1789 onward was an era of absolute Russian, Prussian, and Austrian dominance. After the Polish Partition of 1795, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was eliminated as a state. Despite Jan Henryk Dąbrowski's attempts to liberate Poland afterward, the boundaries of the Third Partition were solidified, and Russification and Germanization began.
Today Polish language is a rare and little known language like Basque. But could it have been different? Could there have been not just a flourishing Polish country, but a Polish national identity surviving beyond the Partitions?