''History of Ruthenians or Little Russia'' (russian: Исторія Русовъ, или Малой Россіи, Istoriya Rusov, ili Maloy Rossii) also known as ''History of the Rus' People'' is an anonymous historico-political treatise, most likely written at the break of the 18th and 19th centuries. It had a great influence on the formation of the

Ukrainian national identity The history of Ukrainian nationality can be traced back to the kingdom of Kievan Rus' of the 9th to 12th centuries. It was the predecessor state to what would eventually become the Eastern Slavic nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. During th ...

and was even named "the most prominent historical work in Ukraine". It was written and originally published in Russian and describes the history of the

Ruthenians Ruthenian and Ruthene are exonyms of Latin origin, formerly used in Eastern and Central Europe as common ethnonyms for East Slavs, particularly during the late medieval and early modern periods. The Latin term Rutheni was used in medieval sou ...

and their state,

Little Russia Little Russia (russian: Малороссия/Малая Россия, Malaya Rossiya/Malorossiya; uk, Малоросія/Мала Росія, Malorosiia/Mala Rosiia), also known in English as Malorussia, Little Rus' (russian: Малая Ру� ...

(''russian: Малоросія'', in the terminology of the book), from antiquity to 1769. It mostly focuses on the history of the

Zaporizhian Sich The Zaporozhian Sich ( ua, Запорозька Січ, ; also uk, Вольностi Вiйська Запорозького Низового, ; Free lands of the Zaporozhian Host the Lower) was a semi-autonomous polity and proto-state of C ...

and the

Cossack Hetmanate The Cossack Hetmanate ( uk, Гетьманщина, Hetmanshchyna; or ''Cossack state''), officially the Zaporizhian Host or Army of Zaporizhia ( uk, Військо Запорозьке, Viisko Zaporozke, links=no; la, Exercitus Zaporoviensis) ...

Authorship and dating

The book was written as a political

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

by an unknown author at the end of the 18th or early 19th century. It could not have been written before 1792, since it mentions the , discovered only in 1792. According to Zenon Kohut, the author of the manuscript was strongly influenced by the events that had had place after the

Third Partition of Poland The Third Partition of Poland (1795) was the last in a series of the Partitions of Poland–Lithuania and the land of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Russian Empire which effectively ended Polis ...

. The "History" was distributed in the form of a manuscript for a long time and was published in

Moscow University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

press by Osyp Bodianski only in 1846. The title page ascribed the work to ", Belorusian Archbishop". Subsequently, his authorship was seriously questioned, but the true author is not established. One of the supposed authors is ; the ideas and style of the "History" are similar to the "Historical Reference", which he submitted to Empress

Catherine II , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...

. Another candidate (among others) is her Grand Chancellor Alexander Bezborodko.''Наталія Яковенко'
"Нарис історії України з найдавніших часів до кінця ХVІІІ ст."
p. 366

Publications

*Г. Конискій. ''Исторія Русовъ, или Малой Россіи''. — М., 1846. *''Історія Русів''. Український переклад Івана Драча. Київ:Веселка, 2003.

Notes

References

External links

История Русов или Малой России.
Moscow, 1846. Digital text of the first edition.

on the

Encyclopedia of Ukraine The ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' ( uk, Енциклопедія українознавства, translit=Entsyklopediia ukrainoznavstva), published from 1984 to 2001, is a fundamental work of Ukrainian Studies. Development The work was creat ...

website.
History of Ruthenians
on the

Izbornyk Izbornyk is an internet-library project of the old Ukrainian literature also known as "History of Ukraine 9-18th centuries. Primary sources and interpretation". It functions since the 21st of August 2001. The project is a collection of major works ...

website. {{Authority control 18th-century books 1846 books History of Ruthenia History books about Ukraine