Volta
Person1440 – 1505

Ivan III

Also called: Ivan the Great, Ivan III Vasilyevich

Grand Prince of Moscow from 1462 to 1505 who gathered the Russian lands, threw off Mongol (Golden Horde) rule in 1480 and styled himself tsar

He served as co-ruler with his blinded father Vasily II before becoming grand prince in 1462. After his first wife died he married the Byzantine princess Sophia through the mediation of the pope. Annexing Novgorod, he carried its assembly bell, symbol of its liberties, off to Moscow, and he also took Tver, greatly expanding his realm. In 1497 he issued Russia’s first unified law code. He is called “Ivan the Great” to distinguish him from his grandson Ivan IV (the Terrible).

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1 related event

  1. 1
    1480Ivan III and the End of Mongol Rulemonarch

    In 1480 Grand Prince Ivan III of Moscow faced down Akhmat Khan of the Great Horde at the Ugra River and forced him to withdraw, ending nearly 240 years of Mongol (Tatar) domination.

Themes this person appears in

  • Late Medieval Europe and the Renaissance1077 – 1517

    From Canossa to the eve of the Reformation — papal power at its height and in decline, towns and parliaments, royal power growing through the Hundred Years’ War and the Black Death, and the Renaissance and printing