In Ukrainian, hospodar is usually applied to the master/owner of a house or other properties and also the head of a family. The hospodar's house is called hospóda. There is also an alternative form for the head of the household - gazda, which is also common in Hungary. Hospod is used exclusively when referring to the Lord and has only a slight relation to hospodar. The title was used briefly towards the end of the Second Bulgarian Empire. In 1394-95, Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria referred to himself not as a Tsar, but as a gospodin of Tarnovo, and in foreign sources was styled herzog or merely called an "infidel bey". This was possibly to indicate vassalage to Bayezid I or the yielding of the imperial title to Ivan Sratsimir. The Ruthenian population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania used the term to style Grand Duke of Lithuania; in that sense it is also used in official documents, given that Old Belarusian was an official language in the Grand Duchy. Gospodar is a derivative of gospod, lord,. The pronunciation hospodar of a word written as господар in many Slavonic languages, which retains the Cyrillic script, could be due to the influence of either Ukrainian, where the first letter is pronounced as Voiced glottal fricative|, or that of the Church Slavonic, where it is pronounced as Voiced velar fricative|. In Slovene, Macedonian, Serbian, Croatian and Bulgarian, gospodar means a "master", "lord", or "sovereign lord". Other derivatives of the word include the Bulgarian, Russian, Macedonian, Serbian and Croatiangospodin, Russian gospod`, the Slovene gospod, the Polishgospodarz usually used to describe a peasant/farmer, the Czechhospodář. All forms stem from the Proto-Slavic word gospodü. Russian word gosudar, which means "". In Slovak and Czech, the word Hospodin is an older and rare address of God. Related to it is hospodár, in a stricter sense an owner or manager of a farm or similar establishment is another address to God. Related to it is hospodář referring to a person, that manages some property, especially in agriculture. As a term denoting authority the word gospodar has also been the subject of ironic derision. A good example is the song "Gospodar" from the early 1980s by the Slovene punk rock bandPankrti.
Non-Slavic usage
The rulers of Wallachia and Moldavia were styled hospodars in Slavic writings from the 17th century to 1866. Hospodar was used in addition to the title voivod. When writing in Romanian, the term Domn was used. At the end of this period, as the title had been held by many vassals of the Ottoman Sultan, its retention was considered inconsistent with the independence of the United Principalities'. Hospodar was therefore discarded in favour of Domnitor or, in short, Domn, which continued to be the official princely title up to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Romania in 1881,. In Romanian gospodar means a good manager of a household or a property. Hungarian word gazda = "potentate", "rich landowner" is borrowed from the language of Southern Slavs who inhabited today's Hungary before the arrival of the Hungarians, akaMagyars, to Europe.
