About the work
Tragedy in five acts by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, written in 1863, published in 1866 and first performed on 12 January 1867 at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg — the only part of his tsar trilogy to reach the stage during the author's lifetime.
Plot
At the centre stands the aging Tsar Ivan IV, marked by paranoia and guilt, who schemes against his own inner circle while his son Fyodor suffers under his father's rule. Amid acts of revenge, the betrayal of former confidants and fear of a renewed reign of terror, the court struggles over the succession. Ivan's death at the end of the play marks the passage into an uncertain new reign.
Cultural significance
As the only part of the trilogy that censors allowed to be staged during Tolstoy's lifetime, the play long stood in for a work whose more outspoken sequels, "Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich" and "Tsar Boris," could not be performed until after the author's death.