The Legacy of 'The Third Rome'. - Is The Roman Empire still alive?

by ThisisVollstad

(I don't have a history degree, and I want to know if what I've listed is true or not)

  • In Classical Latin 'C' was pronounced as 'K', which is why Caesar was pronounced as "Kaisar"

  • The title was later used by the German Kaisers of The Holy Roman Empire

  • The Tsardom of Russia also used the title. The alternate spelling for Tsar is Czar, which means Kaiser

  • The Holy Roman Empire and The Tsardom of Russia both considered themselves as "Third Rome" - The continuation of the Roman Empire. [Which Empire was the true Third Rome is still heavily debated today] - (Second Rome being The Eastern Roman Empire, later 'The Byzantine Empire')

  • In World War 1, Russian Soldiers were known to have a chant in relation to retaking Constantinople, - Meaning that they wished to restore The Third Rome

It boggles the mind how something so absolutely fascinating as the continuation of The Roman Empire has been completely ignored in my education.

How I came across this was when researching the history behind the title of 'Kaiser'. There were no connections to the other information I've listed, and I had to connect dots on my own. It's quite odd how this has not been documented properly. Am I wrong? Honestly I'm asking. This is investigative history and I might very well have it all wrong.

shane_il

The Holy Roman Empire was founded with the blessing of the Pope and was in a sense a continuation of the Western Roman Empire, and an attempt to rebuild it, but it didn't have much to do with the old Empire.

The Russian connection is indeed derived from the Byzantine Empire. When the Byzantine Empire fell in the 1400's Russia became the central location for Orthodox Christianity, with a number of important church authorities relocating there, hence a continuation of the Orthodox Empire.

The reason this isn't referred to much is that there wasn't much of an actual connection to the classical Roman Empire, it was more of a rhetorical device used to rally the support of the respective Christian populations and unite the populations (both the Holy Roman Empire and Russia had quite divided populations so unity was important). Rome was an ideal that these entities aspired to, their perception being of a large united Christian empire.

EDIT: Clarification