Anna Alexeievna Koltovskaya (''Анна Колтовская'') (c.1552 – 5 April 1626) was
Tsaritsa
Tsarina or tsaritsa (also spelled ''csarina'' or ''csaricsa'', ''tzarina'' or ''tzaritza'', or ''czarina'' or ''czaricza''; bg, царица, tsaritsa; sr, / ; russian: царица, tsaritsa) is the title of a female autocratic ruler (mon ...
of the
Tsardom of Russia
The Tsardom of Russia or Tsardom of Rus' also externally referenced as the Tsardom of Muscovy, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter I ...
and the fourth spouse of Tsar
Ivan the Terrible.
Life
After the sudden death of his third wife
Marfa Sobakina
Marfa Vasilevna Sobakina (russian: Марфа Васильевна Собакина; 1552–1571), was Tsaritsa of the Tsardom of Russia and was the third wife of Ivan the Terrible.
Life
The daughter of a Novgorod-based merchant, Vasiliy Sobakin ...
on 13 November 1571, Ivan had difficulty in securing another marriage, due to the laws of the
Russian Orthodox Church
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, caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia
, abbreviation = ROC
, type ...
prohibiting fourth marriages; "The first marriage is law; the second an extraordinary concession; the third is a violation of the law; the fourth is an impiety, a state similar to that of animals." Ivan countered this by claiming he did not consummate his third marriage.
He married Koltovskaya, the daughter of Alexei Koltovski, a courtier, on 29 April 1572 without asking the Church's blessing. Ivan organised a meeting in the church of the Assumption, and gave a heartfelt speech which moved the
prelate
A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Christian clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which means 'carry before', 'be set above or over' or 'pre ...
s to tears. They agreed to Ivan's marriage, although on the condition that he not attend church until
Easter
Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...
, and that for a year, he spend time with penitents, and a year later, with common Christians. Their honeymoon took place in
Novgorod, which only two years earlier had been decimated by Ivan in the
Massacre of Novgorod
The Massacre of Novgorod was an attack launched by Tsar Ivan IV (The Terrible)'s ''oprichniki'' on the city of Novgorod, Russia in 1570. Although initially an act of vengeance against the perceived treason of the local Orthodox church, the massac ...
.
After two years of marriage, Ivan began to tire of his wife due to her sterility. He repudiated her, and sent her to the convent of Vedenski-Tikhvinski where she assumed the monastery name of Daria. Only she and
Maria Nagaya
Maria Feodorovna Nagaya () (died 1608) was a Russian tsaritsa and sixth (possibly eighth) uncanonical wife of Ivan the Terrible.
Life
Maria married Ivan in 1581 and a year later, she gave birth to their son Dmitry. In 1582, the tsar suggested to ...
, the seventh wife of
Ivan the terrible, outlived the tsar.
References
* Troyat, Henri ''Ivan le Terrible''. Flammarion, Paris, 1982
* de Madariaga, Isabel ''Ivan the Terrible''. Giulio Einaudi editore, 2005
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Koltovskaya, Anna
16th-century births
1626 deaths
Wives of Ivan the Terrible
Year of birth unknown
17th-century Russian women
Russian nuns