Ivan was born on 23 August 1740 at Saint Petersburg, the eldest child of Duke Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg by his wife, Duchess Anna Leopoldovna of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the only niece of the childless Empress Anna of Russia, and the only granddaughter of Tsar Ivan V.[1] She had lived in Russia almost all her life, and her husband had also made his home in that country, in the expectation that they or their progeny would inherit the throne upon the death of the empress.

The empress also declared that her longtime lover and advisor, Ernst Johann von Biron, duke of Courland, would serve as regent until Ivan came of age.

Indeed, the desire to ensure that her lover would enjoy power and influence after her death was the primary reason that the dying empress chose to name as her heir the infant rather than his mother.

At midnight on 18/19 November 1740 Biron was seized in his bedroom by partisans of the royal couple and banished to Siberia (he was later permitted to reside at Yaroslavl).

In June 1744, following the Lopukhina Affair, the Empress transferred Ivan to Kholmogory on the White Sea where, isolated from his family and seeing no one other than his jailer, he remained for the next twelve years.

[2] On the accession of Catherine II, in the summer of 1762, still more stringent orders were sent to the officer in charge of "the nameless one"; if any attempt were made from outside to release him, the prisoner was to be put to death.

[2] His jailers, on orders of their commander, an officer surnamed Chekin, immediately murdered Ivan in compliance with the secret instructions already in their possession.

Ivan's siblings, who were born in prison, were released into the custody of their aunt, the Danish-Norwegian queen dowager, Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, on 30 June 1780 and settled at Horsens in Jutland.