"The Polish Question"

After the January Uprising, more oppressive measures were piled on the Russian zone of partitioned Poland, and another wave of politicians, artists and soldiers was forced to emigrate. As efforts intensified to turn the Poles into Russians, Polish was removed from more and more schools and institutions. It was a similar story in the territories under Prussia, where the authorities sometimes resorted to brutal methods in a drive to Germanise the population. The Catholic Church was severely oppressed both in Russia and Prussia. Only Galicia (the Austrian partitional zone) enjoyed a measure of autonomy after 1867, with its own national assembly, and a Polish administrative and educational system. But unlike the Prussian and, to an extent, Russian partitional zones, it was deeply impoverished and, except for the cities, economically depressed.