The Effects and Controversies of Russification in World History

Russification was a policy enforced by the Russian Empire that forced Russian culture on the vast amount of ethnic minorities that live in the Russian Empire. These policies heavily affected the Poles, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians. The only language that could be spoken in Russia and all other languages were suppressed. The Russification was first created in 1770 by Uvarov, Uvarov defined the three important policies in Russification which were autocracy, orthodoxy, and “Russian-ness”. Within the three the most focused part was the “Russian-ness” meaning that all the ethnic groups accepted by the Tsar shall acknowledge their allegiance to the Russian State. This took a dramatic turn once Alexander III thought that all cultures and nationalities within the empire were a threat to Russian culture and should be wiped out. All these ethnic groups then became full-fledged Russians starting the major process of Russification among ethnic groups and minorities in the Russian Empire.

The Jewish people of Poland were people that had no place to go with the wreckage of the multiple wars and invasions Poland was annexed by neighboring countries and no longer existed as an independent country which caused the unrecognition of Jewish residency. When the Russian Empire got their hands on Belorussia, Lithuania, and Ukraine from Poland, the Russian Empire took refugee of hundreds of thousands of Jews making home to the biggest Jewish community within the world. There was a struggle on how they define the Jews legally, both as individuals and collectives. The Russian Haskalah was then presented as a policy of a way to help the conversion of Russian life for the Jews. Schools were built with the help of Haskalah members to help convert Jews into Russian culture, by teaching Jewish kids the Russian language, social life, and religious belief. After the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, a lot of blame was put on the Jewish people thinking that the Jews carried out this assassination. Government officials then sent measures that were designed to resettle Jews from the countryside to urban areas that is where the May Laws took form. The May Laws restricted unused Jewish settlement exterior of towns, disallowed Jews from buying arrive within the farmland, and prohibited Jews from exchanging on Christain occasions and Sundays.

What at first began as an insignificant altar of the ruler from a Polish-Lithuanian lord to a Russian autocrat in the long run driven to a major russification drive. Lithuania declined as political control endeavors at change activated outside intercession taking after three allotments. Amid the primary two allotments, Lithuania misplaced as it were lands occupied by East Slavs. The third Parcel brought about in a division of the arrive occupied by ethnic Lithuanians. In Lithuania Russification was expanded to all ranges of open life. Russian was the dialect endorsed for open utilization, counting education. Books and magazines within the Lithuanian dialect may be printed as they were within the Russian letter set.