Little Russia in the context of "Pyotr Rumyantsev"

Ukrainians (Ukrainian: українці, romanised: ukraintsi, pronounced [ʊkrɐˈjin⁽ʲ⁾ts⁽ʲ⁾i]) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the second largest ethno-linguistic community. At around 46 million worldwide, Ukrainians are the second largest Slavic ethnic group after Russians.

Ukrainians have been given various names by foreign rulers, which have included Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburg monarchy, the Austrian Empire, and then Austria-Hungary. The East Slavic population inhabiting the territories of modern-day Ukraine were known as Ruthenians, referring to the territory of Ruthenia; the Ukrainians living under the Russian Empire were known as Little Russians, named after the territory of Little Russia.

In tsarist Russia, the term serf (Russian: крепостной крестьянин, romanized: krepostnoy krest'yanin, lit. 'bonded peasant') meant an unfree peasant who, unlike a slave, originally could be sold only together with the land to which they were "attached". However, this had stopped being a requirement by the 19th century, and serfs were by then practically indistinguishable from slaves. Contemporary legal documents, such as Russkaya Pravda (12th century onwards), distinguished several degrees of feudal dependency of peasants. While another form of slavery in Russia, kholopstvo, was ended by Peter I in 1723, serfdom (Russian: крепостное право, romanized: krepostnoye pravo) was abolished only by Alexander II's emancipation reform of 1861; nevertheless, in times past, the state allowed peasants to sue for release from serfdom under certain conditions, and also took measures against abuses of landlord power.

Serfdom became the dominant form of relation between Russian peasants and nobility in the 17th century. Serfdom most commonly existed in the central and southern areas of the Tsardom of Russia and, from 1721, of the subsequent Russian Empire. Serfdom was rare in Little Russia (parts of today's central Ukraine), other Cossack lands, the Urals and Siberia until the reign of Catherine the Great (r. 1762–1796), when it spread to Ukraine; noblemen began to send their serfs into Cossack lands in an attempt to harvest their extensive untapped natural resources.

History of Ruthenians or Little Russia (Russian: Исторія Русовъ, или Малой Россіи, romanized: Istoriya Rusov, ili Maloy Rossii) also known as History of the Rus' People is an anonymous historico-political treatise, most likely written at the break of the 18th and 19th centuries. It had a great influence on the formation of the Ukrainian national identity and was even named "the most prominent historical work in Ukraine". It was written and originally published in Russian and describes the history of the Ruthenians and their state, Little Russia (Russian: Малоросія, in the terminology of the book), from antiquity to 1769. It mostly focuses on the history of the Zaporizhian Sich and the Cossack Hetmanate.

The All-Russian nation or All-Russian people (Russian: общерусский народ, romanized: obshcherussky narod) or triune Russian people (Russian: триединый русский народ, romanized: triyediny russky narod), also called the triune Russian nation or pan-Russian nation, is the term for the Imperial Russian and modern Russian irredentist ideology that sees the Russian nation as comprising a "trinity" of sub-nations: Great Russia, Little Russia, and White Russia, which are contextually identified with Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians respectively. Above all, the basis of the ideology's upholding of an inclusive Russian identity is centered around bringing all East Slavs under its fold.

An imperial dogma focused on nation-building became popular in the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, where it was consolidated as the official state ideology; the sentiment of the triune nationality of "All-Russian" was embraced by many imperial subjects, including Jews and Germans, and ultimately served as the foundation of the Russian Empire.

Russian nationalism (Russian: Русский национализм) is a form of nationalism that promotes Russian cultural identity and unity. Russian nationalism first rose to prominence as a Pan-Slavic enterprise during the 19th century Russian Empire, and was repressed during the early Bolshevik rule. Russian nationalism was briefly revived through the policies of Joseph Stalin during and after the Second World War, which shared many resemblances with the worldview of early Eurasianist ideologues.

The definition of Russian national identity within Russian nationalism has been characterized in different ways. One characterisation, based on ethnicity, asserts that the Russian nation is constituted by ethnic Russians, while another, the All-Russian nation, which developed in the Russian Empire, views Russians as having three sub-national groups within it, including Great Russians (those commonly identified as ethnic Russians today), Little Russians (Ukrainians), and White Russians (Belarusians). In the Eurasianist perspective, Russia is a distinctive civilization separate from both Europe and Asia, and includes ethnic non-Russians of Turkic and other Asiatic cultures.