Who were “Ruthenians” in Kyivan Rus’ and Post-Kyivan Rus’ Geopolitical Formations (about the History of the Notion “Ruthenian” Referring to the Ethnic Group and the Language used in Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian Studies)

The article analyzes, through numerous examples drawn from written monuments of different historical periods, the use of the ethnonym “Rusyn”, the linguonym “Ruska mova / yazyk” (“Ruthenian language/tongue”), and the ethno-attributive adjective “Ruskyi”. It is emphasized that the terms “russkiy” (“Russian”) and “drevnerusskiy” (“Old Russian / Old Rusian”), introduced into scholarly circulation in the 19th and 20th centuries by Russian philologists, came to denote both the Russian language as a separate linguistic structure and the Russian people as a distinct East Slavic nation, while at the same time also serving as a common designation for the language of Rus’ in the earliest written period and as a collective name for the three East Slavic peoples. This, the author argues, led world Slavic studies into a dead end. When translating this ethnonym and linguonym, Europeans no longer saw any place for Belarusians and Ukrainians in it, since the ethno- and linguo-attributive term “russkiy” became unequivocally associated with only one people – the Russians.

One may speak of distinct ethnic and linguistic identity, on the one hand, when an individual, as a speaker of a language, is conscious of their unity with fellow tribespeople or compatriots and, consequently, of the fact that they speak a language distinct from others. On the other hand, this ethnic group must also be distinguished and recognized as separate by other peoples; in other words, there must exist both auto-identification (self-identification) and allo-identification (identification by outsiders) of a given ethnos. In world scholarship up to the end of the 18th century, such allo-identification was consistent and unambiguous: Ukrainians were called Rusyns or Rus’ people from the earliest period onward, and at times Belarusians within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were also included under this designation; meanwhile, the inhabitants of Muscovy were never identified with Rus’ and were always referred to as Muscovites.

The article confirms the complete lexical and factual discrepancy involved in the use of the ethnonym and linguonym “russkiy” to designate the Eastern Slavs ̶ the ancestors of Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Russians– as well as the languages of these peoples in different historical periods, both by their contemporaries and, from the 19th century to the present day, above all by Russian scholars.