Carpathian Ruthenia/ Rusynsko/ Рутенія

Rusyns formed two ephemeral states after World War I: the Lemko-Rusyn Republic and Komancza Republic. Prior to this time, some of the founders of the Lemko-Rusyn Republic were sentenced to death or imprisoned in Talerhof by the prosecuting attorney Kost Levytsky (Ukrainian: Кость Леви́цький), future president of the West Ukrainian National Republic. In the interwar period, the Rusyn diaspora in Czechoslovakia enjoyed liberal conditions to develop their culture (in comparison to Ukrainians in Poland or Romania). The Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine, which existed for one day on March 15, 1939, before it was occupied by Hungarian troops, is sometimes considered to have been a self-determining Rusyn state that had intentions to unite with Kiev.[citation needed] The Republic's president, Avgustyn Voloshyn, was an advocate of writing in Rusyn.
The Rusyns have always been subject to larger neighbouring powers, such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union, Ukraine, and Russia. In contrast to the modern Ukrainian national movement that united Western Ukrainians with those in the rest of Ukraine, the Rusyn national movement took two forms: one considered Rusyns a separate East Slavic nation, while the other was based on the concept of fraternal unity with Russians.

Most of the predecessors of the Eastern Slavic inhabitants of present-day Western Ukraine, as well as of Western Belarus, referred to themselves as Ruthenians (Rusyns) (Ukrainian: Русини, translit. Rusyny) prior to the nineteenth century. Many of them became active participants in the creation of the Ukrainian nation and came to call themselves Ukrainians (Ukrainian: Українці, translit. Ukrayintsi). There were, however, ethnic Rusyn enclaves, which were not a part of this movement: those living on the border of the same territory or in more isolated regions, such as the people from Carpathian Ruthenia, Poleshuks, or the Rusyns of Podlachia. With no reason to change their self-identifying monikers, these groups continue to refer to themselves as Rusyns.

According to a 2001 Ukrainian census, an overwhelming majority of Boykos, Lemkos, Hutsuls, Verkhovyntsi and Dolynians in Ukraine stated their nationality as Ukrainian. However, some of these ethnic groups consider themselves to be separate ethnicities, while others identify themselves as Rusyns. About 10,100 people, or 0.8%, of Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast (Province) identified themselves as Rusyns; by contrast, 1,010,000 considered themselves Ukrainians.Research conducted by the University of Cambridge during the height of political Rusynism in the mid-1990s that focused on five specific regions within the Zakarpattia Oblast having the strongest pro-Rusyn cultural and political activism, found that only nine percent of the population of these areas claimed Rusyn ethnicity.