The Rise of Moscow, Ivan the Terrible, and the Time of Troubles

Moscow, first mentioned in the chronicles in 1147, emerged as a secondary principality whose princes initially collaborated with the Mongols as tribute collectors, gaining relative power in the process; the seat of the Russian Orthodox metropolitanate moved to Moscow in 1325, reinforcing its religious prestige. Dmitri Donskoi defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, a symbolic landmark of Russian resistance even though tributary rule continued for another century, and Moscow steadily absorbed rival principalities such as Tver, Ryazan, and Novgorod during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Ivan III (1462–1505) completed this unification, conquering the independent republic of Novgorod in 1478 and, in 1480, definitively ending the Mongol tribute after the tense but bloodless confrontation known as the "Great Stand on the Ugra River." Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologina, niece of the last Byzantine emperor, adopted the title "tsar" in an incipient form along with the Byzantine double-headed eagle, and saw the monk Filofei of Pskov formulate the doctrine of "Moscow, the Third Rome." His Sudebnik of 1497 introduced "Saint George's Day" as the only date on which peasants could legally change landlords, an early precedent for later serfdom.