Rusyns primarily self-identify as a distinct Slavic people[citation needed] and they are recognized as such in Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia, where they have official minority status.

[20] The variant Rusnak (Руснак; plural: Rusnakŷ or Pannonian-Rusyn, Rusnatsi) was also (and still is) used as an endonym;[19][20] particularly by Rusyns outside the Carpathians in Vojvodina, Serbia and Slavonia, Croatia.

[20] Other terms such as Ruthene, Rusniak, Lemak, Lyshak, and Lemko are considered by some scholars to be historic, local, or synonymic names for these inhabitants of Transcarpathia.

Parallel, medieval Latin terms such as Rusi, Russi or Rusci are found in sources of the period and were commonly used as an exonym for the East Slavs.

During the rule of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the scope of Rutheni gradually narrowed to only refer to inhabitants of the East Slavic regions that now mostly belong to the states of Belarus and Ukraine.

After the Partitions of Poland, Rutheni "came to be associated primarily with those [East Slavs] who lived under the Habsburg monarchy" (and was used as an official designation in the Austrian Empire after 1843).

Exonymic Ruthenian designations are seen as less precise because they encompass various East Slavic groups and bear broader ethnic connotations as a result of varied historical usage.

The ancestors were the early Slavs whose movement to the Danubian Basin was influenced by the Huns and Pannonian Avars between the 5th and 6th centuries, the White Croats who lived on both slopes of the Carpathians and built many hill-forts in the region including Uzhhorod ruled by the mythical ruler Laborec, the Rusyns of Galicia and Podolia, and Vlach shepherds of Transylvania.

[32][33][34] George Shevelov also considered a connection with East Slavic tribes, more specifically, the Hutsuls, and possibly Boykos, argued to be the descendants of the Ulichs who were not native in the region.

In 1395, Orthodox Rus' Prince Feodor Koriatovich, son of the Duke of Novgorod, brought with him from the north soldiers and their families to settle unpopulated Carpathian lands.

While the actual number of immigrants is uncertain, the arrival of Koriatovich and his retinue was a milestone for the Rusyns, substantially improving the region's administrative, ecclesiastical and cultural aspects.

[61] This included building and fortifying Mukachevo Castle with cannons, a moat, workers and artisans, and the founding of an Orthodox monastery on the Latorytsia River.

[65] A few decades later, when economic conditions and repression worsened in the late 19th century, massive emigration of Rusyns to America took place, beginning in the early 1870s.

[41][67] In the interwar period, the Rusyn diaspora in Czechoslovakia enjoyed liberal conditions to develop their culture (in comparison with Ukrainians in Poland or Romania).

New regional government, headed by Avgustyn Voloshyn, adopted a pro-Ukrainian course and opted for the change of name, from Subcarpathian Rus' to Carpathian Ukraine.

[70] The Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine, which existed for one day on March 15, 1939, before it was occupied and annexed by Hungary, is sometimes considered to have been a self-determining Rusyn state that had intentions to unite with Kiev.

[73] In former Yugoslavia, Rusyns were officially recognized as a distinct national minority, and their legal status was regulated in Yugoslav federal units of Serbia and Croatia.

[citation needed] In terms of minority rights, the question of Rusyn self-identification and recognition in Ukraine has been a subject of interest for European institutions, as well as the United Nations.

By the early 21st century they had representatives in parliaments of Serbia, Hungary, and Romania, published their own press, and in 2007 the Museum of Ruthenian Culture was opened in Prešov, Slovakia.

In writing about the Soviet Union's post World War II takeover of the Transcarpathian region, Putin stated that, "quote, 'Rusyns (Русины) made up a considerable share of the local population', unquote".

[84] In December 1994 so called "minister of foreign affairs" T. Ondyk appealed to the President of Russia Boris Yeltsin to cancel the 1945 treaty between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia about Zakarpattia Ukraine.

At that particular congress the reinstatement of the Zakarpattia's status as special "territory of Rusyns to the south of the Carpathians" with self-government under the constitutional name Subcarpathian Rus was recognized.

That same day, according to the Kommersant-Ukraine (Ukrainian edition) agents of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) questioned Dmytro Sydor and Yevgeniy Zhupan.

One of the earliest saints of the (Orthodox) Monastery of the Caves at Kiev was the Rusyn Moses Uhrin (died 1043),[93] who prior to becoming a monk served Boris, the prince of Ancient Rus'.

But under the growing influence of the then ruling Austro-Hungarian Empire, Orthodox clergy were reduced over time to the legal status of peasant-serfs, and even the bishop of Mukachevo was at the mercy of the Hungarian lords.

This new Church was given greater material assistance from the Austro-Hungarian Empire while being allowed to maintain their Eastern Rite traditions, including married priests.

This American mixing further influenced events and persecutions back in the Carpathian homeland, where thousands of fleeing Orthodox Russians also settled, including monks who founded the Ladomirova Monastery.

The Greek Catholic Cathedral, Uzhhorod was transferred to the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church in 1948, and priests who refused to convert to Orthodoxy were sent to the Siberian and Arctic labor camps, where many died.

The influential newspaper of the American Greek Catholic Church, the 'GCU Messenger', wrote in 1954: "To us Carpatho-Russian people here and in our native country under the green Carpathians, there can be no greater insult and offense then when someone calls us Ukrainians.

Regarding these common ethnographic divisions, prominent Rusyn scholar, Paul Robert Magocsi, has said the following: The tripartite Lemko-Boiko-Hutsul schema […] does not, however, respond to reality on the ground.