3 July, 10:12
While a new type of state was emerging in Europe — with taxes, parliaments, and the rule of law — an opposite model was taking shape in Muscovy. Not inclusive, but punitive. Not speaking on behalf of its citizens, but ruling over them.
It was not built — it was endured. It came with fire, with escort, with decree. And anyone who served it automatically became an occupier — even if he spoke the same language, followed the same faith, and wore the same hat.
This principle was most vividly embodied in Ivan the Terrible’s oprichnina. It was not an episode or a whim. It was the matrix of all future Muscovite statehood, where the functions of the state are carried out by the personal army of a tyrant, and its main weapon is not law — but fear.
Oprichnina Was Not a Reform — It Was a Coup
The oprichnina had nothing to do with state-building. It was an internal coup against the old elite. Ivan created a parallel system of governance, where everything depended not on office or status, but on personal proximity to the tsar.
The oprichniki were neither soldiers nor administrators. They were hired enforcers who were allowed everything. The only requirement: loyalty to the master. In return — land, women, authority, and the right to kill without explanation. For the first time in Muscovite history, the state was transformed into a legal instrument of private terror.
They Didn’t “Fight the Boyars” — They Plundered the People
Russian myths portray the oprichniki as a “hammer of justice” that crushed traitors among the aristocracy. In reality, the victims were cities, monasteries, merchants, peasants, artisans. The sacking of Novgorod in 1570 was not a “purge” but mass looting — the destruction of a major economic and cultural center of Rus’ that had preserved its autonomy and wealth.
The troops of Ivan the Terrible annihilated up to 20% of the city’s population, slaughtered thousands of civilians, drowned monks, burned libraries, and ravaged the outskirts. On the return march, they slaughtered livestock and burned villages, leaving a scorched void behind. This is not the tactic of a state — it is the tactic of an occupying army.
Who Were the “Court People”?
After the end of the oprichnina, Ivan IV forbade the very use of the term. The oprichniki were henceforth called “dvorovye lyudi” — meaning the tsar’s personal staff. But this was not rehabilitation — it was legalization. The system remained. It simply changed its name.
These “court people” were not subject to common law. They lived by personal decree. They became the prototype for Stalin’s, Brezhnev’s, and Putin’s future “loyal serfs.” In the Russian system of power, personal loyalty outweighs any institution, and law is merely an instrument to be used against outsiders.
Oprichnina Did Not Disappear — It Was Modernized
The Cheka, NKVD, SMERSH, Wagner — these are not innovations but modernized forms of oprichnina. The same architecture remains:
- loyalty to the ruler, not the state;
- special powers beyond the law;
- no accountability;
- economic reward for terror.
Russian power continues to function as internal occupation. Its logic: everything in the country is suspicious, disloyal, unreliable. Therefore — it must be kept under control, humiliation, and suspicion. Every citizen is a potential traitor. Every region — a potential separatist. Every official — a slave.
The Paradox: Their Own, Yet Foreign
“The state is an occupier.”
This is not a slogan or a metaphor. It is a diagnosis. Russians (and, to some extent, other post-Soviet societies) do not perceive the state as their own. They fear it, endure it, deceive it, rob it, or try to buy it off. But they do not identify with it.
And this is the direct result of the same oprichnina that inoculated the population against solidarity, citizenship, and responsibility. Because in a country where power is private, and the people are colonized, the state is not built — it is feared.