Was Czar Ivan the Terrible that terrible, or was he a Caesar Tyrant?

[KorbenDallas]

In this thread I plan on showing that our understanding of the word "Tyrant" is seriously skewed. It appears we were provided with a substituted meaning of this word. This, in turn, assisted today's pseudo-historians to distort our understanding of certain historical processes. It also provided for some major misconceptions when we think about certain historical individuals, i.e. Ivan the Terrible.

The Free State of the People of England Maintained​

Think about how many historical individuals are known as Tyrants. Also consider how different their story could be, were my assessment of this word to be correct.

I believe the true meaning of the word Tyrant (lat. Tyrannus) is the ruler of the Kings, or the Top King, or the King of the Kings. We also need to remember that King in latin is Rex, and in russian is Czar/Tsar. And when we talk about a word Czar, some will notice a whole lot of Caesar in there. And Caesar was used as a title by the emperors of the Roman Empire.

And as I was writing all this, I realized that russian word Czar was substituted with a word Tsar. And that bears a humongous difference for our understanding of the true history, in my opinion. For Czar, could really mean Caesar.

Ngram: Czar vs Tsar

Ioannes Basilius Magnus
aka Ivan the Terrible
1530-1584​

On 16 January 1547, at age sixteen, Ivan was crowned with Monomakh's Cap at the Cathedral of the Dormition. He was the first to be crowned as "Tsar of All the Russias", hence claiming the ancestry of Kievan Rus.

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Essentially we have Ivan the Terrible being crowned as Czar, or Caesar of (they say Russia) the Roman Empire, for only Roman Empire Emperors used the title "Caesar". And as we know, the Roman Empire put an end to Tartary. Well, Ivan the Terrible spent most of his life fighting with Tatars a.k.a Tartars, a.k.a. Tartary.

Ivan spent all his rule warring, trying to expand the country's territory. On the one hand he defeated the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan, uniting them with Russia. He also appropriated the Volga and Urals and began exploring the vast lands of Siberia.

But on the other hand, Russia lost the Livonian War (1558-1583) against Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and could not gain access to the Baltic Sea. For decades the central part of Russia was raided by Crimean Tatars. In 1571 they even made it to Moscow and burned everything except the Kremlin. The Tatars were defeated, but Russia was financially ruined.

As we can see, Tartary fought back. It's also hard to say what powers Swedish, and Polish armies were really representing.

In 1613, 30 years after Ivan the Terrible's death, Russian Czars end up with the last name of Romanov. Coincidence?

Ivan the Terrible

Stars of David show up early...
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Ivan IV commonly known as Ivan the Terrible or Ivan the Fearsome; a better translation into modern English would be Ivan the Formidable), was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 to 1547, then Tsar of All Rus until his death in 1584.

Here I was actually going to give Wikipedia some props, for not using the word "Tyrant", but may be there is a reason for this word to be omitted from the current narrative. While Wikipedia does mention him being an able diplomat, a patron of arts and trade, and a few other things, Ivan the Terrible is still presented as some psychologically unstable scary individual. For example it claims that he killed his son Ivan Ivanovich, to which there is no historical proof.

1899 - A Short Outline of the History of Russia

1847 - Secret History of the Court and Government of Russia Under the Emperors Alexander and Nicholas
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Historic sources present disparate accounts of Ivan's complex personality: he was described as intelligent and devout, given to rages and prone to episodic outbreaks of mental instability that increased with his age. In one such outburst, he killed his son and heir Ivan Ivanovich after also killing the latter's unborn son. This left his younger son, the pious and politically ineffectual Feodor, to inherit the throne. This later directly led to the end of the Rurikid dynasty as well as the beginning of the Time of Troubles, as Feodor was unable to produce an heir.

Ivan the Tyrant

1804 - The history of the revolutions of Russia, to the accession of Catharine the First

1829 - The foreign quarterly review​

In my opinion the word "Tyrant" could mean a certain royal title; a rank among Kings, so to speak.

Oedipus Rex​

Interesting things happen when you are in the middle of a research. Sometimes things simply fall in your lap. This one sure did.

Oedipus Rex - Wikipedia​

Oedipus Rex, also known by its Greek title, Oedipus Tyrannus, or Oedipus the King, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed around 429 BC. In antiquity, the term “tyrant” referred to a ruler, but it did not necessarily have a negative connotation.

Repercussions: The historian Josephus (c. 37–100), while calling Nero a tyrant, was also the first to mention bias against Nero.

• But I omit any further discourse about these affairs; for there have been a great many who have composed the history of Nero; some of which have departed from the truth of facts out of favour, as having received benefits from him; while others, out of hatred to him, and the great ill-will which they bore him, have so impudently raved against him with their lies, that they justly deserve to be condemned. Nor do I wonder at such as have told lies of Nero, since they have not in their writings preserved the truth of history as to those facts that were earlier than his time, even when the actors could have no way incurred their hatred, since those writers lived a long time after them.

Who else was named a tyrant? May be the word, and the meaning should be changed to Tyrant?

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Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV), inherited a certain Coat of Arms from his grandfather Ivan the Great (Ivan III). Officially Ivan the Terrible's grandfather was the first Russian ruler to use the Double Headed Eagle crest in Russia. But Ivan the Terrible was the one to be crowned the first Czar.

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KD: Just what the article says. Stuff is super confusing. How many "Tyrants" do we have in our history? Do we properly understand who those rulers were? Were they heartless, ruthless psychos, or were they simply the Top Kings of this world? And of course why do we have Russian rulers being called Czars?

Apologies, but this Tyrant, and Czar topics were never supposed to be in the same thread. It just played out thay way.

Tyrannosaurus Rex [Tyrannus Rex]:

• Its name is from the Greek words meaning “tyrant” and “lizard” and the Latin word for “king.”

 

[CyborgNinja]

Czar & Caesar. Good connection there.
The whole business is very confusing but I think you've done well explaining the lineage.

Author Graham hancock talks of "Library Angels" when youre researching a certain topic and helpful information comes your way from seemly random places. Often giving you and break through.

 

[ISeenItFirst]

Kinda changes the whole sic semper tyrannus quote a bit.

 

[KorbenDallas]

I was going over Friedrich Barbarossa late last night. Getting this notion that him and Ivan the Terrible could be one and the same.

Friedrich Barbarossa

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Barbarossa could be interpreted in a few different ways. With whatever Barba Rossa really stands for:

• Red Beard
• Red Barbarian
• Russian Barbarin from Russia being Rossiya

Both Friedrich and Ivan had red beards, but beyond that there were multiple other strange coincidences between the two which are too weird to dismiss.

And then it takes us into the Nero territory. History appears to be seriously messed up.

 

[WildFire2000]

Are you also suggesting, with the 'weirdness of Nero territory' that Ivan the Terrible was ALSO Nero?

 

[KorbenDallas]

Are you also suggesting, with the 'weirdness of Nero territory' that Ivan the Terrible was ALSO Nero?

LOL, I have not traveled that far yet. At the same time if the phantom theory has any merit, there can only be so many explainable identical coincidences between the same individuals before they become non-coincidental.

What's interesting we could be able to add Prester John to the pile. Prester John (Latin: Presbyter Johannes) was a legendary Christian patriarch, and king who was popular in European chronicles and tradition from the 12th through the 17th centuries. He was said to rule over a Nestorian (Church of the East) Christian nation lost amid the Muslims and pagans of the Orient, in which the Patriarch of the Saint Thomas Christians resided.

• Essentially this could be our Ivan the Great surrounded by the Tartarian lands.

Barbarossa Connection
Prester John fabulous Christian king riding out

 

[whitewave]

@KorbenDallas: Proof of concept : He (Ts'in) is usually himself counted as one of the Five Protectors; but, although he was certainly very influential, and for that reason was certainly one of the Five Tyrants, OR Five Predominating Powers, it is certain that he never succeeded in obtaining the Emperor’s formal sanction to act as such over the orthodox principalities, nor did he ever preside at a durbar of Chinese federal princes.
(Sounds like more of a vizar or second-in-command types). VERY influential, predominating power. Not the emperor, though.