List of titles used by dictators

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This is a list of titles used by dictators, authoritarian political leaders.

Contents

Before the Second World War

In the 1940s and parts of the 1950s

Such titles used by heads of state and/or government during the Second World War include:

Postwar era and the Cold War

Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's longtime dictator, embezzled over $5 billion from his country. Mobutu Seko 1973.jpg
Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's longtime dictator, embezzled over $5 billion from his country.
Suharto, Indonesia's longtime dictator, embezzled up to $35 billion from his country. President Suharto, 1993.jpg
Suharto, Indonesia's longtime dictator, embezzled up to $35 billion from his country.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dictator</span> Political leader who possesses absolute power

A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a polity. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in times of emergency. Like the terms "tyrant" and "autocrat", dictator came to be used almost exclusively as a non-titular term for oppressive rule. In modern usage the term dictator is generally used to describe a leader who holds or abuses an extraordinary amount of personal power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicolae Ceaușescu</span> Leader of Romania from 1965 to 1989

Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian politician who was the second and last communist leader of Romania, serving as the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989. Widely classified as a dictator, he was the country's head of state from 1967 to 1989, serving as President of the State Council from 1967 and as the first President of the Republic from 1974. He was overthrown and executed in the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, part of a series of anti-communist uprisings in Eastern Europe that year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">King of Romania</span> Title of the Romanian monarch from 1881 until 1947

The King of Romania or King of the Romanians was the title of the monarch of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when the Romanian Workers' Party proclaimed the Romanian People's Republic following Michael I's forced abdication.

Führer is a German word meaning "leader" or "guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. Hitler officially styled himself der Führer und Reichskanzler after the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934 and the subsequent merging of the offices of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler.

<i>Duce</i> Italian title

Duce is an Italian title, derived from the Latin word dux, 'leader', and a cognate of duke. National Fascist Party leader Benito Mussolini was identified by Fascists as Il Duce of the movement since the birth of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in 1919. In 1925 it became a reference to the dictatorial position of Sua Eccellenza Benito Mussolini, Capo del Governo, Duce del Fascismo e Fondatore dell'Impero. Mussolini held this title together with that of President of the Council of Ministers: this was the constitutional position which entitled him to rule Italy on behalf of the King of Italy. Founder of the Empire was added for the exclusive use by Mussolini in recognition of his founding of an official legal entity of the Italian Empire on behalf of the King in 1936 following Italy's victory in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. The position was held by Mussolini until 1943, when he was removed from office by the King and the position of Duce was discontinued, while Marshal The 1st Duke of Addis Abeba was appointed Presidente del Consiglio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greater Romania Party</span> Political party in Romania

The Greater Romania Party is a Romanian far-right political party. Founded in May 1991 by Eugen Barbu and Corneliu Vadim Tudor, it was led by the latter from that point until his death in September 2015. The party is sometimes referred to in English as the Great Romania Party.

<i>Poglavnik</i> Title used by Ante Pavelić

Poglavnik is a Serbo-Croatian word meaning "leader" or "guide".

<i>Conducător</i> Official title used by Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu during World War II

Conducător was the title used officially by Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu during World War II, also occasionally used in official discourse to refer to Carol II and Nicolae Ceaușescu.

A supreme leader or supreme ruler typically refers to to powerful figures with an unchallenged authority, such as autocrats, dictators to spiritual and revolutionary leaders. Historic examples are Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, Francisco Franco of Francoist Spain, Benito Mussolini of Fascist Italy and Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Axis leaders of World War II</span>

The Axis Powers of World War II was established with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in 1940 and pursued a strongly militarist and nationalist ideology; with a policy of anti-communism. During the early phase of the war, puppet governments were established in their occupied nations. When the war ended, many of them faced trials for war crimes. The chief leaders were Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, Benito Mussolini of Fascist Italy, and Hirohito of the Empire of Japan. Unlike what happened with the Allies, there was never a joint meeting of the main Axis heads of government, although Mussolini and Hitler met on a regular basis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saparmurat Niyazov</span> First president of Turkmenistan (1940–2006)

Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov, known as Türkmenbaşy, was a Turkmen politician who led Turkmenistan from 1985 until his death in 2006. He was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan from 1985 until 1991 and supported the 1991 Soviet coup attempt. He continued to rule Turkmenistan as president for 15 years after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Constantin Petrovicescu</span> Romanian soldier and politician

Constantin Petrovicescu was a Romanian soldier and politician, who served as Interior Minister from September 14, 1940, to January 21, 1941, during the National Legionary State.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Snagov Palace</span>

Snagov Palace is a former royal palace on the shore of Lake Snagov, about 40 km north-east of Bucharest, in Ilfov County, Romania. The palace is situated in the commune of Snagov and near the Snagov Monastery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicolae Ceaușescu's cult of personality</span> Cult of personality surrounding Nicolae Ceaușescu in Cold War Romania

During the Cold War, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu presided over the most pervasive cult of personality within the Eastern Bloc. Inspired by the personality cult surrounding Kim Il Sung in North Korea and Mao Zedong in China, it started with the 1971 July Theses which reversed the liberalization of the 1960s, imposed a strict nationalist ideology, established Stalinist totalitarianism and a return to socialist realism. Initially, the cult of personality was just focused on Ceaușescu himself. By the early 1980s, however, his wife, Elena Ceaușescu—one of the few spouses of a Communist leader to become a power in her own right—was also a focus of the cult.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National communism in Romania</span> State ideology of Romania, 1960s to 1989

National communism in Romania is a term referring to a form of nationalism promoted in the Socialist Republic of Romania between the early 1960s and 1989; the term itself was not used by the Communist regime. Having its origins in Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's political emancipation from the Soviet Union, it was greatly developed by Nicolae Ceaușescu, who began in 1971, through his July Theses manifesto, a national cultural revolution. Part of the national mythology was Nicolae Ceaușescu's cult of personality and the idealization of Romanian history, known in Romanian historiography as protochronism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sigmaringen enclave</span> French World War II government-in-exile

The Sigmaringen enclave was the exiled remnant of France's Nazi-sympathizing Vichy government which fled to Germany during the Liberation of France near the end of World War II in order to avoid capture by the advancing Allied forces. Installed in the requisitioned Sigmaringen Castle as seat of the government-in-exile, Vichy French leader Philippe Pétain and a number of other collaborators awaited the end of the war.

France was one of the largest military powers to come under occupation as part of the Western Front in World War II. The Western Front was a military theatre of World War II encompassing Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. The Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale combat operations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liberation from Fascist Occupation Day</span> Historic public holiday in Romania

Liberation Day, officially known as the Liberation from Fascist Occupation Day was observed on 23 August in Communist Romania to celebrate the 1944 Romanian coup d'état, the event that caused Romania to leave the Axis in World War II and marked the beginning of the Soviet occupation of Romania. It coincides with the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.

References

  1. "Bizarre, brutal and self-obsessed. Now time's up for Turkmenistan's dictator". The Guardian. December 22, 2006.
  2. Lentz, H. M. (1994). Heads of States and Governments . Jefferson: McFarland. ISBN   978-0-89950-926-6.