Ruthenia is an exonym, originally used in Medieval Latin, as one of several terms for Kievan Rus'. It is also used to refer to the East Slavic and Eastern Orthodox regions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, corresponding to what is now Belarus and Ukraine. Historically, the term was used to refer to all the territories of the East Slavs.
Prehistoric Ukraine, as a part of the Pontic steppe in Eastern Europe, played an important role in Eurasian cultural events, including the spread of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages, Indo-European migrations, and the domestication of the horse.
Galicia is a historical and geographic region spanning what is now southeastern Poland and western Ukraine, long part of the Polish–
Little Russia, also known in English as Malorussia, Little Rus', Rus' Minor, and the French equivalent Petite Russie, is a geographical and historical term used to describe Ukraine. Since 1334, Yuri II Boleslav, the ruler of the Ruthenian Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, signed his decrees Natus dux totius Russiæ minoris, but the expression μικρὰ Ρωσσία is found as early as 1292, in the Byzantine writer Codinus. The distinction between "Great" and "Little" Rus' probably originated among Byzantine, Greek-speaking clerics who wanted to separate the two Ruthenian ecclesiastical metropolises of Halych and Moscow.
The history of Kyiv (Kiev), officially begins when it was founded in 482, but the city may date back at least 2,000 years. Archaeologists have dated the oldest known settlement in the area to 25,000 BC. Initially a 6th-century Slavic settlement, it gradually acquired eminence as the center of East Slavic civilization. Kyiv's Golden Age as the capital of medieval Kievan Rus' came from 879 to 1240.
Lviv is an administrative center in western Ukraine with more than a millennium of history as a settlement, and over seven centuries as a city. Prior to the creation of the modern state of Ukraine, Lviv had been part of numerous states and empires, including, under the name Lwów, Poland and later the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; under the name Lemberg, the Austrian and later Austro-Hungarian Empires; the short-lived West Ukrainian People's Republic after World War I; Poland again; and the Soviet Union. In addition, both the Swedes and the Ottoman Turks made unsuccessful attempts to conquer the city.
Lemko-Rusyn People's Republic, often known also as the Lemko-Rusyn Republic, just the Lemko Republic, or the Florynka Republic, was a short-lived state founded on 5 December 1918 in the aftermath of World War I and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was centered on Florynka, a village in the south-east of present-day Poland. Being Russophile, its intent was unification with a democratic Russia and was opposed to a union with the West Ukrainian People's Republic. A union with Russia proved impossible, so the Republic then attempted to join Subcarpathian Rus' as an autonomous province of Czechoslovakia. This, however, was opposed by the then governor of Subcarpathian Rus', Gregory Žatkovič.
Galician Russophilia or Moscophilia was a cultural and political movement largely in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary. This ideology emphasized that since the Eastern Slavic people of Galicia were descendants of the people of Kievan Rus' (Ruthenians), and followers of Eastern Christianity, they were thus a branch of the Russian people. The movement was part of the larger Pan-Slavism that was developing in the late 19th century. Russophilia was largely a backlash against Polonisation and Magyarisation that was largely blamed on the landlords and associated with Roman Catholicism.
Upon the outbreak of World War I, Ukraine was not an independent political entity or state. The majority of the territory that makes up the modern country of Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire with a notable far western region administered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the border between them dating to the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
Ukrainian nationalism is the promotion of the unity of Ukrainians as a people and the promotion of the identity of Ukraine as a nation state. The origins of modern Ukrainian nationalism emerge during the 17th-century Cossack uprising against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Ukrainian nationalism draws upon a single national identity of culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics, religion, traditions and belief in a shared singular history, that dates back to the 9th century.
The history of the Ukrainian minority in Poland dates back to the Late Middle Ages, preceding the 14th century Galicia–Volhynia Wars between Casimir III the Great of Poland, and Liubartas of Lithuania. Following the extinction of the Rurikid dynasty in 1323, the Polish Kingdom extended further east in 1340 to include the lands of Przemyśl and in 1366, Kamianets-Podilskyi. After the Union of Lublin (1569), principalities of Galicia and Western Volhynia became, what is known as, the Ruthenian Voivodeship of the Polish Crown, while the rest of Red Ruthenia together with Kyiv came under Lithuanian control. The Polish borders reached as far east as Zaporizhia, and Poltava.
The Ruthenian nobility originated in the territories of Kievan Rus' and Galicia–Volhynia, which were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and later the Russian and Austrian Empires. The Ruthenian nobility became increasingly polonized and later russified, while retaining a separate cultural identity.
Anti-Ukrainian sentiment, Ukrainophobia or anti-Ukrainianism is animosity towards Ukrainians, Ukrainian culture, the Ukrainian language, Ukraine as a nation, or all of the above.
The Pacification of Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia was a punitive action against the Ukrainian minority in Poland, carried out by police and military of the Second Polish Republic from September until November 1930 in reaction to a wave of sabotage and terrorist attacks perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists.
The Russification of Ukraine was a system of measures, actions and legislations undertaken by the Imperial Russian and later Soviet authorities to strengthen Russian national, political and linguistic positions in Ukraine.
On August 18, 1914, the Russian Empire invaded the Austrian Crownland of Galicia. On August 19, the Imperial Russian Army defeated the Austro-Hungarian Army, advanced 280–300 kilometers into the territory of Austria-Hungary and captured most of eastern Galicia. The principal city, Lemberg fell into Russian hands on September 3. Eastern Galicia had a population of approximately 4.8 million people.
Ivan Grigorievitch Naumovich, also romanized as Ivan Hryhorovych Naumovych, was a priest, member of parliament, writer, and major figure in the Russophile movement in western Ukraine. His article, A Glimpse into the Future, was considered the most important manifesto of Galician Russophilism.
Chłopomania or Khlopomanstvo are historical and literary terms inspired by the Young Poland modernist movement and the Ukrainian Hromady. The expressions refer to the intelligentsia's fascination with, and interest in, the peasantry in late-19th-century Galicia and right-bank Ukraine.
The All-Russian nation or triune Russian nation, also called the pan-Russian nation, is the term for the Imperial Russian and later irredentist ideology that sees the Russian nation as comprising a "trinity" of sub-nations: Great Russia, Little Russia, and White Russia. Respectively, these sub-nations are contextually identified with Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. Above all, the basis of the ideology's upholding of an inclusive Russian identity is centered around bringing all East Slavs under its fold.
The Alphabet War, also called the Alphabet Blizzard, was a controversy in the 19th century among Galician Ukrainians. It concerned attempts to Latinize the Ukrainian alphabet.
