The Russian Partition | |
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The Commonwealth | |
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772 | |
Elimination | |
![]() The three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Russian Partition (red), the Austrian Partition (green), and the Prussian Partition (blue) |
The Russian Partition (Polish: zabór rosyjski), sometimes called Russian Poland, constituted the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that were annexed by the Russian Empire in the course of late-18th-century Partitions of Poland.[1] The Russian acquisition encompassed the largest share of Poland's population, living on 463,200 km2 (178,800 sq mi) of land constituting the eastern and central territory of the former commonwealth. The three partitions, which took place in 1772, 1793 and 1795, resulted in the complete loss of Poland's sovereignty, with its territory split between Russia, Prussia and Austria. The Napoleonic Wars saw significant parts of Prussia's and Austria's partitions reconstituted as the Duchy of Warsaw (a French client state in a personal union under Saxony), most of which was then reconstituted as the Kingdom of Poland within the Russian Empire in 1815.