Ruthenium

The earliest use of the term “ruten” in relation to the people of Russia was recorded in the Augsburg annals , conducted by clergy of the Augsburg Cathedral during the X - XII centuries and which have come down to us in the manuscript of 1135 ^[9] . Gall Anonymous , author of the oldest Polish chronicle Cronicae et gesta ducum sive principum Polonorum , written in Latin in 1112 - 1116, alternately uses the terms Rusia , Ruthenorum regnum (Russian kingdom ), Ruthenorum rex (Russian king), Ruthenus (Russian), Rutheni (Russian) ^[10] . Ruthenium as the name of the country was first mentioned in the “ Acts of the Hungarians ” by Anonymous (probably the turn of the 12th – 13th centuries ) ^[5] , in which the author first refers to Rus and Rutenia (once) and Ruscia (twice), perhaps this was an attempt to distinguish between the north - Eastern Vladimir-Suzdal Rus and southern Kiev, as the form Ruscia is used both times in the phrase: “Ruscia, que Susudal vocatur” ^[11] . The English-Latin writer Gervasius of Tilberius reports in his most famous work, “Imperial Leisure” (circa 1212 ), that “Poland in one part comes into contact with Russia (aka Ruthenia)”, and then uses both names in the same way ^{[12] [13 ] [13 ]} . In the first half of the 13th century, the burying Ruthenia was used by the Italian author Ricardo from San Germano, in which he reports on the battle of Southwest Russia with the Mongols on the Kalka River in 1223 ^[14] . In 1261, in the letter of the Hungarian king Bela IV in relation to the Galician-Volyn Rus , the form of the name Ruthenia was applied ^[15] . In the "Saloninsky History" of the middle of the 13th century, the Dalmatian Thomas Thomas Splits uses variants of Rutenia and Ruthenia ^[16] .

The term “Ruthenia” was originally used by the monarchs and the Catholic clergy of Europe, extending it both to Muscovite Russia ^[1] and to Russian lands that were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland . Polish historians of the XV - XVII centuries tried for political reasons ^{[6] to} secure it for South-Western Russia, and in relation to North-Eastern Russia they emphasized the term " Muscovy ". Nevertheless, despite the opposition to the policy of the Moscow sovereigns to unite Russia , the Poles for some time recognized the inhabitants of "Muscovy" as rutens ( Rusyns ). So, Matvey Mekhovskiy wrote in the “ Treatise on Two Sarmatians ” that the inhabitants of Muscovy “Rutheni sunt et Ruthenicum loquuntur” ^[17] (that is, they are Rusyns and speak Russian). The territorial division into Ruthenia and Muscovy, however, is firmly rooted in Polish-Lithuanian journalism and historiography ^[18] , and now continues to exist in modern Polish, Ukrainian ^{[19] [20]} and many English-language ^{[7] [8]} historical and linguistic studies .

The gradual appearance during the 16th century of ethnogenetic theories based on legendary characters also gave rise to various versions of the different origin of the “Muscovites” (from the biblical Mosokh or from the younger brother of Lech, Cech and Rus , Moscow). At the peak of the struggle between the Uniates and the Orthodox , which broke out in the Commonwealth after the conclusion of the Union of Brest in 1596, the Uniate and Catholic polemists used these theories to give the “ schismatics ” Muscovites the status of a completely different people opposed to the Rusyns ^[17] . The separation of Russia (“Little Russia”) and Moscow (“Great Russia”) can be traced in some polemical Orthodox writings, which allows historian Boris Flora to conclude that in the view of contemporaries the Eastern Slavs on both sides of the border were already perceived as two different societies and two different people. Nevertheless, unlike the Uniates, they were perceived by Orthodox figures as two closely related parts of a common whole ^[17] .

In 1549, the Austrian ambassador Sigismund von Herberstein in his Notes on Muscovy called the locals not only Muscovites, but also rutens ^[21] :

But whatever the origin of the name "Russia", this Slavic people, professing the faith of Christ in the Greek rite, calling himself Russi in his native language, and in Latin called Rhuteni , multiplied so much that he expelled those living among him other tribes, or forced them to live in his own way, so that now they are all called by the same name "Rutheni" (Rutheni).

On his famous map of Eastern Europe, he does not mention Russia (Ruthenia), using only the political and geographical terms Litwania and Moscovia, but he calls the Gulf of Finland “Sinus Livonicus et Ruthenicus”.

In 1844, the Russian chemist K.K. Klaus named the new chemical element discovered by him as ruthenium ( lat. Ruthenium ) in honor of Russia .

After the sections of the Commonwealth in the Austrian and subsequently Austro-Hungarian Empire, this Latin name of Russia was adapted to the German language ( Ruthenien ), in which Rus was traditionally called Russland or Reußen . Under the influence of political circumstances, the term acquired a double interpretation, which to this day is often found in historiography. In the second half of the 19th century, the Austro-Hungarian authorities, trying to oppose the Carpathian Ruthenian people’s movement aimed at an alliance with Russia and trying to divide the Russians, widely spread the theory that subjects of the Habsburg empire are not Russians, but some other people - the rutens ^[1] . From this the conclusion should follow that the Rusyns have no historical reason to sympathize with Russia and the Russians ( Russen ). This mythologem spread even though the Ruthenians themselves never called themselves Ruthenians, but Russians, the Russian people ^[1] . The term went out of use after the collapse of Austria-Hungary, as well as in connection with the spread of the term “ Ukraine ” and the new ethnonym “ Ukrainians ”.

Noting that the problems of historical terminology, namely, its politicization and ideologization, are “eternal”, the Belarusian historian Aleksey Martynyuk suggests using the term Ruthenia as “deliberately“ estranged “” and supporting it in describing the history of the realities of Eastern Europe of the 13th – 16th centuries. historical sources and the scientific tradition of using Latinized “book” terms to describe regions. According to the author, in combination with clarifying characteristics, the term "allows us to represent the East Slavic world of the 13th-16th centuries as a system of historical regions (" Ruthenium ") in dynamic development." Alexey Martynyuk offers the following geographic-chronological classification, taking into account the development trends of East Slavic society ^[22] :

• XIII century: Ruthenia Magna (the last century of the existence of "classical Ancient Russia")
• XIV century: Ruthenia Moscovitica, Ruthenia Novgorodica, Ruthenia Lithuanica, Ruthenia Polonica and others (polycentric statehood, the beginning of the formation of new regions)
• XV century: Ruthenia Moscovitica, Ruthenia Novgorodica, Ruthenia Lithuanica, Ruthenia Polonica (polycentric statehood, reduction in the number of historical regions)
• XVI century: Ruthenia Moscovitica, Ruthenia Polonica-Lithuanica (consolidation within the framework of the Moscow state and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania / Commonwealth)
• XVII century: Ruthenia Moscovitica, Ruthenia Ucrainica, Ruthenia Albaruthenica (acceleration of the formation of modern political, ethno-confessional and cultural realities)

• Nazarenko A.V. Chapter I. The name “Rus” in the most ancient West European linguistic tradition (IX – XII centuries) // Ancient Russia on international routes: Interdisciplinary essays on cultural, commercial, political relations of the IX – XII centuries . - M .: Languages ​​of Russian culture, 2001. - S. 11-50. - 784 p. - ISBN 5-7859-0085-8 .