Ivan was born at the height of the civil war that raged between supporters of his father, Grand Prince Vasily II of Muscovy, and those of his rebellious uncles. His early life was dramatic and tumultuous: when his father was arrested and blinded by his cousin in 1446, Ivan was first …show more content…
To counterbalance Ahmed’s friendship with Poland–Lithuania, Ivan concluded an invaluable alliance with Khan Mengli Girei of Crimea. After a victorious campaign by Ivan in 1480, Ahmed withdrew his forces from Ivan’s dominions, and although Ahmed’s sons continued to worry Moscow and Crimea until their final defeat in 1502, Ivan from 1480 no longer considered himself a vassal of the Khan and entered the field of European diplomacy as an independent sovereign. By tact and diplomacy he managed to maintain his friendship with Mengli and to avoid serious trouble in Kazan for the rest of his …show more content…
Singularly little is known about him as a man. He was tall and thin and had a slight stoop. It is said that women fainted in his presence, so frightened were they by his awesome gaze. His only known pleasures were those of the bed and the table. His contemporaries are silent about his virtues. Yet few scholars have underestimated the role of Ivan in the creation of the Russian state, and none dispute the significance of his diplomatic and military successes. It may be that the excessive cautiousness of his character, the lack of élan and glamour, and the very dullness of the man have prevented historians from universally recognizing the appellation of “the Great,” first attributed to him by the Austrian ambassador to his son’s