Talk:Tsar

I think "all Russia" is a (common) mistranslation. Looking at various coins from various Tsar eras, the titles are:

• Ivan IV: "ВСЕꙖ РУСИ"
• Michael I: "ВСЕЯ РУСІ"
• Peter I: "ВСЕѦ РѠССІИ"

The final "И" or "І" indicate their being plural. I believe - though I don't know Russian very well - that singular would be "РУСІІ" or "РѠССІЯ." I've seen this plural either refer to "Great, Little, and White" or to the various states absorbed by Muscovy. The more accurate translation of the first two is "Rus's" (or whatever the plural of "Rus'" would be), but "Russias" is more often used in English since it's less confusing. Of course, this could be deemed "original research," so I'm hoping that someone else can be of help here with a secondary source rather than a primary one. Calbaer (talk) 17:29, 21 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

The corresponding Russian wikipedia page is here in auto-translated form. There's an English version, but it refers only to the use of related phrases in the Imperial and post-Imperial periods, not pre-Imperial. Calbaer (talk) 23:49, 21 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

I ultimately decided to change this to "all Rus'" as on List of Russian rulers, parenthetically adding "all the Russias" as on Ivan the Terrible, with the above Cyrillic (which I could reference if needed, but which seemed like overkill, since it's the English we really need to reference if anything). Calbaer (talk) 15:43, 22 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

It's a big question. The "i" at the end is usually understood as singular Genitive case. However, not everyone agrees, primarily because of foreign plural translations and because "great, small and white" (or something similar) is regularly used. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 17:15, 17 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Interesting. If we assumed that the language was as close as possible to present day, that would make sense, at least for the first two. Looking at declension tables, "руси" would be "of Rus'" while "of Rus's" would be "русей." Likewise, "России" would be "of Russia" and "Россий" "of Russias." The fact that the final two letters in the time of Peter I are different makes me suspicious of which option is more accurate. And as far as I can tell, none of the forms of "всё" are consistent with modern Russian, where the genitive feminine and plural are "всей" and "всех", respectively, not "всея." However, ru:Всея Руси claims that that corresponds to the modern genitive feminine, which would support the idea of it being singular in both cases. Calbaer (talk) 16:07, 20 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Calbaer:I put up that question among Russian linguistic specialists, and almost everyone is strongly in favor of singular. However, I'm not 100% convinced. I thought it could actually be plural Nominative case, or that Bulgarian 1000 years ago would be different from today's Russian. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 19:23, 26 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Going by other articles here, the "І" was used at the time for when the next letter was a vowel... with exceptions - for example, "й" was considered a vowel then but not now, so this doesn't rule out "Россий." In fact, "и" and "й" weren't even considered different letters until the 1930s, and other words like "великий" were written with the "ІИ" ending at the time. But, unless "всех" had a very different form then, all signs point to singular. Calbaer (talk) 04:05, 28 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Calbaer: That's a great point! Moreover, ВСЕЯ РУСІ almost never or totally never existed before the 19th century. It was always ВСЕѦ РѠССІИ , not ВСЕЯ РУСІ or ВСЕꙖ РУСИ . ВСЕЯ РУСІ was popularized in the 19th century, because it was Slavic and because Russia (РѠССІИ) became a much larger empire with a different meaning. Independent researchers even claim it was done on political purpose to 'steal' the heritage of Kievan Rus' from the Ukrainians. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 17:47, 2 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Sidoroff-B: "ВСЕѦ РУСИ" and its variants precede the 19th century by several centuries. See, for example, these coins from the reign of Basil III: http://silver-copeck.ru/8016/1.html (1505-1533). The left side of the coin on the upper left clearly has "ВСЕѦ РУСИ" on it. It was only under Peter the Great that "РѠССІИ" began being used (though early in his rule, it was "РОСИЇ"). Calbaer (talk) 19:47, 2 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Calbaer: It looks like РУСII like here https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C_%D0%98%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%A2%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%8C%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE_1504.JPG Also here https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:%D0%9A%D1%83%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BB_%D0%98%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%92%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE.jpg . The phrase itself was of Greek origin. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 19:58, 2 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Sidoroff-B: Here's a more detailed depiction of Ivan IV's seal: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Seal_of_Ivan_3.png?1604347470769 . I think it's clear there that what looks like "II" in your link is meant to be "И." Looking at the most common coins of the 16th and 17th century (denga and kopek coins), coins prior to Feodor III (reign starting 1676) used "РУСИ." Feodor had "РУСИІ," while Peter/Ivan had "РОСИЇ," then "РѠССІИ." As for the bell tower, here's a better view - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Ivan_the_Great_Bell_Tower_-_Cupola_%28Moscow%2C_2001%29.jpg - which clearly shows "ВСЕѬ РУСИ," not "ВСЕѬ РУСII." Calbaer (talk) 00:11, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Calbaer: Does the bell-tower spell РУСИ or РУСIИ ? --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 05:19, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Sidoroff-B: It looks like "РУСИ" to me, but I could see it as "РУСIИ." The Russian Wikipedia page for it cites a book and claims that it was originally, "Руси сий," but that the inscription was removed during the Time of Troubles and only restored by Peter the Great. So it stands to reason that it's not the original. I tend to favor looking at coins for evidence, since they still exist in their unmodified form and can be somewhat accurately dated. And the fact remains that Moscow has seen itself as Kiev's successor since the migration of the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev from Vladimir to Moscow in 1325. In any event, it seems as though it was "all Rus'" for centuries, then "all Russia" under Peter. Even when they claimed "Great, Little, and White," "Rus'" and later "Russia" were likely still singular, given the declination of "всея." Calbaer (talk) 18:05, 4 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

The correct title was Emperor and Supreme Autocrat of All the Russias. There were a number of Russian states in the Middle Ages, which is why when the Grand Dukes of Moscow conquered the other ones, they came to style themselves as the ruler of "all the Russias". It should be the plural "all the Russias", not the singular "all Russia". --A.S. Brown (talk) 09:13, 11 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

@A.S. Brown: Russian academics vehemently deny that. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 02:02, 18 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Calbaer, A.S. Brown, and Sidoroff-B: Russian is here. The way of addressing "of All Russia" is the most commonly used one in English books.[1][2] I find it correct relative to the meaning of the phrase. The word all in this context must be interpreted as entire (whole). Given the sources I think it's safe to close this discussion per WP:COMMONNAME. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 14:22, 3 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Alexander Davronov: Согласитесь, фраза "вся Великая, Малая и Белая Русь" звучит как-то странно. Вообще, странно, что не сохранилась ни одного примера существования этой фразы в именительном падеже с достаточно древних времён. Тогда бы и вопрос отпал сам собой. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 09:17, 7 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Calbaer, Alexander Davronov, and Sidoroff-B:First thing, Sidoroff-B, with all due respect, you need to provide a RS for that assertion. For what it is worth, here is the full title of Nicholas II: "By the grace of God Almighty, the Emperor and Supreme Autocrat of all the Russias, Tsar of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, Kazan, Astrakhan, Poland, Siberia, Tauric Chersonese, and Georgia, Lord of Pskov, Grand Duke of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia and Finland" (Harcave, Sidney First Blood The Russian Revolution of 1905 Macmillan: London, 1964 p.12). Sidney Harcave is a RS, being one of the leading American historians of Russia during his lifetime, and note that when he translates the title, he uses the plural "of the Russias", not of the singular "Of Russia". And for further statement, here is this book published in 1914 from the State Department, where it gives the title as "Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias", see here [3]. It was the job of the diplomats of the State Department to use the correct title when addressing foreign leaders, so I don't think that was a typo. And see this source here, when states the title imperator was adopted by Peter the Great in 1722, he was the imperator of "all the Russias", not Russia. See here: [4]. Here is a translation of a letter from 1797 when the Orthodox Emperor Pavel somehow got elected the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta (just how precisely does an Orthodox emperor become the grand master of an order of Catholic warrior monks is another matter that does not concern us here): [5]. Note the source states the Emperor Pavel is "His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of the Russias". And note the title of this biography of the Emperor Nicholas II by Dominic Lieven Nicholas II Emperor of All the Russias. Lieven is one of the world's leading historians of Russia, who speaks and writes Russian quite fluently. He refers to the last emperor as "Emperor of All the Russias". And note this biography [6] by W. Bruce Lincoln that is entitled Nicholas I, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias. And this source here, which describes the Empress Elizabeth as the "empress of all the Russias": [7]. From the reign of the Emperor Nicholas I came this degree that stated: "The Tsar of all the Russias is an autocratic and absolute monarch" (Riasanovsky, Nicholas Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia 1825-1855 Los Angeles, University of California Press 1959 p. 96). Nicholas V. Riasanovsky grew up speaking Russian in Manchuria and Russian was definitely his first language. If the title was the singular "of all Russia" rather than the plural "of all the Russias", it seems very odd and strange that Riasanovsky would mistranslate the term from Russian into English.

For more evidence, here is the full title relating to the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867: Treaty Concerning the Cession of the Russian Possessions in North America by His Majesty the Emperor of All Russias to the United States of America. Again, it is the plural, not the singular. And here is a the peace treaty ending the war between Russia and France in 1801: Treaty of Peace Between the French Republic and the Emperor of all the Russias. And here is another translation of a treaty between some petty Iranian nobleman, Ebrahim Khan, who swears loyalty to the Emperor Alexander I in 1805, who is referred here as "the Emperor of all the Russias": [8]. George Bournoutian is a RS who again was fluent in Russian, and again it is the plural form that he used he translated the title. It would be easier to translate the title as Emperor of all Russia into English rather than the awkward "Emperor of all the Russias", so the fact that multiple sources keep using the more awkward plural form indicates that this is the correct term. And see this proclamation by the Empress Catherine II from 1763 where Catherine the Great describes herself as "the Empress of all the Russias" [9]. Here is another RS by Vincent Chen, Sino-Russian Relations in the Seventeenth Century that provides a translation of a letter written by Tsar Alexis to the Kangxi Emperor of China in 1670 where Alexis calls himself "the Autocrat of all the Russias": [10]. Here is the preamble from the First International Anti-Opium Conference in 1912 where Nicholas II is again described as (you guess it) "the Emperor of all the Russias" [11]. Here is this RS which notes that in 1922 the Grand Duke Cyril in exile proclaimed himself "emperor of all the Russias" [12].

Janet M. Hartley is a respected British historian of Russia and in her 2021 book The Volga A History, she translates a 16th century Russian chronicle that refers to Ivan the Terrible as "Autocrat of all the Russias", see here: [13]. The chronicle, which celebrates the conquest of the Muslim khanate of Kazan, which was one of the successor states to the Mongol Golden Horde states: "With the aid of our Almighty Lord Jesus Christ and the prayers of the mother of God...our pious Tsar and Grand Prince Ivan Vasilevich, crowned by God, Autocrat of all the Russias, fought against the infidels, defeated them finally and captured the Tsar of Kazan". Through it is true that the Muslim Mongol-Turkic khanate of Kazan could scarcely be considered Russian, Hartely does note that after conquering Kazan Ivan started calling himself Tsar of Kazan, which seems to have been a standard Muscovite practice. Finally, Adam Ulam was a well respected Polish historian of Russia, and in this book he refers to Nicholas II as "the Autocrat of all the Russias" [14]. And furthermore, note the way that the emperor's full title as rendered by the State Department and Harcave is tsar of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, etc, etc. Places like the Grand Duchies of Vladimir, Tver, Novgorod, etc were just as much Russia as the Grand Duchy of Moscow. I know that there were all ruled by different branches of the House of Rurik but for our purposes here, after the Mongol conquest, there was not one single state that could call itself Russia. Over time, the other Russian states were conquered by the grand dukes of Moscow, so the plural term would make sense, indicating that the Grand Dukes of Moscow were ruling over all the other "Russias" that they had conquered. This is not the most important of matters, but this article should be using the right title. It may be true that some books and articles call Napoleon the "emperor of France", but that is not true. Napoleon's title was the "emperor of the French", never emperor of France. Even if the majority of the sources called Napoleon "emperor of France", we should still call him the emperor of the French because that was the title that he actually used. --A.S. Brown (talk) 06:59, 8 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

@A.S. Brown: «all the Russias» Thanks for all that hard work out there. I have to admit that the said title was, in fact, widespread in the past in English literature. I think It's fair to state that In the sources you have provided the title often follows specific ruler (including indirect referring) so we have to take this into acount as well. It's not just a title-to-go with every Russian monarch for sure. I would propose to use this title within Tsardom of Russia context only (monarchs of 1547 to 1721 period) and be cautionary with others. Also I would like note that for the last two decades «all the Russia» usage was on par with «all the Russias» (the same source on Google Ngram). I'm with you if you agree to put both into the article. Just out of curiosity: did you scrutinize literature in the same way for «all the Russia» as you did for «all the Russias» form? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 14:29, 9 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Alexander Davronov: Thank you for your thoughtful and considerate reply. We may have some disagreements here, but it is nice to meet an editor with whom one have a reasonable discussion with. Yes, I did check that. I'm always willing to the possibility that I might be wrong. Just a bit of background info. Once many moons ago, when I was studying history, I was planning to major in Russian history, which led me to read all sorts of books and articles on the subject. That plan was sadly derailed as the professor in charge of the Russian studies was an insufferably arrogant jerk whose views were the opposite of mine, and the possibility of studying under him for two more years was not appealing at all, forcing me to switch my focus. But before that happened, I read all sorts of books and articles on Russian history, and I seem to recall that about 99% of them used the plural term "emperor of all the Russias". There has got to be a reason for that.

Some Russian terms do get mistrusted. Take for an example, the famous Official Nationality ideology of the Emperor Nicholas I, which is usually translated into English as Nationalism, Orthodoxy, Autocracy. But the actual Russian term that is used by Nicholas means something more like national-mindness rather than nationalism. Which is not just a semantic difference. Russian nationalism or national-mindness in the Russian empire traditionally was defined in terms of loyalty to the House of Romanov. So in Nicholas's view, the people loyal to the Russian state were Russian and the people who were disloyal were not. This explains Nicholas's otherwise mysterious remark that the people who took place in the Decemberist rebellion ceased to be Russian the moment that they rebelled. This is a point that is not well understood around here, which has led to a number of editors who are probably acting in good faith to completely distort Nicholas's ideology and foreign policy. Nicholas was never a Russian nationalist in the ethnic sense. Anyone familiar with his reign will know that a disproportionate number of his ministers, generals, admirals, and advisers were Baltic German noblemen. Count Alexander von Benckendorff, the chief of the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Chancellery as the secret police were called and one of Nicholas's most trusted advisers was his name would suggest a Baltic German. The point here is that all these Baltic German aristocrats spoke German as their first language, but they all considered themselves to be good Russians because they were loyal to the Russian state. Likewise the emperor considered them to be loyal subjects and hence Russians. The article on Nicholas does not tell the reader this, but many of the conservative Slavophile intellectuals who were otherwise supportive of the monarchy were ethnic Russian nationalists and criticized the emperor for his dynastic conception of Russian nationalism, which promptly led to them being imprisoned or exiled to Siberia for their pains. This may sound a tangent here, but the point there were differing concepts of Russianness in the past. The editors who are acting in good faith, but in much ignorance in casting Nicholas I as an ethnic Russian nationalist as I noticed in a number of articles around here, seem not to be aware of this aspect of Russian history. I think the use of the plural term might reflect the viewpoint that any place was presumably loyal to the empire was Russia. As I already mentioned, the idea of a sense of Russianness based on the Russian language and culture is more of a 19th century development, and even then, the dynastic and ethnic concepts of Russianess uneasily co-existed right up until the end of the monarchy in 1917. I do not have any RS at hand as sadly my private library is in storage, but it might be worthwhile exploring this aspect of Russian history. There is an article on JSTOR that does talk about the concept of the "White Tsar" and how that the concept was used to persuade Muslim and Asian subjects of the empire to be good Russians (in the dynastic sense). I've try to see if I find it and bring some of that material into this article. Yes, I will admit Hartley does use the term emperor of all Russia as well. She states that term that was used in the reign of Ivan the Terrible was vseia Rusi, which believe can mean either "of all Russia" or "of all the Russias".

I'm OK if you want the article to use both singular and plural terms as long is all backed yo by a RS. I'm open to having the article give differing views of the subject and to note how things changed over time. Thank for your reply and best wishes! --A.S. Brown (talk) 08:02, 13 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

@A.S. Brown: …in the reign of Ivan the Terrible was vseia Rusi… As Russian I can tell you that Rusi is not just a plural form, but a possesive one. It indicates a subject of possession. I think it's a bit hard for a foreigner to grasp it but I can tell you for sure that it's an inflection of the word Rus' (Russian: Русь, the word is only partially inflectible in fact and the same word is used to indicate plural and singulare form).

The plural Russias may be considered a wrong translation of the said word but I'm fine with it given extensive sourcing.

…I've try to see if I find it and bring some of that material into this article. I would suggest you to not waste time on it because It doesn't belong to this article. Secondly, you may want to look at highly relevant Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality one. My best. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 10:14, 13 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

How do we know that the contraction "czar" from "ceasar" was actually PRONOUNCED in the contracted way in such EARLY times, not just written? In Russia "gospodar" was ALWAYS contracted in writing as "gdar", but it was NEVER pronounced that way and was only contracted in pronounciation to "gosudar" in the 18th century. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 16:05, 2 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I don't think the article makes any such claim. PepperBeast (talk) 22:00, 2 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Pepperbeast: I'm sorry, I didn't understand which claim. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 05:20, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I don't think the article makes any claims about the early pronunciation of Czar. This isn't a forum for general discussion. PepperBeast (talk) 12:21, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Pepperbeast: The article claims it was pronounced czar instead of ceasar more than 1000 years ago, doesn't it? Even if the article DOESN'T claim that, I'm still pretty sure almost everyone reading this article will get precisely THAT impression. So, it needs clarification. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 18:22, 4 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

There are many paragraphs with no references at all. I've marked them all with "Citation needed," and scattered it elsewhere through the text. This piece could use much better citations. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 02:58, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 14:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

User:Bulgarian.chad, I don't understand why the painting about Tsar Simeon by a famous artist as Alfons Mucha, which has been here for years, is removed from the article and replaced with an obviously copyright-infringed painting by a modern artist who almost is not known outside of Bulgaria. Please clarify this matter. Thanks.Jingiby (talk) 03:04, 5 October 2023 (UTC)Reply