Rus is another name for Russia. Russia is Latinate or Hellenic version of Rus. Ruthenian is a Latin corruption of Rus. And the name Ukrainian was adopted to differentiate Little Russians from other Russians. The name Ukraine was a geographical designation for the Middle Dnieper area, and it means borderland because the middle Dnieper was where the Rzeczpospolita, the Russian Tsardom and the Ottoman Empire met. The border was manned by Cossacks, a warrior folk that protected the border from incursions of nomadic Tatars that were vassals of the Ottomans.
Later in the nineteenth century, a number of writers began collecting folk songs where Ukraine featured. The Romantic period valued heroic stories of brave Cossacks and their war against enemies, and lamentations of the end of the Cossack age which came with the annexation of this territory by the Russian Empire. And from this grew the Ukrainian nationalism. The latter always found powerful sponsors, the Austrian government, the Soviet Union, the Nazi Germany, and the Western powers. But how legitimate are their discourses? 😆👌
Insomniac Resurrected 