Tsar Sentence Examples

The only difference was that the tsar had cut himself off from them, and they were not even to communicate with him except on extraordinary and exceptional occasions.

Causes could be evoked to the tsar himself, " when any partiality of the judges in any affair in which they themselves were interested was discovered" (ib.).

The Tsar won't forget your service.

He really was in love with the Tsar and the glory of the Russian arms and the hope of future triumph.

The young tsar married the boyarinya Lopukhina at his mother's command.

Thus, for want of funds, Alexander was unable to assist the Grand Master of the Order of the Sword against Muscovite aggression, or prevent Tsar Ivan III.

On the 16th of January 1547, he was crowned the first Russian tsar by the metropolitan of Moscow; on the 3rd of February in the same year he selected as his wife from among the virgins gathered from all parts of Russia for his inspection, Anastasia Zakharina-Koshkina, the scion of an ancient and noble family better known by its later name of Romanov.

The siege was long and costly; the army suffered severely; and only the tenacity of the tsar kept it in camp for six weeks.

Ivan was also the first tsar who dared to attack the Crimea.

The tsar himself lived in an atmosphere of apprehension, imagining that every man's hand was against him.

Their first and most notable victim was Philip, the saintly metropolitan of Moscow, who was strangled for condemning the oprichina as an unchristian institution, and refusing to bless the tsar (1569).

In 1671 the tsar Alexius and Artamon were already on intimate terms, and on the retirement of Orduin-Nashchokin Matvyeev became the tsar's chief counsellor.

But the reactionary boyars, among whom were the near kinsmen of Theodore, proclaimed him tsar and Matvyeev was banished to Pustozersk, in northern Russia, where he remained till Theodore's death (April 27, 1682).

He reached Moscow on the 15th of May, prepared "to lay down his life for the tsar," and at once proceeded to the head of the Red Staircase to meet and argue with the assembled stryeltsi, who had been instigated to rebel by the anti-Petrine faction.

Prince Alexander, who was born on the 5th of April 1857, was nephew of the tsar Alexander II., who had married a sister of Prince Alexander of Hesse; his mother, a daughter of Count Moritz von Hauke, had been lady-in-waiting to the tsaritsa.

When Bulgaria under the Berlin Treaty was constituted an autonomous principality under the suzerainty of Turkey, the tsar recommended his nephew to the Bulgarians as a candidate for the newly created throne, and Prince Alexander was elected prince of Bulgaria by unanimous vote of the Grand Sobranye (April 29, 1879).

After attempting to govern under these conditions for nearly two years, the prince, with the consent of the tsar Alexander III., assumed absolute power (May 9, 1881), and a suspension of the ultra-democratic constitution for a period of seven years was voted by a specially convened assembly (July 13).

The tsar, Alexander III., under the impression of the assassination of his father, desired, however, the renewal of the Dreikaiserbund, both as a guarantee of European peace and as a conservative league against revolutionary parties.

On the 23rd of April 1698 he entertained the tsar, Peter the Great, at Wimbledon.

The tsar Theodore in 1587 exercised the power of the Byzantine emperors by deposing the metropolitan, Dionysius Grammaticus (Mouravieff, p. 125).

It consists of a small number of bishops and priests nominated by the tsar, and is assisted by a " procurator," who is a layman, who explains to it the limits of its jurisdiction and serves as the medium of communication between it and the autocrat and secular authorities.

Crushed in battle by Peter's general, Patrick Gordon, they ceased to exist as a military force, and about 2000 of them who fell into the hands of the tsar were barbarously tortured and put to death.

A small -mausoleum contains the remains of Prince Alexander; there are monuments to the tsar Alexander II., to Russia, to the medical officers who fell in the war of 1877 and to the patriot Levsky.

Popularly, however, the emperor is known by his old Russian title of tsar.

Not the least valuable of the gifts of the " tsar emancipator," Alexander II., to Russia was the judicial System system established by the statute (Sudebni Ustav) of the 10th of November 1864.

Its head is the tsar; but although he makes and annuls all appointments, he does not determine questions of dogmatic theology.

Though twice crucified and once flayed by order of the tsar, he always rose again, and did not die till 1716.

Now the tsar of Muscovy and of all Russia adopted the airs and methods of a Tatar khan and surrounded himself with the pomp and splendours of a Byzantine emperor.

Only once during this period did the young tsar come forward and assert his authority.

From the earliest times the term tsar - a contraction of the word Caesar - had been applied to the kings in Biblical history and the Byzantine emperors, and Ivan III.

Those of the Volga and the Don professed allegiance to the tsar of Muscovy, whilst those of the Dnieper recognized at first as their suzerain the king of Poland.

He met with such a favourable reception from the tsar that on his return to England a special envoy was sent to Moscow by Queen Mary, and he succeeded in obtaining for his countrymen the privilege of trading freely in Russian towns.

Having thus gained the support of a large majority of the landed proprietors and the ecclesiastics, Boris Godunov increased his influence to such an extent that on the Boris death of Tsar Feodor without male issue in 1598 he Godunov, was elected his successor by a Great National Assembly.

The chief con spirator, Shuiski, seized the power and was elected tsar by an Assembly composed of his faction, but neither Shuiski, the ambitious boyars, nor the pillaging Cossacks, nor the German mercenaries were satisfied with the change, and soon a new impostor, likewise calling himself Dimitri, son of Tsar Ivan, came forward as the rightful heir.

In a short time the invaders were expelled, and a Grand National Assembly elected as tsar Michael Romanov, the young son of the metropolitan Philaret, who was connected by marriage with the late dynasty.

In the reign of Michael's successor, Alexius (1645-76), the country recovered its strength so rapidly that the tsar was tempted to revive the energetic aggressive policy and put forward claims to Livonia, Lithuania and Little Russia, but he was obliged to moderate his pretensions.

For some time Tsar Alexius hesitated, because he knew that intervention could entail a war with Poland, but after consulting a National Assembly on the subject, he decided to take Little Russia under his protection, and in January 1654 a great Cossack assembly ratified the arrangement, on the understanding that a large part of the old local autonomy should be preserved.

In the expected war with Poland, which followed quickly, the Russians were so successful that the arrangement was upheld; but it was soon found that the Cossacks, though they professed unbounded devotion to the Orthodox tsar, disliked Muscovite, quite as much as Polish, interference in their internal affairs, and some of their leaders were in favour of substituting federation with Poland for annexation by Russia.

So, my dear boy, you wish to serve the Tsar and the country?

Hurrah!" thundered from all sides, one regiment after another greeting the Tsar with the strains of the march, and then "Hurrah!"... Then the general march, and again "Hurrah!

Till the Tsar reached it, each regiment in its silence and immobility seemed like a lifeless body, but as soon as he came up it became alive, its thunder joining the roar of the whole line along which he had already passed.

Stopping in front of the Pavlograds, the Tsar said something in French to the Austrian Emperor and smiled.

The Tsar called the colonel of the regiment and said a few words to him.

The Tsar said something more which Rostov did not hear, and the soldiers, straining their lungs, shouted "Hurrah!"

The Tsar stopped a few minutes in front of the hussars as if undecided.

Toward evening Dolgorukov came back, went straight to the Tsar, and remained alone with him for a long time.

At six in the evening, Kutuzov went to the Emperor's headquarters and after staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the grand marshal of the court, Count Tolstoy.

The Tsar heard but obviously did not like the reply; he shrugged his rather round shoulders and glanced at Novosiltsev who was near him, as if complaining of Kutuzov.

The Tsar looked intently and observantly into Kutuzov's eye waiting to hear whether he would say anything more.

What was he now to say to the Tsar or to Kutuzov, even if they were alive and unwounded?

Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an unkind look or bad opinion from him, Rostov decided; and sorrowfully and with a heart full despair he rode away, continually looking back at the Tsar, who still remained in the same attitude of indecision.

I've served the Tsar and my countwy honowably and have not stolen!

As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which presented arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and at the head of them Rostov recognized Napoleon.

It struck him as a surprise that Alexander treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter to him.

His excellency Prince Andrew himself gave me orders to move all the people away and not leave them with the enemy, and there is an order from the Tsar about it too.

He has betrayed his Tsar and his country, he has gone over to Bonaparte.

Is that their Tsar himself?

Denisov had Tikhon called and, having praised him for his activity, said a few words in the elder's presence about loyalty to the Tsar and the country and the hatred of the French that all sons of the fatherland should cherish.

A paper has come from the Tsar!' so they began looking for him," here Karataev's lower jaw trembled, "but God had already forgiven him--he was dead!

The clergy left the matter to the tsar's own decision.

At this time he was chief of the staff of the Russian army and adjutant-general to the tsar.

A few months later occurred in Moscow a great fire, which destroyed nearly the whole of the city, and a serious popular tumult, in which the tsar's uncle was murdered by the populace.

His son and successor, Theodore (Feodor), was a weak man of saintly character, very ill fitted to consolidate his father's work and maintain order among the ambitious, turbulent nobles; but he had the good fortune to have an energetic brother-in-law, with no pretensions to sanctity, called Boris Godunov, who was able, with the tsar's moral support, to keep his fellow-boyars in order.

Under the influence of the great nobles who had unsuccessfully opposed the election of Godunov, the general discontent took the form of hostility to him as a usurper, and rumours were heard that the late tsar's younger brother Dimitri (Demetrius), supposed The to be dead, was still alive and in hiding.

Like the tsar, he had the official title of " Great Lord " (veliki gosudar), and he had his palace, his court-dignitaries, his retinue, his boyars and his officials all organized on the model of those of the sovereign.

His pretensions and his haughty dictatorial manner at last exhausted the tsar's patience, and he was formally deposed and exiled to a monastery.

He determined also to introduce into the Church many desirable reforms. His project was approved by an ecclesiastical council and was supported by the tsar, but it met with violent opposition from a large section of the clergy, and it alarmed the ignorant masses, who regarded any alterations in the ritual, however insignificant they might be, as heretical and very dangerous to salvation.

The emperor, the governments of England, Holland, France and Sweden, and even the Grand Turk made advances to the tsar.

The late tsar's eldest son, Theodore, was weak in health and died Theodore without male issue after an uneventful reign of six III..

Having obtained these important concessions the tsar imagined for a moment that in any further territorial changes he would be consulted and his advice allowed due weight, and he seems even to have indulged in the hope that the affairs of Europe might be directed by himself and his new ally.

The tsar, though he came to know of their existence, refrained from taking repressive measures against them, and when he died suddenly at Taganrog on the 1st of December 1825, two of them made an attempt to realize their political aspirations.

The heir to the throne was the late tsar's eldest brother, Constantine, but he declined, for private reasons, to accept the succession, and a few days elapsed before the second brother, I., Nicholas, was proclaimed emperor.

Under pressure from Treaty of England and France the Egyptians retreated and the Unklar- Russian forces were withdrawn, but the tsar had mean- Skelessl, while (July 8, 1833) concluded with the sultan the 1833' treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, which constituted ostensibly a defensive and offensive alliance between the two Powers and established virtually a Russian protectorate over Turkey.

Partly from disappointment and nervous exhaustion, and partly from a conviction that the country required rest in order to judge the practical results of the reforms already accomplished, the tsar refrained from further initiating new legislation, and the government gave it to be understood that the epoch of the great reforms was closed.

Had the tsar been satisfied with this important success, which enabled him to rebuild Sevastopol and construct a Black Sea fleet, his reign might have been a peaceful and prosperous one, but he tried to recover the remainder of what - had been lost by the Crimean War, the province of Turkish Bessarabia and predominant influence in Turkey.

The greater part of the territory was formally incorporated into the empire, and the petty potentates, such as the khan of Khiva and the amir of Bokhara, who were allowed to retain a semblance of their former sovereignty, became obsequious vassals of the White Tsar.

Gradually, however, a great change took place in the tsar's views with regard to the German alliance.

In the complimentary speeches delivered by the president of the French Republic and the tsar, France and Russia were referred to as allies, and the term " nations alliees " was afterwards repeatedly used on occasions of a similar kind.

Though resembling his father in the main points of his character, the young tsar was of a more humane disposition, and he was much less of a doctrinaire.

With great reluctance the tsar consented to convoke a consultative chamber of deputies as a sop to public opinion, but that concession stimulated rather than calmed public opinion, and shortly after the conclusion of peace the Liberals and the Revolutionaries, combining their forces, brought about a general strike in St Petersburg together with the stoppage of railway communication all over the empire.

The new tsar, Alexander III., was an apt pupil of his tutor Pobedonostsev (q.v.), the celebrated procurator of the Holy Synod, for whom the representative system was a modern lie," and his reign covered a period of frank reaction, during which there was not only no question of affected even the stolid and apparently immovable masses of the peasantry.

It was clear that the system with which the murdered minister's name had been associated stood all but universally condemned, and in the appointment of the conciliatory Prince Sviatopolk-Mirski as his successor the tsar himself seemed to concede the necessity for a change of policy.

Dubrovin, president of the Union of the Russian People and organizer of pogroms, having written a letter of congratulation to the tsar on the occasion of the coup d'etat, received a gracious reply; the hideous reign of terror of the " Black Hundred " in Odessa did not prevent the Grand-duke Constantine from accepting the badge of membership of the Union.

Finnish diet ought to refer to the imperial legislature not only all military matters - as the tsar demanded (Rescript of October 14) - but the question of the use of the Russian language in the grand-duchy, the principles of the Finnish administration, police, justice, education, formation of business companies and of associations, public meetings, the press, the customs tariff, the monetary system, means of communication, and the pilot and lighthouse system.

The Uspensky cathedral was erected in 1585; close beside it are the graves of Tsar Boris Godunov (died in 1605) and his family.

Lvov, he founded the Octobrist party, in the hope that the Tsar's Government would recognize the necessity of great reforms and work with the moderate Liberals of the Zemstvos while safeguarding the monarchical principle.

He was not content with laying the blame at the door of the effete War Office, but deplored the apathetic way in which the Tsar passed the time at headquarters, without any clear political plan, holding on supinely to formalism and routine, yielding to the spasmodic interference of the Empress.

At the time of his first view of the Adriatic (February 1797) he noted the importance of the port of Ancona for intercourse with the Sultan's dominions; and at that city fortune placed in his hands Russian despatches relative to the designs of the Tsar Paul on Malta.

But these undertakings were thwarted in March - April 1801 by the murder of the tsar Paul and by Nelson's victory at Copenhagen.

The tsar, as protector of the Germanic System, had already been so annoyed by the seizure of the duc d'Enghien on German territory, and by other high-handed actions against the Hanse cities, as to recall his ambassador from Paris.

The tsar indignantly repudiated a treaty which his envoy, Oubril, had been tricked into signing at Paris; and the Fox-Grenville cabinet (as also its successor) refused to bargain away Sicily.

The tsar acquired a frontier district from Prussia, recognized the changes brought about by Napoleon in Germany and Italy, and agreed by a secret article that the Cattaro district on the east coast of the Adriatic should go to France.

By it Napoleon brought the tsar to agree to make war on England in case that power did not accept the tsar's mediation for the conclusion of a general peace.

Failing the arrival of a favourable reply from London by the 1st of December 1807, the tsar would help Napoleon to compel Denmark, Sweden and Portugal to close their ports against, and make war on, Great Britain.

This enterprise and the acquisition of Finland from Sweden, which Napoleon also dangled before the eyes of the tsar, formed the bait which brought that potentate into Napoleon's Continental System.

The partition of Turkey had to be postponed; the financial collapse of England could not be expected now that she framed an alliance with the Spanish patriots and had their markets and those of their colonies opened to her; and the discussions with the tsar Alexander, which had not gone quite smoothly, now took a decidedly unfavourable turn.

The tsar saw his chance of improving on the terms arranged at Tilsit; and obviously Napoleon could not begin the conquest of Spain until he felt sure of the conduct of his nominal ally.

Such were the discouraging conditions which weighed him down at the time of the interview with the tsar at Erfurt (September 27th - October 12th, 1808).

The threat naturally did not tend to reassure statesmen at Vienna; and the tsar now resolved to prevent the total wreck of the European system by screening the House of Habsburg from the wrath of his ally.

Napoleon, on the other hand, had utterly failed in his Spanish enterprise; and the tsar felt sure that his rival must soon withdraw French garrisons from the fortresses of the Oder to the frontier of Spain.

Opinions were divided in the emperor's circle between a Russian and an Austrian princess; but the marked coolness with which overtures for the hand of the tsar's sister were received at St Petersburg, and the skill with which Count Metternich, the Austrian chancellor, let it be known that a union with the archduchess, Marie Louise, would be welcomed at Schonbrunn, helped to decide the matter.

The addition of large territories to the grand duchy of Warsaw after the war of 1809 aroused the fears of the tsar respecting the Poles; and he regarded all Napoleon's actions as inspired by hostility to Russia.

The campaign of 1812 may, therefore, be considered as resulting, fi-stly, from the complex and cramping effects of the Continental System on a northern land which could not deprive itself of colonial goods; secondly, from Napoleon's refusal to mitigate the anxiety of Alexander on the Polish question; and thirdly, from tie annoyance felt by the tsar at the family matters noticed above.

Another consideration which largely conduced to the disasters of the retreat was Napoleon's postponement of any movement back from Moscow to the date of October 19th, and this is known to have resulted from his conviction that the tsar would give way as he had done at Tilsit.

Metternich persuaded the tsar and the king of Prussia to make a declaration that the allies would leave to Napoleon the "natural boundaries" of France - the Rhine, Alps, Pyrenees and Ocean.

On the 10th he bade farewell to his guard and set forth from Fontainebleau for Elba, which the powers had very reluctantly, and owing to the pressure of the tsar, awarded to him as a possession.

The demands of the tsar Alexander were for a time so exorbitant as to bring the powers at the congress of Vienna to the verge of war.

The British government, on hearing of his arrival at Plymouth, decided to send him to St Helena, the formation of that island being such as to admit of a certain freedom of movement for the august captive, with none of the perils for the world at large which the tsar's choice, Elba, had involved.

On the 6th of October he had reached Pernau, with the intention of first relieving Riga, but, hearing that Narva was in great straits, he decided to turn northwards against the tsar.

Nothing now prevented Charles from turning his victorious arms against the tsar; and on the 13th of August' 1707, he evacuated Saxony at the head of the largest host he ever commanded, consisting of 24,000 horse and 20,000 foot.

Then one or two tactical blunders were committed; and the tsar, taking courage, enveloped the little band in a vast semicircle bristling with the most modern guns, which fired five times to the Swedes' once, and swept away the guards before they could draw their swords.

He procured the dismissal of four Russo-phil grand-viziers in succession, and between 1710 and 1712 induced the Porte to declare war against the tsar three times.

But after November 1712 the Porte had no more money to spare; and, the tsar making a show of submission, the sultan began to regard Charles as a troublesome guest.

In 869 the see of Athens became an archbishopric. In 995 Attica was ravaged by the Bulgarians under their tsar Samuel, but Athens escaped; after the defeat of Samuel at Belasitza (1014) the emperor Basil II., who blinded 15,000 Bulgarian prisoners, came to Athens and celebrated his triumph by a thanksgiving service in the Parthenon (1018).

He attracted the attention of the young tsar Alexius by his resourcefulness during the Pskov rebellion of 1650, which he succeeded in localizing by personal influence.

In January 1671 we hear of him as in attendance upon the tsar on the occasion of his second marriage; but in February the same year he was dismissed, and withdrew to the Kruipetsky monastery near Kiev, where he took the tonsure under the name of Antony, and occupied himself with good works till his death in 1680.

His fine presence and his tact on ceremonial occasions rendered the state some service when in 1896 he received the Tsar of Russia at Paris, and in 1897 returned his visit, after which meeting the momentous Franco-Russian alliance was publicly announced.

It has a cathedral, near which lie buried Mary Menshikov, once betrothed to the tsar Peter II., and some of the Dolgorukis.

Defeated by the Servian tsar Dushan, and driven to ally himself with Servia and Venice against Louis I.

The death of Stephen Dushan, in 1356, had left his empire defenceless against the Hungarians, Turks and other enemies; and to win help from Bosnia the Servian tsar Lazar ceded to Tvrtko a large tract of territory, including the principality of Tribunia.

At his coronation he had proclaimed his purpose to revive the ancient Servian empire; in 1378 he had married the daughter of the last Bulgarian tsar; and it is probable that he dreamed of founding an empire which should extend from the Adriatic to the Black Sea.

And it came to pass that the Kaiser, who deemed himself the champion of monarchical principle in Europe, should assist him and his retinue to reach Russia after the overthrow of the Tsar.

It also saw the first intercourse between a Russian tsar and an Ottoman sultan, Ivan III.

In February 1773 the Russian plenipotentiary delivered his ultimatum, of which the most important demands were the cession of Kerch, Yenikale and Kinburn, the free navigation of the Black Sea and Archipelago for Russian trading and war vessels, and the recognition of the tsar's right to protect the Orthodox subjects of the sultan.

When the Russians showed no signs of withdrawing from the valley of the Rion, the sultan threatened to renew the war, the sole result of which was to reveal the determination of the tsar not to be bullied into concessions.

In general it was allowed that these means should be the " pacific blockade " proposed by the tsar.

The Treaty of Adrianople, by which the Danubian principalities were erected into practically independent states, the treaty rights of Russia in the navigation of the Bosporus Anapa and Poti in Asia ceded to the tsar, included also a settlement of the Greek question on the terms of the protocol of the 22nd of March.

By his concert with the other powers in the affair of Mehemet Ali, the tsar had abdicated his claim to a unique influence at Constantinople, and he began to revive the idea of ending the Ottoman rule in Europe, an idea which he had only unwillingly abandoned in 1829 in response to the unanimous opinion of his advisers.

Lord Aberdeen made no secret of his dislike for the Turks, and openly expressed his disbelief in the reality of their reforms; and in January 1853 the tsar, in conversation with Sir Hamilton Seymour, the British ambassador at St Petersburg, spoke of the Ottoman Empire as " the Sick Man," and renewed the proposals for a partition made in 1844.

He demanded the recognition of the status quo in the holy places, and of the tsar's right, under the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji, to the protectorate of all Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman dominions.

On the 22nd Menshikov and the whole of the Russian diplomatic staff left Constantinople; and it was announced that, at the end of the month, the tsar's troops would enter the Danubian principalities.

In August a conference of the four powers assembled at Vienna, but the settlement they proposed, which practically conceded everything demanded by Russia except the claim to the protectorate, though accepted by the tsar, was rejected by the Porte, now fallen into a mood of stubborn resentment at the Russian invasion.

So far as the extreme claims of the tsar were concerned, neither Austria nor Prussia was willing to concede them, and both had joined with France and Great Britain in presenting, on the 12th of December 1853, an identical note at St Petersburg, drawn up at the Conference of Vienna, reaffirming the principles of the treaty of 1841.

This concession, given under strong pressure from Russia, aroused the deepest resentment of the Greeks, and was the principal factor in the awakening of the Bulgarian national spirit which subsequent events have done so much to develop. Russian influence at Constantinople had been gradually increasing, and towards the end of 1870 the tsar took advantage of the temporary disabling of France to declare himself no longer bound by those clauses of the Treaty of Paris which restricted Russia's liberty of possessing warships on the Black Sea.

The duke and duchess represented Queen Victoria at the coronation of the tsar Nicholas II.

These must one and all be cleared away before we can enter on that era of universal peace towards the attainment of which the tsar of Russia declared, in his famous circular of 1898, the efforts of all governments should be directed.

In 1371 they overwhelmed the Servian tsar Vukashin at the battle of Taenarus and penetrated to the heart of old Servia.

During the winter of 1915 delegates of the Yugoslav Committee, with the Tsar's special permission, began enrolling volunteers from among the prisoners on the Russian front; and by March 1916 a division of 23,000 men had been concentrated at Odessa, and a second was formed later.

Russia had in consequence been virtually cut off from intercourse by water with the outer world, seeing that the Baltic likewise was closed owing to action of the German navy; no adequate outlet for the Russian Empire's produce remained available; the most promising avenue for the introduction of warlike stores into the Tsar's dominions from without had been effectually barred.

Austria was, for the time, but the faithful ally of the tsar.

His handsome looks and smart sallies attracted the attention of Francois Lefort, Peter's first favourite, who took him into his service and finally transferred him to the tsar.

During the tsar's first foreign tour, Menshikov worked by his side in the dockyards of Amsterdam, and acquired a thorough knowledge of colloquial Dutch and German.

Menshikov understood perfectly the principles on which Peter's reforms were conducted, and was the right hand of the tsar in all his gigantic undertakings.

Every time the tsar returned to Russia he received fresh accusations of peculation against "his Serene Highness."

The conduct of foreign affairs was at the same time entrusted to him, and from 1699 to his death he was "the premier minister of the tsar."

His superiority over all his Muscovite contemporaries was due to the fact that he was already a statesman, in the modern sense, while they were still learning the elements of statesmanship. His death was an irreparable loss to the tsar, who wrote upon the despatch announcing it, the words "Peter filled with grief."

Thus encouraged, those who desired an immediate battle soon gained the upper hand in the councils of the tsar and the emperor Francis.

This provision hardly consists with Comte's congratulations to the tsar Nicholas on the " wise vigilance " with which he kept watch over the importation of Western books.

On the death of the childless tsar, he was the popular candidate for the vacant throne; but he acquiesced in the election of Boris Godunov, and shared the disgrace of his too-powerful family three years later, when Boris compelled both him and his wife, Xenia Chestovaya, to take monastic vows under the names of Philaret and Martha respectively.

From1610-1618he was a prisoner in the hands of the Polish king, Sigismund III., whom he refused to acknowledge as tsar of Muscovy on being sent on an embassy to the Polish camp in 1610.

From 1619 to 1633 there were two actual sovereigns, Tsar Michael and his father, the most holy Patriarch Philaret.

Theoretically they were co-regents, but Philaret frequently transacted affairs of state without consulting the tsar.

The taxation of the tsar's slyuzhnuie lyudi, or military tenants, was a first step towards the proportional taxation of the hitherto privileged classes.

Under the new Tsar, Nicholas I., the plan of the reunion of the two states was definitely rejected, his ukase of 1839 making of Lithuania the" Sievero-Zapadny Krai "(North-western Province) .

The first National Lithuanian Assembly, which, however, in the eyes of the Tsar's Government was merely a revolutionary body tolerated for the time being, met at Vilnius (Vilna).

The Tsar's Government under the electoral statute of 1905 granted the four-class franchise (landowners, peasants, townsmen and workmen) in such wise as to favour the rural population.

In Denmark he was brought much into contact with the imperial family, and on the death of Prince Lobanov in 1897 he was appointed by the Tsar Nicholas II.

When the Tsar Nicholas inaugurated the Peace Conference at the Hague, Count Muraviev extricated his country from a situation of some embarrassment; but when, subsequently, Russian agents in Manchuria and at Peking connived at the agitation which culminated in the Boxer rising of 5900, the relations of the responsible foreign minister with the tsar became strained.

His logical mind and determined support of the autocratic principle gained the tsar's entire confidence.

An attempt was made on his life early in 1 9 04, and he was assassinated on the 28th of July of the same year by a bomb thrown under his carriage as he was on his way to Peterhof to make his report to the tsar; the assassin, Sasonov, was a member of the fighting organization of the socialist revolutionary party.

He replaced the earlier favourites, members of the "unofficial committee," in the tsar's confidence, becoming practically sole minister, all questions being laid by him alone before the emperor and usually settled at once by the two between them.

In the negotiations with England which went on in the summer of 1806 Talleyrand had not a free hand; they came to nought, as did those with Russia which had led up to the signature of a Franco-Russian treaty at Paris by d'Oubril which was at once disavowed by the tsar.

These arguments, reinforced by those of the royalist agent de Vitrolles, convinced the tsar; and Talleyrand, on the 1st of April, convened the French senate (only 64 members out of 1 4 0 attended), and that body pronounced that Napoleon had forfeited the crown.

Thanks mainly to the support of the tsar and of England these schemes were foiled; and France emerged from her disasters with frontiers which were practically those of 1792.

On the fall of Biren (November 8th), the regency passed to the baby tsar's mother, though the government was in the hands of the capable vice-chancellor, Andrei Osterman.

The king of Prussia had some reason to complain of the sudden desertion of his ally, but there is no evidence whatever to substantiate his accusation that Bute had endeavoured to divert the tsar later from his alliance with Prussia, or that he had treacherously in his negotiations with Vienna held out to that court hopes of territorial compensation in Silesia as the price of the abandonment of France; while the charge brought against Bute in 1765 of having taken bribes to conclude the peace, subsequently after investigation pronounced frivolous by parliament, may safely be ignored.

Admiral Alexeiev, the tsar's viceroy in the Far East and the evil genius of the war, was at Port Arthur and forbade the navy to take the risks of proceeding to sea.

He did not yield at once; a second letter from the viceroy, the news of Nanshan, and above all a signed order from the tsar himself, " Inform General Kuropatkin that I impose upon him all the responsibility for the fate of Port Arthur," were needed to bring him definitely to execute a scheme which in his heart he knew to be perilous.

After the disasters of Mukden and Tsushima, and being threatened with internal disorder in European Russia, the tsar, early in June, accepted the mediation of the president of The the United States, and pour parlers were set on foot.

Personal experience of the inconveniences and dangers of the prevailing system of preferment, the so-called myestnichestvo, or rank priority, which had paralysed the Russian armies for centuries, induced him to propose its abolition, which was accomplished by Tsar Theodore III.

Only with the utmost difficulty could Sophia get the young tsar Peter to decorate the defeated commander-in-chief as if he had returned a victor.

The duke of Kent wished her to be christened Elizabeth, and the prince regent wanted Georgiana, while the tsar Alexander I., who had promised to stand sponsor, stipulated for Alexandrina.

The tsar Nicholas had visited Windsor earlier that year, in which also Prince Alfred, who was to marry the tsar's grand-daughter, was born.

In 1874 Prince Alfred, duke of Edinburgh, married Princess Marie Alexandrovna, only daughter of the tsar Alexander II.

Prince Bismarck, who had been antiBattenberg from the beginning, vehemently opposed this marriage, on the ground that for reasons of state policy it would never do for a daughter of the German emperor to marry a prince who was personally disliked by the tsar.

In reality the young tsar had no intention of embarking on wild political adventures, and was fully determined not to let his hand be forced by men less cautious than himself.

His conduct, however, led to a separation within five years, and the tsar Nicholas compelled him to make Princess Mathilde a handsome allowance.

If we exclude the abortive invasion of the Danubian principalities by Prince Alexander Ypsilanti (March 1821), which collapsed ignominiously as soon as it was disavowed by the tsar, the theatre of the war was confined to continental Greece, the Morea, and the adjacent narrow seas.

The threatened breach with Russia had been avoided by Metternich's influence on the tsar Alexander; the death of Ali of Iannina had set free the army of Khurshid Pasha, who now, as seraskier of Rumelia, was charged with the task of reducing the Morea.

The town is adorned with statues of Tsar Alexander II.

Czartoryski found the tsar still suffering from remorse at his father's assassination, and incapable of doing anything but talk religion and politics to a small circle of private friends.

On July 31, in a reply to the German Chancellor Michaelis, he admitted that in 1917 an agreement had been made with the Tsar to erect the German territories on the left bank of the Rhine into an autonomous state, but denied that there had been any question of their annexation to France.

A disastrous war with Ivan III., the first Muscovite tsar, speedily convinced the Lithuanians that they were not strong enough to stand alone, and in 1499 they voluntarily renewed the union.

He then bade the Cossacks prepare their boats for a raid upon the Turkish galleys, and secured the co-operation of the tsar in the Crimean expedition by a special treaty.

Three years after his defeat at Beresteczko, Chmielnicki, finding himself unable to cope with the Poles single-handed, very reluctantly transferred his allegiance to the tsar, and the same year the tsar's armies invaded Poland, still bleeding from the all but mortal wounds inflicted on her by the Cossacks.

The first of these events, to be dated from the alliance between the emperor Leopold and John Casimir, on the 2 7th of May 1657, led to a truce with the tsar and the welcome diversion of all the Muscovite forces against Swedish Livonia.

The Cossacks of the Dnieper were henceforth to be under the joint dominion of the tsar and the king of Poland.

Those of them who survived or escaped the disasters of the retreat fled before the tsar's army and followed the fortunes of Napoleon in 1813 and 1814.

Nor was the tsar unwilling to encourage their delusion.

The remnant was constituted as the so-called Congress Kingdom under the emperor of Russia as king (tsar) of Poland.

The kingdom of Poland was declared to be united to Russia, in the person of the tsar, as a separate political entity.

The diet met three times during the reign of Alexander, in 1818, in 1820 and in 1825, and was on all three occasions opened by the tsar, who was compelled to address his subjects in French, since he did not speak, and would not learn, their language.

In fact the tsar and the diet soon quarrelled.

The Poles had begun by protesting that they only wished to defend their rights against the tsar, but they soon proceeded to proclaim his deposition.

In Poland itself the tsar left much of the current civil administration in the hands of the nobles, whose power over their peasants was hardly diminished and was misused as of old.

It was not till 1863, eight years after the death of the tsar in 1855, that the last attempt of the Poles to achieve independence by arms was made.

The rising of 1863 may without injustice be said to be due to the more humane policy of the tsar Alexander II.

His warning, "No nonsense, gentlemen" (Point de reveries, Messieurs), was taken in very ill part, and it was perhaps naturally, but beyond question most unhappily, the truth that the tsar's concessions only served to encourage the Poles to revolt, and to produce a strong Russian reaction against his liberal policy.

Until 1820 the south-eastern district of Pechersk was the industrial and commercial quarter; but it has been greatly altered in carrying out fortifications commenced in that year by Tsar Nicholas I.

In August 1669 he reappeared at Astrakhan, and accepted a fresh offer of pardon from the tsar there; the common people were fascinated by his adventures.

Sinai, and finally acquired by the tsar in 1869.

The tsar did great damage to Evelyn's beautiful gardens, and, it is said, made it one of his amusements to ride in a wheelbarrow along a thick holly hedge planted especially by the owner.

Gertz next attempted to undermine the grand alliance against Sweden by negotiating with Russia, Prussia and Saxony for the purpose of isolating Denmark, or even of turning the arms of the allies against her, a task by no means impossible in view of the strained relations between Denmark and the tsar.

In 1580 the tsar chose Irene, the sister of Boris, to be the bride of the tsarevich Theodore, on which occasion Boris was promoted to the rank of boyar.

On the occasion of the tsar's coronation (May 31, 1584), Boris was loaded with honours and riches, yet he held but the second place in the regency during the lifetime of his co-guardian Nikita Romanovich, on whose death, in August, he was left without any serious rival.

A conspiracy against him of all the other great boyars and the metropolitan Dionysy, which sought to break Boris' power by divorcing the tsar from Godunov's childless sister, only ended in the banishment or tonsuring of the malcontents.

On the death of the childless tsar Theodore (January 7, 1598), self-preservation quite as much as ambition constrained Boris to seize the throne.

On the 1st of September he was solemnly crowned tsar.

He was the first tsar to import foreign teachers on a great scale, the first to send young Russians abroad to be educated, the first to allow Lutheran churches to be built in Russia.

When the Finnish Bible Society began to publish editions of the Scriptures, the tsar Alexander I.

Many of these secured royal and aristocratic patronage and encouragement-the tsar of Russia, the kings of Prussia, Bavaria, Sweden, Denmark and Wurttemberg all lending their influence to the enterprise.

In December 1812, while "the last shattered remnants of Napoleon's Grand Army struggled across the ice of the Niemen," the tsar Alexander I.

Through the personal favour of the tsar, it made rapid and remarkable progress.

At the commencement of the reign of the tsar Nicholas II., in 1895, the Doukhobors became the victims of a series of persecutions, Cossack soldiers plundering, insulting, beating and maltreating both men and women in every way.

His sympathetic nature was influenced by indignation against the brutal methods adopted towards prisoners, especially political prisoners, and by the stern measures which the government of the tsar felt compelled to adopt in order to repress the revolutionary movement.

He accompanied the young tsar abroad on his first foreign tour, and worked by his side in the dockyards of Saardam.

Petersburg to confer with the Tsar and his ministers about the Franco-Russian Alliance and the new developments of the Eastern question, a visit which countered the somewhat depressing effect in France of the meeting of the German and Russian Emperors at Baltic Port on July 4.

The tsar, the king of Prussia, Schwarzenberg and a very large headquarter staff watched the fighting from a hill near Racknitz and offered an easy mark to the French guns.

It was due to the initiative of the young tsar Nicolas II., who, in his famous rescript of the 24th of August 1898, stated that he thought that the then moment was " very favourable for seeking, by means of international discussion, the most effectual means of assuring to all peoples the benefits of a real and durable peace."

His earliest teacher (omitting the legendary Scotchman Menzies) was the dyak, or clerk of the council, Nikita Zotov, subsequently the court fool, who taught his pupil to spell out the liturgical and devotional books on which the children of the tsar were generally brought up. After Zotov's departure on a diplomatic mission, in 1680, the lad had no regular tutor.

During the regency of his half-sister Sophia (1682-1689) he occupied the subordinate position of junior tsar, and after the revolution of 1689 Peter was still left pretty much to himself.

It was, however, the disreputable Lefort who, for the sake of his own interests, diverted the young tsar from mere pleasure to serious enterprises, by persuading him first to undertake the Azov expedition, and then to go abroad to complete his education.

It was suppressed in an hour's time by the tsar's troops, of whom only one man was mortally wounded; and the horrible vengeance (September - October 1698) which Peter on his return to Russia wreaked upon the captive musketeers was due not to any actual fear of these antiquated warriors, but to his consciousness that behind them stood the reactionary majority of the nation who secretly sympathized with, though they durst not assist, the rebels.

Charles's "immersion in the Polish bog" (1702-1707), as Peter phrased it, enabled the tsar, not without considerable expense and trouble, to conquer Ingria and lay the foundations of St Petersburg.

He obtained a commanding influence over the Dalai Lama, impressed upon him the dangers which threatened Tibet from England, and suggested the desirability of securing Russian protection and even the possibility of converting the tsar and his empire to Buddhism.

He therefore sent a representative of high rank, who had audience of the tsar, and returned with proposals for a treaty and for the residence of a Russian royal prince in Lhasa in order to promote friendly relations.

His first plan was a combination against her of Saxony, Denmark and Brandenburg; but, Brandenburg failing him, he was obliged very unwillingly to admit Russia into the partnership. The tsar was to be content with Ingria and Esthonia, while Augustus was to take Livonia, nominally as a fief of Poland, but really as an hereditary possession of the Saxon house.

The choice of her daughter as wife of the future tsar was the result of not a little diplomatic management in which Frederick the Great took an active part, the object being to strengthen the friendship between Prussia and Russia, to weaken the influence of Austria and to ruin the chancellor Bestuzhev, on whom Elizabeth relied, and who was a known partisan of the Austrian alliance.

For ten years the marriage was barren, and the only reason for supposing that the future tsar Paul, who was born on the 2nd of October 1754, was the son of Peter, is the strong similarity of their characters.

When the tsar Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584) began the great advance of Russia into Northern Asia, a large number of missionaries accompanied the troops, and during the 17th century many thousands of Tatars were baptized, though from lack of fostering influences they lapsed into heathenism.

But the opposition subsided somewhat on the publication of Tsar Nicholas's congratulations to the king on his engagement and of his acceptance to act as the principal witness at the wedding.

It was the more ready to do so because it received news of the assassination of the tsar Paul, which had happened on the 24th of March.

Sir Hyde Parker was assured by the Russian minister at Copenhagen that the new tsar Alexander I.

The government of the new tsar was prepared for an arrangement with England.

He wrote a letter to Mr Garlike, secretary of the British embassy at St Petersburg, saying that he had come with a small squadron as the best way of paying "the very highest compliment" to the tsar.

It was in Krushevats that the last Servian tsar, Lazar, assembled his army to march against the Turks, and lose his empire, at Kosovo, in 1389.

With the aid of Russia Frederick William held out a while longer, but after Napoleons decisive victory at Friedland (June 14, 1807) the tsar came to terms with the French emperor, sacrificing the interests of his ally.

Movements of Russian troops on the western frontier threatened Austria, and the tsar, in a letter to the German emperor, stated that peace could only be maintained if Germany gave her support to Russia.

Bismarck with some difficulty procured the consent of the emperor, who by arranging a meeting with the tsar had attempted to preserve the old friendship. From that time the alliance with Austria has continued.

He also found time to preach and lecture elsewhere, and to deliver remarkable speeches at social functions; he worked hard with Archbishop Benson on the Parish Councils Bill (1894); he became the first president of the Church Historical Society (1894), and continued in that office till his death; he took part in the Laud Commemoration (189J); he represented the English Church at the coronation of the tsar (1896).

Early in 1570 the ambassadors of Ivan the Terrible concluded at Constantinople a treaty which restored friendly relations between the sultan and the tsar.

In the 9th century it is said to have repulsed the Saracens; in the 10th it defended itself against the Narentine pirates, and Simeon, tsar of the Bulgarians.

Basil was the first grand-duke of Moscow who adopted the title of tsar and the double-headed eagle of the East Roman empire.

The " Holy Alliance " of the three autocratic northern powers, recemented at Miinchengratz in 1833, which had gained for Austria the decisive intervention of the tsar in 1849, had been hopelessly shattered by her attitude during the Crimean War.

The tsar was also present on that occasion, and for the next six years the close friendship between the three empires removed all danger of war.

In the autumn of that year Bismarck visited Vienna and arranged with Andrassy a treaty by which Germany bound herself to support Austria against an attack from Russia, Austria-Hungary pledging herself to help Germany against a combined attack of France and Russia; the result of this treaty, of which the tsar was informed, was to remove, at least for the time, the danger of war between Austria-Hungary and Russia.

After 1880, the exertions of Count Kalnoky again established a fairly good understanding with Russia, as was shown by the meetings of Francis Joseph with the tsar in 1884 and 1885, but the outbreak of the Bulgarian question in 1885 again brought into prominence the opposed interests of Russia and Austria-Hungary.

There is a legend that here the Servian tsar Lazar (1374-1389) was visited by an angel, who bade him choose between an earthly and a heavenly crown.

In 1800 the Danish government was persuaded by the tsar to accede to the second Armed Neutrality League, which Russia had just concluded with Prussia and the Napo- Sweden.

The newly created council of ministers, and the senate, endowed for the first time with certain theoretical powers, became in the end but the slavish instruments of the tsar and his favourites of the moment.

Laharpe, after a new visit to Paris, presented to the tsar his Reflexions on the True Nature of the Consulship for Life, which, as Alexander said, tore the veil from his eyes, and revealed Bonaparte " as not a true patriot," but only as " the most famous tyrant the world has produced."

The events of the war that followed belong to the general history of Europe; but the tsar's attitude throughout is personal to himself, though pregnant with issues momentous for the world.

In his instructions to Novosiltsov, his special envoy in London, the tsar elaborated the motives of his policy in language which appealed as little to the common sense of Pitt as did later the treaty of the Holy Alliance to that of Castlereagh.

The campaign of Jena and the battle of Eylau followed; and Napoleon, though still intent on the Russian alliance, stirred up Poles, Turks and Persians to break the obstinacy of the tsar.

A party too in Russia itself, headed by the tsar's brother the grand-duke Constantine, was clamorous for peace; but Alexander, after a vain attempt to form a new coalition, summoned the Russian nation to a holy war against Napoleon as the enemy of the orthodox faith.

He realized that in Napoleon sentiment never got the better of reason, that as a matter of fact he had never intended his proposed " grand enterprise " seriously, and had only used it to preoccupy the mind of the tsar while he consolidated his own power in central Europe.

The tsar in his turn protested against Napoleon's encouragement of the Poles.

But if Alexander suspected Napoleon, Napoleon was no less suspicious of Alexander; and, partly to test his sincerity, he sent an almost peremptory request for the hand of the grandduchess`'Anne, the tsar's youngest sister.

The annexation of Oldenburg, of which the duke was the tsar's uncle, to France in December 1810, added another to the personal grievances of Alexander against Napoleon; while the ruinous reaction of " the continental system " on Russian trade made it impossible for the tsar to maintain a policy which was Napoleon's chief motive for the alliance.

In vain the French emperor, within eight days of his entry into Moscow, wrote to the tsar a letter, which was one long cry of distress, revealing the desperate straits of the Grand Army, and appealed to " any remnant of his former sentiments."

Castlereagh, whose single-minded aim was the restoration of "a just equilibrium" in Europe, reproached the tsar to his face for a " conscience " which suffered him to imperil the concert of the powers by keeping his hold on Poland in violation of his treaty obligation.'

Once more in Russia, far from the fascination of Metternich's personality, the immemorial spirit of his people drew him back into itself; and when, in the autumn of 1825, he took his dying empress for change of air to the south of Russia, in order - as all Europe supposed - to place himself at the head of the great army concentrated near the Ottoman frontiers, his language was no longer that of " the peace-maker of Europe," but of the Orthodox tsar determined to take the interests of his people and of his religion "into his own hands."

Under their tsar Krum (802-815) the Bulgars invaded the districts of Adrianople and central Macedonia; under Simeon (893-927), who fixed his capital at Preslav, their empire extended from the Adriatic to the Black Sea.

In 1014 Tsar Samuel of Ochrida, who had conquered the greater part of the Peninsula, was defeated at Belasitza by the Greek emperor Basil II., and the "western Bulgarian empire" came to an end.

Further steps were taken after Goluchowski's interview with the tsar at Miirzsteg in 1903, and two civil agents representing the countries were appointed for two years to ensure the execution of the promised reforms. This period was extended in 1905, when Goluchowski was the chief mover in forcing the Porte, by an international naval demonstration at Mitylene, to accept financial control by the powers in Macedonia.

On his way thither he defeated and captured Tsar Vasily Shuiski at the battle of Klushino (July 14, 1610), and two months later entered the Russian capital in triumph.

When Zolkiewski presented his captives, Tsar Vasily and his family, to the Polish diet, he received an ovation and was rewarded with the dignity of hetman wielki (commander-in-chief).

The town owes its existence as a manufacturing centre to the tsar Alexander I.

It was at Laibach, too, that, on the 19th of March, the emperor Alexander received the news of Ypsilanti's invasion of the Danubian principalities, which heralded the outbreak of the War of Greek Independence, and from Laibach Capo d'Istria addressed to the Greek leader the tsar's repudiation of his action.

He arrived at St Petersburg at the psychological moment when the tsar had made up his mind to break with Napoleon.

In September of that year, the Russian government suggested that the tsar was willing to act as mediator between the two belligerents.

His parliamentary methods were bitterly attacked by his political enemies, who called him "Tsar Reed."

The position was complicated by the somewhat enigmatic attitude of Russia; for the Neapolitan Liberals, with many of whom Count Capo d'Istria, the Russian minister of foreign affairs, had been on friendly terms, proclaimed that they had the " moral support " of the tsar.

His father, Captain Paul Ignatiev, had been taken into favour by the tsar Nicholas I., owing to his fidelity on the occasion of the military conspiracy in 1825; and the grand duke Alexander (afterwards tsar) stood sponsor at the boy's baptism.

The cutting of the Gordian knot by Austria's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and by the proclamation of the independence of Bulgaria, and of Prince Ferdinand's assumption of the old title of tsar (king), threatened to raise the Eastern Question once more in its acutest form.

A heavy and indecisive combat took place in the evening between Oudinot and the Russian left, directed by the tsar in person, in which Oudinot's men made a little progress towards Jenkwitz.

Preparations had been made by the allies, ever since Ney's appearance,to break off the engagement, and now the tsar ordered a general retreat eastwards, himself with the utmost skill and bravery directing the rearguard.

Feodor's grandson, Sakhariya Ivanovich, was a boyar of Vasilii V., grand-duke of Moscow at intervals between 1425 and 1462, and the family took its name from his grandson Roman, whose daughter Anastasia Rornanovna married the tsar Ivan the Terrible.

The news reached Constantinople at the same time as Count Muraviev arrived on a special mission from the tsar.

Ottoman agents, backed by letters from the French charge d'affaires, were sent to Mehemet Ali and to Ibrahim, to point out the imminence of Russian intervention and to offer modified terms. Muraviev himself went to Alexandria, where, backed by the Austrian agent, Count Prokesch-Osten, he announced to the pasha the tsar's immutable hatred of rebels.

The Russian squadron was detained by contrary winds, and before it could sail peremptory orders arrived from the tsar for it to remain until Ibrahim should have repassed the Taurus mountains.

Palmerston listened to the tsar's proposals, conveyed through Baron Brunnow, "with surprise and admiration."

Finally, Brunnow was empowered to arrange a coalition of the great powers with a view to the settlement of the Egyptian question; and in this coalition the tsar was willing, for political reasons, that France should be included, though he stated his personal preference for her exclusion.

Its old churches have been destroyed by fire, but it has a very ancient holy picture - probably the oldest in Russia, dating from 993, which attracts many pilgrims. In 1904 a town-house and a monument to Tsar Alexander II.

Peace was concluded at the river Polyankova on the 28th of May 1634, the Poles conceding the title of tsar to Michael Romanov, who renounced all his claims upon Livonia, Esthonia and Courland, besides paying a war indemnity of 200,000 rubles.

The situation was regulated by the reception of Martha into the Orthodox Church, when she was rechristened under the name of Catherine Alekseyevna, the tsarevich Alexius being her godfather, by the bestowal upon her of the title Gosudaruinya or sovereign (1710), and, finally (17 i i), by her public marriage to the tsar, who divorced the tsaritsa Eudoxia to make room for her.

Serfdom was abolished in 1817 by Tsar Alexander I.; but the condition of the peasants was so little improved that they rose in open revolt in 1859.

He became secretary to Vice-Admiral Cornelis Kruse, who had a standing commission from Peter the Great to pick up promising young men, and in 1767 entered the tsar's service.

During the brief regency of Anna Leopoldovna (October 1740-December 1741) Osterman stood at the height of his power, and the French ambassador, La Chetardie, reported to his court that "it is not too much to say that he is tsar of all Russia."

At the beginning of that year Charles had concluded an alliance with Tsar Basil IV.

A beginning was made by the siege and capture of Kexholm in Russian Finland (March 2, 1611); and, on the 16th of July, Great Novgorod was occupied and a convention concluded with the magistrates of that wealthy city whereby Charles IX.'s second son Philip was to be recognized as tsar, unless, in the meantime, relief came to Great Novgorod from Moscow.

The rallying of the Russian nation round the throne of the new tsar, Michael Romanov, dissipated, once for all, this ambitious dream.

In return for these concessions, Gustavus restored Great Novgorod and acknowledged Michael Romanov as tsar of Muscovy.

Denmark was also compelled to recognize, practically, the independence of the dukes of HolsteinGottorp. The Russian War was terminated by the Peace of Kardis (July 2, 1661), confirmatory of the Peace of Stolbova, whereby the tsar surrendered to Sweden all his Baltic provinces - Ingria, Esthonia and Kexholm.

Moreover, two of Sweden's Baltic provinces, Esthonia and Ingria, had been seized by the tsar, and a third, Livonia, had been.

These two treaties were, in effect, the corner-stones of a fresh coalition against Napoleon, and were confirmed on the outbreak of the FrancoRussian War by a conference between Alexander and Charles John at Abo on the 30th of August 1812, when the tsar undertook to place an army corps of 35,000 men at the disposal of the Swedish crown prince for the conquest of Norway.

In the next year it was ceded to Servia by the Bulgarian tsar Samuel, but revolted, in alliance with Ragusa, and only submitted in 1184, as a protected state, preserving intact its republican institutions, and its right to conclude treaties and engage in war.

His Memoire sur l'etat actuel de l'Allemagne, written at the request of the tsar during the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, was an attack on the German universities, repeated in Coup d'ceil sur les universites de l'Allemagne (Aix, 1818).

In May 1722 a flotilla descended the Volga commanded by Tsar Peter and on the 19th of July the Russian flag first waved over the Caspian.

Azad was no longer in a position to oppose him in the field, and he in turn became master of every place of importance in the province, while Azad had to seek assistance in vainfirst from the pasha of Baghdad, and then from his former enemy, the tsar of Georgia.

In 1783, when the strength of the Persian monarchy was concentrated upon Isfahan and Shiraz, the Georgian tsar Heraclius entered into an agreement with the empress Catherine by which all connection with the shah was disavowed, and a quasi-vassalage to Russia substitutedthe said empire extending her aegis of protection over her new ally.

In 1800 its tsar, George, son and successor of Heraclius, notwithstanding his former professions of allegiance to the shah, renounced his crown in favor of the Russian emperor.

Persia continued to increase; in December 1904 a special mission under Mirza Riza Khan was received in audience by the tsar; and in May 1905 Muzaffar-ud-Din Shah himself left Persia to visit the courts of Vienna and St Petersburg.

It was practically supreme in the state, a ministry independent of all other ministries, placed quite above them and responsible only to the tsar himself.

The decision of the Bulgarian tsar Michael to submit the new Bulgarian Church to the jurisdiction of Constantinople was a great blow to Rome, who had hoped to secure it for herself.

He intended to write a history of his own times with Peter the Great as the central figure, but got no further than the summary, entitled History of Tsar Peter Aleksievich and the People Nearest to Him (1682-1694) (Rus.).

Then, wholly unexpectedly, came a letter from Capo d'Istria upbraiding Ypsilanti for misusing the tsar's name, announcing that his name had been struck off the army list, and commanding him to ?ay down his arms. Ypsilanti's decision to explain away the tsar's letter could only have been justified by the success of a cause which was now hopeless.

Physically and mentally deficient, Ivan was the mere tool of the party in Muscovy who would have kept the children of the tsar Alexis, by his second consort Natalia Naruishkina, from the throne.

On the 23rd of May, however, the Naruishkin faction was overthrown by the stryeltsi (musketeers), secretly worked upon by Ivan's half-sister Sophia, and Ivan was associated as tsar with Peter.

Three days later he was proclaimed "first tsar," in order still further to depress the Naruishkins, and place the government in the hands of Sophia exclusively.

Ivan was made to distribute beakers of wine to his sister's adherents with his own hands, but subsequently, beneath the influence of his uncle Prozorovsky, he openly declared that "even for his sister's 1 Ivan V., if we count from the first grand duke of that name, as most Russian historians do; Ivan II., if, with the minority, we reckon from Ivan the Terrible as the first Russian tsar.

In 5882 he was sent on a mission to Europe to study the various forms of constitutional government; on this occasion he attended the coronation of the tsar Alexander III.

He joined the tsar's headquarters at Vilna in March 1812 and, though Rumiantzov was still foreign minister, it was Nesselrode who directed the foreign policy of Russia from this time forward.

He had consistently advocated Alexander's project of a "universal union," symbolized by the Holy Alliance, in contradistinction to the narrower system of the alliance of the great powers; and, when the Greek insurrection broke out, he did much to determine the tsar to sacrifice his sympathy with the Orthodox Greeks to his dream of the European confederation (see Alexander I., emperor of Russia).

In 1849 it was Nesselrode who suggested the intervention of Russia in Hungary in favour of the Austrian government, although he restrained the tsar from active intervention in France then as in 1830.

But the term has been widely and 1 The word Tsar, like the German Kaiser, is derived from Caesar (see Tsar).

Peter the Great introduced the use of the style "Imperator," and the official designation is now "Emperor of all the Russias, Tsar of Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland," though the term tsar is still popularly used in Russia.

A Walachian contingent, apparently Mircea's, aided the Servian tsar Lazar in his vain endeavour to resist the Turks at Kossovo (1389); later he allied himself with his former enemy Sigismund of Hungary against the Turkish sultan Bayezid I., who inflicted a crushing defeat on the allied armies at Nikopolis in 1396.

In spite of defeats inflicted on the Turks by the imperial troops at Pozharevats, Nish and Vidin, in 1689, it was only by an exercise of force that they secured winter quarters in Walachia.; and though, after the battle of Poltava in 1709, Brancovan concluded a secret treaty with the tsar Peter the Great, he avoided giving open effect to it.