The lure of the Kremlin: the court of Ivan the Terrible and global networks in the sixteenth century

The lure of the Kremlin: the court of Ivan the Terrible and global networks in the sixteenth century

Lecture by Sergei Bogatyrev (UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies)

Given at University College London on January 31, 2012

In the sixteenth century, the rise of Muscovy was accompanied by military aggression and the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. As a result of military conflicts and cultural differences, Westerners began to see Russia as a barbarian kingdom, whose rulers kept it locked away from the outside world. However, this lecture will demonstrate that the court of Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584) and other tsars was actually a focus point of exchange in technology, commodities and ideas with both the East and the West, and that Muscovite regalia, court rituals and illuminated manuscripts were in fact a result of intensive global interactions.