IVAN THE TERRIBLE IN THE WORKS OF RUSSIAN WRITERS OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 18TH CENTURY AND THE BEGINNING OF THE 19TH CENTURY
In 1779 M. M. Kheraskov published the epos “Rossiada”, telling about the victory of Ivan the Terrible over the Khanate of Kazan. For its writing the author used “The Kazan Chronicle” - a work of the unknown Old Russian writer, which praised the first Russian tsar. “Rossiada” gained a literary success. The reason for it was the relevancy of the story about The Kazan's conquest in the epoch of Catherine the Great. The victory of Ivan the Terrible and Russian warriors over Mahometans in the 16th century became correlated with the Russian-Turkish war. Several years after, at the beginning of the 19th century, other writers returned to the story of “The Kazan Chronicle” and Kheraskov's epos - this was how tragedies by S.N. Glinka “Sumbeka, or The Kazan's conquest”, by A. N. Gruzincev “The conquered Kazan, or The Kindness of Ioann Vasilyevich IV, called Terrible” and the opera of G. N. Derzhavin “Grozny, or the Kazan's conquest” appeared. Each of the mentioned authors created the Old Russian ruler's image of his own. This paper reveals what view of the activities and personality of the tsar preceded the publication of “The history of the Russian State” by N. M. Karamzin, which perpetuated the idea of Ivan IV as a tyrannical ruler in the public mind.