小ロシア
Up to the very end of the 19th century, "Little Russia" was the prevailing term for much of the modern territory of Ukraine controlled by the Russian Empire, as well as for its people and their language. This can be seen from its usage in numerous scholarly, literary and artistic works. Ukrainophile historians Mykhaylo Maksymovych, Nikolay Kostomarov, Dmytro Bahaliy, and Volodymyr Antonovych acknowledged the fact that during the Russo-Polish wars, "Ukraine" had only a geographical meaning, referring to the borderlands of both states, but "Little Russia" was the ethnonym of Little (Southern) Russian people. In his prominent work "Two Russian nationalities," Kostomarov uses "Southern Russia" and "Little Russia" interchangeably. Mykhailo Drahomanov titled his first fundamental historic work "Little Russia in its literature" (1867–1870). Different prominent artists (e.g., Mykola Pymonenko, Kostyantyn Trutovsky, Nikolay Aleksandrovich Sergeyev, photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, etc.), many of whom were native to the territory of modern-day Ukraine, used "Little Russia" in the titles of their paintings of Ukrainian landscapes.