Hutsuls are an ethno-cultural group, or rather an ethnic subgroup, who for centuries have inhabited the Carpathian mountains, mainly in Ukraine (Trans-Carpathia and Pokuttya) and in the northern extremity of Romania (in the areas of Bukovina and Maramureş). Hutsuls regard themselves as being part of the broader Rusyn ethnic minority and/or as Ukrainian highlanders. Rusyns are, in their turn, the descendants of a minority of Ruthenians who didn't adopt the use of the ethnonym Ukrainian in the early 20th century. Actually the names Ruthenian and Ruthene were historically applied to peoples speaking the eastern Slavic languages in the medieval kingdom of Kievan Rus', in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in Poland after Union of Lublin in 1569, living practically in the region named Galicia.
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