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TERRIBLE

2011-03-18 · explainer · John · 3:39 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities · mode: Explainer · tags: community lore, civic or action cta

John retells the life of Ivan IV, explaining that 'terrible' once meant mighty rather than bad, and says his worst act was dying without revealing where his grandfather's legendary jewel-encrusted library lies hidden beneath Moscow. He sets Nerdfighteria the quest of researching it in a Your Pants thread.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting; John has a 101.2-degree fever; after the Gussie Manlove hunt, a new quest about a 427-year-old mystery starring Ivan the Terrible

  • ★ John says he has a 101.2-degree fever and will see whether it affects his video making. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Impressed by Nerdfighteria's Gussie Manlove hunting, John sends them on a new quest: a 427-year-old mystery starring Ivan the Terrible. — 00:00:04 · Nerdfighteria

00:00:23 — 'Great' and 'Terrible' in their classical meanings both connote power, might and authority

  • ★★ John says that for kings and tsars, 'Great' and 'Terrible' do not mean better than good or worse than bad; classically both connote power, might and authority. — 00:00:23

00:00:36 — Ivan IV's life told to Hank in the second person: father's death, regency, boyars, reforms, Anastasia, the turn to terror, killing his son

  • ★★★ John says Ivan's father died of a leg boil when Ivan was three, making him technically king of Russia; his mother was regent until the nobility killed her when he was eight. — 00:00:36
  • ★ John jokes that it is better to be middle class in the 21st century than incredibly rich in the 15th, since people very rarely die of leg boils now. (playful) — 00:00:39
  • ★★ John says the boyars fought over who should rule; Ivan hated them for killing his mother and feared they might kill him too. — 00:01:09
  • ★★★ John says that on taking the throne at 16 Ivan tried to make the world better: he modernized the legal code, opened trade with Europe, annexed land, and married Anastasia. — 00:01:21 · Europe
  • ★★★ John says that after his wife died in 1560, which Ivan blamed on the boyars, he turned terrible: an ill-advised war and a quasi-police force massacring boyars and others. — 00:01:41
  • ★★★ John says Ivan beat his pregnant daughter-in-law until she miscarried, then killed his son Ivan, who objected, though he meant only to hit him. — 00:01:56

00:02:17 — The worst thing: Ivan died without revealing the legendary library of jewel-encrusted manuscripts hidden beneath Moscow, worth billions if the legends are true

  • ★★★ John says Ivan died 427 years ago in the middle of a chess game without telling anyone where his library was. — 00:02:17
  • ★ John jokes that, worse than his massacres and killing his son, Ivan's worst deed was dying without revealing where his library was, since John gets very upset when people screw around with libraries. (joke) — 00:02:17
  • ★★★ John says Ivan III married a Byzantine lady whose dowry was a library of jewel-encrusted illuminated manuscripts, so valuable that it was hidden in an underground library beneath Moscow. — 00:02:35
  • ★ John says there are something like thousands of miles of tunnels under Moscow because it is the perfect sand for tunneling, 'or something'. (hedged) — 00:02:53
  • ★★★ John says that if the legends are true, billions of dollars' worth of books lie under Moscow right now, and people have searched for them for 427 years. (hedged) — 00:03:14

00:03:23 — John's task for Nerdfighters: research the library in a Your Pants thread; sign-off

  • ★★★ John gives Nerdfighters the task of searching out everything knowable about the library, in a thread he created on Your Pants (link in the description). — 00:03:23 · Nerdfighteria

Humor (significant)

  • After Ivan marries the beautiful Anastasia, John offers Hank a lesson from history. — 00:01:38

    “Never be Russian and named Anastasia.”

  • John narrates Ivan killing his son, then offers a defence. — 00:02:09

    “In your defense, you didn't mean to kill him, you meant to, y'know, hit him.”

  • After Ivan's massacres and the killing of his son, John tells Hank that is not even the worst thing Ivan ever did. — 00:02:17

    “427 years ago you died! In the middle of a chess game! Without telling anyone where your incredibly fancy library is!”

  • Ivan III married a Byzantine lady, John says, then clarifies the word. — 00:02:35

    “By Byzantine, I don't mean like, complicated, I mean like of Byzantium.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Ivan the Terrible · Library of Ivan the Terrible · Moscow

Also: People: Anastasia Romanovna · Gussie · Ivan III of Russia · Ivan Ivanovich

Projects: Your Pants

Organizations: Oprichniki

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: boyar · illuminated manuscript

Places: Byzantine Empire (“Byzantium”) · Europe · Russia

Also centred on Library of Ivan the Terrible: Many Truths, 1 Lie!

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