Tsar, also spelled czar, tzar or csar ( ), is a Slavic title derived from the Latin word caesar. It was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the term—a ruler with the same rank as a Roman emperor, holding it by the approval of another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official—but was usually considered by Western Europeans to be equivalent to "king".
Tsar and its variants were the official titles in the First Bulgarian Empire (681–1018), the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396), the Kingdom of Bulgaria (1908–1946), the Serbian Empire (1346–1371), and the Tsardom of Russia (1547–1721). The first monarch to adopt the title of tsar was Simeon I of Bulgaria. Simeon II, the last tsar of Bulgaria, is the last person (and only living person as of 2026) to have held this title.
Etymology The title tsar is derived from the Latin title caesar, used for the Roman emperors. It entered the Slavic languages through the Gothic term kaisar and was used as an equivalent of the Greek term basileus, which referred to Byzantine emperors and the kings of the Bible.
The spelling "czar" is first recorded in Sigismund von Herberstein's Notes on Muscovite Affairs (1549), transliterated using German phonology. English and French changed the spelling from to in the 19th century to better reflect the pronunciation.
Bulgaria
In 705, Emperor Justinian II named Tervel of Bulgaria "caesar" (), the first foreigner to receive this title, but his descendants continued to use the Bulgar title "Kanasubigi". 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) was 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 the Byzantine Empire 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 Byzantine political theory there was place for only two emperors, Eastern and Western (as in the Late Roman Empire), the Bulgarian ruler was crowned basileus as "a spiritual son" of the Byzantine basileus.Срђан Пириватрић. Самуилова држава. Београд, 1997.
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 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 proceeds to thank the pope for the "imperial title" conferred upon him.Innocentii pp. III epistolae ad Bulgariae historiam spectantes. Recensuit et explicavit Iv. Dujcev. Sofia, 1942.
After Bulgaria's liberation from the Ottomans in 1878, its new monarchs were at first autonomous prince (knyaz). 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 were not generally perceived as equivalents of "emperor" any longer. In the Bulgarian ,as in the Greek vernacular, the meaning of the title had shiftedНайден Геров. 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).
Serbia
The title of tsar (Serbian car) was used officially by two monarchs, the previous monarchical title being that of king (kralj). In 1345, Stefan Dušan began to style himself "Emperor of Serbs and Greeks" (the Greek renderings read "basileus and autokrator of Serbs and Romans"), and was crowned as such in Skopje on Easter (April 16) 1346 by the newly elevated Serbian patriarch, alongside the Bulgarian patriarch and archbishop of Ohrid. On the same occasion, he had his wife Helena of Bulgaria crowned as empress and his son associated in power as king. When Dušan died in 1355, his son Stefan Uroš V became the next emperor. 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.
Russia
The title tsar was used once by church officials of Kievan Rus' in the naming of Yaroslav the Wise, the grand prince of Kiev (). This may have related to Yaroslav's war against Byzantium and to his efforts to distance himself from Constantinople. However, other princes during the period of Kievan Rus' never styled themselves as tsars.Wladimir Vodoff. Remarques sur la valeur du terme "czar" appliqué aux princes russes avant le milieu du 15e siècle, in "Oxford Slavonic Series", new series, vol. XI. Oxford University Press, 1978. The first Russian ruler to openly break with the khan of the Golden Horde, Mikhail of Tver (), assumed the title basileus ton Ros, as well as tsar.A.V. Soloviev. "Reges" et "Regnum Russiae" au moyen âge, in "Byzantion", t. XXXVI. Bruxelles, 1966. The title of tsar was used to denote a fullness of a sovereign's power and was reserved to the Holy Roman emperor and the Byzantine emperor, and later the khan of the Golden Horde. In literature, it was also used in a wider sense to indicate an illustrious ruler. Unlike its usage in Bulgarian and Serbian, where the title of tsar was used to challenge the power of the basileus, it only had a religious or moral value when attributed to a Russian prince throughout most of the medieval period.
The grand princes of Moscow began using the title in foreign relations. Following his assertion of independence from the khan in 1476, Ivan III () adopted the title of sovereign of all Russia, and he later also 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, and as kejser in his correspondence with the Danish king, Teutonic Knights, and the Hanseatic League. Ivan's son Vasily III continued using these titles. Sigismund von Herberstein (1486–1566) observed that the titles of kaiser and imperator were attempts to render the Russian term tsar into German and Latin, respectively."Den Titel aines Khaisers, wiewol Er alle seine Brief nur Reissisch schreibt, darinn Er sich Czar nent, so schickht Er gemaincklich Lateinische Copeyen darmit oder darinn, und an stat des Czar setzen sy Imperator, den wir Teutsch Khaiser nennen". The title-inflation related to Russia's growing ambitions to become an Orthodox "third Rome", after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The monarch in Moscow was recognized as an emperor by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1514.Ostrowski, D. (2002). Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304–1589. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, p. 178.Lehtovirta, J. "The Use of Titles in Herberstein's "Commentarii". Was the Muscovite Tsar a King or an Emperor?" in Kӓmpfer, F. and Frӧtschner, R. (eds.) (2002) 450 Jahre Sigismund von Herbersteins Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii 1549–1999, Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 196–198.
However, the first Russian ruler to be formally crowned as tsar of all Russia was Ivan IV ("the Terrible"), in 1547. Some foreign ambassadors—namely, Herberstein (in 1516 and 1525), Daniel Printz a Buchau (in 1576 and 1578) and Just Juel (in 1709)—indicated that the word "tsar" should not be translated as "emperor", because it is applied by Russians to David, Solomon and other Biblical kings, who 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."Et ainsi retiennent le nom de Zar comme plus autentique, duquel nom il pleut iadis à Dieu d'honorer David, Salomon et autres regnans sur la maison de Iuda et Israel, disent-ils, et que ces mots Tsisar et Krol n'est que invention humaine, lequel nom quelqu'un s'est acquis par beaux faits d'armes". Samuel Collins, a court physician to Tsar Alexis in 1659–66, styled the latter "Great Emperor", 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 in 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".The Present State of Russia, in a Letter to a Friend at London. Written by an Eminent Person residing at Great Tzars Court at Mosco for the space of nine years. 2nd ed. London, 1671. pp. 54–55.
The title tsar remained in common usage, and also officially as part of various titles signifying rule over various states absorbed by the Russian monarchy (such as the former Tatar khanates and the Georgian Orthodox kingdom). In the 18th century, tsar was increasingly viewed as inferior to "emperor" or as highlighting the oriental side of the rank.Boris Uspensky. Царь и император: помазание на трон и семантика монарших титулов. Moscow: Языки русской культуры, 2000. . pp. 48–52. Upon annexing Crimea in 1783, Catherine the Great adopted the hellenicized title "tsaritsa of Tauric Chersonesos", rather than "tsaritsa of the Crimea". By 1815, when Russia annexed a large part of Poland, 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".
Among the indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Muslims of the Volga region, Central Asia and the Caucasus, the autocracy of the Russian Empire often became identified with the image of the "White Tsar" ().
By 1894, when Nicholas II ascended the throne, the full title of the Russian rulers was "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, Prince of Estonia, Livonia, Courland and Semigalia, Samogitia, Białystok, Karelia, Tver, Yugra, Perm, Vyatka, Bulgaria, and other territories; Lord and Grand Duke of Nizhny 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".Harcave, Sidney First Blood The Russian Revolution of 1905 Macmillan: London, 1964 p. 12
Montenegro
The title of tsar was only used one time in Montenegro, by Šćepan Mali, translated as "Stephen the Little". He was rumored to be former Russian emperor Peter III. He ruled the country of Montenegro as absolute monarch, and reigned as the tsar of Montenegro from 1768 until his death in 1773.
Metaphorical uses