Muscovy - Ivan III

Ivan III

Outward expansion of the Grand Duchy in the 14th and 15th centuries was accompanied by internal consolidation. By the 15th century, the rulers of Moscow considered the entire Rus' territory their collective property. Various semi-independent princes of Rurikid stock still claimed specific territories, but Ivan III (the Great; r. 1462–1505) forced the lesser princes to acknowledge the grand prince of Moscow and his descendants as unquestioned rulers with control over military, judicial, and foreign affairs.

Moscow gained full sovereignty over a significant part of the ethnically Rus' lands by 1480, when the Tatars' Golden Horde overlordship ended officially after the Great standing on the Ugra river, and by the beginning of the 16th century virtually all those lands were united, including the Novgorod Republic (annexation of 1478) and the Grand Duchy of Tver (annexation of 1485). Through inheritance, Ivan was able to control the important Principality of Ryazan, and the princes of Rostov and Yaroslavl' subordinated themselves to him. The northwestern city of Pskov consisting of city and few lands surrounding it remained independent in this period, but Ivan's son, Vasili III (r. 1505–33), later conquered it.

Having consolidated the core of Russia under his rule, Ivan III became the first Moscow ruler to adopt the titles of tsar and "Ruler of all Rus'". Ivan competed with his powerful northwestern rival Lithuania for control over some of the semi-independent former principalities of Kievan Rus' in the upper Dnieper and Donets river basins. Through the defections of some princes, border skirmishes, and a long, inconclusive war with Lithuania that ended only in 1503, Ivan III was able to push westward, and Moscow state tripled in size under his rule.

The reign of the Tsars started officially with Ivan the Terrible, the first monarch to be crowned Tsar of Russia, but in practice it started with Ivan III, who completed the centralization of the state (traditionally known as the gathering of the Russian lands) at the same time as Louis XI did the same in France.