Tsar

The title is especially known through the modern monarchs of Russia, but was already used in the Middle Ages in Bulgaria and Serbia. The linguistic origin of the title is outside the Slavic world. Like the Gothic kaisar (4th century AD), the term developed from the Roman sovereign title Caesar, ultimately traceable to the Roman statesman Gaius Iulius Caesar. As a synonym for the Byzantine title basileus and the Latin imperator, the word entered the Slavic languages as a loanword. Due to the rivalry of the Slavic rulers with the Byzantine Empire, the Slavic derivative tsar deliberately distanced itself from the Latin original form and, like the competing titles, was intended to affirm the imperial claims of the title-holder.

Bulgaria

The Bulgarian rulers always hoped for legitimacy over Byzantium and recognition of their own power. Thus, Constantinople was considered the spiritual center of Orthodox Christianity until its fall. The legitimation of rule among the southern Slavs therefore usually sought proximity to Byzantium and often used Rome as a means of pressure against the patriarch in Constantinople. Already the Bulgarian ruler Terwel (700-721) bore the title of Caesar, which was bestowed upon him by Justinian II for his services during the second siege of Constantinople (717-718).

Officially, the title "tsar" seems to have been used already by the ruler Boris I Mikhail (853-890). The title is historically attested for the first time in Bulgaria in the 10th century for Simeon I (893-927) and his son Peter I (927-969) by the tomb inscription of the Ishirgu Boil (the third man in the Bulgarian state after the Khan and the Kawkhan) named Mostich (Bulgarian Мостич). The tomb inscription was found in 1952 during archaeological excavation works by Prof. St. Vaklinov in the so-called Mostich Church in the downtown of the old administrative center of Preslav. Today scientists assume that the stone monument was created in the fifties, at the latest in the sixties of the 10th century. The text of the monument reads (in Old Bulgarian and translated):

The tomb inscription is kept in the Archaeological Museum of Veliki Preslav.

Simeon I bore the Greek title βασιλεύς "Basileus of all Bulgarians and Greeks" since 917, following the Byzantine model. He managed to legitimize the title of tsar through his successful campaigns against Byzantium and to gain recognition as an equal Caesar alongside the Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation and the Byzantine Emperor.

Knowing the importance of the church for his legitimacy, he created an autocephalous church to rival the Patriarch of Constantinople. In 927 Preslav became the seat of the Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarchate. This apostasy of the church from its patriarchate and the creation of an autonomous church structure consolidated the basis of legitimacy for the Bulgarian tsar and are signs that Simeon I was able to emancipate himself from Byzantium. This exceptional state of an autocephalous Bulgarian church was achieved only once more in the Second Bulgarian Empire after the invasion of the Latins. The following Bulgarian rulers carried the title of tsar until the last Bulgarian tsar Ivan Shishman at the end of the 14th century until the invasion of the Ottomans and the conquest of the capital Tarnovo in 1393. Through the following subordination of the Bulgarian church under the primacy of the patriarchate in Constantinople, the Second Bulgarian Empire also ended.

Since 1908, the Bulgarian rulers again bore the title of tsar: Ferdinand I. , Boris III and Simeon II, although the latter three were dubbed "kings" in the West. In 1946, the Bulgarian Tsardom ended and Bulgaria became a People's Republic.

Serbia

In Serbia, in 1346, Stefan Uroš IV. Dušan was crowned the first tsar of the Serbs and Greeks in Skopje, the capital of the Serbian Empire at that time. His son Stefan Uroš V also held the title. In the 16th century, a self-proclaimed tsar Jovan Nenad ruled in the territory of present-day Vojvodina. The Serbian kings of modern times bore the title "kralj".