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Polish communities in Eastern Europe

T

Tomenable

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Location
Poland
Ethnic group
Polish
Y-DNA haplogroup
R1b-L617
mtDNA haplogroup
W6a
Ethnic Poles outside of the borders of present-day Poland:

1. Before WW2:

South Kresy* - 2,249,703 Poles**** (1931 Polish census)
North Kresy** - 1,663,888 Poles*** (1931 Polish census)
Soviet Belarus - 97,498 Poles (1926 Soviet census)
Soviet Ukraine - 476,435 Poles (1926 Soviet census)
Lithuania - 202,026 Poles (1923 votes for Polish Party)
Latvia - 59,374 Poles (1930 Latvian census)
Estonia - 1,608 Poles (1934 Estonian census)
Soviet Russia - 197,827 Poles (1926 Soviet census)
Czech Silesia - 200,000 Poles (1939 Polish data)

*Today Western Ukraine, before WW2 this area was part of Poland.
**Today Western Belarus & South Lithuania, in Poland before WW2.

***This 1,663,888 included, by religion: 1,358,029 Roman Catholic Poles, 281,331 Orthodox & Greek Catholic Poles, 9,011 Jewish Poles, 15,517 other Poles. Non-Polish Roman Catholics were 154,449. The number of Orthodox and Greek Catholic Poles could be artificially inflated (same in South Kresy).

****Of whom 1,765,765 Roman Catholic Poles (other Poles were not counted by Piotr Eberhardt):

9LMM7iD.png


See also: https://konsnard.wordpress.com/2011...na-czesci-kresow-obecnie-w-granicach-ukrainy/

Total: ca. 5.1 million (or 4.4 million if counting only Roman Catholic Poles)

2. After WW2:

Belarus - 538,881 Poles (1959 Soviet census)
Ukraine - 363,297 Poles (1959 Soviet census)
Lithuania - 230,107 Poles (1959 Soviet census)
Latvia - 59,774 Poles (1959 Soviet census)
Estonia - 2,256 Poles (1959 Soviet census)
Rest of the USSR - 185,967 (1959 census)
Czechoslovakia - 66,540 Poles (1961 census)

Total: ca. 1.5 million (according to unofficial estimates, more stayed there)
 
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Here is a map of the areas in question:
2 = South Kresy (now Western Ukraine)
1a = North Kresy (now Western Belarus)
1b = North Kresy (now South Lithuania)
1.2 = Soviet Belarus (now East Belarus)
2.2 = Soviet Ukraine (Central-East Ukraine)
1.3 = pre-WW2 Lithuania + Memelland
1.4 = Latvia as well as Estonia
3 = Soviet Russia (rest of the USSR)
dhbRrl6.png

Czech Silesia (areas west of Olza River):
https://polona.pl/item/wojewodztwo-slaskie-podzialka-1-400-000,MTM4ODcwOTc/0/#info:metadata
Těšínsko+a+Zaolzie.jpg
 
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Ethnic structure of some Kresy cities before WW2 and today:

8PDIaW1.png


^^^
Lvov was the 3rd largest city of Poland in 1931, after Warsaw & Łódź:

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasta_w_II_Rzeczypospolitej


Polish garrison of Lwów, under Gen. Władysław Langner, surrendered to the Soviet Red Army on 22.09.1939 afternoon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Władysław_Langner

The city was defended against Germans (since 12.09.39) & later against the Soviets with Germans (since 18/19.09.39):


==========

1938 film with English subtitles about the Jewish community of Lwów:

 
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About 15% of citizens of Poland today (ca. 6 million people) declare full or partial Eastern ancestry.

Distribution in modern Poland (by region) of Poles with ancestry from former Polish Eastern Lands:

nijxyZJ.png


Sources: a 2012 survey by CBOS, 1950 census and Leszek Kosiński's publications from the 1960s.
 
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^^^
The calculation below is based on the same data as my map of Polish people in the 19th century:


2153px-Poles_19_century.png


The number of Poles in Kresy (areas east of today's Poland) in years 1897 and 1900 were:

Grodno Governorate* - 1121808 inhabitants including 248496 Poles (22.2%)
Vilno Governorate - 1591207 inhabitants including 747187 Poles (47.0%)
Minsk Governorate - 2147621 inhabitants including 414141 Poles (19.3%)
Vitebsk Governorate - 1489246 inhabitants including 200389 Poles (13.5%)
Kovno Governorate - 1544564 inhabitants including 187011 Poles (12.1%)
Suwalki Governorate** - 328865 inhabitants including 14581 Poles (4.4%)
Courland Governorate - 674034 inhabitants including 29595 Poles (4.4%)
Mogilev Governorate - 1686764 inhabitants including 65617 Poles (3.9%)
Livonia Governorate - 1299365 inhabitants including 16041 Poles (1.2%)
Smolensk Governorate - 1525279 inhabitants including 7720 Poles (0.5%)
Estonia Governorate - 412716 inhabitants including 1290 Poles (0.3%)

Volhynia Governorate - 2989482 inhabitants including 293528 Poles (9.8%)
Podolia Governorate - 3018299 inhabitants including 268872 Poles (8.9%)
Kiev Governorate - 3279534 inhabitants including 84346 Poles (2.6%)
Bessarabia Governorate - 1935412 inhabitants including 12943 Poles (0.7%)
Chernigov Governorate - 2297854 inhabitants including 3454 Poles (0.2%)
Poltava Governorate - 2778151 inhabitants including 4391 Poles (0.2%)
Kherson Governorate - 2733612 inhabitants including 42247 Poles (1.5%)

East Galicia*** - 4001344 inhabitants including 896058 Poles (22.4%)
Bukovina (1910 data) - 794929 inhabitants including 36210 Poles (4.6%)

*Only eastern part (east of the Curzon Line) which is not in Poland today.
**Only northern part, which is part of Lithuania and not in Poland today.
***Only part which is within Ukraine since 1945 and not part of Poland.

Total in Kresy (Russian & Austrian parts): ca. 3,574,117 Poles as of 1897/1900.

=====

Here is a map showing territories which were included in calculations posted above:

L8bD70c.png
 
Here I marked the area in question where around 3.5 million Poles lived as of years 1897-1900:

7qRckGL.png
 
For Kiev Governorate I must correct my data because I forgot to add Berdychiv County.

Here are the corrected numbers:

Kiev Governorate - 3559229 inhabitants including 112315 Poles (3.2%)
 
Percentages of ethnic Poles in various governorates of Russian Kresy according to five sources:

Source: Plater 1825 / Erckert 1850s / Boeckh 1858-59 / my map / Lucjusz Dura 1916

Belostok Oblast -------- 85.0% / xxxxx / xxxxx / 54.2% / 51.0%
Grodno Governorate -- 35.0% / 32.3% / 25.5% / 22.2% / 19.0%
Vilno Governorate* ---- 12.5% / 24.74% / 21.1% / 47.0% / 49.5%
Kovno Governorate ---- xxxxx / 3.20% / 3.24% / 12.1% / 12.2%
Minsk Governorate ---- 10.0% / 18.0% / 18.76% / 19.3% / 10.5%
Vitebsk Governorate -- 3.75% / 10.23% / 9.0% / 13.5% / 9.9%
Mogilev Governorate -- 5.56% / 4.61% / 4.53% / 3.9% / 3.4%

North-Western Krai total - 15.8% / 15.4% / 13.7% / 21.1% / 18.2%

Podolia Governorate ----- 22.1% / 12.2% / 12.63% / 8.9% / 9.2%
Volhynia Governorate ---- 15.4% / 11.5% / 12.2% / 9.8% / 9.9%
Kiev Governorate ---------- 9.1% / 4.1% / 4.68% / 3.2% / 3.4%

South-Western Krai total - 16.0% / 9.0% / 9.5% / 7.1% / 7.3%

Courland Governorate --- xxxxx / 2.3% / 2.57% / 4.4% / 4.5%
Livonia Governorate ----- xxxxx / xxxxx / 0.43% / 1.2% / xxxxx
Estonia Governorate ----- xxxxx / xxxxx / 0.27% / 0.3% / xxxxx

*In 1825 Vilno Governorate included future Kovno Governorate so they are reported together.

As for Belostok Oblast, Plater wrongly assumed that all peasants there were Roman Catholic.
 
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