INFLUENCE OF THE LIVONIAN WAR ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN AUTOCRATIC MONARCHY IN THE MOSCOW STATE IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XVI CENTURY

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to reveal some aspects related to the Russian authorities policy of reunification of Western Russian (Belorussian) and southern Russian (Ukrainian) lands into the Moscow state. In the article, the author believes that after the collapse of the Golden Horde, the Moscow state sought to occupy the vacant place of the pole of geopolitical power on the border of Eastern Europe and North-West Asia. However, the Polish-Lithuanian Union also claimed to be the hegemon of the Eastern European space. In the study, the author examines the main prerequisites for the establishment of an autocratic system in the Moscow state and the attempts made by the tsarist authorities to pursue a policy of unification of the East Slavic lands. It is emphasized that the main reasons that led to the Livonian war were caused by the conflict between the Moscow state and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania over the Western and southern Russian territories. The government of the Grand Duchy sought to prevent the strengthening of the Moscow state with its access to the Baltic sea. The author believes that the oprichnina’s claim was connected with the upheavals of the Russian-Lithuanian war and the first heavy defeats of the tsarist troops. This was a repressive measure directed at the time of its implementation against the families of service people who made up the main mass of emigrants heading to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Starting from the XV century and up to the end of the XVII century, there was a very intense struggle for representatives of the service class between the Polish-Lithuanian Union and the Moscow state. The author’s assessment of the events of the XVI century allows him to note that the main direction of the Moscow state’s foreign policy was the Western one, where the Russian government sought to reunite the Western Russian lands and carried out expansion in the Baltic States. While in the South and East, Moscow waged defensive wars.