Here’s a study in contrasts…Ivan the Terrible’s first two wives, Anastasia Romanovna and Maria Temyrukovna.
Age compared to Ivan:
Anastasia and Ivan were the same age. With Ivan and Maria, there was a 15 or so year age gap. Contrary to what movies and pop culture would have you believe, this age difference wasn’t exactly smiled upon, though it wasn’t uncommon. For example, when Henry VIII (yes, that guy) married Catherine Howard, he was 49 and she was between 17 and 20, though most historians place her on the younger end of that spectrum. Even then, that age difference gave contemporaries the heebie-jeebies. I guess the idea with Ivan and Maria was that she was young enough to have lots of kids? Spoiler alert…that didn’t happen.
Appearance:
Anastasia’s hard to pin down. I’ve found references that say she was middle of the road in terms of beauty, and others that say she was stunning. Most seem to agree that she was auburn-haired, and had a sweet face. No contemporary portraits of her exist, though maybe at some point a reconstruction could be made from her remains. Maria was invariably described as exceedingly beautiful, but again, no contemporary images exist. Based on where she was from, I would guess that she was dark haired and dark eyed, but that’s a guess on my part.
Lineage:
Anastasia’s family was not super high in the hierarchy of things, but respected. Maria was the daughter of a chieftain, so much higher up.
Religion:
Both were Russian Orthodox, though Maria was initially Muslim.
Personality:
Anastasia had a calming, moderating influence on Ivan. Every historical source I’ve read agrees to that. She helped rein in the worst of his impulses, and the fact that Ivan started his rule somewhat well can probably be attributed to her. Is that possibly why Ivan chose her as a wife? It wouldn’t be surprising, or would it shock me if the people around Ivan pushed Anastasia. Would Ivan have some kind of psychiatric diagnosis today? Given his behavior, most likely, with bipolar and manic depression coming to mind first. Saying he had a volatile nature and temper would be the most generous way to put it, and the man did not get better with age.
Maria is harder to gauge. I recognize that contemporary sources might be biased against her, since she was foreign. However, I have found nothing to indicate that she was a nice person. She has been variously described as witchy, vindictive, illiterate, and manipulative. She was also not nice to Ivan’s children by Anastasia. Again, could some of that be bias? Sure, but she seems to have been as close to the opposite of Anastasia as it gets. She may have been the one who instigated the formation of the Oprichniki, Ivan’s secret police/torturers/executioners/band of psychos. So, yeah, not finding a whole lot positive about her.
Death:
Well, they’ve got some common ground here. Both were poisoned. In Maria’s case, it does appear that the poisoning was deliberate, though who was behind that assassination is still a mystery. It might have been Ivan himself, though sources of the time say that he went out of his way to find out who killed Maria, using the oprichniki. I don’t know…it would certainly be within Ivan’s character to poison someone he didn’t like, but Maria also had more than her share of enemies in the court.
Anastasia also died by poison, specifically, mercury. Her death well and truly sent Ivan off the rails. Lots of people who he even suspected of involvement were killed in nasty ways, and he only got worse from there. For centuries, it was debated if Anastasia’s death by poisoning was accidental or intentional. Mercury was used at the time for medicinal purposes (yes, I know, and this chemistry teacher is internally screaming at that notion), though it was also used as a weapon. A modern forensic examination of her remains showed an abnormally high amount of mercury, which would be more consistent with a deliberate poisoning (though, if she had been taking smaller amounts for a long time, that could explain the level as well…mercury is not easily excreted). If it was deliberate, I would love to know what the culprit was smoking to think that was a good idea to remove the one real restraint on Ivan’s behavior. If they thought he was bad before, and he was certainly no picnic, he got infinitely worse afterward.
Hilary