Slavs
Slavs are the largest ethno-linguistic group in Europe. Present-day Slavic people are classified into East Slavs (chiefly Belarusians, Russians, Rusyns, and Ukrainians), West Slavs (chiefly Czechs, Kashubs, Moravians, Poles, Silesians, Slovaks and Sorbs), and South Slavs (chiefly Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Gorani, Pomaks, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes).
Historical background of the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine
Previously a sparsely populated region, large amounts of ethnic Ukrainian settlers first came to the land that is now Kharkiv Oblast around the time of the 1648–57 Khmelnytsky uprising. These settlers had fled fighting between Ukrainian Cossacks and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth near the Dnieper River. The area that they settled in was named "Sloboda Ukraine" (, "Slobodskaya Ukraina"). Over the following centuries, multiple waves of immigration to Sloboda Ukraine brought both ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. Prior to the 19th century, only smalls amounts of Russians settled in the area. They tended to live in cities, whilst rural areas were dominated by ethnic Ukrainians. The region had an autonomous Cossack government until it was abolished by Catherine the Great in 1765. By 1832, the urban-rural divide became firmly entrenched: 50% of merchants were ethnic Russians, as were 45% of factory owners. In line with this increasing Russification, the name Sloboda Ukraine was replaced by Kharkov Governorate in 1835. Ethnic Russians in agriculture-dominated Kharkiv were never as numerous as in the industrial Donbass, and the region always retained a distinct Ukrainian culture. This is illustrated by the Imperial Census of 1897, which recorded the native language of 80.6% of the population of Kharkov Governorate as Ukrainian, whereas Russian was recorded as the native language of only 17.7% of the population.