Maps

1.Grand Principality of Lithuania, Rus and Samogitia and The Kingdom of Poland in 15^th century

The Grand Principality (Velikoe Kniazhestvo) is commonly referred to as Grand Duchy of Lithuania in modern days. It was a Ruthenian-speaking state that formed a commonwealth with the Kingdom of Poland in 1569. It is interesting that the Novgorod republic is interpreted as a Polish fief for two periods when Lithuanian nobleman Lengvenis was elected as the Prince of Novgorod.

2.Growth of the Grand Principality of Moscow and the lands of Lord Novgorod the Great in 14-16^th centuries In modern days Novgorod lands are referred to as Principality of Novgorod or as Novgorod Republic. Moscow took over Novgorod in 1478. The Pskov republic, which had a political system similar to that of Novgorod, fell to Moscow in 1510.

3. Growth of the Russian empire, 1613-1914. The map demonstrates the spectacular growth of the Russian empire. The patterned areas indicate either dependent territories or the territories lost by 1914.

4.Zaporizhian Host in 1654 is shown on the background of the borders of modern Ukraine. The modern name for this state is the Cossack Hetmanate or Ukrainian Hetmanate. The first Hetman, Khmelnitsky, also claimed it to be the Principality of Rus’ (Ruthenia) ruled by the Zaporizhian Host. For most of the time (from the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654 till annexation by Russia in 1764) the state existed as an autonomous entity within Russian empire and, partially, within Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Hetmanate was divided into ~20 regiments with elected colonels as heads.   

5.Map of dialects of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages. The map, which is published by the Russian Imperial Academy of Science in 1914 and compliant with the political doctrines of that time, interprets North Great Russian (orange), South Great Russian (red), Little Russian (i.e. Ukrainian; green) and White Russian (i.e. Belarusian; gray-blue) as dialects of the common Russian language. The differences between the North and South dialects of Russian are small compared to differences between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian. Within the Ukrainian language, the Northern dialect located near the Belarusian border and the Carpathian dialect located in the Carpathian mountains are distinguished.          

The pictures and maps are from Wikipedia.