Rus (name) - From Rus To Russia

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 Rus can mean

• a small princedom around Kiev, incorporating the cities of Vyshgorod and Pereyaslav (roughly within a 200-kilometre radius of Kiev), and
• a vast political state (of the territories mentioned above) ruled first from Novgorod and then from Kiev.

The vast political state 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 adopted direct (to Greek) translations of the names then politically imposed by Russia upon the earlier slavs. For that reason the ancient Kievan Rus' became Μικρὰ Ῥωσσία (Mikrà Rhōssía, Russia Minor or Little Russia), and the newer Russia was referred to by the name it set to itself: Μεγάλη Ῥωσσία (Megálē Rhōssía, Great Russia). There are claims - from Russian authors - that the names are not of Slavic origin

By the fifteenth century, the rulers of 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 specifically — evolved into the Byzantine-influenced form, Rossiya (Russia is Ῥωσσία (Rhōssía) in Greek).

Differently from other Slavic languages, in the specific case of Russian language russky (русский) refers to (and that being a Russian-specific concept) both the Rus' people and Russians with no distinction (implying both being the same people with the same language - see Russification); and rossiysky (российский), concerning specifically the Russian people and their state (the latter being the meaning of "Russian" as understood in modern English language). In modern Polish the words being ruski (adj. of Rus’, Ruthenian, the older Eastern Slavs from the historic Kievan state) which may equally refer to modern Belarusians, Ukrainians or both, or in a historical context to the people of Rus’; contrasted to rosyjski (Russian, oriund from what became of the Muscovite state, only indirectly related to the older historical Rus’). Similarly in other Slavic languages, including modern Ukrainian: rus’kyy (руський) (Rus’, Ruthenian), whereas rosiys’kyy (російський) refers to everything belonging to Russia.