My book A HISTORY OF UKRAINE. A SHORT COURSE - [ Ссылка ]
My PATREON - [ Ссылка ]
"...Since ancient times, Rus’ was the name applied only to Central Ukraine — the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Pereiaslav principalities, i.e. the territory of modern Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv oblasts and parts of Sumy, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia and Poltava oblasts. Starting from the 12th century, it was extended to include Western Ukraine. Princes believed that Rus’ (Central Ukraine) was their homeland. The other territories dependent from Kyiv were thought of as being subject to Rus’.
Prince of Kyiv Sviatoslav the Brave subjected to Kyiv the lands of Zalesye, which would later become Central Russia and were inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes (Merya, Muroma, Meshchera, Moksha etc.) at the time.
In the time of Kyivan Rus’ the population of Ukraine was called rusyny. The name Rusyn largely persisted in Central Ukraine until the 18th century, in Halychyna and Bukovyna until the 20th century and in some places in Zakarpattia until this day.
The outskirts of the Kyivan state, where the Russian and Belarusian peoples later arose, were not called Rus’ — neither when they were under Kyiv’s rule until the twelvth century, nor several centuries later.
Imperial Russian ideologues have tried to create a myth that the capital of Rus’ allegedly “moved” first from Novgorod to Kyiv and then from Kyiv. However, the Varangians could not bring with them the name of Rus’ because this name was used in reference to Ukraine in the writings of the Gothic historian Jordan in the 4th century and in the works of the Syrian author Pseudo-Zacharias Rhetor in the 6th century, Persian historians in 6 and 7 centuries, while the Varangians appeared in the historical arena in the late 8th century.
In Muscovy itself, the term Russia began to be used in reference to this country by the authorities as late as in the15th century when the idea of seizing Ukraine’s lands began to circulate there. This word is taken from the Greek language because it was common knowledge at the time that Rus’ was the territory of Ukraine.
Muscovy was finally renamed as Russia by the tsar’s ukases of 1713 and 1721. In the late 18th century, Empress Catherine II ordered people, under the threat of flogging, to identify themselves as Russians and banned the customary designation “Muscovites”.
All the princes of Principality of Galicia-Volhynia bore the names “princes and rulers of all Rus’ land” and their seals had the inscription “king of Rus’”. In contrast, Andrei Bogoliubskiy, the prince of Suzdal, reportedly “wanted to be the ruler of all Suzdal lands”.
The Kyiv state freed the ancestors of Russians from having to pay tribute to the Khazars, taught them literacy and introduced them to Christian culture. However, in the mid-12th century the ancestors of Russia separated from Kyiv and created their own state, Suzdal, which later came to be known as Muscovy. The borders of the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal were those of the Finno-Ugric tribe Merya. Kyivan princes sent their youngest sons to rule there. Suzdal princes were able to build strength, while Rus’ was wearing down in the struggle against the steppe peoples. Since the 12th century, the descendants of Mstyslav the Great ruled largely in Ukraine and in Smolensk and Novgorod, which were subordinated to Kyiv, while the descendants of Yuri Dolgorukiy, Monomakh’s youngest son, ruled in Zalesye with increasing independence.
Andrei Bogoliubskiy, a son of Yuri Dolgorukiy, was born of a Cuman woman, Khan Ayepa’s daughter. In his struggle against Kyiv, Bogoliubskiy constantly supported his kin people, the Cumans, who were the main enemy of Rus’. Bogoliubskiy said: “There is no room for us in Rus’.” He was the first to break the three century long tradition of the Rurik princes to recognize Kyiv and the Kyiv region as their only homeland. Bogoliubskiy stole the famous icon of the Mother of God (later known as the Theotokos of Vladimir), which had been brought from Byzantium for Mstyslav the Great. Bogoliubskiy took it from Vyshhorod (near Kyiv) to Vladimir-on-Klyazma. Russian historian Kluchevsky said that Bogoliubskiy was the first Russian.
Rus` is exclusively Ukrainian name, which Russia stole in 15-18 centuries. Moscow princes changed the name and took it from Greek language.
The first slavic name of Russia was Zalesye, not Rus'..."
