Ivan (i.e. John), the name of two grand-dukes and four czars of Russia, three of whom are treated at RUSSIA. The best known, IVAN IV. (1530-84), commonly called Ivan the Terrible, reigned from 1533, and did much for the advancement of his
Abdominal view of female itch-mite, magnified 65 diameters. country in arts and commerce, as well as for its extension by arms. He was the first Russian sovereign to be crowned as czar. He subdued Kazan and Astrakhan, and from his reign dates the first annexation of Siberia. He concluded a commercial treaty with Queen Elizabeth, after the English had discovered (1553) the way to Archangel by sea. But his hand fell with merciless cruelty upon the boyars of his kingdom, and upon some of his towns, as Moscow, Tver, and Novgorod. In the last named some 60,000 people were slain in six weeks. This was, however, during the third period of his reign. The first marks the time during which he was under his mother's guardianship; and the second the era of commercial enterprise and territorial consolidation. Ivan died of sorrow for his son, whom three years before he had slain in a mad fit of rage. See Austin Pember, Ivan the Terrible (1895).