From: "Stephan Nikolov" Subject: Re: Caucasoid Turks/Bulgars Date: 23 Apr 1999 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <7fqpna$7pa$1@news.ox.ac.uk> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <369E3BE1.5C45@sbu.ac.uk> <77li2j$qi0$1@whisper.globalserve.net> <369F52FE.2B6@sbu.ac.uk> <77rc86$auj$1@brokaw.wa.com> <36A444B3.F3B70F1C@alum.mit.edu.-> <7827sb$269$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36A52D70.9E372DD2@alum.mit.edu.-> <36A556AB.9927BD29@montclair.edu> <36a63533.58309714@news.yale.edu> <7866ud$i9m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36cdb21e.883120019@news.wxs.nl> <36A7FCC8.79790A6B@earthlink.net> <36d77e23.1000882888@news.wxs.nl> <36a8d455.81661202@news.yale.edu> <78pl3c$84o@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <36b0dc2f.3434839@news.yale.edu> <78v30o$vl6@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <36b34d7c.60430113@news.yale.edu> <794e84$4iq@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <3744d12a.1873763068@news.wxs.nl> <796m95$eq2@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <375c0ea6.1954957123@news.wxs.nl> <79fo99$qkl@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <371fb5a6.150957194@news.yale.edu> <7fpbqa$umb@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="koi8-r" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@ox.ac.uk X-Trace: news.ox.ac.uk 924903978 7978 163.1.171.102 (23 Apr 1999 21:46:18 GMT) Organization: Ste Peter's College, Oxford Mime-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Apr 1999 21:46:18 GMT Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology,sci.lang Vassil Karloukovski wrote in message <7fpbqa$umb@cpca3.uea.ac.uk>... >In article <371fb5a6.150957194@news.yale.edu>, cluster.user@yale.edu says... > >>> >>>now car i.e. tsar seems to have a solid latin etymology - from caesar >>>- old russian tsesar' (>ts'sar' > tsar'). > > >As the russian examples are much later, they are probably irrelevant to the >X-th c. bulgar(ian?) "tsar". > >caesar (in classical latin >>>pronounced "kaisar" - hence the german title) became like *ch*esar in >>>church latin (hence the italian pronounciation and hence the french >>>thus english). >>> >>>how was "czar" in old slavonic? >>> >>>I don't believe him. any thoughts? would the early christrian bulghars >>>be too proud to merely accpet byzantine "caesar"? > > >they must have been well aware that caesar wasn't the highest byzantine title. >Khan Tervel already had the title of caesar in 705 AD, it was given to him by >the emperor Justinian II Rhinotmetus for assisting his return to the throne. > >Why would Simeon nearly 200 years later want to assume the same title, when he >strove to become autocrator and styled himself basileus, emperor? The proclamation >of a Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarchate completely independent from Byzantium and >his ambitions to assume the rule in Constantinople itself show he wouldn't opt >for the second- or the third-best. > >>to which I recieved the reply from stephan nikolov: >> >>>The traditional interpretation is: from Latin, since c~ar^ [where ~ stays >>>above the the word and is abreviation symbol and ^= the letter "small er", >>>the vowel for ending). You will find this title in most Old Church Slavic >>>MSS. Most funily, the same form is attested in the Life of Constantine the >>>Pholosopher, which is allegedly written by his disciples about 880 in >>>Moravia. The problem is that the earliest MS if srom 15th century. Hence the >>>title might be a substitute of another one, which is unknown. I personally >>>can't imagine Cirillo-Methodian origin of the word: both Constantine and >>>Methodios were high ranked Byzantine officials and they would't call the >>>emperor (basileus) -- Caesar (c[jas]ar). Precisely in this period the >>>emperors of Constantinople were particularly sensitive on the matter of >>>titles. >>>The same in Bulgaria. The title car^ is the earliest attested in a seal by >>>Peter of Bulgaria (927 - 971), dated the middle of the 10th c. In the >>>earliest Slavic MSS the same form indicates the Byzantine emperor (12 >>>century where the text is taken). If it is the title kaisar (gr for Caesar) >>>it would have hardly been translated C ja s a r ^ (abbr. car) in the court >>>of Simeon -- who was student in Constantinople, wanted to marry his daughter >>>to the emperor and demanded the title basileus(imperator = emperor) for >>>himself. The letters of Romanus Lacapenus and Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos >>>indicate that indeed, the title basileus [of the Bulgars] was given to >>>Simeon and later to his son Peter. Neither Simeon, neither Emperor Romanus, >>>neither the patriarch Nicholas, nor the son of Simeon Peter, who was married >>>to the grand-daughter of the Byzantine emperor would have mistaken Caesar >>>for Emperor. In Latin, precisely in the same period (9th - 10th century) the >>>imperial title in the West was Augustus (August) not Caesar. > > >Thank you for the details. What is your view on the origin of "tsar" then? >Wasn't Ivan Grozni the first Russian ruler to assume this title, after he captured >the Kazan khanate (the former Volga Bulgaria) and added "ruler of Bulgaria" to >his title? If so, it would come to support that "tsar" was indeed bulgar. > > In my view the Latin Caesar got the meaning "emperor" (military title, popular among the legions all along the Rhine and the Danube limes) quite early and trough the Germanic and Gothic mercenaries became kaiser/ kaisar in Gothic and the German languages. It was from there the title came to Old Church Slavonic in central/south eastern Europe and then went to Russia. Ivan Grozni should have heard the title while listening to Slavonic Liturgies long before he even thought of waging war against the Kazan khanate. I see difficulties chesare to become tzjasar^, without the medium of a "kentum" form. SN