When Ivan III was crowned as grand prince of Moscow in 1462, he became the ruler of a small but ambitious principality. First among equals, the grand prince of Moscow was one among several Russian Orthodox princes who ruled over the East Slavic lands. By the time of his death in 1505, Ivan III was the ruler of a sovereign Muscovite state which now subsumed most of the other Russian Orthodox principalities, and was an heir to the Byzantine emperors. The long reign of Ivan III marked two important phases in Muscovite history: political unification of the Russian Orthodox Christian lands under a single sovereign, and territorial expansion into the neighbouring lands populated by non-Christians.

The conquest in the north and north-east

The rise of Moscow had always been closely connected with its expansion in the north and north-east. There, the dense woods and numerous lakes and rivers of the north offered abundant supplies of precious furs and the primitive hunters of the region could be easily compelled to pay such tribute. From the late fourteenth century, Moscow was attempting to establish its control around the Dvina River in the north and in the Perm’ region in the north-east. Moscow fought several wars with Novgorod over control of the northern region and its inhabitants who had already been paying tribute to Novgorod. Throughout the fifteenth century, Novgorod was forced to cede more and more of its northern colonies to Moscow until Novgorod’s final defeat by Moscow in 1478 brought the region under Moscow’s sway.