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Vasili III of Russia

Vasili III
Vasili III of Russia.jpg
Vasili III Ivanovich, an engraving by a contemporary European artist.
Grand Prince of Moscow
Reign 6 November 1505 – 3 December 1533
Coronation 14 April 1502
Predecessor Ivan III
Successor Ivan IV
Born (1479-03-25)25 March 1479
Died 3 December 1533(1533-12-03) (aged 54)
Moscow, Grand Duchy of Moscow
Burial Archangel Cathedral
Consort Solomonia Saburova
Elena Glinskaya
Issue Ivan IV of Russia
Yuri Vasilevich
Full name
Vasily Ivanovich
Dynasty Rurik
Father Ivan III
Mother Sophia Paleologue
Religion Eastern Orthodox
Full name
Vasily Ivanovich

Vasili III Ivanovich (Russian: Василий III Иванович, also Basil; 25 March 1479 – 3 December 1533, Moscow) was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1505 to 1533. He was the son of Ivan III Vasiliyevich and Sophia Paleologue and was christened with the name Gavriil (Гавриил). He had three brothers: Yuri, born in 1480, Simeon, born in 1487 and Andrei, born in 1490, as well as five sisters: Elena (born and died in 1474), Feodosiya (born and died in 1475), another Elena (born 1476), another Feodosiya (born 1485) and Eudoxia (born 1492).

Vasili III continued the policies of his father Ivan III and spent most of his reign consolidating Ivan's gains. Vasili annexed the last surviving autonomous provinces: Pskov in 1510, appanage of Volokolamsk in 1513, principalities of Ryazan in 1521 and Novgorod-Seversky in 1522.

Vasili also took advantage of the difficult position of Sigismund of Poland to capture Smolensk, the great eastern fortress of Lithuania (siege started 1512, ended in 1514), chiefly through the aid of the rebel Lithuanian, Prince Mikhail Glinski, who provided him with artillery and engineers. The loss of Smolensk was an important injury inflicted by Russia on Lithuania in the course of the Russo-Lithuanian Wars and only the exigencies of Sigismund compelled him to acquiesce in its surrender (1522).

In 1521 Vasili received an emissary of the neighboring Iranian Safavid Empire, sent by Shah Ismail I whose ambitions were to construct an Irano-Russian alliance against the common enemy, the Ottoman Empire.


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