began, Moscow continued to hope to split the Italo-German alliance and to use Italy to block German penetration into the Balkans: for example, by encouraging Italy’s plan for a bloc of Balkan neutrals in the Fall and Winter of 1939. These plans came to naught when Germany and then Italy attacked Russia in June 1941. The Italian expeditionary army on the Eastern Front met horrific disaster in 1943.
The Allies signed an armistice with Italy in 1943, and the following year the USSR recognized the new Italy. In 1947, the two signed a peace treaty. Italo-Russian relations were again subsumed in the struggles between larger alliance systems, this time with Italy playing a crucial role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which stood against the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. Particularly interesting
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was the rise of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). After the brutal crushing of the Hungarian Revolt (1956), however, the PCI began to distance itself from the USSR and to promote an “Italian Road to Socialism.” In March 1978, the PCI entered a governmental majority for the first time. Stung by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the PCI increasingly promoted Eurocommunism, which ultimately played a large role in delegitimizing Soviet Russia’s imperial satellite system in Eastern Europe. After the collapse of Communism in Russia in the early 1990s, the main point of cooperation and conflict between Russia and Italy remained focused in the Balkans and Danubian regions. See also: BALKAN WARS; WORLD WAR I; WORLD WAR II
Clarke, J. Calvitt. (1991). Russia and Italy against Hitler: The Bolshevik-Fascist Rapprochement of the 1930s. New York: Greenwood Press. Corti, Eugenio. (1997). Few Returned: Twenty-Eight Days on the Russian Front, Winter 1942-1943, tr. Peter Edward Levy. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Nobile, Umberto. (1987). My Five Years with Soviet Airships, tr. Frances Fleetwood. Akron, OH: Lighter-Than-Air Society. Toscano, Mario. (1970). Designs in Diplomacy: Pages from European Diplomatic History in the Twentieth Century. Translated and edited by George A. Carbone. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press. Urban, Joan Barth. (1986). Moscow and the Italian Communist Party: From Togliatti to Berlinguer. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
J. CALVITT CLARKE III
Tver, the town ruled by Grand Prince Alexander Mikhailovich, revolted against the Tatars. In 1328 Ivan visited Khan Uzbek, who gave him the patent for the grand princely throne and troops to punish the insurgents. After Ivan devastated Tver and forced Alexander to flee, the town and its prince never regained their position of power. Significantly, in his rivalry with Tver, Ivan won the support of the Metropolitan, who chose Moscow for his residence. In the 1330s, as Grand Prince Ged-imin increasingly threatened Russia, Ivan also fought to suppress pro-Lithuanian factions in the northwestern towns. His greatest challenge was to subdue Novgorod, which used its association with Lithuania against him, and which challenged him when he levied Tatar tribute on it. By faithfully collecting the tribute, however, and by visiting the Golden Horde on nine occasions and winning the khan’s trust, he persuaded the Tatars to stop raiding Russia. Moreover, by currying the khan’s favour, Ivan was able to keep the title of grand prince and secure succession to it for his son Simeon. Ivan died on March 31, 1340. See also: GOLDEN HORDE; GRAND PRINCE; MOSCOW
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fennell, John L. I. (1968). The Emergence of Moscow 1304-1359. London: Secker and Warburg. Martin, Janet. (1995). Medieval Russia 980-1584. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
IVAN I
(d. 1340), prince of Moscow and sole grand prince of Vladimir.
By collaborating with the Tatar overlords in Saray, Ivan I overcame his rivals in Tver and made Moscow the most important domain in northeast Russia. He was nicknamed “Moneybag” (“Kalita”) to reflect his shrewd money handling practices.
Ivan Danilovich was the son of Daniel and grandson of Alexander Yaroslavich “Nevsky.” In 1325, when he succeeded his brother Yury as prince of Moscow, he continued Moscow’s fight with Tver for supremacy. Two years later the people of
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(1326-1359), prince of Moscow and grand prince of Vladimir. In the 1340s Lithuania encroached into western Russia and challenged the Golden Horde for control of Russian towns. Thus the prince of Moscow and other princes had to establish relations with both foreign powers. Ivan’s elder brother Simeon and father Ivan I Danilovich “Kalita” (“Moneybag”) had collaborated with the Tatars to promote Moscow’s interests against princely rivals and against Lithuania. Ivan, a weak ruler under whose reign Moscow’s authority declined, charted a different course. After Simeon died in 1353, Ivan traveled to Saray, where Khan Jani-Beg, against the objections of Novgorod and Suzdal- Nizhny Novgorod, gave him
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the patent for the grand princely throne of Vladimir. Later, however, he was persuaded to establish cordial relations with Lithuania and to decrease Moscow’s subordination to the khan. He formed a treaty with pro- Lithuanian Suzdal, arranged a marriage alliance with Lithuania, and prevented Tatar envoys from entering Muscovite lands. His change of policy kindled serious opposition. Many of his councilors fled to pro-Tatar Ryazan, thus weakening Moscow’s internal solidarity. Metropolitan Alexei also sided with the defectors. When the khan himself challenged Ivan, he yielded to the pressure. In 1357 he submitted to Berdi-Beg, the new khan, and was reconciled with his disgruntled boyars. But he failed to increase Moscow’s territories, and Novgorod ignored him. Moreover, in the testament he issued before his death, he confirmed the practice of hereditary appanages, which his brother Simeon had first espoused, and which further fragmented the Moscow principality. He died on November 13, 1359. See also: GOLDEN HORDE; MOSCOW
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fennell, John L. I. (1968). The Emergence of Moscow 1304-1359. London: Secker and Warburg. Martin, Janet. (1995). Medieval Russia 980-1584. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Eighteenth-century portrait of Ivan III. © ARCHIVO ICONOGRAFICO, S.A./CORBIS
IVAN III
(1440-1505), grand prince of Moscow (1462-1505), sovereign of “all Russia” (from 1479).
Ivan Vasilyeich was the eldest son and successor to Basil II, co-regent in the last years of his blind father. Ivan’s youth coincided with the dynastic war, in which he took part at age twelve, leading the campaign against Dmitry Shemyaka (1452). Thereafter, Ivan became a steady champion of autocratic rule.
Under Ivan III’s reign, the uniting of separate Russian principalities into a centralized state made great and rapid progress. Some of these principalities lost their independence peacefully (Yaroslavl, 1463-1468; Rostov, 1474); others tried to resist and were subjugated by military force (Great Novgorod, 1471-1478; Tver, 1485; Vyatka, 1489). The incorporation of Great Novgorod into the emerging Muscovite state took especially dramatic form. When Novgorodian boyars questioned the sovereignty of the grand prince over their city-state, Ivan III led his troops to Great Novgorod. In the battle on the Shelon River, July 14, 1471, the Novgorodian army was completely defeated. Four boyars who had been captured (including Dmitry Boretsky, one of the leaders of anti-Muscovite party in Novgorod) were executed by the grand prince’s order. In the peace treaty of August 11, 1471, the city acknowledged the lordship of the grand prince and gave up the right of independent foreign relations. Six years later, Ivan III found a pretext to start a new campaign against Novgorod; this time the city-state surrendered without a struggle. In January 1478, Great Novgorod lost its autonomy completely: The veche (people’s assembly) and the office of posadnik (the head of the city government) were abolished, and the assembly’s bell, the symbol of Novgorod’s sovereignty, was taken away to Moscow. In the 1480s, having
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