The grim figure of Tsar Ivan the Terrible overshadows the history of almost the entire Russian Middle Ages. He was argued about even during his lifetime, and they still argue about him now โ four centuries after his death. Some considered him a maniac who drowned the country in the blood of its unfortunate subjects. Others saw him as a genius ahead of his time. Perhaps only one thing is beyond doubt: Russia after Ivan the Terrible was a completely different country than it had been before him. The well-known historian Boris Nikolaevich Florya reflects on the personality of Tsar Ivan Vasilievich, as well as on the paths of Russia's development in the 16th century.