Product Code Database
Ruthenia is an exonym, originally used in Medieval Latin, as one of several terms for Rus'. (2026). 9789004363816, Brill. ISBN 9789004363816 Ruthenia was used to refer to the East Slavs and Eastern Orthodox people of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, and later the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Austria-Hungary, mainly to Ukrainians and sometimes Belarusians, corresponding to the territories of modern Belarus, Ukraine, Eastern Poland and some of western Russia.Aleksandr Vasilevich Nazarenko (2026). 9785785900851, Languages of the Rus' culture. . ISBN 9785785900851 (2026). 9780195392456, Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 9780195392456
Historically, in a broader sense, the term was used to refer to all the territories under Kievan dominion (mostly East Slavs). (2026). 9789058230263, Harwood Academic Publ. ISBN 9789058230263 (2026). 9781442634374, University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442634374
The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (1772–1918), corresponding to parts of Western Ukraine, was referred to as Ruthenia and its people as Ruthenians. As a result of a Ukrainian national identity gradually dominating over much of present-day Ukraine in the 19th and 20th centuries, the endonym Rusyns is now mostly used among a minority of peoples on the territory of the Carpathian Mountains, including Carpathian Ruthenia. (2026). 9786155053399, Central European University Press. ISBN 9786155053399
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 Russian Empire.
Danish diplomat Jacob Ulfeldt, who traveled to Muscovy in 1578 to meet with Tsar Ivan IV, titled his posthumously (1608) published memoir Hodoeporicon Ruthenicum
("Voyage to Ruthenia").
[[File:Historic core of Rus'.png|thumb| Rus' land/ Ruthenia in the core sense.
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In a narrow sense, the term Rus' land () referred to the region of Central Dnieper Ukraine encompassing the areas around Kiev, Chernigov, and Pereyaslav. 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. "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 or Ruthenorum to describe people from Rus', 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 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: Eupraxia, the daughter of Rutenorum rex Vsevolod I of Kiev, had married the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in 1089. After the devastating Mongols 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. The Polish Kingdom also took the title King of Ruthenia 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. The Kings of Hungary continued using the title "King of Galicia and Lodomeria" until 1918. (1962). 9780813507996, Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813507996
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 language, and other languages during this period. Contemporaneously, the Ruthenian Voivodeship was established in the territory of Galicia-Volhynia and existed until the 18th century.
These southern territories include:
The Russian Tsardom was officially called Velikoye Knyazhestvo Moskovskoye (Великое Княжество Московское), the Grand Duchy of Moscow, until 1547, although Ivan III (1440–1505, ) had earlier borne the title "Great Tsar of All Russia".
The Grand Principality of Ruthenia was the project name of the Cossack Hetmanate integrated into the Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth.
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.
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, , s. 45.
Carpathian Ruthenia (, ) 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; Ukrainophilia, 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.
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".)
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 Red 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 Slovakization. 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 and hold varying positions on whether or not Rusyns are part of a broader Ukrainian national identity.
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