Common
Names of Rus', Russia and Ruthenia
The word Rus' or Rus referred initially to a group of Scandinavian Vikings, also known as Varangians, who founded the medieval state of Kievan Rus' in Eastern Europe in the 10th century. The term gradually acquired the meaning of the aforementioned dynastic polity itself, and also the geographic region of its heartlands Kiev, Pereiaslavl' and Chernihiv. Russia is a Hellenized rendering of the same word, and Ruthenia is its Latinized form. Following the decline of Kievan Rus' in the 12th century, its territory fragmented into multiple polities. The northeastern principality of Vladimir-Suzdal played a crucial role in the eventual rise of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which, by the 14th to 16th centuries, had consolidated power over most of northeastern Rus'. The name Russia began to appear in official documents during this time, alongside the older term Rus'. By the 15th century, Muscovite rulers adopted the title "Grand Prince of all Rus'," signaling their claim over the legacy of Kievan Rus...
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