Ruthenia was used to refer to the East Slavic and Eastern Orthodox people of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Austria-Hungary, mainly to Ukrainians and sometimes Belarusians, corresponding to the territories of modern Belarus, Ukraine, Eastern Poland and some of western Russia.

In 1620, these dissenters erected their own metropolis — the "Metropolis of Kyev, Galicia and all Ruthenia". In the 16th century, a crisis began in Christianity: the Protestant Reformation began in Catholicism and a period of heresy began in an Orthodox area.

Its big day was on 15 March 1939, when Carpatho-Ukraine – the approximate core of Ruthenia – declared itself an independent republic.

Despite Polonisation in Lithuania and Ruthenia in the 17th-18th centuries, a large part of the lower szlachta managed to retain their cultural identity in various ways.

Rusyn, any of several East Slavic peoples (modern-day Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Carpatho-Rusyns) and their languages. The name Rusyn is derived from Rus (Ruthenia), the name of the territory that they inhabited. The name Ruthenian derives …

It’s estimated that around a million Rusyns live in the ancestral homeland of Ruthenia today. To explore the heritage of Ruthenia, check out our Soviet tours and contact us to arrange independent tours through the Rusyn territories of Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and the Czech Republic!

You'll often see the terms Ruthenia and Ruthenians to mean what we now know as Ukraine and Ukrainians in popular genealogical resources such as Naturalization Papers, Immigration records, Passenger Lists, and Census returns.

The word Ruthenia originated as a Latin designation of the region its people called Rus'. During the Middle Ages, writers in English and other Western European languages applied the term to lands inhabited by Eastern Slavs.

The outcome of the Khmelnytsky Uprising forever changed the fate and identity of the land called Ruthenia and its inhabitants, the Ruthenians.

Ruthenia (rōōthē´nēə), Latinized form of the word Russia. The term was applied to Ukraine in the Middle Ages when the princes of Halych briefly assumed the title kings of Ruthenia.