called The Great (1440–1505), grand duke of Moscow (1462–1505). He was born in Moscow on Jan. 22, 1440, the son of Basil II (1415–62), whom he succeeded. Ivan strengthened the hegemony of Moscow over the other Russian principalities, and he described himself as Sovereign of All Russia. In 1470 he launched a war against Novgorod, which he conquered and annexed in 1478, thereby acquiring all of northern Russia from Lapland to the Ural Mountains. In 1480, by refusing to make the customary payment of tribute to the Tatar khan, Ivan ended the formal subservience of the Muscovite rulers to the Tatars. Subsequently, he further increased his domain by conquest, by purchases of territory, and by exacting allegiance from weaker princes. Ivan invaded Lithuania in 1492 and again in 1500 and forced Alexander I (1461–1506), the ruler of that country and king of Poland, to cede (1503) a score of towns to him. By his marriage in 1472 to Zo‘ (Sophia; fl. 1467–98), niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaeologus, Ivan also made creditable his claim to be the protector of the Orthodox church. After his marriage Ivan added the two-headed eagle of the Byzantine escutcheon to his own coat of arms and, modeling his regime on that of the autocratic Byzantine rulers, curtailed the powers and privileges of the Russian princes and the Russian aristocracy. He also issued the first Muscovite legal code in 1497. He died on Oct. 27, 1505.