Western Krai

The term encompasses the lands annexed by the Russian Empire in the successive partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century – in 1772, 1793, 1795 and located east of Congress Poland.

Together with Bessarabia and the former Crimean Khanate, the territory roughly overlapped also with the Jewish Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire, and included much of what is today Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania.

Podole) governorates and the Belostok Oblast remained under the chief administrative management of the Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich of Russia.

szlachta) and Lithuanian nobility, which had there a wide local government and enjoyed many social, economic and military privileges, unlike noble families in the so-called Congress Poland.

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).