Ruthenes (Ruthenians; Ruthanians)

The name Ruthenes or Ruthenians has been used variously with regard to the Slavs. It has been applied to all the Eastern Slavs, that is, those Slavic-speaking peoples living in present-day Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia. Among them are tribes such as the Dregovichians, Drevlyans, Dulebians, Krivi-chians, Polianians, Polochanians, Radimi-chians, Severians, Tivertsians, and Ulichians. Most of these peoples were under the suzerainty of the RUs of the Kievan Rus principality in the second half of the ninth century C. E. The name has also been used in reference to all Ukrainians (see Ukrainians: nationality), or more specifically to peoples of the historical region Ruthenia, now the Zakarpats’ka subdivision in western Ukraine and formerly a province of Czechoslovakia. And finally the name Ruthenes or Ruthenians has been applied to the Rusyns, an ethnolinguistic group of mostly Ukrainian peoples in the Transcarpathian region.