Second Partition of Poland

Second Partition of Poland
Poland after the Second Partition (1793)
Teritorial losses
Total	307,000 km²
To Prussia	58,000 km²
To Russia	250,000 km²

The 1793 Second Partition of Poland was the second of three partitions (or partial annexations) that ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. The second partition occurred in the aftermath of the War in Defense of the Constitution and the Targowica Confederation of 1792, and was approved by its territorial beneficiaries, the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. The division was ratified by the coerced Polish parliament (Sejm) in 1793 (see the Grodno Sejm) in a short-lived attempt to prevent the inevitable complete annexation of Poland, the Third Partition.

By 1790, on the political front, the Commonwealth had deteriorated into such a helpless condition that it was forced into an unnatural and ultimately deadly alliance with its enemy, Prussia. The Polish-Prussian Pact of 1790 was signed, giving false hope that the Commonwealth might have at last found an ally that would shield it while it reformed itself. The May Constitution of 1791 enfranchised the bourgeoisie, established the separation of the three branches of government, and eliminated the abuses of Repnin Sejm. Those reforms prompted aggressive actions on the part of its neighbours, wary of the potential renaissance of the Commonwealth. Again Poland dared to reform and improve itself without Russia's permission, and again the Empress Catherine II was angered; arguing that Poland had fallen prey to the radical Jacobinism then at high tide in France. Russian forces invaded the Commonwealth in 1792.