What Does the Word "Russian" Actually Mean?

My personal exploration into the history that is written by the winners, debated, and ultimately unknown

Life made it so that in the past few months, I was compelled to think a lot about my Russian roots. I was digging in different directions, thinking about origins, and something didn't make sense. Something was bothering me. And so one day, I asked myself: " I say, Russian this, Russian that, but what does the word "Russian" actually mean?”

And then it dawned on me. I realized that the word itself is semi-fictional. It does not allow one to define one’s origin with any precision. It stands for being born somewhere within a very large geographical area, into a culture of a particular empire. It gives an approximate idea about a place on the map (which is, ummm, half of the Eurasian continent), a possible combination of bloodlines, and a beautiful culture—a culture thriving like grass that grows through asphalt—going a few centuries back, and existing under a particular set of tyrant lineages, under a particular brand of the boot.

And…. now what? Who am I?

Russia as a part of the Eurasian continent

If the word "Russian" stands for "the Russian empire, the flag, the state, the machine supervising the land between its national borders,” who am I?

I am me! I have beautiful ancestors! I am not the empire!

The ethnonym

The actual origin of the word “Russian” is unknown. There are different opinions. Some opinions, for example, claim that the word “Russian” actually means “Swede.” Here is an excerpt from an article about the etymology of the word (the article is not super deep or exhaustive, and there are other theories, but it gives a taste of how little is actually known):

Russia = Sweden?

According to one train of thought, “Rus” originates from the Scandinavian languages and reflects the belief that the first rulers of ancient Russia were actually Vikings, or “Varangians.” “Varangians named us Rus after themselves,” said a 12th-century chronicler, quoted by historian Vasily Klyuchevsky.

If this version is true, “Rus” is just another term for “Sweden/Swedish,” like the Normans or Vikings were once referred to. “Rus” was used by foreigners to describe Slavic tribes ruled by the Vikings, and it stuck. “Rus” is close to today’s Ruotsi – which means “Sweden” in Finnish – so there’s some logic here.

Slavic and Sarmat versions

Of course, this version doesn't satisfy everyone, especially given that many historians slam the idea of the Varangians ever ruling ancient Russia – they consider it a legend. So they found another explanation for the origin of “Rus” – the Ros River, a tributary of the Dnieper (now in Ukraine). Some Slavs settled there so people started calling them Rosskiye, which then turned into Russkie…

This may sound like a plausible theory but linguists doubt that the “o” morphed into a “u” for this ethnonym – something which almost never happens. But there’s an even more exotic version, that “Rus” originated from the Roksolani, a Sarmat people close to the Skifs who lived in Crimea from the second century BC to the first century AD. Allegedly, the Roksolani mixed with the Slavs and somehow shortened their name to “Rus.” Who knows – after all, several thousand years have passed since then.

‘Red people’?

Another hypothesis suggests that “Rus” originates from the Roman word ross, which means “red.” “The Byzantines call them [Slavic tribes] ar-rusiya, which means ‘red,’” wrote Al-Masdi, an Arabian historian from the 10th century. The red reference was fueled by their sunburnt faces. When the northerners, who were accustomed to a lack of UV rays, traveled south their faces often got sunburnt, making them the “red people” – Ross.

Conclusion? It could be this, or that, or the other. Nobody knows.

Many nations, mixed up

On the land that is now Russia, there have been many tribes, they migrated, mingled, intermarried (most likely), warred with each other, sold each other into slavery, formed alliances with each other and with surrounding empires, and mixed, mixed, mixed.

Theories about where modern-day Russians came from vary, again. Some sources say that the Russians came from “East Slavs” (a group that includes Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians). Other sources say that the Russians came from the Scythians (an Iranic nomadic people, said to have lived in Southern Siberia and the Russian and Ukrainian steppes between the 7th and the 3rd centuries BC)—and weren’t counted as “Slavs” up until the 10th century at least.

There seems to be some heavy political head-bumping around the topic of “who the real Scythians are.” On my end, I really don’t know, and I don’t know where the Russians came from.

And of course, as you go East, the people living there may be “Russian” in today’s terms but they, just like their brothers and sisters to the west of them, started out as their own ethic entities and eventually ended up under the empire.

The Rurik dynasty

Then there is the myth about the Rurik dynasty, or the Rurikids, a Scandinavian dynasty who allegedly ruled over the “Slavs” for over 700 years, starting in the 9th century, when they are said to have founded Kievan Rus’. ¹ ²

That is how I learned history at school. I even learned that the Slavs near-begged the Ruriks to come rule them (please)³, which sounds a bit unrealistic to me—but I wasn’t there, and I don’t know. To make things even more wishy washy, some scholars believe that the myth of the Rurik family is just that, a myth.

Slavic slave trade

This is something that came to the surface of thinking only a month ago or so. Evidently, the English word “slave” ultimately comes from the word “Slav,” based on the once-thriving trade of Slavic people in foreign markets, a very long time ago.

Here is a video about Slavic slave trade. I don’t like the image one bit, by the way.

Conclusion

If we are honest, anyone born in “Russia” probably has blood of many nations, many ethnic groups. Things happened how they happened, there was a lot of warring and a lot of mixing, and at the end of the day, we are beautiful living symphonies, carrying all that richness, all that beauty—and not just the pain.

And I feel that my Ancestors want me to see that. The beauty. The meaning. The joy. They are saying, “Yes., there was pain. But we are not our pain. We did things for a reason. We are telling a beautiful story. It’s a story of love and joy, and doing God’s work. We are not defined by our pain.”

---

A note to readers: If you are in the position to do so, I very much encourage you to become a paid subscriber or donate. I love you in any case, but it helps A LOT, and I am in a dire need to get more donations and paid subscribers while keeping my posts free. Thank you from my heart for your support!

1. https://www.rbth.com/history/334009-first-russian-ruler-rurik-real-person-myth

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurikids

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calling_of_the_Varangians