Putin Now Promoting Ivan the Terrible and His Regime as Models for Russia, Khapayeva Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 18 – For most of the last four hundred years, Russians have been taught to view Ivan the Terrible and his violent and repressive regime as horrors to be avoided; but increasingly, Vladimir Putin and his regime have been promoting him and his regime as models for Russians to emulate, Russian historian Dina Khapayeva says.
    Now teaching at the Georgia Institute of Technology, she says that despite the evidence to the contrary, Ivan the Terrible is now being presented as “a pious stateman who was concerned about the wellbeing of Russia and the Russian people” (svoboda.org/a/oprichnyy-miroporyadok-dina-hapaeva-o-tsarebozhii-i-putinizme/33341449.html).
    The rehabilitation of Ivan the Terrible under Putin has assumed new prominence in recent weeks as the governor of Vologda has called for naming a youth group there the Oprichniki, the name Ivan gave to his armed thugs who attacked his opponents, calls for his canonization as a saint, and appeals for the erection of Ivan the Terrible statues in various regions of Russia.
    In response, there have been warnings by liberal writers, pushback by some officials and a wealth of media stories calling attention to the noxious actions of Ivan and the ways in which Putin and his regime have promoted an alternative positive image of his violent rule, radical stratification of society, and repression of women and minorities, Khapayeva continues.    
    According to the historian the groundwork for this upswelling of a revised image of Ivan was laid between 2011 and 2024, when Russian TV and movie viewers were offered about two films and series every month that offered a positive image of Ivan and dismissed the criticism that he had typically received earlier.
    The message of these films and series, along with the writing of people like Aleksandr Dugin, have as their primary message the following, Khapayeva says: “Russian medieval society with its terror, stratified hierarchy and slavery” is “a completely acceptable alternative to democracy.”
    She concludes that “this historical policy of the Kremlin,” one that she calls “neo-medievalism,” has “helped, alongside the cult of World War II, not only to militarize Russia but to normalize terror as a means of administering society,” trends that will be difficult if not impossible to change at least in the short term.