The Fictional Ivan: Ivan the Terrible in English-Language Fiction

Halperin, Charles J. (2023) The Fictional Ivan: Ivan the Terrible in English-Language Fiction. RUSSIANSTUDIES.HU, 5 (2). pp. 71-86. ISSN 2677-0660

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Abstract

Ivan the Terrible’s image in English derives from sixteenth-century English accounts of travelers to Muscovy, some parts of which remain unchanged in the five novels written in English dating from 1896 to 2015 discussed in this article. Creative license, of course, triumphs over historical veracity; the novels abound in factual errors. The enormous increase in knowledge about Muscovy that has become available to novelists from historical research during this period had little or no impact on authors of historical fiction. The novelists’ interpretations of Ivan vary. Ivan is presented as a failure or a success as a ruler, as a man both rational and insane, disparities that reproduce the lack of consensus among historians. The novels disagree on whether his executions were justified by treason or no more than excrescences of his volatility. What is most interesting in these novels is not their all too predictable Eurocentric bias, sensationalism, or anachronisms, but their unanimous invocation of one element of Ivan’s personality. Even when Ivan is doing the right thing, even when he is successful, he remains first, last and always a monster. This aspect of his life and rule dominates all five novels.

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