.jpg)
Tsarina ortsaritsa (also spelledcsarina orcsaricsa,tzarina ortzaritza, orczarina orczaricza;Bulgarian:царица,romanized: tsaritsa;Serbian:царица /carica;Russian:царица,romanized: tsaritsa) is the title of a femaleautocratic ruler (monarch) ofBulgaria,Serbia, andRussia, or the title of atsar's wife. The English spelling is derived from the Germanczarin orzarin, in the same way as the Frenchtsarine /czarine, and the Spanish and Italianczarina /zarina.[1] (A tsar's daughter is atsarevna.)
"Tsarina" or "tsaritsa" was the title of the female supreme ruler in the following states:
Since 1721, the official titles of the Russian male and female monarchs wereemperor (император,imperator) andempress (императрица,imperatritsa) or empress consort, respectively. Officially the last Russian tsarina wasEudoxia Lopukhina,Peter the Great's first wife.Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse), the wife ofNicholas II of Russia, was the last Russian empress.
Eudoxia Lopukhina was sent to a monastery in 1698 (which was the usual way the emperor "divorced" his wife), and she died in 1731. In 1712 Peter married in churchCatherine I of Russia. TheRussian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1721, and Catherine became empress by marriage. After Peter's death she became ruling empress by her own right. In following centuries, the title "tsarina" was in unofficial informal use – a kind of "pet name" for empresses, whetherruling queens[2] orqueen consorts. ("Mother dear-tsaritsa" (матушка-царица) was used only forCatherine the Great, the most popular empress.)
.jpg)
De jure tsarinas in Russia existed from 1547 until 1721. Among the most famous tsarinas of this period were six or seven wives ofIvan the Terrible, who were poisoned by his enemies, killed or imprisoned by him in monasteries. However, only the first four of them were crowned tsarinas, as the later marriages were not blessed by the Orthodox Church and were considered ascohabitation. Polish noblewomanMarina Mnishek also became tsarina of Russia by her marriage to the impostorFalse Dmitry I and later toFalse Dmitry II.
Many wives were chosen bybride-show (the custom of beauty pageant, borrowed from the Byzantine Empire), when hundreds of poor but handsome noblewomen gathered in Moscow from all the regions of Russia and the tsar chose the most beautiful. This deprived Russia of the benefits ofroyal intermarriage with European monarchs, but protected frominbreeding, as well as from the political influence of foreign princesses (Catholic or Protestant). The only foreign wife of a Russian tsar in this early era (exceptMnishek) wasMaria Temryukovna, a Circassian princess, who converted to Orthodoxy.
The first Bulgarian ruler to use the title tsar wasSimeon I of Bulgaria, and his consort (her name is uncertain, reportedly Maria Sursuvul) used the title tsarina. The title was used by subsequent Bulgarian consorts until the end of theFirst Bulgarian Empire in 1018. The last royal spouse to use the title wasMaria, the wife ofIvan Vladislav of Bulgaria.
When theSecond Bulgarian Empire was created in 1185 the rulers again adopted the title tsar and their consorts were therefore called tsarinas.
In theThird Bulgarian State,Ferdinand I of Bulgaria adopted the title tsar after heproclaimed Bulgaria's Independence in 1908, and his wife,Eleonore Reuss of Köstritz, previouslyknyaginya, becametsaritsa. The last Bulgarian tsaritsa wasGiovanna of Italy, the wife of TsarBoris III of Bulgaria.Margarita Gómez-Acebo y Cejuela, the wife ofSimeon II of Bulgaria, is also sometimes referred as a tsaritsa.
The first Serbian tsarina wasHelena of Bulgaria, sister of Bulgarian TsarIvan Alexander and wife of TsarStephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia. She was the empress consort of Serbia from 1346 until Dušan's sudden death in 1355. The second (and the last) Serbian tsarina wasAnna, Empress of Serbia, from theWallachian noblehouse of Basarab. She married Dušan's son, TsarStephen Uroš V of Serbia, sometime in the 1350s, and ruled until the Serbian empire's demise in 1371.
.svg)
