Partitions of Poland in the context of "Second Partition of Poland"

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 partitions of Poland–Lithuania. The state was founded by Lithuanians, who were at the time a polytheistic nation of several united Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija. By 1440 the grand duchy had become the largest European state, controlling an area from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south.

The grand duchy expanded to include large portions of the former Kievan Rus' and other neighbouring states, including what is now Belarus, Lithuania, most of Ukraine as well as parts of Latvia, Moldova, Poland and Russia. At its greatest extent, in the 15th century, it was the largest state in Europe. It was a multi-ethnic and multiconfessional state, with great diversity in languages, religion, and cultural heritage.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (24 December 1798 – 26 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. He also largely influenced Ukrainian literature and affected Russian literature. A principal figure in Polish Romanticism, he is one of Poland's "Three Bards" (Polish: trzej wieszcze) and is widely regarded as Poland's greatest poet. He is also considered one of the greatest Slavic and European poets and has been dubbed a "Slavic bard". A leading Romantic dramatist, he has been compared in Poland and Europe to Byron and Goethe.

He is known chiefly for the poetic drama Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) and the national epic poem Pan Tadeusz. His other influential works include Konrad Wallenrod and Grażyna. All these served as inspiration for uprisings against the three imperial powers that had partitioned the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth out of existence.

Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) with a population of 9.1 million. The country has a hemiboreal climate and is administratively divided into six regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city; it is administered separately as a city with special status.

For most of the medieval period, the lands of modern-day Belarus was ruled by independent city-states such as the Principality of Polotsk. Around 1300 these lands came fully under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and subsequently by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; this period lasted for 500 years until the 1792-1795 partitions of Poland-Lithuania placed Belarus within the Russian Empire for the first time. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in 1917, different states arose competing for legitimacy amid the Civil War, ultimately ending in the rise of the Byelorussian SSR, which became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. After the Polish-Soviet War (1918–1921), Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland. Much of the borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939, when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were reintegrated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland, and were finalized after World War II. During World War II, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a quarter of its population and half of its economic resources. In 1945, the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union. The republic was home to a widespread and diverse anti-Nazi insurgent movement which dominated politics until well into the 1970s, overseeing Belarus's transformation from an agrarian to an industrial economy.

The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the intelligentsia consists of scholars, academics, teachers, journalists, and literary writers. Conceptually, the intelligentsia status class arose in the late 18th century, during the Partitions of Poland (1772–1795). Etymologically, the 19th-century Polish intellectual Bronisław Trentowski coined the term inteligencja (intellectuals) to identify and describe the university-educated and professionally active social stratum of the patriotic bourgeoisie; men and women whose intellectualism would provide moral and political leadership to Poland in opposing the cultural hegemony of the Russian Empire.

Before the Russian Revolution, the term intelligentsiya (Russian: интеллигенция) identified and described the status class of university-educated people whose cultural capital (schooling, education, and intellectual enlightenment) allowed them to assume the moral initiative and the practical leadership required in Russian national, regional, and local politics. In practice, the status and social function of the intelligentsia varied by society. In Eastern Europe, the intellectuals were at the periphery of their societies and thus were deprived of political influence and access to the effective levers of political power and of economic development. In Western Europe, the intellectuals were in the mainstream of their societies and thus exercised cultural and political influence that granted access to the power of government office, such as the Bildungsbürgertum, the cultured bourgeoisie of Germany, as well as the professionals of Great Britain.

Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and the Russian semi-exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest, with a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Lithuania covers an area of 65,300 km (25,200 sq mi), and has a population of 2.9 million. Its capital and largest city is Vilnius; other major cities include Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Panevėžys. Lithuanians are the titular nation, belong to the ethnolinguistic group of Balts, and speak Lithuanian.

For millennia, the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, Lithuanian lands were united for the first time by Mindaugas, who formed the Kingdom of Lithuania on 6 July 1253. Subsequent expansion and consolidation resulted in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which by the 14th century was the largest country in Europe. In 1386, the grand duchy entered into a de facto personal union with the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The two realms were united into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569, forming one of the largest and most prosperous states in Europe. The commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighbouring countries gradually dismantled it between 1772 and 1795, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuania's territory.

Catherine II (born Princess Sophia Augusta Frederica, Russian: Екатерина Алексеевна Романова; 2 May 1729 – 17 November [O.S. 6 November] 1796), commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after a coup d'etat against her husband, Peter III. Her long reign helped Russia thrive under a golden age under the Enlightenment. This renaissance led to the founding of many new cities, universities, and theatres, along with large-scale immigration from the rest of Europe and the recognition of Russia as one of the great powers of Europe.

After overthrowing and possibly assassinating her husband and her subsequent rule of the Russian Empire, Catherine often relied on noble favourites such as Count Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin. Assisted by highly successful generals such as Alexander Suvorov and Pyotr Rumyantsev and admirals such as Samuel Greig and Fyodor Ushakov, she governed at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding rapidly by conquest and diplomacy. In the west, she installed her former lover to the throne of Poland, which was eventually partitioned. In the south, the Crimean Khanate was annexed following victories over the Bar Confederation and the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War. With the support of Great Britain, Russia colonised the territories of New Russia along the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas. In the east, Russians became the first Europeans to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America.

Galician Jews or Galitzianers (Yiddish: גאַליציאַנער, romanized: Galitsianer) are members of the subgroup of Ashkenazi Jews originating and developed in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and Bukovina from contemporary western Ukraine (Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil Oblasts) and from south-eastern Poland (Subcarpathian and Lesser Poland). Galicia proper, which was inhabited by Ruthenians, Poles and Jews, became a royal province within Austria-Hungary after the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. Galician Jews primarily spoke Yiddish.

The Royal Castle in Warsaw (Polish: Zamek Królewski w Warszawie [ˈzamɛk kruˈlɛfskʲi v varˈʂavjɛ]) is a state museum and a national historical monument, which formerly served as the official royal residence of several Polish monarchs. The personal offices of the king and the administrative offices of the royal court were located in the Castle from the 16th century until the final partition of Poland in 1795. Situated in the Castle Square, at the entrance to the Old Town, the Royal Castle holds a significant collection of Polish and European art.

The Royal Castle witnessed many notable events in Poland's history; the Constitution of 3 May 1791, first of its type in Europe and the world's second-oldest codified national constitution, was drafted here by the Four-Year Parliament. The edifice was redesigned into a neoclassical style following the partitions of Poland. Under the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939), it was the seat of the Polish head of state and president. The Second World War brought complete destruction to the building; in September 1939 it was targeted and ignited by Luftwaffe fighter aircraft, and then detonated by the Nazis after the failed Warsaw Uprising in 1944.

Romanticism in Poland, a literary, artistic and intellectual period in the evolution of Polish culture, began around 1820, coinciding with the publication of Adam Mickiewicz's first poems in 1822. It ended with the suppression of the January 1863 Uprising against the Russian Empire in 1864. The latter event ushered in a new era in Polish culture known as Positivism.

Polish Romanticism, unlike Romanticism in some other parts of Europe, was not limited to literary and artistic concerns. Due to specific Polish historical circumstances, notably the partitions of Poland, it was also an ideological, philosophical, and political movement that expressed the ideals and way of life of a Polish society subjected to foreign rule and to ethnic and religious discrimination.