This information is taken from Rootsweb 'Historical Geography of Poland'
Polish ancestors who immigrated to another country would often declare their country as; Germany, Prussia, East Prussia, Russia, Austria or Hungary. This is because they were caught up in the boundary changes associated with Poland’s political history. They lived in an area that was no longer under Poland’s control. In certain periods of history, Poland didn’t even exist as a country.
In 1772, Austria, Prussia and Russia took advantage of Poland’s weakness and divided portions of Poland among themselves; Austira to the southern portions, Russian to the east and Prusssia to the west. Nearly one third of Poland’s territory was lost.
After this partition, Poland took steps to try to stop it’s erosion as a country. The constitution was changed, returning Poland to a monarchy.
In 1793, Prussia and Russia took control of additional land from Poland. In 1794, an uprising led to a battle in against Russia nd Prussia in an attempt to regain their lost land. They were defeated.
In 1795, Prussia, Russia and Austria divided the balance of what was left of Poland among themselves. Poland no longer existed as an independent country
In 1807 Napoleon won control of Prussian Poland. He established the state of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Unfortunately, Napoleon was defeated in 1815 and once again Poland would become stateless as Austria, Prussia and Russia regained the territories they had lost earlier. Poland was allowed by the Russians to maintain a small self-governing Kingdom of Poland under their control.
Poles would continue to fight for independence resisting control. Several rebellions for independence were launched against Russia, Prussia and Austria. None were successful. In 1863, Russia’s solution to this persistent problem was to try and destroy the Polish culture by declaring Russian the official language. Prussia would do the same in 1872, forcing Poles in the Prussian territory to use German as the basic language (Katie Davitsky spoke German).The Poles struggle persisted and near the end of the century, they had successfully established political parties in all three regions.
After World War I, the partitions ended when in 1918 Poland gained status once again as a state. At the end of WWI Polish forces joined Austria against Russia driving them out of Poland/Russia territory by 1915.
In 1916, Austria and Germany provided a small Polish Kingdom under their protection. In 1917 Poland won her independence. In 1919, the treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of a large porion of it’s eastern section and returned it to Poland.
Poland was unsuccessful in reclaiming the land taken by Russia, In 1929, Poland and Russia would come to battle over the territory. A year later, in 1921, the Treaty of Riga came up with a compromise establishing a border that gave Poland a portion of this partition area in Russian control.
