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Western Krai (Russian:Западный край, literallyWestern Land) was an unofficial name for the westernmost parts of theRussian Empire, excluding the territory ofCongress Poland[1] (which was sometimes referred to asVistula Krai). The term encompasses the lands annexed by theRussian Empire in the successivepartitions of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century – in 1772, 1793, 1795 and located east of Congress Poland.[1] This area is known in Poland asZiemie Zabrane (Taken Lands,Stolen Lands)[2] but is most often referred to in Polish historiography and common parlance as part ofZabór Rosyjski (the Russian Take). Together withBessarabia and the formerCrimean Khanate, the territory roughly overlapped also with the JewishPale of Settlement of the Russian Empire, and included much of what is todayBelarus,Ukraine, andLithuania.
Western Krai was made of the following lands of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth:
It has never constituted one official administrative subdivision (Krai) of Russia but was a common name for two such subdivisions:Northwestern Krai andSouthwestern Krai.
The territory consisted of ninegovernorates: sixLithuanian andBelarusian ones that constituted theNorthwestern Krai (Vilna,Kovno,Grodno,Minsk,Mogilev andVitebsk), which mostly coincided with the formerGrand Duchy of Lithuania, and threeUkrainian ones that constituted theSouthwestern Krai (Volhynian,Podolia andKiev).
Due to its national specifics, the Western Krai had some special laws and elements of government.
During the reign ofAlexander I of Russia,Poles andLithuanians prevailed in the western provinces. After 1819, Grodno, Vilnius (rus.Vilna, pol.Wilno), Minsk, Volhynia (pol.Wołyń), Podolia (pol.Podole) governorates and theBelostok Oblast remained under the chief administrative management of theGrand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich of Russia. All positions of the local administration were dominated by the Polish (pol.szlachta) andLithuanian nobility, which had there a wide local government and enjoyed many social, economic and military privileges, unlike noble families in the so-calledCongress Poland.[3] This opportune situation changed dramatically as theNovember Uprising and later theJanuary Uprising had broken out in 1830[4] and 1863 respectively and both failed in effort to restore an independent state which would have been a kind of successor to thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[5][6]
With the fall of theRussian Empire and the end ofWorld War I,Western Krai territories became a scene of military and political rivalry between emerging nations ofEastern Europe, the expandingSoviet Union and the Polish state reborn as theSecond Polish Republic.[7][8] TheTreaty of Riga laid the end to this rivalry in 1921. Although borders were set as a compromise between political stability and national aspirations,[9] none of the sides of the treaty were satisfied. In the new political situation of Europe in the beginning of the 20th century, thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth had no chance of being successfully restored. MarshalJózef Piłsudski, however, seeking to revive the cultural and political heritage of the Commonwealth, continued for some time to pursue his (ultimately unsuccessful) plan for the creation of a federation of Central and Eastern European countries, calledIntermarium (Międzymorze).
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Western Krai Governorates of the Russian Empire 1795–1912 | |
|---|---|
| Northwestern Krai | |
| Southwestern Krai | |