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<h2 class="">Czars in Their Eyes</h2>
<div class="" style="width:230px"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Borisgodunov.jpg/220px-Borisgodunov.jpg" height="272" width="220"><p class="">Boris Godunov, czar of all Russia, 1598-1605</p></div>
<p>It’s been a big month for the czars.</p>
<p>The White House has appointed Ron Klain as Ebola czar. Not <em>capo</em> or <em>boss, </em>but<em> cz</em><i>ar</i>, the Russian term (also transliterated as <em>tsar</em>) related to Latin <em>C</em><i>aesar </i>and German <i>Kaiser. </i></p>
<p>What’s with American English and <em>czar</em>, concept and word? Is it ours now, or do we still need to mark it off in some way?</p>
<p>HuffPo and <em>The Washington Times</em> deploy the term in roman
font without typographic qualification. NPR has taken a more circumspect
view, at least in its online form, where we’re told “White House
Appoints an Ebola ‘Czar’” —with scare quotes around <i>czar</i> as if that word were the scariest part of the announcement. Kathryn Schulz’s recent <em>New York Magazine</em> article is entitled <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/americas-strange-love-affair-with-czars.html">“America’s Strange Love Affair With the Word </a><i><a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/americas-strange-love-affair-with-czars.html">Czar,”</a> </i>where italics become the signifier of emphasis and linguistic difference.</p>
<p>In recent decades the White House has been the locus of much
czar-making. Since FDR there have been budget czars and car czars,
climate czars and drug czars. America’s history with the word <em>czar,</em> however,<em> </em>stretches back into the 19th century, back at least as far as 1872, and the appearance of a work entitled <i>The Struggles (Social, Financial and Political) of Petroleum V. Nasby, </i>republished two years later as <i>The Moral History of America’s Life-Struggle.</i></p>
<p>The title page of <i>Moral History </i> announces illustrations by
Thomas Nast, a preface by Charles Sumner, and an extraordinary quotation
from the late Abraham Lincoln: “For the genius to write like Nasby, I
would gladly give up my office.” One is grateful that Lincoln couldn’t
and didn’t.</p>
<p>“Nasby” was the humorist David Ross Locke. His book, a satirical
account of American political life (there must be other kinds, but at
the moment it’s hard to imagine what they might be),<em> </em>is written in the sort of dialect transcription we tolerate (sort of) in Mark Twain and shrink from elsewhere.</p>
<p>The “Prefis” begins “Uv the makin uv books there is no end.” It goes on from there.</p>
<p>Here is Locke on the arrival of President Andrew Johnson in Albany, N.Y.:</p>
<p>“There wuz a immense crowd, but the Czar uv all the Amerikas didn’t
get orf his speech here. The Governor welcomed him, but he welcomed him
ez the Cheef Magistrate uv the nashen, and happened to drop in Lincoln’s
name. That struck a chill over the party, and the President got out uv
it ez soon ez possible. Bein reseeved ez Chief Magistrate, and not ez
the great Pacificator, ain’t His Eggslency’s best holt. It wuz unkind of
uv Governor [Reuben] Fenton to do it. If he takes the papers, he must
know that His Mightiness ain’t got but one speech, and he ought to hev
made sich a reception ez wood hev enabled him to hev got it off. We
shook the dust off uv our feet, and left Albany in disgust.”</p>
<p>That phrase—“the Czar uv all the Amerikas”—feels in tune with at
least one contemporary strand of angry antigovernment sentiment.</p>
<p>The 1870s reference to Lincoln and <i>czar </i>would come to look somewhat different. In 1881, just 16 years after the American president was felled to the cry of<em> “Sic semper tyrannis,”</em>
Czar Alexander II, who had emancipated the serfs 20 years earlier and
survived several attempts on his life in the intervening years, was
finally the victim of an assassin’s bomb. A generation later the
Revolution dispatched the last czar and his family.</p>
<p>David Ross Locke’s 19th-century usage, however, isn’t really
dependent on the history of Boris Godunov and his ilk. The satiric
reference points us in the direction of grandiosity, real or ironically
conceived, rather than autocratic control.</p>
<p>But that was then. Today the word <i>czar </i>has become so degraded that it fits almost anything.</p>
<p>Beyond the Beltway, and with more or less irony, almost any position in middle management can be advertised as <i>czar</i>
(website czar, direct-mail czar, and so on), which is a rather
grandiose way of saying that one has direct reports and a budget. There
is probably a hamburger-bun czar at a fast-food establishment within
driving distance of where you are.</p>
<p>And so the devolution of czar from Russian emperor to almost anybody, including just us folks on campus.</p>
<p>At Virginia Commonwealth University, the position of <a href="http://jobs.cheerwine.com/x/detail/a2drq2mkc9vm"><em>campus czar</em></a> turns out to be not a euphemism for <em>provost</em> or <em>head football coach</em> but only an ad placed by Cheerwine, a soft-drink company. To be this particular kind of <em>czar</em>
one must “be outgoing, enjoy socializing with people, and have good
communication and organization skills.” Probably not Nicholas II’s
strong suit.</p>
<p>Look around your own campus. You might find an ID czar, a
buildings-and-grounds czar, an alumni-outreach czar. The person
overseeing Greek life could be czar of all the rushes.</p>
<p>I think I’d better stop there.</p><p><br></p><p><a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2014/10/31/czars-in-their-eyes/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en">http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2014/10/31/czars-in-their-eyes/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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