Red Ruthenia/Red Russia
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Historic region | |
   
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 Location of Red Ruthenia | |
| Country |  Poland Ukraine |
| Largest city | Lviv |
Red Ruthenia, or Red Rus or Red Russia (Ukrainian: Червона Русь, romanized: Chervona Rus'; Polish: Ruś Czerwona; Latin: Ruthenia Rubra; Russia Rubra; Russian: Червoнная Русь, romanized: Chervonnaya Rus' or Russian: Красная Русь, romanized: Krasnaya Rus'; Romanian: Rutenia Roșie), is a term used since the Middle Ages for the south-western principalities of the Kievan Rus', namely the Principality of Peremyshl and the Principality of Belz. Nowadays the region comprises parts of western Ukraine and adjoining parts of south-eastern Poland. It has also sometimes included parts of Lesser Poland, Podolia, Right-bank Ukraine and Volhynia. Centred on Przemyśl and Belz, it has included major cities such as: Chełm, Zamość, Rzeszów, Krosno and Sanok (now all in Poland), as well as Lviv and Ternopil (now in Ukraine).[1]
First mentioned by that name in a Polish chronicle of 1321, Red Ruthenia was the portion of Ruthenia incorporated into Poland by Casimir the Great during the 14th century.[citation needed] The disintegration of Rus', Red Ruthenia was contested by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the Gediminids), the Kingdom of Poland (the Piasts), the Kingdom of Hungary and the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia. After the Galicia–Volhynia Wars, for about 400 years most of Red Ruthenia became part of Poland as the Ruthenian Voivodeship.
A minority of ethnic Poles have lived since the beginning of the second Millennium in northern parts of Red Ruthenia. The exonym "Ruthenians" usually refers to members of the Rusyn and/or Ukrainian ethnicity.[2]
- ^ Janeczek, Andrzej (2022). "Atlas historyczny Rzeczypospolitej. Ruś Czerwona w drugiej połowie XVI wieku – koncepcja i program projektu". Studia Geohistorica (in Polish) (10): 224–238. ISSN 2300-2875.
- ^ "The dominant population of Galicia, or Red Rus', called itself “Rusyn” ... and was considered by Russophile authors to be Russian, or, more specifically, Little Russian. That view began to gain ground after the publication in the Russian Empire of a Russian translation of Pavol Šafárik's Slovanský národopis in 1843." (Serhii Plokhy, Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation, New York, Hachette, p. 168.