Ivan the Terrible and Stalin. These are the two icons that Putin has been waving around for the past two decades in an attempt to outline the future model for Russia's development. The rehabilitation at the highest state level of Ivan the Terrible, known for his terror, goes hand in hand with Putin's rehabilitation of Stalin as the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Union's victory in World War II.
In an analysis for the online publication The Conversation, Dina Kapaeva, a historian and sociologist, professor in the Department of Modern Languages at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta), calls these two parallel processes "neo-medievalism" and "re-Stalinization".
From September 2025 Russian middle and high school students will receive a new textbook titled "My Family". Published in March 2025, the textbook's co-author Nina Ostanina, chairwoman of the State Duma's Family Protection Committee, claims it will teach students "traditional moral values" that will improve the "demographic situation in the country" as part of the "Family Studies" course, which was introduced in the 2024-2025 school year.
But some of these lessons about modern life come from a not-so-modern source. Among the materials borrowed in "My Family" is the 16th-century "Domostroy" - a collection of rules for maintaining patriarchal domestic order. It is believed to have been written by Sylvester, a monk-mentor of Tsar Ivan the Terrible.
It is not surprising that some teachings in "Domostroy" seem to contradict today's realities. For example, it states that a father has the right to force, if necessary, members of his household by force (at that time this applied to both relatives and slaves) to lead a life in accordance with Orthodox dogmas.
"Husbands should teach their wives with love and exemplary instruction," reads one of the quotes in "Domostroy".
"Wives ask their husbands about the strict order, how to save their souls, please God and their husbands, arrange their homes well and obey their husbands in all matters; and whatever the husband commands, they must agree with love and carry out everything according to his orders," another passage says.
The use of "Domostroy" in the textbook both refers to the past, while also recalling the current government's policy of decriminalizing domestic violence. For example, a 2017 law removed "beating of close relatives" from the list of crimes without aggravating circumstances.
As a researcher of historical memory, I observe that references to the Russian Middle Ages are part of the Kremlin's broader policy of using the medieval past to justify its current programs. This is what I have called "political neo-medievalism," writes Prof. Kapaeva.
In fact, President Vladimir Putin's government is actively prioritizing initiatives that use medieval Russia as a model for the country's future. In this way, the Kremlin is merging the long-standing dream of the Russian far right with a broader drive to realize Russia’s imperial ambitions.
The Kremlin rehabilitates Ivan the Terrible
In February 2025, just a month before the publication of "My Family", the government of Russia’s Vologda Oblast—home to over 1 million people—created a non-governmental organization called "Oprichnina." The organization is tasked with "promoting Russian identity" and "developing the moral education of youth."
But the organization’s name evokes associations with the first period of brutal state terror in Russian history. The Oprichnina was a state policy introduced by Ivan the Terrible from 1565 to 1572 to establish his unlimited power over the country. The Oprichniki were Ivan the Terrible's personal guards, who attached a dog's head and a broom to their saddles to show that they were the Tsar's "dogs" who swept away treason.
Chroniclers and foreign travelers have left accounts of the sadistic torture and mass executions carried out with the participation of Ivan the Terrible. The Oprichniki raped and dismembered women, skinned or boiled men alive, and burned children. In this frenzy of violence, they slaughtered thousands of innocent people.
Ivan the Terrible's rule led to a period known as the "Time of Troubles," marked by famine and military defeats. Some scholars believe that by its end, Russia had lost nearly two-thirds of its population.
Throughout Russian history, Ivan the Terrible—who, among other crimes, murdered his eldest son and strangled the head of the Russian Orthodox Church for dissent—has been remembered as a hideous tyrant.
However, since the mid-2000s, as the Russian government under Putin has become increasingly authoritarian, Ivan the Terrible and his terror have undergone a state-oriented process of re-evaluation.
The Kremlin and its far-right proxies now present Ivan the Terrible as a great statesman and devout Russian Orthodox Christian who laid the foundations of the Russian Empire.
Prior to this shift in Russian historical memory, only one other Russian head of state had held Ivan the Terrible in such high regard: Joseph Stalin.
However, until 2016, when Putin’s officials unveiled the first of three bronze statues, dedicated to the fearsome tsar, there have been no public monuments to Ivan the Terrible. Yet, cinematic propaganda has outpaced the stone memorials of Ivan the Terrible. From 2009 to 2022, 12 state-sponsored films and television series paying tribute to Ivan the Terrible and his reign have aired in prime time on Russian television channels.
Russian Revisionism
The post-Soviet rehabilitation of Ivan the Terrible began with the works of Ivan Snichov, a metropolitan or high-ranking bishop of St. Petersburg and Ladoga. His book "Autocracy of the Spirit", published in 1994, gave rise to a fundamentalist sect known as "Tsarobozhie" or neo-oprichnina. "Tsarobozhie" called for a return to autocratic monarchy and the canonization of all Russian tsars. The belief that Russian state power is "sacred" - a central tenet of the sect - was reaffirmed on April 18, 2025, by Alexander Kharichev, an official in Putin's presidential administration, in an article that has been likened to an instruction manual for building Putinism.
The canonization of Ivan the Terrible is a top priority for members of this sect. Although the Russian Orthodox Church has not yet canonized Ivan the Terrible, "Tsarobozhie" has received significant support from Russian priests, politicians, and laypeople. Their efforts go hand in hand with Putin's long-standing desire to publicly support Ivan the Terrible. It is no coincidence that Putin's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has named Ivan the Terrible as one of his three "most trusted advisors" Putin.
In Snichov's worldview, Russians are a messianic people, part of an imperial nation uniquely responsible for preventing Satan's domination of the world. In his explicitly anti-Semitic pseudo-history of Russia, the Oprichnina is described as a "sacred monastic order" headed by a "pious tsar".
Since the 1930s, when Stalin used Ivan the Terrible to justify his own repressions, the Oprichnina and Stalinism have become historical twins. The Kremlin's dusting off the image of Ivan the Terrible goes hand in hand with Putin's rehabilitation of Stalin as commander-in-chief of the Soviet Union's victory in World War II.
The promotion of the cult of the "Great Patriotic War" - as World War II has been officially known since Soviet times - is a central element of Putin's militarization of Russian society and part of a propaganda effort to build support for the invasion of Ukraine. Regret for the loss of the empire and the desire to restore it have been at the heart of Moscow’s discourse over the past two decades.
A medieval threat to democracy
The rhetoric of justifying Stalinism goes hand in hand with the promotion of the state’s version of the Russian Middle Ages through public media channels.
Putin’s neo-medieval policy has embraced the Russian far-right belief that the country should return to the traditions of medieval Rus as it existed before the Westernization reforms undertaken by Peter the Great in the early 18th century.
Over the past 15 years, Russian television viewers have watched an average of two state-funded films per month promoting the virtues of Russian medieval society and praising Russian medieval military leaders.
This use of Russian historical memory has allowed Putin to normalize the use of state violence abroad and at home and to mobilize support for the suppression of opposition. The main goal of political neo-medievalism is to legitimize the vast social and economic inequalities in post-Soviet society as part of Russia's national heritage.
To undermine the rule of law and democratic freedoms, the Kremlin and its proxies have promoted the Russian Middle Ages - with its theocratic monarchy, class society, slavery, serfdom and repression - as a state-sponsored alternative to democracy.