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Origin of the Name "Rus" in Crimea

The origin of the name "Rus" (ruski) in Crimea is a phenomenon of preserving the ancient self-appellation of the Ukrainian ethnos ("Rus people", "Rusyns") among the descendants of settlers from the 18th–19th centuries and its gradual transformation under the influence of russian and Soviet imperial propaganda.

Overview

Historically, the ethnonyms "Rus" (ruskyi), "Rus people" (lyudy ruski), and "Rus nation" (narod ruskyi) were used to designate the Ukrainian population and the Orthodox inhabitants of Kyiv Rus and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 17th-century sources (in particular during the Council of Pereyaslav in 1654), envoys from the "Rus nation" traveled to the Muscovite Tsar, and the Black Sea on ancient maps was often designated as the "Rus Sea". Settlers from Ukrainian governorates who arrived in Crimea in the second half of the 18th century (during the reign of Catherine II) brought this ancient self-appellation with them. However, as a result of systemic russification, the absence of Ukrainian schools, and the spread of the Soviet myth of "russian Crimea," folk memory perceived the word "russians" (russkiye) as equivalent to the traditional "Rus" (ruski), replacing the ethnonym "Ukrainians" to designate only later waves of migrants (after 1954).

Key Details / Subtopics

  • Historical tradition of the ethnonym "Rus": The concept of "Rus people" originates from the name of Kyiv Rus and the concept of "Ukraine-Rus" (according to M. Hrushevsky). Descendants of early Ukrainian settlers in Western Crimea (in particular in the urban-type settlement of Chornomorske) preserved the purity of the Ukrainian language, everyday traditions, dishes (borscht, holubtsi, varenyky), and songs, but continued to call themselves "Rus people".
  • Distinction between "local" and "new" Ukrainians: Early Ukrainian-speaking residents of Crimea perceived the ethnonym "Ukrainians" as a term referring exclusively to settlers of the second half of the 20th century (who arrived after the transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954). Instead, they considered themselves indigenous "Rus people" who had lived in villages and settlements since the 18th century.
  • Impact of state administration and russification: The replacement of national consciousness also occurred through the forced transition of civil servants and railway workers to the russian language (for instance, an oral history about an official on the Volga who forbade his children from speaking Ukrainian and instructed them to call him tiatia).
  • Attempts to correct terminology: Researchers and publicists (in particular O. Puhach in the newspaper Krymska Svitlytsia) emphasize the need to restore historical justice and return to the concept of "Ukraine-Rus," which helps overcome artificial terminological distortions.
  • Rus People of Crimea — Primary article by Olha Puhach (Krymska Svitlytsia, 2016, No. 33), describing the phenomenon of self-identification in Chornomorske.
  • Indigenous Ukrainian Population of Crimea — Concept of the historical settlement of Crimea by Ukrainian peasants and artisans.
  • Chornomorske — Settlement in Western Crimea where the use of the traditional self-appellation "Rus people" was recorded.
  • Olha Puhach — Researcher of ethnonymics and ethnography of the Ukrainian-speaking population of Crimea.