Tsar

Tsar /zɑːr/ (Old Church Slavonic: ц︢рь (usually written thus with a titlo) or цар, цaрь; also Czar or Tzar in Latin alphabet languages) is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism. The term is derived from the Latin word Caesar, which was intended to mean "Emperor" in the European medieval sense of the term—a ruler with the same rank as a Roman emperor, with-holding it by the approval of another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official (the Pope or the Ecumenical Patriarch)—but was usually considered by western Europeans to be equivalent to king, or to be somewhat in between a royal and imperial rank.

Occasionally, the word could be used to designate other, secular, supreme rulers. In Asia and Russia the imperial connotations of the term were blurred with time, due to the medieval translations of the Bible, and, by the 19th century, it had come to be viewed as an equivalent of King.

Tsar (film)

Tsar (Russian: Царь) is a 2009 Russian drama film directed by Pavel Lungin. It competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot

The film is set between the years 1566 and 1569 during the era of the Oprichnina and the Livonian War. The film starts from the time when the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Afanasii has died and Tsar Ivan IV has summoned his childhood friend, Hegumen Philip Kolychev of Solovetsky Monastery. The film is divided into four parts.

1. The prayer of the Tsar. The Tsar is praying in his cell and asked the Lord to help him in his business. Meanwhile, Hegumen Philip arrives in Moscow, and on the way rescues a girl Masha, who is fleeing from a group of guardsmen. Receiving the Hegumen when he arrives, the Tsar invites him to become Metropolitan of Moscow, but Philip initially declines. The Hegumen meets his nephew, who is leaving for the wars and urges the Hegumen to flee from the Tsar, as those around him cannot survive. The Tsar returns to Philip, gives Masha an icon of the Mother of God, and persuades Hegumen Philip to become Metropolitan. Philip, witnessing the horrors being committed by the Oprichniki, urges the Tsar to show mercy to his enemies.