Pre-modern identity No. 7: 'Rus'' as an ethnonym, the treaties of 911/944 (30.08.2025)

The seventh and concluding episode of the cycle — a summary. Dribnytsya stresses that “Rus’”/“rusyn” as an ethnonym (rather than a politonym or toponym) is attested in the Primary Chronicle as early as the 10th century — in the texts of the treaties with Byzantium of 911 and 944, at first only with respect to the middle-Dnipro Rus’ Land. Using the observation of the Russian scholars Belova and Petrukhin about the preamble of the 911 treaty (where Rus’ of Varangian origin is opposed to the Slavs), he shows the moment of merger. The conclusion: by the late 12th — 13th century “Rus’” had become the endoethnonym of the population of present-day Ukraine, so the thesis “we are one people” is without foundation. A source for the article on the formation of pre-modern identity.