Letters to the Editor

To the Editors:

As usual, your January 1997 issue was excellent. Of particular interest to me was your article The Father of Tsarism. However, to complete the picture of Ivan IV, a few comments would be in order.

On translation from Russian. When crowned, Ivan IV partook of Christian Mysteries (mandatory confession and communion), he was not “initiated into the Holy Secrets.” The Stoglavy Sobor is usually rendered in English as the Stoglavy [Church] Council. Indeed, Grozny has no obvious equivalent in English and has been translated as Awesome and Dread besides the Terrible. It is crucial to understand, as the author of the article Andrei Yurganov points out, that the adjective Grozny carried in the 16th Century a positive meaning (his grandfather Ivan the Great was also sometimes called Grozny) and that the common use of the Terrible is a gross mistranslation. A more appropriate translation of Grozny would be August (incidentally, it was believed already in the 15th Century Moscow that the Ryrik dynasty takes its lineage from the brother of Augustus Caesar).

On Ivan Grozny’s cruelty. Empress Catherine the Great, in comparing his rule to the rule of his contemporaries, wrote: “1. Henry VIII, who reigned in England, executed his wives and attendants. His daughter, the fervent Catholic Bloody Mary, cruelly persecuted the Protestants. 2. Under Philip II of Spain a great number of people fell victim to the Inquisition. 3. The Spanish Duke Alba reigned brutally in Holland. 4. Under Charles IX of France, Bartholomew’s Night took place. 20,000 Calvinists, called Huguenots, were killed in Paris and throughout the country.” [Actually the number was up to 30,000 – double the number of the murdered Novgorodians.]

On Tsar Ivan’s intelligence and vision. Historians generally agree that Russia had three monarchs – Yaroslav the Wise in the 11th Century, Ivan Grozny in the 16th and Catherine the Great in the 18th–known for their talents and intelligence. A few examples in the case of Ivan Grozny: he instantly realized the political and economic importance for Russia of the visit of Capt. Richard Chancellor in 1353 (whose trip on the way to India became stranded in the White Sea), Among the results of this encounter: through the trade agreement, Brittania ruled the waves but henceforth with Russian ropes and cables – the best in the world; Nemetskaya sloboda (Foreign Quarter) was established, which served as the source of foreign influence and from which Peter the Great benefitted so much in his childhood; the Livonian War for the control of a port on ice-free Baltic to maintain permanent contact with Europe. Granted, Ivan Grozny lost the War (it was Peter the Great who obtained an ice-free port for Russia). But what vision! In addition one might mention Ivan Grozny’s granting to the Stroganovs the right to explore and colonize Siberia which ultimately added to Russia 5.3 million square miles. His brilliant polemical correspondence with Prince Andrei Kurbsky; and his magnificent library with hundreds of Russian, Greek and Latin manuscripts from which he could quote at will.

Yuri Olkhovsky

The George Washington University

To the Editors:

Can you please tell me how I can legally send money to relatives in Russia?

Thank you,

Rubin D. Cooley

Olympia, WA

Dear Rubin:

The easiest solution for sending money to individuals in Russia (they need not be relatives) is to use Western Union, which has dozens of outlets in Moscow and throughout Russia. All you need is the person’s passport number (for I.D. purposes on pick-up). You will get a “control number” and can call your relative with this number to speed the pick up. They can receive the money within minutes, either in dollars or rubles.

– The Editors

To the Editors:

Robert Greenall’s travel pieces should be required reading for Americans entering Russia for the first time. Until July 1995, I had never set foot there and I was very nervous at first. I have now landed at Sheremetevo Airport nine times and made my way around Moscow regularly without any sense of terror, even though I am an African-American and therefore easily identifiable as an “outsider” and “Westerner.”

By learning some basic “survival Russian,” remaining alert, taking obvious precautions, and avoiding behavior that might make me a target, I have found Moscow’s streets quite manageable. Overall, I feel safer in Moscow than in New York City.

Christopher Foreman

Senior Fellow

The Brookings Institution

Washington, DC