Ivan III Vasilyevich (Russian: Иван III Васильевич; 22 January 1440, Moscow – 27 October 1505, Moscow), also known as Ivan the Great, was a Grand Prince of Moscow and Grand Prince of all Rus' (Velikij kňaz’ vseja Rusi). Sometimes referred to as the "gatherer of the Rus' lands", he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde over the Rus', renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of what later became called the Russian state. He was one of the longest-reigning Russian rulers in history.

Ivan's rule is marked by what subsequent Russophile historians called 'the Gathering of the Russian Lands' (though the term 'Russia' was not used until 1547 when Ivan IV changed the name of Muscovy to the Greek-inspired 'Tsardom of Russia'). Ivan brought the independent duchies (kniažestva) of different Rurikid princes under the direct control of Moscow, leaving the princes and their posterity without royal titles or land inheritance. His first enterprise was a war with the Republic of Novgorod, with which Muscovy (Moscow) had fought a series of wars stretching back to at least the reign of Dmitry Donskoi. These wars were waged over Moscow's religious and political sovereignty, and over Moscow's efforts to seize land in the Northern Dvina region. Alarmed at the growing power of Moscow, Novgorod had negotiated with Lithuania in the hope of placing itself under the protection of Casimir IV, King of Poland and Grand Prince of Lithuania, a would-be alliance that was proclaimed by the Moscow rulers as an act of apostasy from orthodoxy. Ivan took the field against Novgorod in 1470, and after his generals had twice defeated the forces of the republic — at the Battle of Shelon River and on the Northern Dvina, both in the summer of 1471 — the Novgorodians were forced to sue for peace, agreeing to abandon their overtures to Lithuania and to cede a considerable portion of their northern territories, while paying a war indemnity of 15,500 roubles.

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