Sheremeteva, Elena Ivanovna

Family

The daughter of Ivan the "Lesser" Vasilyevich Sheremetev , one of the few experienced voivods who survived the oprichnina during the years, but who died in 1577 from the Swedish nucleus during the siege of Revel .

• brother - Fedor (? -1650), boyar from 1604/5, governor, married to Irina, daughter of Prince Boris Kambulatovich Cherkassky and Martha Nikitichna Zakharyina-Yurieva (sister of Patriarch Filaret ).
• cousin - Agafya , wife of Tsarevich Mikhail Kaybulin , daughter of Ivan the "Big" Sheremetev ^[1] .

Wedding

According to Jerome Horsey, in 1581 brides watched a twice-divorced childless prince, and Elena (whom the Englishman, however, calls “Nastasya” - Natacia ) was chosen from many other girls.

“Tsar Ivan Vasilievich gathered from all over the state the most beautiful daughters of his boyars and nobles, girls, and chose a wife from them for his eldest son, Tsarevich Ivan” ^[2]

In 1581 , the wedding took place.

R. G. Skrynnikov writes: “The Tsarevich may have chosen his third wife, Elena Sheremetev, himself: the Sheremetev family was disgusting to the Tsar. One of the uncles of Princess Helena ( Nikita , 1563 ) was executed by royal decree, the other, whom the king called the “demon son,” ended up in a monastery ( Ivan Bolshoi , 1569 ). The king publicly accused Father Helena of treasonous relations with the Crimean Khan. The prince’s only uncle who survived was captured by the Poles and, as the Russian messengers reported, not only swore allegiance to the king, but also gave him treacherous advice to strike at the Great Luke . Boyar's “treason" again crawled into the royal house for the umpteenth time ” ^[3] . Zimin adds: if her father “used Grozny’s disposition, his brothers caused him a feeling of undisguised irritation. In addition, Elena's uncle, the deceased Fedor, was captured in 1579, where, according to rumors, he swore allegiance to Batory. In a word, the tsar had enough reasons for dissatisfaction with Elena ” ^[4] .

Husband's death

The next year, Elena became pregnant - this was the first time for her husband, whose previous wives were exiled to the monastery for barrenness and, of course, he was worried, foreseeing the possibility of finally waiting for the heir to be born.

As the common version of the events says, in November 1581 in the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda , Ivan the Terrible found his daughter-in-law Elena lying on a bench in one of his underwear ^[5] .

The third wife of Ivan’s son somehow lay on the bench, dressed in a lower dress, as she was pregnant and did not think that anyone would come in. Suddenly, the Grand Duke of Moscow visited her. She immediately rose to meet him, but it was already impossible to calm him down. The prince hit her in the face, and then beat her with his staff, who was with him, that the next night she threw the boy.
At this time, the son Ivan ran into the father and began to ask not to beat his wife, but this only attracted the wrath and blows of his father. He was very seriously wounded in the head, almost in the temple, with the same staff. Before that, in anger at his father, his son hotly rebuked him in the following words:
"You imprisoned my first wife for no reason in a monastery, you did the same with your second wife, and now you are beating a third in order to destroy the son whom she carries in the womb."

- Antonio Posevino , “Historical Compositions about Russia” ^[6]

The quarrel, as is commonly believed, occurred on November 14 , and the prince died from the beatings in a few days - November 19 .

There is another interpretation of contemporary evidence: as if Ivan the Terrible was not really offended by the untidy look of a daughter-in-law, but “the reason for the collision with his son was the sexual harassment of his father to the third wife of Tsarevich Ivan” ^[7] (see. Laughing ).

Sheared

After the death of Tsarevich Ivan, "tonsured in the New ( Novodevichy ) monastery, in the monk's shop of Leonid, and the sovereign gave her the city of Luh and Stavrov volost to her estate." In contrast to Evdokia Saburova and Paraskeva Solova , who were exiled to the distant Suzdal monastery, Elena Sheremetyeva was in the Moscow monastery in more honorable conditions, like the Dowager "Queen".

• Sheremeteva, Elena Ivanovna // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Elena Ivanovna // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.