Birmingham.
In Voltaire's _History of the Russian Empire_, it is stated that the title
of Czar may possibly be derived front the _Tzars_ or _Tchars_ of the
kingdom of Casan. When John, or Ivan Basilides, Grand Prince of Russia, had
completed the reduction of this kingdom, he assumed this title, and it has
since continued to his successors. Before the reign of John Basilides, the
sovereigns of Russia bore the name of _Velike Knez_, that is, great prince,
great lord, great chief, which in Christian countries was afterwards
rendered by that of great duke. The Czar Michael Federovitz, on occasion of
the Holstein embassy, assumed the titles of Great Knez and Great Lord,
Conservator of all the Russias, Prince of Wolodimir, Moscow, Novogorod,
&c., Tzar of Casan, Tzar of Astracan, Tzar of Siberia. The name of _Tzar_
was therefore the title of those Oriental princes, and therefore it is more
probable for it to have been derived from the _Tshas_ of Persia than from
the Roman Cæsars, whose name very likely never reached the ears of the
Siberian Tzars on the banks of the Oby. In another part of Voltaire's
_History_, when giving an account of the celebrated battle of Narva, where
Charles XII., with nine thousand men and ten pieces of cannon, defeated
"the Russian army with eighty thousand fighting men, supported by one
hundred and forty-five pieces of cannon," he says, "Among the captives was
the son of a King of Georgia, whom Charles sent to Stockholm; his name was
_Mittelesky Czarowitz_, or Czar's Son, which is farther proof that the
title of Czar or Tzar was not originally derived from the Roman Cæsars." To
the above slightly abbreviated description may not be uninterestingly added
the language of Voltaire, which immediately follows the first reference:
"No title, how great soever, is of any signification, unless they who
bear it are great and powerful of themselves. The word _emperor_, which
denoted only the _general of an army_, became the title of the {227}
sovereigns of Rome and it is now conferred on the supreme governor of
all the Russias."