Maureen Perrie claims that I “unfairly regard as an attempt to justify political violence” the writings of historians who “suggested that Ivan [the Terrible] had religious motives for the introduction of the oprichnina.” The mystical turn, as I term this post-Soviet historiographical trend, rationalizes violence in several ways. Its supporters, including Dmitry Volodikhin, Igor Froyanov, Vyacheslav Shaposhnik, and Charles J. Halperin, approvingly cite Ivan Snychov, the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga. Snychov, founder of the fundamentalist Orthodox sect tsarebozhie, considers Russia a messianic nation, sees Ivan the Terrible as Russia’s defender against “the deicidal Jews,” and commends the oprichnina’s terror as the ideal Russian government. Putin’s views on Russian history often align with Snychov’s opinions. Not limited to the 1990s, as Perrie wrongly claims, this trend peaked in the 2000s–2010s and played a significant role in legitimizing state terror by the Kremlin’s propaganda.

Perrie characterizes the oprichnina as “a short but complex episode” of Ivan’s reign, proposing what she calls a “more nuanced view.” Often serving as a starting point for interpreting the oprichnina through the lens of the mystical turn, this stance allows Perrie to disregard the main focus of my book: the reasons behind the celebration of the oprichnina in the massive, multidimensional campaign of Putin’s memory politics.

Perrie situates Ivan’s rule within the “early modern period,” ignoring that Russia did not experience either the Renaissance or the Reformation. Such periodization may be seen as an attempt to present Ivan as a “modernizer,” an unwillingness to exclude Russia from European history, or as a reflection of Eurocentrism.

“Professor Perrie does not choose to respond.”