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Ruthenia is a name applied to parts of Eastern Europe which were populated by Eastern Slavic peoples, as well as to various states that existed in this territory in the past. Essentially, the word is a Latin rendering of the ancient state of Rus into ancient Latin sources.
Today the historical territory of Rus, in the broadest sense, is divided among Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, a small strip in north-eastern Slovakia and a narrow strip of eastern Poland.
Due to continuous political instability of this territory, the term Ruthenia may mean significantly different things, depending on who applies this term, when, why and to which period.
The following entities may be referenced by term "Ruthenia", roughly in chronological order:
By the 10th century, the term Ruthenia was used, among other spellings, in Latin papal documents to mean Rus', and later became a dominant name for Rus in Latin. Some modern scholars use the Ruthenia spelling in English for this period.
However, the ancient state of Rus did not have a proper name either in Latin, or in native language, and therefore there were different spellings in different languages.
By 13th and 14th century, the state of Rus had disintegrated into loosely united principalities.
Vladimir-Suzdal and the Novgorod Republic in the north fell under Mongol influence. Later, one of the principalities of Vladimir-Suzdal, the Moscow principality arose, and took control on most northern principalies of Rus (by free will and by force) under declaration of reunification of Russian lands and reinstating wide use of word Rus in sense of united country and nation. Being an Orthodox Christian country, it had not contacts with the Pope and therefore it was denoted not only by Ruthenia (which was used rarely for these territories), but also by other derivatives of word Rus and derivatives from Moskova in both Latin and English.
The Halych-Volynia in the south fell under Catholic Lithuanian and Polish influence, and therefore were usually denoted by Latin Ruthenia, after Pope made choice in favor of this spelling. Its leader was acclaimed as "King of Ruthenia" by Pope. However, that time other spellings were used in Latin too, and in English and other languages as well.
These southern territories have corresponding names in Polish:
The Belarusians usually called themselves "Litvins" (living in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and being the core of it), and the name "Ruthenians" was usually not applied to them.
A notable exception was shortly afterwards the WWII, in relation to the camps of displaced persons of Belarusians from the Kresy territories (of pre-WWII Poland), located in the Western occupation zones of the post-war Germany.
At these times the notion of Belarusian nation was of little understanding in the West. Therefore to avoid confusion with the term "Russian" and hence the "repatriation" to the Soviet Union (which finalized the annexion of Kresy after the war), in various documentation the terms White Ruthenian, Whiteruthenian, and Krivian were used. The latter one derives from the old Ruthenian people of Krivichs said to inhabit the territory of Belarus.
The name "Ruthenia" survived a bit longer for denoting Ukraine. In 1840, nationalistic movement led to change the name from "Little Rus" to Ukrayina.
During the period of 1880s — early 1900s, "Ruthenia" was often restricted to reference western Ukraine, an area which had not yet accepted the name change from "Ruthenians" to "Ukrainian".
In early 20th century, the name "Ukraine" was widely accepted in Galicia/Halychyna and the name "Ruthenia" became narrowed to the area south of the Carpathian mountains in the Kingdom of Hungary. Carpathian Ruthenia incorporated the cities of Mukachiv/Mukachevo/Munkács, Uzhhorod/Ungvár and Presov/Pryashiv/Eperjes. This area was part of the Hungarian kingdom since the late 11th century, and had been known as "Magna Rus'", but was also called "Karpato-Rus'" or "Zakarpattya" (see Carpathian Ruthenia).
After being incorporated into Czechoslovakia between World War I and World War II, the area tried to declare its independence as "Carpatho-Ukraine" at the dawn of World War II. The term Rusyn arose around this time for the nationality and language of three groups of montagnards in the Carpathians.
The name "Ruthenia" then came to mean an area of eastern/northeastern Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia) after World War II. The people of the region rapidly became Slovakisized, because their language is closely related to the Slovak language and because most of them refused to identify themselves as Ukrainians, which the Communist government imposed on them since 1953.
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