The regency of Elena Glinskaya under her son, Ivan the Terrible, lasted from 1533 to 1538. During this time, she managed to carry out several significant reforms, strengthen autocratic power and led the actions of the Russian troops in the war with Lithuania (1534-1537).

Elena Glinskaya was the second wife of Prince Vasily 3, whom he died in 1533. The death of the ruler turned out to be very mysterious: the prince received a leg wound while hunting, blood poisoning began, which they could no longer stop. Before his death, Vasily 3 left the regency council of trustees (a seven-member commission), consisting of the 7 most influential boyars of Russia. The Council was supposed to rule until the age of Ivan the Terrible. It is important to note here that the Council was supposed to rule, and not Glinskaya, whom Vasily 3 married, as chronicles say, only because of her beauty. However, it was this woman who took power in Russia into her own hands for 5 years.

At the time of his father's death, Ivan the Terrible was 3 years old. This meant that the Regency Council had to actually lead the country for 12 years. However, the Council split and a struggle for sole power began within it. Elena Glinskaya, the mother of Ivan 4, won this fight.

Elimination of rivals

The main task at the initial stage of Glinskaya's regency was to eliminate any competitors who could encroach on the legitimacy of her son's power. These were both relatives of Vasily 3 and influential boyars. Basically, the struggle for power was fought between three groups of boyar families: Glinsky, Shuisky and Belsky. However, at the initial stage, the specific princes posed a great danger.

The elimination of possible rivals in the struggle for power for Elena Glinskaya was reduced to the fight against:

• Prince Yuri Dmitrovsky. Before the birth of Ivan the Terrible, it was he who was considered the successor to the Grand Duke's throne. The boyars from the seventh commission feared that Yuri would declare his rights to the throne of Moscow, so Ivan 4 was crowned in just 2 days. In December 1533, Yuri Dmitrovsky was taken into custody. In 1536 he died of starvation.
• Mikhail Glinsky, uncle of Elena Glinsky. It is believed that he did not get along with Obolensky, Elena's favorite, after which he entered into a conspiracy with the Belskys against his niece. In 1534 Mikhail was arrested. In the same year he died in custody. The Belskys began to lose their influence.
• Prince Andrei Staritsky, younger brother of Ivan 3 and Yuri Dmitrovsky. After the death of Yuri in 1536, Andrei Staritsky fled from Staritsa. He planned to raise an army to fight the boyars who had killed his brother. Obolensky persuaded him to come to Moscow and negotiate with Elena Glinskaya. There Andrei was arrested in 1537, accused of rebellion and executed in December 1537.

The regency of Elena Glinskaya thus eliminated all the main competitors in the struggle for power. A young girl who was not taken seriously by anyone, quite skillfully ruled the country, protecting her son.

Elena Glinskaya understood that it was necessary to continue the policy of her husband, strengthening the autocratic power, depriving the specific principalities of any independence. In general, the internal policy of Elena Glinskaya during her regency consists of 3 directions:

• Reforms to strengthen the central government. Objectively, these reforms made Rus' stronger.
• Standardization of all measures. Imagine what a mess it was when each principality had its own measures.
• Building new cities and strengthening the defenses of old ones. First of all, Moscow was fortified, where the stone walls of Kitay-gorod were built. New cities were built in the south and west. The largest cities: Sebezh, Pronik, Balakhna and others.

Monetary reform

The monetary reform forbade the specific principalities to mint their own money. During the period of fragmentation, each principality issued its own money. After 1535, such money was recognized as "spoiled" and withdrawn from circulation. A "Mint" was created in Moscow, which minted a single money for Rus'. On the reverse side of this money was written "The Grand Duke of All Rus', Ivan."

The monetary unit in Rus' was the ruble, consisting of 100 kopecks. In everyday life, there were mainly 3 units of money:

• Kopek. This is the largest monetary form in Rus'. The coin depicted a horseman with a spear. Hence the name.
• Money = 0.5 kopecks.
• Polushka = 0.25 kopecks.

Other monetary names of this era: half (50 kopecks), hryvnia (10 kopecks), altyn (3 kopecks). A unified system of measures (length, weight) was also introduced. All this was done to streamline the issuance of money, which ultimately strengthened the central government in Russia.

lip reform

In times of specific fragmentation, the governors had unlimited power. Princes ruled in large cities, and governors ruled in small towns and villages. Therefore, people often suffered from their arbitrariness. Elena Glinskaya decided to limit the power of the governors, shifting their key functions to other people. For these purposes, the post of labial headman was introduced, who received judicial functions and partly voivodship functions.

Theoretically, it was assumed that the noblemen and black-haired peasants should be the headmen. In reality, these positions were occupied exclusively by local boyars and their children. This transferred the fullness of power from the hands of the governors to the hands of the boyars. However, the boyars-headmen controlled the lands from which they fed themselves, so the arbitrariness became much less.

Foreign policy

Foreign policy under the reign of Elena Glinskaya completely continued the policy of her husband, Vasily 3. During the years of her reign, friendly relations with Moldova, Sweden, the princes of the Astrakhan and Nogai khanates were strengthened, a peace treaty was signed with Livonia.

The most important event of the period of Glinskaya's regency was the war with Poland and Lithuania in 1534-1537. Taking advantage of the death of Vasily 3, and seeing the struggle of boyar groups for power, the Polish king and the Lithuanian prince declared war on Russia in September 1534. Lithuanian troops managed to capture Gomel and Starodub, after which they linked up in the siege of Chernigov. The Russian army advanced on enemy territory to Volno, simultaneously founding 2 border cities of Zavolochye and Sebezh. The advance of the Russian army deep into Lithuania forced Sigismund 1 to start peace negotiations. It is obvious that the calculation of the weakness of Elena and the boyar families in the management of Russia did not materialize. The peace treaty between Russia and Lithuania was signed in 1537. Russia kept the cities built during the war in the border areas. Lithuania received Gomel. Thus the war ended with minor concessions on both sides.

End of reign

The regency of Elena Glinskaya lasted less than 5 years. On April 3, 1538, she died at the age of 30. A young and healthy woman suddenly dies. Most likely she was poisoned. It was one of the most common deaths among the rulers of that time.

After the death of Elena Glinskaya, the boyar stage of government began, which lasted until the accession to the throne of Ivan the Terrible in 1547.

Grand Russian Duchess of Moscow, daughter of the Lithuanian prince. Vasily Lvovich Glinsky and his wife Anna.

She came from the princely family of the Glinskys, who, according to the genealogical legend, were the descendants of the sons of the deposed Khan Mamai, who fled to Lithuania and received the city of Glinsk as an inheritance.

Biography of Elena Glinskaya

In 1526, she became the wife of the Grand Duke divorced from his 1st wife, barren Solomonia Saburova. Vasily III took Elena Glinskaya as his wife for several reasons. First, he wanted to have children by her; secondly, because on the maternal side she was descended from the Serbian Orthodox family of Petrovich, which at that time was a magnate Hungarian family that played the first roles under King Janos Zapolya; and thirdly, due to the fact that the uncle was Mikhail Glinsky - a skilled diplomat and an outstanding commander who could better than others protect his relatives if such a need arose.

In 1530, Elena Glinskaya gave birth to a son, Ivan the Terrible, and later a son, Yuri, who was "simple in mind" and deaf and dumb. In 1533, Vasily III blessed his son Ivan on his deathbed and handed him the "scepter of great Rus'", and ordered his wife "under his son to keep the state until his son matures."

Regency of Elena Glinskaya

So, in 1533 - 1538. Elena Glinskaya- the ruler of Russia under the minor Ivan the Fourth.

Having become the ruler of the Grand Duchy of Moscow after the death of her husband, she energetically suppressed the oligarchic aspirations of the boyars and successfully began the fight against real and potential opponents. Using the help and advice of his favorite boyar Prince I.F. Sheepskin-Telepnev-Obolensky, Elena Glinskaya imprisoned her uncle-rival M. Glinsky. She also imprisoned her brother Vasily III, Prince Yuri Ivanovich of Dmitrov and Prince Andrei Ivanovich of Staritsky.

Monetary and other reforms of Elena Glinskaya

The most important aspect of governance is Elena Glinskaya monetary reform in 1535. A single currency was introduced on the territory of Rus'. This was a silver penny, weighing 0.68 g; one fourth of a penny is a penny. An order was given to pour numerous cut and counterfeit silver coins into new ones, which depicted the Grand Duke on horseback with a spear in his hand. This was a significant step towards stabilizing the Russian economy.

In 1536, Elena Glinskaya forced the Polish king Sigismund the First to conclude a peace favorable to Russia, and obliged Sweden not to help Lithuania and the Livonian Order. In 1537, she concluded a peace treaty with Sweden.

Under her, the strengthening and construction of cities and fortresses was carried out at the same time, especially on the western borders. So the settlement (Kitay-gorod) was surrounded by a brick wall.

Board of Elena Glinskaya

The government of Elena Glinskaya also waged a struggle against the growth of monastic landownership.

Elena Glinskaya, as a woman of non-Russian morals and upbringing, did not enjoy the sympathy of either the boyars or the people. Although she was a very beautiful woman, cheerful in character, well educated: she knew German and Polish, spoke and wrote Latin.

She died on April 4, 1538 in Moscow. According to existing rumors, Elena Glinskaya was poisoned by the Shuiskys. These studies of the remains of the princess indicate the cause of death was poisoning with poison - mercury.

GLINSKAYA, ELENA VASILEVNA(? - 1538) - the second wife of the Russian Tsar and Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III Ivanovich, ruler of Russia (as a regency) 1533-1538.

The niece of the Lithuanian magnate Mikhail Lvovich Glinsky, the daughter of the Lithuanian prince Vasily Lvovich Glinsky-Blind and Princess Anna, Elena was married to the 45-year-old Tsar Vasily III after his divorce in November 1525 from the allegedly barren first wife Solomonia from the ancient Saburov family. Compared with Solomonia, she was known in the eyes of the Moscow boyars as “rootless”. The choice of the tsar was also considered unsuccessful because Elena's uncle was at that time in a Russian prison for treason (an attempt to surrender Smolensk to Lithuania when he considered that the tsar did not reward him enough). However, Elena was beautiful and young (the tsar chose “beautifulness for the sake of her face and the goodness of her age, and especially for the sake of chastity”), brought up in a European way: the sources preserved the news that the tsar, wanting to please his wife, “put a razor on his beard”, changed the traditional Moscow attire for a fashionable Polish kuntush and began to wear red morocco boots with turned up toes. All this was seen by contemporaries as a violation of age-old Russian traditions; the tsar's new wife was blamed for the violations.

The marriage of Elena and Vasily III was started with one goal: so that the new wife could give birth to an heir, to whom the Moscow “table” should be transferred. However, Elena and Vasily did not have children for a long time. Contemporaries explained this by the fact that the king "was burdened with the vile vice of his father and ... felt disgust for women, respectively, transferring his voluptuousness to the other [sex]." The long-awaited child - the future Ivan the Terrible - was born only on August 25, 1530. In honor of the fact that Elena was able to give birth to an heir, Vasily III ordered the Church of the Ascension to be laid in the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow. In November 1531, Elena gave birth to her second son, Yuri, sickly, weak-minded (according to A.M. Kurbsky, he was “mad, without memory and dumb”, that is, deaf and mute). There were rumors in the city that both children were not the children of the tsar and the grand duke, but Elena's "cordial friend" - Prince Ivan Fedorovich Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky.

In 1533 Vasily III died. His last will was to transfer the throne to his son, and he ordered “to his wife Olena with the boyar council” to “keep the state under his son” Ivan until he matured. The real power in the state was in the hands of Glinskaya as a regent. A strong temper and ambition helped her to defend her position, despite several boyar conspiracies aimed at overthrowing her. During the years of her reign, her favorite continued to play a significant role in public affairs - Prince. I.F. Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky and Metropolitan Daniel (a student of Joseph Volotsky, a fighter against non-possessors), who sanctioned the divorce of Vasily III from the childless Solomonia Saburova.

Glinskaya's foreign policy as regent was firm and consistent. In 1534 the Lithuanian king Sigismund started a war against Russia, attacked Smolensk, but lost. According to the armistice of 1536–1537, Chernigov and Starodub lands were assigned to Moscow, although Gomel and Lyubech remained with Lithuania. In 1537 Russia concluded an agreement with Sweden on free trade and benevolent neutrality. During the reign of Glinskaya, a successful struggle was waged against the growth of monastic landownership, a lot was done to strengthen the centralization of power: in December 1533, the inheritance of Prince Yuri Ivanovich of Dmitrovsky was liquidated, in 1537 - the old inheritance of Prince Andrei Ivanovich, conspiracies of princes Andrei Shuisky and the uncle of the ruler Mikhail Glinsky were revealed , claiming the first places in public administration.

Under Glinskaya, active construction was going on in Moscow; in May 1535, a stone Kitai-Gorod was erected (architect Pyotr Fryazin). In rich Muscovy, an influx of emigrants from other countries began.

From 1536, on the orders of Glinskaya, they began to rebuild and fortify the cities of Vladimir, Tver, Yaroslavl, Vologda, Kostroma, Pronsk, Balakhna, Starodub, and later - Lyubim and cities on the western borders (protection from Lithuanian troops), southern (from the Crimean Tatars) and eastern ( from the Kazan Tatars: in particular, the cities of Temnikov and Buigorod were founded).

One of the most significant events in the economic and political development of the Russian state was the monetary reform of 1535, which eliminated the rights of specific princes to mint their own coins. The reform led to the unification of monetary circulation in the country, as it introduced a single monetary system for the entire state. It was based on a silver ruble, equal to 100 kopecks. Under Elena Glinskaya, the main and most common monetary unit of Muscovite Rus became precisely the “penny” - a coin with the image of a horseman (according to some sources - George the Victorious, according to others - the Grand Duke, but not with a sword, as before, but with a spear, hence the name of the coin). The monetary reform of Glinskaya completed the political unification of the Russian lands and in many ways contributed to their more intensive development, as it contributed to the revival of the economy.

The reorganization of local self-government (“lip reform”) also began: Elena ordered that cases be removed from the jurisdiction of the governors and transferred to the governors and “favorite heads” subordinate to the Boyar Duma, since the governors, as she was informed, were “fierce, like a lion.” This largely anticipated the future reforms of Glinskaya's son, Ivan the Terrible.

On the night of April 3-4, 1538, Elena Glinskaya died suddenly (according to some sources, she was only thirty years old, but the exact date of birth is unknown, so her age is also unknown). The chronicles do not mention her death. Foreign travelers (for example, S. Herberstein) left messages that she was poisoned, and her favorite I.F. Ovchina Telepnev-Obolensky was killed immediately after her death. Elena's second son, Yuri, was imprisoned and killed. In Russia, the period of the boyar oligarchy began - 1538-1547 - under the young tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich.

In modern historiography, assessments of Helena's regency are ambiguous. Some historians call her an independent, independent ruler, others believe that she was weak-willed, and the boyars ruled the country behind her back.

Natalya Pushkareva

Vasily III grieved greatly that he had no children. They say that once he even cried when he saw a bird's nest with chicks on a tree.

- Who will reign after me in the Russian land? he mournfully asked his neighbors. - My brothers? But they can't even manage their own business!

On the advice of those closest to him, he divorced his first wife, Solomonia Saburova, who was tonsured, as they say, against her desire, and, as mentioned above, married Elena Glinskaya, the niece of the famous Mikhail Glinsky.

Solomonia Saburova. Painting by P. Mineeva

The new wife of Vasily III was not like the Russian women of that time: her father and especially her uncle, who lived in Italy and Germany, were educated people, and she also learned foreign concepts and customs. Vasily III, having married her, seemed to be inclined towards rapprochement with Western Europe. To please Elena Glinskaya, he even shaved off his beard. This, according to the then concepts of the Russians, was considered not only an obscene deed, but even a grave sin: the Orthodox considered a beard an essential accessory of a pious person. On the icons representing the Last Judgment, on the right side of the Savior, the righteous were depicted with beards, and on the left, the infidels and heretics, shaved, with only mustaches, “like cats and dogs,” pious people spoke with disgust.

Despite such a view, young dandies appeared in Moscow at that time, who tried to become like women and even plucked their hair on their faces, dressed up in luxurious clothes, put shiny buttons on their caftans, put on necklaces, many rings, rubbed themselves with various fragrant ointments, went around in a special way. small step. Pious people armed themselves strongly against these dandies, but they could not do anything with them. Having married Elena Glinskaya, Vasily III began to flaunt ...

Elena Glinskaya. Reconstruction from the skull of S. Nikitin

Papa found out that the Grand Duke was deviating from the old Moscow customs and was trying to persuade him to the union - Vasili filed. III, even the hope of getting Lithuania after the childless Sigismund, hinted at the fact that Constantinople, “the fatherland of the Moscow sovereign,” could be taken over. Basil III expressed a desire to be in alliance with the pope, but evaded negotiations on church affairs.

More than four years have passed since his marriage to Elena Glinskaya, and Vasily Ivanovich still had no children. He and his wife went on a pilgrimage to the monasteries, distributed alms; in all Russian churches they prayed for the granting of an heir to the sovereign.

Finally, on August 25, 1530, Elena Glinskaya gave birth to an heir, Vasily III, who was named John at baptism. Then there was a rumor that when he was born, a terrible thunder swept across the Russian land, lightning flashed and the earth trembled ...

One holy fool predicted to Elena Glinskaya that she would have a son, "Titus - a broad mind."

Two years later, Vasily III and Elena had a second son, Yuri.

Glinskaya Elena Vasilievna (c. 1508 - 1538) - Grand Duchess of Moscow, daughter of Prince Vasily Lvovich from the Lithuanian family of Glinsky and his wife Anna Yakshich. In 1526 she became the wife of Grand Duke Vasily III, divorced from his first wife, and bore him two sons, Ivan and Yuri.

After the death of her husband in December 1533, Elena Vasilievna made a coup, removing from power the guardians (regents) appointed by her husband's last will and became the ruler of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Thus, she became the first ruler of the Russian state after Grand Duchess Olga (as a regency) 1533-1538.

Elena Vasilievna Glinskaya

The niece of the Lithuanian magnate Mikhail Lvovich Glinsky, the daughter of the Lithuanian prince Vasily Lvovich Glinsky-Blind and Princess Anna, Elena was married to the 45-year-old Tsar Vasily III after his divorce in November 1525 from the allegedly barren first wife Solomonia from the ancient Saburov family.
Compared with Solomonia, she was known in the eyes of the Moscow boyars as “rootless”. The choice of the tsar was also considered unsuccessful because Elena's uncle was at that time in a Russian prison for treason (an attempt to surrender Smolensk to Lithuania when he considered that the tsar did not reward him enough). However, Elena was beautiful and young (the tsar chose “beautifulness for the sake of her face and the goodness of her age, and especially for the sake of chastity”), brought up in a European way: the sources preserved the news that the tsar, wanting to please his wife, “put a razor on his beard”, changed the traditional Moscow attire for a fashionable Polish kuntush and began to wear red morocco boots with turned up toes. All this was seen by contemporaries as a violation of age-old Russian traditions; the tsar's new wife was blamed for the violations.

Vasily III introduces his bride Elena Glinskaya into the palace. Lebedev K.

The marriage of Elena and Vasily III was started with one goal: so that the new wife could give birth to an heir, to whom the Moscow “table” should be transferred. However, Elena and Vasily did not have children for a long time. Contemporaries explained this by the fact that the king "was burdened with the vile vice of his father and ... felt disgust for women, respectively, transferring his voluptuousness to the other [sex]."

The wedding of Vasily III Ioannovich and Elena Glinskaya. 16th century miniature
January 21, 1526 Vasily III married Elena Glinskaya for the second time

Birth of Ivan the Terrible. Miniature from the Illuminated Chronicle.

The long-awaited child - the future Ivan the Terrible - was born only on August 25, 1530. In honor of the fact that Elena was able to give birth to an heir, Vasily III ordered the Church of the Ascension to be laid in the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow. In November 1531, Elena gave birth to her second son, Yuri, sickly, weak-minded (according to A.M. Kurbsky, he was “mad, without memory and dumb”, that is, deaf and mute). There were rumors in the city that both children were not the children of the Tsar and the Grand Duke, but of Elena's "heart friend" - Prince Ivan Fedorovich Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky.

Ivan Fedorovich Ovchina Telepnev-Obolensky (? - 1539) - prince, boyar (since 1534), then a groom and governor in the reign of Vasily III Ivanovich and Ivan IV Vasilyevich. Favorite of Elena Vasilievna Glinskaya, second wife of Grand Duke Vasily III. He enjoyed great influence on Elena, and as a result, on state affairs.
Son of Prince Fyodor Vasilievich Telepnya-Obolensky.

According to the historian of the era of Ivan the Terrible, Ruslan Skrynnikov, Prince Ivan Fedorovich, who was granted the high rank of equestrian by Vasily III for military merits, became in fact the head of the Boyar Duma. But, dying, Vasily III did not include him in the special guardianship (regency) council and, thus, the equerry was removed from government, which, of course, offended the young commander and became the reason for rapprochement with Elena Glinskaya. The widow of Grand Duke Vasily III was born and raised in Lithuania and had a strong character, the Moscow tradition did not provide for the political significance of the widow of the deceased sovereign, then the ambitious young Grand Duchess decided on a coup d'état and found her main ally in the face of a disgruntled equerry.

Elena Vasilievna Glinskaya

As a result of the coup, Elena Vasilievna became the ruler of the state. The elimination (exile or imprisonment) of the guardians-regents appointed by Vasily III also followed. The first to suffer was the eldest of the then living brother of the late Grand Duke Vasily, Yuri, the appanage prince Dmitrovsky. He was accused of calling back to his service some of the Moscow boyars and thinking of taking advantage of Ivan Vasilievich's infancy in order to seize the Grand Duke's throne. Yuri was captured and imprisoned, where he was said to have starved to death. A relative of the Grand Duchess, Mikhail Glinsky, was also captured and died in prison. Ivan Fedorovich Belsky and Ivan Mikhailovich Vorotynsky were imprisoned. Prince Semyon Belsky and Ivan Lyatsky fled to Lithuania.

The younger uncle of the sovereign, Prince Andrei Ivanovich Staritsky, tried to enter into a fight with Moscow. When in 1537 Elena demanded him to Moscow for a meeting on Kazan affairs, he did not go, citing illness. They did not believe him, but sent a doctor who did not find a serious illness in the prince. Seeing that his relationship with Elena was escalating, Prince Andrei Ivanovich decided to flee to Lithuania. With the army, he moved to Novgorod; some Novgorodians stuck to him. A detachment under the command of the voivode Buturlin came out against Prince Andrei from Novgorod, and from Moscow - under the command of Prince. Sheepskin-Telepnev-Obolensky. It didn't come to a battle. Prince Andrei entered into negotiations with Ovchina-Telepnev, and the latter took an oath that if Prince. Andrey will go to confess to Moscow, then he will remain safe and sound. Ovchiny-Telepnev's oath was violated: he was declared feigned disgrace for arbitrarily given a promise, and Prince Andrei was sent into exile, where he died a few months later. Sigismund I thought to take advantage of the infancy of Ivan IV in order to regain the Smolensk region. His troops were at first successful, but then the advantage went over to the side of the Russians; their advanced detachments under the command of Ivan Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky reached Vilna. In 1537 a five-year truce was signed. At the end of the reign of Elena Glinskaya, Ovchin-Telepnev-Obolensky was the most important adviser to the ruler and continued to bear the title of equerry.

On April 3, 1538, the ruler Elena Vasilievna died suddenly. On the seventh day after her death, Telepnev-Ovchina-Obolensky and his sister Agrafena were captured. Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky died in prison from lack of food and the severity of the chains, and his sister was exiled to Kargopol and tonsured a nun. The horseman was overthrown by one of the regents - Prince Vasily Shuisky-Nemoy, an old and experienced commander, who, with the rank of Moscow governor, took the vacant position of the actual ruler of the state.

Basil III in a French engraving by André Thevet

In 1533 Vasily III died. His last will was to transfer the throne to his son, and he ordered “to his wife Olena with the boyar council” to “keep the state under his son” Ivan until he matured. The real power in the state was in the hands of Glinskaya as a regent. A strong temper and ambition helped her to defend her position, despite several boyar conspiracies aimed at overthrowing her. During the years of her reign, her favorite continued to play a significant role in public affairs - Prince. I.F. Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky and Metropolitan Daniel (a student of Joseph Volotsky, a fighter against non-possessors), who sanctioned the divorce of Vasily III from the childless Solomonia Saburova.

Sigismund I. Marcello Baciarelli.

Glinskaya's foreign policy as regent was firm and consistent. In 1534 the Lithuanian king Sigismund started a war against Russia, attacked Smolensk, but lost. According to the armistice of 1536–1537, Chernigov and Starodub lands were assigned to Moscow, although Gomel and Lyubech remained with Lithuania. In 1537 Russia concluded an agreement with Sweden on free trade and benevolent neutrality.
During the reign of Glinskaya, a successful struggle was waged against the growth of monastic landownership, a lot was done to strengthen the centralization of power: in December 1533, the inheritance of Prince Yuri Ivanovich of Dmitrovsky was liquidated, in 1537 - the old inheritance of Prince Andrei Ivanovich, conspiracies of princes Andrei Shuisky and the uncle of the ruler Mikhail Glinsky were revealed , claiming first places in government. Uncle, Mikhail Glinsky, was imprisoned for dissatisfaction with her favorite Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky.
She did not enjoy the sympathy of either the boyars or the people as a woman not of Moscow, but rather of European morals and upbringing.
However, in the five years of her regency, Elena Glinskaya managed to do as much as not every male ruler manages to accomplish during the entire period of his reign.

Glinskaya's government was constantly engaged in intricate intrigues in the field of international diplomacy, trying to gain the "top" in rivalry with the Kazan and Crimean khans, who felt like masters on Russian soil half a century ago. Princess Elena Vasilievna herself negotiated and, on the advice of loyal boyars, made decisions.
In 1537, thanks to her far-sighted plans, Russia concluded an agreement with Sweden on free trade and benevolent neutrality.

V. G. Astakhov. Glutton row at the Kitaigorod wall.

The domestic policy of Elena Glinskaya was also very active.
Reflecting the actions of the feudal authorities, maneuvering between various groups of feudal lords, the government of Elena Glinskaya continued to pursue a course towards strengthening the grand ducal power. It limited the tax and judicial privileges of the church, put under its control the growth of monastic agriculture, and forbade buying land from serving nobles.
During the reign of Glinskaya, the reorganization of local self-government (“lip reform”) also began: Elena ordered that cases be removed from the jurisdiction of the governors and transferred to the governors and “beloved heads” subordinate to the Boyar Duma, since the governors, as she was reported, were “fierce, like a Lviv ". Guba (lip - administrative district) letters were introduced.
In addition, the government of Elena Glinskaya is taking measures to strengthen the army, build new and reorganize old fortresses. This largely anticipated the future reforms of Glinskaya's son, Ivan the Terrible.

Like Princess Olga, who founded in the tenth century. many new settlements, Elena Vasilievna ordered the construction of cities on the Lithuanian borders, the restoration of Ustyug and Yaroslavl, and in Moscow in 1535 Kitay-gorod was founded by the builder Peter Maly Fryazin.
Emigrants from other countries reached out to wealthy Muscovy; 300 families left Lithuania alone.

Apollinary Vasnetsov. Spassky (Water) Gates of Kitai-Gorod in the 17th century.

From 1536, on the orders of Glinskaya, they began to rebuild and fortify the cities of Vladimir, Tver, Yaroslavl, Vologda, Kostroma, Pronsk, Balakhna, Starodub, and later - Lyubim and cities on the western borders (protection from Lithuanian troops), southern (from the Crimean Tatars) and eastern ( from the Kazan Tatars: in particular, the cities of Temnikov and Buigorod were founded).

One of the most significant events in the economic and political development of the Russian state was the monetary reform of 1535, which eliminated the rights of specific princes to mint their own coins. The reform led to the unification of monetary circulation in the country, as it introduced a single monetary system for the entire state. It was based on a silver ruble, equal to 100 kopecks. Under Elena Glinskaya, the main and most common monetary unit of Muscovite Rus became precisely the “penny” - a coin with the image of a horseman (according to some sources - George the Victorious, according to others - the Grand Duke, but not with a sword, as before, but with a spear, hence the name of the coin). This was a silver penny weighing 0.68 g; one fourth of a penny is a penny.
This was a significant step towards stabilizing the Russian economy. The monetary reform of Glinskaya completed the political unification of the Russian lands and in many ways contributed to their more intensive development, as it contributed to the revival of the economy.
Elena Glinskaya opened wide prospects. She was young, energetic, full of ideas...
But on the night of April 3-4, 1538, Elena Glinskaya died suddenly (according to some sources, she was only thirty years old, but the exact date of birth is unknown, so her age is also unknown). The chronicles do not mention her death. Foreign travelers (for example, S. Herberstein) left messages that she was poisoned.

Elena Glinskaya. Skull reconstruction, S. Nikitin, 1999

The reconstruction of the appearance of Elena Glinskaya highlighted her Baltic type. The face of the princess was distinguished by soft features. She was quite tall for women of that time - about 165 cm and harmoniously built. The remains of Elena Glinskaya's hair were preserved in the burial - red, like red copper, in color.
One of Ivan the Terrible's contemporaries noted the redness of his hair. Now it is clear whose suit the king inherited. It was the hair that helped to find out the cause of the unexpected death of a young woman. This is extremely important information, because the early death of Elena undoubtedly influenced the subsequent events of Russian history, the formation of the character of her orphaned son Ivan, the future formidable tsar.
As you know, the cleansing of the human body from harmful substances occurs through the liver-kidney system, but many toxins accumulate and remain for a long time also in the hair. Therefore, in cases where soft organs are not available for research, experts do a spectral analysis of the hair. The remains of Elena Glinskaya were analyzed by forensic expert Tamara Makarenko, candidate of biological sciences. The results are stunning. In the objects of study, the expert found concentrations of mercury salts that are a thousand times higher than the norm. The body could not accumulate such quantities gradually, which means that Elena immediately received a huge dose of poison, which caused acute poisoning and caused her imminent death.
Later, Makarenko repeated the analysis, which convinced her: there was no mistake, the picture of poisoning turned out to be so vivid. The young princess was exterminated with the help of mercury salts, or sublimate, one of the most common mineral poisons in that era (Vokrug Sveta magazine, June 2011).
So more than 400 years later, it was possible to find out the cause of the death of the Grand Duchess. And thus confirm the rumors about the poisoning of Glinskaya, given in the notes of some foreigners who visited Moscow in the 16th-17th centuries.
In modern historiography, assessments of Helena's regency are ambiguous. Some historians call her an independent, independent ruler, others believe that she was weak-willed, and the boyars ruled the country behind her back.

After the death of Elena, the boyar Vasily Nemoy-Shuisky came to power, who hastened to forget about the foreign woman who ruled the Russian state for five years, and ordered that Glinskaya's favorite, Prince Ivan Ovchina, be thrown into prison. A few months later, the former lover of the princess died of starvation and a developed illness. Some historians claim that Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky was executed. Elena's second son, Yuri, was imprisoned and killed. In Russia, the period of the boyar oligarchy began under the infant Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich.

Tsar Ivan IV. Vasilyevich of Russia (1533/1547 - 1584)

For several years - 1538-1547 - the famous in Russian history "boyar rule", strife between the boyars, unrest, conspiracies and intrigues continued.

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History of Russian Goverment