THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME "RUSSIA."

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2966, 17 August 1878, Page 4

THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME "RUSSIA."

Although the Eussians hare been ' pretty fair en evidence for the last two years, the originof their name does not seem to be generally known. The name of Russian is first mentioned in history in 839, when a few of them, who had visited Constantinople in the train of their Sovereign, called by the Byzantine chroniclers Chacanus—confounded, probably with Cbagan on Khan, his title— accompanied the Embassy sent by the Emperor Theophilus to Louis le Debonnaire. "Nestor, in his chronicles, says : — This name^&Eussian was given us by the Varanfßns, and - before that time we known, by? the name of Slavs." JHpaing to Herbetstein, the people of Moscow assert that the ancient appellation of Kussia was Bosseia, which, in Bussian, means a dispersion. Some historians suppose them to be the descendants of the Eoxolani, who invaded Mosia in a.d. 70, and defeated two Eoman cohorts, when Hadrian made peace with them. They were subsequently driven to the North and in 886 are placed by some geographers in the vicinity of Novgorod, and considered to be a Slavonic or Sarmatic tribe; but Constantino Porphyrogenitus declares the Eussians to be a people distinct from the Slavonians, and in his time speaking a different tongue. Other writers, among whom are Herber stein and the Tatar historian, Abdul-Gazi Bahadoor, Prince of Kafizme, suggest a derivation from Eussus, a brother of the Polish hero Lech; while it is also asserted that they received their name from the colour of their hair. Levesque, quoting the common Oriental traditions, affirms that fll£y were at all times a distinct race, with habits, manners, and language bearing no affinity, from time immemorial, to those of any other. in Europe. The Eussians are mentioned twice in the Koran, and the Greek work Ros, used to designate them, occurs twice in the tieptuagint, though not in our translation. Of their supposed descent from a grandson of Noah we must say nothing, except that it is very probable, assuming the Mosaic chronology as its authority."