Editing Demographics of Lithuania (section)

===Russian Empire===
[[File:Etnograficheskiy atlas Zapadno Russkih gubernij, 1863.jpg|thumb|Distribution of [[Lithuanians]]: [[Samogitians]] (olive green) and [[Aukštaitians]]-Lithuanians (orange) in a 1863 ethnographic map of the [[List of governorates of the Russian Empire|governorates of the Russian Empire]]]] 
After the [[Partitions of Poland|Third Partition]] of the [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]] on October 24, 1795, between the [[Russian Empire]], the [[Kingdom of Prussia]] and the [[Habsburg monarchy]], the Commonwealth ceased to exist and [[Grand Duchy of Lithuania|Lithuania]] became a part of the [[Russian empire]]. After the [[Emancipation reform of 1861|abolition of serfdom]] in 1861, the use of the Polish language noticeably increased in eastern Lithuania and western Belarus.<ref name="wiemer" /> Many Lithuanians, living further east, were unable to receive the Lithuanian printed books smuggled into Lithuania by [[knygnešiai]] during the time of [[Lithuanian press ban|the ban on printing books]] in the Latin alphabet, and they switched to Polish. Although this also used the Latin alphabet, it was much less affected by the ban, because Polish was still used by the politically important class of the nobility, and also used predominantly in the biggest towns of Lithuania, and supported by the church.