[POLL] Is the Russian Tsardom a continuation of the Roman Empire?

Is Russia a continuation of the Roman Empire?


  • Total voters
    113

spendabuck

Banned
Since everyone else seems to be doing this, I wanted to ask the following question; was the Tsardom of Russia a continuation of the Roman Empire?

Personally, I believe that Russia has legitimacy in claiming to be 'the Third Rome'; Ivan III, the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1462-1505, had married Sophia Palaiologos; of course, the Palaiologoi (?) were the last dynasty to control the Byzantine Empire. Therefore, if you consider the Byzantines to be a continuation of the Roman Empire, the Russian Empire should also be considered a continuation. If your argument is that the Russians did not share many of the cultural practices of the Romans or Byzantines, remember that after Justinian, the Byzantine emperors largely spoke Greek as a primary language as opposed to Latin.
 
yes and no, id say russia is more a continouation of the orthodox church then the roman empire after all byzantium LITTERALY is eastern roman empire while russia is not....
 
To be honest, I think that the claim of Russia to be the 'third Rome' is mostly just propaganda, in the same way that the claims of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Ottoman "Kaiser-i-Rum" were.

Really, I think to say that one state is a 'continuation' of another state, it has to have arisen out of the collapse of the other state. Russia pre-existed the fall of Constantinople as Muscovy, and so really Russia is a continuation of Muscovy rather than anything else.

Although, I think the problem with this question is that there's no real definition of 'continuation'. Did Russia gain some of its legitimacy from claiming to be the successor to the Byzantine Empire (and hence to Rome)? Sure it did. Did Russia inherit something from the Byzantines (and hence from Rome)? Sure. But, I feel that any answer I give to this question is going to depend on how I define the word 'continuation', which is not necessarily the same way that someone else defines it.
 
The 'Byzantine Empire' was a continuation of the Roman Empire because there was no break in its government. The institutions in Rome just transferred to Constantinople, so it was still the same Empire. Russia is not a continuation of that tradition because there was no continuity of government and institutions. The ruler of an existing state marrying into the royal family of another does not make continuity.
 
Sophia's line died out eventually in the 16th century along with the rest of the Rurikids.Even before then,Sophia's brother had his claims sold to the monarchs of France and Spain respectively.After that,the family that has the strongest blood claim to the Roman throne are the Bourbons.They are descendants of the emperors through the Palaeologos of Montferrat.
 
Only the most hardcore Russian Orthodox believers crossed with a dose of Russian nationalism would ever believe that. That pretty much continues from the origin of the claim and how spurious it was to begin with. But religion-wise, it's kinda true--Russia was the only independent Orthodox power not ruled over by Muslims, so that had to count for something.
 
I feel like a "Yes" or "No" answer isn't really valid here. Whilst if I had to choose one I'd say "no" in terms of political continuity as the Muscovite-Russian state was not a political continuation of the Roman or Byzantine Empires.

That being said, I think there is some validity to the idea that the Russian state was, at least during the Tsardom, a spiritual and cultural successor of Byzantium. This however, depends on how much one buys into the theory of Russia's semi-orientalism as being a result of being a hybrid Slavo-Byzantine culture.
 
Another of these threads? What, was there a discount on "Is X a continuation of the Roman Empire" threads?

To answer the question: from my personal POV, Russia isn't really a continuation of the Roman Empire. The Czars could claim the Roman title because they were descendants of the Paleoloigi but even then they're not really the best claimants and the bloodline of Sophia Paleologia got extinct after the death of the last Rurikids. More importantly, the Russians aren't Romans nor do they have any Roman-inherited institutions aside maybe from the Orthodox Church.
 
I'd say "no", for the most part. Byzantine/Roman political ideology was not centered on dynastic links anyway. Arguably, blood claims were of secondary importance at best.

As the sole surviving independent Orthodox state and unofficial protector of Orthodox Christianity abroad, the Russian Empire had something, but that something was IMO not enough to be considered a real continuation of Rome.
 
I only recognise one true heir to the Imperium Romanum and its systems of governance, and hence also demand that they make reparations to the state of Tunisia for the crimes against humanity executed in the Third Punic "War".

San_marino_flagge.jpg
 
I'd say "no", for the most part. Byzantine/Roman political ideology was not centered on dynastic links anyway. Arguably, blood claims were of secondary importance at best.

As the sole surviving independent Orthodox state and unofficial protector of Orthodox Christianity abroad, the Russian Empire had something, but that something was IMO not enough to be considered a real continuation of Rome.
ummm Ukraine, Greece, Belarus, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, serbia, Georgia are all more eastern-orthodox than russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxy_by_country
 

Yun-shuno

Banned
I only recognise one true heir to the Imperium Romanum and its systems of governance, and hence also demand that they make reparations to the state of Tunisia for the crimes against humanity executed in the Third Punic "War".

San_marino_flagge.jpg
Tunisia or what?
 
Only the most hardcore Russian Orthodox believers crossed with a dose of Russian nationalism would ever believe that. That pretty much continues from the origin of the claim and how spurious it was to begin with. But religion-wise, it's kinda true--Russia was the only independent Orthodox power not ruled over by Muslims, so that had to count for something.

I always find it amusing reading "western" history works about Russia - I mean serious "boring" academic books about the period when the claim about Moscow being the third Rome appeared: the non-Russian authors are truly surprised how little the Russians themselves cared about any Rome, first, second, whatever, and any Roman Empire(s).

That grand idea of Moscow being equal to Rome and the title of Csar being equal to the title of the HRE kaiser was for the foreign consumption mostly.

You have to realize that the "hardcore Russian Orthodox believers" didn't care about the Roman Empire, actually they didn't care about any Empire; true Orthodoxy is about vanity of any worldly secular lay power.
"Russian nationalists"... well, it is more about being Slavic, being truly unique... actually being opposed to the Roman/Byzantine Empire, being independent, not too emphasizing the influence of the Roman/Byzantine Empire on "holly Rus" on mother-Russia. Being continuation of anything non-Russian doesn't have too much appeal for such people. Title "Czar" for such people is a true Russian title, they don't like to mention that it is derived from the Roman "Caesar".
 
If we're going to use inheritance to determine who is the Third Rome, then it is EASILY going to be Montferrat. Male heir of the last Roman Emperors, at least under Salic primogeniture.

Simply put, the ruler of Russia, at the time, had at best a weak claim to the Roman throne, but had the best chance to actually enforce his claim - and odd twist on history that the heirs to the Roman Empire were heirs of the HRE in Italy. What a wonderfully odd timeline it would be to see the HRE grant Italy to the Palialogoi as junior to him. Talk about a coup! There are undoubtedly people in Italy, who today have a more legitmate claim, even under Russian inheritance, to the title Emperor of Rome, than any of the Russian princes.

Culturally? Culture can change within a state and the state persisting. Especially if the culture is that of the namesake. In this case, those who called themselves Romans hellenised, but were still Romans - whilst Russia was neither hellenised, or Romanised, and has no cultural similarities.

Russias primary way to claim to be the 'Third Rome' is based on Orthodoxy, and being the strongest Orthodox nation, you may have a point. The problem however, is outside Crimea, they ruled no territory that the Romans used to own (or very little). I think it was limited even under the Soviet Union. I'd support Moscow as the Vice Gerent of Christ, but Emperor of the Romans is probably more fittingly Ottoman, even if they weren't the Roman Empire (Yes, I get that I'm splitting hairs).
 
No, plain and simple sure Ivan III Great married Sophia, but the Tsardom of Russia could be never be considered in any way shape or form a continuation of the Byzantine Empire, not politically or culturally. The Moscovite-Russian state had its own political traditions based on the long lasting Rurikid dynasty and some parts of Mongol administration namely the Iam.

I would say the Russian Orthodox Church was a successor to the Byzantine church as far as a national or at least prominent Orthodox church goes but that's about it.

@Russian I do believe Ivan the Terrible took the title of Tsar to be important, considering he said he only had two brothers the Holy Roman Emperor and the Ottoman Emperor. Granted he was willing to dismiss the two as an elected functionary and a heathen respectively. Then again it was brought up in a book written by Alexander Yanov who thinks Russia was a fudamentally western nation.
 
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