Poland after WW1: border issues, problems & opportunities

And a map by Polish geographer and historian Piotr Eberhardt based on censuses (1959 was the last more or less reliable census in Belarus, after that the number of Poles in Belarus is being falsified, underreported - so from 1959 to 1999 the area with Polish majority in Belarus shrank on paper only):

2) "A" + "B" + "C" = majority ethnic Polish territory before 1921:

And this map is actually based on Lithuanian sources, so the real extent of Polish area before 1921 could be even greater:



Comparison of percent of Roman Catholics and percent of Poles by county (except for Kamin-Kashyrskyi) in census of 1931:



Religions in 1931 in this area from map above, now part of Belarus and Lithuania (except for Kamin-Kashyrskyi in Ukraine):



==============================

Lithuanian gerrymandering in areas with ethnic Polish majority, since the 1990s:

Below some data illustrating the effects of post-war deportations on ethnic Polish population in the Grodno-Vilna areas of Belarus:

This data is from an article written (in Polish) by a Belarusian from Grodno - Siarhiej Tokć:

http://kamunikat.fontel.net/pdf/bzh/22/03.pdf

Examples from three raions (counties) - Wasiliszki, Wołkowysk and Skidel. If we count these three counties altogether then their total population in 1945-1947 (Skidel in 1947, the other two counties in 1945) was - according to Belarusian data - 124.451 including 60.615 Poles, 61.295 Belarusians, 1.407 Russians and 1.134 others. By 1959 their population was 136.382 including 43.356 Poles, 80.307 Belarusians, 9.637 Russians and 3.082 others.

So the percentage of Russians among the population increased from 1.13% in 1945-1947 to 7.07% in 1959.

In 1945 Poles were an absolute majority in Wasiliszki and Wołkowysk. By 1959 they were still a relative majority (49.2%) only in Wasiliszki:



========================================

Previously I wrote:

Number of Poles deported by railway from Lithuania after WW2:

In total 274,163 from Western Belarus (areas which on 01.09.1939 belonged to Poland) and 197,156 from Lithuania in first repatriation (1944-1948) as well as 100,630 from Western Belarus and 46,552 from Lithuania in second repatriation (1955-1959).

(...)

According to official Soviet Union's 1959 census there were still 230,107 Poles in Lithuania of whom 161,523 (70,2%) were rural population - as flights and deportations of 1944-1959 as well as previous wartime mortality affected urban Poles more than rural Poles.

Click to expand...

Among the 197,156 from Lithuania in first repatriation, more than half - 107,613 - were from the city and the county of Wilno.

44.1% among those 197,156 were urban population, while 55,9% were rural population (or maybe the other way around?). In terms of occupation 31.2% of the deported were craftsmen, 30.5% were intelligentsia (white-collar workers, teachers, professional soldiers, health-care workers, clergymen, etc.), 18.4% were peasants and 10.4% were workers. Other groups were 9.5%. These numbers are from this article:

http://www.akwilno.pl/pdf/Ekspatriacja.pdf

According to this article areas annexed by Lithuania in October 1939 (6880 km2 incl. the city of Wilno) were inhabited by 549 thousand people:

- 321,700 Poles
- 107,600 Jews
- 75,200 Belarusians
- 31,300 Lithuanians
- 9,000 Russians
- 4,200 others

In 1910 Western Galicia, contrary to eastern part, had an absolute Polish-speaking majority of 96% (ca. 2,56 million).

Population of Eastern Galicia was in 39,75% Polish-speaking and in 58,92% Ruthenian-speaking.

Entire Galicia (West + East) had 58,6% Polish-speaking majority (ca. 4,7 million out of a population of ca. 8,0 million).

Below is the data for Eastern Galicia by county (red squares = counties with Polish-speaking majority in 1910):



Primary source for this data is:

Oesterreichische Statistik, N.F., Bd.1, H.1: 1910

Wisimir said:

^ Do you have a similar map showing Polish-speakers living outside the Second Polish Republic? Would you call Romer's map (1939) quite accurate - link?

Polish Autonomous Districts

Poles in Bukovina

Poles in Silesia

Poles in Germany

Poles in Zakrzewo

Poster from 1937

Poles in Lithuania

Poles in USSR

Poles in Zaolzie - Poręba, Karwina, Jabłonków

Afaik, Poles in Germany, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, etc. were very numerous.

Click to expand...

Domen said:

Later I will post such a map, showing percent of Poles by county compared to modern and interwar Polish borders.

Click to expand...

Here it is - a beta version: