The earliest illustrated Livonian War pamphlet – “Sehr grewliche, erschröckliche, vor unerhörte, warhafftige Newe Zeitung was für grausame Tyrannei der Moscoviter …” Directly under the title, is a well-wrought wood-cut graphically depicting the Muscovite atrocities mentioned in the text. It displays (according to the text) how the Muscovites slaughtered young children, “nailing their tender little hearts to trees,” and how they raped “the most beautiful noble and common virgins” and afterward made a game of shooting their “privy parts.” (Konstantin Höhlbaum, “Zeitungen über Livland,” 121). In the course of the second half of the sixteenth century, nearly sixty such pieces were issued: fourteen from 1561 to 1570, thirty-four from 1571 to 1580, and nine from 1581 to 1582. The vast majority of the pamphlets were in German and printed in Imperial cities; several were published in Livonia, Poland, and Italy. During the war, German, Polish, and Livonian historiography began to reflect the basic message of the pamphleteers—that Ivan IV was a godless, cruel invader, bent on destroying Livonia and indeed all Christendom… (A People Born to Slavery)
Can any present-day Moscow ruler be described in the same words as a godless invader? Any similarity with the atrocities the Muscovites have been committing during the current war in Ukraine?
Read more about Ivan IV as a representation of the Muscovite true nature >
