Oprichnik

For the opera, see The Oprichnik.

Oprichniki, painting by Nikolai Nevrev.

Oprichnik (Russian: опри́чник, IPA: [ɐˈprʲitɕnʲɪk], man aside; plural Oprichniki) was the term given to a member of the Oprichnina, an organization established by Tsar Ivan the Terrible to govern a division of Russia from 1565 to 1572. Some scholars believe that Ivan's second wife, the Circassian Maria Temryukovna, first had the idea of forming the organization. This theory comes from Heinrich von Staden, a German oprichnik. Maria Temryukovna's brother also became a leading oprichnik.

The Oprichniki were required to swear an oath of allegiance:

I swear to be true to the Lord, Grand Prince, and his realm, to the young Grand Princes, and to the Grand Princess, and not to maintain silence about any evil that I may know or have heard or may hear which is being contemplated against the Tsar, his realms, the young princes or the Tsaritsa. I swear also not to eat or drink with the zemschina, and not to have anything in common with them. On this I kiss the cross.

Description

Modern theories suggest that the motivating purpose for the organization and existence of the Oprichniki was to suppress people or groups opposed to the Tsar. Known to ride black horses and led by Ivan himself, the group was known to terrorize civilian populations. Sometimes called the "Tsar's Dogs" because of their actions and blind loyalty, they dressed in black garb, similar to a monastic habit, bearing the insignia of a severed dog's head (to sniff out treason and enemies of the Tsar) and a broom (to sweep them away). The dog's head was also symbolic of "nipping at the heels of the Tsar's enemies".

The Oprichniki were ordered to execute anyone disloyal to Ivan and used various methods of torture to do so, including tying each limb to a different horse and riding in opposite directions, death by boiling, impalement, and roasting victims tied to poles over an open fire.

When Ivan declared himself the "Hand of God", he selected 300 of the Oprichniki to be his personal "brotherhood" and live in his castle at Aleksandrovskaia Sloboda near Vladimir. At 4 a.m., these select Oprichniki attended a sermon given by Ivan, then performed the day's ritual executions. The Oprichniki sought to lead an externally ascetic lifestyle, like the monks they emulated, but it was punctuated by acts of cruelty and debauchery. Ivan sang while his Oprichniki ate, eating only when they had finished. At 9 p.m. he went to bed, listening to stories told by three blind men.

In the Novgorod incident, the Oprichniks killed an estimated 1500 "big people" (nobles), although the actual number of victims is unknown. By 1572, the Oprichnik had become a destabilizing force and were disbanded by Ivan. It became a capital offense to say or discuss "Oprichnina".

Appearances in modern media

The street in the town: people fleeing at the arrival of the Oprichniki (set to the opera The Oprichnik by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1911)

• The Oprichnik is an opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, based on the drama The Oprichniks (Опричники) (1842) written by Ivan Lazhechnikov.
• Oprichniki Malyuta Skuratov, Alexei Basmanov and his son Fyodor Basmanov are main characters in Ivan the Terrible, a classic historical epic film (released in two parts in 1944 and 1946) directed by Sergei Eisenstein, .
• The Oprichniki appear as a unique Russian unit in Ensemble Studios' Age of Empires III, which is specifically good at killing villagers and burning buildings.
• The song "Dog and Broom" on Arghoslent's Hornets of the Pogrom album focuses specifically on the Oprichniki, and makes reference to their actions during the 1570 Novgorod Massacre.
• The Twelve Wallachian mercenaries in the 2009 novel Twelve by Jasper Kent are named after the original Oprichniki, but are not directly connected to them.
• Author W. E. B. Griffin's novel Black Ops claims as a plot point that all subsequent Russian secret police agencies such as the SVR are descendants of the Oprichniki.
• The novel Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin imagines the return of the Oprichniki in a futuristic-theocratic Russia.
• The Oprichniki appear in Tsar, a 2009 Russian drama film directed by Pavel Lungin.
• Latter-day Oprichniki appear in Eric Flint's 1636: The Kremlin Games.