Historical demography of Poland

Historical demography of Poland shows that in the past, Poland's demography was much more diverse then at present. For many centuries, until the end of Second World War, the Polish population was composed of many significant ethnic minorities.

Prehistorical (pre-966)

Polish people were formed from the slow mergers and assimilations of various tribes living on what became Poland's territories in the early Middle Ages.

Kingdom of Poland (966-1569)

Although the Kingdom of Poland in late Middle Ages consisted mostly of Poles, influx of other cultures was significant: particularly notable were Jewish and German settlers, who often formed significant minorities of even majorities in urban centers, but sporadically people from other places (Scotland, Netherlands) settled in Poland as well. At that time notable minorities would include various not-completely assimilated people from Slavic tribes, some of whom would eventually assimilate totally into Polish people, others into neighbouring nations, once Polish influence in some regions ebbed.

In the year 1000, the population of Polish lands is estimated at about 1,250,000. [Henryk Łowmiański, "Economic problems of the early feudal Polish State", Acta Poloniae Historica, III (1960), p.7-32.]

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795)

The population of the Commonwealth of both nations was never overwhelmingly either Roman Catholic or Polish. This resulted from Poland's possession of Ukraine and confederation with Lithuania; in both these countries ethnic Poles were a distinct minority. The Commonwealth comprised primarily four nations: Lithuanians, Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians (the latter referred usually as the Ruthenians). Shortly after the Union of Lublin (1569), at the turn of the century, the Commonwealth population was around 7 million, with a rough breakdown of 4,5 Poles, 0,75 Lithuanians, 0,7 Jews and 2m Ruthenians.Total and Jewish population based of Frazee; others are estimations from Pogonowski (see following reference). Charles A. Frazee, "World History the Easy Way", Barron's EducationalSeries, ISBN 0812097661, [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0812097661&id=Br-ElA3OpEMC&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&ots=tguZsY7DB0&dq=demographics+Poland+Lithuania+7000000&sig=wNm4yPFP_PNvqrfFb6BKUp9hZxA Google Print, 50] ] In 1618, after the , "Poland a Historical Atlas", Hippocrene Books, 1987, ISBN 0880293942]

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.Linda Gordon, "Cossack Rebellions: Social Turmoil in the Sixteenth Century Ukraine", SUNY Press, 1983, ISBN 0-87395-654-0, [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0873956540&id=qq0c9viLrB4C&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=Polish-Lithuanian+Commonwealth+religious+tolerance&sig=3v4uvh1FEUBxZm3RAlxuvOtfmPA Google Print, p.51] ] 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 democratic social institutions has proven an irresistible magnet for the non-Polish nobility in the Commonwealth.Aleksander Gella, "Development of Class Structure in Eastern Europe: Poland and Her Southern Neighbors", SUNY Press, 1998, ISBN 0-88706-833-2, [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=ISBN0887068332&id=8keIXDyF_EoC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=Polish-Lithuanian+Commonwealth+%22federation%22+Gella&sig=7scGhSOWNHxZm7xKeUimB9Cr4D0 Google Print, p.13] ]

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"Poland, history of" Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9108559] [Accessed February 10, 2006] . and "Ukraine" Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=30063] [Accessed February 14, 2006] .] , 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.

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.

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.Joseph Marcus, "Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919-1939", Mouton Publishing, 1983, ISBN 90-279-3239-5, [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9027932395&id=82ncGA4GuN4C&pg=PA15&lpg=PA19&vq=Pilsudski&dq=Pilsudski,+re-establishment&sig=N32sSixr_MPeFwZ-UQhHUA_0qB4 Google Books, p. 17] ]

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). Norman Davies gives the results of Polish census of 1931 as followsNorman Davies, God's Playground, Columbia University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-231-12819-3, [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0231128193&id=EBpghdZeIwAC&pg=PA299&lpg=PA299&vq=minorities+Jews+Ukrainians+percent&dq=Davies+minorities+Jews+Ukrainians&sig=DSpsbu1NQovhbLzjBqJyZM5-PRg Google Print, p.299] ] :
*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 Kiev (in Ukraine) (see Polish minority in the Soviet Union).

Second World War (1939-1945)

:"See supplements: Occupation of Poland, World War II crimes in Poland, 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 repression of much of the Polish people. Tadeusz Piotrowski's revised 2005 estimate of Poland's war losses is 5.6 million persons - 16% of the population. [http://www.projectinposterum.org/docs/poland_WWII_casualties.htm poland World War II casualties (in thousands)] , Project in posterum.] About 90% of Polish Jews were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust; many others emigrated in the succeeding years.1- Population Dec. 1931 Per Census -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. U.S. Bureau of the Census "The Population of Poland" Ed. W. Parker Mauldin, Washington- 1954] This census data includes 192,000 military personnel who were allocated.

2- Population Sept. 1, 1939- The estimate was made by the Polish government in exile in 1941. London Nakl. Stowarzyszenia Prawników Polskich w Zjednoczonym Królestwie [1941] ,"Polska w liczbach. Poland in numbers". Zebrali i opracowali Jan Jankowski i Antoni Serafinski. Przedmowa zaopatrzyl Stainslaw Szurlej. The Polish government in exile also included the 240,000 inhabitants of Cieszyn with the Polish population. They are not included in these figures.] To derive the statistics they added the official Polish vital statistics data from 1932-39, births, deaths and net migration, to the 1931 census figures. U.S. Bureau of the Census "The Population of Poland" Ed. W. Parker Mauldin, Washington- 1954]

3- Natural Increase Oct. 1939-Dec. 1945 -After the war Polish demographers calculated the estimated births that occurred during the war. In 1938 the birth rate was 2.45%, natural deaths 1.4%. The birth rate (1938 =100)in 1939=98,1940=93, 1941=88,1942=84,1943=78,1944=80 1945=90. U.S. Bureau of the Census "The Population of Poland" Ed. W. Parker Mauldin, Washington- 1954] If we take these birth rates and the 1.4% natural death rate of 1938 as being constant, we will derive an increase of 1.330 million from 1939-45. The Jewish estimated increase is only for 1939-40 because of the Holocaust.

4- Natural Increase 1946-1950 All were Poles because ethnic groups or religion were not listed in post war Poland. This figue is official Polish government data for births and natural deaths from Jan 1946 until the census of Dec 1950. Ludnosc Polski w XX wieku / Andrzej Gawryszewski. Warsaw 2005.]

5- Population gain Recovered Territories Former German citizens reclassified as Poles after the war in the Recovered Territories. This group was mostly bi-lingual Polish-German who declared their allegiance to Poland after the war. Ludnosc Polski w XX wieku / Andrzej Gawryszewski. Warsaw 2005.] Schimitzek, Stanislaw, Truth or Conjecture? Warsaw 1966.]

6- Immigration 1946-50 Poles resident in western Europe before the war, primarily in Germany and France, who re-immigrated after the war. Ludnosc Polski w XX wieku / Andrzej Gawryszewski. Warsaw 2005.]

7- Emigration to the West UN refugee data listed Poles(419,000) and Jews (140,000) who remained in non communist countries.Ed. W. Parker Mauldin, Washington- 1954.] The number of Ukrainians and Belarusians from Poland remaining in non communist countries is also per UN data "European Refugees" by Michael Proudfoot.] The number of ethnic Germans who were deported or fled from pre-war Poland is from German official sources. Steinberg, Heinz Günter. "Die Bevölkerungsentwicklung in Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg : mit einem Überblick über die Entwicklung von 1945 bis 1990". Bonn 1991. ISBN 3885570890]

8-Population Remaining in the USSR The 1959 Soviet census data for the former Polish regions listed 8.6 million inhabitants, in addition there were 230,000 Poles who were allowed to Repatriation of Poles (1955–1959)
leave the USSR in 1955-58. If we take this total of about 8.8 million and subtract the estimated natural increase from 1946-58 of 1.4 million we arrive at a total population of 7.4 million surviving the war in the former Polish territories. Soviet Union. TSentralnoe statisticheskoe upravlenie. Itogi Vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1959 goda. Moskva, Gosstatizdat, 1963,] Data from the Soviet 1959 census for the former Polish regions can be accessed online at Population Statistics [http://www.populstat.info/] The 1959 statistics for the individual regions are as follows: Ukraine: Liviv: 2,108,000; Rivne:926,000; Ternopil:1,086,00; Ivano-Frankovisk 1,095,000; Luck 890,000; Belarus: Hordna: 1,077,000; Brest: 1,205,000. Lithuania: Vilnius 235,000. Total for all regions 8,622,000] To this we must add the 500,000 ethnic Ukrainians and Belrussians who were Repatriation of Ukrainians from Poland to the Soviet Union
deported from Poland into the interior of the USSR during 1945-46. The number of Poles and Jews who remained in the USSR after the war was estimated at 1.4 million by Polish scholar and historian Krystyna Kersten "Szacunek strat osobowych w Polsce Wschodniej". Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik XXI- 1994.] Included with the Poles remaining in the USSR are about 600,000 Eastern Orthodox & Greek Catholic adherents who are sometimes classified with the Ukrainian and Belarusian groups.

9- War losses The estimate for war losses was made by Tadeusz Piotrowski of the University of New Hampshire. Polish war losses include 5,150,000 victims of the German occupation and the Holocaust, 350,000 deaths of Polish citizens during the Soviet occupation in 1940-41 and 100,000 Poles killed in 1943-44 during the massacres of Poles in Volhynia The official Polish government report prepared in 1947 claimed 6,028,000 war victims from the Polish and Jewish ethnic groups, excluding ethnic Germans and others. But today scholars of independent Poland believe that 3.0 million Jews and 1.8 to 1.9 million Poles were victims of German occupation policies and the war. This revision of estimated war losses was the topic of an article in the Polish academic journal "The Polish Quarterly of International Affairs" Gniazdowski, Mateusz. "Losses Inflicted on Poland by Germany during World War II. Assessments and Estimates—an Outline " The Polish Quarterly of International Affairs, 2007, no. 1.This article is available for purchase from the Central and Eastern European Online Library at http://www.ceeol.com] Ethnic German deaths were primarily of men in German military service, conscripted in violation of international law.Steinberg, Heinz Günter. "Die Bevölkerungsentwicklung in Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg : mit einem Überblick über die Entwicklung von 1945 bis 1990". Bonn 1991. ISBN 3885570890] Schimitzek, Stanislaw, Truth or Conjecture? Warsaw 1966.] Included in the total of 5.6 million war dead are 2.0 million Poles and Jews and about 400,000 ethnicUkrainians/Belarusians in the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union "Szacunek strat osobowych w Polsce Wschodniej". Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik XXI- 1994.] Contemporary Russian sources also include these losses with Soviet war deaths. Rossiiskaia Akademiia nauk. "Liudskie poteri SSSR v period vtoroi mirovoi voiny:sbornik statei". Sankt-Peterburg 1995 ISBN 5-86789-023-6.]

10- Population Dec. 1950 Per Census The total population per the Dec. 1950 census was 25 million. A breakdown by ethnic group was not given. However, we can estimate the Jewish population based on the postwar census taken by the Jewish community.Ludnosc Polski w XX wieku / Andrzej Gawryszewski. Warsaw 2005] Data for the Germans and others who remained in Poland after the war can be estimated using the 1946 Polish census listed in U.S. Bureau of the Census "The Population of Poland" Ed. W. Parker Mauldin, Washington-1954]

Post-Second World War (1945-present)

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 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 Allied occupation zones. 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 German 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. [http://www.yivoinstitute.org/pdf/poland.pdf "Jews in Poland Since 1939" (PDF)] , YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, "The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe", Yale University Press, 2005]

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 per month before July 1946 to over 20,000 per month for the three months afterwards." [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/sipa/REGIONAL/ECE/vol1no3/kielce.html The Jewish Pogrom in Kielce, July 1946 - New Evidence] ," Bozena Szaynok, "Intermarium", Volume 1, Number 3] 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.

Current situation

Most Germans were expelled from Poland and the annexed east German territories at the end of the war, while many Ukrainians, Rusyns 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 resp. Rusyns, 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.

Urban demographics

:"Table based on Tertius Chandler, 1987, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical CensusTertius Chandler, 1987, "Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census". Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon Press] , except of data for Poznań." [Jerzy Topolski (ed.) "Dzieje Poznania", Warszawa-Poznań 1988-, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe ISBN 83-01-08194-5] [Maria Trzeciakowska, Lech Trzeciakowski, "W dziewiętnastowiecznym Poznaniu. Życie codzienne miasta 1815-1914", Poznań 1982, Wydawnictwo Poznańskie ISBN 83-210-0316-8]

:"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."

References

External links

* [http://commonwealth.pl Commonwealth of Diverse Cultures: Poland's Heritage]
* [http://www.populstat.info/Europe/polandp.htm historical demographical data for Poland - 19th and 20th centuries]