 in english, ruthenia  is a geographical exonym for a cross-border region of eastern europe. it can refer to significantly different and even mutually exclusive areas, dependent on the historical period and subject. the word "ruthenia" originated as a latin rendering of the region and people known originally as "rus'" &ndash; the same root word as russia. in european manuscripts dating from the 13th century, "ruthenia" was used to describe rus': the wider area occupied by the ancient rus' (commonly referred to as kievan rus'). this historical territory corresponds to modern ukraine and belarus, as well as western russia. however, the geographical implications of "ruthenia" and "russia" began to diverge in meaning as early as the 14th century. in modern usage, ruthenia usually refers to a region centred on, but not restricted to, zakarpattia oblast (the transcarpathian administrative region) of south-western ukraine. it is strongly associated with areas inhabited by rusyn minorities. ruthenia refers also often to red ruthenia alone, which was as well the ancestor of a little different region of galicia or halychyna (, halychyna; rusyn: ÐÐ°Ð»Ð¸ÑÐ¸Ð½Ð°; ; , galitsiya; ). us' (galiciaâvolhynia). == late middle ages == by the 15th century two major states claimed their rus' ancestry: the muscovy and the polishâlithuanian commonwealth. natives used different forms of the name rus' for their country, and some of these forms also passed into latin and english. by the 15th century the moscow principality (or muscovy) established its sovereignty over a large portion of ancient rus' territory including novgorod, pskov, and parts of chernigov and pereyaslavl principalities. from 1547 the moscow principality adopted the title of tsardom of rus' (or russia) and claimed sovereignty over "all the rus'". this laid the foundation of the modern russian state. the muscovy population was eastern orthodox and used the greek transcription of rus', being "rossia", rather than the latin "ruthenia". in the 14th century the southern territories of ancient rus', including principalities of galiciaâvolhynia, kiev and others, became a part of the grand duchy of lithuania which, in the 16th century, united with [[roman
Divided_regions Historical_regions_in_Poland Historical_regions_in_Slovakia Historical_regions_in_Ukraine Rus Ukrainian_population_groups