The history of Russian Jewry has appeared as a self-reinforcing triad of discrimination, emigration and revolution, a turbulent reflection of the tsarist doctrine of 'Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality' inaugurated by Nicholas II's great-grandfather and namesake, Tsar Nicholas I. This chapter first concerns the era prior to the partitions of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century, during which Jews were legally barred from Russia. Next, it considers the period extending from the partitions to the Great Reforms of the middle of the nineteenth century to survey the earliest efforts by the tsarist government to reform its newly acquired Jewish population as well as the currents of pietism and enlightenment that began to recast Jewish society from within. Finally, the chapter concerns the period from the Great Reforms to the First World War to trace the increasing presence of Jews in Russian society, and the rise of independent Jewish political movements.