Historical demographics of Poland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Historical demographics of Poland show that in the past, Poland's demographics were much more diverse then at present. For many centuries, until the end of Second World War, Polish population was composed of many significant ethnic minorities.
 |
| History of Poland |
|---|
| Chronology |
|
Until 966 |
| Topics |
|
Culture |
Contents |
[edit] Prehistorical (pre-966)
[edit] Kingdom of Poland (966-1569)
[edit] Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795)
The population of the Commonwealth of Both Nations was never overwhelmingly either Roman Catholic or Polish. The Commonwealth comprised primarily four nations: Lithuanians, Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians (the latter referred usually as the Ruthenians). In 1618, the Commonwealth population of 11,5 millions could be roughly divided into: Poles, 4,5m, Lithuanians, 1,5m, Belorusians (Ruthenians) 2,25m, Ukrainians (the so-called "Volhynians"), 2m, Prussians 0,75m, Livonians 0,5m. This circumstance resulted from Poland's possession of Ukraine and confederation with Lithuania, in both of which countries ethnic Poles were a distinct minority. To be Polish, in the non-Polish lands of the Commonwealth, was then much less an index of ethnicity than of religion and rank; it was a designation largely reserved for the landed noble class (szlachta), which included Poles but also many members of non-Polish origin who converted to Catholicism in increasing numbers with each following generation. For the non-Polish noble such conversion meant a final step of Polonization that followed the adoption of the Polish language and culture.[1] Poland, as the culturally most advanced part of the Commonwealth, with the royal court, the capital, the largest cities, the second-oldest university in Central Europe (after Prague), and the more liberal and democractic social institutions has proven an irrestable magnet for the non-Polish nobility in the Commonwealth.[2]
As a result, in the eastern territories a Polish (or Polonized) aristocracy dominated a peasantry whose great majority was neither Polish nor Roman Catholic. Moreover, the decades of peace brought huge colonization efforts to Ukraine, heightening the tensions among nobles, Jews, Cossacks (traditionally Orthodox), Polish and Ruthenian peasants. The latter, deprived of their native protectors among the Ruthenian nobility, turned for protection to cossacks that facilitated violence that in the end broke the Commonwealth. The tensions were aggravated by conflicts between Eastern Orthodoxy and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church following the Union of Brest, overall discrimination of Orthodox religions by dominant Catholicism[3], and several Cossack uprisings. In the west and north, many cities had sizable German minorities, often belonging to Reformed churches. The Commonwealth had also one of the largest Jewish diasporas in the world.
Until the Reformation, the szlachta were mostly Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. However, many families quickly adopted the Reformed religion. After the Counter-Reformation, when the Roman Catholic Church regained power in Poland, the szlachta became almost exclusively Roman Catholic, despite the fact that Roman Catholicism was not a majority religion (the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches counted approximately 40% of the population each, while the remaining 20% were Jews and members of various Protestant churches). It should be noted that the Counter-Reformation in Poland, influenced by the Commonwealth tradition of religious tolerance, was based mostly on Jesuit propaganda, and was very peaceful when compared to excesses such as the Thirty Years' War elsewhere in Europe.
[edit] Partitions (1795-1918)
In Russian partition, the Pale of Settlement resulted in resettlement of many Russian Jews to the western fringes of Russian Empire, which now included part of Poland. This further increased the sizable community of Polish Jews.
[edit] Second Polish Republic (1918-1939)
Before World War II the Polish lands were noted for the richness and variety of their ethnic communities. After Poland gained its independence in 1921, a large part of its population was some type of minority or another. The census of that year allocates 30.8% of the population in the minority.[4]
In 1931 Poland had the second largest Jewish population in the world, and one-fifth of all Jews resided within Poland's borders (approx. 3,136,000, roughly 10% of the entire Polish population).[4] Norman Davies gives the results of Polish 1931 national census as follows[5]
- Poles, 68.9% of the population
- Ukrainians, 13.9%
- Jews, 8.7%
- Belarusians, 3.1%
- Germans, 2.3%
In the southeast, Ukrainian settlements were present in the regions east of Chełm and in the Carpathians east of Nowy Sącz. The three main native higlander populations were Łemkowie, Bojkowie and Huculi.
In all the towns and cities there were large concentrations of Yiddish-speaking Jews. The Polish ethnographic area stretched eastward: in Lithuania, Belarus, and western Ukraine, all of which had a mixed population, Poles predominated not only in the cities but also in numerous rural districts. There were significant Polish minorities in Daugavpils (in Latvia), Minsk (in Belarus), and Kyiv (in Ukraine) (see Polish minority in the Soviet Union).
[edit] Second World War (1939-1945)
- See supplements: Treatment of the Polish citizens by the occupants, Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles, Holocaust in Poland
In the beginning of the war (September, 1939) the territory of Poland was divided between the Nazi Germany and the USSR. By the late-1941 the Soviets were overrun by Nazi Germany over entire territory of the former Second Polish Republic but the 1944-1945 the Red Army's offensive drove the Nazi forces out.
After both occupiers divided the territory of Poland between themselves, they conducted a series of actions aimed at suppression of Polish culture and and repression of much of the Polish people. Over 6 million Polish citizens - nearly 21.4% of Poland's population - died between 1939 and 1945. [3] Over 90% of the death toll came through non-military losses, as most of the civilians were targeted by various deliberate actions by Germans and Soviets. [4]
The majority of Polish Jews were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust; many others emigrated in the succeeding years.
[edit] Post-Second World War (1945-present)
[edit] Early post-war period
Before World War II, a third of Poland's population was composed of ethnic minorities. After the war, however, Poland's minorities were all but gone, due to the 1945 revision of borders, and the Holocaust that resulted in the extermination of the vast majority of Poland's Jews. Under the National Repatriation Office (Państwowy Urząd Repatriacyjny), millions of Poles were forced to leave their homes in the eastern Kresy region and settle in the western former German territories. At the same time, according to the provisions of the Potsdam Agreement, approximately 5 million remaining Germans (about 8 million had already fled or had been expelled and about 1 million had been killed in 1944-46) were similarly expelled from those territories into the post-war borders of Germany. Ukrainian and Belarusian minorities found themselves now mostly within the borders of the Soviet Union; those who opposed this new policy (like the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the Bieszczady Mountains region) were suppressed by the end of 1947 in the "Wisła" Action.
The population of Jews in Poland, which formed the largest Jewish community in pre-war Europe at about 3.5 million people, was all but destroyed by 1945. Approximately 3 million Jews (all but about 300,000 to 500,000 of the Jewish population) died of starvation in ghettos and labor camps, were slaughtered at the Nazi extermination camps or by the Einsatzgruppen death squads. Between 40,000 and 100,000 Polish Jews survived the Holocaust in Poland, and another 50,000 to 170,000 were repatriated from the Soviet Union, and 20,000 to 40,000 from Germany and other countries. At its postwar peak, there were 180,000 to 240,000 Jews in Poland, settled mostly in Warsaw, Łódź, Kraków and Wrocław.
The position of Jews in postwar Poland was precarious. Many of the Holocaust survivors shared the common fate of other people in post-war Communist Poland, and were not able to reclaim their property upon return. There were incidents of Jews who were returning to their old homes being attacked by people who had moved into their homes during the war. Jews were also sometimes associated with the Communists, as some Jews who returned from the Soviet Union, including Hilary Minc and Party security and ideological chief Jakub Berman, assumed prominent positions in Communist leadership and were as a result held responsible for the regime's repressions by many Poles. These issues fed into existing anti-Semitism, culminating in the Kielce pogrom of July 1946. Sparked by falsified rumors of Jewish blood libel, a crowd attacked a building housing Jews preparing to emigrate to Palestine while the police stood by and watched—even assisting in some cases—killing over 40 and wounding approximately 50. Afterwards, the Communists, anti-Communists and Catholic Church all blamed each other for this outbreak of violence. Kielce became a turning point for the Jews in post-war Poland. Until the pogrom, large numbers of Polish Jews had intended to stay in the country, despite the general Zionist feeling after the war. After the pogrom, the majority of Jews wanted to leave—the number of Jews crossing the border illegally skyrocketed, going from an average of 1,000 a month prior to July 1946 to over 20,000 a month for the three months afterwards. In total, 100,000 to 120,000 Jews left Poland between 1945 and 1948. Their departure was largely organized by the Zionist activists in Poland, such as Adolf Berman and Yitzhak Zuckerman, under the umbrella of a semi-clandestine organization, Berihah ("Flight"). A second wave of Jewish emigration (50,000) took place during the liberalization of the Communist regime between 1957 and 1959.
[edit] Current situation
- For more details on this topic, see Demographics of Poland.
Most Germans were removed from Poland at the end of the war, while many Ukrainians and Belarusians lived in territories incorporated into the USSR. Small Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak, and Lithuanian minorities reside along the borders, and a German minority is concentrated near the southwestern city of Opole and in masuria. Groups of Ukrainians and Polish Ruthenians also live in western Poland, where they were forcefully resettled by communists.
As a result of the migrations and the Soviet Unions radically altered borders under the rule of Joseph Stalin, the population of Poland became one of the most ethnically homogeneous in the world. Virtually all people in Poland claim Polish nationality, with Polish as their native tongue. Ukrainians, the largest minority group, are scattered in various northern districts. Lesser numbers of Belarusians and Lithuanians live in areas adjoining Belarus and Lithuania. The Jewish community, almost entirely Polonized, has been greatly reduced. In Silesia a significant segment of the population, of mixed Polish and German ancestry, tends to declare itself as Polish or German according to political circumstances.
Minorities of Germans remain in their little homeland of Pomerania, Silesia, East Prussia, and Lubus.
Small populations of Polish Tartars still exist and still practice Islam. Some Polish towns, mainly in northeastern Poland have mosques. Tartars arrived as mercenary soldiers beginning in the late 1300s. The Tartar population reached approximately 100,000 in 1630 but is less than 5,000 in 2000. See also Islam in Poland.
[edit] Urban demographics
- Note that this table contains information on some cities that are not currently within the borders of Poland, and others that have not been in Poland's borders for many centuries. See Territorial changes of Poland after World War II for more details on that issue.
[edit] References
|
