Robert Yuryevich Wipper was one of Stalin's favorite historians. Stalin read all his books very carefully, almost on every page you can find notes, underscores, comments. It can be seen that Wipper was read by him more than once - and the books made a strong impression." If Ivan IV had died in 1566, at the time of his greatest successes on the western front... historical memory would give him the name of the great conqueror, the creator of the world's largest power, like Alexander the Great... Ivan IV would have remained in historical tradition surrounded by the glory of a wonderful reformer... Ivan the Terrible, however, had a different fate, deeply tragic. He lived for another 18 years, and these were years of heavy losses, great misfortunes for the country... He fell into the rubric of "tyrants," was attached to the society of Caligula, Nero, Louis XI... In my essay, I tried, as far as possible, to restore the historical significance of Ivan the Terrible as one of the largest political and military figures in European history of the 16th century."