She Tamed The Tyrant
Anastasia Romanovna was the tsaritsa of all Russia and first wife of Ivan the Terrible. But, while her husband would go down in history for his tyranny, Romanovna would be remembered for different reasons. In fact, their romance was the truest “beauty and the beast” story brought to life.
“The Terrible” (2020), Russia 1
1. She Came From Nobility
Anastasia Romanovna was never far from the imperial seat of Russia. Born around 1530, Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina-Yurieva, was the youngest in a noble family that, while well-connected, was not quite at the top of the boyar pecking order in Russia. That said, her father was a man of exceptional influence—influence that she herself would one day wield.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, Part One, Mosfilm (1944)
2. Her Father Was Close To The Throne
Romanovna’s father, Roman Yurievich Zakharyin-Koshkin, was no ordinary boyar. He held the title of Okolnichy—the second highest court rank in medieval Russia—during the reign of Grand Prince Vasily III. While the family wasn’t royalty, they had spent decades cultivating proximity to it. Her mother’s lineage only added to her pedigree.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
3. Her Mother Had Royal Blood
If Romanovna’s father offered access to the throne, her mother offered something even more interesting: a bloodline that ran straight back to it. Juliana Fedorovna Karpova’s family traced its origins to the Princes Fominsky, scions of the Rostislavichi branch of the legendary Rurik dynasty. No one knew it yet, but she would restore that bloodline to power.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, Part One, Mosfilm (1944)
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4. Her Ancestor Was A Cat
Long before Anastasia Romanovna, her family tree included one of medieval Russia’s most curiously nicknamed nobles: Feodor “Koshka” Kobyla. That translates, literally, to “Cat”. He was a 14th-century boyar whose father, Andrei Kobyla, had already cemented the family at court. By the time Romanovna came into the world, the Zakharyin-Yuriev branch had been pacing the halls of Russian power for generations.
And it was time for Romanovna to take her rightful place.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
5. She Had A Quiet Upbringing
Anastasia Romanovna wasn’t an only child. She had at least three older siblings—two brothers, Daniel and Nikita, and a sister, Anna. While the boys were out making their way in the world, Romanovna and her sister stayed close to their mother, receiving the kind of upbringing expected of noblewomen of their rank: devotion, modesty, and the household arts.
Her quiet childhood was about to get flipped on its head.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, Part One, Mosfilm (1944)
6. She Lost Her Father
On February 16, 1543, Romanovna’s world shifted. Her father, Roman Yurievich Zakharyin-Koshkin, passed away while she was still a child—leaving her, her siblings, and her mother to navigate court life without him. It was the kind of blow that could have buried a young noblewoman’s prospects entirely. Instead, fate would make her the most powerful woman in Russia.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
7. Her Future Hubby Got His Crown
Four short years after Anastasia Romanovna lost her father, in January of 1547, a 16-year-old boy stood at the Cathedral of the Dormition inside the Moscow Kremlin. He accepted a title no Russian had ever officially worn before: Tsar of All Russia. That boy was Ivan IV Vasilyevich—Ivan the Terrible. The only thing was…he didn’t have was a wife.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, Part One, Mosfilm (1944)
8. She Entered A Contest
Ivan wasn’t terrible yet. In fact, he was quite the eligible bachelor. The most eligible in all of Russia. But, rather than quietly arrange a marriage through diplomacy as was the custom, the young tsar had another idea. He threw open the doors of the Kremlin and announced a formal bride show. Every noble family in Russia was invited to send their eligible daughters to Moscow for inspection.
Romanovna traveled to the Kremlin to take part. Once she arrived, her life would change irrevocably.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
9. She Was One Of Hundreds—Or Thousands
When the bride show convened, the Kremlin filled with hopeful candidates. Estimates of just how many young women were paraded through its halls vary wildly. But the most commonly cited figures place the number anywhere between 500 and 1,500 noblewomen. Among that crush of silk, jewels, and ambition stood one quiet noblewoman from the Zakharyin-Yuriev line.
The odds against her were astronomical—or so it appeared.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
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10. She Already Knew The Tsar
Anastasia Romanovna wasn’t worried about all of the other noblewomen vying for Ivan’s attention—she had the inside track. As it turned out, her uncle had been one of the tsar’s guardians during his troubled childhood, meaning Romanovna had met the future Ivan the Terrible long before she ever set foot in his bride show. In fact, Romanovna was fated to marry Ivan.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
11. She Was Destined To Become Tsaritsa
According to legend, Romanovna’s future was set long before she stepped into the Kremlin. While traveling through Moscow on monastic business, Saint Gennadii of Kostroma stopped at her father’s home and met the young Romanovna. He looked at her and made a prediction that no one present could quite believe: she would one day become Tsaritsa.
Whether fate or luck, the prediction came true.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
12. She Had Ivan From The First Look
When Ivan finally laid eyes on Anastasia Romanovna during the bride show, the verdict came quickly. From the hundreds—maybe thousands—of noblewomen brought before him, Ivan singled out Romanovna almost immediately for her beauty. Even though he was the tsar, contemporary accounts of Romanovna suggest Ivan was the lucky one in the arrangement.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
13. She Was More Than A Pretty Face
Anastasia Romanovna was beautiful. Those who knew her described her as “beautiful, with lovely eyes and soft face”—but beauty wasn’t her only asset. She possessed what one source called a “calming influence” and was known for speaking “in a tender voice” with unfailing politeness. For a teenage tsar already prone to outbursts, those qualities would prove invaluable.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
14. She Was Married Within Weeks
Ivan wasn’t one to wait. Just two weeks after his coronation, on February 3, 1547, he stood beside Anastasia Romanovna at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Moscow and took her as his wife. Metropolitan Makarii—who had crowned him only days earlier—presided over the wedding. Just as Makarii had crowned Ivan, he gave Romanovna a title all her own.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
15. She Was The First Of Her Kind
The moment Romanovna exchanged vows with Ivan, she became something no woman in Russian history had ever been: Tsaritsa of all Russia. Just as her husband was the first to officially carry the title of Tsar, Romanovna held the female equivalent for the very first time. She was no longer just a daughter of a powerful boyar: she was the empress.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
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16. She Tamed The Tsar
From the moment Anastasia Romanovna entered Ivan’s life, those around him began to notice a change. The young tsar, infamous even then for his volatile temper and penchant for cruelty, seemed to soften in her presence. Whatever she inspired in Ivan, his love for her brought out the best in him. In fact, had things worked out differently, he might have been Ivan the Terrific.
He made a vow to her that he would never make again.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
17. She Was Ivan’s One And Only
By all accounts, Ivan so adored Romanovna that he did something almost no monarch ever did: he swore off other women. Allegedly, Ivan loved Romanovna so completely that he never so much as looked at another woman during their marriage. Romanovna’s effect on her husband was so immense that it actually changed court culture across Europe.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
18. She Was Affable And Wise
The English envoy Sir Jerome Horsey witnessed the dynamic between Anastasia Romanovna and notoriously temperamental Ivan first-hand. In his memoirs, Horsey noted, “He [Ivan] being young and riotous, she [Romanovna] ruled him with admirable affability and wisdom”. However, even if Ivan loved her and calmed his behavior, Romanovna was not safe.
Alexander Litovchenko, Wikimedia Commons
19. She Inspired Jealousy
The boyars watched with mounting resentment as Romanovna wielded quiet influence over her husband, the tsar. Sources record that, unlike her husband, the boyars welcomed Romanovna to court with “hatred and hostility”. Their jealousy over her power at court would only grow as Romanovna cemented her position by giving Ivan heirs.
There was no telling what they would do.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
20. She Had Six Children
Romanovna’s 13-year marriage to Ivan was even more fruitful than anyone had anticipated. Altogether, the couple produced six children: three daughters and three sons (Anna, Maria, Dmitry, Ivan, Eudoxia, and Feodor). However, despite having so many children (including three male heirs), she barely managed to secure the bloodline.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
21. She Watched Most Of Her Children Slip Away
Of the six children Romanovna had, only two would live long enough to see their adulthood. Her sons Ivan Ivanovich and Feodor were the only siblings to survive childhood. The other four—three daughters and a son—were lost to the brutal infant mortality of 16th-century Russia, where even a tsaritsa’s nursery offered no real protection.
Especially not from a tyrannical father.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
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22. Her Son Was Almost Tsar
In 1553, Romanovna’s firstborn son, Tsarevich Dmitry, undertook a pilgrimage to the Ferapontov Monastery—a journey from which he would not return. The infant tsarevich was lost during that very pilgrimage. The timing made the tragedy all the more cruel: it was the same year Ivan had fallen so gravely ill that he begged the boyars to swear an oath of allegiance to baby Dmitry as his successor.
Romanovna could not protect her sons, even at home.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
23. She Had Hope For The Future
In 1554, Anastasia Romanovna gave birth to another son. She named him Ivan ,after his father. For a time, the new Tsarevich Ivan looked like the heir who would secure his mother’s line. But as we’ll see, fate had a darker plan in store.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
24. Her Body Was Breaking Down
Six pregnancies in 13 years of marriage to a tyrant had taken a brutal toll on Romanovna. According to the historical records, she “never enjoyed good health, mainly because of giving birth to many children, and many diseases that nobody could do anything about”. Even so, what happened next left everyone in Russia scratching their heads.
More importantly, it left Ivan without his tamer.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
25. She Fell Sick In Mozhaisk
In the autumn of 1559, Anastasia Romanovna was in the town of Mozhaisk when illness struck without warning. The sudden onset alarmed everyone around her. Whatever had taken hold of the tsaritsa wasn’t a passing fever or a momentary chill—it was something far more serious. Court physicians did what they could, but their best efforts seemed to make little difference.
Romanovna was on borrowed time—and she may have known it.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
26. She Was Gone Too Soon
After nearly a year of prolonged illness, Romanovna’s strength finally gave out. On August 7, 1560, in Moscow, the Tsaritsa of all Russia passed on. She was approximately 30 years old at the time of her demise. The marriage that had reshaped both the Russian court and Ivan himself was, just like that, over. Russia would not soon recover from her loss—and neither would Ivan.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
27. She Was Laid To Rest In The Kremlin
Following her passing, Romanovna’s body was carried to one of the most sacred sites in all of Russia: the Voznesenskii Monastery—also known as the Ascension Convent—within the walls of the Moscow Kremlin itself. There, alongside the other royal women of the realm, the first Tsaritsa of all Russia was given a burial befitting her unprecedented title.
For nearly four centuries, that was where she would rest.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Wikimedia Commons
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28. Her Remains Were Moved
In 1929, the Voznesenskii Monastery was destroyed. Romanovna’s resting place, untouched since the 16th century, was suddenly gone. Her remains, along with those of the other royal women buried there, were carefully transferred to the basement of the Cathedral of Archangel Michael—also located inside the Moscow Kremlin.
She wasn’t the only one resting uneasily.
29. Her Loss Broke Ivan
Romanovna’s passing shattered the already fragile mind of her husband, Ivan. Sources describe her loss as a “profound personal blow” to the tsar—one that reportedly worsened his already volatile temperament and fragile mental state. With Romanovna gone, there was no one left to restrain Ivan from his bloodier desires. And Russia was about to feel the consequences.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
30. Her Husband Went Off The Rails
Romanovna’s passing didn’t just devastate Ivan personally—it dismantled the political structure around him. The Chosen Council, an informal advisory body led by Ivan’s favorites, had been a stabilizing force at court during her lifetime. However, without Romanovna to back them up, their influence “waned and then disappeared in the early 1560s”.
Even Ivan knew that nothing would ever be the same without her.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
31. She Was Ivan’s Greatest Regret
In his later years—after he had already earned the title “Terrible”—Ivan made a confession that would echo through history. The aging tsar reportedly admitted that “if she [Romanovna] had not [passed], none of the gruesome things he did would have happened”. The brutality he became infamous for, in his own telling, may just have been his expression of grief at losing Romanovna.
Her final words to him might have changed that.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
32. She Had A Final Request
In her final moments, according to legend, Anastasia Romanovna made one last plea to her husband. Whatever happened to him after she was gone, she begged him not to marry a pagan. Ivan, in his grief and fury, did not honor her final wish. Soon after burying his first Tsaritsa, he married Maria Temryukovna—a Circassian princess and exactly the kind of bride Romanovna had warned him against.
He had reason to believe that she may not have been of sound mind.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
33. She May Have Been Poisoned
In the immediate aftermath of Romanovna’s passing, Ivan didn’t just grieve—he came undone. The tsar suffered a severe emotional collapse and, worse, became convinced that his beloved wife’s end had not been natural. He suspected that the boyars who had resented Romanovna at court had finally found a way to be rid of her: through poison.
He had no proof. But he had power.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
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34. Her Husband Sought Revenge
Lacking any actual evidence that the boyars had poisoned Romanovna, Ivan did what only a tsar could: he made them pay anyway. Ivan had a number of boyars rounded up, subjected to brutal interrogation, and, ultimately, executed. Whether any of them had a hand in the Tsaritsa’s end was beside the point. Ivan needed someone to blame.
It was the first taste of what was coming.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
35. She Reawakened An Old Grudge
Ivan’s suspicion that the boyars had poisoned Romanovna didn’t arrive in a vacuum. The young tsar had spent his childhood at the mercy of those same boyars, who had reportedly mistreated him during his vulnerable early years. Whatever fragile peace he had made with the aristocratic class shattered the moment Romanovna was gone.
Her legacy would not be what she had hoped.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
36. Her Passing Birthed The Oprichniki
The most consequential decision of Ivan’s reign came directly out of his grief for Anastasia Romanovna. In response to her passing—and the poisoning he was certain had caused it—the tsar created a fearsome new corps of black-clad enforcers known as the oprichniki. They answered only to him, dressed only in black, and existed for one purpose: to terrorize on his behalf.
But Ivan might not have been wrong to seek revenge.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
37. Her Remains Became Evidence
For over 400 years, the question of whether Anastasia Romanovna had truly been poisoned remained an open one. Then, in the 1990s, a team of archaeologists and forensic experts opened her tomb and began a thorough examination of her remains. What they found would offer the closest thing to a verdict that history would ever deliver on Ivan’s long-held suspicion.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
38. Her Body Held A Toxic Secret
Using a technique called neutron activation analysis, modern scientists were able to peer into Romanovna’s 16th-century remains and detect the chemical traces left behind. The result was staggering: acute mercury poisoning, confirmed beyond reasonable doubt. The boyars it seemed had, in fact, poisoned the Tsaritsa of all Russia.
But there’s another interpretation of that same evidence.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
39. She Was Mercurial
The finding of acute mercury poisoning came with a giant asterisk. In Romanovna’s era, mercury was actually used as a medical treatment for a range of ailments, which meant its presence in royal remains was hardly unusual. But the experts who examined Romanovna were emphatic on one point: the levels of mercury in her bones were far higher than any medicinal dose could explain.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
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40. She Was Just Seeking Treatment
Even with the mercury readings, the question of whether Anastasia Romanovna was poisoned remains unsettled. Many of the royal remains from that era carry similarly elevated levels of toxic substances, raising a darker possibility: perhaps the tsaritsa wasn’t poisoned with malicious intent. The treatment for her illness may have been the very thing that did her in.
Whatever the truth, Romanovna would be the one getting the last laugh.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
41. Her Son Ended A Dynasty
Romanovna’s sole surviving heir, Tsar Feodor I, ruled Russia from 1584 to 1598—and when his reign ended, so did something far older. Feodor passed on without leaving a child behind, and with him went the entire Rurik dynasty, the bloodline that had governed Russia for centuries. His childlessness plunged the country into the chaotic period known as the Time of Troubles.
In doing so, however, he unwittingly cleared the path for an entirely new ruling house: his mother’s own family.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Wikimedia Commons
42. She Linked Two Dynasties
Without ever intending to, Anastasia Romanovna became one of the most consequential figures in Russian history—not just as Ivan’s wife, but as a literal bridge between empires. By her marriage to a Rurikid tsar and her blood ties to a family that would one day produce a new dynasty, she became, as one source puts it, “the link between the two main ruling dynasties in Russian history, the Rurik dynasty and the Romanov dynasty”.
Two of Russia’s most famous houses ran straight through her.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
43. She Started The Romanovs
The Romanov name itself can be traced directly back to Romanovna’s family. Her brother, Nikita Romanovich, fathered a son named Feodor Romanov—the first member of the family ever to use the surname “Romanov”. Feodor chose the name in honor of his grandfather—Romanovna’s father whom she had lost in 1543.
The dynasty that would rule Russia for the next three centuries was, in essence, named after her dad.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
44. Her Bloodline Took The Throne
When the Time of Troubles finally drew to a close, the search for a new tsar led directly back to Romanovna’s family. With Ivan’s direct line extinct, Russian authorities looked to the mother of the last Rurikid tsar to find his successor—and that meant looking to Romanovna. The man they ultimately chose was none other than her brother Nikita’s grandson: Michael I, also known as Mikhail Romanov.
Romanovna’s relatives now sat where she had once stood.
Adam Olearius, Wikimedia Commons
45. She Got Her Own Imperial Order
Romanovna’s memory continues to shape Russian history to this day. In August of 2010, the Head of the Russian Imperial House, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, established a new honor known as the Imperial Order of the Holy Great Martyr Anastasia. The order was created both in tribute to the Holy Great Martyr Anastasia, and in lasting memory of Tsaritsa Anastasia Romanovna herself.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
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46. Her Order Honors Modern Women
Unlike her husband, Romanovna’s legacy has inspired faith instead of fear. The Order of the Holy Great Martyr Anastasia is granted to women who have distinguished themselves in fields ranging from charity and culture to medicine, education, and science. Only those whose work has served the nation and society get the honor—exactly the kind of legacy Romanovna herself was known for in life.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
47. She Inspired A Ballet
Romanovna’s story has proven so compelling that it eventually made its way onto the ballet stage. In 1975, choreographer Yuri Grigorovich’s ballet Ivan the Terrible premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre. Natalia Bessmertnova danced the role of Romanovna opposite Yuri Vladimirov’s Ivan IV. The ballet traced their meeting, their marriage, her poisoning at the hands of the boyars, and Ivan’s descent into darkness after her loss.
www.kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons
48. Her Husband Never Found Another Like Her
In the years that followed Romanovna’s passing, Ivan married seven more times—each match a hollow attempt to fill the space she had left behind. None of them succeeded. The fates of those later wives read like a litany of horror: poisoned, imprisoned, drowned, banished, and worse. Romanovna had been his one true love—the beauty to his beast. The terrific to his terrible.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
49. Her Beast Showed His Horrific Side
That archetype was cemented in 1581, in a terrible incident. That day, Ivan the Terrible was in a particularly violent mood. When he saw his pregnant daughter-in-law walking around in clothing that he didn't approve of, for whatever reason, he absolutely snapped. He viciously attacked her, and her screams brought Tsarevich Ivan, his only living son with Anastasia Romanovna, running to see what was happening. The son managed to pull the father off of his wife—but the violence was just getting started.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
50. It All Came To A Tragic End
Tragically, after Ivan attacked his daughter-in-law, she suffered a miscarriage. Ivan and the Tsarevich continued to argue. Then, mad with rage, Ivan finally truly snapped. He grabbed his royal scepter and smashed it into his son's temple. One of his advisors, who was witnessing the fight, ran to stop him, but Ivan struck him as well. The Tsarevich fell to the ground, blood pouring from his head. The sight of his own son and heir lying bleeding on the ground finally snapped Ivan back to reality. He threw himself on top of his boy, sobbing, kissing his face, and crying, "I've killed my son! I've killed my son!"
Anastasia Romanovna, mercifully, never lived to see it.
Screenshot from Ivan the Terrible, ZDF Studios (2020)
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