It is possible that terms such as "Little" and "Lesser" at the time simply meant geographically smaller and/or less populous,[5] or having fewer eparchies.

However, with the rise of the Catholic Ruthenian Uniate Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Orthodox prelates attempting to seek support from Moscow revived the name using the Greek-influenced spelling: Malaia Rossiia ("Little Russia").

'Great Rus, Great Russia'), meaning the northern or outer region, and Μικρὰ Ῥωσσία (Mikrà Rhōssía, lit.

[10][11] From 1448, the former became ecclesiastically independent as the Russian Orthodox Church based in Moscow declared autocephaly, and from 1458, the latter had its own metropolitans who were approved by the patriarch of Constantinople.

[17] Yuri II Boleslav used the term in a 1335 letter to Dietrich von Altenburg, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, where he styled himself as dux totius Rusiæ Minoris.

[18] At the beginning of the 17th century, Ukrainian churchmen studying Greek sources took up the term Malorossiia and introduced it into the title of the metropolitan of Kiev, who was elected in 1620.

[2] At the time, the term Little Russia referred to the East Slavic lands in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, whose inhabitants were also known as Ruthenians or rusyny.

[2] The usage of the name was later broadened to apply loosely to the parts of right-bank Ukraine when it was annexed by Russia at the end of the 18th century upon the partitions of Poland.

[citation needed] Up to the very end of the 19th century, Little Russia was the prevailing term for much of the modern territory of Ukraine that was part of the Russian Empire, as well as for its people and their language.

Ukrainophile historians Mykhaylo Maksymovych, Mykola Kostomarov, Dmytro Bahaliy, and Volodymyr Antonovych acknowledged the fact that during the Russo-Polish wars, Ukraine had only a geographical meaning, referring to the borderlands of both states, but Little Russia was the ethnonym of Little (Southern) Russian people.

[16] The name Ukraine was reintroduced in the 19th century by several writers making a conscious effort to awaken Ukrainian national awareness.

[15] The term Little Russia is now anachronistic when used to refer to the country Ukraine and the modern Ukrainian nation, its language, culture, etc.

Such usage is typically perceived as conveying an imperialist view that the Ukrainian territory and people ("Little Russians") belong to "one, indivisible Russia".

[citation needed] In July 2021 Vladimir Putin published a 7000-word essay, a large part of which was devoted to expounding these views.

[33] The related term Madiarony has been used to describe Magyarized Rusyns in Carpathian Ruthenia who advocated for the union of that region with Hungary.

[37] According to historian Harlow Robinson, Nikolay Kashkin, a friend of the composer as well as a well-known musical critic in Moscow, "suggested the moniker in his 1896 book Memories of Tchaikovsky.