The Polish census of 1931 or Second General Census in Poland (Polish: Drugi Powszechny Spis Ludności) was the second census taken in Poland, performed on December 9, 1931 by the Main Bureau of Statistics.[1] It established that Poland's population amounted to over 32 million people (over 5 millions more than in the previous census of 1921).
The census was organised following the rules established by an act of the Polish Parliament 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.[2] 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.
Contents |
The allocation of the Polish, German and other population is by the primary language 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.[3]
| Voivodeship | Area, км² | Total | Polish | Ukrainian | Jews | Belorusian | German | Local |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wilno | 29,011 | 1,275,900 | 761,700 | 108,800 | 289,700 | 1,400 | 66,800 | |
| Nowogródek | 22,966 | 1,057,100 | 553,900 | 77,000 | 413,500 | 400 | 2,500 | |
| Białystok | 26,036 | 1,263,300 | 845,148 | 152,859 | 205,918 | 7,300 | 13,100 | |
| Polesie | 36,668 | 1,132,200 | 164,169 | 54,047 | 113,220 | 75,338 | 1,100 | 707,088 |
| Wołyń | 35,960 | 2,085,574 | 346,640 | 1,426,872 | 205,545 | 2,417 | 46,883 | 30,977 |
| Tarnopol | 16,500 | 1,600,406 | 789,114 | 728,932 | 78,932 | 2,675 | ||
| Stanisławów | 16,900 | 1,480,285 | 332,175 | 1,018,878 | 109,378 | 16,737 | ||
| Lwów | 28,402 | 3,126,300 | 1,803,436 | 1,047,311 | 234,472 | 15,632 | ||
| Lublin | 26,555 | 2,116,200 | 1,843,436 | 75,817 | 227,451 | 19,496 | ||
| Kraków | 17,560 | 2,300,100 | 2,099,991 | 69,003 | 128,806 | 11,500 | ||
| Silesia | 4,320 | 1,295,000 | 1,195,285 | 6,475 | 90,650 | |||
| Kielce | 22,204 | 2,671,000 | 2,374,519 | 285,797 | 8,013 | |||
| Warsaw | 31,656 | 2,460,900 | 2,172,975 | 238,707 | 39,374 | |||
| city of Warsaw | 141 | 1,179,500 | 833,907 | 333,800 | 8,327 | |||
| Łódź | 20,446 | 2,650,100 | 2,146,581 | 365,714 | 129,855 | |||
| Poznań | 28,089 | 2,339,600 | 2,117,338 | 44,452 | 173,130 | |||
| Pomerania | 25,683 | 1,884,400 | 1,658,872 | 30,150 | 190,324 | |||
| Total | 31,915,900 | 22,102,723 | 4,441,000 | 2,822,501 | 989,900 | 741,000 | 707,100 |
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 religion to classify the respondents, rather than nationality. The 1921 census 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.[4] Moreover, many Jews considered Polish to be their mother tongue.[5]
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 seriously under-represented, as over 707,000 people declared they speak "local" rather than any other language.[6][7] Other authors used approximation based on both language and declared religion.[8][7] After World War II 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, Belarusians, Rusyns, Hutsuls, Lemkos, Boykos and Poleszuks) into one category of "Ruthenians".[9]
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[5][10][11] and represented an attempt to maximize the effects of a decade of educational policies stressing the Polish language.[12] Tadeusz Piotrowski 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.[13]
After World War II the pre-war chairman of the Polish census statistical office, Edward Szturm de Sztrem, 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.[5][14]