In Russian imperial historiography, the partitions of Poland were often referred to as the reunification of Rus’—a term emphasizing that, with the exception of Lithuania, all the other lands annexed to the Russian Empire as a result of the partitions were settled by Eastern Slavs, who had been subjects of Kyivan princes centuries earlier. The ethnic selectivity of the Russian territorial acquisitions was by no means accidental and signaled changes in the Russian national imagination that would take place during Catherine’s rule.
