The best historians of Russia tried to give the gloomy and heroic reign of the first Russian Tsar a correct assessment, to integrate the era of Ivan the Terrible into the stream of Russian and European history. This topic is especially relevant in an extreme era, which was the first quarter of the 20th century in Russia. It was then that essays were written about the reign of Ivan the Terrible, in which, against the background of modern events, what was happening in the 16th century was meaningful. These are the works of remarkable Russian historians presented in this book - an original interpretation of the meaning of the oprichnina upheavals of the Grozny era of S. F. Platonov, which later became a classic, and a completely different concept developed by his contemporary - R. Yu. Vipper. Intended for students and high school students, as well as anyone interested in Russian history.