oprichnina, private court or household created by Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible (1565) that administered those Russian lands (also known as oprichnina) that had been separated from the rest of Muscovy and placed under the tsar’s direct control. The term also refers generally to the economic and administrative policy that divided the Russian lands into two parts and established the new court.
The oprichnina land area was located in northern and central Muscovy and was created by the forcible removal of boyars (upper nobility) from their estates; the boyars were either executed or relocated on land that continued to be ruled in the traditional manner.
The term oprichnina also refers to this reign of terror, which was conducted by the oprichniki, members of the tsar’s new court, who were primarily drawn from the lower gentry and foreign population. The terror culminated with the proscription of the entire population of Novgorod and the sack of that northern city, which opposed Muscovite dominance (1570). The policy reduced the boyars’ political power, disrupted the Russian economy, and contributed to the centralization of the Muscovite state. After 1572, when the oprichniki were disbanded, the term dvor (court) replaced oprichnina.