Voivode of Ruthenia

Ruthenian Voivodeship województwo ruskie Palatinatus Russiae
Voivodeship of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland¹
← 1434–1772 →
Coat of arms
The Ruthenian Voivodeship of 1635 within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Capital		Lwów
History
•	Established	1434
•	Disestablished	1772
Area
•	1770	55,200 km2(21,313 sq mi)
Population
•	1770	1,495,000
	Density	27.1 /km2  (70.1 /sq mi)
Political subdivisions		Five lands divided into 13 counties
¹ Voivodeship of the Kingdom of Poland. The kingdom was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1569.

Coat of arms

The Ruthenian Voivodeship or Russian Voivodeship (Latin: Palatinatus russiae, Polish: województwo ruskie, Ukrainian: Руське воєводство) was a voivodeship of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland from 1434 until the 1772 First Partition of Poland. Together with a number of other voivodeships of southern and eastern part of the Kingdom of Poland, it formed Lesser Poland Province of the Polish Crown, with its capital city in Kraków. Following the Partitions of Poland, most of Ruthenian Voivodeship, except for its northeastern corner, was annexed by the Habsburg Empire, as part of the province of Galicia. Today, the former Ruthenian Voivodeship is divided between Poland and Ukraine.

Settled in prehistoric times, the central-eastern European land that is now the southeastern part of Poland and the western part of Ukraine was overrun in pre-Roman times by various tribes, including the Celts, Goths, and Vandals (Przeworsk culture). After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the area was invaded by Hungarians, Slavs and Avars. The region subsequently became part of the Great Moravian state, and in the 10th century western part of future Russian Voivodeship became a site of contention between Poland, Kievan Rus and Hungary. In Kievan Rus' and Polish sources, western outskirts of the region was called Ziemia czerwieńska, or "Czerwień Land", from the name of Cherven, a town that existed there. Today there are several towns with this name, none of them related to Red Ruthenia.

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Wikipedia