Chervona Rus’

Chervona Rus’ [Червона Русь] (Red Rus’ or Red Ruthenia). The historical name of Galicia, which was used mostly by non-Ukrainian writers in the 16th–19th century, and never by the populace. Some historians and geographers of the 17th–18th century, such as Szymon Starowolski and J.B. Homann, applied this name to all Ukraine or to the part of it west of the Dnipro River. Most frequently, however, the term Red Rus’ was used in documents to designate the former Halych principality, which in the 15th–18th century constituted Rus’ voivodeship and Belz voivodeship (see Belz land). After 1772 Chervona Rus’ was officially designated as Galicia and Lodomeria. The artificial term Chervenska Rus’, used in certain Polish and Russophile circles, was an attempt to associate Chervona Rus’ with the Cherven towns and stems from the tendentious hypothesis about the ‘non-Ukrainian’ character of these towns.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]