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50 free Ivan the Terrible trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Ivan the Terrible trivia quiz covers Ivan IV, the first ruler crowned Tsar of all Russia. The easy questions are the ones most people know: what his epithet actually means in Russian, the cathedral built to celebrate his conquest of Kazan, the black-clad political police he created, and the son he killed in a rage. From there it moves through his childhood as a three-year-old grand prince neglected by feuding boyars, his coronation at 16, his marriage to the first Romanov tsaritsa, the printing press he brought to Moscow and the legal code and standing army of his reforming years. The harder end covers the fake abdication of 1564, the oprichnina and its 1,000 guardsmen, the sack of Novgorod, the Tatar puppet he put on his own throne for a year, his marriage proposal to Elizabeth I of England, the Livonian War, the burning of Moscow, Yermak's Cossacks in Siberia, the 1963 exhumation that found mercury in his bones, and Stalin's notes to Eisenstein. Every answer was checked against Ivan's encyclopaedia entry before publishing and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Peter the Great and Russia quizzes carry the story on.
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Q 01Ivan the Terrible was the first Russian ruler crowned with which title?
Tsar of all Russia
He was crowned at 16 in the Cathedral of the Dormition, with the cap of Monomakh placed on his head.
Q 02The Russian word 'grozny' in Ivan's epithet is better translated as what?
Formidable or awe-inspiring
'Terrible' is an archaic rendering meaning 'inspiring fear'; the epithet is not recorded in his lifetime and only caught on in the 18th century.
Q 03How old was Ivan when he succeeded his father as Grand Prince of Moscow?
Three
His father Vasili III died of blood poisoning from an abscess on his leg.
Q 04Ivan's grandmother Sophia Palaiologina belonged to the imperial family of which fallen power?
Byzantium
She was a niece of Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor, which fed Moscow's claim to be the 'Third Rome'.
Q 05Ivan's mother Elena Glinskaya, who ruled as regent, died in 1538; what do many believe happened to her?
She was poisoned
Ivan later wrote that the Shuisky and Belsky boyars then brought him and his brother up 'like vagrants'.
Q 06On what date was Ivan crowned tsar?
16 January 1547
Two weeks later he married Anastasia Romanovna, the first Russian tsaritsa.
Q 07Ivan's first wife, Anastasia Romanovna, belonged to which family that would later rule Russia?
The Romanovs
Her death in 1560, which some contemporaries blamed on poison, is thought to have darkened his temperament permanently.
Q 08Ivan liked to claim descent from a brother of which Roman emperor?
Augustus
The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir traced Rurik back to a mythical Prus, brother of Augustus, and Ivan stressed his 'German' rather than Russian blood.
Q 09What was the name of the revised legal code Ivan issued in 1550?
The Sudebnik
The same reforming period produced the Zemsky Sobor, regarded as Russia's first parliament of estates.
Q 10What was Russia's first standing army, established by Ivan, called?
The streltsy
They carried modern firearms and helped win the Battle of Molodi against the Tatars in 1572.
Q 11The 1551 church assembly that standardised rituals across Russia is known by what name?
The Council of the Hundred Chapters
In Russian it is the Stoglavy Sobor.
Q 12When a gravely ill Ivan asked the boyars in 1553 to swear to his infant son, what did many do?
Refused
They assumed he would die; his recovery left him permanently distrustful of the nobility.
Q 13What did Ivan introduce to Russia in 1553 by founding the Moscow Print Yard?
The printing press
Traditional scribes burned the Print Yard down, and the printers fled to Lithuania.
Q 21Which wealthy city did the oprichniki sack in 1570 on suspicion its nobles would defect to Lithuania?
Novgorod
Victims were tied to sleighs and run into the freezing Volkhov; modern estimates put the dead at 2,000 to 3,000.
Q 22In what year did Ivan formally abolish his separate realm and disband its black-clad guard?
1572
The oprichniki had failed badly against the Crimean Tatars' raid of 1571.
Q 23In 1575 Ivan unexpectedly proclaimed which Tatar statesman Grand Prince of All Russia for about a year?
Simeon Bekbulatovich
Ivan kept real control and used the puppet to confiscate monastery lands while publicly pretending to object.
Q 14Which Moscow landmark did Ivan build to commemorate the capture of Kazan?
Saint Basil's Cathedral
The legend about the fate of the architect is false: Postnik Yakovlev went on to build the Kazan Kremlin walls.
Q 15By legend, what did Ivan do to Saint Basil's architect so he could never build anything as beautiful again?
Had him blinded
In reality Postnik Yakovlev kept working for Ivan into the 1560s and even added a chapel to the cathedral after Ivan's death.
Q 16Which close adviser defected to Lithuania in 1564 and then exchanged famous letters with Ivan?
Andrey Kurbsky
Harvard's Edward Keenan argued the letters are 17th-century forgeries, but most scholars still accept them.
Q 17In December 1564 Ivan left Moscow for Aleksandrova Sloboda and sent two letters announcing what?
His abdication
The boyars begged him back; his price was absolute power to execute traitors and seize their estates.
Q 18What was the name of the separate territory Ivan carved out under his exclusive rule from 1565?
The oprichnina
The rest of the state, ruled by the Boyar Council, was the zemshchina, 'the land'.
Q 19How many men made up Ivan's personal guard, the oprichniki, when it was first formed?
1,000
They were headed by Malyuta Skuratov and included the German adventurer Heinrich von Staden.
Q 20Which senior churchman was killed on Ivan's orders during the purges of the 1560s?
Metropolitan Philip
He was canonised in 1652, which is why the Orthodox Church later opposed a campaign to make Ivan himself a saint.
Q 24Which English navigator reached Ivan's court in 1553 via the White Sea, opening Anglo-Russian trade?
Richard Chancellor
Ivan let the Muscovy Company trade throughout his reign without paying customs fees.
Q 25Which foreign monarch did Ivan once propose marriage to?
Elizabeth I of England
He also asked her for asylum should he lose his throne; she agreed, provided he paid his own way.
Q 26Which Tatar khanate on the Volga did Ivan conquer in October 1552?
Kazan
His army of foreign engineers and 150 cannon cut the water supply and breached the walls after a five-week siege.
Q 27What was the prefabricated wooden fortress floated down the Volga for the 1552 Kazan campaign called?
Sviyazhsk
It was assembled near the enemy capital as the main place of arms.
Q 28Which khanate at the Volga's mouth did Ivan's troops take in 1554–56, giving Russia the river?
Astrakhan
According to Janet Martin, subjugating the Muslim khanates 'transformed Muscovy into an empire'.
Q 29After beating the Tatars, Ivan had which symbol placed beneath the cross on church domes?
The crescent
The crescent beneath the cross remains a common feature on Russian church domes.
Q 30How long did the Livonian War, launched by Ivan in 1558 for access to the Baltic, last?
24 years
It ended in defeat, the loss of Ingria and no Baltic outlet.