Tsar
|
Monomakh's Cap symbol of Russian autocracy, the crown of Russian grand princes and tsars |
Tsar (
Bulgarian,
Serbian and
Macedonian цар,
Russian , in
scientific transliteration respectively
car and
car' ), often spelled
Czar or
Tzar and sometimes
Csar or
Zar in
English, is a Slavonic term for a
monarch.
"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 (or
1547) until
1721 (after 1721 and until
1917, the title was used officially only in reference to the Russian emperor's sovereignty over certain formerly independent states such as Poland and Georgia)
Originally, the title
tsar (derived from
Caesar) 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 (or, according to Byzantine ideology, the most elevated position
next to the one held by the Byzantine monarch) due to recognition by another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official (the
Pope or the
Oecumenical Patriarch). 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.
[Български тълковен речник. 3. изд. (the entry on цар in A Bulgarian explanatory dictionary).],
[Словарь современного русского литературного языка. Издательство Академии наук СССР. 1948-1965 (the entry on царь in The dictionary of the modern Russian literary language)]. For example, the title of the Bulgarian monarchs in the XXth century was not generally interpreted as imperial.
The word
tsar (царь,
car' ) is a contraction of the earlier
tsesar (цсарь,
cěsar' ), derived from the Roman title
Caesar, but not from its devalued Byzantine derivative
Kaisar (Καίσαρ). 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 (designating the foremost senator). 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 (
Augusti) and two junior emperors (
Caesares). In the Byzantine period the title
Caesar (in
Greek Kaisar) 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
despot"s and
sebastokratōr.
Like
German Kaiser,
Old Church Slavonic tsesar (цсарь) 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 (цѣсарь) and kesar (кесарь) with different meanings (corresponding to, respectively the Byzantine Emperor (
Basileus) and Byzantine
Kaisar) in early
Cyrillic texts. The word is thus cognate with
German Kaiser,
Gothic káisar,
Dutch keizer,
Danish kejser,
Swedish kejsare,
Norwegian keiser, and (through Slavonic)
Hungarian császár. The contraction of
tsesar (цѣсарь) into
tsar (царь) occurred by the way of shorthand writing of titles in Slavonic manuscripts (see
Titlo article). One may see examples of this in older copies of the Slavic
Primary Chronicle. The first attested examples seem date from the 10th-century grave inscription of Mostič from
Preslav (see under
Bulgaria below).
Modern usage seems to have standardized on the use of
tsar to describe former rulers of Russia (and often Bulgaria and Serbia), while
czar is used to informally describe an expert in charge of implementing policy (especially in the US):
economics czar,
drug czar, etc.
The Russian pronunciation of
tsar is , the Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian one (in
IPA notation) 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 'ц' ('ts') in Slavic languages employing the Latin alphabet (e.g., Croatian, Czech, Polish). Both
czar and
tsar have been accepted in English for the last century as a correct usage. 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 (see the
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition). The spelling
tzar with 'z' is also very common, and represents an alternative transliteration of the first letter
ц, derived from German.
The early spelling
czar originated with the
Austrian diplomat Baron
Sigismund von Herberstein, whose
Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii (
1549), '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.
The Sainted
Boris I is sometimes retrospectively referred to as tsar, because at his time
Bulgaria was converted to Christianity. However, the title "tsar" (and its
Byzantine Greek equivalent "
basileus") 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.
Some of the earliest attested occurrences of the contraction "tsar" (
car' ) from "tsesar" (
cěsar' ) are found in the grave inscription of the
čărgubil (
ičirgu-boila) Mostič, 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 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.
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. The rulers of the Second Bulgarian Empire were recognized as emperors by Byzantium, Serbia,
Hungary,
Venice, and
Genoa, and even by the previously reticent
Papacy, among others. In Latin sources the Emperor of Bulgaria is sometimes designated "Emperor of Zagora" (with variant spellings). 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.
After Bulgaria's liberation from the Ottomans in
1878, its new monarchs were at first
autonomous prince (
knjaz). 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. (In the same way as the modern rulers of Greece used the traditional title of
basileus). 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
[Найден "еров. 1895-1904. Речник на блъгарский язик. (the entry on цар in Naiden Gerov's Dictionary of the Bulgarian Language) ] (although
Paisius'
Slavonic-Bulgarian History (1760-1762) had still distinguished between the two concepts) and the rulers of these countries were recognized only as kings by international diplomacy.
In Russia the term tsar had been used, apart from references to the Byzantine Emperor, for the
Mongol (
Tatar) overlords of the Russian principalities, and from about
1480 by "
Veliki Kniaz (
Grand Prince)
Ivan III of
Moscow, following his assertion of independence from the
Golden Horde and perhaps also his marriage to an heiress of the
Byzantine Empire. This was related to Russia's growing ambitions to become an Orthodox "
Third Rome", after the
Constantinople had fallen. The Muscovite ruler was recognized as an emperor by the emperor of the
Holy Roman Empire in
1514, during the reign of
Vasili III. 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 in
1547. In the In
1721 an edict of
Peter I the Great decreed that the Latin-based title
imperator should be used instead. 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 (such as the former Mongol khanates and the Georgian Orthodox kingdom). 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"
[ ], (and the puppet
Kingdom of Poland was officially called
Królewstwo Polskie in Polish and
Царство Польское -
Tsardom of Poland - in Russian
[ ]) (see also
Full style of Russian Sovereigns below). 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 (Божию Милостию, Император и Самодержец 'сероссийский [
Bozhiyu Milostiyu, Imperator i Samodyerzhets Vserossiysky]) 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,
Białystok,
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,
Mstislav, and all northern territories ; Ruler of
Iveria,
Kartalinia, and the
Kabardinian lands and
Armenian territories - hereditary Ruler and Lord of the
Cherkess 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 (1 November 1894 - 15 March 1917) was titled as follows (notice the archaic Cyrillic spelling): :Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію МЫ, НИКОЛАЙ 'ТОРЫЙ ИМПЕРАТОРЪ и САМО"ЕРЖЕЦЪ 'СЕРОССІЙСКІЙ :Московский, Кіевскій, 'ладимірскій, Новгородскій, :Царь Казанскій, Царь Астраханскій, Царь Польскій, Царь Сибирскій, Царь Херсониса Таврическаго, Царь "рузинскій, :"осударь Псковскій, и :'еликій Князь Смоленскій, Литовскій, 'олынскій, Подольскій и Финляндскій; :Князь Эстляндскій, Лифляндскій, Курляндскій и Семигальскій, Самогитскій, Бѣлостокский, Корельскій, :Тверскій, Югорскій, Пермскій, 'ятскій, Болгарскій и иныхъ; :"осударь и 'еликій Князь Новагорода низовскія земли, Черниговскій, Рязанскій, Полотскій, :Ростовскій, Ярославскій, Бѣлозерскій, Удорскій, Обдорскій, Кондійскій, 'итебскій, Мстиславскій и :всея Сѣверныя страны Повелитель; и :"осударь Иверскія, Карталинскія и Кабардинскія земли и области Арменскія; :Черкасскихъ и "орскихъ Князей и иныхъ Наслѣдный "осударь и Обладатель; :"осударь Туркестанскій; :Наслѣдникъ Норвежскій, :"ерцогъ Шлезвигъ-"олстинскій, Стормарнскій, "итмарсенскій и Ольденбургскій, и прочая, и прочая, и прочая.
*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' (
khan) title (as the Ottoman Great Sultans did in several cases), 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 (Islamic)
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 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 (but actually subordinate) Polish Kingdom, nominally in personal union with Russia, established by the
Congress of Vienna in
1815 (hence also called "
Congress Poland"), 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 (
Króls) 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,
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 (царица) is the term used for an
Empress, though in English contexts this seems invariably to be altered to
tsarina (since 1717, from Italian
czarina, from German
Zarin). In
Imperial Russia, the official title was Empress (Императрица). Tsaritsa (Empress) could be either the ruler herself or the wife (
Empress consort) of the tsar. The title of tsaritsa is used in the same way in Bulgaria and Serbia.
Tsesarevich (Цесаревич) (literally, "son of the tsar") is the term for a
male heir apparent, the full title was
Heir Tsesarevich ("Naslednik Tsesarevich", Наследник Цесаревич), informally abbreviated in Russia to
The Heir ("Naslednik") (from the capital letter).
Tsarevich (царевич) was the term for a son. In older times the term was used in place of "Tsesarevich" (Цесаревич). A son who was not a heir was formally called
Velikii Kniaz ('еликий Князь) (
Grand Duke). The latter title was also used for grandsons (through male lines).
Tsarevna (царевна) was the term for a daughter and a granddaughter of a Tsar or Tsaritsa. The official title was
Velikaya Kniaginya ('еликая Княгиня), translated as
Grand Duchess or
Grand Princess.
See also
Grand Duchess for more details on the
Velikaya Kniaginya title.
Tsesarevna (Цесаревна) 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.
After Russia had established its protectorate over the (also Eastern Orthodox) kingdom of Georgia, the Russian Emperor recognised the following styles and titles as of
24th September 1783 (Old Style)
*for its 'Hereditary Sovereign and Prince' (in fact now a vassal) until the annexation, when he himself added this realm to his full style with the same title of Tsar:
The Most Serene Tsar (reign name),
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 (varying in time, but here is the latest example):
The Mepe-Umaglesi 'Most High King' (reign name),
by the will of our Lord, Mepe-Mepeta 'King of Kings' of the Abkhazis, Kartvelians, Ranians, Kakhetians and the Armenians, Shirvanshah and Shahanshah (two Persian titles, royal viz. imperial) and Master of all the East and West.
*All sons of the Georgian Sovereign, including the Heir, were styled:
Tsarevitch 'Prince' (given name) (father's name)
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' (given name) (father's name) 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 (given name) (father's name)
Bagration (the name of the royal dynasty, which has also ruled in Armenia), frequently with a territorial or other designation, e.g. Bagration-Mukhranskii 'Bagration of Mukhrani'.
The title Tsar was also used in Serbia, but only by two monarchs "
Stefan Uroš IV Dušan and
Stefan Uroš V between
1345 and
1371. Earlier Serbian monarchs had used the royal title
King (краљ,
kralj) since
1217, which had been granted by the
Papacy during a brief union with the Western Church. In
1345 Stefan Uroš IV Dušan began to style himself "Emperor of Serbians and Greeks" (the Greek renderings read "emperor and autocrat of Serbians and Romans"), and was crowned as such in
Skopje on
Easter (April 16)
1346 by the newly created Serbian patriarch, alongside with the Bulgarian patriarch and the autocephalous archibishop of Ohrid. On the same occarion, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan had his wife Elena of Bulgaria crowned as empress and his son associated in power as king. When Stefan Uroš IV Dušan died in
1355, his son Stefan Uroš V became the next "emperor of Serbians and Greeks". The new emperor's uncle
Simeon Uroš (Siniša) contested the succession and claimed the same titles as a dynast in Thessaly. After his death around
1370, he was succeeded in his claims by his son
John Uroš, who retired to a monastery in about
1373.
With the extinction of Nemanjid dynasty in Serbia in
1371, the imperial title became obsolete (though it was retained by Stefan Uroš IV's widow Elena of Bulgaria until her death in
1376/
1377). The royal title was preserved by
Vukašin, a Serbian ruler in
Macedonia, who had been associated by Stefan Uroš V as king, but lapsed on the death of his son
Marko in
1395. The
Bosnian ban
Tvrtko I also assumed the Serbian royal title, but he and his heirs reigned as kings of
Bosnia, while Sebia proper remained under the rule of princes, occasionally granted the Byzantine title of
despot"s.
When Serbia, which had emerged as an autonomous principality after a long period of Ottoman domination, became an independent kingdom, its prince,
knjaz, adopted the traditional title of king,
kralj. The King's full style was, between
6 March 1882 and
1 December 1918 (New Style):
Po milosti Božjoj i volji narodnoj kralj Srbije "
By the grace of God and the will of the nation, King of Serbia".
Again, when the Serbian dynasty came to rule an enlarged kingdom, including
Croatia and
Slovenia, three peoples on the Balkan peninsula, after a decade generally collectively referred to as
Yugoslavs (literally
"Southern Slavonic"), its full style remained accordingly:
* 1 December 1918 (New Style) - 3 October 1929:
Po milosti Božjoj i volji narodnoj kralj Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca "
By the Grace of God and will of the people, King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes";
* 3 October 1929 - 29 November 1945:
Po milosti Božjoj i volji narodnoj kralj Jugoslavije "By the Grace of God and will of the people, King of Yugoslavia".
Several other Serbian rulers are known traditionally but incorrectly as Tsars, although they realistically can not be called so:
*
Lazar of Serbia*
Tsar Jovan Nenad*
Tsar Stephen the LittleNowadays, only Serbian (along with the closely related Croatian, Bosnian, and Slovene languages) preserves to a significant extent the original use of the term.
"Emperor" is commonly translated as
tsar, whereas the equivalent of
king (
kralj, краљ) is used to designate monarchs of non-imperial status, Serbian as well as foreign. In contrast, in the Bulgarian and Russian languages, the term
tsar has come to be interpreted as a default term for a monarch and signifies ancient and Biblical rulers, as well as monarchs in fairy tales and the like. Unlike Serbian, the title of
king (Russian
korol' , Bulgarian
kral) is perceived as alien and is reserved for (West) European royalty (and, by extension, for those modern monarchs outside of Europe whose titles are translated as
king in English,
roi in French etc.). Foreign monarchs of imperial status, both inside and outside of Europe, ancient as well as modern, are generally called
imperator (император), rather than
tsar.
This change can be explained in different ways. In part, it might be due to the familiarity of the title to a tsar's subjects. It can also be regarded as a derivative of the original flexibility of the Greek term
basileus. The word originally meant something like "chieftain", 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" in the contemporary vernacular. Accordingly, these rulers were "tsars" in the Slavonic translations, and are still called so in Bulgarian and Russian (but not in Serbian).
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 (Czech
král, Slovak
král' , Polish
król), an emperor is designated with another, derived from
Caesar as in German (Czech
císař, Slovak
cisár, Polish
cesarz), while the exotic term "tsar" (Czech and Polish
car, Slovak
cár) is reserved for the Russian emperor.
Like many lofty titles, e.g.
Mogul, Tsar or Czar has been used as a metaphor for positions of high authority, in English since 1866 (referring to U.S. President Andrew Johnson), with a connotation of dictatorial powers and style, fitting since "Autocrat" was an official title of the Russian Emperor (informally referred to as 'the Czar').
This use is not limited to statesmen, e.g. 'drug czar' for the head of the
Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. agency against illegal narcotics, or "terrorism czar" for a Presidential advisor on terrorism policy.
*additional value of the title of Emperor see
imperium maius.
*The following articles list Tsars, among otherwise styled rulers:
**
List of Bulgarian monarchs**
List of Serbian monarchs**
List of Russian rulers*
History of Bulgaria*
History of Russia*
History of Belarus*
History of Finland*
History of Poland*
History of Ukraine*
History of Serbia*
History of Yugoslavia*
Lists of incumbents
* George Ostrogorsky, "Avtokrator i samodržac",
Glas Srpske kraljevske akadamije CLXIV, Drugi razdred 84 (1935), 95-187
* John V.A. Fine, Jr.,
The Early Medieval Balkans, Ann Arbor, 1983
* John V.A. Fine, Jr.,
The Late Medieval Balkans, Ann Arbor, 1987
* Robert O. Crummey,
The Formation of Muscovy 1304-1613, New York, 1987
* David Warnes,
Chronicle of the Russian Tsars, London, 1999
*
The entry on tsar in the
Eleventh Edition of Encyclopædia Britannica (1911)*
EtymOnline*
WorldStatesmen- see each present country*
Detailed List of Roman and Byzantine Rulers*
Detailed List of Bulgarian Rulers*
Detailed List of Russian Rulers*
Detailed List of Serbian Rulers*
Detailed List of Georgian Rulers
