Early Russian History. Key Issues. Гончарова Л.Ю. - 28 стр.

                                            28
                                       The End

       By the end of his life, Ivan was habitually bad tempered. Daniel von Bruchau
stated that in his rages Ivan "foamed at the mouth like a horse". He had long looked
older than his years with long white hair dangling from a bald pate onto his
shoulders. In his last years, he had to be carried on a litter. His body swelled, the skin
peeled and gave off a terrible odour. Jerome Horsey wrote: "The Emperor began
grievously to swell in his cods, with which he had most horribly offended above fifty
years, boasting of a thousand virgins he had deflowered and thousands of children of
his begetting destroyed." In 1584, as he was preparing to play a game of chess, Ivan
fainted suddenly and died.
       During his reign hardly a family of noble birth had not been touched by his
murders, and some had been completely eliminated. Countless acres of cultivated
land had been abandoned by farmers during the terror of the Oprichniki, and forests
had begun reclaiming the land.
        The end of the dynasty would bring turmoil. The chaos in which Ivan left the
administration, the bitterly resentment of the boyars who had survived his purges, the
sense of insecurity and fright felt by men of every class, the foreign enemies whose
hatred of Russia Ivan's campaigns of pillage, torture, and desolation had sharpened -
all compounded to leave the land weak and divided. For many years there would be
serious question whether the nation could survive. Despite some remarkable
achievements, all in all Ivan the Terrible set the stage for an era of unbelievable
confusion and disorder which has gone down in history as the Time of Troubles.

                                 Vocabulary work

     Read and memorize the following words and expressions, suggest their
Russian equivalents:

fringe, n (e.g. to stand on the fringe of    remorse, n
           smth)                             blasphemy, n
revolt, n (e.g. peasant revolts)             superstition, n
hegemony, n                                  abdicate, v (abdication, n)
nobility, n                                  populace, n
depravity, n                                 abduct, v (abduction, n)
moderation, n                                monastic order
reign, n                                     sacrilegious mass
challenge, n (v)                             licentiousness, n
(e.g. to challenge smb’s rights to the       repentance, n
throne)                                      sermon, n (e.g. to read religious sermons)
dungeon, n (e.g. to imprison smb in a        virtue, n (e.g. Christian virtues)
dungeon)                                     orphan, n
regent, n                                    exterminate, v (=eliminate)
jailer, n                                    landed aristocracy
convent, n (e.g.to send a woman to a         implement, v (e.g. to implement a policy,