The lands of so-called Novorossia began to be populated by Ukrainians (or Malo-Russians as then official authorities called them)...
They called themselves Russians, dude. The conflict between some Ukrainians and Russians is based on the notion that people who today call themselves Ukrainians are more Russian, than the Russians from today Russian Federation. So
Malo-Russians was what the population of this provinces called themselves. And the population of today RF called themselves
Veliko-Russians, because they had a bigger landmass.
And the All-Russian Tsars called themselves
"Tsar of all Russia, Veliko-Russia, Belo-Russia and Malo-Russia".
They did not call themselves "Ukrainians" two hundred yeas ago, though some of them called their Malo-Russian province "Ukraine" (which literally means Province).
All people of Malo-Russia called themselves RUSSIANS, and most inhabitants of today Ukraine still call Themselves RUSSIANS.
In fact Malo-Russians (Ukrainians) believe that they are themselves more Russian, than Russians from the RF, though they lost their original language and religion due to the centuries of Polish occupation.
If you speak Russian, please explain this nuances to these American idiots who do not have any idea about the history of Old Russia and who do not understand what the conflict of Russians and Ukrainians is about. These American fools believe that if they instigate hate against Russians, they are pleasing Ukrainian people.
Ukrainians call themselves RUSSIANS!
In fact, if a Ukrainian wants to insult a Russian, he calls him a Katzap, speak a non-Slavic Russian-speaking mongrel. Ukrainian Nationalists believe that Peter The Great had stolen the "Name" Russia from the Kievan Rus, and most Ukrainians hate the name of their today state, which literally means "Province". They claim the name "Russia" for themselves.
But how can idiots from the USA, who are unable to locate Ukraine on the map, understand such nuances or Russian history!?
This map shows the mostly Ukrainian-spoken territories. I hope you can compare them with the territory of contemporary Ukraine.
This map was faked.
There were no"Ukraine" and no "Ukrainians" back then, there were Malo-Russians, these people spoke Malo-Russian dialects. Gogol, the great Russians writer, also spoke a Malo-Russian dialect. There were also Belo-Russian and Veliko-Russian dialects.
Peasants in different Russian provinces spoke different Russian dialects, but these Dialects were more similar, than say the Bavarian and Prussian dialects of the German language.
The today official Russian language was originally created by intellectuals in Sankt Petersburg, it was hugely influence by the French and German languages, because the Russian aristocracy used French to communicate with each other, and German was once the official language of the first Russian Universities, created by Peter the Great.
Gradually, the language, spoken in Sant Petersburg, became the official language of the Russian Empire, all intellectuals, including those in Malo-Russia switched to the Russian language of Santk Petersburg. That is why Gogol wrote his works in this language, not in his Malo-Russian dialect.
But the peasants in all Russian provinces, including Belo-Russia, Malo-Russia and Veliko-Russia (speak Great Russia) still used their old dialects, because they were illiterate.
Because Malo-Russia and Belo-Russia were more backward, than Great Russia, the peasants remained illiterate there for a longer time, than in Great Russia. In fact, the word "Ukraine", means "Province" or "Rimland", it was just a backward province of the Russian empire, that is why the name "Ukraine" (Province) eventually became the name of this Russian province.
The Bolsheviks used this backwardness of Malo-Russian and Belo-Russian peasantry to divide and conquer Russia.
That is the reason why the peasant dialects in Belo-Russia and Malo-Russia eventually became new Russian languages. The Bolsheviks used the illiteracy of peasants in Russian provinces and created the "Ukrainian" and "Belorussian" languages and national identities, which did not exist 200 years ago.
You could easily do this in Germany, too, and declare that Bavarian dialect is a separate language, because the inhabitants of Berlin cannot understand a Bavarian peasant, if this peasant did not manage to learn the official German languauge.
This link fully support my arguments, there were no "Ukrainians" in the Russian Empire. There were different kinds of Russians. Belo-Russians, Malo-Russians and Veliko(Great)-Russians. Peasants in different Russian provinces spoke different kinds of Russian dialects, but these dialects were more similar, than different German dialects that are still spoken today by illiterate German peasants.
BTW, the "Ukrainian" language of Shevchenko was very different from the Ukrainian language, installed now by the Catholic Ukrainian Junta from the West-Ukraine. These parts of ancient Russia were for centuries under Polish domination, that is why the population of this region lost its original Orthodox Russian language (called Old Russian), and is now speaking a bizarre pigeon language, a mixture of Polish and Russian dialects.