Ivan the Terrile was one of the, well, most terrible czars imperial Russia had ever seen. There are many stories about his brutalness towards the serfdom, but one of his most brutal acts and the one that probably wished the most that he could take back was the killing of his eldest son, also named Ivan. Ivan the Terrible was angered and disgusted by the clothing that his pregnant daughter-in-law was (or wasn’t) wearing and he struck her causing a miscarriage. His son (the daughter-in-law’s husband) got into a heated verbal fight with his father for not only striking his wife, but for killing their unborn baby. The fight became intense and turned physical. Ivan the Terrible, living up to his name, grabbed a spear and stabbed his son, leaving him to die in the czar’s arms.
This story, like a lot of Russin history is hard to believe and you probably wouldn’t believe it even if you saw it in a soap opera. The scene of Ivan holding his dying son is best captured in the immensly popular painting, “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on November 16, 1581.”
