Warsaw, Grand Duchy of

Warsaw, Grand Duchy of. An administrative territory in Poland set up by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807. It was formed out of the Polish regions of the Kingdom of Prussia, to which were added in 1809 the regions acquired by Austria under the Second Partition of Poland, including Zamość and Cracow. After Napoleon's defeat the Congress of Vienna divided the grand duchy. A small portion (Poznań) was awarded to Prussia, Cracow and its environs were set up as a free state (under an allied protectorate), and most of the territory was reconstituted as the Congress Kingdom of Poland under the indirect jurisdiction of the Russian Empire.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]