Polish census of 1931
Encyclopedia
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
, performed on December 9, 1931 by the Main Bureau of Statistics. It established that Poland's population amounted to over 32 million people (over 5 millions more than in the previous census of 1921
Polish census of 1921
The Polish census of 1921 or First General Census in Poland was the first census in the Second Polish Republic, performed on September 30, 1921 by the Main Bureau of Statistics ....
).
The census was organised following the rules established by an act of the Polish Parliament
Sejm
The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....
of October 14, 1931. In contrast to earlier census of 1921, the 1931 census did not count national minorities and detailed information on types of farms, leaving only the question of the overall area of land owned by the citizen. The part related to education was expanded to include questions of ability to read and write.
The results of the census were being published in 39 volumes between 1936 and 1939 in a publishing series "Statistics of Poland". A list of all settlements in Poland was also prepared, but only a part related to Wilno Voivodeship was published.
Results
The allocation of the Polish, German and other population is by the primary languageFirst language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
spoken. Jews are given by religion. Most Jews spoke Yiddish, however included with the Jews are 372,000 Polish speakers who are sometimes classified with the Polish group. Included with the Poles are 984,000 Eastern Orthodox & Greek Catholic adherents who are sometimes classified with the Ukrainian and Belarusian groups.
| Voivodeship Voivodeship Voivodship is a term denoting the position of, or more commonly the area administered by, a voivod. Voivodeships have existed since medieval times in Poland, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia and Serbia.... |
Area Area Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat... , км² |
Total | Polish | Ukrainian Ukrainians Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens... |
Jews Jews The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation... |
Belorusian | German Germans The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages.... |
Local Tutejszy Tutejszy was a self-identification of rural population in mixed-lingual areas of Eastern and Northern Europe, including Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Latvia, in particular, in Polesie and Podlasie. As a self-identification, it persisted in Lithuania's Vilnius Region into the late 20th... |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wilno | ||||||||
| Nowogródek | ||||||||
| Białystok | ||||||||
| Polesie Polesie Voivodeship Polesie Voivodeship was an administrative unit of interwar Poland . It ceased to exist in September 1939, following German and Soviet aggression on Poland .-Population:... |
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| Wołyń | ||||||||
| Tarnopol Tarnopol Voivodeship Tarnopol Voivodeship was an administrative region of interwar Poland with an area of 16,500 km², 17 counties, and capital in Tarnopol... |
||||||||
| Stanisławów | ||||||||
| Lwów Lwów Voivodeship Lwów Voivodeship was an administrative unit of interwar Poland . According to Nazis and Soviets it ceased to exist in September 1939, following German and Soviet aggression on Poland . The Polish underground administration existed till August 1944.-Population:Its capital, biggest and most... |
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| Lublin | ||||||||
| Kraków | ||||||||
| Silesia Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship The Silesian Voivodeship was an autonomous province of the interwar Second Polish Republic. It consisted of territory which came into Polish possession as a result of the 1921 Upper Silesia plebiscite, the Geneva Conventions, three Upper Silesian Uprisings, and the eventual partition of Upper... |
||||||||
| Kielce | ||||||||
| Warsaw | ||||||||
| city of Warsaw Warsaw Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most... |
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| Łódź | ||||||||
| Poznań | ||||||||
| Pomerania | ||||||||
| Total |
Nationality question and criticism
Veracity of the census' results has been questioned already in the 1930s, particularly in the part related to national minorities. Contrary to expectations on the side of national minorities themselves, the census used the concept of mother tongue and religionReligion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
to classify the respondents, rather than nationality
Nationality
Nationality is membership of a nation or sovereign state, usually determined by their citizenship, but sometimes by ethnicity or place of residence, or based on their sense of national identity....
. The 1921 census
Polish census of 1921
The Polish census of 1921 or First General Census in Poland was the first census in the Second Polish Republic, performed on September 30, 1921 by the Main Bureau of Statistics ....
had included a nationality question which was replaced in the 1931 census by the "mother tongue" question; this change was protested by Ukrainians and Jews, many of whom were bilingual or trilingual
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
. Moreover, many Jews considered Polish to be their mother tongue.
This situation created a difficulty in establishing the true number of non-Polish citizens of Poland. Some authors used the language
criterion to establish the actual number of minorities, which left Belarusians
Belarusians
Belarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...
seriously under-represented, as over 707,000 people declared they speak "local
Tutejszy
Tutejszy was a self-identification of rural population in mixed-lingual areas of Eastern and Northern Europe, including Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Latvia, in particular, in Polesie and Podlasie. As a self-identification, it persisted in Lithuania's Vilnius Region into the late 20th...
" rather than any other language. Other authors used approximation based on both language and declared religion. After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in Soviet bloc countries the interpretation of the census was used for political purposes, to underline the officially-supported thesis that pre-war Poland owned areas where non-Polish population made up the majority of inhabitants. For this purpose some authors combined all non-Polish speakers in South-Eastern Poland (namely Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, Belarusians
Belarusians
Belarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...
, Rusyns
Rusyns
Carpatho-Rusyns are a primarily diasporic ethnic group who speak an Eastern Slavic language, or Ukrainian dialect, known as Rusyn. Carpatho-Rusyns descend from a minority of Ruthenians who did not adopt the use of the ethnonym "Ukrainian" in the early twentieth century...
, Hutsuls
Hutsuls
Hutsuls are an ethno-cultural group of Ukrainian highlanders who for centuries have inhabited the Carpathian mountains, mainly in Ukraine, the northern extremity of Romania .-Etymology:...
, Lemkos
Lemkos
Lemkos , one of several quantitatively and territorially small ethnic groups who also call themselves Rusyns , are one of the ethnic groups inhabiting the Carpathian Mountains...
, Boyko
Boyko
Boyko or Boiko are a distinctive group of Ukrainian highlanders or mountain-dwellers of the Carpathian highlands. The Boykos inhabited the central and the western half of the Carpathians in Ukraine, including the Dolynskyi and a part of the Rozhniativskyi Raions in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast ,...
s and Poleszuk
Poleszuk
Poleszuk is the name given to the people who populated the swamps of Polesia.The Poleszuk dialect is close to the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish languages...
s) into one category of "Ruthenians".
Some authors explain that the change in questions asked by the census officials was due to Polish government's wish to minimise the presence of minorities and represented an attempt to maximize the effects of a decade of educational policies stressing the Polish language. Tadeusz Piotrowski
Tadeusz Piotrowski (sociologist)
Tadeusz Piotrowski or Thaddeus Piotrowski is a Polish-American sociologist. He is a Professor of Sociology in the Social Science Division of the University of New Hampshire at Manchester in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he lives....
called the 1931 census
official but "unreliable", noting that it had underestimated the number of non-Poles, and that in particular, Poles were not a majority in the
Nowogródek Voivodeship and Polesie Voivodeship
Polesie Voivodeship
Polesie Voivodeship was an administrative unit of interwar Poland . It ceased to exist in September 1939, following German and Soviet aggression on Poland .-Population:...
.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the pre-war chairman of the Polish census statistical office, Edward Szturm de Sztrem
Edward Szturm de Sztrem
Edward Szturm de Sztrem was a Polish statistician and demographer. From 1929 till the German invasion of Poland in 1939 he was the director of the Polish Central Statistical Office. In 1937 he became the president of the newly founded Polish Statistical Society...
, stated that the returns had indeed been tampered with at the executive level, particularly in the east and south-east, although the extent of any possible tampering remains unknown.