Ivan Viskovatyi

Ivan Viskovatyi (c. 1510s–1570) was the first head of the Posolsky Prikaz, the foreign office of Ivan the Terrible. Given charge of diplomacy in 1549, he directed Russian foreign policy through the 1550s, when Kazan and Astrakhan were conquered, and in 1555 negotiated privileges for the English Muscovy Company. He also organised the diplomatic archive and formal registers of embassies.

In 1561 he became Keeper of the Seal and entered the Boyar Duma, later leading an embassy to Denmark. During the oprichnina he was accused of treason after the sack of Novgorod and publicly executed in Moscow on 25 July 1570.