Good day fellow alternate history debaters, I have a simple question, what if, after his first attempted abdication, Ivan the terrible didn't retake the thrown?
What if Ivan the terrible didn't come back.
- Thread starter Etruscan-enthusiast35
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- ivan iv ivan the terrible
I suppose his son Ivan Ivanovich could be set up as Tsar, ya he would only be ten, but it's not like countries haven't had prepubescent rulers before.
This could also lead to the already highly corrupt Aristocracy and Clergy trying to use the young Ivanovich(because it would be confusing to call them both just Ivan) as a puppet.
Or, maybe, it's a backdoor to a Orthodox Christian Chingisid Russia.
Possibly, though Simeon was only appointed during Ivan's second abdication, which was only a false abdication anyhow.
True, but I don't see Ivan IV giving up all of his influence even if he never formally returns to power.
That could be part of the fun, he might not give up influence, bit he could have it stripped away from him.
"yep totally coopted by the new Tsar" Says a suspiciously wealthy looking Bishop in the background.
If you are talking about "abdication" of 1565, this was an act of a pure demagoguery because Ivan knew quite well that there was no alternative: in the message sent to Metropolite for reading in Duma he made it quite clear that the Duma is full of traitors (and the rest of it support the traitors) while in the separate message intended for reading in the Posad (non-aristocratic part of Moscow) he reiterated the part regarding the high-ranking traitors and declared that he does not have anything against the "simple folk".
Needless to say that he did not went too far and stopped in Alexandrowskaya Sloboda, only slightly over 100 km from Moscow, place which was royal residence since 1513 (and reasonably well-fortified) and "oprishny estate" (personal property of a widow) of his mother, Yelena Glinskaya. Later it became capital of his Oprichina "state".
Now, formally, Metropolite and the Duma could use given power but could they, really? In a reality, they had two options:
1st, collective rule by the Duma. Taking into an account specifics of that institution at this time, this would not work: comparison to a serpentarium would be very unkind to the snakes. Anyway, there was some kind of a relevant experience during Ivan's childhood and I assume that very few members of the Duma wanted its repetition.
2nd, elect a new Tsar. One realistic candidate would be Vladimir Staritsky and another option would be to call Zemsky Sobor to chose a monarch "on condition of the good behavior" (did not really help either with Godunov or Michael Romanov). The main problem with both options was, IMO, a fear that a newly-elected Tsar is going to be a man from outside the "system" with a resulting reshuffling of the existing power structure and replacing it with his loyalists. In the case of the Zemsky Sobor there was a good chance that it will end up with re-electing Ivan: so far his reign was glorious and nobody really cared about the aristocrats he executed so far. If not, then it is again an issue of the "new broom" and readjustment of the power.
However, probably both Duma and Metropolite easily figured out that the whole thing is a public stunt with a sole purpose to force Ivan's potential enemies to stick out their necks. Message to the Posad made it clear that Ivan is just forced to flee from his enemies and fears for his life. For the lesser nobility (dvorianstvo, military class) it would be a good signal as well: if called to act against the aristocratic traitors they'd gladly do so because this would be a good chance to get confiscated lands and properties (in OTL loyalty of Oprichnina was guaranteed by providing its members with the confiscated lands around Moscow). OTOH, Duma could give them nothing and the same goes for alternative Tsar.
So the only realistic thing Duma could do was to do what it did in OTL: to beg Ivan to get back and hope for the better (time of the mass repressions was in the future and nobody could predict its scope).