Ruthenians
Ruthenians is a name that has been applied to different ethnic groups at different times; for an explanation of the reasons for this, see
Ruthenia.
Generally, in very old documents, the terms "Ruthenians", "Ruthenes" and "
Russians" refer to the peoples we today call the "
Eastern Slavs", that is, the Ukrainians, Belarusans, and Russians. Over the centuries, however, the term Ruthenian, which had been derived from a Latin word for these peoples, became more and more restricted to the western regions of the east Slavic world, that is, Belarus, and western Ukraine, especially the Subcarpathian region. It is still used by a significant group of Eastern Slavs in the United States, and by minorities in western Ukraine, Poland, and Slovakia. These are treated under
Rusyns.
*
Litvins*
Rusyns*
Ruthenia
