Correspondence between John III and Ivan IV
written work by Ivan Terrible
The correspondence between John III of Sweden and Ivan IV of Russia, exchanged in 1572 and 1573 have a unique character and reveal an irreconcilable hatred between the two monarchs. The letters are commonly known in Swedish as "Skällebreven" (roughly 'the scolding letters'). The exchange made peace settlements between their countries impossible to reach, prolonging the Russian Twenty-five years' War and worsening the atrocities committed during its duration; an example of which is the execution of Hans Boije af Gennäs.
Background
One of Russia's attempts to expand to the west failed in 1560, when the Russian tsar Ivan IV's marriage proposal to the Polish princess Catherine Jagiellon was turned down. She was instead married to duke John of Sweden for strategic reasons. A new opportunity arose in 1566 when king Eric XIV, duke John's brother, needed Russian support in the Livonian War against Poland. The tsar, in exchange, wanted Catherine to be handed over him. An agreement was signed and the next year a Russian delegation of 200 men came to Stockholm to fetch the duchess. The delegation had the misfortune of arriving during duke John's rebellion against king Eric. The Russian delegates were physically abused and humiliated by the duke's troops.
The public source identifies “Correspondence between John III and Ivan IV” as written work by Ivan Terrible. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Correspondence, between and John.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q117074785. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1572, 1573, 1560 and 1566.
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This entry incorporates text from “Correspondence between John III and Ivan IV” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.