15. Carte des partages de la Pologne en 1772, 1793 et 1795. Basel: G. Haas & J. Decker, [1804]. COLLBN Port 165 N 101
Despite Polish reforms and uprisings, three partitions by 'enlightened despots' ended the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth near the end of the 18th century. For the Russian Empire, which lately had controlled this Commonwealth through pressuring its Sejm or through a loyal king, the partitions meant loss as well as gain. Prussia's share in red included Gdansk and Warsaw, Austria in brown took Galicia and the region with Cracow and Russia in green annexed Belarus, Southern Latvia and Lithuania. Russian imperial historiography conceived these partitions as a reunification of Rus'. But in Ukrainian lands the new division ran now between the Habsburgs and Romanovs. The share of ethnic Ukrainians in the Russian Empire however rose from 15 to 22 percent. More than 10 percent of the population in the newly acquired territories was Jewish.