Talk:Demographic history of the Vilnius region

The biggest misunderstanding between Lithuanians and Polish comes from the fact both sides use census in different areas. Poles account Wilno Voivodeship while current Lithuanians account the part of current Lithuania which was occupied by Poland. The difference is huge.

I have tabulated Lithuanian municipalities which were occupied by Poland below. There is no doubt that Polish speakers were majority in Vilnius district, Vilnius City and Šalčininkai district municipalities so we can ignore those areas as there is no argument. However, the remaining districts cast a huge doubt as to the proportion of Polish speakers in those areas before the war. There is a fact that only about 50% of Polish speakers left Lithuania in 1944-1956. Most of them were from Vilnius city and Vilnius district municipalities. Now we can multiply each Polish number by 1.5, except Vilnius which could be multiplied by 2.5. You will get approximate proportion of Poles in 1940 in those regions compared to Lithuanians. Most of Lithuanians who came to "Lithuanian Vilnius Region" migrated to Vilnius city therefore proportion of Lithuanians in the remaining districts has not changed much. As you can see there is no doubt that in Druskininkai, Varėna and Ignalina districts Polish speakers were not the majority. Only Švenčionys and Trakai could be disputed but then we should take into account Jewish who used to live there too. From that point of view it is undoubtedly that Polish speakers were not the overall majority in those 2 districts. There is only doubt if Polish speakers were the biggest minority in those districts. There were 15,700 Lithuanians in Švenčionys district and 19,800 in Trakai district in 2001. This explains one more reason why Lithuanians see the occupation of Vilnius region as unlawful as Poles even occupied territories which were predominantly Lithuanian.

More information Municipality name, County ...

Ethnic Poles in Lithuania according to the 2001 Lithuanian census^[1]

Municipality name	County	Total population	Number of ethnic Poles	Percentage	Percentage (1940)
Druskininkai municipality	Alytus	25,440	995	3.9%	5.9%
Varėna district municipality	Alytus	31,137	2,067	6.6%	9.6%
Ignalina district municipality	Utena	23,018	1,908	8.3%	11.9%
Vilnius city municipality	Vilnius	553,904	104,446	18.9%	36.7%
Šalčininkai district municipality	Vilnius	39,282	31,223	79.5%	85.3%
Švenčionys district municipality	Vilnius	33,135	9,098	27.5%	36.2%
Trakai district municipality	Vilnius	37,376	12,403	33.2%	42.7%
Vilnius district municipality	Vilnius	88,586	54,322	61.3%	70.4%

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Well, this is a potentially interesting analysis, but it is also original research. Need sources to back up these kinds of calculations. Incidentally, why are you multiplying by 1.5 rather than 2, if 50% left?Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:01, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Mnplastic:=> — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mnplastic (talk • contribs) 21:18, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

This is theoretical approach at the moment. "The rural population was denied the right to leave Lithuania due to their lack of official pre-war documentation of Polish citizenship" (see Polish population transfers (1944–1946)) so basically the proportion of Poles who left Vilnius was much higher. If i multiple every number by 1.5 except Vilnius the total number of Poles equals to every number multiplied by 2 (including Vilnius). However, in the first case I put more weight in respect of Vilnius, which should be according to the citation above.

In any case, regardless how many times we multiple the number of Poles in Druskininkai, Varena and Ignalina municipalities the answer is the same. Lithuanians were majority in those municipalities. There is only open question as to Trakai and Svencionys municipalities.

It could be good to know 1923 Central Lithuania Polish census separately. It could be interesting to find out later censuses of Wilno, Święciany and Troki counties. It would be very difficult to find out Druskininkai and Varena because these municipalities were split and added to Polish dominated communes which change the proportion of Lithuanians significantly. Eg. Druskininkai municipality was added to Grodno county and a big part of Varena municipality to Lyda county. I don't know if it was done on purpose but in any event adding Lithuanian dominated territories to Polish dominates counties was very effective way to diminish Lithuanian presence.

Ah, I see. Like I said, this is potentially pretty interesting. It sounds like some solid archival research could help here (assuming that these kinds of sources exist).

My understanding of the situation in 1944/46 was that uneducated/lower class Poles were forbidden from leaving, while educated/middle and upper class Poles were expelled. Part of this was done because the educated Poles were seen as a source of potential future trouble by the Soviets who thought they'd be easier to control if they were all in one place (i.e. with other educated Poles) and Lithuanian nationalists regarded them as a threat to Lithuanian identity as well, while they thought that the lower class Poles could be Lithuanized (or "reLithuanized" as they believed).

One more question, just out of personal interest. It looks like you're doing a backward projection from the 2001 Lithuanian census to the pre-war years. Wouldn't birth rates of the two ethnic populations also play a role? Was there anything like a "baby boom" in post-war Lithuania (there was one in Poland) and are there reasons to think it played out differently across ethnicities? One possible channel could be through income and education - if indeed all the educated/upper and middle class Poles left then the average income/education level of ethnic Poles in Lithuania would be lower than the average income/education level of the general population, and to the extent these variables are connected to birth rates you could get a difference. I have no idea if this was indeed the case and I'm just speculating.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:26, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Re . Please explain what exactly is wrong with this map. Yes, the map is based on census. Yes it's a "Polish map". But the map also very closely corresponds to what we know of demographics of the region. If this map is somehow "wrong" please provide sources to the contrary. Please use this space here to discuss here rather than edit warring.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:54, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Tzarist official sign in Vilnius "Speaking Lithuanian is strictly forbidden" (second half of the 19th century)

- this is a fake as it's written according to Russian grammar rules adopted only in 1918 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.125.6.1 (talk) 14:09, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

  Y Merge completed Klbrain (talk) 20:13, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

@+JMJ+, thank you for providing a WP:Secondary source regarding Stanisław Plater’s data. However, I still have doubts about whether it should be included in this article. First of all, as confirmed by the source you proposed (Merkys 2004), Plater’s figures are loose estimates based on his own assumptions; he neither carried out statistical research himself nor used data collected by others. The other statistical figures presented in the article are grounded in much stronger foundations. His numbers are essentially an educated guess.

Moreover, and this is the most important point in this context, the data he proposed refer to the governorate boundaries of 1801–1843 (see map), which covered a vast area of Samogitia, Aukštaitija, and a significant part of Dzūkija. In other words, much more than what we understand as the Vilnius Region. Marcelus (talk) 21:09, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

@Marcelus, thank you for bringing this up, you made a good point regarding pre-1843 Vilnius Governorate not being equal to what was thereafter. I will make sure that the text reflects that and makes it clear.

Regarding the fact that these were only loose estimates, that does not negate the value of his statements in showing the social understanding of the time with regards to ethno-social identification, because even then he acknowledged that the majority of the lands' inhabitants were Lithuanians. +JMJ+ (talk) 21:54, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

@+JMJ+ I’m sorry, but I cannot agree. Plater’s statistics (or rather estimates) refer to a completely different territory than the one covered by this article. We should stay on WP:TOPIC; Plater’s data simply do not fit this article. Moreover, they do not really belong on Wikipedia at all, since they are loose, semi-amateur estimates, as confirmed by Merkys 2004. Marcelus (talk) 22:04, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

It literally is on topic. The territory includes the Vilnius region. It would be besides the topic only if it did not include the relevant region, i.e. Vilnius region - but it does include.

You seem to be overly harsh regarding the source. Stanisław Plater clearly had a better understanding of the reality on the ground in the early 19th century than either of us. More importantly, he is a pioneer in the field of statistics and geographic scholarship for both Poland and Lithuania, so you dismissing his work as not belonging on Wikipedia at all is strange and unencyclopedic behaviour, to say the least. +JMJ+ (talk) 22:11, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

I base my assessment of Plater’s work largely on the source you yourself suggested, namely the study by Vytautas Merkys. And Merkys describes his data as unreliable. Moreover, his "Jeografia..." covers all regions of the former PLC plus Prussia and Silesia, giving ethnic data for each of them. It’s hard to believe that he, a self-taught person, had such an excellent understanding of every region of such vast territory.

And off course the Vilnius Region was included within the boundaries of the Vilna Governorate in 1825. But in the same way it is now included within the boundaries of Lithuania, and you surely wouldn’t present the ethnic composition of the entire Republic of Lithuania today as a way of illustrating the ethnic situation solely in the Vilnius Region, would you?

I also don’t understand how the fact that "had a better understanding of the reality on the ground in the early 19th century than either of us" is relevant here in any way. I’ll take that as a joke on your part :) Marcelus (talk) 22:51, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Who is Vytautas Merkys anddoes he provide any explanation why Plater's data is unreliable? Maybe we could mention it in a way that makes it clear it's an unreliable estimate? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:56, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Merkys says (machine translation from Lithuanian, I highlighted relevant parts): However, the first statistics on the national composition of the population were published in 1825 by Count Stanisław Plater (Broel-Plater, 1784–1851). Based on his data, we compiled Table 2. What sources he had and how he processed them was not indicated by S. Plater. One thing is clear: he considered these data only approximate, as he presented them with an accuracy of 10,000. His goal was to show at least a rough picture of the ethnic composition of the population of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In fact, as an analysis of these statistics confirms, S. Plater did not possess and did not collect primary data that recorded nationality. He derived the general numbers on the national composition of the population from revision lists and statistics on religious distribution. The nobility and townspeople, except soldiers and Jews, he called Poles, while peasants he classified as Lithuanians, Ruthenians, or Russians. His “Russians” were the Old Believers, an ethnoconfessional group. After subtracting the Poles - that is, the nobility and townspeople - from the total number of Catholics, he arrived at the number of Lithuanians and Ruthenians: in the Vilnius Governorate, 930,000 in total. How many of these were Lithuanians and how many were Ruthenians he determined based on his own opinion. In the Grodno Governorate, he attributed 200,000 Catholics (out of a total of 380,000) to the Ruthenians, as well as all Greek Catholics (270,000). The number of Lithuanians appears unexpectedly large. However, it should be remembered that at that time the Lida district belonged to this governorate, and most Catholics there spoke Lithuanian.

As you can see, @Piotrus, his method had little to do with science and was largely based on his own assumptions and prejudices. Lebedkin, working somewhat later, already employed a much more scientific method, although his research was still not free from biases and did not fully meet statistical standards; nevertheless, it was on a significantly higher level. And of course, there remains the fact that Plater’s data concern the territory of almost all of present-day Lithuania, not just the Vilnius region. Marcelus (talk) 14:47, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

@Marcelus Thanks. I think we can mention his numbers, they are historically significant, while making clear his source is not considered reliable for the reasons cited. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:50, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

@Piotrus well, I'm not sure, first of all his numbers aren't about Vilnius Region, we need to have WP:SCOPE in mind. Marcelus (talk) 13:20, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

@Marcelus True. Is there a better place to discuss his theory? Obsolete research like this is often still notable (worth mentioning somewhere); there is value in clearly saying it has been superceeded by newer research and is considered obsolete, so people don't actually rely on it. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:05, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

@Piotrus well, we should finish this discussion first I think. Plater's data are out of scope of this article, it being obsolete is a secondary issue. Marcelus (talk) 19:13, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

@Marcelus Fair. At minimu I think this informaiton needs to be clearly indicated it is obsolete here; I am also fine shortening it to some brief mention (with a note it is obsolete) if the full detail is preserved somewhere else. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:02, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

It falls within the scope - Vilnius region was part of the Vilnius governorate, and thus the numbers concern it too. Sure, it's not ideally delineated, but it is useful to show the contemporary context of the process of the separation of the Polish-speaking Lithuanian nobility from the Lithuanian-speaking rest. Nowhere does Merkys say that his data is unreliable, you are drawing too large a conclusion from the fact that a post-Napoleonic researcher couldn't count each person in a given region without the help of the state apparatus. It may be (inevitably) imprecise, but that does not mean it is unreliable/worthless, as you seem to try to depict it. Your comparison to today's Republic of Lithuania is comparing apples to oranges.

Stanisław Plater himself was from the region (born in Senasis Daugėliškis), and he himself knew the region's ethnic composition. Strangely, there seems to be a hyperfixation on a 1825 source being "obsolete" - when the source is linked as a primary source for people to verify themselves the numbers provided if they so wish, for exactly the same reason that all three Polish censuses have links to the numbers of the sources from sources published in 1919, 1922, and 1939. Regarding his data for Silesia and Prussia, I cannot comment in too much detail, but when I compared his data to those of other contemporaries, they are rather similar, so Plater was not far off in his numbers - if anything, he exudes a pro-Polish bias, by e.g. overestimating the number of Poles in Silesia (as he gives 600,000 instead of 400,000 like the other two sources). Contemporary historical data is not obsolete; it is a historical source itself and thus can be mentioned in an article concerning history. The link to a secondary source reaffirms the relevance of the statistics to this article, so mentioning the source with a secondary source explaining it does not go against WP:PRIMARY.--+JMJ+ (talk) 18:49, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

@+JMJ+, @Piotrus There is no room for debate here. Plater’s data simply do not concern the Vilnius Region, but a much larger administrative unit connected to the Vilnius Region only by name derived from Vilnius. Merkys clearly describes Plater’s work as an amateur attempt to present an ethnic picture of this part of Europe, but he does not treat it as an actual reflection of reality. Marcelus (talk) 18:51, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

As I said before, I am fine with this being moved somewhere. How about discussing this in Stanisław Plater? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:20, 2 December 2025 (UTC)