 "Rusyn" (the Ruthenian) has been an official self-identification of the Rus' population in Poland (and also in Czechoslovakia).Until 1939, for many Ruthenians and Poles, the word "Ukrainiec" (Ukrainian) meant a person involved in or friendly to a nationalist movement.The Russians, the most numerous cultural descendants of the ancient Rus', retain the name ("russkie") for their ethnicity, while the name of their state, "Rus'," was gradually replaced by its Greek transliteration "Rossia."