Ivan III

1440 – 1505 · Generation XLI · Emperor (r. 1462–1505)

Ivan (AD 1440 – 1505). Emperor (r. 1462–1505). Married Sophia around AD 1472. Grand Prince of Moscow; husband of Sophia Palaiologina. Called “the Great,” he gathered the Russian lands under Moscow — breaking Novgorod at the Battle of Shelon in 1471, annexing the republic outright in 1478 and stripping it of four-fifths of its territory, and absorbing Yaroslavl, Rostov, Tver, and Vyatka besides. After his stand against the Great Horde in 1480, Russia's freedom from Tatar overlordship was complete in form as well as fact. He renovated the Kremlin, issued a new code of laws, and began forging a centralized Russian state; through his Palaiologan marriage came the double-headed eagle on Russia’s arms and the idea of Moscow as the third Rome. Abroad he began styling himself tsar, though at home he remained content with grand prince. Only one reign in Russian history — that of his grandson Ivan the Terrible — outlasted his forty-three years.

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Partners

• Married Sophia Palaiologina (1449 – 1503) in 1472

Life

• 1440 — Born
• 1472 — Married Sophia
• 1505 — Died