Titles of Russian rulers

Throughout the history of Russian statehood, only a few terms have been replaced by the rulers of the country, and this series allows you to make curious observations. This is this series: the prince ( Verkhny Prince ), Kagan , Tsar , Emperor , Chairman (Central Executive Committee or Supreme Council), Secretary General , President .

Observation is the first: all these terms are borrowed ( the pre -Deliever is tracing paper from the same “president”). This is natural: Russia did not belong to the original foci of civilization, statehood arose here later than in other places. So there were guidelines for new forms of organization, and there was a very high probability that the early Slavs would take this opportunity. They took advantage of.

The word "prince", Old Russian. KNѩz , according to the almost unanimous conclusion of linguists, was borrowed in the Pre-Slavic or Early Slavic period from the early Germans. The form * Kuningaz is restored in Pragermansky , in Lithuania it gave the form of Kunigas , in the Old Russian ending, the ending in the suffix - ING is naturally transmitted by the nasal Yus, which moved to the "I".

These early Germans could be Goths. Other words and other words moved to Slavic speech: bread , stable , sword , duty , washing ( tax ), church , letter . The fact is that the Goths in the II century n. e. They moved from the shores of the Baltic Sea to the North Black Sea region and created a large state between the Dnieper and the Danube, which reached the greatest power under King Hermanich. The state lasted two centuries and in the second half of the 4th century it was estimated by the invasion of the Huns. The Goths went west and partially in the Crimea. In the meantime, the state lived, its power extended to the more northern, early Slavic tribes, which were exposed to German influence. Their exact location at this time has not yet been determined, there are disputes whether the monuments of this time of the Kiev region or the western ones are referred to them, but somewhere here the ancestors of reliable Slavs of the V-VII centuries (Prague type cultures) lived here.

The hardener is that just in the Gothic language the form of Kuning- (> German. König, English King) is absent (Jordan 1 King- Thiudans or Rīg). But this is in the attested monuments of Gotsky, the form could not get into them. In addition, from the Goths to them, other Germans went to the Black Sea region - hepides, bastards, rusia. And most importantly, among the early Germans , Kunin did not mean the “king”. This meant the “generic elder”, “priest” from Kuni , Kunne “Rod”. And among the Slavs the word prince initially meant the same thing, it can be seen from the Knez in the South Slavic languages ​​“Elder”, “Military Leader”, Polish Ksens- “Priest”.

Gradually, power tribal leaders stood out from the tribal foreman, and the prince began to gain the meaning with which it was known at the dawn of written history, an aristocratic military leader, the hereditary head of the tribe, the local king. And then one of the princes sat on the throne of a large state, began to be called the “Grand Duke”, and the rest, the princes related to him became “specific”. It must be assumed that the arrival of the Normans with their horses was strengthened by the acquisition of this meaning by the term prince (his kinship with the term Konung could not slip away from the bilingual princes of the first generations of the Rurikovich).

At the beginning of this relatively short time of the addition of new forms of political life, when not only the terms and concepts, but also the forms themselves came from the side (here in the person of the Normans), another title for the person of state power - Hakan or Kagan flashed. In the Bertinsky Annals of the IX century, the Lord of the Normans “Hakan Ros” who came to Byzantium and France, and Kyiv monks and a little later called the Kyiv prince “Kagan”. Although the closest neighbor of the Khazar Kaganate accepted the Jewish religion, with Jewish Kagans, or Kochens, Coins (a clan of clergy), the Kiev Kagan had nothing to do. Kagan, or Hakan, or Khan Khan (Khan Khanov) was the title of the lord among the nomads in a number of Kaganates - Khazarsky, Avar, Turkic, Uygursky and others. The use of the Title Kiev was aimed at increasing the prestige of the Kiev ruler, equalizing him with khans khans. But the nomadic specificity of the kaganates did not allow this form to take root in Rus'.

The next title, the king , is a derivative of the personal name of Caesar, or, by earlier reading, Caesar (Caesar). The fact is that by the time Caesar came to power in Rome (the 1st century BC), the republican form of government decomposed and fell into decay, it was time for dictatorship, replaceable and elected power had to give way to the sole and hereditary, but the traditions, also enhanced by the conservatism of the new rulers, demanded that everything be externally as before - the republican form of government, democratic procedures, elected posts. No sovereigns of the past. And life gave birth to new concepts - they were the same as before, but it was no longer possible to call it. And now the republican positions (for example, the emperor, that is, at first a military manager) became essentially dictatorial, autocratic, hereditary, or personal names of rulers (Caesar) were transformed into the birth designations of dictators (a number of Caesars) and, finally, simply into the title, and the title was spread to many countries. The name Kesar became a title (Caesarean Caesar ...) in Rome and Greece, then began to be used in Germany and Austria-Hungary (Kaiser). In the South Slavic and East Slavic languages, in particular in Old Russian, the Byzantine reading of Caesar gave the Sar , it was reduced to Tssar and, finally, to the king . This is not only with Caesar. The same reification of the name occurred with Karl the Great. Karl fought with the Western Slavs, and, apparently, his successes made a great impression on the Slavs. Many Slavic (and only Slavic!) States began to call their sovereigns kings. And by analogy, many Western states began to be called kingdoms, which do not call themselves kingdoms (according to Karl).

Here is the second observation: many Titula terms are masking in origin or proceed from the cult of outstanding leaders. That is, they do not reflect the main meaning of the concept: power and associated privileges.

The king was originally called the Byzantine Princeps in Rus', and its capital was called Constantinople. Since 893, the tsar’s title was adopted by the Bulgarian rulers, then they began to denote the biblical rulers, translating the term Basilevs from the Greek. Since the 11th century, times, this term ( king ) began to apply this term in relation to the Russian Grand Dukes, but only unofficially, as if figuratively, figuratively. But having fallen under the power of the Tatar-Mongol khans, they began to call the rulers of the Horde-in the documents since 1267. However, Ivan III in 1497 crowned his grandson Dmitry Ivanovich officially to the kingdom, but since then this heir was exalted and thrown into prison, the title was covered in oblivion. Vasily III was again called the Grand Duke. Only his son, Ivan the Terrible, declared himself a king in 1547, and even conquered the Kazan and Siberian khanates, so that the tsarist power passed from the Horde to Moscow.

Observation of the third (however, made by historians before me): the prototype of the Russian kingdom is not Byzantium, but the horde.

The title of the emperor, who made purely military and comprehensive, and hereditary, switched from Italy and Byzantium to the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, which the empire was finally reduced to the Austro-Hungarian. In 1721, Peter I adopted the same title in Russia, thereby emphasizing the multinationality of his state and its claim to a leading role in Europe. A century later, Napoleon took the same title for the same purpose. The Empire of Napoleon fell in 1815, the Romanov empire in 1917.

Bunin's “Cursed Days” began and “Years of the Fatherhood” by Zhebelev 2 . Ba! Again, the titles of the revolutionary force went - the chairmen of the Central Executive Committee of the People’s Power or the working class, which did not represent any people, and even more so the working class, and they themselves were this power over the people and over the working class ... But the revolutionary ideology and revolutionary terminology, especially in the designations of power, were flooded: commissars, revolutionary leaders, foundations of the new faith. The Secretary Generals ruled - General Secretaries ... What a secretary is there! It was his generals who were in secretaries, guards and guarantees. Then they changed everything to the global president , but they chose one ruler from one candidate, whom the ruler himself chose, himself or through his henchmen. Now we have departed from this primitive, which has been preserved in some places in the world, for example, in the poor and armed to the teeth of North Korea with its dynasty of the presidents of Kimov.

Our mechanism has become more cunning: there are a lot of candidates, but competitors are cut off on distant approaches (an inventure for this lot), they are not allowed to communicate with the masses of voters - all the funds of the one who already have power and the title, and his assistants conduct the results. So everyone knows in advance what the result will be. And so everything is like people: president, prime minister, deputy prime ministers, ministers, parliament (only feminine-Duma), courts ... But they do not function, but pretend.

The fourth observation: where the titles do not have a direct meaning, and are created to mask other methods of dominance, which is declared, other political systems, everything else in society also only imitates evolution and success.

1 Jordan - author of the VI century n. e., the historian is ready, the goth himself and the Christian. The main ancient text is in the Goths.

2 Sergey Aleksandrovich Zhebelev (1867–441)-Russian and Soviet philologist-classic, specialist in the field of ancient history, epigraphics, archeology, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, remained in the blockade Leningrad to lead science and died of exhaustion.