REGARDING THE OPRICHNIKI PERSONNEL AT THE COURT OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE
The focus of this study is on the Oprichniki personnel at the court of Ivan the Terrible from 1565-1572. From sources never before used by researchers, the author uncovers some previously unknown names of oprichniks (66 people), as well as clarifying already-available information about the tsar's guardsmen provided in the works of Vladimir B. Kobrin. In the article the administrative institutions of the Oprichnina are reconstructed, and some observations are made regarding the territories included in the Oprichnina's jurisdiction, place attachment of the oprichniks, and waves of executions by Oprichniki of appanage princes' courts. The author draws the conclusion that Tsar Ivan the Terrible composed the new Oprichniki court mainly of the same people that formed the tsar's court before the Oprichnina, with the purpose of opposing the representatives of different nobility clans for the sake of strengthening his individual power.