Maria Dolgorukaya (died 1580) possibly was the seventh wife of
Ivan the Terrible
Ivan IV Vasilyevich (russian: Ива́н Васи́льевич; 25 August 1530 – ), commonly known in English as Ivan the Terrible, was the grand prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547 and the first Tsar of all Russia from 1547 to 1584.
Ivan ...
, Tsar of Russia. The marriage (unauthorized by the church) may have been celebrated in 1580. Legend says she did not bear the Tsar any children and was revealed to have a lover after their first night together, when the Tsar discovered she wasn't a virgin. Ivan subsequently had her drowned.
Background
There is no evidence of her existence in primary sources. The first mention can be found in 19th-century Russian literature.
[Н. И. Костомаров, «Смутное время Московского государства в начале XVII столетия 1604—1613» // Вестник Европы, 1866] Nikolay Kostomarov
Mykola Ivanovych Kostomarov or Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Костома́ров, ; uk, Микола Іванович Костомаров, ; May 16, 1817, vil. Yurasovka, Voronezh Governorate, R ...
in 1866 wrote that the notice about her was found by Afanasiy Byichkov in a manuscript in the Imperial Public Library.
Modern historians now have doubts about whether she existed.
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dolgorukaya, Maria
1580 deaths
16th-century births
Deaths by drowning
Maria
Maria may refer to:
People
* Mary, mother of Jesus
* Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages
Place names Extraterrestrial
* 170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877
* Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, ...
People whose existence is disputed
Uxoricides
Wives of Ivan the Terrible