in their own right these two cities would now again be centers of political power in the east. After scarcely a century of unity, Russia had been broken, shattered and divided. What remained was a new and precarious balance of power in Eastern Europe.
Map:
Note the "territories" of the Khanates are approximations and tend to be loosely held rather than full political control.
[1] Everything from these first two paragraphs is essentially OTL.
[2] Also OTL
[3] First major change - the letter makes it to Moscow in OTL. It was the demands of the Moscow public that caused the nobility to accede to the Tsar's demands OTL.
[4] The Tsar suffered from syphilis in OTL
[5] Novgorod had been annexed less than a century before, with Pskov and Ryazan only under Ivan IV’s father. Ivan IV had been the first to take the title Tsar of all the Russias and had seized Kazan and Astrakhan only in the 1550s.
And so falls the Third Rome...there will never be a fourth...
Which means there is now two who can claim Rome's legacy.
Which means there is now two who can claim Rome's legacy.
Well this is a change of pace with a Balkanized Russia. At least the Romanovs got Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod which are both decent cities and trade points from the east and west. Overall I can see them adopting a more Autocratic Asiatic character as the only room to go is East and they’re much more isolated from the West.
As always you do a very good job painting a picture of collapse. Seeing one of your maps again feels vaguely nostalgic; it sure has been a while since the Disaster at Leuthen days, huh?
There is a lot of history yet to come.
I've always wanted to read a timeline without a Russia (or at least a balkanized / reduced version). It offers so many possibilities for Eastern Europe and Asia. But yes I agree with your assessment of the Romanovs. They will be the most "Eastern" of the lot. But much more to come from this region.
Thanks - I always try to stay within the borders of plausibility. Even if I push them. Luckily Russia in OTL had so many chances to collapse in this period. Its just a matter of picking one.
I know its been a long time - over 8 years since I started that. Hopefully my writing has improved somewhat
