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Originally Rus (Русь, ''Rus’'') was a medieval country and state that comprised mostly Early East Slavs . The territories of that old Rus are today distributed among the Russian Federation , Belarus and Ukraine . That early "''Rus''" state had no proper name; by its inhabitants it was called "Русская Земля" (''ruskaya zemlya''), which might be translated as "Rus Land" or "Land of the Rus ". In a similar fashion, Poland is still called ''Polska'' by its inhabitants, and the Czech Republic (''Česká republika'') is commonly called by its adjectival name. In order to distinguish the early "Rus" state from other states that subsequently derived from it, it is denoted by modern historiography as " Kievan Rus ." In the modern Russian language, there are two adjectives, each of which may be translated as "Russian." These are: ''russky'' (русский), relating to the Russian people and their language; and ''rossiysky'' (российский), relating to the Russian state. Etymology According to the ''Normanist'' Theory , which has the broader traditional acceptance in the West, the word " Rus' " was adopted by the Slavs from the Norse root ''roðr'', in compounds ''roþs-'' (''roths-''), either directly or via the Finnish ''Ruotsi''. This root is the same as the English ''row'' and may have referred to the fact that the Varangians mainly ''rowed'' down the East European waterways; cf. the Swedish region, '' Roslagen '', which means "naval districts." Some theories have been put forth, of native Slavic origins for "''Rus''" — ''Anti-Normanist'' Theories . These theories garner a narrower support among western scholars but are widely popular within Russian historical thought. Suggested origins for "Rus" include:
Medieval Polish chroniclers would derive ''Rus''' from the Latin ''rus, ruris'' ("country"). The early Rus may well have seemed to visitors from Byzantium to be "rustic" and "rural" — both, terms derived from the Latin ''rus''. And the name of the semilegendary founder of the early ''Rus'' state, Rurik , does suspiciously resemble the genitive case of ''rus'' — ''ruris''. The term ''Rus''' may well have become established, as is sometimes the case, from the confluence of two or more word sources. Early evidence In Old East Slavic Literature , the East Slavs refer to themselves as ''(muzhi) ruskie'' ("the Rus men") or rarely, ''rusichi''. It is thought the Slavs adopted that name from the Varangian elite, which was first mentioned in the 830 s in the Annals Of Saint Bertan . These annals relate that Emperor Louis II 's court at Ingelheim , in 839 (the same year as the first appearance of Varangian s in Constantinople ), was visited by a delegation from the Byzantine Emperor . In this delegation there were two men who called themselves Rhos (''Rhos vocari dicebant''). Louis enquired about their origins and learnt that they were Swedes . Fearing that they were spies for their brothers, the Danes , he incarcerated them. They were also mentioned in the 860 s by the patriarch Photius under the name of ''Rhos''. ''Rusiyyah'' was used by Ibn Fadlan for Varangian s near Astrakhan , and by the Persian traveler Ibn Rustah who visited Novgorod and described how the Rus' exploited the Slavs. As for the Rus, they live on an island ...that takes three days to walk round and is covered with thick undergrowth and forests; it is most unhealthy....They harry the Slavs, using ships to reach them; they carry them off as slaves and...sell them. They have no fields but simply live on what they get from the Slav's lands....When a son is born, the father will go up to the newborn baby, sword in hand; throwing it down, he says, "I shall not leave you with any property: You have only what you can provide with this weapon." When the Varangians arrived in cataracts in both ''Rhos'' and ''Slavic''. The Rhos names are:
According to the Primary Chronicle , a historical compilation attributed to the Twelfth Century , ''Rus'' was a group of Varangian s who lived on the other side of the Baltic Sea , in Scandinavia. The Varangian s were first expelled, then invited to rule the warring Slavic and Finnic tribes of Novgorod : The four tribes who had been forced to pay tribute to the Varangians - Chud s, Slavs , Merians , and Krivichs drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them further tribute, and set out to govern themselves. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to custom. Thus they went overseas to the Varangians, to the Rus. These particular Varangians were known as Rus, just as some are called Swedes , and others Normans and Angles , and still others Gotlanders , for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Ves then said to the Rus, "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come reign as princes, rule over us". Three brothers, with their kinfolk, were selected. They brought with them all the Rus and migrated. Later, the Primary Chronicle tells us, they conquered Kiev and created Kievan Rus' . The territory they conquered was named after them as were, eventually, the local people (''cf''. Normans ). Other spellings used in Europe during the '', a name of the ancient East Germanic Tribe related to the Goths . Olga Of Kiev , for instance, was called in the Frankish annals ''regina Rugorum'', that is, "the Queen of Rugia." In the eleventh century, the dominant term in the Latin tradition was ''Ruscia''. It was used, among others, by Thietmar Of Merseburg , Adam Of Bremen , Kozma Of Prague , and by Pope Gregory VII in his letter to Izyaslav I . ''Rucia'', ''Ruzzia'', ''Ruzsia'' were alternative spellings. During the twelfth century, ''Ruscia'' gradually made way for two other Latin terms, ''Russia'' and ''Ruthenia'' . ''Russia'' (also spelled ''Rossia'' and ''Russie'') was a dominant Romance-language form, first used by Liutprand Of Cremona in the 960s and then by Peter Damiani in the 1030s. It became ubiquitous in English and French documents in the twelfth century. ''Ruthenia'', first documented in the early twelfth-century Augsburg Annals , was a Latin form preferred by the Papal chancellery (see Ruthenia for more information). From Rus to Russia In modern English historiography, '' Kievan Rus '' is the most common name for the ancient East Slavic state (often retaining the pedantically-correct apostrophe in ''Rus’'', a transliteration of the Soft Sign , ''ь'') followed by ''Kievan Russia'', ''Ancient Russian state'', and, extremely rarely, ''Kievan Ruthenia''. It is also called the ''Princedom'' or ''Principality of Kiev'', or just ''Kiev''. But Kievan Rus actually has two meanings:
The latter country was subsequently divided into several parts. The most influential were, in the south, Halych-Volyn Rus ; and, in the north, Vladimir-Suzdal Rus and the Novgorod Republic . The southern part fell under Catholic Polish influence; the northern part, under much weaker Mongol influence, and went on to become a loose federation of principalities. Byzantine hierarchs established their own names (in ) and ''Μικρα Ρωσία'' (''Mikra Rosia'', Lesser or Little Russia ). By the fifteenth century, the rulers of Muscovy (the Grand Duchy of Moscow ) had reunited the northern parts of the former Kievan Rus. Ivan III of Moscow was the first local ruler to become universally recognized under the title ''Grand Duke of all Rus''. This title was used by the Grand Dukes of Vladimir since early 14th century, and the first prince to use it was Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tver. Ivan III was styled by Emperor Maximilian I as ''rex albus'' and ''rex Russiae''. Later, ''Rus’'' — in the Russian Language — evolved into the Byzantine-influenced form, ''Rossiya'' (Russia is Ρωσία {Link without Title} in Greek). From Rus to Ukraine Meanwhile the southwestern territories of historical Rus had been incorporated into the Grand Duchy Of Lithuania (whose full name was ''Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rus' and Samogitia''). The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, as a whole, was dominated by Rus, as it was populated mainly by Rus, its nobles were of Rus origin, and a variant of the Old East Slavic Language close to Belarusian is the sole language of most surviving official documents prior to 1697 . The southern territories dominated by Lithuania have cognate names in Russian and Polish , respectively:
While Russian descendants of the Rus called themselves ''Russkiye'', the residents of ''these'' lands called themselves ''Rusyny'', Ruthenians. In 1654, under the Treaty Of Pereyaslav , the Cossack lands of the Zaporozhian Host came under the protection of Muscovy , including the Hetmanate of Left-bank Ukraine , and Zaporozhia . In Russia, these lands were referred to as Little Russia (''Malorossiya''). Colonies established in lands ceded from the Ottoman Empire along the Black Sea were called New Russia (''Novorossiya''). In the final decades of the Eighteenth Century , the Russian Empire , Prussia , and Austria dismembered the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in a series of Partitions , and all of historic Rus, save for Galicia , became part of the Russian Empire. During a period of cultural revival after 1840 , the members of a secret ideological society in Kiev , the Brotherhood Of Saints Cyril And Methodius , revived the use of the name ''Ukrayina'' for the homeland of the "Little Russian" people. They drew upon a name which had been used by 17th-century Ukrainian Cossacks. It had earlier appeared on 16th-century maps of Kiev and its local area (Kievan Rus). ''Ukrayina'' was originally an Old East Slavic word for a "borderland," attested as far back as the 12th Century . See '' Krajina '' for cognates. In the early Twentieth Century , the name ''Ukraine'' became more widely accepted, and was used as the official name for the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic , West Ukrainian National Republic and Ukrainian Hetmanate , and for the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic . Application of the name "Ruthenia" (''Rus''') became narrowed to AD, and had been known as ''Magna Rus'' but was also called ''Karpato-Rus’'' or ''Zakarpattia''. See also Name Of Ukraine . External references
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