Elena Glinskaya

Elena Vasilyevna Glinskaya (Елена Васильевна Глинская in Russian) (? - April 4(13).1538, Moscow) was the second wife of Grand Prince Vasili III and regent of Russia for 5 years (1533-38).

Elena was a daughter of Prince Vasili Lvovich Glinsky by Princess Anna of Serbia. It is to her powerful uncle, Prince Mikhail Glinsky, that the family owned its distinction. In 1526, Vasili III resolved to divorce his barren wife, Solomoniya Saburova, and marry Elena. According to the chronicles, he chose Elena "because of the beauty of her face and her young age." [Natalia Pushkareva, "Women in Russian History from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century". Eve Levin Trans. (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), 65.]

Despite strong opposition from the Russian Orthodox Church, the divorce was effected, and Elena gave birth to Ivan IV (future Ivan the Terrible) in 1530 and Yuri (future prince of Uglich) in 1532. [Janet Martin, "Medieval Russia 980-1584" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 292-293.] On his deathbed, Vasili III transferred his powers to Elena Glinskaya until his oldest son Ivan was mature enough to rule the country. [Martin, "Medieval Russia", 293.] The chronicles of those times do not provide any more or less precise information on Elena's legal status after Vasili's death. All that is known is that it could be defined as regency and that the boyars had to report to her. That is why the time between Vasili's death and her own demise in 1538 is called the reign of Elena.

Elena Glinskaya challenged the claims of her brothers-in-law, Yury of Dmitrov and Andrey of Staritsa. The struggle ended with their incarceration in 1534 and 1537, correspondingly. Elena's reign is also known for conflicts inside the government, caused by Elena's close association with a handsome young boyar named Ivan Feodorovich Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky and Metropolitan Daniel. In 1535, Elena conducted a currency reform, which resulted in introduction of a unified monetary system in the state. In foreign affairs, Glinskaya succeeded in signing an armistice with Lithuania in 1536, simultaneously neutralizing Sweden. Some historians believe that she was poisoned by the Shuiskys, who usurped the power after her death. Recent investigations of the remains tend to support the thesis that Elena was poisoned. [Martin, "Medieval Russia", 331; Pushkareva, "Women in Russian History", 65-67.]

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