Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#166

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 04 Dec 2015, 15:05

Areas with ethnic Polish Roman Catholic absolute majority in Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia according to M. Kowalski and P. Eberhardt:

First map (from Mariusz Kowalski):

Light + dark = Polish majority in ca. year 1920
Dark alone = Polish majority in ca. year 2000

Second map (from Piotr Eberhardt):

C = Polish majority before the census of 1959
B = Polish majority before the census of 1999
A = still Polish majority in the 21st century

Image

Image

Changes between 1945/1947 and the census of 1959 for a few counties in Belarus:

Amount of ethnic Russians increased the most (between ~6 times and ~17 times):

Image

And the consequences of importing Russian settlers to former Polish habitats are such:

http://stara.belsat.eu/en/articles/unde ... a-borders/

^^
"Under Ukrainian scenario: Russian nationalists want revision of Belarus-Russia borders"
"Everyone knows that in 1954 Crimea was illegally transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR, many people heard that the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic joined Soviet Ukraine in 1918, but few know that regions of Vitsebsk, Mahiliou and Homiel, previously owned by the Russian Federation, were forced into the Byelorussian SSR. Vitsebsk, Mahiliou and Homiel were transferred to Soviet Byelorussia as a sack of potatoes," the article says. (...)

"If Comrade Lukashenko keeps sticking to this heresy, one cannot rule out that people's republics will arise in the east (and then, perhaps, in the west) of the Republic of Belarus,” the author stresses.

He also predicts that these ‘Bolshevik gifts’ [territories] that the Byelorussian SSR got in 1924 and 1926 will be recognised illegal.

Kiryl Aviaryanau-Minski has repeatedly published his articles on ‘Sputnik i Pogrom’. Its editor-in-chief Yegor Prosvirnin called on Russia to seize or even destroy Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
http://stara.belsat.eu/en/articles/noto ... azakhstan/
"The return of Novorossiya [New Russia], Malorossiya [Ukraine / Small Russia], Byelorussia [Belarus / White Russia] and South Siberia (the so-called “Northern Kazakhstan”), which is still home to tens of millions of Russian people, is part of building of a Russian nation-state", Yegor Prosvirnin declares.

"The so-called “Ukraine”, “Belarus” and “Kazakhstan” (artificial state formations created by the Bolsheviks) are alien nation-states implementing alien national projects, and sooner or later Russians who still live there will get assimilated", he stresses.

Taking into account the undeclared war in Ukraine, these calls to invade Belarus do not seem strange or fantastic. Gleb Pavlovsky, a Russian political analyst, who worked the Kremlin project, has suggested that Belarus will share the fate of Ukraine (...)
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#167

Post by 4thskorpion » 08 Dec 2015, 17:09

Peter K wrote:Areas with ethnic Polish Roman Catholic absolute majority in Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia according to M. Kowalski and P. Eberhardt:
Are there similar demographic maps for the same area prior to Kowalski's 1920?

1900 - 1919 for example?


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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#168

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 08 Dec 2015, 17:40

Yes, for example German censuses in 1916, 1917, Polish census in 1919. Various local counts.

Kowalski's data is from this period of ca. 1900 - ca. 1919 in fact (since there was no census in 1920).

There is no data for all regions from a single year, but for distinct regions from different years.

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

In 1900-1919 in Belarus generally over 95% of Catholics (as well as some Non-Catholics) could be regarded as Poles.

Even today - after many decades of De-Polonization following the end of WW2 - 95% of Catholics in the Grodno Oblast and in the Diocese of Grodno (according to two independent studies, one from 2000 and one from 2003) declare Polish ancestry, while in entire Belarus as a whole 82% of Catholics declare Polish ancesty (of them 66% declare fully Polish ancestry and 16% mixed Polish-Belarusian).

This is the 2000 study on identity of Catholics in the Grodno Oblast, by the University of Grodno:

Image

And the other study (or rather survey) is from 2003 and deals not just with Grodno Oblast, but with all of Belarus.

According to 2003 study, even in pre-1939 Soviet Belarus (Archdiocese of Minsk-Mogilev) 73% of Catholics still declare Polish ancestry today.

Interestingly, post-WW2 censuses in Belarus constantly report a large number of Catholics as ethnic Belarusians, suggesting that either these censuses are falsified, or that many people consider their Polishness to be just "ancestry" - and not their current identity. On the other hand, while these recent censuses apparently report inflated numbers of Belarusian Catholic (who are in fact Poles - or at least their grandparents were Poles), they also show, that in some counties of Belarus number of ethnic Poles is higher than number of Catholics.

So Polish identity in Belarus is not totally restricted just to Catholics alone, even today.

Let's also note that in Belarus today, language does not correspond to ethnicity - because most of people who declare being Belarusians, speak Russian today, while most of people who declare being Poles, speak Belarusian today. That was not always the case:

According to 1959 census, 93% of ethnic Belarusians spoke Belarusian, 7% spoke Russian, 0% other languages.

And just 50 years later:

According to 2009 census, 26% of ethnic Belarusians speak Belarusian, 70% speak Russian, 4% other languages.

Also among ethnic Poles, Polish was the main language in the past, but now they have shifted to Belarusian and Russian.

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

According to 1959 census (first post-WW2 census) in Belarus, languages of some minority groups were:

Poles - 49% spoke Polish, 47% spoke Belarusian, 4% spoke Russian
Jews - 22% spoke Jewish (Yiddish or Hebrew), 76% spoke Russian
Ukrainians - 47% spoke Ukrainian, 8% Belarusian and 45% Russian
Russians - 100% of ethnic Russians in Belarus in 1959 spoke Russian

Paradoxically, today people who declare being ethnic Poles, are the last "stronghold" of Belarusian language. The majority of people who declare Belarusian ethnicity, have forgotten their ancestral language, switching to Russian. Perhaps in few decades they will also forget their Belarusian identity, start to identify as Russians and something similar to the crisis in Ukraine might erupt in East Belarus.

Belarus as a nation-state is weak, because Belarusian national identity / nationalism has never been strong.
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#169

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 25 Mar 2016, 12:04

I found the following data about ethnic & religious structure of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in year 1789 (before the 2nd Partition):

Total population ------- ca. 3,85 million

Religious structure:

Uniates -------------- 39% (1,5 million)
Roman Catholics ---- 38% (1,47 million)
Jews ----------------- 10% (0,385 million)
Orthodoxes ---------- 7% (0,25 million)
Old Believers -------- 3,6% (0,14 million)
Protestants ---------- 1,5% (0,06 million)
Muslims & Karaites - 1,0% (0,04 million)

Ethnic structure:

Belarusians --------- 37% (1,42 million)
Poles ---------------- 26% (1,01 million)
Lithuanians --------- 20% (0,77 million)
Jews ---------------- 10% (0,385 million)
Russians ------------ 3,6% (0,14 million)
others* ------------- 3,4% (0,13 million)

*Mostly Germans, Karaites and Latvians.

In areas lost by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to Russia in 1772 (First Partition) there were 1,2 million people and 82% of them were Belarusians (3,4% were Russians).

Another estimate says that Lithuanians were almost 35% of the population of the Grand Duchy in 1790 (around 155,000 Lithuanian households out of 451,132 households in total), and less than 25% before 1772 (when mostly ethnically Belarusian lands were lost).

In 1790 the nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania inhabited 100 palaces, 494 urban houses, 9331 large manor houses and 13890 rural houses.

Sources:

Pages 30-31: http://ngoteka.pl/bitstream/handle/item ... sequence=1

Pages 263-264: http://zbc.uz.zgora.pl/Content/20013/Przemiany_druk.pdf

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

According to V. M. Kabuzan (his books published in 1990 and 2008), in year 1795 there were ca. 1,5 million Slavic-speaking Roman Catholics - roughly equivalent with people identifying as ethnic Poles - in lands taken by Russia from Poland-Lithuania in years 1772-1795 (so this does not include Roman Catholics in Eastern Galicia, which was taken by Austria - but it does include those in the region of Volhynia). The number of nobility in the same territory in year 1795 - most of whom but not all were Roman Catholics - was around 546,500 according to V. M. Kabuzan (another source says that over 500,000). Nobility usually identified as Poles, even if they weren't Roman Catholics.

Borders of Prussia (blue) and Austria (red) in year 1795, after the 3rd Partition of the PLC:
Prussia Austria 1795.png
Prussia Austria 1795.png (135.45 KiB) Viewed 4065 times
Source of the map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdpuTqZC8t8
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#170

Post by Futurist » 25 Sep 2016, 09:12

Peter K wrote:
4thskorpion wrote:Did you find the Jewish demographic data on Vilna
Yes I have found this data again:

Jewish population of Vilna / total population of Vilna / and Polish population of Vilna:

1897 - 61,847 Jews (40,0%) / total population 154,532 / number of Poles was falsified *
1910 - 75,500 Jews (41,3%) / total population 182,795 / including 97,800 Poles (53,5%)
1916 - 61,265 Jews (43,5%) / total population 140,890 / including 70,629 Poles (50,2%)
1917 - 57,516 Jews (41,5%) / total population 138,787 / including 74,466 Poles (53,7%)

* Many Roman Catholic Poles were counted as Great Russian-speakers or White Russian-speakers.

In this data above, figures for Jews are based on religion - i.e. believers of Judaism (and some of them were Polonised).

If counting Jews by national identity (Jewish nationality) or mother tongue (Yiddish + Hebrew), it was a smaller percent.

Now Polish data from the Inter-War period:

1923 - 55,437 Jews (33,1%) / total population 167,545 / including 100,830 Poles (60,2%)
1931 - 54,606 Jews (28,0%) / total population 195,071 / including 128,628 Poles (66,0%)

Figure of Jews from 1931 - 54,606 - is based on languages (Yiddish + Hebrew), religious composition of the city was:

Judaism believers - 55,006 (28,2%)
Roman Catholics - 125,999 (64,6%)
Orthodox people - 9,321 (4,8%)
Protestant people - 1,752 (0,9%)
Other Christians - 2,132 (1,1%)
Greek Catholics - 277 (0,1%)
Other & not stated - 584 (0,3%)

And also figures from censuses after the end of WW2 (1959 - after the deportation of most of Poles westward):

According to 1959 census (Soviet census):

Total population: 236,100 - including:

Lithuanians - 79,400 (34%)
Russians - 69,400 (29%)
Poles - 47,200 (20%)
Jews - 16,400 (7%)
Belarusians - 14,700 (6%)
Others - 9,000 (4%)

And also Lithuanian census from 2001:

Total population: 553,904 - including:

Lithuanians - 318,510 (57,5%)
Poles - 104,446 (18,9%)
Russians - 77,698 (14,0%)
Belarusians - 22,555 (4,1%)
Jews - 2,770 (0,5%)
Others - 27,925 (5,0%)

Compared to what you quoted:
The Jewish population of Vilna swelled to roughly 63,000 (41% of the total population) in 1897, to 76,000 in 1901 (46%), to 85,000 in 1903 (52%), and to perhaps as many as 100,000 in 1905 (51%).
Figures from 1901, 1903 and 1905 seem to be exaggerated.

But at least figure from 1897 is close to the truth.

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

Percent and number of Lithuanians in the city of Wilno/Vilnius:

1897 census - 2,0% (3,131 Lithuanians out of 154,532)
1916 census - 2,6% (3,699 Lithuanians out of 140,890)
1917 census - 2,1% (2,909 Lithuanians out of 138,787)
1931 census - 0,8% (1,579 Lithuanians out of 195,021)
1959 census - 33,6% (79,400 Lithuanians out of 236,100)
2001 census - 57,5% (318,510 Lithuanians out of 553,904)

Vilnius became a majority-Lithuanian city around year 2000 AD.

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

In 1897 Wilno was about as much Lithuanian, as Breslau was Polish in 1900 - let's compare:

Breslau 1900 census - 2,0% Polish (8,466 Polish-speakers out of 422,709 total population)
Wilno 1897 census - 2,0% Lithuanian (3,131 Lithuanian-speakers out of 154,532 total pop.)


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

Overall ethnic trends from 1897 to 2011 (numbers from 1897 as reported in the census):

The decline of Russians from 1897 to 1910 was because those were Catholic Poles, counted as Russian-speakers in 1897:

Vilnius 2.png
Where exactly is this 1910 data from, though?

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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#171

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 10 Oct 2016, 08:44

Futurist wrote:Where exactly is this 1910 data from, though?
I don't remember where I took it from, but it can be found for example in this article:

http://www.kworum.com.pl/art4080,polskie_wilno.html
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#172

Post by michael mills » 16 Oct 2016, 06:06

I found the following data about ethnic & religious structure of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in year 1789 (before the 2nd Partition):

Total population ------- ca. 3,85 million

Religious structure:

Uniates -------------- 39% (1,5 million)
Roman Catholics ---- 38% (1,47 million)
Jews ----------------- 10% (0,385 million)
Orthodoxes ---------- 7% (0,25 million)
Old Believers -------- 3,6% (0,14 million)
Protestants ---------- 1,5% (0,06 million)
Muslims & Karaites - 1,0% (0,04 million)

Ethnic structure:

Belarusians --------- 37% (1,42 million)
Poles ---------------- 26% (1,01 million)
Lithuanians --------- 20% (0,77 million)
Jews ---------------- 10% (0,385 million)
Russians ------------ 3,6% (0,14 million)
others* ------------- 3,4% (0,13 million)

*Mostly Germans, Karaites and Latvians.
What was the basis for the so-called "ethnic structure" of the population of the Kunigaikstyste, as opposed to the "religious structure"?

Was it native language? Was there a census in 1789?

The "religious structure" would be easy enough to ascertain, since all the inhabitants of the Kunigaikstyste belonged to a religious community recognised by the State, mostly one of the Christian sects with some non-Christian minorities.

However, in 1789 there was no official recognition of ethnic groups. The official name of the Polish-Lithuanian State was the "Commonwealth of the Two Nations" (Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodow), the "two nations" being political nations, not ethnic ones, ie the nobilities of the Korona and the Kunigaikstyste respectively. The bulk of the population that did not belong to the nobility did not belong officially to any nationality.

If the criterion for the "ethnic structure" of the population on 1789 was native or habitual language, then that criterion did not indicate a definitive Polish identity, since in 1789 Polish was the language of administration and culture in the Kunigaikstyste, and was spoken by all members of the nobility, by the urban population, and by all educated people, no matter what their origin or religious adherence. Thus, the habitual language of Uniate members of the nobility, living in what is now Belarus, would have been Polish rather than Belarusian, which had sunk to the level of a peasant dialect, despite having been the chancery language of the Kunigaikstyste before the Union of Lublin in 1569.

For example, Mickiewicz spoke Polish and wrote his poetry in that language, but he identified his "ojczyzna" as Lithuania, not Poland, being descended from the nobility of the Kunigaikstyste. He was born in what is now Belarus; whether or not he spoke any Belarusian I do not know. According to the Wikipedia article on him, there is some controversy over his ethnicity, whether he was essentially Polish, Lithuanian, or Belarusian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Mickiewicz#Ethnicity

I think the table showing the putative "ethnic structure" of the Kunigaikstyste in 1789 most probably represents a backwards projection of the situation in the early 20th Century, when ethnic identities had become firmly established due to the rise of nationalism during the 19th Century.

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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#173

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 18 Oct 2016, 01:28

Michael,

What makes Adam Mickiewicz less Polish than for example Hindenburg (born in my city) was German? Hindenburg was born in 1847 when Poznań was - since 1815 - the capital of a semi-autonomous Grand Duchy, similar to semi-autonomous Congress Poland. It was only in 1848, after the Spring of Nations, when the special status of the Grand Duchy was abolished and it became Provinz Posen of Prussia. By contrast, when Mickiewicz was born, there was no any Lithuania - not even a semi-autonomous country. It was just a province of Russia.

Mickiewicz identified with Lithuania as a region. We all identify with our regions first, then with nation-states. Perhaps you don't identify with your region, but it is because Australia is a young country which perhaps doesn't have long-established historical regions.

I'm quite sure that Hindenburg identified his "ojczyzna" as Prowincja Poznańska and then Prussia, rather than "Germany". So he identified his "ojczyzna" ("Heimat") in the same way as my ancestors who at that time also lived in the same region. Hindenburg's surname indicates that his family originated from Zabrze in Upper Silesia, so he could be of Polish/Slavic origin. As for Mickiewicz, his native language (not just "lingua franca" as you have indicated) was Polish and he did not write anything in Lithuanian or Belarusian during all of his life.

Mickiewicz's rival - Juliusz Słowacki - was also from "Kresy" and his maternal grandma was likely a Polonized Armenian.
in 1789 Polish was the language of administration and culture in the Kunigaikstyste, and was spoken by all members of the nobility, by the urban population, and by all educated people, no matter what their origin or religious adherence.
Yes, but population which was ethnically Non-Polish spoke it as their secondary language (just like I speak e.g. English).

By contrast population which was ethnically Polish spoke it as their native language. Mickiewicz was in this category.
What was the basis for the so-called "ethnic structure" of the population of the Kunigaikstyste, as opposed to the "religious structure"?
I will check that publication again and see if they provide information about their methods of counting that ethnic data.

the early 20th Century, when ethnic identities had become firmly established due to the rise of nationalism during the 19th Century.

According to Azar Gat's 2013 book "Nations. The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism", various forms of nationalism have existed already since the establishment of first states in human history around the 30th century BC, 5000 years ago:

http://newbooksnetwork.com/azar-gat-nat ... e-up-2013/

In Europe, Gat mentions England, Portugal, Hungary, Denmark and Piast Poland as examples of Medieval nation-states. He doesn't mention Germany, which indicates that perhaps English, Portuguese, Hungarian, Danish and Polish nations are older than German nation. German nation was founded in a similar way as Yugoslav nation, one of differences being that Yugoslav national identity didn't survive.

Judson in his 1993 "Inventing Germanness in the Habsburg Monarchy" indicates that before the rise of that "Pan-German" nationalism, there were German-speaking Czechs (Bohemians), German-speaking Austrians, German-speaking Hungarians - rather than Germans:

https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/56475

Catholic Bavarians for a long time didn't want to have much to do with Protestant Brandenburgians-Prussians. Both groups slandered each other, Bavarians considered Prussians as a bunch of Germanized Slavs & Balts rather than "true Germans" like themselves.

There was such a short Bavarian poem:

Es gibt nur eine Kaiserstadt
es gibt nur ein Wien
es gibt nur ein Räuberloch
das ist Berlin

Today there is a lot of Anti-Bavarian envy in impoverished Protestant parts of North-Eastern Germany. Bavaria is now an economic powerhouse but North Germans call it an "Almshouse" and say that it became rich only thanks to financial aid after World War 2.
The official name of the Polish-Lithuanian State was the "Commonwealth of the Two Nations" (Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodow)
Official name was indeed Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów.

But foreigners (e.g. Western Europeans or Turks) commonly called it "Poland", just like later they called the Soviet Union "Russia".
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#174

Post by michael mills » 18 Oct 2016, 12:46

Judson in his 1993 "Inventing Germanness in the Habsburg Monarchy" indicates that before the rise of that "Pan-German" nationalism, there were German-speaking Czechs (Bohemians), German-speaking Austrians, German-speaking Hungarians - rather than Germans:
Perhaps a similar situation applied in the GDL in 1789, when the nobility of that polity still had a separate identity. That is to say, Polish-speaking members of the nobility and educated urban population of that entity regarded themselves as Polish-speaking Lithuanians (in the political rather than ethno-linguistic sense), rather than as a Poles (again in the political sense).

Although they spoke Polish as their habitual language, and probably had been brought up speaking it, they regarded themselves as belonging to a Lithuanian political entity rather than to a Polish one, in much the same way as the inhabitants of Scotland regard themselves as Scottish rather than English, although they are citizens of the United Kingdom and speak English.

To be sure, the Constitution of 1791 abolished the separate political status of Lithuania, and the designation "Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodow" was replaced by the designation "Rzeczpospolita Polska". However, the Great Sejm enacted an addendum to the Constitution, the "Mutual Pledge of Two Nations", guaranteeing the rights of the GDL within the unitary state. The very name of that document indicates that the Poles and Lithuanians were recognised as two different political nations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciproca ... wo_Nations
The document defined the federal character of the state and asserted the equal representation within the bodies of state governance of its two constituents (the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania).[7]

The document declared that the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (now to be known as Rzeczpospolita Polska, the Polish Republic, or Polish Commonwealth) remained a union of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It specified that they shared a common government, military and treasury, but Lithuanian tax revenues were to be spent only within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The military and treasury commissions were to have equal numbers of Polish and Lithuanian members and were to be presided over by Polish and Lithuanian officials on an alternating basis. The membership of the Police Commission was to be two-thirds Polish-Crown and one-third Lithuanian.

Poland and Lithuania were to have the same numbers of principal officials.

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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#175

Post by Piotr Kapuscinski » 18 Oct 2016, 18:22

michael mills wrote:Perhaps a similar situation applied in the GDL in 1789, when the nobility of that polity still had a separate identity. That is to say, Polish-speaking members of the nobility and educated urban population of that entity regarded themselves as Polish-speaking Lithuanians (in the political rather than ethno-linguistic sense), rather than as a Poles (again in the political sense).
Are you sure that they still had a separate identity as late 1789? But did they identify with Lithuanian-speaking and Belarusian-speaking peasants? Most of the former nobility of the Grand Duchy now live in present-day Poland. They came here after 1945 as ethnic Poles. If you read biographies of various noble families of the Grand Duchy, you will notice that more than half of them live in Poland today.

Also the majority of Polish-speaking urban population, from cities like Vilnius or Lviv, ended up in Poland after WW2. On the other hand, a very large Polish minority led by Waldemar Tomaszewski still exists in Lithuania today (as well as in Belarus), but they are descended from Roman Catholic peasants, who were held back by Soviet authorities, who believed that it would be very easy to De-Polonize them.

Today 1/5 - 1/4 of Vilnius are ethnic Poles, but they are not descended from the original pre-1945 Polish urban population. Rather, they are descendants of peasants who migrated from neighbouring villages to Vilnius after WW2, together with Lithuanian peasants.
There are words which carry the presage of defeat. Defence is such a word. What is the result of an even victorious defence? The next attempt of imposing it to that weaker, defender. The attacker, despite temporary setback, feels the master of situation.

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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#176

Post by henryk » 18 Oct 2016, 20:53

Michael Mills said:
To be sure, the Constitution of 1791 abolished the separate political status of Lithuania, and the designation "Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodow" was replaced by the designation "Rzeczpospolita Polska". However, the Great Sejm enacted an addendum to the Constitution, the "Mutual Pledge of Two Nations", guaranteeing the rights of the GDL within the unitary state. The very name of that document indicates that the Poles and Lithuanians were recognised as two different political nations.
The Polish and English Wiki differ.
The change in title is not given in neither the Polish or English Wiki presentations on the Constitution:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitut ... 1[quote]To further enhance the Commonwealth's integration and security, the constitution abolished the erstwhile union of Poland and Lithuania in favor of a unitary state.[49][100] Its full establishment, supported by Stanisław August and Kołlątaj, was opposed by many Lithuanian deputies.[100] As a compromise, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania received numerous privileges guaranteeing its continued existence.[100] Related acts included the Deklaracja Stanów Zgromadzonych (Declaration of the Assembled Estates) of May 5, 1791, confirming the Government Act adopted two days earlier, and the Zaręczenie Wzajemne Obojga Narodów (Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations, i.e., of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) of October 22, 1791, affirming the unity and indivisibility of Poland and the Grand Duchy within a single state and their equal representation in state-governing bodies.[76][101] The Reciprocal Guarantee strengthened the Polish–Lithuanian union while keeping many federal aspects of the state intact.[100][102][103][/quote]
So, not unitary, but federal.
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstytucja_3_maja
No mention of the change to a unitary state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciproca ... [quote]The document declared that the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (now to be known as Rzeczpospolita Polska, the Polish Republic, or Polish Commonwealth)
In the view of historians Stanisław Kutrzeba, Oskar Halecki and Bogusław Leśnodorski, the legislation adopted by the Four-Year Sejm, including the Mutual Pledge of the Two Nations, replaced the erstwhile union of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which had existed since the Union of Lublin (1569), with a unitary Polish Commonwealth, or Polish Republic.[/quote]

The change in title is not given in the Polish Wiki, and the historians' opinions are disputed.
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zar%C4%99 ... %B3w[quote]
Goiogle translation

Earlier historians as Stanislaw Kutrzeba, Oskar Halecki or Boguslaw Leśnodorski were of the opinion that the legislation of the Four, including Mutual betrothed, put an end to the existing since 1569. Real union between the Crown of the Polish Kingdom and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania creating a unitary state called the Polish Republic. This view is disputed by recent scholars as Juliusz Bardach (Constitution of May 3 and Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations in The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Warsaw 1998, a series of Acts of Polish nation and state), Grodziski Stanislaw Jerzy Michalski and Jerzy Malec.[/quote]

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henryk
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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#177

Post by henryk » 06 Jan 2017, 22:37

Another measure of the number of ethnic Poles, in present day western Belarus and western Ukraine, is the number of Roman Catholic Parishes in those areas in 1772. See map:
http://mapy.lubgens.eu/1772.html
Mapa sieci parafialnej Rzeczypospolitej AD 1772 (Map of the locations of Roman Catholic Parishes in 1772)(Pre-partition Commonwealth Of Lithuania and Poland)
As most Ukrainians and Belarus at that time were Uniate (GreeK) Catholics, few of them would be attending the parishes noted on the map .Note the number of parishes in present day Latvia, Rumania and Moldova. In present day Silesia and Lithuania, the ethnicity of the parishes can be not be determined, as the ethnic Germans and Lithuanians there were also Roman Catholic.

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wm
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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#178

Post by wm » 07 Jan 2017, 00:31

The map in its glory:
the map.jpg

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Halibutt
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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#179

Post by Halibutt » 13 Mar 2017, 16:36

michael mills wrote:By contrast, not all ethnic Poles were expelled from Vilnius, which still has a substantial Polish minority, as Polish members of this Forum often remind us. That contrast suggests that Poles were more ruthlessly efficient in expelling Germans from Danzig than Lithuanians were in expelling Poles from Vilnius.

So far as I know, the present population of Danzig is entirely of Polish ethnicity, so there is no ethnic diversity there, unlike the situation in Vilnius.
Actually, the current Polish minority in Vilna itself is comprised primarily not of descendants of the original inhabitants, but rather of people from the countryside who moved into the city after the war (along with hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians, Belarusans, and representatives of all other nationalities of the USSR).

The other assertion is mostly right, there's less than 5000 self-declared Germans living in what is now the Pomeranian Voivodeship. Then again the 2011 census did allow for stating the "feeling of attachment towards another nationality" apart from the primary one, and in the powiat of Gdansk, in the town of Przywidz roughly 67 percent fall into that category, but those are mostly Cassubians, not Germans. (source)
Peter K wrote:In the 1700s there was already a Jewish community in Warsaw, so it didn't jump from 0% in 1810 to 19% in 1816.
One has to also bear in mind that the city of Warsaw back then did not form a single municipal organism. While there might have been no Jews in the so-called Old Warsaw, there might have been many of them in the New City, in Praga and in various jurydyka-type settlements formed within the confines of the city, but as separate organisms not subjected to the city law. The best known of such organisms was the short-lived village of Nowa Jerozolima ("New Jerusalem"), started as a commercial enterprise as a safe haven for Jewish merchants who wanted to compete with the Poles of Old Warsaw but couldn't because of the trade union system. The New Jerusalem is the namesake of one of Warsaw's principal streets, the Jerusalem Avenue.
wm wrote:The map in its glory:
the map.jpg
I love the map. However, one should also bear in mind the lower population density in the east. Even today Polesia ("Pripet Marshes") or Podolia are more scarcely populated than, say, Central Poland. So, an absence of a Catholic parish doesn't necessarily mean that there should be an Orthodox or Protestant dot in its' place.
Cheers

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henryk
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Re: Polish claims on Wilno/Vilnius

#180

Post by henryk » 16 Oct 2018, 21:17

viewtopic.php?f=111&t=140142&start=165
In my message 177, I presented a link to a Map of the locations of Roman Catholic Parishes in 1772(Pre-partition Commonwealth Of Lithuania and Poland). http://mapy.lubgens.eu/1772.html
wm message 178 shows this map.
www.pcmew.org/parafie/#map
Click on mapa under parafie.
This is a map of the present day Polish parishes located in England and Wales. A follow on to the Polish King of England, Canute the Great. :D
Attachments
Polish Parishes in England, Wales1.jpg

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