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Western Krai (Russian: Западный край) is an unofficial name of the westernmost parts of the Imperial Russia, excluding the territory of Congress Poland. The term embodies lands annexed by the Russian Empire during subsequent partitions of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century, in 1772, 1793 and 1795. This area is known in Poland as Ziemie Zabrane (Taken Lands, Stolen Lands) but most often they are referred to in Polish historiography and in common talk as part of Zabór Rosyjski (literally Russian Seizure).
Western Krai was made of the following lands of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth:
It has never constituted one official administrative subdivision (Krai) of Russia but was a common name for two such subdivisions: Northwestern Krai and Southwestern Krai.
The territory consisted of nine guberniyas: six Belarusian and Lithuanian ones that constituted the Northwestern Krai (Vilna Governorate, Kovno Governorate, Grodno Governorate, Minsk Governorate, Mogilev Governorate and Vitebsk Governorate) and three Ukrainian ones that constituted the Southwestern Krai (Volhynia Governorate, Podolia Governorate and Kiev Governorate).
Due to its national specifics, the Western Krai had some special laws and elements of government.
During the reign of Alexander I of Russia, Poles prevailed in the western provinces. After 1819, Grodno, Vilnius (rus. Vilna, pol. Wilno), Minsk, Volhynia (pol. Wołyń), Podolia (pol. Podole) governorates and the Belostok Oblast remained under the chief administrative management of the Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia. All positions of the local administration were dominated by Poles. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth noble families (pol. Szlachta) had there a wide local government and enjoyed many social, economic and military privileges, unlike noble families in so called Congress Poland. This opportunate situation changed dramatically as November Uprising and later January Uprising had broken out in 1830 and 1863 respectively and both failed in effort to restore an independent state which would have been a kind of successor to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
With the fall of the Russian Empire and the end of World War I, Western Krai territories became a scene of military and political rivalry between emerging nations of Eastern Europe, the expanding Soviet Union and the Polish state reborn as the Second Polish Republic. The Treaty of Riga laid the end to this rivalry in 1921. Although borders were set as a compromise between political stability and national aspirations, none of the sides of the treaty were satisfied. In the new political situation of Europe in the beginning of the 20th century, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had no chance of being successfully restored. Marshal Józef 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, called Intermarium (Międzymorze).