Welcome to Russian History Retold, Episode 259, Prince Andrei Kyrpsky and the Chosen Council.

Last time we covered the strelcy, the musketeers that Ivan IV created to protect him and help

expand the Russian Empire.

Today we stay in the same time period to talk about the men who shaped the early reign of Ivan the Terrible.

The reason I'll be starting with Prince Andrei Mikhailovich Kyrpsky is that he was the one who coined the term Chosen Council.

His supposed correspondence with Tsar Ivan IV is our most detailed insight into Ivan's rule.

I say, supposed, because there is a current historical debate questioning whether these letters between the two men actually happened.

Some scholars believe that the correspondence was actually a 17th century forgery.

The ramifications of this controversy lay a considerable shadow over our true knowledge of Ivan and his reign.

It is some of the only contemporary historical material we have.

So if they are forgeries, we may not be getting the true story of Ivan, who may have not been so terrible after all.

Andrei Kyrpsky was born in 1528, the exact day and month we do not know, to a family of Rurakid princes,

which got its name from the town of Kurba near Yaroslavl.

Being from the Boyar class, he likely had a very good education, especially in military matters.

Kyrpsky would make his first impressions during the Russo-Kazana Wars, which began in 1439 and would not end until 1552.

The first phase of the war was fought by the troops of Vasily II.

The Golden Horde, which had subjugated the people and the land of the Russo since 1240, had begun to break up into separate conates during the reign of Vasily.

Still, the remnants of the Horde would be a formidable foe for the Russians from more than another century.

In 1445, an army led by Vasily attacked and defeated the Kazan Tatars in battle.

War broke out when Khan Maximut captured the strategic fortress of Nizhny Novgorod and invaded Moscow.

Vasily II gathered up his army and seemingly vanquished the Tatars near Morom and Gorovits.

Vasily believed he had won the war, so he triumphantly disbanded his forces and returned to Moscow.

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