Partitions Wars and Partitions

There was a lot going on in Poland during the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries. Power brokers were busy waging war, making and breaking treaties, and redrawing national borders.

My third great grandfather, Johann Ganas was born in 1779 the village of Czerlejno in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth just after it had come under Russian control.  Johann’s son Adalbert was born in that very same village – probably on the very same plot of land, and perhaps even in the same house – in 1810 but Adalbert was born in Prussia. Here’s what was happening in the 32 years between Johann’s birth and the birth of his first son.

1772		First Partition of Poland - The Polish-Lithuanan commonwealth becomes a protectorate of the Russian Empire
1779			Johann Ganas	Birth
1790		The Polish-Lithuanian and Prussian alliance was a mutual defense alliance signed on 29 March 1790 in Warsaw between representatives of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Kingdom of Prussia. It was signed in the brief period when Prussia was seeking an ally against either Austria or Russia, and the Commonwealth was seeking guarantees that it would be able to carry out significant governmental reforms without foreign intervention.
1791		The Constitution of 3 May, 1791 (Polish: Konstytucja 3 maja) was adopted by the Great Sejm (parliament) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a dual monarchy comprising Poland and Lithuania.
1792		The Polish–Russian War of 1792 (also, War of the Second Partition,[3] and in Polish sources, War in Defence of the Constitution (Polish: wojna w obronie Konstytucji 3 maja)[4]) was fought between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on one side, and the Targowica Confederation (conservative nobility of the Commonwealth opposed to the new Constitution of 3 May 1791) and the Russian Empire under Catherine the Great on the other
1793		The 1793 Second Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the second of three partitions (or partialannexations) that ended the existence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795.
1794		The 1794 Greater Poland Uprising (Polish: Powstanie Wielkopolskie 1794 roku) was a military insurrection by Poles in Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) against Kingdom of Prussia which had taken possession of this territory after the 1793 Second Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1795		The Third Partition of Poland (1795) was the last in a series of the Partitions of Poland of the land of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among Prussia, the Austrian Empire, and the Russian Empire which effectively ended Polish–Lithuanian national sovereignty until 1918.
1803			Johann Ganas	Marriage
1806		The 1806 Greater Poland Uprising was organized by General Jan Henryk Dąbrowski to help advancing French forces underNapoleon I in liberating Poland from Prussian occupation. The Wielkopolska Uprising was a decisive factor that allowed the formation of the Duchy of Warsaw (1806) and the inclusion of Wielkopolska in the Duchy of Warsaw.
1807		Abolition of serfdom. Serfs were free to buy the land on which they worked, and to move from the Noble's estate on which they worked.
1807		The Treaties of Tilsit were two agreements signed by Napoleon I of France in the town of Tilsit in July, 1807 in the aftermath of his victory at Friedland. The first was signed on 7 July, between Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Napoleon I of France, when they met on a raft in the middle of the Neman River. The second was signed with Prussia on 9 July.
1811			Adalbert Ganas	Birth

Poland disappeared from the map, but not from the hearts of her people.  

Timeline of Polish history adapted from Wikipedia