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I've read the German and English Wikipedia on this topic as well as the translated Belarussian version and some sites I googled. They all seem to argue that the 'Rus' part stems from the Region called Ruthenia.

The German version advocates that the 'Bela' part might derive from a word meaning 'western' (as the western part of the Rus) whereas in the English Wikipedia it is translated as 'white'.

Also according to the English version the name originated in the 13th century.

I have a colleague at work from Belarus and he says something completely different. According to him the country was named after a beautiful(~bela?) girl called 'Rus' around the year 800.

Does somebody know where his believe comes from and what the more likely/true explanation is?

My colleague's explanation sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. Only the historians who loved their country explain how it really was. And all the information I find on the web was either misinformation spread from the current government or propaganda left from the time when Belarus was part of the Soviet Union.

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    The correct term for your colleague’s account is etiology: creating a myth to explain the origin of something.
    – Philipp Gesang
    Commented Oct 12, 2012 at 12:35
  • The wikipedia page is pretty clear. I don't see the point of this question.
    – Tyler Durden
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 19:04
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    Belarusans are of a balto-slavic origin, so BelaRus is BaltoRuthenia. In baltic languages "baltas" means "white" which is "biela" in belarusan. Ruthenia (Kyivan Rus') was a confederation of loosely coupled duchies located mostly along the Dnipro river and it's tributaries, and in latin sources all east slavs are usually covered by “rutheni” umbrella term. Previously we used politonym Litvins, but after our state was destroyed in 1795 by Russia this designation was prohibited so ethnonym was used instead. Btw “white/baltas/biela” means “north” in balto-slavic culture. Source: I am Belarusan.
    – x3qt
    Commented Sep 16, 2022 at 14:35

6 Answers 6

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The “bela” stems from the common Slavic root for “white”, as has been discussed in the other answers. There were also historical regions called the “Red” and the “Black” Rus’ (Ruthenia) on the territory of todays Belarus and Ukraine-- the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the middle ages.

The origin of the “Rus” part of Belarus is somewhat uncertain. It is first documented in the 9th century. One possible interpretation is that this was either a toponym or an ethnonym of the Byzantinian nomenclature of the time for the territory of Eastern Europe or the people that lived there respectively. From the Greeks it could have migrated to these people, where it later became the self-denomination of the eastern Slavic state, the Kievan Rus’. But this is by no means the only hypothesis for the etymology of the name “Русь”. Some alternatives are the origin from a Finno-ugric root, or that it was derived from an earlier toponym (places called Русь or Русса (Russa) are not entirely unheard of). If you know Russian, this link I got from ru.wikipedia leads to a comprehensive article that investigates the common theories.

The naming tradition was continued after the 13th century by the decay products of the Kievan Rus’, including those that were eventually incorporated in Lithuania and later the Polish Commonwealth. Today, Belarus’ is the one that survives as the name of an actual state. (The term “Russia” is a bit more complex but not unrelated.)

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    -1 this does not answer the question about Belarus, only about Bela- and -rus. There is a book (in Belorussian) over the Internet that cites not less than a dozen different scientific theories of the origin of the name, compares the arguments behind each, concluding that neither can be singled out as more probable.
    – kubanczyk
    Commented Oct 16, 2012 at 9:59
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    I’d appreciate if you’d post an answer containing the bibliographic data to the book you cite, it might be of interest to OP as well.
    – Philipp Gesang
    Commented Oct 16, 2012 at 11:24
  • @kubanczyk I know it's been 10+ years, but do you happen to remember the book you mentioned in your comment?
    – shoover
    Commented Feb 6, 2023 at 19:25
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Belarus was earlier called White Russia.

Belo is the "Russian" word for White. It is probably not a reference to the Latin "bella" or beautiful. Nor do I believe that "Rus" is a reference to a woman.

"Rus" was a reference to a group of Vikings who settled the western parts of what later became the Soviet Union, including modern Belarus and the Ukraine. But it was the lands EAST of the "Rus"sian settlements that finally took the name "Russia."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus%27_%28people%29

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  • Thanks for the answer, I speak a little Russian and know that the first part at least sounds similar to the Russian word for white. The German Wikipedia argues that it also might have originated from "bely" which can be translated as "western" or "northern" (I assume a word used by the slavs, there are no further references to that claim). It just seems that in the 19th century a consensus was reached to translate the bela part as white. Do you have an idea where my colleagues believe might come from?
    – LeoR
    Commented May 13, 2012 at 11:27
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    This is not true. "Rus" was the name of the people, not the name of a person. Last week's 30 Rock was wrong.
    – Steely Dan
    Commented May 16, 2012 at 21:07
  • Also, they pretty much took over the Russian river system (notably the Dnieper), so its not like they had a single settlement.
    – T.E.D. ♦
    Commented Jun 22, 2012 at 14:16
  • @SteelyDan: Indeed. It's the name given to the Varangians who settled in Russia, and later the people they ruled/descendents. I think Tom Au is thinking of Rurik.
    – Noldorin
    Commented Oct 12, 2012 at 21:55
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    LOL I never heard of any Viking leader named Rus. Possibly you are confusing it with Rurik.
    – Anixx
    Commented Oct 12, 2012 at 22:41
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Before 1863 the land of todays Belarus was called "Litva" and people, accordingly, "litvins" (do not confuse with modern Republic of Lithuania which in those times was called "Zhmudz"). In 1863 there was a big uprise against Russian Empire. After it was suppressed and thousands of participants were executed, russians banned the very name of "Litva". Instead the name "Severo-zapadnyi kraj" (North-west region) was introduced. Belarusian cultural elites were not satisfied with the name inflicted by occuppant goverment. So, the name "Belarus" was proposed by great poet Francishak Bahushevich.

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Belorussia means "White Russia" in Russian. Rus' (the final consonant should be soft) is the ancient name of the East Slavic state centered around Kiev. Belarus thus can be interpreted as "White Rus'"

I never heard any legend about any woman named "Rus". I also doubt that "bela" ever could mean "beautiful"

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    Thanks for responding to my actual question, I will vote your answer up when I have enough reputation.
    – LeoR
    Commented May 13, 2012 at 11:08
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    Note also that Ukraine for a certain period was called "Malorossia" which means "Small Russia".
    – Anixx
    Commented May 13, 2012 at 11:23
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    "West" in Russian is "zapad" - no connection to "bel".
    – Anixx
    Commented May 13, 2012 at 12:10
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    There is a tradition of giving naming compass directions after colours in Turkic cultures. The best example is from the perspective of Anatolia, you have the Black Sea to the north, the Red Sea to the south, the White (Mediterranean) Sea to the west (the east is blue, by the way). Russia experienced waves of Turkic (Tatar) invasions and migrations, so it's possible that the association of 'white' with the west that they didn't conquer was a borrowing into Russian. Of course, my conjecture is probably just as fanciful as the one about the beautiful girl!
    – SigueSigueBen
    Commented May 13, 2012 at 18:28
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    @Anixx And yet Wikipedia states: "Vasmer's dictionary mentions the dichotomy of "white" land and "taxed" land in Domostroi and speculates that "white" Russia may have referred to the parts of Russia that were not subject to Tatar rule." and "Alternatively, it [White Russia] may have its origins in the four coloured cardinal directions used in many Slavic and central Asian cultures, where white is an indicator for north."
    – SigueSigueBen
    Commented May 14, 2012 at 5:20
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I guess I will weigh in here because the other answers do not fully explain the situation.

First of all, the word pronounced byel-yih means "white" in Russian.

Traditionally in Russia white is the color associated with what is noble and good, whereas black (chorny) is the color of what is low and mean. So, all things noble were described as white, and things brutish black. So, for example, a Czarist fief immune from taxes would be a "white estate" and a vassal estate subject to taxes would be a "black estate". Likewise, capital cities where the noble lived would be "white cities" like Belgrade, for example, but a ramshackle or occupied city would be a "black city". Thus, "white russia" simply means the good part of Russia and this part of the country has been called that for at least 500 years.

Though the above is the ancient historical consensus, there are divergent explanations. For example, the geographer and antiquarian Simon Staravolski wrote the following (1734):

enter image description here

So, what this says is that White Russia is known so because it is long covered in snow and moreover all the animals there, wolves, bears, leopards, foxes and so on are white, which animals are normally other colors in all other places. This strikes me, however, as a folk etymology, and the foregoing I think to be correct.

I would particularly note that the part of the Russia facing and within Poland was formerly known as "Black Russia" (Russia Nigra) in contradistinction to White Russia, which was a crown land of the Czar hence the noble part of Russia. This consideration alone I think eliminates the animal explanation as a red herring and reinforces the dominant view (of Voltaire, et al) that the White refers to the noble or Czarist part of the country.

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  • No, "good" Russia is "Red Russia" (Червоная Русь); "Black Russia" stands for Pagan Russia; on the matter of "White Russia" there are different guesses - Christian Russia, Independent Russia etc.
    – Matt
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 19:48
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  1. Pretty sure your Belorussian friend was just having fun with you (re: story about pretty girl)

  2. One of the more or less plausible theories says that "Rus" is not the ethnonym but one of the Scandinivian synonims for the earl's (prince's) hird (armed retinue, small private army). So the term "Rus'" or adjective "russkie" was originally used only for those local "armed forces". However, there are various different theories. We will probably never know the real answer...

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus%27_(name)

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