Kingdom of Russia

Here is an interesting line I have just found in History of Lithuania, tome IV: 1386-1529 by J. Kiaupienė and R. Petrauskas:

In the international arena, the opponents of the Jagiellons, the Habsburgs, attempted to use King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania's Sigismund I's troubles in fighting against Moscow to their advantage. As early as the time of Casimir IV Jagiellon, the Habsburgs made their first contacts with the strengthening state of Moscow. In 1489, Emperor Friedrich III even offered the crown of King of Russia to Ivan III, which he declined.

Obviously, there are reasons as for why Ivan III would decline such an offer, but let's say he has a change of mind and agrees, leading to the foundation of the Kingdom of Russia.

What happens then?

It's not just a name change, in my opinion:

1. Having the Holy Roman Emperor make an Orthodox ruler into a King is a pretty unprecedented move that may not go down without consequences.
2. Such ties to the Habsburgs and the HRE will definitely have lasting cultural and political impact on Russia - the spread of Western thought and culture, for one, not to mention an official alliance against the Jagiellons between Russia and the Habsburgs.
3. What about the Russian Empire, then? A Russia which received its kingdom title from the HRE may not be as likely to claim to be an empire in its own right.

Any thoughts?
 
Habsburgs already tried alliance with Moscow. After Sigismund the Old switched his policy to pro-Habsburg, alliance was gone.
 
Habsburgs already tried alliance with Moscow. After Sigismund the Old switched his policy to pro-Habsburg, alliance was gone.
This proposal is 17 years before Sigismund I came to power, so that's plenty of time for this alliance to yield fruit.
 
Here is an interesting line I have just found in History of Lithuania, tome IV: 1386-1529 by J. Kiaupienė and R. Petrauskas:



Obviously, there are reasons as for why Ivan III would decline such an offer, but let's say he has a change of mind and agrees, leading to the foundation of the Kingdom of Russia.

What happens then?

It's not just a name change, in my opinion:

1. Having the Holy Roman Emperor make an Orthodox ruler into a King is a pretty unprecedented move that may not go down without consequences.
2. Such ties to the Habsburgs and the HRE will definitely have lasting cultural and political impact on Russia - the spread of Western thought and culture, for one, not to mention an official alliance against the Jagiellons between Russia and the Habsburgs.
3. What about the Russian Empire, then? A Russia which received its kingdom title from the HRE may not be as likely to claim to be an empire in its own right.

Any thoughts?

Well, it would mean that Ivan III acknowledged supremacy of the emperor, which kind of undermines his (semi-official) claim of being successor of the Byzantine Empire (he was already married to Sophia Palaiologina): the doctrine of the "3rd Rome" was not formally developed, yet, but a two-headed eagle already was on Ivan's seal and he called himself a tsar in foreign correspondence. So, I'm not sure how these two conflicting things could do together. OTOH, there is a rumor that Ivan IV was planning to appoint <whatever> Hapsburg archduke as his heir (with this specific ruler a seeming absurdity of something does not disqualify that something from being true).

On your items:

#1. Besides a purely religious aspect, there ab obvious question: would that act (a) make Russian succession a subject to the imperial approval or (b) would it be one-time deal, basically, just a recognition of a title? As you understand, option (a) has numerous implications and hardly would be acceptable.

#2. During the reign of Ivan III relations with the West had been somewhat peculiar. On one hand, he was inviting Italian artisans (the walls of Moscow Kremlin had been built by the Italians and so it Assumption Cathedral in Kremlin) but OTOH, he cut off Novgorodian foreign trade and was openly anti-catholic pretty much starting Russian isolationism with the long-term consequences felt all the way to the XVIII century. This did not apply to the military alliances but I'm not sure if your scenario could seriously change his domestic policies.

#3. I don't think that rulers of the emerging Russian state would be satisfied with the "inferior title, especially in the scenario which makes them somehow dependent upon the emperors of the HRE and even their interpretation of the "Tsar of all Rus" was rather imperial. When Peter I decided to proclaim Russia an empire (happened in 1721) there was a prolonged diplomatic exchange with Vienna regarding meaning of the title: the Hapsburgs did not want a "competitor" to the claim of succession from the Roman Empire and it was decided that Russia is an empire just due to its size without any historic claims and references. Still, there WAS some Russian dependency from Vienna: at least formally, the right to grant the titles of "count" and "prince" was reserved to the Hapsburg emperors and Russian emperors had to ask Vienna in each specific case. It seems that by the time of Catherine II the whole thing became limited to the princely titles and by the time of Paul I completely disappeared.
 
Interestingly, if you run the Russian wikipedia pages referring to Rurikid or Romanov figures through google translate, the term tsar/tsarina is generally thrown out as "king/queen". And that's even after Peter the Great's proclamation in 1721
 
Interestingly, if you run the Russian wikipedia pages referring to Rurikid or Romanov figures through google translate, the term tsar/tsarina is generally thrown out as "king/queen". And that's even after Peter the Great's proclamation in 1721

(a) Title "Tsar" comes from a corrupted "Caesar" (which is imperial) but context is important (see (d)). Initially, the title had been used as a title of the Khan of the Golden Horde, as a supreme overlord of the Russian princedoms but, when the Horde disintegrated into the lesser states, some of them had been referenced as "Tsardom" but without imperial context.

(b) While the word "Tsar" had been unofficially used after 1721 the official title was emperor/empress.

(c) "Tsarina" is one of the "Brits always know better" things: in Russian it is "tsaritsa" and, IIRC, its (unofficial) usage had been limited to Tsar's/Emperor's wives, not to the ruling empresses. ;)

(d) Ivan IV and his successors prior to 1721 had title "Tsar of All Rus..." with a list of the "lesser" tsardoms he owned: Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Siberia, etc. (the list kept expanding). As the 2-headed eagle was indicating, they did consider themselves successors of the Byzantine empire (notion dropped by Peter I) and not just the "kings".

(e) Translation as "king" is, IMO, lousy: "king" is equivalent to "korol" (король), the title never used by the Russian monarchs. Strictly speaking, the same more or less goes for "Grand Duke" - AFAIK, the only person with a ducal title in the whole Russian history (except for the foreigners with that title) was Alexander Menshikov and Russian equivalent of "Prince" is "Kniaz" (hence Russian princess who received this title from of the HRE had been "Swetlejshij Kniaz", not a "Duke"). However, with the Grand Dukes translation is traditional and it is pointless to object while I never saw "King of Russia" in any book and not planning to pay any attention to the google translation. :openedeyewink:
 
(a) Title "Tsar" comes from a corrupted "Caesar" (which is imperial) but context is important (see (d)). Initially, the title had been used as a title of the Khan of the Golden Horde, as a supreme overlord of the Russian princedoms but, when the Horde disintegrated into the lesser states, some of them had been referenced as "Tsardom" but without imperial context.

(b) While the word "Tsar" had been unofficially used after 1721 the official title was emperor/empress.

(c) "Tsarina" is one of the "Brits always know better" things: in Russian it is "tsaritsa" and, IIRC, its (unofficial) usage had been limited to Tsar's/Emperor's wives, not to the ruling empresses. ;)

(d) Ivan IV and his successors prior to 1721 had title "Tsar of All Rus..." with a list of the "lesser" tsardoms he owned: Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Siberia, etc. (the list kept expanding). As the 2-headed eagle was indicating, they did consider themselves successors of the Byzantine empire (notion dropped by Peter I) and not just the "kings".

(e) Translation as "king" is, IMO, lousy: "king" is equivalent to "korol" (король), the title never used by the Russian monarchs. Strictly speaking, the same more or less goes for "Grand Duke" - AFAIK, the only person with a ducal title in the whole Russian history (except for the foreigners with that title) was Alexander Menshikov and Russian equivalent of "Prince" is "Kniaz" (hence Russian princess who received this title from of the HRE had been "Swetlejshij Kniaz", not a "Duke"). However, with the Grand Dukes translation is traditional and it is pointless to object while I never saw "King of Russia" in any book and not planning to pay any attention to the google translation. :openedeyewink:
Perhaps being granted the title of "King" by the HRE would establish it as a separate and prestigius title in Russia? Or more specifically, King would be adapted as a direct loanword of "König", "Rex", or "Basileus" then being Slavicized into a new Russian word that means "King".

We do see brand new titles emerge from direct borrowing not too long before this period, such as Despotate, Banate, and for that matter the resurgence of Tsar which was rare after the fall of the Bulgarians
 
Perhaps being granted the title of "King" by the HRE would establish it as a separate and prestigius title in Russia? Or more specifically, King would be adapted as a direct loanword of "König", "Rex", or "Basileus" then being Slavicized into a new Russian word that means "King".

Why would it be more prestigious for Ivan III who was already using "Tsar" in his foreign correspondence without feeling a need to get anybody's blessing? Accepting ANY title from the emperor would imply that Ivan's status is subordinate to imperial and that his state is somehow dependent from the (Catholic!!!! :cool:) HRE. Why would he need something of the kind?

Title "King" ("korol") was well-known in the Muscovite state (quite a few of those had been neighbors) but it was not adopted. Probably (I'm just guessing) because it had Catholic associations and/or because Ivan III and IV had higher ambitions.


We do see brand new titles emerge from direct borrowing not too long before this period, such as Despotate, Banate, and for that matter the resurgence of Tsar which was rare after the fall of the Bulgarians

Well, yes. Peter I introduced new titles of "Herzog" (did not stick), "Graf" (plenty of those) and "Baron" (rarely used outside the Baltic nobility already having this title). The new princely titles ("Swetleishij kniaz") had been granted (for a while) by Hapsburg emperors upon application from the Russian emperors/empresses and had nothing to do with the traditional Russian "kniaz". Then, after 1721, there were new titles of "Tsesarevna" (for the emperor's daughters) and, since 1761, "Tsesarevich" (with 2 exceptions held by the emperor's eldest son).

Georgian kingdoms had been routinely referenced in Russian as "tsardoms" but I have no idea how the title sounds in the native language.
 
Slavic words for king (král, król, korol) is Germanic loan, corrupted form of Germanic name Karl (Charles). Among Western Slavs name of Charles the Great became synonymous with royal title due to fame of that monarch. So 'korol' seems too Catholic in origin for monarchs claiming to be successors of Byzantine Emperors.
 
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