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'. The term Russia gradually replaced Rus, and by the 16th century, under Ivan IV, the state officially became the Tsardom of Russia. Despite this, the term Muscovy persisted in Europe, especially in Latin Catholic regions, but Russia was increasingly recognized across Northern Europe and the courts of the Holy Roman Empire.
The name Ruthenia originated as a Latinized form of Rus and was commonly used in Western European documents to refer to the eastern Slavic lands during medieval times. Over time, the name became more localized, especially after the 19th century, to refer to Carpathian Rutheniaa region in the northeastern Carpathian Mountains inhabited by Slavs with a Rusyn identity.
Initially the ecclesiastical title "Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus'" was used for the head of the church based in Kiev until the metropolitan see moved to Moscow in the 14th century, where it became "Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'" with the establishment of the Russian Orthodox Church. In contrast, the southwestern regions of former Kievan Rus' adopted the title "Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Ruthenia", while modern Ukrainian Orthodox churches have shifted to using titles reflecting "Ukraine" instead of "Rus'."
Etymology
The most common theory about the origins of the name Rus''' is the Germanic version. The name Rus, like the Proto-Finnic name for Sweden (*roocci), supposed to be descended from an Old Norse term for "the men who row" (rods-) as rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and that it could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen or Roden, as it was known in earlier times.Stefan Brink, 'Who were the Vikings?', in The Viking World , ed. by Stefan Brink and Neil Price (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), pp. 4–10 (pp. 6–7). The name Rus' would then have the same origin as the Finnish, Estonian, Võro and Northern Sami names for Sweden: Ruotsi, Rootsi, Roodsi and Ruoŧŧa."Russia ," Online Etymology Dictionary The local Finnic and Permic peoples in northern Russia proper use the same (Rus-related) name both for Sweden and Russia (depending on the language): thus the Veps name for Sweden and Swedish is Ročinma / Ročin,"Зайцева М. И., Муллонен М. И. Словарь вепсского языка (Dictionary of Veps language). Л., «Наука», 1972. while in the Komi language spoken further east the etymologically corresponding term Roćmu / Roć means already Russia and Russian instead.Zyri͡ansko-russkīĭ i russko-zyri͡anskīĭ slovarʹ (Komi – Russian dictionary) / sostavlennyĭ Pavlom Savvaitovym. Savvaitov, P. I. 1815–1895. Sankt Peterburg: V Tip. Imp. Akademīi Nauk, 1850.Русско–коми словарь 12000 слов (Russian – Komi dictionary, Л. М. Безносикова, Н. К. Забоева, Р. И. Коснырева, 2005 год, 752 стр., Коми книжное издательство. The Finnish scholar Tor Karsten has pointed out that the territory of present-day Uppland, Södermanland and Östergötland in ancient times was known as Roðer or roðin. Thomsen accordingly has suggested that Roðer probably derived from roðsmenn or roðskarlar, meaning seafarers or rowers. Ivar Aasen, the Norwegian philologist and lexicographer, noted proto-Germanic root variants Rossfolk, Rosskar, Rossmann.Ivar Aasen, Norsk Ordbog, med dansk Forklaring, Kristiania 1918 (1873), p.612
George Vernadsky theorized about the association of Rus and Alans. He claimed that Ruxs in Alanic means "radiant light", thus the ethnonym Roxolani could be understood as "bright Alans". He theorized that the name Roxolani a combination of two separate tribal names: the Rus and the Alans.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the English name Russia first appeared in the 14th century, borrowed from Medieval Latin Russia, which was in turn a rendition of the Byzantine Greek name for Rus', Ρωσία (Rosía). The word Ruthenia originated as a Latin designation of the region its people called Rus'. Rusia or Ruthenia appears in the 1520 Latin treatise Mores, leges et ritus omnium gentium, per Ioannem Boëmum, Aubanum, Teutonicum ex multis clarissimis rerum scriptoribus collecti by Johann Boemus. In the chapter De Rusia sive Ruthenia, et recentibus Rusianorum moribus ("About Rus', or Ruthenia, and modern customs of the Rus'"), Boemus tells of a country extending from the Baltic Sea to the Caspian Sea and from the Don River to the northern ocean. It is a source of beeswax, its forests harbor many animals with valuable fur, and the capital city Moscow (Moscovia), named after the Moskva River (Moscum amnem), is 14 miles in circumference. Danish diplomat Jacob Ulfeldt, who traveled to Russia in 1578 to meet with Tsar Ivan IV, titled his posthumously (1608) published memoir Hodoeporicon Ruthenicum ("Voyage to Ruthenia").
Early evidence
In Old East Slavic literature, the East Slavs refer to themselves as "[muzhi] ruskie" ("Rus' men") or, rarely, "rusichi." The East Slavs are thought to have adopted this name from the Varangian elite, which was first mentioned in the 830s in the Annales Bertiniani. The Annales recount that Louis the Pious's court at Ingelheim am Rhein in 839 (the same year as the first appearance of Varangians in Constantinople), was visited by a delegation from the Byzantine emperor. The delegates included two men who called themselves "Rhos" ("Rhos vocari dicebant"). Louis inquired about their origins and learned that they were Swedes. Fearing that they were spies for their brothers the Danes, he jailed them. They were also mentioned in the 860s by Byzantine Patriarch Photius under the name "Rhos."Rusiyyah or Rūs (روس) was used by Ahmad ibn Fadlan for what was assumed to be Varangians he met by the Volga River, and by the Persian traveler Ahmad ibn Rustah who visited Veliky Novgorod and described how the Rus' exploited the Slavs.
When the Varangians arrived in Constantinople, the Byzantines considered and described the Rhos (Greek Ῥῶς) as a different people from the Slavs.
The earliest written mention of the word Rus appears in the Primary Chronicle under the year 912. When describing the peace treaty signed by the Varangian Oleg of Novgorod during his campaign on Constantinople, it contains the following passage, "Oleg sent his men to make peace and sign a treaty between the Greeks and the Rus', saying thus: [...] "We are the Rus': Karl, Inegeld, Farlaf, Veremud, Rulav, Gudi, Ruald, Karn, Frelav, Ruar, Aktevu, Truan, Lidul, Vost, Stemid, sent by Oleg, the great prince of Rus', and all those under him[.]"
Later the Primary Chronicle states that they conquered Kiev and created what is now called Kievan Rus'. The territory they conquered was named after them as were, eventually, the local people (cf. Normans).
However, the Synod Scroll of the Novgorod First Chronicle, which is partly based on the original list of the late 11th Century and partly on the Primary Chronicle, does not name the Varangians asked by the Chuds, Slavs and Krivichs to reign their obstreperous lands as the "Rus'". One can assume that there was no original mention of the Varangians as the Rus' due to the old list predating the Primary Chronicle and the Synod Scroll only referred to the Primary Chronicle if the pages of the old list were blemished.
Other spellings used in Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries were as follows: Ruzi, Ruzzi, Ruzia and Ruzari. Sources written in Latin routinely confused the Rus' with the Rugii, an ancient East Germanic tribe related to the Goths. Olga of Kiev, for instance, was called "queen of the Rugii" (regina Rugorum) in the Lotharingian Chronicle compiled by the anonymous continuator of Regino of Prüm.
Alternate anti-Normanist theories
A number of alternative etymologies have been suggested. These are derived from the "anti-Normanist" school of thought in Russian historiography during the 19th century and in the Soviet era. These hypotheses are considered unlikely in Western mainstream academia. Slavic and Iranian etymologies suggested by "anti-Normanist" scholars include: The Roxolani, a Sarmatian (i. e., Iranian) people who inhabited southern Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. Several river-names in the region contain the element rus/ros and these might be the origin of the name of the Rus'.P.B., Golden, "Rūs", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 26 July 2018 . In Ukraine, the Ros and Rusna, near Kiev and Pereiaslav, respectively, whose names are derived from a postulated Slavic term for "water", akin to rosa (dew), rusalka (water nymph), ruslo (stream bed). (A relation of rosa to the Sanskrit rasā́- "liquid, juice; mythical river" suggests itself; compare Avestan Raŋhā "mythical stream" and the ancient name of the Volga River, Ῥᾶ Rā, from a cognate Scythian name). Rusiy (Русый), light-brown, said of hair color (the translation "reddish-haired", cognate with the Slavic "ryzhiy", "red-haired", is not quite exact). A postulated proto-Slavic word for "bear", cognate with arctos and ursus.
The name Rus may have originated from the Iranian name of the Volga River (by F. Knauer, Moscow 1901).
The Russian-American historian, George Vernadsky, has suggested a derivation from the Roxolani, stating that the first part of the name Roxolani comes from the Iranian "rukhs", meaning "light" and thus the name Roxolani meant "the light Alans".
The Russian linguist Igor Danilevsky, in his Ancient Rus as Seen by Contemporaries and Descendants, argued against these theories, stating that the anti-Normanists neglected the realities of the Ancient Slavic languages and that the nation name Rus could not have arisen from any of the proposed origins. The populace of the Ros River would have been known as Roshane; Red-haired or bear-origined people would have ended their self-name with the plural -ane or -ichi, and not with the singular -s' (red hair is one of the natural hair colors of Scandinavians and other Germanic peoples); Most theories are based on a Ros- root, and in Ancient Slavic an o would never have become the u in Rus.
Danilevskiy further argued that the term followed the general pattern of Slavic names for neighboring Finnic peoples—the Chud', Ves', Perm', Sum', etc.—but that the only possible word that it could be based on, Ruotsi, presented a historical dead-end, since no such tribal or national name was known from non-Slavic sources. "Ruotsi" is, however, the Finnish name for Sweden.Ruotsi – Wikipedia (FI) Danilevskiy shows that the oldest historical source, the Primary Chronicle, is inconsistent in what it refers to as the "Rus'": in adjacent passages, the Rus' are grouped with Varangians, with the Slavs, and also set apart from the Slavs and Varangians. Danilevskiy suggests that the Rus' were originally not a nation but a social class, which can explain the irregularities in the Primary Chronicle and the lack of early non-Slavic sources.
From Rus' to Russia