Warning
I am not someone learned on Russian history, so the coming lines do not intend to bring anything regarding history but a parallel between two characters: on one side, Ivan IV, better known as Ivan the Terrible, Czar1 of Russia; on other side, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia. But, yet more, I am not even learned neither on Ivan’s nor on Putin’s biographies, so, what the next lines have taken as Ivan the Terrible, the character, come from the portrayal made by Eisenstein’s film by the same name2, first released in 1947, and, about Vladimir Putin, it is based upon information coming mainly from the news from legacy and alternative media and, also and partly, from some Russian citizens.
The Movie
For those who have not watched the film, I encourage you to watch it, for, it is a masterpiece. Some viewers may find or sense that its scenes develop too slowly, especially if you apply modern movie standards; others may find it difficult to follow because of the way the film goes, mainly the youngest, as they are used to nowadays formats, like clips, short footages, podcasts, condensate and fast narrative products addressed to inpatient audience or viewers. Nevertheless, and said that, even this kind of public might get a pleasant surprise, not so surprisingly though, considering the quality of the film, its beautiful pictures, the captivating slow motion of its scenes, made so as a way to create and to tell the story based more upon images and less on spoken words, all of what is explained by the fact that the director’s emphasis was placed on the photography and on the actors and actresses performances and expressions, which does not mean, by no means, that the screenplay was not carefully constructed, on the opposite, part of its brilliance springs from the accuracy (appropriateness) and precise measure of the words chosen and played. To sum up, a magnificent movie.
But let’s talk about our announced subject.
The Parallels
The parallels, if there are any, between Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible and Russian President, Vladimir Putin. First of all, let’s begin underscoring two very crucial differences, on the one hand, the tragedy as a stigma in the life of Ivan3, what is said shaped its personality; nothing near to what could be ever found in the biography of the current Russian leader4; on the other hand, and somehow no doubt in part because of that, the personality of both men as opposite as day and night, black and white, storm and calm.
About the similarities
First, their surroundings. The Boyars, the noble class of the Russian/Muscovite reign, with whom Ivan had to contend due to their intrigues and power struggles and which represented a nightmare that almost deranged him, until a moment of exasperation arrived when he discovered that his late wife’s death was caused by her poisoning by an ambitious mother of a prince next in line to the throne. For Ivan there seemed to be no options, as it was a matter of survival, not only its physical survival but that of his kingdom and, perhaps even more so, always accordingly to the film’s account, the loss of the birth of what we know today as Russia.
In Vladimir Putin’s case, the nascent post-Soviet oligarchy, which prospered under Boris Yeltsin’s government by the means of accessing to the ownership of the countries’ key resources and companies could be compared in some ways to what the Boyars represented during Ivan’s reign. President Putin and his government had a major problem dealing with them, as they had already achieved great power derived from their acquired wealth and control over strategic resources and corporations, including financial and media companies, but also power derived from their ties to Western economic and political elites. This state of affairs was one of the main causes, if not the main one, for Russia’s economic and social fast decay; the privatization of the above mentioned resources and corporations resulted in a rent economy: instead of investing the yields of its energy resources in a productive economy (in industries, agriculture, technology) it went to a finance economy and, as it was and still is being the case in the U. S. and Europe, into the oligarchs pockets5, making it look like, as in a contemptuous way some American politician called Russia, a gas station masquerading as a country6.
This struggle was solved by the imposition of rules limiting or restricting the extent of these individuals’ power, not necessarily providing new laws but enforcing the existing ones, resulting in some cases in corruption trials, even imprisonment, in other cases, many of them, abandoning the country7.
The Foreign Threat
Eisenstein’s Ivan had to respond to the threats and aggressions from both the East and the West. In the West, he fought the Livonians, the Swedes, the Polish-Lithuanians, successfully unifying Russia (becoming Russia’s first Czar) and gaining accessing to the Baltic Sea for his kingdom. In the East he had to fight against the Mongols.
The nowadays situation for Vladimir Putin is not so different. The threats that have been coming from the West, leaded by the United States using Ukraine as a proxy are as awesome as those were for Ivan Rurik. It is no secret that the Western countries’ aim is to destroy Russia. And, as it happened in the case of Ivan, the current ruler of the Eurasian state is responding to the existential challenge, although neither in the same way, nor with the same temperament, for, if it was Ivan instead of Vladimir, the most probably there would had been an outrageous reaction to the provocations, aggressions, menaces from the Kiev regime and NATO, a kind of reaction intended not only to winning the war but to retaliate and to punish, in the battlefield, in the diplomatic and in the economic fields. On the contrary, president Putin’s approach to the war (to this war) has been cautious, patient, methodical, clearly in the idea and purpose of exhausting the enemy in the mentioned areas.
The Parallel Results
Ivan was victorious: the nowadays Russia would not exist or, at least, not as we know it today. The way in how he managed to unite its people against all odds was astonishing, especially if we consider, by one side, the internal divisions and its domestic enemies, and by the other side, the threats coming from abroad. To explain its success it could be said that among the many different reasons that helped him in achieving it there was one very important that no doubt stood out, and it was no other that he, Ivan, trusted no one or almost no one.
Instead, if it could be accepted that Vladimir is being victorious too, we can also say that his excess of confidence towards the leaders of Western countries8 – his lack of Ivan’s mistrust – could have resulted fatal for him and his people. Fortunately he seems to have already learned the lesson, not other than better not to trust. At least that is what one can perceive from what is currently happening at the time these lines are being written9: negotiating with the United States Trump’s administration, yes, but meanwhile, not stopping Russia’s steamrolling, although slow, advancing in the battlefield… Just in case.
Marco Rodríguez-Farge Ricetti
- The first Csar or Caesar of Russia.
↩︎ - Ivan the Terrible (Part I and II). ↩︎
- His mother and his first wife died poisoned, his son killed by his own father’s hand, who beat him on the head with his baton because of an attack of rage. ↩︎
- Born in the 1950’s Soviet Union, a State that suffered the atrocious horrors of the WWII but nevertheless recovered impressively soon from the trauma, materially and psychologically, with an amazing demonstration of pride and resilience. ↩︎
- Michael Hudson, interviewed by Glenn Diesen; april 20th 2025 (published in YouTube). ↩︎
- John McCain, at the time, Senator of the United States (interview on CNN, march 16th 2014). ↩︎
- Settling in Britain, Italy, Spain, Monaco, Switzerland, France and others until 2022, when the most extreme Russophobia turned these countries into their declared enemies, expropriating or confiscating their properties, and expelling them from their supposed/pretended paradises. One of the most talked about cases consequence of this Russophobia was the represented by Roman Abramovich’s compulsory selling of his most famous property, Chelsea Football Club of London, with the 2.5 billion pounds raised form the sale still «frozen» (at the time this article is written) because of the British government sanctions. ↩︎
- Since the fall of the Soviet Union, when Gobachev was promised not to expand NATO, next, by promoting and supporting Chechen nationalistic insurrection, following the conflict with Georgia, not to forget the lying by Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, and Fraçois Hollande, President of France, as they themselves confessed that the Minsk agreements were all about a fraud to gain time in orther to arm Ukraine (by the way, Poroshenko, the former presidente of Ukraine, has also admitted it in the same way). ↩︎
- And perceived too from his speech given to a gathering with Russian businessmen in which he advised them not to believe that the sancions imposed by the West or the West’s hostile attitude towards his country were going lifted, the first, or modified, the latter. ↩︎