Map of Modern Russia; Map of Ancient Russia (litho)

Map of Modern Russia; Map of Ancient Russia. Although the origin of the word Russia has been disputed, it is certainly derived from the Slavonic Rus, a name first given to the Scandinavians who in the ninth century founded a settlement on the Dnieper. Russia is the general name given to European and Asiatic Russia, the two component parts of the Russian Empire. The use of the word in its most comprehensive state dates only from the expansion of the empire in the nineteenth century. In referring to the empire at an earlier period the name implies Russia in Europe, or Muscovy, as it was generally called until the eighteenth century, from Moscow the ancient capital. Illustration for Hutchinson's History of the Nations (Hutchinson, c.1920).