LONDON - Experts are calling for a ban on the Russian drama ‘Tsar’ based on the bloody life and times of Ivan the Terrible.

Historian Vyacheslav Manyagin turned to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to outlaw the movie, insisting it shows Russia’s first tsar as a crazed sadist and a murderous tyrant, which he claims is an eventual insult to Russian statehood.

“Imagine that they made a film in America about George Washington in which the first US president was portrayed as a bloodthirsty maniac. This film slanders the Russian people and state,” the Telegraph quoted him as saying.

Manyagin further alleged that the misleading interpretation could reinforce Western stereotypes about modern Russia.

He said: “If you believe that the founder of our state was such a tyrant, then you could believe that modern Russia is, as the West says, a stronghold of totalitarianism.”

Director Pavel Lungin, on the other hand, told the Moscow Times: “We can see a lot of the characteristics of his power today. After his reign, Russia was left behind in the process of progress. We have made no headway since that time.” (ANI)