Ivan Kalita

From Moscowiki

In the 14th century Moscow Prince Ivan I Kalita (“Moneybags”) was appointed chief “tax-collector”; this fact obviously gave Moscow supremacy over its neighbours. Yet Moscow was advantageously situated in the centre of many trade routes, which allowed the city to flourish. Ivan Kalita (1325-1340) was a very clever and cruel ruler, able to move heaven and earth in order to get what he wanted. During his reign Metropolitan See was transferred to Moscow to prove its importance; gradually Moscow became the richest principality and turned out to be a real threat to the Tatar-Mongolian power. 50 years later Mongolian army suffered their first ever defeat (known as the Battle of Kulikovo) from the reunited forces of many separate principalities led by Ivan Kalita’s grandson, the Grand Prince of Moscow Principality Dmitry Donskoy (1359-1389). The centralization of Russian lands around Moscow began. Anyhow, it was not until the reign of Ivan III (1462-1505), Dmitry Donskoy’s grandson, that the unification of Russian principalities around Moscow was completed and the Tatar yoke was finally shaken off. Ivan the Third married Sofia Paleolog, the niece of the last Emperor of Byzantium, that had fallen to the Ottomans in 1453. Probably Sofia presented the country with the coat of arms – double-headed eagle – which is said to be of Byzantine origin. Ivan’s marriage provoked the idea of Russia being the one and only successor of the Great [[Constantinople[[ and the only true defender of Orthodoxy. Moscow was often referred to as “the Third Rome”: the “First Rome”, or the ancient one, perished because of its adherence to paganism; the “second Rome” – Constantinople – collapsed because of its treason of Orthodoxy. Moscow became the “Third Rome” and the “Forth one” would never appear. Ivan the Third initiated the reconstruction of Kremlin in stone and he was also the one to thank for the erection of brick walls around Kremlin and the area of Kitay-gorod.