Titans of History

Suleiman was devoted to the arts. Not only was he himself a talented poet (many of his own aphorisms have become Turkish proverbs), but he also enthusiastically promoted artistic societies within the empire. Artists and craftsmen were given career paths, leading from apprenticeship to official rank, with quarterly pay, and Istanbul became a center of artistic excellence. Among the many fine mosques and other buildings commissioned by Suleiman is the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, which is Suleiman’s final resting place. During his reign, numerous bridges were built throughout the empire, such as the Danube Bridge, the Bridge of Buda, and the great aqueducts that solved Istanbul’s water shortage.

In Jerusalem, this “Second Solomon” rebuilt the walls, creating famed gates such as the Damascus and Jaffa Gates, and embellished the Dome of the Rock. But he ruled with brutal inscrutability: like his father who had murdered his brothers and his other sons. Suleiman attended the strangulation of his own son and heir, Mustapha, and ordered the killing of his long-serving vizier and friend Ibrahim Pasha.

Suleiman was lean, slim and laconic, cultivating his own mystique. But he was capable of love. His favorite slave-girl was a Russian/Polish blond nicknamed Roxelana who became his dominant wife; he renamed her Blossom of the Sultan—Hurrem Sulton. When he was away at war she wrote him passionate love letters and he wrote her love poems. She was a wily politician who managed to win their eldest son Selim II the Drunkard the crown. By the time he died of a stroke at the Battle of Szigetvar in 1566, his conquests had united most of the Muslim world, with all the major Islamic cities west of Persia—Medina, Mecca, Jerusalem, Damascus and Baghdad—under the same ruler. Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the southern Mediterranean were also dominated by the Ottomans. There is no doubt that Suleiman fully deserved his Western nickname—the Magnificent.

IVAN THE TERRIBLE

1530–84

You shut up the Kingdom of Russia … as in a fortress of hell

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Prince Kurbsky, letter to Ivan IV

Ivan IV of Russia, known as the Terrible, was a tragic but degenerate monster, terrorized and damaged as a child, who grew up to be a successful empire-builder and shrewd tyrant. Ultimately he deteriorated into a demented, homicidal sadist who killed many thousands in a frenzied terror, impaling and torturing his enemies personally. By murdering his son, he hastened the demise of his own dynasty.

Ivan was declared the Grand Prince of Muscovy when he was just three years old, after the early death of his father. Five years later his mother too died. With both parents gone, the task of caring for Ivan fell to the boyar Shuisky family—members of whom also served as regents for the remainder of the prince’s minority. The boyars formed a closed aristocratic class of around 200 families; Ivan complained that they bullied him, terrorized him, neglected him and were attempting to usurp his birthright.

Ivan’s coronation took place in January 1547, and the early years of his reign were characterized by reform and modernization. Changes to the law code were accompanied by the creation of a council of nobles and local-government reforms. Efforts were also made to open up Russia to European trade and commerce. Ivan oversaw the consolidation and expansion of Muscovite territory. In 1552 he defeated and annexed the Kazan khanate, and the storming of the city of Kazan itself was followed by the slaughter of over 100,000 defenders. More military successes followed, and further territories, including the Astrakhan khanate and parts of Siberia, were brought under Russian sway. He built the gaudy St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square to celebrate the conquest of Kazan.

After a near-fatal illness in 1553, Ivan’s personality appeared to undergo a transformation, and from that point he became ever more erratic and prone to bouts of rage. In 1560 his wife, Anastasia Romanovna, died from an unknown disease, an event that appears to have caused Ivan to suffer a breakdown. He convinced himself that the boyars had conspired to poison him—and he may have been right. If so, the plot led to the death of his beloved wife. He decided that the boyars would have to be punished and their power eradicated. The defection of one of his grandees, Prince Kurbsky, intensified his insane paranoia.