Theodore de Pauly, a member of the newly founded Imperial Russian Geographical Society (founded 1845), was the latest in a line of ethnographers, seeking to record the range of peoples spread across both European and Asian Russian Empire. The book is in French and the term ‘Petites-Russians’ is used to describe Ukrainians who the Muscovites on some reason decided to call Malo[Little]-Russians. According to the Table in that book, the Muscovite-Russians were almost absent in Kyiv and Kharkiv regions. Please note that in Taurida/ Crimea there were much more Ukrainians than the Muscovites-Russians.
Although Ukrainians and Russians lived sometimes side by side, there has always been a Distinct Difference Between Ukranians and Russians >
De Pauly’s work was shown to the Moscow ruler Alexander II during production and was published to “celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the Russian Empire”. The quote implies that Muscovy did everything to tie its legacy to Novgorod which it had annihilated in the 16th century. Does Muscovy have anything to do with Novgorod? Was it Novgorod that ‘created’ Kyiv or vice versa? The ‘Gardariki, Ukraine‘ e-book answers that question.