The image of the “Terrible Tsar” struck the imagination of his contemporaries with such force that it continued to tower in Russian consciousness until quite recent times. In chronicles and tales, folk songs and stories, and in historiography from Karamzin on, Ivan IV remained alive, more vivid even than Peter the Great. And the impact was not restricted to Russians; beginning with the Dutch, English, Italians, Danes, and Germans—adventurers, diplomats, merchants, prisoners, mercenaries— who visited the Russia of Ivan IV, the Tsar left an impression in West European minds such that today men who know nothing about Russia or its history will know the name of Ivan the Terrible.