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If I remember correctly, Ivan the Terrible was descended from the great Kievan chieftain Vladimir (which means, roughly, “prince of the world”) who formed the incipient Russian state around the year 1000. The waning Byzantine Empire was to maintain close ties with Kiev and the Rus rulers thereafter.

Anastasia's full name was Anastasia Romanova, from which the Romanov Dynasty was to take its name (beginning with her grandnephew, Michael Romanov) and rule Russia for 300 years.

During Ivan's rule, Muscovy Russia (the center of power had since shifted north from Kiev to Moscow) laid claim to the title "Third Rome" after Byzantium (the Second Rome) fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Anastasia introduced Byzantine customs to the court and Ivan adopted the two-headed Byzantine eagle as the Russian seal--which has been reprised in post-Soviet Russia. Ivan really saw his rule as a continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire after Constantinople's demise.

The "Third Rome" Romanov Dynasty finally collapsed with the abdication and murder of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917. Oddly enough, Kaiser (also from "Caesar") Wilhelm abdicated less than a year later, in 1918. Of course, the German seal was also of a Roman imperial eagle, albeit one-headed.

Thus in the span of one year both the western and eastern conceits that lay claim to Roman Imperial authority and power lay in ruins; Rome had finally and utterly collapsed after persisting in bits and fractured pieces through almost two millennia.

During Ivan's rule, Muscovy Russia (the center of power had since shifted north from Kiev to Moscow) laid claim to the title "Third Rome" after Byzantium (the Second Rome) fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

I just checked my memory against more permanent sources.

Muscovy Russia began to be known as the "Third Rome" late in Ivan the Great's (a.k.a. Ivan III, Ivan the Terrible's father) reign. More from this source:

"Ivan III (The Great), Grand Prince of Moscow from 1462 to 1505, continued the policy of former rulers to strenghten leadership of Moscow; he united the principalities surrounding Moscow into a single Russian State. In 1480 Ivan III publicly declared the end of Tatar yoke; he fought successfully against Poland, Livonia and Lithuania and enchanced the political prestige of Russia. He also published the first code of law. Ivan started to behave like a direct heir of Byzantine throne. About this time, a scholarly Russian monk developed in his writings the concept of a 'Third Rome,' which identified Moscow as a true capital of Christendom, in a line of succession through Rome and the recently fallen Constantinople. Ivan III adopted the term 'Tsar', a slavic contraction of the word 'Caesar', to refer [to] himself."

...though, some argued, it was revived in North America.

Thanks, Kevin. This makes a lot of sense.

I thought the Romanovs and the title Czar must have come from Constantinople or some connection with Constantinople.

Was Anastasia Romanova from Constantinople? If so, this explains it all.

Your explanation that

"in the span of one year both the eastern and western conceits that lay claim to Roman Imperial authority lay in ruins"

is beautiful.

Thank you. --SB

Anastasia introduced Byzantine customs to the court and Ivan adopted the two-headed Byzantine eagle as the Russian seal--which has been reprised in post-Soviet Russia.

That explains all those vodka bottle symbols :)