Ivan IV was a complicated man, with a complicated past, in a complicated country, in a complicated time; his story is not an easy one. Ivan the terrible, the man, could never be completely understood in a few words, nor in a few pages, and only perhaps in a few volumes. A man of incredible range his dreadfulness could only be matched by his magnificence, his love by his hatred.

Ivan life began in the same fashion it would continue: in a tempest. His father murdered when he was three years old, his suspected murderer-Ivan's uncle. Following this disaster Ivan succeeded to the throne. His mother, Jelena Glinsky, crowned herself "regent" and "protector", an ambitious choice that would prove deadly to her self, and detrimental to Ivan. Within five years of the death of his father Ivan suffered the loss of his mother.

The death of Ivan's mother...