Do not imagine, O Tsar, in your vanity that those who have been innocently struck down by you, and who are imprisoned and unjustly banished by you, have all perished; do not rejoice and boast your vain victory. Those who have been slain by you stand before the throne of God and ask for vengeance against you; and those of us who are imprisoned or unjustly banished from our country cry day and night to God! Though in your pride you may boast of your evil power in this temporal, transitory world, and invent instruments of torture against the race of Christians, and insult and tread under foot the image of the angel, with the approbation of your flatterers and companions of your table and with the approbation of your boyárs who make your body and soul to perish ... yet this my letter, which is wet with tears, I shall order to be placed in my tomb, in order to go with you before the judgment seat of my Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Written in Volmir, a city of my lord, King August Sigismund, from whom I hope favours and comfort for all my sorrows, through his royal kindness, the Lord aiding me. FOOTNOTES: [115] The siege of Kazán began on August 23, and the city was taken October 2, 1552. Iván the Terrible. (1530-1584.) Iván the Terrible united the qualities of a great ruler with those of a most cruel tyrant. In his long epistles to Kúrbski he develops a strong sarcastic vein and defends himself with specious arguments, quoting copiously from the Bible and the Church Fathers. He denies his cruelty, but admits the execution of traitors, who, in his case, form an enormous category. LETTER TO PRINCE KÚRBSKI