Orphaned in his childhood and treated abusively by higher-ranking Boyars, Tzar Ivan was a mercurial ruler who committed his first murder at the age of 13 and was feared for his random acts of violence. This documentary examines Ivan’s fateful division of the Russian empire into fertile private estates for the aristocracy, and public land on which Ivan imposed stiflingly high taxes. Climaxes of the film are his battles against Germans and Tartars, and his love for Anastasia, who was killed by powerful nobles…
