The period of Poland's partitions was also a period of divisions within Polish Jewry. The external division was accompanied by an internal split; the political partition, by a spiritual schism. The body of Polish Jewry was divided among Russia, Austria, and Prussia, and its soul between Rabbinism and Hasidism. There was even a significant coincidence in dates: the first declaration against Hasidism by the rabbinate of Vilna, which started the religious schism, was issued in 1772, in the year of the first Polish partition, and the second emphatic declaration of the same rabbinate, which completed the schism, followed close upon the third partition of Poland, in 1796. The interval between these two dates represents one continuous stretch of Hasidic triumphs. The Russian Southwest, Volhynia, the province of Kiev, and Podolia, had by the end of the period, been almost completely conquered by the Hasidim. With the exception of a few cities, they now formed the predominating element in the communities; their ritual was adopted in synagogue worship, and their spiritual rulers, the Tzaddiks, exercised control over the official rabbinate. As far as the Northwest is concerned, Hasidism had managed during that interval to obtain a foothold in White Russia, the only Polish province which for over twenty years had been under Russian dominion, and thus politically severed from the rest of curtailed Poland. Under the leadership of the Tzaddik Shneor Zalman of Lozno, a strong Hasidic center had been built up in that part of the Northwest, but there were yet no compact Hasidic communities in that region. In the majority of towns the communities were composed of both elements, Hasidim and their opponents, the Rabbinists, who were nicknamed _Mithnagdim_ ("Protestants"), the preponderance being now on this side, now on the other, a state of affairs which gave rise to endless dissensions in the Kahals and synagogues. In Lithuania alone, the stronghold of Rabbinism, Hasidism failed to take root. Here a few small Hasidic groups were ensconced in a number of cities. They held their services in modest rooms in private residences (_minyanim_), which they were often forced to hide from the gaze of the hostile Kahal authorities. In Vilna, the residence of the great zealot of Rabbinism, Elijah Gaon, the Hasidim constituted an "illegal" secret organization. Only in the suburb of Pinsk, in Karlin, the Hasidim succeeded in establishing themselves firmly, and could boast of having their own synagogues and Tzaddiks.[256] Karlin became the seat of a Hasidic propaganda extending all over Lithuania, where the Hasidim were accordingly nicknamed "Karliners."