Germanization was the process of de-nationalization by persuading or forcing the indigenous peoples of a given area to acquire the German language and culture.

After the fall of the January Uprising, mass arrests of Poles took place. Germanization reached its apogee after the reunification of Germany. It was then that the German Chancellor Bismarck announced the action "Kulturkampf" - "Fight for Culture". At that time, the Polish language in administration and the judiciary was completely abolished, and it was forbidden to conduct mass in Polish. Any Polish priest who did not agree to conduct mass in German was removed from office, and Polish churches were closed. The names of Polish places were replaced with German ones. Polish officials were replaced with German ones. The Polish language was removed from schools. Children who spoke Polish at school were corporally punished by some German teachers. In Września. Polish children were beaten by German teachers and the police for refusing to speak German during religion lessons. In 1886, the German government established the Colonization Commission and the General Commission, whose task was to buy land from Poles living in Greater Poland and Gdańsk Pomerania. In return, these lands were inhabited en masse by German peasants brought from the depths of the Reich. In 1894, the so-called Union of the East Marches, known as Hakata by Poles. It was an organization associating German nationalists that carried out fierce anti-Polish propaganda.

Rustification was process of assimilation or deliberate imposition in which the Russian state sought to denationalize by gradually imposing the Russian language, customs, culture, and patterns in the arts.

After the fall of the January Uprising the autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland was abolished, and its name was changed to Kraj Przywiślański (Vistulan country), the territory of the country is divided into 10 governorates, governed by governors-generals, continuous martial law was introduced, administration and education were Russified, church property was confiscated, all orders, apart from Charities, the Greek Catholic Church was liquidated, Poles were displaced and expropriated. Initially, the transformation of the names of Polish cities into Russian began, in 1869 the Warsaw Main School was closed, and a university with Russian as the language of instruction was established in its place. In 1869, all district schools were additionally closed. Gradually, in the years 1869-1885, the Polish language was completely ousted from the school system, and in 1885 it was reduced to the role of an additional and optional language. Property confiscations were also used against participants in the uprising and owners of land on which special taxes were imposed. There was also a ban on the purchase of land by Poles. Polish theaters, magazines, schools and associations were completely closed.

[Keep in mind that names of institutions mentioned here have been roughly translated from Polish to English by me. Their proper English names might be a bit different]

Their attempts at "transforming" Poles into Russians and Germans, although harsh, have mostly been unsuccessful and encountered active resistance. There's a famous example of a Pole, Michał Drzymała (a peasant from a region of Greater Poland) who was not allowed to build a house by Prussian administration, so instead lived in a circus wagon and moved it a few meters everyday so it technically did not qualify as a house. There were also secret schools in which children were taught Polish history, language and culture. Polish culture (at that time heavily connected to the old Polish nobility) was even found attractive by foreign colonialists from German and Austrian empires, who often assimilated into it, claiming that they descend from old Polish noble families who migrated from Poland centuries ago. An interesting example is Frederick Nietzsche, who despite being German, claimed to be a descendant of old Polish noble family of Nicki. After the collapse of Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian Empires after WWI many Poles rose up in very different areas to fight for linking those regions to the reborn Polish state, which in my opinion clearly shows that despite the entire generations living under foreign control, they still considered themselves to be Polish.