Little Russia

For the area of London, see Little Russia, London.
For the area of San Francisco, see Little Russia, San Francisco.
"Little Russian" redirects here. For the composition by Tchaikovsky, see Symphony No. 2 (Tchaikovsky).
Little Russia
Малая Русь
Region of the Russian Empire

A fragment of the “new and accurate map of Europe collected from the best authorities...” by Emanuel Bowen published in 1747 in his A complete system of geography. The territory around Voronezh and Tambov is shown as “Little Russia”. White Russia is located north-east of Smolensk, and the legend “Ukrain” straddles the Dnieper river near Poltava.
Today part ofBelarus
Russia
Ukraine
Moldova

Little Russia,[a] also known as Lesser Russia, Malorussia, Little Rus',[b] and the French equivalent Petite Russie, is a geographical and historical term used to describe Ukraine.

At the beginning of the 14th century, the patriarch of Constantinople accepted the distinction between what it called the eparchies of Megalē Rosiia (Great Rus') and Mikrà Rosiia (Little Rus').[1][2] The jurisdiction of the latter became the metropolis of Halych in 1303.[1] The specific meaning of the adjectives "Great" and "Little" in this context is unclear. It is possible that terms such as "Little" and "Lesser" at the time simply meant geographically smaller and/or less populous,[3] or having fewer eparchies.[2] Another possibility is that it denoted a relationship similar to that between a homeland and a colony (just as "Magna Graecia" denoted a Greek colony).[2]

The name term went out of use in the late 15th century as distinguishing the "Great" and "Little" was no longer necessary since the church in Moscow was no longer tied to Kiev. However, with the rise of the Catholic Ruthenian Uniate Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Orthodox prelates attempting to seek support from Moscow revived the name using the Greek-influenced spelling: Malaia Rossiia ("Little Russia").[2] Then, "Little Russia" developed into a political and geographical concept in Russia, referring to most of the territory of modern-day Ukraine, especially the territory of the Cossack Hetmanate. Accordingly, derivatives such as "Little Russian" (Russian: Малоросс, romanized: Maloross)[c] were commonly applied to the people, language, and culture of the area. A large part of the region's elite population adopted a Little Russian identity that competed with the local Ukrainian identity. The territories of modern-day southern Ukraine, after being annexed by Russia in the 18th century, became known as Novorossiya ("New Russia").[4]

After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, and with the amalgamation of Ukrainian territories into one administrative unit (the Ukrainian People's Republic and then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic), the term started to recede from common use. Today, the term is anachronistic, and many Ukrainians regard its usage as offensive.[5][6]


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  1. ^ a b c Magocsi 2010, p. 159.
  2. ^ a b c d Kohut, Zenon Eugene (1986). "The Development of a Little Russian Identity and Ukrainian Nationbuilding". Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 10 (3/4): 559–576. JSTOR 41036271 – via 563.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Solov was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Schlegel, Simon (2019). Making ethnicity in southern Bessarabia : tracing the histories of an ambiguous concept in a contested land. Leiden. p. 33. ISBN 9789004408029.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ "Russia rejects new Donetsk rebel 'state'". BBC News. 19 July 2017. Archived from the original on 5 April 2019. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  6. ^ Steele, Jonathan (1994). Eternal Russia: Yeltsin, Gorbachev, and the Mirage of Democracy. Harvard University Press. p. 216. ISBN 978-0-674-26837-1. Retrieved 3 December 2016. Several centuries later, when Moscow became the main colonizing force, Ukrainians were given a label which they were to find insulting. [...] The Russians of Muscovy [...] were the 'Great Russians'. Ukraine was called 'Little Russia', or Malorus. Although the phrase was geographical in origin, it could not help being felt by Ukrainian nationalists as demeaning.