Tsar Pea

Tsar Pea (Russian: Царь Горох, Tsar Gorokh) is a character from Russian folklore, a fictional tsar whose name literally means "pea".

Expression

Appellations to this name are used in a number of expressions as a reference to times immemorial, such as "during the times of Tsar Pea". It is used in some preambles of Russian fairy tales . In common speech it often bears an ironical sense, as an indication to unbelievable or obsolete circumstances.^[1]

Actual character

There is a number of narratives, folklore and literary, where Tsar Gorokh is an actual character, rather than a simple time frame reference.

• War of Mushrooms, a folk fairy tale, mostly known in the literary redaction of Alexey Tolstoy^[2]
• Tsar Pea, an ironic poem by Pyotr Vyazemsky (1792-1878)^[3]
• A Fairy Tale about Glorious Tsar Pea, Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak

References