All-Russian nation

[11][12][13] English-language scholarly works refer to this concept as Greater Russia, All-Russian,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20] pan-Russian[15][19][20][21][22][23][24] or triune Russian nation.

[37] The Slavs adapted the toponym Little or Lesser Rus from the Greek term, used by the Ecumenical Patriarchs of Constantinople from the 14th century (it first appeared in church documents in 1335).

the name "Ruthenia" denoted the former lands of Rus' where those Eastern Slavs lived (many of whom later became subjects of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) who included both Ukrainians and Belarusians.

[20] The disintegration, or parcelling, of the polity of Kievan Rus' in the 11th century resulted in considerable population shifts and a political, social, and economic regrouping.

[42][43] All of this was emphasized by the subsequent polities these groups migrated into: southwestern and western Rus', where the Ruthenian and later Ukrainian and Belarusian identities developed, was subject to Lithuanian and later Polish influence;[38] whereas the (Great) Russian ethnic identity that developed in the Vladimir-Suzdal principality and the Novgorodian Russian north, an area also inhabited by Finno-Ugric, Slavic and Tatar-Turkic tribes,[nb 1] isolated from its Ruthene relatives.

[49] Ivan III, Grand Duchy of Moscow, considered himself heir to all former Kievan Rus' lands and in 1493 he assumed the title of gosudar, or "Sovereign of All Russia".

[citation needed] Very shortly after Catherine II's ascension to the throne she issued the ukase of May 1763, declaring the Cossack Hetmanate to be administered according to 'Little Russian rights'.

This prompted the Hetmanate's General Military Chancellery of Hlukhiv to be convened the following September by Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovskyi, at which the council accepted the imperial (All-Russian) narrative by demanding recognition of Peter I's decree of 1708 which stated that "no other people had such privileges as the Little Russian nation", and indicated their descent from and the loyalty to the 'Little Russian nation' (in whose ranks they included everyone except the peasants).

[52] Despite recognition of this apparent unity, the demands of the Hlukhiv council attempted to establish "a distinctive political, social, and economic system in the Hetmanate", and fulfill the vision by Ukrainian elites of a Little and Great Russia as separate countries united only by a familiar head of state.

[52] The concept of the "All-Russian nation" gained in political importance near the end of the 18th century as a means of legitimizing Russian imperial claims to the eastern territories of the partitioned Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The confirmation of such differences not only would undermine the idea of a single Russian people, but also might threaten the link between medieval Kiev and Moscow and thus render precarious the whole framework upon which the Russian imperial conception of history was built.In the 19th century the territory of Ukraine "became an object of a terminological war"; in Russia they were referred to as the "southwestern" or "restored" lands.

[55] "In a real sense, the evolution of the 19th century Ukrainian national reivival can be seen as the story of the conflict between a framework of multiple loyalties on the one hand and one of mutually exclusive identities on the other.

"[55] The Pre-Romantic understanding of "nation" was that of a community of nobles united by political loyalty, and more importantly excluded membership of the peasant class.

"[54] This ideological concept is reciprocated by Romantic-era poet, Alexander Pushkin: "Will not all the Slavic streams merge into the Russian sea?

"[19] Compared to British Orientalism, "The Russian gentry also felt that the Ukrainian peasantry, by virtue of their Orthodox faith, related language, and history, should be included in a tripartite 'Russian' nation made up of the East Slavs".

[17] Russians and Ukrainian intellectuals began to delve into understanding their own national characteristics through research into folklore, ethnography, literature, and history; resulting in a mutual conclusion that they were distinct peoples.

[18] The All-Russian nationality being 'empire-driven' relied heavily on references to Slavic culture and the historic state of Kievan Rus', and thus required the cooperation of the people who inhabited this land.

[18] Official policy began to fully endorse the notion that Ukrainian (vis-à-vis Little Russian) language and nationality did not exist.

[18] On a personal level, individuals from White and Little Russia willing to renounce their identity and merge into the 'all-Russian' ethnos were never discriminated against on ethnic grounds,[16] however, "systematic repression was applied to all individuals who upheld a distinct Ukrainian identity whether in the political or in the cultural sphere" and "upward mobility could only be achieved through the acquisition of Russian language and culture".

[54] The education system became a primary tool of nationalizing the peasantry (which did not adopt the Little Russian identity),[19] and the teaching of the Ukrainian language was banned by the state.

[25] Historical texts commissioned by the government, under the guidance of cultural commissar Andrei Zhdanov, sought to fuse religion, ethnicity, and the state more prominently in the interpretation of history, and project a triune Russian nation as the focus of the Soviet Union.

[64] Also, the trinity conception is regarded as a category[clarify] from the past century that needs to be renewed by the search for new identities and new unifying impulses.

[65][clarify] Early in the tenure of Boris Yeltsin, Russia preoccupied itself with recreating a national identity based either on Soviet or pre-Soviet traditions.

[74] On 22 February 2024, Medvedev described the future plans of Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian War when he claimed that the Russian Army will go further into Ukraine, taking the southern city of Odesa and may again push on to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, and stated that "Where should we stop?

[77] A nationwide poll conducted in March 2000 in Belarus found that 42.6% of the respondents said that they regard Belarusians as a branch of a triune Russian nation.

When examining sub-regional groupings, one could find higher levels of support for this claim in Eastern and Southern (21.8% and 18.8%) versus Central Ukraine (11.7%), respectively.

[84] This initiative has been promoted in conjunction with the Russian government in its foreign policy in order to consolidate its position in the post-Soviet area,[85] as it puts Moscow "at the center of an Orthodox civilization of kindred neighbors: Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine".

[86][87] The all-Russian ideology tended to include the speakers of the fourth and only other East Slavic language, the Rusyns of Carpathian Ruthenia, as part of the Little Russians (Ukrainians).