:Ruthenia

{{Further|Names of Rus', Russia and Ruthenia}}

The word Ruthenia originated as a Latin designation of the region its people called Rus'. During the Middle Ages, writers in English and other Western European languages applied the term to lands inhabited by Eastern Slavs.{{cite book|title= Oxford English Dictionary |date= 2011 |publisher= Oxford University Press |quote = Rvcia hatte Rutenia and is a prouynce of Messia (J. Trevisa, 1398).}}{{cite book | last1 = Armstrong

| first1 = John Alexander

| author-link1 = John Alexander Armstrong

| year = 1982

| title = Nations Before Nationalism

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=F3RGDgAAQBAJ

| publisher = University of North Carolina Press

| publication-date = 2017

| page = 228

| isbn = 9781469620725

| access-date = 7 July 2019

| quote = From the linguistic standpoint, the results of this catastrophe [the Mongol invasion] somewhat resemble the collapse of the Roman empire for the latin-speaking peoples. Like the great 'Romania' of the Western Middle Ages, there was a great 'Ruthenia' in which common linguistic origin and some measure of mutual comprehensibility was assumed.

}}

Rusia or Ruthenia appears in the 1520 Latin treatise Mores, leges et ritus omnium gentium, per Ioannem Boëmum, Aubanum, Teutonicum ex multis clarissimis rerum scriptoribus collecti by Johann Boemus. In the chapter De Rusia sive Ruthenia, et recentibus Rusianorum moribus ("About Rus', or Ruthenia, and modern customs of the Rus'"), Boemus tells of a country extending from the Baltic Sea to the Caspian Sea and from the Don River to the northern ocean. It is a source of beeswax, its forests harbor many animals with valuable fur, and the capital city Moscow (Moscovia), named after the Moskva River (Moscum amnem), is 14 miles in circumference.{{cite book |last1= Мыльников |first1= Александр |title= Картина славянского мира: взгляд из Восточной Европы: Представления об этнической номинации и этничности XVI-начала XVIII века |date= 1999 |publisher= Петербургское востоковедение |location= Saint Petersburg | isbn= 5-85803-117-X |pages= 129–130}}

{{cite journal

|last1= Сынкова |first1= Ірына

|title= Ёган Баэмус і яго кніга "Норавы, законы і звычаі ўсіх народаў"

|journal= Беларускі Гістарычны Агляд |date= 2007

|volume= 14 |issue= 1–2

|url= http://www.belhistory.eu/iryna-synkova-yogan-baemus-i-yago-kniga-%E2%80%9Enoravy-zakony-i-zvychai-%D1%9Esix-naroda%D1%9E%E2%80%9C/

}}

Danish diplomat Jacob Ulfeldt, who traveled to Muscovy in 1578 to meet with Tsar Ivan IV, titled his posthumously (1608) published memoir Hodoeporicon Ruthenicum

{{cite book

| last1 = Ulfeldt

| first1 = Jacob

| author-link1 = Jacob Ulfeldt (1535–1593)

| title = Hodoeporicon Ruthenicum, in quo de Moscovitarum Regione, Moribus, Religione, gubernatione, & Aula Imperatoria quo potuit compendio & eleganter exequitur [...]

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=F_JPAAAAcAAJ

| language = la

| edition = 1

| location = Frankfurt

| date = 1608

| access-date = 7 July 2019

}}

("Voyage to Ruthenia").

{{cite book

| last1 = Kasinec

| first1 = Edward

| last2 = Davis

| first2 = Robert H.

| chapter = The Imagery of Early Anglo-Russian Relations

| editor1-last = Dmitrieva

| editor1-first = Ol'ga

| editor2-last = Abramova

| editor2-first = Natalya

| title = Britannia & Muscovy: English Silver at the Court of the Tsars

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=miIc_u3JuKwC

| publisher = Yale University Press

| date = 2006

| page = 261

| isbn = 9780300116786

| access-date = 7 July 2019

| quote = [...] [Jacob Ulfeldt's] Hodoeporicon Ruthenicum ['Ruthenian Journey'] (Frankfurt, 1608 [...]) [...].

}}

File:Ruthenian Lion, which was used as a representative Coat of arms of Ruthenia during the Council of Constance from 1414 to 1418.jpg, which was used as a representative coat of arms of Ruthenia during the Council of Constance in the 15th century]]

In Kievan Rus', the name Rus', or Rus'ka zemlia (land of Rus'), described the lands between Kiev, Chernihiv and Pereyaslav, corresponding to the tribe of Polanians, which started to identify themself as Rus' ({{langx|uk|Русь, Русини}}) approximately in 9th century.{{Cite web |title=Polianians |url=https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?AddButton=pages%5CP%5CO%5CPolianians.htm |access-date=2024-09-27 |website=www.encyclopediaofukraine.com}}

[[File:Historic core of Rus'.png|thumb|Rus' land/Ruthenia in the core sense.{{Cite journal |last=Motsia |first=Oleksandr |date=2009 |title=|script-title=uk:«Руська» термінологія в Київському та Галицько-Волинському літописних зводах |trans-title="Ruthenian" question in Kyiv and Halych-Volyn annalistic codes |url=http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/5284/02-Motsya.pdf |journal=Arkheolohiia |issue=1 |pages= |doi=10.6084/M9.FIGSHARE.1492467.V1 |issn=0235-3490 |access-date=25 January 2023 |archive-date=2 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202101523/http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/5284/02-Motsya.pdf |url-status=live}}

{{legend|LightSalmon|1. After Petro Tolochko}}

{{legend|Yellow|2. After A. M. Nasonov}}

{{legend|LimeGreen|3. After Boris Rybakov}}]]

In a broader sense, this name also referred to all territories under control of Kievan princes, and the initial area of Rus' land served as their metropole, yet this wider meaning declined when Kiev lost its power over majority of principalities.Orest Subtelny. [https://diasporiana.org.ua/istoriya/11408-subtelny-o-ukraine-a-history/ "Ukraine. A History" (Fourth edition)]. Page 38. After the Mongol Invasion of Kievan Rus' and a massive devastation of the core territory, the name Rus' was succeeded by Galician-Volhynian principality, which declared itself as Kingdom of Rus'.

European manuscripts dating from the 11th century used the name Ruthenia to describe Rus',{{citation needed|date=May 2021}} the wider area occupied by the early Rus' (commonly referred to as Kievan Rus{{'}}). This term was also used to refer to the Slavs of the island of Rügen{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=61lMAAAAIAAJ&q=ruthenia|title=The Life of Otto, Apostle of Pomerania, 1060-1139|date=28 July 1920|publisher=Society for promoting Christian knowledge|via=Google Books}} or to other Baltic Slavs, whom 12th-century chroniclers portrayed as fierce pirate pagans—even though Kievan Rus' had converted to Christianity by the 10th century:{{cite journal|last1=Paul|first1=Andrew|title=The Roxolani from Rügen: Nikolaus Marshalk's chronicle as an example of medieval tradition to associate the Rügen's Slavs with the Slavic Rus|journal=The Historical Format|date=2015|volume=1|pages=5–30|url=https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/roksolany-s-ostrova-ryugen-hronika-nikolaya-marshalka-kak-primer-srednevekovoy-traditsii-otozhdestvleniya-ryugenskih-slavyan-i-russkih}}{{request quotation|date=May 2021}} Eupraxia, the daughter of Rutenorum rex Vsevolod I of Kiev, had married the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in 1089.{{cite book|title=Annales Augustani |year=1839|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NDJhAAAAcAAJ&q=rutenorum+regis+filiam|page=133}} After the devastating Mongolian occupation of the main part of Ruthenia which began in the 13th century, western Ruthenian principalities became incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, after which the state became called the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia.{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L_4rAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Grand+Duchy+of+Lithuania+and+russia%22|title=An Historical Geography of Russia|first=William Henry|last=Parker|date=28 July 1969|publisher=Aldine Publishing Company|via=Google Books}}{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5L1oAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Grand+Duchy+of+Lithuania+and+russia%22|title=Russia, the Giant that Came Last|first=Joshua|last=Kunitz|date=28 July 1947|publisher=Dodd, Mead|via=Google Books}} The Polish Kingdom also took the title King of Ruthenia[https://web.archive.org/web/20141204182032/http://www.wbc.poznan.pl/Content/20085/kw_03.html Document Nr 1340 (CODEX DIPLOMATICUS MAIORIS POLONIA)]. POZNANIAE. SUMPTIBUS BIBLIOTHECAE KORNICENSIS. TYPIS J. I. KRASZEWSKI (Dr. W. ŁEBIŃSKI). 1879. when it annexed Galicia. These titles were merged when the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was formed. A small part of Rus' (Transcarpathia, now mainly a part of Zakarpattia Oblast in present-day Ukraine), became subordinated to the Kingdom of Hungary in the 11th century.{{sfn|Magocsi|1996|p=385}} The Kings of Hungary continued using the title "King of Galicia and Lodomeria" until 1918.{{cite book |last1=Francis Dvornik |title=The Slavs in European History and Civilization |date=1962 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=9780813507996 |page=214}}

{{See also|Gathering of the Russian lands}}

By the 15th century, the Moscow principality had established its sovereignty over a large portion of former Kievan territory and began to fight Lithuania over Ruthenian lands.[https://www.britannica.com/place/Grand-Principality-of-Moscow Grand Principality of Moscow] Britannica[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ivan-III Ivan III] Britannica In 1547, the Moscow principality adopted the title of The Great Principat of Moscow and Tsardom of the Whole Rus and claimed sovereignty over "all the Rus'" — acts not recognized by its neighbour Poland.Dariusz Kupisz, Psków 1581–1582, Warszawa 2006, s. 55–201. The Muscovy population was Eastern Orthodox and preferred to use the Greek transliteration Rossiya (Ῥωσία){{cite book|author= T. Kamusella|title= The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=JzkWDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA164|date= 16 December 2008|publisher= Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn= 978-0-230-58347-4|pages= 164–165}} rather than the Latin "Ruthenia".

In the 14th century, the southern territories of Rus', including the principalities of Galicia–Volhynia and Kiev, became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which in 1384 united with Catholic Poland in a union which became the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. Due to their usage of the Latin script rather than the Cyrillic script, they were usually denoted by the Latin name Ruthenia. Other spellings were also used in Latin, English, and other languages during this period.{{citation needed|date=March 2020}} Contemporaneously, the Ruthenian Voivodeship was established in the territory of Galicia-Volhynia and existed until the 18th century.

These southern territories include:

• Galicia–Volhynia or the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia ({{Langx|uk|Галич-Волинь|translit=Halych-Volyn}} or {{Langx|uk|Галицько-Волинське королівство|translit=Halytsko-Volynske korolivstvo|label=none}}; {{Langx|pl|Ruś Halicko-Wołyńska}} or {{Langx|pl|Księstwo halicko-wołyńskie|label=none}})
• Galicia ({{Langx|uk|Галич|translit=Halych}} or {{Langx|uk|Галицько-Волинська Русь|translit=Halytsko-Volynska Rus|label=none}}; {{Langx|pl|Ruś Halicka}})
• White Ruthenia, (eastern part of modern Belarus; {{Langx|be|Белая Русь|translit=Belaia Rus}}; {{Langx|pl|Ruś Biała}})
• Black Ruthenia (a western part of modern Belarus; {{Langx|be|Чорная Русь|translit=Chornaia Rus}} {{Langx|pl|Ruś Czarna}})
• Galicia, or Red Ruthenia, western Ukraine and southeast Poland; ({{Langx|uk|Червона Русь|translit=Chervona Rus}}; {{Langx|pl|Ruś Czerwona}})
• Carpathian Ruthenia ({{Langx|uk|Карпатська Русь|translit=Karpatska Rus}}; {{Langx|pl|Ruś Podkarpacka|lit=Subcarpathian Ruthenia}})

The Russian Tsardom was officially called Velikoye Knyazhestvo Moskovskoye (Великое Княжество Московское), the Grand Duchy of Moscow, until 1547, although Ivan III (1440–1505, {{reign | 1462 | 1505 }}) had earlier borne the title "Great Tsar of All Russia".

{{cite book

|last1= Trepanier|first1= Lee

|title= Political Symbols in Russian History: Church, State, and the Quest for Order and Justice

|date= 2010|publisher= Lexington Books|isbn= 9780739117897|pages= 38–39, 60

|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=-iYhlLgLXYQC

}}

{{See also|Ruthenian language#Development}}

During the early modern period, the term Ruthenia started to be mostly associated with the Ruthenian lands of the Polish Crown and the Cossack Hetmanate. Bohdan Khmelnytsky declared himself the ruler of the Ruthenian state to the Polish representative Adam Kysil in February 1649.{{cite web|title=Khmelnychyna|url=http://izbornyk.org.ua/encycl/euii284.htm|website=Izbornyk - History of Ukraine IX-XVIII centuries. Sources and Interpretations|publisher=Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies.|access-date=25 January 2015|language=uk}}{{failed verification|reason=Source is in Ukrainian, where the native term is used instead|date=July 2023}}

The Grand Principality of Ruthenia was the project name of the Cossack Hetmanate integrated into the Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}}

The use of the term Rus/Russia in the lands of Rus' survived longer as a name used by Ukrainians for Ukraine.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}} When the Austrian monarchy made the vassal state of Galicia–Lodomeria into a province in 1772, Habsburg officials realized that the local East Slavic people were distinct from both Poles and Russians and still called themselves Rus. This was true until the empire fell in 1918.Vernadsky, George. A History of Russia (1943–69). Pp. xix, 413. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-00247-5.

In the 1880s through the first decade of the 20th century, the popularity of the ethnonym Ukrainian spread, and the term Ukraine became a substitute for Malaya Rus' among the Ukrainian population of the empire. In the course of time, the term Rus became restricted to western parts of present-day Ukraine (Galicia/Halych, Carpathian Ruthenia), an area where Ukrainian nationalism competed with Galician Russophilia.{{sfn|Magocsi|1996|p=408-409,444|ps= :"Throughout 1848, the Austrian government gave its support to the Ukrainians, both to their efforts to obtain recognition as a nationality and to their attempts to achieve political and cultural rights. In return, the Ukrainian leadership turned a blind eye to the political reaction and repressive measures that at the same time were being carried out by Habsburg authorities against certain other peoples in the empire" (pp. 408–409) ... "Most important from the standpoint of the debate as to the proper national orientation was the Austrian government's decision in 1893 to recognize the vernacular Ukrainian (Rusyn) language as the standard for instructional purposes. As a result of this decision, the Old Ruthenian and Russophile orientations were effectively eliminated from the all-important educational system" (pp. 444)}} By the early 20th century, the term Ukraine had mostly replaced Malorussia in those lands, and by the mid-1920s in the Ukrainian diaspora in North America as well.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

Rusyn (the Ruthenian) has been an official self-identification of the Rus' population in Poland (and also in Czechoslovakia). Until 1939, for many Ruthenians and Poles, the word Ukrainiec (Ukrainian) meant a person involved in or friendly to a nationalist movement.Robert Potocki, Polityka państwa polskiego wobec zagadnienia ukraińskiego w latach 1930–1939, Lublin 2003, wyd. Instytut Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, {{ISBN|83-917615-4-1}}, s. 45.

{{further|Rusyns}}

File:West-Ukraine 1918.jpg

File:Subcarpathia - Carpatho-Ukraine.svg

After 1918, the name Ruthenia became narrowed to the area south of the Carpathian Mountains in the Kingdom of Hungary, also called Carpathian Ruthenia ({{Langx|uk|карпатська Русь|translit=karpatska Rus}}, including the cities of Mukachevo, Uzhhorod, and Prešov) and populated by Carpatho-Ruthenians, a group of East Slavic highlanders. While Galician Ruthenians considered themselves Ukrainians, the Carpatho-Ruthenians were the last East Slavic people who kept the historical name (Ruthen is a Latin form of the Slavic rusyn). Today, the term Rusyn is used to describe the ethnicity and language of Ruthenians, who are not compelled to adopt the Ukrainian national identity.

Carpathian Ruthenia ({{langx|hu|Kárpátalja}}, {{langx|uk|Закарпаття|translit=Zakarpattia}}) became part of the newly founded Hungarian Kingdom in 1000. In May 1919, it was incorporated with nominal autonomy into Czechoslovakia as Subcarpathian Rus'. Since then, Ruthenian people have been divided into three orientations: Russophiles, who saw Ruthenians as part of the Russian nation; Ukrainophiles, who like their Galician counterparts across the Carpathian Mountains considered Ruthenians part of the Ukrainian nation; and Ruthenophiles, who claimed that Carpatho-Ruthenians were a separate nation and who wanted to develop a native Rusyn language and culture.{{Cite journal|last=Gabor|first=Madame|date=Autumn 1938|title=Ruthenia|journal=The Ashridge Journal|volume=35|pages=27–39}}{{Verify source|date=April 2018}}

In 1938, under the Nazi regime in Germany, there were calls in the German press for the independence of a greater Ukraine, which would include Ruthenia, parts of Hungary, the Polish Southeast including Lviv, the Crimea, and Ukraine, including Kyiv and Kharkiv. (These calls were described in the French and Spanish press as "troublemaking".){{cite news |title=ALEMANIA ESTA CREANDO UN NUEVOFOCO DE PERTURBACIONES EN UCRAINA|url=http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/preview/1934/06/15/pagina-7/33123533/pdf.html?search=Járkov|last=Fabra|work=La Vanguardia|page=7|language=es|date=18 December 1938|access-date=1 April 2022|quote=«Le Figaro» [...] la creación de una Ucraina independiente [...] un mapa de los territorios de raza ucrainiana en que se incluye a la Rutenia, una parte de Hungría, el sureste de Polonia con la ciudad de Lwow, y toda la Ucraina soviética, con Crimea y las ciudades de Kiev y Jarkov}}

On 15 March 1939, the Ukrainophile president of Carpatho-Ruthenia, Avhustyn Voloshyn, declared its independence as Carpatho-Ukraine. On the same day, regular troops of the Royal Hungarian Army occupied and annexed the region. In 1944 the Soviet Army occupied the territory, and in 1945 it was annexed to the Ukrainian SSR. Rusyns were not an officially recognized ethnic group in the USSR, as the Soviet government considered them to be Ukrainian.

A Rusyn minority remained, after World War II, in eastern Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia). According to critics, the Ruthenians rapidly became Slovakized.{{cite web|url=http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/crs/homefund.htm|title=The Rusyn Homeland Fund|publisher=carpatho-rusyn.org|date=1998|access-date=13 February 2017}} In 1995 the Ruthenian written language became standardized.Paul Robert Magocsi: A new Slavic language is born, in: Revue des études slaves, Tome 67, fascicule 1, 1995, pp. 238–240.

Following Ukrainian independence and dissolution of the Soviet Union (1990–91), the official position of the government and some Ukrainian politicians has been that the Rusyns are an integral part of the Ukrainian nation. Some of the population of Zakarpattia Oblast of Ukraine have identified as Rusyn (or Boyko, Hutsul, Lemko etc.) first and foremost; a subset of this second group has, nevertheless, considered Rusyns to be part of a broader Ukrainian national identity.

In 1844, Karl Ernst Claus, Russian naturalist and chemist of Baltic German origin, isolated the element ruthenium from platinum ore found in the Ural Mountains. Claus named the element after Ruthenia to honor Russia.{{cite journal |last=Pitchkov |first=V. N. |year=1996 |title=The Discovery of Ruthenium |url=https://doi.org/10.1595/003214096X404181188 |url-status=live |journal=Platinum Metals Review |volume=40 |issue=4 |pages=181–188 |doi=10.1595/003214096X404181188 |s2cid=267553640 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110609195008/http://www.platinummetalsreview.com/dynamic/article/view/pmr-v40-i4-181-188 |archive-date=9 June 2011 |access-date=7 October 2024}}

File:Kyiv Rus 912 copy.png|Ruthenia and Kievan domains during Askold and Dir and Oleg the Wise (862–912)

File:Principalities of Kievan Rus' (1054-1132) en.svg|Principalities of Kievan Rus' (1054–1132)

File:Korolivstvo Ruske 13-14 stolittia.png|Kingdom of Ruthenia (13th-14th century)

File:RON województwo ruskie map.svg|Ruthenian Voivoideship (14th-18th century)

File:Rzeczpospolita Trojga Narodów w roku 1658.png|Grand Principality of Ruthenia shown in dark yellow (1658 project)

File:Linguistic and political map of Eastern Europe, Casimir Delamarre, 1868.jpg|"ruthenian languages and people" mentioned in the linguistic and political map of Eastern Europe by Casimir Delamarre (1868)

File:Austria hungary 1911.jpg|1911 map of Austro-Hungary showing ethnic Ruthenians in light-green in eastern Galicia

• Grand Principality of Ruthenia
• Ruthenian Voivodeship
• Names of Rusʹ, Russia and Ruthenia
• Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth
• Kingdom of Ruthenia
• Ruthenian (disambiguation)
• Ruthenian nobility
• Polish National Government (January Uprising)
• Lemkos

{{notelist}}

{{reflist}}

• Norman Davies, Europe: A History. New York, Oxford University Press, 1996. {{ISBN|0-06-097468-0}}
• {{Cite book| author=Magocsi, Paul Robert |year=1995 |title=The Rusyn Question – Political Thought |url=http://www.litopys.org.ua/rizne/magocie.htm}}
• {{cite book|first=Paul Robert|last=Magocsi|author-link=Paul Robert Magocsi|year=1996|title=A History of Ukraine|publisher=University of Toronto Press|location=Toronto|isbn=0-8020-0830-5|page=385}}

{{commons category}}

• {{CathEncy|wstitle=Ruthenians}}
• [http://www.pravapis.org/art_white_russia.asp Why is the "Russia" White?] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120913051151/http://www.pravapis.org/art_white_russia.asp |date=13 September 2012 }} - a book review of Ales Biely's Chronicle of Ruthenia Alba
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110126235948/http://hungarian-history.hu/lib/ruth/ruth00.htm "Ruthenia – Spearhead Toward the West", by Senator Charles J. Hokky, Former Member of the Czechoslovakian Parliament (Book representing a Hungarian nationalist position)]

{{Ruthenian lands}}

Category:Historical regions

Category:Exonyms