Beginning of Essay
was a cruel tyrant, who never knew the meaning of moderation; He drank too much, laughed too loudly and hated and loved too fiercely. And he never forgot anything. Ivan was definitely smart and despite his cruelty, his reign is known as one of the greatest rules ....

Middle of Essay
.... and their marriage proved to be a very close one. Ivan had huge ambitions for his new Imperial dynasty. He launched a holy war against Russia's traditional enemy, the Tartars. Showing no mercy to these Muslim people Ivan's conquest of Kazan, and later Astrakhan and Siberia, gave birth to a sixteenth century personality cult glorifying him as the Orthodox crusader. His wife Anastasia helped to hold his cruelty back but in 1560 she died. He accused his nobles of poisoning her, and became even more mentally unstable. Recent studies have shown that there was over ten times the normal amount of mercury in her hair showing that she was murdered. He set up a ....