Person

Elena Glinskaya

c. 1508–1538 · 16th century

Elena Glinskaya was the second wife of Vasily III of Moscow and the mother of Ivan IV, for whom she ruled as regent from 1533 until her death in 1538. Of a Lithuanian princely family that had fled to Moscow, she imprisoned rival claimants, including her husband's brothers, and carried out a reform unifying the Muscovite coinage in 1535. Her sudden death, possibly by poisoning, opened years of boyar rivalry.

Elena Glinskaya
Image: Sergey Nikitin · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 1 profile

Grand Duchy of MoscowDecline

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Elena Glinskaya. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/elena-glinskaya
MLA
“Elena Glinskaya.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/elena-glinskaya. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Elena Glinskaya.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/elena-glinskaya.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Elena Glinskaya’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/elena-glinskaya (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻