Ruthenia

Template:Short description Template:Other uses Template:Use dmy dates

Rus' land/Ruthenia in yellow, Kievan Rus' under Oleg the Wise in gray, 862-912

The area of Red Ruthenia against the background of the administrative division of the Second Polish Republic

RutheniaTemplate:Efn is an exonym, originally used in Medieval Latin, as one of several terms for Rus'.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Originally, the term Rus' land referred to a triangular area, which mainly corresponds to the tribe of Polans in Dnieper Ukraine.<ref name=":1" /> Ruthenia was used to refer to the East Slavic 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Nazarenko2001">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Magocsi2010">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Historically, in a broader sense, the term was used to refer to all the territories under Kievan dominion (mostly East Slavs).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (1772–1918), corresponding to parts of Western Ukraine, was referred to as Ruthenia and its people as Ruthenians.<ref name="Magocsi2010"/> As a result of a Ukrainian national identity gradually dominating over much of present-day Ukraine in the 19th and 20th centuries, the endonym Rusyn is now mostly used among a minority of peoples on the territory of the Carpathian Mountains, including Carpathian Ruthenia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Etymology

Template:Further 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book </ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref> Template:Cite journal </ref> Danish diplomat Jacob Ulfeldt, who traveled to Muscovy in 1578 to meet with Tsar Ivan IV, titled his posthumously (1608) published memoir Hodoeporicon Ruthenicum<ref> Template:Cite book </ref> ("Voyage to Ruthenia").<ref> Template:Cite book </ref>

Early Middle Ages

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

Ruthenian lion, 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' (Template:Langx) approximately in 9th century.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Historic core of Rus'.png

Rus' land/Ruthenia in the core sense.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite journal</ref> Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend

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.<ref>Orest Subtelny. "Ukraine. A History" (Fourth edition). Page 38.</ref> 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',Template:Citation needed the wider area occupied by the early Rus' (commonly referred to as Kievan RusTemplate:'). This term was also used to refer to the Slavs of the island of Rügen<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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:<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Request quotation Eupraxia, the daughter of Rutenorum rex Vsevolod I of Kiev, had married the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in 1089.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Polish Kingdom also took the title King of Ruthenia<ref>Document Nr 1340 (CODEX DIPLOMATICUS MAIORIS POLONIA). POZNANIAE. SUMPTIBUS BIBLIOTHECAE KORNICENSIS. TYPIS J. I. KRASZEWSKI (Dr. W. ŁEBIŃSKI). 1879.</ref> 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.Template:Sfn The Kings of Hungary continued using the title "King of Galicia and Lodomeria" until 1918.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Late Middle Ages

Template:See also 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.<ref>Grand Principality of Moscow Britannica</ref><ref>Ivan III Britannica</ref> 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.<ref>Dariusz Kupisz, Psków 1581–1582, Warszawa 2006, s. 55–201.</ref> The Muscovy population was Eastern Orthodox and preferred to use the Greek transliteration Rossiya (Ῥωσία)<ref name="Kamusella2008">Template:Cite book</ref> 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.Template:Citation needed 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 (Template:Langx or Template:Langx; Template:Langx or Template:Langx)
Galicia (Template:Langx or Template:Langx; Template:Langx)
White Ruthenia, (eastern part of modern Belarus; Template:Langx; Template:Langx)
Black Ruthenia (a western part of modern Belarus; Template:Langx Template:Langx)
Galicia, or Red Ruthenia, western Ukraine and southeast Poland; (Template:Langx; Template:Langx)
Carpathian Ruthenia (Template:Langx; Template:Langx)

The Russian Tsardom was officially called Velikoye Knyazhestvo Moskovskoye (Великое Княжество Московское), the Grand Duchy of Moscow, until 1547, although Ivan III (1440–1505, Template:Reign) had earlier borne the title "Great Tsar of All Russia".<ref> Template:Cite book </ref>

Early modern period

Template:See also 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Failed verification

The Grand Principality of Ruthenia was the project name of the Cossack Hetmanate integrated into the Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth.Template:Citation needed

Modern period

Ukraine

The use of the term Rus/Russia in the lands of Rus' survived longer as a name used by Ukrainians for Ukraine.Template:Citation needed 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.<ref>Vernadsky, George. A History of Russia (1943–69). Pp. xix, 413. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-00247-5.</ref>

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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Citation needed

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.<ref>Robert Potocki, Polityka państwa polskiego wobec zagadnienia ukraińskiego w latach 1930–1939, Lublin 2003, wyd. Instytut Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, Template:ISBN, s. 45.</ref>

Modern Ruthenia

Template:Further

File:West-Ukraine 1918.jpg

Map of the areas claimed and controlled by the Carpathian Ruthenia, the Lemko Republic and the West Ukrainian People's Republic in 1918

File:Subcarpathia - Carpatho-Ukraine.svg

Autonomous Subcarpathian Ruthenia and independent Carpatho-Ukraine 1938–1939.

After 1918, the name Ruthenia became narrowed to the area south of the Carpathian Mountains in the Kingdom of Hungary, also called Carpathian Ruthenia (Template:Langx, 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 (Template:Langx, Template:Langx) 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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Verify source

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".)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1995 the Ruthenian written language became standardized.<ref>Paul Robert Magocsi: A new Slavic language is born, in: Revue des études slaves, Tome 67, fascicule 1, 1995, pp. 238–240.</ref>

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.

Ruthenium

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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>