Tsarevich
Tsarevich [ tsɐˈrʲevʲɪtɕ ] ( Russian Царевич, " Tsar's son", "Emperor's son") was the nobility title of the heir to the throne and male descendants of the Russian Tsar . It was used from the time Ivan the Terrible assumed the title of Tsar in 1547 until the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II in 1917.
With the death of Tsarevich and heir to the throne Alexei Petrovich, imprisoned for conspiracy against his father Peter the Great , in 1718, this title was temporarily out of use. Male descendants or relatives of the emperor or empress were instead referred to with the title "Grand Duke" ( Weliki Knjas ) in the 18th century .
In 1797, Tsar Paul I (r. 1796–1801) reintroduced the title "Tsarevich" as a special term for the respective heir to the throne of the Russian Empire. "Tsarevich" is only the everyday short form of the title, officially the Russian heir to the throne from 1797 to 1917 was called "His Imperial Highness the Heir to the Throne" (Jewo Imperatorskoje Vysochestvo Tsesarevich-Naslednik). The first Tsarevich in this category was the eldest son of Paul I and later Emperor Alexander I (ruled 1801–1825), the last Tsarevich was the only son of the last Emperor Nicholas II (ruled 1894–1917), Alexej Nikolajewitsch (1904 ), who was ill with blood –1918), who was murdered by the Bolsheviks with his parents and sisters in July 1918 .
Younger male members of the Tsarist dynasty, however, continued to bear the title of " Grand Duke " since the 18th century . Emperor Alexander III (reigned 1881-1894), in view of a meanwhile considerably enlarged dynasty in a reform of the family law of the Romanovs, restricted the title of grand duke to the biological sons and grandsons of an emperor, while more distant male members of the dynasty have since only been granted the title of " prince " ("Highness") / Vysochestvo) were allowed to lead. Today's Romanovs only refer to themselves as princes, with the exception of the daughter Maria Wladimirowna (* 1953) of the Grand Duke and heir to the throne Wladimir Kyrillowitsch Romanow-Holstein-Gottorp († 1992) and her son Georgi Michailowitsch Romanow of Prussia ( who was married to Franz Wilhelm of Prussia ) ( * 1981) who claim the title of "Grand Duke".
The female counterpart is called Tsarevna ( Russian Царевна, "Tsar's daughter").
literature
- Tsar . In: Brockhaus Bilder-Conversations-Lexikon . 1st edition. Volume 4, FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1837-1841, p. 780 .
- Yevgeny Karnovich: Rodovyje prosvanija i tituly w Rossii i slijanije inozemzew s russkimi . Isdanije Suworina, Saint Petersburg 1886, p. 159 ff. (Russian)
