About Moscow, Ivan the Terrible. Notes of the German oprichnik

The reprint from the publication Moscow 1925. The printed notes of Henry Staden occupy a very large place among the sources on the history of the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Westphal from origin, playing fate abandoned in Muscovy and recorded in the oprichnina, the author closely saw the phenomena and orders described by him, and the autobiographical form, which he gave to his notes even in the part of their description, makes them especially valuable, opening specifically And it is artless to those small details of the everyday life of a service person of the 16th century, which are hardly possible to find in any modern monument. In addition, Staden"s ingenuous story gives us rich material for a general judgment about such a far unclear phenomenon in the history of the 16th century as an oprichnina. Separate hints scattered in the notes draw this institution in new lighting. From the general context of disparate episodes and comments - the overall picture of the oprichnina acts more specifically than in other sources, and its history acquires greater certainty