4 ms·

Any idea why powerful bureaucrats are called Czars? Why not Dukes, for example? Drug Duke..

• distances 7y ago
  Czar meas emperor, so the highest authority. Not sure why czar and not emperor though.
  • henriquemaia 7y ago
    Maybe to skew the interpretation? Maybe to plant a seed of doubt on how pernitious their role is?
  • evgen 7y ago
    It comes, via a long path that includes “kaiser”, from Caesar. One of the early Ivans started using it, it stuck, and even when they tried changing to imperator people kept using tsar/czar. In English it seems to be used informally to describe the person in charge even if the are more of a figurehead than a locus of actual authority.
  • KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago
    czar has an connotation of tyranny while emperor has varying levels of control. Contemporary to russian czar we have the much less powerful hre emperor and the japanese emperor controlled by the shogun.
• decebalus1 7y ago
  Why not tech fuhrer? (Godwin's law in action)