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I haven't finished the book on Rasputin, but I'm making progress.
Thought I'd mention a few things today about the last couple books I've been reading. I'm not sure if it's a trend or just a coincidence, but the latest few books on history I've been reading have been heavy on regurgitating research and very light on making the history understandable. Some of it is carrying academic arguments into popular works of history. Some of it is trying to squeeze every last bit of info into a book to make it less likely someone else can publish it first. Let's face it, getting a publishing house to publish books on paper these days is getting more and more difficult. So why publish mass market books on paper that are going to be hard for most book buyers to follow? I think it's a simple matter that for a while large printed books have been selling better than thin ones. People see more book for the money maybe, I don't know. I'm just not sure that some of the books I've been reading in the last year or so would have been published a decade or more ago in the form I read them.
Notes on Russian royal titles: I'll talk about most peoples' gripe, Russian names, when I finish the book. For now I'd like to mention a few common terms that are odd or occasionally confused.
Czar vs Tsar: The first word used to be the preferred English spelling and it is, in fact, the Polish spelling. There is no easy way for an English speaker to pronounce it other than just knowing it. Most English speakers (mis)pronounce it as *Zar* anyway. Most English speaking writers will use the second these days. It may not be easy to pronounce, but it's possible.
Tsarina: This word is purely English. It is believed to have come from the perfectly logical German word 'Tsarin,' with a not particularly logical '-a' stuck on for good measure. The Russian word for the wife of the Tsar always has been Tsaritsa. We English speakers should stop using 'Tsarina.'
Tsarevna: Is a daughter of the Tsar.
Tsarevich: Is a son of the Tsar.
Tsetsarevich: Is literally 'the son of Caesar,' but in normal usage 'the Crown Prince' or 'heir to the throne.' Tsar Nicholay/Nicholas II's son was both Tsarevich and Tsetsarevich.
Frankly, to make matters easier I would advise English writers to refer to the later Russian Tsars as 'Emperor' or 'Empress.' It's also correct and a lot less subject to misinterpretation. I wish that using 'prince' and 'princess' for 'tsarevich' and 'tsarvena' worked as well, but sadly they do not. Knaz' the Russian word for 'prince' requires that (') which is liable to get lost, isn't likely to be pronounced correctly and in any case is not the correct term; Velikiy Knaz' 'grand prince' is correct but in addition to its other problems, it can also be translated 'grand duke' just causing more confusion.
Thought I'd mention a few things today about the last couple books I've been reading. I'm not sure if it's a trend or just a coincidence, but the latest few books on history I've been reading have been heavy on regurgitating research and very light on making the history understandable. Some of it is carrying academic arguments into popular works of history. Some of it is trying to squeeze every last bit of info into a book to make it less likely someone else can publish it first. Let's face it, getting a publishing house to publish books on paper these days is getting more and more difficult. So why publish mass market books on paper that are going to be hard for most book buyers to follow? I think it's a simple matter that for a while large printed books have been selling better than thin ones. People see more book for the money maybe, I don't know. I'm just not sure that some of the books I've been reading in the last year or so would have been published a decade or more ago in the form I read them.
Notes on Russian royal titles: I'll talk about most peoples' gripe, Russian names, when I finish the book. For now I'd like to mention a few common terms that are odd or occasionally confused.
Czar vs Tsar: The first word used to be the preferred English spelling and it is, in fact, the Polish spelling. There is no easy way for an English speaker to pronounce it other than just knowing it. Most English speakers (mis)pronounce it as *Zar* anyway. Most English speaking writers will use the second these days. It may not be easy to pronounce, but it's possible.
Tsarina: This word is purely English. It is believed to have come from the perfectly logical German word 'Tsarin,' with a not particularly logical '-a' stuck on for good measure. The Russian word for the wife of the Tsar always has been Tsaritsa. We English speakers should stop using 'Tsarina.'
Tsarevna: Is a daughter of the Tsar.
Tsarevich: Is a son of the Tsar.
Tsetsarevich: Is literally 'the son of Caesar,' but in normal usage 'the Crown Prince' or 'heir to the throne.' Tsar Nicholay/Nicholas II's son was both Tsarevich and Tsetsarevich.
Frankly, to make matters easier I would advise English writers to refer to the later Russian Tsars as 'Emperor' or 'Empress.' It's also correct and a lot less subject to misinterpretation. I wish that using 'prince' and 'princess' for 'tsarevich' and 'tsarvena' worked as well, but sadly they do not. Knaz' the Russian word for 'prince' requires that (') which is liable to get lost, isn't likely to be pronounced correctly and in any case is not the correct term; Velikiy Knaz' 'grand prince' is correct but in addition to its other problems, it can also be translated 'grand duke' just causing more confusion.
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Wow, fascinating! I guessed the general outline (that prince must be the equivalent of some lower French term and that tsar/czar was from caesar), but didn't know any of those specifics. I do know that the English earl is very old, found in Old English as eorl (as opposed to ceorl or carl, commoner), and I do know that duke is from the Roman dux--but no doubt you also know all that!
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