Kurbsky was a contemporary. Prince of Kurbsky. Kurbsky, Prince Andrei Mikhailovich

Prince Kurbsky

How pitiful, fate has judged who

Seek someone else's cover in the country.

K.F. Ryleev. Kurbsky

Kurbsky's position in our history is absolutely exceptional. His unfading glory over the centuries rests entirely on his flight to Lithuania and the high importance at the court of Ivan the Terrible, which he ascribed to himself, that is, on betrayal and lies (or, to put it mildly, fiction). Two reprehensible actions, moral and intellectual, secured his reputation as a prominent historical figure of the 16th century, a fighter against tyranny, and a defender of sacred freedom. Meanwhile, we can safely say, without fear of sinning against the truth, that if Grozny had not entered into correspondence with Kurbsky, the latter today would have attracted our attention no more than any other governor who took part in the conquest of Kazan and the Livonian War.

Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky came from Yaroslavl princes, tracing their origins to Vladimir Monomakh. The Yaroslavl princely nest was divided into forty clans. The first known Kurbsky - Prince Semyon Ivanovich, who was listed as a boyar under Ivan III - received his surname from the family estate of Kurba (near Yaroslavl).

In the Moscow service, the Kurbskys occupied prominent positions: they commanded armies or sat as governors in large cities. Their hereditary traits were courage and somewhat stern piety. Grozny adds to this his hostility towards the Moscow sovereigns and an inclination towards treason, accusing his father, Prince Andrei, of intending to poison Vasily III, and his maternal grandfather, Mikhail Tuchkov, of uttering “many arrogant words” after the death of Elena Glinskaya. Kurbsky passed over these accusations in silence, but judging by the fact that he calls the Kalita dynasty a “blood-drinking family,” it would probably be unwise to attribute an excess of loyal feelings to Prince Andrei himself.

We have extremely scanty, fragmentary information about the entire first half of Kurbsky’s life, relating to his stay in Russia. The year of his birth (1528) is known only by Kurbsky’s own instructions - that in the last Kazan campaign he was twenty-four years old. Where and how he spent his youth remains a mystery. His name was first mentioned in discharge books in 1549, when he, with the rank of steward, accompanied Ivan to the walls of Kazan.

At the same time, we are unlikely to be mistaken in asserting that Kurbsky from his youth was extremely receptive to the humanistic trends of the era. In his camp tent, the book took pride of place next to the saber. Without a doubt, from a very early age he discovered a special talent and inclination for book learning. But domestic teachers could not satisfy his craving for education. Kurbsky relates the following incident: one day he needed to find a person who knew the Church Slavonic language, but the monks, representatives of the then scholarship, “renounced ... that praiseworthy deed.” A Russian monk of that time could only teach a monk, but not an educated person in the broad sense of the word; Spiritual literature, for all its significance, still gave a one-sided direction to education. Meanwhile, if Kurbsky stands out among his contemporaries with something, it is precisely his interest in secular, scientific knowledge; more precisely, this interest of his was a consequence of his attraction to culture in general. He was lucky: he met with the only genuine representative of the then education in Moscow - Maxim the Greek. The learned monk had a huge influence on him - moral and mental. Calling him “beloved teacher,” Kurbsky treasured his every word, every instruction - this is evident, for example, from the prince’s constant sympathy for the ideals of non-covetousness (which, however, he internalized perfectly, without any application to practical life). The mental influence was much more significant - it was probably Maxim the Greek who instilled in him the idea of ​​​​the exceptional importance of translations. Kurbsky devoted himself to the translation work with all his soul. Acutely feeling that his contemporaries were “melting with spiritual hunger” and did not reach true education, he considered the main cultural task to translate into Slavic those “great Eastern teachers” who were not yet known to the Russian scribe. Kurbsky did not have time to do this in Russia, “before he constantly turned and exhausted himself for the Tsar’s orders”; but in Lithuania, in his spare time, he studied Latin and began translating ancient writers. Thanks to the breadth of views acquired in communication with Maxim the Greek, he by no means considered, like most of his contemporaries, pagan wisdom to be demonic philosophizing; Aristotle’s “natural philosophy” was for him an exemplary work of thought, “most urgently needed by the human race.” He treated Western culture without the inherent distrust of a Muscovite, moreover, with respect, for in Europe “people are found not only in grammatical and rhetorical, but also in dialectical and philosophical teachings.” However, one should not exaggerate Kurbsky’s education and literary talents: in science he was a follower of Aristotle, not Copernicus, and in literature he remained a polemicist, and far from brilliant.

Perhaps the mutual passion for book learning to some extent contributed to the rapprochement between Grozny and Kurbsky.

The main moments of the life of Prince Andrei until 1560 are as follows. In 1550, he received estates near Moscow among the thousand “best nobles,” that is, he was invested with Ivan’s trust. Near Kazan, he proved his courage, although calling him a hero of the capture of Kazan would be an exaggeration: he did not participate in the assault itself, but distinguished himself during the defeat of the Tatars who ran out of the city. The chroniclers do not even mention him among the governors through whose efforts the city was taken. Ivan subsequently mocked the merits that Kurbsky attributed to himself in the Kazan campaign, and sarcastically asked: “When did you create those glorious victories and glorious victories? Whenever you go to Kazan (after the capture of the city. - S.Ts.) to blame the disobedient ones for us (to pacify the rebellious local population. - S.Ts.), you... brought the innocent to us, placing treason on them.” The king's assessment, of course, is also far from impartial. I believe that Kurbsky’s role in the Kazan campaign was that he simply honestly fulfilled his military duty, like thousands of other governors and warriors who did not make it onto the pages of the chronicle.

During the tsar’s illness in 1553, Kurbsky was most likely not in Moscow: his name is not among the boyars who swore allegiance, nor among the rebels, although this may be explained by Kurbsky’s then insignificant position (he received the rank of boyar only three years later ). In any case, he himself denied his participation in the conspiracy, however, not because of devotion to Ivan, but because he considered Vladimir Andreevich a useless sovereign.

Kurbsky, it seems, was never particularly close to the Tsar and was not honored with his personal friendship. In all his writings one can feel hostility towards Ivan, even when he speaks of the “indisputable” period of his reign; politically, the tsar for him is a necessary evil that can be tolerated as long as he speaks from the voice of the “chosen council”; in human terms, it is a dangerous beast, tolerated in human society only if it is muzzled and subject to the strictest daily training. This look at Ivan, devoid of any sympathy, made Kurbsky a lifelong lawyer for Sylvester and Adashev. All their actions towards Ivan were justified in advance. Let me remind you of Kurbsky’s attitude to the miracles allegedly shown by Sylvester to the Tsar during the Moscow fire of 1547. In his message to the king, he does not allow even a shadow of doubt about Sylvester’s supernatural abilities. “Your caresses,” writes the prince, “slandered this presbyter, as if he frightened you not with true, but flattering (false - S.Ts.) visions.” But in “The History of the Tsar of Moscow,” written for friends, Kurbsky allows a certain amount of frankness: “I don’t know whether he spoke the truth about miracles or made it up just to scare him and influence his childish, frantic temper. After all, our fathers sometimes frighten children with dreamy fears in order to keep them from harmful games with bad comrades... So he, with his kind deception, healed his soul from leprosy and corrected his corrupt mind.” A wonderful example of Kurbsky’s concepts of morality and the measure of honesty in his writings! No wonder Pushkin called his work on the reign of Ivan the Terrible “an embittered chronicle.”

Despite all this, it is not clear from anything that Kurbsky stood up for the “holy men” whom he revered so much in words, at a time when they were subjected to disgrace and condemnation. Probably, Sylvester and Adashev suited him as political figures to the extent that they followed the lead of the boyars, returning to them the ancestral estates taken away by the treasury. The first serious clash with the tsar occurred at Kurbsky, apparently precisely on the basis of the issue of ancestral estates. Kurbsky supported the decision of the Stoglavy Council on the alienation of monastic lands, and it must be assumed that the fact that the Kurbsky estates were given by Vasily III to the monasteries played no small role here. But the direction of the royal Code of 1560 caused his indignation. Subsequently, Grozny wrote to Sigismund that Kurbsky “began to be called the Yaroslavl votchich, and by treacherous custom, with his advisers, he wanted to become sovereign in Yaroslavl.” Apparently, Kurbsky was seeking the return of some ancestral estates near Yaroslavl. This accusation against Grozny is by no means groundless: in Lithuania, Kurbsky called himself Prince of Yaroslavl, although in Russia he never officially bore this title. The concept of fatherland for him, apparently, was meaningless, since it did not include the ancestral land.

In 1560, Kurbsky was sent to Livonia against Master Ketler, who had violated the truce. According to the prince, the king said at the same time: “After the flight of my commanders, I am forced to go to Livonia myself or send you, my beloved, so that my army can be protected with the help of God,” however, these words lie entirely on Kurbsky’s conscience. Grozny writes that Kurbsky agreed to go on a campaign only as a “hetman” (that is, commander-in-chief) and that the prince, together with Adashev, asked to transfer Livonia under their control. The king saw appanage habits in these claims, and he did not like it very much.

If the fate of the rootless Adashev did not cause Kurbsky to openly protest, then he met the disgrace of his fellow boyars with hostility. “Why,” Grozny blamed him, “having a scorching flame in the synclit (boyar duma - S.Ts.), you did not extinguish it, but rather kindled it? Where it was right for you, with the advice of your reason, the evil advice was uprooted, but you only filled it with more tares!” Apparently, Kurbsky opposed the punishment of boyars who tried to escape to Lithuania, because for him departure was the legal right of an independent patrimonial owner, a sort of boyar St. George’s Day. Ivan very soon made his displeasure felt to him. In 1563, Kurbsky, together with other governors, returned from the Polotsk campaign. But instead of rest and rewards, the tsar sent him to the voivodeship in Yuryev (Dorpat), giving him only a month to prepare.

After several successful skirmishes with Sigismund's troops in the fall of 1564, Kurbsky suffered a serious defeat near Nevel. Details of the battle are known mainly from Lithuanian sources. The Russians seemed to have an overwhelming numerical superiority: 40,000 against 1,500 people (Ivan accuses Kurbsky that he could not resist with 15,000 against 4,000 enemies, and these figures seem to be more correct, since the tsar would not have missed the opportunity to reproach the unlucky governor with a larger difference in forces). Having learned about the enemy's forces, the Lithuanians lit many fires at night to hide their small numbers. The next morning they lined up, covering their flanks with rivulets and streams, and began to wait for an attack. Soon the Muscovites appeared - “there were so many of them that ours could not look at them.” Kurbsky seemed to marvel at the courage of the Lithuanians and promised to drive them into Moscow and into captivity with his whips alone. The battle continued until the evening. The Lithuanians held out, killing 7,000 Russians. Kurbsky was wounded and was wary of renewing the battle; the next day he retreated.

In April 1564, Kurbsky's one-year term of service in Livonia expired. But for some reason the tsar was in no hurry to recall Yuryev’s governor to Moscow, or he himself was in no hurry to go. One night, Kurbsky entered his wife’s chambers and asked what she wanted: to see him dead in front of her or to part with him alive forever? Taken by surprise, the woman nevertheless, gathering her spiritual strength, answered that her husband’s life was more valuable to her than happiness. Kurbsky said goodbye to her and his nine-year-old son and left the house. Faithful servants helped him “on his own neck” get over the city wall and reach the appointed place where saddled horses were waiting for the fugitive. Having escaped the pursuit, Kurbsky safely crossed the Lithuanian border and stopped in the city of Volmar. All bridges were burned. The way back was closed to him forever.

Later, the prince wrote that haste forced him to leave his family and leave all his property in Yuryev, even his armor and books, which he treasured very much: “I was deprived of everything, and you (Ivan - S.Ts.) drove me away from the land of God.” . However, the persecuted sufferer lies. Today we know that he was accompanied by twelve horsemen; three pack horses were loaded with a dozen bags of goods and a bag of gold, which contained 300 zlotys, 30 ducats, 500 German thalers and 44 Moscow rubles - a huge amount at that time. Horses were found for servants and gold, but not for wife and child. Kurbsky took with him only what he might need; family was nothing more than a burden for him. Knowing this, let us appreciate the pathetic farewell scene!

Ivan assessed the prince’s action in his own way - briefly and expressively: “You broke the kiss of the cross with the treacherous custom of a dog and united yourself with the enemies of Christianity.” Kurbsky categorically denied the presence of treason in his actions: according to him, he did not run, but drove away, that is, he simply exercised his sacred boyar right to choose a master. The Tsar, he writes, “has shut up the Russian kingdom, that is, free human nature, as if in a stronghold of hell; and whoever goes from your land... to foreign lands... you call him a traitor; and if they take it to the limit, you will be executed with various deaths.” Of course, there were also references to God’s name: the prince cites the words of Christ to His disciples: “If you are persecuted in a city, flee to another,” forgetting that this refers to religious persecution and that the One to whom he refers commanded obedience to the authorities . The situation is no better with the historical apology for the boyars’ right to leave. Indeed, at one time the princes, in their treaty documents, recognized departure as the legal right of the boyar and pledged not to hold hostility towards those leaving. But the latter moved from one Russian appanage principality to another; departures were an internal process of redistribution of service people among Russian princes. There could be no talk of any treason here. However, with the unification of Rus' the situation changed. Now it was possible to leave only for Lithuania or the Horde, and the Moscow sovereigns with good reason began to charge departures with treason. And the boyars themselves had already begun to dimly discern the truth, if they meekly agreed to be punished if caught and to give “damned notes” about their guilt before the sovereign. But that's not the point. Before Kurbsky, there had never been a case where a boyar, much less a chief governor, left the active army and transferred to foreign service during military operations. No matter how Kurbsky squirms, this is no longer departure, but high treason, betrayal of the fatherland. Let us now appreciate the patriotism of the singer of “free human nature”!

Of course, Kurbsky himself could not limit himself to one reference to the right to leave; he felt the need to justify his step with more compelling reasons. In order to preserve his dignity, he, of course, had to appear before the whole world as a persecuted exile, forced to save his honor and his very life abroad from the attempts of a tyrant. And he hastened to explain his flight by royal persecution: “I have not suffered such evil and persecution from you! And what troubles and misfortunes did you not bring upon me! And what lies and betrayals I did not raise against me in a row, for the multitude of them, I cannot utter... I did not ask for tender words, I did not beg you with many-tearful sobs, and you repaid me with evil for good, and for my love, irreconcilable hatred.” However, all these are words, words, words... It would not hurt Kurbsky to “utter” at least one piece of evidence to confirm Ivan’s intentions to destroy him. Indeed, the appointment as chief governor is a very strange type of persecution, especially considering that it was only thanks to him that Kurbsky was able to end up in Lithuania. Nevertheless, many, starting with Karamzin, believed him. From the very beginning, Ivan alone did not cease to accuse the fugitive of selfish intentions: “You destroyed your soul for the sake of your body, and for the sake of fleeting glory you acquired an absurd fame”; “for the sake of temporary glory and love of money, and the sweetness of this world, you trampled all your spiritual piety with the Christian faith and law”; “How come you are not treated equally with Judas the traitor. I’m afraid of the common Lord of all, for the sake of wealth he went into a rage and betrays him to be killed: likewise you, staying with us, eat our bread, and agree to serve us, gathering evil in your heart.”

Time has shown that the truth was on Grozny's side.

Kurbsky's escape was a deeply deliberate act. As a matter of fact, he was on his way to the voivodeship in Yuryev, already thinking over plans for escape. Stopping along the way at the Pskov-Pechora Monastery, he left the brethren an extensive message in which he blamed the tsar for all the disasters that befell the Moscow state. At the end of the message, the prince notes: “For the sake of such unbearable torment, we (others - S.Ts.) are running away from our fatherland without a trace; His dear children, the offspring of his womb, sold into eternal labor; and plot your own death with your own hands” (we also note here the justification of those who abandon their children - the family was sacrificed by Kurbsky from the very beginning).

Later, Kurbsky exposed himself. A decade later, defending his rights to the estates granted to him in Lithuania, the prince showed the royal court two “closed sheets” (secret letters): one from the Lithuanian hetman Radziwill, the other from King Sigismund. In these letters, or letters of safe conduct, the king and hetman invited Kurbsky to leave the royal service and go to Lithuania. Kurbsky also had other letters from Radziwill and Sigismund, with a promise to give him a decent allowance and not leave him with royal favor. So, Kurbsky bargained and demanded guarantees! Of course, repeated links with the king and hetman required a lot of time, so we can rightfully say that negotiations began in the very first months after Kurbsky’s arrival in Yuryev. And moreover, the initiative in them belonged to Kurbsky. In a letter from Sigismund to the Rada of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania dated January 13, 1564, the king thanks Radziwill for his efforts regarding the governor of Moscow, Prince Kurbsky. “It’s another matter,” the king writes, “that something else will come out of all this, and God grant that something good could come from this, although previously such news had not reached the Ukrainian governors, in particular about such an undertaking by Kurbsky.” All this makes us suspect that Kurbsky’s defeat at Nevel was not a simple accident, a change in military fortune. Kurbsky was no stranger to military affairs; before the defeat at Nevel, he skillfully defeated the troops of the order. Hitherto he had always been accompanied by military success, but now he was defeated with an almost fourfold superiority in forces! But in the fall of 1563, Kurbsky, most likely, had already started negotiations with Radziwill (this is clear from Sigismund’s letter to the Lithuanian Rada, marked the beginning of January). In this case, we have every reason to look at the defeat at Nevel as a deliberate betrayal, aimed at confirming Kurbsky’s loyalty to the king.

Contrary to Kurbsky’s statements about the death that threatened him, a completely different picture emerges with complete clarity. He did not go to Moscow not because he feared persecution from the tsar, but because he was playing for time in anticipation of more favorable and definite conditions for his betrayal: he demanded that the king reaffirm his promise to grant him estates, and the Polish senators swore to the inviolability of the royal word ; so that he would be given a letter of safe conduct, which would state that he was going to Lithuania not as a fugitive, but on a royal summons. And only “having been encouraged by his royal favor,” as Kurbsky writes in his will, “having received the royal letter of safe conduct and relying on the oath of their favors, the gentlemen of the senators,” he realized his long-standing plan. This is also confirmed by Sigismund’s letters of grant, in which the king writes: “Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky of Yaroslavl, having heard a lot and was sufficiently aware of our ruler’s mercy, generously shown to all our subjects, came to our service and into our citizenship, having been summoned by our royal name."

Kurbsky’s actions were guided not by the instant determination of a man with an ax raised over him, but by a well-thought-out plan. If his life had been in real danger, he would have agreed to the king's first proposals, or rather would have left without any invitations; but from everything it is clear that he did this matter in no hurry, not even in too much haste. Kurbsky fled not into the unknown, but into the royal bread that was firmly guaranteed to him. This educated man, a fan of philosophy, was never able to understand for himself the difference between the fatherland and the patrimony.

The Promised Land greeted Kurbsky unkindly; he immediately became acquainted with the famous (and coveted!) Polish casual dress. When the prince and his retinue arrived at the border castle of Helmet to take guides to Volmar, the local “Germans” robbed the fugitive, taking away his treasured bag of gold, tearing the fox hat off the governor’s head and taking away the horses. This incident became a harbinger of the fate that awaited Kurbsky in a foreign land.

The day after the robbery, being in the gloomiest mood, Kurbsky sat down to write his first letter to the Tsar.

The dramatic story about Kurbsky’s faithful servant Vasily Shibanov, turned by Count A.K., is well known. Tolstoy in a wonderful poetic ballad about how Shibanov delivered a message from his master to the Tsar and how Ivan the Terrible, leaning on his sharp staff, with which he pierced Shibanov’s foot, ordered the letter to be read... Unfortunately, - or rather, it would be more appropriate to say here, fortunately - this the story is nothing more than a romantic fiction (except for the execution of Shibanov, which was confirmed personally by Grozny, who edifyingly reproached the master for the courage of his slave). Documents indicate that Shibanov was arrested in Yuryev after Kurbsky fled. Perhaps he indicated the hiding place where the prince's message was located. Kurbsky, it seems, preferred precisely this method of transmitting his letters: the message to the Pskov-Pechora monks, for example, was placed “under the stove, for the sake of mortal fear.”

The messages of Kurbsky and Grozny to each other are, in essence, nothing more than prophetic reproaches and laments, confession of mutual grievances. And all this is framed in an apocalyptic vein; political events, as well as the history of personal relationships, are interpreted through biblical images and symbols. This sublime tone for the correspondence was set by Kurbsky, who began his message with the words: “To the Tsar, most glorified by God, especially in Orthodoxy, who appeared most brightly, but now for the sake of our sins, he has found himself opposed.” Thus, it was a question of the tsar’s distortion of the ideal of Holy Rus'. This makes Kurbsky’s terminology clear: everyone who supports the apostate tsar, the heretic tsar, is a “satanic regiment”; all who oppose him are “martyrs” who shed “holy blood” for the true faith. At the end of the message, the prince directly writes that the Antichrist is currently the king’s advisor. The political accusation brought against the king by Kurbsky boils down, in fact, to one thing: “Why, the king, the mighty in Israel (that is, the true leaders of the people of God - S.Ts.) you beat and the commanders given to you by God, you gave over to various deaths ? - and, as is easy to see, it has a strong religious connotation. Kurbsky’s boyars are some kind of chosen brethren on whom the grace of God rests. The prince prophesies retribution to the king, which again is God’s punishment: “Don’t think, king, don’t think of us with fussy thoughts, like those who have already died, beaten innocently by you, and imprisoned and driven away without truth; do not rejoice in this, but rather boast of your thin victory... those who were driven away from you without righteousness from the earth to God cry out against you day and night!”

Kurbsky's biblical comparisons were by no means literary metaphors; they posed a terrible threat to Ivan. In order to fully appreciate the radicalism of the accusations thrown at the Tsar by Kurbsky, it should be remembered that at that time the recognition of the sovereign as a wicked man and a servant of the Antichrist automatically freed his subjects from the oath of allegiance, and the fight against such power was charged as a sacred duty to every Christian.

And indeed, Grozny, having received this message, was alarmed. He responded to the accuser with a letter, which takes up two-thirds (!) of the total volume of correspondence. He called upon all his learning to help. Who and what is not on these endless pages! Extracts from Holy Scripture and the Fathers of the Church are given in lines and entire chapters; the names of Moses, David, Isaiah, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, Joshua, Gideon, Abimelech, Jeuthai are adjacent to the names of Zeus, Apollo, Antenor, Aeneas; incoherent episodes from Jewish, Roman, Byzantine history are interspersed with events from the history of Western European peoples - the Vandals, the Goths, the French, and this historical jumble is sometimes interspersed with news gleaned from Russian chronicles... A kaleidoscopic change of pictures, a chaotic accumulation of quotations and examples reveals the extreme excitement of the author ; Kurbsky had every right to call this letter a “broadcast and loud message.”

But this, as Klyuchevsky puts it, a frothy stream of texts, reflections, memories, lyrical digressions, this collection of all sorts of things, this learned porridge, flavored with theological and political aphorisms, and sometimes salted with subtle irony and harsh sarcasm, are such only at first glance. Grozny pursues his main idea steadily and consistently. It is simple and at the same time comprehensive: autocracy and Orthodoxy are one; whoever attacks the first is the enemy of the second. “Your letter has been received and read carefully,” the king writes. “The venom of the asp is under your tongue, and your letter is filled with the honey of words, but it contains the bitterness of wormwood.” Are you so accustomed, Christian, to serving a Christian sovereign? You write at the beginning so that those who find themselves opposed to Orthodoxy and have a leper conscience can understand. Like demons, from my youth you have shaken my piety and stolen the sovereign power given to me by God.” This theft of power, according to Ivan, is the fall of the boyars, an attempt on the divine order of the universal order. “After all,” the king continues, “in your unstructured letter you repeat everything the same thing, turning different words around, this way and that, your dear thought, so that slaves, in addition to masters, have power... Is this a leper conscience, so that the kingdom to hold what is yours in your own hand, and not let your slaves rule? Is it contrary to reason - not to want to be owned by your slaves? Is it true that blessed Orthodoxy should be under the rule of slaves?” Grozny's political and life philosophy is expressed with almost disarming directness and simplicity. The strong in Israel, the wise advisers - all this is from the demon; the universe of Grozny knows one ruler - himself, all the rest are slaves, and no one else except slaves. Slaves, as it should be, are obstinate and crafty, which is why autocracy is unthinkable without religious and moral content, only it is the true and only pillar of Orthodoxy. In the end, the efforts of the royal power are aimed at saving the souls subject to it: “I strive with zeal to direct people towards the truth and the light, so that they may know the one true God, glorified in the Trinity, and from God the sovereign given to them, and from internecine warfare and obstinate living let them leave behind, by whom the kingdom is being destroyed; for if the king’s subjects do not obey, then internecine warfare will never cease.” The king is higher than the priest, for the priesthood is the spirit, and the kingdom is spirit and flesh, life itself in its fullness. To judge the king is to condemn life, whose laws and order are predetermined from above. Reproaching the king for shedding blood is tantamount to an attack on his duty to preserve the Divine law, the highest truth. To doubt the justice of the king already means falling into heresy, “like a dog barking and vomiting the venom of a viper,” for “the king is a thunderstorm not for good, but for evil deeds; If you want not to be afraid of power, do good, but if you do evil, be afraid, for the king does not wear a sword in vain, but to punish the evil and encourage the good.” This understanding of the tasks of royal power is not alien to greatness, but is internally contradictory, since it presupposes the official duties of the sovereign to society; Ivan wants to be a master, and only a master: “We are free to favor our slaves and we are free to execute them.” The stated goal of absolute justice comes into conflict with the desire for absolute freedom, and as a result, absolute power turns into absolute arbitrariness. Man in Ivan still triumphs over the sovereign, will over reason, passion over thought.

Ivan's political philosophy is based on a deep historical feeling. History for him is always sacred history, the course of historical development reveals the eternal Providence unfolding in time and space. Autocracy for Ivan is not only a divine decree, but also an primordial fact of world and Russian history: “Our autocracy began with Saint Vladimir; we were born and raised in the kingdom, we possess our own, and did not steal someone else’s; Russian autocrats from the beginning own their kingdoms themselves, and not the boyars and nobles.” The gentry republic, so dear to Kurbsky’s heart, is not only madness, but also heresy, foreigners are both religious and political heretics, encroaching on the state order established from above: “Godless pagans (Western European sovereigns - S.Ts.) ... those are all They do not own their kingdoms: as their workers command them, so they own them.” The Ecumenical King of Orthodoxy is holy not so much because he is pious, but mainly because he is a king.

Having opened their souls, confessed and cried to each other, Grozny and Kurbsky nevertheless hardly understood each other. The prince asked: “Why do you beat your faithful servants?” The king replied: “I received my autocracy from God and from my parents.” But it must be admitted that in defending his convictions, Ivan the Terrible showed much more polemical brilliance and political foresight: his sovereign hand lay on the pulse of the times. They parted each with their own convictions. In parting, Kurbsky promised Ivan that he would show him his face only at the Last Judgment. The king responded mockingly: “Who wants to see such an Ethiopian face?” The topic for conversation, in general, was exhausted.

Both left it to history, that is, to the visible and indisputable manifestation of Providence, to reveal that they were right. The tsar sent the next message to Kurbsky in 1577 from Volmar, the city from which the eloquent traitor had once thrown down his polemical gauntlet. The campaign of 1577 was one of the most successful during the Livonian War, and Ivan the Terrible compared himself to the long-suffering Job, whom God finally forgave. Staying in Volmar became one of the signs of divine grace poured onto the head of the sinner. Kurbsky, apparently shocked by God's favor towards the tyrant, so obviously manifested, found something to answer only after the defeat of the Russian army near Kesyu in the fall of 1578: in his letter, the prince borrowed Ivan's thesis that God helps the righteous. It was in this pious conviction that he died.

In a foreign land

A person cannot be judged either by what he says or by what he writes. However, we also speak out with our lives; the cryptogram of our fate is complex, but true. This fully applies to Kurbsky. His life in Lithuania is a comprehensive commentary on his writings.

The robbed fugitive soon became one of the richest Polish magnates. Sigismund kept his word and granted him the Kovel estate for eternity, which alone could forever ensure the well-being of Kurbsky: the estate consisted of Kovel, two towns and 28 villages, it traded with the free cities of Danzig and Elbing and had its own iron mines; During the war, the Kovelites were able to equip more than three thousand horsemen and infantry with a dozen guns. And besides the Kovel estate, there was also the Krevskoye eldership in the Vilna voivodeship; Yes, to these profitable estates Kurbsky added a rich wife (his Russian wife, it seems, was executed: death sentences for relatives were customary). Kurbsky's new chosen one was the forty-year-old Princess Maria Yuryevna, née Golshanskaya. She had already been married to two husbands, with whom she had children, and outlived both. After the death of her second husband, Pan Kozinsky, Maria Yuryevna became the owner of vast estates. Along with wealth, she brought Kurbsky kinship and acquaintance with powerful Lithuanian families - the Sangushkas, the Zbarazhskys, the Montolts, the Sapegas - which was extremely important for him as a foreigner.

Kurbsky's acquisition of estates in Lithuania was paid for by the ruin of Russian lands. In particular, he received the Krevo eldership, bypassing the Lithuanian laws, according to which the king could not distribute estates in the Principality of Lithuania - it went to him “for very important state reasons”: Kurbsky gave Sigismund advice on how to fight the Moscow Tsar, and as one One of the ways he proposed was to bribe the khan to attack the Moscow state. In the winter of 1565, he himself, with two hundred horsemen, took part in the campaign against Polotsk and Velikiye Luki. Kurbsky stained his sword with Russian blood no worse than the Poles. The royal charter testified that “while in the service of our ruler, Prince Kurbsky was sent along with our knighthood to fight the lands of our Moscow enemy, where he served us, the ruler, and the republic valiantly, faithfully and courageously.” It should be noted that the exploits of the Polish army in this unsuccessful seventeen-day campaign consisted mainly in the devastation of villages and the looting of churches.

It cannot be said that Kurbsky did not feel his shame; on the contrary, he tried to prove his non-involvement in robberies and sacrileges: “King Sigismund Augustus forced the Lutsk volosts to fight,” he writes, “and there he and the Koretsky prince were vigilantly guarded so that the infidels would not burn and destroy the churches of God; and truly it was not possible to guard against the multitude for the sake of the army, since there were fifteen thousand troops then, among them there were many Ishmaelite barbarians (Tatars - S.Ts.) and other heretics, renovators of ancient heresies (apparently Socinians who adhered to Arianism. - S. .Ts.), enemies of the cross of Christ, - and without our knowledge, according to our origin, the wicked crept in and burned the one church and the monastery.” Sylvester-Adashev's training in juggling sacred objects for the sake of his own interests led the defender of Orthodoxy to the following scandalous passage: to justify himself, Kurbsky cited the example of King David, who, being forced to leave his fatherland to Saul, fought the land of Israel, and even in alliance with the filthy king, and he , Kurbsky, Russia is still fighting in alliance with the Christian Tsar.

A few months later, Kurbsky and a detachment of Lithuanians drove into a swamp and defeated a Russian detachment. The victory turned his head so much that he asked Sigismund to give him an army of 30,000, with which he promised to take Moscow. If the king still has suspicions about him, Kurbsky declared, then let him be chained to a cart during this campaign and shot if they notice the slightest signs of sympathy for the Muscovites on his part.

Meanwhile, clouds began to gather over the newly-made patrimonial land. At the insistence of the Senate, the king announced that the Kovel estate was granted to Kurbsky not as a patrimony, but as a fief, and, therefore, he did not have the right to dispose of it at his own discretion and bequeath it to his descendants; in fact, Kurbsky was offered to be content with the role of state elder. The Prince of Yaroslavl, a descendant of Vladimir Monomakh, was again placed on a par with other subjects!

But here Sigismund, who hoped to acquire in Kurbsky an active and zealous assistant in the fight against Moscow, was able to make sure that he had acquired a subject who was extremely obstinate, rebellious and, in general, ungrateful. The decision of the Senate was completely lawful, because according to Lithuanian laws, the king did not have the right to give the Kovel estate, which was subject to Magdeburg law (that is, Kovel lived according to the laws of city government), into patrimonial possession. But Kurbsky did not obey Grozny either - what was Sigismund to him! He arbitrarily appropriated the title of Prince of Kovel and began to use Kovel as his property, distributing villages and lands to his people without royal permission. Kurbsky was a restless neighbor. Taking revenge for an insult, often petty, he and a crowd of servants broke into the enemy’s possessions, burned, robbed and killed. If anyone demanded satisfaction for an insult, he responded with threats. Magdeburg law provided for the existence of its own city court in Kovel, but Prince Kovelsky knew only one court - the personal, princely one. By his order, several Kovel Jews, whom Kurbsky considered guilty of failure to pay the debt to the plaintiff, were put in a garbage pit infested with leeches. The royal envoys, inquiring by what right Kurbsky did this, heard in response: “Isn’t the master free to punish his subjects not only with prison, but even with death? But the king and no one else care about that.” This is the kind of freedom Kurbsky sought and did not find in Russia - the freedom of a local king whose whim is the law. Will anyone after this doubt the reasons why he could not get along with Ivan the Terrible? And how long will the notorious feudal lord, infringed by the tsar in his patrimonial lusts, walk as the defenders of freedom and denouncers of tyranny?

But soon Kurbsky himself became a victim of the Polish lack of equipment. It was not the powerless royal power that burned him, but his own wife. The reason for the family quarrels was, presumably, the difference in views of Kurbsky and Maria Yuryevna on family life. Kurbsky, brought up in the traditions of Domostroy, recognized himself as the only manager in the house; in accordance with this compendium of domestic ethics, the upbringing, activities, joys, sorrows and pleasures of other family members were entirely determined by the disposition of the father and husband: the family trembled at his every glance and silently submitted to his every desire.

This was not the case in Lithuania, where women had more freedom. The law protected their civil and economic rights - to freely choose a husband, to divorce, to receive a third of real estate after the death of a husband, and so on, and society tolerated adultery. Princess Maria Yuryevna was accustomed to using her independent position to the extent of her moral depravity. Her family was not at all distinguished by family affection: the men robbed each other’s possessions, and the princess’s cousin, having robbed her husband, ran away from him with her lover; subsequently she brought poison to her husband... As for Maria Yuryevna herself, in her nature religious hypocrisy was combined with the need for the most desperate revelry. Having committed some kind of moral or criminal crime, she went to church with a clear conscience to thank God for her help. As a pious woman, she always had with her a Gospel in a gilded frame and a cypress reliquary with images in gold and silver frames and relics purchased not only in Kiev, but in Jerusalem itself, from the local patriarch, for a “great price.” Outwardly bowing before sacred things, she brazenly swore at the sanctity of marriage, openly debauched her lovers, believed in witchcraft and sorcery, brought priests closer to her in order to have domestic spies in them...

And such a woman got married to a stern Muscovite... Maria Yuryevna very soon repented of her marriage. To free herself from financial dependence on Kurbsky, she tried to steal documents from the storeroom for the right to own some estates. Kurbsky put her under house arrest for this. During a search in her chambers, he discovered a bag of hair and potions intended for witchcraft, and, in addition, a poisonous potion... Maria Yuryevna’s sons from her first marriage rode with a crowd of their servants around Kurbsky’s estate, lying in wait for him to kill him. They filed a lawsuit against their stepfather in the royal court, accusing him of killing their mother. Investigators, however, found Maria Yuryevna in Kovel Castle in perfect health. After many ordeals, mutual insults and humiliations, the couple divorced in 1578. But when Kurbsky’s servants brought Maria Yuryevna to the house of her relative, Prince Zbarazhsky, the latter, together with the Minsk governor Nikolai Sapega, who acted as a mediator in the divorce, ordered the coachman’s arms and legs to be broken, and the carriage and horses to be taken to his stable. Maria Yuryevna herself immediately started a process against Kurbsky, presenting property claims to him.

Family misfortunes and economic troubles led Kurbsky to the following sad reflections about his new compatriots: “It is truly worthy of laughter that the royal height and majesty (Sigismund August. - S.Ts.) turned his mind to the wrong thing (to monitor the military actions of the Russians. - S.Ts.), but especially in various dances and in elaborate mashkaras (masquerades)… The princes are so fearful and torn (tired. - S.Ts.) from their wives that, having heard about the presence of the barbarians… armed with harnesses, they sit down at the table, at the goblets, let the plots play out with their drunken women... all whole nights they spend sitting over cards and over other demonic nonsense... When they lie down on their beds between the thick feather beds, then, having barely slept through midday, with their heads tied from a hangover, barely they will rise up alive, but on other days they will remain vile and lazy for many years for the sake of habit.”

All this, combined with the bleak news from the homeland about the death of his wife, son and “one-generation princes of Yaroslavl,” poisoned life and spoiled his character. But, to Kurbsky’s credit, he sought oblivion not in wine, but in “book affairs and the minds of the highest men.” In order “not to be completely consumed by sadness between people who are difficult and extremely inhospitable,” he took up science - he studied Latin, translated Cicero, Aristotle, and tried to introduce Latin punctuation marks into the Slavic language. Soon his scientific activity became more focused. The middle of the 16th century for all of Europe was a time of intense religious struggle and theological disputes. This excitement and anxiety was acutely felt in the Orthodox community, especially in Lithuania. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was then flooded with Calvinist and Lutheran preachers and missionaries, sectarians and religious freethinkers. The Catholic Church sent its mobile guard - the Jesuit Order - to fight them. From defense, the Jesuit fathers quickly moved to the offensive, and by the end of the century Poland had once again become a completely Catholic country. But, having suppressed Protestantism and heresies, the Jesuits set to work on Orthodox Lithuania, where the Russian population predominated. The Orthodox Church was not ready for a militant meeting with the West. Contemporaries spoke with bitterness about the “great rudeness and lack of character,” that is, the lack of education, of the local clergy, and the 16th century ended with the almost universal apostasy of the hierarchs, the fall into the union... The main burden of the fight against Catholic propaganda fell on the shoulders of individual priests and laity, among whom was Prince Kurbsky.

He established himself as an ardent opponent of the union, wrote letters to the Orthodox communities, urging them to hold fast to the faith of their fathers, not to enter into disputes with the more learned Jesuits, not to attend their conversations and, to the best of their ability, to expose their cunning and delusions. Kurbsky did not conduct direct polemics with the Jesuits, being jealous primarily of the general strengthening of Orthodox consciousness. This is where his attraction to translation came in handy. To help the Orthodox brothers return to the original sources of Christian teaching, he began to translate the patristic works, recalling that “our ancient teachers were learned and skilled in both, that is, in external philosophical teachings and in the sacred scriptures.” He had big translation plans: he was going to translate the great fathers of the 4th century. To help himself, he gathered a whole circle of translators, but managed to do relatively little - he translated some of the works of Chrysostom, Damascus, Eusebius. More important was his very attempt to contrast the Orthodox ideal with the “Polish barbaria.”

author Lubchenkov Yuri Nikolaevich

ANDREY MIKHAILOVICH KURBSKY (1528-1583) Prince, political and military leader. The grandson of Vladimir Monomakh, Prince Rostislav Mikhailovich Smolensky, was the ancestor of the princes of Vyazemsky and Smolensky. The Smolensk princes were divided into several branches, one of which was

From the book The Conquest of America by Ermak-Cortez and the Rebellion of the Reformation through the eyes of the “ancient” Greeks author

11. The “ancient” traitor Demaratus at the court of Xerxes is Prince Andrei Kurbsky, who betrayed Ivan the Terrible 11.1. Our forecast about the need for the appearance of Prince Kurbsky in the “ancient” biography of Xerxes = the Terrible In the history of the battle at Thermopylae = Fellin there is an interesting fact about

From the book 50 famous riddles of the Middle Ages author Zgurskaya Maria Pavlovna

Andrei Kurbsky - a traitor or a dissident? In Russia everything is secret, but nothing is secret. Folk wisdom It can be said that the very concept of mystery as such was born along with humanity. But real secrets appeared only when, at the dawn of the state, everyone became

author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

14. The capture of Kazan and the capture of the “ancient” Artaxata The Roman Corbulo is Prince Kurbsky. One of the most outstanding acts of Grozny is the capture of Kazan in 1552. We talked about this in detail in the books “Biblical Rus'” and “The Conquest of America by Ermak-Cortez and the Rebellion

From the book The Split of the Empire: from Ivan the Terrible-Nero to Mikhail Romanov-Domitian. [The famous “ancient” works of Suetonius, Tacitus and Flavius, it turns out, describe Great author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

7. “Ancient” Corbulo is Prince Andrei Kurbsky Correspondence with Claudius the Terrible Above, analyzing the biography of Nero, we discovered that Prince Andrei Kurbsky was reflected in “antiquity” as well as the outstanding Roman commander Corbulo. Interestingly, the same Corbulo

From the book Favorites of the Rulers of Russia author Matyukhina Yulia Alekseevna

Andrei Kurbsky (1528 - 1583) The favorite of Emperor Ivan IV and the future oppositionist and fugitive Prince Andrei Kurbsky was born in October 1528 and was the son of immigrants from Lithuania. Like many enlightened boyar children, he received a good education for that time: he knew literacy and

From the book Book 1. Biblical Rus'. [The Great Empire of the XIV-XVII centuries on the pages of the Bible. Rus'-Horde and Ottomania-Atamania are two wings of a single Empire. Bible fuck author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

11. The biblical traitor Achior is Prince Andrei Kurbsky 11.1. The biblical story of Achior during the siege of Bethulia At a time when Holofernes is preparing to go on a campaign to the West, one of the military leaders of King Nebuchadnezzar, AHIOR, “the leader of all the sons of Ammon,” tries to prevent him.

author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

Chapter 1 Don Quixote is Ivan the Terrible; Sancho Panza is his co-ruler Simeon Bekbulatovich; Dulcinea Toboso is Sophia Paleologus, the wife of Ivan the Terrible; the Asturian Maritornes is Elena Voloshanka, aka the biblical Esther; Bachelor Samson Carrasco is Prince Andrei

From the book Don Quixote or Ivan the Terrible author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

19. Prince Andrei Kurbsky, first a friend and then an opponent of Ivan the Terrible, is described by Cervantes as the bachelor Samson Carrasco 19.1. What is known about Prince Kurbsky Let's start by recalling the story of the betrayal of Prince Kurbsky. Andrei Kurbsky is one of Ivan’s closest associates

From the book Alphabetical reference list of Russian sovereigns and the most remarkable persons of their blood author Khmyrov Mikhail Dmitrievich

193. YURI III (GEORGE) DANILOVICH, Prince of Moscow, then Grand Duke of Vladimir, son of St. Daniil Alexandrovich, Prince of Moscow, from a marriage with an unknown woman. Born in Moscow in 1281; after the death of his father, he was proclaimed their prince by the inhabitants of Pereslavl-Zalessky and was present here

From the book Holy Patrons of Rus'. Alexander Nevsky, Dovmont Pskovsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Vladimir Serpukhovskoy author Kopylov N. A.

Prince Dmitry Ivanovich and Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich in the struggle for the Grand Duke's label The Stone Kremlin was very useful to Muscovites. 17-year-old Dmitry began to show himself as a decisive and independent prince. At first, as we have seen, he was able not only to defend his rights

From the book Reader on the History of the USSR. Volume 1. author author unknown

104. PRINCE A. M. KURBSKY. THE CAPTURE OF KAZAN Prince Andrei Kurbsky, having betrayed Tsar Ivan IV, wrote an essay in Lithuania directed against the formidable Tsar and expressing the interests of the boyars; in it he describes the acts of Ivan the Terrible and his cruelty towards the boyars. "A story about

From the book Russian History in Persons author Fortunatov Vladimir Valentinovich

3.4.1. The first Russian dissident, Prince Andrei Kurbsky The first political emigrant and dissident (dissident) in the history of Russia was the prince, governor, writer and translator Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky (1528-1583). It was he who called the “government” (under the leadership of A.F.

From the book History of Political and Legal Doctrines: A Textbook for Universities author Team of authors

The question of the role of Andrei Kurbsky in Russian history remains open even now. The governor is called with equal frequency a fighter against tyranny and a traitor to the king. A close supporter left Rus', but, wanting to reason with the ruler, he sent him letters and even received reply messages.

Childhood and youth

Andrei Mikhailovich is the eldest son in the family of Mikhail Mikhailovich and Maria Mikhailovna Kurbsky. The married couple were considered close to the king, but due to constant intrigues around the throne, they did not enjoy the favor of the ruler. Therefore, despite a rich pedigree, a famous surname did not become a guarantor of a prosperous life.

Information about Kurbsky’s youth and adolescence has not been preserved. It is only known that soon after Andrei’s birth, two more children appeared in the family - brothers Ivan and Roman. Even the boyar’s date of birth (1528) became public knowledge thanks to Andrei Mikhailovich himself. The man mentioned a significant event in one of his own writings.

Politics and military campaigns

A detailed biography of Kurbsky has been known since he was 21 years old. The young man showed himself to be an excellent strategist during the capture of Kazan in 1549. The brave young man attracted the attention of Ivan the Terrible. In addition to military merits, the tsar and the boyar were related by age. The sovereign was only 2 years younger than Kurbsky, so the men easily found common interests.

Over the next three years, Andrei rose from an ordinary steward to the rank of governor. Kurbsky received full confidence after his victory over Khan Davlet Giray in 1552. The king was especially impressed by the fact that, despite the wound, the young hero mounted his horse again 8 days after the serious injury.

It is not surprising that Kurbsky soon receives an invitation to join the Elected Rada, assembled by Ivan the Terrible to discuss political issues. Along with Adashev and Sylvester, the boyar helps the tsar solve difficult situations and decide on the course of government.

Tensions in relations with the sovereign began to emerge after Andrei Mikhailovich’s victories in the Livonian War. Ivan the Terrible's views on those close to him changed dramatically. Achievements and merits ceased to matter, and in order to avoid disgrace, Kurbatov fled to Lithuania.

The true reason for the escape has not been established. Contemporaries put forward two versions: Kurbatov was afraid for his own life or succumbed to the persuasion of King Sigismund Augustus, who dreamed of luring the commander. Soon after emigrating, Kurbatov joined the ranks of Lithuanian military leaders and even acted on the side of the enemy against his old comrades.

As a reward for betrayal of his homeland, the Lithuanian king rewards Andrei Mikhailovich with the city of Kovel and the adjacent estate. Kurbsky receives a new coat of arms, Levart, whose flag depicts a cheetah with a raised paw.

To dispel homesickness, the man begins translating philosophical works. In addition to studying the worldview of the ancients, Andrei Mikhailovich writes a letter to his former friend, Ivan the Terrible. The men discussed their views on socio-political problems and the future of the country, but did not come to a consensus.

Impressed by the activities of Maxim the Greek, Kurbsky creates several treatises reflecting the views of the boyars on the structure of the state. The king's former confidant sends out business letters expressing his own vision. In his letters and messages, the governor appears as a fighter against tyranny and an accuser of the mad king.

Personal life

The name of Andrei Mikhailovich’s first wife, alas, has not been preserved. It is known that when escaping from Russia, the boyar was forced to leave his beloved with his own relatives. The man and his wife abandoned their nine-year-old son.

All the anger of Ivan the Terrible against his close confidant fell on the traitor’s relatives. Kurbsky’s mother, child and wife were imprisoned in the fortress, where the latter died “of melancholy.” The fate of Andrei Mikhailovich's eldest son is shrouded in mystery, and later became the object of various historical speculations.

Kurbsky's second marriage took place in Lithuania. The new beloved of the former governor was called Maria Yuryevna Golshanskaya. The woman came from an influential family that had influence on the king. This union was overshadowed only by the fact that Maria had already become a widow twice and given birth to two sons, who accepted the news of their mother’s new marriage aggressively.

For the first few years, the spouses’ relationship developed well, but after Andrei Mikhailovich lost interest in Maria, the family became mired in scandals. The proceedings (physical and property) reached the king, who decided to end the scandals and divorce the spouses. In 1578, after a long division of property, divorce proceedings took place.

A year later, Andrei Kurbsky married Alexandra Semashko. Soon after the wedding, the couple had a son, Dmitry, and a daughter, Marina. The only thing that overshadowed the man’s third marriage was Maria Golshanskaya, who was not satisfied with the terms of the divorce. She still demanded land from her ex-husband and harassed the man in every possible way.

Death

The last years of the life of the politician and former assistant of Ivan the Terrible were spent in litigation. In addition to Golshanskaya, who suddenly wanted to declare Kurbsky’s third marriage illegal, Andrei Mikhailovich fought in court with his neighbors. Pan Kraselsky, who owed money to Kurbsky, refused to repay the debt. The proceedings, which were moved to the courtroom, did not produce results. Constant clashes and scandals pretty tired Andrei Mikhailovich.

A man died in his own bed in Kovel Castle. Death overtook the former boyar between May 2-23, 1583. The funeral took place on the territory of the Holy Trinity Monastery. Kurbsky's body was buried at the feet of his confessor, Father Alexander. Archaeologists were unable to find the burial to create an authentic portrait of the governor.

Bibliography

• 1564-1679 – “Four letters to Ivan the Terrible”
• 1581-1583 - “History of the book. the great Moscow about the deeds that we have heard from trustworthy men and that we have seen before our eyes"
• 1586 - “The Tale of Logic” (first edition)
• 1586 - “From other dialectics of John Spaninberger about silogism interpreted” (first edition)

Introduction

Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky (1528-1583) - prince, famous politician and writer. He came from the Smolensk-Yaroslavl line of the Rurikovichs, the part of it that owned the village of Kurba. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the province of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he was recorded in documents under the surname Krupski. He and his descendants used the Levart coat of arms.

1. Family of Kurbskys

The Kurbsky family separated from the branch of Yaroslavl princes in the 15th century. According to the family legend, the clan received its surname from the village of Kurba. The Kurbsky clan manifested itself mainly in voivodeship service: members of the clan conquered the Khanty and Mansi tribes in the Northern Urals, the Kurbskys died both near Kazan and in the war with the Crimean Khanate. The Kurbsky family was also present in administrative positions, but in this field the family did not achieve much success, although the Kurbskys were governors in Ustyug the Great, and in Pskov, and in Starodub, and in Toropets. Most likely, Mikhail Mikhailovich Kurbsky, the father of Andrei Kurbsky, was a boyar. Perhaps Semyon Fedorovich Kurbsky also had the rank of boyar.

Such a career position, of course, did not correspond to the very name of the Yaroslavl prince. There could be several reasons for this situation. Firstly, the Kurbsky princes often supported the opposition to the ruling regime. The grandson of Semyon Ivanovich Kurbsky was married to the daughter of the disgraced Prince Andrei Uglichsky. The Kurbskys supported not Vasily III, but Dmitry the grandson, in the struggle for the throne, which earned them even greater dislike from the Moscow rulers.

2. Participation in the Kazan campaigns

At the age of 21 he took part in the 1st campaign near Kazan; then he was a governor in Pronsk. In 1552, he defeated the Tatars near Tula, and was wounded, but eight days later he was already on horseback again. During the siege of Kazan, Kurbsky commanded the right hand of the entire army and, together with his younger brother, showed outstanding courage. Two years later, he defeated the rebel Tatars and Cheremis, for which he was appointed boyar.

At this time, Kurbsky was one of the people closest to Tsar Ivan the Terrible; he became even closer to the party of Sylvester and Adashev.

3. Participation in the Livonian War

When failures began in Livonia, the tsar placed Kurbsky at the head of the Livonian army, who soon won a number of victories over the knights and Poles, after which he was the governor in Yuryev. But at this time, the persecution and execution of supporters of Sylvester and Adashev and the escape of those disgraced or threatened with royal disgrace to Lithuania had already begun. Although Kurbsky had no guilt other than sympathy for the fallen rulers, he had every reason to think that he would not escape cruel disgrace. Meanwhile, King Sigismund Augustus and the Polish nobles wrote to Kurbsky, persuading him to come over to their side and promising a kind reception.

4. Transition to Sigismund

The Battle of Nevel (1562), unsuccessful for the Russians, could not provide the Tsar with a pretext for disgrace, judging by the fact that after it Kurbsky ruled in Yuryev; and the king, reproaching him for his failure, does not think of attributing it to treason. Kurbsky could not fear responsibility for the unsuccessful attempt to take possession of the city of Helmet: if this matter had been of great importance, the tsar would have blamed Kurbsky in his letter. Nevertheless, Kurbsky was confident that misfortune was imminent and, after vain prayers and fruitless petitions from the bishops, he decided to emigrate “from God’s land,” endangering his family. This happened in 1563 (according to other sources - in 1564).

He came to Sigismund’s service not alone, but with a whole crowd of followers and servants, and was granted several estates (including the city of Kovel). Kurbsky controlled them through his Muscovites. Already in September 1564 he fought against Moscow. Since he knew very well the defense system of the western borders, with his participation, Polish troops repeatedly ambushed Russian troops or, bypassing the outposts, plundered lands with impunity, driving many people into slavery.

In emigration, a difficult fate befell those close to him. Kurbsky subsequently writes that the king “I killed the mother and wife and youth of my only son, who were shut up in captivity; I destroyed my brethren, the one-generation princes of Yaroslavl, with various deaths, and plundered my estates.”. To justify his rage, Ivan the Terrible was only able to bring up the fact of treason and violation of the kiss of the cross; His other two accusations, that Kurbsky “wanted statehood in Yaroslavl” and that he took his wife Anastasia away from him, were invented by the tsar, obviously, only to justify his anger in the eyes of the Polish-Lithuanian nobles: he could not harbor personal hatred for the tsarina, but even contemplate Only a madman could think of separating Yaroslavl into a special principality.

5. Life in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Kurbsky lived not far from Kovel, in the town of Milyanovichi.

Judging by numerous processes, the acts of which have been preserved to this day, he quickly assimilated with the Polish-Lithuanian magnates and “among the violent ones he turned out to be, in any case, not the most humble”: he fought with the lords, seized estates by force, scolded royal envoys with “obscene Moscow words” and other.

In 1571, Kurbsky married the rich widow Kozinski, née Princess Golshanskaya, but soon divorced her, marrying in 1579 the poor girl Semashko, and with her he was apparently happy, since he had a daughter from her and son Dimitri.

In 1583, Kurbsky died.

Dimitri Kurbsky subsequently received part of the selection and converted to Catholicism.

6. Assessment of a historical figure

Opinions about Kurbsky as a politician and person are not only different, but also diametrically opposed. Some see in him a narrow conservative, an extremely limited but self-important person, a supporter of boyar sedition and an opponent of autocracy. His betrayal is explained by calculation for worldly benefits, and his behavior in Lithuania is considered a manifestation of unbridled autocracy and gross selfishness; even the sincerity and expediency of his efforts to maintain Orthodoxy are suspected.

According to others, Kurbsky is an intelligent and educated person, an honest and sincere person who has always stood on the side of good and truth. He is called the first Russian dissident. Since the polemics of Prince Andrei Kurbsky and Tsar Ivan the Terrible, along with other products of his literary activity, have not yet been examined extremely enough, therefore the final conclusion about Kurbsky is more or less unable to reconcile the contradictions.

The famous Polish historian and heraldry of the 17th century S. Okolsky wrote that Kurbsky “was a truly great man: firstly, great in his origin, for he was related to the Moscow prince John; secondly, great in office, since he was the highest military leader in Muscovy; thirdly, great in valor, because he won so many victories; fourthly, great in his happy destiny: after all, he, an exile and fugitive, was received with such honors by King Augustus. He also possessed a great mind, for in a short time, being already in his advanced years, he learned the Latin language in the kingdom, with which he was previously unfamiliar.”

7. Political ideas of Andrei Kurbsky

The weakening of the Christian faith and the spread of heresy is dangerous, first of all, because it gives rise to ruthlessness and indifference in people towards their people and fatherland.

Like Ivan the Terrible, Andrei Kurbsky interpreted supreme state power as a gift from God; in addition, he called Russia the “Holy Russian Empire.”

Those in power do not actually fulfill what God intended for them. Instead of administering righteous justice, they commit arbitrariness. In particular, Ivan IV does not administer righteous justice and does not protect his subjects.

The Church must be an obstacle to the rampant lawlessness and bloody tyranny of the rulers. The spirit of Christian martyrs who accepted death in the struggle against criminal and unrighteous rulers raises the church to this high destiny.

Royal power must be exercised with the assistance of advisers. Moreover, this should be a permanent advisory body under the tsar. The prince saw an example of such a body in the Elected Rada - a college of advisers that operated under Ivan IV in the 50s of the 16th century.

8. Literary creativity

The following are currently known from K.’s works:

“History of the book. the great Moscow about the deeds that we have heard from trustworthy men and that we have seen before our eyes.”

"Four letters to Grozny"

“Letters” to various persons; 16 of them were included in the 3rd edition. "Tales of the book" TO." N. Ustryalov (St. Petersburg, 1868), one letter was published by Sakharov in “Moskvityanin” (1843, No. 9) and three letters in “Orthodox Interlocutor” (1863, books V-VIII).

"Preface to the New Margaret"; ed. for the first time by N. Ivanishev in the collection of acts: “Life of the book.” K. in Lithuania and Volyn" (Kyiv 1849), reprinted by Ustryalov in "Skaz."

"Preface to the book of Damascene "Heaven" edited by Prince Obolensky in "Bibliographical Notes" 1858 No. 12).

“Notes (in the margins) to translations from Chrysostom and Damascus” (printed by Prof. A. Arkhangelsky in the “Appendices” to the “Essays on the History of Western Russian Literature”, in the “Readings of General and Historical and Ancient.” 1888 No. 1).

"History of the Council of Florence", compilation; printed in "Tale." pp. 261-8; about her, see 2 articles by S.P. Shevyrev - “Journal of the Ministry of Public Education”, 1841, book. I, and “Moskvityanin” 1841, vol. III.

In addition to selected works of Chrysostom (“Margarit the New”; see about him “Slavic-Russian manuscripts” by Undolsky, M., 1870), Kurbsky translated the dialogue of Patr. Gennady, Theology, Dialectics and other works of Damascus (see article by A. Arkhangelsky in the “Journal of the Ministry of Public Education” 1888, No. 8), some of the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, excerpts from Eusebius and so on.

Bibliography:

Orbis Poloni", volume 1, Simone Okolski, Cracov, 1641; “Poczet herbow szlachty Korony Polskiey y Wielkiego Xięstwa Litewskiego: gniazdo y perspektywa staroświeckiey cnoty”, Potocki Wacław, Krakow, 1696

Zimin A.A. “Composition of the Boyar Duma in the XV-XVI centuries // Archaeographic Yearbook for 1957.” M., S. 50-51. Same. "The formation of the boyar aristocracy in Russia in the second half of the 15th - first third of the 16th centuries

from 1030 to 1224 and from 1893 to 1919 - Yuryev, from 1224 to 1893 - Dorpat, after 1919 - Tartu.

Kurbsky, Andrey Mikhailovich- article from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron

Orbis Poloni. Krakow, 1641, V. I. Quote. by: Kalugin V.V. Moscow scribes in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the second half of the 16th century. 2000

Prince Kurbsky Andrei Mikhailovich is a famous Russian politician, commander, writer and translator, the closest associate of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible. In 1564, during the Livonian War, he fled from possible disgrace to Poland, where he was accepted into the service of King Sigismund II Augustus. Subsequently he fought against Muscovy.

Family tree

Prince Rostislav Smolensky was the grandson of Vladimir Monomakh himself and was the ancestor of two eminent families - the Smolensk and Vyazemsky families. The first of them had several branches, one of which was the Kurbsky family, who reigned in Yaroslavl from the 13th century. According to legend, this surname came from the main village called Kurby. This inheritance went to Yakov Ivanovich. All that is known about this man is that he died in 1455 on the Arsk field, bravely fighting with the Kazan people. After his death, the inheritance passed into the possession of his brother Semyon, who served with Grand Duke Vasily.

In turn, he had two sons - Dmitry and Fyodor, who were in the service of Prince Ivan III. The last of them was the Nizhny Novgorod governor. His sons were brave warriors, but only Mikhail, who bore the nickname Karamysh, had children. Together with his brother Roman, he died in 1506 in battles near Kazan. Semyon Fedorovich also fought against the Kazan and Lithuanians. He was a boyar under Vasily III and sharply condemned the prince’s decision to tonsure his wife Solomiya as a nun.

One of Karamysh's sons, Mikhail, was often appointed to various command positions during campaigns. The last military campaign in his life was the 1545 campaign against Lithuania. He left behind two sons - Andrei and Ivan, who later successfully continued the family military traditions. Ivan Mikhailovich was seriously wounded, but did not leave the battlefield and continued to fight. It must be said that numerous injuries seriously undermined his health, and a year later he died.

An interesting fact is that no matter how many historians write about Ivan IV, they will definitely remember Andrei Mikhailovich - perhaps the most famous representative of his family and the tsar’s closest ally. Until now, researchers are arguing about who Prince Kurbsky really is: a friend or enemy of Ivan the Terrible?

Biography

No information about his childhood years has been preserved, and no one would have been able to accurately determine Andrei Mikhailovich’s date of birth if he himself had not casually mentioned it in one of his works. And he was born in the fall of 1528. It is not surprising that for the first time Prince Kurbsky, whose biography was associated with frequent military campaigns, was mentioned in documents in connection with the next campaign of 1549. In the army of Tsar Ivan IV he had the rank of steward.

He was not yet 21 years old when he took part in the campaign against Kazan. Perhaps Kurbsky was able to immediately become famous for his military exploits on the battlefields, because a year later the sovereign made him a governor and sent him to Pronsk to protect the southeastern borders of the country. Soon, as a reward either for military merit, or for a promise to arrive at the first call with his detachment of soldiers, Ivan the Terrible granted Andrei Mikhailovich lands located near Moscow.

First victories

It is known that the Kazan Tatars, starting from the reign of Ivan III, quite often raided Russian settlements. And this despite the fact that Kazan was formally dependent on the Moscow princes. In 1552, the Russian army was again convened for another battle with the rebellious Kazan people. Around the same time, the army of the Crimean Khan appeared in the south of the state. The enemy army came close to Tula and besieged it. Tsar Ivan the Terrible decided to stay with the main forces near Kolomna, and send a 15,000-strong army commanded by Shchenyatev and Andrei Kurbsky to the rescue of the besieged city.

The Russian troops took the khan by surprise with their unexpected appearance, so he had to retreat. However, near Tula there still remained a significant detachment of Crimeans, mercilessly plundering the outskirts of the city, not suspecting that the main troops of the khan had gone to the steppe. Immediately Andrei Mikhailovich decided to attack the enemy, although he had half as many warriors. According to surviving documents, this battle lasted an hour and a half, and Prince Kurbsky emerged victorious.

The result of this battle was a large loss of enemy troops: half of the 30,000-strong detachment died during the battle, and the rest were either captured or drowned while crossing Shivoron. Kurbsky himself fought along with his subordinates, as a result of which he received several wounds. However, within a week he was back in action and even went on a hike. This time his path ran through the Ryazan lands. He was faced with the task of protecting the main forces from sudden attacks by the steppe inhabitants.

Siege of Kazan

In the autumn of 1552, Russian troops approached Kazan. Shchenyatev and Kurbsky were appointed commanders of the Right Hand regiment. Their detachments were located across the Kazanka River. This area turned out to be unprotected, so the regiment suffered heavy losses as a result of fire opened at them from the city. In addition, Russian soldiers had to repel attacks by the Cheremis, who often came from the rear.

On September 2, the assault on Kazan began, during which Prince Kurbsky and his warriors had to stand on the Elbugin Gate so that the besieged would not be able to escape from the city. Numerous attempts by enemy troops to break through the guarded area were largely repulsed. Only a small part of the enemy soldiers managed to escape from the fortress. Andrei Mikhailovich and his soldiers rushed in pursuit. He fought bravely, and only a serious wound forced him to finally leave the battlefield.

Two years later, Kurbsky again went to the Kazan lands, this time to pacify the rebels. It must be said that the campaign turned out to be very difficult, since the troops had to make their way off-road and fight in wooded areas, but the prince coped with the task, after which he returned to the capital with victory. It was for this feat that Ivan the Terrible promoted him to boyar.

At this time, Prince Kurbsky was one of the people closest to Tsar Ivan IV. Gradually, he became close to Adashev and Sylvester, representatives of the reformer party, and also became one of the sovereign’s advisers, entering the Elected Rada. In 1556, he took part in a new military campaign against the Cheremis and again returned from the campaign as a winner. First, he was appointed governor of the Left Hand regiment, which was stationed in Kaluga, and a little later he took command of the Right Hand regiment, located in Kashira.

War with Livonia

It was this circumstance that forced Andrei Mikhailovich to return to combat formation again. At first he was appointed to command the Storozhevoy, and a little later the Advanced Regiment, with which he took part in the capture of Yuryev and Neuhaus. In the spring of 1559, he returned to Moscow, where they soon decided to send him to serve on the southern border of the state.

The victorious war with Livonia did not last long. When failures began to fall one after another, the tsar summoned Kurbsky and made him commander of the entire army fighting in Livonia. It must be said that the new commander immediately began to act decisively. Without waiting for the main forces, he was the first to attack the enemy detachment, located not far from Weissenstein, and won a convincing victory.

Without thinking twice, Prince Kurbsky makes a new decision - to fight the enemy troops, which were personally led by the master of the famous Livonian Order himself. Russian troops bypassed the enemy from the rear and, despite the night time, attacked him. Soon the firefight with the Livonians escalated into hand-to-hand combat. And here the victory was for Kurbsky. After a ten-day respite, the Russian troops moved on.

Having reached Fellin, the prince ordered to burn its outskirts and then begin a siege of the city. In this battle, Landmarshal of the Order F. Schall von Belle, who was rushing to help the besieged, was captured. He was immediately sent to Moscow with a covering letter from Kurbsky. In it, Andrei Mikhailovich asked not to kill the land marshal, since he considered him an intelligent, brave and courageous person. This message suggests that the Russian prince was a noble warrior who not only knew how to fight well, but also treated worthy opponents with great respect. However, despite this, Ivan the Terrible still executed the Livonian. Yes, this is not surprising, since around the same time the government of Adashev and Sylvester was eliminated, and the advisers themselves, their associates and friends were executed.

Defeat

Andrei Mikhailovich took Fellin Castle in three weeks, after which he went to Vitebsk, and then to Nevel. Here luck turned against him and he was defeated. However, the royal correspondence with Prince Kurbsky indicates that Ivan IV did not intend to accuse him of treason. The king was not angry with him for his unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of Helmet. The fact is that if this event had been given great importance, then this would have been mentioned in one of the letters.

Nevertheless, it was then that the prince first thought about what would happen to him when the king learned of the failures that had befallen him. Knowing well the strong character of the ruler, he understood perfectly well: if he defeats his enemies, nothing will threaten him, but in case of defeat he can quickly fall out of favor and end up on the chopping block. Although, in truth, apart from compassion for the disgraced, there was nothing to blame him for.

Judging by the fact that after the defeat at Nevel, Ivan IV appointed Andrei Mikhailovich as governor of Yuryev, the tsar did not intend to punish him. However, Prince Kurbsky fled to Poland from the tsar’s wrath, as he felt that sooner or later the sovereign’s wrath would fall on his head. The king highly valued the prince’s military exploits, so he once called him into his service, promising him a good reception and a luxurious life.

Escape

Kurbsky increasingly began to think about the proposal until, at the end of April 1564, he decided to secretly flee to Volmar. His followers and even servants went with him. Sigismund II received them well, and rewarded the prince himself with estates with the right of inheritance.

Having learned that Prince Kurbsky had fled from the tsar's wrath, Ivan the Terrible unleashed all his rage on the relatives of Andrei Mikhailovich who remained here. All of them suffered a difficult fate. To justify his cruelty, he accused Kurbsky of treason, violating the kiss of the cross, as well as kidnapping his wife Anastasia and wanting to reign in Yaroslavl himself. Ivan IV was able to prove only the first two facts, but he clearly invented the rest in order to justify his actions in the eyes of Lithuanian and Polish nobles.

Life in exile

Having entered the service of King Sigismund II, Kurbsky almost immediately began to occupy high military positions. Less than six months later, he already fought against Muscovy. With Lithuanian troops he took part in the campaign against Velikie Luki and defended Volyn from the Tatars. In 1576, Andrei Mikhailovich commanded a large detachment that was part of the troops of the Grand Duke who fought with the Russian army near Polotsk.

In Poland, Kurbsky lived almost all the time in Milyanovichi, near Kovel. He entrusted the management of his lands to trusted persons. In his free time from military campaigns, he was engaged in scientific research, giving preference to works on mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and theology, as well as studying Greek and Latin.

It is a known fact that the fugitive Prince Kurbsky and Ivan the Terrible corresponded. The first letter was sent to the king in 1564. He was brought to Moscow by Andrei Mikhailovich’s faithful servant Vasily Shibanov, who was subsequently tortured and executed. In his messages, the prince expressed his deep indignation at those unjust persecutions, as well as the numerous executions of innocent people who served the sovereign faithfully. In turn, Ivan IV defended the absolute right to pardon or execute any of his subjects at his own discretion.

The correspondence between the two opponents lasted for 15 years and ended in 1579. The letters themselves, the well-known pamphlet entitled “The History of the Grand Duke of Moscow” and the rest of Kurbsky’s works are written in literate literary language. In addition, they contain very valuable information about the era of the reign of one of the most cruel rulers in Russian history.

Already living in Poland, the prince married a second time. In 1571, he married the rich widow Kozinskaya. However, this marriage did not last long and ended in divorce. For the third time, Kurbsky married a poor woman named Semashko. From this union the prince had a son and daughter.

Shortly before his death, the prince took part in another campaign against Moscow under the leadership of But this time he did not have to fight - having reached almost the border with Russia, he became seriously ill and was forced to turn back. Andrei Mikhailovich died in 1583. He was buried on the territory of the monastery located near Kovel.

All his life he was an ardent supporter of Orthodoxy. Kurbsky's proud, stern and irreconcilable character greatly contributed to the fact that he had many enemies among the Lithuanian and Polish nobility. He constantly quarreled with his neighbors and often seized their lands, and covered the royal envoys with Russian abuse.

Soon after the death of Andrei Kurbsky, his confidant, Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky, also died. From that moment on, the Polish government began to gradually take away the property from his widow and son, until finally it took Kovel too. Court hearings on this matter lasted several years. As a result, his son Dmitry managed to return part of the lost lands, after which he converted to Catholicism.

Opinions about him as a politician and a person are often diametrically opposed. Some consider him an inveterate conservative with an extremely narrow and limited outlook, who supported the boyars in everything and opposed the tsarist autocracy. In addition, his flight to Poland is regarded as a kind of prudence associated with the great worldly benefits that King Sigismund Augustus promised him. Andrei Kurbsky is even suspected of the insincerity of his judgments, which he set out in numerous works that were entirely aimed at maintaining Orthodoxy.

Many historians are inclined to think that the prince was, after all, an extremely intelligent and educated man, as well as sincere and honest, always on the side of good and justice. For such character traits they began to call him “the first Russian dissident.” Since the reasons for the disagreement between him and Ivan the Terrible, as well as the legends of Prince Kurbsky themselves, have not been fully studied, the controversy over the personality of this famous political figure of that time will continue for a long time.

The well-known Polish heraldist and historian Simon Okolsky, who lived in the 17th century, also expressed his opinion on this issue. His description of Prince Kurbsky boiled down to the following: he was a truly great man, and not only because he was related to the royal house and occupied the highest military and government positions, but also because of his valor, since he won several significant victories . In addition, the historian wrote about the prince as a truly happy person. Judge for yourself: he, an exile and fugitive boyar, was received with extraordinary honors by the Polish king Sigismund II Augustus.

Until now, the reasons for the flight and betrayal of Prince Kurbsky are of keen interest to researchers, since the personality of this man is ambiguous and multifaceted. Another proof that Andrei Mikhailovich had a remarkable mind can be served by the fact that, being no longer young, he managed to learn the Latin language, which until that time he did not know at all.

In the first volume of the book called Orbis Poloni, which was published in 1641 in Krakow, the same Simon Okolsky placed the coat of arms of the Kurbsky princes (in the Polish version - Krupsky) and gave an explanation for it. He believed that this heraldic sign was Russian in origin. It is worth noting that in the Middle Ages the image of a lion could often be found on the coats of arms of the nobility in different states. In ancient Russian heraldry, this animal was considered a symbol of nobility, courage, moral and military virtues. Therefore, it is not surprising that it was the lion that was depicted on the princely coat of arms of the Kurbskys.

Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky - prince and controversial political figure, writer, who lived in 1528-1583. It is difficult to form an unambiguous opinion about A.M. Kurbsky. as a person, because in various historical publications he is called both a proud egoist who went into emigration only for his own material gain, and an intelligent, honest and unyielding person who stands guard over truth and goodness. Meanwhile, among the famous figures of the Russian Middle Ages, the figure of Kurbsky occupies an important position. He not only successfully participated in many significant military campaigns, but also took an active part in the internal reforms that were carried out in the 50s. XVI century.

Participation in military battles

Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky devoted most of his life to military battles and campaigns. His first battle was in 1552. Military leader Kurbsky, who at that time was only 24 years old, took part in the Kazan campaign. During the Livonian War, Kurbsky won a number of victories in major battles with the Poles.

In addition to being close to Ivan the Terrible, Kurbsky conducted secret negotiations with King Sigismund Augustus and the leaders of the Lithuanian Rada, who promised him great wealth for betraying his homeland. At that time, the persecution of the allies Sylvester and Adashev had just begun and, although Kurbsky did not feel any guilt, he still suspected that the fate of other disgraced individuals would also affect him.

In April 1564, Kurbsky decides to urgently flee from his native land in order to avoid persecution by Ivan IV. In his new homeland, Lithuania, Kurbsky tried to do everything possible to please his new owners. He also takes an active part in hostilities, only now he fights against his compatriots, on the side of the enemy. After all, as promised by King Sigismund Augustus, Andrei Mikhailovich received enormous wealth and land estates at his disposal. There is no clear opinion whether the material side influenced Krupsky’s decision to participate in hostilities against his compatriots.

Life in exile

Having abandoned his wife and young son during a hasty escape from Great Rus', Kurbsky found solace in the study of various sciences, among which was the study of the Latin language. By the way, he was quite successful in this training, since he subsequently translated a large number of theological works into Russian. Kurbsky also paid great attention to “book matters.” Having a sharp mind and clarity of thought, Andrei Mikhailovich took up journalism, entering into a furious correspondence with Ivan the Terrible.

Literary creativity

Considering the journalistic work of Kurbsky, first of all it is necessary to mention “The Story of the Grand Duke of Moscow”, in which he tried to expose Tsar Ivan the Terrible and accused him of unjustified murders of the governor. The main motive of the work was the idea that the tsar should rule not alone, but in consultation with the boyars close to him. Considering the question of why Tsar Ivan the Terrible turned from a skillful and fair ruler into a despot, Kurbsky analyzes the entire history of the tsar’s life, starting from childhood, in which Ivan the Terrible was not denied anything.

This work reflects the literary talent of the publicist. The introduction sets the emotional tone of the entire work. The main part of the message describes the characteristics and fates of the persecuted governors who did everything for the good of Rus', and the final part describes the misadventures of the author himself, who was forced to flee in search of salvation from persecution.

It is also necessary to note the work “Epistoly of the first to the Tsar and Grand Duke of Moscow.” It is Kurbsky's first message to Grozny. In this message, Andrei Mikhailovich accuses the tsar of injustice to himself and the governors who fought for the tsar. Contemporaries note Kurbsky's good literary style, literacy of presentation and clarity of thought. According to researchers, the task that the writer set for himself, namely to convict Ivan IV of atrocities, was successfully completed.

Ivan the Terrible (also possessing an extraordinary gift for journalism) entered into a fierce correspondence with Kurbsky. In it, he vigorously defended his right to autocratic power and accused Kurbsky of unjustified treason and the pursuit of material wealth. The letters of Ivan the Terrible carried an emotional coloring, vividness of verbal forms and reflected the powerful mind of the ruler. Thanks to the correspondence of these two extraordinary personalities, we have valuable monuments of literature and social thought of Ancient Rus'.

It should be noted that in his journalistic works, Kurbsky, in addition to criticizing the tsar, actively tried to justify his flight from Rus'. Leaving a bright mark on history, Andrei Mikhailovich Kurbsky died in 1583.