The original abuser

Ivan the Terrible ruled through fear because fear worked. His personal goons rode through the countryside in black, answering only to him. They tortured nobles, wiped towns off the map, and turned cruelty into state policy. Churches were looted. Bells were torn down. Blood was governance. For years it held Russia together through sheer terror. Then in November 1581, Ivan turned that violence inward and everything broke. The argument was petty. Ivan saw his pregnant daughter in law wearing clothes he thought were improper. He beat her so badly she miscarried. His son Ivan Ivanovich stormed in and confronted him. Words escalated. Accusations flew. And the Tsar reacted the only way he ever had. He struck his own heir with his iron tipped staff. The room froze. Blood spilled onto the floor. The prince collapsed. Ivan instantly understood what he had done. He threw himself to the ground, screaming prayers, clawing at the wound, begging God to undo a blow no empire could survive. Foreign diplomats recorded the scene in horror. The most feared ruler in Europe sobbing like a child, holding the dying body of the only man capable of ruling after him. That single act poisoned the future. Ivan had other sons, but none were suitable. One was mentally unfit. Another died young. When Ivan himself died in 1584, Russia passed to a ruler too weak to command respect or authority. Power splintered instantly. Boyars plotted. False heirs appeared claiming to have survived assassination. Famine tore through the population. Polish and Swedish armies invaded. Moscow burned. The state nearly collapsed under its own weight. This era became known as the Time of Troubles, a nightmare of chaos, hunger, civil war, and foreign occupation that lasted for years. Ivan built Russia through brutality. He centralized it. Expanded it. Terrified it into obedience. And in one uncontrollable moment of rage, he destroyed the future he was trying so desperately to control. Empires do not always fall to enemies. Sometimes they fall to one blow. One room. One father who could not stop himself