A fact from Tsarist autocracy appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 5 January 2009, and was viewed approximately 1,805 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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It is evident that some improvements to the current text are warranted. Someone just contacted me on my talk page saying the same, especially about the WP:SYNTHing of sources without looking at their context.
One of the things that might need merit improvement is the title. Initially, I also thought that just renaming the whole thing to Tsarism was a good idea, but the RM above from 9 years ago rejected that idea. Moreover, when I tried looking for some literature in JSTOR, all I got was juxtapositions of communism versus tsarism, and how everything that was "tsarist" collapsed in the late 1910s. But nobody bothers to define "tsarism", say anything about "origins of tsarism", "rise of tsarism", "early tsarism" etc. It seems to be an anti-category, or a superficial labelling of a time period that has ended, much like ancien régime, which does not really have a clear beginning (and for those who use the term, perhaps it does not need to), but it does have a very clear ending, namely during the French Revolution of 1789/1790s. So it doesn't really help us out here.
I'm beginning to think that @Piotrus's suggestion for a rename to samoderzhaviye (from самодержавие), which already redirects here, might be a good one. It is arguably unique to Russia/Muscovy, and perhaps it should literally be understood in its own terms. Even if the vast majority of English-language literature seems to customarily translate самодержавие as autocracy, that is not Russia-specific enough for an article title, while adding "tsarist" does not really help us as stated above. However, it should be enough of a WP:COMMONNAME (if one exists). Samoderzhavie gives 331 results in JSTOR, while Samoderzhaviye gives only 20 results. In both cases, this often appears in mere romanisations of Cyrillic phrases and publication titles, so that might not a solution either if it has not really entered into English literature untranslated but merely transcribed. So this might not be a viable option for a new title yet. NLeeuw (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see that a previous title of this article has been Russian autocracy, which was then changed to Tsarist autocracy. Might it make more sense to rename it to Autocracy in Russia, along the lines of Monarchism in Russia? Then again, that might not be specific enough for the so-called Tsarist period, from 1547 to 1917. I don't know yet... NLeeuw (talk) 20:03, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It has been a long time since I looked at this. I am not sure if 'tsarist autocracy' is the best, but it is reasonably clear. We could consider autocracy (Russia) or autocracy in Russia, but Russia is a broader concept that Russian Empire/Muscovy, which this term refers to (some call Putin an autocrat, for example; and readers could reasonably expect that such named article would discuss modern Russia too). Samoderzhavie has the issue of not being well known in English and is much less clear than the current title (WP:USEENGLISH). Considering that GScholar gives up 4k hits for tsarist autocracy, I think the term is widely used in English and we do not need to rename the article. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here01:51, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I clicked on the Google Scholar linked you put in here, and saw Eric Lohr, a well-established scholar, one of the leading in his field. His 2023 article 'Tsarism, Tsarist Autocracy, and the Russian Sonderweg' in Journal of Modern History, says this in the abstract, quite easy to find:
This article argues that the terms tsarist, tsarism, and tsarist autocracy are anachronistic, inaccurate, and can serve the Orientalizing purpose of taking Russia out of the comparative conceptual field. Tracking the history of the use of these terms in dictionaries and academic publications over time, it reveals that they were not used during the height of the struggle between autocracy and liberal constitutionalists from 1900 to 1905 and between the constitutional monarchy and the liberal opposition from 1906 to February 1917. Rather, they were applied retroactively after the 1917 revolution as part of a polemical attempt to legitimize the Bolshevik abolition of all constitutional constraints on its new autocratic regime by denying the constitutional aspects of the one that preceded it. While use of the terms has declined in Russia, their use has grown in the English-speaking world since 2010. The article shows how the terms we use can serve to dismiss the significance of Russia’s era of constitutional monarchy, discourage thinking comparatively, and subconsciously promote an exaggerated notion of Russia as inherently and peculiarly prone to autocracy.
Well, draw your own conclusions about the state of the art of historiography on Russia and the relevance of this article in its current state. Monarchy in Russia or something along those lines could help to treat different aspects of the evolving monarchy (look up Richard Wortman's Scenarios of Power for inspiration).
Piotrus makes some good points. Changing the article title to something better might not be easy for the time being. But covering what English sources have said about Samoderzhavi(y)e so far is probably a good place to start. I'll add one as a first step. NLeeuw (talk) 01:11, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You have not changed at all, have you? You really use a Wikipedia 'stub' to judge an academic's position within the scholarly debates on whatever? Richard Wortman does not have a page either... How do you think this reflects on your own reliability/credibility?
In any case, Eric Lohr is not 'just one critic' of an otherwise established concept. The entire point is that there has been no discussion or debate about a concept of specifically 'tsarist' autocracy. There is nothing to have any 'consensus' about. All the google hits you use to justify your point are completely off the mark, they typically reflect stilistic choices that do not convey any specific conceptual meaning - if they do for an author, the meaning is very vague at best. Eric Lohr rightfully calls out academics and non-academics on their thoughtless and careless use of these words.
Just to add for you to think about and use to rework this article, this is from Lohr's 2023 article:
Tsarist Autocracy
Tsarist autocracy was close to nonexistent both in English and in Russian until
the decades following the 1917 revolutions. In comparative context, it is an unusual,
redundant expression. Just aswewouldn’t say that Louis XIVwas a kingist
absolute monarch, there is no need to add tsarskoe (tsarist) to modify samoderzhavie
(autocracy) in Russian. Russian scholars more often use Russian autocracy
rather than tsar’s autocracy when specification of the country is required.
Given that tsarist by definition is associated with autocracy in English usage,
the term is redundant in English as well.16
The phrase is problematic too for its inclusion of autocracy as the preferred
term to describe the Russian variant of absolute monarchy.
[...]
There are many more examples of scholars who have problematized the concept
of autocracy in Russian history. Some have abandoned it entirely and refer
to Russia’s polity as an absolutist monarchy.23
[...]
[Paraphrising Lohr, he says that the present-day idea of autocracy, its current politicological meaning, was at best an unattainable ideal for the emperor by 1900 (earlier periods were not *very* different by the way).]
Many historians call the new regime a constitutional monarchy. Marc Szeftel
calls the post-1905 regime both a constitutional monarchy and a dumamonarchy.
Ronald Suny calls the Fundamental Laws a “constitution” and the post-1905
order a “semi-constitutional, semiautocratic regime.” Laura Engelstein calls the
Fundamental Laws “a constitution in all but (objectionable) name” and prefers
the term “dynasty” when referring to the old regime. Prominent Russian historian
Andrei Zubov calls it a “Duma monarchy.”32 I. A. Khristoforov, I. V. Lukoianov,
and other recent Russian scholars stress the hybrid nature of the regime by calling
it a “dualistic” monarchy with a mix of constitutional and strong monarchical elements.33
[He cites more]
Yet, a surprising number of historians continue to refer to 1906–17 Russia as
an autocracy, or a tsarist autocracy. Many likely do so without intending to make
a point, but some do seem to be making a claim about the nature of the new regime.
[...]
Those who use these terms to describe the post-1905 regime rarely explicitly
Sigh indeed. You, and Lohr, make a fair point that "tsarist autocracy" is not the ideal term, but nobody is suggesting a better one, so what's the point of this discussion? I am not preventing you or anyone else from adding Lohr's critique of this term to the article. His view is due. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here13:35, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A curiosity: I've just archived the talk page and could not help but notice that nobody gave a damn since 2016 till January 2025 :-) --Altenmann>talk23:56, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
