Italics is used for all quoted text below.
Analysis of the periodization and terminology in standard histories edit
George Vernadsky, A History of Russia, one volume edit
5th revised edition (1961), 9th printing (1964). (The first edition was in 1929, apparently). A one-volume book, covering 1000+ years - sort of a very condensed form of his multi-volume work (see below). "Russia" is the predominant term he uses in all chapters (in appropriate context). Relevant chapters:
- ...
- 2. Kievan Russia
- 3. Russia in the Mongol period (actually, through Ivan III's formal declaration of indepndence ... in 1480)
- 4. The Tsardom of Moscow in the 16th century (actually, starting with Ivan III and the 1470s). He talks about Muscovy, The First Muscovite Dynasty (House of Rurik), Moscow (when referring to the state in brief). Meanwhile the future Ukraine is still West Russia. Section 6 is called The tsardom, but the actual word tsardom appears only in the title of the section; the section itself talks mostly about Ivan IV's rule. Both Ivan III and his son used the title [tsar] occasionally. His grandson, Ivan IV ... was officially crowned tsar in 1457.1
- 5. The Tsardom of Moscow in the 17th century. (From the death of Ivan IV, and up to, but not including, Peter I). Again, the word tsardom seems to appear just once, in the title of the chapter; references to the country in the text are mostly as Russia, sometimes Muscovy. Sec 4: The Ukrainian revolution and the union of Ukraine and Muscovy. ...[W]ar broke out between Muscovy and Ukraine on the one hand and Poland on the other. During its first year things went in favor of the Russians and Ukrainians.
- 6. The Russian Empire in the 18th century. (Starting from Peter I).
- ...
George Vernadsky, A History of Russia, multi-volume edit
- Volume 1, Ancient Russia
- Volume 2, Kievan Russia
- Volume 3, The Mongols and Russia
- Volume 4, Russia at the dawn of the modern age
- Volume 5, The Tsardom of Moscow, 1547-1682. (Comes in two separately bound parts, with a break point at 1654).
Looking into vol. 5, one can see Vernadsky referring to the country or its government (as a political actor) primarily as Moscow, Muscovy, less often as Russian state or Russia:
- Tatar raids on Muscovy, Muscovite envoys to Crimea (in 1644), 'Muscovite government, reforms in Muscovy, Muscovites (trading with the Englishmen), Muscovite-Livonian treaty of 1554, the Muscovite civil war (during the Time of Troubles), Swedish government was watching Muscovian events, Moscow allowe3d the Ukrainians to import bread, salt, and other products from Muscovy ... (ca 1649),
- the Smolensk War between Moscow and Poland,Moscow government, Moscow's relations with Poland and Lithuania.
- At the same time Russian successes [against Kazan], Russian army, access to Baltic was indispensable to Russia, in ... 1558, Russian troops invaded Livonia.
Vernadsky does talk about tsardom, but mainly in the "kingship", rather than "kingdom" sense, methinks: the notion of an Orthodox tsardom, doctrine of "God's two gifts" -- the priesthood and the tsardom. Other than such occasions, the word only appears in the title of the volume.
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky and Mark D. Steinberg, A History of Russia edit
8th edition, 2011. (The first one was in 1963).
- Part I, Introduction
- Part II, Kievan Rus
- Part III, Appanage Russia
- Part IV, Muscovite Russia (Ivan IV thru Theodore, 1533-1682)
- Part V, Imperial Russia (Peter I to October Revolution, 1682-1917)
- Part VI, Soviet Russia
In Part IV, Riasanov's favorite term seems to be indeed Muscovite Russia. He talks about Muscovite state, Muscovite armies, Muscovite government, as well as relations between England and Russia; but, generally, "Russian"/"Russia" occurs less frequently than "Muscovite"/"Muscovy".
While he talks about the meaning of Ivan IV being crowned a tsar, the word tsardom does not seem to ever appear.
The Cambridge History of Russia edit
2006, by an international team of authors
Volume I, From Early Rus'to 1689 Volume II, Imperial Russia, 1689–1917 Volume III, The Twentieth Century
Looking to Volume I, we have the following chapters:
- Part I, Early Rus' and the rise of Muscovy (c. 900 - 1462)
- Part II, The expansion, consolidation and crisis of Muscovy (1462-1613)
- Part III, Russia under the first Romanovs (1613-1689)
In Part II, I am looking at Chap. 10, Ivan IV (1533-1584), by Sergei Bogatyrev. He actually comments on names, noting that the realm that Ivan IV inherited received in English the established but somewhat inaccurate name of Muscovy (p. 252). Inaccurate as it may be, he keeps using Muscovy as the main name for the country throughout the chapter. He has also e.g. Muscovite state, Muscovite ruling circles, Moscow authorities. He has tsardom occasionally: text [written in 1557] ... exalted Moscow as the capital of the tsardom. He does mention that [post-Ivan-IV] Muscovite rulers ... benefited from the idea of the divine nature of the power of the Russian monarch ...
The next chapter, Chap. 11, Fedor Ivanovich and Boris Godunov (1584-1605) by A.P. Pavlov, translated by Maureen Perrie, uses mostly Russia, although he too has the Muscovite state, Muscovite sovereigns.
Chap. 12-13, on the peasantry and townspeople, talk mostly about Russia, and Russian this and that, since they talk about the country, rather than the state.
Chap 14, The non-Christian people on the Muscovite frontiers, by Michael Khodarkovsky, mostly has Moscow/Muscovy/Muscovite (as an adjective).
I skip the rest of Part II; but Part III has Muscovy/Moscow too, as well as Russia.
In all, just flipping through the pages, I saw just one occurrence of the actual word tsardom, and that in an inscription (chap 10).
Analysis of Google Books hits edit
| Query | Google Books hits (+ same with 'czardom') | |
|---|---|---|
| Query1 : "Tsardom of Russia" or "Russian Tsardom" -inauthor:"Books, LLC" | About 1,940 results (+ 803) | |
| Query2 : "Tsardom of Muscovy" or "Muscovite Tsardom" -inauthor:"Books, LLC" | About 1,930 results (+ 195) | |
| Query3 : "Tsardom of Moscow" or "Moscow Tsardom" -inauthor:"Books, LLC" | About 1,380 results (+ 85) |
Top 10 results for "Tsardom of Russia" or "Russian Tsardom" -inauthor:"Books, LLC" edit
- 1. Russia as a 'developing society', by Teodor Shanin - 1985 - 268 pages - Snippet view
1 The Russian Tsardom: Past and Present To the Emperor of All the Russia ... The Russian tsardom and the Russian nation derive from two ancestries and three different social 'models', all represented by powerful political entities ...
Only a snippet view, but from the snippets it feels like the general meaning is "tsarism", "rule by tsars" (my "meaning (a)" of May 15), not the specific 16-17c. state
- 2. Tsardom of Russia: Tsar, Third Rome, Oprichnina, Time of Troubles, ... - Frederic P. Miller, Agnes F. Vandome, John McBrewster - 2009 - 136 pages - No preview
A Wikipedia clone
- 3. History of Europe - Carlton Joseph Huntley Hayes - 1956 - 1089 pages - Snippet view - ... and Backwardness in Eastern Europe 829 A. THE SHINING EXAMPLE OF BRITAIN 829 B. THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC 832 C. OTHER SUCCESSES OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY 836 D. THE RUSSIAN TSARDOM 839 E. DISRUPTIVE NATIONALISM IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND ...
"3 pages matching tsardom in this book", and the meaning is more toward (a).
- 4. England and the north: the Russian embassy of 1613-1614 - Page 82. Maija Jansson, N. M. Rogozhin, Paul Bushkovitch - 1994 - 236 pages - Google eBook - Preview. The metropolitans, and archbishops, and bishops, and all the sanctified council of the Russian Tsardom prayed and begged. And the sovereigns' children, the Tsars and Tsarevichi of various states who served in the Moscow state, ...
This is very much the meaning we want (the 17th-century nation state), but note that the context is a close translation from a contemporary Russian document.
- 5. Extending the borders of Russian history: essays in honor of ... - Page 19. Alfred J. Rieber, Marsha Siefert - 2003 - 553 pages - Google eBook - Preview. Thus, for the author, "Russia" or the "Russian tsardom" is a continuation of the Rus' land first mentioned in connection with Volodimer — in fact, the highest stage of its development. At no time does Griboedov define the ...
"Russian tsardom" ("Great Russian tsardom", too) appears in 2 paragraph on page 19, where the author discusses a 1669 work by Fedor Akimovich Griboedov. A good paper - it analyzes how the 17th Russian writer viewed Russia's history - and certainly can be used as a reference in an article of ours. This is our meaning, and again it shows that 17th-century Russian writers would refer to the country as the "Russian tsardom". But, again, the word only appears within double quotes, i.e. as a close translation of the term used by boyarin Groboedov.
- 6. The emancipation of Russian Christianity. Natalia A. Pecherskaya, Ruth Coates - 1995 - 119 pages - Snippet view. 'Glorious Russian Tsardom', castigates the 'traitors all to our great State, transgressors against the oath sworn on the cross, those who have fallen away from the faith'. 57 'Traitors to all our great State': such an expression could not ....
Similarly to 4 and 5 above: she has a quoted title of a literary work, A New Tale of the Glorious Russian Tsardom from "our", again confirming that 17th-century Russian writers would use the expression.
- 7. The national question: selected writings. Rosa Luxemburg, Horace Bancroft Davis - 1908 - 320 pages - Snippet view. subjugation of Poland for the continued existence of the Russian tsardom, and thus, by implication, the significance ... The Russian tsardom derives, neither its inner strength nor its external significance from the subjugation of Poland. ...
Definitely meaning (a)
- 8. The brass check: a study of American journalism - Page 213. Upton Sinclair - 1920 - 443 pages - Free Google eBook - Read. The French bankers, who now rule the continent of Europe, are engaged in setting up a substitute for the Russian Tsardom on the east of Germany ; and this new Polish empire is using the Jews as a scapegoat, precisely as the Russian ...
Again, meaning (a)
- 9. A revolution of the spirit: crisis of value in Russia, 1890-1924 - Page 203. Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak - 1990 - 349 pages - Google eBook - Preview. ... just as in the East, in the Russian tsardom, that both these attempts at theocracy had failed equally, that the idea of the papacy as the universal oneness addressed the past, not the future, and that Christian Rome, just like pagan ...
Mix of meaning (a) and use of "Russian Tsardom" as a synonym for "Russian Empire" (i.e., the state that rules Poland)
- 10. Truth: an essay in moral reconstruction - Page 95. Sir Charles Walston - 1919 - 233 pages - Free Google eBook - Read. In modern times the type of such an autocracy has been the Russian Tsardom. But contemporary history has shown how ... Though the Russian Tsardom was governed in its foreign as well as in its domestic policy by a bureaucracy merely ...
Same as above.
So the balance is as follows:
- 1 Wikipedia clone;
- 5 books where "tsardom" refers to "tsarism" in general or Russia the monarchy in general (with primarily Russian Empire) in mind
- 3 books that indeed confirm that "Russian Tsardom" (Tsarstvo Russkoye") was used by Russian writers in the right time period (17th century) to describe the country they lived in. Every time, however, the term appears as part of translation or paraphrase of the original Russian work, not as the expression used by the modern author him/herself to name the country when writing in English.
For the next 10 pages, as far as I can see, the balance is similar.