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- Czar and tzar redirect here. For other uses, see Tsar
Tsar , occasionally spelled
Czar or
Tzar and sometimes
Csar or
Zar in
English, is a
Slavonic term designating certain monarchs.
Originally, and during most of its history, the title
tsar meant
Emperor in the European medieval sense of the term, i.e., a ruler who has the same rank as a
Roman or Byzantine emperor due to recognition by another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official . Occasionally, the word could be used to designate other, non-Christian supreme rulers. In Russia and Bulgaria, the imperial connotations of the term were blurred with time and by the 19th century it had come to be viewed as an equivalent of king , . The modern languages of these countries use it as a general term for a monarch., . For example, the title of the Bulgarian monarchs in the 20th century was not generally interpreted as imperial.
"Tsar" was the official title of the supreme ruler in the following states:
- Bulgaria in 913–1018, in 1185-1422 and in 1908–1946
- Serbia in 1346–1371
- Russia from about 1480 until 1721
Etymology and spelling
The word
tsar is a contraction of the earlier
tsesar , derived from the Roman title
Caesar, but not from its devalued Byzantine derivative
Kaisar . Originally the name of the deified dictator
Caesar and then of his adopted son, the first emperor Augustus, the word Caesar came to designate the Roman emperor, together with the additional titles of
Imperator and Augustus, and the Republican dignity of Princeps . From the Antonine period the title
Caesar by itself was also granted to junior associates in imperial power or heirs-designate, with which its importance started to decline. This is expressed even more clearly in
Diocletian's
Tetrarchy 293–306, in which power was shared between two senior emperors and two junior emperors . In the Byzantine period the title
Caesar ceased to imply imperial association or the promise of succession to the throne, and after the
Komnenian reforms, it was outranked by new titles such as
despotes and
sebastokrator.
Like
German Kaiser, Old Church Slavonic
tsesar was derived directly from the Roman title
Caesar, and not from the lower-ranking Byzantine
Kaisar, as can be seen from etymological development and the coexistence of the distinct terms tsesar and kesar with different meanings in early
Cyrillic texts. The word is thus cognate with
German Kaiser,
Gothic káisar,
Dutch keizer,
Danish kejser,
Swedish kejsare,
Norwegian keisar/
keiser, and
Hungarian császár. The contraction of
tsesar into
tsar occurred by the way of shorthand writing of titles in Slavonic manuscripts . One may see examples of this in the East Slavic Primary Chronicle. The first attested examples seem to date from the 10th-century grave inscription of Mostic from
Preslav .
Modern usage seems to have standardized on the use of
tsar to describe former rulers of Russia , while
czar is used to informally describe an expert in charge of implementing policy :
economics czar,
drug czar, etc.
The Russian pronunciation of
tsar is , the Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian one though many if not most English-speaking people pronounce it considerably differently: or . This is because although English has in words like
cats, it is unusual for this sound to start an English word.
The spelling
tsar is the closest possible transliteration of the original using standard English spelling, while the scholarly transliteration is
car, with the letter 'c' standing for '?' in Slavic languages employing the Latin alphabet .
Tsar has been accepted in Standard English for the last century as a correct usage. The use of "czar" is typically found in American English and has also been accepted into general use for more than a century there. The French adopted the form
tsar during the
19th century, and it became more frequent in English towards the end of that century, following its adoption by
The Times is a national newspaper [i] published daily in the United Kingdom [i] since 1785, and unde ...
. The spelling
tzar with 'z' is also very common, and represents an alternative transliteration of the first letter
?, derived from German.
The early spelling
czar originated with the
Austrian diplomat Baron Sigismund von Herberstein, whose
Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii , 'Notes on Muscovite Affairs', was the main source of knowledge of Russia in early modern western Europe, while not found in any of the
Slavic languages.
Meaning in the Slavic languages
In contrast to the Latin word "imperator", the Byzantine Greek term
basileus had both political and Biblical connotations. In the history of the Greek language, the word originally meant something like "potentate", had gradually approached the meaning of "king" in the
Hellenistic Period, and designated "emperor" after the inception in the
Roman Empire. As a consequence, Byzantine sources continued to call the Biblical and ancient kings "basileus", even when that word had come to mean "emperor" when referring to contemporary monarchs
As the Greek "basileus" was consistently rendered as "tsar" in Slavonic translations of Greek texts, the dual meaning was transferred into
Church Slavonic. Thus, "tsar" was not only used as an equivalent of Latin "imperator" but was also used to refer to Biblical rulers and ancient kings. In contrast, the title of Western European kings was derived from the name of
Charlemagne or was transliterated from the Greek as "?????".
From this ambiguity, the development has moved in different directions in the different Slavic languages. Thus, the Bulgarian and Russian languages no longer use
tsar as an equivalent of the term
emperor/
imperator as it exists in the West European tradition. Currently, the term
tsar refers to native sovereigns, ancient and Biblical rulers, as well as monarchs in fairy tales and the like. The title of
king is perceived as alien and is reserved for European royalty . Foreign monarchs of imperial status, both inside and outside of Europe, ancient as well as modern, are generally called
imperator , rather than
tsar.
In contrast, the Serbian language translates "
emperor" as
tsar and not as
imperator, whereas the equivalent of
king is used to designate monarchs of non-imperial status, Serbian as well as foreign, including Biblical and other ancient rulers - just like Latin "
rex".
In the
West Slavic languages, the use of the terms is identical to the one in English and German: a king is designated with one term , an emperor is designated with another, derived from
Caesar as in German , while the exotic term "tsar" is reserved for the Russian emperor.
Bulgaria
The sainted Boris I is sometimes retrospectively referred to as tsar, because at his time Bulgaria was converted to Christianity. However, the title "tsar" were actually adopted and used for the first time by his son
Simeon I, following a makeshift imperial coronation performed by the
Patriarch of Constantinople in 913. After an attempt by Byzantium to revoke this major diplomatic concession and a decade of intensive warfare, the imperial title of the Bulgarian ruler was recognized by the Byzantine government in 924 and again at the formal conclusion of peace in 927. Since in Byzantune political theory there was place for only two emperors, Eastern and Western , the Bulgarian ruler was crowned basileus as "a spiritual son" of the Byzantian basileus.
Some of the earliest attested occurrences of the contraction "tsar" from "tsesar" are found in the grave inscription of the
cargubil Mostich, a contemporary of Simeon I and Peter I, from
Preslav.
It has been hypothesized that Simeon's title was also recognized by a papal mission to Bulgaria in or shortly after 925, as a concession in exchange for a settlement in the Bulgarian-
Croatian conflict or a possible attempt to return Bulgaria to union with Rome. Thus, in the later diplomatic correspondence conducted in 1199-1204 between the Bulgarian ruler Kaloyan and Pope
Innocent III, Kaloyan — whose self-assumed Latin title was "imperator Bulgarorum et Blachorum" — claims that the imperial crowns of
Simeon I, his son Peter I, and of
Samuel were somehow derived from the
Papacy. The Pope, however, only speaks of
reges, kings of Bulgaria in his replies, and eventually grants only that lesser title to Kaloyan, who nevertheless procedes to thank the Pope for the "imperial title" conferred upon him.
The title, later augmented with epithets and titles such as
autocrat to reflect current Byzantine practice, was used by all of Simeon's successors until the complete conquest of
Bulgaria by the
Ottoman Empire in 1422. In Latin sources the Emperor of Bulgaria is sometimes designated "Emperor of Zagora" . Various additional epithets and descriptions apart, the official style read "Emperor and autocrat of all Bulgarians and Greeks".
During the five-century period of Ottoman rule in Bulgaria, the
sultan was fequently referred to as "tsar". This may be related to the fact that he had claimed the legacy of the Byzantine Empire or to the fact that the sultan was called "Basileus" in medieval Greek.
After Bulgaria's liberation from the Ottomans in 1878, its new monarchs were at first
autonomous prince . With the declaration of full independence,
Ferdinand I of Bulgaria adopted the traditional title "tsar" in 1908 and it was used until the abolition of the monarchy in 1946. . However, these titles weren't generally perceived as equivalents of "Emperor" any longer. In the Bulgarian as in the Greek vernacular, the meaning of the title had shifted and the rulers of these countries were recognized only as kings by international diplomacy.
Russia
The term "tsar" was used once by Church officials of
Kievan Rus in the naming of
Yaroslav the Wise of
Kiev. This may be connected to Yaroslav's war against Byzantium and to his efforts to distance himself from Constantinople. However, other princes of
Kievan Rus never called themselves as "tsars" After the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders and the Mongol invasion of Rus, the term "tsar" was applied by some people of
Kievan Rus to the
Mongol overlords of the Rus' principalities. Yet the first Russian ruler to openly break with the khan,
Mikhail of Tver, assumed the title of "Basileus of Rus" and "tsar".
Following his assertion of independence from the
Golden Horde and perhaps also his marriage to an heiress of the
Byzantine Empire, "Veliki Kniaz"
Ivan III of
Muscovy started to use the title of tsar regularly in diplomatic relations with the West. From about 1480, he is designated as "imperator" in his Latin correspondence, as "keyser" in his correspondence with the Swedish regent, as "kejser" in his correspondence with the Danish king, Teutonic Knights, and the Hansa. Ivan's son
Vasily III continued using these titles, as his Latin letters to
Clement VII testify: "Magnus Dux Basilius, Dei gratia Imperator et Dominator totius Russiae, nec non Magnus Dux Woldomeriae", etc. . Herberstein correctly observed that the titles of "kaiser" and "imperator" were attempts to render the Russian term "tsar" into German and Latin, respectively.
This was related to Russia's growing ambitions to become an Orthodox "
Third Rome", after
Constantinople had fallen. The Muscovite ruler was recognized as an emperor by Maximilian I, the emperor of the
Holy Roman Empire in 1514. However, the first Russian ruler to be formally crowned as "tsar of all Russia" was
Ivan IV, until then known as Grand Prince of all Russia . Some foreign ambassadors — namely, Herberstein , Daniel Printz a Buchau and Just Juel — indicated that the word "tsar" should not be translated as "emperor", because it is applied by Russians to David, Solomon and other Biblical kings, which are simple "reges". On the other hand, Jacques Margeret, a bodyguard of
False Demetrius I, argues that the title of "tsar" is more honorable for Muscovites than "kaiser" or "king" exactly because it was God and not some earthly potentate who ordained to apply it to David, Solomon, and other kings of Israel. Samuel Collins, a court physician to
Tsar Alexis in 1659-66, styled the latter "Great Emperour", commenting that "as for the word
Czar, it has so near relation to
Cesar... that it may well be granted to signifie Emperour. The Russians would have it to be an higher Title than King, and yet they call David
Czar, and our kings,
Kirrols, probably from
Carolus Quintus, whose history they have among them".
In short, the Westerners were at a loss as to how the term "tsar" should be translated properly. In 1670, Pope
Clement X expressed doubts that it would be appropriate for him to address Alexis as "tsar", because the word is "barbarian" and because it stands for an "emperor", whereas there is only one emperor in the Christian world and he does not reside in Moscow. Reviewing the matter, abbot Scarlati opined that the term is not translatable and therefore may be used by the Pope without any harm. Paul Menesius, the Russian envoy in Vatican, seconded Scarlati's opinion by saying that there is no adequate Latin translation for "tsar", as there is no translation for "shah" or "sultan". In order to avoid such difficulties of translation and to assert his imperial ambitions more clearly, an edict of
Peter I the Great decreed that the Latin-based title
imperator should be used instead of "tsar" .
The title
tsar remained in common usage, and also officially as the designator of various titles signifying rule over various states absorbed by the Muscovite monarchy . In the 18th century, it was increasingly viewed as inferior to "emperor" or highlighting the oriental side of the term. Upon annexing
Crimea in 1783,
Catherine the Great adopted the hellenicized title of "Tsarina of Tauric
Chersonesos", rather than "Tsarina of the Crimea", as should have been expected. By 1815, when a large part of Poland was annexed, the title had clearly come to be interpreted in Russia as the equivalent of Polish Król "king", and the Russian emperor assumed the title "tsar of Poland" , .
Since the word "tsar" remained the popular designation of the Russian ruler despite the official change of style, its transliteration of this title in foreign languages such as English is commonly used also, in fact chiefly, for the Russian Emperors up to 1917.
Full style of Russian Sovereigns
The full title of Russian emperors started with
By the Grace of God, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and went further to list all ruled territories. For example, according to the article 59 of the Russian Constitution of April 23, 1906, "the full title of His Imperial Majesty is as follows: We, ------ by the grace of God,
Emperor and Autocrat of all the
Russias, of
Moscow,
Kiev,
Vladimir,
Novgorod, Tsar of
Kazan, Tsar of
Astrakhan, Tsar of
Poland, Tsar of
Siberia, Tsar of
Tauric Chersonesos, Tsar of
Georgia, Lord of
Pskov, and Grand Duke of
Smolensk,
Lithuania,
Volhynia,
Podolia, and
Finland,
Prince of
Estonia,
Livonia,
Courland and Semigalia,
Samogitia,
Bialystok,
Karelia,
Tver,
Yugra,
Perm, Vyatka,
Bulgaria, and other territories; Lord and Grand Duke of
Nizhni Novgorod,
Chernigov; Ruler of
Ryazan,
Polotsk,
Rostov,
Yaroslavl,
Beloozero, Udoria,
Obdoria, Kondia,
Vitebsk,
Mstislavl, and all northern territories ; Ruler of
Iveria, Kartalinia, and the Kabardinian lands and
Armenian territories - hereditary Ruler and Lord of the Circassians and Mountain Princes and others; Lord of
Turkestan, Heir of
Norway, Duke of
Schleswig-Holstein,
Stormarn,
Dithmarschen,
Oldenburg, and so forth, and so forth, and so forth."
For example,
Nicholas II of Russia was titled as follows :
- ????? ??????????????? ???????? ??, ??????? ?????? ?????????? ? ??????????? ?????????????
- ??????????, ????????, ????????????, ????????????,
- ???? ?????????, ???? ????????????, ???? ????????, ???? ?????????, ???? ????????? ????????????, ???? ??????????,
- ???????? ?????????, ?
- ??????? ????? ??????????, ?????????, ?????????, ?????????? ? ???????????;
- ????? ???????????, ???????????, ??????????? ? ????????????, ???????????, ????????????, ??????????,
- ????????, ????????, ????????, ???????, ?????????? ? ?????;
- ???????? ? ??????? ????? ?????????? ????????? ?????, ????????????, ?????????, ?????????,
- ??????????, ???????????, ???????????, ????????, ?????????, ??????????, ?????????, ???????????? ?
- ???? ???????? ?????? ??????????; ?
- ???????? ????????, ???????????? ? ???????????? ????? ? ??????? ?????????;
- ??????????? ? ???????? ?????? ? ????? ????????? ???????? ? ??????????;
- ???????? ?????????????;
- ?????????? ??????????,
- ??????? ????????-???????????, ????????????, ????????????? ? ??????????????, ? ??????, ? ??????, ? ??????.
- The Emperor's subsidiary title of Tsar of Kazan proclaimed the chief Orthodox dynasty as successor in law to the mighty Islamic khanate of Kazan, not maintaining its 'heathen' title , but christening it. It should also be noted that Khans of Kazan were mentioned in Russian chronicles such as Kazan Chronicle as Tsars of Kazan.
- The Emperor's subsidiary title of Tsar of Siberia is somewhat misleading, as there never was such a kingdom, only a very weak Tatar Khanate of Sibir, easily subdued in the early stages of the exploration and annexation of the hugely larger Siberia, most of it before inhabited by nomadic tribal people without a state in the European sense.
- The subsidiary title of Tsar in chief of Transcausasian Georgia
- Georgia [i], a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia: **Formerly ...
is the continuation of a royal style of a native dynasty, that had as such been recognized by Russia; it was a new, Slavonic style, imposed after the former regional superpower, which had used native and even Persian styles refelecting imperial pretences, had been reduced to a vassal unable to ward off its mighty neighbours. - The subsidiary title of Tsar of Poland demonstrates the Russian Emperors' rule over the legally separate Polish Kingdom, nominally in personal union with Russia, established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 , in a sense reviving the royal style of the pre-existent national kingdom of Poland. Internationally and in Poland, the tsars were referred to as Kings of Poland.
In some cases, defined by the Code of Laws, the
Abbreviated Imperial Title' was used:
- "We, ------ by the grace of God, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Poland, Tsar of Siberia, Tsar of Tauric Chersonesos, Tsar of Georgia
- Georgia [i], a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia: **Formerly ...
, Lord of Pskov, and Grand Duke of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia, and Finland, and so forth, and so forth, and so forth."
In other cases, also defined by the Code of Laws, the
Short Imperial Title' was used:
- "We, ------ by the grace of God, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, and so forth, and so forth, and so forth."
Titles in the Russian Royal/Imperial family
Tsaritsa is the term used for an
Empress, though in English contexts this seems invariably to be altered to
tsarina . In
Imperial Russia, the official title was Empress . Tsaritsa could be either the ruler herself or the wife of the tsar. The title of tsaritsa is used in the same way in Bulgaria and Serbia.
Tsesarevich is the term for a
male heir apparent, the full title was
Heir Tsesarevich , informally abbreviated in Russia to
The Heir .
Tsarevich was the term for a son. In older times the term was used in place of "Tsesarevich" . A son who was not a heir was formally called
Velikii Kniaz . The latter title was also used for grandsons .
Tsarevna was the term for a daughter and a granddaughter of a Tsar or Tsaritsa. The official title was
Velikaya Kniaginya , translated as
Grand Duchess or
Grand Princess.
See also Grand Duchess for more details on the
Velikaya Kniaginya title.
Tsesarevna was the wife of the Tsesarevich.
Notes
- When Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 he abdicated not just on his own behalf but also on behalf of his teenage son, Alexey, who was too ill to take up the throne. He named as his heir his own brother Mikhail. Mikhail initially considered accepting the throne, conditional upon the people accepting him as their ruler. But a day or two later he decided against this course. He saw no need to formally abdicate a throne he had never formally accepted. He was never properly proclaimed as "Tsar Mikhail II". Historians and lists of tsars differ as to whether to regard Mikhail or Nicholas II as the last tsar. Nicholas II was undoubtedly the last tsar to rule Russia and so was the last effective tsar. Mikhail, if he can be said to have been Tsar at all, exercised no governmental functions and merely reigned nominally for a very short time. Mikhail, like his brother Nicholas, was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
- In 1924 Grand Duke Cyril Romanov proclaimed himself Emperor in exile.
- Moscow and Saint-Petersburg are known as the two tsar's capitals, though the latter was precisely founded as the new capital, symbolizing the new empire after Peter had shed the formal style of Tsar.
Georgia
After Russia had established its protectorate over the kingdom of Georgia, the Russian Emperor recognised the following styles and titles as of 24th September 1783
- for its 'Hereditary Sovereign and Prince' until the annexation, when he himself added this realm to his full style with the same title of Tsar: The Most Serene Tsar , by the will of our Lord, Tsar of Kartli, Tsar of Kakheti, Hereditary Prince of Samtzkhé-Saatabago, Ruling Prince of Kazakh, Borchalo, Shamshadilo, Kak, Shaki, and Shirvan, Prince and Lord of Ganja
...
and
Erivan, with the style of His Majesty; however these Russian designations were largely ignored in Georgia by the Georgians themselves, who continued to use the ancient styles and titles :
The Mepe-Umaglesi 'Most High King' ,
by the will of our Lord, Mepe-Mepeta 'King of Kings' of the Abkhazis, Kartvelians, Ranians, Kakhetians and the Armenians, Shirvanshah state in national development of Azerbaijan [i] is hard to underesti ...
and
Shahanshah and Master of all the East and West.
- All sons of the Georgian Sovereign, including the Heir, were styled: Tsarevitch 'Prince' Grouzinskii, i.e. Prince of Georgia, with the style of His Highness.
- All legitimate male descendants of Kings Irakli II and Giorgi XII, in the male line, were styled: Kniaz 'Prince' Grouzinskii, i.e. Prince of Georgia, with the style of His Serene Highness.
- More remote princes of the blood or descendants in the natural line, also received the title of Kniaz Bagration , frequently with a territorial or other designation, e.g. Bagration-Mukhranskii 'Bagration of Mukhrani'.
Serbia
The title Tsar was also used in Serbia, but only by two monarchs —
