Russia, Prussia and Habsburg Austria began the First Partition of Poland, with the primary motive to restore the regional balance of power in Eastern Europe.

The Russian Empire was the final period of the Russian monarchy. It spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about 22,800,000 km² (8,800,000 sq mi), roughly one-sixth of the world's landmass, making it the third-largest empire in history, behind only the British and Mongol empires. It colonized Alaska between 1799 and 1867. The 1897 Russian census found a population of 126 million with considerable ethnic, linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic diversity.