Looking Up What Others Wrote
Abstract This article examines five German pamphlets published between 1570 and 1582, which describe Ivan IV’s Oprichnina. The pamphlets serve as vitally important but underutilized sources for this period in Ivan IV’s reign and are widely regarded by historians as eyewitness accounts. This study dissects the pamphlets into thematic parts (or “motifs”) and explores these themes as they appear across these five sources. The comparative textual analysis here shows that these pamphlets – the main German sources for Ivan IV’s Oprichnina – are not eyewitness accounts, but complex texts that rely on a variety of mostly early published sources, and that the master narrative of the Oprichnina they provide should not be taken as true eyewitness accounts.