Ivan the Terrible Was a Terrible Guy

    I'm fairly confident in saying that you have seen this painting:

    It's called "Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan" by the Russian painter Ilya Repin. It takes place right after Ivan Sr. has struck Ivan Jr. in the head with a staff in anger. It is based on a real event, not wholly confirmed but generally thought to have happened, that took place in 1581. I like it a lot, I think it's really striking. You have this environment that is a mess, carpets all trampled, furniture toppled over, metal staff on the ground. Puddle of blood collected on the carpet, trailing towards the father and son.

    And then there's the faces. You see the expression on the father's face and you immediately feel this sense of instant regret, the immense pain and guilt, the horror, the dread that he must be feeling. It wrenches your heart, makes your stomach drop. It makes your body lose strength. You immediately get that this man understands he has just committed an act that he can never take back.

    And you look at the son's face. His heart is broken. His very own father has dealt him a fatal blow. He's shocked. The light in his eyes is leaving, he's losing strength, he has collapsed. He sheds a tear at the betrayal he has faced at the hands of his father.

I loved the painting, but I didn't know the backstory behind it that well. For one, I didn't know what the cause for the altercation was! What could they have been arguing about? What important matter were they in disagreement on that the father would get so angry that he strikes his own son dead? Was it about politics? The military? Something about how the country was being run?

    No. The argument was about the son's wife's clothing. Her name was Yelena. Ivan the Terrible, her father-in-law, accused her of having been dressed "too immodestly". He began chastising her. The son showed up and intervened, started arguing with his father, and things got heated. You know the rest. So, the father went and started this fight over something so stupid and useless. He was a dirty old man! He killed his own son because he couldn't stop himself from slut-shaming his daughter-in-law. Having this context sort of changed the way I feel about the painting.

In my personal life, I don't encounter any Tsars from the Middle Ages, who would be arguing with their sons about military strategy or how to run an empire. I don't have to live in the same society as them. But I do have to encounter perverted old men who have too much to say about what women wear. My assumed context felt more impersonal, less relatable. The real context makes everything feel, well, more real! And relevant to my life, and life in general in today's world!

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