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110-543: Until the late 19th century the main form of punishment in Russian-held part of partitioned Poland was the katorga , or forced resettlement to a remote area to heavy labour camps or prison farms . This was true for both criminal and political prisoners alike. The Russian Penal Code of 1845 further strengthened the notion. Furthermore, prior to the Emancipation reform of 1861 the serfs, who constituted most of

220-814: A power vacuum . The non-Russians inhabiting the lands ceded by the Soviets to the German Empire , saw the treaty as an opportunity to set up independent states under the German umbrella. Three weeks after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on 3 March 1918, the newly formed Belarusian Central Council founded the Belarusian People's Republic . The idea was rejected by the Germans, the Bolsheviks and

330-798: A bone of contention between Poland and Hungary , which was a part of the Monarchy. Nevertheless, the Ottoman Empire, the Bar confederation and its French and European volunteers were defeated by Russian forces and Polish governmental ones with the aid of Great Britain. As Russia moved into the Crimea and the Danubian Principalities (which the Habsburg monarchy long coveted), King Frederick II of Prussia and Maria Theresa were worried that

440-507: A cautionary tale for the writers of the U.S. Constitution . West Belarus Western Belorussia or Western Belarus ( Belarusian : Заходняя Беларусь , romanized :  Zachodniaja Biełaruś ; Polish : Zachodnia Białoruś ; Russian : Западная Белоруссия , romanized :  Zapadnaya Belorussiya ) is a historical region of modern-day Belarus which belonged to the Second Polish Republic during

550-518: A cultural centre. In 2020, it was used as filming location for the fourth season of Stranger Things . Later that year, the Lithuanian government announced that part of the complex would be sold. In 2022, the Vilnius tourism agency announced that a Stranger Things-themed cell in the complex would be available to rent on Airbnb. This drew controversy from various groups who felt that it overlooked

660-650: A joint Lithuanian Belorussian Soviet Republic (Litbel) was established, and then a separate Byelorussian SSR . Thus, the almost unsolicited national state, which arose during the First World War, owed its existence directly to the alternative German, Russian and Polish attempts to secure control over the area. — Tania Raffass In the Second Constituent Charter, the Rada abolished the right to private ownership of land (paragraph 7) in line with

770-536: A large portion had not been ethnically Polish. By seizing northwestern Poland, Prussia instantly gained control over 80% of the Commonwealth's total foreign trade. Through levying enormous customs duties, Prussia accelerated the collapse of the Commonwealth. After having occupied their respective territories, the three partitioning powers demanded that King Stanisław and the Sejm approve their action. When no help

880-581: A laundry. In addition, there were family apartments for the warden, his four deputies and 37 officers, and 24 smaller flats for single officers. One of the most distinctive buildings in the complex was the Orthodox St. Nicholas Church , one of the finest Orthodox churches in Vilna. However, as most of the inhabitants of the Vilna Governorate were Catholics or Jews, a separate Catholic church and

990-560: A new prison complex was needed. Because of that in 1900 G.A. Trambitski, the official architect of the Main Prison Authority, was tasked with designing a modern, high-security prison complex. Instead of moving it out of the city, the tsarist authorities decided to demolish the old prison and build the new one in its place. One of the reasons for it was the site's proximity to the newly built Provincial Court building (today Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights ). The project

1100-714: A royal one. The next king could be a member of the Russian ruling dynasty now. The Sejm approved this. Resulting reaction among some of Poland's Roman Catholics, as well as the deep resentment of Russian intervention in the Commonwealth's domestic affairs including the exile to Russia of the top Roman Catholic bishops, the members of the Polish Senate, led to the War of the Confederation of Bar of 1768–1772, formed in Bar , where

1210-461: A small synagogue were also built into one of the prison blocks. The new prison had its own water supply and had its own sewage system. The complex was surrounded with a stone wall. The prison complex was the most expensive building constructed in the region in the early 20th century. The cells were fully equipped, heated and ventilated, and constructed entirely of non-combustible materials (except for window frames and doors). The prison block containing

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1320-569: A state symbol (in contrast to the white eagle , a symbol of Poland). The Commonwealth had been forced to rely on Russia for protection against the rising Kingdom of Prussia , which demanded a slice of the northwest in order to unite its Western and Eastern portions; this would leave the Commonwealth with a Baltic coast only in Latvia and Lithuania . Catherine had to use diplomacy to win Austria to her side. The Commonwealth had remained neutral in

1430-565: A wide-scale social reform, virtually impossible. Solovyov specified the cultural, language and religious break between the supreme and lowest layers of the society in the east regions of the Commonwealth, where the Belarusian and Ukrainian serf peasantry was Orthodox. Russian authors emphasized the historical connections between Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, as former parts of the medieval old Russian state where dynasty of Rurikids reigned ( Kievan Rus' ). Thus, Nikolay Karamzin wrote: "Let

1540-684: The Big Three , Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, established new borders for Poland . Most of Western Belarus remained part of the BSSR after the end of World War II in Europe ; only the region around Białystok (Belostok) was to be returned to Poland. The Polish population was soon forcibly resettled west . The Western Belorussia, in its entirety, was incorporated into

1650-758: The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 ). Poland would be briefly resurrected—if in a smaller frame—in 1807, when Napoleon set up the Duchy of Warsaw . After his defeat and the implementation of the Congress of Vienna treaty in 1815, the Russian-dominated Congress Kingdom of Poland was created in its place. After the Congress, Russia gained a larger share of Poland (with Warsaw ) and, after crushing an insurrection in 1831 ,

1760-536: The Kościuszko Uprising began. Kosciuszko's ragtag insurgent armies won some initial successes, but they eventually fell before the superior forces of the Russian Empire. The partitioning powers, seeing the increasing unrest in the remaining Commonwealth, decided to solve the problem by erasing any independent Polish state from the map. On October 24, 1795, their representatives signed a treaty, dividing

1870-726: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed earlier in Moscow were soon broken, when the German Army entered the Soviet occupation zone on June 22, 1941. After Operation Barbarossa , most of Western Belorussia became part of the German Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO), as the so-called Generalbezirk Weißruthenien (General Region of White Ruthenia). Many ethnic Belarusians supported Nazi Germany. By

1980-548: The Noteć River (the Netze District ), and parts of Kuyavia (but not the city of Toruń ). Despite token criticism of the partition from Empress Maria Theresa , Austrian statesman Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg , was proud of wresting as large a share as he did, with the rich salt mines of Bochnia and Wieliczka . To Austria fell Zator and Auschwitz ( Oświęcim ), part of Lesser Poland embracing parts of

2090-555: The Persian Empire ), and reserved a place in its diplomatic corps for an Ambassador of Lehistan (Poland). Several scholars focused on the economic motivations of the partitioning powers. Hajo Holborn noted that Prussia aimed to take control of the lucrative Baltic grain trade through Gdańsk . In the 18th century the Russian peasants were escaping from Russia to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (where

2200-631: The Polish census of 1921 , there were around 1 million Belarusians in the country. Some estimated the number of Belarusians in Poland at that time to be perhaps 1.7 million, or even up to 2 million . Following the Peace of Riga, thousands of Poles settled in the area , many of them (including veterans of armed struggle for Poland's independence) were given land by the government. In his negotiations with Belarusian leaders in Vilnius, Józef Piłsudski rejected

2310-612: The Polish resistance . The majority were taken to the outskirts of Vilnius and executed at Ponary (Paneriai). When Soviets reoccupied the territory in 1944, the prison was returned to the NKVD who detained thousands of Polish activists and partisans of Armia Krajowa . The prison was the site of Lithuania's last execution in 1995. As of 2007, it housed approximately 1,000 prisoners and employed around 250 prison guards. Most prisoners there were under temporary arrest awaiting court decisions or transfers to other detention facilities, but there

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2420-643: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 123 years. The partitions were conducted by the Habsburg monarchy , the Kingdom of Prussia , and the Russian Empire , which divided up the Commonwealth lands among themselves progressively in the process of territorial seizures and annexations. The First Partition

2530-603: The Russian Enlightenment , as Russian writers such as Gavrila Derzhavin , Denis Fonvizin , and Alexander Pushkin stressed degeneration of Catholic Poland and the need to "civilize" it by its neighbors. Nonetheless, other 19th century contemporaries were much more skeptical; for example, British jurist Sir Robert Phillimore discussed the partition as a violation of international law ; German jurist Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim presented similar views. Other older historians who challenged such justifications for

2640-632: The Russian Revolution and the Treaty of Versailles finally allowed and helped the restoration of Poland's full independence after 123 years. The term "Fourth Partition of Poland" may refer to any subsequent division of Polish lands, including: If one accepts more than one of those events as partitions, fifth, sixth, and even seventh partitions can be counted, but these terms are very rare. (For example, Norman Davies in God's Playground refers to

2750-626: The Seven Years' War (1756–1763), yet it sympathized with the alliance of France, Austria , and Russia, and allowed Russian troops access to its western lands as bases against Prussia. Frederick II retaliated by ordering enough Polish currency counterfeited to severely affect the Polish economy. Through the Polish nobles whom Russia controlled and the Russian Minister to Warsaw, ambassador and Prince Nicholas Repnin , Empress Catherine

2860-803: The USSR . The territory of modern-day Belarus was split by the treaty into Western Belorussia ruled by the Polish and the Soviet Eastern Belorussia , with the border town in Mikaszewicze . Notably, the peace treaty was signed with the full active participation of the Belarusian delegation on the Soviet side. In paragraph 3, Poland abandoned all rights and claims to the territories of Soviet Belarus, while Soviet Russia abandoned all rights and claims to Polish Western Belarus. As soon as

2970-663: The interwar period . For twenty years before the 1939 invasion of Poland , it was the northern part of the Polish Kresy macroregion . Following the end of World War II in Europe , most of Western Belorussia was ceded to the Soviet Union by the Allies , while some of it, including Białystok , was given to the Polish People's Republic . Until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Western Belorussia formed

3080-543: The once dire conditions had improved, unlike in Russia ) in significant enough numbers to become a major concern for the Russian Government sufficient to play a role in its decision to partition the Commonwealth (one of the reasons Catherine II gave for the partition of Poland was that thousands of peasants escaped from Russia to Poland to seek a better fate"). Jerzy Czajewski and Piotr Kimla assert that in

3190-424: The 1772 population remained in Poland. Prussia named its newly gained province South Prussia , with Poznań (and later Warsaw) as the capital of the new province. Targowica confederates, who did not expect another partition, and the king, Stanisław August Poniatowski , who joined them near the end, both lost much prestige and support. The reformers, on the other hand, were attracting increasing support, and in 1794

3300-576: The 1807 creation of the Duchy of Warsaw as the fourth partition, the 1815 Treaty of Vienna as the fifth, the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as the sixth, and the 1939 division of Poland between Nazi Germany and the USSR as the seventh.) However, in recent times, the 1815 division of the Duchy of Warsaw at the Congress of Vienna and the 1939 division of Poland have been sometimes called the fourth and fifth partitions, respectively. The term "Fourth Partition"

3410-458: The 18th century until the partitions solved this problem, Russian armies increasingly raided territories of the Commonwealth, officially to recover the escapees, but in fact kidnapping many locals; Piotr Kimla noted that the Russian government spread international propaganda, mainly in France, which falsely exaggerated serfdom conditions in Poland, while ignoring worse conditions in Russia, as one of

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3520-570: The Americans. Woodrow Wilson rejected it, because the Americans intended to protect the territorial integrity of European Russia . The fate of the region was not settled for the following three and a half years. The Polish–Soviet War which erupted in 1919, was particularly bitter; it ended with the Peace of Riga of 1921. Poland and the Baltic states emerged as independent countries bordering

3630-457: The Austrian 47,000 km (18,147 sq mi) with 1.2 million and Lublin and Kraków. The King of Poland , Stanisław August Poniatowski , under Russian military escort left for Grodno where he abdicated on November 25, 1795; next he left for Saint Petersburg , Russia, where he would spend his remaining days. This act ensured that Russia would be seen as the most important of

3740-538: The Austrians established Galicia in the Austrian partition, whereas the Russians gained Warsaw from Prussia and formed an autonomous polity known as Congress Poland in the Russian partition. In Polish historiography, the term "Fourth Partition of Poland" has also been used, in reference to any subsequent annexation of Polish lands by foreign invaders. Depending on source and historical period, this could mean

3850-406: The BSSR . It was initially planned to move the capital of the BSSR to Vilna . However, the same year Joseph Stalin ordered that the city and surrounding region be transferred to Lithuania , which some months later was annexed by the Soviet Union and became a new Soviet Republic. Minsk, therefore, remained the capital of the enlarged BSSR. The borders of the BSSR were again altered somewhat after

3960-540: The BSSR, but very soon became victims of Soviet repression . The table below shows a comparison of the number of Belarusians and the number of Poles in Western Belarus based on the 1931 census (questions about mother tongue and religion). Belarusian/Poleshuk("Tutejszy")/Russian and Orthodox/Greek Catholic plurality or majority counties are highlighted with yellow, while Polish and Roman Catholic plurality or majority counties are highlighted with pink: Soon after

4070-596: The Byelorussian SSR as the Soviet subjects, without the recognition of their Polish citizenship. The Soviet propaganda portrayed the Soviet invasion of Poland as the "reunion of Western Belorussia and Ukraine". Many ethnic Belarusians and Jews welcomed unification with the BSSR. Mostly wealthy groups of citizens changed their attitude after experiencing firsthand the style of the Soviet system. The Soviets quickly began confiscating, nationalizing, and redistributing all private and state-owned property. During

4180-424: The Commonwealth had been showing the beginning signs of a slow recovery and see the last two partitions as an answer to strengthening reforms in the Commonwealth and the potential threat they represented to its power-hungry neighbours. As historian Norman Davies stated, because the balance of power equilibrium was observed, many contemporary observers accepted explanations of the "enlightened apologists" of

4290-489: The Commonwealth's population, Austria with 32%, and Russia with 45%. (Wandycz also offers slightly different total annexed territory estimates, with 18% for Austria, 20% for Prussia and 62% for Russia.) During the Napoleonic Wars and in their immediate aftermath the borders between partitioning powers shifted several times, changing the numbers seen in the preceding table. Ultimately, Russia ended up with most of

4400-833: The Communist Manifesto . Meanwhile, by 1919, the Bolsheviks took control over large parts of Belarus and forced the Belarusian Rada into exile in Germany. The Bolsheviks formed the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia during the war with Poland on roughly the same territory claimed by the Belarusian Republic. The League of Nations ratified the new Polish-Soviet border. The peace agreement remained in place throughout

4510-705: The Congress Kingdom's autonomy was abolished and Poles faced confiscation of property, deportation, forced military service, and the closure of their own universities. After the uprising of 1863 , Russification of Polish secondary schools was imposed and the literacy rate dropped dramatically. In the Austrian sector which now was called Galicia , Poles fared better and were allowed to have representation in Parliament and to form their own universities, and Kraków with Lemberg (Lwów/Lviv) became centers of Polish culture and education. Meanwhile, Prussia Germanized

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4620-421: The Great forced a constitution on the Commonwealth at the so-called Repnin Sejm of 1767, named after ambassador Repnin, who effectively dictated the terms of that Sejm (and ordered the capture and exile to Kaluga of some vocal opponents of his policies, including bishop Józef Andrzej Załuski and others). This new constitution undid the reforms made in 1764 under Stanisław II . The liberum veto and all

4730-408: The NKVD apparatus, which resulted in over 100,000 people being forcibly deported to eastern parts of the Soviet Union (e.g. Siberia) in the very first wave of expulsions. In total, during the next two years some 1.7 million Polish citizens were put on freight trains and sent from the Polish Kresy to labour camps in the Gulag . The majority of Poles live in the Western regions, including 230,000 in

4840-442: The Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland following the Nazi–Soviet Pact , the area of Western Belorussia was formally annexed into the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). The Soviet secret police NKVD , aided by the Red Army, organized staged elections which were decided in the atmosphere of intimidation and state terror. The Soviet occupational administration held the elections on October 22, 1939, less than two weeks after

4950-404: The Partitions included French historian Jules Michelet , British historian and politician Thomas Babington Macaulay , and Edmund Burke , who criticized the immorality of the partitions. Nonetheless, most governments accepted the event as a fait acompli . The Ottoman Empire was either the only, or one of only two countries in the world that refused to accept the partitions, (the other being

5060-421: The People's Assembly session held in Belastok ( Polish Białystok ) affirmed the Soviet decision to join the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) with the USSR. Nevertheless, the unification voting in the People's Assembly of Western Belorussia was not fully successful during the first attempt because 10 Lithuanians , who were elected to the People's Assembly of Western Belorussia, initially voted against

5170-461: The Poles tried to expel Russian forces from Commonwealth territory. The irregular and poorly commanded Polish forces had little chance in the face of the regular Russian army and suffered a major defeat. Adding to the chaos was a Ukrainian Cossack and peasant rebellion in the east ( Koliyivshchyna ), which erupted in 1768 and resulted in massacres of Polish noblemen ( szlachta ), Jews, Uniates , ethnic minorities and Catholic priests, before it

5280-433: The Polish core at the expense of Prussia and Austria. Following the Congress of Vienna , Russia controlled 82% of the pre-1772 Commonwealth's territory (this includes its puppet state of Congress Poland ), Austria 11%, and Prussia 7%. As a result of the Partitions, Poles were forced to seek a change of status quo in Europe. Polish poets, politicians, noblemen, writers, artists, many of whom were forced to emigrate (thus

5390-534: The Polish minority were shot by NKVD troika . According to Bogdan Musiał, many were murdered in prison executions. In addition, several hundred thousand ethnic Poles from Belarus and Ukraine were deported to other parts of the Soviet Union. The Soviets also promoted the Soviet-controlled BSSR as formally autonomous to attract Belarusians living in Poland. This image was attractive to many Western Belorussian national leaders, and some of them, like Frantsishak Alyakhnovich or Uładzimir Žyłka emigrated from Poland to

5500-514: The Polish national identity on Roman Catholics in Belarus . In January 1921, the starosta from Wilejka wrote of the popular mood as being one of resignation and apathy among the Western Belorussian peasants , impoverished by food requisitions by the Bolsheviks and the Polish military . He insisted that, although the new Belarusian schools were 'springing up everywhere' in his county, they harbored anti-Polish attitudes. In 1928 there were 69 schools with Belarusian language in Western Belorussia;

5610-419: The Soviet NKVD undertook the so-called "Polish Operation" (from approximately August 25, 1937, to November 15, 1938) – where the Poles in East Belorussia, i.e. BSSR, were deported and executed. The operation caused the deaths of up to 250,000 people – out of an official ethnic Polish population of 636,000 – as a result of political murder , disease or starvation . Amongst these, at least 111,091 members of

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5720-401: The Soviet regime. Tensions between the increasingly nationalistic Polish government and various increasingly separatist ethnic minorities continued to grow, and the Belarusian minority was no exception. Likewise, according to Marek Jan Chodakiewicz , the USSR considered Poland to be "enemy number one". During the Great Purge , the Polish National District at Dzyarzhynsk was disbanded and

5830-475: The Soviet-German peace treaty was signed in March 1918, the newly formed Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic laid territorial claims to Belarus based on areas specified in the Third Constituent Charter unilaterally as inhabited by the Belarusian majority. The same Rada charter also declared that the Treaty of Brest-Litowsk of March 1918 was invalid because it was signed by foreign governments partitioning territories that were not theirs. In February 1919,

5940-436: The annexation, the Soviet authorities carried out the nationalization of agricultural land owned by large landowners in Western Belorussia. Collectivization and the creation of collective farms ( kolkhoz ) was planned to be carried out at a slower pace than in Eastern Belorussia in the 1920s. By 1941, in the western regions of the BSSR, the number of individual farms decreased only by 7%; 1115 collective farms were created. At

6050-453: The attendance was minimal due in part to lower quality of instruction. The first-ever textbook of Belarusian grammar was written only around 1918. In 1939, over 90% of children in Poland attended school. As elsewhere, the educational systems promoted Polish language there also. Meanwhile, the Belarusian agitators deported to the USSR from Poland were put in prison by the Soviet NKVD as bourgeois nationalists . Most Polish inhabitants of

6160-510: The best schools in Lithuania known for its mathematics program, School No.6, was located across the Lukiškiu street from the prison. In the interwar Second Polish Republic , the prison was used by Polish authorities to hold numerous notable West Belarusian political prisoners, for example: writers Maksim Tank , Maksim Haretski , Michaś Mašara , Uladzislau Pauliukouski , teacher Barys Kit , musician and composer Ryhor Šyrma , ballet dancer Janka Chvorast . The largest group of prisoners during

6270-459: The call for Western Belorussian independence. In December 1919 the Rada was dissolved by Poland, while by early January 1920 a new body was formed, the Rada Najwyższa , without aspirations for independence, but with proposed cultural, social and educational functions. Józef Piłsudski negotiated with the Western Belorussian leadership, but eventually abandoned the ideas of Intermarium , his own proposed federation of partially self-governing states on

6380-440: The churches alone cost 504,000 roubles. The building of the detention centre cost 285,000 roubles, while the administrative building with offices and apartments for the staff cost approximately 180 thousand roubles. Despite its complexity, the project was finished in 1905, a full year ahead of schedule. The prison is located in a prestigious area, next to the Seimas Palace and Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania. One of

6490-422: The contemporary western provinces of Belarus which include all of Grodno and Brest regions , as well as parts of today's Minsk and Vitebsk regions. Vilnius was returned by the USSR to the Republic of Lithuania which soon after that became the Lithuanian SSR . The territories of contemporary Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic states were a major theatre of operations during World War I ; all

6600-539: The corollary that unanimous consent was needed for all measures. A single member of parliament's belief that a measure was injurious to his own constituency (usually simply his own estate), even after the act had been approved, became enough to strike the act. Thus it became increasingly difficult to undertake action. The liberum veto also provided openings for foreign diplomats to get their ways, through bribing nobles to exercise it. Thus, one could characterise Poland–Lithuania in its final period (mid-18th century) before

6710-508: The counties of Kraków and Sandomir and the whole of Galicia , less the city of Kraków . Empress Catherine II of Russia was also satisfied despite the loss of Galicia to the Habsburg monarchy. By this "diplomatic document" Russia gained Polish Livonia , and lands in eastern Belarus embracing the counties of Vitebsk , Polotsk and Mstislavl . By this partition, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth lost about 30% of its territory and half of its population (four million people), of which

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6820-545: The defeat of the Ottoman Empire would severely upset the balance of power in Eastern Europe. Frederick II began to construct the partition to rebalance the power in Eastern Europe. In February 1772, the agreement of partition was signed in Vienna . Early in August, Russian, Prussian and Austrian troops occupied the provinces agreed upon among themselves. However, fighting continued as Bar confederation troops and French volunteers refused to lay down their arms (most notably, in Tyniec , Częstochowa and Kraków ). On August 5, 1772,

6930-407: The end of 1942, sworn Germanophile Ivan Yermachenka formed the pro-Nazi BNS organization with 30,000 members. The Belarusian Auxiliary Police was formed. Known to the Germans as the Schutzmannschaft , the ethnic Belarusian police played an indispensable role in the Holocaust in Belarus , notably during the second wave of the ghetto liquidations, starting in February–March 1942. In 1945,

7040-400: The entire school system of its Polish subjects, and had no more respect for Polish culture and institutions than the Russian Empire. In 1915 a client state of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary was proposed and accepted by the Central Powers of World War I: the Regency Kingdom of Poland . After the end of World War I, the Central Powers' surrender to the Western Allies , the chaos of

7150-459: The events of 1815 , or 1832 and 1846 , or 1939 . The term "Fourth Partition" in a temporal sense can also mean the diaspora communities that played an important political role in re-establishing the Polish sovereign state after 1918. During the reign of Władysław IV (1632–1648), the liberum veto was developed, a policy of parliamentary procedure based on the assumption of the political equality of every " gentleman/Polish nobleman ", with

7260-421: The foreigners denounce the partition of Poland: we took what was ours." Russian historians often stressed that Russia annexed primarily Ukrainian and Belarusian provinces with Eastern Slavic inhabitants, although many Ruthenians were no more enthusiastic about Russia than about Poland, and ignoring ethnically Polish and Lithuanian territories also being annexed later. A new justification for partitions arose with

7370-454: The interwar period. The borders established between the two countries remained in force until World War II and the 17 September 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland . On Joseph Stalin 's insistence, the borders were redrawn in the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. "Despite Soviet efforts at sealing the border [with Poland], peasants – refugees from the BSSR – crossed into Poland in the tens of thousands, wrote Per Anders Rudling . According to

7480-448: The interwar years were communists and socialists, and the Communist Party of Western Belorussia frequently attempted to hold protests against the prison, calling it a place of "fascist terror." Following the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states in 1940 , the prison was equally used as a temporary holding detention for prisoners who were then deported to the Gulag . Menachem Begin , who later served as sixth Prime Minister of Israel ,

7590-490: The invasion. The citizens were threatened repeatedly that their deportations to Siberia were imminent. The ballot envelopes were numbered to remain traceable and usually handed over already sealed. The referendum was rigged. By design, the candidates were unknown to their constituencies which were brought to the voting stations by armed guards. The so-called Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia were conducted in Russian. On October 30,

7700-448: The justification for the partitions. Il Canto degli Italiani , the Italian national anthem, contains a reference to the partition. The ongoing partitions of Poland were a major topic of discourse in The Federalist Papers , where the structure of the government of Poland, and of foreign influence over it, is used in several papers ( Federalist No. 14 , Federalist No. 19 , Federalist No. 22 , Federalist No. 39 for examples) as

7810-407: The lands of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . In the 1922 Polish legislative election , the Belarusian party in the Bloc of National Minorities obtained 14 seats in the Polish parliament (11 of them in the Sejm ). In the spring of 1923, Polish prime minister Władysław Sikorski ordered a report on the situation of the Belarusian minority in Poland . That summer, a new regulation

7920-552: The neighbors of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ( Rzeczpospolita ), namely Prussia, Austria and Russia, signed a secret agreement to maintain the status quo : specifically, to ensure that the Commonwealth laws would not change. Their alliance later became known in Poland as the " Alliance of the Three Black Eagles " (or Löwenwolde 's Treaty ), because all three states used a black eagle as

8030-461: The occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion, the authoritative Polish Institute of National Remembrance announced that its researchers reduced the estimate of the number of people deported to Siberia to 320,000 in total. Some 150,000 Polish citizens perished under Soviet rule. The majority of Lithuanians in Belarus intelligentsia and communists were also repressed. The terms of

8140-548: The occupation manifesto was issued, to the dismay of the weak and exhausted Polish state; the partition treaty was ratified by its signatories on September 22, 1772. Frederick II of Prussia was elated with his success; Prussia took most of Royal Prussia (except Gdańsk ) that stood between its possessions in Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg , as well as Ermland ( Warmia ), northern areas of Greater Poland along

8250-561: The old abuses of the last one and a half centuries were guaranteed as unalterable parts of this new constitution (in the so-called Cardinal Laws ). Repnin also demanded the Russian protection of the rights of peasants in private estates of Polish and Lithuanian noblemen, religious freedom for the Protestant and Orthodox Christians and the political freedoms for Protestants, Orthodox Christians and Eastern Catholics (Uniates), including their right to occupy all state positions, including

8360-446: The old prison was too small to accommodate a modern prison. Because of that an adjoining plot of land previously occupied by a Lipka Tatar cemetery was bought for the price of 20 thousand roubles . The new complex covered the entire block. It included a penal prison with cells for 421 inmates, a detention centre for 278 inmates, as well as several other buildings. Those included an office building, kitchen, bakery, baths, ice cellar and

8470-647: The partitioning powers. With regard to population, in the First Partition, Poland lost over four to five million citizens (about a third of its population of 14 million before the partitions). Only about 4 million people remained in Poland after the Second Partition which makes for a loss of another third of its original population, about a half of the remaining population. By the Third Partition, Prussia ended up with about 23% of

8580-428: The partitioning state. 19th-century historians from countries that carried out the partitions, such as 19th-century Russian scholar Sergey Solovyov , and their 20th century followers, argued that partitions were justified, as the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth had degenerated to the point of being partitioned because the counterproductive principle of liberum veto made decision-making on divisive issues, such as

8690-472: The partitions as already in a state of disorder and not a completely sovereign state, and almost as a vassal state , with Polish kings effectively chosen in diplomatic maneuvers between the great powers Prussia, Austria, Russia, and France. This applies particularly to the last Commonwealth King Stanisław August Poniatowski , who for some time had been a lover of Russian Empress Catherine the Great . In 1730,

8800-399: The parts of the complex that had not been recently renovated had "deteriorated to the extent that they could be described as deplorable." According to a 2014 plan, the prison was to be relocated to Pravieniškės by 2018. The prison was officially closed on 2 July 2019. After its closure, it became open to the public for tours. Following the closure of the prison, the complex was turned into

8910-468: The population of Western Belorussia welcomed the annexation by the USSR. However, soon after the annexation of Western Belorussia by the Soviet Union, the Belarusian political activists had no illusions as to the friendliness of the Soviet regime. The population grew less loyal as the economic conditions became even worse and as the new regime carried out mass repressions and deportations that targeted Belarusians as well as ethnic Poles. Immediately after

9020-404: The prison before being either released, sent to the gallows or sent to distant regions of Russia for penal servitude. However, the 1874 revision of the criminal code of Russia introduced two additional penalties: a short-term prison confinement (up to 1.5 years) and long-term prison confinement (up to 6 years). Meanwhile, the old prison became dilapidated and severely overcrowded. It was clear that

9130-559: The prison's role in WWII. Currently the prison complex is popular for concerts and movie screenings. Food court and a bar is also operating and open to citizens and city guests. Guided tours are available in various languages. [REDACTED] Media related to Lukiškės Prison at Wikimedia Commons 54°41′29″N 25°15′59″E  /  54.69139°N 25.26639°E  / 54.69139; 25.26639 Partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of

9240-681: The radical Jacobinism then at high tide in France, Russian forces invaded the Commonwealth in 1792. In the War in Defense of the Constitution , pro-Russian conservative Polish magnates , the Confederation of Targowica , fought against Polish forces supporting the constitution, believing that Russians would help them restore the Golden Liberty . Abandoned by their Prussian allies, Polish pro-constitution forces, faced with Targowica units and

9350-516: The region supported the policy of cultural assimilation of Belarusians as proposed by Dmowski . The polonization drive was inspired and influenced by Dmowski's Polish National Democracy , who advocated refusing Belarusians and Ukrainians the right of free national development. Władysław Studnicki , an influential Polish official, stated that Poland's engagement in the East amounts to a much needed economic colonization . Belarusian nationalist media

9460-502: The regular Russian army, were defeated. Prussia signed a treaty with Russia, agreeing that Polish reforms would be revoked, and both countries would receive chunks of Commonwealth territory. In 1793, deputies to the Grodno Sejm , last Sejm of the Commonwealth, in the presence of the Russian forces, agreed to Russian territorial demands. In the Second Partition, Russia and Prussia helped themselves to enough land so that only one-third of

9570-597: The remaining territories of the Commonwealth between their three countries. One of Russia's chief foreign policy authors, Alexander Bezborodko , advised Catherine II on the Second and Third Partitions of Poland. The Russian part included 120,000 km (46,332 sq mi) and 1.2 million people with Vilnius , the Prussian part (new provinces of New East Prussia and New Silesia ) 55,000 km (21,236 sq mi) and 1 million people with Warsaw, and

9680-543: The same time, pressure and even repressions against larger farmers (called by the Soviet propaganda, kulaki ) began: the size of agricultural land for one individual farm was limited to 10ha, 12ha and 14ha depending on the quality of the land. It was forbidden to hire workers and lease land. Under the Soviet occupation, the Western Belorussian citizenry, particularly the Poles, faced a "filtration" procedure by

9790-402: The society in contemporary Russian-held Europe, could be incarcerated by their master rather than in state-run prisons. Because of that, for most of the 19th century the small criminal prison at Vilna's suburb of Łukiszki (modern Lukiškės), converted from an earlier Roman Catholic monastery in 1837, was enough to suit the needs of the Russian authorities. Most prisoners spent only a short period in

9900-548: The term Great Emigration ), became the revolutionaries of the 19th century, as desire for freedom became one of the defining parts of Polish romanticism . Polish revolutionaries participated in uprisings in Prussia , the Austrian Empire and Imperial Russia . Polish legions fought alongside Napoleon and, under the slogan of For our freedom and yours , participated widely in the Spring of Nations (particularly

10010-423: The two meanings. The consecutive acts of dividing and annexation of Poland are referred to as rozbiór (plural: rozbiory ), while the term zabór (plural: zabory ) refers to parts of the Commonwealth that were annexed in 1772–1795 and which became part of Imperial Russia, Prussia, or Austria. Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the borders of the three partitioned sectors were redrawn;

10120-412: The two years following the annexation, the Soviets arrested approximately 100,000 Polish citizens across Kresy. Due to a lack of access to the secret Soviet and Belarusian archives, for many years after the war the estimates of the number of Polish citizens deported to Siberia from the areas of Western Belorussia, as well as the number who perished under Soviet rule, were only estimated. In August 2009, on

10230-619: The unification of Western Belorussia with the Belarusian SSR and explained that they instead want to unite with Lithuania , thus the voting had to be repeated and eventually succeeded. The petition was officially accepted by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on November 2 and by the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR on November 12, 1939. From then on, all citizens of Poland but also born in Poland would find themselves living in

10340-636: The unsuccessful Polish Kościuszko Uprising the previous year. With this partition, the Commonwealth ceased to exist . In English, the term "Partitions of Poland" is sometimes used geographically as toponymy , to mean the three parts that the partitioning powers divided the Commonwealth into, namely: the Austrian Partition , the Prussian Partition and the Russian Partition . In Polish, there are two separate words for

10450-545: The war (notably the area around the city of Białystok ( Belastok Region ) was returned to Poland). Still, in general, they coincide with the borders of the modern Republic of Belarus . The Belarusian political parties and the society in Western Belorussia often lacked information about repressions in the Soviet Union and was under a strong influence of Soviet propaganda. Because of bad economic conditions and national discrimination of Belarusian in Poland, much of

10560-564: The western part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). Today, it constitutes the west of modern Belarus. Created by the USSR after the conquest of Poland , the new western provinces of Byelorussian SSR acquired from Poland included Baranavichy , Belastok , Brest , Vileyka and the Pinsk Regions. They were reorganized one more time after the Soviet liberation of Belarus into

10670-627: The while, the Bolshevik Coup overturned the interim Russian Provisional Government and formed Soviet Russia . The Bolsheviks withdrew from the war with the Central Powers by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , and ceded Belarus to Germany for the next eight and a half months. The German high command used this window of opportunity to transfer its troops to the Western Front for the 1918 Spring Offensive , leaving behind

10780-528: Was also a permanent prison with about 180 inmates; about 80 of whom were serving life terms. After more than a century of continuous service, the prison suffered from overcrowding and was in need of improvements. In 2009, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture reported "several allegations from prisoners concerning physical ill-treatment inflicted by staff" and that conditions in

10890-492: Was also used in the 19th and 20th centuries to refer to diaspora communities who maintained a close interest in the project of regaining Polish independence. Sometimes termed Polonia , these expatriate communities often contributed funding and military support to the project of regaining the Polish nation-state. Diaspora politics were deeply affected by developments in and around the homeland, and vice versa, for many decades. More recent studies claim that partitions happened when

11000-634: Was decided on August 5, 1772, after the Bar Confederation lost the war with Russia. The Second Partition occurred in the aftermath of the Polish–Russian War of 1792 and the Targowica Confederation when Russian and Prussian troops entered the Commonwealth and the partition treaty was signed during the Grodno Sejm on January 23, 1793 (without Austria). The Third Partition took place on October 24, 1795, in reaction to

11110-432: Was forthcoming and the armies of the combined nations occupied Warsaw to compel by force of arms the calling of the assembly, the only alternative was passive submission to their will. The so-called Partition Sejm , with Russian military forces threatening the opposition, on September 18, 1773, signed the treaty of cession, renouncing all claims of the Commonwealth to the occupied territories. In 1772, Jean-Jacques Rousseau

11220-682: Was inspired by Jeremy Bentham 's idea of Panopticon , and was based on the design of Kresty Prison in Sankt Petersburg, which in turn was modelled after Moabit Prison in Berlin and the Holmesburg Prison and Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. In 1901 construction work began and the old prison was closed down and demolished. The works were supervised by General Anatoliy Kelchevskiy . The plot of land occupied by

11330-526: Was invited to present recommendations for a new constitution for the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , resulting in the Considerations on the Government of Poland (1782), which was to be his last major political work. By 1790, the Commonwealth had been weakened to such a degree that it was forced into an unnatural and terminal alliance with its enemy, Prussia. The Polish–Prussian Pact of 1790

11440-789: Was notably held in the prison after his arrest in September 1940. In June 1941, during the German invasion , the NKVD shot prisoners at Lukiškės Prison (see NKVD prisoner massacres ). The prison became more notorious during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania , when it was used by the Gestapo and Lithuanian Saugumas as a holding cell for thousands of Jews from the Vilna Ghetto and Poles, picked up in łapankas (roundups) in reprisals for actions by

11550-434: Was passed allowing for the Belarusian language to officially be used in courts and schools. Obligatory teaching of the Belarusian language was introduced in all Polish gymnasia in areas inhabited by Belarusians in 1927. The Belarusian population of West Belarus faced active Polonization by the central Polish authorities. The policy pressured Belarusian schooling, discriminated against the Belarusian language, and imposed

11660-747: Was pressured and censored by the Polish authorities. Belarusians were divided along religious lines with roughly 70% being Orthodox and 30% Roman Catholic. According to Russian sources, discrimination was targeting assimilation of Eastern Orthodox Belarusians. The Polish church authorities promoted Polish in Orthodox services, and initiated the creation of the Polish Orthodox Societies in four cities including Slonim , Białystok , Vawkavysk , and Novogrodek . The Belarusian Roman Catholic priest Fr. Vincent Hadleŭski who promoted Belarusian in church, and Belarusian national awareness,

11770-527: Was put down by Russian and governmental Polish troops. This uprising led to the intervention of the Ottoman Empire, supported by Roman Catholic France and Austria. Bar confederation and France promised Podolia and Volhynia and the protectorate over the Commonwealth to the Ottoman Empire for armed support. In 1769, the Habsburg monarchy annexed a small territory of Spisz and in 1770 it annexed Nowy Sącz and Nowy Targ . These territories had been

11880-562: Was signed. The conditions of the Pact contributed to the subsequent final two partitions of Poland–Lithuania. The May Constitution of 1791 enfranchised the bourgeoisie, established the separation of the three branches of government, and eliminated the abuses of the Repnin Sejm . Those reforms prompted aggressive actions on the part of its neighbours, wary of the potential renaissance of the Commonwealth. Arguing that Poland had fallen prey to

11990-626: Was the Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union , also referred to as the Hramada . Hramada received logistical help from the Soviet Union and the Communist International and served as a cover for the radical and subversive Communist Party of Western Belorussia . It was therefore banned by the Polish authorities, its leaders sentenced to various terms in prison and then deported to the USSR, where they were killed by

12100-734: Was under pressure by his Polish counterparts. The Polish Catholic Church in Western Belorussia issued documents to priests about the usage of the Belarusian language rather than Polish language in Churches and Catholic Sunday Schools. The Warsaw-published instruction of the Polish Catholic Church from 1921 criticized priests preaching in Belarusian at the Catholic masses . Compared to the (larger) Ukrainian minority living in Poland , Belarusians were much less politically aware and active. The largest Belarusian political organization

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