Western Krai

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (November 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Western Krai (Западный край) was a subdivision (Krai) of the late Imperial Russia. In Poland, those territories - created from lands annexed to Russia during the partitions of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century (1772, 1793 and 1795) - were know as the taken lands.

Western Krai was made of the following lands of the Commonwealth:

• from the first partition of Poland (1772): Polish Inflants (Latgale), northern part of the Polotsk Voivodeship, entire Mstsislaw Voivodeship and Vitebsk Voivodeship, and south eastern part of the Minsk Voivodeship (about 92,000. km²)
• from the second partition of Poland (1793): remaining part of the Minsk Voivodeship, the entire Kiev Voivodeship, Bracław Voivodeship and Vilnius Voivodeship, parts of Podole Voivodeship and eastern parts of the Wołyń Voivodeship and Brest Litovsk Voivodeship (about 250,000. km²)
• from the third partition of Poland (1795): all the terriories east of the Bug river and (about 120,000. km²) (after 1807, the Belostok Oblast)

It consisted of 9 guberniyas: 6 Belarusian and Lithuanian ones that constituted the Northwestern Krai (Vilna Governorate, Kovno Governorate, Grodno Governorate, Minsk Governorate,Mogilev Governorate and Vitebsk Governorate) and 3 Ukrainian ones that constituted the Southwestern Krai (Volhynia Governorate, Podolia Governorate and Kiev Governorate).

Due to its national specifics, it had some special laws and elements of government.